My druid is only 71 or so (and he’s only that high due to doing dailies), but if I decide to tank with him Big Bear Butt Blogger has me covered with Bear Tanking Specs and Gear Pre-Naxx.

Here are the Pawn scales I’m using for my toons in Wrath of the Lich King.   As always, Pawn is for quick comparisons, not for squeezing every last point out of your gear.  Read Skeleton Jack’s post on Pawn for some of the things to watch out for.  I have tweaked some of these scales and I have no strong theorycrafting proof behind their effectiveness. 

A few more points to note:

1. Each rating is relative only to itself.

Some pawn users assume that if they have two strings, that the rating that has the higher value is what the gear is better for. This is NOT the case. You should only use a rating to compare two items together, rather than using ratings to determine what an item is better for. (Note: This rule can be counterfeit, but that requires balancing points)
2. A rating that gives you numbers in the 100’s is no better or worse than one that gives you points in the 10,000’s
Remember, this is a relative comparison tool. So 900 - 1000 may be better than 90,000 to 95,000.
3. Pawn doesn’t account for everything
Raid buffs, gear changing, and Talents factor in here as well. These are static values to help determine relative value, but raid buffs, talent changes, and changes from blizzard will affect the relative value of these statistics, so these strings will more than likely be dynamic.

Warrior

Protection

Balanced

(Pawn: v1: “Balanced”: CritRating=0.89, Agility=8.47, ExpertiseRating=9.22, DefenseRating=11.13, BlockValue=4.86, ArmorPenetration=1, Dps=3.56, Strength=3.84, ParryRating=8.24, BlockRating=8.42, DodgeRating=9.61, HitRating=1.98, Stamina=14.29, Armor=1, HasteRating=0.62, Ap=0.43 )

Survival

( Pawn: v1: “Survival”: BlockRating=8.49, Strength=2.91, ParryRating=8.56, Agility=8.02, ExpertiseRating=7.22, DefenseRating=11.61, Stamina=14.25, Armor=1, DodgeRating=10.09, BlockValue=4.98 )

Threat

( Pawn: v1: “Threat”: ArmorPenetration=4.54, CritRating=4.03, Dps=16.15, Strength=4.66, ParryRating=0.41, Agility=3.26, HitRating=9.56, HasteRating=3.02, ExpertiseRating=9.56, Ap=2 )

Based roughly on Elitist Jerks Tanking Spreadsheet.  Needs to be edited for sockets.

( Pawn: v1: “Heavy”: RedSocket=16, CritRating=0.8, Strength=1, MetaSocket=8, ExpertiseRating=0.7, BlueSocket=16, YellowSocket=16, ColorlessSocket=16, HitRating=0.7, BlockValue=0.9 )

Based roughly on Matthew Rossi’s post,The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Heavy.  This is for leveling as a Prot Warrior.  Vene has a good post for Raid DPS as a Prot Warrior.

Fury

See this post for Fury Warriors.

Paladin

Mostly from this thread on Elitist Jerks. 

Protection

Mitigation

( Pawn: v1: “ProtMit”: DodgeRating=18, BlockRating=1, Ap=1.2, CritRating=0.6, Strength=9.5, ParryRating=14.5, ExpertiseRating=1.5, Agility=14.5, HitRating=1.1, Stamina=19.1, Armor=1.2, SpellPower=0.8, DefenseRating=16.5, BlockValue=16.5 )

Threat

( Pawn: v1: “ProtThr”: Intellect=0.2, DodgeRating=15.1, BlockRating=0.9, Ap=4.7, CritRating=2.4, Strength=18.8, ParryRating=12.8, ExpertiseRating=6.1, Agility=12.2, HitRating=4.2, Stamina=16.8, Armor=1.1, SpellPower=3.1, DefenseRating=13.9, BlockValue=17.4 )

Holy

( Pawn: v1: “Holy”: Intellect=2.25, RedSocket=24, CritRating=1.1, MetaSocket=75, HasteRating=1, BlueSocket=14, Stamina=0.1, SpellPower=1.2, Mp5=2.5, YellowSocket=30 )

Shaman

Enhancement

Based on a run of EnhSim, DPS simulator

( Pawn: v1: “AEP Calc”: Intellect=1.14, CritRating=0.64, Agility=1.39, ExpertiseRating=0.67, OffHandDps=4.33, YellowSocket=32, ArmorPenetration=0.52, RedSocket=32, Strength=1, MetaSocket=16, HitRating=0.68, BlueSocket=32, MainHandDps=8.82, HasteRating=0.81, ColorlessSocket=32, Ap=1 )

Restoration

Based on this post.

( Pawn: v1: “Resto (EJ)”: Intellect=7, RedSocket=105, HasteRating=3, BlueSocket=86, YellowSocket=112, SpellPower=5, Mp5=10, CritRating=3 )

Hunter

Beastmaster

( Pawn: v1: “Beast Mastery”: Intellect=7, RedSocket=128, CritRating=5, MetaSocket=168, HitRating=10, Agility=7, HasteRating=2, BlueSocket=128, YellowSocket=128, ArmorPenetration=6, Mp5=8, Ap=4 )

From this thread

Druid

Cat

( Pawn: v1: “Cat (Toskk)”: ArmorPenetration=1.0161, RedSocket=37.312, Strength=2.332, CritRating=0.83, ColorlessSocket=37.312, MetaSocket=103.21, FeralAp=1, Agility=1.6992, ExpertiseRating=1.0362, BlueSocket=18.66, YellowSocket=26.92, HitRating=1.0334, HasteRating=0.7236, Ap=1 )

From Flyv

Bear

( Pawn: v1: “Bear (Toskk)”: RedSocket=113.7, YellowSocket=101.3, ColorlessSocket=172.4, MetaSocket=329, Stamina=7.185, Agility=3.429, Health=0.411, BlueSocket=172.4, Armor=1.066, DefenseRating=1.885, DodgeRating=2.685, ExpertiseRating=1.306 )

From Flyv

Resto

( Pawn: v1: “Resto”: Intellect=5.79, HasteRating=2.87, CritRating=2.05, SpellPower=9.4, Spirit=5.13, Mp5=10 )

From this Elitist Jerks Post

Death Knight

Unholy

( Pawn: v1: “Unholy”: ArmorPenetration=0.544, RedSocket=39.7552, CritRating=1.12, Strength=2.4847, ColorlessSocket=39.7552, HasteRating=0.621, Agility=0.7336, HitRating=2.474, BlueSocket=17.3929, YellowSocket=25.2329, TwoHandDps=7.567, ExpertiseRating=1.391, Ap=1 )

From Skeleton Jack’s Post.  

Other

Other specs, Warlocks, Priests, Mages, and Rogues are out of luck here.  I suggest Elitist Jerks as a starting point. Good luck in your search!

NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All software is supplied as is, without guarantee.  The user assumes all responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky.

I was talking with Jaimie yesterday about our Warcraft characters in a roleplaying sense.  I don’t have much of a backstory for any of them, but I do have a decent idea of their personalities.  It’s conversations such as these that have me considering an RP server if I reroll again.

Despite being a warrior that uses rage, Tristam is very calm.  Solid and reliable are words that come to mind when I’m thinking about him.  He doesn’t get angry and is very relaxed. He sees himself as the shield for the group.  “Is a shield false and only a sword true?”

Merddyn is a warlock because it’s convenient and easy.  He’s very self-centered and barely recognizes the existence of an outside world.  He’s not looking to rule the world (far too much bother), he just wants what he wants and sees no reason why he shouldn’t just take it.  “I’ve divided the world into two types of thing:  The ones I can kill with impunity, and those I have to be more circumspect about.“

Anzu is a very angry shaman.  I have no idea what he’s angry about. He quests so that he has a socially acceptable way to kill things.   Merrdyn will kill you if you get in his way, but otherwise doesn’t care about you.  Anzu wants to kill you but won’t unless it’s acceptable to the Horde.  “In the beginning, the Universe was created. This had made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.“

Early on, Andromache would have preferred to be an alliance paladin working with the Naaru rather than stealing the Light’s power.  She wants to do what’s right.  After having gone through Outlands, she has retained her strong moral and ethical sense, but no longer trusts the Naaru. “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties - but right through every heart - and through all hearts.“

Arthemis wants to take things apart to see how they work.  She’s chosen to be a hunter because people in cities tend to get upset when you take apart magical or mechanical things and you can’t quite put them back together.  She’s happiest out on her own thinking.  “Most things run on smoke. If it leaks out, they don’t work.”

As a druid, Emerys feels a deep connection with nature.  He fits the stereotype of the hippie druid.  He’s calm and quests because he wants to help maintain nature’s balance.  “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are consequences.“

I don’t know why but I like having some idea of who the characters I play are. 

Still no Bear Tank Pawn scale, but if you’re sick of waiting this is where I’m going to start research for building one: Recognizing Bear Loot.

Resto4Life has a WotLK Restoration FAQ up for druids. I doubt I’ll be going resto anytime soon on my druid but it’s good to have a reference in case I decide to heal.

We ran the first part of Kara pretty much spontaneously last night.  There were four druids itching to tank the place and we only had one healer, so I decided to respec my shaman resto and help heal.  This is the first time I heal anything on my shaman and it went pretty well.

I was woefully unprepared, but with the way they’ve nerfed Kara it really didn’t matter.  I grabbed a spec off of WoWWikki and pulled my gear with the highest spellpower out of the bank.   Any spells that looked like they’d help out with healing were dropped onto my action bar and I spent the evening trying to figure out what to use when.  Hopefully next time I remember to consult resources such as Resto Shaman vs. Karazhan - a Healing Guide.

A lot of gear dropped for me, mostly enhancement stuff.  When we started Kara we had an enhancement shaman who couldn’t stop getting resto drops, so I suppose this is to balance that out?  Due to the inordinate number of druids there were only three people who could use the axe from the holiday boss, so I got it by greed rolling.  (From what I can tell you have to be able to equip the axe for its use effect, so hopefully there wasn’t a druid who wanted to try it.) 

I don’t know if I want to go back to healing at all.  This was a heavily nerfed Kara, an instance I’ve been raid leading for months, and I still spent all my time making the bars go right.  I really didn’t see any of the fights, I just focused on standing in the right place and keeping people healed.   As a tank, I’m very aware of what’s happening around me even when I’m standing there staring into a demon’s crotch. 

ThinkTank has a Druid Bear FAQ for 3.02/Wrath. It’s so nice to have all this information summed up concisely, especially given that I’m new to druid tanking. Now I need to dig up something similar for druid healing.

Warrior Best item point scale to use going into Wrath? looks like a good point scale for rating items in Pawn for Warriors.

Looks like something similar for paladin tanks.

I’ve missed having a Pawn Scale. Now I need something for a resto druid, tanking druid, and resto shaman.

The quest to get the druid epic form is amazingly well done.  I wish there were a quest line like it for every class.  Apart from having to run Sethekk Halls, it’s a beautiful example of a quest line that proves that you know how to play your class.  Ideally I’d have it instanced so that you can’t get help from others (I had help with the essence quests).  Anyhow, thanks to a fine group of people, my druid finished his Sethekk Halls run and got his epic flight form.  (I couldn’t find my item to summon Anzu, hearthed out to go talk to the quest giver, and realized that it was in a bag I hadn’t opened.  Oops.) 

ThinkTank has a post talking about Stupid bear tricks with swipe that take advantage of swipe’s infinite targets. Despite six or seven months of farming him, Moroes has yet to drop Mongoose. I may get Battlemaster on my Ring of Blood staff for fun in farming.

I’m using the stat values from this Elitist Jerks post for building a Pawn scale for druid DPS till someone theorycrafts something better. 

As I stated before, hit and expertise are the best stats till the cap (1.3 AEP), followed by agility and strenght (1 AEP) then Crit, AP (about 0.9-0.8 AEP) and finally haste and APR (0.7 AEP).

My feral druid, Emerys, finally hit 70.  I almost entirely followed Jame’s Leveling Guides.  Near the end of my leveling I consistently found people to do elite quests, so I ended up doing a lot more of those and dinging shortly after hitting the Blade’s Edge portion of the guides.  Now to get my shaman up those last 4 levels and my warlock up those last 7…

It’s here!  I’m excited!  We were nowhere near getting the ZA bear mounts or any of the titles, so the big things that the patch takes away aren’t really affecting me.  I am not looking forward to trying to figure out what gear is good for my various toons again.  "1 point of strength = 3.1415 AP compared to one point of agility = 2.71828 Defense versus the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow…"

What am I going to do first?  Wipe out all my addons!  Then will come the pain of reconfiguring them.  If I’m lucky, this will result in a sleeker, speedier interface.  Thanks to lots of practice, I’ve almost forgotten most of my keybindings so I’ll have to relearn all those.  "Crap -  that used to be shield block not intimidating shout!"

Once I have my interface in a somewhat useable state I’ll most likely head out to Orgrimmar to see if there’s a world event there and to take a look at any changes.  I’m going to have to get my various toons into the builds I’ve chosen for them.  Depending on what else is happening I may hop back onto my druid for that last push to 70 - I made the mistake of turning in a pile of quests just before logging off last night.  Oops. 

Don’t forget to consult Anna’s compilation of The Best of 3.0/WotLK Information!

Karthis at Of Teeth and Claws links to an Elitist Jerks discussion on maximizing  druid cat form dps.  Here’s the rotation:

1. If Tiger’s Fury cooldown is up, cast Tiger’s Fury
2. If Omens of Clarity is up, cast Mangle if Mangle is down, otherwise cast Shred
3. If Savage Roar is down and Combo Points>= 2, cast Savage Roar
4. If Combo Points = 5 and Rip is down, cast Rip
5. If Combo Points = 5 and Rip is up, do nothing and wait for Rip to fade
6. If Rake is down, cast Rake
7. If Mangle is down, cast Mangle
8. If Energy>= 82 or cast Shred
9. If Energy>= 40 and Tiger’s Fury cooldown has less than 1 second remaining, cast Shred

We’re getting awfully close to 3.0x’s release - no official date yet though.  Here are the builds I’m looking at for my toons.  I expect that I’ll have made some silly mistakes in picking out talents, but I can live with that.

Tristam is going to be tanking for any raids we get going between now and Wrath and for our static group after Wrath’s release.  I need to track down more build information, but for now I’m thinking Warrior 5/0/54. (I should also look at this build from TankingTips.com.

Andromache is going to stick to protection as well.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up doing 5 mans for most of her leveling.  I’m leaning toward Paladin 0/56/5.

Arthemis is definitely going for a primarily beast mastery spec.  Exotic pets look like fun, but I suspect I’ll stick with my kitty pet for actual leveling.  One of my favorite things about hunters is chain trapping.  Thus I’m aiming for resourcefulness down the survival tree with Hunter 41/0/20.  I know it’s sub-optimal for MQoSRDPS but this is not a grouping toon, it’s a fun toon so BRK can bite me. 

The following toons are not 70 yet, so here’s where I think I’ll head given their current levels. 

Emerys is likely going to stay feral.  I’m leaning towards Druid 0/51/6 at the moment. (An alternate spec from ThinkTank is Druid 0/50/11)

Anzu is going to stay enhancement.  I’m leaning towards Shaman 0/51/6. EDIT: Apparently resto is no longer as useful, so I’m thinking Shaman 6/51/0 instead.

I think I’d like to give demonology a shot on Merddyn, so I’ll try Warlock 0/54/0. 

Flint is staying in retirement for now, so I’m not even thinking about priest builds. 

Reading Can Tank, Will Travel’s  Brewfest Fun & Cenarion Expedition post reminded me that I should be starting to turn in plant parts on my druid.  I’ve already done one of the Hellfire quests but my plan from here on out is to follow Bremm’s guide.  Auction House here I come!

I have a lot of alts either at 70 or approaching it quickly - warrior, paladin, hunter, warlock, shaman, druid plus my retired alliance priest.  When the expansion comes out I’m going to have to choose which one(s) to level first and which will have to wait.

What will our static group do?  We originally rolled on Quel’dorei to play with three of our friends.  If they’re still interested in playing together as a group the characters we designate as our group characters will be used for group play.  Assuming my warrior stays as the tank for the group, I am willing to take six months to get to 80 on him if that what it takes for us to play together.  Ditto for any of my other toons if we decide to shuffle our roles around.

Jaimie and I have characters that we’ve leveled up in pairs (or mostly in pairs).  Our two hunters will probably level together (dual core hounds ftw!).  My paladin and her mage will probably level together (though paladin/shadow priest is tempting too).  Our warlock/shadow priest combo was made to play together.  That leave me with a druid and shaman to level on my own.  There’s always the possibility of mixing and matching the pairings.  If we don’t do that early on, we wind up with one of us running the other through quests the first toon has already completed.  It’s not nearly so fun that way. 

What do I want to do in Wrath?  I’ve healed endgame.  I’ve tanked endgame.  I’ve even DPSed endgame a bit.  I really don’t feel a pull to fill any particular role.  My preferred endgame role isn’t going to be a major factor in my decision.

My first toon to 80 will probably be the one that’s most fun to play.  Thus, I expect my hunter to be the first to hit 80 with my other toons trickling in over the next few weeks or months.  My next pick would probably my paladin if I end up playing in groups a lot from 70 to 80.  I’ll probably switch back and forth between my remaining toons and level them up more or less equally. 

(inspired by this Voodoo Ventures post)

I spent much of the long weekend leveling my shaman and druid.  They’re both at level 58, which means that they could go to Outlands right now.  I’ve done that with pretty much all my other Burning Crusade characters so I have decided to continue with Azeroth until I finish with Jame’s 51-60 leveling guide.  I’m a few levels ahead of where the guide has me, so I expect to hit 61-62 before getting to Outlands. 

My leveling strategy for these two has been to level one for an hour or two, then level the other.  It’s interesting to compare the experiences as they do identical quests back to back.  In some ways I wish I had a caster class along so that I could compare that too. 

The druid is a grinding machine - kill, kill, kill, heal, kill, kill, heal…  There are no breaks needed when leveling a feral druid.  Track humanoids is very useful when trying to find those elusive mobs for kill quests.  Stealth is fun for cherry-picking mobs.  Looking forward, druids are the most versatile class in game so I have a lot of options when I reach the level cap.  The druid is fun for when I want to play steadily without any interruptions. 

The shaman is a killing machine.  With a lucky crit or two, I can sometimes take mobs down in two attacks.  The downside is that my shaman has to eat and drink a LOT more than my druid.  I don’t find myself using totems much for solo play except when I have to take on more than one mob at once.  I miss the druid’s stealth and track humanoids a lot.  The shaman is fun for when I’m in the mood for blowing away mobs and seeing big numbers scroll across my screen.

My goal is to get these two toons to 70 before Wrath of the Lich king comes out.  I had considered leaving them at 60 and healing Death Knight groups as they burn through Outlands instances, but I’m finding group play less and less appealing these days.  Instead I’ll level these up to 70 then up to 80 mostly solo. 

There are a lot of WoW guides out there that will show you how to level quickly or how to make a pile of gold playing World of Warcraft.  Most of them will cost you $20-30.  I haven’t looked at most of these guides - I bought one gold making guide and I wasn’t too impressed with it.  I haven’t bought any of the leveling guides.  I would suggest that people use the free alternatives and save their cash.

Kunzite’s Gold Guide is a very good guide to making gold in WoW.  I particularly like his articulation of Opportunity Cost as a point that should always be kept in mind.  He gives both very general strategies and very specific ones.  I used most of the strategies that he outlines prior to reading the guide and they’ve worked very well for me.  I’m not focused on earning gold so I’m not rich, but I have bought 3 epic flying skills and I’m just waiting for more toons to hit 70 to buy more.

Jame’s Alliance and Horde Leveling Guides are very thorough guides for solo leveling a character from 1-70.  I’ve been using the Horde guides to level my druid and shaman and they make for very fast, straightforward leveling.  I leveled my other toons through running a a fair number of instances as well as questing, so I didn’t follow the guides for them.  I would recommend against using these guides for your first character as there’s a lot of fun to be had in exploring. 

Blogs and forums are probably the ultimate guides to World of Warcraft, but the information tends to be rather disjointed.  Once you have an idea what it is you want to know, I would suggest reading blogs that cover your chosen subject or visiting various forums such as Elitist Jerks, PlusHeal, TankSpot, MainTankadin, and many others. 

I had a guildie ask me over the weekend what I’m planning to do with my druid in the endgame.  My response was "Nothing."  I may do a couple of Karazhan runs with my alts if they get to 70 before Wrath comes out, but I really don’t plan to do endgame with them.  This seemed to strike him as very peculiar.

For me, endgame is the end of gaming.  In many ways it’s the end of fun.  It’s great to have a character that’s hit the level cap, but your character will no longer be picking up any interesting new abilities.   You’re done with achieving things on your own.  My max-level toons go fishing and run instances and that’s it.  I could do things such as killing six million Zaxxis or 25 dailies per toon per day or save up 214,748 Gold 36 Silver and 46 Copper.  Frankly those all strike me as rather dull activities. 

For fun, I start up another alt.  I try to level my alts as quickly as possible.  It’s not the journey so much as the feeling of accomplishment from hitting the next level.  I love it when I pick up a new ability at the trainer and I try to figure out how it can be useful to me.  There is a certain pleasure in knowing exactly where to go for quests. 

There is a thrill to tanking the latest boss in our raid progression.  I enjoy raid leading (most of the time).  Trying to top the DPS on my hunter is a challenge.  Destroying five player instances on my paladin is amusing.  Despite this, the most fun in WoW for me is leveling.