Welcome to Basic Training

[Maratard]

I too am brand new to tanking. Have two 80's a Mage, and a DK.... (ewwww). Tried the tank thing with the DK, but quickly found out that they were on the VERY bottom of the list when it came to successfully tanking an instance. But during all of my running heroics and raids with my mage(bout 5100 dps at the moment) the one true tank that I found would never let my squishy caster get ripped to shreds was a Pally. So here I am. Just starting out. Like level 17 just starting out. Haven't even attempted to tank a dungeon yet, because I was told to wait for concecrate. Is this good advice, or should I be in there getting used to the other aggro weilding spells of the pally tank? If the answer is go for it, could someone please share a good rotation at my level that won't get my rear booted out of a dungeon for repeatedly letting the healer get slaughtered?

Thanks for any response, and I will return with plenty of other noob questions I am sure!!

[Arcand]

If you're really new, waiting for Consecration might
not be a bad idea; you've got awfully few tanking tools
before then.

If you end up tanking pre-Consecration...

* See about grabbing a shield spike. Pretty lame damage
but it's something.
* Retribution aura.
* Seal of Righteousness.

Judge as often as possible; that's your big
threat move, and if you keep Wisdom up it'll
stretch your mana further.

Be efficient with your threat. Check the health
of a typical bad guy and divide by three*, get that much
threat on him and then don't waste any more time on
him; go on to the next intended kill target and start
building threat. Mark kill targets with skull to
keep everyone focused. (If you get a bunch of 'that
kind' of DPS, the skull won't help and neither will
anything else except heavily outgearing them. Sorry.)

* If one of the DPS has full BoA gear and is destroying
the meters...divide by two.