Reinventing Durambar

[Taelas]

I don't like tanking without shield slam. I really don't. Kam leveled as fury because at the time it was a spec that I had very little experience with. I tanked one PuG and one mostly Lurkers run in Ramparts with that spec and then went and respec'd to prot. I could tank as fury, but I didn't feel comfortable doing it at all, mainly because bloodthirst is not shield slam as far as aggro goes (and it's not just the 10 rage difference). But as Conc and Wimpy and other warriors have proved time and time again (and I think Tal was MS on his warrior and main tanking Kara until they got to prince with their learning runs) you don't have to be prot to tank a lot of stuff in TBC. But for me the comfort level on tanking without some some the deep prot talents just isn't there. I'm not saying you won't be able to deal with it, but keep it in mind. The tanking "feel" is going to change a lot I think.

I cannot possibly agree more. I decided to start levelling my warrior a few days ago, after I had been asked to tank in Ramparts (my warrior was 64 at the time). While I did an OK job of it, my warrior was Fury and I really felt the lack of Shield Slam. The first thing I did when I had decided to level him was respec him back to Prot. No matter what, you'll be called on to tank while levelling, and I am just not comfortable tanking without deep Prot talents.

BM (happy birthday), I agree with Mavfin; you won't need that many talents in Protection if you're going to be the occasional OT. They are good choices for tanking, though. On the other hand, the talents I would choose for Fury DPS are too deep in Arms for you to take even if you drop ~6 talents.

Personally I'd max out Dual Wield Specialization, otherwise I feel it's a very solid build.