I haven't actually seen any Prot healers in PvP myself, so I can't really judge if they're overpowered or easy to shut down. However, I have an overwhelming sense of dread for the nerfs they're going to drop on us that end up hurting PvE Prots just like those Ret PvP nerfs hurt them more than Rets. =(
We are going to fix the specific scenario where a PvP paladin with a Prot build but spell power gear can heal for more than a Holy build in the same gear. We want to do this without messing up the Prot paladin trying to tank in PvE.Source
We will probably not make this change before the end of the current Arena season, but you can be thinking about your teams for season 7 with this change in mind.
---Touched by the Light helps to solve a specific problem which is that paladins do both physical and magical damage and Prot paladins need both for threat (and damage). It works fine when the paladin is in tanking gear, and in fact was designed so that paladins wouldn't need to mix tanking gear with caster gear as they did in the past.
It is not balanced for a Prot paladin who decides to wear spell power gear. At that point you're double-dipping.
We have no problem with Prot paladins in PvP, but they need to be there because their survivability is an asset, not because they can out-heal an entire tree dedicated to healing.
There is a fine line between creative use of game mechanics and something that goes against our vision for the game. It's always going to be subjective. If the Retribution tree ended up being better at tanking than the Protection tree, or the Shadow priest was a better healer than the Disc tree, or the Marks hunter had a more powerful pet than the BM hunter, we'd take similar action.
