My first tanking story [lengthy]Follow

I thought some people would get a kick out of reading a story of my first tanking experience. So the background is that I had dual spec'd recently and ended up with mostly PvP gear which still gets 2200 dps in Heroics, but I got an itch to go into Prot after realizing that my guild doesn't have many tanks. I had a few mats in my bank so I decided in the middle of last week to go for it. I still had all my ret gear so I hit up the Northrend rep gloves/chest/cloak/boots, then grabbed the Argent Tournament axe, and finally poked around the AH for some Saronite gear. At that point I wasn't even close to tanking Heroics, I was lacking in many areas. I jumped on AH and grabbed a few more Titansteel bars and had a guild friend make me some Tempered Titansteel Treads, Tempered Titansteel Helm, and Titansteel Shield Wall. I found a guy in Trade who made me a Titanium Earthguard Ring. It was shaping up even more after I threw on enchants and reputation enhancements. At this point I was close, but not quite ready. I still had my re-gemed PvP waist because there wasn't really much else available. I debated and finally caved and cashed in my heroism and valor emblems I was saving and picked up the Platinum Mesh Cloak, Signet of the Impregnable Fortress, Libram of Obstruction, and the Chained Military Gorget. So now I'm excited, this is quite a rush trying to put all these items together, dropping a lot of gold, and sacrificing one stat for another. I was crit immune and had some good dodge/blocking stats, unfortunately I lacked a bit in the hit rating. I threw on a Titanium Weapon Chain and, after some debate, Re-gemed my PvP chest and used that. Awesome, 542 defense and 8.25% hit rating. I bought a few glyphs and went to bed Friday night pretty happy.
The next day was our guilds 1st attempt and Naxx 10-man, and by guild I mean 6-7 members plus fill-ins. I was slated to be a healer and I logged in at raid time and our OT had not showed up and we also had 1 extra healer. I timidly mentioned that I had finished a tanking set last night and I could give it a try until we found another. They asked for my stats and they said I was the new OT. Great, I'm tanking my guild's first 10-man and I had never been Prot before, or tanked anything..ever! I had only briefly read up on prot rotations/skills/etc since I had only gone Prot 2 days before. Now I'm getting thrown in to OT on our maiden voyage. Needless to say I had some butterflies. Now I know Naxx front to back from a healing standpoint so that came in handy. As OT I tried to backup MT on trash pulls and pulling any trash that got away. As for the bosses, I came away with some funny experiences.

-Anub went very smooth until the MT bit the dust at around 10%. Locust swarm and finished and he proceeded to stomp through the raid until I grabbed both him and crypt lord I initially had. The remainder of the group managed to take him down, but they killed everyone except me and a 1st-timer mage. It was a good battle and involved blowing all CDs but the mage and the tank took down the crypt lord just barely. Vent erupted with cheers, it was great.
-Faerlina started off kind of crappy because my initial pull split up the 4 worshippers into 2 groups that were split up. I managed to pull aggro on all 4 shortly after the start and we continued on. First enrage went fine, but on the 2nd the MT bit the dust and Faerlina ran around attacking the group until I grabbed agro. It didn't seem to work at first as she kept running away and then I would taunt back. One of the taunts got the best of me and I went down. Low and behold in my tanking nubness, the MT got a battle rez and had taunted her back to him…I was taunting her off thinking she was trying to take out other raid members. No one had said he was battle rezed. Kind of a lol moment, but she went down 1st attempt.
-Maexxna went smooth, like Anub, until the end MT went done during enrage but we were able to finish it off without many problems.
-Noth went down like a sack of bricks. I really liked handling the adds as they came.
-Good old Heigan was a chore. Naxx was a first for several group members so about half the raid wiped on the first dance set. I picked him up and we continued on. I had one bad pull where I must have taunted too early after he was done on the platform, and the taunt didn't take. He quickly charged and took out one of the ranged that had attacked him. I got him back and we finished with a 3 man group after more than 12 minutes.

It was our first guild run and my first tanking experience ever and it went pretty well considering. Even though I have done Naxx more than a few times, this had to be one of the best runs I've been on. Another /facepalm of nubness was when I realized later that night that I had completely forgotten to train my spells, and was running with level 1 tank abilities. We all had a great time and several raiders got some new item upgrades. I'm looking forward to tanking more and learning the Prot spec more.

Very nice story :)

I dual spec'ed Prot on my pally and started Naxx 10 raids in my guild to gear up our secondary specs. Naxx 10 is a very nice place to learn tanking and pick up some new skills. I was lucky and got tanking shoulders and belt from Naxx 25 when no one wanted it so less headaches when gearing up.

A nice easy heroic to tank as a prot pally is H UP. I remember struggling as a prot warrior during the gauntlet but with Holy Wrath...it's cake besides, I haven't been doing my Argent Tourney dailies so I really wanted that sword lol.

Welcome to the world of tanks !!!

I was trying to get any sort of dps in to help the fight along during the dance so I'd Exor/AS while dancing. I would taunt when he came down and then judge/dps as I dragged him to part 1. Unfortunately I didn't time it well and he came down when AS/Exor were on CD so when taunt failed he jumped on the ranged who were right on the platform by him. By the time I reached him close enough he had took out the hunter. Oh well, live and learn.