Woo. 80!!... But wait, Now What?

[Key-J]

Well,

The yesterday, after finally getting back into WoW i hit 80

To Celebrate, my guild and i went though a Heroic Nexus for fun, they jokingly made me tank, and we got through it, with just 1 wipe. Which was funny cuz i was still on my greens.

Anyway, i remember back in BC it was pretty easy to go from hitting 70 to endgame. You would hit 70, PvP and instance a bit and go straight for Kara. It was all pretty much about Kara.

However, now in WotLK i seem to have hit a speed bump, im lvl 80. Got my proffessions nearly maxed out, and am sitting on blues, i want to get geared for my guild, and go raiding, but like. There seems to be so much more out there to do.

So i was wondering what you guys suggest a lvl 80 Prot Warrior should do, now that he has reached lvl 80.

[Juicy]

gz i just hit 70 yesterday, unfortunately im kind noob so no advice

[bakafish]

Tanking with quest rewards in heroics with pugs was impossible for me, I had to backtrack to do normal dungeons for a few blues before I was even ready for heroics. I remember the first ever heroic I ever did was UK and we kept wiping because I had like 19k hp and healer wasn't geared as well (duh!) since it was just a few weeks into the expansion.

I suggest getting your guildies helping you with heroics farming, it would be the fastest way to gear up. Definitely a much pleasant experience than having to pug heroics for 2 weeks to gear up for raids, urgh. Although the people doing heroics are more geared now, most of them are just wanna cruise control for rewards and reluctant to put in a little more effort with a newly ding 80 tank, so puging right from start with quest rewards would be hard.

Another alternative is that if you have Mining profession or the money, you can simply just get some BS epic crafts. I remember the BS epic tanking boots, helm and shield has some really good stats on it. I actually still use the helm occasionally because of it's insane EH potential. Also, if you are struggling with capping Defense (which is 540), you can also craft some BS blues since they have good Defense or farm HoL normal because the last boss Loken drops a nice blue trinket with a ton of Defense.

Grats on ding, by the way.

[Skyve]

I guess it depends if your gonna go PvP(Arena) or PvE...
Well I went PvE mostly and what I can said is that once lv.80 I just started doing Heroics Dungeons to get geared for Raids etc.(play some BG's from time to time and Wintergrasp every 2hours )

[Necrobat]

Make sure you get 535 defense and 20-22k HP and start farming heroics. Work your way to 540 defense and 24-25k HP and you can start OTing in Naxx25 (you can OT Naxx10 with 23-24k) then slowly work up. I main tank Naxx10 with 27.8k unbuffed just to give you an estimate of where you can look into heading.

[IreMoon]

Also look at the different faction quarter masters. Argent crusade has some nice rep enchants for def. There are some nice epic rep gear ya can get to help.

The guild I'm in has started try to do 10 man nax. With me OT at the time my toon was not ready to do that in my mind but I was the only other tank on at the time. Happy to say when we wiped wasn't cause of me . We did down 3 bosses that run and I got 3 pieces of def gear my luck! and and epic def neck from trash mobs.

[lavapockets]

OFFT: Do you absolutely have to 10 man those raids? Cuz I know the 5 mans we've been doing the way up we've pretty much 4 manned instead. So are the 10's the same? Again, excuse my noobness.

OT: on my server it seems everyone is Ulduar or whatever that new thing is. I guess it's all the rage. Personally I hate raiding, I plan on going arena and BG whoring as soon as I'm 80. And raiding alliance cities. And camping noobs. I don't if that's something you're interested in but it doesn't sound like it.

[Skyve]

Also there's is words that Blizzard is about to "re-vamp" the whole BattleGround system...to make it more profitable to play BGs

[Wu]

If you want to go tank heroics and raids I suggest (If nothing has changed since I stopped playing a few months ago) you get a few good blues or even epics crafted and get reputation with wyrmcrest accord for some nice starting gear. (boots chest and cloak if I remember right)

Get the Armor Plated Combat Shotgun (crafted or buy) with stamina enchant.
Get the trinket from normal Halls of Lightning.
Get the Sword from normal Halls of Lightning.

21-22k hp and uncrittable should be enough to run heroics with your guild. Less hp is possible if you have a good healer.

Your first heroics should probably be The Nexus, Utgarde Keep, Utgarde Pinnacle for epic sword and Stratholme for the shield.

Practice instances on normal mode and read up on wowwiki for heroic mode tips.

Make sure to read up on Azjol Nerub, Old Kingdom before you head there on heroic, and you will need a decent party for Halls of Lightning heroic. Halls of Stone heroic can be a pain at the little event, other than that it's cake.

Violet Hold is great for farming emblems, just read up on the bosses.

First boss in Gun Drak can be a pain, if he is still the same as pre-3.1

Oculus heroic is probably best saved for guild runs only.

This is all I can remember, good luck and most importantly have fun.

[iGod]

DTK also has some nice tank stuff, boots on trollgore and chest and ring on the last boss, also an easy instance.

[Starfall]

Hmm , Bits of tanking gear i know of

Utgarde pinicle is a MUST for the red sword of courage is an EXELLENT Tanking sword till you get a naxx 25 man one

Goto Flame Leviathan pugs

Yes FL is Puggble it is a very easy boss and drops a very Farking nice tanking sword called Titangaurd which is just a tiny bit better then the last laugh

as for your gear
i wouldnt know becasue i dont know what kind of tank you are , you maybe a dodge tank or a block tank theres a small difference in the gear tho

[Key-J]

I just got my Nax 10 done. WOOT WOOT.

I've been pulling down Heroics left and right. My guild has been awesome with me.

Now, i got my epic flyer in sight!