Hi all,
My Druid recently got to 70 a few weeks ago and is still badly geared. But I'm planning ahead and would appreciate your input on this. As I understand it, conventional wisdom is to get 2/5 Wyrmhide on the 2 lowest item values in the set for the extra +35 Resilience (shoulders and hands). But is it really worth it?

This is what you would gain with 2/5 wormhide and what you would lose. I'm not going to get a 1950 rating this season, so I'll be comparing S2 shoulders and s4 hands.

Brutal Gladiator's Wyrmhide Gloves and Merciless Gladiator's Wyrmhide Spaulders
+38 resilience
+16 spell crit
82 +spell damage and healing

Brutal Gladiator's Kodohide Gloves and Merciless Gladiator's Kodohide Spaulders
+2 Stamina
+15 Intellect
+14 Armor
+4 Mana Per 5 seconds
139 +healing and +47 spell damage
+The casting time on your Regrowth spell is reduced by 0.2 sec

With my Restokin spec, and this probably extends to full Resto, I just don't see the Wyrmhide switch as being worth it: if you wanted more resilience, I'm pretty sure I can find a set of gems that will beat this tradeoff and still keep the set bonuses, regardless of how you value the different attributes.

For pvp, I would definitely favour anything that makes your abilities more awesome. So imho go with the bottom option.

I'm just a feral duriod though, and dont know that much about pvp healing gear :>


-Annikk

My 2's partner plays a dreamstate restokin spec, and he is going with the dual 35 resil bonuses. As a druid it's dangerous to actually cast a spell, as a good mage, rogue or warrior can lock you out of your nature school. Also, you don't have swiftmend to make up for spike damage if their dps is focusing on you, so maxing resil asap to reduce the amount you are crit helps.

A lot of resil is very key, and typically its better to gem +healing than +resil, considering how easy it is to get resil capped just through gear, and the more +heal you can have the better.

Also, if you are playing restokin, ideally you will be looking to do some damage as well as just heal (i.e. help coordinate cc on one target and burst on another with your dps partner). And a little extra damage and spell crit helps when throwing out a MF, IS and some quick wraths at the opposing team's dps while their healer is chain cc'd.

If you are looking to play a pure healer arena role, having a 8/11/42 spec and Kodohide is the way to go.

Interesting that you pose this question as I'm currently grinding for my PvP Resto set. I have about 1,100 arena points, 30,000 honor, and about 70 tokens from each BG saved up atm.

My plan has been to use the S1 Dragonhide shoulders and S2 Dragonhide gloves initially for the +35 resil bonus. My goal is to hit the resilience cap when i start doing arena as resto. At some point, i'll see how things are going, and make some adjustments from there.

Thank you for your post, too, clar... that's made me give a little more thought to my plan... i wasn't sure if i was going to end up going all kodohide, but it looks like im now leaning in that direction.

Ok,
I looked at some top specs at ArenaJunkies, and considered what I'm planning on doing with my druid. Here's what most people are doing:
People who want to stay as a 34/0/27 restokin usually get 2/5 wyrmhide. The extra 35 resilience is nice and the extra DPS helps out.
People who want to become mostly or all resto, such as arena 8/11/42 or if they want to also get into raiding and heal heroics, will want 5/5 kodohide.