I've read a lot about feral druids and i'm wondering if anyone can show me what exact gear you need to get 5k attack power / 50% crit... someone said you're able to get those kind of stats, is that true? I was looking for a link to a page showing how to achieve this... but i can't seem to find anything.... if someone could link me if you have it on hand i'd appreciate it. I have access to all the gear in this game but i can't seem to get 5k ap and 50% crit even raid buffed.. am i not using the right gear?

As a feral druid attempting to gear up for a tanking role, I would appreciate a little bit of guidance. I know the top priority is to get immune to critical hits, followed by "decent" armor/hp/dodge values. However, I'm not really sure what "decent" counts as.

Rawr has two seperate values, mitigation (armor + avoidance) and survival (which I think is: hitpoints + mitigation, assuming no heals?), and mentions that after achieving enough hitpoints to not be killed by burst damage one should focus on mitigation. Would that be something along the lines of 15,000HP (unbuffed) for T4 level? What about T5 and T6?

Through the course of TBC I've aimed for these in order when deciding between gear choices:

1) uncrittable
2) 30k armor
3) 15k unbuffed HP in bear form (not counting Tauren racial)
4) avoidance

in that priority, on the count of both available itemization and what's needed in the various tiers of gear. Of course, even after 2 and 3, I'd take a good chunk of either over 1-2% more avoidance, but those would be my baseline estimates before I even started worrying about getting more dodge.

I feel it's a lot more straightforward than warrior/paladin itemization, because in most cases, there exists only one item of debatably best value in each slot, in each tier. However, if itemization provides a close decision between the three, go for stam and armor.

Has anyone got a good handle on the value of expertise in the AEP scale of things?

Toskk's calculator (The Druid Wiki » ToskksDPSGearMethod) seems to just value it at the same level as hit rating, whatever stats I put in.

Also - I know this is a stupid question probably but does anyone have a good method for getting Lootrank to value "on use" effects properly rather than just averaging the attack power over the life of a fight and adding the AEP in manually?

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).

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.

I don't use it myself but people seem to be quite happy with Rawr for this: The Druid Wiki » Rawr

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.

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.