I think the health thing is true. My health total in caster is 10.5k, which is 14k completely unbuffed in bear. Fully raid buffed without flask I'm on over 20k (i think) with fort, motw, blood pact, commanding shout, food and rumsey rum - total of +100+18+92+20+15 stamina, which is 294 stamina in bear, plus the ~1300 or so from commanding shout (which helps a lot if you can get it). I much prefer having a load of health and only 25% dodge unbuffed than having 40% dodge and 2k less health. It might mean less damage total, but having been a healer, I prefer healing someone who doesn't spike a lot, or at least can take the spikes with a good safety margin.

In reply to the previous poster: There's a talent in feral that reduces critical chance against us by 3% - means you only need about 415 defence to get crit immunity. It also doesn't give block or parry, which I assume is what he meant by "it doesn't do as much". He should still be aiming for 415 though, crit's can easily mean you die VERY quickly on particular bosses (malchezzar especially).

Crits are also not always "game over" for druids either due to high amounts of health and armor.

The correct way to look at it is in terms of rating. You need 156 Defense Rating to get 415 Defense skill, which equals crit immunity vs. a level 73 boss mob with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest. However, the crit reducing power of Resilience means that each point of Resilience Rating translates to the equivalent of 1.5 Defense Rating. So combine them and reach that cap and then focus on Agi and Stam.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28506

I only take those off for Arena, because I like the versatility of Moonglade there. Maybe I'm dumb, but 60+% raid dodge is pretty cool, and going from ~15% dodge at the price of 6% mitigation has been worth it all the way. It's also nice because swapping "stance" mid-fight isn't as painful a proposition, and critting for free CP/rage is always fun for the whole family.

I forgot I wasn't crit immune when we pulled PM one week. Dancing over his corpse, I stopped caring. First time, for the entire encounter, I got a whopping one sunder on me total. Second week, it actually got down to three sunders, and that was scary, but certainly manageable. No flask, no buffs besides food, and one elixir. Being crit when you have all your mitigation (aka, not sundered to oblivion) is certainly less troublesome then being HIT when you have none. Additionally, and at the risk of inviting a roll-table discussion, he has to hit you before he can crit.

On the topic of crits, can someone explain this one?



415 Defense and 3/3 SotF and I got crit. It's not a big crit, mind you, I have seen crushings bigger than that but I was still surprised. What's up with that?

You don't get immune to crits with 415 defence, you just reduce the chance to 0.00something% chance to get crit.

1) Some combat mods register crushing blows as crits
2) "Crit immune" is a fallacy, there's still something like .1% chance of being crit.

I figure I show some of the math behind how they compare its not a full comparison not taking into account energy/crit differences which have a pretty big influence as well (figure if you are going to do that then you also have to look at the additional energy of combat potency etc)


Rogue
Sinister Strike (100% + 80)*106%*110% Weapon Speed 2.4 = ~280%*AP/14+93
Backstab (150% + 225)*110%*120% Weapon Speed 1.7 = ~337%*AP/14+297

Druid
Mangle (160% + 264)*120%*110% = ~211%*AP/14+348
Shred (225% + 405)*130%*110% = ~322%*AP/14+579

Weapon Speed Modifiers
1 Handed - 2.4
Daggers - 1.7

Rogue Talents
Aggression - +6% to Sinister Strike
Surprise Attacks - +10% to Sinister Strike & Backstab
Dagger Specialization - +5% Crit with Daggers
Sword Spec - 5% chance extra attack
Imp Backstab - +30% to Crit for Backstab
Opportunity - +20% Damage to Backstab

Druid Talents & Abilities
Savage Fury - +20% to Mangle
Mangle - +30% to Shred



So in both cases the amount of AP that gets applied is actually less than the Rogue version with larger constant modifiers. Things that change how it works is druids get to Shred at 42 energy and if you don't have a mangle bitch you are going to have to mangle in addition to pure shreds. A Combat Dagger rogue is also going to have Combat Potency which helps out a ton for them. If you want to do a full comparison though on who gets the most on AP you have to see the derivative of Damage to AP over a full cycle for both druids and rogues.

He's using SCL which sure doesn't and can't imagine anyone sticking with an addon that considered crushings as crits since you would see yourself getting crit all the time then.

Sorry to intrude on all the tanking discussion but for those druids that are healing specced, what type of role do you feel druids are best at for healing? What I mean is, in general do you think druids are best at spot healing the raid? HoTing the tank? A few hots on tank and a few on raid? Or maybe skip ToL and alot of the HoT talents and go higher in balance and use only HT? I know all this is situational as well - a ToL druid may need to be out of it spamming HT for high spike fights, you want max hots on maiden, etc. but in general where do you feel druid healing really shines?

Having played priest and now shaman I feel like I know how to assign them to the right jobs. Pallies are pretty simple to figure out anyways. Druids I'm a bit iffy on - I know all the spells and talents, how much they heal for and such but I'm not quite sure what to make a druid heal so that he can use his spells best. Our druids end up using regrowth alot and while I know it's not as bad as it used to be it's still not their optimal spell just looking at the stats... and I wonder how to put them in the position to use their more efficient spells.

I was looking at a 34/0/28 build for HT spam, or something along those lines. Would someone be kind enough to link me a good distribution for this spec? I keep ending up with some extra points.