New Paladin looking for some advice

So after playing a Warlock for a few months and growing bored with being underrated (on my server at least), and being stuck in the "easily replaceable dps" category, I have decided to make a Paladin. While it is only 34 right now I am REALLY enjoying playing a Paladin. The survivability is amazing! (soloing half of sfk at 20 ftw), and I love the versatility. After discovering these forums I have been reading them constantly, and they are a huge help.

I have a few questions I was hoping to have answered for me to set me off on the right track.

Should I stay Ret until 70, or go Prot at 40 like some people have been saying? I realize this will help me learn to tank, but will it slow down my leveling a lot?

What is the whole seal of blood/vengeance thing I have been hearing about, and is blood a Belf only thing?

I know you need 490 defense for uncrushable and roughly 250 holy damage for effective TPS in Kara, but what about starting HP and armor?

Also, what good does having over 490 defense do? Are there places where I will need extra to stay uncrushable because of a mob buff or something?

Finally, after 490 ddefense what should I try to stack the most? (block value than dodge isn't it?)

Yes, I realize that these are a lot of questions I could most likely find surfing the forums , but I was hoping to get some direct answers and varying opionions to help me decide what is best. Thank you!

I've been Prot since level 10...and it's a blast. I *DO* have a pocket mage though, so my advice here is worthless.

Seal of Blood = Horde, Seal of Vengeance = Alliance

I'd say worry about those stats...and the rest will fall together. Others will probably disagree. Rough guess...10-12K HP.

Welcome...this place is what made me even HALFWAY decent as a tankadin.
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If it we're easy enough to give you a "cliff's notes" version these forums wouldn't really exist, now would they. Posts like this usually get locked or "read the sticky" responses because in order to be a good tank you really need to understand why you are stacking stam, as opposed to dodge, and what that 490 defense does.

That being said I will answer what I can. Leveling ret is probably faster if you don't have anyone to level with. Leveling as prot will teach you how to play your class so you're not respecing at 70 trying to figure it out in steam vaults PuGs. Personally I hated 60-70 as ret when BC was released and leveled as prot with sanc aura. My advice is to level to 58/60 as ret and then switch to prot. Try to do as many instances as possible while leveling for pratice, gear, rep, and exp.

490 defense is for uncritable, not uncrushable. You can figure out what the difference between the two is by searching these forums. Having over 490 defense is good. 490 is not a cap, its a minimum (for raiding). There are many different schools of thought on what to stack after uncrushable/uncritable. There is a lot of theory-craft to read to understand it. The important thing to remember is everything is situational and you can't choose what gear you will have access to. To properly choose gear you will have to understand how each stat works and how each fight works.

Everyone wants to start kara as soon as they hit 70. It wont work that way as a tank and you can't use pvp gear to get by. Rather than an armor/hp goal I would just suggest getting the best items obtainable pre-kara before starting. You will have to off tank and hope for drops or join a progression run that can't clear it all (or be ran through by geared people). There are some BoE craftables and BoP engineering goggles that help you gear up faster.

Regarding leveling, after leveling a rogue and a mage, I found even ret leveling to be unbearably slow. So I spec'd prot and leveled mainly by tanking instances. I found that as a tank, it's extremely easy to find groups, and once you get a reputation for being a decent tank, you'll find yourself often getting group invites as soon as you log in.

Seal of Blood and Seal of Vengeance are two different abilities that paladins get around level 66 or so. The catch is that only Horde paladins get Seal of Blood and only Alliance paladins get Seal of Vengeance. Seal of Blood is generally regarded as a key ability in making ret dps viable in raids, while Seal of Vengeance is only situationally useful, and most of the time one is better served by using Seal of Righteousness. It has its uses, to be sure, but it can also be a bit unreliable.

490 defense means that you are *uncrittable*.
102.4% total dodge/parry/block/miss means you are *uncrushable*. Getting 490 defense is easy, and can be done in blues and greens. Getting uncrushable is harder, with stacking Block Rating being the fastest way to achieve it.

Defense after 490 is still very valuable, as it still increases your chance to dodge, parry, block, and be missed.

In general, the goal is to get 490 defense first, then work on stam and uncrushability. Once you're uncrushable, focus on stam primarily, while also trying to increase your avoidance (which is dodge/parry/miss).

For tanking Kara, I'd say the minimum gear requirements are 490 def, as close to 12k unbuffed health as possible, and as close to uncrushable as possible. This means getting the 15 badge Libram for sure, as well as stacking a bit of block rating. And as long as you use a wizard oil (cheap 42 spell damage buff) you should be fine with around 200 unbuffed spell damage, which isn't much considering your weapon will be 161 of that (121 dmg on the weapon plus 40 dmg enchant). Armor is a difficult thing to purposefully stack, as its largely just a byproduct of the item level of your gear. Really only the Felsteel pieces have additional armor on them. You'll probably have 14k or so when you start tanking heroics and Kara.

My advice is just to run as many instances as you can, because it doesn't matter what gear you have if you don't know what to do when you get into an instance. Practice tanking, get good at it, and you'll never have a hard time finding people to tank for.
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Thanks a lot! I realize I have come off as a noob lol, but I suppose that I am a tanking noob. I have been thinking about all the advice given to me and am know delving deeper into the theorycraft and such all about the forums (102.4% table threw me off a bit at first ). But I am grateful for all the help

I found Ret to be ok until level 35, when Prot became more efficient...at level 58 you can go Holy or Prot, and grab all the spell dmg gear you can get (I went Holy, then went Prot @ 70)

i lvled as prot. I found the best thing to do was befriend a healer and quest with them. Ae tank ftw!
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