+1 relic weakest upgrade for tanks?

[PiedPiper]

not true. if you need +1 as a paladin because your having trouble holding hate, your doing something wrong.

+1 shield is okay, but you should start with af2 chest or coordinate with the other tank if your in a static coil group.

Not all together true. Turn 4 as the tank doing the add pick ups (aka the actual hard part), you need all the threat youc an get so your dps can go ham. Also, as your dps gear up, they do close the gap. Before I did coil 4 & 5 I would have agreed with you, but now that we have mutliple dps in full left side i90, threat is much more heated.

Your primary job, as a tank, is to build and hold agro. No upgrade other than your sword will have as big an impact on this. Sword & shield should always be first.

[Maelwys]

Your primary job, as a tank, is to build and hold agro. No upgrade other than your sword will have as big an impact on this.

Not strictly true... because if it was then you'd see more tanks running +Str instead of +Vit.

You have to balance two things as a Tank: (i) Threat Generation and (ii) Survivability.

You can increase the former firstly via Weapon Damage, then via +Str, +Det and +Crit in that order (once Acc is capped!)
You can only really increase the latter by stacking +Defense/Parry for additional raw mitigation, and +Vit* to give your healers a bigger buffer to heal.

You're correct in that the +1 Sword is the single biggest bonus to threat you can get before downing Turn 5.
However there is a heck of a lot of +Def and +Vit to be gotten via Myth upgrades too, never mind +Acc.

(*Note: We already have certain forum posters advocating using melded HQ Gryphonskin accessories to exchange some VIT for DEX/STR, their argument being that at very high HP levels - 6.5k plus - healers already have plenty of HP to work with and additional mitigation chance and higher enmity generation could be more beneficial. I can see an attraction for certain highly-geared and well-practiced raid groups to trade ~5% of their Tank's maximum HP for a ~25% higher enmity ceiling... but at "lower" gearings going for +Vit is nearly always going to be the best option)

Sword & shield should always be first.

I'd always go for the Hero's Ring of Fending first.
Nothing else comes close in terms of additional stat bonus per myth point.

I'd go for the +1 Sword pretty soon afterwards (possibly after Body since the cost works out nicely in terms of the weekly myth caps)... but I'd not bother at all with the shield until you're i90'ed almost everywhere else. There are better stat boosts to be had from any other upgrade over Darklight (even from the belt which actually "costs" you 9 parry!) plus the +1 Shield is not BIS and the Allagan version drops from Turn 1. Combine all that with the fact that any shield is largely pointless on Turns 2 and 3, and really the only thing the Shield upgrade has going for it is that it costs exactly one week worth of myth - as soon as you're prepared to save anything beyond one week, it's hands-down the worst upgrade out there...

[PiedPiper]

Not strictly There are better stat boosts to be had from any other upgrade over Darklight (even from the belt which actually "costs" you 9 parry!) plus the +1 Shield is not BIS and the Allagan version drops from Turn 1. Combine all that with the fact that any shield is largely pointless on Turns 2 and 3, and really the only thing the Shield upgrade has going for it is that it costs exactly one week worth of myth - as soon as you're prepared to save anything beyond one week, it's hands-down the worst upgrade out there...

Shield is only NOT BiS if you ahve access to turn 5 loot. Course, you have to be geared enough to get there before you can start on that BiS build....

Turn 1: Cad wrecks. Its nice.
Turn 2 is not a damage threat, the raid will wipe because non-tank members fumble mechanics, the tanks are in no danger of being killed under normal play, so no upgrade is particularly valuable here.
Turn 3 is... lol wait, are we discussing turn 3?
Turn 4: Shield very potent. You are perhaps over looking that the shield is both an % per block and % to block upgrade. When you are getting hit by two dreads, or 4 adds, this is extremely potent.
Turn 5: Shield is again quite potent. Twin hits for so much that even a few % makes a large difference.

Sure, you can get shield from turn 1. But i'm over two months in and haven't seen it. I wouldn't base purchases on drops you might get. The shield is an extremely potent upgrade. I agree the ring is also, but I wouldn't go past my first 3 upgrades without getting +1 sword/shield and heros ring (unless you get one of those three as a drop). Should you look at my character, you'll find I got the Allagan Ring early on, and thus bypassed heros for now.

Personally, even though I am at the 6.5k point with food, I would not forgo vit for enmity. Twin continues to hit so hard that the hp is valuable. That said, that leaves only the sword (and incidental strenght from left side upgrades) as your means to increasing enmity. By contrast, every slot upgrade on your dps will increase their enmity. You have to keep up with them, particularly in turns 4 and 5 where the fights center around dps checks.

[Maelwys]

The shield is an extremely potent upgrade. I agree the ring is also, but I wouldn't go past my first 3 upgrades without getting +1 sword/shield and heros ring (unless you get one of those three as a drop).

As mentioned above, the Shield upgrade gives you +1.2264% Block Strength.

If we assume your block rate is about 24-25%, this equates to a boost in damage mitigation of around 0.3% over time versus non-magic frontal hits.

If you consider that to be worth your first week's myth, then by all means go for it.
Personally, I'd rather go for the Ring --> Body option for my first 4 weeks.

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Shield is only NOT BiS if you ahve access to turn 5 loot.

Regarding BIS:

Post Turn 5, the Allagan Shield is undeniably BIS.

Pre-turn 5, if we ignore that using the Holy +1 shield over the Allagan requires you to use food for Turn 5 (you'll likely be eating Toast anyway for the +Vit and Parry) then it will grant you an extra 7 SS, which is enough to bring your GCD down from 2.162 seconds to 2.156 seconds.

If your reflexes are high enough to notice a 0.006 second GCD reduction, then more power to you. Personally I very much doubt that the server clock can even register a 6 millisecond time interval, so would consider spending a week's worth of Myth on that to be largely pointless (assuming that you already have the Allagan Shield). YMMV.