Regular Instances: as soon as you hit level 70 you should be able to start doing regular instances, and besides black morass and shadow labs, you should be fine tanking anything.
Heroic Instances: Tanking a heroic instance can be harder than off-tanking Kara, so do not think that because you can OT in Kara you can tank a heroic. Whilst there are a few that you should be able to tank decently in, it is still better to wait to be a geared a little better.
Armor: Around 15,000 armor without Devotion Aura up
Health: 13,000 health or more should be good enough to keep you alive in a heroic.
Defense: 490+. Once you have this amount bosses will no longer be able to score critical hits upon you.
Spell Damage: 450+ spell damage is a nice amount that should help you hold enough agro to tank.
Avoidance: 102.4%, later there is a macro that will calculate how much you have if you are unsure.
Karazhan: Off tanking is Karazhan is not very hard, and do not be convinced that you are not geared enough to go. When I did my first Kara run, and cleared it, I was with a PUG and i had around 11970 health and 480 defense. However I recommend you have around 11000+ health and 490+ defense to make it easier on your healers.
Armor: Around 14,000 armor without Devotion Aura up
Health: 12,000 health or more should be good enough to keep you alive in a Kara.
Defense: 490+.
Spell Damage: 450+ spell damage
Avoidance: 102.4%. here is the macro that will show you how much avoidance you have, remember to activate holy shield before you use it.
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combined avoidance. Currently at:",0.8,0.8,1)
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance() + GetParryChance() +5+(GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL) + 20)*0.04,1,0.5,0)
Add-ons: First you should download the curse client from curse.com. After this you should download deadlyboss mods and Omen threat meter.
Gems: You should probably try and get some solid stars of elune (+12 stamina), and socket all of your gear with that. If you really like the socket bonus here are some other good gems.
1. subtle living ruby (red)
2. flashing living ruby (red)
3. if you are still crittable put some thick dawnstones in your gear (yellow)
Enchants:
Head: Glyph of the gladiator (for the stamina, if you need more defense go with Glyph of the defender)
Cloak: Steelweave (nice extra defense)
Shoulder: Greater inscription of the knight or warding
Chest: exceptional health
Bracer: fortitude
Gloves: Threat
Legs: Clefthide leg armor
Feet: Fortitude
Blessings: On yourself, you should use blessing of sanctuary, and on other players use salvation to start out with, and you can change the blessing later depending on how much agro they are generating.
Auras: Use Devotion aura, if you have a lot of armor and are facing a lot of mobs, you may want to use retribution aura, but devotion is better.
Fighting Cycle:
Keep Righteous fury on (90% more agro when talented)
1. Start out with avengers shield to pull, don’t worry unless you’re targeting something that is Crowd Controlled, it won’t break Crowd Control. It also gives you a nice amount of startup agro.
2. Next turn on holy shield and judge them with seal of the crusader.
3. Activate seal of righteousness. This is because you get more holy damage that way and therefore more agro.
4. After this keep on turning holy shield on, and using avengers shield.
5. remember to use judgment whenever you can, and reactivate your seal of righteousness
Agro: Paladins gain agro through spell damage, and there gear or weapon should have a decent amount on it. An easy way to get a lot of spell damage is to get the arena mace.
Thanks for reading my guide, to all those other Pally tanks out their don’t give up!! It is a hard tanking spec to master, and we are not as good at single target tanking as bear or warrior tanks, but we are the kings of AOE tanking. Show the World of Warcraft world how good we are, and prove them who the best tanks are