Leveling 70ish tank, when to upgrade gear?

[detour]

Thanks to the advice and confidence received here, I have been happily tanking many a random/pug. My general philosophy on gear as a tank is to have the best gear available for my level before entering the instance (with the obvious exception of that particular instance dropping an upgrade for me). Now, I just dinged Lvl 74 and all my upgrades seem to drop in Violet Hold. However, there are a few crafted items (Tempered Saronite gear and Cloak of Tormented Skies) that would definitely be upgrades. Should I hold off on getting crafted gear made for me when it will (hopefully) be replaced after a few runs in VH? Or should I just eat the (relatively low) cost for a definite upgrade and enjoy the benefits of better gear while I level to 75 when I can grind VH? I'm not crazy about the fact that the bosses in VH are random, I can't really count on seeing the bosses that drop the loot I need... Should I just not worry about having the best gear until I hit 80? (Side note: is 74 too low to queue for VH?)

[Paranoid]

Usually on groups, the healer is the one that pays others mistakes, and I healed quite alot tanks in 2,8k - 3,2k GS without a proplems, even HoS with them not being defence capped.

Dont take too pressure not having the best equally gotten tank gear. Just keep on mind, that you should have defence cap -> meaning that when you mouseover the defence, it shows "Avoid getting critical hit by X,YZ%" so that should be least 5,4% on tanking +2 level mobs from your own level.

Edit/ Also notice, each time you get higher level, the defence cap changes that you need higher defence on the "cap" but just keep eye on your avoiding to get hitted by critical blow, also if you got resilence items. So you should have Defence + Resilence = 5,4% or higher.

[Metasynaptic]

The tormented cloak is quite nice, I had it right up until I bought a badge cloak.

[Tinytankz]

pssst dude i just made this a few days ago hope it helps

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...ur-Tank-in-LFD

good luck

[detour]

Ok that seems like a good measuring stick to me, staying within the crit-immune cap. I like to make things easy on my healers. Nothing better than asking the healer how we're doing and hearing, "I barely have to heal you". So, following the formula:

(player level * 5) + ((((mob level - player level) * 0.2) + 5)/0.04)

I should be at 510 defense at Level 75 to tank level 75-77 mobs. Currently at 480, I'm definitely a bit low to be tanking VH. Fortunately, I have a friendly bs in guild; I'll have him craft some Tempered Saronite pieces.

@TinyTankz: now that looks useful, I'll be hitting that up once I ding 80. If I may make a suggestion, next to each "drop", could you list the dungeon and boss it drops from? That way I could print this out and have it next to the computer, instead of having to look everything up on wowhead.

[Tinytankz]

you can click the link for now i cant motivate myself to update it ias i wrote it like 2 days ago

[Martie]

Upgrade gear as upgrades come reasonably available.
That means doable quests, drops if they come, reputation things as you get rep, and AH stuff if affordable.

Here's a list of plate gear meant for sub-80 people. I took the liberty of filtering out all the items that don't give defense. Check them, see where they come from, and think about prioritizing them. If you can spare the money, get the tempered saronite items. Karma dictates that you'll find an upgrade soon after you buy it, but not before.
http://www.wowhead.com/items=4.4&fil...42;crs=1;crv=1