Do Shamans have a place in end game content?

[Kevin]

I'm talking about real end-game, where mobs aren't tauntable and bears in cat gear get one-shot, since that's the context this thread was headed in. Five man examples (especially NORMAL MODE five man examples) don't mean a whole lot in respect to the topic of this thread. You can do any normal mode instance with a hunter pet tank; that doesn't mean one can tank in raids.

Yeah, I do agree that bear druids pretty much lose all hybrid options and I'm not sure how many cat druids will end up in a 25 man. Though I will say that a beastmaster hunter pet can off tank in heroics and Karazhan on the trash as I've done it. 12-13K armor, 9-12 K health (depends on what buffs I can get), 10% dodge, 5% parry, 5% block seems to be enough to off tank most of the trash in heroics and Kara. This will get even easier in 2.1 with some of the hunter changes as well. But I also acknowledge that those are not the end game. I don't expect to do that in Gruul's Lair. I doubt it will be able to OT trash in SSC either. And I'm assuming you're "real end game" means SSC at this stage.