Gear and Spec for OT role

[Sennex]

Hola folks,

First off I want to say thank you for all the awesome advice I have received so far.

Diving into my topic here, My guild has a plethora of Tanks it seems, few priests and not much as far as reliable DPS. When I say reliable I mean that we are a pretty casual guild that hits Naxx 10 3 nights a week if we have enough people, Our DPS classes seem to be the ones that generally never log in due to real world things.

So last night I was talking with the other tanks, 2 Paladins, a Warrior, and a DK. And what we are missing is a solid Off tank that can either deal out more DPS and take a solid hit from a Boss or group of mobs should the need arise. This all could be solved should Blizzard EVER release Dual Spec's, however we all know that won't be for some time yet.

My play schedule with school, and child, put me in the best position to respec from Protection into an Arms spec (I say arms as I just can't seem to get the hang of Fury). However I am not sure the route to take my gear or even what a good Arms Spec would be that could help DPS and Tanking.

So if folks could point me at a good spec I would appreciate it.

Other than that what are the gear priorities for an Arms/ OT?
Whats a solid Rotation of Attacks for Arms?

Is Stamina of 25k (or is it 26k?) still a priority?
+hit gear and +Expertise?

1x 2 hander for Attacking or still a 1 hander and a shield?
Does +crit or haste or Armor Penetration matter at all for Arms?

Her is my armory link so you see what I have to build off of.
I am exalted with Ebon Blade and almost Revered with Wyrmrest. So that gear will open soon.
The World of Warcraft Armory

Thanks again for the help.

[Halgreg]

The toughest obstacle in being an Arms OT is that the Arms style is heavily reliant on +Crit, and that Tanking gear does not prioritize Crit in any way. Because of this, you probably won't be dealing that much damage if you're in your tanking gear even if you switch out your weapons. However, you'd still be a formidable tank in tanking gear, and dish out DPS in your DPS gear, but you probably can't do either job well in the wrong gear.

If you have a chance, read over The PVE Arms Warrior Compendium & FAQ 1.0 located on the wow forums since it goes into good detail about the pros and cons of being Arms and the tanking utility involved.

I know you mentioned that you're not interested in Fury, but coincidentally, a lot of tanking gear has a lot of desirable fury stats, such as Hit, Expertise, and Strength. Couple that with the fact that when you equip two 2-handed weapons (which you can do in combat), you get a huge stat increase, so theoretically, you could have an easier job of DPSing in your tanking gear if you needed to, or if you're placed in that situation more often.

But anyways, I hope this points you in the right direction!