It's pretty great for cancelling any big targeted predictable spike damage. It's a unique threat tank tool for controlling any untauntable boss (unless BoP works for detaunting caster mobs).

Human priests can also allow you to skip content in a much easier way than a hunter engineer can.

FD also breaks on any AoE, and any ability you use also cancels the effect. DI has a cooldown that is 12 times longer than invis. Invis' "fade" timer is also dropping to 3 seconds in Wrath, making it easier to use. I know you're arguing that Mages need to use invis for threat dumps and therefore it isn't as useful for avoiding wipes as FD, but especially with the advent of a second instant wipe for mages (at least that's how Mirror Image is working now) it isn't as bad as now.

As for the "next to die list" it's usually our boomkin after the tanks, but your point is taken.

Everyone needs to remember that FD is based on spell hit. That's a 17% chance to resist on a mob 3 levels above you. It also has a 5-minute cooldown. Even with the merging of the hit stats do we expect tanks to run around with ~450 hit rating to make sure they can dodge that one boss nuke? It's a nice ability, but it still isn't something you can rely on. I'd personally much rather my tanks with the free flask of health the Tauren Racial gives (though if it no longer stacks with PW:F/BP that would reduce the power quite substantially).

The problem with racials, is, that apparently more than 90% of the people discussing it (at least in the wotlk beta forums where it matters...) aren't the least interested in making them balanced but in making or keeping their own race the best and thus its pretty hard to have any meaningful discussion about it.
I'm planning to switch back to my human warrior come wotlk and still giving humans a FD without the threat component strikes me as a pretty far fetched idea.
Seriously being BE I can't complain about the projected racial changes, but I hate the idea of having certain races be far superior in endgame aspects over other races. I really expected Blizzard to apply their homogenisation policy (for raidbuffs, tanks etc) on racials quite strictly, especially since they promote arena as an esport now.
For me races are a flavour and shouldn't be a valid object of min/maxing, since it really destroys the whole point of character advancement in a mmorpg when you can't even hope to make your 2 year old character as good as some other guy who rerolled 6 month ago.

The shocking thing about the Shadow Resistance change for UD is that it's actually a nerf from having +10 SR at level 80. Here's how it works:

At level 80, you need 400 Resist to get 75% chance to resist a binary spell of that school. That means that 10 resist translates into a 1.475% chance to resist a binary spell. 10 resist over time should be a 1.475% reduction in damage from non-binary spells at level 80. Which puts the Forsaken change entirely at odds with all the other races who get large buffs to their resistance talents (particularly BE, who get more than double the existing damage reduction from their racial at 70, let alone 80).

Add to that the further nerf to WotF and I'm left wondering why I'm being punished for thinking that playing an Undead was a cool idea back in 2005.

Unless they've changed it while I've been leveling my mage, FD will stay active through any AoE. The hunter will continue to take damage though (and obviously potentially die).

Back on topic, giving all humans FD is a very interesting choice and not one that I would've picked but it's hardly a game breaker outside of a few very specific scenarios. As a hunter I'd rather the human FD was nerfed more (e.g. 1 sec casting time), but that's just class supremcy talking.

I wouldn't mind racials getting homogenized if they would be made equal. the spell resistance stuff has got to be retooled, I heard suggested 2% for school-specific, 1% for the BE racial. Period, end of discussion.

many of the other changes were pretty fair (the ones who got the biggest buffs, Trolls and NElfs, were the ones who needed it), but fine-tuning is still needed. I'll wait and see what they look like when it actually hits Beta

I'd have to ask though, why should the spell resistance be homogenized if spell damage isn't? You're much more likely to encounter Shadow damage than Nature damage, so wouldn't that still create an overall feeling of inequality?

While that's true you can never equalize the resist racial. In pvp, their value shifts from battlegroup to battlegroup based solely on the population of classes at which ever rating and bracket you happen to be participating in. And in pve having a 2% shadow resist for example is good on alight of fights, but having (again, random numbers) 8% nature resist on that one end game fight that features heavy nature damage is godly. Having a flat rate across the board is certainly better then the current awkward implementation.

It would probably be best to just do away with resist racials all together.

We're talking about shadow damage here - and trying to compare apples and orange with the other school types just doesn't make sense. Shadow damage is so prevalent and the generic bad guys school-of-choice - regardless of their affiliation or whether they live in a world of fire or ice - it easily can be justified why this is 1% vs other schools at 3%.

You forgot to mention the draenei racial is 2% shadow resist, compared to undeads 1%.

If you were to apply a points/value formula to each racial and compare them, I think you'd find a fairly even ground.
(A+B) = (X+Y)

Replace A, B, X and Y with appropriate Racials and I'm sure it will (eventually) add up.

The indication is that no such calculation went into this consideration. The indication is that the Undead racial was made weaker "to offset somewhat the general perception that undead are the uber-race." (Source). No, I'm not really sure about where this perception comes from.

Actually is that not evidence that such a calculation DID go into consideration? Whether warranted or not, if the general view is that Undead were the "uber race" it entirely makes sense that the racial would be less powerful when compared to the Draenei version simply because Undead already had a good complement of racial spells.

It's worth noting that Warlocks (the prevaliant shadow damage class) now have one of their specs based more-so on fire for damage than on shadow (shadow still remains a big source of control), especially since Soul Link being lower in Demonology will make Destruction a (potentially) viable choice in PVP.

I think given that and the change to WoTF, Undead are getting unfairly picked on.

I don't know WotF is still excellent in PvP. Just give Undead something useful in PvE (instead of water breathing) that doesn't affect PvP much and they are fine. If they want to keep racials in a similar state as they currently are, they should at least make sure that every race has something useful for PvE and PvP for every class that their race can pick. This includes buffing dwarf PvE melee, Nightelf physical damage etc... Does anyone really want to get stuck on a PvP race or a PvE race? Or a Tank/DPS/Healing race?
I think they did a decent job balancing troll, BE and Orc PvE DPS (unless the orc is a BM hunter with 50% damage from his pet like in the wotlk beta but I expect that racial to change accordingly) for example.

Both these combos benefit tank specs very nicely, being a combination of a threat gen boost and a survival boost.

Hardly... the "break" effect was always the most powerful of the 2 effects it gave (well, discounting the 20sec pre-BC version) and in my opinion remains unrivaled by any other racial for PvP.

Although very encounter dependant, WOTF can also be very handy in PvE (Nightbane / Archimonde / Fearing trash), and should not be discounted. Breaking fear will probably still be usefull in WOTLK at any AoE-fearing boss.

I'm pretty sure there always be some overlap but you can balance this a bit.
Stam and crit benefits about everybody. But tank mostly benefits from stam and the rest mostly from crit.
You could have something along those lines :
+ 2% stam + 1% crit
+ 5% spi + 5 expertise

Expertise is better than crit for the tank, but a bit of stamina will make him happy.
I don't know how crit and expertise scale for each melee DPS spec, but the difference should not be huge at the end.
Caster DPS could like both if Blizzard makes sure spirit does not suck.
Priest and druid healers will love the second one, shaman and pal the first there is no balance between the two for them. It would more or less work if you give the first to draeni and the second to elf.

I agree that would not be perfect and I'm not really happy with what I propose. But I feel it's still better that what we see now (hello NE with 2% more avoidance than gnomes for tanking). I do not think that racials can be balanced now.
It would be easier if all racials depended on class too, but that would open the same mess that priest racials and would not even solve the multispec problem (hello druids).

I can see three concepts to fix the racial mess (which I consider the rerolling for racials)

1) Completely remove/replace the racial system and make the race be just about the looks (simple but unlikely to happen)
2) Nerf all racials into oblivion and make them nothing but a flavour that somewhat fits into the lore (my favourite solution)
3) Balance all these rather powerful racials with all the class combinations on top of all the balance issues between classes (seems impossible... but apparently the route blizzard still wants to go, which baffles me. This isn't exactly making their job easier and it has been a reliable source of whining for a long time now)

On top there will still be people going crazy about hitboxes (although I'm not with them)... which could be changed as well of course.

Rogue/Rogue, Rogue/Priest, Rogue/Mage all play completely differently, with a massive advantage as undead..As a Shaman/War, we have a chance against Rogue/Mage *only* if they aren't undead, because of fear. A non-undead Rogue/Priest faces an enormous uphill battle against an undead Rogue/Priest.

In 3's, an undead team for Druid/Priest/War is a lot harder, no matter the comp, than a non-undead one..Its a very very significant racial.

It doesn't sound to me like the "human FD" will actually drop combat, since it explicitly mentions that threat will be restored when the ability is canceled. You might think of it as "an ice block that doesn't actually make you immune to anything" or "a fade that stuns you while active" as much as an FD clone.