Maintankadin 101 - Winchester [Another big update]

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:27 am

Maintankadin 101 - Winchester [Another big update]

Warning:

Change Log:

26/06-08:

25/06-08:

25/03-08:

Stats: What to look for when choosing items.
Depends on what type of tank you are, are you built for taking dmg, or avoiding it?
I try to find a good balance, you'll eventually find a % avoidance total you feel safe with, then the stam/armor/block value stacking starts.

Armor: The green kind, when the armour value is green it means it has more armour than given by default.
you'll see this on items like the felsteel set or the odd cloak or ring. Armor and Stamina work hand in hand to boost your effective health.
Read this to learn more about effective health: http://www.tankspot.com/index.php?pageid=EffectiveHealth
Stamina: Find a good balance between stamina and avoidance.
Intellect: Not as important as you might think, I do fine with 4.5k mana.
Strength: Absolutely useless, it's a waste of item points really, but because of lack of itemisation you will end up with a fair share of items with strength. People might argue that it's for block value, it's just not practical. 20 strength is about 1 block value.
Agility: 1 agi = 2 armor, it's a good source for dodge, but it has a lower priority.
Spirit: ... what? lol you wont find any gear with spirit anyway.
Crit rating: Pretty worthless, it's not bad, it's just of any real use for tankadins.
Hit rating: Handy, but not as crucial as it is for warriors because most of our threat is passive. Helps for taunt.
Expertise rating: Good for both survival and threat, you'll have to take fairly warrior oriented items to get some, but i recommend having atleast 1 item with some expertise.
Defense rating: Good for getting that golden 490 defense, but should have a lower priority than other avoidances after that.
Dodge rating: Love it, best avoidance get as much while staying uncrushable.
Parry rating: Like dodge but with an added bonus, when you parry your next melee swing will have its attack time reduced by anywhere from 14-50%, so not something to aim for while tanking, but good for 2h. (That's why parry % talents are always in the 2h spec for tanks).
Block rating: Very very very cheap, real good to get uncrushable, but worthless after that, unless somehow you use all 8 holy shield charges up before the cd.
Block Value: It's good but shouldn't priorities over avoidance or Stamina.
It should only be a priority over block rating when you're already uncrushable.
Mp5: It's just too expensive to go for really, the heals will take care of your mana.
Spell damage: Okay, this is awesome, the more the better, but it's real tricky to
balance spell damage with Stamina and Avoidances. Trust me...
Some guides say about 100-200 for Karazhan, and 250+ for 25mans.
Itemisation is crap atm, so get a caster weapon and some enchants.
Spell crit: Same as melee crit really, SoR, Consecrate, Holy Shield etc. can't crit.
Spell hit: It's useful, not completely neccasery, there isn't really alot of gear to choose from with it though, but if you find some and you can afford the loss of whatever stat it switches out for it, go for it.

Here is a list of what items to get pre-karazhan and heroics.
There are some variations to some of these, I went for these
Pre Karazhan and Heroic Gear of Choice:

Crafted BoE:
Helm - Blacksmithing - Felsteel Helm
Hands - Blacksmithing - Felsteel Gloves
Reputation:
Neck - Revered with CE - Strength of the Untamed
Weapon - Revered with Keepers of time - Continuum Blade
Legs - Revered with Keepers of time - Timewarden's Leggings
Quests:
Belt - Arcatraz Key questline. - Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard
Feet - Escort quest in normal mana-tombs - Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves
Bracers - Quest in Shadow Labyrinth. The quest can be found right outside of SL - Sha'tari Wrought Armguards
Ring 1 - CoT questline, you get it after you've done BM - Andormu's Tear
Arcatraz:
Ring 2 - Harbinger Skyriss - Elementium Band of the Sentry
Botanica:
Shield - High Botanist Freywinn - Aegis of the Sunbird
Shoulder - Laj - Spaulders of the Righteous
Shattered Halls:
Trinket 1 - Warchief Kargath Bladefist - Figurine of the Colossus
Shadow Labyrinth:
Trinket 2 - Blackheart the inciter - Adamantine Figurine
Sethekk Halls:
Libram - Darkweaver Syth - Libram of Eternal Rest
Steam Vaults:
Cape - Warlord Kalithresh - Devilshark Cape
Chest - Warlord Kalithresh - Breastplate of the Righteous

Total defense on gear without any gems or enchants = 128. Base 350+128 = 478.
Add the 20 defense talent and you got 498 defense. That gets you safely over the uncrittable mark Very Happy

Here is some gear that might be of interest if you're already pretty reputable with various factions or if you dable a little in the arena.
Reputation:
Shield - Exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive - Sunward Crest
Neck - Exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive - Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve
Weapon - Exalted with Thrallmar - Stormcaller
Weapon - Exalted with Honor Hold - Blade of the Archmage
Weapon - Exalted with Lower City - Gavel of Unearthed Secrets
Arena:
Weapon - 2739 Arena Points - Merciless Gladiator's Gavel
Shield - 1630 Arena Points - Merciless Gladiator's Barrier
Shield - 1630 Arena Points - Merciless Gladiator's Shield Wall

Once you've gotten most of this gear and you've started to venture into some heroics, here's what you have to look forward.
Heroic drops:

Magisters' Terrace
Weapon - Kael'thas Sunstrider - Cudgel of Consecration
Trinket - Priestess Delrissa - Shard of Contempt
Trinket - Priestess Delrissa - Commendation of Kael'thas
The Botanica
Gloves - Warp Splinter - Gauntlets of Dissension
Hellfire Ramparts
Belt - Nazan and Vazruden - Lion's Heart Girdle
The Blood furnace
Boots - Keli'dan the Breaker - Eaglecrest Warboots
Steamvaults
Bracers - Warlod Kalithresh - Amber Bands of the Aggressor
Sethekk Halls
Shoulders - Talon King Ikiss - Spaulders of Dementia

When you raid or do heroics you can get badges of justice.
After awhile those badges start to stack up, before you buy anything make sure you buy Libram of Repentance it's almost crucial for you.

Badges of Justice:
I was gonna have a recommended specific order to buy things, but it really cant be that generic, it all depends on your current set of gear.
You'll have to find out what you can get while still staying uncrittable and uncrushable.
If you dont mind the wait i recommend Libram>Chest>Legs.
If you're looking to spread the wealth most around, id start with the libram then going for the cheaper smaller pieces: bracer, cloak, belt etc.

Libram - 15 Badges - Libram of Repentance
Chest - 75 Badges - Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian
Cloak - 35 Badges - Slikk's Cloak of Placation
Bracers - 35 Badges - Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx
Belt - 60 Badges - Girdle of the Protector
Boots - 60 Badges - Sabatons of the Righteous Defender
Leggings - 100 Badges - Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor
Gauntlets - 60 Badges - Bonefist Gauntlets
Ring - 60 Badges - Ring of the Stalwart Protector

Don't take this until you're uncrushable without the other Libram.
Libram - 20 Badges - Libram of Divine Purpose

Gear Enhancements:
They are ordered after recommendation, the higher on the list the better.

Helm:
Glyph of the Defender - Revered: Keepers of Time.
Glyph of Power - Revered: The Sha'tar.
Glyph of the Gladiator - Revered: The Shattered Sun Offensive.
Heavy Knothide Armor Kit - Leatherworker.
Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of Warding - Exalted: Aldor.
Greater Inscription of the Knight - Exalted: The Scryers.
Inscription of the Knight - Honored: The Scryers.
Inscription of Warding - Honored: Aldor.
Heavy Knothide Armor Kit - Leatherworker.
Cloak:
Steelweave - Enchanter.
Dodge - Enchanter.
Greater Agility - Enchanter.
Major Armor - Enchanter.
Chest:
Exceptional Health - Enchanter.
Defense - Enchanter.
Exceptional Stats - Enchanter.
Heavy Knothide Armor Kit - Leatherworker.
Bracers:
Fortitude - Enchanter.
Superior Stamina - Enchanter.
Spellpower - Enchanter.
Major Defense - Enchanter.
Stats - Enchanter.
Major Intellect - Enchanter.
Gloves:
Threat - Enchanter.
Major Spellpower - Enchanter.
Superior Agility - Enchanter.
Heavy Knothide Armor Kit - Leatherworker.
Spell Strike - Enchanter.
Leggings:
Nethercleft leg armor - Leatherworker.
Runic Spellthread - Tailor.
Clefthide leg armor - Leatherworker.
Mystic Spellthread - Tailor.
Heavy Knothide Armor Kit - Leatherworker.
Boots:
Fortitude - Enchanter.
Dexterity - Enchanter.
Boar's Speed - Enchanter.
Surefooted - Enchanter.
Cat's Swiftness - Enchanter.
Heavy Knothide Armor Kit - Leatherworker.
Rings:
Spellpower - Enchanter(Self).
Stats - Enchanter(Self).
Weapon:
Major Spellpower - Enchanter.
Deathfrost - Enchanter.
Shield:
Major Stamina - Enchanter.
Felsteel Shield Spike - Blacksmith.
Shield Block - Enchanter
Intellect - Enchanter.
Tough Shield - Enchanter.

Most of these enchants/kits are pretty simple/cheap to get, and worth having.
I advise you not to go for the expensive enchants until you get the epic quality loot from Karazhan,Heroics or Badges. Although there are some exceptions such as rings and weapon.
Now as for gems, try to put as much stamina as you can without sacrifice that 490 defense, dont waste 12 stamina gems on the pre karazhan gear, as you will replace it in with heroic,kara or badge loot soon enough.

Remember after you reach 490 defense you're set. 490 defense makes you passively uncrittable, it makes you uncrittable by countering the attackers combat skill, example: He is wielding a sword.. so it's his sword skill vs your defense.
You can also get uncrittable the same way you get uncrushable, I don't recommend this though, or you'll be open to crits when you don't have holy shield activated. (Think silence, multiple mobs, stuns etc).
Defense increases your chance to be missed and decreases your chance to be crit. In a nutshell you're basicly just replacing chance to be crit with chance to be missed.
At 490 you will have decreased your chance to be crit by 5.6% and increased chance to be missed by 5.6%.
Defense is not utterly useless after 490 ofc, each point of Defense (not rating mind you) increases your chance to Miss/Dodge/Block/Parry by 0.04%.
So for every 25 defense you gain 1% Miss/Dodge/Block/Parry.

Oh and a last thing, for the love of god dont think too much about the gem set bonuses, it's really not worth getting 2 yellow gems to get a 4 block rating set bonus for example... just put 2 stamina gems in it and be done with it! Razz

_________________
Seal of Posting
220 Mana
Instant Cast
Fills the paladin with the urge to troll, granting each post a chance of luls.
Only one seal can be active on the paladin at any one time.

Unleashing this seal will bump your thread.

Winchester

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:27 am

This next part, is not exclussive to Paladins.
Warriors can get Uncrushable much quicker than Paladins.
Warriors have Shield Block, which gives them 75% more chance to block until 1 (2 w/talents) block has been made or 5 seconds passed.
Paladins have Holy Shield, which gives us 30% more chance to block until 4 (8 w/talents) blocks have been made or 10 seconds passed.
Warriors can get exposed to crushing blows more than paladins due to the global cooldown or lack of rage.
Paladins have it easier with it being every 10sec and 4 times the charges that warriors have, but ofc we can also go oom.

Every level that a mob is above the character, the mob gains 0.2% more chance to avoid a dodge/parry/block, and has 0.2% more chance to crit.
A Level 73 mob i.e. a boss then need 2.4% more avoidence. This is the reason why the uncrushable avoidence number is 102.4%.

This might be confusing at first, let me explain.

When someone tries to attack you the server rolls a d100,
which is essentually just a /roll 1-100.

A normal attack roll against a lvl 70 mob is laid out like this:
Miss > Dodge > Parry > Block > Crit > Hit.

Lets say you have 350 defense and 10% chance to dodge/block/parry, the attack table would then look like this:

miss

dodge

parry

block

crit

hit

For a Boss it's laid out like this:
Miss > Dodge > Parry > Block > Crit > Crushing Blow > Hit.
Only bosses can land crushing blows, and the chance of a crushing blow is 15% It's the same chance with all bosses.
However there are certain bosses are not capable of crushing blows.

Same scenario as before, except against a boss
Like i mentioned earlier, the avoidences are reduced by 0.6% each and the crit chance is increased by 0.6% making this:

miss

dodge

parry

block

crit

crushing blow

hit

So lets say a mob attacks you, he rolls a 28, since anything between 23.21-32.60 is a block, that means that attack was blocked.

Now lets say you have 490 defense(and therefor 5% more miss) and 15% chance to dodge/block/parry, the attack table would look like this:

miss

dodge

parry

block

crushing blow

hit

See what happened? the 5% crit chance dissapeared
The chance to be hit decreases, but not crushing blow,
thats because you need to remove all hit before you start eating away crushing blows.
Lets put up the same scenario, except you have Holy shield up and you have Libram of Repentance, the libram adds about 5.33%
chance to block with holy shield up.

So the attack table would look like this:

miss

dodge

parry

block

crushing blow

See

now youre only 11.46% away from being uncrushable.

The easiest way to become uncrushable is via block rating, because block rating is far cheaper than any other avoidance rating.
An avoidance rating is any stat that makes you avoid an attack, basicly Miss/Dodge/Parry/Block. Block is only a partial avoidance though.
18.9 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge.
23.65 Parry Rating = 1% Parry.
7.89 Block Rating = 1% Block.
59 Defense Rating = 1% Miss/Dodge/Parry/Block/
So you see, Block is the easiest avoidance to gather up to get Uncrushable.

Lets take a look at what happends after you do get uncrushable.
Again you have 490 Defense, but now you have 20% Dodge/Block/Parry + you have Holy Shield up and you have Libram of Repentance equipped.

miss

dodge

parry

block

But see what happends there, the roll is only 1-100, and you have 3.53% more block. That 3.5% more block is beeing wasted, going down the toilet so to speak.
When this happends, you should start replacing Block with Dodge or Parry.
But as we saw before, dodge is the cheaper alternative.

Picture it like a table, and there is only room for 100 plates on the table.
1% stands for 1 plate, you arange the plates from left to right.
When you're uncrushable you've basicly just pushed the "hit" and "crushing blow"
plates off the table to make room for the avoidance ones, because they have a higher priority..
Just as Crushing blows can be removed by block, block can be removed by Parry and so on.
However, there isnt enough of Miss/Dodge/Parry ingame to completely remove block of the attack roll.

If you want an accurate assessment of you're gear.
Download this TankPoints and when you're ingame type in /tankpoints calc.
This will bring up a calculator that can be altered to see how you are against any lvl mob,
Have holy shield up when you do to get an accurate value.
_________________
Seal of Posting
220 Mana
Instant Cast
Fills the paladin with the urge to troll, granting each post a chance of luls.
Only one seal can be active on the paladin at any one time.

Unleashing this seal will bump your thread.

Winchester

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:28 am

I can't tell you how you should tank as a paladin, at the very least i can tell you how i tank as a paladin.

Blessings:
My philosophy is that all non healers/tanks need salvation.
My bless list looks like this: Salvation>whatever they want.
Blessings i want: Kings>Sanctuary>Wisdom>Light>Might.

I used to rely on wisdom for mana, but once you get to 70 that all but dissapears. I ofc dont take might unless we bring alot of paladins.
I dont even consider taking Light unless there are atleast 2 holy paladins.
Sometimes i might cast blessing of sacrifice on someone if the situation is dire, like say during felrage on gurtogg bloodboil.
It has other uses aswell, such as becoming virtually immune to debuffs that break on damage, like moroes's blind and gouge.
I use freedom almost only on Vashj to avoid her roots. BoP i use as a secondary taunt.
During raids i prefer to be buffing salvation so i can make sure myself if everyone has it that needs it,
that gives me the opportunity to buff the tanks with other blessings like sanctuary.

PallyPower is a great addon to organize blessings with your raid.
It also tells you if someone is missing a blessing you're signed to cast.

Seals:

Righteousness
This is by far the best one to tank with, i hardly ever tank with anything else.
Vengeance
This can be good, but the group will have to hold off dps before some stacks of it appear on your target, think of it as the paladins sunder armor.
Where it really shines is on mobs/bosses that whipe aggro, if you got a few stacks on the target, you simply judge as soon as he whipes aggro and he's yours again. This is handy for bosses like Leotheras.
Wisdom
This almost never happends, but if i find myself ooming but i'm sitting on a good lead in threat i might use this.

Judgements:
Righteousness
My most common judgement, i use this for almost all occations, there is no point to use anything else if the target dies in a matter of seconds.
Vengeance
If im using SoV i'm using this.
Wisdom
I usually judge this on bosses, i cant afford to use it in shorter fights, they just end too fast.
Judgement of wisdom is great mp5 for pretty much all classes that require mana, and helps a great deal with longevity.
Crusader
Like with Wisdom i cant afford to use this in shorter fights.
Generally i will use wisdom unless im struggling with threat, then this helps alot.
Justice
Takes care of runners.

Auras

Generally i use retribution aura, if it's a particularly hard hitting mob i might use devotion aura.
For certain encounters i switch to a resistance aura.
On some rare occations i have been known to use concentration aura to help my casters.

Macro
Here is a neat little macro that makes Righteous Defense work like the Warrior taunt.

Winchester

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:28 am

Threat Generation:

The way tanks keep their target focused on them is to generate more threat than his party members.
Tankadins achieve this by dealing large amounts of holy damage while under the effect of Righteous Fury.

Paladins can generate enough frontload threat with Avenger's shield and a Judgement of Righteousness
for the dps to start attacking right away, as long as the mob is within melee range of the paladin.

But in order for a paladin to maintain aggro he has to be getting hit aswell.
Paladin tanks deal a great deal of damage aswell as threat from getting hit.
Retribution aura, blessing of sanctuary and Holy shield make for 1 heavy backfire hit on the mob when you block.
This is what makes paladins such great multi-target tanks, they generate tthreat without even having to target the mobs.

The Pull:

Before you pull, have Seal of Righteousness ready.
Pull with avenger's shield, break line of sight for them to gather up together if there are casters involved.
CC after the pull, but before they are at the tank i.e. in the consecrate.
When they are almost at you use holy shield, and judge the first kill target.
When the mobs are all in melee range put down concecrate.
Keep Consecrate and Holy Shield up, rotating seals and Judgements as necessary.

General tips:

It's a good idea to keybind "assign skull" so that you can quickly remark skull after the current target dies.
This way the dps can keep up focus fire.

If your taunt is cooling down, or was resisted, and the mob you need to taunt is not a caster, cast blessing of protection on his target.

Cast Consecrate before Holy Shield, there is a 2 second gap between their cds which means that if you reverse this, theyll overlap on the next cd.

Judge while HS and Consecrate are on Cooldown, judgement itself does not invoke gcd, however the seal youll be refreshing will.
Situational spells like AS, Cleanse, or HoJ should also be fit into this window, but be aware of how this may effect the timing of other skills.

Tankadins have great utility if the situation will allow it, the decursive mod is great for cleansing.

Remember to keep your melee targets infront of you, you cant block and parry from the back.

Don't try to cast a spell such as Avenger's Shield or a healing spell while tanking you cant block or parry while casting.

Avenging Wrath increases your damage done by 30% for 20 sec, this is a great spell to use when you see the dps crawling up the threat meter, or if you want a significantly big headstart on threat during the pull.

If a wipe is inevitable, use Devine Intervention to sacrifice yourself, you'll avoid the 10% durability loss, which for a tank is important.
It's best to DI someone with a res, however make sure that the person getting DI is in a good spot,
he wont survive long if you DI him where the boss is standing for example.
_________________
Seal of Posting
220 Mana
Instant Cast
Fills the paladin with the urge to troll, granting each post a chance of luls.
Only one seal can be active on the paladin at any one time.

Unleashing this seal will bump your thread.

Winchester

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:28 am

Threat and Spell Damage.

Threat can be calculated relatively easily. For paladins 100 physical damage = 100 threat.
Because Righteous fury only affects Holy damage, with righteous fury 100 physical damage is still only 100 threat.
That's why you dont get strength and agility for threat purposes as physical dmg only counts as a small part of our threat.

100 holy damage however with RF is 160 threat, and 190 with improved RF.
Paladins with Imp-RF get almost 2 times the threat from holy damage.

Damage for most classes is Dmg = threat.
And Healing is Heals*0.5/mobs engaged = threat for each of those mobs. Example:
Player 1 is involved in combat with 5 mobs. Player 2 heals Player 1 for 1000 health, and has no threat reduction talents. A 1000 heal generates 500 threat, however that 500 threat is split amongst the 5 mobs. Each of the 5 mobs now has 100 threat towards Player 2.

If a power gain (Rage/Mana increase) shows up in the combat log, the effect usually counts as a buff with bonus threat attached to the event. There are no Energy-increasing effects that appear to cause bonus threat. Only Regens that show up in the combat log cause aggro.

Some classes have base threat reduction, or stances for more threat:

Druid Bearform: dmg*1.3(1.495 w/talents) = threat.
Druid Catform: dmg*0.71 = threat.
Warrior Defansive stance: dmg*1.3(1.495 w/talents) = threat.
Warrior Battle/Zerker stance: dmg*0.8 = threat.
Paladin Physical damage: dmg = threat.
Paladin Holy damage with Righteous Fury: holy dmg*1.6(1.9 w/talents) = threat.

Paladins are the only healers with untalanted reduced healing threat.
Paladins have Heals*0.5*0.5/mobs engaged
Rest of healers have Heals*0.5*(talents)/mobs engaged.

Here is a list of paladin offensive spells, and how much they scale with spell damage.

Seal of Righteousness(1h) - 9.2%*weapon speed
Seal of Righteousness(2h) - 10.8%*weapon speed
Judgement of Righteousness - 71.43%
Seal of Command - 20.0%
Judgement of Command - 42.86%
Consecration - 95.4%
Holy Shock - 42.86%
Hammer of Wrath - 42.86%
Exorcism - 42.86%
Holy Wrath - 19.05%
Holy Shield (per block) - 5.0%
Avenger's Shield (per target) - 13.57%
Seal of Vengeance (per tick) - 17.0%
Judgement of Vengeance - 42.86%

Hit and Spell Hit.

Hit rating reduces the chance for a melee attack to miss, and taunts to be resisted.
Spell hit rating reduces the chance for a spell to miss-resist, when a spell miss-resists it fails to land and the target takes no damage.

Most abilities and Spells have a chance to miss/resist. These miss/resist rates scale with the mobs level.
Hit rating scales as such:
Level xx mob: 5.0%
Level xx+1 mob: 5.5%
Level xx+2 mob: 6.0%
Level xx+3 mob: 9.0%
xx=Your level.
This is assuming you have the highest weapon skill possible.

Spell hit rating scales as such:
Level xx mob: 4.0%
Level xx+1 mob: 5.0%
Level xx+2 mob: 6.0%
Level xx+3 mob: 17.0%
xx=Your level.
However there is always a 1% chance for a spell to resist, so getting more than 16% spell hit is not neccasery.

Here is a list of paladin abilities affect by melee hit:

Melee attacks and therefore seals.
Avenger's Shield.
Righteous Defense.

And here is a list of paladin abilities affected by spell hit:

1st tick of Consecrate.
Holy Shield.
Judgement of Righteousness and Judgement of Vengeance.
Seal of Vengeance 5 stack hit.

Expertise.

Expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged and parried.
A Boss's chance to dodge any attack is thought to be 6.5%
A Boss's chance to parry is currently unknown, but speculated to be around 10-15%
1 Expertise = expertise rating / 3.95 = -0.25% Dodge and Parry.

For a paladin this affects melee attacks and therefore also seals.

The parry bit will help more than you know, when a boss parries your attacks his next attack has it's swing time cut by anywhere between 14-50% depending on where he was in his current swing.
When you die really quickly on a boss and you're thinking "wth how'd he do that" most commonly it's a melee attack that got parried.
This is why your melee dps should always stand behind the boss.
_________________
Seal of Posting
220 Mana
Instant Cast
Fills the paladin with the urge to troll, granting each post a chance of luls.
Only one seal can be active on the paladin at any one time.

Unleashing this seal will bump your thread.

Winchester

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:29 am

Talents, Talents, Talents...
I'll just start with a overview of the protection tree talents.
I Won't bother bringing holy and retri up.

Tier One:

Improved Devotion Aura
More armor is always good, but not at this price.
At 70 this amounts to less than 400 armor for the steep price of 5 talent points.
Devotion aura gets applied post gear and isnt affected by toughness.
Skip it.

Redoubt
Redoubt is great for early tanking.
It should not be relied on for tanking, that's what holy shield is for.
It procs less and less as your gear gets better due to more avoidence.
But overall it's a great talent and really shines while aoe tanking.

Tier Two:

Precision
3% to hit and spell hit helps your overall threat, and as i stated melee hit rating helps with taunt.

Guardians Favor
Blessing of protection is used as a secondary taunt by many paladins,
if you're having problems with overaggro this might be something for you.
If you can make without, i recommend skipping it.

Toughness
10% more armor from gear, pure and simple. A must-have.

Tier Three

Blessing of Kings
10% more to all stats, a great buff.
Often Holy and Retri paladins will take this, so you could skip it if your guild has some with it.

Improved Righteous Fury
6% reduced damage from all sources and increases the total threat produced by 30% a Definate must-have.

Shield Specialization
30% more block value, that's potentially a whole bunch of block value.
Skip it unless you're specifically stacking block value.

Anticipation
0.8% Miss/Dodge/Parry/Block = 3.2% Avoidence.
Good to get uncrittable, and pretty decent just to get to the next tier of talents.

Tier Four:

Stoicism
Mostly a pvp talent for the dispel resistance.
The stun resistance only works on debuffs with the "Stunned" tooltip
Skip it.

Improved Hammer of Justice
HoJ is pretty useful for tanks, but not used frequently enough to require this talent.
PvP talent, skip for tanking.

Improved Concentration Aura
Some holy paladins spec into prot for this talent, but it has very little use for protection paladins.
Skip it.

Tier Five:

Spell Warding
4% reduced spell dmg taken, that with Imp-Rf will bring you to 10%.
Not crucial, but definatly worth trying to fit it into your spec.

Blessing of Sanctuary
Prerequisite for holy shield, take it.
This buff decreases dmg taken before armor and adds a nice holy thorn effect to your blocks.
A definate Must have.

Reckoning
It's great for leveling,farming and single target threat.
It can proc from any damage taken, however the better your gear the less it procs.
Take it unless you only aoe tank

Tier Six

Sacred Duty
6% more stamina, need i say more.
Take it.

One-handed Weapon specialization
This provides a 5% boost to *all* damage dealt when you have a one-handed weapon equipped
This applies to white damage, seals, consecrate, auras, holy shield, trinkets... everything.
This is a huge threat generation boost, too good to skip.

Tier Seven

Holy Shield
An extra 30% chance to block, lasts for 10sec or 4 charges.
This is required to become uncrushable, and it is responsible for the majority of our passive threat generation.
Required for tanking, take it!

Improved Holy Shield
This gives you 4 more charges on your holy shield, which will help greatly while aoe tanking.
it also provides 20% more dmg to holy shield, which is a nice increase in threat.
Take it.

Ardent Defender
"When below 35%, all damage dealt to you is reduced by 30%"
This is a great talent and very well might give the healers that little added time needed to save your life. A must-have.
(There are mods out there that will show you how helpful it is after each fight)

Tier Eight
Weapon Expertise
10% more stamina is a big deal, I'd take it just for that.
But it also provides us with 5 more expertise, and this is really the only source of expertise outside warrior gear.
A definate must have.

Tier Nine

Avenger's Shield
Gives you a pulling capability.
When it hits it dazes the targets giving your party a chance to cc them.
I couldnt imagine tanking without it.
Take it.

And now for some sample talent builds.

I tend to switch around 5 talent points a bit, the rest stay the same.
Here are the talents i always include.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhthh0zTgqtV0x

The talents i put the 5 remaining talents are:
Shield Specialization.
Anticipation
Reckoning.
Spell Warding.
Improved Judgement.
Pursuit of Justice.

This is my current build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhthh0zggqtVbx0b

Here is a retri-offtank build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZV0tIx0zg0oZVfxt00uV

Here is a healing/off tank talent tree's:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sVxubxzhxZVMthxczMho

Unfortunatly youll always have to go down 31 points to off tank effectively
since paladins shield ability isnt trained like warriors shield block
I made those tree's but i dont stand by them, if you're gonna play a certain role effectively you'll need to specialize in them.
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Winchester

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:37 am

If you have any input/comment please do post Smile

Nidal

Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:22 am

Very nice beginners guide! Nice to have a good summary of information in one place. Thank you.
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DamnLag

Thu Nov 08, 2007 11:16 am

That was really well done. Great job. Cool

_________________
Batteries not included.

OnlyOneKenoobie

Thu Nov 08, 2007 11:35 am

A vert nice summary, definitely warrents a second read at a later stage!

Caliban

Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:03 pm

Nice guide. I definitly learned a few things from reading that.
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Formerly Varius of <Paradox> Eredar

stalkerzero

Thu Nov 08, 2007 3:25 pm

I'd swap your recommended gloves to Felsteel instead (more stamina/more defense rating - less block value).

Not a bad guide at all though.
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Winchester

Thu Nov 08, 2007 4:07 pm

Actually some of this might be a bit outdated, i did switch to felsteel gloves later on.
At the time when i wrote this my server was literally dead and even just getting the helm was a challange on it's own, when i wrote this for some reason i thought "Thatia's Self-Correcting Gauntlets" had block rating, on closer inspection it's just plain old block value, nice but the high defense and gem slots makes Felsteel better, and problably really easy to get on a populated server.

So there, i changed it Razz

Herbe

Thu Nov 08, 2007 4:31 pm

Very nice guide overall. IMHO, it could use a more options gear wise, i.e. replacements for the quest rewards if they happen to have done them already and taken a different reward.

Where the guide really shines is the explanations of everything that is pally tanking. The explanations are clear and concise, and very easy to read. Your section on the hit table and 490/102.4% is by far the easiest to follow and understand of any I have read. I could comfortably point a new tankadin to this guide and have very little left to explain to them afterwards.

Thumbs up!

Herbe
_________________
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My wife always laughs during sex -- no matter what she's reading.

Winchester

Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:31 am

Well thank you Smile

I did think about having loads of different gear options, but most guides do that and end up with a few pages of choices, and on top of that they seem to just need to fill this requirement "tanking gear" "plate" "appropriate level".

I'm constantly adding stuff to this guide though, so i might add more choices someday.
_________________
Seal of Posting
220 Mana
Instant Cast
Fills the paladin with the urge to troll, granting each post a chance of luls.
Only one seal can be active on the paladin at any one time.

Unleashing this seal will bump your thread.