Pre-raid Tanking: Theories, Goals and the Gear to Get There

Just picked up this:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Spaulders_of_Dementia

Where do you guys feel this rates relative to the other shoulder items? I like the high AC, Str adds BV, Agi adds dodge, Stam is good, Def is good.....but it lacks pure avoidance and blocking stats.

I'm guessing its probably a good starting raiding shoulder piece, but in all honesty it seems to be only slightly better than my gemmed out Spaulders of the Righteous.

I prefer the Spaulders of the Righteous over Dementia personally. the D3 shoulders have similar defense and more stamina, plus some threat at a cost of dodge.
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Hello guys. ok i have been playing has a tankadin for 1 week and i read some foruns to get gear. now i can tank normal instances on easy mode but i still think i get very high hits so i think i have something wrong can u plz check me and plz tell me if im doing something wrong?
another thing i dont know what legs i should have and i dont know how uncrushability works.. bracer enchant is wrong i know but it was free... it was for a friend to lvl up skill. plz help

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Maelstrom&n=Shru%C3%AFkan

the double post was a mistake, sorry. i read the post but i still cant understand the avoidance thing. can u plz explain?

Uncrushability and avoidance have been explained a thousand times on this forum. Gestalt's guide is a good place to start.

Hey, someone should sticky gestalt's guide.

...
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Tanking is was made to do

it is stickied on the beginner's forum. At any rate, if you've read the guides and still are unclear about something, could you be a little more specific about what you're confused on?
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Hmm didn't find any posts about this but the Golden Cenarion Greaves, from the quest Natural Remedies appear to have had their attributes changed. Your link shows a different one than mine:

http://thottbot.com/i28069

I just got them and they def. don't look as hawt.

Does that scrub these as a stepping stone?

I currently also have:

Bloodscale Sabatons of the Sorcerer, with no link in Wowhead or Thottbot

and

Ravenguard's Greaves of the Crusader, which again aren't listed.

silva falls into the same trap a lot of pre-raid paladins do.

Stamina > all for the lifetime of a paladin since a large % of our avoidance comes from blocking. Look at any endgame or Raid-ready paladin profile (I'd love to see a T5 avoidance paladin so I could talk to him). Especially when you're gearing up you suffer from low hp and high block rating. This leads to instagibs and comments from healers saying "jeez you take a lot of damage" since your % life jumps dramatically from hit to hit. Block rating is good for avoiding CRUSH damage, but like parry, doesnt improve your survivability, as much as the raw avoidance numbers predict, long term. I think this is what he was asking about, "why does he die to 2 or 3 unlucky hits fairly often?"

Answer: You need more stam. A lot more.
Anywhere I say 12/9 I mean 12sta or 9sta gems.
150 health on your chest
12/9 stam or equally good is 4def/6stam on your wrists because of the bonus. I'd take the bonus.
10 stam Heavy Knothide Armor Kit on your gloves (although I'd also drop 12/9 stam over that defense gem), the kit is cheap. Alternately 20 spell damage is for heroics/raiding. The gloves you have are good until t5.
Flesh beasts are good starting boots, but i'd work on getting Boots_of_the_Colossus from mana tombs. More sockets for more stam. Surprised they arent on the OP's list.

Work on getting the cape from steamvaults. SAVE all the gear you replace. In many cases you may find that more stam means you fall short of your minimums (102.4% avoidance, 490 def) if you max out on stam. Try to maintain about 500 def if you can imo.

I know these changes are expensive. Luckily paladins that are high in block damage grind money effectively (with a felsteel spike on a sporregar shield) on the At'mal Terrace from the demon hunters on the right side, up the path, to the right up the small set of steps. Wait for the elite to pat away, run in and pull a few, repeat until you understand how many you can manage at a time. With your gear, you can probably pull half of it at a time. If you spec for farming (which i used to do), you can pull all of it with a health pot and a little more stam (and 20 spell damage on gloves). Since you're scryer you can also reach exalted in a week of grinding. Totally worth it. GL.

"Your goal with Miss/Dodge/Parry/Block is to get a value listed on your character sheet totalling 102.4% while Holy Shield is active to completely remove the chance of a Crushing Blow from a level 73 mob in ideal situations"

I'm kind of confused how you get this total? I'm not sure where to look exactly.

Hi I am just starting to want to tank kara and more but cannot figure out the calc. on this topic. I could really use some help and thank you.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bonechewer&n=Jcee