New warrior tank needing some advice

[Whippersnapper]

This is my first ever tank character. I've always played dps for the most part. I started out with a hunter and then went to a mage as well as having a dk which is pretty fun as far as dps goes. My main love in MMOs is ranged classes. I've just always been comfortable with it in just about every game I've played. Recently, however, I figured maybe it was about time to try something new as the game has really become very stagnant for me.

I leveled this character mainly in fury and then switched to arms once I reached northrend and fell in love with it. However, that wasn't my goal. I just recently hit 77 and figured if I'm going to do this tanking thing I myswell get myself going now and try to get a feel for Protection as a spec.
I picked up a basic tanking build off of a post on these forums(15/3/53). I started playing......and slap my mom and call me elijah, I can't believe how many skills/cooldowns/buff timers that I need to keep track of to be effective. It's like a freaking train wreck on my hotbars.

After lots of reading posts on this forum I've come to the conclusion that not everyone tanks the same way. Unlike dps where every class pretty much has a bread and butter rotation for every spec, warrior tanks have like 15 different ways to tank effectively. What I'm trying to figure out is if there is such a thing as a warrior tanks "Bread and Butter" rotation. I feel if I just had something solid to fallback on and get comfortable with I'll be able to eventually start learning all the little extra quirks to go along with it.

Sorry, the post is getting a bit long I'm just trying to show everyone that I literally have no idea what I'm really doing.

I know about the defense cap and I've looked over the guide for gear to get 540 defense easily already. My plan is to at least try to tank some of the lower end dungeons like nexus just to get in some practice. However, I really don't wanna go in and end up failing miserably and not even be able to take out the first boss cause of my lack of experience.

Anyway, here's my armory link. Don't know if it's going to do any good since I'm only level 77 and I just started trying to get somewhat of a set together to try tanking something, today.
The World of Warcraft Armory (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aggramar&n=Ratalis)

[Reev]

Well, I'd say you should have started tanking back in Scarlet Monastery, where it's as easy as Sunder Armor and Heroic Strike, and just build on that over time, but it's too late for that now.

Warriors don't have a "rotation" where you use specific abilities in an order, but we do have a sort of priority system.

1. Shield Slam - It's your highest threat ability and your number one threat priority. Use it every time it's available. If you get a Sword and Board Proc, use it (having the sound on your game on is useful for this, because you can hear the proc). If you don't get an SnB proc, you just use it every 6 seconds.

2. Revenge - Once you get the Devastate Glyph, devastate will actually do more threat than Revenge, but Revenge is always more damage, and not far behind on threat.. I like to put this as my second priority for that reason.

3. Devastate - This is sort of your filler ability between shield slams and revenges. Spam it while Shield Slam and revenge are on cooldown.

4. Heroic Strike - This is one of your principal sources of threat. You can use this at the same time as your other abilities. So as long as you have more than 40 rage, you should always be queuing up another Heroic Strike (or cleave on multi mob pulls) at the same time as you're using Shield Slam/Revenge/Devastate.

That was all single target. For multi target pulls:

1. Thunderclap - This is your go-to threat ability on multi-mob pulls. It has the added benefit of slowing their attack speed by 20%, so it should be used even on single targets. Shockwave will actually cause more threat, but it's on a longer cooldown. Use Thunderclap every time it's up on multi-mob pulls.

2. Shockwave - Highest multi-mob threat ability. Use it whenever it's off cooldown. In most contemporary instances, you only get a chance to use it once per trash pull. It's also useful for avoiding damage because of the stun.

3. Cleave - Many people swear by this for multi-mob pulls. I hardly ever use it, personally. It's just too many buttons on my bar and I do fine without it. The consensus of the majority of the tanking community, however, is that it's the bee's knees and should be used in place of heroic strike when there's more than one mob.

Those are the basics for threat. There's more to it than that, but if you follow what I said there, you should be able to hold aggro. 2 more quick things to mention. Use Vigilance on the person in your group who does the most threat. Always make sure to fit a Demoralizing Shout into your "rotation." Demo Shout decreases incoming damage by a large amount.

I'll go ahead and post this while I look at your spec.

[Reev]

OK, so your build is a little wonky. 15/3/53 (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LAM00fZhZMItrx0didIzsGo:cTMmoM)is the build I would use if I were you.

Your HP totals also seem pretty low, even for a level 77. Try to snag some of the cheaper enchants if you can, which will help, and make sure you're never tanking without your Commanding Shout up. You'll have to deal with a lot of annoying people complaining at you because your hit points are as low as a dps right now. Just try to let it roll off and blow their socks off with your awesome tanking. :)

[MellvarTank]

I'd also recommend honing those tanking skills in some outlands dungeons: there isn't as much danger of you dying and it's probably a good place to learn.

[drae]

There are also a ton of stickies throughout the various forums that answer the vast majority of tanking related frequently asked questions, I would highly advise working your way through them if your committed to becoming the best tank you can be.

[Whippersnapper]

Thanks for the info Reev. The little run down of those few abilities has actually helped me manage my attacks a bit better. After setting up my poweraura addon and getting a couple debuff watchers I was able to pay more attention to my procs as well, particularly Sword And Board.

I've decided to just go ahead and finish leveling out to 80 and then some friends of mine have offered to do a few practice runs with me to get a feel for it a little more. I'm pretty confident that I won't have any problem when it comes to single target tanking. I think my biggest worry is my ability to keep up on AoE threat. So much of WoTLK has come down to just AoE everything until you get to a boss. However, my goal was always a warrior tank and I plan to go with it. I'll definitely continue check this site and reading more of the stickies in the meantime.