Burning Crusade Gearing Up as a Tank

[alej4500]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to gear up as a fresh 70 tank? I'm working on building pre kara bis gear, but can't really move forward in gearing because I'm lacking the GS required to do dungeons such as SV or SL. I'm working on upping my blacksmithing so I can finish working my way towards defense cap (which someone ingame told me was 475 for N dungeons). I understand that I am missing a few important quest items from netherstorm and shadowmoon, but after those couple items I am still going to be ~100 GS short of being able to get into N dungeon groups. If anyone knows what would be best for me to get gear, that would be very much appreciated, as well as defense caps for different content, as the only one I could find on google was 490 for Raids

[bigbazz]

1. Def cap in raids is 490, that means level 73 mobs. For every level that the mob drops you need 5 less defense. So if the mob is level 71 then the cap is 480, 72 = 485, 70 = 475 etc etc.

2. You don't need to be defense capped to do normal dungeons, hell you don't even really need good gear. In retail days when we didn't have dual spec I used to tank normal dungeons as Fury with some tank gear thrown on. Indeed when Warmane was new and I did dungeons as Fury, occasionally our tank might die and I would throw on my shield, switch to defense stance and continue to tank the mobs/bosses myself, and often enough survive to finish the job (including 2nd boss in Black Morass).

3. I don't have gearscore even installed, and never had problems getting a group as a tank.. People are desperate for tanks, you should be able to just jump in to most dungeons. Black Morass is the only dungeon that you may have trouble with, given that failure at any point means resetting and doing it over from the start.. I recommend picking up gear from other dungeons before doing BM... if you want to do SV or SL then just do it.

4. Felsteel crafted items are your friend, levelling Engineering for the helm slot is highly recommended.

[Garun]

I'd get the important quest items first. You don't need 2k GS for a normal dungeon, but you should still get the quest stuff first to make your runs go smoother. As for the dungeon defense cap, it's actually 485, not 475. You don't even need def cap for normals, but you should still stack as much defense rating as you can until cap. Go after the quest and dungeon quest items on your pre-raid BiS list first. As for the felsteel stuff, the only one that's actually worth getting is the gloves.

[bigbazz]

I'd get the important quest items first. You don't need 2k GS for a normal dungeon, but you should still get the quest stuff first to make your runs go smoother. As for the dungeon defense cap, it's actually 485, not 475. You don't even need def cap for normals, but you should still stack as much defense rating as you can until cap. Go after the quest and dungeon quest items on your pre-raid BiS list first. As for the felsteel stuff, the only one that's actually worth getting is the gloves.

The helm is worth getting, there is no better helm before raids/epics.