This was inspired by the "most effective way to gear your guild for PvE progression" thread wherein it was stated that getting stuff crafted and from the 5 mans was probably best.
So I went and looked. And goddess, is it true. In spades. This is the the shopping list I put together for my raidgroups platewearing tanks, fully gemmed with blue crafted gems.

*Edit* This is was originally posted before the burning crusade was released based on mined/beta data, so I am going to rewiev it keeping in mind a couple of the things observed
from actually figthing BC raid / heroic fights, and the changes to some of these items since the beta, and I am going to include quest reward options for the tank who dinged 69 today!
Best option: [Bulwark of Kings] + solid star of elune x 3

Total stats including gems:
Bulwark of kings + solid star of elune x 3 + 150 hp enchant on chest

1510 armor
87 sta
32 str
20 hit rating
34 crit rating
150 hp
1500 hp / 150 str "last stand" use effect. 30 min CD.

Screw warbringer - this baby is on par with destroyer.

This requires you to A: be an armorsmith. and B: do a fair amount of heroic 5 mans to get the primal nether for the upgrade to epic. It's stupidly good tough.

If you are not an armorsmith, the best option is:
Breastplate of the Bold + Solid Star of Elune x 3 + 150 hp enchant
Total Stats:
1164 Armor
+23 Strength
+21 Agility
+69 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 19.
this is a drop from Harbinger Skyriss in The Arcatraz.

the "Quick 'n Dirty" option. This is an award from the "forge camp: annihilated" quest in nagrand, and if your tank shows up for anything in worse than this, /slap is in order.


Breastplate of the Warbringer + 150 hp enchant
1048 Armor
+45 Stamina
Durability 135 / 135
Equip: Increases defense rating by 31.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 30.

Questline starts with Survey the Land from Altruis the Sufferer just west of sunspring post in nagrand.

Feet:
Boots of the Colossus + Solid star of elune + Enduring Talasite + boars speed (the movement speed boost is easily worth 6 sta for tanking.)
800 Armor
+22 Strength
+51 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 28.
+ 8 % movement speed
Pandemonius, manatombs heroic.. takes about 10 minutes to clear to him tops, but you need to bring "of shadow protection" to kill him.
No. more "of shadow protection than that. Cloth will do but you really, really need to be resistance capped, or bring two healers. stop attacking
as quickly as at all possible when he puts up his yellow bubble, or you will suicide on it, the "detect magic" tooltip is not accurate on heroic, the
reflect damage shield hits like a freight train Also, I recommend not using a shieldspike here.

(socket bonus actually worth having on these)

also:
Eaglecrest Warboots + boars speed

872 Armor
+28 Strength
+20 Agility
+38 Stamina
Durability 75 / 75
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases defense rating by 22
kelidan the breaker heroic - Easy kill, and your pvp inclined casters will be dragging you here over, and over, and over again hunting the damm talisman.

Quick 'n dirty option:

Bloodguard's Greaves
685 Armor
+11 Strength
+42 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 16
Step 7 of the chain starting with Manaforge B'naar from Spymaster Thalodien in area 52 awards these - Scryer only.

If you are not scryer, the
Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves
680 Armor
+25 Stamina
Durability 65 / 65
Equip: Increases defense rating by 18.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 28
from the escort quest in mana tombs will have to tide you over untill pandemonius coughs up some real shoes.

Hands:
Felsteel Gloves + Solid star of elune x2 +15 agi (yes, over 2 % threat.. Agi is dodge, crit and a bit of armor)
892 Armor
+15 agi
+51 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 25

Funky note; For this slot Felsteel is arguably better than t 4, and it is definately better than t5 (block rating? wtf?)

Crafted, BoE, and always dirt cheap on the auction house since it is a popular pattern for skilling up blacksmithing.
Dont leave home without your felsteel, kids!

Nothing else is even worth considering.

Head:
Helm of the Stalwart Defender + solid star of elune x 3 + Caverns of time revered enchant
1300 Armor
+83 Stamina
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 17
Equip: Increases defense rating by 39.
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 23

BoE: crafted epic. Materials are fairly reasonable.. and it blows t5 away easily. (only comparable drop to this from raids is
a doomwalker drop)
You will need to "hide helmet" tough, as it seemingly blew the entirety of its "awsomeness" budget on stats, leaving very
little indeed for looks.

Quick and dirty
Felsteel Helm + Solid Star of elune x 3 + Caverns of time revered enchant
1206 Armor
+63 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 50
Equip: increase your dodge rating by 17

Another piece of stupidly cheap gear from the auction house! I would like to thank all the aspiring 375 smiths out
there for gearing up our paladins and warriors on so very reasonable a budget.

And this is another case of felsteel being flat out better than anything which drops in raids.

Legs:
Felsteel Leggings + Solid Star of elune x 3 + Nethercleft armorpatch.
1200 Armor
110 stanima
15 agi
Equip: Increases defense rating by 33
Equip Blacksmiths only: 25 str (felsteel set bonus)

And before the entire world brings up timewardens legplates - Those sacrifice 200 armor and 18 defence rating for 18 sta and 18 dodge rating.

Either choice is significantly better than t 4 and t 5 tough. Wrynn Dynasty Greaves (from the curator) are the only raid drop worth wearing.
And they are both very easy to get

Shoulders:
Fanblade Pauldrons + Solid Star of elune x 2 + honoured/exatled enchant from the scryers or aldor

873 Armor
+16 Strength
+46 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 20.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 15
+ (your shoulder enchant)

Drop: Shirrak the Dead Watcher Auchenai Crypts.. Heroic.
This is a very easy heroic - But burn the watcher hard, as sooner or later, someone will fail to dodge the bombs or the debuff on you will stack to unhealable heights.

Quick 'n dirty:
Warchief's Mantle + 2 x solid star of elune..
786 Armor
+23 Strength
+51 Stamina
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 18

From escape from durnholde.

Belt:
Girdle of the Immovable + solid star of elune x 2

655 Armor
+17 Strength
+ 57 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 18.
Equip: Increases your shield block rating by 12
Drop: Quagmirran, last boss in the slave pens.. Heroic - and its likely you will be doing this place untill your eyes bleed, anyway
Hint: Stand well down and have your healer open the cage - you really dont want bite getting involved in the fight after freeing him,
as he is way squishy

Quick and dirty option:
Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard
655 Armor
+33 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 20.
Equip: Increases your shield block rating by 24.
Equip: Increases the block value of your shield by 29.

award from completing the arcatraz key quest chain. Start point; Spymaster Thallodien (area 52)sending you to talk with Nexus-Stalker Khay'ji. Have fun.

Bracers:
Bracers of the Green Fortress +12 sta enchant

581 Armor
+51 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 17.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 10.

Quick 'n dirty:
Sha'tari Wrought Armguards + enduring talasite + 12 sta enchant
509 Armor
+20 Strength
+39 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 16.

Shield:
Crest of the Sha'tar + 2 x Solid star of elune + 18 sta enchant
4058 Armor
117 Block
+60 Stanima
Equip: +3 Dodge Rating
Equip: Increases defense rating by 11.

quick and dirty:
Netherwing Protector's Shield +18 sta enchant
3615 Armor
103 Block
+15 Agility
+40 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 15.

From the netherwing quest in shadowmoon, start feeding those drakes!

Back:

Devilshark Cape
78 Armor
+22 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 20.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 18.
Equip: Increases the block value of your shield by 29.
(warlord kaltriesh)

or
farstriders defenders cape
245 Armor
+28 Stamina
Equip: Increases the block value of your shield by 35.
25 badges of justice, heroic dungeons.

Finger:
Elementium Band of the Sentry
+24 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 20.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 19.
Harbinger Skyriss The Arcatraz
(to be replaced by a signet ring from karazan rep pretty fast)

Finger 2:
Ring of Unyielding Force
Unique
Finger
200 Armor
+27 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 21
25 badges of justice from heroics.

Neck:
Natasha's Battle Chain
+37 Stamina
Equip: Increases defense rating by 13.
Equip: Increases the block value of your shield by 15.
Quest award, blades edge mountains.

Ranged:
Consortium Blaster
Gun 111 - 207 Damage Speed 2.40
(66.3 damage per second)
+15 Stamina
Requires The Consortium - Revered
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 7.
Equip: Increases attack power by 36.

Rep reward.

Trinkets. Many, many funny choices. Have fun.

Weapons:
The Sun Eater
One-Hand Sword
88 - 164 Damage Speed 1.60
(78.8 damage per second)
+21 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases defense rating by 12.
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 18.
"Forged in the heart of a dying star, this ethereal blade is feared across the cosmos."

Mechanar, heroic. Which you want to be doing a tonne anyway.

Total stats, assuming top choices all the way down.

13147 armor.
742 stanima
87 str.
30 agi
287 defence rating
23 resillience rating
20 + hit rating
34 + crit rating.
15 + parry rating
82 + dodge rating

Warp-Storm Warblade
Truncheon of Five Hells
Terokk's Nightmace <-- This one isn't as good as the other two but I'd say it could do in a pinch

Spellthreads are pants-only.

One thing I've noticed, a lot of these pieces seem to be very low on strength - whilst not necessarily a major concern for tanks, at least in the beginning, the more ap you can get the more aggro you can get. Once you've got a fast weapon for HS spam, and you've got enough rage to spam aggro moves every GCD, then you just need to do more damage to hold more aggro. Obviously warriors don't scale their aggro quite as well as druids (or, as druids used to), but it's still good. It was the same in WoW1 really, going from dungeon blues (post DM) to Might wasnt a huge mitigation upgrade for a warrior, but you got a lot more strength out of it.

How much hitpoints is that with average level 70 naked hp on a warrior (and then +5% hp through talent, yum)? And very nice writeup, I like that you listed where it drops, I like lists to aim for when I grind instances, like on wow-loot.com for my alts :)
And aren't there any upgrades to 100hp on chest in TBC? :o

Personally I'd probably go for Timewarder's legplates instead, (http://thottbot.com/beta?i=15716) unless it conflicts alot with your socket choices.
As for chest, if you don't have the option of going BS or going another specialization, one of these two is probably prefered;
http://thottbot.com/beta?i=8494 - Vindicators Hauberk
http://thottbot.com/beta?i=15861 - Jade-Skull Breastplate

So based on the new armor formula (which I found using the search function here), the mitigation value of this set from armor alone is around 50.46% versus a level 73. Is this the sort of mitigation levels we should be expecting to see based on the iLvls of tanking gear available pre-raiding? By this, I mean regardless of how the items points are distributed, the armor values of equal level items should be very similar. So even if a player is unable to obtain the absolute best of the best tanking gear, they should still be sitting at around this 50% mitigation level, correct?

I'm aiming to try and establish a minimum value of gear for people to be tanking in for my guild, and while having all of our warriors fit into this ideal gear setup would be nice, I'd imagine we'll be raiding before the warriors would finish such a shopping list.

There's a 150hp to chest enchant, +6 all stats enchant as well is the only other one of any tanking note from memory.

Hi guys,

I made a list of items myself and the filtered search tool becomes very handy:

you got 19 slots for equip. 8 plate, 5 jewelry, 1wpn, 1shield, 1ranged, 1cloak, 1tabard, 1shirt

1 helms:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
2 shoulder:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
3 chests:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
4 bracers:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
5 hands:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
6 waist:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
7 legs:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
8 feet:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...1;crv=1,1#00Mz
9 amu:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filt...v=1,1,1,1#00Mz
10 ring1 + 11 ring2:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filt...v=1,1,1,1#00Mz
12 trinket1 + 13 trinket2:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filt...v=1,1,1,1#00Mz
14 cloak:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filt...v=1,1,1,1#00Mz
15 wpn:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=2&filt...1,1,1,2.2#00Mz
16 shield:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filt...v=1,1,1,1#00Mz
17 ranged:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=2&filt...1,1,1,1.9#00Mz
18 tabard:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=sl=19#00Mz
19 shirt:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=sl=4#00Mz

Here are the items of my coice:

helm: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23535 (crafted)
shoulder: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28743
chest: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28485 (crafted)
bracsers: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23538 (crafted)
hands: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28518
waist: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28566
legs: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29184
feet: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30641
amu: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29336
ring1: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31319
ring2: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28675
trinket1: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27770
trinket2: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25996
cloak: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24258
wpn: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31071
shield: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28606
ranged: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27817

It seems a lot of you are focussing on total avoidance of the damage with parry/dodge and tend to forget a bit the +block value part
Wouldn't it be easier to heal if you dodge a bit less, but take less damage each hit with the block ? (need an healer opinion on that ;D)
With a good gear and prot spec, we should be able to block for 300+, that's a lot

(Bleh, after checking, there isn't a lot of +block stuff except t4/t5)

Yes, dodge/parry is evil evil and evil. Well, in reality you'd probably take way too much damage to heal it (at least currently) without avoidance. But yes, it's a lot easier to heal a steady river of damage instead of bursts :)

You still want a max mitigation set. I'm sure by the time you built this set up you'd have a few dps or hybrid pieces to swap in when aggro or rage generation was an issue.