Please note that this post is written from a paladin perspective. I neither have a druid nor a warrior :P. Warriors have a bunch of tools at their disposal: stance dancing, disarm, etc…but I don’t really feel like listing every little thing. I’m just trying to cover the basics to give a general idea regarding the differences between Bear Druids, Prot Paladins, and Prot Warriors.

Mitigation & Avoidance
Paladin and warrior mitigation/avoidance is almost entirely gear based. In fact, both have the very similar gearing goals, with the exception that paladins need to be somewhat mindful of their spell damage and mana pool. Ideally, warriors and paladins will want 490 defense with 102% block + parry + dodge + miss. Paladins will want around 200 spell damage and around 4,000 to 5,000 mana.

Druids have a significantly higher dodge rating but can’t block or parry in bear form, making them unlikely to completely push off crushing blows. Also, because of the lack of leather +def gear, they aren’t likely to reach the magical 490+ defense in order to avoid crits. Druids though, have by far the highest HP and AC of any tanking class. They don’t try to completely avoid crits and crushes like warriors and paladins, they just take them. For example: At least pre-nerf, many well geared tanking spec’d druids were AT the 75% AC mitigation cap with 20k HP.

Threat Generation
Paladins and druids have scalable threat generation, warriors do not (druids scale with strength/AP, paladins scale with spell damage). Warrior threat, on the other hand is based off of fixed value talents and abilities. It’s a trade off: Paladins and druids can control how much threat they generate, but at the cost of stat/gem/gear slots. Though warrior threat is fixed, it’s all skill based so they are free to focus on gearing mitigation and stamina.

Paladins can also front load a significant amount of threat because they start off with a full blue rage bar. Avenger’s Shield + SoR/JoR + Consecration = thousands of threat in seconds. The fast a tank can generate threat, the faster the DPS can start nuking. On the other hand, paladins LOSE mana while warriors GAIN rage. Even with Spiritual Attunement, a paladin will expend more mana they they will get back.

Multi-Mob Tanking
Warriors can Demo Shout in order to gain initial threat on a group of enemies, but it doesn’t generate a significant amount of threat. To my knowledge, they pretty much have to constantly switch targets in order to hold aggro on multiple mobs.

Druids are a little better: Demo roar will generate a small amount of threat (similar to Demo Shout AFAIK) and swipe will generate a significant amount of threat on up to 3 mobs. Any more than 3 and the druid will have to tab switch targets ala warrior tanking.

Paladins are ideal for multi-mob tanking. Righteous Defense will taunt up to 3 mobs off of a friendly target and Consecration will generate around 200 threat per tick for 8 seconds on anything it hits. Also, the more the paladin is being hit, the more Reckoning, Holy Shield, and Redoubt will proc.

I promise that I have an actual non-WoW related post coming one of these days. Overdue for a short anime or book review. I like how all of my posts are either when: I am eating lunch at work, right before I go to bed, or at 2pm. One huge ass trick to making just about every instance smoother is crowd control. Especially important in heroic instances where you can't realistically tank more than one mob at a time (depending on the mob and instance I suppose).

The raid icons make it stupid easy to let individual party members know exactly what spell needs to be applied on what mob. Make sure to define the icons clearly before the run starts and to use them consistently. Only the party/raid leader or promoted raid members are able to use the icons. The icons can be applied on both friendly and unfriendly targets. I think the targeting icons are unbound by default so you will need to hit escape, go into the key-binding options and bind them to a set of unused keys. Otherwise, you can just use the WoW API to make a macro:

[code]/script SetRaidTargetIcon("target", x);[/code]

Where 'x' is a number that corresponds to the following symbols:
0 = Clear
1 = Star
2 = Circle
3 = Diamond
4 = Triangle
5 = Moon
6 = Square
7 = X

Most people for example, denote the skull as "DPS this target." Make sure to change the DPS icon mid fight so your party members know which target to focus on.

Edit: June 17th, 2008: What the fuck happened to the formatting? Fixed.

…because guild applicants and guild officers don’t always see eye-to-eye in terms of membership application and evaluation procedures. Raiding guilds take themselves very seriously, perhaps too much so in many cases. If you don't like that, you don't have to apply.

1. Follow directions!
Some guilds have really specific application procedures, read the forum stickies, etc. Here's a protip: How well you follow read and follow directions is often a part of our prospective member evaluation procedure. Also, some guilds like long apps, some like short apps…it really varies.

2. Read the guild documentation
This includes, the guild guidelines, the charter, DKP rules, anything stickied, etc. When you apply to a guild it is assumed that you have read all guild information provided and have agreed to all terms. If you have a question regarding loot rules, guild policies, or whatever, ask an officer for clarification.

3. Read the schedule and raid times
What time zone is this guild in? What times and days do they raid? Can you consistently make all guild events on time and for the entire duration? Can you make a long term commitment? No one likes new members who vanish a week after being ginvited due to real life situations that they "forgot" to mention.

4. Learn about the guild's culture before applying
Some guilds are prudish, some spout sex jokes every 5 seconds, some are composed of adults, some are composed of 12 year olds, some are casual, some are not. Guild officers not only want good decent, but people who will mesh well with preexisting players. Hint hint hint: a guild isn't going to get up and change just because dick jokes make you feel uncomfortable. Deal with it or don't apply.

5. Don't apply or trial for multiple guilds at the same time
I know it may seem more efficient, but this offends many guilds…who will instantly deny you any chance of membership for applying on another site. Remember: Guilds are looking for members who are committed to their guild, not every guild on the server.

6. Don't schedule multiple trials
Basically the same answer as above. I've had people schedule multiple trial runs with multiple guilds at the exact same time and wonder why their application was denied. WTF?

7. Don't make a "copy and paste application"
Most guild sites have a specific form that they wish to be filled out. Use that format, not your own. There are two reasons why: 1. It shows that you can to some extent read and follow instructions, 2. Having all applications in a standard format makes it easier for the officers to read.

8. Spell check
Use properly punctuated English, spell check and make sure that your application isn't one huge block of text. Most guild officers have an instant bias against applications that they are unable to read. If you can't give me the time of day to write a readable application, I'm not likely to give you the time of day for a trial. (By extension, please please don't write Walls of Text. Paragraph = friend).

9. Don't lie
Why do people outright LIE on applications? We can see your gear and spec in the armory, we can determine approximately how much experience you have in certain instances by looking at your rep, and we can also find your REAL guild history as well as interview your former GMs. Honesty, even from people with colorful guild histories, is appreciated.

10. Don't omit information
If there is a question that you can't answer or wish to keep private, just say so. Omitting important information looks suspicious.

Protection
Overall threat buff from the talent changes and an increase in damage mitigation in the sense that Holy Shield won’t proc off as easily with 8 charges instead of 4. Nerf to tanking duration. Talents aside, what about reitemizing our gear? WTB more stamina, damage mitigation, and spell damage…NOT int and mana/5. Threat buffs are nice, but threat really isn’t our problem at the moment.

• The Spiritual Attunement nerf shouldn’t be that much of a problem in raids due to the amount of healing recieved, but I worry a little about our tanking duration in the 5-mans. I have to budget mana as it is…
• The Improved Holy Shield talent is very nice. More damage means more threat and more charges means that Holy Shield won’t likely expire unless you are fighting a mob that attacks extremely fast.
• Avenger’s Shield changes are good. Though dead zone elimination is a buff, given the high cooldown, mana cost, and tendency to break nearby CC, how useful will AS be? …and will we have enough mana to cast this with the Spiritual Attunement nerfs.
• I’m not sure that 5 points is worth 5% more damage from all sources (and aggro for that matter), but then again, deep deep down in the tree, there might not be anything else worth spending 5 points on.
• Argent Defender: Even with the reduction from 50% to 30%, the threshold increase from 20% to 35% should be nice, need to crunch some numbers to see for sure. It’s still pretty easy to leapfrog though…

Holy
Illumination nerf, spell crit has been effectively devalued by 50%. It’s not completely useless, but it’s going to force many healadins (and devs?) to re-examine their healing gear and healing style. Itemization wise, the nerf sucks hard, being a class that’s very much dependant on gear. Are they going to change the stats on T4 and T5? The spell crit on level 70 healing plate items ain’t lookin’ so great at the moment.

Flash of Light duration isn’t that super affected; stacking on mana/5 still means that you can chain FoL and almost never run out of mana. You can’t do that with Holy Light…unless they add UNGODLY amounts of mana/5 on our sets, HL spam duration still depends on getting crits and getting mana back. So, what about being the main healer in heroics? It’s not as if you can heal heroic instances on Flash of Light alone…not with mobs hitting for 2 to 4k on plate.

So again, itemization: Nearly ever paladin is going to have to take a look at their healing set and gearing goal. It’s not a devastating class-ending blow, but it will hurt a lot…

Retribution
The Vengeance change is interesting. Does it refresh with each crit (in the same way that SoV does)? How does this affect the ideal 2H DPS weapon speed? Slower weapons mean larger crits (3.8 is "ideal" for SoC), but it also means less of a chance to refresh the buff within the 15 second time frame. So, is this a buff, debuff, or sidegrade?

Full Paladin Patch Notes

• "Ardent Defender" (Protection Talent) now reduces damage taken by 6-30% when below 35% health.
• "Avenger’s Shield" no longer has a minimum range. It may be used onany target within 30 yards.
• "Avenger’s Shield": The damage portion of this ability will now be applied even if the victim is immune to snare.
• "Divine Shield": This ability no longer removes or prevents the "Weakened Soul" debuff.
• "Eye for an Eye": Some spells did not trigger "Eye for an Eye" correctly. That has been fixed.
• Fixed some data errors that caused "Seal of Command" and "Seal of Blood" to generate more threat than intended.
• "Forbearance": It is no longer possible to use a macro to gain the benefit of "Avenging Wrath" and "Divine Shield" at the same time.
• "Greater Blessing of Kings": The cost for this blessing is now twicethe cost of "Blessing of Kings", instead of a fixed cost of 150.
• "Greater Blessing of Sanctuary 2": The range on this spell was incorrectly set to 30 yards. It has been changed to 40 yards.
• "Greater Blessing of Wisdom 3": The range on this spell was incorrectly set to 30 yards. It has been changed to 40 yards.
• "Hammer of Wrath": Rank 4, damage increased.
• "Holy Concentration": This talent now affects "Binding Heal".
• "Illumination": This talent now only gives 50% of the mana cost of the critical heal. It also now returns the correct amount of mana when used with ranks 4 and 5 of "Holy Shock".
• "Improved Seal of Righteousness": The percentage increase in damagefrom this talent is now applied after all bonuses from items and effects which increase your spell damage.
• New Protection Talent added: "Improved Holy Shield", 2 ranks: Increases damage caused by "Holy Shield" by 10/20% and increases the number of charges of "Holy Shield" by 2/4.
• "One-Handed Weapon Specialization" (Protection): Now increases all damage caused by the paladin by 1-5% while a one-handed weapon is equipped.
• "Seal of Blood": This seal will no longer cause additional chances for weapon procs to trigger.
• "Seal of Righteousness": This seal will no longer cause additional chances for weapon procs to trigger.
• "Seal of the Crusader": The rank 7 tooltip has been fixed to read the same as other ranks of this spell.
• "Spiritual Attunement": First-aid generated healing will no longer trigger this ability. However, "Lifebloom", "Earth Shield", and "Improved Leader of the Pack" will now trigger it correctly. The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate it only works on healing from spells.
• "Spiritual Attunement": Mana is no longer healed if the paladin is at full health.
• "Stoicism" (Protection) should now properly affect all magic effects cast by the Paladin and no longer applies double its intended benefit to "Blessing of Might" and "Blessing of Wisdom".
• "Vengeance" (Retribution Talent) now increases Holy and Physical damage by 1/2/3/4/5% for 15 seconds following a critical hit, but the effect now stacks up to 3 times.
• Vindicator Aesom at Blood Watch will now correctly train a full range of paladin spells.

To clarify the following statement that I made regarding the "490 defense cap" in this post:

490 is also the CAP for defense in relation to critical strike mitigation (unless they raise the maximum mob level beyond 73). Tseric was quoted as saying, "At 490 defense, the math caps out.

490 defense is the cap for critical strike mitigation only (confirmed by Tseric on the US WoW boards). You will still get miss, dodge, parry, and block (14.7875 defense rating for 0.25% to miss dodge parry and block, 1% total mitigation/avoidance). You will still benefit from defense past 490. At 490 defense you become uncrittable to any mob in the game. After reaching 490 you want to work towards raising your block% + dodge% + parry% + Miss% to 100% total so that you will be immune to crushing blows.

Block is technically the most efficient way of raising mitigation, but it is also the hardest to obtain since it’s not really found on a whole lot of things or chantable. Dodge is second I would say because it’s raisable via agility as well as +dodge (ratio isn’t that bad either). Dodge is nice because dodging means you recieve no damage. (I need to double check my ratio formulas for tanking stats, don’t think some are correct).