The only different pieces are the gloves and shoulders between warriors and paladins for raw strength.(Of which those pieces have a TON more block value, in the warriors favor) You're trading large amounts of avoidance on a few pieces for a marginal amount of block rating (which does nothing). Not to mention the useless 4 piece bonus, and marginal 2 piece compared to what warriors got:

So they get 10% more crit for an ability that will refresh the cooldown on shield slam, and 20% magic reduction on demand. Their tanking gear looks like what the paladin stuff would have been itemized as. Hit rating? Yes please. Massive amounts of block value? Yes please.

I really hope the libram was a joke. The whole Tier 8 set and talent changes are laughable at best currently. The GC quote only shows blizzard is oblivious to what is going on. They cleaned up the talent tree and squeezed things down a little so we would have more reason to venture into Ret or Holy, and then they add a 2 point talent in tier 7 that now gives us a minimum 54 points for a tanking tree, 57 with Divinity.

Total defence on 25 man sets:
Warrior: 271
Paladin: 268

Total dodge rating on 25man sets:
Warrior: 225
Paladin: 153

Total parry rating on 25man sets:
Warrior: 60
Paladin: 147

Total stamina on 25man sets:
Warrior: 680
Paladin: 716

Total strength on 25man sets:
Warrior: 443
Paladin: 491

Total BV on 25man sets: (This does not include BV from strength)
Warrior: 166
Paladin: 136

The above includes socket bonusses. I'm not seeing the sky falling here, really. Yes, dodge is better than parry, but really the difference is minimal and you'd see a greater effect from your gem choices anyway (Some of which the warrior will probably be spending on expertise anyway). That and an extra 48 strength for 27.6 extra BV (before redoubt) makes the differences truely minimal in my view. This is all subject to change and re-itemisation, but at the moment it looks pretty good.

Edit: Added strength and BV comparisons.

But why do we have 2 pieces with block rating? We lose all of our (marginally) useless expertise, in trade for a completely useless stat, plus a block rating libram.

Those totals are also factoring in assuming you use the entire set, There is no way I'm giving up my 77 block value and expertise for 40 block rating, and the 4 piece has even less motivation than the extra 3 seconds on divine guardian/divine protection. Block value provides a trivial amount of mitigation against a boss, especially block value that is only up half of the time.

The expertise is, as I'm sure you've seen, easily found on other Ulduar non-set items. You will need a little block rating to fill the hit table, and honestly this is how Blizzard itemises things so that you have gear progression for tier 9.

Also, you appear to have gone from:

To

You then also go onto state that you don't want to drop your 'trivial' block value T7 helm for the tier 8 one because it has block rating on it, it also has dodge on it and a good deal more strength and stamina. Do you value avoidance as zero, or only when the argument suits you?

Our four-piece set bonus reminds me of Tier 5, although not as crap as tier 5 was. 225 (292.5 after redoubt) block value is weak compared to the "Shield block now also mitigates 20% spell damage for its duration", but honestly I would more reasonably expect a slight buff to our set bonus and a nerf/redesign to the warrior one rather than just inflate mitigation across the board and make 4pc T8 essential.

Edit: On topic though, is anyone else expecting the Blessing of Sanctuary talent to be overhauled entirely? At the moment we have 2 mana regen abilities in the same tree for the same purpose, it's highly inelegant.

I said that the block value provides trivial mitigation in relation to the 4 piece: 225bv for 3 seconds after ShoR. The 3 seconds after a Shor cannot be used again for threat purposes, and will drop after the 3 seconds, whereas constant block value on a tier piece is always in effect providing threat and mitigation both. I'm just thoroughly disappointed by our set bonuses from T7 and t8, Mages get extra brainfreeze/barrage/hot streak time, rogues get their Dot to crit, paladins get 225bv that cannot be used as threat?

But what block rating do you need to fill the hit table? The only item I am wearing right now with any block rating is the Wall of Terror. The only reason it is needed is because I can then drop the defense from the repelling charge in favor of the rune of repulsion and valor medal for 2 cooldowns, and more avoidance. This is avoidance factored in BEFORE raid buffs such as earth/horn, kings, etc, which put me way above the requirement (Meaning I could swap to the Barricade and remain over 102.4%)

I completely agree. Kings is baseline. Why is Sanctuary not? Since SA is now deep prot, put SA where BoSanc is. Make Bosanc Baseline. Voila. Holy and ret tanking in normal instances is now fixed after the removal of SA from being baseline, and holy doesn't get infinite mana from fights because they don't dodge and parry while casting, and get BoSanc in our 25 man raids anyways.

Also has anyone actually considered the Divine Sacrifice talent?

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Divine Sacrifice: The Good, Bad and Goofy

That brings up a very good point.
11520damage per second is.. probably going to take this talent from really cool to completely useless. Not to mention Kel'thuzad's AOE frost bolt. The one logical and cool use of Divine Guardian on that fight, has now turned into an instant suicide button.

Regarding t8 set bonuses and the new tanking libram.

I see it like this: The t8 2set bonus compensates for the lack of threat gain from the 4set bonus. Overall, it's the t7 bonuses with a little difference. While less useful, new 4set bonus gives situational avoidance. 3 sec on Divine Shield was definitely useful but not reliable. I think the new one is. While it may sound harder than intended, I will use the 4set bonus to time my bv gains with boss melee swings.

The libram I'm unsure about. With what I just said, it would make sense to use the old libram to max bv, but I need to see how much free rating the new libram ends up giving. Why not gem for dodge if the new libram leaps you far above the unhittable cap.

I could care less about the Warrior bonus. My gear is not why people think I tank well.

Last I checked, it was at 750. So it went up 100hp. Not really a big buff.

I looked at the skill rotation, I actually started a little different as probably many people have done the same.

After I cast avenger shield, I had a few seconds before the mobs came with in range of my melee skills. What I would do is as soon as Avenger shield casts, I would cast holy shield, then consecration as soon as the game would let me or allowed me time to do so. This way while the mobs are charging me far to slowly, I get a minor boost in damage, aggro and mitigation before the fight actually starts. Then I unleash the shield of righteousness rotation listed in the op.

I just came back from a long break a month ago, my guild needed me as ret until i get a better tanking set, one of the questions on my mind was, is holy shield as large a part of tanking as it used to be? Pre expansion, I was trying to maximize my block percentage while trying to keep my dodge and parry as low as possible to get the holy shield blocks in because I believed holy shield was a large part of holding aggro, and I could notice when I didnt block attacks right away, it was easy for me to lose aggro early in the fight. Obviously with the expansions new talents and skills this is no longer an issue. Which leads me to believe holy shield doesn't hold its worth as great as it as it used to.

Because Blocking is no longer a huge necessity, more of a bonus then a requirement, should I be gearing my paladin with high avoidance and block value instead of hoping for the blocks. Should I just get the def cap and and max out hitpoints. Would going for the same equipment build as in the burning crusade be a bad idea?

I would be in my guild as a main tank, and probably tanking multiple mobs at a time when ever possible.

I believe Divine Sacrifice (or Guardian - whatever the AoE BoSanc is called on the PTR) transfers 50% of the damage that it absorbs. I also suspect that it's modified by GbtL, SotT and RF, meaning that your Sapphiron example goes down to just under 5k DPS - a large amount but not unreasonable. It's also possible to use Divine Protection, reducing it to a fairly measly 2.5k DPS.

From what I've heard, reduction effects don't reduce the damage taken. So divine protect and all of prot's damage reduction has no effect. Only immunities like DS prevents the damage.

To take, or not to take, points in SA

Mana lost per second:
Divine plea mana per second:
BoSanct Mana per second:
Mana from Replenishment
Mana from JoW
How much DTPS do we need for +-0
TL;DR

DTPS needed
Without BoSanct
2860,8

With BoSanct
1775,1

With BoSanct and Replenishment and JoW
960,7

Conclusion: There is no need to take more then 1 point in SA

On the other hand, SA is awesome in so many situations where the boss attacks slow, you can't avoid for whatever reason, damage is primarily magic, you're DPS'ing... . I hear there is at least one Ulduar encounter where it is required.
I will be taking SA regardless of whether it is strictly optimal in all situations, because it is necessary in some situations.

This isn't even taking Replenishment or JoW in to consideration. I wonder if SA or BoS can be made obsolete considering that?

Good point, i will add those to my calculations later - added
But I cant seem to find PPM for JoW anywhere so if anyone could help me with this
EDIT: Found a guy on wowhead that suggest a 13 PPM can anyone confirm this?
EDIT2: I am a retard, found a thread titled "JoW proc chance" in the main paladin forum apparently its 15 PPM, adjusting my calculations

Its a good possibility that BoS will be obsolete, but taking 0 points in SA is not a option, for example on KT where you take mostly magical damaged and cant avoid that much you will go oom quite quickly

I also noted I made some horrible mistake on the maths so if you checked it before check again

I was curious too, and I did this to see if its possible. It is. Sorry the response is a bit late.
Here is a link: WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay in Engrish
In the final attempt/kill, I didn't even need to use any cooldowns because Shadron went down pretty quick, but for the previous attempts, I would use Divine Protection for the first breath when Twilight Torment came up, then I had the priest use a cooldown, and had a Ret Pally ready with Hand of Sacrifice and Bubble if it came to that. Fire protection pots also help, but it never came down to using them.

I logged out in the gear that I was using for the fight.
I have to say though, while a Paladin tanking Sarth with 3 drakes up is certainly possible, assuming you have good DPS, it would have been much easier but less fun to just have a DK do it.

I didn't see anyone ever verify this, but I did test it and the Glyph of Divine Plea and Blessing of Sanctuary damage reductions do currently stack.

One other thing to consider is the other end of the spectrum. I know we typically target full on progression raiding, but the impacts to doing our normal 5mans and heroics, which most of us all do.

In those cases, you really are only guaranteed your unbuffed mana pool, Divine Plea, and BoSanc (and of course SA). How would only having 5% SA look in those cases? It might be interesting to look at the worst case scenario to see how that plays out.

For reference, my unbuffed mana pool is about 5500 (and yours is around 5600 if I remember correctly). So that will affect DP and BoSanc results some.

I'd think it would actually be easier to do heroics this way. SA comes out to very little mana gained while in a heroic since a geared paladin will take very little damage. With DP up constantly, you should have a lot less mana problems than you would now in a heroic.

link

So I guess it's a threat boost after all.

I don't see why.. I've topped 10k tps on patchwerk, anyone have a dps come above 6k?

Not every fight is going to be a tank and spank fight where the boss hits you rather quickly for Holy Shield threat to really make a general use of.

Some fights you can't always reach 10k tps, you might be able to cap out at 7k Even so, there could be fights like Malygos (read: Hodir) where the dps could get buffs to increase their damage. Not every fight is going to be a Patchwerk fight, so please stop using it as the "go to" basis for any comparison of tank threat vs dps threat.

Besides the fact that Patchwerk is a poor measurement of threat for tanks, especially for paladins due to the inflation of reflective damage.

Malygos is actually a great example, especially if you have crit-happy and trigger-happy destruction warlocks popping out of Vortex to nuke.

I've definitely felt pressed for threat on Malygos when the DPS are in two sparks with Heroism; that was a month or so ago, and I've gotten both shield and main-hand upgrades since then, but Malygos Phase 1 is actually much more interesting from a tanking perspective than Patchwerk. (You have to survive some burst from the Vortex/breath/melee combo, but also need good threat generation, especially for the achievement.)