So I was off on the WoW forums getting flamed by some prot pallys for knowing nothing about the spec, so I thought I'd bring it to you guys.

1) How good is pally single target TPS compared to that of a Warrior or Fuzzball?
2) Is seal weaving between SoV and SoR a large TPS increase? Is it worth the risk of resists making stacks fall off for no threat?
3) On extended fights (>=10 minutes) do you have mana issues (even while main-tanking)?

I haven't done the math on TPS generation across Warrior/Druid/Paladin ability rotations, but one thing to note is that our Holy damage (and consequently our threat) ignores armor, which makes us shine on heavily armored bosses.

From the raid boss armor values thread, the most heavily armored boss is Void Reaver, with a 50% physical damage reduction.

Another question related to this: Is the extra Holy damage applied per swing given a 5 stack of SOV enough to refresh the SOV stack?

I didn't specifically try using just SoR, but the threat seemed just terrible regardless. Thinking back, it "felt like" I was only getting threat from white damage. I only tried twice though before switching with one of our warriors and handling a side (which does indeed work very well.)

Lower, especially since the inroduction of expertise (which helps us a bit, but helps the physical-damage tanks a lot more.)
In my experiece, SoV is problematic enough without even trying the seal-weaving. I suppose this might be viable with enough hit/expertise/spellhit, but you would need a lot of each.

Only when seriously overgeared for the encounter.

The instant holy damage occurs if SoV procs when the stack is full. A proc also refreshes the stack, but that's independent of the damage it does (i.e., procs with a full stack refreshed the debuff even before the extra damage was patched in.)

IMO, a good tweak for SoV would be to have all melee hits refresh the debuff duration while the seal is active (so, e.g., if you switch to SoR the debuff will tick away unless you switch back to SoV and hit the target.)

1) Depends on your gear level. Warriors pull ahead at the very high end for single-target tanking, but paladin threat is plenty good until your DPS is very well-geared, and even then it's solid.

2) Sorry, horde.

3) The length of the fight doesn't have a whole lot to do with paladin mana longevity. It's all about the damage we're taking-- either you're taking enough damage to sustain a max threat rotation, or you're taking less damage than that and you have to downrank. Unlike rage-based tanks, paladins "store" more than 100 rage worth of juice and have the ability to go into a full threat rotation from the start, but without incoming damage being healed up a paladin can only maintain a max threat rotation for perhaps 45 seconds. Nobody ever accused a non-holy paladin of being mana-efficient.

So I guess the answer to that last question is more that there are fights on which your mana is a concern, and there are fights on which your mana isn't a concern, and the fights where it's a problem are roughly the same fights during which warriors will be rage-starved regularly.

1) I see responses that we're "not as good", but I feel that's oversimplifying the situation. In theory there is a way to match paladin TPS to warrior/druid TPS, given different combinations of abilities and gearsets. For instance, there is a value of spelldamage available for a paladin to attain using HS/Cons/JoR/SoR that would match a warrior using SS/Revenge/Devastate/Devastate. The calculations would be pretty obscene because everything that affects threat for both classes needs to be taken into account (avoidance, expertise, crit%, etc.), but there is no question that it can be done.

2) I mentioned this a few pages back (EDIT: here), but ultimately it's not worthwhile because the risk of losing the SoV stack is too high. However, this tactic is situationally useful on fights with threat drops so that you can burst threat and allow your DPS to unload. I use this on Leo when he switches from demon to elf, and our DPS literally stops for about 2 seconds before cranking it out again.

3) Already mentioned, but mana issues are directly tied to your incoming damage, which is directly tied to your level of gear. Right now, the Lynx boss in ZA provides me infinite mana because he hits so hard, but I know there is a gearset that exists where I'd need to pay attention to my mana usage. It's too situational to directly nail down, but have mana pots at the ready in case you need them (and ironshield pots for the bosses that keep your blue bar full).

1: I disagree; while you can theorycraft at what point a paladin can match a warrior, the reality is that warriors do more single target TPS than a paladin at equivalent gear for good enough rotations. In some gimmick fights that might not be true (Prince is a good example: fast-hitting bosses that also can be exorcised are paladin gravy) but it certainly is true in the general case and is very true as you're hitting T6 content. At the highest levels, the problem with paladin gear is that you cannot go as threat-heavy as a warrior can without sacrificing too much in the way of defensive stats.

Can't say how well a druid's threat scales by comparison. I would imagine it's about the same as a paladin for about the same reasons; itemization for non-warrior tanks has consistently sucked.

2: horde as well. Heard good reports on SoV/SoR interweaving but I've also heard it's unreliable.
3: mana isn't an issue while we're being healed. As long as the damage being taken is high the mana received is high. Still have to pot now and then though.

In situations like that, would it be beneficial at all (for horde at least) to switch to SoB with a higher base DPS weapon to "create" incoming damage and help your regen out a bit?

BoScant is before armor, and its every hit.

Just an stupid example:

So mob hits for 100, 50% dr from armor.
no BoSant = 50 damage each hit.
BoScant = 100 - 82(I think its 83, I forget now) =18 *50% = 9 damage each hit.

I only started tanking as a Paladin ~2-3 weeks ago, and it's been a major shift for me. As my guild progressed in to hyjal/bt, there were many comments about wanting a paladin tank. i've read through many of the posts on the forums, to guide my spec, to guide my gear and such, and first of all want to say a huge 'thank you' to those who put their time and effort in to these posts, as they have made me not look like a complete noob as I switch from single-macro-pressing-BM-hunter to wow-i-have-to-pay-attention-to-stuff-tank.

As you can see from my profile, I have some pretty random gear right now. I am not a MT - our raid and guild leader is a warrior tank, and he's absolutely amazing at it. I'm here for fights with offtanks needed, hyjal trash, judgements on bosses while off-healing...that kind of thing. So I focused mainly on hitting defense cap, getting a good amount of stamina, and then going balls-out on spell damage so that I can hold aggro quicker.

But there has been something that has been bugging me. Currently, my aoe-tank trinkets are [Darkmoon Card: Vengeance] and [Tome of Fiery Redemption]. One has a large amount of stamina, a frequently-proccing holy damage trinket and the other a frequent high-damage boost to my consecrations.

So, here are my questions.

1: I have browsed wowhead for better "aoe" tanking trinkets and really havn't found any than the ones I already have. Does anyone suggest a different trinket of this type to replace mine?

2: I am currently having problems with big-hits by abominations from hyjal trash and certain naga/orcs from BT trash. Is this a problem due to main gear, or should I switch out my Tome for a more conventional tanking trinket. If I do this, which one would you suggest?

3: Specs have been bothering me. These three specs in particular have been bouncing forth in my mind - What do you think?

First
Improved might - buffs melee/hunter dps. Ret aura, increases my threat gen (I have the ability to go 2/5 t5 if I choose to with this spec)

Second
From what I understand, the "standard" tanking spec for this type of thing.

Third
Improved Seal of the Crusader (3% raid crit, more holy damage for me). Ret aura, increased threat gen (2/5 t5). Con is that if I have 3% raid crit up, casters lose JoW.

Sorry for the lengthy post...as I learn more about my new class and do different things with it, I'll be glad to share my knowledge as well

Right, although your numbers make it seem relevant . Take a 10,000 hit with 60% mitigation.
No Blessing of Sanctuary = 4,000 damage/hit.
Blessing of Sanctuary = 10,000 - 80 = 9,920 * 40% = 3968.

So you gain all of 32 damage reduction in this case. Whoop-de-do. Which means there needs to be 4 paladins+ in the raid before I get that/give it to the warriors.

Note though, that it works against all sources, which makes it fully effective against magic attacks (I would think, I have no proof for this). Plus, 40-odd holy damage added to blocks never hurt a prot pally

Wow, I feel like a complete and total newb as I actually *read* the one-handed spec wording. I always read it similiar to the warrior 2-handed spec, IE increasing damage done with the weapon. Time to go throw down 50g for a respec. And no, we don't bring ret paladins. General raid makeup is as follows

Group 1: 2-3 Warrior tanks, druid tank, druid healer, paladin if only 2 tanks
Group 2: rogue/rogue/rogue/fury warrior/enhancment shaman
Group 3: mage/mage/mage/warlock/ele shaman
Group 4: healer/healer/healer/healer/shadowpriest
Group 5: Random DPS/healers (usually something like holydin/warlock/warlock/hunter/hunter - I know it sucks, but talk to the raid leader not me)

3% crit is being begged for by our melee dps and mages, but warlocks/spriests/hunters still want Judgement of Wisdom.



While trash tanking, Blessing of Sanctuary is quite useful.

Ghouls during Kaz'rogal trash hit for about 2200 before armor reduction, so 2200 * 40% = 880 . 2200-80 = 2120 * 40% = 848. So, 32 damage less each hit with 6 mobs on me stacks up. In addition, the block damage (~42-43 with my spell damage) is affected by Righteous fury, and I'm not sure about other tanks, but I block a lot. It equates to, according to Recount, ~3.8% of my damage in an average wave of mobs. Nothing to laugh about.