reaching def cap for 5 man heroics

Hello,

I just came back to WoW and re-rolled Alliance (shudder!) and DK. Basically, I'm pretty casual now. I plan to tank 5 men heroics for my friends.

My basic throught is I'm going to get a lot of crafted gear because that will be BiS for loot I have access to. This list includes: tempered titansteel helm, durable nerubhide cape, industructable plate girdle, spiked deathdealers, titanium earthguard ring, and titansteel destroyer (maybe). I anticipate it will take me about a month+ to get the mats for this gear.

My issue is reaching the 540 def cap. I created a char in wowhead profiler and I had to socket everything for +16 def rating to get to 541 leaving me with only 22k health and 5% away from being hit capped.

Is there a better way to get to DEF 540?

This is the link to the wowhead char.

PS I want to add a thank you to Polar for his easy to get gear list. Thank you.