Don’t be afraid to line of sight packs of mobs and pull back to a safe spot to tank. Until you over gear the dungeon, you’re better safe than wiped. Omen and DBM and all you really need to tank.
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Don’t be afraid to learn. Most of the content is not hard but there are pulls/pats that can wipe you if you’re not aware of them.
Don’t be afraid to lead. If people don’t like it you can find another group very quickly.
Don’t be afraid to laugh at mistakes. Yours or others.
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This is the kind of stuff that makes it tough to be a good tank. Who else in the group needs to know this? I always tried to read up on an instance before I go, but a lot of people can get away without any pre-study. The tank really needs to memorize the map and mob special abilities and boss mechanics more than others. It can also be embarrassing if you didn’t do your homework…
Honestly I don’t think many tanks know this. Not knowing doesn’t make you a bad tank. But knowing it makes you a GOOD tank.
In fact, I’m 90% sure this is an unintended mechanic. They likely copy pasted the ability straight from player rogues and forgot to remove the forward facing requirement. Protip#2: this also works on the Moroes gouge in kara
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If your healer ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy… 
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There was a pretty decent starter tank guide on the forums early in WoW Classic that is still pretty relevant, though some of the warrior talent-specific stuff isn’t as relevant for TBC, the general ideas, macros, and group dynamics stuff makes it a good read, imo.
I’ve thought about taking my shelved 60 human Holy Paladin (or make a Draenei one) & try Protection tanking with her in TBC (Dungeons/Heroics/Kara play only, no serious raiding), I’m just not sure I want to deal with the abuse from random toxic players in our current PuG community atmosphere of 2021. I don’t enjoy speed-running content at hectic paces, so would have to make that clear to any groups that I would form to tank for.
Your the tank you set your own pace. Pull what you want and dont let any of your party members rush you if your not use to the dungeon.
I would say tend to make your own group as you are the leader and can just kick anyone who is annoying you. Its stupid fast to fill a dps spot.
Yes, but if your back is toward them you can’t block, dodge, or parry their attack, which takes away a big part of your damage mitigation, so typically you always want to be facing your mobs.
My generic tips are:
Have a skull marker keybound and Mark a skull in every trash pack.
Have your healer set to focus so you can watch his mana and try not to pull unless it’s 70%+.
Also mention you haven’t tanked a dungeon before so may need help on where to go. I’ve found if you set expectations up front it makes it go easier.
And dps will pull aggro. It’s just going to happen. Try your best and don’t get discouraged. In leveling dungeons it’s not really a big deal as long as a mob isn’t on your healer.
My first tip would be to mention which class you’re going because they are all quite different.
Laughing at mistakes is the best way to help improve upon them and reduce them! At least that’s how we operate with our groups in our guild.
No lol you never turn your back to the mobs as a tank. If you do that you have no mitigation other than Dodge.
Just takes practice like anything else.
One of the big things that sets a good tank apart in my eyes is understanding how mobs move in respect to you moving.
Being able to group up mobs, and position them to exactly how you want.
Or like if there is 2 casters, and 2 melee. Interrupting one and then positioning yourself so that all the mobs stack up on the caster that wasn’t interrupted ect.
Build some patience, you’ll need it. Always take a warlock, so atleast one wipe per 30 min you wont need to corpse run
I tanked some on my Warrior in Vanilla, TBC & WotLK & it felt pretty stressful in a bad way a lot of the time. Healing (or dps) stress under clutch circumstances doesn’t bother me, but tanking stress does for some reason. Go figure.
My suggestion is level a healer too so you know just how much you can stress their mana.
Oh and keybind a few markers and mark every pack as you pull it.
General tips:
DPS players are extremely aggressive, you need to be more aggressive.
If you have mana users let them sit down to drink before you pull.
Make it a habit to always check your healers mana bar.
Don’t chin check(pull too much) healers you don’t know, some people don’t do well under duress.
If playing a warrior:
Consider engineering, shield spikes, learn to charge/tclap/zerk stance WW/D stance. Practice that over and over.
Your aoe threat is just gonna be bad. If you have DPS that don’t respect that you need to GET hit in order to generate threat, then mind their name and don’t run with them again.
If you have a priest that power word shields you before every pull even though you ask them not to, right click it off. You need that initial rage.
Don’t gear for dodge/defense just because it is “tank gear.” Warrior and Paladins in early stages that gear like this tend to be very spotty on how they take damage and it stresses healers. Gear for parry, shield block, stamina, and armor where you can. Don’t gimp yourself on threat to be OVER defensive. Parry haste is a thing. When you parry an attack your next attack is faster.
You’re going to generate less threat as you get better gear because you’re taking less damage, just the nature of the beast with warrior tanks.
For Druids,
Gear stamina and armor. Again, use some cat DPS pieces if you aren’t dying. Threat generation > everything if you aren’t dying. Doesn’t matter how tanky you are if you can’t hold threat with REASONABLE DPS.
You’re a druid. Use regrowth/rejuv before larger pulls. You can pull with hurricane as well. Anything to get initial aggro. Learn to powershift if you have 0 rage and someone body aggros.
You’re a bear, act like it.
For Paladins,
Most of the warrior points apply about defense, but Paladins have less defensive CDs but do not have a problem with aoe threat. The first thing you need to conquer as a paladin is not being one shot, but Paladins scale very very well with gear.
Spell power weapon.
Consecrate and ret aura is not enough for single target threat. What warriors and druids lack for aoe threat, you lack for single target threat.
If DPS are being apes, then tell them to calm down.
That’s about all I can think of off the top of my head.
Nice thread. Thanks to OP for making it, and thanks to all contributors. I’m glad I found it and hope to improve as a result.
As a DPS you just focus on what you do and you do it well. As a tank you will end up knowing what ever class can do and what they should do. The raid / dungeon will live or die based on how well you play.