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Other posters can correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that very few people go protection prior to level 40 just because of the talents/skills/gear at lower levels just isn't that good for prot. Myself, I went ret from 1-58 then went holy the rest of the way.

Imp RF *is* paladin tanking. I can't imagine trying to tank without it. As for the bare minimum, I'll leave that to someone better suited to answer prot questions like Jack :)

A paladin only judging once per fight is akin to a mage only casting fireball once a fight. Bene is an excellent place to put talent points, there is very little reason not to get it. The extra AP from imp might is hardly noticeable, although I do have it myself, but then again I'm specced for raid healing/buffing.

IMO wait til you're at least 40, but you can listen to others if you wish.

Most (if not all) of the pre BC instances as long as you can hold hate you can tank without a single point in Prot. Into the BC stuff, I would not recommend tanking in a different spec. Ret is still very good into the low 40s where, unless you keep your gear completely up to date, Ret DPS starts to level off. This mean theoretically you should be able to hold threat as a Ret just fine, and assuming you're in mail pre 40/plate post 40 you'll be able to take the damage of tanking. Pre BC the biggest reason to take Prot talents if you wish to tank is to hold threat better: Imp RF, Holy Shield, BoSanctuary.

As for specific parts of your post (geared toward pre BC as that is what the OP is asking for):



It's not just for building more threat, but for it's damage reduction component as well. If you as easy enough to heal, and hold threat no problem, not a lot of reason to spec for this.



My apologies, but I seriously did laugh a tad right there. I can understand not having time to judge more than once right now, which is fine, but later on fights will last longer and judging often will be a lot more important. What I laughed at was the BoM though. I haven't used Might on myself since ... well ... I can't remember the last time :P Fact is the other Blessings are so much better than a tiny addition to your DPS. If you're Ret using SoC that's one thing, but other than that physical DPS is going to be a very small part of your over all DPS, and tanking it's a pitifully small part of your threat.

If you wanna tank, go Prot cause it will make things SOOO much easier. If you think you are ok without it for now, speccing Ret would be the next best choice. Holy levels the slowest and really couldn't hold the threat to be any sort of a tank.

I leveled from 10-70 as prot. Things were kinda meh until 35 when I got some decent points into reckoning. Ret will get you to 35 faster, but prot is still fun.

Very true, and Maul can attest to that, he was tanking at 60 as a Holy spec rather successfully.

Let me just add a bit to what Maul was saying. Personally, I tanked many instances while I leveled up and I didn't have one point in Prot. I enjoyed a holy/Ret build while it lasted up until the 50s.

This is what I did: Went 11 Points into Ret for SoC, then started putting points in Holy up until Holy Shock. At about that time I respecced so I didn't carry that build for that long. What this did was allow me to solo decently enough, especially with my gear choices. It allowed me to tank decently enough, and I never healed, but I could have if I had another set.

The huge factor which made me successful while I was leveling up was my gear, not my talents. I was constantly upgrading my gear, investing heavily into str as my primary stat and sta as a secondary stat. When I tanked, I pulled out a shield and one-hander and used SoR. My high damage output alone combined with the increased threat from SoR and Consecration was enough to hold aggro, and the fact i was in plate with a shield was enough to not take to much of a beating.

Oh and you'll quickly find out that BoW > all as you are leveling up. Those mana returns increase your longevity a ton.

Don't do holy before lvl 60, unless you want to take twice the time leveling.

Prot at lvl 35 (reckoning maxed out, only a couple points from having Holy Shield etc), not before because there is nothing that really benefits solo leveling.

Ret is still the king of Pally leveling, with prot post lvl 35 being a VERY close second.

End game it kind of reverses with Ret being completely unwanted and Holy being in huge demand.

As for seals and judgements trust me when I say that is going to change as you level, the same with blessings. Right now BoM might seem like it is the bees knees but in 10 levels you will be using BoW or else grinding mobs at half the speed.

Um…I’m going to politely disagree (somewhat) with you on these statements. It depends on how you play (ie instancing vs soloing).

I leveled entirely as Holy from 10 (if you can be called holy at that level) through 70 on my pally. I was instancing with my guild almost all the time, with group quests filling most of the rest. I found by putting out a “LFG for X instance. Holy Pally” got me many invites, so finding a group wasn’t a problem.

If I was Ret, it may have been different. If I soloed most of the time, it most likely would have been different. But leveling to 70 as Holy taught me the world about healing / staying alive, but I couldn’t tank at all – no experience with it.

I was running around as Ret while I was farming BRD for shards. It was fun, I was getting 2k melee crits on that fire guy. I was surprised how all the percentages added up and how the melee crits and spell crits really worked with each other. How I could just spam judgements and my mana wouldn't budge, which combined with the increased spell crit chance could keep up Vindication. I was getting 800-900 dps on some of the bosses when I was blowing my cooldowns and going all out, around 400-500dps just normal. Maybe when I come back to the game ret will be more desirable and I'll respec to that.