Just wanted to chime back in here, since I was one of the pro-resto folks. After doing the level 50 Druid quests last night, which involved, strangely, killing level 51-54 silithids in UnGoro, I'm considering going back to feral and trying Mangle out. I realize that the bugs are a pretty tough fight for melee with their high armor and hp, but damn that was a frustrating hour or two. I'm thinking the bastids in Hellfire will be similarly tough as resto.
My new plan may be to respec feral until 60 or so, then go back to resto and focus on instances. Gear will all be Outlands gear by then, so hopefully whatever soloing I have to do will be less painful.
On the other hand...
Mikewai wrote:
I have to say the biggest benefit so far to being resto is i'm needed in groups, as dps is a dime a dozen.
This was my first instinct as well, but now I wonder if tanking isn't really the best way to guarantee yourself a group. Pre-OL, you don't even really need a real tank for most instances (up to ZF at least). As long as you have somebody in mail or plate holding the mobs off the healer, all you really need is a decent healer. In OL, you start needing a real tank. Lucky for us druids, we are a true seamless hybrid--we can do two things almost equally well with the same feral build.
So healers are the easy groupers up to 50 or so, then tanks are the easy-groupers after that. I dunno, just an educated guess, and I haven't really decided for myself yet. I know I enjoyed tanking on my prot pally and I'd kinda like to see what beartanking is like.