I've heard so much talk about druid threat and how they eventually can dish out more TPS (Threat-per-second) than warriors. Personally I'm at about 700-750 unbuffed TPS (since I'm still using a 2.9s weapon), but I really can't find any specific numbers for what TPS AQ40ish equipped druids are at. Could anyone enlighten me?

Hmm, maybe it's been long enough since this was discussed that it won't immediately be shunted into the "repeat--lock" category.

I don't know the number offhand, but if you want a good estimate of the TPS of a Druid using Maul and Swipe:
--Get a good measure of the average DPS he does using his tanking abilities.
--Multiply by 1.30*1.75.
--If Feral Instinct, multiply by 1.15.

If, for some reason, he's doing a lot of white (non-Maul damage), that doesn't get the 1.75.

There will be a point where druid TPS will be greater than warrior TPS, just because they work differently.

Warrior aggro are fixed threat values for each skill, and Druid aggro is 99% depending on there attackpower as maul's aggro, as Hamlet pointed out, depends on how much damage your maul and white hits do. I have no data on the exact amount of AP that is needed for a druid to outclass the warrior though.

Anecdotally, I doubt it's very much. From my experiences sharing both tauntable and non-tauntable (not that it matters, really, but I've experienced both) mobs with tanky druids, I can tell you that they output a LOT of threat.

Well, going from memory of when I used to tank as a feral bear, I remember 1200 maul crits, so 600 regular mauls. Average crit rate was about 25%. So the average maul damage would have been 750. The threat multiplier for maul is 1.75, and you get an extra 1.45 from being in bear form and having the "defiance" talent. So that's 1903 threat per maul. Swing speed is 2.5 seconds. Not counting misses, dodges, and parries, the TPS from maul should be about 761.

On top of that, you have plenty of rage to swipe every global cooldown while waiting for mauls. You can also faerie fire every 6 seconds. Too lazy to look up how much aggro those caused, but I bet that in total, you can generate 800 threat per second.

The very nice thing about druid tanking, is how rage is hardly ever a problem at all. 5 rage every time you crit was amazing. Omen of Clarity procs were amazing. With talents and an idol of brutality, a maul cost only 7 rage. On a crit it only cost 2 rage. 2 rage for your best aggro move!

Another key real-world difference is rage efficiency. With a tier1 talent and the idol of brutality (blue from strat), a druid can reach 80% of his maximum threat on a mere 7 rage every 2.5 seconds. A more heavy druid spec also gives 5 rage on every crit and the chance for a free special every attack/ability. It is largely accurate to say that druids operate on a infinate-rage basis on most bosses (and some trash).

If you assume a 20% crit rate:
Druids do 80% max threat at 2.4 rage a second.
Druids do 100% max threat at 6.8 rage per second.

For a warrior to sunder and heroic strike every cooldown with both imp sunder and imp HS talents:
2.9 speed weapon: 8.27 rage per second
2.0 speed weapon: 12 rage per second
1.3 speed weapon: 16.9 rage per second.

As a practical datapoint, my white DPS in bear gear is 105. 23% critrate.
Maul does (2.5*dmg + 128) * 1.2 * 1.1 damage with talents

[top] 515.46 damage normal

1030.92 crit
= 634 average maul

If I maul every cooldown and don't swipe, faire fire or demo roar at all, I should do:
1658.74 Threat per maul
656 TPS on a 0 armor target.
Adding swipe will put another 141 TPS

However, adding buffs will add more threat.
In fact, every 1 AP added through buffs adds .62 TPS. So true shot aura will add 62 TPS and jujupower adds 37 TPS.
If I switched from my warden staff to a warhammer, it would add about 192 TPS
Additionally, every crit % adds threat too. LoTP, which I didn't consider, adds (roughly) 3% TPS.

All for 6 to 17 rage every 2.5 seconds.

They suck for instances though. Played a 10k armor druid in stratholme, and aggro was a problem because of the classic rage problem. Druids don't have the option to put on a kickass 2h and let their white dmg give them rage. They just have to settle for what the rage they get from being hit for minimum dmg by hall trash. And since maul is the only decent aggro, that's an even more delicate balance between getting your white, rage hits and yellow, threat hits. It's doable and everything, just kinda sad that sometimes rage will create a system where suddenly a player wishes they weren't so uber.

minor note, but I think it's 1.3*1.15 for 1.495 now

Hmm... let's make a formula here. Without considering crit, miss, parry, etc you can consider a bear's threat to be..

Naked threat + AP threat + swipe threat
356 + .62(AP) + 115 = TPS

A more complete formula would be:
([356 + .62(AP) + 115]*crit)/armorReduction = TPS

I'm assuming a naked bear weapon to do 52DPS, but I'm unsure of that number. Also rounding numbers to the nearest whole to make it simpler.
750TPS on a unarmor, stunned target when you have 0% crit = 450AP
I think that's right.

What I did for 5-10 mans with my bear if my armor was too high that I wasn't generating enough rage I switched to a lean and mean tanking gear. Which was basically my cat gear. So instead of 11k armor and lower AP I had much higher AP and about 8500 armor. Still was quite strong on defence, but I was able to generate a lot more agro.

Really? I find that I can easily hold aggro on 5-man zergs just by spamming swipe instead of maul, only using maul on the current DPS target. The rage I get back from crits on swipe + the white damage hits is very nice. I do drop to 10k armor instead of 15, and put on some of my car gear + essence of pure flame instead. And breakaways from the pack I can either taunt, stun, or feral charge. If there's a caster outside the main group I just hit them with faire fire everytime it comes up and it keeps them off the healer.

For really big AoE packs, I hotkey my armor back on and do a regrowth + rejuv + barkskin -> Hurricane on the big group. Then I go bear after the hurricane ends and start swiping. That holds aggro very well, in my experience. (of course, need to innervate or drink after the pull).

Anecdotally, I've had the exact opposite experience - I've never met a druid tank whose mobs I could go balls-out on and not pull aggro. I invariably have to meter my DPS with our bear tanks, but that could just be that they don't know how to use their tools and/or have focused far too heavily on STA/AC at the expense of AP/Crit.

That 240,000 AC does a whole lot of good when you can't get a mob to hit you. ;)

The question is, are you able to do so with a warrior tank? (Say, your guild's MT, who presumably should be the best equipped and maybe the most skilled tank.) I find it's easy to pull aggro early (in the first 10 seconds) from a bear, simply because they rely on a 2.5-sec "on next attack" move as their primary threat generator, whereas a warrior has more options in the way of instant abilities (shield slam, revenge, sunder) and so a string of parries and dodges affects them a lot less. Once they get going though, druid threat generation is ridiculous because it scales almost perfectly with gear. Druids are also better in rage-starved situations (for example, OT on a mob that has no secondary target or AoE damage abilities), since their moves cost less rage to begin with and they're given 5 extra rage on any crit, even white crits.

zzbzq (and others) - The biggest issue with Feral Druid tanking is itimization. People joke about AQ being "filled with feral items" And it kinda is (6 items for bear, 7 for cat) but every other instance is really lacking aside from the 'accesories' (cloak, neck, ring, trinket) Especially the <20 man instances. Unless they're Rank 10 in PvP, non-raiding druids really can't get the gear to compete with the Dungeon 2 sets for Warriors/Rogues. Not counting accesories, the entirty of Naxx has 3 items for Feral (Ghoul Skin, Leggings of Apocalypse, End of Dreams) BWL has 3 (Malfurions, Taut Belt, Taut Shoulders, the latter 2 aren't better than PvP rewards), MC has 1? (ACLGs) and any druid that takes those over a rogue that needs them needs to be shot.

Tanking Wish List - I believe this to be the best Tanking gear in the game for druids, only arguable items would be Boots, Pants, or Weapon (BQW would dramatically increase DPS with a moderate drop in protection)
http://ctprofiles.net/2438606

Regular SoE, Battle Shout, MoTW, Giants bring the damage range up to 351-409 (2.5 speed, 380 average damage)
Regular GoA, MoTW, Mongoose brings the crit up to 32.9% Crit. And 26.19% Dodge.

Crits double damage, and thus double threat, and an additional 25 threat from power gain.

Autoattack: 380 average damage, 12.67 rage generated, 568 threat = 227.2 TPS
Swipe: 100 damage, 17 rage cost, 261 threat = 174 TPS, 15.35 TPR
Maul: 534 average damage, 7 rage cost, 1397 threat = 558.8 TPS, 199.57 TPR
Feral Faerie Fire: 161 threat, 6 second Cooldown = 26.8 TPS
Demo Roar: 10 rage cost, 63 threat = 42 TPS, 6.3 TPR

Given Unlimited Rage, Swipe is used every global coodlown, Maul is queued every attack like Heroic Strike, FFF is only used to keep it active. 732.8 TPS * 1.329% Crit + (25*.329/1.5) + (25*.329/2.5)= 982.66 TPS.

Obviously, not every fight gives you unlimited rage.

Rage Generation:
Auto-attack: (380/30*1.329) + (5*.329) = 18.479 per attack = 7.39 RPS
Special attacks: 5*.329 = 1.645 per attack giving Maul an 'actual' cost of 5.355 and swipe 15.355

Against a boss outputting 900 DPS on you (lets just say this is after avoidance, I don't feel like going into the math here): 10 RPS
This gives you more than enough rage to Maul every attack, so in a 1 minute timeframe:
you generate 60*10 rage = 600 Rage
using Maul every time costs: (60/2.5*5.355) = 128.52 Rage leaving 471.48 rage for swipe
471.48/15.355 = 30.7 (or 30) Swipes 30 * 1.5 = 45 seconds leaving 15 seconds for FFF, which gets you 10 of them

10 FFF = 1610 threat
24 Mauls = 44558.712 threat
30 swipes = 10406.07 threat
54 attacks = 444.15 threat from power gain
57018.932 threat/60 seconds = 950.315 TPS

That's just throwing out some easy numbers. Yes, I'm aware I should calculate chance to not crit instead of chance to crit for the +Power Gain, and Yes, I know I didn't include Miss chance.

Edit: forgot to add FFF in. I also left out Omen of Clarity, which is a 1 PPM, so the above scenario would likely see 2.25 procs, resulting in 2.25 more swipes and 2.25 fewer FFF

wear pure dps gear :P (i.e run through scholo in ~6k armor, it's all a warrior with a 2h would have, anyway)

git hit for more, and your whites hit harder. :)

You forgot to use the savage fury and natural weapons talents, which neatly increase damage (and threat) by an additional 1.32 (1.1 * 1.2).
Should be 1254 TPS

That spreadsheet is pretty impressive, but it assumes incoming rage > spending rage (I think?).

Warrior rage dumps are faster than most any mob can output damage up to at least Huhuran (I've not been further).

The hypothetical 1254 threat for druids would be 1485 if you put 2% threat on gloves and swapped the warden staff for a Warhammer and Tomr of Knowledge.
But really, it's a question of rage.

The max threat program in the spreadsheet takes 12+12+12+12+12+20+12+5 rage every 6 seconds, assuming that you have max imp HS and imp Sunder. 16.17 rage per second. Using the formula of enemy_level * 1.5 = damage per rage, you would need to take 1528 DPS to do this. (1717 dps if you want to spam shield block).

Yes, rage is by far the biggest issue with TPS.

One Six-Second Rotation is (12+12+5+20)/6 = 8.167 rage per sec.
Depending on your weapon, Heroic Strike costs another 8 (1.5sec) to 4.138 (2.9sec) rage per sec.

I'm using High Warlord's Cleaver so I need a total of 12.305 rage per second to max threat. To maintain this I need to have a steady income of 1107.45 DPS (including dodge/parry/miss, but excluding Unbridled Wrath, Shield Specialization or 5/8 Wrath set bonus)

Edit: Shield Block adds another 2 rage per second, which means the required incoming DPS to maintain max threat is 1287.5. If I was using a 1.5sec weapon that would be 1635 DPS.

No, I included them ... just only in the numbers on the character sheet. Included the 20% more damage to what Maul adds, and 10% more damage to your base hits, but forgot to add the 20% to your base hit when mauling, and 10% more damage to your mauls That's what I get for just looking at the sheet and not thinking, but 1254 is doubtful. That warrior page seems a big generous as well though.

The major advantage for druids comes from rage generation in a limited rage enviroment. The majority of fights, including patchwerk, don't allow for warriors to have unlimited rage, the number of fights where a Druid is limited on rage is significantly lower. Mostly due to the Savage Fury talent.

You haven't played with a good feral druid tank then.

I'm a warlock, I know ALL about how good any tank in an instance is holding aggro (UBRS is a 5-man for me, LBRS/Strat live are 3-mans).

I've seen a bad druid tank and know what you are talking about.... but a good one can hold aggro on many mobs extremely well, and on single targets I have a hard time pulling aggro off in a small group without salv available. Non-tank spec warriors who know HOW to tank are the next best... a full prot tank with good gear can't generate enough rage without taking damage in those little instances and especially has a hard time holdng aggro on multiple targets -- unless a thunderfury is in the equation of course...

Like all tanks, skill is very important. The class alone is much less important than skill. MUCH less important.

Add -20% or -30% to those formulas, for parry/dodge/miss.