Prot using PvP gear?Follow

1. I haven't acquired any PvP gear myself (for any kit) except a Ret cloak which was a PvE upgrade as well, but I have done some Prot PvP. I would imagine if you were to use Ret PvP gear that you would do fairly well as Prot spec in WG and BGs. Prot's really been buffed for PvP compared to where it used to be (free HKs). I know when I PvP as Prot I can stand my own against pretty much anyone 1 on 1, and depending on who I'm facing, even be just fine against multiple opponents when I'm alone. I kill fairly slow, but I would tend to think the use of Ret gear would make killing a lot faster, while the resilience would partially make up for the loss of defensive stats (particularly against casters).

2. Having said all that, I really wouldn't suggest using PvP gear for tanking. At all. There are some good items that you can acquire to start tanking both from reputations and with your Emblems and craftables though, but you won't be able to get a full set of gear. You'll need to get some drops as well. I wouldn't say it will be hard to get a set of gear at all, but it may take a little while depending on how lucky (or unlucky) you are with drops. I would probably join groups as Ret or Holy with the understanding you wish to acquire tank gear, or run with guildies whose interest is helping you gear up.

Losie's tanking sticky should have any gear you would want to look for.

You want to avoid PVP gear generally. While PVP gear has some use (Resilience does work like Defense) but the conversions are not very good. I don’t know the exact numbers – but 100 Def is better than 100 Resil.
Def Cap’ing – the process of reaching 535 Defense is pretty easy from cheap craftable blues and epics. I’d recommend you get the Epic Helm, Shield, and Boots along with the blue crafted Hands. I think you can buy Blue pants off Rep from Someone… Something like “Special Issue” or similar name… Combine that with the fact that your guild sounds like they might be able to support a noob tank.
Pick up the Epic Belt with your Heroism and maybe the Epic Ring with your Valors. That should put you well into the right gear set.
Get stuff enchanted.

In short – don’t waste time on PVP. Gear through the AH or BS friends. It shouldn’t be too hard.

There is absolutely no reason to use PvP gear in Lich King. PvP gear lacks a very important set of stats...avoidance. Things like defense, dodge, parry, and block. Yes resilience makes you crit immune at a much cheaper cost. But if you're still taking every hit the effectivness of that crit immunity is greatly diminished.

Being a tank is more than high stamina and crit immunity. Its the ability to avoid and mitigate damage. Take it one step further, prot paladins NEED to be avoiding and mitigating damage. Both for mana (blessing of sanctuary) and for damage (holy shield, shield of righteousness).

If you go take a look at the prot paladin guide stickied on this forum you can find most of the gear you need to start going easily and cheaply. Most of the tanking blues will out do the pvp epics as far as tanking is concerned.


EDIT:



Actually, you get more crit immunity per point of resilience than defense. But resilience does not provide the dodge/block/parry. So overall is cheap for crit immunity, but lacks everything else.

Edited, Jun 10th 2009 12:17pm by ekaterinodar

The only PvP 'item' you should even think about using to tank is the shoulder enchant(30stam/15res), you lose some avoidance but gain stam and 15 res is more crit reduction than the Sons of Hodir exalted shoulder enchant(20 dodge/15 def).

Nah, you can tank the entire Nax 25 with 2 or 3 pieces of PvP gear so long as everything else is right including the sockets and enchants. It's been done.

So you can easily start farming the 10 man raids once you're at crafted + rep + heroics + emblems 2-3 pvp items + all tank sockets and enchants.

Actually one of the bosses in Nax was once tanked by a hunter's pet, I think that was nax 10.