I just heard something today, and I'd like to verify that's it's still true- Elemental Sharpening Stone? REALLY?

Yes, it's true. Both the elemental sharpening stone and weightstones introduced in TBC work for Ferals. However, in the case of the weighstones only the crit rating will apply...the blunt weapon damage will do nothing. They are a nice boost to crit, though finding a old school blacksmith to craft the Elemental Sharpening Stones might be a bitch because I'm pretty sure that's a MC drop.

That is because expertise is *exactly* as good as hit rating.

15.77 hitrating reduces your chance to miss by 1%.
15.77 expertise rating reduces your chance to be dodged by 1%.

Obviously, when you're in front of a boss and parry becomes relevant the story changes, but for normal DPS purposes: expertise rating ~ hit rating.

Ahh ok. Thanks Rannasha, but that isn't quite true. Obviously if you are hit capped then expertise has more value, and hit is easier to come across, so I would probably choose to value expertise slightly higher, but I see what you mean - if you are neither hit capped nor expertise capped, adding 1 of each rating will have the same effect for dps.

This is kind of why I don't like using Lootrank (or anything similar) to value the best gear when there is a "cappable" stat (like hit% or resilience in PvE) or a level at which certain stats become far less useful (defense).

Obviously, when a stat is capped, its value drops to zero, but i always make my comparisons in such a way that i don't count on stats being capped.

Are there any equipment-speculation sites out there that are actually accurate in stats when taking Bear form into account? I've tried warcrafter.net and ctprofiles, but neither of them give bear-form numbers that are accurate with my CURRENT equipment, let alone after I make any changes.

Just to clarify why I need this, I'm working on replacing my bear-tanking belt and boots. Right now I have [Tree-Mender's Belt] and [Zierhut's Lost Treads]. I can replace the belt with either [Belt of Natural Power] or [Vindicator's Dragonhide Belt], and I can replace the boots with either [Boots of Natural Grace] or [Vindicator's Dragonhide Boots].

If I get the Vindicator's gear, that means I can replace other slots (namely, my neck) with DPS/stamina gear, since defense can be taken away due to the resilience. At this point my mental theorycraft ability goes to pot, and I start to wish for an accurate calculator.

Here's my armory for reference. If I'm wearing [Ring of Unyielding Force] and [Violet Signet of the Great Protector], I'm in my tanking gear, otherwise I'm not.

This is a gem question, wouldn't you eek out a little more dps if you gemmed your nether shadow tunic with 8 or 10 agi gems x 3 and put a blue gem for the meta in your legs? It would only be a tiny amount but its just for theorycrafting's sake.

Picked up [Choker of Serrated Blades] on an impulse buy. I'd like to get other's opinions on this neck vs. [Mithril Chain of Heroism]. I have been working with Toskk's calculator and it swaps rankings with the Kara neck depending on the boss. I'm just not clear how Armor Penetration is ranked vs. other stats in this calculator, actually I'm not sure in general. I know it is not as useful to Druids as it is to other melee, but it seems the benefits grow as you acquire more.

With the choker I will lose ~20 AP (3430ish to 3411) and 1% crit(48% to 47%) don't remember my base crit and AP this is with some raid buffs). **But** the choker plus the ZA staff (which I have) are 490 Armor Penetration and seems to me might be worth the AP and crit loss.

I guess I am trying to justify losing the AP and crit, but I am afraid that's a mistake.

Well I can tell you that I have both of them on my bank and got myself [Choker of Vile Intent], since I still need some hit.
But to answer your question: I think someone mentioned before, that armor penetration will benefit you depending on the rest of your gear, which at the time you'll find the [Choker of Serrated Blades] should be good enough for it to be better, so I would recommend you use it, without knowing how much hit you have.

I've been theorycrafting in Rawr this morning (thanks for the link, by the way, great stuff!), and now I have a question.

If one had to choose between 15.4k HP and 38% dodge, versus 13.1k HP and 45% dodge (all self-buffed, no consumables) for off tanking in SSC and TK (with minor maintanking here and there), and some main tanking in Kara/ZA, which would you choose? Common wisdom says stack life first, but my bear guildies have repeatedly suggested stacking dodge via agility first (and will probably kill me when they see this message), and they do pretty damn well as tanks as far as I can tell.

In other words, I guess, is there a certain point where I have "enough" health or "enough" dodge and I need to start going the other way?

What is the armor difference between those 2 sets? It would be really surprising if such different sets retained their same armor value (unless you can actually manage to get these stats via gems alone).

There is a point where you have enough health which is basically the amount you need to survive the worst case hit/crush combo without counting on avoidance.
I'd say there is no "enough" avoidance in terms of mitigation ever if you keep a healthy amount of health, you might want to stop gearing for avoidance if this puts a dent on your TPS though.

Ah left out my hit I am capped running 145 right now. Thanks for the reply.

Erm. It's a pretty silly thing to do just for the hell of it, especially when blue/epic gems are involved. Let's take a look.

Now he has:-

21 agility
9 hit
8 ap (socket bonus)

If he did what you suggest

28 agi
0 hit
4 ap (from 2 str socket bonus)

Even weighting agi very very high vs hit/str you end up being basically equal. If you used epic gems it would end up being an improvement yes, but the crimson spinels are not exactly overflowing out of most guild banks.

Plus I suspect that set up is quite deliberate as it's exactly hit-capped. But your mileage will of course vary with regards to hit capping.

That extra 2.3k will likely save your life more times than even 7% dodge, because 13.1k is pretty low, especially when you're not pushing 30k armor.

If it were 15.4k vs 17.7k though, I'd go for 7% dodge.

Edit: Wow, fast-moving forums.

If this is just via gems as you say, why not take the easy way out and for a balance between the two extremes you listed?

If you don't want to do that, just refer to what I edited in my previous post: If you can survive the worst case raid buffed in the dodge set, then by all means, go with that. Agility have a positive effect on Cat DPSing in the same set is just the icing on the cake.

My biggest problem right now is that my chest and pants are sort of geared for agility-stacking, rather than general tanking. I'm wearing Shadowprowler's Chestguard and Skulker's Greaves, specifically--great for agillty, not so great for stamina (ignoring gemming at the moment). I have no chance of getting T4 anymore (Gruul and Mag have been dropped from the rotation, so I have to either wait for a PuG or forget it), and T5 is a long way off for me at this time.

(edit: ugh figuring out gear is harder than the actual gearing )

(edit 2) Alright, new question that might help me figure it out.

What's the absolute worst-case damage-wise at the T5 level? In other words, if dodge completely fails and I get whacked by big-hitters somehow all at once (WF proc on Tidalvess, Prince thrash, two simultaneous Al'ar add explosions, whatever), leaving me to only count on my armor and health, how much health should I have to survive? What's going to hit me the hardest? (I suspect Tidalvess WF procs, and maybe Morogrim's normal-attacks-like-a-fucking-freight-train, but there're others I just haven't thought of I'm sure).

The 15.5k health on the Armory is erroneous, it should be 13.5k. I don't know where that 2000 health is coming from, maybe I still have fort or a food buff and the armory's glitched out. Wouldn't be the first time. vOv

That said, the belt and boots are what I was looking at replacing in today's theorycraft with Rawr. I was thinking of replacing the boots with, as you said, [Boots of Natural Grace], but replacing the belt with [Vindicator's Dragonhide Belt] so I can replace the +15 resilience to chest with +6 stats, as well as some other +def gems if I can (which is where the +sta vs +agi posts above came from).

[Vestments of Hibernation] don't look too bad, though.

(edit) Or maybe [Belt of Natural Power] and [Vindicator's Dragonhide Boots] instead, though getting the vortices would be kind of a PITA. Argh!

The main reason for my gem choices are:
A) Lack of crimson spinels.
B) DPS being my "secondary" role, so no priority on gems for pure DPS gear, and I'm not really up for getting gems just for the sake of seeing the very best DPS I might be able to do to that point of extremism.
C) Being exactly hit capped.
D) Socket bonus on the chest virtually makes up for not using pure agility in it.

Ledneh, why is getting Nether Vortex(s) hard? Also why is T5 so far off for you? I am not being sarcastic, just curious. Is it DKP or reroll or new to the guild???

I'm at the back of the line for Vortices right now, by roll-in. If I had all the non-vortex mats together, I'd move up, but like I said I'm still trying to decide if I even really want a [Belt of Natural Power].

T5 is a ways off because of Suicide Kings--I took a break about two months ago, two weeks after I had gotten T5 shoulders, so I was bottomed out. Still am. (Incidentally, we do SK for T5 tokens, and the "Don't Be A Dick" rule for everything else, with the exception of Vortices which are kind of decided on the fly by who has a waiting list or the other mats on hand)

I did a quick search and didn't see anything about this (so don't jump down my throat if its been discussed). Do any top end tanks have an opinion on using Wildfury v. Earthwarden? One of the tank druid's greatest strength's is phenominal aggro generation. Problem is, being constantly parried or dodged. Nothing is more infuriating than watching 2-3 mangles in a row being parried/dodged etc.

Dropping Pendant of the Titans and Wildfury for Deftness + Earthwarden is a significant cut in dodge stamina, and aggro generation (through AP). But is it worth it to get that expertise?

I'm not convinced either way and would like some input. My situtation is full T6, 7% to hit, 50% to dodge raid buffed (using pendant of the titans and Wildfury).

Right now I'm thinking of the following game-plan:

1) Get leatherworking to 375 (at 367 right now, so I guess I need to just crank out some Drums of Battle or something), and craft [Boots of Natural Grace] to replace [Zierhut's Lost Treads].
2a) Collect badges for [Vestments of Hibernation] to replace [Shadowprowler's Chestguard].
2b) Gather mats, and start rolling on vortices, for our resident plan-holder to craft [Belt of Natural Power].
3) Replace my [Insignia of the Horde] with a [Medallion of the Horde], because seriously jesus fuck five minutes is too long.
4) Get [Vindicator's Dragonhide Bracers] to replace [Veteran's Leather Bracers] (and by the way, I got the rogue bracers instead of the druid bracers because I'm sort of dumb). Extremely minor upgrade, but hey.

Following this plan, Rawr has me upgrading from:
to:
Basically at a cost of 1% dodge I gain almost 1000 health and 3k armor, while remaining uncrittable.

Seem like a fair game plan, or should I try for other items?