Welcome to Gaia! ::

I personally am a prot pally. I am one of the MTs of my guild. I take Al'ar, VR, and if we had a 2nd pally tank I'd be tanking Tidewalker because I am rarly crushed.

It actually has gotten to the point where my guild refuses to let me spec anything but prot. With the buff in 2.3 I will have about 900 less hp then our warrior mt.

As for my "dps" on some bosses because we don't have a ret pally, the casters/hunters and enhancement shaman all love when judgment of wisdom is on the boss. But generally, if the boss requires and OT, I'm it.

in my dps gear in prot spec im usually still about 4th place in damage in kara, and in ret spec im second or first place in dps... the mass majority of paladins can't dps for s**t... but there are still quite a few who can do it amazingly well, don't write them off because most paladins you've met are s**t dps, hell most hunters i meet are half the dps of me when im in prot gear tanking, but you still accept them to guilds, why the hell are paladins not...
if the paladin has good healing gear then he would be ok BACKUP healing for one boss like healing the people who don't get hurt as often and cleansing and mabye putting blessing of sacrifice on people to stop some of the damage, yeh they'd go oom healing the tank, but why the hell would you make a prot paladin heal the tank when you presumably have loads of other healers to do the job, plus the pala could just use mana pots..

yeh and melee might get 5% crit from the druid, but the paladin still gives all their buffs and their aura too, which adds up to more useful than 5% crit.. seeing as it benefits the entire party and not just the melee...

wtf that's just retarded, so they've seen that YOU can tank well and they've had you tanking before but then a completely different pala tank does crap and you get punished for it? i wouldn't stand for that if i was you, find a guild which isn't so idiotic and can remember which individual people can play well instead of just lumping them all together...

That's retarded. Paladin tanks front THE MOST THREAT out of any tank (wait for sunders, anyone?) Avenger's Shield is 2-5k aggro depending on what you're pulling, JoR is another 1-2k threat, then consecrate and holy shield away (in that order to avoid overlapping GCD's) and you will never let go aggro. This evens out with Warrior tanking eventually due to the fact that Warriors can keep sustained aggro better than a Pally can in long fights via Devastate, Heroic Strike, Thunder Clap rotation (or some equivalent, I'm not too informed on how warriors tank).

Also take into consideration that if Paladins want a lot of aggro on the first pull they pop AW, toss the shield and get 30% more threat (from the 30% more damage. Funny how that works out, huh?).

AW+AS+JoR+Consecrate = Win.

The thing that irks me is that it's difficult to obtain +SD gear without gimping your avoidance. If you're looking into weapon choices for 70 I would strongly recommend looking into either Crystalforged Sword or Continuum Blade (from the Keepers of Time). Both have tanking stats (Hell. Crystalforged even has shield block on it), a good amount of stamina, and a very healthy amount of +Spell Damage.

Here's some recommendations for fairly easy to obtain Pally tanking stuff.

Legs:

http://thottbot.com/i29184

Are dead sexy. I'm still rocking these beauties on my Pally. More Keepers of Time rep reward stuff.

Chest:

http://thottbot.com/i28203

From Steamvaults. Good stuff. More SD = More aggro

Shoulders:

http://thottbot.com/i27739

From Botanica. Very Tankadin friendly instance.

Belt:

http://thottbot.com/i27672

From Slave Pens.

For the gloves, and helm you can either go with the Felsteel stuff or move on to get more of your dungeon set. Either way is good, but I prefer to have the chest and shoulders as they add spell damage and give you the sexy 15% cheaper consecrates.

Oh, another reason to run Steam Vaults.

http://thottbot.com/i27804

Fapfapfapfap

fahsky i recommend you get this set of equippment for starters to aim for before starting kara and heroics:

http://thottbot.com/i28203 = breastplate of the righteous
{ for concecrate costing 15% less mana
http://thottbot.com/i27739 =spaulders of the righteous

http://thottbot.com/i23519 = Felsteel helmet
http://thottbot.com/i23517 = Felsteel gloves
http://thottbot.com/i29184 = timewardens leggings
http://thottbot.com/i31460 = Sha'tari vindicators waistguard
http://thottbot.com/i28318 = obsidion clodstompers
http://thottbot.com/i28167 = sha'tari wrought armguards
http://thottbot.com/i29173 = strength of the untamed
http://thottbot.com/i28407 = elementium band of the sentry
http://thottbot.com/i29323 = Andormu's tear
http://thottbot.com/i27529 = figurine of collosus
http://thottbot.com/i30300 = dabiri's enigma
http://thottbot.com/i32660 = crystalforged sword
http://thottbot.com/i27804 = devilshark cape
http://thottbot.com/i27887 = Platinum Shield of the Valorous

all things with sockets, you should put 12 stam gems in them, and chuck stamina enchants on all your stuff too, 12 dodge on your cape, with 40 spell damage on your sword. this is a good set of equippment to get which will last you untill you can do heroics and kara and replace it with epics.

a good talents build is: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Aerie+Peak&n=Picadilypie this is mine and it works really well.