Boots of the Protector, did i screw myself over?

Hello! I've been a reader for a few weeks now and decided to join up.

I'm a Casual Heroic Tankadin who has a goal of reaching Uncrushable and the best stats i possibly can without diving into the world of raiding.

my armory is: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Black+Dragonflight&n=Warheit

i went engineering/Bsmithing (oh man my wallet hurts) to get the best gear i could within the realm of the "non-raider" and i just recently crafted my Boots of the Protector last night, which i am in love with. but i heard today that there is another pattern called Havoc Boots which i should have apparently gone for?

did i just screw myself over by spending nearly 1k gold on pattern+ mats + nether on the wrong pair of boots, or are boots of the protector the better ones for Tankadins?

also, I'm getting asked to join ZA runs from time to time since 2.3 hit and while i don't feel ready yet for that, i may say yes in the future, since i heard the first boss doesn't Crush. i looked up his loot and saw the Jungle Stompers. I'm assuming those are a clear upgrade to Boots of the Protector, is this assumption correct?

I guess I'm kinda worried that after grinding for these boots they might get replaced soon or something.

i guess to recap:

Boots of the Protector vs Red Havoc Boots vs Jungle Stompers: which are the better for Tankadins from a Heroic/Main tank point of view?

Thanks for your time and suggestions!
_________________

Jungle stompers are a clear upgrade to either boots. They're awesome. With +12 stam gems, you get +19 block rating and +6/7 stam. Less defense, but it's likely that you don't need that as much.

The Red Havoc boots are definitely better for the avoidance/mitigation you need in general. The Protector boots are better if you've already taken care of that or don't care. For a heroic it's probably not that big a deal either way, and either one would be okay. For Kara and on, you should likely go with the boots.

Right now you're over 490 def, so I don't think you need to go any further. You're crushable though, and that would need to be fixed. If you're planning on running heroics mostly I'd just go for something like the engineering trinket over the stormpike one, replace your cape with either the devilshark cape or heroic badge cape, and don't worry about the havoc boots.

If Warheit isnt going to be raiding why bother with uncrushable? I would just get 490def then pile as much stam as i could find your just going to be doing heroics but thats just MHO.

kalbear has it right. Last night I did Heroic Shattered Halls for the heroic daily. Despite being uncrushable, having the ability to completely avoid 50-65% (go go Moroes' Lucky Pocketwatch) of the incoming damage is worth it's weight in gold. Even if you have 3 mages to Polymorph your enemies, their are some pulls that are just so large that you need that ridiculous amount of avoidance to not bite it. Even with my uncrushable tanking gear for Kara (every slot upgraded to epics save my shoulders, chest and ring) I still died twice in Heroic Shattered Halls, and that was with the best equipped in my guild.
_________________


My Blog: http://kazielmmo.blogspot.com/

Ok you guys make good points did see that he wanted to be tanking kara/za at some point=) stack stack stack that avoidance bro!

I tanked all the way up to Nightbane w/o being uncrushable. If I switch out gear to become uncrush, I lost too much HP for the healers to be comfy with, so they turned it over to a warrior with about another 700hp and more BV than me.

I don't have high block value, so when I get hit, I take good spike dmg that my healers aren't used to (none of them healed prot paladins on a full time basis I think).

Regardless, you armory me with what I am wearing, and I assure you, heroics are a joke now.

Only BM and Durn left to topple in heroics, all the rest are a joke, they really are. I can tank 4-5-6 mobs in heroics at a time in a pinch if my healer is reasonably geared (had a holy priest with 1600 to healing tonight in SL, after the first room, I gave up really worrying about CC for the most part, it just make it too messy).

Do the heroics, get the upgrades that drop from there, get 1-2 badge pieces and I assure you, when you're ready to go raiding (and you will eventually) you'll be pretty OP for Kara. Its just learning the fights at that point.
_________________

Avoidance is nice and all, but when you try tanking outside of 5 and 10mans, you'll find your healers appreciate constant predictable dmg rather than sporadic spike dmg, and as a result, your survivability is a lot better. Also, save parry, you generate 0 threat from pure avoidance. By all means, keep a avoidance set, but don't right off stacking block rating/value, it helps ALOT later on.