Prot warrior new to tanking.. need some advice

[blackhydra866]

Hello all, here is my character's profile on Armory (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Illidan&n=Celdar) and Wowhead (http://profiler.wowhead.com/?profile=us.illidan.celdar). Here is a screenshot of my interface (http://imgur.com/NUgkS.jpg).

I hit 80 about a week ago and I guess you could say i'm having a bit of a rough time trying to get gear. Thankfully my friends were able to get me into regular Trial of the Champion and I nearly have all the gear from there except for the gloves and trinket i'm pretty sure. And the thought of tanking for a 10man/20man naxx or ulduar is pretty horrifying.. haha.. but I need to run those things in order to get gear.. but i'm not geared enough to get into groups. So I really don't know what to do..

And also should I respec and take the 2 points out of Cruelty and put them into Improved Disciplines or Shield Specialization?

[Glittersmith]

First of all you are not at the defense minimum, run normal HoL and get Seal of the Pantheon - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=36993) from there. AN hc also drops a good stamina trinket that you could try to pick up before you get the stamina trinket from ToC normal.

Apart from trinkets the pieces you need to replace first are your cloak and chest since these are dps pieces.

Replacing your lvl70 ring with a lvl80 one with defense on it would also be good.

And enchant your gear properly and you will see both your defence and health shoot up.

Oh yeah this : http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/41986-cider-s-easy-540-defense-gear-guide.html

[blackhydra866]

Got defense capped and made some HUGE improvements in my gear last night :) My wowhead/armory pages are updated now and all that good stuff.

[drae]

The rep chest from wyrmrest is ez to acquire Breastplate of the Solemn Council - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44198) and will help with your threat and defense. Then you can replace those defense gems with some stam ones (stay at least 540).

The trinket from normal ToC is amazing for how easy it is to come by, grind that instance as often as possible to get your hands on it, you likely won't switch it out anytime soon.

The Crafted Titansteel helmet is really nice, amazing stamina.

Once your comfortable in heroics (which should be really soon, its more a question of mastering the priority flowchart then gear at this point) do utgarde pinnacle for the Red Sword of Courage - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37401) or get enough badges from Crusader dailies to pick-up Axe of the Sen'jin Protector - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45204) good weapons really help with threat.