I'm afraid wall of text might be incoming....watch out for pats! :P
The help I'll get to in a sec. As for the reassurance, it's to comfort me that switching to Ret for the 60-70 push in outlands was the right thing to do lol.
I lvl'd from 30-56ish as prot. Up until the late 40s to early 50s I absolutely loved it. Even to the point of giggling as I burnt down large groups of mobs without a sweat. Then it got slow. Really slow...I would have times where I'd go to kill a mob a few lvls over me and just get nowhere. I could keep my hp/mp up but just not damage the mob enough to kill it. Or I could but it'd take 2-3min. And I had somewhat melee oriented gear. lots and lots of str. So I switched to Ret, grabbed myself a ******** 2h axe in outland and started swinging away. Well I can kill stuff faster. I usually use my seal as a judge of time. If I can kill something in under 30sec I'm happy....ish. The problem I noticed and am still dealing with is that I go OOM so incredibly fast. My typical routine is to Sanctity aura, BoM, SoW, judge, SoC, Crusader Strike as mana allows, and kill. Rinse and repeat for next mob. This keeps my mana up to some extent. If I get a great crit rate I do pretty well but drinking every 2-4 mobs is normal. Kind of a bummer cause I used to do a lot better as Prot.
My Prot routine was to Ret aura, BoS, SoW, judge, SoL, holy shield as much as mana would allow, and let the mobs burn themselves down on me. SoW, judge, and SoL as I switch to new mobs. I could do this indefinitely sometimes. Always full of mp and hp after battles. The reason I switched though is because it was only 25% of quests at best where I could reasonably get more than 1-2 mobs on me at once. I end up fighting one mob at a time...slowly.
So just looking for a hug that I chose wisely for my last 10lvls of questing ^^
Also am I doing it right? I have done a lot of research on pally and although there are tons of posts/threads on what gear to wear, how to tank kara, how to heal, etc. I can't really find anything on the most efficient ways to solo. Even the thread on how to solo Strat. Which is something I want to do eventually. The OP states that he is solo'ing Strat on his "dps pally". What does this mean? Is this a Ret pally? If so, do you solo this sort of thing with sword and board and tanking gear? Or is this a Prot pally in dps gear? Do you always use sword and board when solo'ing pre-BC dungeons or 2h'er sometimes?
My plan for pally is to be an endgame tank for my guild. I have my shammy which can heal, my hunter and rog soon for dps, so this guy will be pure tank. I also will not be bothering with daily/questing after I hit 70 and respecc Prot. That's my longterm plan. We(my guild) are not ready to start raiding for a while so my short term goal is to be able to run friends through pre-BC dungeons. Also quest helping, etc. I'm guessing Prot will be the best spec for this sort of stuff? If so what type of gear and technique am I going to be most successful with? I would think that typical str and stm will be best. Maybe 'of the Champion stuff? Or do I want more +spell damage gear? I have already started saving caster style plate from outlands quests in case that is what I need.
I know that endgame tanking is a whole different ballgame than solo'ing but I'm not really concerned with that now. Now I want to help out guildies, build rep, and have fun surviving insane amounts of mobs ^^
Please please help me out with this. I know it's a lot of questions but I'm very serious. My goal is to be the tank that people go, "DAMN!", after they see my survive crazy odds.
Thank you very much in advance for any advice or criticism,
-Shrub
Edited, Apr 28th 2008 8:51pm by Shrubbry