EDIT: 11/20/07. Season 3 is starting on Tuesday 11/27. That means a new feral Gladiator set (without the +heal, adds +hit and armor ignore, very nice for PVE) is coming out. Season 1 Gladiator gear is becoming buyable with honor points and new Leather and Dragonhide boots, belts and bracers are coming out. Even if you don't like to PVP much, I highly suggest grinding the honor as much as you can stand, until you collect these epics.
Bear gear has always been kind of interesting to find, because Blizzard apparently likes to put the best bear tanking stats in unlikely places. In the world of bear tanking, greens can easily outshine epics. In the Burning Crusade, nothing much has changed. Since some of the best gear is crafted or quested, it's pretty easy to quickly gear your bear up to step into Karazhan or Heroics.
Before looking at the individual pieces, a quick review of Bear tanking stats is in order.
Armor: Armor mitigation is capped at 75%, which is around 35,880 armor against level 73 opponents. Bear Druids are the only tanks that can hit that cap currently. Armor does NOT have diminishing returns. Druids have less avoidance than other tanks, at least when looking at this level of gear. So, armor is GOOD. It's our primary tanking stat. A good number to shoot for when gearing up is at least 20k to start. More is better.
Stamina: Armor doesn't really do anything against magic damage, and bears will be eating more crushing blows than other tanks, so a good amount of STA is important. Aim for at least 12k health self-buffed.
Defense/Resilience: Since there are some decent bear pieces to be had with Resilience on them, and since Defense isn't as useful for bears as warriors/pallies, I'm including it here. With that in mind, Defense is still a bit better for bears. With Survival of the Fittest, 415 Defense will make a bear uncrittable. That's pretty attainable, but while gearing up, you can use some Resilience to bridge the gap.
Dodge: A bear's only avoidance stat. Dodge Rating and Agility gives us dodge. I'd advise stacking Agility as it gives Crit as well as Armor, and gives a bit more Dodge than Dodge rating. (.07% per point of AGI vs. .05% for Dodge.) Starting out, aim for about 25% Dodge.
Crit: Crit is nice because it gives us free rage through Primal Fury, and some free ability uses from Omen of Clarity. Don't bother with Critical Strike Rating, though, just get it through Agility.
OK, on with the list:
HEAD:
Stylin' Purple Hat (Crafted) No reason not to get this one, as it's a crafted item with pretty easy materials.
NECK:
Mark of the Ravenguard (Quest) Nice high STA neck with Defense. Easy to get quest reward.
Strength of the Untamed (Cenarion Expedition Rep - Revered) Less STA but adds in Dodge Rating. You'll be going for CE rep anyway, so may as well grab this one.
BACK:
Thoriumweave Cloak (Mechanar Drop) 390 Armor and 35 STA in one slot, 'nuff said. Easy farm.
Bogstrok Scale Cloak (Slave Pens Drop) Get this early and it will hold you over for quite a while.
SHOULDERS:
Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders: (PVP) If you like to PVP, you should grab these. Even if you don't like to PVP, these are pretty easy to get, only costing 11,250 Honor and 20 AB badges. Even if you don't plan to get any other PVP gear, if you're not downing HKM yet, the lack of tanking shoulders makes these a good investment.
Shoulderpads of Assassination: (Sethekk Halls Drop) Best blue drop shoulders. Not quite as good as the PVP shoulders, but very nice.
CHEST:
Heavy Clefthoof Vest (Crafted) Seriously, no excuse not to get this vest. You can go with other options that give better offensive stats for tanking five mans, but for heavy duty tanking, this is your best choice.
WAIST:
Manimal's Cinch (Quest) Remember those greens I was talking about? Here's one. Get it.
WRIST:
Umberhowl's Collar (Quest) Same questline as Manimal's above.
Veteran's Dragonhide Bracers (PVP) Pretty easy to get from PVP, a bit better than Umberhowl's.
LEGS:
Heavy Clefthoof Leggings (Crafted) Get 'em.
Ash Tempered Legguards (Quest) HUGE Armor on these, pretty easy to get. Can use while gathering mats for/saving money for Clefthoof.
HANDS:
Wastewalker Gloves (Shattered Halls Drop) Not sure on drop rate on these. I've run a ton of SH and haven't seen them drop yet though.
Verdant Gloves (Quest) If you don't get lucky on drops, or just don't like farming Shattered Halls, these are solid.
FEET:
Heavy Clefthoof Boots (Crafted) Get 'em.
Veteran's Dragonhide Boots (PVP) A bit better than Heavy Clefthoof.
RINGS:
Iron Band of the Unbreakable (Old Hillsbrad Drop) Not unique, can get two of these. If you're getting your Violet Signet, you can just farm one.
Wind Trader's Band (Quest) A really quick quest for a druid, nice STA and tanking stats to hold you over until you get two good armor rings.
TRINKETS:
Mark of Tyranny (Quest) Still one of the only Armor trinkets in the game. Still great for bears.
Smoking Heart of the Mountain (Crafted, BOP) Ditto.
Badge of Tenacity (BoE, World Drop) Probably the Holy Grail for tanking druids since patch 2.1. Hard to track down, but worth it.
Once you can do heroic CE instances, you should hit Underbog for an Argussian Compass. I know this is a pre-heroic gear list, but it's worth mentioning.
WEAPONS:
Earthwarden (Cenarion Expedition, Exalted Rep) Get it.
Braxxis' Staff of Slumber (BoE World Drop) Grab one of these as soon as you hit 64, it will last you until you get your Earthwarden. Usually can be had fairly cheaply at the AH.
GEMS and ENCHANTS:
I'm not going to run down the whole list. Generally, go for STA first, then AGI.
As a general guideline, good choices for gems are:
Red: 8 AGI
Yellow: 4 AGI/4 Hit Rating (Hit Rating is hard to come by on bear tanking and PVP gear)
Blue: 12 STA
However, use common sense and adjust to what you need based on the rest of your gear.
If you want to go over a comprehensive list of bear tanking gear, go here. As with all my guides, I tried to keep the options limited to what's easily available to a casual player, but Emmerald's list is a great resource if you like browsing for gear.
Note: Emmerald's list is not up to date with current S3/Vindicator's gear, though it does provide a good guideline for lower gear levels.
