I hope that, by that statement, you mean tank as "tanking spec" and decent gear as "lots of resilience." Frankly, I'm starting to get DESENSITIZED to protection paladins in Valor, Justice, and heroic gear INSISTING on taking the flag because they're "tanks." That may be, but all of the dodge, parry and mastery in the world is gonna do squat once that mage starts lighting you up.

Here, just to be sure:

"You want as much resilience as you can get. No, tank gear doesn't count. No, being a druid doesn't automatically qualify you. If you're not sporting at least 25% damage reduction, then you don't have enough resilience."

IMHO tanks aren't THAT great once the dmg increase debuff kicks in; hunters with tracking, traps and pets can avoid the enemy for longer. Mages with their slows, cc's, blinks, etc can stay very well ahead of any coming enemy. Etc...

As long as they have a LOT of resilience.

A prot warrior is an AWESOME flag carrier. They can cover huge distances very fast with charge, intercept, heroic leap and intervene. Pair one with a disc priest who uses life grip properly and you can cross midfield in WSG in seconds.

Tanks are better than hunters as FCs because when stuff gets up in your face, you as a hunter can't do a lot. Tanks have awesome abilities to deal with just that. On my prot warrior, a nice shield spike means the rogue opening up on me is taking a nice heaping dose of damage right back. Rend with blood and thunder up ticks on pretty much the whole group that is beating on me. I have shockwave to buy my healers some time. I have intervene with safeguard to buy my healer even more breathing room. I have demo shout to reduce damage I am taking from melee. I have charge, pummel, heroic throw and spell reflect in addition to superb mobility (to leverage LOS) to deal with casters. I have an aoe fear, as a belf prot war, an aoe silence and a fear break on top of my trinket.

There is NO WAY a hunter comes even close to a proper tank spec (geared with resil and mitigation) as a FC - they're just built for very different roles. A mage with 4300 resil can't do jack when two rogues are in their face - they won't even get a cast off. If they iceblock, they'll drop the flag. So all they can do is keep running and if they're cornered, its over. A hunter fares not much better.

A tank with 4300 resil (like mine does) has AMPLE capacity to eat damage. That higher armor helps even when you're stunlocked. And once you get out of the stunlock, a tank has tools like last stand, enraged regen, disarm etc to take the pressure off.

DPS should either defend the FC, or take down the enemy FC - they should NOT carry. Same goes for healers. You can't heal yourself at full capacity while being beaten on.

with the vengeance nerf in 4.3.2, tanks will not be able to do as much DPS as before... they will need a heals and dps support... and will only be health shields with resil.

I've been a fairly successful FC in random BGs as a holy pally. I wear plate and a shield, I have a lot of instant and mana-free heals, and with good resil I can keep one or two attackers from killing me for quite a long time. This may not work well once you start getting into rated BGs but for randoms, I works very well.

As a hunter, I will say that we are well positioned to be excellent FC's because of our varied and wonderful pet abilities, our speed with cheetah, and our traps, plus our tracking that enables easy avoidance of distant or hiding foes. Or I would say that if our best movement and defensive abilities (deterrance and disengage) weren't unusable in possession of a flag, our speed boost a deathtrap in its own right, our CC spotty when attempting precision trapping in PvP, our armor negligible compared to other heavy-armor users, and the unparalleled evil that is the dead-zone.

That said, hunters, it is your responsibility to escort the FC, protect her from all comers, sniff out the rogues (and yes, it is always rogues) and anticipate incoming enemies with your tracking. Don't just rely on track humanoids. Track beasts for druids, hunters and shamans, track demons for warlocks, track elementals for mages and shamans, track undead for death-knights, and never, ever, leave your house without track hidden. Use your traps to block obvious escape routes, chase down enemy FC's with your pet, learn to jump-disengage off cliffs if there's a friendly priest or mage handy, or you happen to be an engineer, it'll save your life. Also, there is nothing like seeing a weakened feral druid EFC halfway across the field before you disengage-parachute to him, scatter shot, and then unleash a volley from above. The other team will kill you for sure, but you can save a match that way.

Useful hint for all trackers; if you are in or above the flag room, you can track inside the tunnel and fort. If you are inside the fortress's front room or in the tunnel, you can't track anything outside it.

errr.......glad for all the insightful replies. I really meant by geared, pvp geared, as far as tanks are concerned. As a prot pally with conquest gear I don't have much to offer besides Flag Carrier so I thought it pertinent to mention that tanks who pvp have like 2 battlegrounds where we are relevant minus alterac valley where multiple tanks are usually present.