I'm dps 95% of the time or so, abouts. I OT on trash and encounters like Magtheridon where there are minor mobs to kill before the main target. Largely the same as Daboran, we run 2 ferals and 2-4 warriors in different roles, and I can only chime in agreement with the rest he says. Unless you do stupidly high dps, and is completely irreplacable as damage, you're of the most benefit to a raid as an OT every now and then. I can tank decently in dps-gear, and for encounters like Magtheridon, where killing the first mobs really quickly is extremely good, my threath-output is a huge boon.

It should be added that if you're that closeminded I don't think you have much to do in a raid, you'll be more of a liability than a bonus in that people will expect more than dps from you, and you're not delivering it.

Just half assing some math:

I use mangle every 12 seconds at most, unless for some reason positioning is screwed up, while dpsing for the most part. We generally run 2 feral druids for dps/offtanking, and I'm usually the mangle-bitch.

So, assuming I use it every 12 seconds, it will proc 4 out of 10 uses, or an uptime of 32 seconds out of 120 (since I would pretty much never use mangle while the debuff is still up).

32 comes from it being 8 seconds duration, and it would be up 4 out of 10 mangles. So, on average, it gives a total of (32/120) * 140 str, or about 37.3 str, which is 98.56 attack power with Kings+HOTW. Bloodlust brooch, when used on every cooldown, is 118.3 attack power. (72 + 278/6).

Now, for Crystalforged. Since +weapon damage doesn't effect rip (I've tested it), its not quite worth 14 attack power per point of damage, the earlier estimates of 11.5 sound very reasonable (since Rip is usually somewhere around 30% of my damage, last I checked). So, 7*11.5 = 80.5 atk power. Additionally, the use ability has a one minute CD, so its attack power bonus is worth about (216/6) or 36, bringing the total to 116.5.

Summary: In my opinion, that trinket is crap for raiding, where Mangle isn't used very often if you are attemping to maintain an efficient DPS cycle.

Thanks for the math kiroyo and dukes. Going a bit OT here, but the main benifit of that trinket (aswell as living root) is that you actually gain a bonus for all forms. I found myself switching out to help healing heavy phases more often than it wouldve been ever necessary in vanilla wow.
Having multiuse trinkets to use is so unique even amongst hybrids that its benefits can way heavy in alot of encounters.

In short:

Yes, the set bonus is better than 50 AP in a raid setting (probably for solo as well but that is mostly irrelevant I think).

Here is how I calculated it, it's not as theoretical as it can be but it's nice and practical:

4% chance on hit to gain 20 Energy = Nearly half a shred. Assuming your Shred hits for 1.2k on average (that is probably even a low number) and a proc every 25 hits on average means 600 damage every 20 seconds from the proc. That is 30 DPS.

55 AP (might as well include Unleashed Rage in a raid setting) is giving you 55/14*1.1 (Naturalist)*1.40 (assumed 40% crit rate) = 6 DPS on your auto attack.

55 AP also adds (6 DPS*2.25 (Shred Bonus)*1.3 (Mangle Debuff)*1.4 (assumed 40% Crit rate))/2 = 12.3 DPS

To be honest, I am not 100% confident in my math but it looks logical enough to me. I am all ears for corrections though.

The common consensus is that you need 8.6% Hit to never miss against a level 73 mob. But truth to be told, I never raided with that much. I only have 5.6% Hit myself but also +10 Feral Skill which is quite a huge buff to your Hit in itself. But unless you have +Feral Skill, you should try to get up to 8.6% Hit.