If Protection paladin doesn’t need buffs why everyone is kyrian for m+? You know why? Because if you try to push high keys without First avenger talent and Divine Toll you are just a garbage tank.
Because basically this tank revolves only around trinkets, absorbs and the first burty Divine toll damage, outside of that your selfhealing, dps is garbage
Now pundits come and tell me why you are Kyrian and that you can tank with whatever covenant you like but defend all the good things we have.
whatever tank in a 22+ pug can do same than a protection paladin. They just dont need to be a covenant in particular to be able to do nearly the same you get it?
Method and their top paladin does not mean nothing neither for the spec nor for the community and it doesn’t represent anything.
It is pretty normal to have less and less diversity in convenants when pushing higher M+ keys. Personally, I did all 20+ keys casually in 2 days with the unpopular Nightfae convenant, didn’t touch kyrian as of yet. However, if I was interested in pushing higher keys, I would definitely go Kyrian or Venthyr.
The same apply to most classes in 25+ keys. Is Protection paladin a “garbage tank”?, absolutely not, only clueless people would say that. This tank spec has a lot of tools at its disposal, and with sufficient experience, can go through any encounter without much difficulty. Your DPS is supposed to get lower on higher keys, but on average, I do 2K+ more dps than other tanks.
As obvious as it is, Kyrian has always been the best choice purely for M+ since launch and was further enhanced with Mikanikos’s latter soulbind traits since their implementation in 9.1. Aside from that, Mikanikos, just has superior tree in general when compared to all other soulbinds, along with the ridiculous synergy of the soulbind triats, conduits, legendary, and convenant ability, unless you want to play for fun/screwining around, it is indeed the most preferred choice.
These “Pundits” are right, you can tank with whatever convenant. It is just Kyrian has always been superior, and gives you the best convenant for Ret Spec as well as holy(exception high end raiding/M+).