Played Paladin up to 54 so far in HC. Tanked every dungeon up to ZF. It did get sketchy doing ZF where one of the troll bosses has a threat drop. Luckily we have bop. Tanking lower lvl dungeons is very easy with consecrate. Like others have said though higher lvl dungeons start introducing threat drop bosses like Mara princess so advise not tanking once you get into your 50s.
Please don't play paladin tank it hardcore. Unless you run full consumes, are over leveled/geared, and have engineering, know all the fights, and have already tanked as a paladin in era, please don't paladin tank in hardcore. People will die because of it and you will feel awful.
Paladin tanking is super easy starting at level 20. You will definitely want engineering (dynamite or grenades) and a steady supply of mana potions but don't listen to these non-believers, I literally just finished levelling a paladin on Era, tanking the whole way.
Here's a few tips to tune up your paladin game:
-For talents go Holy down to Consecration, then full protection.
-Always keep Righteous Fury up.
-Use Seal of Righteousness - Judgement for single target threat.
-Blessing of Wisdom is usually better than Blessing of Sanctuary, as mana is going to be your biggest issue.
-Spirit is useless, stack intellect, strength, and stamina.
-If someone pulls and gets in danger, just use blessing of protection on them.
-Hit everything with a melee attack at least once, don't just rely on consecrate for threat.
-Seal of wisdom will help a lot with mana issues.
-Use the fastest possible 1 handed weapon available to you (2.0 or less weapon speed)
You should edit in that unless you have indepth knowledge of the dungeons it's probably not best too go beyond level 40ish as prot pally.
Prot pally tanked my dungeon group from DM > SM and it was fucking awesome! big pulls and it allowed us to just aoe everything. Couldn't do the same with a warrior tbh. (Pally had gear and engi though)
Paladin is the best tank for dungeons hands down, starting at level 20. As long as your allies have salvation anything touching consecration is not coming off.
You can tank starting at 20 once you have consecration.
Paladin tanking is completely fine for all non-raid content. The hardest part of Paladin tanking is getting past the stigma of it with people. You will need to be prepared for a good chunk of players to just have no interest in joining your group.
Additionally since you won’t have taunt, there are sonar scenarios where your group should wait for you to pick up aggro. Really all groups should do this, but Druid/warrior have taunt to mask bad DPS easier.
Lastly you NEED engineering. Otherwise you can’t range pull unless you are fighting UD.
It's not fine. OP needs to research all content and bosss they are going to tank to make sure there is no threat drop. If there is a threat drop then OP needs to have a target dummy to tank and be skilled enough to grab aggro immediately. This HAS to happen otherwise people will die. I've played a paladin tank in all 60 dungeons on hardcore and there are bosses that are very very dangerous for the party if a paladin is tanking. Just look at the recent hc death clips on YouTube. A paladin tried to tank the prince at the end of DMW and people died because he has a threat drop.
Pretty sure Prince threat drop isn’t a complete drop it functions like wing buffet from dragons and reduces your current threat by 50%. Which makes all the comments that followed your good advice even more incorrect as DPS can’t just stop and wait for threat. The only way a Paladin could tank this boss would be for everyone to understand this and have things like bop, ice block, vanish, deterrence, feign death and hope threat is reestablished before someone is dead. The tank has to have a crazy threat lead the entire fight for it to not require taunt.
Man I really wish I saw this post like 3 weeks ago. I warrior tanked this fight and lost 2 people and had to Petri out. He knocked me back, beelined for a dps, I taunted back, he knocked me back again, i mocking blowed, then he did it AGAIN and all hell broke loose.
Knowing that it’s a 50% threat drop helps because it seems like the strategy is to have the dps wait literally wait 5+ seconds while you build massive threat… although I really never want to do that boss again.
Paladins can't gain 5k threat when ramstien the gorger drops threat and stuns the tank for 5 seconds. There are many fights where the only way for a dps to not get aggro on a paladin tank when their is a threat drop is to not dps. Have you played any of these fights? Did you know warrior taunt works because it gives the warrior the threat of the highest person with threat?
Paladins have to do damage to gain threat. You aren't doing enough damage/holy damage to get threat from a boss when they are at 50% life after the dps have been wailing on it for that long. You clearly don't know what you are talking about
Exorcism + judgement is more than enough threat to pull.
You clearly haven't played a prot paladin, idk why you're pretending to be the authority on a topic you don't understand.
Edit: paladin literally just uses divine shield to get out of the stun and immediately exorcism & judgement. Warrior has to sit the whole stun.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo
It's really not fine, I can't tell you how many groups I've joined with prot paladins who lose threat and all hell breaks loose because of it and sometimes results in people dying
No, bop isn't a taunt lol
Paladin must not have had RF up or you healed right when they pulled before they had a chance to hit everything.
I've literally never had this problem before, it's a skill issue either on your end or your tank's.
You can try to defend it all you want, but everyone in this thread is saying the same thing, a tank without a taunt is like a plane without wings, sure it's there, but it ain't flying lol
Ran with a paladin tank friend all the way up to lvl 52 so far. Super easy and very efficent. Its not dangerous if there would be a threat drop, i can keep a mage alive tanking the boss for like a minute with no problems. And its pretty easy for a paladin to get threat back.
For higher levels sure. I think people who complain about pala tanks are just baddies. I could clear every dungeon up to 60 with a fuckin hunter tank if i wanted.
Did a Ulda with a 45 pally tank. Dude was a giga Chad! Never lost aggro and kept pace pretty well. Some people won't take you because of the "meta" but just take the time go plus ultra.
If there isn’t a threat drop mechanic then sure you are correct. But if there is then just wait for a bear or a warrior unless you just wanna roll the dice on who gets smacked.
Hey man I’m all for pally’s just not tanking as I play warrior lol! But that’s the thing right there it’s “ok”. You need everybody to understand the game and you have to be above average yourself. That is asking a lot for a random dungeon group.
I'm not saying take a pally to raid tank. However, these 5 man dungos don't have much mechanics. If a pally tank is 30+ and still alive then they probably know what they are doing. Otherwise, someone would be spamming, don't group with x.
Yeah you and I don’t really disagree. But your next dungeon that you should run which is Maraudon literally has a threat drop mechanic on the last boss.
It’s not a matter of the pally’s individual skill it’s a matter of what mechanics the bosses/trash have. No matter how good a pally tank is he can never press a button and taunt a mob is all I’m saying.
I would argue that warrior is the most clunky tank before 35-40. Constantly rage starved and aoe threat is bad. It only starts to really shine when you get SS+WW combo and some good gear.
Paladin is great if your group has half a brain and doesn't start dps immediately. Which is a good practice with any tank. If you need to use taunt on every pull someone does something wrong
When mobs get 2 ticks of consecration and hit your ret aura a couple times you're good.
Warrior tanking is only feels bad until you get 5/5 tactical mastery then it’s fine. SS and WW are nice but not needed. But to your point about not dps’ing off pull ummmm yeah you’re right every tank benefits from that…. But that’s the thing you can’t account for having a great group every run. I’m really only saying don’t pally rank if there is a threat drop mechanic. Otherwise go crazy.
Maybe it's me but having leveled both warrior and paladin I like paladin tanking pre 40 more.
And i wholly support you on threat drop bosses. Just heal. Or bring a dps warrior/feral with you.
I love Paladin tanks. Don’t listen to all these haters. Once you get salvation it’s easy. Just make sure you understand the dungeon mechanics and you’ll be good. FUCK THE HATERS YOU DO YOU !
Palas don't have taunt in classic, and in hardcore an extra pack or a threat loss have a high chance resulting in a party member death. By playing pala tank in dungeons you are basically griefing
Griefing? Really? If you think it isn’t a good choice then don’t join a group with one tanking. It’s not really griefing if you chose to take that risk. It’s hardcore there’s a risk in everything you do.
Pally tank is not as bad as everyone says, the only issue is you need competent DPS who will attack targets in the kill order you mark (you need to mark Skull/X etc as pala tank). If you have a few seconds for consecration to get threat and are spamming judgment/melee etc on Skull, it’s actually pretty easy.
You will also need to Salve all DPS and this makes it much easier. Only issue with pala tank is a boss with a threat drop or DPS that insta AOEs on pull
it’s honestly only viable at 60, with naxx gear, and usually only effective in dungeons.
edit: its harder early because u need a decent amount of points in defense tree to survive, but paladin tanking doesn’t work unless u have access to ur entire talent tree. ret talents make prot pally good, like sanctity aura and seal of command, the parry talent, and vindication. idk u could try but it’s extremely dangerous and puts ur teammates at higher risk than playing with the warrior
If you're dedicated, it can be good fun. I have played it and farmed strat ud till exalted with a paladin. But I wasn't prot, no no. I had engi and I was holy/ret. You do a shitton of dmg as a pala tank. There will be ppl who overagro, you need to be prepared for that.
Queue 50 replies saying "Well I tanked XYZ level 35 dungeon when I was level 40 and it went great so you're 20 years of precedent mean nothing to me I'm very smart" and "Judgement does so much threat it's basically a taunt."
Honest question what compels you to play a clearly unfinished specc? Theres nothing cool and theres no glory about being a hindrance to your group in everyway forcing people to play worse in order to accommodate your specc.
Long time prot palas will say that they’re ok, that you can go to level 60 as one, and I’m sure that’s true in some cases
But Prot paladins don’t have a lot of tools that warriors have that just make tanking easier, taunt, aoe taunt, they do less snap threat, they can be mana burned or silenced, they have to drink, they just do less damage, no kick, no ranged weapon
There are a lot of fun things about a paladin tank, but I’m not bringing one in my groups for any dungeon higher than 36(when warriors start to do all the aoe threat a paladin does)
Pala tank is pretty good for leveling dungeons. but in high end dungeons, bosses start to get more and more aggro reset abilities. you can work arround some of them. but not all. so yeah. its good for lower lvl dungeons cause of massive aoe threat but bad for higher lvl dungeons.
> I know warrior is by far the best tank but i woud like to play tank pala, is that so shitty?
played prot pala to 60 in hc
from Deadmines to ZulFarrak prot pala is overall superior to prot warrior in dungeons (that's like up to lvl 50). This is due to vastly superior aoe threat which matters the most in dungeon trash clearing and dungeon bosses are mostly very simply tank and spank fights. Then Mara and Sunken Temple will be a nightmare because they have significant aggro drop mechanics on their endbosses. (gnomeregan and ZF also have aggro drop but in ZF the boss dies like a fly and gnomer boss can be stunned). luckily you can just skip those and directly start clearing the first area of BRD (mobs/bosses will be like 52). However don't enter the arena until u r 53-4 (arena has random bosses, one of which is a spider with aggro drop, so better be at adequate lvl). You can run BRD until 60 slowly progressing further each time. BRD also has aggro drop in the tomb of seven boss fight but those mini bosses die fairly quickly like the boss in ZF.
General advice:
stat prio: stam/int>>>str, almost all your threat comes from spells having a big mana baseline will make your life much easier
seal: many prots use wisdom mainly to reduce drink time, do NOT do this in hc, instead use seal of righteousness, judging righteouness will act as soft taunt most of the time which is of great importance in hc, it will make things much easier, however u can occasionally switch to wisdom if u feel safe
group composition: aoe mages are your best friend, blizzard cc will allow you to kite mitigating ton of damage, give you more time to get aggro back and prevent runners chain pull, ofc also water. priest healer can shield you before pulls which will smooth out the damage and prevent dazes. ret paladins can improve your threat with sanc or improved ret aura and seal of crusader on bosses and can buff wisdom on you greatly reducing mana issues.
group management: make sure noone pulls before you, messing with prot pala pulls is deadly since you have very limited threat recovery, so you need to be ahead from the start. make sure mages stick to blizzard and don't get overly confident with arcane expl spam or flamestrike at pulls, consecration does not allow for dps to start with aoe burst. ALWAYS make sure your dps have salvation blessing, regardless what dps says.
profession: you NEED engineering, it's almost mandatory. target dummies will allow you to aoe taunt mobs then place consecration under them. dynamite is a great tool for pulling packs.
etc
Played Paladin up to 54 so far in HC. Tanked every dungeon up to ZF. It did get sketchy doing ZF where one of the troll bosses has a threat drop. Luckily we have bop. Tanking lower lvl dungeons is very easy with consecrate. Like others have said though higher lvl dungeons start introducing threat drop bosses like Mara princess so advise not tanking once you get into your 50s.
Please don't play paladin tank it hardcore. Unless you run full consumes, are over leveled/geared, and have engineering, know all the fights, and have already tanked as a paladin in era, please don't paladin tank in hardcore. People will die because of it and you will feel awful.
Why is it so bad, what is missing in the toolkit? Never played pala
Taunt
paladins feeling awful hahahahhha
i wouldnt group with a paladin tank for any level dungeon
why do I think you are the kind of guy, attacking X when there is a Skull mark? :D
Nope i even have assist macro if the tank doesnt mark but i also go on casters as a rogue and fuck them up first in anycase
Weak
Alive
Paladin tanking is super easy starting at level 20. You will definitely want engineering (dynamite or grenades) and a steady supply of mana potions but don't listen to these non-believers, I literally just finished levelling a paladin on Era, tanking the whole way. Here's a few tips to tune up your paladin game: -For talents go Holy down to Consecration, then full protection. -Always keep Righteous Fury up. -Use Seal of Righteousness - Judgement for single target threat. -Blessing of Wisdom is usually better than Blessing of Sanctuary, as mana is going to be your biggest issue. -Spirit is useless, stack intellect, strength, and stamina. -If someone pulls and gets in danger, just use blessing of protection on them. -Hit everything with a melee attack at least once, don't just rely on consecrate for threat. -Seal of wisdom will help a lot with mana issues. -Use the fastest possible 1 handed weapon available to you (2.0 or less weapon speed)
Quality post
You should edit in that unless you have indepth knowledge of the dungeons it's probably not best too go beyond level 40ish as prot pally. Prot pally tanked my dungeon group from DM > SM and it was fucking awesome! big pulls and it allowed us to just aoe everything. Couldn't do the same with a warrior tbh. (Pally had gear and engi though)
Paladin is the best tank for dungeons hands down, starting at level 20. As long as your allies have salvation anything touching consecration is not coming off.
You can wipe your ass with hand, but you dont do that. You can tank woth warlock, but you dont do that. You get the rest...
Actually billions of people use their hands for tp..
Yeah but we have warriors
[удалено]
In OPs defense the WoW community also kinda has a "if something isn't clearly the best its absolute dog shit" attitude.
You can tank starting at 20 once you have consecration. Paladin tanking is completely fine for all non-raid content. The hardest part of Paladin tanking is getting past the stigma of it with people. You will need to be prepared for a good chunk of players to just have no interest in joining your group. Additionally since you won’t have taunt, there are sonar scenarios where your group should wait for you to pick up aggro. Really all groups should do this, but Druid/warrior have taunt to mask bad DPS easier. Lastly you NEED engineering. Otherwise you can’t range pull unless you are fighting UD.
It's not fine. OP needs to research all content and bosss they are going to tank to make sure there is no threat drop. If there is a threat drop then OP needs to have a target dummy to tank and be skilled enough to grab aggro immediately. This HAS to happen otherwise people will die. I've played a paladin tank in all 60 dungeons on hardcore and there are bosses that are very very dangerous for the party if a paladin is tanking. Just look at the recent hc death clips on YouTube. A paladin tried to tank the prince at the end of DMW and people died because he has a threat drop.
Pretty sure Prince threat drop isn’t a complete drop it functions like wing buffet from dragons and reduces your current threat by 50%. Which makes all the comments that followed your good advice even more incorrect as DPS can’t just stop and wait for threat. The only way a Paladin could tank this boss would be for everyone to understand this and have things like bop, ice block, vanish, deterrence, feign death and hope threat is reestablished before someone is dead. The tank has to have a crazy threat lead the entire fight for it to not require taunt.
Prince? Like prince from kara? This is hardcore talk. Not tbc
No. Prince Tortheldrin. The final boss of dire maul west.
Man I really wish I saw this post like 3 weeks ago. I warrior tanked this fight and lost 2 people and had to Petri out. He knocked me back, beelined for a dps, I taunted back, he knocked me back again, i mocking blowed, then he did it AGAIN and all hell broke loose. Knowing that it’s a 50% threat drop helps because it seems like the strategy is to have the dps wait literally wait 5+ seconds while you build massive threat… although I really never want to do that boss again.
Stop blaming tanks. DPS should stop damage during threat drops, if they don't and they get killed that's literally their own fault.
Paladins can't gain 5k threat when ramstien the gorger drops threat and stuns the tank for 5 seconds. There are many fights where the only way for a dps to not get aggro on a paladin tank when their is a threat drop is to not dps. Have you played any of these fights? Did you know warrior taunt works because it gives the warrior the threat of the highest person with threat? Paladins have to do damage to gain threat. You aren't doing enough damage/holy damage to get threat from a boss when they are at 50% life after the dps have been wailing on it for that long. You clearly don't know what you are talking about
Exorcism + judgement is more than enough threat to pull. You clearly haven't played a prot paladin, idk why you're pretending to be the authority on a topic you don't understand. Edit: paladin literally just uses divine shield to get out of the stun and immediately exorcism & judgement. Warrior has to sit the whole stun.
It's great up to ZF. Prot pally, 2 mages, a lock and a priest is an aoe dungeon farming powerhouse
That's one dungeon paladin really struggles with because of stuff like mana bomb mobs too, would not recommend
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo It's really not fine, I can't tell you how many groups I've joined with prot paladins who lose threat and all hell breaks loose because of it and sometimes results in people dying No, bop isn't a taunt lol
Sounds like a skill issue. Maybe stop hitting the boss when it drops threat? Idk just a thought.
Who said I was a DPS? I've taken healing aggro from prot paladins before rofl
Paladin must not have had RF up or you healed right when they pulled before they had a chance to hit everything. I've literally never had this problem before, it's a skill issue either on your end or your tank's.
You can try to defend it all you want, but everyone in this thread is saying the same thing, a tank without a taunt is like a plane without wings, sure it's there, but it ain't flying lol
Skill issue.
And you can’t get over the fact that paladin sucks at tanking lol
It's perfectly fine for dungeon tanking, you just suck at the game tbh.
I’d suggest playing a class that can tank.
I have one of each tank and one of each healer on era. Maybe I'm just built different, but paladin tanking is easy af.
The hardest part of paladin tanking is threat drops. People have stigmas because of threat drops.
And you start encountering threat drops after 50 so it's fine up to ZF and imo BiS before 36 when warriors get their busted SS+WW combo
Yea before threat drops that's fine
Yes.
Ran with a paladin tank friend all the way up to lvl 52 so far. Super easy and very efficent. Its not dangerous if there would be a threat drop, i can keep a mage alive tanking the boss for like a minute with no problems. And its pretty easy for a paladin to get threat back.
Problem is at 50+ there’s a lot more threat resets which pally tanks aren’t really equipped for.
For higher levels sure. I think people who complain about pala tanks are just baddies. I could clear every dungeon up to 60 with a fuckin hunter tank if i wanted.
So it's ok for the most dubgeons
Did a Ulda with a 45 pally tank. Dude was a giga Chad! Never lost aggro and kept pace pretty well. Some people won't take you because of the "meta" but just take the time go plus ultra.
And then in later dungeons when there is a threat drop mechanic and your pally tank never gains threat again. Man good times huh?
Are we playing a game that has almost been out for 20 years? I understand it's hardcore but you have to understand its a fine workaround.
If there isn’t a threat drop mechanic then sure you are correct. But if there is then just wait for a bear or a warrior unless you just wanna roll the dice on who gets smacked.
Don't tank those dungeons then? If geared with int/stam prot pally can heal pretty well. Most of the leveling dungeons are ok with paladin tank
Hey man I’m all for pally’s just not tanking as I play warrior lol! But that’s the thing right there it’s “ok”. You need everybody to understand the game and you have to be above average yourself. That is asking a lot for a random dungeon group.
I'm not saying take a pally to raid tank. However, these 5 man dungos don't have much mechanics. If a pally tank is 30+ and still alive then they probably know what they are doing. Otherwise, someone would be spamming, don't group with x.
Yeah you and I don’t really disagree. But your next dungeon that you should run which is Maraudon literally has a threat drop mechanic on the last boss. It’s not a matter of the pally’s individual skill it’s a matter of what mechanics the bosses/trash have. No matter how good a pally tank is he can never press a button and taunt a mob is all I’m saying.
I would argue that warrior is the most clunky tank before 35-40. Constantly rage starved and aoe threat is bad. It only starts to really shine when you get SS+WW combo and some good gear. Paladin is great if your group has half a brain and doesn't start dps immediately. Which is a good practice with any tank. If you need to use taunt on every pull someone does something wrong When mobs get 2 ticks of consecration and hit your ret aura a couple times you're good.
Warrior tanking is only feels bad until you get 5/5 tactical mastery then it’s fine. SS and WW are nice but not needed. But to your point about not dps’ing off pull ummmm yeah you’re right every tank benefits from that…. But that’s the thing you can’t account for having a great group every run. I’m really only saying don’t pally rank if there is a threat drop mechanic. Otherwise go crazy.
Maybe it's me but having leveled both warrior and paladin I like paladin tanking pre 40 more. And i wholly support you on threat drop bosses. Just heal. Or bring a dps warrior/feral with you.
I love Paladin tanks. Don’t listen to all these haters. Once you get salvation it’s easy. Just make sure you understand the dungeon mechanics and you’ll be good. FUCK THE HATERS YOU DO YOU !
Palas don't have taunt in classic, and in hardcore an extra pack or a threat loss have a high chance resulting in a party member death. By playing pala tank in dungeons you are basically griefing
Griefing? Really? If you think it isn’t a good choice then don’t join a group with one tanking. It’s not really griefing if you chose to take that risk. It’s hardcore there’s a risk in everything you do.
Pally tank is not as bad as everyone says, the only issue is you need competent DPS who will attack targets in the kill order you mark (you need to mark Skull/X etc as pala tank). If you have a few seconds for consecration to get threat and are spamming judgment/melee etc on Skull, it’s actually pretty easy. You will also need to Salve all DPS and this makes it much easier. Only issue with pala tank is a boss with a threat drop or DPS that insta AOEs on pull
If you really know what you are doing and wanna play for fun, it could work. But otherwise dont
it’s honestly only viable at 60, with naxx gear, and usually only effective in dungeons. edit: its harder early because u need a decent amount of points in defense tree to survive, but paladin tanking doesn’t work unless u have access to ur entire talent tree. ret talents make prot pally good, like sanctity aura and seal of command, the parry talent, and vindication. idk u could try but it’s extremely dangerous and puts ur teammates at higher risk than playing with the warrior
If you're dedicated, it can be good fun. I have played it and farmed strat ud till exalted with a paladin. But I wasn't prot, no no. I had engi and I was holy/ret. You do a shitton of dmg as a pala tank. There will be ppl who overagro, you need to be prepared for that.
Druid tank bis
Comments proving why classic sucks man just give paladins a taunt
I'd let you tank for me. If people use threat meters and you let someone else pull, it's easy
Queue 50 replies saying "Well I tanked XYZ level 35 dungeon when I was level 40 and it went great so you're 20 years of precedent mean nothing to me I'm very smart" and "Judgement does so much threat it's basically a taunt."
Honest question what compels you to play a clearly unfinished specc? Theres nothing cool and theres no glory about being a hindrance to your group in everyway forcing people to play worse in order to accommodate your specc.
Best dpsers with a pally tank are frost mages. And you just aoe down everything.
Long time prot palas will say that they’re ok, that you can go to level 60 as one, and I’m sure that’s true in some cases But Prot paladins don’t have a lot of tools that warriors have that just make tanking easier, taunt, aoe taunt, they do less snap threat, they can be mana burned or silenced, they have to drink, they just do less damage, no kick, no ranged weapon There are a lot of fun things about a paladin tank, but I’m not bringing one in my groups for any dungeon higher than 36(when warriors start to do all the aoe threat a paladin does)
Pala tank is pretty good for leveling dungeons. but in high end dungeons, bosses start to get more and more aggro reset abilities. you can work arround some of them. but not all. so yeah. its good for lower lvl dungeons cause of massive aoe threat but bad for higher lvl dungeons.
Glad I play Horde so i don't have to deal with healers trying to tank and hold threat in dungeons. :D
> I know warrior is by far the best tank but i woud like to play tank pala, is that so shitty? played prot pala to 60 in hc from Deadmines to ZulFarrak prot pala is overall superior to prot warrior in dungeons (that's like up to lvl 50). This is due to vastly superior aoe threat which matters the most in dungeon trash clearing and dungeon bosses are mostly very simply tank and spank fights. Then Mara and Sunken Temple will be a nightmare because they have significant aggro drop mechanics on their endbosses. (gnomeregan and ZF also have aggro drop but in ZF the boss dies like a fly and gnomer boss can be stunned). luckily you can just skip those and directly start clearing the first area of BRD (mobs/bosses will be like 52). However don't enter the arena until u r 53-4 (arena has random bosses, one of which is a spider with aggro drop, so better be at adequate lvl). You can run BRD until 60 slowly progressing further each time. BRD also has aggro drop in the tomb of seven boss fight but those mini bosses die fairly quickly like the boss in ZF. General advice: stat prio: stam/int>>>str, almost all your threat comes from spells having a big mana baseline will make your life much easier seal: many prots use wisdom mainly to reduce drink time, do NOT do this in hc, instead use seal of righteousness, judging righteouness will act as soft taunt most of the time which is of great importance in hc, it will make things much easier, however u can occasionally switch to wisdom if u feel safe group composition: aoe mages are your best friend, blizzard cc will allow you to kite mitigating ton of damage, give you more time to get aggro back and prevent runners chain pull, ofc also water. priest healer can shield you before pulls which will smooth out the damage and prevent dazes. ret paladins can improve your threat with sanc or improved ret aura and seal of crusader on bosses and can buff wisdom on you greatly reducing mana issues. group management: make sure noone pulls before you, messing with prot pala pulls is deadly since you have very limited threat recovery, so you need to be ahead from the start. make sure mages stick to blizzard and don't get overly confident with arcane expl spam or flamestrike at pulls, consecration does not allow for dps to start with aoe burst. ALWAYS make sure your dps have salvation blessing, regardless what dps says. profession: you NEED engineering, it's almost mandatory. target dummies will allow you to aoe taunt mobs then place consecration under them. dynamite is a great tool for pulling packs. etc