Ahhh one I can answer :)
Check out Darkpoett on shadow council as a decent example...
A prot pally needs to focus on gear that has these stats and these stats only,
1. Mastery, DODGE, PARRY, Stam and Strength. The gear should have a combination of Stam+Strength+(Mastery,parry,or dodge)
If it has CRIT,Spell,spell pen,haste, or spirit you do not want it or to be wearing it as a tank...
You job when you hit 85 and maintain 85 is to apx have 92% dodge,block,and parry by the end of this expansion. A good start for doing heroics is 10% dodge, 10%parry, and 30%block.
Some tanks tend to Gem ALL STAM... this actually wouldn't be bad if all you had to worry about was spell casters... as a pally or warrior tank you need to avoid damage NOT SOAK IT... Druid and DK tanks are meant to be your spell damage absorbers. Try to Gem Mastery+Stam, Dodge+Stam, or Parry+Stam.. and remember Parry and Dodge have diminishing returns while Mastery doesn't for now.
Finally PVP.... not to rain on your parade but Prot pallys are not meant to PVP. PRE-ARENAS and Diminishing Returns a Prot Pally used to decimate ANY melee class in PVP. When Wrath was coming out a prot pally could stand there with seal of light on and judgement of light and ret aura on and pretty much let any melee class kill them self attack them. When arena's came out all of that slowly changed. IT used to be funny watching a rogue try all they could to attack you when your back is against a wall all they could do was miss,miss,miss,miss.... you get the point...
The best bet is to dual spec into RET if you want to kill things. In that case AS PVP goes your stats are CRIT and resilience. The best way to get that gear.. well your already a tank so heroic your butt off for it. Don't waste the time PVPing when you have the BEST spec to just justice point it up THEN pvp as ret. I personally DO NOT PVP because I do not have the time to play WOW due to my job for more then 1 day a week and on how there are still multi-boxers in battlegrounds/arenas. I do suggest though if you encounter one see which one moves first and which one is slightly behind them... kill the one that moves first and the other should be messed up or REPENT the one that moves second and the first one should be by them-self clueless to why their mimicked half is running into a wall doing nothing...
I hope my crazy advice helped a bit :).
BTW for those who look at my character and u see the crit on my cape.. I'm testing out a theory that seems to be working well.. since the little extra armor really doesn't help much and Titan-weave really isn't worth it either I'm using that Crit bonus to up my chance on hit my Avenger Shield cools-down... its working nicely... about every 10-15 seconds i get the proc and I'm able to use it.. I'm experimenting more with it until I know for sure that this is worth it.....
Edited, Jul 7th 2011 3:44am by darkpoetinc
Edited, Jul 7th 2011 3:47am by darkpoetinc