Not exactly an answer but:

We killed Brutallus last night (me and prot warrior tanking) and I noticed some interesting facts. When we wiped due to tank death it was always, always the prot warrior dying (we have equal gear). Looking on meters for the kill I actually took more damage. But it was easier to heal, obviously. If there is one fight in the game at the moment where feral tanking is shining, it really is Brutallus.

I'd say that's more than enough.

At this point there are different reports from different guilds and I think it really depends a lot on what mitigation factors there are in a raid (Shadow Embrace, for example, is huge) as well as how the druids/warriors gear/gem and even the type of healers on the tank (Armor buffs anyone?).

For us, I took overall 10%-15% more damage than the warrior tank (and a whopping ~36% more on the kill attempt... wtb better dice) but the warrior exploded a lot more.

For warriors there seem to be two trains of thought - massively stacking avoidance to 'defeat' Sunwell Radiance (personally I don't see how it works, but it apparently... does?) or stacking a lot of stam. For druids though, I'd say still go for stamina and mitigation. We get to take more hits on average than a warrior and still survive. In the days of massive spirit regen and shadow priests, I don't think healing a tank that takes more damage overall is even an issue.

I can check later, but I believe that's about where I am too - see my post a few pages back about my proposed gear.

Remember that if your raid group composition will stand it you can afford to be slightly below the armor cap and rely on Devotion Aura to get you there, which allows you to gear slots with less armor and more dodge.

I was wondering about the Idol of Feral Shadows now in 2.4. I know there was some speculation earlier in the thread but I haven't seen any real evidence backing which is better, Feral Shadows or Everbloom.

According to Rawr, without any raid buffs on other than MOTW and FF, FS is a winner. And when I add debuffs like Sunder, EB comes ahead. Now, this makes sense because of armor penetration, however I was thinking through the math and just not seeing it.

Again according to Rawr, I have approx 35% crit, and shred an average of 2.2 times per 12.8s cycle.

So using these stats, for EB idol we have:
88 dmg * 2.2 shreds * 1.35 crit * 1.3 mangle * 0.6 from mob damage reduction = 203 added damage per cycle.

For the FS idol we have:
4 CP * 4 ticks * 7 dmg per tick * 1.3 mangle = 145.6 added damage per cycle.
And for 5 CP it is 182 added damage.

So it seems to me that neither CP for the FS idol can outpace the EB. Please correct my math if it's wrong -- I'm not entirely sure about the real mechanics at play here. But for the EB idol calculation I was not even factoring in better raid buffs or more armor penetration at all, and it still looks to me like it wins on damage. And yet Rawr tells me that the FS is better. Is there something I'm missing?

Actually, no amount of armor is useless here (arguably even past the cap) because of the Stomp mechanic. Of course, don't gimp anything JUST to boost armor though - it's only 10 seconds of stomp vs the rest of the fight.

So, Sunwell Plateau. I was just linked to this spell on WoWhead by my guildies--apparently every mob in there inherently reduces my dodge by 20% and raises their own tohit by 5%.

Is this true? And if it is... fuck, I'm going to have to completely regem and reenchant from sack-o'-dodge to sack-o'-stamina, aren't I?

I mean, we're not even close to SP yet, besides maybe trash farming, but if this is what Blizzard wants I guess I should follow along, huh?

(edit) 25 != 20

(edit 2) Okay, looks like from reading the past couple pages I'm pretty much correct. Oh well, may as well just get it over with.

It's really not as detrimental as you think it is. I actually regemmed to get more agi/dodge than I previously had. I find the avoidance goes a lot farther than mass stamina for this fight so long as you can stay above about 21khp raid buffed. WWS. Yea I know. 23 attempts. Bite me.

Actually, I was pretty much 100% pro-stam-stacking, but after seeing practical results of warrior avoidance stacking, it got me thinking a little.

Yes, avoidance is better with more avoidance, so Sunwell Radiance definitely diminishes the value of avoidance somewhat.

On the other hand though, Stamina past a certain point does... not much, either. I'm going to say that you'll need to be able to take a stomp, plus a high MH hit, plus a high OH hit, and have over about 2k hp left as a buffer. That's 5 + 9 + 5 as a worst case, so 21k stamina is 'fine' in that sense. More stamina past that point will only add a little benefit as to being a little margin of error from not being topped up fully before a stomp, or having fewer heals land between stomped attacks. Brutallus no longer parry-thrashes, so if healers can't land heals between that and his next set of attacks, it's a problem with the healers, not the tank.

This is why I believe avoidance stacking can and does give practical results, especially for a warrior tank. If you're not going to survive a second round of combat with 3-4k extra hp, you might as well stack avoidance and reduce the chances that that second round of combat (or the first) lands.

The counter-argument, of course, is the fact that if you can go for more stamina and provide yourself that buffer, why not? So what if I'm taking more damage overall in the course of the fight? I don't die often, and OOM issues from healers chain-spamming heals for some periods of time in a fight isn't a problem nowadays, what with the regen buff and shadow priests.

Personally, like I said previously I'd still recommend going for mitigation and stamina first and foremost as a druid tank. I know I've exploded a very little of the time with how our healing is doing this fight, and I'm overall happy with my decision. We did it with 2 tanks (warrior and feral, tanking through stomp), 7 healers, and shadow embrace, for what it's worth.

Then I guess I'll just ask you all, since I don't really know anymore where I want to go. You can see my current Bear gear in my armory; actual unbuffed (no mark) stats:

14.8k hp
30.9k armor
42.07% dodge
uncrittable

2055 ap
32.79% crit

I've fiddled in Rawr and such things, but I can't say anything conclusive about whether or not I should regem for pure stamina or stay in my current mostly agility with a little stamina permutation.

(we're up to Teron in BT and spent all last night wiping horribly to Archimonde for our first time, for an idea of our progression)

A quick question for those that have actually made it into sunwell. (we should today). Do any of the mobs crush?

If not then we do get something back from losing that avoidance. Furthermore in practice the maximum theoretical damage over any given period will be reduced.

Let's say we have a druid under the old model with 70% avoidance (dodge and miss). Then they'll take 15% crushes and 15% normal hits. for a total of 37.5% of the before mitigation damage. With the sunwell model, and no crushes they'd take 30+25 = 55% normal hits.

A high avoidance warrior with 70% avoidance (dodge, parry and miss) would take 30% normal hits outside of sunwell and then 55% inside.

Of course it also depends on the comparative mitigation, and while warriors have a superior setup, it's still close to a a wash.

Brutallus, thankfully, does not crush. It would be HI-LARIOUS if he did though.