Prot Warrior and Progression Halp

[DomainTheory]

So I recently decided to start up WoW again and leveled myself a warrior. I hit 80 about a week ago and have about 3 days /played. During that play time I've accumulated quite a healthy set of gear for my tank set, however, lots of groups feel my HP is far too low.

I'm mostly equipped with ilvl 232 and 245 with the few 226 / 219 gear pieces I have and I can tank anything up to ToC 10 man just fine, but that's still ilvl 232 rewards for the most part. What should I do?

I feel like I'm healthily gemmed and enchanted, though there are a few things I could get, but nothing I change could possibly get me up to around say 36k+ HP unbuffed. I'm sat at 33k (Which is low for a warrior apparently?)

Here's my WoW armory link: The World of Warcraft Armory

Please halp. I don't know what more I should do or what more to run. Nobody trusts me with 25 man tanking positions simply because of my HP (which, no doubt, makes a difference) and I feel like theres not much more I could improve on unless I go to 25 mans.

[krc]

Here all the improvments you can make in your gear: Get epic gems, change your shoulder gem to 30 stamina, get the pvp enchant for your shoulders, get 225 armor to your cloak, 30 stamina gem to bracers, 18 stamina enchant to your gloves and save the Ony trinket for Saurfang and Gunship use the Glyph of Indomitability in place of it.

One more easy upgrade is getting a t9 glove or legs with 50 easy to get badges.

[Tengenstein]

Also get some professions, you're missing out on 1.2k health for being an unskilled unemployed bum. the minor glyph of bloodrage would probably be good too.

[DomainTheory]

Hey hey, class is out for a few weeks for christmas break, mind you. So yeah I got a lot of time on my hands haha

But yeah thanks a lot for all the tips; I'm redoing all my gems right now (cant afford 30's since they're about 300 gold per on my server, so Im going for 24's)

And I'm aiming for the t9 gloves, I'm about half way there.

As for professions, I'm guessing Mining and..? Not sure what the 2nd should be.

[Viledelinian]

Awe there,

Herbalism \ engineering \ skinning....

Thats my best bet...

"They say Tauren should eat at least two humans a week"

Peace

[Martie]

Hey hey, class is out for a few weeks for christmas break, mind you. So yeah I got a lot of time on my hands haha

But yeah thanks a lot for all the tips; I'm redoing all my gems right now (cant afford 30's since they're about 300 gold per on my server, so Im going for 24's)

And I'm aiming for the t9 gloves, I'm about half way there.

As for professions, I'm guessing Mining and..? Not sure what the 2nd should be.

Gemming can be expensive, I know.
So that's a good start for your first profession. Jewelcrafting. It's flexible, powerful, saves money, and can make you money as well.

Mining is a decent choice for a second profession, thought I'd go for a second crafting profession myself. Blacksmithing and engineering are both valid choices, but most professions give similar advantages.

If gems are too expensive, remember that you can buy them from badges and honour, and then have them cut to what you want.

[krc]

Also remember with 130 stone keeper shards you will get enough honor to buy an epic gem.

[nethervoid]

This link should help people more easily evaluate your gear:

http://wow-heroes.com/index.php?zone...r&name=Coexist

Some things hopefully that have not already been said:

- Change your bracer gem for a +30 stam gem (generally I don't go for the bonus unless it's +12 stam or I need a red gem for the meta [in which case I use regal dreadstone dodge/stam])

- Get the T9 badge pants
- Get the T9 badge gloves
- Get the frost badge cloak as your first frost item
- Try to keep running ToC 10m and get the shield from Anub
--- Unless you can get ICC 10m shield from gunship
- Get 232 necklace from H HoR
- If you've got money to burn, you could get the smith boots and legs from the new ICC patterns, but that will run you like 10k for the boots and 16k for the legs or something redonkulous lol
- People will debate forever, but IMO get BloodDraining enchant on your weapon
- Also I would probably replace your glyphs with the shield wall and last stand glyphs - Having those CDs on 2min timers has really helped my survivability

Your talents look good

If you really want to progress, you'll probably have to get into a guild. PuG raids can only take you so far (and you'll always be behind other tanks, because PuGs don't really form much until it's farm for most guilds [for their alts to gear up]).

[Sylfraor]

Everything depends on what is your play time. If enough time, farm random heroics. That should let you buy T9 and gemmestones. No limits except life outside of WoW. (instance locks are ignored for random ones).

Should you have less time, do the raid weekly, the daily random heroics at least and try to find crafters for TOC et ICC crafts (should you have enought gold).

And, my best advice, go raid in ICC as you are already well geared for 10m, just advocate yourself and convince that you can do so. It is commun that raiders forgot that they can't just run with already full-geared tank. But they just can't.

[Griff]

Herbalism \ engineering \ skinning....

Skinning and herbalism are not good tanking professions. Engineering isn't a complete waste but I feel the item enhancements have limited utility.

Instead, you want Blacksmith/JC - mining will also work but is like 30 stam less.

[krc]

For tanking there are no "top" professions but the viable ones are JC, BS, Mining, Alchemy, LW, and Engineering with a slight edge to JCing and BSing combo.

[Unger]

^ Agree w/ KRC. Im a miner, which is worth 60 stamina and also an alchemist. When you are, you get an extra 600ish health from your flask.... make sure you are flasking stoneblood. It helps. Mining is also cheap to level...

[nethervoid]

Enchanting also provides a +60 stam bonus.

[DomainTheory]

Wow guys, I really appreciate all the tips stated here. I'll list the progress I've made so far since the day I posted and read all these awesome guides to progression.

I've recently used badges to get ilvl 226 pants and gloves, leaving me with only 2 Ilvl 219 items left in my inventory (with the exception of one iLvL 200 trinket for stamina)

I've saved up a total of 704 stone keeper shards, and currently have 30 emblems of frost.

One thing I'm completely unsure of right now is where to get the gloves and pants for Tier 9 for emblems? I've looked everywhere I know and I don't see any sets for emblems of triumph. So I suppose this will be my next goal once someone clears the air on how to get ahold of these, heh.

Again, thank you for all the tips, I'll be working on professions after Christmas weekend.

Merry Christmas everyone! :>

[Fledern]

For T9 tier sets, go to the Argent Tournament grounds and on the left side of the raid entrance you'll find the vendors. "of Conquest" are the versions purchasable purely with Triumph badges.

Since you're saying you cant afford epic gems, i'd strongly suggest staying away from the BS/JC combo for professions as it's very very very expensive to level up. However, take mining/JC - it'll both shave you a lot on gem prices (there's anything from 20g to 50g difference between cut & uncut epic gems on my server) and provide you with a really nice cash income (buy raw gems, cut them & sell them - you can make tons of money)

You've really worked on your gear - yeah your hp is a little on the low side but you've got really good armor for your gear setup - i've done a similar gearingup job for a friend, he ended up with 26K armor, you have 27.7K - that's a lot of extra effective health. You could also change out your bracer & shoulder gems for pure stam ones but it shouldnt be that necessary.

Note: find yourself a friendly JC buddy till you level yours. 704 stonekeeper shards = 4 epic gems if you convert them to honor. Weekly wintergrasp quests equals another epic gem.

[Sagern]

for the tier 9 sets you need to go up in Icecrown just outside the ToC raid entrance..the tier vendors are just outside.