Gearing Your Tankadin From Head To Toe - Part 1: Introduction

Basically what I'm going to do is run down your gear slots from helm to boots and show you the upgrades along the way in Northrend. I'm going to follow 6 mythical Paladins and show where each one will start finding upgrades along the way.

Allow me to introduce our team:

Rook - Just dinged 70 a week or two before the expansion
Badger - Badge geared as much as possible.
Justin - Tier 4 level gear
Crystal - Tier 5 level gear
Sixpack - Tier 6 level gear
Sunny - Sunwell gear

Now there are many approaches to ranking gear, and you will find many different gear lists out there. Let me briefly explain my methodology before we dive into the actual rankings and wishlists.

The ranking was based on a series of formulas that looks at how the item budget contributes to Mitigation (Armor, Defense, Block Rating, Parry, Dodge, Block Value, Expertise, Str), Stamina, and Threat (Stamina, Str, Expertise, Hit, Spl Power, Block Value). Then I take both the Mitigation Score, Stamina Score, and the Threat score and combine them to the overall total score.

Enchants are ignored because it's assumed all pieces in the same slot get the same enchant. For gems, sometimes I go for the socket bonus and sometimes I don't. Where I don't, I go all stamina. When I do match sockets I use:

Red (Defenders Twilight Opal Parry 8 Sta 12)
Yellow (Enduring Forest Emerald Def 8 Sta 12)
Blue (Solid Sky Saffire Sta 24)
Meta (Austere Earthsiege Diamond 32 stam +2% armor)

This post will also serve as an index to the individual posts that cover each item slot.

Head
Neck
Back
Shoulder
Chest
Wrist
Hands
Belt
Legs
Boots
Rings
Trinkets
Weapons
Shields
Librams