Knowing how and when to pull is arguably the foundation of a smooth dungeon run, and it’s certainly among the first skills that any tank needs to develop. While a not-insignificant portion of one’s ability to pull cleanly only arrives courtesy of experience with a wide variety of players, there are a few rules that approach universal status. Moreover, I expect them to be equally useful when I hit the new Cataclysm dungeons and have to figure out how to tank for a group safely in a new environment with new mobs.

The more I wrote on pulling, the more I realized that the subject can be divided into two very distinct categories: what happens before you pull, and what happens while you’re pulling. This week’s column addresses the former. Everything I am about to tell you in this column is something that you, as an experienced tank, will eventually do in the space of a second without even realizing you’re doing it.

Who’s in your group?

As soon as you zone in, run a quick mental tally on your fellow players. With what classes are you going to be dealing? Who is your healer? Is there anyone there with an advanced PvE or PvP title suggesting that the player has a lot of experience?

What’s their gear like?

I despise GearScore and the behavior it encourages, but there’s something to be said for having a decent grasp of what your group’s overall gear is like before you pull. You can download GearScore or Elitist Group if you really want, but most of the time you’ll have a pretty good handle on what the group’s gear is like simply by looking at them. Even if you’re not familiar with what constitutes good gear for various classes, it’s generally obvious if someone’s rocking a four-piece tier set or a really impressive weapon.

What mobs will you be pulling?

Ahn’kahar Spell Flingers have a 6-second cast attack that will hit you for 80% of your health. Twilight Worshippers and Ring-Lord Sorceresses can wreck your group with a well-placed Flamestrike. Anub’ar Skirmishers drop aggro and can’t be taunted back. Wretched Belchers have both a cone attack and a cleave that can kill a melee DPS low on health. Shadowy Mercenaries have a particular talent for Shadowstepping behind and poisoning your healers.

As DPS, you don’t really need to know about any of this. As a healer, you’ll be asked to compensate for it if the group can’t or won’t avoid the damage. As a tank, you are fantastic if you whisk a group through these pulls with a minimum amount of trouble from the more dangerous mobs. Know in advance what they do and spend abilities like Bash and Feral Charge wisely.

What walls or features allow you to break line of sight?

We’re the only tank without a ranged silence, and even a silence doesn’t help on any pull where you want the mobs away from a nearby patrol. Know in advance where you should move if you have to force a caster or ranged mob to come to you. If you’re worried about making a clean pull, practice with the dungeon on normal mode first, many of which are soloable at 80. Or, better yet, practice with a BC heroic once you’re keyed. The 70 heroics are generally trickier to pull than their counterparts in Wrath.

Whose threat do you need to be most worried about?

Any player who significantly outgears you is likely to be an aggro whore unless they’re exceptionally sensitive to the issue of pulling off the tank or they do the dungeon half-naked to cripple their damage. The latter is amusing, but sadly, I don’t see it much.

Five-mans are still my favorite part of the game, and I’ve run them for the better part of three years as both a ludicrously undergeared and ludicrously overgeared tank. This is what I’ve seen so far whenever threat’s been a concern (and anyone with Cataclysm beta experience, please feel free to chime in on how the classes have changed in 5-mans there):

• Death knights are generally a non-issue as long as they’re not in Frost Presence. Well-geared unholy knights can be problematic early in a pull.
• Our fellow druids vary, but moonkin tend to be more troublesome than cats due to the uneven nature of Eclipse procs.
• Hunters are a crapshoot. The experienced ones have almost always macroed Misdirection into their rotations and will quietly transfer a ton of free threat to you without fanfare. By contrast, inexperienced or bad hunters are champions at yanking aggro and sending a pull into disarray by Feigning Death only when a mob is already beating on them.
• Mage threat varies by spec, but well-geared mages are pretty good at producing a buttload of threat quickly. Fire tends to be the worst with inconvenient Hot Streak procs.
• Retribution paladins in good gear with a high-end weapon rocking the two-piece tier 10 bonus are hell. At equal levels of gear, they’re about the same as death knights.
• Priests are generally a non-issue, I suspect because shadow often fares poorly on trash.
• Modern rogues are generally good about managing threat and, like hunters, usually macro Tricks of the Trade into their rotation. Rogues with two-piece tier 10 are virtually guaranteed to have done so.
• DPS shaman threat seems to have calmed down considerably since The Burning Crusade. They’re not usually a problem these days.
• Well-geared warriors are absolute nightmares. I sincerely apologize to our fellow rage-using brethren, but you are the least appealing party member for an undergeared tank.
• Warlocks are hit-or-miss, but are easier to tank for since the demise of BC destruction spec. You’re more likely to get an affliction or demonology ‘lock in 5-mans these days, and neither spec has the soul-killing threat spikes of the BC destro warlock.

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I’d like to quickly go over the more recent raiding addition Ruby Sanctum. Although I’ve seen mixed reviews of the instance from others, I at least think the instance is a nice little dash of refreshing. It doesn’t hold the same sense of urgency, the same notion that you’re going to be stuck in here for hours upon hours, days upon days (even though many guilds, particularly those working on hard mode, will be) that I get from going into ICC. RS is a nice little cooldown raid; it’s light, fun and refreshing like a cool glass of lemonade. To start us off, we’ll take a quick look at the shiny loots, since that’s what everyone really wants, and then we’ll look into a brief little guide on how to slay the giant purple/pink dragon at the end.

10-man drops

Changling Gloves There are a rather decent pair of gloves that you can pick up which, surprisingly, don’t have hit or spirit on them. It’s like a July Christmas wish or something. Sadly for balance druids, the Tier 10 gloves that do have hit on them are generally going to be a part of your BiS list, but that’s the funny thing about BiS lists, you really don’t have to pay much attention to that note. The reality is, if these are an upgrade for you and you can get hit from another slot of equitable ilevel, then chances are you’ll want these gloves. Particularly for 10-man loot, a lot of stuff on it has hit these days, so it may be rather difficult to find yourself a full set of gear that doesn’t put you skyrocketing over the hit cap if you are in a 10-man exclusive guild, which makes these gloves perfect.

Misbegotten Belt I’m only mentioning this because it happens to drop in the instance and you can use it as a balance druid; however I really wouldn’t suggest it. If you’re a more fresh 80 or merely an alt, then this can be a great item to snag, but for a vast majority of players, picking up the Emblem of Frost belt is the better choice.

Saviana’s Tribute This is a decent ring if you happen to find yourself lacking in the hit department, but chances are that you aren’t considering, as I mentioned before, there’s an overload of hit on all ICC 10-man gear. If you can make use of the hit, then go ahead and grab it, the ring isn’t bad at face value, but there are much better options out there.

25-man drops

Phaseshifter’s Bracers Ahh, the eternal question: to leather, or not to leather? In the case for these bracers, which are beyond amazing, the reason why balance druids constantly ask this question is rather clear. You see, there are a pair of cloth bracers that are almost identical which drop in 25 as well; almost identical. Technically, the cloth bracers are better itemized and have a better gem slot than the leather bracers, making them the stronger choice; however, given that a raid will have far more cloth wearers aiming for those, and eventually we’ll be getting a mastery bonus for wearing all leather, there really isn’t a reason to not stick with the Phaseshifter’s in this case.

Cloak of Burning Dusk It’s pretty much a replica of the Frostbinder’s Shredded Cape out of ICC, but the higher ilevel attached to it makes it a better choice. If you can get this cloak, than do so, but if you already have FSC, then I wouldn’t be too gung-ho about getting it.

Charred Twilight Scale Even though haste is a bane of our existence, this is still the best trinket that you can get at this stage of the game. It’s basically another version of the Dislodged Foreign Object out of ICC, yet slightly upgraded with a better proc overall. You’ll want this trinket — but so will every other caster in the raid.

How to get the loot

Clearing to Halion himself — yes, Halion is male — isn’t all that difficult. None of the three sub-bosses that are located within the zone offer up much in the way of difficulty nor are their mechanics that complex; honestly, the trash is more difficult than the sub-bosses themselves in this place. Halion is a completely different matter though. He’s a tough cookie, and if you aren’t in a guild of fairly situationally aware players, then you are going to struggle.

As far as boss encounters go, Halion really isn’t all that difficult mechanic wise — heroic is a different matter, of course — where the entire focus of everything is to just pay attention. During phase 1, there will be meteors raining down from the sky, snakes of fire on the ground, and large glowing circles of death to avoid. Peachy, eh? Phase 1 itself isn’t all that bad to be honest, just make sure to stand out of any of the nasty effects and you’ll be fine. Also, keep in mind that the debuff Halion places on players is a magical curse, meaning that it can be removed as either of those subtypes — meaning you can remove it. Don’t automatically remove it and think you’re a hero, but do pay attention and be kind to your healers. Players can get a touch spread out at times and if a player does need to be dispelled and you can do so, then go ahead and do it.

Phase 2 is another matter. The first few weeks that I attempted to do this, I wanted to bash my head against a wall. Phase 2 takes place in the shadow realm, or whatever it’s called, and basically the main mechanic is that the two floating orbs on the outside of the room will eventually become a giant laser of death seeking to cut you in half. This isn’t anything that we haven’t seen before, so avoiding it shouldn’t cause you too much trouble, however, if you plan this incorrectly, then you’ll find yourself moving way too much and spend no time DPSing.

You’ll want to swing your camera around to watch where the orbs are currently circling so that you can be prepared for the moment when they seek to turn you into a magic trick gone awry; try your best not to move during the time when the orbs are merely floating around, you’ll want to spend that time actually DPSing. Every guild is different; my current guild has all of the ranged stacked up near the tank, but obviously out of cleave range, and all of us move at once in the same direction of the tank when the orbs are active. This significantly cuts down on our movement time and it allows for the movement that we have to do to be fairly smooth with everyone moving together instead of a few people winding up in cleave range, or a few others getting tail swiped.

Finally, phase 3 is merely a repeat of one of the first two phases, only some of your raid members will be up with the fire while others will be down with the orbs of death. Ideally, you should be up with the fire, which is the best place for ranged to shine and is really, really easy to manage. Due note though that you have to be really careful on the transition. Sometimes players can have longer phasing times, and it certainly doesn’t take Halion long before he chews through a tank. Right at the transition, it might be in your best interest to pop out and heal the tank until you see that all of the assigned healers are up, active, and have the situation under control; I promise your tanks and healers will thank you for it.

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Ruby Sanctum ilevels are pretty straightforward — the 10-man coughs up ilevel 258 gear (the same you’d get from ToGC-25), the 25-man coughs up 271 (between ICC-25 and ICC-25 heroic quality), and their heroic versions offer 271 and 284 respectively. In other words, you’ll find some quality stuff here. Beyond the cut are the pieces that feral and restoration druids might want.

10-man gear

Changeling Gloves A decent glove option and somewhat interesting in that it packs both haste and crit. Make no mistake — that and the lack of spirit make it a lot more suited to our boomkin brethren, but it’s a fine piece if you’re still saving badges toward the tier gloves. They’re slightly better for restoration druids than the frost badge option, Gloves of the Great Horned Owl, but not as good as the ilevel 251 tier gloves (which is really what you ultimately want, as you should be planning on buying the badge chest).

Abduction’s Cover Another non-spirit piece, but eh — you can’t really complain with the nice bit of haste on it. The heroic version is third-best in slot as a result (behind the Halion-25 heroic Cloak of Burning Dusk and the now-old standby Greatcloak of the Turned Champion off Deathbringer Saurfang-25 heroic). The normal Abduction’s isn’t more than a sneeze away from the normal Greatcloak, so if you’re having trouble convincing Saurfang to drop his cloak, be on the lookout for Abduction’s instead.

Gloaming Sark Quite a nice chestpiece for the bears and kitties out there, although the stats on it are definitely oriented more toward a cat. Even then, Ikfirus’ Sack of Wonder might be the better pick if you’re having problems staying at or around the hit cap (which many ferals do after gearing up in Icecrown Citadel). For bears, the normal Sark falls below the heroic and normal Ikfirus, the badge piece Shadow Seeker’s Tunic, and below the ilevel 264 tier chest. It is, however, better than the 251 tier chest.

For cats, it’s a comparatively better option. The normal Sark outclasses both the ilevel 251 tier chest and the normal Ikfirus (more so if you’re already at the hit cap). Interestingly, the heroic Sark is second-best in slot (best is the 277 tier chest), although I do question whether the lack of hit in ICC will still shove more players in the direction of the heroic Ikfirus.

Baltharus’ Gift There are better options available in ICC if you’re restricted to the normal version, but this is still a nice cat neck with a meaty chunk of agility and a lovely red socket. The heroic version is third-best in slot (falling behind Sindragosa’s Cruel Claw and Rimetooth Pendant). If you’re not in a raiding guild but the Ruby Sanctum is puggable on your realm, try for this instead of shelling out/fighting over Wodin’s Lucky Necklace; Baltharus’ edges out Wodin’s slightly DPS-wise unless you’re really hard up for hit.

25-man gear

Sharpened Twilight Scale What I’ve said previously concerning trinkets in our gear guides is still true here; they’re pretty difficult to rank. That said, this is easily among the best cat trinkets in the game. Unfortunately for you, that also means you’re going to be rolling for it against almost every physical DPSer in the raid. If you do manage to snag it, make sure you’re not over the armor penetration hard cap (1,399) and, if you are, just drop some ArP gems in favor of agility.

How does it compare to existing trinkets? Tough to say given that its contribution to DPS will vary depending on the passive ArP of the wearer, but most theorycrafters think it’s second only to the heroic version of Deathbringer’s Will. And what happens when the Cataclysm content patch hits and ArP goes bye-bye? Right now, armor penetration in the beta is being converted to haste, and I feel like it’s too early to say how that’s going to wind up.

Glowing Twilight Scale An interesting healer trinket with a /use effect not dissimilar from Trauma. The problem for druids is that, unlike Trauma, the effect can only be triggered by direct heals. That’s not so good for us, and unless you’re a dedicated tank healer, you may only want to pick this up if other healers in the raid don’t want it. It’s not that it’s a bad trinket per se, but it’s not well suited to our style of healing. I would expect to see its value rise as the Cataclysm content patch approaches and direct heals become a stronger option.

Petrified Twilight Scale It feels and plays like a tweaked version of the old Commendation of Kael’thas, swapping armor in place of stamina. How useful is it? That’ll depend on what you’re tanking. It’s more useful on most ICC fights than the Corpse Tongue Coin, although I don’t think it outranks Sindragosa’s Flawless Fang. The Unidentifiable Organ is a tougher call. I’m tempted to say that fights like Lich King and Sindragosa (more so if they’re heroic) would put this trinket to very good use, given the huge healing demands and terrifying likelihood of hitting 35% on both encounters.

Signet of Twilight A good cat ring, albeit more so if you’re under the hit cap. Otherwise, this is pretty standard fare for an ilevel 264.

Umbrage Armbands This is a good alternative to Toskk’s Maximized Wristguards if you’re having problems convincing Saurfang to drop those. While the two pieces are fairly close to each other, Toskk’s gets the edge for cats with ArP and a bit more attack power, and Umbrage gets the edge for bears with a bit more stamina and armor. Either way, both pieces are very good.

Cloak of Burning Dusk Trees are unlikely to have priority on this cloak due to the absence of spirit and the presence of crit, but it’s a great option if nobody else wants it. As stated previously, the heroic version has overtaken heroic Greatcloak as best in slot, but it’s got more to do with ilevel than anything else. It’s a fine piece if it comes your way, but the stats are definitely more suited to caster DPS or another healer.

Phaseshifter’s Bracers Hurrah! Leather wrists with haste on them that you don’t have to slog through ToC-25 to get! That alone vaults these babies above their ICC counterparts, although you could technically also pick up Bracers of Fiery Night off Halion-25 too, and they’re slightly better. Either way, I was immensely cheered to see an alternative to the ToC/ToGC Bindings/Bracers of the Autumn Willow, which are still ridiculously good but a bit on the stale side.

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Don’t be a failkin, seriously

I’m sure that there are many of you that might remember this article posted at the beginning of last month. It’s a brilliant piece of work, if I do say so myself, and has a lot of great information that if you haven’t read yet, you really, really should. I haven’t seen far too many offenders of any one of the major points of that post, but there are a few that I would like to highlight once more.

• You can remove curses and poisons; do it.
• Don’t Typhoon mobs away from the tank and AoE.
• Watch yourself when using Starfall.
• Heal when you can.

Those are four points that I simply cannot stress enough. While running through Blood Furnace, I cannot even begin to count the number of times that I’ve seen a balance druid get hit with Curse of Tongues and just sit there casting through it. Pardon the harsh tone, but why in the world would you do that? You can dispel it, it’s lowering your DPS significantly, plus it’s annoying as all get out — so just get rid of the stupid thing. Even more true is when it gets placed on a healer; it scares me beyond belief when a healer is forced to endure longer cast times such as that.

Wantonly using Typhoon and Starfall should both be no-brainers in my opinion, yet I still constantly see players who do so. More than anything else, you really need to be careful when using Typhoon while grouped with a leveling frost mage. More likely than not, a leveling frost mage is going to have Frostbite and at least one point into Improved Blizzard, which means there’s a fairly good chance that the mobs you just knocked back are going to end up frozen in place away from the tank; this is bad on so many levels, especially when some of the mobs were already frozen and thus were not knocked back to begin with. Plus, pulling additional packs of mobs with either ability is going to make me (and probably the rest of the group) want to hurt you.

Finally, healing is an essential part of every class that is capable of doing so, especially in early leveling dungeons. Momentarily stopping DPS to toss out a few quick heals saves lives, period. It is more understandable at the earlier levels in the game when you don’t have Nourish, although you should be using Regrowth as the initial heal instead, but please, please, please try and do anything that you can to prevent a wipe. Just to illustrate my point, I refer you all to the wonderful new boss Halion in Ruby Sanctum. When transitioning into phase 3, you may find, for whatever reason, that you’ve ended up back outside with a tank getting his face smashed by a nasty dragon and only a single healer trying to keep him alive. I’ve been in that situation and can say for a fact that quickly dropping out to toss a few heals on the tank while everything got situated prevented an outright wipe — and I know I wasn’t alone is doing this, either. Healing is not your job, but it shouldn’t be completely ignored, either; when you can save someone, you need to.

Speccing it up for dungeon leveling

Talent points, more so while leveling, are such a fickle thing these days. While I abhor the concept of blatantly telling another person how they must spec their character, there is a simple truth behind talents in this game — that being, certain specs are more apt at performing certain functions than others. Every time that I end up grouped with balance druids, the first thing that I do is inspect their spec; I have to, it’s a compulsion. In doing this, I’ve found some pretty strange things out there. I do my best not to judge in this area, but often times I am simply left wondering why certain players pick the specs that they do. Not in a malicious, they-must-be-idiots kind of way, just through idle curiosity. To that end, I’d like to make a few talent suggestions for anyone out there leveling a balance druid.

Once you hit level 60, a good spec to have would be one that looks something similar to this. The reason that I would suggest picking up a spec such as this is because it offers the most damage and utility that you can get at this stage in the game. A lot of druids find Owlkin Frenzy to be highly useful, and I often see many of them put three points into that talent while putting their other two into Wrath of Cenarius. I can understand why you want to do this; Owlkin Frenzy is a pretty nice talent to have while leveling when you can end up with having a mob or two attacking you. That being said, I simply haven’t ever really found this to be that solid of a choice. It is a matter of opinion, honestly; if you like having Owlkin Frenzy and find it useful, then go for it, although I might suggest ditching the points in Celestial Focus instead of Wrath of Cenarius to pick it up.

I don’t like trading Owlkin Frenzy in place of Wrath of Cenarius for a rather simple reason — damage has scaled so much higher at earlier levels to where it simply isn’t as useful as it once was, not to mention that the increased levels of spellpower (more so if you use BoA gear) at lower levels makes Wrath of Cenarius that much more useful. I also happen to have a thing against talents that are only situationally useful; there is never a time in which Wrath of Cenarius won’t increase your damage, while Owlkin Frenzy will only do so during times that you are being attacked.

Progressing to level 70, I’d then go with a spec similar to this. Although nothing there is really overtly helpful for at the time you get it — Furor is awesome for increased intellect and Nature’s Focus is good for the pushback resistance — the main focus is to get your hands on Intensity within the next few levels, as you’ll probably want to have the mana regeneration by this point. Leveling balance druids have some pretty terrible mana regeneration, mostly because the only real mana regeneration talent that we can pick up within the balance tree is Dreamstate, which is fairly weak (although it is generally a solid choice while leveling since, at least until mid-Outland, most items that you pick up are going to only have stamina, intellect and spellpower on them.) The main issue that we face with mana regeneration is that we’re “balance” (albeit poorly in my opinion) around the mana return from Moonkin Form, which is terrible during leveling and lower gearing levels, yet disgustingly overpowered at the higher end of gearing.

Gear to look out for

With the introduction of the dungeon finder tool, gearing up while leveling an alt has never been easier. Each dungeon level set (generally, dungeons exist is sets that span 10 levels and share comparable loot between them) will offer a bag reward that contains one of two item types that’s pretty much the best of the best that you can find for that level. Here are a list of the different items that you can get and the level at which you will get them:

For the most part, these items are going to be some of the best that you will be able to find even until the cycle repeats itself, especially at the lower end, when many items don’t have spellpower on them that you find. If for whatever reason you happen to be like me and constantly getting all the lame junk that you don’t need (my mage never once got a spellpower necklace at the 61-64 range, only melee versions), then don’t give up hope; there are still some really amazing items out there to look forward to getting.

Helm

Whisperwind Headdress This drops from a rare spawn in RfK, so getting it may be tricky, but it’s the best helm for many levels to come. Plus it’s actually leather, so there’s little chance someone else will take it.
Ruby Crown of Restoration A crafted helm that’s very good, but can be hard to come by on some servers. If you can find it for a decent price, then I’d suggest picking it up.
Bad Mojo Mask It’s cloth and drops from ZF, so you may have a few issues getting it, but it is a great helm.

Shoulders

Death Speaker Mantle A nice little drop from RfK. It too is cloth, but you won’t have many other choices when it comes to shoulders.
Inquisitor’s Shawl A common drop from SM that you’ll probably see a lot of; it’s good, so get it if you can.
Ironfeather Shoulders The cream of the crop if you aren’t using BoA gear. I might even suggest going out of your way to pick up both Ironfeather pieces once you can wear them.

Chest

Robes of Arugal Chests are difficult to get too if you want leather, but this from SFK is a nice cloth option.
Robe of Doan Again cloth, but there should be no issues picking this one up. You will get sent to SM very frequently, and these drop like candy.
Ironfeather Breastplate The Ironfeather set is amazing, and did I mention they don’t require farming Ironfeathers anymore? The mats for these items are so cheap and easy there isn’t a reason to not get them.

Wrists

Dryad’s Wrist Bindings Honestly the only wrists worth mentioning at all. Get them, because you won’t regret it. They are super cheap; just a single BG win will net you enough honor for a pair. You do have to wait until 40, but there is literally nothing else at all until then.

Gloves

Gold-flecked Gloves/Serpent Gloves Identical items, but one comes from DMn while the other comes from WC. Either option is the best you’ll get for a long while.
Gloves of the Atal’ai Prophet Super-sweet and sexy, you won’t replace them until well into Outland.

Belt

Deathmage Sash Like most other slots, there just aren’t many options to pick from, and no options in leather. This is a good start-off, though.
Chloromesh Girdle If you don’t mind the lack of stats, this is a fine belt. I’ve used it on many toons and it’s well worth it.

Legs

Gaze Dreamer Pants There is nothing in the way of good leggings, seriously. Take these and run with them, as you’ll not really find anything else.
Wildfeather Leggings Drops suck, and all of the pants that drop suck even more. These are a really good pair of pants that can be crafted rather cheaply, so I’d suggest getting them.

Boots

Spidersilk Boots These are fairly common, fairly cheap and you can get them at a fairly low level. A great bargain.
Vinerot Sandals A good drop from Mara that’s pretty common; after the change in zone leveling, though, I never found myself placed in Orange very often.
Watersprout Boots Amazing pair of boots that you’ll definitely want and certainly get. They are a very common drop and no other class really needs them.

Cloaks

Battle Healer’s Cloak/Caretaker’s Cape It’s another PvP item, but, again, it’s very cheap, plus you can get it at 18 and upgrade it every 10 levels should you choose to; I might suggest going every 20 levels (or at least skipping 28), since the upgrades aren’t large.

When it comes to weapons and jewelery, there are so many options out there that it’s difficult to list them all. Although necklaces and rings are fairly rare-ish, you usually find at least one per dungeon tier that’s useful, and most don’t gain spellpower until later levels anyway. There is a PvP ring from the WSG vendor, the same place you get the aforementioned cloak and wrists, that is pretty nice as well. For weapons, they’re everywhere, especially once you hit SM, so there isn’t any particular one notable item to look out for.

When gearing, just remember a simple rule: Spellpower is king. You want spellpower at every chance you get, without question. Nearly every other stat is trivial. Intellect is a nice secondary stat to look for as well, since it increases your spellpower and mana regeneration, but everything else is fairly bleh. Finding the few items that do have crit on them is nice when you can get them, but they tend to trail off in effectiveness rather quickly while leveling. Spellpower never diminishes in strength, which is why it is always the superior choice.

Proper spell selection

With all the boring stuff out of the way, I want to take a quick second to talk about what abilities you should be using while in a dungeon group. Beyond the standards that I’ve already discussed about using all of your utility spells, do not forget that you are there to kill things. More often than not, I’ve found that many balance druids will start each trash pull by putting their DoTs up on the primary target, then starting to nuke, repeating the process with each additional target. This isn’t a wise choice. Although Moonfire and Insect Swarm produce decent levels of damage, especially at that stage in the game, most trash is simply going to die too quickly for your DoTs to amount to a significant amount of damage. Beyond that, there is also the little bit that, in doing this, you are ignoring a very important piece of utility that you bring.

Earth and Moon is a huge deal; it’s a major damage increase and you’ll want it up as often as possible, not just for yourself but for the rest of your groupmates as well. On trash, there really isn’t a reason to bother with using either of your DoTs. If it’s a stronger mob that might last a few moments, then you can start with Insect Swarm, but leave Moonfire out — the mana cost of the spell is huge. Start with Wrath as often as you can, and really, just keep wrathing things. Choose your AoE carefully, too; only use it on a true AoE pull of at least four mobs. Anything less and you’re just expending far more mana than you need to.

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Feral druids might be better at soloing certain content than balance druids are, but we are certainly far from helpless in the endeavor. Balance druids, too, can solo some of the more perilous quests, farm old content that was once classified as difficult, and get our hands on virtually any prize that we wish. To that end, I would like to present to you this guide to soloing various content throughout World of Warcraft in hope that one day all shall see that balance really is better than feral — because, let’s face it, in the choice between a slack-jawed, untamed beast and a highly intelligent, silly-looking, destructive force of nature, I think it is rather clear which one is the better option.

Basics of world soloing

Before we get into the flashy, fancy stuff, let’s take a quick detour to talk about the fundamentals of soloing the various encounters that you find while out in the game world. Usually, these are things like group quests that pit you against a powerful elite monster that’s usually a bit difficult to handle on your own. More often than not (well, depending on where you are, at least), it can be quite difficult to get real groups or even just anybody for the purpose of downing these fiends. Instead of giving up or wandering around seeking out someone to help you (note that asking for help is awesome even if you don’t really need it, as someone else might need your help; just don’t sit there doing nothing but spamming general until you find someone), it is always best to go out and attempt the quest on your own. When doing this, there are a few basic rules to keep in mind.

The rooting rule

Entangling Roots is the god of soloing spells. There is honestly nothing else out there that can even remotely compare to the power that Entangling Roots holds for allowing a player to single-handedly tackle a daunting task. When you find yourself face to face with an angry elite, the first thing you should always do it to test whether or not it is immune to Entangling Roots. If you can root it, you can kill it. With very few exceptions, a vast majority of quest elites are restricted to melee attacks or a smattering of ranged abilities that have a cooldown and are used infrequently. Very few are pure casters; any melee elite that you can root can be killed. Remember, there is no diminishing returns for CC effects in PvE, so you can keep the mob rooted indefinitely while you safely kill it.

If you are facing an rootable mob, there are two ways to go about killing it. The first, and my general favorite, is to merely attack it pretty much full out. Using Moonfire, Insect Swarm and Wrath/Starfire, you can just nuke the beast into oblivion. Obviously Entangling Roots is going to break quite frequently when following this method, making it slightly more dangerous, and you can do two different things in order to counteract roots breaking. First, you can alternate between Entangling Roots after every nuke or every other nuke to ensure that they stay up. If you are using this method and casting Wrath, then you need to stagger your cast of Entangling Roots or you’ll just end up breaking it when Wrath actually hits the target, since it has a travel time while roots does not. The other way is to just sit there and let your DoTs do all the work. Doing this is much safer, since Entangling Roots will break less frequently, but it also takes longer.

The water rule

If Entangling Roots does not work (and even if it does), the second thing to test is whether or not the mob can be knocked back via Typhoon. For the most part, only the larger of mobs are immune to Typhoon’s effect, although this isn’t always the case. Typhoon will not save you from taking several hits from the mob, but it does give you something precious: time. Beyond just the knockback, also check to see if the mob is being slowed by Typhoon or not. Having it do so opens up extra options for how you can make use of Typhoon’s effects.

The key to using Typhoon, as I said, is that it buys you time — time to get a few quick HoTs up and be back into Moonkin Form before the mob is back in your face. Healing is a very important part of soloing mobs, and you always want to be avoid taking as much damage while out of Moonkin Form as you possibly can. If you have a good connection and a clear path, then using Travel Form to kite away for a bit will buy you some additional space in order to heal with, but be careful not to run too far or you’ll just end up leashing the mob.

When healing, always open up with Regrowth, assuming that you aren’t being hit on; then get a Rejuvenation up. If you have more time after then, toss out a Lifebloom as well before shifting back into Moonkin Form. If you still have a mob on you while attempting to heal, then go in reverse order; get up Lifebloom and Rejuvenation early and often and use Nourish instead of Regrowth if it’s an emergency. Always try to limit the amount of time any mob is attacking you outside of Moonkin Form.

The forest rule

There is one more trick that you can use as a balance druid to try and assist with soloing some of the tougher monsters out there. Force of Nature is a very powerful cooldown, with the Treants that it summons dealing a hefty amount of damage. While it is nice to use this in a burst tactic against an elite to try and take it out before it gets you, there is another method of using them. Open up against the mob with Faerie Fire just to get initial aggro, then instantly summon your natural fury against them. Usually, before the mob even gets close enough to land a single swing, the Treants will pull aggro off of you and begin to tank the mob. During this time, very carefully use Insect Swarm and Moonfire to help whittle the mob’s health away without pulling aggro onto yourself.

Although the Treants from Force of Nature are not the best of tanks, they do have some amount of health, and by the time the mob has gone through killing all three of them, they’ve generally spent a significant amount of time dealing with something that isn’t you while their health was slowly drained away. The trick here is to be excessively careful with threat to ensure that the Treants remain as the focus instead of you. Normally, you can get away with using a few Wraths after a couple of seconds, but don’t outright spam the spell; pace yourself, and allow your pets to do their thing. If the mob is able to be effected by Typhoon, then make sure to use it when your last Treant dies in order to give yourself as much time as possible before you start taking damage. This may seem silly, given that the Treants will most likely die well before their natural 30 seconds is up and leaving them dealing less damage than if you had been the tank, but it saves you all of your other cooldowns, mana from healing and buys you a significant amount of time.

Gearing for higher-end soloing

After you’ve gotten all of the easy stuff out of the way, you may find yourself wanting to solo some of the more impressive things out there. While you will probably never be able to solo things such as heroic Halls of Lighting, as I’ve known paladins and death knights to do, you certainly can farm many of the hot-spot areas. One of the most important things in doing this is to always be prepared. You’ll want to have health potions and mana potions handy as an emergency tool, but there is so much more than that. Soloing dungeons and raids relies upon three main principles: mitigation, output, longevity.

The time of the Moonkin tank, or Panzerkin if you prefer, may have come and gone, but that does not mean that gearing for mitigation stats is completely useless when attempting to solo content. Picking up spare rings or necklaces with armor and defense on them — avoid things with merely dodge, parry, block or expertise, as they won’t really help you — is an excellent way to significantly boost your survivability. While the best items are obviously going to be coming out of the most current raiding tier, it shouldn’t be too difficult to pick up a few of these on the cheap. There really aren’t that many tanks out there who need these items, so snagging them won’t always prove too difficult. There are also some craftable and vendor options to pick from. Also keep in mind boosting your stamina in anyway that you can. Although it doesn’t afford raw mitigation, it does increase the time you have to get another heal off, which can be just as much of a lifesaver as anything else. Using PvP gear is also acceptable but usually not worth it. If you happen to be swimming in Emblems of Frost, the vendor cloak is also a nice choice to pick up. One thing to remember if you are soloing a raid encounter is to always strive to be defense-capped. Odd as it may sound, every raid boss in the game is still going to be flagged as three levels higher than you no matter what level you are, thus allowing them to land critical strikes against you. Even from a weaker boss, a crit is a crit and it will hurt; avoiding this will significantly cut back on the amount of damage you take.

While mitigation is dandy, always keep your output in mind. Filtering in higher armor and high stamina pieces in every slot is all well and good, but it is always going to come at a cost. Keep in mind that we are not paladins nor death knights and how we create an infinite timetable to deal with an encounter is significantly different. Their main healing output is based upon their health, while ours is base around spellpower, haste and crit. Having all of our standard DPS stats is very important for being able to solo higher-end content. To this end, never sacrifice too much output in order to gain mitigation; you always want to be able to kill things rapidly and heal yourself back up just as quickly.

Last, there is longevity to think about. Again, we are not paladins nor death knights, and our resources are very limited, especially when healing and shifting frequently; therefore, you never want to ignore your mana regeneration capabilities. For the purposes of soloing, I strongly suggest that you pick up at least Intensity, if not Dreamstate as well. For heroic encounters, this probably isn’t needed as much, but it certainly will be if you plan on soloing any raid encounters. Balance druids usually avoid spirit on their gear, as it does little for them, so switch in some spare pieces you have for a restoration set. Keeping your mana regeneration high enough is the key between life and death in this dangerous business.

Getting down to it

Now, the key moment. What exactly can balance druids solo? There’s a lot out there. When it comes to elite quests, the only ones off the top of my head that will give you any trouble is killing Arazzius the Cruel in Hellfire as well as all of the elite quests in Dragonblight. Most of the Magnataur quests are soloable, but the rest are usually beyond any single player that I’ve come across of equal level. That’s just small stuff, though; the real prize is getting the heroics and raids down for all the shiny things.

Farming for Anzu

Going into heroic Sethekk Halls is one of the major points for nearly every druid out there. Only we can summon the great Anzu and ruthlessly farm him for one of the sweetest-looking mounts in the game. Feral druids often gloat at how easy it is for the to solo this, and it is much easier for them to do so — yet it isn’t difficult for us, either. To start with, you will want to stealth past all of the trash save for that inside of Anzu’s room. Dealing with the trash here is fairly trivial for most balance druids; just remember all the basics of soloing anything. Always keep your health up and nuke them quick as you can. If you have troubles dealing with the trash using a basic method, positioning yourself for a Starfall/Hurricane combination will quickly wipe them out before they even really have a chance to touch you. This method takes longer, but it’s very safe.

For Anzu himself, the fight can be slightly challenging when first attempted, but once you get the hang of it, the whole process is a cakewalk. Essentially, the fight boils down to a kill-or-be-killed method. You do not want the fight against Anzu to be a long, drawn-out affair; instead, it should be quick and dirty. Limit the amount of healing that you do to yourself while engaging Anzu as much as possible; essentially, you shouldn’t need to heal at all and instead heal yourself up during his banish phases. Start the encounter on one far corner of the room and during each banish phase, run to the opposite corner, heal yourself, then AoE down the birds once the stun wears off. Keep an eye out for the extremely nasty curse that he’ll toss on you and remove it the moment that it goes up. Really, just play aggressively and you’ll end up winning in the end.

Farming ZG (Raptor/Tiger)

Mount bosses are all the rage, are they not? We’ll start with High Priest Thekal or “the tiger boss” on this one. Thekal is likely one of the more difficult of the two in ZG to solo simply because his two friends that join in on the fight are annoying pains in the arse. Seriously, they are. The good news is that the encounter is still ridiculously easy to solo simply because none of them will really be able to output significant enough amounts of damage that you cannot outheal. The only annoying part of this encounter is that all three of the mobs need to die relatively close to the same time as the others or the encounter will reset itself. While simply using AoE is an option for this, I would suggest against it, as Hurricane is a huge mana hog and you’ll be interrupted using it rather frequently from the rogue. Really, all you need to do is tab-DoT all three of them, then nuke whichever has the highest amount of health while the DoTs tick away.

The shaman that can heal can be a bit frustrating. You can use Typhoon as a temporary interrupt, but the shaman will merely cast once again after he’s landed. The only trick is to just plow right through. The silence can be equally annoying, but it shouldn’t ever really endanger your life if you play smart. It will make killing them a slower process, but so long as you have enough mana regeneration, there really isn’t anything about the encounter that should threaten you. Wait to use Force of Nature and Starfall when the three of them get relatively low on health and it should be easy-cakes. After the three are dead, Thekal will come back as a tigermanbeast, and it’s basically game, set, match at that point. None of his abilities are excessively powerful and there’s no wonky timing mechanic to deal with. Just nuke and loot. Thekal isn’t a difficult encounter to solo, but it does require a lot of output, so it’s best to bring a friend along for this ride unless you’re in T10 gear.

Next comes Bloodlord Mandokir. The encounter is fairly famous, but in case you’ve never done it, here’s a quick rundown. Mandokir is a fairly basic fight. He has a pet raptor with him, does Mortal Strike and will sometimes watch you and if you do anything he’ll charge … well, not really, since you’re tanking him. Anyway, going into this encounter, you’re faced with several options. If you think your burst is high enough, then you can choose to ignore the raptor and burn down Mandokir as rapidly as possible, healing when needed and using every tool you have to stay alive. A nice trick is to fight him up on top of the platform he starts on and them run off the edge, shifting into Cat Form on the way down, when you need to buy some time to heal yourself. It works rather well and the fight is fairly simple this way; however, it absolutely cannot last a long time if you choose this method. The raptor uses Sunder Armor, which will eventually cause you to take a level of damage far higher than you are likely able to heal through.

There is another option, though. To start with, kill the raptor outright; doing so causes Mandokir to enrage for 120 seconds. At this point, you have two choices. If your output and mitigation is high enough, you can merely tank the enraged Mandokir and go on from there. He’ll deal significantly higher levels of damage than you would normally take with just the raptor and him on you, but less than if you allow Sunder to stack up. I’ve used this method and it works, but it’s rough to get through and can be tricky. The second choice is to kite Mandokir until his enrage wears off. You’ll need to clear all the trash down towards the entrance to his area before doing this, but it’s quite easy. To kite him, just use Travel Form and run like the wind, making circles around the little altar at the bottom of his path and the main altar that he starts at. By dropping down from this point, you can buy yourself enough time to get a few HoTs off and get far away before he catches you.

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Appearances to the contrary, the waning days of an expansion are actually a pretty good time to apply to a raiding guild. That’s when attendance gets choppy, the pool and the grill issue a siren call from the deck, people go on vacation, or — having “finished” the expansion — they just take off, period. If you look at the recruitment forums, you’ll see a ton of guilds looking for players right now. If you’ve ever wanted to raid but haven’t gotten the chance, I think there is no better time. The Icecrown zone buff is a fantastic buffer for anyone who’s not emerging with a bevy of best in slot from tier 9, and the raid itself is one brilliant lore moment from beginning to end.

However, applying to a raiding guild — particularly if you haven’t done much raiding in the past — can be on the intimidating side. With that in mind, here’s a guide on how best to present yourself if you’re applying anywhere as a feral or restoration druid.

A few non-druid specific guidelines:

Raiding guilds don’t care about your GearScore.

GearScore is a tool for the rushed, the lazy or the ignorant. It’s not a great metric by which to judge a player’s potential. To be fair, it wasn’t intended to be, but I think all of us are used to PUG raid leaders’ imperiously demanding your GearScore before they’ll admit you to their raid. If you’re as sick of this behavior as I am, you’ll be heartened to see very little of it on any reputable guild’s website, because your GearScore doesn’t tell them jack about whether you’re a player they’d want.

We’ll talk in a bit about what guilds are looking for in cat, bear and tree druids.

Be realistic.

Apply to guilds pushing content that your character’s gear can realistically support. Raiders may not care about your GearScore, but they do care about your gear.

• Guilds pushing heroic Lich King will look for players already equipped in ilevel 264, tier 10 with mostly Icecrown-quality non-set pieces.
• Guilds pushing regular Lich King are a little more flexible but will still look for players with at least some Icecrown-quality gear.
• Guilds that haven’t yet begun Icecrown or are still working on the early bosses are generally willing to consider players who haven’t had much access to raid gear.

Be honest.

With the armory and independent achievement tracking sites, guilds have more resources than ever these days to find out if you’re telling them the truth.

Don’t misrepresent yourself when it comes to more intangible factors, either — which I suppose is a roundabout way of saying be honest with yourself. The application process is partly to determine whether you’d be a good fit for the guild, but it’s also to determine whether the guild’s a good fit for you, too.

Make the recruitment officer’s job as easy as possible.

• Always log out wearing the gear for the spec you’re applying as. It’s annoying to click someone’s armory link and find the character in a PvP set.
  
• Don’t apply until your character’s been maxed out with the best possible enchants, gems and glyphs. You may think it’s expensive and pointless for gear you hope to replace as soon as possible, but all that the guild will see is someone who’s waiting for boss drop RNG to compensate for their own laziness.
• Fill out the entire application. This should go without saying, but the number of people who don’t is disturbing.
• Proofread. An application full of spelling, grammatical or punctuation mistakes is annoying to read.
• List any relevant raid experience. Most applications will ask for this anyway, but …
• Don’t give one-word answers to anything other than very simple questions. “Do you own and use an authenticator?” can be answered with a yes or no (although if you answer no, you should explain why; there’s a good reason why that question’s so frequently asked these days). The answer to “Why have you chosen your current spec?” needs to be more involved.
• Anticipate questions. If your gear or spec are sub-optimal or seem tailored to a specific fight, provide a reason before you’re asked about it. “We don’t have a holy paladin in my current guild, and my tree is currently specced and glyphed for maximum single-target throughput as a result” is enough to head off any questions as to why you’re applying for a raid healing position with a tank healer’s spec.
• Rightly or wrongly, guilds will see the amount of effort you put into your application as representative of the amount of effort you’ll put into raids. Act accordingly.

I thought HoTs and DoTs‘ guide to applying to raiding guilds had a lot of very good advice in this vein and would highly recommend reading that as well.

If you’re applying as DPS, have a World of Logs (or similar record) available.

Many guilds will request or require third-party confirmation of what your toon can do. If all else fails, you can include a screenshot of Recount or whatever, but don’t be surprised if many guilds don’t bother looking at anything that easily could’ve been Photoshopped.

Different roles have different rates of turnover.

Tanks generally have very low turnover. One of the more interesting sociological aspects of WoW is how few guilds ever go looking for a new main tank. If they lose their current main tank, a new one will almost always be promoted from among their off tanks, and the guild will simply advertise for a new off tank. Because a tank’s gear and experience have such an impact on raid success, most guilds are very resistant to rapid change in the tank corps. If you’re applying anywhere as a bear, guilds will want near-perfect attendance and a commitment to stick around.

Healers are a total crap shoot. Heal teams range from tightly knit bands of brothers to backstabbing groups so dysfunctional they make the Kardashians look sane. If you want to get a handle on what the heal team’s like without having to ask awkward questions, you can do what I call the Kill Shot Test. Most guilds put kill shot pictures and/or videos on the front page of their website, and if you see a lot of the same healers over and over again, that’s a good sign.

DPS generally have medium turnover, and what each guild is looking for will be highly individual to each. Again, the Kill Shot Test is helpful here.

Bears

Tanks have it toughest. You will get the most scrutiny out of any applicant, and your gear has to be as good as it’s going to get without access to whatever content the guild’s doing. Cheaping out on enchants, gems or BoEs is the kiss of death.

These are the questions I ask, either directly or indirectly, when I see a bear player’s application:

• Are you properly specced? People dicker over a few talents here and there, but the basics are straightforward. If you are missing rather important talents like Survival of the Fittest, I will probably stroke out before I reach the end of your application.
• What’s your armor, dodge and stamina? Survivability is the first thing you have to worry about as any tank. If you’re applying to any guild tackling Icecrown content beyond the first four bosses, you will start getting hit pretty hard. Aim for around 28,000-30,000 armor, 45,000-50,000 HP and 45-50% dodge before the Icecrown zone buffs/debuffs.
• What are your expertise and hit? When either or both are low, you’ll probably have difficulty holding aggro against geared DPS. At the very least, you should be at the expertise soft cap (26) and, at higher gear levels, getting within shouting distance of the hard cap (56). Getting to the hard expertise cap as a bear is pretty tough and by no means absolutely necessary, but you’ll still see huge threat returns from shaving more parries off the boss’ avoidance table. With the move to DPS leather, it’s become rare for me to see a bear who’s not hit-capped (263) these days, but if you’re not, you should still have a reasonable level of hit.
• What fights do you have experience tanking? This is the big one and the most difficult to overcome if you haven’t had experience tanking for another guild. It’s a pain in the ass to train a new tank on end-game content from scratch, and that goes double if you’re applying to a guild farming heroic content without much heroic experience. If you’re not part of a raiding guild, do whatever you can to get as much experience tanking ICC for PUGs. No matter what, there’ll still be an awkward settling-in period afterward when you’ll relearn fights to conform to how the guild does them.
• Have you researched fights you haven’t tanked? This is mandatory even for the tanks we’ve already got, because there are often substantial changes between the normal and heroic versions of encounters. You absolutely must have a solid grasp of encounter basics even if you haven’t seen them personally.
• What’s your off spec? How well-geared is it? Some fights don’t require more than one tank, and the “new guy” will almost invariably be asked to respec (generally to DPS) first. If you don’t have a secondary spec, or your secondary spec is for PvP or healing or whatever, that puts raid leaders in the awkward position of having to respec a more experienced tank or — more likely — benching you.
  
• Do you have a full set of gemmed and enchanted frost resist gear? It’s very common for tanks to use this for Sindragosa. I’ve started asking this question after we brought a new tank to the guild and discovered 10 minutes before raid that he didn’t have one.
• How long have you tanked? Tanking is stressful, and it requires a certain personality both to do well and to keep at it for a long time. This isn’t to say that a relatively new tank is a bad one, but I still like to get a sense of how invested you are in that character.
• Why did you leave your last guild, and on what terms did you leave? Every applicant will be asked this, but I’m especially curious when it comes to tanks. It’s still pretty common for guilds to default gear drops and tier tokens to their tanks first in the interests of gearing them as quickly as possible, and they are understandably resentful when they’ve put a lot of time into gearing a character who then skips town.

And yes, this would be one of the reasons why guilds are so invested in getting a stable tank corps. Go ahead; ask me if I’m mad that we gave the Bile-Encrusted Medallion to a tank we later kicked when he turned into an insufferable twit.

Oh, and as an aside, you may want to avoid referring to your non-WoW-playing girlfriend by the c-word behind her back, because the guild’s female players will see each and every single one of your raid deaths as a cosmic sign from the karma gods:

Raid leader: Insufferable Twit, why are you always dying to Unbound Plague?
Insufferable Twit: I don’t know.
Female guildies: *High-fives*

Cats

Before patch 3.3.3, I would have asked whether you had a Mangle bot for whatever DPS records you supplied, but that’s no longer necessary.

• Did you provide a World of Logs entry or other third-party record of your raid performance? This one’s close to non-negotiable for many raiding guilds.
• Are you properly specced? As with the bear, speccing a cat is pretty straightforward, and assuming you’re using a PvE spec, the only real differences are between specs with more or less AoE damage.
• Are you hit- and expertise-capped? At lower gear levels, this isn’t hugely important because so much of the cat’s DPS relies on bleeds and specials. It’s more of a concern as you advance to Icecrown-quality gear and your white hits become truly potent. Because you should always be behind a mob, you only need to worry about the expertise soft cap (26). Both the bear and cat are considered 1H weapon attackers, so your hit cap is also 263.
• Are your gem and enchant choices an appropriate reflection of your gear? This is directly related to your passive armor penetration and what kind of trinkets you have. Do you have a trinket with a huge armor penetration proc?
• How well did you do on fights like Deathbringer Saurfang and Festergut? Both fights are considered benchmarks for melee DPS, and Saurfang is arguably the best “cat fight” in the entire raid. You should have some of the highest numbers of your career here. If you don’t, what happened?
  
• How well did you do on fights like Blood Princes and Sindragosa? Melee DPS is somewhat of a liability on these encounters, particularly on their heroic versions (doing heroic Blood Princes with a lot of melee one week was enough to send our raid leader to the nuthouse). Just as I’m interested in seeing how you well you did on good “cat fights,” I’m equally interested in seeing what kind of damage you can pump out on fights where the deck’s stacked against you.
  
• What raid buffs were available to you for the DPS you’re claiming? Most of the jaw-dropping cat numbers you’ll see on third-party sites are the result of experience, good latency, smart trinket, cooldown and proc exploitation, a high crit rate and getting buffs like Hysteria. For all I know, your WoL record comes from a night when the enhancement shaman didn’t show up, the death knight was selling Hysteria to the highest bidder, your internet sucked or you got bitten last on Lana’thel. Nobody wants or needs a bunch of excuses if you turned in terrible numbers, but when you’re pointing to specific encounters as an example of what you can do, put the fights in context for us. What was going on in the raid that night that had any effect, good or bad, on your DPS? In other words, if we put you in those same circumstances again, how repeatable is your performance?
  
• Do you have any experience tanking, and if so, what’s your bear set like? You will almost certainly be asked to tank at some point.
  
• Are you good at “staying out of the fire?” Cats have some of the best “Oh s&%t!” buttons available to melee DPS: Barkskin, Survival Instincts (if you’re an end-game raider, you should have it), Dash, Tranquility if the healers are getting pasted, and — if all else fails — Bear Form and Frenzied Regeneration. If I go through your logs seeing a pattern of early deaths — either one-shots because you did something dumb, or slower deaths where you didn’t blow anything to survive — what that tells me is you don’t take responsibility for your own survival in a raid. As a healer, that doesn’t give me warm, fuzzy feelings.

Trees

Due to how quickly healing efficiency outscales tank HP and the demands of the average raiding encounter, guilds are typically more lenient with the gear requirements for healer applicants.

• Are you properly specced? As with the bears and cats, I want to see a player who knows what he’s doing. I’m open to eccentric choices more than most raiders are — I’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite> if I weren’t — but if you’re making unorthodox spec or glyph choices, I want to hear your reasoning.
• Are you haste-capped? This is the biggie. You should be haste-capped, or — if your gear simply doesn’t allow for it — you should be making an obvious effort. A restoration druid who’s far below the haste cap will spend way more time than the rest of the heal team on the global cooldown and thus unable to cast. That doesn’t help your prospective raid on encounters with insane raid damage, and there are a lot of them in ICC. If you don’t seem to be prioritizing +haste on your gear, it could just be that you’ve had lousy luck with drops, but we don’t know that unless you provide an explanation.
• What’s your raid-buffed MP5? Blizzard’s acknowledged that healer efficiency is too good, but that doesn’t mean you get to ignore your mana. Mana-intensive fights like Arthas, Lana’thel, Blood Princes and Festergut can and will run you OOM if you’re not careful.
• How fast are you? This one’s tough to quantify, but it’s getting easier to figure out with the advent of mods like PhoenixStyle. If we PUG with you and you’re consistently one of the fastest healers to heal Incinerate Flesh on Jaraxxus, decurse on Lady Deathwhisper or heal Vile Gas on Festergut, you can probably handle stuff like Pact of the Darkfallen and Harvest Soul.
  
• What’s your throughput like on fights like Twin Valks, Festergut and Lana’thel? These fights are tailor-made for resto druids: consistent, widespread raid damage that’s not too bursty, where HoTs are virtually guaranteed to have low overheal.
• What mods and macros do you use? The basic UI isn’t that great for healers, although some of the criticism is a bit overblown; a competent healer with nothing but the default raid frames can still blow an inexperienced one out of the water. That said, addons like Grid, Clique, Vuhdo, Healbot, SmartRes and buffing mods will give you a lot more information about what’s happening to the raid, and — more to the point — can be heavily customized. Trees are very dependent on these mods because so much of our healing is through HoTs that have to be tracked closely.
• What job are you used to doing? The vast majority of resto druid are being used as raid healers, but you might be coming from a 5-man healing background or a guild where you were a tank healer, or coming from a raid healing background to one where a guild needs a tank healer. Are you OK with respeccing and reglyphing for the demands of each role?
• Do you have experience on difficult healing encounters? One of the reasons that my guild dislikes revisiting heroic Anub’arak in ToGC-25 is that we’ve picked up a few new healers during our time in ICC, and Anub is a terrible fight for them. If you have — or can get — experience healing things like a three-tree Freya, Firefighter, a hard-mode Yogg, ToGC-10 or -25, or any heroic Icecrown encounters other than Gunship, that’s a big plus.

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Cats, on the other hand, tend to face a lot more competition. They have neither the bear’s indifference to DPS stats, nor the tree’s benefit of playing a relatively uncommon armor/stat combination. As a cat approaching the end game, you’ll probably find yourself rolling against a beggar’s army of melee and hunters drooling over melee leather.

Why?

Two words: armor penetration. These days every Two-Hand-Harry and Shadow’s-Edge-Sally has a raging lust for armor penetration, and we band of buggered restricted to melee leather are paying the price.

a few notes before we start:

• I’m assuming you don’t have access to ICC-10 or -25, at least not on a regular basis. If you’re playing on a realm where not having heroic Arthas on farm means you’re a bad person, feel free to disregard all of the following list. Otherwise, my assumption is that you’re gearing a new cat druid in order to raid (or at least make the content you’re doing easier). I have listed gear you can get from the first four bosses in Icecrown Citadel due to reader requests, and indeed, quite a lot of good cat gear does drop there.
• I’m assuming you probably have access to Onyxia, Vault of Archavon and (maybe) some ToC. Most servers have PUGs running this content fairly regularly (if not, feel free to start one). I’ve listed the ilevel 245, tier 9 pieces available if you get your hands on a Trophy of the Crusade. Many players are in the process of upgrading to tier 10 and aren’t that interested in them. But touch their Death’s Choice and they’ll murder you.
• I’m not assuming you’re an arena star. You’ll find a few PvP pieces listed here, but one of the differences you’ll note between this and the bear list is that cats get comparatively little use from PvP gear. The item budget for resilience comes directly out of offensively oriented stats, and while the bear may not care much, the cat sure does.
  
• This is not a comprehensive list. If you’re still leveling your druid, or you’re hitting 80 penniless and alone on a faraway server with no one to call friend but a little match girl or something, I would recommend reading that first.
• I am a huge cheapskate. If your rich uncle just died and willed you 75,000 gold and his priceless collection of frost emblems, feel free to go nuts on BoE and badge gear. Otherwise, I’ve tried to point out when an expensive piece might be worth it and when it might not be.

A note concerning tier set bonuses: two-piece tier 8 for cats is really, really, really good. It’s essentially a free Omen of Clarity on top of the real Omen of Clarity you should already have talented, and it has a chance to proc off all cat bleed effects as well. As a matter of fact, two-piece tier 8 is so good that it’s still giving the tier 9 bonuses a run for their money. This is a familiar situation to anyone who played a feral during BC and probably used two-piece tier 4 through Black Temple. In both cases, the underlying issue is the cat’s general inability to improve or affect resource generation, and both of these overpowered tier bonuses are essentially free energy. That’s also why King of the Jungle is a required talent for cat DPS.

One of the things that keeps jumping out at me while modding this stuff is that there are a lot of cats who, while gearing up, will actually get more DPS out of continuing to use two-piece tier 8 than heading straight for four-piece tier 9 (assuming that the tier 9 in question is ilevel 232). Recognizing this, you may want to save Emblems of Triumph from dungeon-running and convert 116 of them into Emblems of Conquest to purchase the tier 8 helm and chest. For the other two slots, use two pieces of tier 9 (two-piece tier 9 is also extremely good) unless you can get four-piece ilevel 245 (or above) tier 9. At that point, the stat improvements will almost always override the tier 8 bonus. And no matter who you are, your priority should be getting to four-piece tier 10 as quickly as possible; nothing else in the game will beat it.

As with any other advice I can give concerning gear, Rawr and Toskk‘s are invaluable. Don’t take this list as gospel; different pieces of gear will be better or worse for you within the context of your existing gear. In particular, this list suffers from the assumption that you’re aiming for either the armor penetration soft or hard cap. If you’re not in a position to go for either, take the following with a grain of salt, use your best judgment, and remember; if you get to 1399 passive armor penetration, you will get no more use from the stat. if you want a more in-depth explanation of the hair-tearing, soul-killing mess that is armor pen, I would highly recommend reading the following:

• ThinkTank: Cat in the Cap. Much to our delight, Kalon’s been back and blogging occasionally.
• Feral Aggression: 3.2.2 ArP Nerf & You. Also, a big congratulations to Rarren for both the 1-year anniversary of Feral Aggression and the recent birth of his first child!
• The Fluid Druid: Armor penetration for ferals FAQ part 1 and part 2, and patch 3.3 gear for 10-man ICC.

Helm

This slot is easy if you’re aiming for the two-piece tier 8 bonus; run dungeons until you get 58 Emblems of Triumph, convert them into Emblems of Conquest, go buy a Helm of the Wayward Vanquisher from the Conquest emblem vendor in Dalaran, and buy a tier 8 helm.

Enchant: Arcanum of Torment from the Ebon Blade quartermaster.

Meta: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond. Use a Nightmare Tear in one of your more troublesome sockets to fulfill the meta requirement.

• Lasherweave Headguard Available for 95 Emblems of Frost.
• Hood of Lethal Intent (Alliance)/Mask of Lethal Intent (Horde) The ilevel 245, non-set helm available for 75 Emblems of Triumph.
• Malfurion’s Headguard of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Headguard of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 helm available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Stormrage Coverlet Dropped by Onyxia-25.
• Conqueror’s Nightsong Headguard Available for 58 Emblems of Conquest.
• Malfurion’s Headguard of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Headguard of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 helm available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Helm Available for 95 Emblems of Frost or 13,200 honor and 770 arena points.
• Stormrage Helm Dropped by Onyxia-10.
• Mask of Distant Memory Dropped by the Black Knight in heroic Trial of the Champion.
• Frayed Scoundrel’s Cap Dropped by the Devourer of Souls in heroic Forge of Souls.
• Furious Gladiator’s Dragonhide Helm Available for 75 Emblems of Triumph or 54,500 honor.

Neck

This slot doesn’t have a huge array of options outside of raiding, unfortunately. However, the Conquest badge neck is still pretty good if Wodin’s is ridiculously expensive or you’re unlucky with Onyxia.

• Wodin’s Lucky Necklace This is an Icecrown zone drop, and it’s pretty good for a lot of classes, so you may have difficulty finding it on the AH. Ask around.
• Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant One of the rewards from the quest chain started by the Head of Onyxia.
• Broach of the Wailing Night Available for 19 Emblems of Conquest.
• Barbed Ymirheim Choker Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in heroic Pit of Saron.
• Ancient Pendant of Arathor Dropped by the Argent Confessor or Eadric in heroic Trial of the Champion.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Pendant of Suffering Dropped by Toravon or available for 52,200 honor.
• Titanium Impact Choker Made by jewelcrafting.
• Titan-Forged Pendant of Victory Available for 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.

Shoulders

The new Icecrown 5-mans introduced a few good options, and the best among them is the HoR piece — but keep saving toward tier.

Enchant: Greater Inscription of the Axe from the Sons of Hodir quartermaster, or Master’s Inscription of the Axe if you’re a scribe.

• Lasherweave Shoulderpads Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
• Duskstalker Shoulderpads (Alliance)/Duskstalker Pauldrons (Horde) The ilevel 245, non-set melee leather shoulders available for 45 Emblems of Triumph.
• Malfurion’s Shoulderpads of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Shoulderpads of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 shoulders, available for 45 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Malfurion’s Shoulderpads of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Shoulderpads of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 shoulders, available for 30 Emblems of Triumph.
• Spaulders of Black Betrayal Dropped by Falric in heroic Halls of Reflection.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Spaulders Available for 60 Emblems of Frost or 10,550 honor and 600 arena points.
• Titan-Forged Spaulders of Triumph Available for 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
• Shoulderpads of the Infamous Knave Dropped by the Black Knight in normal Trial of the Champion.
• Bewildering Shoulderpads Dropped by Bronjahm in normal Forge of Souls.

Cloak

One of the cat’s best options is available to anyone who can get their hands on 50 Frost emblems, but two very good cloaks also drop off Faction Gunships-25 and Marrowgar-10. I would leave the Onslaught cloak alone until after you’re sitting on four-piece tier 10, and even then the Frost badge belt is probably the better immediate buy if you’re not likely to spend much time in ICC.

Enchant: Enchant Cloak — Major Agility. If you’re an engineer, Flexweave Underlay. If you’re a tailor, Swordguard Embroidery.

• Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape This is close to best-in-slot for most players; you’d only get better off an Insanity run in ToGC-25 or heroic Faction Gunships-25. Available for 50 Emblems of Frost.
• Shadowvault Slayer’s Cloak Expect a lot of competition for this, but if you get an ICC-25 PuG, you may see this off Faction Gunships.
• Shawl of Nerubian Silk Dropped by Marrowgar-10. Possibly a better option than either of the two cloaks above if you’re looking for hit and expertise (two stats that get increasingly difficult to find on ICC gear).
• Accursed Crawling Cape Dropped by the Devourer of Souls in normal Forge of Souls. A surprisingly good piece, full of meaty cat stats.
• Saronite Gargoyle Cloak Don’t bid on this over a plate DPS, but it’s dropped by Faction Gunships in ICC-10.
• Drape of the Drakerider Dropped by Razorscale-25, so be on the lookout if you get her as the weekly raid quest.
• Titan-Forged Cloak of Victory Available for 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.

Chest

Honestly? This is another slot that’s easy to call. If you’re going for the tier 8 bonus, get the tier 8 chest, and use that with the tier 8 helm until you can make the switch to four-piece tier 10. If you’ve outgrown tier 8, there are several great non-set pieces you can use until you can afford tier 10.

Enchant: Enchant Chest — Powerful Stats.

• Shadow Seeker’s Tunic Available for 95 Emblems of Frost. While this is slightly better than Ikfirus’, I’m really hesitant to say run out and buy it. As your gear improves, you may very well need the expertise from Ikfirus more, and Ikfirus is also a better crossover piece if you ever tank.
• Ikfirus’ Sack of Wonder Lovely for bears and great for cats as well. It’s a BoE drop off Faction Gunships-25, and while competition for it is keen, it’s a damn fine piece.
• Chestguard of the Frigid Noose Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-10.
• Lasherweave Raiment Available for 95 Emblems of Frost.
• Knightbane Carapace (Alliance)/Knightbane Carapace (Horde) A very fine piece. Leatherworking BoE from tier 9.
• Choking Hauberk Dropped by Marwyn in heroic Halls of Reflection.
• Malfurion’s Raiments of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Raiments of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 chest available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Malfurion’s Raiments of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Raiments of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 chest available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Robes Available for 95 Emblems of Frost or 13,200 honor and 770 arena points.
• Conqueror’s Nightsong Raiments Available for 58 Emblems of Conquest.
• Blackened Geist Ribs Dropped by the Captain’s chest in normal Halls of Reflection.

Bracers

It may not seem like there are a lot of options here, but even the cat’s second best-in-slot (heroic Toskk’s is best in slot) is relatively easy to get. If you’re not up to pugging ICC-25, the leatherworking BoE from Trial of the Crusader is a good alternative.

Enchant: Enchant Bracers — Greater Assault. If you’re a leatherworker, you’ll want to slap on Fur Lining — Attack Power instead.

• Toskk’s Maximized Wristguards Dropped by Deathbringer Saurfang-25. This will be a heavily competitive piece, but be on the lookout if you snag a PUG doing ICC’s first four bosses. Yes, this piece is named for the Toskk referenced earlier in this column!
• Bracers of Swift Death (Alliance)/Bracers of Swift Death (Horde) Leatherworking BoE from tier 9. Still an excellent piece.
• Chewed Leather Wristguards Dropped by Ick and Krick in heroic Pit of Saron.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Armwraps of Triumph Available for 43,400 honor.
• Armbands of the Wary Lookout Dropped by the Argent Confessor or Eadric in heroic Trial of the Champion.
• Mechanist’s Bindings Dropped by Flame Leviathan in Ulduar-25. Look for this if Flame Leviathan is the weekly raid quest on your realm.
• Titan-Forged Armwraps of Triumph Available for 15 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.

Gloves

Ferals in four-piece tier 10 usually switch out either the chest or gloves for a non-set piece (principally Aldriana’s Gloves of Secrecy off Rotface if you can get them), but (as always) it’s pretty individual to each player. Toravon has a chance to drop the tier gloves if you run VoA regularly.

Enchant: Enchant Gloves — Major Agility. If you’re an engineer, Hyperspeed Accelerators.

• Cat Burglar’s Grips Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
• Sanctified Lasherweave Handgrips Dropped by Toravon-25.
• Scourge Stranglers Dropped by Deathbringer Saurfang-10.
• Lasherweave Handgrips Available for 60 Emblems of Frost or dropped by Toravon-10.
• Malfurion’s Handgrips of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Handgrips of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 gloves, available for 45 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Malfurion’s Handgrips of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Handgrips of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 gloves, available for 30 Emblems of Triumph.
• Carpal Tunnelers Dropped by Marwyn in normal Halls of Reflection.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Gloves Available for 60 Emblems of Frost, 8,000 honor and 440 arena points, or dropped by Toravon/Koralon.
• Gloves of the Blind Stalker Available for 28 Emblems of Conquest.
• Gloves of the Argent Fanatic Dropped by the Argent Confessor or Eadric in normal Trial of the Champion.

Belt

Unless you can get a raid that clears Putricide for Astrylian’s Sutured Cinch (or, alternatively, Lady Deathwhisper for Soulthief’s, below), your best bet is the Frost emblem belt.

Enchant: Eternal Belt Buckle.

• Vengeful Noose Available for 60 Emblems of Frost. A very good piece, coming in third behind Astrylian’s Sutured Cinch (both the normal and heroic versions, the latter being best in slot) off Professor Putricide.
• Soulthief’s Braided Belt Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-10.
• Death-warmed Belt Leatherworking BoE.
• Flayer’s Black Belt Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in normal Pit of Saron.
• Belt of the Twilight Assassin Available for 28 Emblems of Conquest.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Belt of Triumph Available for 34,400 honor or dropped by Toravon/Koralon.
• Belt of Fierce Competition Dropped from the Champion’s Cache in normal Trial of the Champion.

Legs

You have a lot of options here, but you’re best off saving toward tier (not least because they contain the increasingly hard-to-find expertise).

Enchant: Icescale Leg Armor.

• Bladeborn Leggings Leatherworking BoE. This is one of the two melee leather recipes from Icecrown, and still hugely expensive to have made.
• Sanctified Lasherweave Legguards Dropped by Toravon-25
• Lasherweave Legguards Available for 95 Emblems of Frost or dropped by Toravon-10.
• Malfurion’s Legguards of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Legguards of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 legs available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Malfurion’s Legguards of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Legguards of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 legs available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Legguards Available for 95 Emblems of Frost, 13,200 honor and 770 arena points, or dropped by Toravon/Koralon.
• Shaggy Wyrmleather Leggings Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in normal Pit of Saron.
• Fleshwerk Leggings Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron. Yep, the normal mode version is better. Why? Unless you’re already at the hard armor penetration cap (unlikely while you’re gearing up), you’ll get more DPS out of the armor pen on the normal version than you will out of haste on the heroic version.
• Proto-Hide Leggings Dropped by Razorscale-25. Look for these if Razorscale’s the weekly raid quest.
• Leggings of Wavering Shadow Available for 39 Emblems of Conquest.
• Titan-Forged Leather Legguards of Triumph Available for 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
• Leggings of Brazen Trespass Dropped by Eadric in normal Trial of the Champion.

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Frankly, a lot of the desirability for the listed pieces depends on your spec and current level of +haste . If you are planning to raid on your resto druid, this is a bare-bones guide to what you need to look for:

• If you have 3/3 Celestial Focus and are below 735 haste, prioritize haste. Look for +haste pieces and gem Reckless Ametrines.
• If you have 3/3 Celestial Focus and are at or above 735 haste, you can either prioritize/gem spellpower or (much better) move points into more throughput talents in the restoration tree.
• If you don’t have 3/3 Celestial Focus and are below 856 haste, prioritize haste.
• If you don’t have 3/3 Celestial Focus and are at or above 856 haste, prioritize/gem spellpower. As you get new pieces, it may be necessary to gem or regem to stay around the haste cap.

Why do you need to worry about this? Long story short, haste reduces your global cooldown, allowing you to apply more HoTs to more players more quickly — and that’s something you need to keep in mind if you’re planning on raiding (particularly 25-man content). If you’re not planning on raiding at all, don’t drive yourself crazy trying to reach a cap that can be difficult even for raiding druids to reach, and just use your best judgment. If you need more mana regeneration, prioritize spirit over crit and haste. If you have four-piece tier 9, crit is really nice for you. And if you want to make things really simple for yourself — look for any piece with spellpower, haste and spirit. You can’t go wrong with these three stats.

A few notes before we start:

• I’m assuming you don’t have access to ICC-10 or -25, at least not on a regular basis. If you’re playing on a realm where bored players are pugging heroic Icecrown content, feel free to disregard all of the following list. Otherwise, my assumption is that you’re gearing a new restoration druid in order to raid (or at least make the content you’re doing easier). In many places, I have listed gear you can get from the first four bosses in Icecrown Citadel, because I got some feedback after the bear post from people saying that this content is frequently pugged as well. If you’re going further than that, Restokin had some excellent posts on balance and restoration gear available from the Crimson Halls and the Plagueworks.
• I’m assuming you probably have access to Onyxia, Vault of Archavon and (maybe) some ToC. Most servers have PUGs running this content fairly regularly (if not, feel free to start one). I’ve listed the ilevel 245, tier 9 pieces available if you get your hands on a Trophy of the Crusade. With many players upgrading to tier 10 right now, there aren’t as many players rolling on these.
• I’m not assuming you’re an arena star. PvP gear tends to be much less useful for trees than ferals, but you’ll find a few pieces here that you don’t need an arena rating to get. I’ve also listed a few Wrathful pieces that you might get off Toravon.
• You will find some caster DPS pieces here. I went back and forth for a long time over including more DPS-oriented pieces (namely, cloth and leather with hit) and finally decided to include a few of the better ones, mostly because a lot of them have gobs of haste. If there’s a piece without hit more easily available elsewhere, I generally left it off. DPS pieces also tend to lack spirit or MP5, and you need to be careful with this. If you pack your resto set full of pieces without these stats, your regen will suffer badly, so be careful.
• This is not a comprehensive list.
• I am a huge cheapskate. It’s a little easier and cheaper to gear a resto druid than a feral (there’s much less gear competition if you stick to leather), but you can still go hog-wild on BoE and Frost gear if you’ve a mind to do so. I’ve tried to point out when an expensive piece might be worth it, and when it might not be.
• For anyone without a very good Emblem of Frost income who wants to prioritize the order in which they get their pieces, I would spend badges first on the Vestments of Spruce and Fir (close to best in slot even for people raiding heroic ICC), and then — if you’re purchasing Primordial Saronite with Frost emblems — get the Blessed Cenarion Boots made. After that, it’s really up to you. Neither the tier 10 helm or shoulders is particularly compelling as a stand-alone piece, but I’m reluctant to advise people to run out and buy the legs and gloves, which have a chance to drop off Toravon.

Concerning tier bonuses

If you have four-piece tier 9, then crit is a pretty good stat for you. You will still need to worry about haste, but the abundance of crit on everything will do a lot more for you than it will do for druids in other gear.

Both the two-piece and four-piece tier 10 bonuses are extremely good for restoration, although they are more oriented toward a raid healer than a tank healer. If you’re going to go for the tier bonuses, buy the helm, shoulders, gloves and legs. The chest piece should be the Vestments of Spruce and Fir.

As with our bear post, if you have any combination of the following pieces, you should consider yourself well-geared.

Helm

Since the change to Gift of the Earthmother in patch 3.3, a number of helms have become less attractive, and this is a weird slot as a result. If you’re not at the soft haste cap, then the tier 8 helm is actually better than the ilevel 232, tier 9 helm.

Enchant Arcanum of Blissful Mending from Wyrmrest Accord revered is the classic choice, but if you have four-piece tier 9 or do a lot of tank healing, go with Arcanum of Burning Mysteries from Kirin Tor revered.

Meta Gem If you’re having mana issues, use the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond. If you’re not having mana issues, Ember Skyflare Diamond. You will probably want to read Tree Bark Jacket’s blog post on how this works vis-a-vis what your trinkets are.

• Helm of Abundant Growth (Alliance)/Mask of Abundant Growth (Horde) The ilevel 245 non-set spellpower helm available for 75 Emblems of Triumph.
• Lasherweave Helmet Available for 95 Emblems of Frost.
• Stormrage Crown Dropped by Onyxia-25.
• Stormrage Cover Dropped by Onyxia-10.
• Headpiece of Reconciliation If you get Sartharion Must Die! as a weekly raid quest and do the 25-man version, be on the lookout for this; it’s a really nice piece. It is, however, a hard-mode piece, so unless the raid’s bum-rushing a Sarth-2D or 3D, it won’t appear on the loot table.
• Conqueror’s Nightsong Headpiece The tier 8 helm. Yes, it’s better itemized than the tier 9 helm if you’re short on haste.
• Malfurion’s Headpiece of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Headpiece of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 helm available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Tattered Glacial-Woven Hood Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in normal Halls of Reflection.
• Sightless Crown of Ulmaas Dropped by Marwyn in heroic Halls of Reflection.
• Lifespark Visage If you get Flame Leviathan Must Die! as a weekly raid quest and do the 10-man version, look for this.
• Malfurion’s Headpiece of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Headpiece of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• Fallen Sentry’s Hood Dropped by Falric in normal Halls of Reflection.

Neck

I’m really trying my best to stay away from PvP pieces where I can, but there’s no way around it; unless you get lucky with a Marrowgar-25 drop, the top three slots outside of raiding are all Wrathful or Titan-Forged pieces.

• Bone Sentinel’s Amulet Dropped by Marrowgar-25. Note-perfect itemization for a resto druid, but be prepared for a lot of competition.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Pendant of Subjugation Dropped by Toravon or available for 52,200 honor. If you’re below the haste-cap, use this; if not, use the Deliverance piece below.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Pendant of Deliverance Dropped by Toravon or available for 52,500 honor.
• Titan-Forged Pendant of Ascendancy Available for 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
• Evoker’s Charm Available for 19 Emblems of Conquest.
• Heartbreak Charm If you were lucky enough to get this off the recent Love Is In the Air bosses, it’s identical to the Evoker’s Charm.
• Arcane Loops of Anger Dropped by the Devourer of Souls in heroic Forge of Souls.
  
• Love’s Prisoner Dropped by Bronjahm in heroic Forge of Souls.
• Freya’s Choker of Warding Another Flame Leviathan-25 piece.
• Symbol of Redemption Dropped by the Black Knight in heroic Trial of the Champion.

Shoulders

As with the helm, this is a really weird slot; the balance tier 10 shoulders are actually better than their restoration counterparts. If you’d like to stick to a restoration-oriented piece, my advice would be to pick up tier 9.

Enchant Greater Inscription of the Crag from Sons of Hodir exalted. If you have four-piece tier 9, you’ll want to use Greater Inscription of the Storm. Scribes will be using Master’s Inscription of the Crag or Master’s Inscription of the Storm.

• Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads These are a BoE zone drop from ICC-25, but, as with all BoE pieces from ICC, they’re pretty expensive. I would just save toward the tier 10 shoulders, or — if you can get your hands on a Trophy of the Crusade — buy the ilevel 245 shoulders. If you’re wondering why a non-haste piece is so high on this list, it’s easy; the meaty spellpower allocation in addition to the two sockets vaults it to the top.
• Malfurion’s Spaulders of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Spaulders of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 shoulders, available for 45 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Pauldrons of Revered Mortality (Alliance)/Mantle of Revered Mortality (Horde) The ilevel 245, non-set cloth shoulders.
• Lasherweave Mantle Available for 60 Emblems of Frost. These are not well-itemized in comparison to tier 9, which is why the 251 tier 10 barely clocks in above the 232 tier 9.
  
• Malfurion’s Spaulders of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Spaulders of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 shoulders, available for 30 Emblems of Triumph.
• Shoulders of the Fateful Accord (Alliance)/Epaulets of the Fateful Accord (Horde) The non-set, ilevel 245 leather shoulders.
• Titan-Forged Spaulders of Salvation Available for 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
• Very Fashionable Shoulders Dropped by Bronjahm in heroic Forge of Souls.
• Grim Lasher Shoulderguards Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in normal Halls of Reflection.
• Frayed Abomination Stitching Shoulders Dropped by Marwyn in normal Halls of Reflection.

Cloak

A lot of PUGs do make it to Deathbringer Saurfang, hence the inclusion of the first piece on our list. However, there’s a lot of competition for it.

Enchant Enchant Cloak — Greater Speed. While some people pick Enchant Cloak — Wisdom, the haste enchant is much more useful to almost everyone.

• Greatcloak of the Turned Champion Dropped by Deathbringer Saurfang in ICC-25. An excellent piece. The heroic version is best in slot.
• Volde’s Cloak of the Night Sky Available for 50 Emblems of Frost. To be frank, I wouldn’t spend your Frost emblems here; the Wrathful cloak below is really, really close to it.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Subjugation Quite a nice piece, but whether you pick up this or the spirit version below will depend on how badly you’re hurting for haste. Dropped by Toravon, or available for 52,200 honor.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Deliverance The spirit version of the above Wrathful cloak. Get this one instead of the Subjugation piece if you’re haste-capped. Dropped by Toravon or available for 52,200 honor.
• Drape of the Violet Tower This is the other Frost emblem cloak. Available for 50 Emblems of Frost.
• Titan-Forged Cloak of Ascendancy Available for 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
  
• Flowing Sapphiron Drape Dropped by Onyxia-25.
• Pennant Cloak Dropped by Sartharion-25.
• Disguise of the Kumiho Available for 25 Emblems of Valor.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Salvation Dropped by Toravon or available for 52,200 honor.
• Fluttering Sapphiron Drape Dropped by Onyxia-10.

Chest

This slot is interesting in that one of the restoration druid’s best in slot pieces (Vestments of Spruce and Fir, below) is available to anyone who can cough up the badges. After that, it’s a pretty long drop to the 251 tier 10 piece.

Enchant Enchant Chest — Powerful Stats

• Vestments of Spruce and Fire Available for 95 Emblems of Frost. A very fine piece that beats out everything else in the game, barring two Icecrown heroic pieces (both of which, regrettably, are cloth) and the heroic balance tier chest. If you’ve got this, don’t bother getting tier.
• Meteor Chaser’s Raiment Available for 95 Emblems of Frost. The cloth equivalent of the leather piece above. If you’ve got 95 Emblems of Frost just lying around, don’t get this (obviously) over the Vestments.
• Deathwhisper Raiment Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper in normal ICC-25. Again, a lot of PUG raids see this fight, and there’s generally not much competition for this if it drops.
• Ermine Coronation Robes Available for 95 Emblems of Frost. The other non-set cloth piece you should ignore in favor of the Vestments.
• Merlin’s Robe (Alliance)/Merlin’s Robe (Horde) One of the ilevel 245 Tailoring recipe available from Trial of the Crusader.
• Lasherweave Robes Available for 95 Emblems of Frost.
• Royal Moonshroud Robe (Alliance)/Royal Moonshroud Robe (Horde) The other ToC tailoring recipe. If you’re going to use a crafted piece to tide you over until you can get Vestments, use this one if you’re having mana issues. Use Merlin’s if you’re not.
• Lunar Eclipse Robes (Alliance)/Lunar Eclipse Robes (Horde) The ToC leatherworking spellpower chest. Yep, the tailoring equivalents are better.
• Chestguard of Broken Branches A surprisingly nice piece; this would be my pick if you’re looking for something inexpensive to tide you over until you get the Vestments of Spruce and Fir. Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in heroic Halls of Reflection.
• Malfurion’s Robes of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Robes of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 chest, available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Malfurion’s Robe of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Robe of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 restoration chest, available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• The Sanctum’s Flowing Vestments Dropped by Sartharion-25.
• Robes of the Cheating Heart Dropped by Bronjahm in normal Forge of Souls.
• Ancient Polar Bear Hide Dropped by Ick and Krick in heroic Pit of Saron.
• Mord’rethar Robes Dropped by the Devourer of Souls in heroic Forge of Souls.
• Embrace of Madness Dropped by the Black Knight in heroic Trial of the Champion.
  
• Phaelia’s Vestments of the Sprouting Seed A BoE drop from the Iron Council encounter in Ulduar-25. You’re not as likely to find this on the auction house these days, but I wanted to include them because they honor a famous druid player and blogger (Phaelia of Resto 4 Life). I just wish they had some haste on them.

Bracers

Even for people in heroic Icecrown, it’s a little disappointing to note that a Jaraxxus-25 drop (particularly its heroic version) is so close to being best in slot. I’m going to list them here just because you may have a shot at them from a ToC-25 PuG; leather spellpower pieces usually don’t get a lot of competition.

Enchant Enchant Bracers — Superior Spellpower

• Bracers of the Autumn Willow (Alliance)/Bindings of the Autumn Willow (Horde) Dropped by Jaraxxus-25. The heroic version is a hair’s breadth away from best in slot, and even the normal version is pretty sweet. If you manage to get a ToC-25 PuG, be on the lookout.
• Bracers of Dark Blessing Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-10.
• Bejeweled Wizard’s Bracers (Alliance)/Bejeweled Wizard’s Bracers (Horde) A tailoring BoE with the recipe dropped in ToC-25. It’s a DPS piece, but the socket, haste and meaty spellpower really add up here.
• Moonshadow Bracers (Alliance)/Moonshadow Armguards (Horde) A leatherworking BoE with the recipe dropped in ToC-25. If you’re having mana issues, use these. If not, use the tailoring equivalent above (Bejeweled).
• Royal Moonshroud Bracers (Alliance)/Royal Moonshroud Bracers (Horde) The tailoring counterpart of the Moonshadow piece above. Moonshadow is slightly better for us, so stick with the leather.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Armwraps of Salvation Dropped by Toravon or available for 43,400 honor.
• Unsullied Cuffs Dropped by Sartharion-25.
• The Lady’s Brittle Bracers A BoE drop from Lady Deathwhisper-25. The odds of finding this on the auction house still aren’t high at this point (too many DPS casters can find use for them), but they’re an okay piece to use. Too bad about the hit.
• Bracers of the Broodmother If you get Razorscale Must Die! as a weekly raid quest, keep an eye out for these.
• Wristguards of Subterranean Moss Dropped by Ick and Krick in normal Pit of Saron.
• Ghostly Wristwraps Zone drop in the new Icecrown 5-mans.

Gloves

This is one of those unfortunate slots without a lot of great options outside of raiding, but be careful before you dump emblems or gold into options other than tier; Toravon has a chance to drop both the tier gloves and legs.

Enchant Enchant Gloves — Exceptional Spellpower

• Handguards of Winter’s Respite Dropped by Marrowgar-25. This is a really nice piece, so keep an eye out for these (and try to snag a 25-man PUG) if your realm gets Lord Marrowgar Must Die! as a weekly raid.
  
• Sanctified Lasherweave Gauntlets Dropped by Toravon.
• Lasherweave Gauntlets Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
• Gunship Captain’s Mittens The odds of your getting these aren’t high because they’re a DPS piece, but they’re dropped from Faction Gunships in ICC-25.
• Gloves of Ambivalence One of the non-set cloth Emblem of Frost gloves, available for 60 Emblems of Frost. Honestly, just buy the tier.
• Gloves of False Gestures The other non-set cloth Emblem of Frost gloves, available for 60 Emblems of Frost. Why is this better than the Owl gloves below? The extra socket. They’re pretty close to each other all the same.
• Gloves of the Great Horned Owl The non-set leather Emblem of Frost gloves. Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
  
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Kodohide Gloves Dropped by Toravon.
• Malfurion’s Handguards of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Handguards of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 gloves available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Essence of Desire Dropped by the Devourer of Souls in heroic Forge of Souls.
• Malfurion’s Handguards of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Handguards of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 gloves available for 30 Emblems of Triumph.
• Suspiciously Soft Gloves Dropped by Marwyn in normal Halls of Reflection.
• Marwyn’s Macabre Fingertips Dropped by Falric in normal Halls of Reflection. What Falric is doing with Marwyn’s fingertips is best left to the imagination of a more corrupt person than myself.
• Handwraps of Surrendered Hopes Dropped by the Black Knight in normal Trial of the Champion.
• Gloves of Dismal Fortune Dropped by the second boss (Eadric or the Argent Confessor) in heroic Trial of the Champion.

Belt

As with a few previous slots, you can get some damn fine stuff if you’re willing to spend Frost emblems like a drunken pirate. Otherwise, your best bet is probably the leatherworking belt from tier 8.

Enchant Eternal Belt Buckle

• Circle of Ossus Available for 60 Emblems of Frost. A really lovely piece, but expensive.
• Crushing Coldwraith Belt As long as you’re pugging Marrowgar-25 for a shot at the gloves, keep an eye out for this as well. Unfortunately, the competition for it is likely to be pretty keen, and caster DPS will not appreciate your rolling on this.
• Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner Another to-die-for belt off Marrowgar, but this time off his 10-man version.
• Belt of Petrified Ivy Available for 60 Emblems of Frost. The leather equivalent of the Circle of Ossus, but really itemized more with balance in mind.
• Cord of Dark Suffering Dropped by Faction Gunships-10.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Belt of Salvation Dropped by Toravon. Otherwise, you have to have a personal and team rating of at least 1300 to buy this for 68,200 honor.
• Belt of Arctic Life A leatherworking BoE with the recipe dropped in Ulduar. Still a surprisingly good piece. If you get this made, it’ll tide you over for a while until you get a Frost belt or a raid drop.
• Braid of Salt and Fire Dropped by Ick and Krick in heroic Pit of Saron.
• Belt of the Living Thicket Available for 28 Emblems of Conquest.
• Embrace of the Leviathan Dropped by Flame Leviathan-25.
• Strip of Remorse Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in heroic Halls of Reflection.
• Binding of the Tranquil Glade Dropped by the Champion’s Cache in normal Trial of the Champion. A really well itemized piece.

As with any advice concerning the gloves slot, you may want to wait to see if Toravon coughs up the tier 10 legs for you before you spend a ton of gold or time on anything else.

Enchant Brilliant Spellthread

• Sanctified Lasherweave Legplates The ilevel 264, tier 10 pants. Dropped by Toravon.
• Leggings of Woven Death An Icecrown tailoring BoE. Very expensive to have made, but crammed full of useful stats (except, regrettably, spirit or MP5).
• Leggings of Unrelenting Blood If you can get an ICC-10 PUG that makes it to Deathbringer Saurfang, this is a really nice piece.
• Lightweave Leggings Another Icecrown tailoring BoE, and just as expensive as the first option listed. If you’re haste-capped or need more mana regeneration, go for these.
• Lasherweave Legplates The ilevel 251, tier 10 pants.
  
• Legwraps of Unleashed Nature The leatherworking equivalent of Lightweave Leggings. Lightweave is slightly better, as it gives you a little more spirit and a little less crit, but the pieces are virtually the same.
• Malfurion’s Leggings of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Leggings of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 legs available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Kodohide Legguards Dropped by Toravon.
• Malfurion’s Leggings of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Leggings of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 legs available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• Wildstrider Legguards Available for 39 Emblems of Conquest.
• Titan-Forged Leather Legguards of Salvation Available for 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
• Leggings of the Snowy Bramble Drops from the Champion’s Cache in heroic Trial of the Champion.
  
• Rimewoven Silks Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in normal Pit of Saron.

Boots

All hail a best in slot (well, pretty close to it, anyway) BoE item! If you’re going to dump money on anything, make it the boots.

Enchant Tuskarr’s Vitality is the way to go if you ever plan on raiding, and it can be helpful even for 5-man work. Otherwise, Enchant Boots — Greater Spirit.

• Blessed Cenarion Boots A leatherworking BoE from Icecrown. Hugely expensive to have made, but worth it; it’s not something you’d realistically expect to replace unless you managed to get the boots off heroic Festergut-25 or the ToGC-25 ones off Faction Champs.
• Sandals of Consecration The tailoring equivalent of Blessed Cenarion, but you can ignore them as you’re getting the leather ones made (right?).
• Boots of Unnatural Growth If you get an ICC-25 PuG, you may find these dropping off the Faction Gunship encounter, but they’re not as good as the Blessed Cenarion Boots.
• Boots of Fiery Resolution: If you get Flame Leviathian Must Die! as a weekly raid quest, try to find a 25-man PuG for a shot at these because they’re still pretty amazing.
• Boots of the Frozen Seed Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-10. Oriented more toward moonkin, but still a fine resto piece.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Boots of Salvation Dropped by Toravon. Otherwise, you’d better have 68,200 honor and a team/personal rating of 1400 in hand.
• Spellslinger’s Slippers (try saying that five times fast) If you’re hurting for money but still need something good in the boot slot, try to get this older tailoring BoE. Lots of meaty stats to be had here.
  
• Prelate’s Snowshoes Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron.
• Boots of Wintry Endurance Also an older BoE, but this time from leatherworking. You’ll get more out of the +haste on Spellslinger’s, however.
• Ice-Steeped Sandals Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in normal Pit of Saron.

Rings

This is definitely one of the easier slots to fill, if for no other reason than the existence of a great Triumph badge ring and the Ashen Verdict reputation ring.

Enchant If you’re an enchanter, you’ll want to slap Enchant Ring — Greater Spellpower on both.

• Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom You can get this even without raiding as long as you’re willing to bore yourself silly farming Icecrown Citadel trash.
• Marrowgar’s Frigid Eye This is a BoE drop from Lord Marrowgar, and whether you’ll find it on the auction house or not depends on your realm and circle of friends. Frankly, even though it’s a good piece I wouldn’t bother spending the gold on it, as there are plenty of good options here.
• Ring of Maddening Whispers Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-25. A good piece if you’re haste-capped.
• Ring of Rapid Ascent This drops from Faction Gunships in ICC-25, but it’s oriented more toward caster DPS. Expect stiff competition.
• Band of the Invoker The ilevel 245 ring available for 35 Emblems of Triumph. A very, very good piece.
• Runed Signet of the Kirin Tor As I wrote on the bear post, I’m not a big fan of the Kirin Tor rings, because they’re ridiculously expensive for what you get. But if you’ve got money to blow, this is a decent (albeit easily replaceable) option.
• Runed Loop of the Kirin Tor See above.
• Polished Dragonslayer’s Signet One of the rewards from the quest started by the Head of Onyxia (25-man).
• Band of Channeled Magic Available for 25 Emblems of Valor.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Band of Dominance Dropped by Toravon, or available for 52,200 honor.
• Glowing Ring of Reclamation Dropped by Flame Leviathan-25.
• Heartmender Circle The other caster ring available for 35 Emblems of Triumph, but not really oriented toward restoration druids.
• Polished Dragonslayer’s Signet One of the rewards from the quest started by the Head of Onyxia (10-man).
• Titan-Forged Band of Ascendancy Available for 15 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
  
• Wyrmrest Band Dropped by Sartharion-25. As above.
• Oath of Empress Zoe Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in heroic Halls of Reflection. Really not a druid piece, but if all else fails …

Trinkets

Blizzard is generally reluctant to make a lot of great trinket options available outside of raids, but you can limp along with badges pieces if needed. However, trinkets are hard to rank, and you should customize them to whatever your needs are at the time. If you’re having regen issues, you should prioritize anything with an MP5 use or proc (or, failing that, intellect, due to how mana regen from spirit scales with intellect). If you’re not, go for as much throughput as you can.

If you’re an alchemist and just starting out, you may get some use out of a Mercurial Alchemist Stone.

If you’re an engineer, you may get some use from a Noise Machine.

If you’re a jewelcrafter, you may get some use out of a Figurine — Sapphire Owl.

• Althor’s Abacus If you snag an ICC-25 PUG, be on the lookout for this lovely, lovely trinket off the Faction Gunships fight.
• Purified Lunar Dust Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
• Sliver of Pure Ice Dropped by Marrowgar-10. If you use the trinket on cooldown, it amounts to a little less than 68 MP5.
• Nevermelting Ice Crystal Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron. The use effect is definitely more of a DPS thing, but it could be useful for tank healing in hairy moments.
• Je’Tze’s Bell A world-drop BoE. Much less expensive than it used to be, and still useful.
• Ephemeral Snowflake: Dropped by Marwyn in heroic Halls of Reflection. Yes, it returns mana on EVERY HoT tick!
• Darkmoon Card: Illusion Mostly useful for the spellpower, as the use effect isn’t too worthwhile in any advanced content.
• Tears of the Vanquished Dropped by the Black Knight in normal Trial of the Champion.
• The Egg of Mortal Essence Available for 40 Emblems of Heroism.
• Soul Preserver Dropped by the Dark Runed Chest (i.e., Mal’Ganis) in normal Culling of Stratholme.
• Talisman of Resurgence This is a lot better for other healing classes than it is for us, but it’s usable in a pinch. Available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• Darkmoon Card: Greatness Because of how mana regeneration scales from intellect, this is actually a better card for us than the spirit version.
• Spark of Life Dropped by Sjonnir in heroic Halls of Stone.
• Shiny Shard of the Scale Dropped by Onyxia-25. On its own, it’s nothing more than a chunk (albeit a large one) of MP5. If you manage to get Shiny Shard of the Flame as well, you get a 250 spellpower bonus and a free 2.5-3k heal on occasion. Obviously, the heal proc is less useful to us than to healers more reliant on direct heals, but I thought I’d mention it.
• Purified Shard of the Scale Dropped by Onyxia-10. As above.

Staves

As a general rule, you’ll get more out of using a 1H weapon and offhand than you will out of a staff, but this gets complicated if you’re hurting for haste. Fact is, most of the really good haste weapons are staves.

Enchant Enchant Staff — Greater Spellpower if you have a staff.

• Mag’hari Chieftain’s Staff If you find an ICC-10 PUG that can make it all the way to Deathbringer Saurfang, look for this.
• Engraved Gargoyle Femur Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron. It’s got hit on it, so don’t go for this ahead of a caster DPS.
• Unspeakable Secret Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in normal Pit of Saron.
• Blood Boil Lancet Dropped by the Devourer of Souls in normal Forge of Souls.
• Staff of Restraint Keep an eye out for this if you get Sartharion Must Die! as a weekly and can snag a 25-man PUG.
• Staff of Draconic Combat Dropped by the Cache of Eregos in heroic Oculus.

1H weapons

If you’re just starting out, your best bets are drops from the new Icecrown 5-mans and possibly Onyxia; everything else is going to be pretty competitive (ICC drops) or pretty expensive (Battered Hilt).

Enchant: Enchant Weapon — Mighty Spellpower

• Frozen Bonespike In that wonderful, mythical Marrowgar-25 PUG where you get to win everything you want off the big galoot, this is your best bet for a one-hander (even though — barf — there’s crit on it).
• Hammer of Purified Flame One of the rewards from the Battered Hilt quest line, and very lovely. It’s equally expensive.
• Midnight Sun If you can get an ICC-10 PUG, this drops off of Faction Gunships.
• Honed Fang of the Mystics Dropped by Onyxia-25.
• Guiding Star If you get Razorscale Must Die! as a weekly, look for this.
• Sharpened Fang of the Mystics Dropped by Onyxia-10.
• Surgeon’s Needle Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in heroic Pit of Saron.
• Spectral Kris Dropped by the Black Knight in heroic Trial of the Champion.
• Chilled Heart of the Glacier Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in normal Halls of Reflection.
• Bone Golem Scapula Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in normal Halls of Reflection.
• Mariel’s Sorrow Dropped by the second boss (Eadric or Argent Confessor) in heroic Trial of the Champion.
• Dagger of Lunar Purity (Alliance)/Scalpel of the Royal Apothecary (Horde) Available for 25 Champion’s Seals from city quartermasters at the Argent Tournament.
• Titansteel Guardian A blacksmithing BoE.
• War Mace of Unrequited Love Dropped by Keristrasza in heroic Nexus.

Offhand

Honestly, there aren’t really a ton of well-itemized offhands for us out there, and almost everything drops in a raid anyway.

• Shriveled Heart Dropped by the Captain’s Chest in heroic Halls of Reflection.
• Antediluvian Cornerstone Grimoire Dropped by Onyxia-25.
• Handbook of Obscure Remedies Available for 25 Emblems of Heroism. Guess what yours truly had to buy recently when Trauma dropped?
• Temple Crystal Fragment Dropped by Novos the Summoner in heroic Drak’tharon Keep.
• Faces of Doom A BoE from Inscription.
• Prison Manifest A BoE zone drop from heroic Violet Hold.

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2. WoW Druid Guide: Gearing a new bear at 80 by Allison Robert When we first started out, I split...
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When we first started out, I split gear into categories like best drop, best reputation piece, best quest piece, etc., and I don’t think it’s necessary to do that anymore. It’s so much easier to get high-quality gear by running dungeons or hunting around for some crafted drops or PvP pieces. In particular, it needs to be said that a lot of really good bear pieces can be had from PvP. If you’ve got a pile of Stone Keeper’s Shards lying around (and many players do at this point), buy Wintergrasp Commendations with them when your faction has Wintergrasp, convert them to honor on your druid, and voila — you’ve got currency for some ridiculously good pieces.

A few notes before we start:

• I’m assuming you don’t have access to ICC-10 or -25, at least not on a regular basis. For all I know, maybe you play on a realm where bored players are pugging heroic Lich King-25, but that’s not the situation most bears new to 80 will be in. When it comes to pugging raids, tanks tend to be subjected to more scrutiny than other players, and it’s my assumption that you are interested in gearing a bear in order to tank rather than looking for pieces relevant to content you’re already doing.
• I’m assuming you probably have access to Onyxia, Vault of Archavon and (maybe) some ToC. Most servers have PUGs running this content fairly regularly (if not, start one!). Trial of the Crusader is a sticky wicket, but after waffling over my “Must not assume they’re raiding! Must not assume they’re raiding!” rule, I’ve compromised and listed the ilevel 245, tier 9 pieces available if you get your hands on a Trophy of the Crusade. With many players upgrading to tier 10 right now, there is much less competition for these.
• I’m not assuming you’re an arena star: Everyone can get Relentless and Furious gear these days with a little elbow grease, but Wrathful set pieces still require an arena rating to get, so screw that.
• This is not a comprehensive list. There are a lot of PvP pieces here, but I’ve listed only the Furious or above pieces. I think it’s a waste of time to grind honor toward anything below that.
• I am a huge cheapskate. I’ve pointed out alternatives to the more expensive choices where possible. The only exception to this is the weapon slot, which is problematic if you don’t or can’t raid. If you’re going to drop money anywhere, make it here and/or the boot and chest slots.
• For anyone without a very good Emblem of Frost income who wants to prioritize the order in which they get their pieces, I would buy the cloak first (you won’t replace it until well into Cataclysm), then the idol, and then the gloves, legs, helm and shoulders. If you’re running Vault of Archavon every week, you may want to buy the head and shoulders first, as Toravon has a chance to drop the gloves and legs.

A note on set bonuses

As with just about any tier of content you could name, non-set pieces may be better than their tier-set counterparts on an individual basis. A lot of the attraction of a tier piece lies in how good the corresponding set bonuses are. Tier 10 bonuses for bears are very, very good; the four-piece is essentially an additional Barkskin every minute, and the two-piece is a meaty damage boost to both single-target and AoE threat. I highly recommend getting the four-piece when you can and using an Ikfirus’s Sack of Wonder for the chest.

By contrast, tier 9 is take-it-or-leave-it territory, especially if you only have access to the ilevel 232 version. The four-piece bonus to Barkskin is nice if you find yourself tanking for any PUG raids at all, but that’s really about it. Don’t bother gearing around retaining it.

No matter what you do, if you have any combination of the following, you should consider yourself well geared.

Helm

To be frank, there aren’t a lot of outstanding options in this slot outside of raids. Fortunately, every option allows you to socket a meta gem, and the top six options are relatively close to each other.

Enchant: Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector (requires Argent Crusade revered)

Meta Gem: Austere Earthsiege Diamond

• Lasherweave Headguard: Available for 95 Emblems of Frost.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Helm: Available for 95 Emblems of Frost or 13,200 honor and 770 arena points.
• Runetotem’s Headguard of Triumph/Malfurion’s Headguard of Triumph: The ilevel 245, tier 9 head available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Stormrage Coverlet: Dropped by Onyxia-25.
• Hood of Lethal Intent/Mask of Lethal Intent: The ilevel 245 non-set melee leather helm available for 75 Emblems of Triumph.
• Furious Gladiator’s Dragonhide Helm: Available for 75 Emblems of Triumph or 54,500 honor.
• Malfurion’s Headguard of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Headguard of Triumph (Horde): The ilevel 232, tier 9 helm available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• Stormrage Helm: Dropped by Onyxia-10.
• Frayed Scoundrel’s Cap: Dropped by Devourer of Souls in heroic Forge of Souls.
• Mask of Distant Memory: Dropped by the Black Knight in heroic Trial of the Champion.

Neck

I was surprised to discover just how empty this slot still is; all of the really worthwhile stuff comes from raid. Actually, for the top pick, that’s still kinda true.

• Wodin’s Lucky Necklace: A BoE drop from ICC-25, but availability varies by realm. A raiding guild that’s been in ICC for a while is probably sick of seeing these things drop, so just shop around.
• Eskhandar’s Links: Dropped by Onyxia-25. Both this and the 10-man version have some nice +expertise, which can be tough for bears to get.
• Eskhandar’s Choker: Dropped by Onyxia-10.
• Shard of the Crystal Forest: Available for 19 Emblems of Conquest.
• Titanium Earthguard Chain: Jewelcrafting BoE.
• Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant: Available from the questline started by the Head of Onyxia drop from (where else?) Onyxia.

Shoulders

Assuming you can get an Ikfirus’ Sack of Wonder (see below), you’ll want to buy the tier shoulders eventually in the interests of rocking four-piece tier 10. However, until that point, the Titan-Forged shoulders are an excellent choice.

Enchant: You have a few different options here. The classic tanking choice would be Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle from Sons of Hodir exalted (or, if you’re a scribe, Master’s Inscription of the Pinnacle), but if you prefer more health, you can use Greater Inscription of the Gladiator (available for 10,000 honor).

If you want to go for a more offensively-oriented enchant, use Greater Inscription of the Axe from Sons of Hodir exalted (or Master’s Inscription of the Axe for scribes).

• Titan-Forged Spaulders of Triumph: Available for 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. A really impressive piece, and pretty close to the ToGC-25 heroic tier shoulders, and even the ICC-10H shoulders.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Spaulders: Available for 60 Emblems of Frost or 10,550 honor and 600 arena points.
• Lasherweave Shoulderpads: Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
• Duskstalker Pauldrons (Alliance)/Duskstalker Shoulderpads (Horde): The ilevel 245, non-set melee leather shoulders available for 45 Emblems of Triumph.
• Malfurion’s Shoulderpads of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Shoulderpads of Triumph (Horde): The ilevel 245, tier 9 shoulders available for 45 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Furious Gladiator’s Dragonhide Spaulders: Available for 50 Emblems of Triumph or 34,700 honor.
• Malfurion’s Shoulderpads of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Shoulderpads of Conquest (Horde): The ilevel 232, tier 9 shoulders available for 30 Emblems of Triumph.
• Spaulders of Black Betrayal: Dropped by Falric in heroic Halls of Reflection.

Cloak

This slot’s a little on the odd side. The bear’s best-in-slot piece is available for Frost badges (and second best-in-slot, as well) — and then after that, it’s a damn long drop to number three unless you have options from raids.

Enchant: Enchant Cloak — Major Agility. If you’re an engineer, you’ll want a Flexweave Underlay here.

• Sentinel’s Winter Cloak: Available for 50 Emblems of Frost. Armor, baby, armor! This is the best cloak in the game for bears, period. Get this and wear it with pride.
• Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape: Available for 50 Emblems of Frost. Yes, this would be the melee DPS frost emblem cloak. While the Sentinel’s Cloak is waaaaaaay ahead, I will grudgingly allow you to buy this, slap an agility enchant on it, and use it as both a hybrid bear/cat cloak if your Frost emblem income is on the smallish side.
• Titan-Forged Cloak of Victory: Available for 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. What makes this ilevel 245 piece better than the 264 Wrathful piece below? See that socket?
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory: Available for 52,200 honor.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Triumph: This one exchanges the Victory cloak’s +hit for +crit. If you’re already close to or over the +hit cap (263 hit), get this instead of VIctory.
• Gale-Proof Cloak: If you can find a PUG bum-rushing a Sarth-10 3D kill, this is a good (albeit early) piece.
• Platinum Mesh Cloak: Available for 25 Emblems of Valor.
• Eerie Runeblade Polisher: If all else fails, you can try for this zone drop from normal Halls of Reflection, but the +parry on it is obviously wasted on a bear.

Chest

Don’t buy the tier chest piece. It’s not that it’s a bad piece, but the non-set pieces are just so friggin’ wonderful that the tier piece is a waste of emblems.

Enchant: Enchant Chest — Powerful Stats.

• Ikfirus’ Sack of Wonder: This is amazing. It’s a BoE drop from the easiest “boss” in ICC-25, Faction Gunships. The odds of finding a druid or rogue from another raid willing to sell this to you are small, but try for it anyway. Incidentally, the heroic version is best in slot (and thus naturally refuses to drop for me). Bribe everyone on your server, break hearts, punt gnomes, do whatever you have to do, but get one.
• Shadow Seeker’s Tunic: Available for 95 Emblems of Frost. Ikfirus has definitely gotten more press than the badge piece, but that’s got a lot to do with the scarcity of +hit and particularly +expertise on Icecrown leather. In the interests of full disclosure, Shadow Seeker’s is ever so slightly better than the ilevel 264 Ikfirus if you compare the two in a vacuum, but you’ll almost certainly still want the latter if for no other reason than getting closer to the hard +expertise cap (56).
• Lasherweave Raiment: Why are you looking at this? You’re wasting valuable time that could be spent getting a Sack! It’s available for 95 Emblems of Frost if you insist on buying it, but I will be very disappointed in you if you do.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Robes: Available for 95 Emblems of Frost or 13,200 honor and 770 arena points. Gee, that sounds like a lot of trouble to go farm up. Why don’t you go buy a Sack?
• Knightbane Carapace (Alliance)/Knightbane Carapace (Horde): Leatherworking BoE from tier 9. It’s quite good, but still pretty expensive to have made. If I were you, I’d put your money toward a Sack.
• Malfurion’s Raiments of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Raiments of Triumph (Horde): The ilevel 245, tier 9 chest, and I am extremely put out that you are sill here reading this instead of going out and getting a Sack.
• Furious Gladiator’s Dragonhide Robes: Available for 75 Emblems of Triumph or 54,500 honor. Sackety-sack sack.
• Malfurion’s Raiments of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Raiments of Conquest (Horde): The ilevel 232, tier 9 chest, available for 50 Emblems of Triumph. Saaaaaaaaaaaack.
• Choking Hauberk: Drops from Marwyn in heroic Halls of Reflection. While you’re killing him, ask him if he knows anyone with a Sack to sell.
• Blackened Geist Ribs: Drops from the Captain’s Chest in normal Halls of Reflection, and WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE INSTEAD OF AT YOUR SERVER’S AUCTION HOUSE?

Bracers

There aren’t a lot of compelling pieces in this slot, but fortunately the really good pieces are all fairly easy to get.

Enchant: Enchant Bracers — Major Stamina. If you’re a leatherworker, use Fur Lining — Stamina.

• Toskk’s Maximized Wristguards: I’m going to break my self-imposed rule concerning raid loot to point these out. They’re named for the player who pioneered Toskk’s DPS gear method for feral druids. They drop from Deathbringer Saurfang-25 (the heroic version is best-in-slot for bears … and, judging from the number of rolls I see, everyone else too), and because a lot of PUGs do make it that far (and because they honor a famous druid player), I really wanted to note that here. On a somewhat uglier note, be prepared for a lot of competition.
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Armwraps of Triumph: A really fantastic PvP piece that’s within a whisper of Toskk’s. It’ll run you 43,400 honor.
• Bracers of Swift Death (Alliance)/Bracers of Swift Death (Horde): These are a lot cheaper than they used to be, but if gold is a problem, just farm up the honor for the Wrathful bracers.
• Chewed Leather Wristguards: Drops from Ick and Krick in heroic Pit of Saron. Good for a pinch, but they are far below the quality of the above three pieces.

Gloves

I would ordinarily recommend making the gloves the first tier 10 piece you buy, but both the gloves and the legs have a chance to drop off Toravon. I’m a firm believer in Murphy’s Law, so I’m a little ambivalent over recommending that you dump badges into a piece that may very well drop off your weekly VoA run. This one’s up to you.

Enchant: Enchant Gloves — Major Agility, or Reticulated Armor Webbing if you’re an engineer.

• Cat Burglar’s Grips: Available for 60 Emblems of Frost, but don’t bother. Buy the tier instead.
• Lasherweave Handgrips: The tier gloves are really lovely. Available for 60 Emblems of Frost, or (more rarely) dropped by Toravon.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Gloves: Dropped by Koralon and Toravon, and also available for 60 Emblems of Frost or 8,000 honor and 440 arena points.
• Malfurion’s Handgrips of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Handggrips of Triumph (Horde): The ilevel 245, tier 9 gloves, available for 45 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Furious Gladiator’s Dragonhide Gloves: Dropped by Emalon and Koralon, and also available for 50 Emblems of Triumph or 43,300 honor.
• Malfurion’s Handgrips of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Handgrips of Conquest (Horde): The ilevel 232, tier 9 gloves, available for 30 Emblems of Triumph.
• Gloves of the Argent Fanatic: Drops from Eadric/Argent Confessor’s cache (i.e. second boss) in normal Trial of the Champion.
• Carpal Tunnelers: Frankly, these aren’t that great for a bear, but they’ll tide you over until you get something better. Drops from Marwyn in normal Halls of Reflection.

Belt

Another slot with a PvP piece playing a starring role!

Enchant: Not an enchant as such, but you’ll want an Eternal Belt Buckle.

• Vengeful Noose: Available for 60 Emblems of Frost. This is another piece I would really hesitate to drop the badges on, however. The Wrathful belt is pretty close to them.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Belt of Triumph: Yep, folks, this isn’t that far off either. Drops from Koralon and Toravon, or available for 34,100 honor. Honestly, I’d just farm toward the Wrathful belt.
• Death-warmed Belt: Leatherworking BoE.
• Belt of the Twilight Assassin: Available for 28 Emblems of Conquest.
• Flayer’s Black Belt: Drops from Forgemaster Garfrost in normal Pit of Saron.

Legs

As stated earlier, these have a chance to drop off Toravon, and so I’m a little antsy over recommending that you run out and buy them with your Frost Emblems as a result. However, the tier 10 legs are also very good, so if they drop off Toravon the week after you dump 95 badges into them, try not to scream.

Enchant: Frosthide Leg Armor.

• Bladeborn Leggings: Leatherworking BoE. Better as an individual piece than the ilevel 251 tier legs, but hellishly expensive to have made. And you do have an Ikfirus, right? Just buy the tier.
• Lasherweave Legguards: Available for 95 Emblems of Frost.
• Relentless Gladiator’s Dragonhide Legguards: Dropped by Koralon and Toravon, or available for 95 Emblems of Frost or 13,200 honor and 770 arena points.
• Malfurion’s Leggings of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Legguards of Triumph (Horde): The ilevel 245, tier 9 legs, available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
• Titan-Forged Leather Legguards of Triumph: Available for 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
• Furious Gladiator’s Dragonhide Legguards: Dropped by Emalon and Koralon, or available for 75 Emblems of Triumph or 34,700 honor.
• Malfurion’s Legguards of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem’s Legguards of Conquest (Horde): Available for 40 Emblems of Triumph.
• Leggings of Wavering Shadow: Available for 39 Emblems of Conquest.
• Fleshwerk Leggings: Drops from Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron.

Feet

Not a slot with a lot of options, but the ones you’ve got are very good.

Enchant: In general, Enchant Boots — Tuskarr’s Vitality is the way to go. If you’re really hurting for avoidance, try Enchant Boots — Superior Agility. If you want more health, Enchant Boots — Greater Fortitude.

• Footpads of Impending Death: Leatherworking BoE. Like the Bladeborn Leggings (above), these will be hellishly expensive to have made. Unlike the leggings, they don’t interfere with your ability to get a tier bonus, and they are definitely worth getting unless you’re in a guild that’s farming heroic Marrowgar-25 (who drops Frostbitten Fur Boots, the bear’s best-in-slot — but Footpads of Impending Death are a close number two).
• Relentless Gladiator’s Boots of Triumph: Dropped by Koralon and Toravon, or available for 34,100 honor.
• Footpads of Silence: Another Leatherworking BoE, and considerably cheaper than their 264 brother (but, if it were me, I’d just farm the Wrathful boots rather than spend the money).
• Treads of Dismal Fortune: Dropped by the Black Knight in heroic Trial of the Champion.
• Blighted Leather Footpads: Drops in the Captain’s Chest in heroic Halls of Reflection.

Rings

The easiest combination to swing out of the following will be the Ashen Verdict reputation ring (provided you can get to friendly or better with them, and that’s quick) and a Clutch of Fortification.

Enchant: If you’re an enchanter, you’ll want to slap Enchant Ring — Stamina on both.

• Ashen Band of Endless Courage: You do have to step inside Icecrown Citadel for this one, but you don’t ever have to hit a boss to farm up the ilevel 277 reputation ring. I’ll grant that farming Ashen Verdict reputation is a fairly boring way to experience an otherwise engaging and interesting raid.
• Harbinger’s Bone Band: An Icecrown Citadel BoE zone drop. Check the auction house, or ask around your realm to see if anyone’s willing to sell it.
• Signifed Ring of Binding: Dropped by Onyxia-25. A surprisingly good piece, not least because of the meaty armor allocation — and you may find use for the resistance at some point down the line.
• Clutch of Fortification: Available for 35 Emblems of Triumph.
• Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance: The cat reputation ring is a decent hybrid piece if you switch between the two specs frequently.
• Runed Ring of Binding: Dropped by Onyxia-10. The 10-man version of the ring described above.
• The Leviathan’s Coil: I wouldn’t ordinarily list this one because it’s a raid drop, but if you get Razorscale Must Die! as a weekly raid quest on your realm, you’ll be going through Flame Leviathan to get to her. This is still an extremely good bear ring.
• Runed Band of the Kirin Tor: I am not fond of these rings (thousands of gold for what amounts to a free hearthstone isn’t worth it, in my humble opinion), but this is another OK hybrid piece if you switch between bear and cat frequently.
• Signet of Winter: You may occasionally find this Ulduar BoE on the auction house, but I would not go looking for it over any of the other pieces listed here due to the +parry on it.

Trinkets

Trinkets are hard to rank, and it’s a tough slot to fill outside of raids. Ironically, even in raids it’s the hardest slot to fill, because everyone and his brother is going to be after them. You may want to try getting as many of the following as possible, and simply switching them in and out to suit different fights.

If you’re a jewelcrafter, you will want to make both a Figurine: Monarch Crab and a Figurine: Ruby Hare.

Alchemists will want to make an Indestructible Alchemist’s Stone.

Engineers will want to make a Sonic Booster, which is especially helpful because it helps with threat generation in addition to being a stamina boost.

• Corroded Skeleton Key: Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
• Glyph of Indomitability: Available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
• The Black Heart: Dropped by the Black Knight in normal Trial of the Champion.
• Darkmoon Card: Greatness: Still amazing, and an equally good hybrid piece for cat DPS. Accept no substitutes.
• Essence of Gossamer: Dropped by Hadronox in heroic Azjol-Nerub.
• Ick’s Rotting Thumb: Dropped by Ick and Krick in heroic Pit of Saron. Raw dodge is not as useful to us as agility (hence ranking this below DMC:G), and the use effect is so-so, but a good piece if your dodge isn’t as high as you’d like.

Weapon

The weapon is by far the biggest nuisance. With the introduction of the Battered Hilt/Quel’dalar questline, the #1 slot for non-raid weapons is pretty easy to pick, but it’ll require a lot of luck or a lot of gold on your part.

Sorry, folks — there’s no real way to cheap out on this one. If you have a lousy weapon, then unless the rest of your gear is jaw-droppingly good, you’re probably going to have threat issues versus geared DPS. The bear’s unfortunate dependence on weapons is something we’ve talked about earlier (and it should get fixed with the stat changes in Cataclysm), and I would really recommend trying to get a PUG raid for somewhere if for no other reason than getting a decent weapon.

Enchant: Mongoose.

• Lightborn Spire: Reward from the Battered Hilt quest line. Very, very expensive, but the quest line alone is worth it. If you don’t have the money to shell out for one of these, then either hope for a lucky roll while you’re running the Icecrown heroics, or try solo farming the first pull in heroic Forge of Souls (doable even for a bear in mediocre gear; just Root one of the skeletons if you can’t tank them both). It’s probably going to be long and boring, but at least you won’t face the agony of losing Hilts to players who respond, “LOL, it’s the third one I’ve gotten.”
• Reinforced Thunderstrike: Dropped by Onyxia-25.
• Reclaimed Thunderstrike: Dropped by Onyxia-10.
• Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon: Dropped by Marwyn in heroic Halls of Reflection.
• Marrowstrike: Dropped by Argent Confessor Paletress in heroic Trial of the Champion.
• Silvery Sylvan Stave (Alliance)/Staff of Feral Furies (Horde): Available for 25 Champion’s Seals at the Argent Tournament. Due to the armor on it, this tends to rank above a few Naxx pieces and technically outranks Marrowstrike, but Marrowstrike still beats it hands down for threat generation.

Idol

Idol of the Crying Moon is really fantastic, but there’s no denying that Lacerate-stacking is more suited to single-target tanking. For 5-man tanking or anything where you’ve got to worry about AoE, Mutilation is the top pick, but Corruptor’s not too far behind (and is even a slightly greater contribution to Time To Live) assuming you’re using Mangle on cooldown.

• Idol of the Crying Moon: Available for 30 Emblems of Frost.
• Idol of Mutilation: Available for 25 Emblems of Triumph.
• Idol of the Corruptor: Available for 19 Emblems of Conquest.

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World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

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2. Gearing your Feral (bear) Druid at 80 by Allison Robert @ wowinsider As stated on our previous...
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Like I think most people did, I went absolutely crazy when I first discovered the ability to customize my game; at least, I try to console my ego by thinking that. I grabbed anything and everything that I thought might be even remotely useful at the time. Heck, I didn’t even really know what half of the things I downloaded really did. I just knew that I was told lots of people were using them, meaning they had to be good. Getting your screen bogged down with “useless” information and addons is a pretty easy trap to fall into. Information in this game in a good thing, but too much of it can ruin your ability to play worse than just going with the standard UI. Not that I have anything against the standard UI, but there are so many ways that it can be made better. Not to mention the clutter. Your UI is your workspace. Like any workspace, you want it to be as neat and organized as possible. I’m probably the last person who should be telling people this, since I seem to thrive in chaos and am one of the most disorganized people in the world, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

What to do? How to tell the good mods from the bad? There aren’t any cut-and-dry answers to these questions; everyone will be more accustomed to different tools, but there are still some guidelines and basic addons that every raider should try and get.

Basics on choosing your mod

First and foremost, it is important to make sure that every addon you use has a specific function. This may seem silly, but it’s a pretty big deal and easy to forget at times. Before you download anything, make sure you know exactly what you are going to use it for. Ask yourself, do you really need an addon to do that for you? Do you already have an addon that can be tweaked to perform the same function? There are several addons out there that perform multiple tasks if you set them up properly. Having redundant addons more often than not won’t do anything more than bog down your machine. Always, always, always be 110% positive that you need to have an addon before you get it.

Second, shop around. Just as with buying a car, you don’t want to jump into the first shiny thing you see and drive off the lot. Instead you want to take your time, view all of the options and make sure you are choosing what fits your play style. An addon’s being popular doesn’t make it the best nor the right choice for you. Look at how easy to configure the addon is. There are some superb addons out there that are extremely popular but that also require a heavy investment in setting up properly. Also consider memory usage. For the most part, addons are fairly light, but there are some that can seriously slow down your computer, resulting in game play issues. Especially if you are running on an older machine, be aware of how much of a drain any addon is going to be on your system.

Last but not least is keeping an eye on clutter. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve already mentioned this part by now, but you can bet it won’t be the last time it happens. Clutter is the easiest of things to get trapped into. You start by finding one useful mod, then another, and another, and another and soon your whole screen is nothing but a first-grader’s art project. Avoid this as much as possible; I cannot stress that enough. Look for any means to consolidate as many functions into a single, easy-to-manage mod as you can. Find ways to hide or disable mods that aren’t important during the heat of a battle. For real, you don’t need to have Recount up and running in the middle of a boss fight. There will be plenty of time to look at it once it’s dead.

Basic mods useful for raiding

Some guilds will have their own required mods; some guilds won’t care what you use. Some people will prefer mod A over mod B. At the end of the day, though, there are certain basic raiding functions that are made thousands of times easier by common mods. Here’s a list of some to look into.

Deadly Boss Mods/BigWigs/etc. These mods will make any raider’s list without question. They are the cream of the crop when it comes to getting that need to know information out quickly and in an easy-to-read format. Boss mods cover every thing from ability timers to phase changes to raid warnings for incoming nastiness to marking important players. All of this is done automatically and with minimal setup. Which mod you choose to use is entirely up to your personal preference. DBM is probably the most commonly used mod, but that isn’t to say it is the best hands down. Even if you use nothing else, use one of these mods. They will make your raiding life so much easier.

X-perl/PitBull/Shadowed/etc. Unit frame mods are not a requirement by any means, but they can certainly make life a lot simpler for any WoW player out there, not just raiders. There are loads of diversity when it comes to altering your unit frames, so I would heavily suggest doing some exploring into all of the options out there before settling down.. This type of mod is great for helping to track buffs and debuffs on yourself and other players. Not only that, but the ability to re-size, move, sticky or adjust just about everything under the sun is a great utility that cannot be passed up. One really important thing to remember is that this is probably going to eat the most of your memory by far. Some of the unit frame mods out there can end up being quite large, so be careful that you don’t go overboard and end up lagging yourself to uselessness.

Grid/Clique/VuhDo/etc. While these are also unit frame mods to an extent, they usually operate entirely different from the group above. Mostly these mods are the go-to additions for healers, but they are great for any raiding class or spec, to be honest. They offer great consolidation when it comes to party/raid frames and offer amazing indicators for a variety of effects such as debuffs, buffs and HoTs. One of their best aspects is the ability to configure click or mouse-over macros seamlessly for a variety of abilities or commands. This is positively fantastic for using things like Remove Curse, Abolish Poison and even Innervate, as you can quickly cast the spell on the go without the need to actually select the target. That’s a huge plus for helping to increase your casting up time on a boss so you don’t have to waste time fumbling around with targeting. You just click and go. While I don’t want to suggest any as being better than the other nor discourage people from shopping around, I have to lend my support to VuhDo in this category. In my experience, I’ve found VuhDo to be the easiest to use for beginners and the easiest to customize. It offers loads of box options — not to say the others don’t too — that can be moved, re-sized and everything else super-efficiently. The true beauty of VuhDo, though, is how simple it is to create click macros for all of your abilities. It has a simple interface for every single action, with a wide variety of modifiers ranging from shift to left and right clicks. If writing macros isn’t your thing, then I would highly suggesting looking into getting VuhDo.

Omen The bread and butter of threat meters out there. There are certainly other options to take a look at, but Omen really is the current staple, and I haven’t come across anything fancy with other mods to cause me to switch. Knowing your threat on a target is paramount to success as a DPS in numerous ways. Simply put, this is key information that you need to know without question. Get Omen, use Omen. Or get something else; whatever you do, get a threat meter. Not only get it, but use it, watch it and live by it. A threat meter will save your life more often than you know if you actually pay attention to it.

Squawk and Awe/Power Auras/etc. Tracker mods such as these are certainly not a requirement, but they can be essential to many players. These mods will help you keep track of your DoTs, debuffs, cooldowns and Eclipse procs, all of which can be nothing short of a god-send in so many ways. Use them or don’t; they certainly aren’t a requirement by any means. That being said, in a hectic fight, they can really reduce the stress you are put under by tracking these things on your own. Anything that allows you to spend more time focusing on the encounter at hand and less time on your personal quips is a plus. One thing to keep in mind is that often these types of mods can be found meshed into another that you may already have. Unless you really like the additional customization or utility that a specific tracker mod offers, you might be better off going with one that’s built into something else. Your mileage may vary on this one.

Quartz A cast bar mod that’s been popular since as long as I can remember. Although many other mods now contain a cast bar mod themselves, I still find Quartz to hold its own weight in many respects. Not only does it allow you to fully customize your own cast bar (and your target’s as well), but it also comes with a built-in tracker mod that’s simple, efficient and easy to use. The latency tracking for each cast is also worth mentioning. Before the days of spell queuing, it was pretty much impossible to play without a cast bar mod such as Quartz. Although this perk has been slightly reduced in effectiveness, it is still helpful to have around for when you need to do some precise timing on the fly.

Additional UI tips

• Section off all of the important information. It may seem like a good idea to stick all of your various tracking bars, threat meters or what have you into one neat, consolidated space, but this can quickly lead to information overload. Instead of focusing everything into a specific spot on your screen, make the most of your screen space by placing everything into a generalized grouping. For example, keep all of your ability tracking bars grouped in one location that’s separated off from your boss tracking bars, to prevent yourself from easily confusing the two in the middle of combat. Keeping everything in scattered, yet organized, clusters goes a long way in helping to cope with all of the incoming information.
• Make sure to enable click-through on most of your tracking bars. This is especially true for things such as DBM bars, which many players have float out towards the middle of the screen. Keeping important things in a prominent location is useful, but always make sure that you won’t get caught in a situation where you’re stuck trying to click on a bar when you don’t mean to.
• Familiarize yourself with any new mod you get before taking it into action. Changing up your UI for the better is a great thing, but don’t start doing it five minutes before your next raid. Take some time to get a feel for how all of your new toys work, and get used to playing with them being there by running a few easy group dungeons or spending some time farming.
• Avoid clutter! Have I said it enough times yet? Clutter is beyond bad, yet many players end up falling into the clutter trap without even realizing it. Do not be one of these people. Keep your room, house, office, car or dog as messy as you want it to be, but always keep your UI organized.

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