I had to tank DM as a ret and I did so with a 2H for most of the dungeon. I did this so I could attempt to keep aggro on mobs. I would only switch to shield on bosses to make the healers job a little easier. 
Rage.
Guides (and established protocol for players with long experience) go into depth on recommending this because of the benefits to the overall threat output.
We click on the shield and 1H if the enemy is a boss and dealing enough damage for the rage to be sufficient and we are switching into survival / cooldown mode.
DRinking after each or almost every pull was just about standard as dungeon gameplay hits its expected pace.
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ya, the sfk run i dps’d in had an enhance shaman tank… it was actually pretty cool, he did great.
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That’s one of the nice things in vanilla, you didn’t have to feel locked into something. I healed dungeons as Shadow on my Priest and did fine. In retail, if I pick Shadow, I can only queue as DPS. 
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When you take more damage you generate more rage. If the healer can handle that, it’s better. If they can’t, or are uncomfortable, work something else out. It’s a team game.
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Healer gets blamed for everything in Vanilla/Classic. Just get used to it.
Find a tank who knows how to properly use a shield and add him to your friends list. Thankfully, I’ve ran into a few people so far who understand how dungeons work in classic. There are dozens of them out there.
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You talk like you haven’t actually healed.
With 100% efficiency and 0 overhealing, some tanks can easily make a healer burn through their mana.
Healing at 25% or 40% makes very little difference when they are getting hit hard enough, and the fights last long enough.
This 2H tank fad started with a few YT videos from people on Pservers with Naxx gear. Personally, I haven’t had any issues since most of my tanks are bears, but there was a lot of misinformation about tanking prior to launch.
When the tank dies fast enough to not be able to take advantage of the 5-second rule is the problem…and the point here.
Because one of the most important sources of threat for a tank is white damage. Damage causes 1 threat per 1 damage. White damage also gives warriors rage to use more sunders, revenges, etc.
One handers at early levels really suck and, although you could hold threat on a single mob that way, the challenge comes from multiple mobs, or when DPS is bad and is not attacking the skull, etc. Using a 2 hander for trash in early dungeons also makes the dungeon go faster, as long as the tank is level appropriate and the healer isn’t having issues.
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There is no difference in the starting dungeons from Retail WOW because you have to remember Dungeons even during Vanilla were designed to teach people how to play their character one step at a time. Deadmins is not designed to wipe your group nearly every pull because at level 17 if that was happening why would you continue to level.
When I played vanilla (I started in December of 2004) I was able to nearly 3 man Deadmines 2 weeks into my play time. Now When i started to get into Gnomer and SM the difficulty got harder. In Gnomer you didnt want to pull the Alerting bots when you had other elites on you. If you did that Alerting bot could summon in more mobs and wipe you if you were not paying attention. SM if you pulled too many Elites and you were at the minimum level you could wipe. If you were towards the high end of levels for SM the pulls were very easy. Uldman and ZF were another step up in skill thats really when I started to need to use CC in our group. Then when you are in ST, BRS, Strat, Scholo, you really need to use some forum of CC.
Each of these phase forced you to learn and understand your class better as well as your role. If you pay attention to the mobs in these starting dungeons you will see in Deadmines normal level 16 mobs that are not elite with a few elites spread out among the mobs, only at the end of the dungeon do you get almost all elites. In SFK the next dungeon you start out fighting level 19 Elites as a level 22. The final boss is a level 26 Elite. So if you go in as a group of fresh 22s the end of the dungeon gets very hard. Go in as level 25+ the dungeon is easy.
Remember Elites are 3 levels above your current level. When you get into Scholo and Strat you will see level 60 Elites and if you pull to many of them you will die unless you are in T3 gear. Then Yes you can AOE sh*t down if you and your group is in Full T3.
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This is really just about special snowflake babies of today’s generation wanting to play their way with no consideration to how what they do affects the other people in the party. The best thing to do is to just leave the group. You’re not going to be able to reason with them and you’re not going to get any kind of positive support from the troll babies in the forums. You have to find yourself a good group of people to play with and let the snowflakes and troll babies live in their own little world. You can’t beat em and you certainly don’t have to join them.
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Yes I give you that, obviously it was a different time period back then, and that’s understandable. I am no saying I would jump in a time machine and start yelling at all the healers, but what I am saying is here we are 15 years after the games release - the mentality a player had back then is mostly long gone - over the years players have picked up habits of increasing their efficiency in how they play, and fortunately (or unfortunately in the case of our OP and some of the people rebuking me) - this doesn’t sit well with some people.
One such habit is, as a healer, being acutely aware of when a pull is about to end - start spamming that drink button to get your mana back the second combat drops.
Another such habit, is managing and minimizing your overhealing.
And yet another such habit, which is extremely important, especially now - come prepared with appropriate level drinks so you’re not holding up the dungeon.
I’ve already come across a small handful of healers that just sit there bottomed out after few consecutive big pulls don’t start drinking until like 20 seconds after the pull ends, or not at all. Like what are they doing, taking a bath? Sleeping? Mowing the lawn?
Its this type of scenario where me personally, I get extremely frustrated with healers.
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Bad players are bad players. Of course it could also be players that never played vanilla and have not adjusted to the non hyper refill of the mana bar. However, tanks are also abusing healers a lot right now too. Seen many run ahead and pull while healer is drinking and then wonder why the group died. And starts bad mouthing the healer. Leveling up right not people are not really geared. Just like dps thinking everything is max dps all the time and that CC is worthless and tanks should have snap aoe aggro.
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It’s how you tank.
Works even at level 50, but does start getting rough.
This is what you do, select a mob, charge, bloodrage, sweeping strikes. Then berserker stance, get hit and hit so you can whirlwind, at this point you’re 30-50% hp, switch defensive stance (and equip shield 1h), heal gets you back to 90-100% and you keep on tanking in def until they’re low hp.
I don’t think that expecting the healer to drink the second a pull ends is abusive.
Because you’re taking a huge risk?
I don’t overheal but I’m not letting them slip much past 50% either.
25% is just nuts
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The most important source of threat is not white damage. The idea that you generate threat through damage is a BFA notion, it doesn’t work like that in classic. And really, warriors do so little damage early on it’s not even worth it. Fury/prot is an endgame build.
Sunder armor does 260 flat threat, revenge does even more. Demo shout and Battle shout so flat threats through buffs. These are your bread and butter early on.
Remember the rule of thumb in vanilla? Wait for 2 sunders.
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Oh boy, I think you need to read more carefully… I’m not talking about max rank everything, max level. That’s a fairly different conversation when it comes to threat, white damage, the usages of shields, etc.
I said: One of the most important sources of threat is white damage. You read me saying The most important. That’s still debatable, but don’t misquote me if you’re going to base your argument on a statement that never existed. It still remains though, that white damage is absolutely vital for threat, not only because of its damage, but even more so because that is one of the two primary sources for warrior rage generation.
Also you are using sunder’s max rank threat value (Rank 5 = 260). Don’t worry, I know ALL the threat values of all abilities at all ranks! Either way, sunder is always one of the most important threat builders, but remember that Rank 1 = 100 threat, which you’ll be using in your first 2 or 3 dungeons. Significantly less than 260.
Also let me explain the way threat works. There are two main sources and multipliers:
Damage: 1 damage = 1 threat point
Ability modifiers on top of any damage they deal: I.e. sunder rank 5 = 260
Ability multipliers: I.e. Defensive Stance = all threat x1.30, Battle/Berserker = x0.8
I am happy to continue talking about this, but you seem to be misquoting, and over-generalizing and throwing around information that isn’t relevant to the conversation of lower level dungeon tanking with a 2hander.
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I was not talking about max rank anything either. For someone who wants others to read carefully you don’t do much of it yourself, don’t be a hypocrite.
White damage is neither the most important, or one of the most important sources of threat starting out. At early levels you are doing low double digits. Shield bash, revenge, sunder, shield slam all generate far more threat. Your white damage is insignificant. It becomes more significant as you gear and as you level. Even at rank 1, sunder far outdoes your white damage.
You have no problem with rage generation if your party don’t pull and allow you to establish aggro, and you have selected anger management.
Please point out where I did not read your post carefully. I don’t see it. Also, white damage is always an important source of threat, because white damage = rage. It is not purely for the damage.
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