1). Grace of Air Totem. This helps ALL melee classes as well as 1 range class (hunter). Not only is dmg added but healing will be reduced because of the dodge. At no time do we wish to see a Windfury Totem taking up your air slot, it does NOT help tanking at all. A warrior primarily uses his specials to generate threat, the extra white hits while in defensive stance changes the threat table very little. Some argues the extra hits generate extra rage for tanking. I've never noticed my warrior lacking in rage when tanking a boss especially with the bloodrage trick. Contrast this with Rogues getting extra hits off with Windfury this makes tanking actually more difficult. Burst dmg is not nice in a raid.

This is from a fury warrior in my guild telling shamans what to do in raids (he thinks he knows all).

I alwyas thought WF totem was much better for a dps group and being a hunter I know I'm just a trueshoot aura bitch for the melee.

I was telling shamans they should drop WF totems then got blasted by this guy during a raid. My reason being is GoA doesn't add much dps for me compared to the dps gained from WF totem effecting 2 warriors and a rogue. After that a shaman (still plays a paladin on another server) told me GoA>WF totem and went on to say shaman>paladins in raids. :(

Am I wrong about WF totem being better then GoA?

Also for dagger rogues which totem is better?

currently WF is superior(MTing and melee DPS) remember that tanks dont just create more threat by specials white damage helps in that. After 1.12 it is harder to say.
:edit: what tzeni said.

Wait wait wait... WF does nothing for tanking?

WF does more than GoA for tanks and dps warriors by leaps and bounds over GoA. The only situation you probably want GoA on for tanking is for HS tanks to soak it on patchwerk.

This "math" was resolved well over a year ago. Regardless of what people might like... you cannot argue with math. One side of the coin will always be better in a min/maxing situation. Especially a something cut or dry as "what does more dps". Even for daggers you want windfury. Currently

Right now, GoA is a little better than WF for a Dagger Rogue.
For all other melee, WF is the best.

If the 1.12 nerf comes true, this may change.

You're still looking at a third to 40% (8% boost) of a dagger rogues dps from white damage - plus insta procs and AP bonus on each hit. The AP and 3% crit generally doesn't bridge the cap.

It does depend on your gear levels, but once you're in full BWL/AQ+ gear, WF is better than GoA. If they go with the nerf, GoA will be somewhat better for current gear levels, but the catch is GoA means no Battleshout in a sane group setup. So most rogues still will get Windfury.

Basically what I figured. Btw, wtb updated swords spreadsheet!

It all depends on the mechanic of the fight, as to which is better for the MT. Rogues and DPS warriors should always have WF in my opinion.

For example...most of BWL are fights where rage generation is not an issue for the tank. Between 4k shadowflames and 7k Mortal Strikes, a tank almost always has enough rage. The extra mitigation from GOA is nice, as is the too hit buff (do you know how many times shield slam has whiffed on Vael? if I take another flamebreath Im going to go insane). Stage 1 nef I drop WF, stage 2/3 is GoA...just to save 1 or 2 hits during the warrior or priest call.

I'd assume I'd use GoA on twin emps (havent been, makes me sad), but I use it on Fankriss to save a few hits. Sartura/Skeram get WF to help with as much rage as possible during splits or kicks. If im with the Vem or Kri tanks its GoA, WF for the Yauj tanks.

Really the use of the 2 totems is interchangable, and I use the prevalence of rage as the deciding factor.

You're right in a few exceptional cases 3% dodge may make a difference... but rarely.

Even in your ouro example, I would prefer the extra aggro over the 3% dodge because under 20% the tank switches have to be that much more solid, and aggro must be perfect, cause thats the last place you want a random sand blast.

But thats just me I guess... we also have some high DPS warlocks, which leads to a lot of agony as a tank.

Agility does NOT help to hit.

And it is very easy to run out of rage while tanking in BWL level encounters (and most AQ40). If I were to go all out with current gear (1.9 Bloodlords Defender) I can burn about 20 rage/sec gaining nothing from autoattacks. That cooresponds to 1700 incoming ACTUAL damage. Yeah. Not going to heal that for long. Some fights you have extra by virtue of moving or forced out of melee for whatever reason or mechanics of the fight, but you should always be able to have a negative rage balance going.

Opps, edited to fix math... Math is hard :(

Sigh on my hunter we had 3rd priority on shamans after melee and healers :(