When should I switch to prot?Follow

I got to outlands recently and am starting to notice a big shift in gear. There's the obvious DPS warrior gear and the obvious tanking warrior gear quest rewards. I'm a tank at heart so I don't want to pass up getting the good tanking gear from these quest rewards, since I plan to tank for most of the instances I run with from now until 70 and beyond. I was thinking about trying to choose my quest rewards in such a way that I have a decent set of tanking gear AND a decent set of DPS gear. But at what point should I respec to prot to go along with this? I'm currently Fury/Arms.

The Quest Rewards will allow you to build a Tanking Set and / or a DPSset. There are no quests (IIRC) that give you a choice of plate items - and you will go through days/levels of only encountering Pally Plate too. That's your Quested Gear taken care of. A Set built this way, won't be terrible, but it won't be good.
Be aware that outside of HFP, where all rewards are hugely better than Azeroth Gear, as you progress further you'll find that with a few exceptions (ie Blues), most of the armour will bring you to a minimum level to compete at that level, you'll be replacing or vendoring often. The really good rewards will be BoP or BoE Blue instance drops. This is the stuff that lasts.
Again, you won't have a choice of drops, it's a chance of Plate, (cloth, leather or mail) but it'll be Pally, Tanking or DPS. You won't be able to get 2 different usable pieces from a boss.

As I was levelling to 70, with the exception of one or two pieces, I didn't have a choice of armour. An upgrade was an obvious choice; There was no point in building 2 sets of armour, because one was always lousy, and its counterpart in the other set would have been better. There was nothing worth buying in the AH, because it would be replaced quickly.

Some Quests may have a choice - A Tanking Weapon, A DPS Weapon or <something for the casters>. These are the only choices you'll need to make.

Regarding the Respec to Prot. Do it. Do it sooner, rather than later.
There are 2 schools of thought to becoming a tank: Level it, or Respec to it. I'm of the first school. The sooner you switch to Prot, the better Tank you will be.

There will be people who tell you this is wrong, and that they've sucessfully tanked in DPS kit, in Zerker as Arms/Fury. Either Listen to them, or Ignore them, but, please, say a prayer for their poor healer.

I've had the exact same experience. I went fury spec all the way through to 60 at that point I specced full prot and love it! I'm killing easier, may not be faster. Devestation is my favorite spam though, low rage requirement pretty decent hits.

I'm also having a lot of fun tanking the instances. Just finished a Ramps run, no deaths, no out of control pulls, just a lot of fun!

I tanked normal instances in outlands as an Arms warrior. I even tanked SV as an arms warrior. In most cases, I got into a good group so I didn't really have to worry about healer running out of mana in the middle of the fight. Yes, they have to cure a little bit more but it is possible. I found questing as a prot warrior a little slow compared to Arms. I know because I switched to Prot for about 3 weeks before going back to Arms.

Everyone has their own style of play and preferences. There's no one way to play the game. I'm used to leveling as Arms and that's probably why I find Prot a little slow.

Anyways, gratz on a successful Ramps run and welcome to The Outlands !!!

Is it a good or bad idea to use arms and a 2 hander to level?