How to gear up for two roles at once

As a druid who is both a tank and a healer (I gave up on being competitive at DPS a long time ago), I know how difficult it is to keep an adequate set of gear for two roles. By trying to stay competitive at two roles at once, you need to dedicate more time to gearing up just because you are keeping two sets of gear updated at once, whereas people who focus on one role don't need to do that. When your resources are spread that thin, you need to make ends meet however you can. That is what this post is about: tips to help you keep two sets of gear updated at once.

1. Take advantage of unneeded epics
This piece of advice applies more to people who are trying to start a second set of gear, but rolling on gear that drops in raids that other people don't need is a great way to keep two sets of gear up-to-date. This may be difficult if you guild uses a loot system that doesn't allow for people to role on gear for offsets without serious detriments to themselves, but if you take advantage of both sets of gear in raids, they'll probably understand and make some sort of accommodation.

2. Use your emblems intelligently
The various emblems that drop from instances are a great way to upgrade your gear when you may not be able to otherwise, but don't spend you emblems on something you may be able to get an upgrade for in an instance. If you are running 10-man Trial of the Crusader and you need a healing offhand item, you should spend your emblems on that since none drop in there, but if you need a DPS offhand, you may want to wait for the one that drops in there. Likewise, if you are a Death Knight, Druid, Shaman, or Paladin, you should focus on upgrading the item in your relic slot first, since no relics drop from TotC. More generally, you should look on wowhead to see what gear the raid your are running drops so that you know which items you won't be able to get. Those are the slots you should get gear for first using emblems. Aside from that, if you are interested in keeping both sets up-to-date, just update whichever item is in most dire need of an update, no matter which set it is from.

3. BoE/crafted items are your friend
No one said keeping two sets updated was easy, or cheap. Because you will need to split your drops/emblems between your two sets, anything you can do outside of an instance to make gearing up easier is a good thing. If you are starting a new set from scratch, use a combination of reputation rewards, BoE drops, items from the Argent Tournament, and crafted items to get yourself started. That should get you geared enough to do the daily heroic quests, which will be a good source of emblems.

4. Consider taking up enchanting
As an enchanter, I can't lie to you; if you aren't leveling it up as you yourself level up, enchanting is a pain and a half to level, and incredibly expensive too. It's not as lucrative as it used to be ever since rare enchants like crusader went the way of the shaman tank, so what's the main draw of it? Mainly, you can enchant your own gear the minute you get it. If you win an item in an instance, just put an enchant on it right there. It takes the hassle out of getting new gear enchanted (which you will need to do a lot if you don't have it, considering you will be going after twice as much gear) and gives you that much of an edge if you have difficulty staying ahead when it comes to gear.

Keeping two sets of gear is difficult, but the reward is that you will be able to fill two roles in any groups you join and any raids you do with your guild, making you a more flexible player and increasing the chance that you will get an instance group. I can tell you from personal experience that it is incredibly rewarding, so go to it!