Just had a long discussion with an officer in my guild about when is appropriate to use SD vs FR. Now to give a little backstory, I just recently changed mains to go back to my Druid, who prior to MoP was my main since vanilla. My guild has not had a Bear since Cata, so with all of the changes to tanks this expac, some differences of opinion are to be expected. Obviously, since we've been raiding for a few months now, my Druid is not quite as well geared as our other tanks, but I am ilvl 483 so I think I am geared to handle normal content. (that's just my opinion, I'm sure someone will disagree)
The other night I came in for our 10 man cleanup on Empress in HoF. Had no problem on the boss, but was dying to the packs every attempt. First attempt was my fault, because I didn't think to use a cd when initially picking up my adds. After that though, I was pulling with SI up and using SD and FR as I felt was needed. Meaning, I use SD when I have the rage, but if my hp is dangerously low, I use FR. I was told that I should not be using FR at all, that I should pool my rage exclusively for SD usage. The officer is convinced that my dodge is entirely too low (it's about 14.35% raid buffed) and that the difference between my physical dmg reduction from armor and the Paladin's that I was tanking with is negligable. When I checked the logs from that fight, I noticed I was taking less dmg than the other tank every attempt, and that 2 out of my 5 top heals received were my LotP and FR. We also had no HoT healer and one of the 3 heals was playing his offspec.
I know that unlike previous expansions, I really haven't tanked a lot this expansion, so I know I could quite possibly be making a few mistakes with all the changes. (It took me a couple months to learn I should be reforging for crit/hit/exp instead of dodge/mastery) But what do you all think of this situation? Should I be ignoring FR on packs of adds in favor of exclusively using SD and hoping the heals will come? Or do you all think it's appropriate to use both? Please note, I'm not here to bash on my guild or the officer I spoke with. Like I said, they haven't had a Druid tank for awhile so I expect there to be differences of opinion on things.