New Tank, 100's of Questions...

[Ulfas]

But I'll try to keep this to a minimum.

I realize that much of this most probably is already covered in other areas of this forum, but there's just so much good info to sift through... I guess I'm just lazy. But, I digress, on to my issue.

I'm a very late comer to WoW, only about 6mos total since my wife introduced me to the game, and my first charactor is a arms warrior. Did the dual spec thing so now he's a Arms/Prot warrior, and I've been trying to do some tanking. I've been gearing this tank set with what I can buy, build, or catch from drops when I run dps. Here's my dwarf, and my issue(s).
The armory

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ecutus&n=Ulfas

My questions.

I've got what seems to be the widely accepted talent tree build, and I do ok on single target situations, my problem is multi-target pulls. What rotation do I need to be using to maximize my threat in those multi-target pulls?
Where do I need to be with my gems?
What gear do I need to be looking for to improve my situation?
I thank you all in advance for any and all help you can give.

[Dasverlassen]

For mutli-mob tanking try to spam cleave, and use thunderclap/shockwave whenever they're off of cooldown. Tabbing through targets and throwing a couple sunders and/or shield slam will also help with off-target threat.
For gems you should replace your crit gems and put in def/stam(or just stam) and your expertise is still below soft cap(26) so you should drop your str gems for exp/stam gems. It also wouldn't hurt to upgrade your non-epic gems.
Personally I think +275 health to chest would be an upgrade from +10 stats and the PvP 30stam/15 resil enchant to shoulders wouldn't be a bad change either.
Your hit rating is a bit low but I wouldn't worry about that until you get your expertise soft capped.

Hope that helps!

[Ulfas]

Thanks a ton for your advice, you've given me a direction to go with my upgrades, I appricate it.

[Charonites]

You decided to learn tanking when you hit 80? Ouch.

Right, in that case, throw yourself into Random Normals and learn how to tank properly. I'm not saying you're a bad tank, but I needed to tank some Normals to get a hang of tanking on my DK, as I, like you, switched to tanking at level 80. It'll help. The best advice I can give you is to throw yourself in there.

[Kurtosis]

You decided to learn tanking when you hit 80? Ouch.

Right, in that case, throw yourself into Random Normals and learn how to tank properly. I'm not saying you're a bad tank, but I needed to tank some Normals to get a hang of tanking on my DK, as I, like you, switched to tanking at level 80. It'll help. The best advice I can give you is to throw yourself in there.

Second that. I have an 80 DK tank, 76 bear druid, a 41 prot pally, and a 40 prot War, and find the War the hardest of the 4 tanks so far. I can't imagine getting a warrior to 80 then trying to learn to tank from scratch on it.

Having said that, they probably also ultimately make the most skilled players since they're more of a challenge. You've definitely got your work cut out for you, so start easy in Reg dungeons, learn the ropes, then move up to Heroics, and finally raids.

[Ulfas]

thanks again for the advice, kind words and sympathy(lol). originally, i`d intended this guy to go arms/fury, and stick solely to dps. However, when the dungeon finder came to be,and gear became SO much easier to get, i thought " why not see about building a tank set?"
It was pretty much just a passing fancy until i got to watching the way things were working.
1) my guild is/was tank poor. we really need another.
2)in the randoms, some tanks are bailing on dungrons they see as below them, or groups they see as lacking
3) (in our server at least) tanks are in such short supply, they`re being paid for randoms.
4) Queing as a tank = instant run in the random dungeon finder, and pretty much assures you a spot in most pug raids.

these are the reasons i decided to try my hand at tanking.
it`s getting better now, i`ve saved a few raids when a tank has left, and i could step in, a few dungeon runs as well too. i guess now my next step is, as has been said, queue up for some randoms, build my confidence andmove up and on.
thanks again.

[Kyp]

Armoury is down so I can't see your talents or glyphs but there are quite a few warriors that seem to have trouble holding agro with multiple mobs. Warriors are not as good as generating AoE threat as the other tanks but it can be done. Basically what I do with AoE packs is charge in, thunderclap straight away, group them up for a shockwave, focus you SS/Dev on skull target (always mark a skull it'll make your life easier) while replacing your HS spam with cleave spam(even better when glyphed). When the skull is at halfish life start tabbing through the other mobs and hit them with SS/Dev, which ever is available while also making sure TC is used every cooldown.

Some people may do it differently but thats how I do it and have hardly any problems, there are a few packs that require a different method but its generally the same.

Remember your not just learning to tank, your learning to lead a team through a dungeon. Confidence and knowledge are what a tank needs most and the only way to get that is to get stuck right in.