OK ive read your complaints, ive seen the 'nerfs' and 'buffs' but i decided to go to the ptr and test the changes myself.

let me explain the scenario. me, lvl 70 Prot warrior with all the rage cost reducing talents, full defiance and improved thunderclap.

shandis lvl 70 NE druid feral specced etc, ill let him pitch in on his exact build/gear setup.

buffmemore lvl 70 DWARF warrior non prot spec

Joecrack lvl 70 human male warrior non prot spec.

location = regular mode underbog, picked it because we could tank the trash without worrying about heals and botched aggro. the sole reason of this test was to see and compare threat generation between druids/warriors.

1st test was autoattack ONLY. im using http://www.thottbot.com/?i=59508 as my current tanking weapon.

druid wins this test hands down, i cannot generate enough threat (at least with this weapon, didnt have a slower weapon to test with) i pulled the mob but as soon as shandis started attacking it went to him.

2nd test. autoattack+sunder armor/lacerate, this was tested on the bog giants in underbog. i pulled the giant and started attacking same time as shandis, then started spamming sunder as shandis was spamming lacerate. the giant stayed on me because i have full defiance. next giant we had buffmemore do the same routine with shandis without defiance and lacerate generated more aggro than non defianced sunder. we repeated this test 2x with same results.

3rd test. autoattack +thunderclap/swipe on the spore thingies 3packs i did the pull and started thunderclapping same time as shandis, at first the mobs were on me but after shandis did a few swipes they all turned to him, notice i have improved thunderclap that does more dmg+slow and defiance. i attribute this to TC having a cooldown and swipe having no cooldown. test was performed 2x with identical results.

4th test. autoattack+shield slam/mangle. we BOTH started out with full rage bars we built up from a random trash pack and went to spam mangle/shield slam on one of the bog giants. i got the first shield slam off but as soon as shandis started mangling the giant stuck to him like glue. they both have same cooldown so the only conclusion i can make is mangle>shield slam as far as threat goes.
test was repeated 2x with identical results.

5th test. the 1st boss in underbog. spam all your abilities and see who holds aggro better. i win in this case which isnt surprising because thats how blizzard describes a prot warrior, the best aggro/mitigation for bosses. we did that untill we all wiped due to us being idiots and not moving away from the mushroom :P

all members involved in this test will back this post up as soon as they see it. here is the screenshot of our party.

http://img109.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ptrtestyx9.jpg

note imageshack will not last long so if someone can please rehost it i would appreciate it.

my conclusion. druids are still GREAT tanks! especially for 5man content and damn near close to warriors when it comes to boss fights, i wouldnt hesitate to let one of our guild druids to tank a boss if they had sufficient gear for it. if you dont believe me and other people that witnessed this, wait untill you can test this yourself, go to the PTR and try it out. its FAR from as bad as it looks i think youll be surprised.

Your methodology strikes me as a little strange, since the rage you get from having aggro and taking damage is more than someone who is OTing and only generating rage from their damage. Druid or not.

if you have a better suggestion on how to test this im all ears.

Well it works for a cursory look into it. The only things I could think of would be to either test threat/second or threat/rage with the assistance of someone doing small white damage unarmed and seeing when they pull–but you'd have to be a little masochistic to go that far. :P

perm img link: http://www.discofiend.com/wow/ptrtestyx9.jpg

thank you

or you could just get back in, let the druid pull now and try to outaggro him when he has the boss on him? :p

Or have someone tank and then a druid and a warrior both try to get it off the first tank?
Not to mention a druid in dps gear will create heaps more aggro, but he won't have the tanking stats (should be around 50% armor reduction with dps leather) needed to stay alive vs a mob which matters, so which gear was he using?


[edit] I just found the threat on the PTR forums. I find it quite amusing that the druid was in dps gear, which conveniently isn't mentioned in the post. This is like saying, We where holding an aggro competition between a fury warrior and a prot one on a boss, the fury won at multiple mob tanking on trash since he used cleave/sweeping strikes (or however it is called), and the prot one won at the boss. Do you see how faulty such a test would be?
Anyway enough ranting for me, I'll go burn a candle now for some better feral itemisation in raiding dungeons, since we'll need it.

Stock up on rage potions and give it a try?

but that would skew the results!

Might be time then that druids have to break out the "mouse over target mangle" macro that warriors use for sunder for multi mob tanking scenarios