I thought I shouldn’t tank heroics until im defence capped? only at 503 at the mo
Well, sure, that’s a given. There’s a ton of heroic-capable loot you can get without running heroics or spending badges, though.
Could you link your WoW-Armory profile, OAOW? It’s possible there’s some enchants/gems/quartermaster gear you’re missing that might get you up to heroic-tanking speed faster.
I bet i’m missing TONS
Wow, you blew through 79 in nine hours! I hope you took a break to eat something 
You are. You don’t have any enchants on any of your gear. You can get a +Def rating enchant on your cloak, chest, helm (assuming you have the rep), shoulders (ditto) and shield, and put a stam enchant on your boots, pants, bracers, and gloves. Your HP are very low for even a newbie 80 tank, but that should help.
Also, the fist weapon is an odd choice for a tank weapon. Do you have access to a sword, axe, or mace?
There’s a semi-decent tanking sword you can get from one of the quests in Zul’Drak…I think it was one of the beginning quests, on the Poster at the first Alliance camp. Had you kill an elite walrus nearby in the troll village?
Also : there is a + Defense head enchant available through one of the factions (Ardent, I think), a cloak and shield + defense enchant (these should run you about 250g in mats total, depending on your server economy). That will get you another 60 rating or so.
I’ve got a decent sword, but I’m only 4 or 3 skill points away from the knuckle sandwich achi. When I have it I will switch to the sword.
Do I basically get enchants by shouting LF enchanting in the comms channels?
That’s one way to do it. Sometimes you can buy them on scrolls at the AH (look under ‘item enhancement’). Or ask around among your friends–if you provide mats, you can usually get a friend to do it for free. If you ask in trade it’s customary to provide the mats and give the enchanter a tip for his/her trouble (amount varies depending on enchant–for the level you’re looking for, 5-10g is fine.)
What sword do you have?
Terrible reason to choose what weapon to tank with. Use the fist weapon on your own time; don’t do it in groups who expect you to tank for them. (Also, you’ll have better luck just punching things. They’ll be able to take more hits before they die and you have to start over, AND it’ll probably go faster, unless the weapon is a 1.5 speed, which I doubt.)
Your best bet is to advertise (not shout) in Trade channel, asking for specific enchants by name (or by the stats they give, if you don’t know the name). Get the mats yourself if you possibly can and advertise that you have them. Also advertise that you’ll tip (assuming you will, which you should).
Sample:
/2 Looking for Enchanter to do +18 Stamina to Shield. Have mats, will tip. PST.
(The /2 puts it in Trade chat, by the way.)
Or, like winterhawk11 said, check in-guild first. It’s customary to do profession-related things that don’t involve cooldowns for guild members for free, as long as they give you the mats. Sometimes you can also find scrolls on the auction house for cheaper than the cost of the mats, too, which is worth looking into.
One thing you can do is find an Enchanter friend to make mats for you by DEing the items you bring them, so you can start your own stash. You can save all your BoE greens (and blues, sometimes, too–these days, they’re often worth more trouble than they’re worth to sell as they are), mail them to the person, and they’ll mail back dusts, essences, and shards. You’ll also collect chant mats by running randoms, as long as there’s an Enchanter in the group.
If you do have an enchanter friend or guildy that’s willing to d/e your extra gear – and they should be – it’s also nice to give them a small tip, either a few gold or some of the mats. As an Enchanter myself I don’t mind d/e’ing stuff for people, but it does take some time to disenchant a bag full of stuff. Some people tell me “keep some dust for yourself” which is always appreciated :). Between chanting and tailoring, I never have enough dust.
One thing about this, though–don’t abuse the privilege, unless it’s a very good friend. DEing things and mailing back mats is not a big deal if it’s a few items, but if you send them tons, they’ll probably get annoyed. I say this as a longtime enchanter.
I remember one time a guildie asked me if I’d DE “a few greens” for him. Sure, I said. So I met him in Shattrath (this was back in BC) and he started trading me items. Along about 50 items, I said “How many more to go?” and he said, “Oh, about 50 more.”
Uh…
I DE’ed the items he’d already given me, gave him the mats, and told him I had other things to do. That’s just rude to expect somebody to do that kind of work for free, even if they are a friend.
In other news…
I got the Zulian Tiger! 
I discovered the other day that it’s easy to solo the ZG Tiger boss with my death knight tank.
Laughably easy.
Embarrassingly easy.
Like, I can do it in 10 minutes (that counts travel time) and I haven’t even taken any damage when I’m done.
So I decided I’d just nip over there and do it at lunch–I’ve done it many times before with somebody else (on my mage main, who can’t solo it even though he hits like a truck and can pull 25-30K DPS in short bursts under the right circumstances…grumble grumble clothies and their tissue paper armor anyway!) and it’s never dropped. Never even seen it. I kill the boss, loot him, and…
OMG Tiger!
I have to look twice to make sure it’s not wishful thinking. Nope, there it is in the loot window: “Swift Zulian Tiger.”
(happy dance)
So now my DK has the matched set of Horde-available kitty mounts–spectral and Zulian tigers. I think there are only two Hordies on our whole server who can claim that, and the other one is in my guild too.
Congrats on 80, OAOW!
And grats on the tiger, winterhawk!
–
Last night, in ICC, instead of hopping over to the Plague quarter after the first wing (We’re all sick of staring at Fester and Rot, let alone the good Professor), we decided to go visit the Blood Princes for the first time. That’s a very nifty fight, and definitely requires coordination. I may suggest that we mark the princes in addition to nameplates tonight to help with target switching.
We tried a few times with a priest going shadow and tanking the Dark Nuclei as they had higher PVP HP, but it didn’t go so well. Finally we decided to have me give it a go. PVP set, PVP BM spec to eke out more HP, Flask of Stoneblood, and I was staring at 40K raid buffed. Lots of fun was had by yours truly tanking the Nuclei and Keleseth, and keeping an eye out for disco orbs on the side – this is exactly the sort of challenge that I love because I get to do something other than hump DPS meters. That did the trick for our raid comp and we got him down to 62% a couple times before people had to go, which is pretty good for our first night on a new boss, especially one that requires good coordination.
After replacing people, we hopped back over to Plague and ground through Fester and Rot for the gear/badges before breaking for the night. For myself, I got Shaft of Glacial Ice, which makes me a very happy hunter – I finally get to replace my Orca Hunter’s Harpoon which I’ve been using for months. Eeee.
Yeah, this is something I don’t often have to think about, since my pocket [del]chant bitch[/del] DEer is one of my best friends. We use our profs for each other all the time, and we keep all our chant mats in common, anyway.
And, by the way, Enchanters–don’t be afraid to ask for compensation or say “sorry, I don’t have the time” or “you’re sending me too much crap.” If you just smile and say “sure” while screaming in frustration on the inside, people are going to take you at your word at least part of the time.
Woohoo!
Making sure everyone enables enemy nameplates can help, too–you can see at a glance who’s actually got all the health out of the group, assuming you’re in range.
Congratulations: You now have over 10,000 more HP than I did when I first started tanking Naxx at the beginning of Wrath. And grats on the new weapon!
But how do you link your achievements for someone to see? I’ve tried to get into ICC25 and they always ask for this…and unfortunately, I can tell them I’ve only taken out Marrowgar once. That’s my problem…I try to go get experience but that’s what raid leaders are looking for…experience.
Sorry, That’s not the weapon I tank with, It’s the weapon I quest with. I was questign when this char view was posted.
You bring up the achievements window, open up a chat box (/r, for example) and then shift+click on the achievement you mean to link.
As far as needing experience to get experience - yeah, there’s the rub. Most folks that do 25s do them in a guild. Those that PuG want it to be smooth. If they can get 24 other folks with experience they will. Sometimes linking achievements for 10-man will get you into a 25. Alternatively you can lie and say you’ve done it on an alt (but if you do this, you better make sure you actually do know the fights - it will be plainly obvious if you don’t).
In addition to other peoples’ comments on enchants, I’d get to the Argent Crusade quartermaster (in southern Icecrown) and buy some Special Issue Legplates and a tabard, if you don’t already have one. You need to get to Revered with the Argents to use their defensive helm enchant. If you’re wearing their tabard, you’ll gain rep with them whenever you tank a level 80 dungeon. You gain more if you’re doing a heroic, but you’ll gain some when doing Halls of Stone, the Oculus, Halls of Lightning, and Culling of Stratholme. There are also a bunch of Argent quests in Icecrown, including one daily quest, and a series of daily quests in Zul’Drak (the PaTroll quests), even if you’ve done all the regular Argent quests in Zul’Drak.
Once you get to revered with the Argents, if you haven’t had a nice tank chest piece drop for you anywhere, you should go to the Wyrmrest Accord quartermaster at Wyrmrest Temple and buy a tabard from them - if you hit Revered with them, you can pick up the Breastplate of the Solemn Council, which is a definite upgrade on the Tempered Saronite.
But mainly get those legplates and the enchants other people have talked about.