Wanted: Advise for 58 from my BrethrenFollow

Well I never did go Balance although since respecing resto to heal I've played the restokin part a few times for easier dailies and the Arena resto for more control.

My advice is get to OL with your current setup.

Get through the first quests in Hellfire(which should be easy with your lock buddy and you duoing them),pick up your shiny new gear and watch your stats skyrocket. Then decide if you want to stay that spec or go for something else. All specs get a huge increase at 58-59 when they hit OL(more + damage items, + healing items, extra agility/stam/attack power).

Now obviously Resto is still the hardest for any class to level solo, but since you said you have a buddy you consistantly level with, it shouldn't be a problem for you.

The bonus to staying Balance is you'll use less mana since you're killing in conjunction to a Lock so won't have to stop to drink like alot of Boomkins that solo.

The bonus to going Resto is your lock friend will be helping you kill so it won't take so long to complete quests, but at the same time you'll get more invites to instances that you can bring your lock friend with since you'll be a healer. This will help both of you level faster

The bonus to going feral is that both your dps and tanking sets will get big increases from those first few quests and you'll both be killing things very fast to quest but you'll get alot of invites to instances because you can tank and bring your lock friend with. This will help you both level faster.

See the differences?

I'm not telling you not to go balance. Play what you like. It's no fun playing something because you think you're "supposed" to. But it's true that tanks and healers get a lot more invites ( DPS = dime a dozen) when it comes to instances and you have the power to pull your buddy in with you since you're doing them a favor by coming to tank/heal.

As far as gear goes, like I said, the initial Hellfire quests will give you huge upgrades no matter your spec, and from there you can use WoWinsider's lists, gearing lists found in the Druid forum stickies and even go to places like Elitist Jerks for more info on gear and/or spell rotations and efficiency in killing, etc...

Hope that gives you a little bit of what you were looking for.

Just wanted to comment - I have Two gear sets, just like every good Druid should have. I did log out in my Feral gear, but I do have a spellcaster set as well.

Mainly looking for a link to a chart that depicted the dungeons/instances/NPS's that give rep for different factions, and which levels you should be doing them at.

Maybe read instead of Throttling through it, even though it is an epic post! ;)

Cheers

how does every "good" druid have 2 gear sets? i could see a feral druid having a healing set to play the occasional healer in a 5 man, but how does a balance/resto benefit from having a feral set?

You stated that your favourite playstyle is Balance/Restoration which is currently a popular build, it's called restokin and there are quite a few threads on it in this forum which I suggest you reading. Later you said that because you mainly solo you gonna respec to Restoration/Feral (from your post I gather you are gonna spec mainly for Restoration), this, in my opinion, doesn't make sense.

If you want to tank/dps while leveling, feral is the natural choice, if you want to heal/DPS as your first post suggests than naturally your preffered spec should do great, why combine 2 things that are rather hard to mix(cat DPS and healing) when you can do something easier, and more fun for you?

I took a look at your armory page, and saw you having both caster pieces (spell damage a little, and spirit) and feral pieces (the larger part). While healing and caster DPS items might mix sometimes, and same goes for tanking and cat DPS, other combinations, while being a nice novelty, usually don't fare as well and are not as effective in current game mechanics for Druids.

I suggest you decide what you want and gear for that spec mainly, if your spec supports dual purpose, then gear for both obviously.



A comment on Throttler's post, in your example, a Balance/Restoration hybrid will benefiet from having a set for pure caster gear and a set for pure healing gear for maximum effect in each, while a more subtle balance could be gained by switching some items from one with the others if it's needed to be able to do both on a mediocre level.

Generally I would advice collecting 4 sets, caster DPS, melee DPS, tanking and healing and trying them all to see which you like most, it's not that hard a thing to do seeing the amount of items you can get from quest rewards in outlands.



Hope I helped somehow, and have a nice day,
Yuval.

Good luck mate, wish you the best.
Just a final word of advice, if you hate drinking, spec full Feral, of special importance is Improved Leader of the Pack talent, with decent gear(compared to the mob you fight) you can go on endlessly without healing yourself, or at the very least, have enough time to allow you to regenerate all the mana you spend on healing while going on. From my experience of leveling(not too much, only leveled a Hunter, a Warrior and a Druid), Feral is the best build out there, among all classes I've seen, to level.

Have fun, it's the most important thing anyway, and again, good luck,
Yuval.