Intro

Here is a guide I created that is designed for gear preparation for Restoration Druids before entering normal Cataclysm raids. This guide should answer the following questions:

* What is the best gear available for a Resto Druid before Cata Raids?
* Which instances should I run and which should I avoid?
* What reputation should I aim for first?
* How many justice points do I need?

This guide does not consider any profession oriented specific gear (unless the items crafted are BoE). However Archaeology items are thrown in considering anyone is freely able to pick up the profession if they desire to put the time into it.

Keep in mind this guide is mostly designed around the gear priorities for 25 man raiding. Running heroics and 10 man would have slightly different priorities. For example, 5 mans would rely less on spirit because the encounters are short, and 10 mans would value mastery.

Stat Priority

For the time being I'm considering Spirit/Haste gear as what one would aim for in every slot if it was available. After that it's kind of a toss up between Spirit/Critical and Haste/Critical gear. I'm leaning towards Spirit/Critical being of a higher value in early tier here because mana regen will be a concern in 25 man raids.