I levelled as Fury and hit 85 last night... I don't want to start tanking on a regular basis, but wouldn't mind trying my hand at it (on my Pally i levelled as Ret and ended up enjoying tanking more).

The problem is, I have an acceptable of DPS gear but 2-3 pieces of tanking gear (bad luck with the groups I had in that the tanks always needed the tanking gear).

Is there anyplace I can pick up a starter set? I couldn't see a set on wowhead...

 

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If you hit 85, you have several cataclysm factions high enough to grab some gear. Visit those first.
Have a look here for help:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/784509-Cataclysm-Reputation-Reward-Guide

Remember also that you can reforge DPS gear into decent tank gear now, since there's no more need for defense or similar specific stat. So you can grab DPS plate gear from the factions mentioned previously for your missing slots and tinker them into decent tank gear with high stamina.

Then you have crafted gear, there you may just want to look on Wowhead and ask in your guild if some blacksmiths have spare chaos orbs for you. For instance, the crafted tank shield is quite good and only costs one chaos orbs (and a few other expensive, but "soloable" components).

 

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http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/781302-Cataclysm-starting-gear-for-Heroics-and-Raids-Protection-Warrior

More stuff to look for while you grinding rep. You could also throw in a few pvp pieces if you don't mind BGs and the like.

 

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BG gear can be reforged, but not resilience, which is nowadays totally useless for PvE as it only affects PvP combat. So BG gear can be a (poor) placeholder, but only if you really don't have anything better.

 

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Thanks for the advice...

Must admit, i am not in as good a standing as I expected with most factions... I think partly because i leveled on rested XP most of the time, I am only revered with Hyjal. The rest I am honored - hence, I need to either run the dungeons with the tabard or go back to the zones and see if there are any Q's i missed (none in Hyjal or Deepholm as I completed them all).

I will have a look at what I can reforge - all my gear is pre85, hence it is all likely to get replaced in a few dungeon runs... just not sure whether I can step into some of the 85 dungeons wearing what I have (even reforged) to tank. Ill give it a shot and see how painful it is for the healer... he's gonna have to be good (and patient) since I haven't tanked as a war before!

 

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This is a great tank gear list:
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?f=3&t=30230&rb_v=viewtopic

Used it myself when I started gearing up my paladin.

 

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I suppose you didn't finish all the quests of the level 80-85 areas then. You can do that casually too while doing normal dungeons to gear up. Look at the list of reputation rewards, see which one would be nice, and just go back to that area if you didn't finish it yet. Not to mention doing quests at max level brings in a substantial amount of gold

 

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