returning player

I quit wow about 6 months ago. Got a feral druid tank up to 70 and into kara and quit because i was always forced to ot because of stupid crushing blows. Just messing around on my lvl 30 paladin and respeced prot and I fell in love with paladins and tanking all over again =). Lvled him to 55 and stopped due to some irl stuff. I am returning wow with my paladin as my main and I have some quick questioned I would like answered before i hit outlands again.

(Spec)
I plan on lvling prot and aoe grind but I am confused on some talents and which talents i should be taking first. I cant decide if i should get guarded by the light or touched by the light first. Also should i get imp hammer of justice or imp devo. Imp devo would be good for instances and raids but i would suspect i would have to use ret aura to hold aggro because odds are you are running with retarded dpsers(atleast in 5man).

(Gear/PvP)
I would guess there is still a steady stream of deathknights lvling on most servers. Am i going to get owned by every dk in hellfire because he is starting out with better gear? I know that gear, skill and class play a factor in deciding who is going to win a fight. Say both me(prot pally) and the dk are equally skilled and equally geared. who would win? Also at what lvl would our gear start to even out?

Thanks in advance to any help you can offer.

Spec: If you are on a pvp server, or are doing pvp at all, improved hammer of justice. Once you start raiding, improved devotion aura. Threat is not an issue if you're doing your job right. With hammer of the righteous and eventually shield of righteousness, you should be able to do almost twice the threat of the average dpser without any "reflective threat" (i.e. holy shield, ret aura). My threat is so high, I don't even consecrate anymore when I feel like being lazy.

Gear: DK starting gear is not THAT great since it's still itemized with pre-TBC item budgets. For example, the fel iron plate set of all greens is better.

The starting DK weapon Greatsword of the Ebon Blade does 60.4 dps. That's less than this green quest reward in Hellfire peninsula.

I play on a PVP server, and disagree w/ the imp hammer point. It's not a great talent any way you slice it. The only reason to take it is if you spend a lot of time in the BG's (some like it for PVE, I think there are better choices. Grab it if you want it I guess). But if the concern is ganking in world PVP, you will either kill your attacker or they will kill you in one cooldown, and then it's usually over.

Imp devo aura is much better, and actually makes devo aura something you want to use when tanking 5 mans...much more so than in TBC. Ret aura really isn't needed for threat anymore, retarded DPS or not. It is still nice if you are having mana issues, as you can usually drop consecrate from your rotation for less than 4 mobs.

Related to DK's...I haven't done any arena yet, but while questing and in BG's, I've fought a number of DK's. I have yet to lose to one. I'm not saying I'm awesome, but we seem to be matched up pretty well against DK's. Cleanse their diseases, and wail on them. Bubble and heal as needed. The usual...remember that they are only 10 or so levels into learning their class, and you have 58 + levels under your belt. Experience is worth a lot here. PS, their ghoul and their self-rez as ghoul thingy are considered undead (obviously), so blow the hell out of them w/ our holy nukes and fear them to show them who's boss. It's SO MUCH FUN.

Enjoy!
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Thanks for all the help guys.

Would this be the best prot aoe grinding spec for a lvl 60?
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=000000000000000000000000000050053502014251533210301000000000000000000000000000

I´d move one point out of shield of the templar and into touched by the light. Consecration will probably be your primary dps-ability, might as well boost it a bit.
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Armory

This is a levelling build yes? Shield of the Templar is a must have talent at 75 on, but not all that useful until then. It's nice, but not required until 75. The holy shield damage increase will be useful for AOE grinding, to be sure, but it's really the ShoR improvement that you are after, and you don't get that spell till 75.

Same is true of Guarded by the Light, which I see you skipped at this point. Definately drop another point into Touched by the Light for the spell power improvement.

This is my personal thoughts, but I don't have numbers to back it up, so take it or leave it, really, but:

Drop Imp Hammer, get Imp Devo Aura
Drop all points in Reckoning, get either Judgement of Justice, which will help mitigation in AOE packs as well as 5 man bosses, or Blessing of Kings. It's still nice to have for group situations, even though you will be using Blessing of Sanctuary 99% of the time.
Throw any left over points into either the Holy Tree for Seals of the Pure, or the Ret Tree in Parry.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/paladin/talents.html?tal=000000000000000000000000001250053500310251533310021000000000000000000000000000
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