Tankadin Schmankadin

So I tanked Uldaman the other day, Archades and everything at only level 44. No high levels walking us through, I think the highest level character in our group was 46. Group was built up as follows:

• 44 Paladin (me)
• 44 Paladin
• 46 Warlock
• 45 Priest
• 43 Hunter

I'm not going to go on about how Paladins should be considered viable tanks or any of that sillyness, I'm just saying that I did it and it wasn't the end of the world. My current build is 21 Holy/14 Protection (down to Improved Righteous Fury) and I neither had a problem grabbing aggro or holding it on a signle target. While I do have Consecration and was using it, that was only to get the aggro on me initially. The group listened to me and were doing a great job of focusing on my target, so I rarely lost aggro due to the priest overhealing. I did end up dying a few times (5 in total, sadly), mainly due to the priest managing his mana poorly. I've never played a priest to any real extent, but I don't think that it's a good idea to only start healing your main tank when he's at 25% health... I'm looking forward to getting Holy Shock in a few levels and see how that works with Righteous Fury and aggro generation. While we don't have a taunt like Warriors and Druids do, Holy Shock might be enough to grab aggro back if it's lost, especially with a Divine Favor crit. All-in-all, when it comes to Paladin tanking, I think it's been severely under-explored by most people. I've seen interesting posts on the Paladin forums (both US and EU) discussing a "porcupine" build with Retribution Aura, Blessing of Sanctuary and Holy Shield, but that requires a heavy investment in the Protection Tree, which I don't know if I'd be comfortable with. I think the trick of Paladin tanking is simply having a good group and a plan. Maybe I won't be able to try this in higher level instances, but I'm not ready to give up trying just yet. ZF is coming up soon and has a number of larger pulls in it, so whether I'm tanking or off-tanking, it'll be interesting to see what happens.