Memoirs of a Meatshield

[Lochart]

I'm a tank. I've always been a tank. I'll die a tank. Then I'll be rezzed and keep on tanking. So for those interested, I thought I would share some of the insights I've picked up over the literal years.

Up front, here's my philosophy on tanks. We don't do damage. We just don't. Threat is generated via abilities, talents, and equipment. I'm a 70 and in defensive stance, I hit 70 level mobs for 100-150 white damage. I've had shield slam crits as high as 1100 before, but not because I'm aiming to do it.

What we DO do is mitigate incoming damage. We take anything that toons can get hit with and keep asking for more. To that end, I'm a HUGE fan of making sure we generate lots of threat, and when we have a mob (or 3's) attention, we keep it, and try to keep our own damage to a minimum.

So to my mind, talents are divided into two useful types for a protection warrior: Those which make our threat generating abilities (revenge, heroic strike, sunder armor, thunderclap) cheaper/better, and those which boost our own ability to avoid as much damage as possible (shield specialization, shield mastery, vitality, deflection, anticipation)

First off, talents, since that's the easiest place to start any everyone wants to know what to put things in. Since I'm not high tech enough to link my build directly, here's a list of my build.


Arms (13 points)
3/3 Improved Heroic Strike
5/5 Deflection
2/2 Improved Charge
3/3 Improved Thunder Clap

Protection (48 points)
2/2 Improved Bloodrage
3/3 Tactical Mastery
5/5 Anticipation
5/5 Shield Specialization
5/5 Toughness
1/1 Last Stand
3/3 Improved Revenge
3/3 Defiance
3/3 Improved Sunder Armor
2/2 Improved Taunt
1/1 Concussion Blow
2/2 Improved Shield Bash
3/3 Shield Mastery
1/1 Shield Slam
3/3 Focused Rage
5/5 Vitality
1/1 Devastate

PROTECTION TREE

Imp. Bloodrage- Warriors need rage. The more the better. In a group with a healer, the health loss isn't an issue.

Tactical Mastery- Stance dancing is fun: the most common instance is battle stance, charge in to generate rage, then switch to defensive stance to actually tank. The ability to maintain that rage through the stance shift is invaluable.

Anticipation- Defense is the most important stat for a warrior next to armor. While there is an upper limit (while the level limit remains 70, that would be 490), the rule of thumb is; more is better.

Shield Specialization- A warrior's favorite thing to do after actually taking damage is of course, blocking. This allows you increase your odds of doing so AND generate rage, so it's a no-brainer.

Toughness- Amor is important, remember?

Now we get into more controversial talents

Last Stand- Ever gotten that boss down to 2%, you're the only one alive except maybe a mage who's out of mana, and you're at 50% with no heals in sight? 20 seconds is a surprisingly long time in a boss fight, and even a prot warrior can deal out respectable dps as long as he's alive. Combined with shield wall, this talent makes you VERY self-sustained, if only temporarily.

Imp. Shield Block- OK, I admit: I'm strongly thinking about respeccing slightly to get this talent, as I'm using it more and more. Particularly in the end game where mobs and bosses can hit normally for over 1000, the more you block, the better off you are. It helps the healer by mitigating damage, and with this talent, it will regenerate 2 of the 10 rage it costs to use. However, even without Imp., the regular shield block serves an excellent end, so if you're hurting for points in other places, skip this.

Imp. Revenge- Some say this is useless because the stun doesn't affect enough mobs to justify 3 talent points. Having run every non-raid instance in the game, I am forced to disagree. It affects virtually every non-boss mob in the game at any level. The other thing to note is that a 45% chance procs almost every time I've used it. I use this ability primarily to stun spellcasters in the middle of heals or channeled spells or mind controls, when my two other abilities (Concussion Blow and Shield Bash) are on cooldown. Further, since your combined block/dodge/parry percentages should enable you to avoid roughly a quarter to a third of all attacks, odds are good that revenge will be available so often that it can't cooldown fast enough. But again, this one's debatable, and should be left to your own playing style.

Defiance- If you don't put 3 points in this, go respec to arms/fury right now. We live by threat. If we can't produce it, we're excess baggage.

Imp. Sunder Armor- Primary threat generation ability. Make it as cheap as you can. Ever heard "Wait for 3 sunders, then go."? See above comment for Defiance.

Imp. Disarm- Some love it, I never use it. I went with Revenge and I stand by my choice. If a healer is having trouble healing you through hits that a boss (who is likely immune to disarm anyway) is dishing out, you've got bigger troubles than trying to get him to drop his weapon for an extra 3 seconds.

Imp. Taunt- Debatable. The argument in a nutshell goes, "If you need to taunt every 6 seconds instead of every 8 to hold aggro, you suck as a tank". MY response is "If something resists your taunt and goes for a mage or a healer instead of you, 2 seconds can be an eternity." Besides, it's the only free ability we have (I know I know, except for victory rush and charge. You're missing the point), so might as well have it available as a last resort. Or, imagine as often happens, that OTHER CC breaks, or you're assigned two targets from the start of the fight. Then being able to taunt every 6 seconds allows you to switch back and forth between targets sundering constantly to keep multiple targets' attention. But, this is one of those that's up to personal choice. If 8 seconds is taunt enough for you, congratulations, you have 2 more points to spend

Imp. Shield Wall If you have the points, go for it. I didn't, so I skipped it. My rationale is pretty lacking, save that I don't use the talent that often because of course, it's supposed to be a last resort. And since Last Stand gives me 30% more health for 20 seconds for only 1 talent point, I made my choice, and I stand by it. Here again is a "flexible" talent; so if you have extras lying around, pump some in here.

Concussion Blow- We have few enough stuns as it is. Best pile em on so when a mage's Counterspell is on cooldown, you have a way to stop that massive heal. Also necessary for Shield Slam, which is the one way we have to deal major damage.

Imp. Shield Bash- What's better than interrupting spells? How about ensuring they can't cast again for 3 seconds? Exceedingly useful for pulling casters who have that annoying habit of standing where they are and throwing spells at you instead of running at you so you can hit them. As well as preventing heals of course.

Shield Mastery- A warrior's best friend next to priests is a shield. So you might as well make the most of it. No-brainer in my book.

1H Weapon Specialization- I know, I know, tempting, and people are probably telling me I'm an idiot. But again, if you want to do damage, respec arms/fury or reroll rogue/hunter/mage/warlock. "But Lochart! Dealing damage generates threat!" That's true Billy, but take a look at this: Let's say (generously) that I can do 200 damage per swing of my weapon. Then I get a whopping 20 extra base dps, which I grant goes through some modifiers, and might even generate upwards of 250 damage all told. OR, I could take those 5 points and put them in something like Vitality, and get 5% more health AND 10% more strength. That's a 15% stat bonus in stats that tanks actually strive for, rather than dealing damage, which for the nth time, we don't do. Or if you want a more direct comparison, take the 5 points and put them in Focused Rage (see below) and Imp. Heroic Strike, so your HS now costs a mere 10 rage instead of 15. THAT will more than make up for your threat generation because you'll be able to stack sunders so much faster. Case closed.

Imp. Defensive Stance Again, personal choice here. Since at high levels you'll have "Spell Reflection" as a basic ability, which lets you bounce 100% of a harmful spell back at its caster, reducing damage by 6% seems unnecessary. Particularly since, if you buy into my ideas, you'll have 2.5 ways (Imp. Revenge only counts as a half because it's not a sure thing) to silence/interrupt spell casting already, the only time you'll get hit with spell damage is on bosses or uninterruptible casts, and there, 6% of 2000 shadow bolt damage (for example) is only 120, which isn't a big help to the healer overall.

Shield Slam- It's a way to get some damage on the board, AND its description says "generates a high amount of threat" My favorite thing to do is charge in battle stance, Shield Slam (it requires "shields" not "defensive stance") so I don't lose rage by changing stances, switch to defensive, and start sundering. The added bonus of that ploy is since you Slam in battle stance, you aren't subjected to the 10% damage reduction. Maximizing your one major damage ability. On an aside, if you miss with the Slam, just switch to defensive and taunt, and you're back where you would have been anyway.

Focused Rage- At first I thought, "Wait, I'm protection, I don't have any offensive abilities." Noob moment, I got over it. This applies to virtually all your abilities, most notably Sunder Armor and Heroic Strike. Those two are important because if you put talents into Imp. Sunder and Imp. Heroic Strike on top of Focused Rage, they stack, and each only costs 9 rage, so you can be a sundering/striking machine non-stop.

Vitality- Wait, for 5 points I can get 5% more stam and 10% more strength, the two most important basic stats of a warrior? There is no reason not to have this talent maxed out. None. NO! Quiet down. Just scroll over "Vitality" and click 5 times. Seriously though, it's important to remember that those are the base stat pumps, and that with other modifiers, you end up with a lot more than 5% more health. And remember too that with Last Stand, the more base health you have, the more Last Stand will give you.

Devastate- The fact that this ability deals damage is of minimal importance. What IS important is that it deals threat for each level of sunder already applied, and renews the timer. The only real drawback is that it's more expensive than an actual sunder (12 rage versus 9 if you're following my build), but it does do SOME damage, so that helps. Once you have the mob/boss's attention firmly, you can just spam Devestate, Heroic Strike, and Shield Slam when the cooldown is up, and that will pretty much max out the damage you can contribute, with an occasional Thunderclap and Rend thrown in.

OK, so, if you followed all that, you have at MOST 13 points free at level 70. You can now go back and pump points into things I said "Eh, maybe" to if you want to stay pure protection, or you can forge into another tree and "branch out" ;D

I find the arms tree more amenable to expansion, as fury focuses too heavily on my arch-nemesis; dealing damage.

ARMS TREE

Imp. Heroic Strike- To me, another no brainer. Once sunders are up, this is your primary mode of threat generation, so the cheaper it is, the better. And of course, it's another ability described as "generating a high amount of threat" so it's a good one to use.

Deflection- Increased parry helps with two things: avoiding damage altogether and making life easier for the healer, and triggering Revenge, so you can turn around and do some damage/stun the mob depending on if you specced into that talent as above.

Imp. Rend- DoTs are nice, really, and every little bit helps, but top level Rend does 182 damage over 21 seconds, +/- a little based on weapon damage (10 in my case). That's such a minor irritation to most high end mobs that a little more won't do much. And of course, according to me, damage dealing is best left to actual dps classes, so I skipped this one.

Imp. Charge- Not strictly necessary, especially when you hit that level of tanking where everything needs to be pulled to you rather than fought where they stand. But, I use it often enough while questing or doing lower level instances that the extra rage is nice. However, if I had to change one thing about my build I would probably take the points out of here and put one into Imp. Shield Block and the other into Imp. Shield Wall.

Imp. Thunderclap- Thunderclap is as close as we get to aoe, which gets used all the time. So any way to make it better is good. 100% more damage, make it cost 4 less rage, and make it slow down the targets an additional 10% all for 3 points? You win. Further, note that combined with Focused Rage, Thunderclap now only costs 13 rage total.

Iron Will- I don't have points here, but it's in the same level as the two above, so I thought I'd comment. On the surface, a total of 15% chance to resist stuns and charms seems great. But the problems are several. First, 5 points are tough to scrape together at this point. Second, 15% isn't really a huge number. As a general rule, if something doesn't increase a % by 25 or more, I skip it figuring it won't happen often enough to make it worth it. Third, FEAR is neither a stun nor a charm effect, so the warrior's worst enemy spell is unaffected by this talent. Lastly, if you're really good at the stance dance and timing, Berserker's Rage makes you immune to fear and "incapacitating effects" which at least covers stuns, if not charms. Since it can operate in any stance, you can turn that on for 10 seconds, switch to defensive, and be immune rather than having a chance to resist. Just food for thought.

[Lochart]

OK, so you’ve figured out you want to be a tank. You’ve even started pumping talents into the protection tree to make yourself an aggro magnet in instances and group quests. But surely there’s more to it than Taunt and sunder armor? Of course there is.

For those of you in a hurry this post is color coded as follows:
Important/the best option for a particular aspect of tanking gear/enchanting
Not a bad runner up if you can't immediately attain the yellow option
The basic thing to shoot for. If you're broke or low level, start here

Warrior stats

The basic stats for warriors are strength and stamina. Strength boosts your block rating (and attack power, but that’s more of an aside) and stamina boosts your health (duh). Agility is useful to an extent, as it boosts your armor value, but not significantly enough to make it a stat you want to pursue whole-heartedly, particularly in late game.

Beyond the basics, other important stats are dodge, parry, block, defense, and hit rating.

Dodge, block, and parry are important as a group. They’re your “damage avoidance” statistics. Dodge and parry enable you to take 0 damage from an attack, and block and defense enable you to reduce the total amount of damage you would otherwise take. Now, there are some “magic” numbers you should be aware of when improving your gear.

Defense: At level 70, a defense rating of 490 makes you uncritable by mobs up to level 73. Since mobs and bosses routinely hit for over 1000 damage, a critical hit or two can spell disaster for the group, and for the healer’s ability to keep you alive. That isn’t to say that more than 490 defense is useless, but 490 is the cut off to be as effective as possible. It is important to note that one point of + defense rating IS NOT EQUAL to 1 point of defense, particularly as you get to higher levels. Thus, it is possible that a +6 defense rating gem will boost your defense by as little as 2. This becomes increasingly important as you start swapping gems between defense and hit rating once you get over 490: if you hit 492 defense and destroy a +6 defense gem in favor of a +6 hit rating one (both yellow sockets) it is possible you’ll remain at 490 and gain some hit rating, so don’t be afraid to experiment if you have the cash.

Dodge/Block/Parry: Similar to the 490 defense, you should shoot for a COMBINED dodge/block/parry percentage of 27.4%. This is relatively easy with the trinkets, giant block numbers, and 5% parry boost you can get through talents, but it is something to keep an eye on.

Hit rating: There is a 5% cap on adding to your chance to hit. So you want enough hit rating to boost that up to 5% if possible. Hit rating is important to keep high because if you can’t land any blows on mobs, you won’t be able to sunder and maintain threat. The biggest challenge you will have is the balance between defense rating and hit rating. As a general rule, defense rating is most important, so go for nothing else until you hit that magic 490. Then start focusing on ways to up your hit rating: swapping in trinkets and using gems that up hit rating.


The above is a just a brief synopsis if you don't care about the reasoning and want numbers. An in depth analysis of the non-basic warrior stats can be found here:
evilempireguild.org/guides/after490.php

Sockets and gems.
MOST of the socket bonuses for tank gear are pretty useless for tanks.

Resilience: sounds good, but with a 490 defense rating, you don’t need to pay attention to it. It’s primarily a PVP stat if you're not stacking defense.

Crit rating: See my other post about how tanks don’t do damage, they just take it.

Block/parry/dodge rating: This sounds good too, but by the time you’re collecting socketable gear that gives those kinds of bonuses, your dodge/block/parry rating should be over the 27.4% cutoff percentage already, so a few more points won’t help.

The ONLY important stat once you hit 490 def., 27.4% B/D/P, and 5% hit, is STAMINA (since there are no gems that boost armor directly). So forget about all socket bonuses. Just put as many stamina gems as you can in every slot you can find.

Along similar lines, though with a little more variation, are tank enchants.
Again, the general rule is, if you can get a stamina/health enchant, DO IT. If not, there’s room for a little discussion, explained in brief below.

Head: There are no enchantments at all for helms, so you have to be creative. The best you can do at level 70 is the Glyph of the Defender available at Revered from the Keepers of Time QM in Tanaris. It grants +16 Defense Rating and +17 Dodge Rating.

Shoulder: No shoulder enchants either. Best you can do at level 70 is the Aldor/Scryer rewards. One is available at Honored, the other is available at Exalted.
Aldor honored: +13 Dodge Rating
Aldor exalted: +15 Dodge Rating, +10 Defense Rating
Scryer revered:+13 Defense Rating
Scryer exalted: +15 Defense Rating, +10 Dodge Rating
As you can see, the difference between the exalted versions are minimal, so these alone should not guide your decision of whether to select Scryer or Aldor.
The only other shoulder buff options are resistances, which unless you’re building a separate “resistance” set, aren’t all that helpful.

Chest: This at least gives you some options. From enchanting, you can get +X to all stats depending on your level (+6 is the highest), or +X health (+150 is the highest). In keeping with the idea that stamina is the only stat that matters for enchants, I recommend the +X health, because at every comparable level, the health bonus will be higher than the stamina stat bonus. If you know leatherworkers instead of enchanters, or find that armor kits are cheaper, the other route to go is armor kits. For lower levels, this is the far easier option, especially with the relatively rapid turnover of gear you’ll be getting. When you get higher, you have the option to switch to a Clefthoof Armor Kit that grants +8 stamina to chest, gloves, legs, and feet. This is better than armor, as it will make a bigger difference overall, and is better than the +X to all stats enchant because stamina is the important one. So as far as progression, I recommend +armor kits until you can get a Clefthoof Armor Kit, then use that until you get a chest piece you think you’ll hold onto for a while, at which point you should have it enchanted with +150 health.

Bracers: Here, you also have some options. There are several levels of both stamina and defense rating enchants, the highest of which are +12 stamina, and +12 defense rating. As with most high end enchants, they are bop drops from instance mobs, and are therefore relatively rare, and relatively expensive. So save them for a piece you’ll have for a while. But of course, you can just substitute one of the lesser enchants in the same vein and be just as well off. You could also opt for +4 to all stats, or +X to strength, but again, def and stamina are the more useful alternatives.

Gloves: The easiest thing to do is stick with the Clefthoof Armor Kit. However, there is a more unique option. There is an enchantment out there which grants +2% threat to gloves. It is available from the Sha’tar QM upon attaining exalted status. If you can find someone who has it, that’s the better option, because threat is invaluable, and +8 stamina kit will grant you less than 80 health when you start getting high up there, which is less even than one tick from any dot will do to you. But, this is not an every day enchantment, so wait to get it until you get a set of gloves you’ll be keeping for a while.

Belt: Nothing for belts. Anywhere.

Legs: Similar to chest, the easiest thing to do here is the Clefthoof Armor Kit from leatherworking. But, there are a few other options which either require WAY more work or WAY more money. The first is the ZG leg enchant, which is out of reach unless you find people into raiding pre-BC instances. The other (slightly better item) is the Nethercleft Leg Armor craftable by leatherworkers, which when applied to legs, grants +40 stamina and +12 agility. The drawback is these cost several hundred gold, so this is one of those “wait until you have a piece you’ll be keeping for a long while” items.

Boots: Here too, the Clefthoof Armor Kit will serve you well. However, the one thing better is an enchantment that grants you +12 stamina. The problem is it’s another relatively rare enchantment; a bop drop from ethereal priests in Mana Tombs with a drop rate of less than 1%. The mats are only 12 arcane dust though, so if you can find someone who has the enchantment, it’s relatively cheap for an end game enchantment. Otherwise, stick with the +8 stamina kit.

Shield: There are three options here. Block rating, stamina, and armor. Stamina enchants are the most useful because they are available from low levels to high levels ranging from +3 to +18. Armor might be more useful if there were more than one level of the enchant, but since you max out at +30 armor, when your shield gives you 3000+ armor, 30 more won't really help too much. Block rating should be pretty useless throughout, and as an aside is a fairly expensive enchant no matter what level you're after. So while you have 3 options, the only realistic one to consider is +stamina.

Weapon: It's an interesting thing, enchanting a 1H weapon when my whole rant thus far has emphasized that tanks don't do damage. I have consequently stayed away from +damage to weapon enchants. Feel free to take them yourself if it fits your play style. Instead, I opted for Crusader for a long time, which does two things: boosts your strength by 100 for 10 seconds when it procs, and heals you for a small amount (usually on the order of 50 health, pretty inconsequental). However, I found it procs a lot: 1-2 times in a given mob battle, and 4+ times during a boss. That strength boost ups your shield block rating which helps with tanking and makes shield slam hit harder. You could also go after stat bonuses individually: there are enchants for +strength and +agility which are of some use. Other procs include Lifestealing, which of course takes mob health and heals you for each proc. Finally, the consensus is currently that Battlemaster is the ultimate tank weapon enchant. This heals you and your whole party every time it procs, for somewhere around 200-250 each. The added benefit of this is that the heals cause additional threat, focusing more aggro on you.


There are a few other sites that can provide other resources for warriors.

GEAR
www.wow-loot.com allows you to check all instances boss by boss for gear you might want. It also lists gems by name and color that are useful for various specs, so you can find the names of things to look for on the AH to socket your gear with.

MODS
wow.curse.com and wowui.incgamers.com have a plethora of warrior specific mods as well as things that will help you run more fluidly in a group. Two primary examples are KTM Threat meter which enables players to gauge their threat generation against the rest of the group and allow the warrior to remain in control, and “one button tanking” which allows you to set up a key bind that sunders until 5 are in place, then shield bashes if the cooldown is up, revenges if it’s available, and rends if the mob isn’t immune. All with a single button. Or something like that. Now you only have to mash one button instead of half a dozen. Feel free to browse and customize your game play with what makes you comfortable.

[Lochart]

So now you’re well on your way to being an established tank. You know the ins and outs of the mechanics, know what gear to shoot for, know what enchantments to apply, know what mods make you the most effective and easy to read in a group, and know how to best utilize your talent points. What’s next?

As usual here’s a quick reference summary of things:
When tanking multiple targets, spread out sunders and taunt liberally. Switch targets to sunder evenly rather than stacking 5 on one before switching to the other because by the time you get 5 on the first, healing aggro will pull the second off you.
KNOW YOUR LIMITS:
You gear may be too low to support what you’re being asked to do, especially upon entering a new instance.
You should be at or above the level of mobs you’re trying to tank to maximize your chances of sticking sunders and being able to hit them. (except end game of course)
Tanks become leaders of groups most of the time, so get to know pulls, boss strategies, kill orders, and marks, for both you and the rest of the group. Makes things far smoother.
COMMUNICATE:
If you’re unsure about a strategy, if it’s your first run somewhere, if you don’t know if someone is afk, if people are resting/buffing. Let the rest of the group know what you’re doing before you do it. Ask if there is something you don’t know.

The extended version.

You already know the bulk. Now it’s just a matter of tweaking your play so that you’re comfortable tanking multiple mobs at once without letting an overzealous healer steal your aggro. The only real tip for this is to spread out your sunders. Get 2-3 on the target everyone else is going to be hitting, then start stacking them on both (or all three) of your targets at once). These aren’t meant to stick on the off targets, so if they expire it’s OK. It’s just to get aggro so if you’re getting healed or another DPS’er hits one, the mobs will stick on you.

Another point is to know your limits. If you’re not comfortable tanking 3 mobs at a time, tell the group. If there’s no additional form off CC (hunter pet, another trap, sap, cyclone from druids, roots, etc.) then just warn the healer that you’ll need a lot of healing because there may be some holes in your gear. If it’s your first run in an instance, be sure to say so. You need to be aware of pulls and boss strategies, not only for yourself but for everyone else in the group, because the higher you get, the trickier things become.

The other limitation of tanks is level. More than any other class, being at or above the level of the instance is highly important. DPS classes have some leeway here because if they miss, they don’t generate threat and the fight lasts a little longer, no harm done. And healers don’t need to be high level because healing spells NEVER miss friendly targets. But if a tank can’t get sunders or any other sorts of hits to stick, aggro will be all over the place and wipes will be all too common.

The flip side of that is that in Outland especially, one or two instances can get you the ENTIRE WAY to 70. You can run Ramparts and BF from 58-65, then UB from 65-70. Then, learning the other instances becomes far easier because mobs will be easier to control. Not necessary, but the point is you’ll keep getting xp until you top out, so there’s no harm in staying in lower instances and blowing through them.

So, be very aware of the level requirements of various instances, and the levels of bosses and mobs before attempting something. Tanks become the natural leaders of raids and the majority of instances almost by necessity. They’re the first, and supposedly only line of defense for the rest of the group. They have to know the pulls so they know how many mobs are going to come and how much CC is required.

The result of all of this is that tanks have to be very adept at virtually all instances. Raids are generally run by tanks. Tanks put up marks. Tanks pull to establish initial aggro (with some exceptions where timing is an issue because tanks don’t have “instant cast” pulls like mages and hunters). And of course, EVERY group needs a tank and a healer, all the rest is negotiable, so you should have no trouble getting in to any run you want.

www.wowwiki.com (under “Instance guides”) has a HIGHLY detailed description of every boss in every instance/raid, including abilities and one or more strategies on how to take it down. Invaluable resource whether you’re learning the fight or just reminding yourself what a certain class should do.

That’s really the extent of things. If you have any questions about anything here, don’t hesitate to contact me in game.

Talents as you level

Most warriors opt to go arms/fury to aid the leveling process at least initially. Until level 35-40 it is difficult to distinguish yourself as a tank too heavily anyway. For the benefit of the leveling warrior, I offer a few talent building strategies, without too much detail, if you’re looking for a talent leveling guide to maximize your effectiveness.

Arms/fury to 40ish then tanking.
Your choice of tree until you tank is based primarily on your play style: if you like 2H weapons, you should go Arms. If you like dual wielding, go for Fury. These leveling talents are only if you’re sticking to one tree and looking for guidance; feel free to mix and match and experiment as you like. This only covers the basics.

Arms tree
10-14: Cruelty 5/5
15-17: Heroic Strike 3/3
18-19: Improved Rend 2/3
20-21: Improved Charge 2/2
22: Improved Rend 3/3
23-24: Deflection 2/5
25-26: Improved Overpower 2/2
27-29: Deep Wounds 3/3
30-31: Impale 2/2
32-36: Two Handed Weapon Specialization 5/5
37: Sweeping Strike 1/1
38-42: Improved Weapons Specialization for whatever your weapon you're using 5/5
43-44: 2/2 Weapon Mastery before Mortal Strike will open up for level 45 (or 40 if you dropped Cruelty)

Fury tree
0-14: Cruelty 5/5
15-19: Unbridled Wrath 5/5
20: Piercing Howl 1/1
21-25: Improved Battle Shout 5/5
26-30: Duel Wield Spec 5/5
31: Deathwish 1/1
32-36: Enrage 5/5
37-39: Flurry 3/5
40: Bloodthirst 1/1
41-42: Flurry 5/5

Pure Tank
10-14: Cruelty 5/5 (because you won’t tank until about levels 15-17, so you might as well be able to do some damage in the mean time while leveling. You should respec out of this as you get higher though.)
15-19: Anticipation 5/5
20-24: Shield Specialization 5/5
25-29: Toughness 5/5
30-32: Defiance 3/3
33-35: Improved Sunder Armor 3/3
36: Concussion Blow 1/1
37-38: Shield Bash 2/2
39: Last Stand 1/1
40-42: Shield Mastery 3/3
43-44: Imp. Taunt 2/2
45: Shield Slam 1/1
46-48: Focused Rage 3/3
49: Tactical Mastery 1/3
50-54: Vitality 5/5
55: Devastate 1/1

Now you’ve got the most important protection talents, so you can either expand in the protection tree as outlined in the other post, or you can start filling out the arms tree to compliment making your abilities cheaper. So, in any order, the following talents are useful:

Arms
Deflection 5/5
Imp. Heroic Strike 3/3
Imp. Thunderclap 3/3
Imp. Charge

Leftover Protection that’s useful
Tactical Mastery 3/3
Imp Revenge
Imp. Shield Block
Imp Shield Wall, Imp. Disarm

Any talents that don’t have numbers next to them are mere suggestions to fit your play style, not essential to the build.

[Lochart]

Rather than revising or editing my old posts, I decided to just make a quick note here to indicate a change my build. It also corresponds to something I've learned and want to pass along to all aspiring tanks out there for end game.

I already hinted at it before, but my position has solidified: Imp. Shield Block is essential to raid tanking, and useful in all other instances, heroic or otherwise. As such, I have respecced every so slightly to take one point out of Imp. Charge and put that into Imp. Shield Block.

The reason is that crushing blows by raid bosses are NOT mitigated by having 490 (or any other amount) of defense. The way to mitigate crushing blows is to keep your combined block/dodge/parry rating at or above 100%. The easiest way to do this is to make the 75% blocking increase from Shield Block last as long as possible. And with slow hitting bosses, the other advantage of Imp. Shield Block is that the effect of Shield Block lasts as long as the cooldown, so you can virtually ALWAYS have it active. In Karazhan and other raids, this is absolutely essential. Getting slammed with a crushing blow for 5K instead of a normal hit for only 2K at the wrong time can destroy a raid. I now speak from personal experience, as I was pulverized by a crushing blow from Curator a few weeks ago which led to a wipe, and I was immediately taken off main tanking the boss Don't let this happen to you!