I've opted for a Protection spec that's fairly useful, and seems to fit in with most of what has been said about the best builds for the class. Mind you, realistically, in the protection spec, there's really only about 14 "freebie" talent points to spend, so there's not a huge amount of customization, but it does lend itself well to providing room for arguments.
I mention this because last night I was "the" tank in a 10 man Malygos attempt, which, although unsuccessful, I learned a few tricks from, and I was overall very glad to go.
I think one of the worst things about this raid is that they designed it with DK's in mind. I don't have any problem having DK's in raids, in fact, I really like having them even though I have to roll against them for loots, because they're some really heavy hitters, and us melee classes have to stick together. In this case, though, there is the one aspect of the raid that almost "requires" a DK, more specifically their death grip ability (which I personally love). It can be done without it, as our group last night showed on a couple of the tries. While we weren't successful overall, our mistakes weren't so much in phase 1 where the sparks were coming, but rather in phases 2 and 3, and in some cases, I'm not entirely sure what happened.
Generally speaking, I think I need a little bit better gear before I attempt that again. I took a little too much damage, even blowing my shield block and shield wall, last stand et al when times got rough. Since we don't have the abundance of cd's to use like DK's I have to assume that I just need to work on revising my gear some. Getting to Expertise cap would help a lot, but this is easier said than done. I spent some time researching to find a way to attain all of (a) defense cap, (b) expertise cap, and (c) hit cap, and it is possible, but very very difficult and there are limited options for the gear that will get you all three. If we forego (c) entirely, and let the hit fall where it may, it's still quite difficult to attain (a) and (b) but you have more "leeway" than you do if you try for all 3.
That and I've decided if I try the attempt again, I'm going to spend more time strafing. For any tanks reading this who haven't already tried to tank this instance, I'll tell you now that the most difficult thing about tanking Malygos (other than how hard he hits, which isn't as hard as some raid bosses, but still pretty good) is maneuvering him. His hit box is HUGE and he won't even lunge your way until you're all the way out of it. I have specifically two suggestions for you that may help:
1) After the first air phase, get Malygos in position, and start moving to the edge of the hit box, remember, you can still hit him even from the same distance that the other melee can, so you're not "really" backing off.
2) once it's time to kite him away, strafe like your life depends on it. Turning your back won't work (you lose your block/parry ratings entirely) and backing up won't work because it's too slow even with the speed increase from Tuskarr's Vitality. I think strafing is the right answer.
Everything else you can find on a forum about handling this boss, including where to tank him, how far to move him and in which direction etc. My guild has found that the best solution (especially if you DON'T have the requisite 1-2 DK's that the instance seems to want) is to kite Malygos right inside the little lip of the outer ring. If you have to turn him, make sure you pass outside of the ring, since Malygos doesn't do tail swipes, but does do some massive cleaves.
That should be enough to get you to phase 2, which is pretty simple, especially if you've put the two points into improved Spell Reflection, as I had.
Then it's all up to your coordination as a group, and everyone being familiar with the mechanics of riding the drakes in phase 3, and all done.
Just to note, although we failed, we made it to phase 3 most of the attempts last night, but we had some unlucky breaks in having our "healer" drakes going down almost immediately and having people switch off to heal from dps at the last minute sometimes takes some getting used to. It was one of those times that you know the next time you try you're certain to pull it off, since we were well under the enrage timer every shot, just a string of bad luck. Our group has done this before, and while I don't feel like I was personally at fault for any of our bad luck, I do think that some gear changes for me would make it easier for the heals to do their jobs since they wouldn't have to burn as much mana keeping me up.
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