New Paladin, aggro question, talentsFollow

In my opinion, protection is the best tree to go in as a tank. As a recent subject put up shows, I'm also fond of the improved devotion aura talent. My first five points have always gone into that.

When tanking, since you're only level ten, you can't really put up Righteous Fury and slap out a Consecrate, and it's been a while since I've had a paladin so low, so I can't recall when you DO get Righteous Fury.

All I can really suggest for holding aggro is have the mage try and lower his/her DPS output, and try to increase your damage as much as possible. Early on as a paladin, it's difficult to tank nearly as well as a warrior, but later on you can end up being about as effective.

Mostly, though, put points where you want. Just ask yourself "What am I wanting to do with this character, and how will this talent help me with that?"

I agree with Vaeliorin - there are numerous posts on here why Imp Devo is a waste of points.

With a mage there are 2 ways that you can play the duo:

You can tank the mobs while the mage does DPS.
You can let the mage essentially go all out while you stay back and heal the mage.

Both will work but both have their disadvantages. For the second one your mage is wearing cloth and if you're getting lots of adds it may be tough for you to tank the adds and heal or heal through the adds (until later lvls when the mage, if frost, will have more CC skills to balance this out). Technically you could go Ret too, but imo you'll be better as a duo if you pick prot or holy tree.

For the first your mage is going to have to watch their aggro at times. To me, frankly, that's not a bad thing because when you go into instances if your mage buddy has only known the world of "All out DPS mow em down fast" then they're.... probably not going to get a lot of heals.

If you choose to tank make a beeline to Imp Righteous Fury - you'll end up having RF by the time you get to where you can improve it. I would go Redoubt, Toughness, Imp RF and Shield Spec. Max em all out.

If you're going to go the healy route I would go Divine Intellect, Spiritual Focus, Healing light - again max em all out.

Well, you did just get one little assist at level 10 - blessing of protection. If you're fighting melee opponents, this will allow you to grab aggro from the mage, but it keeps him from doing anything but bandaging for a few seconds. Note - it doesn't protect from spells, so if you're fighting casters don't bother.

But before you get some new tools, you're going to have trouble holding aggro over a mage. Spam as much damage as you can at the beginning of the fight - you may even want to start with judgement of righteousness, since throwing crusader on first (my usual start), although it will eventually build up more damage, doesn't give it to you as quickly. And since your problem doesn't seem to be taking damage but is actually holding aggro, you may want to set your shield aside until you've got some talents that use it, and just use the highest dps 2-hander you can find for additional threat from white damage. If you're a blacksmith, make sure you've got the highest level sharpening or weight stones you can use - they're really cheap extra damage bonuses - and if you're an engineer, explosives are a good opener to grab some extra aggro.

And remember, divine protection, although it will preserve you briefly, immediately drops all aggro from you and all the enemies will immediately attack your mage. You will not recover the aggro - heal him like crazy and hope he survives if you have to use it.

One other point to remember - that initial attack gives you a hefty aggro boost. If the mage is doing the pulling, you're going to have a lot of trouble peeling the aggro off of him.

Just my $.02 - your mileage may vary. Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.

I've been the Pally in a Mage-Pally duo from 1 to 51 and have loved it. However, at lower levels keeping aggro was pretty hard. I pretty much always had to start with judging righteousness if I even wanted to attempt to hold aggro. Make sure that the mage is out of melee range, it's easier for him to get the monster's attention if he's close. Also, don't let the mage start casting before you've judged and hit the mob once. That should give you enough time to keep the mobs off unless they get some early crits.

Protection is the tree to go in for tanking. As mentioned above, Improved Devotion Aura is pretty useless, I'd go for Redoubt. I'd spend your points primarily in talents that improve your threat or allow you to protect another, to keep up with the mage (Precision, Guardian's favor, Improved Righteous Fury, Improved Hammer of Justice, Reckoning, etc).

Someone mentioned Blessing of Protection above. This is a great tool for protecting the mage as casters can keep right on casting through it and all melee mobs will leave the mage alone for the entire duration. (People can't melee while under blessing of protection though, so it's less useful for non-casters.) Hammer of Justice can also give you a few seconds to get aggro back or finish the mob off before the Mage dies.

Other great tools that you'll get as you go are Righteous Fury (increases threat from all holy spells), Blessing of Salvation (Reduces targets threat by 30% - a must on DPSers in my opinion), and Righteous Defense (taunts up to 3 monsters off of the target).

Anyway, once you get to lvl 16, your job will become much easier. Tanking will basically go like this. Make sure that Righteous Fury and Retribution Aura are up. (I usually use Blessing of Wisdom, but Blessing of Might will give you a very small threat increase if you need it). Run up to the mob and judge Righteousness then reseal it and let the mage start blasting. (Later on, you'll start by judging crusader, but the mage will likely pull right off you if you start this way at lower levels).

If the mage pulls the mobs off of you, you can use Righteous Defense to pull them back, Hammer of Justice to give you time to build more threat, or Blessing of Protection to keep the mage alive and keep the mobs hitting you at least until it wears off (and they're hopefully dead by then).

Finally, keep in mind that threat management is everyone's job. If you just can't build enough threat to keep aggro off of the mage, get him to wait another second or two before blasting away. If he pulls monsters off of you (which will happen), make sure the mage stops casting spells and stands still so you can get aggro back (many mages have a tendancy to run away from you while using as many instant cast spells as possible).

Good luck and enjoy.