Looking for a couple of pointers.

[Shoju]

I have been tanking more in raid situations, and I'm looking to refine my spec a little bit and change out some gems. I'm a 10 man raider and this is just my offspec.

My Armory

I'm using a 54/17 spec, but I have seen some people using the 5/54/12 spec lately, and I was wondering which one would be better for threat? I'm not as geared as my DPS, and on long fights, I can end up with a couple that have to hold back. I'm assuming the 5/54/12 spec would help me fix this problem.

If you were me, would you go ahead an upgrade the rest of the gems in the gear to epic? If I do, I will gain about 650 HP unbuffed, and will be at 540 def on the nose (changing the gem in weap to an enduring). I know that I need to upgrade the armor kit on the legs as well. I tossed one on just to have it on there, and haven't put a new one on mainly because I didn't tank much. Now that I'm tanking more, I'm wondering if I should hold off on re-gemming until I get some new gear, or if I should just take the plunge now and be done with it.

[Wrathy]

From my perspective, your spec needs a bit of tweaking, but not towards seals of the pure. You shouldn't need two points in spiritual attunement, and Divinity is really lackluster for 5 talent points. I would go 53/18 if you want to boost your threat. Crusade will benefit you more than anything else.

Also if you go SoTP, you will lose vindication, and as a 10 man tank, you cant guarantee that you will have a demo shout/roar, CoW.

As for the gems, It is always worth it to regem to epic gems if you can afford it, but that is a cost / benefit decision that you will have to make on your own.

[Shoju]

I had 1 pt in SA and had a lot of mana problems. I don't know why, I just ran into situations where I didn't have the mana to do things.

Yeah, I like having vinidcation as a 10 man tank. We only have 3 raiding warriors and only 1 is not a tank.

I have the gems. My banker is a Alch, and I think I'm currently sitting on 15+ epic gems. I just wasn't sure if it would be worth the time, since I wont be able to switch them all to the 30 stam gems, and I would essentially be gaining

18 in belt (can be done anyway)
2def/3stam in Legs + Boots each
18 stam in ring (can be done anyway)
-10 def + 15 stam in Weap.

[Corpsicle]

If you expect to get upgrades to your tank set fairly regularly, then I would upgrade gems accordingly. To be specific, if you expect to upgrade a piece within a short time, leave the gems in the current piece as is but put epic gems in the new piece when you get it. If you expect to use one of your current pieces for a long time, then go ahead and regem it now.

I don't know if you have a stockpile of conquest badges that you have available for tank gear but if you do I'd suggest you pick up the conquest badge libram and the conquest set helm. The libram is a direct upgrade to what you have - and has a longer, easier to maintain uptime for the buff. The helm will give you the two piece set bonus from Tier 8, which should help you with threat a bit.

Overall, gear looks good. You have high hit and expertise so I would expect you to have fairly decent threat, though as you say on longer fights vs dps that out gear you things could get tight. Remember to use hand of salvation on them early and on cooldown to help (and if you have other paladins around, make sure they are using theirs too). Also, get misdirect and tricks from hunters/rogues on cooldown. You might consider running a combat log and uploading it to wowmeteronline or wws. Check the count on shield of righteous/hammer of righteous. Take the length of the fight in seconds and divide by 6 to get an idea of how many SoR/HotR you could have done, in an ideal setting. For Judgement, divide length of fight in seconds by 9 to get an optimal number. If you are off, or even find that SoR and HoTR are drastically unequal, then you know you could tighten up your rotation to get a higher threat output.

[Shoju]

If you expect to get upgrades to your tank set fairly regularly, then I would upgrade gems accordingly. To be specific, if you expect to upgrade a piece within a short time, leave the gems in the current piece as is but put epic gems in the new piece when you get it. If you expect to use one of your current pieces for a long time, then go ahead and regem it now.

I don't know if you have a stockpile of conquest badges that you have available for tank gear but if you do I'd suggest you pick up the conquest badge libram and the conquest set helm. The libram is a direct upgrade to what you have - and has a longer, easier to maintain uptime for the buff. The helm will give you the two piece set bonus from Tier 8, which should help you with threat a bit.

Overall, gear looks good. You have high hit and expertise so I would expect you to have fairly decent threat, though as you say on longer fights vs dps that out gear you things could get tight. Remember to use hand of salvation on them early and on cooldown to help (and if you have other paladins around, make sure they are using theirs too). Also, get misdirect and tricks from hunters/rogues on cooldown. You might consider running a combat log and uploading it to wowmeteronline or wws. Check the count on shield of righteous/hammer of righteous. Take the length of the fight in seconds and divide by 6 to get an idea of how many SoR/HotR you could have done, in an ideal setting. For Judgement, divide length of fight in seconds by 9 to get an optimal number. If you are off, or even find that SoR and HoTR are drastically unequal, then you know you could tighten up your rotation to get a higher threat output.

Well the big problem is, to upgrade from these pants, I need to get either t8/t9 pants. It will be a long time before I get t9 pants, as I'm still buying mainspec items with EoT's, and I have seen the Pant token 1 time, the first kill of Hodir, and I lost to priest . I will probably regem the pants and upgrade the kit on them. Being that I'm not a mainspec tank, and don't tank 'that' much, I probably wont see as many upgrades as some. In the content that I'm running, I will probably have to get the cloak and boots from EoV's or pray that I don't have a plate tank in a ToC run.

sadly, I have been spending all my conquest badges whenever I can. I am one of the 'flex speccers' in the guild. If I need to heal, I will respec to heal, if I need to Tank, I will spec to that. So, I have a LOT of 226 gear for all 3 specs... I just picked up the gloves as they were a HUGE upgrade over the Armor Pen Gloves from Ignis. My next purchase was going to be the t8 helm though.

I checked my last parse, and I was at ~86% of "perfect" on ShoR/HotR, and ~81% on Judgement. I could probably stand to up them a little bit. I was able to get almost perfect when tanking HM:AoI, but that is because I was tanking steelbreaker, and well... that's just not that hard

Thanks for the vote of confidence on the gear. I originaly just picked up a prot spec so that I could finish off outland dungeon hero, and farm ZG / kara for mounts. I kind of got back into the rhythm of tanking (I havne't done it as prot in... a year?) so I'm trying to get back in the swing of things.

[Fridmarr]

I had 1 pt in SA and had a lot of mana problems. I don't know why, I just ran into situations where I didn't have the mana to do things.

Were you letting Divine Plea fall off and were you using blessing of sanctuary? With both of those one, 1 point in SA should be plenty.

[Nikachelle]

I had 1 pt in SA and had a lot of mana problems. I don't know why, I just ran into situations where I didn't have the mana to do things.

Were you letting Divine Plea fall off and were you using blessing of sanctuary? With both of those one, 1 point in SA should be plenty.

I still have mana problems in heroics with 2/2 SA, Sanctuary and judging wisdom. I'm right back to chain chugging mana pots like in BC (thank god for the endless mana potion!) It's not AS bad as BC, but it's getting pretty close. Even if you skip consecration, even if you maintain DP up, mobs don't actually last long enough for them to hit you (or for you to dodge enough to gain mana). I'm lucky if I manage to hit three abilities before everything is dead in a pack.

[Corpsicle]

My favorite heroics are the ones that conveniently put mobs close enough together where I can pull multiple packs. Heroics like VH can just be painful though. I usually try to get a mage friend to make me some water that I can just drink in between pulls. With only 5k mana, I only need a tick or two to be comfortable on mana again.

I really envy you your endless mana potion Nikachelle - I'm reduced to chain chugging for speed sometimes, but I'm an engineer/miner. Expensive!

[Shoju]

I had 1 pt in SA and had a lot of mana problems. I don't know why, I just ran into situations where I didn't have the mana to do things.

Were you letting Divine Plea fall off and were you using blessing of sanctuary? With both of those one, 1 point in SA should be plenty.

I still have mana problems in heroics with 2/2 SA, Sanctuary and judging wisdom. I'm right back to chain chugging mana pots like in BC (thank god for the endless mana potion!) It's not AS bad as BC, but it's getting pretty close. Even if you skip consecration, even if you maintain DP up, mobs don't actually last long enough for them to hit you (or for you to dodge enough to gain mana). I'm lucky if I manage to hit three abilities before everything is dead in a pack.

I will admit, that I'm probably not as good with DP as I should be, but I always runs with Sanct. It's not a big problem on bosses, but on Trash in Uld10 and heroics mana sucks hard. I have thought about tanking in my ret pvp gear for heroics to lower my avoidance.

[Nikachelle]

My favorite heroics are the ones that conveniently put mobs close enough together where I can pull multiple packs. Heroics like VH can just be painful though. I usually try to get a mage friend to make me some water that I can just drink in between pulls. With only 5k mana, I only need a tick or two to be comfortable on mana again.

I really envy you your endless mana potion Nikachelle - I'm reduced to chain chugging for speed sometimes, but I'm an engineer/miner. Expensive!

Cost me a bloody fortune in time during BC where I farmed for the mats myself. I went pot master simply because it was my most used consumption item. And then the bag space... so then I used to get injectors made (before pots stacked to 20). I easily carried upwards of 100-150 mana pots at all times. The raiding casters loved me since I always had extras.

Funny though... I was skeptical about making the endless mana potion since it would "waste" ten mana potions and the return is less on the endless one. But my god has it been worth it.