Ulushnar's Unified Theory of Gem Sockets.

As a hangover from the days when Paladin's had the weakest health of the three tank classes, Ulushnar's gemming choices could be best expressed in three simple words: Solid Star of Elune. (Well ok, it's four words, but the "of" doesn't really count does it?)

Since 2.3, with the Paladin Stamina boost and the shiney new badge rewards, I've had to rethink this somewhat. The biggest concern with the new badge stuff is the relative lack of Defense on the pieces. As mentioned earlier, Ulu's Defense score is dipping dangerously below the 490 cap for crit-immunity. The Resilience on his PVP shield allows him to remain crit immune, but unlike actual defense, it doesn't add anything to his overall avoidance, which is annoying.

This has caused me to develop a slightly more sophistocated thought process:

1. When raiding, Stamina is still king. No matter wether Ulu's fighting something that does magical damage (Hydross), fast physical damage (Prince Malechazzar) or slow massive physical damage (Gruul), his healthpool dictates how long Ulu can give his healers to land a heal.

2. If the socket bonus offers Stamina, then it's permissable to socket hybrid gems in the non-blue sockets, provided the total socket bonus is at least 3/non-blue socket. (IE, Unwavering Legguards have two non-blue sockets and a +6 stamina set bonus. It's acceptable to put two hybrid gems in those sockets. Wrynn Dynasty Greaves have three non-blue sockets and a +6 stamina bonus. That's only 2 Stamina/non-blue socket and therefore not worth matching colour imo.)

If the Socket bonus isn't Stamina and it isn't immediately useful (ie a few points in avoidance to make you uncrushable or a few points of defense towards the cap) then don't bother and just socket Stamina gems in all slots irrespective of colour.

3. Only ever use stamina-giving hybrid gems for non-blue slots. The shortlist of gems I'd use are:

Red Slot:

Shifting Nightseye - +4 Agility(0.16% avoidance)/+6 Stamina - Crafted
Glowing Nightseye - +5 Spell Damage/+6 Stamina - Crafted
Defender's Tazanite - +5 Parry Rating(0.2% avoidance)/+6 Stamina - Drops in Heroic Mechanar (Unique-Equipped)
Regal Tazanite - +5 Dodge Rating (0.26% avoidance)/+6 Stamina - Drops in Heroic Shadow Labyrinth (Unique-Equipped)

Yellow Slot:

Enduring Talasite - +4 Defense Rating (0.26% avoidance)/+6 Stamina - Crafted
Enduring Crysoprase - +5 Defense Rating (0.33% avoidance)/+6 Stamina - Drops in Heroic Old Hillsbrad (Unique-Equipped)

Obviously the Enduring Crysoprase and and Regal Tanzanite give the best "bang for your buck" as far as avoidance stats go. Unfortunately they're rare drops from two of the harder heroic instances and the unique equipped limitation means you can only benefit from one on your equipped gear at any time. Of the craftable red-slot gems, I'm leaning towards Glowing Nightseyes for my red slots. The avoidance the Shifting Nightseyes give is negligable, but the extra spell damage on the Glowing Nightseyes is always nice as the DPSers get better and better gear.

In summation, 2.3 has been interesting in that it's created new itemisation challenges for the pre-T6 Raiding Protadin. Stamina is still all-important, but it's definately worth balancing that with the need to stack enough avoidance and Defense to get the job done.