The Spirit Realm

As for the first one, I kind of agree with Galeor. My friend (druid) and I have been trying to gear up a palybot and we have focused pretty hard on AC. At the moment he is at 2167ac 9536hps unbuffed and can do quite a bit of tanking - and we still have some slots to 'fill'. I see other tanks with considerably more hps but much less ac get mowed over in similar content but that may just be perception. I guess just try not to ignore one over the other.

I have read that the fury line (more crits) have zero impact on slays. Most testimonials I have read rate a high dmg/low delay weap as the best method for getting this damage.

As for roles, palys are amazing at support. For cutting edge content for the guild, I would not expect to see too many palys stepping up to MT.

Point 4, see Galeor's link.

Caveat! I am by no means a definitive source of information on Palys. I am just offering what I know from boxing, have seen through a lot of raiding, and from knowledge gleaned from various boards.

AC vs. HP is role-based. When you're getting Chealed to full hp every 3-4 seconds no matter how much damage you take, then all that matters is surviving spike damage of full quad/flurry whatever 1000s. That's a warrior's role. When you're getting heals based on how much damage you take, like as an offtank, or ramp tank, or random guy eating AEs, then it matters how much damage you take. That's you, and that's why AC, Avoidance, Shielding, and Spell/Dot Shielding are somewhat more important than squeezing out all the hp you possibly can. It's not an absolute thing. No one's saying they wear over , but many people choose Last Blood-augmented GM armor over the Fallen Saint option, despite a relatively large (70-80hp per piece, if you count the "set bonus" from Echo Trinket) gap in hp.

I played a monk as main for about one year before I cleaned the dust from my pally alt and made him my main. Why? Because of the brought set of skills & abilities we have. Monks pull & dps. That's it. As Paladin, I can tank, I can pull (limited), I can heal and I can do some cc with roots & chain stuns (limited).

On raids - my role is most time to be RT, sometimes - for short times MT while the warrior got rezzed - and beside this to keep my group alive - which I like most. And - from time to time - when we see some undead content - I mess myself with the "classic" dps classes in the dps rankings - thanks to VU3

If you think, that are just limited roles - see the warrior - they have only one role - tank & and believe in the clerics I think our role is that we have no real role - we can help out where needed - and this fact keeps it - imo - so interesting to play a paladin. You never know when and on who you will "waste" your LH

Uhm, correct me if I'm wrong on these guys, but off the top of my head:

Avoidance: 100
Shielding: 35
Dot Shielding: 35
Accuracy: 150
Combat Effects: 100? maybe 150 too, not sure

Accuracy is 150, I'm 100% certain of this as I have a zerker friend who goes on and on about how he maxed his accuracy I'm also certain about the avoidance being on 100 still. I'm not so sure about the CE though, which is why the questionmark is there.

We may not MT as often as a Warrior (which is how it should be), but that doesn't mean we never do.

I've tanked things like PoTime bosses including Tallon Zek and Quarm, as well as Rikkukin, Barxt in Uqua, Master of Hate, etc. And we're only just now breaking into Anguish. Some of these were because we had no appropriately geared Warriors on at the time (Hate trial), some were because things were going badly and all the warriors were down (Barxt), and some were because I begged and pleaded (Quarm).

It's definitely a nice feeling to successfully tank a tough mob, but I chose Paladin, not Warrior. Successfully keeping a group healed from AEs can be just as satisfying.

we have had our knights tank almost all raid mobs succesfully when the warriors die or because they are not awake when we want to engage (we have a low war population in our guild.) (from anguish to relic.) it doesn't mean it is a good idea and/or something to plan on =p

As far as ac, shielding and avoidance go, once past a certain level of hp, I would argue 9k-10k unbuffed, then you want as much of them all as you can possibly get. In simple terms once complete heal can reliably land for the full ammount, then the more ac, shielding and avoidance you have, the less healing you will require, and I still see as much benefit going from 3k ac to 3.8k ac as I did going from 2k ac to 2.8k ac in current content. That is not to say that hp isn't important, but to me it is secondry and goes up anyway as you progress provided you make decent gear choices.

My paladins raid role is varied although I don't think I have ever mt'd other than when all the warriors have dropped. We make excellent plow tanks for trash clearing, we keep groups alive during ae heavy fights, we cure slows, death touch dots, mana drain dots, a well timed loh can keep the mt up on occasions, we pick up adds as they pop and hold them without doing damage until they are mezzed or rooted off, our fast heals are the best there is for keeping enchanters up in mez heavy fights .....the list goes on but we are very versatile and I love what I do, plus it is often very different from my group role where I am usually mt!