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There have been a few posts in the forum from people who want to level their protection paladin by tanking dungeons. The big question has been what Heirloom gear is best for this endeavor. Another question that always comes up is enchants. Since Heirloom gear is considered to be level 1, only enchants with no level requirement will work all the way from level 1 to 80.
There aren't that many options when it comes to Heirloom gear, but I'll highlight what I'd purchase and why...
First off, there is only one plate chest option, the [Polished Breastplate of Valor].
The best all-around useful chest enchant for all heirloom gear is +4 to all stats: [Enchant Chest - Greater Stats]
Next up are the shoulders. There are three plate shoulder options. One set of shoulders are considered the "PvE" shoulders, the other two are considered "PvP" shoulders. There are two PvP shoulders, one of which is for Paladin healers. We want the other non healer [Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons] because they have the most stamina out of the three. They also have resilience, which will help you reach uncrittable while tanking.
You cannot put shoulder enchants on Heirloom gear.
Weapons are where you need to make a decision. There are five one-handed heirloom weapon options but I think the choice really boils down to two of them: [Venerable Mass of McGowan] or [Battleworn Thrash Blade].
The [Venerable Mass of McGowan] is the more obvious "tanking" weapon. It has stamina, agility, attack power, and crit. All of which are decent for tanking and holding aggro.
The [Battleworn Thrash Blade] has resilience, which helps you get uncrittable, higher dps for threat, and a juicy chance-on-hit "proc" that helps with both threat (more swings = more dps) and mana/health regeneration via [Seal of Wisdom] and [Seal of Light]. I would argue that this is the better "leveling" weapon especially if you place talent points into [Reckoning].
Ultimately, the decision is yours. I'd probably pick up both and use the mace in dungeons and the sword when solo questing outside dungeons.
When it comes to enchanting your new heirloom weapons, there's a few options. A few of the enchanting options have reduced effect on targets over level 60, so I don't recommend these enchants:
[Enchant Weapon - Lifestealing]
[Enchant Weapon - Crusader]
[Enchant Weapon - Icy Chill]
Of the remaining weapon enchants with no level requirement, the following stand out as possible choices:
[Enchant Weapon - Agility]
[Enchant Weapon - Strength]
[Enchant Weapon - Fiery Weapon]
[Enchant Weapon - Unholy Weapon]
The nice thing about the agility or strength enchants is that they're both a static stat and they don't rely on a random chance to get the benefit. Deciding between the two is tough. They both grant +15 of their respective stat. Agility converts into dodge, crit, and armor while strength converts into attack power, block value, and spell power via [Touched by the Light], a talent deep in the prot tree. Strength is also increased by up to 15% by [Divine Strength], a talent in the first tier of the prot tree. Finally, if you take the [Blessing of Sanctuary] talent in the prot tree, your strength is increased by 10% whenever you're using Blessing of Sanctuary, which should be always. So in light of the talent modifiers, 15 strength is worth quite a bit more than 15 agility, making it the obvious choice out of the two non-proc based weapon enchants.
Now back to the other two enchants, Unholy and Fiery. Since the effect from these enchants is random, it's hard to know exactly how good (or bad) they actually are. Unholy has a chance on hit to apply a curse to the target that reduces their melee damage by 15 for 12 seconds. The curse also inflicts a random amount of shadow damage to the target (about 50 average). At very low levels, mobs don't hit very hard so the Unholy enchant can reduce a LOT of incoming damage. Unfortunately, at higher levels, the damage reduction becomes trivial, so it doesn't really scale all that well. Fiery has a chance to inflict 40 fire damage when you hit a target. Fiery is my favorite "leveling" enchant, especially when combined with [Reckoning] and a weapon that has an "extra swing" chance: [Battleworn Thrash Blade], [Flurry Axe], [Thrash Blade], [Ironfoe], [Blinkstrike]. The only drawback is that mobs at higher levels have resistance to fire damage, so eventually, fiery will lose its luster.
There are three trinket options: [Discerning Eye of the Beast], [Swift Hand of Justice], [Inherited Insignia of the Horde] (or Alliance). The first two are not unique, so you can actually have two of the same trinket. The Eye of the Beast grants spell power and mana back on kills, the Hand of Justice grants haste and health back on kills. Both are decent leveling trinkets. Health and mana back means less downtime for drinking and eating. The last trinket is the PvP trinket. The resilience is useful for tanking to help prevent crits, but the on use effect is of questionable usefuleness while tanking dungeons. I would probably pick up both PvE trinkets and swap out the Hand of Justice once I could obtain a better trinket from a quest reward like [Mark of the Chosen].
Lastly, since we're talking about heirloom items, I have to mention the [Dread Pirate Ring]. With stamina, hit, crit, as well as an additional 5% XP bonus, this is a very nice ring. Unfortunately, the only way to obtain it is by participating (and winning) the weekly [Kalu'ak Fishing Derby] in Northrend. If you decide you need this ring, I wish you luck as it's very difficult to obtain.
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Discuss this topic in the forum: Protection Paladin Heirloom Gear
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