While the Gladiator Dragonhide set is pretty nice, I do wish they would take that +healing and turn it into spirit or more intellect. +300 healing on a 3k+ heal isn't significant, and I use my mana for a lot more than that. Crowd control, abolish, decursing, and shifting in and out of snares burn a heck of a lot more mana than healing does.

In 5v5 Arena right now our best option is as Cyclone-bot and abusing Lifebloom in the same way priests used to use PoM. I spec for 7/11/43 right now, and it works very well. I'll admit I wear 2 Dreamwalker and 2 Moonglade for the set bonus's (saving for gladiator weapon) My MO is usually to root a melee out of LOS from his healer and then Cyclone them as they move while keeping HoTs on their DPSs target for swiftmending.

This of course leaves us very vulnerable to assist-trains since caster leaves no defense to more than 1 CC, we can trinket-bear and hope they switch attacks to someone else. While I certainly don't feel useless in my 2k rating team, I would definately feel more useful as a warlock or shaman with our standard makeup (hunter, warrior, paladin, priest, me)

Feral can't compare to the CC or burst DPS that rogues or warriors have. The only real useful dispelling we have is removing CoT on a paladin/priest or crippling poison off a hunter/warlock. We also have no offensive dispell, and our "silence" is 4/15 uptime potential, and has an effective 2 second cast time if you're in caster to start with.

I think what it really comes down to is your group composition and the tactics your team uses.

With feral spec in a 5v5 with 2 other healers the chances are that you wont be required to do barely any healing at all, in which case speccing for NI and stacking any +heal gear would nerf the role you'd most likely be forced into, ie pure dps. With only 1 other healer (I guess it would have to be a paladin) it might be viable to go with mixed gear, ie 2k AP 30% crit, maybe 500 healing and a decent mana pool. I havent tried this kind of setup so I cant speculate as to whether it would be effective or not, but in theory this role would play to a feral druids strengths - because of the way the item budget works you can get more stats out of mixed role items and thus more benefit, providing you use all the abilities available to you. With this group setup for example, there are 3 other dedicated dpsers which would give you the freedom to do some burst in cat then switch out and cc\heal for a bit or whatever without feeling as though you have to compete with the rest of the team in terms of dps or healing, providing you do some of both.

With feral spec in a 3v3 I think having some +heal is beneficial in most situations. The fact is that you lose relatively few dps stats to achieve a reasonable mana pool and some + heal, and with only one other healer it's safe bet to assume that some healing will be required from you. To say that +300 heal makes no difference isnt really a reasonable assumption in my opinion - providing a fair chunk of your mana pool is spent on heals it's usually going to be more effective than the same ipoints spent on AP and crit. Similarly LB and rejuv shoulnt be underestimated when you consider the total amount healed for 2 gcd's. It's things like this that can make the difference in close games.

The issue I have with +healing is this...

If you're feral spec'd in a 3v3, and if you've got a primary healer in the group, your role is to assist on burst damage and help with crowd control. When your primary healer is getting attacked, the best thing you can almost always do is crowd control the attackers first and heal second. Crowd control cast times are faster than your heals, and aren't subject to debuffs such as mortal strike or wound poison.

The primary functions I find myself using my mana for include shifting out of CC and/or powershifting, abolish/decursing, crowd control, and healing. That 300 healing costs the same as 130 spirit. 130 spirit is an extra 1500 mana on an innervate, plus the regen you get during the times you're able to stay shifted for rested regeneration.

When our healer dies in 3v3, it doesn't usually happen because my heals weren't hitting hard enough. It's usually because they simply didn't go off in time (sorry for the italics, but that's the main point I wanted to make). And I've had plenty of times where I simply run out of mana during the fight between all the shifting and casting that goes on. I would much rather have enough mana in my set that I can cast any spell I want as needed, rather than have to think "if I shift out and cast this next heal, I'm going to be stuck in caster form until I regenerate mana".

Those are the reasons I'd rather see spirit (or more intellect) on the Gladiator's Dragonhide set.

Another 130 int is an extra 1950 mana (really I'm not a fan of spirit for PvP so its fine to me no spirit)

Innervate is of questionable use in anything except 2v2 since a lot of groups are going to have either a mage, shaman, or priest and if they are good (or at least know what they are doing) sure not going to let you have innervate.

For the gloves chance to resist spell interrupts on Cyclone would be good since we can only prevent damage interruption via talents.

I'm sorry man, but as a former healer I honestly look at your setup as one big mana sponge, even against physical bosses. Especially with how far above the defense cap you are, you could pretty safely drop any of the 3 clefthoof pieces and pick up >2% dodge for 250 hp (after kings/bear/tauren)

Cryect, I'd rather have Silence prevention than more anti-pushback. With a paladin using conc aura I'm uninterrupted when casting heals, roots, and cyclone. Without a paladin 70% isn't bad, but I lose any resistance to silence unless I have the neck from Furnace.

Planning on dropping the chest and legs for the t4 when they come around - and I use the supple leather boots for armour/dodge over the clefthoof on any fight where I don't need runspeed (although I'll be switching full time after t4 swap). I've also just switched to the heroic badge neck from the maiden one - ends up as a lot more avoidance. If the morores trinket would ever drop I'd switch out the argussian compass in an instant (or timelapse dependant on defence/resilliance). Once I switch to t4 I also have the gladiator gloves with 15 agi on them ready to swap - need it for the resillience so i still have crit immunity. It's a bit of a mana sponge, but generally I have one healer on me on fights were I'm on offtank, and I can innervate them at some point (karathress after my add is down, morogrim in between add spawns, mag after my add is dead, hydross in between spawns, although i use different gear obviously, etc). Getting t4 should really help with my role in raids as a DPSer after the add goes down. After the gear swaps, I gain something like 70 agi as well as ~1500 armour, which with GoA brings me up to ~40% dodge buffed (buffed, not potted), and drop by about ~30 stam. Definitely worth the swap.

Silence or "interrupt" (pummel/etc) resist would be really nice - helps all spec types/playstyles. I'd still prefer something guarenteed rather than a % chance, but every little helps (especially as a successful counterspell on nature locks us down nearly as badly as paladins with holy). Something like a miniature version of the SSC druid trinket would also be nice tbh!

The use of silence resist is not that needed IMO. But the chain-fear due to shapeshifts is devastating.

Id just like to add a little of my experiences from 5v5 arena, and druids in general.

I have been playing as a druid since beta and have performed every role in pretty much every environment. Guild is typically in the top 3 on my server. Played resto throughout most/all of mc/bwl and such (like a good druid ) Played with feral when the new talents came out. Switched back and forth to fit what encounters we were on. Always tried to push the limits on what I could do as a feral druid and tried to earn my spot in raids (even if I wasnt given it because of what they thought of ferals). I'm not a stubborn druid who just plays one because I can and want to. If I am not pulling my weight I know it and will change accordingly. For example early AQ I performed pretty well as a feral and helped with some OT/MT and dps. Late AQ going resto helped tremendously.

After years of raiding I pretty much stopped right before TBC came out. Leveled 60-70 with mostly the same people tanking/dpsing my little heart out. Healing in raids just doesnt do it for me and thus I am currently a non-raider in my guild filling in when they need some OT/DPS or something. I dont pull my weight as a healer(feral speced) and dont have any desire to raid resto anymore.

I am on a 2k rating team consisting of priest/pally/hunter/mage/druid
We have played together (pvp/pve) for years now. We know each other very well and can anticipate what the other will be doing. This is our advantage.

What the whole back story is about is pretty much I know this game very well. I not only know my class in and out I know all the other classes (save shammy) as much as the people playing them do. So the whole grass is greener thing doesn't really hold much weight. I feel if I somehow transformed into a warrior and put in as much effort researching and gearing as I did my druid our 5v5 team would easily be 2100-2200. For every time I think to myself wow being a druid just won us a match. (like cycloning a healer and burning a dps, or getting a FC/bash off, a clutch heal) For every time I think that there are 3 more times I think to myself... if I was a warrior that MS would of negated that heal enough to kill that person, or that fear would of really helped right then, if I could only execute that guy would be dead... I do feel I earn my spot in our group. But I also feel I could be much much more effective if given another class.

My pve is limited to clearing kara and killing gruul in which I pulled my weight and beyond. The itemization is very scary moving on and the direction everything is heading is a little depressing.

To be honest I dont really know what they should do in 5v5. Try and tone down pally/war combos or try and help out the little guys. (Druids!) -50% healing is much to be desired in a pvp encounter and it would be nice to either have or it be changed or some other ability that could define us in very competitive 5v5 matches. Maybe even a cat -> bear -> cat switching ability. And/or reducing the shifting cost into forms by .... a lot would be a step in the correct direction.

Overall I am happy to be a druid, I like punishment and I like to overcome short comings. The constant underdog story is fun but wouldnt/wasnt it nice to not be bottom dog for a while

I still love my druid, but I switched, for much of the same reasons you mention here. It is not that I feel the druid is necessarily overpowered, but that the complexity and timing invovled in being an exceptional druid is so high, and the margin of error so low. I made the switch, and I honestly feel my effectiveness has gone up tremendously in all of the roles i previously played as a druid (MT, Arena Rat). After playing as a warrior for a while you realize just how much blizzard loves warriors in terms of itemization (suddenly every boss drops at least one thing you'd want, if not more, with tons of toys)

Not to mention the complete bugginess of Cyclone - Especially on warriors where it actually de-stances the warrior, messes up their action bars, and removes all their buffs and causes them to lose a great deal of their rage. Druids are desired for this spell because of its buggy nature. This is our definition now, we're essentially a healing rogue, as the rogue's true strength lies in disruption, and we can do the same thing with a proper spec (NG, FC, NS). The highest ranked pvp druids shine in this role. Feral...offers little at the high end. Moonkin...offers even less.

Its fine that not every spec is worthwhile in competition, but the druid "off" arena specs are nearly spectacularly useless.

Its dilemma that will probably never be resolved in balance. My guilds #1 pvp team (13th on BG last i checked) always bitches about cyclone and how overpowered druids are in that regard. Their insistence on Cyclone being "the best CC in the game" strikes me as odd, but I can see the justification for a nerf on it, but how on earth do you nerf it and not make it useless?

I have to say that when comparing a warrior (or rather an MS warrior) to a druid in pvp and finding the druid lacking, that's more of an issue of the warrior being overpowered then anything else. MS warriors have been probably the most devastating group pvp spec in this game pretty much forever and looking at the top arena teams only confirms that. After all, are there actually any top arena teams without an MS warrior? That's not to say that druids do not have their issues but really any class fails when compared to an MS warrior.