I’ll be attempting to update each article to be Patch 3.1.1 equal.  If we have moved on from 3.1.1, and there are further protection changes, they aren’t in here.  I will update each as the new changes come out.  I’ve removed a lot of information that was not only redundant, but confusing. 

I also removed the ‘Gearing Out the Righteous Defender, and Glyphing Out the Righteous Defender book-pages for revision and rewriting.  Each is outdated, but also takes like five minutes to load on my T1 connection at work.  Look for the pages to be reposted soon!

Cookie Cutter Specs

The All-Tank – This is a 0 / 59 / 12 spec based on the idea that there is no such thing as a ‘flexible’ tank. 

It is not your job to Blessing of Protection someone.  You are not there to heal.  You are NOT there to show-up on Recount.  You are there to take a mass of damage and fight to cap Omen.

You are also most likely NOT going to get invited back to raid.

In case you haven’t realized it, this is a BAD build.

The True Paladin – This is a simple 11 / 54 / 6 spec where you a true Paladin, and healing will be part of your routine. 

The only true ‘tanking’ loss to this spec is the total loss of the 10 second Hammer of Justice.  The five points in Seals of the Pure is comparable to the loss of damage from dropping out of the Retribution tree, but is still a significant loss.  There are two large benefits to this spec.  One is the Improved Lay on Hands which will allow you to give a free health / mana bomb to anyone in the raid every 16 minutes instead of every 20.  The second is Guardian’s Favor, which while widely regarded as a primarily pvp talent, has many uses throughout almost every WotLK fight except KT and a few select others.

This is more off an off-tank / off-healer spec than the others, which will limit your effectiveness in raid-contribution as you can be a more effective off-dps than an off-healer.

Not ineffective, but not recommended.  It is nice having the upgraded LoH, but you are loosing A LOT in the way of damage for a small amount of healing (comparatively).

The Cookie-Cutter Part 1 – This is preference, but probably going to be one of the two main cookie cutters. 

5% extra crit-chance.  Very useful and flexible spec, especially when you have very reliable healers.  If healing is not an issue, this is going to be my spec of preference as the added damage / TPS will speed up a great deal of fight and there will be a lot more chances of what few heals I throw to crit.  If healing becomes an issue, drop some points from Improved Hammer of Justice or Conviction for 5/5 Divinity.  Drop more points as needed from Conviction.

If having trouble on Heigan, etc, etc, it’s never a back idea to pickup Pursuit of Justice, but I would recommend getting the Tuskar’s Vitality Enchant instead.

Notice there is only one point in Spiritual Attunement.  Watch the figures, no matter what you aren’t going to need two points unless you are massively over-geared trying to run Heroics.  You will not be using 2/2 unless you really want to waste a talent point.

A slight variation involves 4/5 Conviction and 1/2 Vindication for extra beat-down.

The Cookie-Cutter Part 2 - This is preference, but probably going to be one of the two main cookie cutters.

The benefits of this spec are slightly more subtle than cookie number one.  If you have a very low amount of agility (pickup up the stam / def rating enchants instead of the agility / stats enchants for example) this will be a slightly more preferred spec.  Notice you have the two points in Benediction.  They are floaters.  You can place them where you like.

With the +15% damage to each dot of Seal of Vengeance and each Judgement you have guaranteed, maintainable threat as opposed to the slightly higher burst-damage from cookie one.  However, with the loss of added damage and crit to ALL spells and abilities, your overall TPS will most likely be lower, and there will be a lot less chances for crits when you really need to heal. 

I could go on for a while on the potential shortcomings of both Cookie one and Cookie two, but in the end it is going to fall on preferred playstyle, gear, and enchants.  If you don’t have any extra agility anywhere in you gear / enchants (52.08 Agility = +1% Crit) than most likely 11% isn’t going to make that much difference, but still a lot more crits than you would otherwise have.

Notice there is only one point in Spiritual Attunement.  Watch the figures, no matter what you aren’t going to need two points unless you are massively over-geared trying to run Heroics.  You will not be using 2/2 unless you really want to waste a talent point.