Dec 22 2009
The addition of the new 5-mans plus the easy availability of Emblems of Triumph call for an update for the gear list for protection warriors who are just hitting 80. If you follow the list, you should be able to hop into the raiding scene in little time. It’s never been easier. 
I will list several pieces of gear per slot. The top piece listed is your entry gear into heroics, and the further down on list, the better the piece.
Head:
- Tempered Titansteel Helm – buy in AH or bring the mats to a friendly blacksmith.
- Helm of the Crestfallen Challenger – 2nd encounter, H Trial of the Champions. Once you’re comfortable with tanking H ToC, this is what you should pick up next.
- Second Helm of the Executioner – Forgemaster Garfrost, H Pit of Saron
- Headplate of the Honorbound/Faceplate of the Honorbound – 75 Emblems of Triumph. Definitely more attractive than the T9 warrior helmet, with tasty amounts of expertise
Neck:
- Titanium Earthguard Chain – buy in AH or bring mats to a friendly Jewelcrafter
- Shard of the Crystal Forest – available for 19 Emblems of Conquest, so you will have to downgrade some emblems. Nevertheless, still a very solid piece, if you don’t dare set foot into the Icecrown instances yet.
- Fossilized Ammonite Choker – Arthas encounter, H HoR. A tough instance and encounter, with a great necklace as reward.
Shoulders:
- Crusader’s Square Pauldrons – common as dirt BoE drop in CoS (reg or heroic). Should be able to pick this up cheap anywhere.
- Regal Aurous Shoulderplates – Confessor Paletress, H ToC. Lovely shoulders from H ToC with a socket. Grab ‘em!
- Shoulderplates of Frozen Blood – Forgemaster Garfrost, H Pit of Saron. Excellent upgrade, with nice expertise. Too bad it has no socket.
- Shoulderguards of Enduring Order/Shoulderplates of Enduring Order – 45 Emblems of Triumph. Spiky shoulders with a nice red socket for expertise or dodge gems. Again, better than the T9 counterpart.
Back:
- Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions – Honored with Wyrmrest Accord, your companion for a long time
- Platinum Mesh Cloak – still a valuable buy at 25 Emblems of Valor
- Eerie Runeblade Polisher – Falric and Marwyn, reg. Halls of Reflection. I have revised my opinion, it’s better than the Platinum Mesh Cloak, due to stats being a touch higher. If you are having bad drop luck though, and spare badges, the PMC is still great.
Chest:
- Breastplate of the Solemn Council – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord
- Scourgelord’s Frigid Chestplate – Scourgelord Tyrannus, reg. Pit of Saron
- Hellscream’s Breastplate of Conquest/Wrynn’s Breastplate of Conquest – 50 Emblems of Triumph. Absolutely solid chest for warriors, no complaints here.
- Breastplate of the White Knight – crafted by blacksmiths. With the price of Crusader Orbs dropping every day, this is now a most excellent chest alternative superior to the ilevel 232 T9 chest.
Wrist:
- Tempered Saronite Bracers – Starting out with the crafted bracers should be sufficient to get you to…
- Bindings of Dark Will – in H CoS, a fairly common drop off the 2nd boss
- Bracers of the Herald – H OK, the best you can get outside of a raid instance unless you invest gold into…
- Saronite Swordbreakers – crafted by blacksmiths. Mats are pretty reasonable, now that Crusader Orbs are available relatively easily. Strong bracers.
Gloves:
- Mercy’s Hold – fabulous gloves from reg ToC, well worth running this until they drop
- Hellscream’s Handguards of Conquest/Wrynn’s Handguards of Conquest – 30 Emblems of Triumph. Cheap to get and one of the better pieces of 232 T9 for warriors, so the route to success is pretty easy here.
Waist: nothing has changed for this slot at all
- Waistguard of the Risen Knight – common BoE drop in H DTK, should be cheap.
- Ancient Aligned Girdle – a direct upgrade in H A-N
- Shieldwarder Girdle – available for 28 Emblems of Conquest, unless you want to get yourself the crafted…
- Indestructible Plate Girdle – made by a friendly blacksmith, mats should be not too expensive now
Legs:
- Legguards of Abandoned Fealty – first encounter in reg. ToC
- Legplates of Frozen Granite – Devourer of Souls, reg. Forge of Souls. Lots of hit instead of avoidance, but pretty solidly itemized otherwise
- Hellscream’s Legguards of Conquest/Wrynn’s Legguards of Conquest – 50 Emblems of Triumph. Definitely a threat piece, with all the SBV and all the hit, but the best you can get for that slot.
Feet:
- Tempered Titansteel Treads – grab a cheap pair of those crafted boots to start tanking heroics.
- Boots of Heartfelt Repentance – Eadric the Pure, reg. ToC. These boots will take you a long way.
- Black Spire Sabatons – Devourer of Souls, H Forge of Souls. Awesome boots, definitely nice to grab.
- Spiked Deathdealers – crafted by blacksmiths, cost a pretty penny, but are most excellent. Two sockets give you an EH edge, so I place them above the Black Spire Sabatons.
If you already have the Spiked Deathdealers, you’re set, if you don’t, save the gold and get the Black Spire Sabatons.
Rings:
- Titanium Earthguard Ring – fabulous ring, crafted, save up some gold and profit
- Signet of the Accord – BoE drop in Obsidian Sanctum-10, should be up in the AH or…
- Keystone Great-Ring – if you’re still def-capped anyhow, drops in H Drak’tharon Keep
- Alternatively any of the blue tanking rings from heroics. Eventually replace the above with…
- Mark of the Relentless – beautifully itemized ring from H ToC, just no defense on it.
- Clutch of Fortification – 35 Emblems of Triumph. Simply perfect ring. Armor, stamina, avoidance.
Trinkets:
- Seal of the Pantheon – regular Halls of Lightning. Should it just not drop, have Dabiri’s Enigma or Adamantine Figurine as standby.
- The Black Heart – the sacred grail of stamina, available in regular ToC
- Glyph of Indomitability – 50 Emblems of Triumph. Clearly a mix of EH (due to the high armor) and avoidance trinket, it’s on use should allow powerful avoidance. For someone who only does heroics pretty useless, but in raids it should rock.
Main Hand:
- Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper – start out with any of the quest rewards as per race and personal taste.
- Axe of the Sen’jin Protector or Teldrassil Protector – if you enjoy the Argent Tournament Dailies, these are available for 25 Champion’s Seals.
- Peacekeeper Blade – 2nd encounter, H ToC. The turkey knife is nicely itemized and has a socket. As there’s no def on the sword, you might have to gem it for defense.
- Lucky Old Son – Bronjahm, reg. Forge of Souls. If a baby rattle is more your style and you like inherent def on weapons, this drop might be for you. Not a huge upgrade, but slightly higher DPS.
- Falric’s Wrist-Chopper – Falric and Marwyn, H Halls of Reflection. This is it for orc tanks. Go figure that Blizzard had to hide it in one of the most difficult dungeon encounters ever. This is best pre-raid for orcs, however if you’re not one of us, you’d rather go for…
- Rimefang’s Claw – Scourgelord Tyrannus, H Pit of Saron. No wasted item budget on block rating, all around solid stuff. Looks pretty nice too.
Shields:
- Titansteel Shield Wall - crafted by blacksmiths
- Royal Crest of Lordaeron – with a lead on avoidance, this drops from H CoS and is still your best bet outside of raids
- Splintered Door of the Citadel – Falric and Marwyn, reg. Halls of Reflection. Whew, they changed the model, no one wants to carry around a face, trust me.
Ranged:
- Blades of the Sable Cross – makes no sense to buy the engineer gun anymore. Go straight for the thrown weapon for 25 Emblems of Triumph.
To get all Emblem gear listed here, you’d have to spend 25 Emblems of Valor, 47 Emblems of Conquest and 310 Emblems of Triumph. Remember, tanks get instant gratification when queueing up for random heroics, so you can get those emblems faster than any other role. Happy hunting.
Very nice list, as always.
.-= Ratshag´s last blog ..Gone Fishin’ =-.
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Great post. Bookmarked for later reference.
Gobble gobble.
.-= BobTurkey´s last blog ..Priest Theorycrafting for 3.3 – Critical Rating (Part 5) =-.
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Good list, I am amazed with the amount of goodies available in five mans between ToC and the three new ones.
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“Legguards of Abandoned Fealty – first encounter in H ToC”
The iLvl on this is 200, most likely this is from Reg-TOC and not H-TOC
Other than that I know if I level another tank (already have 2) I wont have to go through painful weeks of trying to reach the uncrittable 535 defense anymore
Go Blizz !!
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Kadomi Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Fixed, good catch, thank you.
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Awesome list.
If I can suggest an alternative to the first belt:
Girdle of the Pallid Knight
From reg ToC.
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Kadomi Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
You’re totally right. I will add it in my next edit.
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Great list! Thanks for putting this together. I should do a druid one and share with wow_ladies if I get the chance during the holidays. Things have changed so much that I don’t even know where new trees start.
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Great post thanks, saves me a lot of time!
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Looked like regular HoR was a good spot for upgrades for me (have much of badge gear and ilvl200 crafted + the weapons listed).
Got really nice belt from trash drop (BoP). Excellent alternative to the PvP Honor belt or the crafted one. Titanium Links of Lore — apparently small chance trash drop from any of those instances.
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Kadomi Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I totally didn’t look into Frozen Halls trash drops, I will have to add them to the list, thank you.
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Might want to add http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50235 to the trinket list from H FOS.
Thanks for the list!
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Valdrel Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Bah, meant H PoS. =)
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I believe their is also a chest off of Scourge Lord in H PoS to. Something like the Icebound Bronze Cuirass. Although it might be even worse than the one out of regular because it has no sockets
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Nice list, even helped my dk out a bit. It’s so true us tanks do get instant groups when queuing, unfortunately we usually get the most QQing from gear nazis, apparently tanks are required to be t10 geared for heroics these days, go figure.
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Seems like most of this geat is sought after at lvl 80. Any suggestions on tanking gear from like lvl75 to 80?
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Asverze Reply:
January 27th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Good stuff for tanking from L70 to L80 is the Cobalt-Tempered Saronite range imo.
Easy to optain at your guild’s master smith.
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Aikon Reply:
January 27th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
ill get to looking in to that, as since i posted this question i have leveled to 77 and really dont know my path from here (as far as whitch way to go) I wanna be a tank cus with loot gear as DPS =my dps sucks. ty for the tip
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I miss the “Red Sword of Courage” from UP HC.
This seems to me a decent sword too for tanking.
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Kadomi Reply:
January 27th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
The RSoC is an excellent tanking weapon and is still the most highly commented post on my site. However, I am trying to outline an upgrade structure and the tournament weapon is just as good. The Peacekeeper Blade is better. If you want to grind a heroic for a drop, I would suggest going from Peacekeeper’s Blade to Rimefang’s Claw or Falric’s Wrist-Chopper.
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Asverze Reply:
January 28th, 2010 at 1:46 am
I see, and can agree.
But don’t you think the step from that Flipper weapon (Sword of Heartwrenching Slaugher, etc.) to the Tournament one or the PkB is a bit far?
Even with the better Eternally Folded Blade I got a hard time keeping aggro during HC farming especially with uber DPS around.
(BTW, recently I became the proud owner of that precious one)
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Thanks for the list! I have a fresh 80 warrior that I’ve so far been too intimidated to step into heroics with. Now that I’ve got a shopping list, at least hopefully that can help take some of the edge of fear off.
.-= Nora´s last blog ..Totems for the Enhancement Shaman =-.
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[...] do you measure the value of an upgrade? The stats on the item? Gearscore rating? Perhaps a list made by a [...]
I saw in the trinket list you left out essence of gossamer. Is the defense trinket from HoL really better? J/w wondering because i know once your def capped and que’ing up for heroics ppl wanna see a large HP pool and i thought the stamina on the essence of gossamer was a pretty nice trinket.
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Kadomi Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I did not list all the trinkets out there. Essence of Gossamer is fine, but Black Heart is a lot better, due to the better proc. If you are only running heroics and you are def-capped, then you could run both EoG and Black Heart. If you also want to raid, Black Heart+Glyph of Indomitability are the way to go. Seal of the Pantheon is really only to cover the def gap.
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ah ok thanks for the quick response one more quick question i don’t know if you answered this yet either but where does ick’s rotting thumb rank on your list of trinkets? Is it worth the trouble to que up everyday to get that trink or just buy the glyph one and use the black heart?
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Kadomi Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
I wouldn’t run H PoS over and over for that trinket, no. Glyph of Indomitability is just a lot stronger. The on-use on Ick’s Rotting Thumb is too weak.
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do you prefer the boots of heartfelt repentance to sollerets of suffering from reg. FoS?
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Kadomi Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 11:19 am
I think I prefer Boots of Heartfelt Repentance. The Sollerets have higher ilevel, and a bigger budget for stamina, armor and strength, but SBV and parry just aren’t as nice as expertise and dodge, unless you are already above 26 expertise.
The stamina gap between the boots you can cover with a nice blue stamina gem, which gives the ToC boots a stamina edge.
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Is there a preferred order to spend your Frost Emblems?
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Kadomi Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:49 am
I go with Veneretio’s list for frost emblems:
http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/12/24/the-emblem-of-frost-pick-order/
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Great list, I’ve found it be be very useful. I’d like to add that Rowan’s Rifle of Silver Bullets has really come down in price as of late (bought mine for 1.8k) and while it is lacking in def rating, it still is a great ranged stat stick that most people should be able to afford nowadays.
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Kadomi Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:50 am
On my server it’s still pretty expensive, haven’t seen any under 4.5k hordeside, but I am keeping my eyes peeled.
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At the wrist section you say that the Bracers of the herald is the best to get outside raid. Now when you can get triumph easily in 5 man, you can buy http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40734
for 60 triumphs/valors
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[...] get me wrong, I enjoy crunching spreadsheets, working out gear rankings, and planning upgrades. But all of that work is a meta-game, and it’s all for the minority of players. Better to put [...]
I believe Second Helm of the Executioner is from The Litch King in HoR, not Garfrost.
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Excellent article. Please indicate how how much expertise and +hit we should stack after getting all the gear above to raiding ToC / Onyxia.
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Kadomi Reply:
March 26th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
You want to be soft-capped on expertise, 26, so that bosses won’t dodge your attacks. I wouldn’t necessarily gear for hit at all. Pre-ToC gear had lots of hit, ToC gear doesn’t, and so it’s not really feasible to reach the hit cap for us. In ToC only Gormok the Impaler requires taunts, so in the worst case keep a Taunt Glyph on you instead.
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Um im a dk tank and i know that
Falric’s Wrist Chopper is best warrior and pally wep out ther fyi
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Kadomi Reply:
April 4th, 2010 at 11:32 am
That’s not quite correct. Falric’s Wrist Chopper is a threat weapon for warriors and paladins, because it has shield block value on it, increasing our damage from abilities that scale with SBV. However overall Rimefang’s Claw is a better weapon. A touch more DPS, and all around avoidance. This gear list assumes that ultimately you want to raid, and avoidance > threat for raiding.
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So what’s good raiding stuff to shoot for after you have all these items? What raids are good to start with?
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Kadomi Reply:
April 24th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
This gear would let you easily fit into Trial of the Crusader. The 10-man would have few upgrades (rings, bracers, boots, necklace, etc), but you could also do 25-man.
From Trial of the Crusader it is not far gear-wise to go to Icecrown Citadel as next step, especially if you purchase Emblem of Frost gear along the way.
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Sinepdrah Reply:
August 30th, 2010 at 6:51 am
With enough of the higher end items listed here you could quite easily do most bosses in ICC10 – Our tank was still using the ilvl200 emblem shield on his first LK kill with us. One thing to remember with ICC is that you have a 30% buff on your side!
If your guild is faceroll farming 11/12, get them to take you along. What’s the worst that can happen?
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Thanks for the nice list. Just found it and think it’s still viable for raid beginners even though it’s from 2009.
@item level discussion – Would be nice to have item levels to measure improvements, yes, but imo this is a simple guide for pre-raid shopping and not a detailed number crunching. No need to get lost in the numbers here.
I like that you actually wrote where to find the gear.. some guides only give you the item names and leave the rest to you
.-= warrior guide´s last blog ..Warrior Glyph Guide =-.
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Very good post for those who are starting to get protection gear and dont know what to get.
Cheers for a work well done
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Maybe an idea to add Sollerets of Suffering at the feet? (ilvl 219)
They drop in normal FoS from Devourer. Because it’s on normal you can chain run if you really need some boots. Saves around 1000g for crafted and can be obtained if you do not think you can handle H FoS
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Second Helm of the Executioner is from heroic Halls of Reflection, the Arthas event, not from Garfrost.
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How about adding Bracers of Dalaran’s Parapets?
http://www.wowhead.com/item=40734
60 Emblems of Valor and BOE so you can have an alt or friendly guildie to get them or maybe even AH…
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No mention of Essence of Gossamer? http://www.wowhead.com/item=37220
I love this trinket, it seems everyone else who queues (including healers and hunters) want it too….. This is the only trinket I’d use before Black Heart from ToC5 and the 245 badge one (I’m still using the Shard of Contempt from when I was leveling http://www.wowhead.com/item=34472 – great expertise and good proc for threat).
For those who are lucky enough to have ICC raiding mains/alts, the crafted 264 legs and boots are pretty easy to obtain and they’re hot hot hot!
Nice guide, really like it!!
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I’m having an issue with all these PUG-imposed raid GearScore requirements.
I currently have most of the highest level items obtainble from emblems, and I am waiting on 1 or 2 drops. I can not afford the 5k gold feet or the 3k gold boots. My GS sits at 4700. I am having a hard time getting in ICC raids, that will offer a serious chance on serious loot that will definitely increase my GS and get it close to the 6k mark.
1) With the gear listed above, what’s the maximum GS that can be attained? (obviously without the ridiculously expensive ICC crafts)
2) How did YOU work your way in pug raids (MT / OT) with sub-5000 GS gear?
I would like to note that I know the class and I tank Heroics / Naxx / VoA with no issues whatsoever.
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Kadomi Reply:
September 13th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I might be the wrong person to ask that question, I fear. I am one of my guild’s raid leaders, and we have never ever used Gearscore as requirement and never will. It’s an arbitrary number based on item levels and has no say whatsoever on actual performance and/or skills.
With the best item of the gear that I have listed, I would assume you hit a gearscore of around 4.8k, maybe. I have no way of checking.
As for question number 2, I don’t pug at all, I only raid with my guild. I think tanks probably have it the hardest of all in the PUG scene.
Just for fun I just used WTFismygearscore and I currently sit at 5798. Note that I am currently working on LK and pretty much zip through ICC unscathed otherwise.
If you snag the top pieces of this list then for 30% buffed Lower Spire and Plagueworks you would have no problems for sure.
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