Tier 11 Ret or Prot legs?

I'm half way to my third T11 piece (after chest and hands) and wondering whether to get the Ret or Prot legs. I'm a tier 3 tank (average item level 352) - looking to start raiding (first Cata raid event appeared on the guild calendar this morning, woot!).

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=60357;60347

The attraction of the ret legs is that they are better for combat table coverage. They also come with hit, which to me is no longer a wasted stat - I would use it when I needed to interrupt or in a threat set. Indeed, I'd probably not even reforge the hit until and unless doing so would get me to 102.4%.

The prot legs will give more melee damage reduction, 30 more stamina and get me faster to the 4 pc bonus.

A rather tricksy point is that I'd have more chance getting prot legs than ret legs from BH, as I'd be rolling for main spec. However, it's long odds either way (I did get the hands as a drop though, so lottery winners do sometimes win!).

I guess my decision will depend on how easy it will be to get one token for either the helm or shoulders. Without considering a token, right now I'm inclined to go for the ret legs. I never did get any wotlk tier tokens despite killing Saurfang on a weekly basis for a several months. Can someone spell out how likely it is to get tokens - which bosses drop them; how hard the bosses are; for 10 man raids, is it as simple as 10% drop chance per kill?

More generally, what do other people think about the tier leg choice?

econ21 wrote:I guess my decision will depend on how easy it will be to get one token for either the helm or shoulders. Without considering a token, right now I'm inclined to go for the ret legs. I never did get any wotlk tier tokens despite killing Saurfang on a weekly basis for a several months. Can someone spell out how likely it is to get tokens - which bosses drop them; how hard the bosses are; for 10 man raids, is it as simple as 10% drop chance per kill?

More generally, what do other people think about the tier leg choice?

Cho'Gall drops the shoulder token and Nefarian drops the head token. As for how difficult the bosses are, they're two of the hardest bosses of normal mode content. You'll be killing them last (along with Al'Akir) for all of this tier's normal raiding content.

It honestly doesn't take long before you start running out of things to buy assuming your guild starts making steady progress from this point on.

I bought the Prot legs two weeks ago and the Ret legs last night (completing my unhittable set). I'll swap things in and out depending on what I'm doing. I'll probably have to pick up hat and shoulders to do 4-pc prot + ret legs, if I want to do that (I haven't looked closely at those gear sets at this point).

If I were to do it from scratch again, I would probably buy Ret pants first.

Mastey is good for us and most of us are sucking at 3% hit with shield throw and rebuke at 3% hit. If you're not dying much and need to interrupt sometimes I'd go for (and am going for) the 'Ret' legs.

Edit: the ret legs don't give us the 4 set - it's separate for tanks and ret so -50% damage for 6 secs is almost certainly better. Tank legs it is.

When you're first starting to raid you'll benefit more from the additional mastery right now than a 4pc bonus you won't get for a while. Might want to take that into consideration too.