Druids aren't tanks.

1 Tank class uses leather.
2 Tank classes use plate.

Ergo, it's to be expected that there are double the number of 'tanking' loots that are plate compared to leather.

Quick answer: Druids dont use defense for avoidance, but rather for crit immunity. Thus barely needed.

Long Answer: From my understanding, Druids only stack some defense to get to 415 Def to be crit immune. This can also be done with a few pvp pieces that have resilience on them, because the same rating will get them to crit immunity faster. Once crit immunity is taken care of, Druids focus on Armor, Health and avoidance thru Agility and Dodge Rating.

Seems to me, since they only need a much lower value of defense from gear, they expect to get most of that from their gear that isnt base on armor types, that they would share with all the tank classes. Neckpieces, Cloaks, Rings, Trinkets all come to mind. If they have enough defense from these pieces alone, they have very little use for any extra defense as it does not give block and parry to them like it does for Warriors and Paladins.

My apologies if your blog was just meant to be a joke. Heh.

It's said in half jest by a disgruntled BT druid who hasn't been able to stack enough defense to stay crit immune since T4.

I know, there's resilience, etc. I juggle it all every time I get a new piece of gear... and i've been having to go through way too much trouble to stay crit immune and use [Ring of the Stalwart Protector]. Like, 3 +12 stam gems replaced with mystic dawnstones, kind of trouble.

Klimpen, just out of curiosity, you failed maths at school didn't you? :P

I talked with him in the shoutbox earlier... he saw "level 70 req" and saw "70 results"... lol.

You need some tough love right now...

There's no way you should be having problems staying crit immune at all, especially with the added defense enchants with 2.4. Suck it up, and gem/enchant accordingly if you can't meet the defense requirements through your gear alone.

The feral in our raid was doing the same thing. Whining about not being crit immune, and I looked at his gear and it was all stm/agi enchants or gems.

The main thing is, you don't need the defense a warrior or paladin do to be crit immune. Secondly, you don't benefit from being over the defense cap as much as a warrior or paladin do either. That's why there's no defense on your gear. Rings, trinkets, cloaks, gems, enchants and PVP gear should be more than enough for you to hit the cap.

Druids are completely 100% viable as tanks. Hell, loads of guilds don't even take warriors to Brutallus because Druids are just easier to heal. The only fights they're not viable on are Illidan, and Archimonde.

I think Alents point is that because Defense is so rubbish for us, other than the crit immunity that its a pain to have to gem/enchant for it. Whereas warriors/paladins get it effectively free.

Rings/trinkets(no decent trinkets with defense for druids I can think of off the top of my head), cloaks, amulets wont allow you to hit +65 defense (defense not defense rating)

Its really pretty poor when you have to gem/enchant to be able to ATTAIN a core stat (even if its a poor core stat) for your class rather than being able to pick it up through gear...I honestly thought that gems and enchants were meant to be boosts rather than filling in gaps in gear.

I don't see why it's poor to gem/enchant to obtain a core stat. Everyone has to gem/enchant for core stats. I could argue that it's a pain for me to worry about things like expertise because, hey, I can parry, and inadvertently own my own face off. Something druids won't ever have to worry about.

Crunching numbers isn't hard. You just do it.

But for arguments sake, I will agree druids do get the shaft in terms of a good tanking weapon with Defense on it. At the very least, Blizz should provide a defense to 2h enchant with substantial defense on it (at least 40), or just add a properly scaled weapon in.

Skips pretty much hit it, Caulle.

No warriors I know have to "work" to get crit immune, they just ARE. It's a point of jealousy. I know what to do, I know how to do it, I've been doing it, I'm just jealous.

Edit: I can post the slot by slot breakdown on critcapping if you want. I don't seriously want this to be an indepth number crunching discussion, tho'.

My argument was that all classes need to do less than ideal things to min/max their character properly. I think complaining about your class is like one step forward, two steps back. You can't get anywhere. I could sit around and stress all night about how druids can hit the AC cap, or how paladins are far superior AE tanks, and frankly I have in the past. All it made me do is hate my warrior because I could only think about the negative. I didn't want to hate my warrior because I love my warrior.

ahh, I see where you're coming from.

I personally give myself migraines by splitting my class into two directions: Trying to minmax to make it better always pisses me off because it takes either an item that I don't have or to do what I would like requires something that doesn't exist. On the other hand, actually going into 5mans/raids and pushing the envelope with the tools I have on my person just flat excites me to no end.

It's almost like being bipolar, without the randomness.

Maybe you've just got the crazies like Britney.

Warriors simply get better itemised gear, at all levels. Bears and pallies don't. As to the tanking weapon as an example; warriors have many choices for threat or mitigation weapons. Bears have a limited choice, and pallies only have threat weapons available.

[Earthwarden]. The lack of weapon diversity isn't so much of a problem since the "starter tank weapon" is actually your staple threat weapon from 5 mans to sunwell.

It's a shame that the upgrades are so poorly itemized that they turn into downgrades. But, it's one of the few aspects I'm really happy with.

Having played both a Warrior and a Feral (Feral's my main) I have seen both sides of the coin and honestly, Feral tanking is easy-mode compared to all the crap that a warrior has to go through. So yes, Feral's make great tanks for all facets of the game.

On staying crit immune, you have to PVP and arena, its that simple. Obviously you can use the neck, back, rings, and trinket spots for +def, but there are better options in those slots than defense items (IE stam/armor trinkets, Brooch for neck, etc). Honestly, just suck it up and grind the honor needed for the Bracers and if you need to, get the S3 head and Chest and stocket for stam and BAM your crit immune.

Honestly, the bigger problem I see for Feral tanks is the lack of Exp on our gear. I would love to see more of this stat to help lower the damage I take.

And heres a news flash, your weapon slot is meant to be a threat slot. This is true for all tanks.

You don't HAVE to PVP/arena. Enough resilience gear is available via PVE that it can be done without. (I refuse to partake in BGs/Arena anyway.) You can get alot of starter resilience gear from regular Botanica, Hillsbrad and Morass and move on.

There is of course the blade turning cloak in terrace, glyph of the gladiator, 15 resil to chest, etc.

And yes, I want more Expertise, too. My dream set of gear in rawr has 44 expertise skill and 33K armor. Only 40% avoidance tho', but who needs avoidance when you're not getting parried?