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That's what CC stands for. :)

I think you'd be surprised what you can get away with to get through basic dungeons. Heck, I remember tanking an old world 5 man with a voidwalker as my lock.

And you can absolutely tank normal dungeons without being prot depending on gear. Soon after wrath launched, I ret-tanked about every normal northrend dungeon before hitting 80 (and healed them as shadow on my priest).

It's not the efficiency many are used to, but most normal dungeons are designed to be quite doable with sub-optimal compositions.

Pre lvl 40 instances do not require much. even a low lvl palladin can tank easily if they are prot or ret (gimped out on dmg with a shield but it's doable-not past 40 though as ret). i've done it. it's the same with healing if you have enough mana and healing spells the early dungeons just require you to hit those healing buttons and know what your doing.

@Angus
Let's not confuse opinions with facts, kay?
I leveled to 80 as prot back in the beginning of BC, and I rolled an alt with a friend who leveled as prot till 40 just recently.
Protadins used to be EXTREMELY painful to level until level 33, but now, especially with heirlooms, this is very viable. With the new dungeon system coming out I hope there will be a lot of new paladin tanks out there eager to learn to play probably the most entertaining spec in the game.
I would also like to encourage upcoming protadins to try out AoE leveling - it's so much awesome.

I prot set can let you tank as ret, I've done it before, tanked H HoL without problems.

@Angus
You seem to drift a little, from asking about pre-40 to what classes can get away with at 80. Yes, Warriors are more flexible end game because they get their tanking abilities from skills, not talents. Paladins get their tanking from talents, because everything else is Righteous Fury+_____.

Pre-40, so up until Scarlet Monastary, you can tank as ret or prot. Of course, the higher level you go, the further the trees split apart and the harder it is to tank as Ret. I'd actually reccomend you put tanking as Ret out of your mind at around 30, unless your favorite healer is with you. Once you hit 40, if you really want to tank (or get into a group for that matter) look into switching to a prot spec.

what are you talking about? i three-man'd Gnom with no healer at 30(the other two were a 24 feral druid who wouldn't heal for some reason and a 26 rogue) on my paladin. and that was my very first attempt at tanking.

righteous fury+hand of reckoning+consecrate+sanctuary=win

I've tanked Sunken Temple completely with a boar. Pretty sure any pally, regardless of spec, with a sword, board, and righteous defense can do it no problemo.

Crap...Righteous Fury. Sorry

I've tanked through lower Northrend using a ret spec with ret gear (including a two-hander, just for grins), and that was with on-level pseudohealers (heal casters using DPS specs). Incoming damage up until that point just isn't high enough for the prot talents to make much difference.

Granted it gets a lot easier to roll prot once you hit Outland, but even then it's pretty easy to tank and hold threat as ret, as long as you're on top of your gear.

Speaking from a healers point of view (as someone who is always generating aoe threat) I've had no problem with pally healers in low level instances, at least no more of a problem than any other class. As long as they know what they're doing, everything is golden man.

you are just flat out wrong. As Ret i tanked upto and including H VH just need an offset and a bit of brains u should be fine....its not ideal, but it workds....easily. Before Dual spec i could heal/tank/or ret just based on my gear ....

of course i'll never tank as well as prot, or heal as well as holy, but no wipes and and good pace is all that matters, no one cares if your a bit sloppy as long as you get the job done .

any new pally out there, feel free to lvl as ret, dont even bother with dual spec, and just tank or heal if u have a nice set , and can't find a tank or healer. And yes, this was pre 2.1 when BC made ret uber even. back in the days of Lolret, the above was STILL viable from personal experiance...anyone who tells you different either doesn't know the class, or is talking out of their ...astronomy