Bear Tank Gear

[Arcdelad]

We have quite a few up and coming feral druids who are itching to tank. Here are some very easy to get items that will definitely get you started on the right path for tanking level 70 instances and beyond:

Heavy Clefhoof Armor

These items can be made by MOST leatherworkers in the guild and are truly phenomonal, especially for their relative low cost to make. These should be your foundation for bear tanking as soon as you can equip them:

[item]Heavy Clefthoof Vest[/item]
[item]Heavy Clefthoof Boots[/item]
[item]Heavy Clefthoof Leggings[/item]

Slap +12 STA blue gems in all the slots, and you have a TON of armor, GREAT STA, and enough +DEF to guarantee your over the minimum of 415 DEF.

Helms

Both are great AND craftable: these two items are SOLID starting points for bear tanking:

[item]Stylin' Purple Hat[/item]
[item]Cobrascale Hood[/item]

Most leatherworkers can make the stylin hat and the mats are almost nothing...the cobrascale hood requires a primal nether and is a bit steeper on the mats.

Weapon

When you can, [item]Braxxis' Staff of Slumber[/item] is phenomonal, and can be bought on the AH for 18-40G. Its a common random world drop too, so if someone is trying to gouge you on the ah (damn rogues) then wait and someone else will have it on there soon enough.

If you can, definitely work your way to [item]Earthwarden[/item] from there. It takes some patience, but its not too bad a rep grind to get to exalted.

Definitely consider putting the +35 AGI enchant on your weapons...almost 3% extra dodge is awesome.

BG and Arena Gear

If you don't mind grinding BG points, the Veteran's and Vindicator gear are really solid tanking options, although the boots are not an upgrade to the Heavy Clefthoof Boots, so youll only need about 30,000 BG points.

[item]Vindicator's Dragonhide Bracers[/item]
[item]Vindicator's Dragonhide Belt[/item]

***If you don't want to do BG's, there are [item]Badge of Justice[/item]items a lot better: [item]Band of the Swift Paw[/item] and [item]Waistguard of the Great Beast[/item].

Arena gear is actually better than a lot of the tiered stuff for tanking, so if you have an arena team you have access to some of THE best tanking gear in the game.

A great replacement for the Heavy Clefthoof vest is [item]Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic[/item], and the S2 shoulders (now discounted) are better than the T4 ones; [item]Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders[/item] and [item]Mantle of Malorne[/item] respectively.

If you don't like Arenas, but still want the next upgrade over your Heavy Clefthoof Vest, you can get [item]Vestments of Hibernation[/item] as the next best, non-tiered thing.

Boots

When you want to upgrade your Heavy Clefthoof Boots, you really have two options:

1) [item]Boots of Natural Grace[/item], which are only available to you IF you are a leatherworker AND buy the pattern.
2) [item]Footwraps of Wild Encroachment[/item] are great and available from Badges..also slightly better than the Boots of Natural Grace.

[Vengeance]

Just as a side note some seem to mistake...1 AGI > 1 dodge rating
As you attain some items and replace the Clefthoof set, its advisable to get some rings/necklaces/trinkets that have defense rating...
Necklaces that i can name of the bat-
[item]Necklace of the Juggernaut[/item], 25 badges 
[item]Strength of the Untamed[/item]-at revered with Cenerion Expedition, which you could get on your grind (if you plan to) to Earthwarden
Rings-
[item]Violet Signet[/item]-All the rep rings are great, only getting better as you earn better standards with the Karazhan rep (cant recall the name...)
[item]Ring of Unyielding Force[/item]-25 Badges
Trinkets-[item]Adamantine Figurine[/item]-From 2nd boss in Shadow Labs-While not GREAT, its good when your striving for the defense cap
[item]Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch[/item]-Obviously off of Moroes, a great dodge trinket for bad situations
[item]Badge of Tenacity[/item]-This is a complicated item to get, and other times merely VERY expensive, yet HIGHLY worth the price/time-First, you have the get [item]Depleted Badge[/item], which is a rare drop off of mobs of the whole of Blades Edge Mountains cut off from people without flying mounts (unsure of this). After that, get 50 [item]Apexis Shard[/item] off of random mobs in:
-Crystal Spine
-Bash'ir Landing
-Vortex Pinnacle
-Forge Camp: Wrath
-Forge Camp: Terror
(these places taken off of Wowhead.com)All of these are located in Blades Edge as well. These are also attainable off daily quests in BEM after completing the Ogrila starting quests to kill those Gronn.

Note these are just off the top of my head...and some of the trinkets arent preferable until after youve upgraded your (BEAR) gear enough to lower your defense ratings (which for some reason, is not included on our Tier sets nor a majority of our gear)

[Arcdelad]

Its actually not as hard as the forum people would have you believe to keep above 415 defense...the only clefthoof piece I have left are leggings, and I am still at 423 defense I think..consider that the KOT head enchant and the Scryer / Alder shoulder enchant BOTH have large amouts of +DEF RATING, plus most rings, neck pieces, and cloaks have +DEF RATING as well...worst case scenario you sacrifice some +12 STA gems for some +DEF gems...

this is a pretty moot point for any bear tank starting out...youll find with your clefthoof set and other pieces you have way more DEF then you need...

dep is 100% right - 1 +DODGE is far inferior to 1 AGI....it takes 14 AGI for 1% dodge and 22 +DODGE for 1%, plus AGI helps out your attack power which helps you generate rage and crit...

EDIT: Resilience can work in conjunction too along with DEF to make you uncrittable. Seems like the only +RES gear worthwhile out there is all BG or Arena though, so if you arent into that stuff you will need to focus on DEF to 415 for sure. I have 108 RES and 423 DEF right now with a mixture of PVE and PVP items...

[Oilslick]

Thought i would point out that the rare stylin purple hat is rated as considerably better tanking gear than the much more expensive to put together epic cobrascale hood on the emmeralds site.

[Rocknlock]

Arc, I should put 12 stam gems in everything including belt of natural power?

[Arcdelad]

I do +12 sta gems all day long...the upper eschelon tnak items are all packed with AGI already, so STA is more important I think....dont waste gems on +DEF IMO either - thats what your "junk" (rings and necks) and enchants are for...

if you can afford the +15 sta gems god bless you =) that would be the item to splurge gems on though since its the best in the game and cant be upgraded...

[Rocknlock]

Thanks =p