Gearing up for the newly 80 Warrior Tank

With the advent of patch 3.3, a lot of gear guides have been lost in the shuffle. Not many people want to bother learning what dungeon drops what when you can simply get badges and get gear. However, to be taken seriously as a tank, you should be doing at least the bare minimum. Crafted and rep gear will get you where you need to be to start tanking and can be attained the moment you hit 80 if not before. After all, if you want to tank, you may as well tank. Otherwise your only option is to queue as DPS for your badges.

This is a guide for gearing up on crafted, Reputation, and quest gear only.

What you will need to tank:

• 540 defense (535 for heroics, but you should shoot for 540)
• 21000 HP (you can and should go for at least 23000, it's doable in crafted gear)
• Roughly 20000 Armor

Here's what you need to do it:

• Weapon: Hammer of Quiet Morning - reward from lvl 74 quest "Ragemane's Flipper" in Zul'Drak. There aren't any really good crafted weapons. If you miss out on this one you can use whatever you have. You'll use this forever, pretty much. I held mine until the Red Sword dropped in H.UP, and later picked up the Peacekeeper from H.ToC.
  
• Shoulders: Tempered Saronite Shoulders
  
• Head: Tempered Saronite Helm - The Crusader's Resolution is a good alternative, but the Tempered Helm has more Defense for capping. If you're an Engineer, your Goggles will do you justice all the way until the 75 triumph badge T9 equivalent headpiece.
  
• Legs and Hands: Daunting handguards and Legplates - These are fantastic and cheap, and probably the two best starter tank pieces you can get your hands on. While you're at it, throw a Jormungar kit on the Legplates if you can afford it.
• Neck: Burning Skull Pendant - easily acquired on the Auction, and usually cheap. This is good since neckpieces are hard to come by. If you can't get it, just spend your first 19 badges on the conquest neckpiece.
• Feet: Tempered Saronite Boots or the Toxin Tempered Sabatons from Ebon Hold rep (honored) which you will already have just by finishing the Shadow Vault quest chain. The Toxin Tempered Sabatons are the better choice in my opinion, but either is fine.
• Waist: For the belt there's only one option: Tempered Saronite Belt. You'll hold onto this at least until Skadi's belt drops in H.UP.
• Cloak: Tattered Castle Drape is a good bet if you're close to the defense cap and just need a bit more. If you're a bit further from capping, Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions will be it for Honored reputation with Wyrmrest (you'll need to do pretty much all the quests in Dragonblight for this, but it can be attained at 80 without dungeon farming).
• Shield: There are also few good options for this. Your best bet is to save up some gold for mats and have a Titansteel Shield Wall crafted. It won't be wasted, The only other useful shield at this level is Royal Crest of Lordaeron, which is a sidegrade. Your next real upgrade only comes if you plan to raid, or if you get a lucky drop in reg HoR ICC 5-man.
• Ranged slot: When I hit 80 I had an Armor Plated Shotgun crafted for this one, but you're better off just using whatever you have and saving up 25 badges for the tank thrown weapon from the triumph vendor now.

And that's it for the gear. Next you need Enchants:

• Cloak: TitanWeave
• Shield: Defense
• Weapon: eh, go cheap and get a Titanium Weapon chain, you'll need the hit. Later, when you get a more solid weapon upgrade you'll probably want Mongoose if you're hit-capped (263 hit, I think) or close to it, if you need hit get Accuracy. Any other weapon enchants are debatable.
• Boots: 22 Stamina or Tuskarr's Vitality. Tuskarr's is better overall even though it's less stamina, but I think the 22 Stam enchant is cheaper.
• Gloves: Your choice. As an Engineer I'd recommend Reticulated Armor Webbing, and I'll discuss more on the benefits of Engineering as a Warrior in a later post. Threat is a good choice, as is Assault or anything else that will add to your damage, and therefore your threat.
• Shoulders: Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle is a good start. You need all the defense you can get at this gear level.
• Head: Eh, go cheap, you'll be replacing this gear pretty quick. Anything not yet enchanted can have a Heavy Borean Armor kit for extra health.

With all this stuff you should be at 540 Defense, if just barely (if you're at 539 or something, don't sweat it, you'll get better gear running heroics and only NEED 535 for those), and between 22000 and 24000 health. You may be lacking a bit for hit and Expertise, these can be made up for with Elixir of Accuracy and Rhinolicious Wormsteaks if need be.



And that's pretty much it. More than enough to get you started, and all that's left is to go practice your skills.