thinking about respeccing my 42 warrior from arms to prot, was wondering if they can do enough damage or if I should go fury, I plan to level but want to tank.

Prot is terrible for leveling. If you want to tank just tank, spec really wont matter till you hit later outlands

It sucks...trust me.

The damage is lowest second to holy priest, and that's if they're healing only. Go fory and duel weild. You should be able to tank most non-heroic instances ok. Once you're 70 go prot and be loved by all!

How about Protection Pally?

That sucks at DPS too.

actually no prot pallys are good at soloing, because of reckoning (double attacks), concencrate decent dmg aoe, and holy shield bascially another autoswing when it procs.

If you get two sets of gear 1) for Tanking and 2) for grinding its not terrible but its still slow. However it can be pricey maintaining two sets of viable armor/weaponary so dont do it unless you got alot of cash to do it with :)

u can stay prot for tanking, but when u leveling dual wield or carry a 2h weapon

I have a 100% prot specced warrior (level 32) on Trollbane server. I have never had any other talents.
I haven't had problems leveling. In fact. I solo'd Mor'Ladim at level 30 and all I had as a weapon was a Hardened Iron Shortsword that I made myself. (+3 Enchant and Heavy Sharpening Stone buffed)
I'm currently questing in Northern STV and owning everything with the same weak sword I've had for the last 4 levels.
Don't let anyone tell you that Prot spec sucks because it doesn't. It doesn't do HUGE crits like Arms or Fury, but it makes you alot more solid and very hard to kill. Also, you can go straight from questing into an instance without changing gear.
In short, I haven't had ANY issues soloing with 100% protection spec.

Haha! Yes, ignore the level 70 warriors giving you good advice and listen to the level 32.

How well you TAKE damage is irrelevant when leveling. Your primary focus is to kill things as fast as you possibly can; use bandaids and food to quickly restore your health when you are low.

Killing stuff as prot is basically just standing there and waiting for the mob to drop dead from boredom. In the time it will take pallywompus to hit 40, a fury war could have hit 60. By the time he hits 70, the cap will be 80, possibly higher.

Yes listen to a level 70 that has never leveled with Prot.
I was in STV last night right next to a Shammy the same level as me. We were killing Panthers at the exact same rate. So this "takes forever to kill mobs" is complete BS. (Unless you want to try to support that Shammys kill mobs slowly or suck or something which is also BS)
All I did was switch weps to Crescent Of Forlorn Spirits (Duskwood quest reward). I always fight in Defensive stance also. I barely get scratched cause I'm solid as a rock. Spellcasters NEVER get a spell off on me unless I miss (Shield Bash first time, Concussion Blow second time, by then Shield Bash cooldown is over and I can throw it again). I only have to stop and eat after about 4 mobs. I also have Shield Wall (16 sec) and Last Stand. Prot Spec rocks.
Don't knock a spec you don't know how to play.

I have a lvl 70 protection war that i was soloing for the most part.I never had trouble leveling and did it faster then others in my guild  that were DPS, so dont listen to ppl tellin ya protection cant solo. shield slam hits crit for 1k+ alot devistate and revenge make killing mobs pretty easy. Plus high stam so not dieing as fast as other class

im working on 34 prot also and i like it better then fury and arms cus I DONT DIE!!! also haveign to down time after each fight sucked ass. we might not kill faster but we can kill bigger

kinda like the tortise and hiar...

at low levels it's slow, at higher levels a protwarrior grind almost as good as a furywarrior, eventualy a protwarrior wil do more DPS then a furywarrior and they get very close at BT. A protwarrior did 1800DPS once wich is very nice.

Well, dont know much about warriors, highest i got was lvl 30
but i have been on Leotheras the Blind - SSC, and only prot warrs had problems with  Inner Demon (11k hp) that has 2 be killed in 10-15s...
Its true that prot warrs last longer, but w/o aoe dmg (paladin conc, retri aura) is kinda use less 2 build them as prot...
And prot spec is not relay needed in non heroic instances do to the thing that warrs can tank by dmg agro alone w/o defliance.

Devastate spam is like doing half a Mortal strike at a time with a 1-handed weapon.

The only problem is that if you get good gear...you have no rage...then you can't Devastate.

if you wanne level as prot, wait til lv50, then you get devastate and I think its faster then fury then.

On my warrior I can push out 500+DPS when soloing(compareble to any DPS clas in blue gear).

Whining about warrior protgrinding is...wel...stupid cause they grind GREAT.

protadins grind better, they just gather 20mobs, do 2k DPS for a little while, take no damage and loot, one of the best grinders around imo.

The ones who have it worst imo are restodruids and holy priests(healing ones, not the smite ones :p)