New tankadin looking for guidance

try binding A and D to your left and right strafe (removing the possibility of keyboard turning) and use your mouse to spin and turn. That will also free up Q and E for skills. Your left hand will be for keybinds and all of your major spells and your right hand will be for clicking targets. Once I changed that habbit I gained a lot more efficiency.
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Fun fact: A+E or Q+D cause you to strafe in perfect circles.

Once you have a tanked bad guy at range equilibrium, doing this can allow you to turn him without all the usual sidestep/pursuit issues because the strafe-circle keeps you at a constant distance.
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Everything in war is very simple. But in war, even the simplest thing is difficult.

Some things I've picked up along the way:

For saving mana, if you can, pull more than 1. Usually outside, if the mobs are non-casters, non-elite and have mostly basic melee attacks, I can pull 4, 5 or 6 of them at a time as long as I keep holy shield up. This means I block the vast majority of their damage AND with BoSanc I never have to worry about mana at all. This frees you up to use any seal/judgement that you want (SoV seems to be the most popular for tanks, so it's good to use it and learn how it works so you can be competent at keeping your stacks up later). Almost always if there are 2+ mobs on me I can go crazy with the mana-burning attacks and remain at full. If you are still having a bit of trouble, seal of wisdom is your friend. (this is basically for leveling only though, not for running through instances, so keep that in mind). Someone here said "oom" for a paladin tank doesn't mean out of mana, it means out of mobs. Once you have BoSanc, that is ABSOLUTELY the truth. As long as something is hitting you, and you have holy shield up, you are a little mana-generating machine.

If you're lucky enough to have two friends with you that you play with all the time, tell them precisely what you're doing before you do it. Let them know that it's ok to go to town on the mobs after you consecrate and they don't have to worry about pulling them off of you (if that is the case with you, and it likely will be). Having a group like that is a huge help. There is 1 other person I always party with and she knows what I do inside and out, which makes my job SO much easier. Because, let's face it, it's very annoying with a new person you're playing with keeps pulling the mobs off of you, cutting off your supply of mana and causing you to go running all over the place.

Teach your friend(s) WHY (not just how) you do these things. Tell them WHY you line of sight casters. Tell them WHY they need to wait until you consecrate. Cement in their minds what it is we do so that it becomes second nature to them to LET YOU do your job as the tank.

You have friends, USE 'EM. Run the lower level instances (a few levels lower than you). I find that with a competent tank (which you surely are if you are reading these pages) and careful pulling, you can run a lot 'em without a healer. I know, because I've done it. It's not as easy, certainly isn't as fast, but it IS possible. This will teach YOU so much too. It will teach you all kinds of great things about pulling and what your character can handle as well as what works best for your group that you play in. Plus, you get better loot, which equips you better or sells for more gold. So it's a win-win for everyone. You won't be able to run every instance, but you will be able to run quite a few this way.

Enchant, enchant, enchant. YES, it's expensive. But you can add SO much to your character this way. Koatanga mentioned the leg armor, PERFECT!! Even if it adds on a few stamina, take it if you can afford it, especially once you get up into your 40s and 50s, because you won't be changing armor every day (although if you're running dungeons, you won't need to anyway because you'll have higher quality gear). I guarantee you there will come a time when that extra 10 or 15 stamina will make a difference if you don't always have a healer around.

For me, tanking didn't really get fun until I got holy shield. It might be a bit of a grind and all before that, but when you get holy shield, things begin to fall into alignment and you begin to realize what you're doing. So stick with it, with every level you'll find yourself getting better and gaining a deeper understanding of the core concepts of tanking.

The 969 method is talked about pretty heavily and for good reason, but you really can't do that until much later levels. So initially, find a good rotation that works and allows you to waste as little time between skills as possible. As more skills become available, you will be able to begin to work on your final rotation. Even though you can't use it early-on, remember it, because you will need it later.

Of course keep reading the pages here, there is a huge amount of knowledge contained in these pages, even on the threads that might not look so exciting. If you want to be the best tankadin you can be, you have come to the right place.

Best of luck to you. I'm working my way to 80 too (at 71 now) so I know what you're going through. It's not easy, but it IS rewarding to be a great tank. Keep it up!

-b

Thank you for the detailed reply, baron. I'm very happy with how helpful and friendly this forum is. I may not make it to 80 for a while (work and a family seem to mean slower leveling...), but I'll be here often to keep learning.

Thanks again.
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Hmm i might add into the A+D for strafing maybe switching your movement keys from WASD to ESDF.

It takes a little bit of getting used to (Be prepared to mess up alot for the next week.) but once you get it down it's a god-send if you bind alot of keys.

Just from the beggining you open up 2 close-quarters Keys for binding, Q and A. I for example have Q as Judgement (of mana), W as ShotR, R as holy Shield, and 3 as HotR.

as you can see with all my keys this closely bound = I could probably tank many many things without ever using my mouse

Some people may disagree but I think everyone should really give it a try, you might like it =D
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I have a question. My paladin is at level 16 now, and I just picked up a shield with +3 Defense. On my Defense Stat tab, it shows the total Defense I have, and then explains that this gives me absolutely no benefit in-game. No additional Block, no additional Parry, nothing.

What's the point, then?
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The Armory profile is a few days old.

My defense rating is 88, which actually improves dodge, block and parry by .12%.

I'll take it.
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Hello !

I actually had the same kind of questions... I have started a paladin recently and I am trying to make a tank out of it (my first tank so not too sure about how to do that).

I also noticed that most of this forum deal with lvl 70-80 or use strange words that I cannot yet understand (surely spells that I will get in the future).

One question I still have is: what kind of weapon should I go for ? Mace ? Sword ? I prefer to have a one-hand weapon to be able to wear a shield but except that I don't really know...

Thanks a lot in advance...

Dorul

New Questions to answer!!
Ok. My theory on why the extra def isn't showing up...
I don't know.
HOWEVER, I do have an answer to your problem. An add-on called TANKPOINTS. It's not 100% perfect, but it will help you choosing gear initially, especially if you go into the options and turn on for it to show you how much of each stat you will gain with each new piece of gear. It's practically limitless how much info you can show. Parry, Dodge, Hit rating, Block, Defense, hp, mp, etc.! Pair that with Tankadin and you've got yourself all you need to figure out what armor is best for you at any given time. Hopefully that's going to solve that problem.

As for the 969 macro, it won't be any good for you yet. You don't have the proper skills at your level. Basically, right now you'll be stuck doing judgement/consecrate (if you have that yet), then a few melee swings, then repeat. As you get more skills, you add them into the rotation and you will quickly learn what is 6 second cooldown and what is 9. This is mostly for people after level 60 though, so as I said, keep it in mind, but don't worry so much about it at this point. Even at 73 I cannot do a full 969 rotation yet, just a partial one, but I can see how it's all coming together now and it all makes total and complete sense.

The ever-present weapon question. Well, as a tank, a shield is a MUST for the block and additional stats (not to mention a huuuuge jump in armor rating). It doesn't really matter all that much what you use. This is especially true in early levels. Proc rates might lead you toward one speed or other, but again, not so important in early levels. Overall, even at later levels, you should choose stats of the potential weapon over dps rating or speed. We don't build a lot of our threat via melee, but as holy damage, which has increased threat from Righteous Fury. True, more melee dmg = more holy dmg (depending on skills, ofc), but the difference between the 1h weapons isn't all THAT great and even if it were, I don't think it would make a tremendous difference in choosing one over another. Coming up I tried to look for weapons which were a good balance of str and sta with maybe a defense bonus. You won't be doing a lot of serious tanking before your 40s anyway, you just don't have the skillset to be ultra-effective. With your shield and high sta/str armor, you will have more hp than most people, and with righteous fury you'll be able to (reasonably) hold more aggro than most people, but at lower levels, nobody is really running omen and nobody cares about threat other than potential tanks. It's just not something who aren't that serious about the game care about, and you don't start coming across a lot of people who are serious until 60+.

One other thought on the weapons. Tanking weapons aren't always the best for leveling, so when you are out there by yourself, it might be beneficial to look for a weapon with attack power, str and even crit vs defense rating. Once you get holy shield, aoe leveling will become a very viable option, until then you're stuck with 1-3 mobs at a time and it'll be somewhat slow going due to our lower attack power that we get from using a 1h weapon. You could even go so far as to use a 2h weapon for leveling, if you so desire. Just be sure to keep your 1h skills leveled up so that you won't have to do a whooole lot of training when you hit higher levels. Just go smack a few mobs with each type of 1h weapon per level and you'll be fine.

Anyway, sorry about the wall of text. As always, these are my opinions, someone may disagree, but this is how I see it as I came up through the levels.

The best thing to do is to keep coming back and asking what you don't know. The community is so great here about answering questions.

Good luck guys.

So you want to level as a tankadin? Awesome. I'm sure things have changed since I did it, but I'm sure that mana is still going to be an issue. Here's how I did it.

under 40, Like someone else said, find all the of the eagle mail you can get your hands on. Scour the AH, and get pieces ahead of time if you can afford it. It used to be, you would buy all the caster jewelry /roll on caster jewelry to level. With the changes to tankadins caring about str, it might have changed, but man a mana pool is hard to manage at that level.

Also, keep an eye on of the bear (or eagle) lvl 40 plate pieces on the AH, and buy when they are cheap. Everyone knows that warriors and paladins are making the transition at this point, so you will need to bargain hunt. I had an entire set of gear for level 40 by the time my paladin was 28-30.

The most important things I found while leveling:

1.) Have as much HP and Mana as possible.
2.) A good fast weapon and a good shield make life easy.

I had a 70 when I leveled my paladin so I had cash flow, so I was able to spoil my paladin. I loved it. Armor, Shields, and weapons to make your life easier while leveling.

Shield Spikes are another way to up your damage while leveling. I used mithril and thorium spikes until I got the PLG, at which point I dropped a felsteel spike on it and went to town.

Once you start getting Sanctuary, Holy Shield, and Seal of Wisdom, you can really start working on your AoE grinding. Sure, you don't need to grind anymore, but AoE-ing Quests is a LOT of fun, and fast too.

If you want gear lists on where to get gear while leveling, let me know. I too agree with finding a smashing pair of paints and tossing a kit on them. You can do it around level 20, and then again at lvl40 with a pair of plate, and have a blast.