Tankadin Lvl 70 Gears Guide :)

Kibethe wrote:
Someone had a great tanking guide with gear listings, but admittedly a lot of it was 'ideal' stuff.

For easily obtainable:

1a. Felsteel Pants (NOT BOOTS like I had before), Helm, Gloves: Blacksmithing craftable, mats minimal if you're already a miner. Awesome stats, awesome sockets. Lots of smiths make these because they're one of the only skillup options past 360. I would strongly recommend these 3 over the Righteous gear alternatives because you get more stamina and defense and you will have plenty of spell damage once you get 2b or 2c.
1b. Myrmidon's Headdress: Headpiece reward from killing Kalithresh. http://www.thottbot.com/q-6194 Socketable! Awesome stats.
1c. Exorcist's Lamellar Helm: Headpiece purchaseable from the vendor in Allerian for killing Auchindoun bosses, 16 spirit shards, meta-socketable to boot! No tanking stats to speak of but depending on your total gear may not be a big deal.

Alternate boots and gloves: Uther's Ceremonial Warboots, from Durnehold regular mode; Faith bearer's Gauntlet's, Pandemonious, Mana-Tombs regular mode.
Alternative pants: The set from Halaa PvP, obtained same way as the belt, also not ideal for tanking but find for DPS-grinding; there's a very good set off the last boss of normal mode Slave Pens, the nature swamp thing dude, as well.

2a. Ethereum Phase Blade: Awesome until you can get your Greatsword of Horrid Dreams or Continuum Blade. Purchaseable, 35g from Exotic Weapons Vendor in Stormspire (Netherstorm). Fast, nice mainhand DPS. Not a lot of spell damage but hell it's not something you have to beg a mage or a lock to let you roll on. Limited 1 so you might need to camp it briefly.
2b. Continuum Blade: Keepers of Time Rep, run Durnehold and Black Morrass and BE SURE to do the quests. About 5-6? runs total should get you there. Best option IMO, because this is fast, has massive spell damage (frees up other gear for defense/sta/parry/etc.), and has a lot of stamina.
2c. Greatsword of Horrid Dreams: ShadLab regular mode Murmur drop. Harder to get because of caster competition but very decent and also awesome looking.
2d. Spellfire Longsword: Light saber from the shaman Broken One boss (first boss) in Slave Pens normal mode. A good stopping point between 2a and 2b or 2c. Also it wins coolness points for letting you be Obi-wan Kenobi for a while.

3a. Shield of the Void: Standard tanking stats. Pandemonious, Mana Tombs regular.
3b. Draenei Honor Guard Shield: Spell damage/int, BoE blue, stalk the AH.
3c. Netherwing Defender's Shield: From http://www.thottbot.com/?qu=10804 (ideal IMO)

4a. Brute Force Pauldrons: Socketable, lots of defense, decent looking. The Black Stalker, Underb(l)og regular mode.
4b. Righteous Spaulders: Socketable, other nice stats too. Pally set so won't have to fight off non-pallies for it. Laj, Botanica.

5a. Righteous Breastplate, Kalithresh in Steam Vaults regular mode. This is IMO a good option, it gets you int which can be sparse on some of your other gear. If you get the Felsteel set, get this, because you might be light on int without it. Same for 4b.
5b. Armorsmiths can make Heavy Earthforged Breastplate: 3 sockets so easily customizable, comes with base defense and agility. Not bad for cheap mats (of course you had to bleed through your eyes to become an armorsmith so cheapness is debatable).

6a. Khorium Belt: Blacksmithing craftable, minimal mats, usually AH purchasable, recipe is a farmed drop in Nagrand (took me an hour and change to get it to drop).
6b. Avenger's Waistguard: more PvP oriented but still decent, PvPing in Halaa (Nagrand) and killing mobs for tokens.
6c. Studded Girdle of Virtue: Socketable to have defense and comes with other nice stats. Ghaz'an, Underb(l)og regular mode.

7. Ring of the Silver Hand: Stamina, Int, Defense, mana/5, overall decent. Kalithresh, Vaults, regular mode

8a. Devilshark Cape: IMO better than 8b but might take longer to get. Kalithresh, Vaults, regular mode. (notice you will be farming Kalithresh A LOT...)
8b. Bogstrok Scale Cloak: Armor, stamina and defense, very nice and easy to get. Rokmar the krackler, Slave Pens regular mode
8c. Burnoose of Shifting Ages: 2nd spawned boss in Black Morass normal mode. Just got this tonight in Dark Portal! Very nice too, would still prefer the shark but excellent stats and looks awesome.

9. Steam-Hinge Chain of Valor: Awesome tanking stats all around. Mekgineer Steamrigger, Steam Vaults regular mode.

There's more, but, that should keep you busy for a while.

Oh, Libram, I'd suggest...

10a. Libram of Saints Departed: Heals you when you cast a judgment. The Maker, Blood Furnace regular mode.
10b. Libram of the Eternal Rest: First Setthek Halls boss, increases Consecrate damage so definitely a good one as well. I personally don't use it much because I prefer the heal-on-Judgment one, but it's also a good option for boosting aggro if you find you're hurting for it.

That's by no means everything but it's a start. I am still farming Kalithresh. I am gonna be Exalted with CE before I get all the bloody drops I need out of Vaults.

Edit: I am a noob and didn't read about grinding for epic mount too. You'll notice most of the stuff I posted is tanking. For grinding I tend to load up my spell damage and int. This means I have almost fully duplicated sets of gear, so my bags are usually full. -.- Of the sorcerer greens, believe it or not, are often very good filler until you hit 70.

There's a great caster ring in regular mode Vaults off the first boss.

Another good one is the Cenarion Ring of Casting, quest reward for the first part of the Lost in Action chain (needs Underb(l)og and Slave Pens regular modes). Stamina, int, spell damage.

There are NUMEROUS quest reward spell damage capes from Shadowmoon and Netherstorm (or so it seems) and a starter one from a simple soloable quest in Terrokar. Just pick one of those IMO.

At the risk of making this TLDR, I have a hell of a time farming as Ret. Farming as Prot is easysauce by comparison, IMO. Consecrate, Holy Shield, Retribution Aura, and Reckoning all make it very easy to kill mobs in large groups. When I was Ret I about chewed off my arm for how hard it was to grind by comparison to Prot so I went back in about 3 days.

Edited again: I fixed some of my typos like Felsteel boots -> pants, updated capes because I got a very nice tanking cape tonight.