It's uneccessary from the perspective of asking someone to spec into it, but isn't Imp. Thunderclap a marginally larger reduction than the TF debuff?

Don't forget Imp. Hunter's Mark - +110 AP for all melee classes in your raid as well.

Add Vindication (15% reduction in target strength/agility on hit) to the Defensive Debuff list, it's not controllable but it procs often enough to make a difference. It's a buff that scales with the target, so it can be really useful or totally useless depending on what you're fighting. Unless it has some sort of issue I an unaware of, I'm curious why no one ever mentions it.

Slayer's Axe
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Axe
223 - 336 Damage Speed 3.20
(87.3 damage per second)
+51 Strength
Durability 100 / 100
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 21.
Chance on hit: Spell damage taken by target increased by 15% for 5 sec.

Blizzard was kind enough to provide this upgrade to Nightfall to maintain the debuff while giving the wielder a reasonably scaled DPS boost.

I was under the impression that TF and TC stacked - is that not accurate?
Having only one binding, I can't readily go check it...



edit: more on topic - Gift of Arthas is still probably worth it.

Mangle, which both cat and bear druids can appy, has a nice debuff on it. First, it affects the amount of shred (cat form backstab) damage by 30%. Not likely that you have even one cat, let alone more in a raid, but it still counts. More importantly, it increases bleed damage by 30%. This synergizes well with rogues, especially subtlety rogues, as the prerequisite for hemo increases rupture damage (by the same token, it increases rip damage by kitty druids). Sometimes rupture is the superior finisher.

I think feral druids are quite popular in raids these days, so it's time that everyone was made aware of this debuff.

FYI, testing has shown that Piercing Howl does not count as a Daze for the purpose of increasing Heroic Strike damage. I believe only the combat rogue Blade Twisting talent does this, or a warrior's Shield Bash Rank 4 (obtained at level 64). DPS warriors spamming Shield Bash is -really- expensive.

I hear people say that about vindication often, but I'm curious if anyone has actually tested its effect on mobs/bosses.

It seems you'd want to find the average damage done by the mob on a given target, and then apply vindication and record the difference (if any). Has anyone actually tried that?

Imp Faerie Fire from a moonkin druid.

+3% to hit for ranged and melee

Which is nice to help the rogues and Dual wielders get their +hit cap.

Mangle? Rupture does *lots* of damage with mangle up, and all the Deep Wounds etc. will do more damage as well. Not much, but it's all damage.

Treeform aura(increases healing received by 25% of the druid's spirit).
Improved Sanctity aura(increases healing received by 6%).

So long as the mob is not Nature immune, yes. Unless they're outright immune (like a pally bubble) or, occasionally, magic immune (Curator). Otherwise it will generally stick.

Thunderclap is a base 10% slowing effect, improved to 20% when talented (Thunderfury is also 20% slow effect). The Thunderclap debuff does last for 30 seconds though, while Thunderfury's is only 12 seconds (irrelevant because of its high proc rate, but still). The effects do not stack.

All mobs that were immune to the old scorpid sting are immune to vindication. This happened rather early on (like two weeks after vindication was first invented it was changed to this). This doesn't actaully make any sense, becuase the reason things were immune to old scorpid sting wasn't the -str, but because of the -sta from the talent.

Anyhow the -str works just like -atk from demo. I've been too lazy to findout/care if it's 1str=1atk or not, because every single mob above zul'gurub was immune to it. Also keep in mind the old -30% dmg cap, though who knows if and in what capacity that exists in tbc.

So for your ideal "tank group"....

#1: The tank

Lets assume you're always going to choose the lock first..
#2: Warlock (imp Blood pact)

Then your options are...
#3-5:
Ret paladin (Imp Sanctity aka +6% healing)
Protection paladin (Imp Devo aka 1205 AC)
Resto druid (Treeform aura aka increases +heal by 25% of the druids spirit)
Shaman (Stoneskin, Grace of Air, Healing stream?)
Shadow Priest (Vampiric Embrace)

I am slightly confused as to why this is under the heading of Tank buffs, although I'll grant it is decent for aggro generation I suppose. It is vastly better for damage dealers though and from all the testing I've done stacks nicely with every other form of haste I've run across. Definitely this is a core raiding skill and although I gather you are focusing on tank buffs and target debuffs, I'd cry loudly if this was used primarily for the marginal benefit of a tank.

I'd also throw in Improved Scorch (+15% fire damage) which may not be as sexy as it once was but certainly it still counts and especially for those Destro Warlocks that still are using fire some.

I don't agree that a shadow priest is best in the MT group. The MT is getting the most heals out of the entire raid, the constant trickle of VE heals is better suited towards rogues, paladins (with their mana return on heal talent), mages, etc. I would suggest MT group as:

MT
OT
lock (really only on fights where an extra 1000hp will make a big difference)
paladin
treeform druid

+6% heal isn't that great, on an average 2k heal you are getting an extra 120hp, not bad but I think its a lot better to have a group stacked with paladins and a shadowpriest, especially if the boss outputs constant damage - the paladins will last a very, very long time spamming heals as they get VE heals and get extra mana from each one.

Don't forget the priest/shaman/paladin talents to temporarily buff AC on tanks, helps out a lot in clutch fights.

Regarding the "+4% physical damage taken from all sources when you rend or deep wounds a target" warrior talent, does anyone know which, if any, raid bosses are immune to bleed effects? I gather that most in Karazhan aren't immune, and I believe I saw lacerates up on Gruul this week. Anyone know about Magtherion and Serpentshrine bosses?

edit: which bosses in Karazhan are immune? I haven't found a resource to dig this up, have no bleed attacks of my own, and asking on the druid forums hasn't turned up much info I ask because the warrior talent (http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=30070) seems very worthwhile for a raiding arms warrior to pick up, if there aren't a huge number of bleed immune bosses around.

especially if your OT happens to be a warrior, commanding shout is nearly as good as an imp, and both warriors having CS and BS can only help. Also doesnt force the MT to make the difficult ( at least in my mind as a MT ) choice between maximum me benefit, Battleshout, and long term raid benefits vs commanding shout, and short term raid damage to multiple persons in your party benefit.

Its semi babysittish, but I try to keep an eye on people's health pools (say on The Curator ) and CS if someone gets low for an instant 800 to your health.

I believe the debuff affect is always applied even if the actual bleed damage from your crit or rend does zero damage. My problem with this 4% is how few of the people in the raid it will have some benefit for. Lets say for instance that you have 1 rogue, 1 hunter and 2 warriors. All of the numbers are made up, but approximating damage based on damage done during Prince\Curator ( melee unfriendly I know, but such is life ). Say the arms warrior does 500 DPS, the Prot warrior does 275, the Rogue does 600 and the hunter does 700. Assuming things like arcane shot are physical and not magic, im not sure myself. Thats 2075 melee damage per second. That with the debuff is 2158 DPS.

If as a fury warrior your DPS is greater than the difference of those amounts, talent does not have much worth in the 10 man system, especially with the 'anti-melee bias' thats readily apparent.

I am currently MS specd for Arenas and will see how much of a difference it makes on Maulgar if we do raids bosses tonight, as compared to last week.

Well I was asking about Magtherion and SSC because they're not 10 man, they're 25man. Hence you'd likely have more than just 4 physical DPS.

Kazzak and Doomwalker are 40 man, so even more utility there.

And since you mention it, Arcane Shot isn't physical, it's arcane damage - it gets a lovely (lovely) boost from Curse of Shadows.

If you BoK a player their health % goes down - they get the new maximum hp, but they don't get healed for that much. If you BoK a mob (mind controlled, or a friendly boss you can buff) their hp % doesn't go down. This naturally leads me to the thought that mobs don't have stamina (or have 0 stamina hence the 0 stamina boost from BoK) and just have straight up base hp at however much it's set.

You can deduct that they have no strength or agility either. Just straight up attack power and crit. Crit would come only from weapon skill which supports this idea.