Beta tank set ups and initial thoughts:

[Nooska]

Well close, I'm justthinking, levellig as prot will probably give quite a few pieces with dodge/parry on them, as opposed to crit being the only stat that isn't beneficial hmm I wonder if its possible to avoid dodge, parry and crit completely...

[Sagara]

Even THEN, we can easily cancel the quest turn-in and respec for the tanky reward.

[Nooska]

Well close, I'm justthinking, levellig as prot will probably give quite a few pieces with dodge/parry on them, as opposed to crit being the only stat that isn't beneficial hmm I wonder if its possible to avoid dodge, parry and crit completely...

Looking at ilvl 496 (except the shiled, no ilvl 496 shield) I came up with an almost parry/dodge free set - 260 parry rating and 1254 dodge rating from gear

Edit: the thinking being to gem haste/mastery/stamina as needed - hit and exp caps reached (7.5%)
Edit 2: changed the link, as I forgot the cloak.
Edit 3: Ignoring the 4set prot bonus here, but picking up the 2 set.

[theckhd]

Even THEN, we can easily cancel the quest turn-in and respec for the tanky reward.

I don't think that's even necessary. When I was leveling on beta, I was still getting the option to choose between Ret, Holy, and Prot pieces, even though I had been Prot the whole time. I think that as long as the quest has options for multiple specs, it will give you the choice.

I think the only times you don't get a choice are when the options are [cloth] [leather] [mail] [plate], in which case you always get the plate no matter what its stats are.

[Nooska]

Oh yeah, I remember you mentioning that earlier (having only levelled a hunte rI haven't seen anything like that of coursE)

[Sagara]

Sorry, I'm still basing myself off old Wowhead data :-/

[stevos]

With Vengence forming a massive part of prot dps (my opinion remains that vengence was the equiv of a sledge hammer to crack a nut, in regards to fixing the issue with tank threat / scaling) more so than at the start of Cata, I can see prot being frustrating to level, especially as most quest areas tend not to favor AoE farming of mobs, especially not early on when the zones are packed.

I really hope we don't need to respec all the time, to get prot gear, as that would not be funny or very time efficient. Plus i assume we still lose all our mana each time, which will slow us down further.

[Flex]

I leveled faster as Prot than Ret because I died less and getting a stray mob or two is survivable as Prot.

Also, as stated multiple times. Gone are the rewards strictly for your role. You will get gear options of Ret/Prot/Holy. I don't think I ever got a single plate selection quest reward.

[stevos]

I leveled faster as Prot than Ret because I died less and getting a stray mob or two is survivable as Prot.

Also, as stated multiple times. Gone are the rewards strictly for your role. You will get gear options of Ret/Prot/Holy. I don't think I ever got a single plate selection quest reward.

Good good.

When you leveled on the Beta were the areas packed of other players, which live servers will be like as we level our mains on week 1 and 2?

I leveled upto 85 as prot, so will probably continue.

[Flex]

Only time it was overly crowded was at beta launch with everyone packed into the Jade Forest. I took a long break after that and came back to a not overly crowded leveling experience. Another factor that makes it nice is that for named NPCs you get credit for the kill if you do any damage to them, you do not have to be the player to tag it. Also I believe the plan is still to split overcrowded zones apart using their zone merging tech for low level zones.

[Sagara]

Also remember split zones, even on the same server.

[stevos]

Zone merging would be nice, but i suspect the reality will be the servers will be as reliable as they were when Diablo3 launched and so there will be no players to worry about, only a 505 error.

[Flex]

Also remember split zones, even on the same server.

*points the last sentence of his previous post*

[Sagara]

Also remember split zones, even on the same server.

*points the last sentence of his previous post*

HEY! That wasn't there the last time, was it? oO

[Kihra]

With Vengence forming a massive part of prot dps (my opinion remains that vengence was the equiv of a sledge hammer to crack a nut, in regards to fixing the issue with tank threat / scaling) more so than at the start of Cata, I can see prot being frustrating to level, especially as most quest areas tend not to favor AoE farming of mobs, especially not early on when the zones are packed.

It is. Leveling as ret is vastly superior to leveling as prot. I've done 85-90 as both, and leveling as prot is extremely slow. I wouldn't recommend it unless you don't care about leveling speed.