Literally dinged 80 yesturday and need some tips

[Zombiemaniac]

Hey guys mark here or Figbaton on the Cenarion circle. Anyway I dinged 80 on my warrior yesturday and I'm somewhat lost but I have been reading some guides and what not and have been studying up on 5 man encounters(trial of the champion and the icc wings) but I need to know if I am doing the right thing.

My warrior hit the 540 defense number 2 levels before she dinged 80 so I wasn't worried about hitting the uncrittable mark but my thing is with everyone telling me to stack stamina gems. Is that a wise thing to do? I'm no where near the expertise cap and I'm assuming that better gear will get me closer to the mark. Also I need to be sure that my spec and glyphs are correct. I just want my warrior to be ready before I start doing randoms with my guild.

here is a link to my armory maybe some of you vets can point in the right direction

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...le&cn=Figbaton

p.s. I'm currently working on my sons of hodir and Argent crusade rep for the head and epic shoulder enchants.

[Miazma]

If you're missing, you're not generating threat. So of course you want to have your hit/expertise at an acceptable level, maybe not capped. But as you farm the heck out of heroics...you'll find you can adjust your gems, and put more stamina in where you once had def/exp/hit gems.

Your spec seems fine, some warrior tanks choose not to take certain things, but I find gag order and imp spell reflect to be a nice addition to a warrior tank build.
Glyphs are a matter of preference and functionality. I personally always like the shield wall one. You can pop over and over in heroics and keep chain pulling while the healer is keeping up. Again up to you, some will probably argue, but again, use what will aid you in your current situation.

[Bashal]

Your stats seem fine to me for heroics. You may have some trouble with toc5, and will definitely have issues with the icc5 heroics, until you get some more badge gear. You are actually close to the heroic 5-man expertise dodge cap, which is 22. That's good enough (the hit cap, by the way, in heroics is 6%. Not sure what hit rating that converts to). Having low expertise causes bigger issues than low hit, so you should be just fine. A little more hit won't hurt, but I wouldn't recommend gemming or enchanting for it.

[jh7468]

As a tank, you'll never have to wait for more than a few seconds while in queue. If you have the time (I made the time) you can literally do every random every night. You'll be able to horde Triumph badges and get a decent stack of Frost. You'll be able to get good gear improvements in a couple weeks, and then gem/enchant accordingly. Then you can start worrying about ToC and ICC.

[The Hoof]

Piggy backing on what's already been said, the way I geared up my tanks was to only worry about gems after I got my T9 badge gear. By that I don't mean don't gem, just don't get all concerned about min/maxing. I would actually put in the cheap blue gems to the badge gear bits to fit my current stat needs until I had all 5 of the main pieces I wanted, then started putting purple gems in to min/max.

As has been said you're fine for the beginning heroics, and running those will get you improved gear. The really nice thing about being a tank is that you're queue time for randoms is about 5-10 sec. So you can literally grind badges are fast as you want/can stand. Once you get a few of the T9 bits, then start looking at specifically farming instances for upgrades to fill in the non-tier slots.

[Tinytankz]

One thing that hasnt been said but you may want to try is, Get the threat bonus enchant on the gloves as your dps will be outgearing you by 2-3 teirs in a worst case scenario, thats just my 2 cents though.

[Bashal]

...A little more hit won't hurt, but I wouldn't recommend gemming or enchanting for it.

However... since you really dont need an expensive weapon enchant in heroics, I'd suggest picking up a titanium weapon chain to put on your weapon. Adds some tasty hit, and reduces disarm durations. Getting disarmed doesn't really happen in raids, but there are a few instances in heroics where that can happen.

[Mend]

Congrats

1st thing you could do it work on your gear, by farming triumph emblems.
Check this guide for the best gear for pre-raiding

And Aggathon has a great guide on warrior tanking

I also wouldn't reccomend using epic stamina gems in the gear you have, you will quickly upgrade it and lose a lot of gold on the gems, +24 stamina gems will do fine for now.

Good luck

[Griff]

You don't have a meta gem slot in your hat, finding a new one that had such a feature and installing an austere earthsiege diamond in it would be a major upgrade for you. The t8 helm should be readily obtainable but there are blue-quality options to be had in Heroic Nexus, Gundrak and Oculus

[Zombiemaniac]

Thanks for all the helpful tips guys. Just a little update of whats going on I collected a few epics from both trial of the champion,forge of souls and pit of saron. As well as my t9 shoulders from all the emblems I've collected on my journey to 80. I'm going to attempt Halls of reflection later today and hopefully get some things out of there.

[gacktt]

Do daily frosts, join GDKPs. Get in bgs and mooch of ass much as you can, wrathful off sets are pretty good filler tank gear as they have nearly 200 stamina per piece when gemmed properly along with much higher armor than old gear and crit immunity, replace them once you get 251+ tank gear.

[Gutfang]

If you're planning on repeatedly running random dungeons I would also suggest throwing the "Cleave" glyph in your last glyph slot. It's your friend in those crowded trash pulls when the AOE from the dps starts falling. The "Vig" glyph would work too, but I tend to prefer the extra strike from cleave.

[jh7468]

Cleave/Vigilance is a pretty debated topic. I would suggest vigilance first, as you will always be outgeared and may have threat issues. While improved cleave will help, I think vigilance is better at a lower level. Your hit/expertise and dps will be pretty low at first, so cleave may not be as useful. But if you pick the player in the group with the highest threat (mage usually) and slap vigilance on, you'll pull some of his threat, even more with vig glyphed. Once you gear up and get hit/expertise and dps at a higher level, threat won't be as much of an issue and if you glyph for cleave you'll do some good dps.