The 969 rotation is given as a best TPS one, however it must not be kept to the letter (especially when in the process of pulling mobs) and assuming you’re not in a pug, people in your grp will have enough brains to know that you will need 2-3 seconds to grab ALL the mobs before they start aoe. So yes, you will not pull your usual 11k TPS, but you should do more than enough to keep them all around (still, as you said, you just can’t jump around like a bear does, no matter how fat he may be)

Regarding paladin tank MT, with current game mechanics it’s true that we have the highest TPS, however, i would still prefer a warr or druid for the simple fact that paladins (as far as i noticed) still can’t take “slow” and hard hits well. not to mention fights in which having a CD every minute or so is a must (example LK’s soul reaper, and yes, this implies no tank switch just because we’re lazy). As for mana, once you actually learn your class, you should have no problems at all (excepting perhaps vezax which is really a bitch when it comes to this). Between DP, BoS and “forgetting” to do a HS in your rotation (just so you get a bit of dmg to get some heals), neither hcs nor raids are a problem

From my experience, the two very different playstiles of the two classes make them almost perfect for tanking partners. I’ve went to raids with druids, other paladins, dks and warriors. The ones i’ve always gotten along with the best, were the druids. Whatever was leftover from the pack i pulled, would get picked off by the druid with relative ease (and/or vice-versa, but perhaps not with the same ease).

As for a last line, long live “Divine Holy Shield of Righteous Hammering”

While reading this about single target threat a memory of doing OS-25 with a bear as main tank and me, a paladin as off tank, something like 8 months ago. The bear was better geared than me I think, at least he had more HP and that is how we compared in those days, and that is why he was MT, but he couldn’t build any threat for some reason. I was really trying not to pull trash of him but it was nearly impossible, basically I ended up doing only auto attacks.

Finally at the boss I was to pick up trash and he was to keep the boss, safe to say we wiped and I suggested we’d switch. We wiped because the dps couldn’t do any damage, being too afraid to aggro the boss.

I don’t know why he couldn’t build threat, it must have been something he did seriously wrong, and me not knowing anything on how to play with druid could not give any advice either.
.-= johanullen´s last blog ..Patch 3.3 Emblem of Triumph Gear Farming =-.

I started out playing a combat rogue just before BC hit. Once I got to 70, I rolled my paladin tank and leveled protection the whole way. I stopped playing my rogue completely. There’s just something about the paladin tank that just feels right to me and I can’t really put my finger on it. My poor neglected rogue is now my bank alt.

@Spawnofmoose,

I used to always lead off with Avenging Wrath (wings) at the start of the pull, but one of the posters on my forum pointed out that you’re really wasting a lot of it between the time you hit the wings button and run in until you actually drop consecrate and get into your rotation. This is especially true if you consider how much threat you get from seal of vengeance once it hits 5 stacks. It’s actually better to pop your wings a few seconds into your rotation so that all your threat generating abilities benefit from the wrath boost, including the stacked vengeance dot.
.-= tankadin´s last blog ..Patch 3.3 Emblem of Triumph Gear Farming =-.

I like tanking heroics way more with my pally for 1 reason. AoE Threat.
I don’t know if I’m broken on my druid, but I cannot hold all the onyian whelps off the start of p2. I have to rely on the warrior, Dk or pally I’m with. I understand why they put me on whelp duty for whelp pickup throughout p2, because I can swipe and aoe at will to pick up stragglers. But in all honesty I believe swipe needs a threat mechanic. In order to hold a group or 3 in a heroics I have to swipe spam, get an MD or Tricks and swap targets to toss a mangle threat or more random maulx2 to make sure the big threat abilities hit other targets. Otherwise I have a dead lock or mage.

Also, you forgot to mention something with initial aggro on protadins, and I always do this on bosses, so DPS can follow heavy off the start. Avenging Wrath + Hand of Reckoning + Avenger’s Shield. It’s about 15-20k threat on the initial pull, BEFORE I even get to melee range. Throw that on top of the MD or tricks on you, there is no way to lose threat.

I’ve just learned tanking with a paladin, levelling him through instances in Outland – he just hit 70. Now that a friend just hit Outland level as well on her healer, and I have a druid hanging around at 61, I thought, hey, we can group up and I can tank on a bear, too.

And I just did that the first time yesterday evening, and oi! So much yes on the differences, and your post was incredibly helpful in showing me what I need to do really differently on a bear than on a paladin. I started to get a lot of it during the 3 instances I did last night (lot more target switching, for example), but charging around! Yes, that will definitly help.

I do think I prefer paladin tanking, but I now have a much better view on what exactly I need to work at to be a better bear.