need help with protection pallyFollow

hi guys i am a lv 66 prot pally, and i want to no at my lv should i be stacking defense rating or spellpower?

I can't tell you exactly from experience since my pally is still in his 50s. However, since I have a few 70s I have an opinion about your question. I would suggest if you had to choose between the two go for Def. At 66 you should be able to hold aggro through just your abilities and spells without the extra spell damage. There are no twinks anymore at this level and you don't have the huge variation of gear that you do with a group of level 70s. Build up your Def set so you are as close to 490 as you can by level 70. Then when you hit 70 (when threat generation becomes more of an issue) you can PvP for about a week casually and get the merc mace. That, from what I hear, should be as much spell damage as you need for a while.

That is just my suggestion on how to prioritize your gear choses.

Go with Lokarien's advice rather than mine since he has the experience to back up his suggestions.

On an aside having all that frontloaded damage is great if you are in the learner dungeons in Outlands. Where you have Boomkins and Mages dropping everything they have on a mob, because thats what they did when they were soloing.
Keep an eye out for the Shield of the Wayward Footman.
And you should be able to buy the Felsteel set fairly cheap, which will allow you to gather a decent base for defense tanking once you hit 70.
The breastplate from the Aldor Quartermaster and the Belt from the "Breaking into the Alcatraz" Quest line and you will be ready to tank the level 70 dungeons.

Edited, Jul 30th 2008 7:57pm by Lokarien

I was actually going to post this exact same question :-/ I just turned 66 and respecced prot had been ret, then tried out holy for a couple of levels and now prot for a couple of levels. I'll probably respec ret at 68+ as theres another prot pally whom I usually side-kick for, but he temporarily out leveled me. So I took the opportunity to try out other specs.

Anyhow, Specifically i was wondering what the balance between Mana, HP, bonus spell damage, and defense a prot wants to hit, and what are good numbers at lvl 66?

Here is my armory page:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ysera&n=Sarducci

Note that I'm missing some more typical Outland prot pally quest rewards, as I ran HP and half of Zangar as Ret. I obviously need to add gems to the socketed items there (I can only afford common or cheap rare at this point). I think I'm too heavy on spell damage, as this is coming off the holy gearing. Don't know that I have a better necklace or rings, but I figure one or two of those should probably be switched to something thats +STA. The pants I could re-gem, but they're really good for the holy build so probably just want to replace the pants with something else.

For some reason the stats on the gloves are missing, +26 Stamina, +20 Spell Damage and Healing, +17 Intellect. I could switch them to "of defense" gloves (+36 def) or to Adamantite Plate Gloves: http://www.wowwiki.com/Adamantite_Plate_Gloves

Any advice on balancing gear? how badly do I need more HP? Any advice for what instances I should hit to collect mid-60's prot gear?

EDIT: From skimming various strategy guides, I def have too much spell damage relative to STA. Also, I gather +block is much better than pure avoidance, so I'll have to be on the lookout for things to replace my weapon and boots. First priority is to swap out the pants and necklace for pure tank gear, and probably one of the rings. And I think I will switch gloves.

Edited, Jul 30th 2008 12:54pm by Tsarducci

Missing a few chants I think, but my gear is straight off the Def/Mig shopping list for pre kara. A lot of it you can get now or start gearing for (like getting your Keepers of Time rep starting at lvl 66 i think).

I've always kept my gear towards 200 spell damg and 490 defence (started as soon as I hit outlands). And in truth this is pretty easy. It's the avoid' (102.4%) that I found hard to get. And I'm still like 5% short (or my libram... only 8 more badges to go!!!).

As for holding agro... I really never had a problem unless another toon in the group was lvl 70 in t4 gear and up. For easy fixes get some Sup Wiz Oil. In truth, I always use the stuff. Play your toon well and you should have no problems. And for those mages or boomkins that like to drop everything, well they best learn how to control their agro before they start 10 mans or find themselves running them alone. Let them pull. A good player will know when you are doing your job and they are just being dorks.

But, to directly answer your question. I wouldn't worry to much as long as you are getting your shopping list done. Don't buy anything or run an instance over and over for a piece to get you buy until you get to 70. You are just wasting your time. Use it to get your pre-kara gear going so that when you get to 70 you can start getting epics to replace all that "pre-kara" gear that you spent so much time getting! LOL!!! Until then? Just use what drops for you.

Pass the rum mate!