Gearing advice?

[Menardi]

This is my Armory page. I've been in Kara once with little success, never stepped foot in a Heroic. Our guild has started doing Karazhan and it just seems like I'm taking way too much damage.

If you don't feel like clicking my Armory link (or if I've changed into other gear) my stats are approximately:
10900hp
12500ac
20% dodge
16% parry
23% block
504 def (11.16% miss)
I also have assorted pieces for more threat (5mans) and hp at the cost of crushability.

Raid buffed I pass uncrushable and can get about 14k hp. Apart from getting my heroic libram and then swapping something out for more stamina (I wouldn't know which piece to swap out), which is a bit hard since most groups want Warrior tanks, I don't know what I can do.
From reading forums, it seems like I'm more than geared for entry-kara, but it's not working so I'd like to gear up some more.

Any suggestions?

[Jensaarai]

Menardi, your gear is perfectly fine for anything up to Curator I'd say...I'd want some upgraded pieces before I faced Prince or Nightbane.

If you're having a problem with staying alive, that problem is with your healers. You have 100.43% avoidance unbuffed...looking at your gear, what I would is run Heroic Underbog for the Argussian Compass, and get your Libram and replace the Figurine of the Colossus with the Compass, and wear the Libram. That'll give you about 360 more HP, and from the rest of your gear that's as much as you can upgrade until Karazhan.

The problem is with your healers, not you Frightnight is undergeared...Juvo kinda is too. From looking at your 70s, I'd say it's gear problems in their part.

[Menardi]

Thanks for your input! I'll try to get some heroic runs going for the Argussian Compass and Libram of Repentance this week. As for Kara loot itself, my guild have told me I can have pretty much whatever I want if it drops.

In the end, it might be a better strategy to carry some healers through 5man instances I guess. Well, I'll see what happens this week.

Also, our other tank is a Feral Druid who takes roughly the same amount of damage as me overall, a little less on trash and a little more on bosses. Is it worth looking hard for a Warrior to DPS and provide Commanding Shout+Thunder Clap or would that spot be better spent on more CC (we're kinda lacking everything at the moment)?

[Mavrix]

Demo Shout and Thunderclap (esp. improved thunderclap) absolutely are really amazingly useful for providing mitigation and avoidance (respectively) and there's damn little that we face that is immune to them (which begs the question as to why so many frickin mobs are immune to paladin Vindication, but that's another issue).

[Lore]

Also note that most healers who haven't had much experience with paladin tanks will say "omg you're taking so much damage" when the reality is your lower health pool is just making your health bar move faster. It's similar to how inexperienced healers will say Druid tanks take "less" damage just because they don't see the health bar dropping in big chunks.

[Mavrix]

What Lore said is so very true ^

When you know as fact that you have more armor, more avoidance, and more mitigation than your warrior or druid colleague and your healers still think you get hit harder . . . chances are there's something wrong with the picture that's not coming from your end of the connection.

One of the roles we paladin tanks are forced to play (esp. on horde side) is that of the Educator.

[Menardi]

I did my first heroic tonight, although it was only Slave Pens. It was immensely easier than I expected, we didn't have a single death. I'm starting to think the biggest problem is actually finding a group who'll let a Paladin tank.