1 more level! (84 at the moment)

[Laqweeta]

Hey guys! . I've been leveling as Prot since 26 or so.. And I just now switched to arms at 84. (I went ahead and got full MOP 83 Greens, bringing my iLvl up to 348). I was just wondering, because of the quest reward type system that's in place in MOP.. Should I just level as Prot from 85 to 90? (My plan is Tanking at 90 with a DPS OS of course) If I quest as Arms, I won't have a Tank set available at 90..

Thanks for the help! Any and all is appreciated :]

[Deleted]

There are vendors in the endgame zones that can sell you, for gold and nothing else, a full set of offspec gear for your class. So if you level as Arms and you ding 90, you can go buy a set of Prot gear with itemlevel 408. This puts you behind your questing spec in most cases, but it is sufficient to not make you fall completely behind. Also, some quests (mainly those with blue rewards) actually lets you pick gear for the other specs, so you can keep up that way.

[Gritalian]

It really depends on how quickly you see yourself getting into raiding once you hit 90. I say this because the heroic dungeons aren't heroic at all. There are trash pulls that push out both more tank damage as well as more group damage than most of the bosses. I personally leveled Prot, hit 90 with a 438 ilvl and was able to get 440 within an hour after running Arena of Annihilation with the quest from White Tiger Temple. Though since you're leveling alone and the heroic dungeons are pretty simple (not including challenge mode), you'd be fine just leveling as arms and then reforging any haste or crit to avoidance.

It all depends on when you can/want to get into raiding. If you want to make sure you have all defensive pieces, even if not all your pieces are able to be 463, then switch back to Protection once you are questing in Townlong Steppes and the Dread Wastes. If you're not in a huge hurry to be tanking in a raid by, say Tuesday, then you're fine with the reforge idea until you can fill out all your pieces with actual tanking pieces.

I'd personally just stay Prot; being ilvl 408 at 90 with vendor items doesn't feel like a viable option to me.

[Gromnak]

I leveled as fury and there were plenty of tank quest rewards available, although I think those were the quests with more than one reward to choose from. Either way, you can tank level 90 heroic dungeons in mostly dps gear with just a 1h + shield and not even come close to dying unless you or the healer aren't very good.