Complete Druid BiS List for Resto, Bear, and Cat

[Kelissandra]

hey
why aren't Verdant Footpads (http://db.valkyrie-wow.org/?item=13954) on the resto boots list at all? they're better than some of the boots on there
same for some other dungeon items that should be on there for healers IMO (which are all way better than t1) such as
Whipvine Cord (http://db.valkyrie-wow.org/?item=18327)
Gloves of Restoration (http://db.valkyrie-wow.org/?item=18309)

[Yurf]

Just how good would the 3 pieces off the AB exalted set would be ? I know shoulders are bis but what about all of em together?

2 pieces gives you 5 stam and 3 pc gives 1 crit. The stam is useful for tanking and right now having the boots and shoulders for the bonus would be a nice small bonus. The crit though adds only dps and not anything to tanking except tps. Considering the relative ease of obtaining a Lava Belt and its outstanding tanking stats, going for 3 pc would not seem like a great idea.
If you are thinking from a cat dps standpoint, the boots are poor, while the shoulders and belt are decent. But there are a lot of tradeoffs as compared to what you can find elsewhere.

I disagree. I think the AB 3-piece set is fantastic for tanking. You can never have too much threat, and 1% crit is very valuable in bear form - it's ~30 AP. Everyone knows the shoulders, and the boots are BiS unless you're lucky enough to have Boots of the Shadow Flame. Since the boots are taking the 2-piece stam bonus, we should judge the belt as a 159 armor, 7 stam, 2% crit, 34 AP belt. That's a huge amount of threat, very good armor, and okay stam. Lava Belt gains you 64 armor and 8 stam but has 0 threat. While you still want Lava Belt for max-mitigation fights, the AB belt just gives so many useful stats for most fights.

[Taladril]

Just how good would the 3 pieces off the AB exalted set would be ? I know shoulders are bis but what about all of em together?

2 pieces gives you 5 stam and 3 pc gives 1 crit. The stam is useful for tanking and right now having the boots and shoulders for the bonus would be a nice small bonus. The crit though adds only dps and not anything to tanking except tps. Considering the relative ease of obtaining a Lava Belt and its outstanding tanking stats, going for 3 pc would not seem like a great idea.
If you are thinking from a cat dps standpoint, the boots are poor, while the shoulders and belt are decent. But there are a lot of tradeoffs as compared to what you can find elsewhere.

I disagree. I think the AB 3-piece set is fantastic for tanking. You can never have too much threat, and 1% crit is very valuable in bear form - it's ~30 AP. Everyone knows the shoulders, and the boots are BiS unless you're lucky enough to have Boots of the Shadow Flame. Since the boots are taking the 2-piece stam bonus, we should judge the belt as a 159 armor, 7 stam, 2% crit, 34 AP belt. That's a huge amount of threat, very good armor, and okay stam. Lava Belt gains you 64 armor and 8 stam but has 0 threat. While you still want Lava Belt for max-mitigation fights, the AB belt just gives so many useful stats for most fights.

I think this is a fair point to make. From a purely mitigation standpoint, 3 pieces is not optimal, however, especially if you find yourself threat starved, this will definitely help you with tps. It's actually why I personally use Forest Stalker's Bracers over Malefic Bracers. The huge dps jump is far more useful to me than a touch more stamina.
Just know what you're giving up.
Gain: 34 AP + 2% Crit
Loss: 8 Stam + 323 Armor (in bear)

[$weetjeff]

This, my good sir, is fantastic! Very appreciated indeed!

[Fegan]

Hi there,

I was wondering, but why is band of the Great Tortoise not listed? Was it forgotten, or is the 120 armor less good than the worst ring on the list for a feral tank?

I can't believe

Band of Flesh
Binds when picked up
Unique
Finger
+16 Stamina
+6 Strength
+3 Agility

Provides better mitigation than the 552 armor from the Tortoise ring?

[Taladril]

Hi there,

I was wondering, but why is band of the Great Tortoise not listed? Was it forgotten, or is the 120 armor less good than the worst ring on the list for a feral tank?

I can't believe

Band of Flesh
Binds when picked up
Unique
Finger
+16 Stamina
+6 Strength
+3 Agility

Provides better mitigation than the 552 armor from the Tortoise ring?

Band of the Great Tortoise doesn't make the list. It's tanking value is 95.7 points, which you see is below where the list ends. The stat values tab at the end will show you how stats stack up to get the points that you see. I reverse engineered the tanking stats so i don't know the theorycraft behind them so it is possible that armor and stamina do not have the correct values. But I'd want to see some math before I would disagree with it.
However in general stamina is very important to druids as well as armor. Band of Flesh has one of the highest amounts of stam in a pre raid ring you can find, so it is a very good druid ring. Really what you need to shoot for is Ring of Protection, but for a second one Band of Flesh is a great choice.

[Lorilay]

I'd recommend using an addon like TankPoints if you're on the fence about an item. The reality is that the benefit of stats like stam, armor, and dodge is partially dependent on the other gear that you're wearing, and the formulas for more in-depth mods like TP take that into account rather than assigning a flat value for each stat.

[MrCer]

I am very interested in learning more about bear tanking.

I've noticed from your gear spreadsheet that armor is usually the highest priority, then dodge then stam/defense.

Is armor really more important than defense? Or is it simply because bear tanks can't get enough defense for it to be better than armor stacking?

Also, looking at bears abilities and gearing options; do bears have threat issues when tanking next to warriors? So much of druid tanking gear has high crit gear + the crit from talents. How's threat for bears?

[Lorilay]

You can't get defense capped in leather gear, and you can't parry, so you get more avoidance from agility than you do from defense, and you get more mitigation from armor than defense.

[TheNIF]

You can't get defense capped in leather gear, and you can't parry, so you get more avoidance from agility than you do from defense

That's actually not true.

+1 defense = +0,04% chance to dodge, +0,04+ chance to be missed. = 0,08% avoidance.

+1 agility = +0,05% dodge. (0,055% dodge with blessing of kings).

So you actually get more avoidance from defense than from agility. If you throw the reduced chance to be critted on top, defense is even better still. You can count the reduced chance to be crit as another dodge/miss, so the total avoidance from +1 defense is 0,04 dodge + 0,04 missed + 0,04 less chance of being crit = 0,12% total damage avoided.

So it takes 8,3 defense to give you "1% avoidance". But it takes 20 agility to give you 1% dodge.

Even further, the best avoidance to have is chance to be missed. Because you can't dodge when stunned, but the NPC can still miss you.

The advantage of agility is the fact that it also gives you crit, so more threat.

But this is a useless theoretical discussion, because there is no gear choice that lets you choose between an item with 20 agility vs an item with 20 defense. Most of the best bear items usually has either one or the other, or both already.

For example, there is no alternative to Heavy Dark Iron ring that gives 5 agility instead of 5 defense. So Heavy Dark Iron ring is just BiS until AQ40 twin emps, and it'd be BiS whether it had 5 agi or 5 defense. And if there existed a version with 5 agi instead of 5 defense, the 5 defense version would still be better from a damg reduction perspective.