Long time Boomkin, needs feral helpFollow

Stats -

Stamina for health - you've got less avoidance so you need to compensate by higher health
Agility for dodge and armor as a bear and crit and AP as a cat
Dodge - a bear only has dodge for avoidance - we don't get parry or shields, so you want to get that up as high as possible
Attack power - good for a bear but more important as a kitty - maxing your AP and Crit is vital
Armor - more armor means a lower chance to be hit and less damage taken when you're hit
Expertise - expertise is a good stat for both kitty and bear because it reduces the chance that a mob will avoid an attack - for cats this means more damage faster but for bear the advantages are several. First, since you're landing more attacks that means faster rage regen but even more important is that some mobs will get bonus or faster attacks if they dodge/parry you, which means that not having your attacks avoided reduces the total damage that you're receiving (very important against bosses considering how hard they hit

If you have leatherworking or know someone that does, score all of the high end items and that will make a fantastic starter set for dps/tanking, then hit Heroic VH for a chance at the druid staff that the last boss drops as that's also a good, solid starter item (revered with Dalaran mages also gives you access to purchasing a nice starter staff but the VH one is soooo much nicer that if you're 80, you should just save your gold and focus on that)

If you've got badges to burn then there's a beautiful DPS trinket that you can get on the cheap while if you do Wintergrasp you can also score a decent helmet and set of feet for the WG tokens (again, these are starter sets)

Here's a first rate thread with all the toys you should look for as a bear -

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/class.html?wclass=6;mid=1231455675105855919;num=8;page=1

As for spec and attack rotations, since mine tend to be unorthadox, I'll allow others to provide you with what's considered the official ones.

NP - btw, defense is worthless now that survival of the fitess has been changed - you don't need it at all so don't even worry about it.

Just a few corrections:


Armor only means less physical damage taken, it has nothing to do with the chance of being hit.


I can't remember the exact numbers right now, but it requires roughly the same amount of Dodge Rating and Agility to gain 1% Dodge. Since Agility grants you further benefits, it should have priority on Dodge Rating. And Armor is definitely more important than Defense Rating in my opinion.

Stam stacking is in general an easy way to spot a bad bear. Unless they are in some gimmick gear set of course.

Bears in general should never gem for stam after they get to a certain gear threshold; roughly pushing 30k unbuffed health. The combo gems with stam are have enough stam on them when you want a blue socket for the bonus.

Gem and chant for agi, expertise, dodge and hit.

You can't just mindlessly stack Agi as the DRs will kill you. I have to reevaluated my gem set up for this reason. I think I am getting less benefit from Agi than I could from moving to some dodge gems. Plus I have a bit much expertise as I am over the dodge cap and would like some more hit or dodge.

Gonna hit RAWR at lunch and see what the numbers tell me.