I know for Enhancement Shaman, there are a bunch of quest rewards heading up to 80 that I gathered because of the +hit (which is the most important stat to get capped before raiding). The Theraputic Cloak comes to mind from a quest in eastern Grizzly Hills. Once I had most of my hit, I chanted and gemmed what I could for the rest.

To my limited knowledge hit is the number one stat to cap for any dps, then expertise I believe for melee classes. I'm not much on planning my upgrades, as I just don't usually have the time to research (well, I suppose I do but I'd rather be playing.)

I have found that the most efficient way for me to see if and where upgrades are availible is to install AtlasLoot. I have the FuBar plugin for it, so it resides on the FuBar on the top of my screen. It's nice to check on rep rewards, craftables, and boss loot.

goto http://elitistjerks.com/forums.php

Find your class listing and check out the threads there. Everyone i've checked has a thread that has a listing of all the suggested gear for starting out at 80

I'll get the ball rolling by reposting what I said over in the Night Shift thread for last week, when Mike was trying to weigh the value of saving for epic flight versus the costs of getting into raiding.

Just one other note: I really wish I had known to get trash greens and blues DE'd when I originally hit 60 (during BC, when 70 was the cap) and was starting to level through Outlands, so that's probably the thing I'd most like to share with anyone who is just now starting to level through Northrend with the eventual goal of raiding. Enchants are hugely important -- for a DPS character they can translate into hundreds of extra DPS if chosen properly, and I can only imagine that they are similarly important for tanks and healers.

Sure, you could just buy the mats (and now you can by enchant vellums), but especially when you are first gearing up you can burn through a LOT of gold if you are doing that, so to me it is far more valuable to have a bank full of the mats I will need each time I get an upgrade than to get piddly amounts of gold selling crappy BoE greens on the AH (or to vendors). And most of the time those greens are just being bought by enchanters anyway, who will be DEing them to sell the mats and enchant vellums back to you anyway, right?

I know it seems like a major time sink (who am I kidding, it is), but if you spend an hour or two here and there working your mining up, you will find yourself glad that you did in the end. I suggest just following a guide (such as this one), as it will get you mining in the right places and show you good paths to follow to optimize your mining time. Also, get a "Gatherer" enchant on some crappy gloves -- it will help a lot, particularly when you are at those annoying transition points where one material becomes green to you (ie, doesn't guarantee a skill up) but you still can't mine the next material.

Good news and bad news time. First, the bad news. The worst section of the mining leveling progression is just ahead of you, which is thorium. That guide suggests the plaguelands or Winterspring, but I've had better luck in the Burning Steppes. Now the good news. It is fast and easy from that point on, especially given that you can fly in the Outlands and Northrend. And even for the slow parts, you should be able to get good money selling the stuff you mine up, since it's always in demand for people leveling Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing. Or you could save the mats to level Blacksmithing, which I see you also have. Getting that up to Northrend levels should also prove quite useful, since you will then be able to add extra gem slots to various pieces of your gear.

Agreed, if you need anything I can provide, I'm more than happy to do so. That probably means I'll only be able to send you leg armor kits, but if you can provide the frozen orb I usually stockpile the rest of the mats. Alternately I should always have the mats for the blue leg armor kits available and can send them your way if you need.

Flasks and buff food help a lot. For you I would guess that means Flask of Endless Rage and food that gives +40 Str. I can make most/all of the good buff foods. If you'd like to farm the mats let me know, I can turn it into food and send it along.

Beyond that it's a good idea to bring a few stacks of Runic Health Potions (or injectors) along to help out in a pinch, as well as haste pots if you really get into the progression content.

Generally, you want to bring along stat-boosting food appropriate for your class and role, as well as flasks or elixirs to also boost your stats. I recommend flasks, as they remain active for the full duration even through death, whereas elixirs disappear upon death. Sometimes I roll with elixirs since they're cheaper, but that's only on facerolling runs.

For 10-person runs, it also helps to stock up on some scrolls of whatever stats you most need. For me, I stock up scrolls of intellect and stamina. If I'm running without a mage, I use the Int scrolls. If I'm running with a mage but no priest, I use the stamina scrolls.

For specifics, I've got 4 titansteel bars I've been holding onto just in case you can use them Narayan (or anyone else), and think I should have a 5th after logging onto my miner today (although my last mining expedition was rather titanium poor, unfortunately).

I know a lot of folks don't get a lot of enjoyment out of the theorycrafting details, and elitistjerks is chock-full of that kind of stuff, but it's probably a good idea to at least hit up their main thread, either in the appropriate sub-forum of Class Mechanics or the proper thread in Theorycrafting Think Tank. In one or the other, you'll likely find a thread specific to your spec giving different talent ideas, gearing priorities, glyph recommendations, and details on how the rotations work.

To follow up on Duc's comment about hit and expertise, you generally want enough hit to reduce your miss chance by 8% if you're a physical dps class. The cap used to be 9%, but it appears Blizzard lowered it accidentally or not in BC. Since we usually have a Draenei along, you can actually get away with 7% if you want to try it, but then you'd be lacking when we're missing a Draenei. Spell hit is higher (13%? Can't recall exactly, don't play casters much). This basic amount of hit will ensure that specials (i.e. yellow attacks) and non-dual-wield attacks never miss. For melee classes other than rogues, enhancement shammys, fury warriors, and dual-wielding DKs, there's really no benefit to going beyond this. Dual wield reduces your chance to hit with white attacks, so they benefit from more hit, but they'll rarely cap white attacks since it reduces other itemization too much.

The expertise soft cap of 26 is based on the analysis that few bosses (if any) have a dodge chance greater than 6%. 26 expertise gives you 6.5% dodge removal. You'll still be parryable by most bosses, but that shouldn't matter because you're behind the boss, right?

Farming up the right foods is a huge advantage. I usually use Rhinolicious Wymrsteak (40 expertise), as I don't have much fishing (something I'm working on taking care of) to get to the 40 str/agi foods. It takes some time out of your schedule (I usually take an 60-90 minutes to farm up a few stacks worth every couple of weeks), but it makes a huge difference at raid time. Technically speaking, they're probably better in most situations than even a fish feast, as wonderful as those are, since they're more focused on what stats you need to be at your best. Flasks are also wonderful, especially on progression content due to persisting through death. We'll be dying a lot, so you'll go through a lot of scrolls/food.

The one topic that hasn't been discussed much, so I'll throw out some starting points, is general raid behavior. Obviously, this varies boss-by-boss, and the boss strategies trump anything mentioned here. There are some general good ideas, most of which are learned early: stand behind the mobs, if using single-target attacks make sure you're attacking the tank's primary threat target, if using AoE make sure the tank has had sufficient time to get basic AoE threat moves (Thunderclap & Shockwave for warriors, Consecrate for pallys, Death & Decay and Pestilence for DKs, think it's just the cleave move for druids), don't stand in stuff you shouldn't be standing in (a Blizzard favorite). Keep a side eye on Omen if you're running it. Tank positioning seems to have gotten more difficult (or so it seems to me, mobs just don't want to stay still initially), so be prepared to shift early in the fight. If you pull aggro, just let the tank(s) know and run towards a tank rather than running around randomly trying to avoid it (as I did in my very first 5-man... ).

Getting comfortable moving around with both the keyboard and mouse can be extremely helpful. I use both at various times, and even have strafe left/right bound to extra buttons on my mouse. I can shift fairly effortlessly between them at this point, which really helps me on fights like Heigan and Malygos where there's a lot of tank movement. Ulduar fights have a strong movement component to them, so the faster you can get from point A to point B safely, the better the raid will likely do.

I realize everyone may know some of this basic stuff, but after healing a 5-man pug on my shammy where a rogue insisted on continually standing in front of Ingvar for his cleaves even after warned not to, just thought I'd throw it out there.

This is an example of a great point, a theory I will randomly call "Murphy's law of WoW." This states that there is a 100% chance that every single player in WoW will do something miserably stupid, at least once, in their WoW careers, in front of at least 4 other strangers.

Be forgiving of people who make idiotic mistakes in pugs, especially if they attempt to change their behavior or are apologetic. No one's perfect, and someday that guy who causes the wipe will be you. =)

(I know, no one expected *me* to say that, did they? )

Speaking of mining ...

I'm leveling two miners (my warrior and paladin below) -- my pally is on the border of Mithril/Thorium, and my warrior will mine the hell out of some Fel Iron Ore when I finally get around to leveling him past 60.

You want Mithril (yellow at 200, green from 225 to 275). The obvious places are the Hinterlands and Tanaris -- Hinterlands is pretty efficient, but Tanaris is way too spread out, even on a fast mount. My favorite place is the Badlands, which is a short hop from Ironforge. You'll find Iron in the north part of the zone -- you should still get points from mining Iron -- and mithril in the southern part of the zone. Make sure to hit up the ogre cave in the far southwest part of the area.

Another easy spot to get to from Ironforge is the Alterac Mountains. I'm thinking of the two-cave ogre complex to the west of the yetis. Again, it's a mix of Iron and Mithril.

Mithril mining goes green at 225 (and stays green till 225). The problem: You can't mine Thorium till 245.

Honestly, I powered through. I was leveling two characters and mining everything I saw, and the points just came. I think I had some Truesilver Ore socked away, and that gave me points from 230 up. (Truesilver goes yellow at 235 and green at 242).

For Thorium Ore, I've had good luck in Un'Goro Crater and Silithus. Just run big figure 8s through both zones and you'll be up to your ears in both Mithril and Thorium. Remember that you can use the Dalaran portal to get to COT, and you can either ride or fly to the Crater and points west.

I'm guessing you'll be using your ore to level blacksmithing. If you have leftovers, make sure to sell not the bars but the ores -- metals (even the stuff you *can't* prospect) are much more valuable in their ore form.

Good luck!

Bandages. Not much annoys me more than watching a group full of DPS ***stand*** around after being rezzed, waiting.

Waiting for what? Well, we'll wait for the healers to get full mana to rebuff everyone.
Then we wait for healers to get full mana *again* to heal everyone that doesn't have bandages or doesn't sit and eat.
And then we wait *again* for the healers to drink for full mana a third time so we can move to the next pull.
Bring bandages and at the *very* least, vendor-bought non-buff food. Any time you are less than full health and you see the healers drinking, eat or use a bandaid.

I don't know why that one torques me off so badly, but it does.I can't count the number of groups I've been in where folks just don't bother to use food/bandages instead of making the group wait longer so the healer can top them off and re-drink. Grr.
I can live with folks that don't have buff food - I know I've simply run out of time or forgotten to go fish up Dragonfins.
I can live with folks that are not flasked. Sometimes, you just forget or don't have the cash for mats or whatever.
It happens.

But everyone can buy food at the inn. Maybe pick up some spare water for your favorite mana-user while you're there. And swing by the reagent shop and make sure you're fully stocked on Symbols of Kings and DIvinity.

That said, I'm happy to cook up dragonfin angelfish for someone, as that's what I use, too.

I always try to eat and drink after a fight if I am low, but when I'm healing and I see little first aid crosses floating above someone's head after a fight, I read them as "Don't worry about me HEALER I've got it." It makes me feel like I haven't done my job.

I learned the hard way that bubbling the main tank to keep them from dying is a bad thing

Heck, I still remember the first time I ever saw Divine Intervention in action. Duc DI'd me on a Blood Furnace run, but I didn't realize what was going on, and I started freaking out because I couldn't move or cast or anything and everybody started dying.

That was hilarious.