Which is harder to gear out for a Paladin? Holy or Prot?

[daviddoran]

My main before boxing was a holy paladin. I used him to boost my alts as holy until I heard about zolo, then respecced him to prot, and am liking it so far. Trouble is, as holy I had a bunch of mail/leather/cloth gear. I did pick up a few pieces in Kara (was running with overgeared peeps, so I got a lot of "off spec" items for tanks even though I was holy, notably the shield from Nightbane :) ) I am just about 10k hp unbuffed, 460 defense, but not much mana (warrior tanking gear replacing cloth healing gear)

I have 135 Badges of Justice, which i was saving for the SSO Healing Mace, but now I'm wondering if I might be better off spending the badges on tanking gear. My only concern is, this paladin still has holy gear, and with a respec, i can be back to a good kara level healer, which would be pretty good for healing heroics with some lowbie DPS, provided I can gear out a decent tank. I have a lvl 58 Paladin that is either gonna be my healer, or my tank.

I'm wondering what the best course of action is. Do I gear out my current prot pally and make him my tank, and start gearing my other paladin as holy? Or do I keep my fairly high level healing gear on my main pally, and start from scratch on tanking gear? I want both paladins to be able to do some boosting, but you don't need much in the way of gear for that.

OR

I just got my other team to 35 and am about to start zoloing them to 58. That group is priest druid shaman mage. I could make 3 of them my primary healer, or I could make the druid my tank. Is it easier to gear out a druid tank than a pally tank early on? Or easier to gear out holy priest/resto shaman/druid?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'd say holy. With prot, you can always just wear mostly warrior gear and just live with reduced mana. For short fights, it's not a big deal.

[beyond-tec]

prot.

as holy paladin you can pickup nearly every healer item that drops. you can wear cloth, leather, ....
nearly everything is good for a healer: crit, +heal, mp/5, int, .. doesn't matter except you're in raid-bossfights.

as prot paladin you can only wear plate, you need enough hitpoints so that a healer can react on the health
you've lost, you need enough defense to avoid crits, you need a good weapon with spelldmg (not that easy to find)
to built up aggro very fast, ..... it's very special gear.

my prot paladin had his healing gear complete long before he got his prot gear.

[zanthor]

prot.

as holy paladin you can pickup nearly every healer item that drops. you can wear cloth, leather, ....
nearly everything is good for a healer: crit, +heal, mp/5, int, .. doesn't matter except you're in raid-bossfights.

as prot paladin you can only wear plate, you need enough hitpoints so that a healer can react on the health
you've lost, you need enough defense to avoid crits, you need a good weapon with spelldmg (not that easy to find)
to built up aggro very fast, ..... it's very special gear.

my prot paladin had his healing gear complete long before he got his prot gear.Very true, also as a prot paladin you must have enough spell damage to maintain threat, enough mana to maintain threat, and enough AR/HP to mitigate and stay alive along with reaching uncrushable...

In one run through KZ on my paladin I replaced 6 pieces of healing armor by the end, several of those twice... Cloth dropped, leather dropped, mail and plate dropped... in the end I kept 6 of the 8 pieces I won (didn't take anything from those who needed it)... while my goal for my pally is prot, I can easily switch hit heals with a respec.

[beyond-tec]

yeah, because holy paladin can wear gear which was originally thought for priests, druids, shamans or a paladin
while he can only use tank items which were thought for warriors or paladins.

[daviddoran]

Thanks everyone! I went ahead and bought some badge gear (was in bad need of a few pieces, still wearing blues...) Made a big difference at zolo. I still need the Figurine of the Colossus, so i don't have to judge light (which has accidentally killed zolo a couple of times)

[Darcla]

Really both are very easy. Having geared up a tanking warrior and raiding holy priest, gearing either a prot paly or holy paly is very easy. Prot pallies can wear most warrior tanking gear and just get one high spl dmg weapon and enchant for threat. While a holy paladin can wear plate,mail,leather, or even cloth healing gear.