Prot Spec? Why bother.... For most of the game anyways.

So for now anyways, I've put Prot on the back burner. Not because I don't like tanking. But Because it's not needed to tank 90% of the content in game atm once you have a little gear. At least the some of the 10 man and all Heroic 5-Man content is tankable in a PVP-Ret Spec.

Basically to make it work, you just need to have the Rightious Fury Talent for agro. Thats it.

And realistically, my gear isn't anything special:

Titansteel Helm/Shield/Feet
Tanking Badge Neck/Belt
Badge Pally Class Gloves
Zone Wide BoE Blue Tanking Cloak from Heroic UP
Iceguard Crafted BP
Tempered Saronite Bracer
Naxx10 Off-Set Legs
Essence of Gossimer and Thadius Trinket
Keystone Greatring and Some Blue Ring
RSoC
Spaulders of the Collasus

The legs were a sidegrade to the H Violet Hold legs, and the Thadius Trinket is a minor upgrade to the Normal HoL trinket. So realistically, anyone could assemble the gear I have.

Tanking Heroics are trivial. I dont even have 5% Dodge, 5% Parry Talents, and only 2/5 Armor talent. No Holy Shield. No Kings. No Sanc. No HP Boosts. No Damage Reduction talents above the 6% added by RF. No 20% slow on my judgements.

Trash and Bosses just dont hit hard enough to make me sweat it. Heroics were silly trivial in my gear as Prot Spec. And there silly trivial as Ret.

I still dont bother CCing mobs. However. If I want too, I do have Repentance (which makes the optional Whirlwind boss in H Nexus silly trivial since you can Repentance one of the clerics for the entire fight). Repentance is actually a handy tool to have as a tank. Not having to rely on other people to CC if you feel like CCing is really nice.

I'm also parsing decent DPS on single targets now. And still doing well on AE targets. SoC is great for threat, and you have Judgement, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, SoR Rank 2 (and 1 if you wanna abuse the bug).

I also have AoW procs to throw on myself or other group members if needed.

So really... If your just running 5-Man Heroics, and Pugging 10/25 Vault, 10/25 Sarth, and piddleing in Naxx10/25, get your Ret Spec on. I even lug my Healing Gear around, because I can heal in 5-Man Heroics, and 10/25 Vault/Sarth specced like this as well.

So Basically, Ret gives you the functionality to do almost EVERYTHING in the game right now, minus MTing some of the higher end raid bosses. But considering my stats are better than when I started MTing in Naxx10/25, chances are a lot of those instances are doable specced Ret as well.

So why cripply yourself with Re-Spec fee's or pigeon-hole yourself into one role. This way you can PVP when you want too. Tank, Heal or DPS in instances when you want too. Basically you have the freedome to play whatever part of the game you want, at any time.

This will only get easier with Dual-Spec. Since you can keep your "weakest" role as your Dual-Spec, and use Ret for everything else.

Hey man, if that's what you want to do, sure. The content is, indeed, quite easy right now. I do suspect you'd have some trouble with Malygos or a Sartharion with drakes up situation, though.
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Moduspwnens - Shattered Hand

If your healers already overgear 10/25 bosses, sure, go for it. Just bear in mind you're providing them a lot more stress than you should be.

Basically, you can condense your post into "Heroics are easy enough, and the healers I run with are good enough, that I can Ret tank Heroics without wiping". Ok, grats.

If you apply that to the 10/25 level, don't kid yourself....if you're being successful tanking in a PvP Ret spec, your healers are carrying you.

yeah, you can, but why would you?

if your not taking much damage anyways just pull more, or same amount and have your healer DPS
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Worth mentioning that the same goes for Warriors, DK's, and at least cat spec Druids (I'm not sure but Balance/Resto might be able to pull it off as well with the right gear).
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And the emperor still wears no clothes...

Don't misunderstand me....I'm not saying you can't tank heroics as Ret...clearly, you can, since you've done it.

However, you're still requiring more work out of your healers to make it happen...as in, they have to work harder to keep you alive than they would if you were Prot. That's not speculation, that's simply hard fact....you're missing survival talents that make their job more difficult.

Now, is that extra work acceptable in a Heroic? Sounds like both you and your healers think it is....good for you guys. Have fun doing it.

Is it acceptable in a 10-man? Sounds like both you and your healers think that it is, in some 10-mans. Again, mazel tov.

Is it acceptable in 25-mans? (are you seeing a pattern here?)

Just make sure your healers are as cool with it as you seem to be.

I would pimp slap my healers if they were like "lolz look I can heal 10 mans in my DPS spec with holy gear on", and I would expect them to do the same if I did that.

Sure, you can tank anything in the wrong spec once you outgear it, but who cares. You act like 100g to respec back and forth is non trivial. I don't care how casually you play, you can spend 20 minutes and make 100g from dailies. I probably make 20 or 30 gold every heroic I do just off vendor trash and looting coin.

I guarantee you that you cannot pull and tank heroics as fast as I do in a Prot spec, because when I outgear things, I do them faster, rather than doing them in a different spec.

Definitely not judging what you're saying, but this sort of thing has always been true. I just happen to be the kind of person who expects everyone to be doing their job at maximum capacity. How would you like it if you had a Prot paladin who wanted to join your group and DPS but he just didn't feel like respeccing to Ret to do real dps?

Also:

@OP: Is this the spec you use?
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