Greetings!
I've been trying to find a true answer about druid specs and their usefulness in advanced end game raiding, requirement of each spec and requirement of druids per raid.

My knowledge of the druid advanced raiding is limited to my pre-TBC experience on my hunter which I've been till 7 bosses in Naxx, we had resto druids only with 2-4 druids in raid max. Now with TBC, everything has changed, more trees are PvE viable for several classes besides druids and raids became smaller, so I'm totally lost of what is the druids requirement per raid in advanced 25 man instances.

I used to be feral, I tanked all of Karazhan (except for nightbane) and MT'ed/OT'ed Maghlar and I was always the OT on Gruul. But, I've been browsing SSC and TK look searching for feral upgrades (beside T5) and I found almost nothing regarding druid tanking, even the dps items are not much feral druid stats (strength, agility...etc. instead of AP) but more like rogue items, moonkin items are badly lacking and loads and loads of healing leather gear.
But, ferals provide an off tank that can switch to dps, or moonkins that can be an off healer then switch to dps. This is what some people reclaim as the main reason to allow/bring non-resto druids to raids besides their buffs.

Are non-resto specced druids a "must have" in raids? How many non-resto would an advanced raiding guild would keep? How many druids in a semi perfect SSC/TK and beyond raids are there? how many of them are non-resto?


Sometimes I regret I rerolled a druid since TBC started, I wanted to play a healer when I created it, but now my guild forces me to spec feral as we lack good tanks, but I see this pointless as sooner or later I will have to spec resto (Class leader is also feral, and I doubt he'd ever be going to resto) and all what I get from tanking Karazhan and Gruul is being undergeared resto-wise compared to other healers and having to sit outside for another better geared healer.

PS: I wrote this at 5am, and I didn't sleep all night, cut me a little slack with spelling.

Feral and resto druids are both good in raids. Feral seems like more of a "must have" than resto really.