I agree, but feel the same way about totem twisting and some other minor inconsistencies that I expect won't be fixed till WotlK. As such they should at least be noted for the time being.

About the double rip mechanics:

Aside from the Mangle (Cat) vs Mangle method, double rips can also happen if a bleed is applied as mangle is wearing off. There is a short delay in the time when you activate an ability (energy/rage/combo points get consumed) and when the ability is applied (debuff appears on the target). If you activate an ability while mangle is up, then mangle wears off, then the ability is applied, the damage of the bleed is calculated as if mangle is up for the whole duration of the bleed. If another mangle is then applied after, the bleed gets the effect of two mangles.

I made a post about this in the feral druid megathread a couple pages back. That being said, it is replicable for a feral druid if you are the only one applying mangle, but it is pretty much nothing but luck for other classes. I am fairly certain that this bug occurs with other classes too, as I have gotten double rips off other druid's mangles, and I seem to remember rogues mentioning exceptionally high rupture anomalies.

One thing to note is that Rend, while not having a direct damage component, can be entirely blocked in which case none of the DoT is applied.

Is Rend an anomaly? Are there other physical dots that get their total dot_damage reduced by block value before being distributed to the various ticks?

Or does a block result in the attack table COMPLETELY absorb the entire dot_damage regardless of block value?

As far as I'm aware, any non-direct-damage ability that rolls a Block result on the combat table gets full-blocked with all affects ignored. Rend and other DoTs without a front-loaded component are not actually treated as damage attacks--they're non-damaging special attacks that apply a debuff. The debuff happens to do damage, which is not blockable.

That smells similar to binary spell mechanics.

Nodrak:

The behavior you describe with SOV and AW is similar to the old A) Scorpid Poison and B) Lifebloom-rolling mechanics.

A) The Hunter would pop all his AP boosting abilities right before his Scorpid would apply the first stack of Scorpid Poison. As long as the stack did not fall off, the Poison would tick with the strength of the Hunter's boosted AP, long after his trinket effects had expired.

This also lead to using the penultimate rank of Scorpid Poison, since its duration was 2 seconds longer than all other ranks, giving the Scorpid one extra chance at reapplying the Poison in case it missed.

This has since been quashed by drastically reducing how much Poison scales with the Hunter's AP and correcting Scorpid Poison to have an 8 second duration across all ranks. Can someone confirm if the strength of the Poison is checked every reapplication? I know this was explicitly stated for Lifebloom, but not for this.

B) The Druid would activate all his healing boosting abilities right before casting Lifebloom. As long as the stack did not fall off, the LB would with the strength of the Druid's boosted healing.

This has since been quashed by having the Lifebloom check the Druid's healing every time the stack is refreshed.

Having said all that, I do not know if the same fix was applied to SOV and AW, since apparently there's not enough exploit potential in it to matter (confirmation would be nice, though).

If you block a Rend or a Sunder, the debuff is never applied. Note that since Rend and Sunder do not have any direct damage component, you can only ever get blocks or non-blocks.

In my experience, Hamstring works as you describe - I can fully block a Warrior's Hamstring, take no damage and take no debuff, but a partially blocking Lieutenant Drake's Hamstring, which does considerably more damage, will still result in the debuff, as long as some damage gets through.

Isn't that that sole reason Rend, Gouge and Kick etc all have their initial damage boosted as you get new ranks ?

If it's fully blocked, it doesn't apply the effect. I thought that was clear already.

Thanks, folks. This is exceptionally helpful.

The core simulation architecture has been expanded from caster-only to include attack-table actions. I'll be implementing the physical-dps classes shortly, and the nitty-gritty details like this are very, very helpful.

Player buffs, yes. That was never in question, as far as I know. The question was mob debuffs, in this case Mangle specifically, which are treated entirely different. The example you mention actually would have been covered under the spell mechanics model, though it works exactly the same way. If you Avenging Wrath and SoV, you'll definitely see the increased damage from AW for the duration. However, if a shadow priest applies Misery (mob debuff != player buff), you'll see the DoT ticks go up, then drop back down when Misery falls off.

Druid testing of Lacerate showed the same re-check as lifebloom: if the first debuff goes on at 2000 AP and the second at 1500, the tick of the two-stack will be that of two 1500 AP lacerate debuffs. As far as I know, scorpid poison was not updated in the same way.

Consecration may behave a bit wonky because it affects an area of ground rather than leaving a normal debuff, which could cause the damage to be calculated per-tick rather than locked in. Curse of Agony worked the same way for a patch or two after the initial change, because the changing damage per tick has made Curse of Agony work wrong in every concievable way at some point or another.

Note also that what's locked in is the static +dmg on the effect and the casting player's multiplicative effects. Target multiplicative effects are done per-tick, but target-based +dmg effects (d/amp) are locked in at spell cast.