Paladin tanking? What do you do?

[werries2]

Seems we have a thread for almost all other kinds of tanks, so here is the paladin one as well.
I just dinged 85 this week with my paladin, and now trying to gear up for heroics as a tank! Gear seems to be increasingly difficult to obtain (compared to wotlk!). I am at average 321 gear, so cant even enter heroics yet should I focus on questing or normal instances? I had little trouble tanking the normal instances so far, as long as CC was in place and now and then I would AOE tank some packs. AOE tanking with a paladin still seem to be easy eneugh though.

Any comments or tips are welcome!
I am boosting Mastery after I got the soft caps for Hit and Expertise. Dodge and Parry as next stats (10-12% each?).

 

[RJMadCat]

If your in a skilled guild and or have skilled friends with decent gear you can still go to heroics, all u cant do is enter the random q, but you can just go there manually, i love lvling alts and already have 3 85's soon my 4th, and the 1st day they hit 85 i gear them in hc's cause the rest of my team is able to boost me through.

If u dont have the luck to be able to do it this way, your best option is REP rewards and go do the Tol Barad daylies, u get soem gear there too, i do know there is a very nice epic tanking shield u can get made, should cost u around 4k for the mats.

I have not had alot of time on my pala yet but i know on elitist jerks u will find some gear guides on various classes/roles.

Oh and another thing, if you consider yourself a good player what u can do also is buy rep items even if its cloth or leather or whatever, it will boost your itemlvl, u dont even need to wear it just have it in your bags.

 

[werries2]

Nice advice, though I consider myself a more than decent tank, it is for this reason I will never enter a heroic instance or raid knowing I am under geared.
120k HP, 39% block, 8% parry, 10% dodge just seems a little low. The rep grind idea sounds like a possibility, though I hate those grinds! Will have a look at some of the entry level gear ~ilvl 333. Craftable epics on my server is way to expensive at the moment, nothing under 8k

 

[RJMadCat]

i agree that if u should not enter a random pug this way, i meant it if u want to do randoms with friends/guildies having other gear to boost yout itlvl is a nice option. when u pug it is a bit inconsiderate. i wish u all the best though

 

[Kaine]

get atlasloot, check faction rewards for the best for you, get a tabard from them, do the dailies if you are so inclined, and do a few normal dungeons. Ive done 3 dungeons, one of which wasnt finished (latency at 3,5k ), and bought 2 justice points items, and my bloody gs is 2 points short of hc standard. and I still have that icc ring equipped. bit of a fail on the part of blizz, but hey, its not as hard as everyone says. if you have a brain, its easy, if everyone in your group has a brain, then its way easy

 

[Spawn-X]

I tanked about 2 or 3 normals before being able to enter hc's at 85. The rep rewards are a huge boost and you can start getting some at honoured though only ilvl333 also so same as normals. hyjal rep is pretty easy to farm no daylies but if you never completed all the quests in the area go back and do a few. Priority with rep as I did them were Ramkahen(wanted a camel lol and epic tanking bracers and dps neck both very nice for tanking with some reforging), Hyjal(epic cloak, epic dps belt also reforged for tanking), Wildhammer Clan(epic boots), Therezane(shoulder enchants), Earthern Ring(head enchant).
May have mixed up the factions or items abit not so sure looking at them now :S