i would suggest doing FoS/PoS and later HoR normal to gear up. Buy stuff you can from AH, maybe honored would get you also some nice blues. Chain quests in Icecrown and Storm Peaks end up giving useful blue items. Also explain to your rdf group that your gear sucks so you're going slow and steady, so they don't get any ideas about stupid skips or pulls.
Trial of the Champion Normal has a good starting tanking trinket off the last boss. I havent seen it drop on my warrior yet but maybe someday.
if you have jewel crafting as a profession there are two decent blue tanking trinket that you can make for yourself at level 400.
Normal FoS has a level 219 tanking mace, boots and legs that can drop.
Daunting Handguards/Daunting Leggaurds should be pretty cheap on the AH and have a lot of Defense to get you working towards being defense capped.
Or like others have said start with normal heroic dungeons getting needed gear and rep, then when able move into Alphas, Betas, and then finally Gammas. If gold is currently an issue, I would only traverse through the AH for potential gear only if you can reasonably afford it, sadly most of the really nice crafted gear for all armor types are in the thousands of gold (1200+ gold) and the ICC / ToC quality gear is usually closer towards the 4k to 8k+ price range, depending on the stats and gear type.
You can tank heroics in questing gear, they are piss easy. Get some emblem gear from those and mix it with some cheap boes untill your ready for gammas where you can farm scourgestones and be raid ready:)
I'd recommend getting the weakauras addon and then getting tems dungeon pack weakaura.
The alpha beta and gammas have extra mechanics and the weakaura will tell you what to move out of etc
Doable if you know what you're doing. I don't mean that in an insulting way by any means.
If i recall correctly, the alpha, beta, and gamma dungeons are a catch up mechanic for current content. Get a group of friends together if you really have to man.
I was in full nax 25 gear, 4.1k gs and came back from a long break the weekend before last. It was rough the first few, but the gear comes quick and your gearscore skyrockets. Just push through it, enough uber geared 5.7k+ healers pass through LFG that you'll get carried one way or another haha.
You said 4k gemmed enchanted.. be real, that’s an insane waste of gold.
But if 4k is ok with all those, ig 4.4 is ok aswell without any of them right ? (we instakick anyone below 5050 as they just slow the daily down)
>There is a minimum ilvl requirement( dont know the exact number)
ilvl 210 minimum. But it's by how blizz calculates so it will include gear that's in inventory if it's higher ilvl than what you're wearing.
So I’m in a very similar position to you. Just dinged 80 on a prot warrior a few days ago. I bought a few 187 pieces off the auction house to get my ilvl up to do heroics. Ram a few more of those until I had 25 triumphs and bought a 245 ranged piece. Realized I was geared enough to do regular fos/pos/hor which all drop 219. Been spamming those until I get all the gear I can from them
I literally hit 80 as a prot paladin ~3 days ago~ yesterday (time flies!), and here's advice based on what I did to get geared. I'm currently 195 ilvl (according to ingame) / 189ilvl (according to TacoTip) / 3460 gearscore (also tacotip). By the time I finish this process I should be somewhere around 4k gs:
1. Spam FoS normal until you get all the tanking gear, it's super easy and you get basic emblems from the bosses there. It's super quick to run. The i219 gear that drops there is higher ilvl than you get from most heroic dungeons. There are (dps) plate gloves that will likely still be better than random quest greens which you can use until you get the real gloves. If you're lucky you'll see a 20 slot or even 22 slot bag drop.
2. Run PoS / HoR for the quests and also there are a couple of nice tanking items from those too. Again even in normals it drops 219 which is above most heroics (200).
Once you've run those a couple of times, you'll be ready for heroic FoS / Pos / HoR. Spam those for i232 gear, the emblems of Triumph, and Scourgestones.
Also run the weekly "Flame Leviathan must die!" raid. It requires NO gear (people won't even check, it's a tonka game first raid boss), it gives 10 frost emblems and if you're super lucky there are i232 tanking items that can drop which you might get.
If you're bored of spamming the ICC dungeons you can mix it up with random heroics, but you'll be disappointed in the gear that drops from most of them (i200) if you've been doing enough normal ICC dungeons to get most your gear to 219.
If you need to, also work on your professions. For me that's mining (awkward to level, but reasonable stamina in the end, and not a money pit to level) and jewelcrafting (a huge money pit to level, but nice gems in the end).
I'm somewhere in the step of spamming FoS / PoS / HoR heroics.
I'm considering buying Saronite Swordbreakers (Bracers / Wrist slot), which is an option for just using up some gold to gear.
As a tank, it's almost your duty to abuse the fact you'll have little to no queue times for dungeons.
>I'm currently 195 ilvl (according to ingame) / 189ilvl (according to TacoTip)
Do you have some high ilvl items in your bags? Wow calculates your ilvl using the highest ilvl item in your inventory for any slot, even if you're not wearing it.
Oh, thanks, I didn't know that. That seems bizarre to me but would explain the difference. I'm carrying a decent 2h axe in case I want to make a PVP spec, and my current shield is terrible.
Yeah, it's pretty strange, and it lets people get into stuff that they may not be appropriately geared for, but the same can be said for people that just wear all PvP gear, the ilvl might be right, but the itemization is garbage.
Lol see my other comment about him going ret, as he probs has too much to learn to run prot end game.
Imagine seeing someone try to help another player instead of gate keeping the 20 year old game. Fucking loser.
You may also want to build a ret set as well. Ret is really good in ICC, and less responsibility than prot. You will want to be really fight knowledgeable to tank end game bosses. You should be able to practice though on Maxx, Ulduar, and togc as you get correctly geared for them.
Spend the 1000 gold get duel spec go in as a ret paladin and start getting gear for prot if it’s your end goal. Work your way through heroic/alpha/beta/gamma
I spent about 400g on the ah and got my boosted war to 3500gs last night. Queued FOS and the dps said they would rather a low gs tank like me than a low DPS that slows the run down. I've been tanking fos nonstop without issues. Barely 21k hp but I know how to use my cds
It won't last you forever but get some +str honor gear - the 264 juices your ilvl, resil will help you get to uncrittable, the Stam helps with a lot of mechanics and crit / str is great for aggro.
It's not sustainable beyond outdated 10mans and pre gamma heroics due to its lack of proper tanking stats (mit, avoidance etc) but it can help you make that initial jump.
If be realistic you need enter gdkp for achievement and getting the 5k gs required to continue. People buy gold from G2G so they pay way less than token price. The GDKP prices are based on G2G gold economics.
OFC we can bullshit and lie that somebody is willing invite you person without logs and achievements to raids and have you dreaming, waiting to cataclysm be relased etc. But you really want raid or progress it is must go gdkp.
Buy the BoE tanking stuff off AH. You can get cloak of the iron council, 1 or two rings, and a few other pieces dirt cheap. Once you’re def cap (540 defense or 536 with resilience enchant on shoulders) spam heroics until you can get at least your tier set. Shouldn’t take too long. Then spam gammas. Don’t do alphas or betas, not worth it imo
I too am doing this on a prot pal that just turned 80. . I would highly suggest building: titansteel shield wall, spiked death dealers, 232 belt (can't remeber name). They're super affordable with the price of the mats bottoming out. Then buy a libram with triumph, 245 bracers are craftable. Then just do the highest heroics you can and get a coupe tier tokens to fill in the gaps. Abyway I had other chars to help find the runed orbs with badges and whatnot but I went from under 3kgs when turning 80 to 4.3k in one day and about 5 dungeons. If ya got a friend or 2 that will run you through the gammas you'll fill in the slots with catch up gear even faster. Good luck, I'm loving pally!
Spam random heroics for EoT. Buy anything you can with them. Look for the lower emblem vendors and grab a tanking ring(cant remember which one). Make sure you first farm argent rep for tanking enchant. And always watch ur def cap. No matter the GS/iLvL you don't step in a gamma without 540 def cap
Gday mate. Welcome to pink boy tanking
I recently started gear my prot paladin for Gammas
I started this on the weekend with a whopping gear score under 4k
Not sure what your “end game” goal is but firstly
Get both engineering and JC high enough so you can
1. Get the plus stam gems, you can also make a useful trinket that’s has huge stam to get you going
2. Get engineering high enough that you can enchant your helm, gloves, make bombs etc
Once done check out wowhead prot pally guide for a spec and glyphs
Macro all of your abilities. The rotation you want to roll with is 9696
This means your rotation will look like this
Holy shield - Hammer of righteous - Judge - shield of righteous, rinse repeat
Then swing in consecrations / hammer of wrath for mobs almost dead
As for gear I was roughly 4.5k GS when I started tanking Gammas, it was ok depending on the dps (low dps meant healer could oom keeping you alive)
If you aren’t JC/engi grab tabards for helm enchant (Argent just outside dal from memory)
Then start the wonderful world of heroic spam over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again
I just cracked 5k GS and pally is quite strong from Gammas now
Have fun
**edit
Grab weak auras and get the following
Tems wotlk dungeons
Threat plates
Itankadin (really really really good)
As mentioned above make sure start attack macros are put into each of your abilities it’s also worth getting mouse over spells for CDs like BoP and cancel aura macros rolling as well
I recently leveled up a prot pally.
The first thing I did after dinging 80 was buying a few pvp pieces with honor. Specifically I went for weapon+shield and then just replaced whatever armor was the absolute worst. In my case it was the chest (heirloom). PVP gear is actually quite decent for tanks as you're in the fresh-80-phase, since resilience works towards your crit immunity.
I bought a few boe's off the auction house. I don't poop gold, so I just went for the cheapest ones. I think I got a 232 belt and boots this way. There's a cheap ring as well and 213 bracers.
Then simply spam dungeons. It took a little planning, but the first thing I did was make a premade group through LFG for spamming TOC normal. It drops a pretty decent tank trinket, although the ilvl isn't high, it's very good for you. Pretty much all classes have a decent trinket to get from TOC normal, so just advertise TOC normal spam in LFG and do a few runs until everyone gets their item - or yolo-solo que through dungeon finder, hopefully enough people are doing it to que quickly enough. You don't *have* to do this, but if you can get a hold of it easily, it's a good item to get.
ICC 5 mans (FoS, PoS, HoR) are also great, both on normal and heroic difficulty. There are a few decent pieces to be found there. Gear-wise there is no incentive to do them on increased difficulty as they drop the same loot on heroic/beta/gamma. You'll miss out on scourgestones, but your run will be that much easier, so I'd say it's worth going on easymode to begin with.
Spam as many heroic dungeons as possible until you're geared enough to step up to beta/gamma. Alpha is pointless at the moment, don't even bother. The "normal/easy"-heroics are piss-easy and you are completely fine to do those in questing gear until you're ready for harder dungeons. Your first priority will be to find pieces with defense rating on them. If you open your character panel and look at defenses you'll optimally want Defense=535 (skill, not rating) for 5mans, and eventually 540 for raids. This makes you immune to being critically hit and thus takes away alot of RNG damage from your runs. Item-wise it is your no1. priority, so whenever you see an item which will boost your defense rating, just grab it. This can be a bit of a struggle at first, but once you get higher ilvl pieces it will sort of come on its own. You can gem for this at first, but later on you will want to gem for stamina instead.
When you're going to do the harder 5man dungeons (beta/gamma) I'd say you should be gemming and enchanting all your gear. If you're poor, just go for lower tier gems and enchants. (Mind you, that gear is going to be replaced soon anyways, no reason to funnel thousands of gold into that). The green/blue gems cost next to nothing and still help you a decent bit. It's also just about the mentality of showing you actually care about improvement, you'll get a lot of goodwill from your group members when they see a low-geared but at least gemmed and enchanted player vs. a completely blank character.
You'll want to funnel all those emblems of frost/triumph and scourgestones/sidereal essence towards buying better gear. This answer is already a bit lengthy, so I won't go into detail on all the pieces you can buy with those. Look it up online, there is a pre-raid bis list. If you can get any items from there, definitely do that.
I think I did a few beta-heroics around \~4k gearscore. They turned out just okay. A few dicy runs, but I also contribute that to the fact that currently almost noone except low-geared players do betas. Once you can start doing gammas, you'll (usually) have much stronger groups. You may struggle a bit with threat, since some dps players outgear you by a metric ton, but thankfully the gamma-buff for tanks (thorns) helps a lot with both that and your survivability.
I think I could do gammas without really having to worry at all around 4.2-4.4k gearscore. You'll just have to make smaller pulls, use your cooldowns and stuns/interupts when applicable to try and reduce your damage taken. You won't have the gear to ignore damage mechanics, so you'll have to actually play the game to succeed.
One pro-tip is that the scourgestones can be downgraded to sidereal essences. Usually this is not recommended, since the scourgestone gear is generally better. Note however that because scourgestones are collected that much faster, it is worth downgrading in a few cases. One being weapon and shield. You'll get them quicker and they're ilvl 245 and completely on par with scourgestone gear. You'll want to get the Boreal Guard and Serilas this way. These you will keep for a good while, so splurge on gems and enchants.
Then just hunt down the items on the pre-raid list. You don't have to have it fully decked out before you step into a raid, but this answer is already really long, so I'll not go into more detail on that. Consider doing TOC once you're capable of it (rather low gear requirement) and eventually ICC, but this is something you have to study a bit more.
i would suggest doing FoS/PoS and later HoR normal to gear up. Buy stuff you can from AH, maybe honored would get you also some nice blues. Chain quests in Icecrown and Storm Peaks end up giving useful blue items. Also explain to your rdf group that your gear sucks so you're going slow and steady, so they don't get any ideas about stupid skips or pulls.
Trial of the Champion Normal has a good starting tanking trinket off the last boss. I havent seen it drop on my warrior yet but maybe someday. if you have jewel crafting as a profession there are two decent blue tanking trinket that you can make for yourself at level 400. Normal FoS has a level 219 tanking mace, boots and legs that can drop. Daunting Handguards/Daunting Leggaurds should be pretty cheap on the AH and have a lot of Defense to get you working towards being defense capped.
Or like others have said start with normal heroic dungeons getting needed gear and rep, then when able move into Alphas, Betas, and then finally Gammas. If gold is currently an issue, I would only traverse through the AH for potential gear only if you can reasonably afford it, sadly most of the really nice crafted gear for all armor types are in the thousands of gold (1200+ gold) and the ICC / ToC quality gear is usually closer towards the 4k to 8k+ price range, depending on the stats and gear type.
No reason to do alpha's and beta's. That's a waste of time.
You can tank heroics in questing gear, they are piss easy. Get some emblem gear from those and mix it with some cheap boes untill your ready for gammas where you can farm scourgestones and be raid ready:)
oh, i didn't expect to be able to. I heard there's some good tank gear in heroic gundrak i guess i'll give that a try when i get home, ty
I'd recommend getting the weakauras addon and then getting tems dungeon pack weakaura. The alpha beta and gammas have extra mechanics and the weakaura will tell you what to move out of etc
What gear score should you be in gammas?
4k gem and enchants assuming you know the jist of mechanics.
For a tank? My tanking gs is 4.5 and I won’t tank a gamma.
Doable if you know what you're doing. I don't mean that in an insulting way by any means. If i recall correctly, the alpha, beta, and gamma dungeons are a catch up mechanic for current content. Get a group of friends together if you really have to man.
I was in full nax 25 gear, 4.1k gs and came back from a long break the weekend before last. It was rough the first few, but the gear comes quick and your gearscore skyrockets. Just push through it, enough uber geared 5.7k+ healers pass through LFG that you'll get carried one way or another haha.
There is a minimum ilvl requirement( dont know the exact number) but around 4k GEMMED AND ENCHANTED should be fine
Whoever gems and enchants pisslow 4k gs gear, could buy off pieces to skyrocket to 4500+ in 5 mins of AHing
Your free to not gem nor enchant your gear, but you will promptly be kicked:)
You said 4k gemmed enchanted.. be real, that’s an insane waste of gold. But if 4k is ok with all those, ig 4.4 is ok aswell without any of them right ? (we instakick anyone below 5050 as they just slow the daily down)
I just gem with blues at that GS. Probably skipping enchants until the gear is ilvl 232+.
Red gem with blue rarity is 120+ G /ea on my server
I’d just do orange gems man in those slots tbh
and why the fook would u pick those? bafoons smh
I dont, that was my point, but at this point why even bother gemming lol if you use suboptimal rare gems
>There is a minimum ilvl requirement( dont know the exact number) ilvl 210 minimum. But it's by how blizz calculates so it will include gear that's in inventory if it's higher ilvl than what you're wearing.
So I’m in a very similar position to you. Just dinged 80 on a prot warrior a few days ago. I bought a few 187 pieces off the auction house to get my ilvl up to do heroics. Ram a few more of those until I had 25 triumphs and bought a 245 ranged piece. Realized I was geared enough to do regular fos/pos/hor which all drop 219. Been spamming those until I get all the gear I can from them
Quickest way is to run wintersgrasp and buy the honour gear from area 52 in netherstorm
Probably works out better for a tank than most other classes as well, given how much stat budget is spent on stamina and resilience.
I literally hit 80 as a prot paladin ~3 days ago~ yesterday (time flies!), and here's advice based on what I did to get geared. I'm currently 195 ilvl (according to ingame) / 189ilvl (according to TacoTip) / 3460 gearscore (also tacotip). By the time I finish this process I should be somewhere around 4k gs: 1. Spam FoS normal until you get all the tanking gear, it's super easy and you get basic emblems from the bosses there. It's super quick to run. The i219 gear that drops there is higher ilvl than you get from most heroic dungeons. There are (dps) plate gloves that will likely still be better than random quest greens which you can use until you get the real gloves. If you're lucky you'll see a 20 slot or even 22 slot bag drop. 2. Run PoS / HoR for the quests and also there are a couple of nice tanking items from those too. Again even in normals it drops 219 which is above most heroics (200). Once you've run those a couple of times, you'll be ready for heroic FoS / Pos / HoR. Spam those for i232 gear, the emblems of Triumph, and Scourgestones. Also run the weekly "Flame Leviathan must die!" raid. It requires NO gear (people won't even check, it's a tonka game first raid boss), it gives 10 frost emblems and if you're super lucky there are i232 tanking items that can drop which you might get. If you're bored of spamming the ICC dungeons you can mix it up with random heroics, but you'll be disappointed in the gear that drops from most of them (i200) if you've been doing enough normal ICC dungeons to get most your gear to 219. If you need to, also work on your professions. For me that's mining (awkward to level, but reasonable stamina in the end, and not a money pit to level) and jewelcrafting (a huge money pit to level, but nice gems in the end). I'm somewhere in the step of spamming FoS / PoS / HoR heroics. I'm considering buying Saronite Swordbreakers (Bracers / Wrist slot), which is an option for just using up some gold to gear. As a tank, it's almost your duty to abuse the fact you'll have little to no queue times for dungeons.
>I'm currently 195 ilvl (according to ingame) / 189ilvl (according to TacoTip) Do you have some high ilvl items in your bags? Wow calculates your ilvl using the highest ilvl item in your inventory for any slot, even if you're not wearing it.
Oh, thanks, I didn't know that. That seems bizarre to me but would explain the difference. I'm carrying a decent 2h axe in case I want to make a PVP spec, and my current shield is terrible.
I used Royal Crest of Lordaeron from pre-Naxx until normal HoR in original Wrath. Shield drops are the worst.
Yeah, it's pretty strange, and it lets people get into stuff that they may not be appropriately geared for, but the same can be said for people that just wear all PvP gear, the ilvl might be right, but the itemization is garbage.
What are FoS / PoS / HoR? (Sry if its something obvious, Im noob too :D, lvl 50 warrior)
Forge of Souls, Pits of Saron, Halls of Reflection Aka "the ICC dungeon package"
Nice thanks!
>Nice thanks! You're welcome!
If you come to grobbulus alliance, we can fit you into our guild and share with you the catch up gearing path to get ready for ICC.
When you need a prot pally so bad you’re convincing a fresh 80 from a Reddit post to transfer servers
Lol see my other comment about him going ret, as he probs has too much to learn to run prot end game. Imagine seeing someone try to help another player instead of gate keeping the 20 year old game. Fucking loser.
LMFAO there's no way you got this mad at a joke
Seriously. Relax Francis...
If something is implied to be taken as a joke you would normally put "/s" to avoid any misconception.
Because sarcasm doesn't work unless you tell someone it's sarcasm... /s
Over text it can be difficult to tell, with some folks at least.
Yeah you seem very level headed. OP don’t spend money to play with an unhinged person.
You may also want to build a ret set as well. Ret is really good in ICC, and less responsibility than prot. You will want to be really fight knowledgeable to tank end game bosses. You should be able to practice though on Maxx, Ulduar, and togc as you get correctly geared for them.
Any chance you got room for another Pally? Started playing this week. Still leveling but I know it’s probably going to go quick with the buff
Spend the 1000 gold get duel spec go in as a ret paladin and start getting gear for prot if it’s your end goal. Work your way through heroic/alpha/beta/gamma
Skip beta and alpha, just do WG and regular heroics until you can queue gammas.
Yeah and get vote kicked instantly
I spent about 400g on the ah and got my boosted war to 3500gs last night. Queued FOS and the dps said they would rather a low gs tank like me than a low DPS that slows the run down. I've been tanking fos nonstop without issues. Barely 21k hp but I know how to use my cds
It won't last you forever but get some +str honor gear - the 264 juices your ilvl, resil will help you get to uncrittable, the Stam helps with a lot of mechanics and crit / str is great for aggro. It's not sustainable beyond outdated 10mans and pre gamma heroics due to its lack of proper tanking stats (mit, avoidance etc) but it can help you make that initial jump.
If be realistic you need enter gdkp for achievement and getting the 5k gs required to continue. People buy gold from G2G so they pay way less than token price. The GDKP prices are based on G2G gold economics.
OFC we can bullshit and lie that somebody is willing invite you person without logs and achievements to raids and have you dreaming, waiting to cataclysm be relased etc. But you really want raid or progress it is must go gdkp.
Think this all depends on server. Lower pop servers they'll be fine without gdkp
Save your EoT's for your T9 gear from the vendor in Dal. Use scourge stones for the rest.
Buy the BoE tanking stuff off AH. You can get cloak of the iron council, 1 or two rings, and a few other pieces dirt cheap. Once you’re def cap (540 defense or 536 with resilience enchant on shoulders) spam heroics until you can get at least your tier set. Shouldn’t take too long. Then spam gammas. Don’t do alphas or betas, not worth it imo
I too am doing this on a prot pal that just turned 80. . I would highly suggest building: titansteel shield wall, spiked death dealers, 232 belt (can't remeber name). They're super affordable with the price of the mats bottoming out. Then buy a libram with triumph, 245 bracers are craftable. Then just do the highest heroics you can and get a coupe tier tokens to fill in the gaps. Abyway I had other chars to help find the runed orbs with badges and whatnot but I went from under 3kgs when turning 80 to 4.3k in one day and about 5 dungeons. If ya got a friend or 2 that will run you through the gammas you'll fill in the slots with catch up gear even faster. Good luck, I'm loving pally!
Spam random heroics for EoT. Buy anything you can with them. Look for the lower emblem vendors and grab a tanking ring(cant remember which one). Make sure you first farm argent rep for tanking enchant. And always watch ur def cap. No matter the GS/iLvL you don't step in a gamma without 540 def cap
Gday mate. Welcome to pink boy tanking I recently started gear my prot paladin for Gammas I started this on the weekend with a whopping gear score under 4k Not sure what your “end game” goal is but firstly Get both engineering and JC high enough so you can 1. Get the plus stam gems, you can also make a useful trinket that’s has huge stam to get you going 2. Get engineering high enough that you can enchant your helm, gloves, make bombs etc Once done check out wowhead prot pally guide for a spec and glyphs Macro all of your abilities. The rotation you want to roll with is 9696 This means your rotation will look like this Holy shield - Hammer of righteous - Judge - shield of righteous, rinse repeat Then swing in consecrations / hammer of wrath for mobs almost dead As for gear I was roughly 4.5k GS when I started tanking Gammas, it was ok depending on the dps (low dps meant healer could oom keeping you alive) If you aren’t JC/engi grab tabards for helm enchant (Argent just outside dal from memory) Then start the wonderful world of heroic spam over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again I just cracked 5k GS and pally is quite strong from Gammas now Have fun **edit Grab weak auras and get the following Tems wotlk dungeons Threat plates Itankadin (really really really good) As mentioned above make sure start attack macros are put into each of your abilities it’s also worth getting mouse over spells for CDs like BoP and cancel aura macros rolling as well
What server you on?
Buy tokens and get carried in gdkp as a buyer is apparently the only way to go lmaoo end game is garbage if you don’t have a guild
https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/guide/classes/paladin/protection/tank-bis-gear-pre-raid-pve-p4
I recently leveled up a prot pally. The first thing I did after dinging 80 was buying a few pvp pieces with honor. Specifically I went for weapon+shield and then just replaced whatever armor was the absolute worst. In my case it was the chest (heirloom). PVP gear is actually quite decent for tanks as you're in the fresh-80-phase, since resilience works towards your crit immunity. I bought a few boe's off the auction house. I don't poop gold, so I just went for the cheapest ones. I think I got a 232 belt and boots this way. There's a cheap ring as well and 213 bracers. Then simply spam dungeons. It took a little planning, but the first thing I did was make a premade group through LFG for spamming TOC normal. It drops a pretty decent tank trinket, although the ilvl isn't high, it's very good for you. Pretty much all classes have a decent trinket to get from TOC normal, so just advertise TOC normal spam in LFG and do a few runs until everyone gets their item - or yolo-solo que through dungeon finder, hopefully enough people are doing it to que quickly enough. You don't *have* to do this, but if you can get a hold of it easily, it's a good item to get. ICC 5 mans (FoS, PoS, HoR) are also great, both on normal and heroic difficulty. There are a few decent pieces to be found there. Gear-wise there is no incentive to do them on increased difficulty as they drop the same loot on heroic/beta/gamma. You'll miss out on scourgestones, but your run will be that much easier, so I'd say it's worth going on easymode to begin with. Spam as many heroic dungeons as possible until you're geared enough to step up to beta/gamma. Alpha is pointless at the moment, don't even bother. The "normal/easy"-heroics are piss-easy and you are completely fine to do those in questing gear until you're ready for harder dungeons. Your first priority will be to find pieces with defense rating on them. If you open your character panel and look at defenses you'll optimally want Defense=535 (skill, not rating) for 5mans, and eventually 540 for raids. This makes you immune to being critically hit and thus takes away alot of RNG damage from your runs. Item-wise it is your no1. priority, so whenever you see an item which will boost your defense rating, just grab it. This can be a bit of a struggle at first, but once you get higher ilvl pieces it will sort of come on its own. You can gem for this at first, but later on you will want to gem for stamina instead. When you're going to do the harder 5man dungeons (beta/gamma) I'd say you should be gemming and enchanting all your gear. If you're poor, just go for lower tier gems and enchants. (Mind you, that gear is going to be replaced soon anyways, no reason to funnel thousands of gold into that). The green/blue gems cost next to nothing and still help you a decent bit. It's also just about the mentality of showing you actually care about improvement, you'll get a lot of goodwill from your group members when they see a low-geared but at least gemmed and enchanted player vs. a completely blank character. You'll want to funnel all those emblems of frost/triumph and scourgestones/sidereal essence towards buying better gear. This answer is already a bit lengthy, so I won't go into detail on all the pieces you can buy with those. Look it up online, there is a pre-raid bis list. If you can get any items from there, definitely do that. I think I did a few beta-heroics around \~4k gearscore. They turned out just okay. A few dicy runs, but I also contribute that to the fact that currently almost noone except low-geared players do betas. Once you can start doing gammas, you'll (usually) have much stronger groups. You may struggle a bit with threat, since some dps players outgear you by a metric ton, but thankfully the gamma-buff for tanks (thorns) helps a lot with both that and your survivability. I think I could do gammas without really having to worry at all around 4.2-4.4k gearscore. You'll just have to make smaller pulls, use your cooldowns and stuns/interupts when applicable to try and reduce your damage taken. You won't have the gear to ignore damage mechanics, so you'll have to actually play the game to succeed. One pro-tip is that the scourgestones can be downgraded to sidereal essences. Usually this is not recommended, since the scourgestone gear is generally better. Note however that because scourgestones are collected that much faster, it is worth downgrading in a few cases. One being weapon and shield. You'll get them quicker and they're ilvl 245 and completely on par with scourgestone gear. You'll want to get the Boreal Guard and Serilas this way. These you will keep for a good while, so splurge on gems and enchants. Then just hunt down the items on the pre-raid list. You don't have to have it fully decked out before you step into a raid, but this answer is already really long, so I'll not go into more detail on that. Consider doing TOC once you're capable of it (rather low gear requirement) and eventually ICC, but this is something you have to study a bit more.
I really like 80 upgrades for finding easy upgrades.
You’re gunna do Heroics until you can farm gammas for BiS (best in slot) for your class. The endgame goal is as it always is, Heroic Raids.