Where does our threat come from?

Here's a threat table from Klimpen's blog showing where our threat comes from, and how it changes as our spell damage goes up. The biggest % of our threat is coming from consecration, although Seal and Judgment of Righteousness are way up there.

It makes sense that our white damage threat becomes a much smaller portion of our threat as we increase spell damage. I've been running with my Libram of the Eternal Rest (increases the damage of my consecration by up to 47) now that I'm uncrushable without my blocking libram, which should help even more.

Something I hadn't realized before is that we gain threat from SA (Spiritual Attunement). I knew that gaining mana, from a mana pot, eathing food, etc gave a little bit of threat. It turns out that the mana I gain when I'm healed also gives me some threat.

Another interesting thing to note here is our reactive threat (holy shield, Ret Aura, Blessing of Sanctuary and Spiritual Attunement) all start becoming noticeably smaller percentages of our threat generation. This means holding secondary aggro on something (see the Gruul video below) becomes significantly easier as we get more spell damage gear and buffs.

Paladin tanking progression is pretty messed up. We're great main tanks in Kara, but don't perform well for gaining secondary aggro because, at that stage of our progression, we don't have the spell damage to build the aggro and have to rely on our reactive abilities. We have to work hard at being uncrushable, unlike a warrior or druid, which makes them more natural choices for tanking. Paladins then get thrown into off-tank positions and either can't hold secondary aggro because they aren't getting hit, or are taking too much damage because we're still crushable.

In the second half of Kara, we start coming on stronger, and then get hit by High King Maulgar and Gruul, who hit fresh paladins like a steam roller because of our lower health. Throw in Gruul's silencing ability and it's game over. Of course, lets not forget Nightbane w/out fear ward.

It isn't until we get a high spell damage weapon (over 200) and most of our tier 4 that we can really start competing for secondary aggro.

The good news is, we are a lot more useful in TK and SSC. Picking up the adds on Hyrdoss, Al'ar, and Tidwalker are good examples. Void Reaver is our first boss to really prove ourselves. When we reach him, chances are our spell damage is still a little low, but it's starting to get where it needs to be and we can normally hold him for a fair amount of the fight, which will only increase as we get better gear.

I'm looking forward to the other upcoming fights and seeing where we end up. I hear good things about paladins in Mt. Hyjal, but that's still a ways away.