He is my lvl80 Paladin and main Paladin for the project. While I leveled him as Retribution, I quickly switched to Protection at 80. Took a while to get him Crit-immune. Of all the tanks, I think a Paladin is the hardest to get Heroic ready. (maybe tied with a Warrior) The Druid gets crit-immune by talents alone, so all you need is a healthy bit of Stamina and some Agility, and the Death Knight gets “Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle” which actually nets you a lot of Defensive!
However, after achieving Crit-Immunity, you are basically Heroic ready. I would stay away from Trial of the Champions and the Icecrown 5’s for a bit though.
It is remarkable how easily the heroics go even if you have relatively low-level gear. Getting the rotation down wasn’t all too hard, especially with the P.I.S.S. addon (Protection is Surprisingly Stupendous).
Mana trouble
Being used to a Warrior, I do have to say that the Mana Management stays difficult. The best solution to this for me is to always use Judgement of Wisdom combined with Seal of Wisdom. In the rare cases that this still leaves me out of mana, or when I am too lazy to care, I use Greater Blessing of Wisdom and I am basically swimming in Mana.
With all the difficulties out of the way, we’re off to what makes Paladin Tanking enjoyable. Consecration is what comes to mind. Not doing the most of damage from the looks of it, it is an amazing AoE tanking tool.. It basically locks the enemies on you.
Also, the rotation is quite fun really. Like I said before.. P.I.S.S. makes it very easy to learn the ‘rotation’ by telling you what ability is best used now and next. P.I.S.S. does not look at the target, your mana and you surroundings, so there should still be some thinking on your own part. You might want to prioritize Consecration on multi-mob pulls, use Hammer of Righteousness (multiple target attack) over Shield of righteousness (single target attack) if you have adds coming into the fight or use Judgement of Wisdom over anything else if you are really low on mana! (Being out of mana is even worse than the 6 seconds of waiting on DK-Multi-mob Tanking)
As we’re on the subject of add-ons anyway.. is there somebody who can briefly teach me how to use PallyPower? (or link me a page to a good guide?) For some reason I really fail at understanding this basically mandatory add-on. Buffing “manually” seems to keep me alive during my 5-man runs, but I am truly dreading the day for my first 25-man..
I’m giving what? To who?
Hehe you have finally found the true tanking class
What can i say about mana? Manage divine plea well. Use 2 points in mana regen talent (10% from healing recieved). With those 2 you should have enough even without mana seal and judgement.
But those 4 will never let you run oom, just might give you threat issues if you are against well geared dps and not using seal of vengance.
“Hehe you have finally found the true tanking class”
Haha, it’s sad to see a guy as talented as you, cling to such idle hope…
As for the mana thingies you mention, I do have the talents, I just don’t remember to Divine Plea…
I’ll just leave it at “I suck at mana”. It does however keep me entertained during the heroics! ^_^
~Baruti.