On the other hand, its disappointing to look at all the latest black temple loots. Of all the pieces of leather, 10-12 of them, only 2 are even remotely interesting to/designed for ferals. Rogue loot for the medium lose.

The moonkins and trees can take cloth, cats can take the rogue leather.

Bears are totally alone. They cannot use other classes loot and the bear loot cannot be used by anyone else.

Is there really a moonkin drop in BT? I thought they decided we didn't need any moonkin gear after Attumen's bracers.

While your example is correct, I just want to comment on your statement that AC has "dimishing returns past 60".

First, the Armorreduction formula in both cases (pre 60 and post 60) differ only by the constant C when reduced to the form

Armorreduction AR = AC / (AC + C). Where C depends on the Lvl of Mob.

So if armor has dimishing returns past 60 it has dimishing returns before 60.

Second, "dimishing returns" is somewhat an ambiguous term.

Life expectancy (without heals) can be compressed into:

Life Expectancy = HP * (1+AC / C) / Hit
where HP = HP Pool, Hit = unmitigatedAvgHit, AC = Armor Value and C = Constant in the AR Formula.
For Lvl73 Boss Mobs C = 11960.
As you can see Life Expectancy "scales" linear in AC value, albeit affine linear.

Long story short: I wouldn't call it "dimishing" per se. It's just obfuscated by the offset term, if you start with double Lifeexpectancy and calculate more then double needed AC from there. To put it sloppy: "Double AC does not give you double the Life expectancy, because even with zero AC you still have some time to live"
Kinda difficult to explain, but I hope you get the drift.
Correct me if I have made a mistake.

Yes exactly.

To put it in a academical example. Lets assume you have 10K HP, facing a Lvl73 mob hitting for exactly 1K damage every second.
With 0 armor you live 10 seconds.

Case1)
You equip 1K AC.
Your life expectancy is now 10K * (1+1000/11960)/1K = 10.8361 s.
You gained .8361 s by equiping 1K more armor, going from 0 AC to 1K AC.

Case 2)
You have imba 999K armor and equip 1K more armor.
Your life expectancy is now 10K * (1+1000000/11960)/1K= 846.1204 s
You previously (with 999K AC) lived for 10K * (1+999000/11960)/1K= 845.2843 s.
You gained .8361 s by equipping 1K additional armor.

As you can see AC grants you the same additional time to live, no matter how much armor you already have. This is until you hit the hard cap.

So you are trying to say to me that going from 11 sec to live to 12 sec to live would be exactly as much worth for you as going from 845 sec to 846 sec ?

I call it bull.

Sure the math say its worth as much time, but is that time worth as much when u live for so much longer already ?

This is what I was referring too when I said armor doesn't have diminishing returns. Of course, looking at it, on most bosses, you should be looking at getting a heal by the latest on the third hit so straight up mitigation is far more important. You need a boss like Prince, where you can expect many smaller but faster hits, to make increased armor really shine.

Yes, I would. As the time it additionaly grants is the same. The relative increase is not a viable metric to judge non upper bounded upgrades. It can't be.

DPS upgrades (crit% e.g.) cannot be compared the same. Because they have an inherent limit (100% crit rate gives a constant DPS boost factor).
AC works differently (neglecting the hard cap for a moment).

But this really gets offtopic.

I see where you are heading to ... the problem is: I dont see any other viable metric to judge AC benefits.
Time to live is *for me* the paramount metric in a tanking scenario.
Even with avoidance and healing considered, the effect of additional armor stays true.
Unless we are talking about a scenario where additional AC mitigation makes a single hit/timeframe survivable or not. But such digital outcomes cannot provide linear (read: undimishing) returns by design. You either have enough to survive or you don't.

I understand the math behind what you say and it's nothing wrong with the math, but the calculations we do here is to help us put on the correct gear isn't it ?

Then we also have to look more at what the math is telling us, just by saying its linear doesn't say it have a linear worth to me. Going from living 3 sec to living 4 sec is much more worth for me then going from 20 sec to 21 sec, but as you say its the same time I've gained.

Just as a said note I want to thank everyone here for a very good forum, it has really helped my optimize my gear choices and performance

10k * 68.75/1000 = 687.5
10k * 75/1000 = 750 (9570 armor increase = 62.5 more seconds to live)
10k * 80/1000 = 800 (12020 armor increase = 50 more seconds to live)

More armor, lower increase in time to live, Diminishing returns.

I think you're using incorrect DR calcs, since I don't get the same % as you listed.

DR = Armor/(Armor+85*(Level+4.5*(Level-59))+400)
or for level 73:
DR = Armor/(Armor+11960)

And that's the essence of why "more armor" won't always be good compared to things like straight avoidance. It varies based on the fight, but when you have healers, being able to go from 10s to 15s survival with no heals is MUCH more valuable than being able to go from 60s to 65s with no heals. When are you ever going to have to go over a minute without healing? Please. That means that while the absolute difference in "survival time" is a linear increase with armor amount, (indeed, the armor formula is designed thus) the relative value is starkly diminishing as the addition of avoidance stats becomes more valuable because they reduce incoming damage more than armor can. It makes things spikier, yes, but if you already have enough armor/stam to avoid getting 1/2/3/4/5-shotted (this is a fight-dependent analysis) then it doesn't matter.

Back to the topic at hand:

Wearing full Tier 6 and no other items, I have an armor total of 3152, which is 17336 in Dire Bear Form with full Thick Hide. Now let's add some more tanking gear:

Pillar of Ferocity: 96 Sta, 47 Str, 826 AP, 550 Armor
Belt of Natural Power: 54 Sta, 28 Agi, 29 Str, 12 Int, 423 Armor (w/ 2x Shifting Nightseye)
Insidious Bands: 40 Sta, 28 Agi, 12 Hit, 58 AP, 194 Armor (w/ 1x Solid Star of Elune)
Boots of Natural Grace: 37 Sta, 26 Agi, 33 Str, 13 Int, 14 Hit, 474 Armor

Frayed Tether of the Drowned: 45 Sta, 24 Def, 18 Hit, 0 Armor
Phoenix-Wing Cloak: 27 Sta, 27 Dodge, 22 Defense, 108 Armor
Band of the Abyssal Lord: 53 Sta, 27 Def, 21 Hit, 0 Armor
Ring of Deceitful Intent: 42 Sta, 21 Agi, 19 Hit, 58 AP, 0 Armor
Shadowmoon Insignia: 36 Def, 32 Dodge, Lifegiving Gem, 0 Armor
Darkmoon Card: Vengeance: 51 Sta, Holythorns, 0 Armor

This totals out to (with the T6 added in) an armor value of 4901, which with Thick Hide in bearform becomes 26956 armor. Even with Inspiration up that is still under the cap (wheee the priest talents aren't wasted <_<) of 75% mitigation. Meanwhile, I was able to ignore armor on my rings/trinkets/etc. I gained a boatload of hit rating, stam, and agi+dodge from doing so, in addition to being able to move to higher ilvl stuff across the board and pick up a couple of lolrogue loots on the way. I have 84 hit rating in this setup which means that I'm only very rarely going to miss while tanking, which is just sick all on its own.

I'm really not seeing the issue with this setup? It moves away from abusing the ring/trinket/cloak slots for massive armor returns...but you know what? I'm okay with that. Ring in a new era; I'm happy to bank my Mark of Tyranny and never worry about finding a Depleted Badge.