New warrior (gear-wise) looking for advice

[jokeaccount]

- WARNING - Big post ahead

I'm not exactly a new warrior neither new lvl 80. I had stopped playing when i got really pissed off once and just quit wow for about 6 months maybe? Anyway up till then i had just reached the defense cap with full blue equipment and tried to go for some heroics. The answer:
"You don't have enough life"
"Not enough avoidance"
"Noob tank lulz im outa here"

Now the WoW fever rose back and i'm willing to try once more. I tried to make a small plan/goals i want to achieve but there are some things that i'm afraid of (from TBC experience).

First of all i'm sure heroics are going to be a pain once again. My profile is here: The World of Warcraft Armory (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Executus&n=Veox)
With 20k hp (if we put talents) and 18k armour i'm not going anywhere. So the plan consists of doing Normal ToC for the gloves/waist/feet/legs/trinket epic drops. Then with the new survivability start collecting badges for the Conqueror's chest and helm. After that i'm stuck. Try heroic ToC for the other drops? Continue with the other heroics for more badge loot like back/wrists? I'm also lacking weapon and shield if i go this way. This is where i need some help.


The other thing that is bothering me is that executus is a small server and if i recall from the TBC days, the raid-pug groups suck hard and you can find one every two days or so. Which means it is impossible to raid without a guild. With the gear i have, joining a half-serious guild won't happen so raiding is out of question.


Finally the last thing that has come to my attention is this:
Having checked some guild recruitment pages, it seems to me that they recruit, most of the time, dpsers and maybe some healers here and there. Tanks seem to always be either guild masters, or old guild members who have proven their worth and the guild knows it can depend on them. Hard time to get accepted if you are a tank it seems. Should i try to switch to DPS? It is easier to join hc and instances (although a warrior is hardly ever prefered...) and in low level stuff people hardly ever depend on one of the three dpsers. What do you think?

[Fearghus]

It is unfortunate, but a raiding guild will probably have at least the minimum tanks needed to get some content done. And they do tend to be long-term members, or dedicated or officers/GM. There are exceptions, I know...

At your gear level you'd be best served either getting into a low tier raiding guild, one that has more porous positions due to the casual atmosphere. You could also try applying to a regular raiding guild and sit on the bench until a spot opens up and you can slip in to show em your awesomeness.

Either way, learning and gearing up your dps side will only allow for a greater opportunity.

[Griff]

The average raiding guild needs 3 or 4 tanks at most, 6-7 healers at most and 15-20 dps, hence the focus on recruiting dps.

Also, your health is low. A big reason for this is that you've not bothered to enchant any of your gear.

You might want to actually, you know, spend some talent points too, that would help you be a better tank.

Professions: Skinning isn't a good tanking profession - Jewelcrafting, blacksmithing or mining would be suitable replacements.

There are always Naxx pugs forming up on most servers and if you took care of your enchants and spec, you could probably find a billet as an offtank without too much trouble.

[Bung]

So here is the good news:at least while farming for conquest badges you can get gear from heroics that are upgrades. One naxx trip and you will get many upgrades!

The bad news. Yeah most guilds have established tanks. You need experience and gear so my advice: pug. Just get into as many reg or heroic dungeons as you can take. make new friends. Some guild out there desperately needs tanks im sure of it.

[jokeaccount]

About the talents, it's just that i haven't played since 6 months as i said and since the big patches talent points have been reset so i haven't spent them yet (my acc is still frozen for now) As for enchantments, i thought that i'd put them on better pieces of equipment since i'm not going to be keeping those blues for long. Finally, professions were never something i bothered with and they take alot of money to lvl up especially blacksmithing-jewelcrafting.
Problem is i'm not even getting accepted in heroics let alone naxx pugs :P

[Griff]

As for enchantments, i thought that i'd put them on better pieces of equipment since i'm not going to be keeping those blues for long. Finally, professions were never something i bothered with and they take alot of money to lvl up especially blacksmithing-jewelcrafting.


Most tank enchants don't really cost a lot of money and just +40 stam to your wrists and +55 stam to your legs would add almost 1k health to your pool.

If you want to be taken seriously as a tank, you need to demonstrate to people that you're willing to extend a bit of effort and you can't QQ about no one wanting to run with you if you don't.

As for joining an actual raiding guild, things like professions are important. Most raiders are 'minimax' players who try to squeeze every advantage out of their toons as they can and if you're not willing to do that, don't expect many raiding guilds to even give you a second look.

[Dustywt4]

It sounds like you know what to do already. Heroics, badges and try to join a guild. If in fact you know how to tank already, you should have a leg up on the millions of tanks that geared themselves in 2 piece 8.5 via badges and ilvl 219 gear from heroic 5 man ToC. Just put the time in.

[jimbabwe]

I have just recently geared my tank over the past month or so and I was at the point where you are now. I did meet a good deal of resistance at first, and it really was generally harder at first for the group with me tanking. Whenever I met a group that put up resistance to my tanking (I had 21khp,20k armor), I'd tell them that if we wiped I'd go to Dalaran and find them a new tank, and that worked every time.

As for gear, I'd say buy as much as you can afford now and buy all the enchants/gems you can to make it at least appear you're trying. I lead some raids now and that alone will make me choose one player over another if I have to make the choice.

As for a tanking weapon I started the argent crusade before I hit 80 and there was a decent axe you can get there. Takes about 2 weeks of doing the dailies though.

Other then that run your heroics and normal ToC, and it looks like you've done well with rep gear. If you have questions about enchants look at your character on wow-heroes.com as it has a neat little menu that show's you the best enchants for each slot.