Okay, that’s what I thought. How should I prioritize Attack Power, Expertise, and Armor Penetration? Oh, and Crit?
Healing was so much less confusing, just spellpower, crit and haste to worry about.
1.) Hit and Expertise are good for tanks, but they should not be your #1 priority. Getting capped should not be nearly as big a concern as it is for DPS, and unlike DPS, you should prioritize Expertise **over **Hit, unless your Hit is so low that your taunts miss frequently.
2.) Defense is a **useless **stat for Druid tanks. Unlike Warriors, Pallies, and DKs, Druids become uncrittable through their talent spec.
Hit to cap (which is different for Rogues than for some others, because of Poisons + DW, don’t know it off the top of my head), then Expertise to the Dodge cap (won’t be parried/blocked if you stand behind the mob like you’re supposed to), then ArP.
Druids can’t Parry or Block, but they do Dodge, which is why Agi is such an important stat for them. But you’re right about them ideally having a lot of armor and high HP pool to mitigate/soak damage that other tanks can avoid.
In my opinion and my experience, this is wrong. Tanks should be concerned about Hit, but they should not prioritize reaching the Hit **cap **over other tanking stats. It’s good for threat generation (and a missed taunt is a big uh-oh), but it’s not the be-all and end-all of tanking. My cite is that I am not Hit capped, and my TPS generally runs in the 5-6k range. (“Low” threat for me is in the 4ks, and even on non-gimmick bosses my spikes are in the 8k range.)
This could be an Expertise issue–once you’re skillcapped, that will be what reduces the remaining chance for your target to Block/Dodge/Parry. And if you can get your hands on any kind of combat log, you should be able to see what percent of your attacks were hits vs. whatever else.
Yeah, but I still have it on my gear in various spots just because it’s a good gear piece, and that’s the only stat that Imba had warned about. It left me thinking “… and?! What about all these other stats?”
I’ll follow the Finch’s link then, since that advice lines up, but prioritize Expertise a little more than I had been.
Tanks definitely want to stack Expertise over Hit. Both will get you more threat, but only Expertise will also get you less damage. (Some bosses still parry-haste, meaning that after they Parry an attack from you, their next hit comes faster.)
Could be, but I’ve got Primal Precision, and as far as I’m aware I never geared for expertise on my Paladin or Warrior.
I suppose it could be that I’ve routinely been killing things 2-3 levels above me as a Cat lately. 
Could be, but I suspect that the fact that the cat has a 1 second swing timer means you attack more often as well, so in terms of raw numbers you do see more dodges and parrys.
Druids can also glyph for Growl, which obviates the need to stack +Hit for fear of a missed taunt, at least.
Oh yeah, that’ll make a big difference. I assumed you were talking about 80s against bosses. The bigger the level gap, the more you’re going to miss or have your attacks avoided.
While we’re discussing specs…
I have several raid alts and that’s fine, I gear/spec/whatever according to what our guild needs and since we progress pretty well I’m just not worried about min/max and L33T on those two.
MY question is, where do I go for a simple spec/gear/talent/whatever layout for solo’ing alts that I’m NOT interested in raiding, PvPing, or whatever. Basically, these are my trade/bank/AH/gathering alts, and the alts I play when relaxing. I want it simple and relatively frustration free. They don’t need to be uber-powered.
I’m looking for
Paladin
Mage
Rogue
Hunter
I like the talent build pages in WoWWiki. They’re probably a little outdated and often incomplete, but they’re good for sample builds. Here’s the Paladin page as an example.
Personally, though, I would say that if you’re not worried about optimization, don’t bother with preplanning a build at all. Just go with what works for you at the time. My Hunter is completely ad hoc, and he plays just fine for leveling.
My recommendation would be to take each “standard” raiding build (not PvP build), and look for two things:
1.) What talents doesn’t it take that would be useful if you’re by yourself?
2.) What talents does it take that would mainly be useful in a group?
Then, replace the #2s with the #1s.
I’m a little distressed that the +20 Expertise gem is red, same as the Agi gem.
The EU forum post on druids suggests 28k health (with Wild only on) for heroics, 30k for Naxx/OS, 32 for EoE, and a little more for Ulduar. My druid in bear form is at 31k health, 27.7k armor, 4.6% hit, 20 Expertise (87 Exp Rating), and 33.3% dodge.
Think I’m going to re-gem some slots.
Anyone else stuck on “Connecting” trying to log in?
Yep, certain realms are down right now. Figures both Cairne and Cenarius would be among them. 
Aye. I was booted out, and now can’t get back in.
My realm (Khaz Modan) isn’t one of the down ones, though.
Was trying to get on while my better half is downstairs watching the Braves lose to the Padres, but nooooooo!
Aruvqan, Wolkie got his mail earlier, and when I can devote a little more time in game, I will ask your Sonnenstrahl to invite me in.
Thanks for rolling that toon just for me!
Q
And stuff appears to be back up.
So tonight I took my lvl 24 draenei mage around to the Alliance capitals to visit Portal Trainers and learned the Teleport spells for SW, IF, and Exodar. Then I trotted off to Darnassus, only to discover I’d have to wait until level 30 to learn to teleport there. What’s up with that? More night elf anti-magic bigotry?
If you could learn all the teleports at the same time, it would be much too easy to get around. Stormwind and Ironforge are both on the Eastern Kingdoms continent and it’s not too hard to get from one to the other on foot, so they can be learned at the same time. Nobody cares about the Exodar, plus its proximity to Kalimdor is the same as Stormwind, so it can be learned then too. But Darnassus is on Kalimdor, and though it’s at the very corner of the continent you can still get anywhere on Kalimdor in a single flight. The Alliance presence isn’t strong on Kalimdor, so it’s natural it would be harder to access. Theramore Isle doesn’t offer its teleport until like 35, I think, and that gives you more convenient access to Kalimdor.
…At least, I thought that was the rationale behind the levels, but I just took a closer look at the Horde teleport spells. You can learn Orgrimmar and Undercity both at 20, which gives you quick, immediate access to both continents. Thunder Bluff doesn’t show up until 30, and Stonard 35. Curious. I would have thought it would be Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff at 20 and Undercity at 30. So, uh, that whole first paragraph? Got me.
What kind of tank are you?
I don’t think hitcap is the absolute priority (if you’re not defcapped you can’t tank, period), but I’ve seen tanks who had 0% hit with 0% hit from talents. That’s as wrong as a level 80 with a grey weapon… and IME as a healer, it tends to lead to a lot more Prayers of Healing than usual. A tank with 40K hp who can’t keep aggro is just no good.
Completely unrelated subject:
“Why, hello there Ms Dwarf! Ah, I see that you’re already a Champion of Darnassus, a Champion of Gnomeregan and a Champion of Ironforge, very good, very good. Well, in order to become a Champion of the Exodar (thank you for these Marks of the Valiant by the way, I use them to decorate my bedroom’s ceiling), now you must demonstrate that you qualify to be a Champion, go see Squire Danny please.”
Gee, I don’t know, you think I might be able to qualify as a Champion?