Something that has been on my mind for the past little while and wanted to discuss and see if anyone has considered running any numbers for this or has a view on it (have you maybe simmed it already mr euliat??!! ). My specific situation relates to considering swapping from a blood DK to a prot paladin for a 10man raid comp.
In particular, I am concerned about the potential for high physical damage on heroic bosses that blood shield may have limits in mitigating. IE to stack a sizeable blood shield before an ability you may need to sit on enough runes for a double DS (therefore taking substantially more healing/damage pre ability). This compares to a paladin's "on demand" ~50% damage reduction of SOTR. Effectively, will we be getting to the point where bosses hit hard enough that blood DK mitigation because little more than temporary EH boost, as opposed to a real mitigating ability? Of course, 10 man bosses often hit less hard than their 25 counterparts, but I don't believe this changes the view of whether one tank is better suited than another (unless we are on the fulcrum of "hits too hard")
When you take into account the raid utility of a prot paladin (AM, bops, sacs, glyph of battle healer, double interrupt potential with shield, etc) vs. the sometimes broken but often limited use ability of DKs (mass grip, aoe freeze), it feels that paladins bring a lot more than DKs to a small raid setup.
Assuming both classes are played at the same level (and that gear isn't an issue), I am wondering if the above is fairly accurate or if I am missing something entirely in terms of playstyle that would negate it (for example, cooldowning before a big attack to mitigate damage, then double DSing for that ability)
I love DKs and rune tetris, but I felt I was a bit of a liability in firelands (where block tanked scaled incredibly well) and am concerned that similar may happen this tier.