Originally Posted by tetracycloide
First of all, a 5% difference could be a determining factor quite easily. If the utility of an extra OT is lower than the utility of 20% more damage then the druid absolutely looses his slot to a rogue or some other primary DPS class. If the breakpoint between OT utility and extra damage utility is anywhere near the damage difference a DPS class can get from a single item upgrade this is an issue. You cannot simultaneously argue that the utility and DPS scaling are balanced in the end and that changes to relative DPS and utility through itemization are negligible. If they're balanced in the end and itemization can create 5 to 10% shifts in their realtive differences temporarily then you must conclude that there are temporary points where they are not balanced.
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See, I don't buy this. There are a number of fights where you need offtanks for various reasons; for instance, the clear to Tidewalker really wants to have 4 tanks, whereas Tidewalker himself can theoretically be done with 1 (in practice my guild uses 3, but the point remains...) While a world first guild might be willing to bring 4 prot warriors in to clear trash and then swap them out for rogues when you get to the boss, in practice most guilds will clear the trash and the boss with the same group; in this situation, the question is not "should I bring a feral druid or a rogue" but "should I bring a druid, a fury warrior, a prot warrior, or a prot pally?" And while a slight dip in itemization might make the druid a bit less tempting, he's still going to be a better OT than a fury warrior and better dps than a prot warrior or pally and thus worthy of consideration.
Moreover, even if pure dps situations a raw 5% drop in damage tends not to skew raid invites, otherwise as soon as a rogue picked up a weapon upgrade or Dragonspine Trophy, the other rogues would stop getting invited, becaue both can provide a 5% damage upgrade with reasonable ease.
And finally, I don't think the actual damage difference between a rogue weapon upgrade and a druid weapon upgrade is on the order of 5%; as mentioned, while druid weapons might not grant *quite* as much benefit as rogue weapons, they still give significant boosts.