How different is today's Paladin from Vanilla

Q u o t e:
I haven't truly raided on my paladin since the days of Vanilla. I actually rolled warrior because back then no one gave me chance to tank or dps, and was stuck as a heal bot.

In a quick run down, what are the most substantial changes made to the paladin?

(btw I haven't play the game for a year, and haven't played a paladin since early BC)



Thankszors.

So many changes... I'll try to keep this brief.

The most recent changes to the class have been sweeping in nature. We have moved two paladin trees away from their reliance on Intellect. We have built in multiple new mechanics that either streamlined or recreated entire aspects of paladin play. We've worked to make paladins viable in each role available to them. We've overhauled, tweaked and rebalanced the class with the goal of ensuring longevity and fun.

As part of these changes, the Retribution tree received a massive overhaul and has been going strong ever since. Multiple abilities were added and to the tree, it was moved away from it's reliance on seemingly random ability occurrences, to a more standard ability rotation. It also has its own unique ability to manage it's resources.

Along with the Retribution changes, came several changes to the Protection tree. These changes streamlined the tree's ability to tank multiple mobs, while simultaneously increasing the ability to hold threat on single target encounters.

The Holy tree has also had substantial changes throughout the game. However, the functionality of it remains roughly the same, but it has a few more tricks up its sleeves then it previously did.