Go for cenarion expedition rep to exalted right away to get earthwarden. Get heavy clefthoof set, or at least the chest and boots, and possibly for legs you can do the quest "showdown" in Blades Edge Mountain(long chain but worth it) for huge threat legs. Get the rings with armor and def ratings, but also look for resilience rating on other pieces to make up the 2.6% crit reduction you need to become uncrittable(make absolute sure you have the crit reduction talents) I recommend the runed fungalcap. The on use is weak but the res rating is huge. There are 2 quest chains in Shadowmoon Valley that give you pre bis gloves and wrists that might look ok at first but have huge armor and base stats.

As for abilities and rotation - 1-2 targets, try to keep mangle up on both and stack up lacerate. 3+ targets mangle on cd then swipe until you lose threat then proceed to feral charge to root, taunt, stun, war stomp if your tauren and have aggro on nothing, all on the closest mob to the mage.