Paladin talent choices

[TheDragoon]

Here are some comments that I have come up with:

Precision: Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 1%/2%/3%
I hear +hit is hard to come by on tanking gear so this could be good. I figure a pally tank gets most of his threat from holy damage though so its not as good as it seems. Still, seals proc on hits that connect and so +hit does help them and so is still good.

This was the determination I made, as well. A large portion of paladin threat comes from spells (consecration, exorcism, judgments) or reflecting damage when attacked (holy shield, retribution aura). The extra hit would be nice, but is certainly not required. And, as you note, +hit is not really available on tanking gear.

Blessing of Kings: Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing total stats by 10% for 5 min. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time
I figure this isn't really going to be used that much, but if you don't need anticipation then one might as well pick this up.

I actually use Kings all of the time. It is THE primier blessing for many classes (physical damage dealers, especially). In addition, I usually use this as my tanking blessing for the simple reason that paladin tanks tend to have a much lower life total than other tanks and the extra 10% stamina can make a big difference. Now that my stamina gear has gotten a bit better, however, I have pondered trying out Blessing of Sanctuary a bit more often for tanking. The damage reduction is ok (remember, it is subtracted BEFORE armor is accounted for, so you really only get 1/2 the effect, in reality) and the threat would be a small added bonus.

Reckoning: Gives you a 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% chance after being hit by any damaging attack that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec will generate an additional attack.
More swings = more seal procs = more damage and threat

This is also the only thing that will really help out your DPS for soloing ability. When this is up, pally DPS is ok. If it isn't up, it is terrible.:)

One-Handed Weapon Specialization: Increases all damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.
Usually I would consider this a good talent, but I'm thinking that a tanking paladin probably uses a low damage weapon that has +spell damage on it. If thats the case then increasing the melee damage may not be as useful as it would normally be.

This applies to all damage, so it is a 5% threat increase across the board as well as a bonus to soloing ability. I think it is definitely worth taking.

Ardent Defender: When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 6%/12%/18%/24%/30%.
Could potentially save you if the healers get behind. Its a "things are going wrong" ability though which means that it could also not matter at all. It all depends on if you end up dead without it or not.

This is a nice abliity and I actually think it is better in 5-mans than in raids (since mobs tend to hit less hard, so they don't skip past it as easily). That said, this is completely worthless if you don't drop below 35% health, so I have tended to skimp on this for my current paladin build.

Weapon Expertise: Increases your weapon skill with all weapons by 2/4/6/8/10.
Everybody seems to say that weapon skill sucks right now. I don't know if I should believe them or not. Especially when the choice may be between points in this and points in 1H Spec with a low dps weapon. This might add at least some +hit which I've already discusses as being useful for seals.

Yeah, it really does suck. There are lots of good pally talents in the bottom of the Protection tree, so this talent doesn't get used very much.

Avenger's Shield: 1 sec cast/30 sec cooldown/30 yard range
Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing 494 to 602 Holy damage, Dazing them and then jumping to additional nearby enemies. Affects 3 total targets. Lasts 6 sec.
With the 1 second cast this can't really be used in combat. Its a range pulling option that establishes initial multi-target threat though.

Personally, I love this talent. It's at its best in 5-man instances where you can use it to pull and lock down aggro instantly. One note is that, if you're not taking much damage, you can also use it during combat for added threat. :)

Improved Seal of Righteousness: Increases the damage done by your Seal of Righteousness and Judgement of Righteousness by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15%.
This seal is probably used alot by a tanking pally and so increasing its damage is a good thing. Its tier 2 though and so requires taking a talent below it. The talents below are less useful, but not bad

I actually opted for the talent that prevents spell push-back over this one. This isn't a bad talent, but being able to heal without push-back is amazing for a Protection/Holy hybrid build.

I would also note that Illumination is still one of the best talents out there for pally healing. If you can manage to go for a build like 20/41/0, it can change a poor healing build into a pretty good healing build.

Benediction: Reduces the Mana cost of your Judgement and Seal spells by 3%/6%/9%/12%/15%.
A tanking pally probably judges and casts seals alot. Less mana cost means the pally can hold threat longer.

This talent is a nice-to-have, in my opinion. While it is true that you are judging a lot while tanking, you get mana back for taking damage and you could also just judge wisdom on a mob if you have mana problems. If you are going for the 5% parry talent to help with becoming uncrushable, this is a nice one to pick up. Otherwise, I would tend to leave it alone.

Improved Seal of the Crusader: Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Seal of the Crusader and the Holy damage increase of your Judgement of the Crusader by 5%/10%/15%.
Crusader is probably a good initial judge seal for the holy damage increase. So improving it might not be a bad deal.

It's ok, but there are better talents out there. I also tend to judge wisdom rather than Crusader, so I wouldn't see a whole lot of benefit out of this.

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As far as builds go, I am a fan of either this 20/41/0 build or this 0/49/12 build. The first is a good tanking build with enough healing to do an ok job at that role, as well. The second build picks up basically all great tanking talents from the Protection tree and fleshes it out with extra mitigation and efficiency from the Retribution tree. Some points could float in the builds (especially the precision + reduced judgment cooldown talents in the second build), but those are examples of what I would be interested in playing. :)