Making a Tank for the first time

There is certainly some good information here, including the links. As a fairly new tank who switched at 50 to tank spec (guild needed a backup / off tank), there is a bit of getting used to. The fact that as jugg we don't have as good of AoE threat as shadows/assassins is correct, but it can be handled. What I've found is that plenty of smashes and your normal threat builders and judicious use of your AoE taunt tends to keep things running smoothly. As mentioned above once you start moving though and completing flashpoints and heroic 4s, you will get a pretty good hang of it. Best of luck.

Thanks! This brings up a question though. I can see how smash would be really useful when tanking, but as a vengence jugg, I find I can hardly use it in groups because it breaks cc. How do you guys deal with that?

take mobs right before Zorn and Toth in denova for example. What you do is, you let the CC'ers do their thing, you taunt the mobs you are tanking and when they come over to you and then you smash and sweep and what not or, you charge one, aoe taunt and drag them back and then sweep and smash. this way, your smash wont hit the CC.

And this is why Assassin/shadow wins imo. As assassin/shadow, you dont have to worry about breaking CC as Wither/slow time is smart aoe (the only one in game).

Well, technically our Crushing blow Effect (with a 5 sunder stack) is also a smart AoE....but the amount of times I can get it to work effectively is about as often as my ex calls me with good news . on a side note, that's another reason I'm irritated at Bio for how they changed Immortal. but that's a different argument.

smash as Vengeance is really a timing and distance thing. you have to be very familiar with how far away stuff gets hit. When I run vengeance (as DPS), ill back up a bit just so that the mobs I want to hit are in range. It's not really useable all the time, but this is a way to use it far more often. backing up doesn't impact your rotation at all, as you are usually still within melee range...even if you aren't, you can back up and execute it within 2 GCD's so it won't interrupt a normal rotation. As a vengeance running tank, they covered it above. let them run to you. smash area of effect isn't huge, which makes it controllable, an aspect I like.

This is turning out to be a very interesting and useful thread! Thanks for all the great responses--that I plan to apply fully!

Feel for ya it's half the reason i picked up a mouse with an adjustable DPI setting. on another note, if you haven't done it yet....there's a setting in properties where you can adjust your mouse look speed. its not the best..I leave it at 0 as even going up to 3 is too fast for me...but I think I found it on setting 2 by default. though im not sure I did that ages ago and forgot...either way, it's there, and if its above zero it may be an option to take advantage of to reduce the spaz effect (As I call it) on your current mouse till the budget opens up.