First, welcome, you have picked a great class. This is the most fun class in PVE tbc imo, especially tanking.
This is my experience, levelled this guy mostly in TBC classic and tanked every dungeon while doing it.
-Be fury for sure. You can tank everything fine with a shield. Fury is simply the best especially once you get sweeping strikes.
-piercing howl is super nice, you can slow big packs and just spam demo or commanding shout for threat
-3 points in tac mastery is super nice if you are tanking a lot of dungeons. it helps you use all your tools. Becomes a “must” once you have Bloodthirst in fury, since tac mastery increases Bloodthirst’s threat a ton when in def stance
-You can 2h tank fine in def stance, it may annoy some healers especially beginners. Be ready with your 1h/shield macro at all times. You can even make a single macro that just toggles 1h/shield to 2h (different ranged weps too if you like), bind it on an easy key cuz you will need it a lot. For single targets like bosses or large mobs, i just stuck with the shield, it’s a lot comfier for yourself and the healer
-i use this macro for sweeping. Be in zerker stance, pool up to 80+ rage, then just hammer this macro right before a swing connects, and keep spamming it till charges aregone. if you are orc you could put blood fury in also. You can hammer it in other stances too, it just will spam cleave. This one pops your top trinket too, if you don’t want that just remove the /use 13 line. The key part is bloodrage after sweeping, which instantly regains the rage cost of popping sweeping
#showtooltip sweeping strikes
/use 13
/cast sweeping strikes
/cast bloodrage
/cast [form:3]whirlwind
/cast !cleave
/startattack
-Once I got sweeping talent, i would charge in with 2h, Zerk stance+zerk rage asap, pop that cleave macro once i had ~40ish rage, swap to def stance after i used whirlwind, and cleave off the rest of the sweeping strikes, then swap to 1h/shield, maybe reflecting a spell. No dps will pull threat off you after that combo
-PVP trinket is super nice while levelling, you can leech a few WSGs lol (19 is horrible cuz people have weird twink chars they spent 10k gold on just to stomp noobs) just do your best and grind it out, it is invaluable throughout the levelling process as well as a must on a PVP server (I play on grobb so there was a lot of wpvp)
-I basically never went arms, or 41 points prot, until i started heroics and kara. There is no point at all while levelling. MS is a pvp spell, or for endgame pve dps. Prot is overkill for tanking dungeons and horrible in wpvp, can’t cleave mobs quickly with a 2h, and just feels bad to play while levelling
My talents looked like this at 60, rushed sweeping strikes, then 3 pts tac mastery, 5 parry talent from arms, get bloodthirst and precision, continue into prot from there and you will be 100% fine in all tbc normal dungeons. Adjust as you like of course, i find imp cleave to be really nice
(remove space)
wowhead. com/talent-calc/warrior/05-050531300050120531-2305011
I tanked every dungeon in the game this way up until I started heroics, and it was not hard at all. Plus you can quest easily with your 2h.
-Always try to bring a shammy for wf in your groups, it makes ur life so much easier. and make sure u request WF or he may not know to drop it. Once u hit outland, resto sham is amazing with earth shield, ranged threat for you on casters/archers. Also request druid thorns whenever they are in your team, it is nice to have
-Try to get ur whirlwind axe ASAP at Lv30, it’s such an insane power spike, like nothing else I have seen in this game. if u can get that done and get Crusader on it, you will be a god, and 2-3 shot people who open on u in wpvp. It’s actually not too bad farming the gold for the mats for crusader, stuff like Light feather or gathering profs will get you there if you’re a new player. I fished deviate fish for it. You can ask around for someone to help you kill the mobs, I remember going to STV for raptors, just tag along with someone who is killing them. well worth all the hassle. drop everything at Lv30 and get this wep done
-make sure to have a lot of macros that work for you, for instance for Mocking blow / intercept / intervene. whatever enables you to use all your tools easily and often. this is key to tanking pub dungeons and not letting people die
Enjoy warrior man, very rewarding and fun class, other tank classes in tbc are braindead easy imo.