First Tank - a few questions

[wlmartin]

I am new to playing a pure tank, played arcanes and barbarians and rogues but no pure tanks.

Any help is appreciated

Dorf, Stalwart Defender with max str, max con and a 32pt build, Sword + Board with Tower Shield and Dorf Axe.

1 : Blocking DR... how does this come into play? If one goes SD, the Blocking DR can be quite good but unless I am wrong, when you are blocking you aren't hitting so is there a tactic I am missing on or is it a case of Hit+Hit+Hit , hp dropping, no heal (perhaps cleric is busy) so then go blocking until HP is healed and go back to hitting, aside from that or just being a stand-there-and-do-nothing meat shield, i dont get the tactic.
2 : What clickable powers/abilities are worth focusing on? I throw sunder and trip at mobs as often as I can but don't know which ones to focus on, which ones to throw enhancements towards, which ones to improve via feats (either as an upgraded version or a new one such as Stunning Blow)
3 : Anything else useful to know for this type?

[morticianjohn]

Are you building for AC?

blocking can be useful. Some people use the improved shield bash feat so they can block and swing their shield (need a good dps shield for this). You can take shield mastery for some damage reduction even when you're not blocking.

There are other blocking situations depending on the raid and/or the status of healing but in general you'll want to be swinging your axe to maintain aggro.

IMO a tank should use his/her feats and enhancements that best benefit aggro management, HP, Healing amp etc... The non-tank dps characters should be the ones using improved sunder, or taking combat tactics enhancements. The trip and sunder feats come free so you can use those but once you get to the high level content they stop being useful because you haven't taken the feats or enhancements to boost them. Use them while they are still useful.

[wlmartin]

Are you building for AC?

blocking can be useful. Some people use the improved shield bash feat so they can block and swing their shield (need a good dps shield for this). You can take shield mastery for some damage reduction even when you're not blocking.

There are other blocking situations depending on the raid and/or the status of healing but in general you'll want to be swinging your axe to maintain aggro.

IMO a tank should use his/her feats and enhancements that best benefit aggro management, HP, Healing amp etc... The non-tank dps characters should be the ones using improved sunder, or taking combat tactics enhancements. The trip and sunder feats come free so you can use those but once you get to the high level content they stop being useful because you haven't taken the feats or enhancements to boost them. Use them while they are still useful.

I want to go with something that can utilize a good element of DR (which the SD does) AC and HP.
The typical meatshield. Someone that isnt for sure to be top for DPS, although able to hold their own but their strength comes from being able to hold ground with a monster whilst others are able to wail on it or go do other things.

Aside from passive DR of damage reduction Shield Mastery, which looks very good, is there any tactic other than stalling until a heal to use active blocking?

Also - any advice on the 2nd question?

[morticianjohn]

Powers a tank should focus on are generally the same as another fighter

Intimidate - way more important for a tank than others. Some would even take skill focus intim feat
Fighter haste boost - helps keep up DPS
Trip and sunder - helps for low levels but doesn't work well end game. As I said in the other post I wouldn't take improved trip, improved sunder, or stunning blow feats on a tank. If you have an extra feat improved sunder is probably the one for you because it works on bosses.

general purpose clickies

haste
displacement (works on a couple of bosses but usually they have true seeing)

I really can't think of too much else off the top of my head. Other than intim there isn't something that you should "focus" on gear, feat, and enhancement wise (unless you're going for improved sunder). After playing an arcane you're going to find there is much less to do on a melee in terms of click this etc.... So some of the buttons that you've used for spells and stuff could be used for gear swaps or whatever.

Other melee have some limited duration clicks. For example a paladin could have divine might, LoH, zeal, divine favor, and smite evil to click but I can't think of anything like this for a SD.

[Kinerd]

I think you would be a lot better off with a human. HP is important, but you will see a much larger % increase in healing amp than you will in HP. You also get better DPS enhancements and no intim penalty.