Use wowhead.com (with its filters!) and sites like Warcrafter, chardev, and Be Imba to decide on what gear to use and gems to socket. You don't need this forum for that when such resources are out there for you to learn and use.

Anyways, more on WotLK. I continue to hear from other prot paladins about mana issues, and this seems a suitable place to say that Hammer of the Righteous is the answer. With a really slow weapon, every time you Hammer you'll pretty much always get two or three seal procs. If you use both Judgement and Seal of Wisdom, and especially if Reckoning is running, you can go from low to full mana ridiculously fast (and then switch back to your other seal). For that matter, Seal of Light can do a crapload of healing on you in the same manner. And Seal of Wisdom/Light scale now.

Do we have an idea if our overall threat is going up or down, considering:
* a level 70-only build
* new WOTLK mechanics
* no retroactive changes to existing Paladin tanking gear?

For example, my current Prot set is at 396 spell damage. TBC mechanics list Consecration as [512 + 95% * SP], or 888.2 damage for me.

Once the new talents kick in, I'll get an additional 375 spell power from Touched by the Light, bringing my total SP to 771. I also currently have 436 AP. WOTLK Consecration is [8 * (72 + 4% * SP + 4% * AP)], or 962 damage.

EDIT: Holy Shield is probably going up absolutely, since its scaling didn't change plus we're getting Shield of the Templar. I have very little idea how to compare Seal of Righteousness though, nor how to factor in Hammer of the Righteous given how small our weapon damage will be.

Prinsesa,

Our threat is definately going up without a doubt. As you pointed out Holy Shield and Consecration is Going up. SoR will probably go up. JoR will definately go up. Plus we have two new abilities in HotR and SotR.

[Gavel of Unearthed Secrets] might be an interesting item with WotLK's changes coming early. While it wouldn't make Hammer of the Righteous too much stronger by itself, the much larger Seal of Righteousness per hit damage might make up for the spell damage loss otherwise.

There's also nothing stopping you from picking up a slow, normal weapon. Well, outside of other classes wanting them, but if they drop often enough items like [Rising Tide] are typically not too interesting for most classes.

It's also the case that we don't get Shield of Righteousness yet, and that's the ability that really causes the shift from spell damage to strength as a threat stat for us. Strength still has the advantage of a survivability increase through shield block value of course.

Depending on if they implement the "crushing blows = +4 levels" change along with 3.0, it may be possible to do without the 5% parry from the Ret tree. Not to say that it isn't good to have, but I would contemplate possibly taking a couple of points out if I'm missing anything fun and/or important in the Prot tree. This is, of course, a moot point if you plan on tanking Illidan any time soon, as you'll almost certainly need the 5% parry for that.

3.0 would include the +3 mobs do not crush change.

With all of Protection's bloat, I can see a 61 Prot build to work out well enough.

5% Parry is a large loss though.

Personally, with Touched by the Light and raid buffs, Seals of the Pure will give me more damage than Libram of Divine Purpose; so I'll be going 5/56/0 and switching to Libram of Repentance if crushability is still a problem. I expect that the crushing blows change will go in, though, as all of the tank trees are designed with that in mind.

Also, for those re-examining gear under the new conditions; assuming the itemization changes also go in, and I expect they will as people will definitely want time to get used to them, the previously sneered-at spellhit rating is being merged with hit rating, making items like Shattrath Protectorate's Breastplate ridiculously good. Especially as Touched by the Light is giving everyone more spellpower for their spellhit to operate with.

I have a feeling that 3.0 might come to PTR in a couple of weeks, but might sit there for a month or so. Seems to early to bring it to live.

As for a lvl 70 3.0 talent spec, i'd be looking at something like :-

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Not taken deflection as the 10 points I can spend on threat elsewhere. Also not taken divine strength due to the relatively low str on gear and lack of ShotR.

As for tanking in general come 3.0, I would be a little worried atm. ShotR is a phenomonal single target threat ability. It's clearly been included as part of the removal of salvation initiative. In a raid situation at 70 with the removal of salvation and the increased dps of others through talents, i'd be skeptical how well aggro can be held without it.

I think you would want Judgements of the Just and drop 2 from Shield of the Templar, not having to worry about Tclap or Curse of Weakness sounds nice.

By the same logic HotR might not be very useful either. A tank set might have to be supplemented with some Ret gear

Yes, the spreadsheet uses the rotation discussed a couple pages earlier in this thread. It's easy to change the cycle length and number of uses of each ability (though making it consistent with CDs is manual...), but I'd probably have to add more columns to support a seal twisting rotation effectively. Seal twisting would also seem to make the chance of SoV stacks dropping off non-negligible, so I'd probably want to take that into account. I'll add it to the list of things to do .