Probably has to do with the your meta going inactive if you use reds.

Meta gem requirements for a yellow/blue possibly?

Yup.. that was it. Doh, I'm brilliant.

I think he knows this, it is just that there isn't an example of it working the opposite way.

How about removing int from feral gear and having Predatory strikes, in addition to its current effect, give + 1/2/3% ap to int converstion (so 5000 ap = +150 int).

That's not too bad an idea, but considering ap isn't very static opposed to INT depending on our form, it could have some funky workings.

Ooo, I like this idea, but in a slightly different way: make it AP -> mana regen. Direct 3% AP -> mp5 would be a LOT, so it'd have to be less than that, but it'd be an awesome talent for powershifters.

If we allow ourselves wishful thinking about changes to Predatory Strikes, my favourite remains the "swap 2T4 feral bonus with Predatory Strikes" idae, as that would both make the talent worthwhile and perfectly scaling and reduce the set bonus to something that's more appropriate in power and means we won't be using 2T4 in WotLK.

Like +105 ap?

Remember these ideas for beta though, they'll be far more receptive then than in a PTR patch.

The only thing you've got to be careful of is Pred Strikes is pretty obtainable for a Resto Druid, can't have it give them int/regen so cheap.

I believe str starts gaining on agi when you reach the "soft" crit cap: 75%-(miss+dodge+parry), the point at which no more of your white attacks can crit because they are glancing blows instead.

Not that anyone is reaching that point anytime soon.

It depends on your AP really. In theorycrafting if you had high enough crit and low enough AP then strength would be better than agility.

In practice it is near impossible to get that without some form of stacking "...of agility" gear or something.

If you're versed in reading these weirdy 3d graphs then theres a site here that tries to plot it and comes up with the opinion that point for point they are the same. I don't know enough maths to be able to agree or dispute that though.
Anúbereth’s Bearings

Unfortunately, I found a number of issues wrong with the simulator used to create this graph including unimplemented mechanics like armor pen, set bonuses, incorrect multipliers, and more. It was created before the str>ap change for HotW. Also, note the graph is plotting ap vs crit, not str vs agi. It's hard to say how many of the issues actually change the outcome, but I wouldn't trust it.

I'd actually like to see master shapeshifter change from 4% crit to 4% chance to restore energy for cat form a la 2t4. Then haste might actually scale for us like other classes instead of only increasing the 40% or so white damage we do.

Since people are sharing thier ideas on changes for talents, I thought I'd share my own:

Talents
Heart of the Wild
Rank 0/5
You regenerate mana equal to up to 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% of your intellect every 5 sec while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form. In addition, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form your Stamina is increased by 4%/8%/12%/16%/20% and while in Cat Form your attack power is increased by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10%.
-This would make it a really nice talent for PVP and because of the Feral Form requirement and placement in the talent tree, it can't be abused by non-feral druids.

Nurturing Instinct
Rank 0/2
Increases your healing spells by up to 50%/100% of your Agility. In addition, when you shift out of Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form, your next nature spell takes 0.5/1 fewer sec. to cast.
-I think one of our major weaknesses in PVP is the fact that everyone knows exactly when we are going to heal.

Improved Leader of the Pack
Rank 0/3
Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to have a 100% chance to heal themselves for 2%/4%/6% of their total health over 6 seconds when they critically hit with a melee or ranged attack.
-One of the problems with ILotP is that the health regeneration is random and it has an internal cooldown and the fact that it can proc when you are at full health meaning that you could be within the cooldown time when you really need it. This would fix all 3 things by giving your group a constant stream of healing without it being too powerful as even if you get two crits within 6 seconds, it will just refresh the HoT. It would also mean that if you crit when you are at full health, you would not waste the heal if you took damage within the 6 seconds of the HoT.

Spells
Shred
Shred the target, causing 180% damage plus X to the target. Causes an additional 25% more damage when behind the target. Awards 1 combo point.
-I feel that making it a requirement for you to be behind the target is a bit stupid, especially when it comes to PVP and non-group PVE as we have few stuns to keep us behind our target unlike a rogue would. This allows us to use Shred while infront of the target but with less damage and bonus damage if we are behind the target.

Frenzied Regeneration
Converts up to 10 rage per second into health for 10 sec. Each point of rage is converted into 0.2% of max health.
-The current 0.1% of max health for every rage seems abit more like a nerf than a buff as you would need 25,000 health to get the amount of health you do now.

Also, Predatory Strikes really needs to change because the talent gets worse and worse every expansion. At level 60 it was probably one of the best feral druid talents because of the amount of Attack Power you got from it and even after the TBC came out where you got epic quality stats on green items, it was still a very good talent, espeically when you were leveling. But I fear that when we get into WOTLK, this is going to be a really bad waste of 3 talent points that every Feral Druid MUST spend because of HotW. The talent doesn't scale with your gear nor does it get the huge stat increase that we will get with the new items in the expantion.

What you're looking for is called "Mangle". I think I saw it somewhere in my spellbook the other day.

Since high end bears are reaching 25k now, I fully expect level 80 bears to have well beyond that many hit points and therefore to be getting well beyond what we currently get for FR.

Really, Predatory Strikes is fine, and completely balanced. It's value is not in the effect it provides (105ap), but rather in that it unlocks HotW. Just consider HotW to be an 8pt talent, with a bonus 105ap thrown in.

Was there any specification on the rage consumption rate for the remodeled frenzied regen? If it's 0.1% max hp/rage, at 10 rage/sec it's a nerf unless you're fully raid buffed or stacking stam pretty heavy, but if it's allowed to do something like consume 20-30 rage per sec, it could be a decent "oh crap" ability, especially with the copious amounts of rage sunwell bosses are giving. Don't think it would be too overpowered in pvp either since 200-300 rage generation in 10 sec would be pretty difficult unless you're under such a ff train you're dead anyway.

I don't really see what the complaining is about. First there's whining it doesn't scale. Now it will scale and there's still complaints. If we see another doubling of health, I don't quite think it's a 'nerf'.
That aside, its exact scaling might still be adjusted.

What if they changed it to 30 rage per second, for 4 seconds, for .2% HP per rage? That'd give you 6% hp per second, for a total of 24%. That's about how much warriors get from last stand, and it's bursty enough to actually save your life in that emergency in which you needed to use it. It won't be OP in PvP because it uses up so much rage so fast that you won't be able to get the full benefit, but it'll still heal you enough to be respectable while you're taking damage (making it still just as useful as it is now).

Regarding rogue tanking: Druid total avoidance tanking comes up in this thread periodically and had its share of posts in the total avoidance thread. See in particular my compilations before Sunwell, when it was indeed possible, and after, which I actually posted in this thread and linked in the other.

Regarding dps cloaks: The [Cloak of Fiends] already was my top dps cloak in Rawr much of the time, including with top Sunwell choices (2t4 + 4t6 + others, with full raid buffs). It's no surprise for the new cloak from Kil'Jaeden to be best; I never cared for [Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape] anyway, its itemization being so undruidy.

I distinctly remember a dev(Tigole I think) saying that we won't be seeing another huge drop in stam relative to item cost that we saw from vanilla WoW to TBC.

While I think the larger problem of lack of scaling was important to fix, a bit more potency like this is a good idea(since this IS supposed to be an O SHIT ability).

[e] All right, no presuming builds on non confirmed talents. deleted.