43/018 vs 0/21/40Follow

I'm considering going back to a 43/0/18 build for raiding. My thinking is that I require far less crit in this spec (can get away with 18/20%) and can therefore have a lot more + damage.

I can't link to armoury from work but current stats are: 202 hit, 25% crit and 1026 +damage. If I were to go 43/0/18 I could get the 2 +damage trinkets from badges adding 88 damage. I could also swop my off-hand and neck to the pure plus shadow damage ones for a further 42 + damage. This would put me at ~1150 +shadow. I would also end up taking Malediction in this spec as I have no need for Suppression or IHoT.

p.s. Was in my Leotheras tanking gear yesterday and hit 13.5k health, 146 hit, 781 damage and 310 FR. Is that good enough?

idd. also if the dps decrease is a worry, remember that (presuming you talent malediction) 3% of all shadow/fire damage is actually yours ^^
skipping ahead a bit. if you break 25% crit (including devestation) as afliction spec, you max wish to spec 40/0/21 instead as ruin will provide a dps increase after that point. though remember, it's also dependant on bosses and obviously your play style.

idd. for gruul and VR i'll agree afliction has an advantage. but the rest is more of a luck of the draw on where boss abilities land etc..., also when i say "more dps" for something, i also mean more damage, in reality dps itself doesn't have a major impact on the total damage you deal. it's your ability to keep dpsing without breaks which makes the end difference (hence why you'll find rogues fairly low on dps, but high on total damage. they hit soft but often, so leading to a large total damage also whenever people talk about dps meters they always actually mean the total damage delt)

personnaly i wouldn't say dot aggro is an issue on VR, though my opinion is probably a bit biased due to having rediculously imba MTs (whirl pushes out like 1.5-1.6k avg tps, which is almost unheard of as it's generally thought there's a barrier at about 1.2-1.4k)

Completely off-topic, but I wish more people would realize this. I regularly outdamage people with 500 more DPS just because I've *always* got DoT's ticking away.

As to affliction, my personal preference is that at least one warlock is there with Malediction. That 3% damage boost is a *lot* bigger than most people think. Playing as Afflic on Leo and Hydross can be kind of interesting, though.
On the subject of VR, with decent tanks DoT aggro shouldn't be a problem. When you start to get too high, just cut down to DoT refreshes, no sbolts. If your tanks can't manage the 500tps from DoTs, there's something severely wrong.

You tanking gear is fine.

I'd say wait until even later in T5 when you've got alot of crit and hit through gear alone. At that stage you'll want more damage, you'll even gem for pure damage, but you'll still end up hit capped with high spell crit. This is when you spec destruction, because the game's itemization basically forces you there.