On Talents.

I've seen lots of posts over on Maintankadin about variations on the standard 0/49/12 cookie-cutter talent spec.

These tend to come in two camps:

1. The "Divine Intellect/Improved Seal of Righteousness" spec. People seem to think the solution to going out of mana is to have more of it. Seems like a good idea right? Wrong. In my Boss-tanking gear, I have 119 Intellect. Raid-buffed, that hits about 190. Divine Intellect is therefore worth 19 Intellect to me, or 285 mana. That's barely enough for one Holy Shield.

Tankadins just don't stack enough Intellect in the normal run of things to make Divine Intellect worth the points. And as for Improved Seal of Righteousness, meh, it's ok I guess, but it's not worth speccing ten points away from the Prot/Ret Trees for, especially when we have Improved Seal of the Crusader and One-Handed spec in easy reach of the necessary talents if we need a threat boost.

2. Then we have the "Sanctity Aura" lovers. These people believe it's worth sacrificing some of the Higher-tier talents in the Protection tree to spend 21 points in Retribution for Sanctity Aura. It's impossible to get this talent without sacrificing Avenger's Sheild (the Paladin's only ranged aggro maneouver) and some points from either One-handed Specialisation, Combat Expertise, Improved Holy Shield or Ardent Defender. This will weaken your survivability and threat generation in return for an Aura that gives you +10% Holy Damage when you have the chance to use me. Don't get me wrong, Sanctity Aura's nice, but it's not worth what you currently have to give up.

The sad fact of the matter is, to be a raid level main tank, there are certain talents that are pretty much essential:

Protection (43 points)
5/5 Redoubt
5/5 Toughness
3/3 Improved Righteous Fury
3/3 Shield Specialization
5/5 Anticipation
1/1 Blessing of Sanctuary
2/2 Sacred Duty
5/5 One-Handed Weapon Specialization
2/2 Improved Holy Shield
1/1 Holy Shield
5/5 Ardent Defender
5/5 Combat Expertise
1/1 Avenger's Shield

Retribution (10 points)
5/5 Benediction
5/5 Deflection

(List courtesy of Kalbear on Maintankadin)

That's 53 out of a possible 61 Talent points in order to do the job of tanking big nasties, with the other eight points down to a matter of choice. As it stands, this side of Wrath of the Lich King and Wow 3.0, There really isn't that much chance for variation.

My own spec pretty much hits all the beats described above, swapping one point in One-Handed Specialization for Blessing of Kings and adding Precision, Improved Judgement and Improved Seal of the Crusader to the mix.

The long and short of this is simple. Smarter people than you have explored the extent of content with a Protection Paladin and found the best combination of talents to do the job. There really isn't enough wiggle room to substantially mess with the formula if you want to do a good job.