Badges Part 4 (or Class Theology and Breakdown pt1)

"This is what I really want to see. Make some epic versions of the Heavy Clefthoof set. Lets see some gear with defense on it. I don't want to have to use Defense Gems and Enchants instead of the preferred Stamina that all tanks enjoy. In my opinion the 2.4 Chest that is obviously designed for Bears and should have at lease some Dodge and Defense on it."

The real issue is from that is not itemization for bear, but the fact that druids *ARE* hybrids. Being hybrid in nature means that you will never get the same type of itemization as warriors. I disagree with the philosophy somewhat, but I do see why blizzard wants to keep it like that. They want druids to be able to use both cat and bear since it is "Feral Combat" not "Bear Combat." Warriors have some of the same pitfalls in our "tier" sets as well, since our iLvl points are wasted on miniscule amounts of Strength and Agility, rather than Block value and dodge.

I think that if they did itemize some leather like some warrior tank plate, then we would see leather with high defense and ridiculous amounts of stamina, giving bears a much bigger health pool(I don't disagree again, I think bears should have the highest health pool, but only by a 10 or 15% margin rather than the 20-30%.) On a 156 iLvl chest, modelled after the Stoicism plate chest, we would see most, if not all the druids defense needs, a socket, and 80+ stamina. However I don't see anything wrong with an item like this:

Felspine Vest:
712 Armor
+24 Strength
+36 Agility
+81 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +3 Stamina
Equip: Increases Defense Rating by 42.
Equip: Increases Hit Rating by 12.

That would realistically be the only amount of defense that a druid would need. Now I can see why Blizzard itemizes druids they way they do. I don't think it is entirely fair for druids, but I don't think pure tank gear for how well druids scale is really fair for other tanks as well (Yes I know druids have other problems, but scaling needs to come back into sanity before most other issues can be fixed)
Before I get to scaling:
The druid chest does have dodge on it. It is just in the form of agility since it is better for druids than dodge rating. Druids dodge rating scales so much easier with agility rather than dodge that it isn't even funny.

As far as scaling goes:
The easiest way to fix scaling is to remove any racial's that increase a statistic (Im looking at you specifically taurens!) Then we can get talents that help scaling. Warriors have the highest natural health, and we have the best average stamina on our gear. (tier 6 paladin beats out tier 6 warrior though :( ) Now I think warriors would be nice with "vitality" being at 10% health increase giving us comparable health, but not quite the highest anymore. I honestly think we need a rage on dodge/parry talent, maybe a dodge% talent for scaling.
Druids have already amazing scaling, they just need the gear to get anywhere, now Razor and I disagree on a lot, but I do think druids need slightly more adjusted leather, a new tank weapon, and some new unique tanking abilities.
Paladins seemed to have gotten the best of both worlds, they have ridiculous scaling stamina, good single target tanking (though is weaker than druids and warriors admittedly), easy-to-achieve scaling threat coefficient (spell power > attack power+block value), and hands down the best AoE threat. Easiest thing is to bring the stam talent to 15% total stamina, but condense it to one talent.

I've lost my train of thoughts in this rant :)