There's "Retirement" and there's "Retirement".

I'm on a break from Ulu. I log him in once a day to do Jewelcrafting quests and to use his Titansteel cooldown. Once a week, I'll go do Wintergrasp with him to get honor which I can then turn into epic gems. I'm not exactly bored with him, but I'm kinda tired of tanking, having done it for two and a half years now, and whilst it's pretty functional, I find Ret to be fairly unfulfilling as a DPS spec.

I've taken time off from raiding to work on Graysun, my Death Knight. When last we left him, he was an alt tank for Naxx runs and the occasional heroic a guildie wanted to go to after Ulu got saved. Both his specs were Unholy, using a 2-hander and he just felt like Ulu but less in most respects.

That said, I was looking for a DPSer to have fun with, and it was either work on Graysun, or level Wulfsblood. I tried the latter for a couple of days, but I just found it too annoying. Pet management's become too much of a chore in WotLK, and going through the WotLK content for the third time didn't appeal. Besides, Gray was semi-geared, and had a tanking spec to boot, so finding PuGs would be easier.

To get him out of the "he's just like Ulu" funk, I decided to try a 0/53/18 Frost Dual Wield spec. I figured since Smart Casual didn't have any fulltime Rogues, Enhancement Shamans or DW Death Knights, someone should be around to pick up all the one-handers that dropped. And that someone might as well be Gray.

I spent the last fortnight running every heroic and Trial of the Champion I could with him in order to get his gear to a level I'd consider "acceptable". Last night I took him into Ulduar 10, and his DPS aquitted itself nicely against the other, better geared members of the guild, which was good to see. After this week, I'll be in Australia for three weeks, but hopefully after that, I'll be able to use Gray as my main raiding toon.

3.1 Preparations

Well, 3.1's been confirmed as incoming this week, and we'll finally be able to see if it was worth the wait.

Of course, along with Ulduar, the big change in 3.1 is the introduction of Dual specs, the ability to store and switch between two separate specs, with their own action bars and glyphs. With this in mind, here's my thoughts on how Ulu will be speccing come 3.1:

Tank Spec: 0/53/18

I really like Pursuit of Justice, and I've missed it since I specced out of it. Yes, I could get a run speed enchant, but it's just not the same thing!

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Righteous Defense -> Glyph of Divine Plea Righteous Defense barely gets used since Ulu got Hand of Reckoning, so it seems a good place to swap in the new hotness.
Glyph of Judgement -> Glyph of Exorcism If you use Exorcism ever second cooldown, then this glyph wins over the Glyph of Judgement. It's also nice for more burst at the pull.
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance -> Glyph of Seal of Vengeance Still absurdly overbudget and I'll probably use it until I end up with a prohibitive amount of Expertise from gear.

DPS Spec: 0/17/54

I know some folks are going into Holy for Aura Mastery, but the extra healing from Divinity will be nice with Divine Storm, JoL and Art of War. Plus I'm tempted by seeing how Divine Sacrifice can help out in a splash damage-heavy fight, and Divine Guardian will be nice now that Sacred Shield is single target-only.

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Seal of Blood - Now that Rets don't have Spiritual Attunement, it's going to be important to get some mana back.
Glyph of Exorcism - More damage is always good.
Glyph of Judgement - See above.

Minor Glyphs (both specs): I don't see these changing, given that the selection of Paladin minor glyphs are less than inspiring.

Glyph of Blessing of Might
Glyph of Lay on Hands
Glyph of Sense Undead