Posts boasting how low they went into the prot tree like it was some badge of honor are probably the worst posts I've ever read on this forum
This is going to be so glorious to watch
You still seem to be missing the point of those posts, people weren't putting as few points into the Prot tree as some sort of dick waving but for the simple fact that in Vanilla raiding tank mitigation was not nearly as big of a bottle neck as threat was. Now this might have not been as big an issue on the Alliance side due to Paladin fuckery but on the Horde side most dps had to throttle down to what omen thread meter said they could do. So the talents in the other trees that provided a dps boost for the tank were often a better choice.
It didn't have anything to do with not wanting to go into prot, and so much with prot spec being pretty worthless. Also let's not forget respec cost and going a 31/5/15 spec allowed you to pretty much do it all.
Let's look at some of the vanilla prot talents and even more let's look at the ones that do zero to assist in main tanking on a raid.
Talent Calculator - Classic DB
The only good talents in the prot tree for raiding were at the top.
Shield Specialization - Useful
Improved Shield Block - Worth one point for 2nd block the other 2 for an additional .5 seconds were dogshit
Anticipation - Added defense was good depending on your gear there was a point where this became usless
Toughness - 10% armor here is a useful one
Iron Will - Resist to Stun and Charm by 15% debatable in a raid environment.
Defiance - 15% threat (THIS WAS THE MAIN REASON TO PUT POINTS IN PROT TREE)
Bloodrage - 5 extra rage for 2 points dogshit.
Last Stand - useful oh shit button but again required you to forego more important talents in other trees.
Improved Shield Bash
Concussion Blow
Improved Revenge
Bosses were immune to the above meaning that were usless.
Improved Shield Wall - Increased Shield Wall from 10 seconds to 15 seconds on a 30 minute cooldown - You could not rely on a 30 min cooldown for mitigation and the 2 points for the extra 5 seconds was never going to be the determination if you were going to wipe or not.
Improved Disarm - Increased the duration on your disarm by 3 seconds. Again most bosses were immune and even if they weren't this slight increase was hardly noteworthy.
Improved Taunt - Reduce cooldown of taunt by 1 second, so 2 points to reduce taunt from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Once again many bosses in Vanilla were immune to taunt.
One handed weapon specialization - 5 points for 10% damage with one handed weapons this was nice for damage helped improve threat but is a moot point if we are talking about going into other trees for a dps increase.
Shield Slam - was an actual good ability but you had to commit 31 points into the tree if you wanted to unlock this. Again you were better off unlocking a 31 point like bloodthrist or mortal strike.
