Introduction
After looking through the resources available on-line I've come to the conclusion that some kind of failsafe gearing guide might be in order after all.
I'll assume that you either reconnected to WoW rather recently (and are trying to gear up) or have found yourself stuck on a few slots because you failed to bribe the gods of RNG well enough.
As usual I will only cover gear that is guaranteed to exist, or at least virtually garanteed.
1) The good news
You rushed through Pandaria as retribution and dinged 90. Now you're shaking the sweat off your hands and start looking around for beginners tanking gear so you can start tanking. Sixteen slots of questing gear to be replaced before you can tank away. Actually, no. Two slots of gear to be replaced. You need a one-hander and a shield. Oh, and you want to reforge some of the gear you already have.
2) The bad news
While levelling to 90 you picked up the odd piece here and there which virtally screamed TANKING GEAR at you. You smile at your good planning and pluck those items out from your bank. There's a minor problem. A good quarter of all tanking gear is designed to be dropped in the waste bin. You don't want it anywhere close to you if you plan to tank. Anything with both parry and dodge is likely to be an awful piece of junk. You need to make a sanity check to be sure the battered retribution gear you wear isn't better for tanking than the dedicated tanking gear you have in your wardrobe.
3) Stats
Short version: Hit/Expertise > Mastery/Haste > Parry/Dodge
Marginally longer version: Go easy on the H/E as long as you're only tanking five-mans. You only need to handle level 92, not boss-level (unless you're doing Challenge Modes in which case you'd better gear for level 93 opponents). You also probably want to unbalance M/H. Read the threads elsewhere on Maintankadin where the Mastery-tanks and the Haste-tanks are compared. Get enough stamina to survive the content you plan to tank. Don't get more than that.
Since 5.2 avoidance (parry/dodge) has become less bad than before as GC now has a chance to proc from missed attacks.
4) Failsafe resources
Faction rewards
Currently there are five factions enabling us to get failsafe gear. They are, in order of (most likely) quickest reputation progress, The Klaxxi, Golden Lotus, Dominance Offensive (horde) / Operation: Shieldwall (alliance), Shado-Pan and The August Celestials.
With 5.2 there are the Sunreaver Onslaught if you're Horde, or Kirin Tor Offensive if you're Alliance. Doing the quests needed for them with only levelling gear will likely see you very dead very messily. However, if you have the VP needed to buy yourself a necklace you might want to suicide your way to the quartermaster for the Shado-Pan Assault, because you start at neutral with them, which also happens to be the reputation needed for this raid faction.
You should probably focus on the new factions along with the Dominance Offensive / Operation: Shieldwall unless you're dead set on getting the two ilevel 489 items rewarded for getting Klaxxi and Golden Lotus respectively to exalted.
Note that the Shado Pan Assault rewards you with ilevel 522 items for Valor Points. At the moment this guide only lists one item, available at neutral repuation, and will be upgraded to reflect what's available without a raid-group when that time comes (probably as early as the second week of 5.2).
You need to gain reputation with respective faction to unlock the availability of epic quality gear. You'll usually gain access to some at Honored status and the rest at Revered status. The 5.2 factions are exceptions to the rule.
Unless you plan to play WoW several hours per day you should expect each faction should take you about a month to unlock. 21 days is a number I've read to race to exalted, but remember that the Shado-Pan and August Celestials require you to get revered status with Golden Lotus before you can even start that race.
I highly recommend you to buy the grand commendation for The Klaxxi and the Golden Lotus as soon as you reach revered status (in fact I recommend you to do so for every faction to speed up alts) due to a possible bonus.
Valor Points
Valor Points can be gained in several ways. It's the currency used for the best faction rewards.
Justice Points
Justice points are gained in a similar way to how you gained them in Cataclysm. They're mainly used to buy ilevel 458 gear. There is, mildly put, a catch here. Unless you stubbornly stick to earning them from doing scenarios or normal mode difficulty dungeons only, you're likely to virtually drown in ilevel 463 drops from heroic mode dungeons long before you amass enough Justice Points to go shopping.
Still, if you recently reconnected to WoW from a Cataclysm raiding experience, then you should have a few thousand Justice Points lying around, enough to buy at least one slot's worth of ilevel 458 gear. Also, if you collect Valor Points by running heroic dungeons you will rather quickly gain enough Justice Points to buy that second slot.
You can also upgrade blue gear if the option is there. In reality we're talking about kicking ilevel 463 gear half a tier level. Looking at the list of failsafe gear (section six), we'll notice that our weapon and shield stop at ilevel 463. Now RNG may have equipped you in those slots, but if you're stuck with five-mans, then I'd advice going for these slots and kicking them from 463 to 471.
Craftables
Like previous expansions the primary professions (link includes information about secondary professions as well) offer us a few items. Alchemists get a self-only trinket and Engineers get their self-only helmet as usual.
Blacksmiths have easy access to ilevel 450 and 476 plans. That said, the ilevel 476 items are a tad expensive to craft at eight Spirit of Harmony and eight Living Steel per piece. Without listing any specific items, the slots covered are head, shoulders, chest, wrists, hands, waist, legs, feet. Weapons and shields are also available.
Scribes can produce a tanking trinket at a punitive cost. As it depends on the production of eight Darkmoon cards produced at random, the trinket is formally not failsafe, but chances are rather high that you should be able to get one as long as you're willing to pay the cost.
Engineers can craft a trinket which is amazing for being ilevel 450.
Leatherworkers get to make an ilevel 450 cloak.
Jewelcrafters create a necklace and a ring, both at ilevel 450.
Raiding rewards include more craftable options, but again, these are not failsafe because the availability isn't guaranteed.
Quests
Unless you have already collected the reward for the quests described in this subsection, this is a somewhat desperate way to get a bonus item.
By joining the general mayhem masqerading as a raid, ie killing the Sha of Anger for the first time, you'll be given a quest item which allows you to pick up a pair of ilevel 476 boots. Do no, I repeat, do not pick up the so called tanking boots. They come with dodge and parry combined and as such are a hysterical downgrade compared to the dps-boots linked here.
The Klaxxi eventually offer you an ilevel 489 ring provided that you have completed Amber is the Color of my Enemy as well as reached exalted status. Shadow of the Empire ends the Klaxxi quest chain. Circumstances will decide if you pick up Seal of the Bloodseeker or Seal of the Unscathed. Haste or mastery? Desperately need that expertise? Want an alternative tanking set?
Golden Lotus is associated with a quest chain that will offer you ilevel 440, 463 and 489 items. I find it rather dubious that you will need an ilevel 440 ring. The ilevel 463 chest (tank or dps) unlocks at revered status, which is rather late. Finally, the ilevel 489 necklaces (tank or dps), unlocking at exalted, are both worse than the one you can buy for Valor Points from The Klaxxi at honored status. However, if you're gearing slowly and not wading around in Valor Points, this is an option.
5) Failsafe gearing tactics
Calendar time. There are some limitations to how quickly we will be able to collect failsafe gear. First of all Valor Points are capped at 1000 per week and at 3000 total. On top of that those very Valor Points are used to buy tier gear. You will have to decide how desperately you need the non-tier gear.
Reputations require time to grind. Add that both the Shado-Pan and August Celestials require you to be revered with Golden Lotus to start grinding in the first place.
The ring and neck slot can be gained from grinding The Klaxxi and Golden Lotus to exalted status respectively. If this option is still open to you and Valor Points are a limiting factor, then plan accordingly.
Good blues. The ilevel 450 crafted gear offers surprisingly good value for your money. You're set to tank heroic dungeons, which should see you collecting ilevel 463 gear.
On ilevel. While not the best in itemization (mildly put), Dominance Offensive / Operation: Shieldwall both offer ilevel 496 gear. Seven ilevels are seven ilevels. You can collect rings (haste/crit or dodge/expertise), boots (crit/expertise or dodge/parry), belt (parry/hit or crit/mastery) and an awful (dodge/mastery on-use), just bad (strength/crit on-use) or situationally useful (haste/intellect on-use) trinket. No matter how you twist and turn you'll end up with a huge chunk of unwanted stat.
More on ilevel. 460 is the magic number for any kind of raiding. That's when you're allowed inside LFR. If your ilevel is below 460 then don't reforge your gear aiming for the hit and expertise you see quoted on these forums, because you're tanking level 92 targets at the highest. (No, Sha of Anger doesn't count, because someone who is not you will have aggro on it.)
LFR is problematic. My recommendation is that you collect some kind of two handed weapon and queue up as dps in your tanking gear. You're more invisible that way, get to see the fights and (sadly enough) more likely to collect proper tanking gear than if you actually signed up as tank.
This is a result of parry/dodge being the least desirable stats. Least? Yes, quite often less desirable than crit, even though crit undisputably is worse than either parry or dodge. The reason is that both parry and dodge have a tendency to come in absolutely huge chunks, thus eating up the item budget for the primary stat we want on the item. Forced to chose between 800 parry plus 300 haste and 550 crit plus 550 haste I'll collect 550 crit any day in the week unless I desperately need that extra 120 hit/expertice coming from reforging the surplus 250 unwanted parry.
Check the raid rewards boss by boss and compare with what you have before you decide to sign up as tank or dps.
From a failsafe point of view you're only in LFR collect your Valor Points, but in reality we hope for drops, which is why LFR is covered in this way.
PvP gear. It used to be frowned upon, but given that plate dps more often than not is preferable to our tanking gear for tanking, it should hardly come as a major surprise that some PvP gear make a perfectly decent job at padding out tanking slots. Depending on your server it may be easy or harder to collect honor points, but have a look at your PvP vendor and see if they offer anything interesting to you.
Speeding it up. I have included some PvP gear which requires you to grind Conquest Points. While those aren't free to collect and suffer from a weekly cap like your Valor Points, that cap isn't shared. If you have plenty of time to play on a daily basis, but need to gear up rapidly in a few weeks time, then I recommend you to take a thorough look at the ilevel 483 PvP gear listed and spend your VP on other slots to maximize the amount of ilevel 480+ gear you can collect per week.
Upcoming changes. We don't know exactly what happens after a patch, but we do know that it's a couple of months away at the most. There has been talk about nerfing paladin haste, but we have yet to see how that would be implemented. While I could advice tanks to stay vary of haste gear we're still tanking the here and now. Just don't throw away those mastery pieces. They're better for some fights anyway.
More changes. GC has stated that for patch 5.2 at least you won't be able to upgrade your gear. This usually won't matter for most of us because we don't have the Valor Points to spend on upgrades anyway. However, if you're here because you already raid but have been unlucky concerning a slot or two, then you may already have your Sha Touched weapon. Go upgrade it before 5.2 hits, because upgrades already done won't be removed, only the opportunity to make upgrades.
Even more changes. Some data concerning LFR in 5.2 is spawning on the net. It would seem you'll need an ilevel of 480 to join the fun. Observe the reference to Honor gear being dropped from 483 to 476. You may be eligible to join the new LFR the day prior to the patch going live, but not when you want to queue up.
6) Gear
Given that we can start tanking in whatever we ding 90 in (provided we didn't do so naked or in holy spec), I'm not providing any information about levelling gear. The ilevel 458 PvP gear listed here includes even those slots where the listed item is very iffy. They're there to help you crawl over ilevel limits. I've been much pickier with the ilevel 483 PvP gear.
Head
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Helm, Dodge/Mastery, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Scaled Helm, Expertise/Mastery, honor
ilevel 476, Reinforced Retinal Armor, Meta socket + two Cogwheel sockets, requires Engineering 600, crafted Engineering, BoP
ilevel 483, Malevolent Gladiator's Scaled Helm, Expertise/Mastery, Conquest Points
ilevel 489, Yi's Least Favorite Helmet, Dodge/Mastery, Shado-Pan, requires revered
Neck
ilevel 450, Reflection of the Sea, Dodge/Expertise, crafted Jewelcrafting
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Choker of Accuracy, Hit/Haste, honor
ilevel 483, Malevolent Gladiator's Choker of Accuracy, Hit/Haste, Conquest Points
ilevel 489, Durable Necklace of the Golden Lotus, Parry/Mastery, quest reward, requires exalted with Golden Lotus, blocks reward below
ilevel 489, Ferocious Necklace of the Golden Lotus, Mastery/Crit, quest reward, requires exalted with Golden Lotus, blocks reward above
ilevel 489, Bloodseeker's Solitaire, Haste/Mastery, The Klaxxi, requires honored
ilevel 489, Paragon's Pale Pendant, Parry/Hit, The Klaxxi, requires honored
ilevel 522, Striker's Battletags, Haste/Mastery, Shado-Pan Assault, requires neutral
ilevel 522, Vanguard's Battletags, Hit/Parry, Shado-Pan Assault, requires neutral
Shoulders
ilevel 450, Contender's Revenant Shoulders, Mastery/Hit/PvP, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Shoulders, Parry/Mastery, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders, Haste/Expertise, honor
ilevel 483, Malevolent Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders, Haste/Expertise, Conquest Points
ilevel 489, Shoulders of Autumnlight, Dodge/Expertise, Golden Lotus, requires revered
Back
ilevel 450, Stormscale Drape, Mastery/Hit, crafted Leatherworking
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Cloak of Prowess, Mastery/Hit, honor
ilevel 483, Malevolent Gladiator's Cloak of Prowess, Mastery/Hit, Conquest Points
ilevel 489, Cloak of the Dark Disciple, Mastery/Crit, Shado-Pan, requires honored
ilevel 489, Yi's Cloak of Courage, Parry/Mastery, Shado-Pan, requires honored
ilevel 496, Cloak of the Immortal Guardian, Parry/Hit, Sunreaver Onslaught / Kirin Tor Offensive, requires revered
Chest
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Breastplate, Mastery/Dodge, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Scaled Chestpiece, Haste/Crit, honor
ilevel 463, Durable Plate of the Golden Lotus, Mastery/Parry, quest reward, requires revered with Golden Lotus, blocks reward below
ilevel 463, Ferocious Plate of the Golden Lotus, Crit/Hit, quest reward, requires revered with Golden Lotus, blocks reward above
ilevel 476, Breastplate of Ancient Steel, Dodge/Mastery, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 489, Cuirass of the Twin Monoliths, Dodge/Expertise, Golden Lotus, requires revered
ilevel 489, Dawnblade's Chestguard, Hit/Expertise, Golden Lotus, requires revered
Wrists
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Bracers, Mastery/Parry, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 450, Contender's Revenant Bracers, Hit/Mastery/PvP, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Armplates of Alacrity, Haste/Mastery, honor
ilevel 483, Malevolent Gladiator's Armplates of Alacrity, Haste/Mastery, Conquest Points
ilevel 489, Battle Shadow Bracers, Parry/Hit, The August Celestials, requires honored
Hands
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Gauntlets, Mastery/Parry, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 450, Contender's Revenant Gauntlets, Hit/Mastery/PvP, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Scaled Gauntlets, Crit/Hit, honor
ilevel 476, Gauntlets of Ancient Steel, Parry/Mastery, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 489, Gloves of the Overwhelming Swarm, Parry/Mastery, The August Celestials, requires revered
Waist
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Belt, Mastery/Parry, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 450, Contender's Revenant Belt, Hit/Mastery/Pvp, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Girdle of Accuracy, Hit/Haste, honor
ilevel 476, Thunder Caressed Waistguard, Exp/Mastery, Sunreaver Onslaught / Kirin Tor Offensive, requires honored
ilevel 483, Malevolent Gladiator's Girdle of Accuracy, Hit/Haste, Conquest Points
ilevel 489, Klaxxi Lash of the Consumer, Parry/Hit, The Klaxxi, requires revered
ilevel 489, Klaxxi Lash of the Rescinder, Crit/Mastery, The Klaxxi, requires revered
ilevel 496, Immovable Waistplate, Parry/Hit, Dominance Offensive, requires revered, requires horde
ilevel 496, Kwon's Crushing Girdle, Crit/Mastery, Dominance Offensive, requires revered, requires horde
ilevel 496, Waistplate of Immobility, Parry/Hit, Operation: Shieldwall, requires revered, requires alliance
ilevel 496, Girdle of Crushing Strength, Crit/Mastery, Operation: Shieldwall, requires revered, requires alliance
Legs
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Legplates, Dodge/Mastery, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Scaled Legguards, Crit/Haste, honor
ilevel 489, Kovok's Riven Legguards, Dodge/Expertise, The Klaxxi, requires revered
ilevel 489, Legguards of the Unscathed, Haste/Mastery, The Klaxxi, requires revered
Feet
ilevel 450, Masterwork Spiritguard Boots, Dodge/Mastery, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Warboots of Alacrity, Haste/Crit, honor
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Warboots of Cruelty, Crit/Mastery, honor
ilevel 476, Angerforged Stompers, Haste/Mastery, quest reward, requires killing Sha of Anger and collecting the quest item
ilevel 489, Yu'lon Guardian Boots, Parry/Dodge, The August Celestials, requires revered
ilevel 496, Groundbreaker Sabatons, Parry/Dodge, Dominance Offensive, requires revered, requires horde
ilevel 496, Sabatons of the Sullied Shore, Parry/Dodge, Operation: Shieldwall, requires revered, requires alliance
Fingers
ilevel 450, Heart of the Earth, Mastery/Dodge, crafted Jewelcrafting
ilevel 458, Dreadful Gladiator's Signet of Accuracy, Hit/Mastery, honor
ilevel 483, Malevolent Gladiator's Signet of Accuracy, Hit/Mastery, Conquest Points
ilevel 489, Seal of the Bloodseeker, Expertise/Haste, quest reward, requires exalted with the Klaxxi as well as completing Amber is the Color of my Enemy, blocks access to ring below
ilevel 489, Seal of the Unscathed, Dodge/Mastery, quest reward, requires exalted with the Klaxxi as well as completing Amber is the Color of my Enemy, blocks access to ring above
ilevel 489, Alani's Inflexible Ring, Dodge/Parry, Golden Lotus, requires honored
ilevel 489, Ring of the Golden Stair, Expertise/Crit, Golden Lotus, requires honored
ilevel 496, Dominator's Circle, Haste/Crit, Dominance Offensive, requires honored, requires horde
ilevel 496, Dominator's Seal, Dodge/Expertise, Dominance Offensive, requires honored, requires horde
ilevel 496, Circle of the Shieldwall, Haste/Crit, Operation: Shieldwall, requires honored, requires alliance
ilevel 496, Seal of the Shieldwall, Dodge/Expertise,Operation: Shieldwall, requires honored, requires alliance
ilevel 496, Ancient Overlord's Onyx Band, Parry/Mastery, Sunreaver Onslaught / Kirin Tor Offensive, requires exalted
Trinkets
ilevel 450, Ghost Iron Dragonling, Three Cogwheel sockets, crafted Engineering
ilevel 458, Zen Alchemist Stone, Mastery, chance to increase strength, boosts healing and mana -potions, requires Alchemy 500, crafted Alchemy, BoP
ilevel 489, Iron Belly Wok, Strength/Haste on-use, Shado-Pan, requires revered
ilevel 489, Lao-Chin's Liquid Courage, Stamina/Mastery on-use, Shado-Pan, requires revered
ilevel 496, Medallion of Mystifying Vapors, Dodge/Mastery on-use, Dominance Offensive, requires revered, requires horde
ilevel 496, Vaporshield Medallion, Dodge/Mastery on-use, Operation: Shieldwall, requires revered, requires alliance
Main hand
ilevel 450, Maki's Mashing Mace, Expertise/Mastery, Quest reward The Arena of Annihilation
ilevel 463, Masterwork Phantasmal Hammer, Crit/Mastery, crafted Blacksmithing
ilevel 463, Amber Espada of Klaxxi'vess, Crit/Mastery, The Klaxxi, requires exalted
Off hand
ilevel 463, Masterwork Spiritguard Shield, Dodge/Parry, crafted Blacksmithing
7) Revision notes
2013-01-29 Originally published
2013-01-30 Updating section 4 and 5
2013-01-31 Updated section five after input in this thread. Colourcoded some links. Populated section six with Blacksmithing craftables
2013-02-01 Populated section six with other craftables and quest rewards. Added Challenge Modes clarification to my comment on not needing raid-cap hit/exp for five-mans.
2013-02-02 Populated section six with faction rewards for Dominance Offensive / Operation: Shieldwall, The Klaxxi and Golden Lotus
2013-02-04, Populated section six with faction rewards for The August Celestials. Added a note about using JP to upgrade blue gear (Thanks Thels). Added an ilevel 450 weapon (Thanks Flex).
2013-02-04, requested sticky, guide at version 1.0
2013-02-06, Added some info on speed-gearing with Conquest Points. Populated section six with PvP gear (Thanks econ21)
2013-03-11, Made some updates for 5.2
2013-03-12, Minor changes reflecting information added in this thread
yappo
Tue Jan 29, 2013 4:06 pm
The 476 helm is from engineering.