Well while I'm sure many would swear by Bladeward or Blood Draining, I myself have used Lifeward to great effect on first my paladin and also now on my warrior as a tanking enchant. The benefits of other chants such as mongoose or exceptional agility are relatively pointless at higher level raids or well i should say not as important to me as the survivability offered by Lifeward. Just after WoTLK came out, I sat there with a shaman friend of mine and we enchanted several of these chants and he sat there healing himself while i struck him. I was getting procs of around 350-400 heals and 800 crits nearly every 5-10 seconds. This was not a lot but it is a decent amount and can really mean the difference in a raid especially a long fight where the healers may already be overtaxed by area of effect enemy attacks on all members of the raid as well as possible running low on mana. The amount of the proc has increased since. It has been the entire difference in several fights that I recall.. one in old kingdom against Prince Taldaram on my pally when he was down to 20%+ life left and all the other members of my 5 man heroic were down... Lifeward as well as some judicious use of seals and judgments and flash heals allowed me to basically solo him to death. I died a few scant moments later myself from a DoT but he went down first and so the group reaped the benefits. If beers were available over the web, they would of bought them that night. And most recently on my warrior when we were taking on Deathbringer Saurfang in 10 man ICC it made all the difference. After several wipes I ported to Dalaran, bought the mats and had it enchanted onto my mace by one of the raid members and it allowed the healers to focus more on the other members of the raid and the edge it presented was the deciding factor for us not to wipe (according to my healers, not me).
I'm not saying Lifeward is the best for every tank or every application, but I believe it deserves some credit as a tanking chant. say 12 points. I have literally had a group tell me they would not take me unless i had a wow-heroes approved chant on my weapon and that Lifeward has no score at all. This from a chant that has made my survivability noticeably better is I think just silly.
