Latest build:
* Glyph of Swipe has been removed.
* Glyph of Maul has been added - Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target.

I am sad to see the swipe glyph go. I find the Maul glyph troublesome. While it would certainly be useful for multi-mob situations, would we be able to Maul at all with CC out?

Now that Feral Faerie Fire does threat, it'd be worthwhile to test that Sting and Curse of Recklessness do not overwrite it.

They made barkskin usable in forms this patch, so I doubt they will add anything similar to shield wall. If the 20% for 12s every minute are enough remains to be seen.

I assume that they will add something related to AoE tanking of bigger pulls, as that is a big weakness of bears currently.

Speaking of niches, this blue post worries me:
MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Feral Concerns: Release date announced.

Being the best tank early on is what got us in trouble in TBC. All the other tanks (mostly warriors really) complained so we got nerfed hard. I don't want to seem like an amazing tank early on in WotLK while they're still adjusting things. I want to be a decent main tank with a solid niche in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th raid instances.

With the change to Mangle/Trauma and Shred/Maul, I'm fairly concerned for our DPS cycles. You can't be certain that the arms warrior in your raid will be keeping Trauma up all the time, so you'd have to be constantly watching for Trauma to fall off so you can Mangle again in order to not lose 30% on your next Shred.

The glyph of Maul giving an extra target also has me concerned unless they prevent it from chaining to a CCed target. I think that's a totally viable thing for them to do, though, since they have already set the the precedent when they made Avenger's Shield never bounce to CCed targets.

An arms warrior with any semblance of the correct gear will be past 30% crit in blues. He gets more than 8 hits per 15 seconds at the worst, so the probability that he doesn't get any crits in that period is... ~5%. In current raid gear, it's closer to 0.4% (~50% crit). And that's ignoring a few relevant talents - Improved Overpower + Taste for Blood virtually guarantees a crit every 5-7 seconds.

You can watch the debuff and get mangle on the rare event if you like, but you'll be better off just making sure your arms warrior is competent and has the talent.

I'd be surprised if the FFF threat comes only if you get the debuff onto the mob. I would assume a lacerate mechanic where the threat is upfront and you get the threat even if the target blocks or is bleed immune. You'll still be getting the damage from FFF even if Sting or CoR are up so getting the threat too only makes sense.

Does FFF only cause damage in bear form? Or is that qualifier only added to the threat component? The wording in the patch notes is not terribly clear on this.

5% AP in cat form is not insignificant. With my current ~5k AP thats 250 free damage every 6 seconds ~ 41 dps.

I'm guessing it would be implemented the same way Mangle and Trauma overwrite each other. For debuffs that have the same affect it doesn't matter if their buff overwrites ours as long as we can overwrite theirs.

This is an interesting point. We already use FFF in cat form while waiting for energy. This could be a great boost. My only concern then would be how it interacts with a moonkin's improved FF. Right now it just won't let us use it.

Just a few comments

This damage component the way I see it is just a much needed minimal damage to make sure your mob is tagged that's been missing from the feral druid forever. The additional threat in bear is nice but it is mostly (again) designed for pulling and nothing more (besides keeping the debuff up, assuming it doesn't have a stronger sister skill/talent or there's no moonkin in the raid).

In regards to the "threat niche": I am fairly confident this will never become a problem with the way they intend to design tanks (currently pre-last night's build the death knight was the only one hurting a little bit).

Just read the additional mana return is self-only, strikes me as a little wierd, I would like to see this altered to a mana/rage/energy/runic power restore to justify including this in pretty much all deep feral specs. Just trying to wrap my head around this one especially considering Powershifting has gone poof, any insight would be appreciated (PvP maybe?).

Ending on a good note I was able to easily maintain 2k+ dps in a 80 heroic with more or less sunwell gear (up'd hit to ~220 and caped expertise) using most likely incorrect cycles (Have no idea what the break point is of using savage roar... assuming its even a relevant AP number), all I have to say is Savage Roar --> Tiger's fury + Berzerking is beyond godlike. I'm not sure words could explain the destruction Berzerking will allow in PvP if you can stick to a target.

Why wouldn't they?

I think he's wondering if there are 2 comments in that phrase, like

• Deals [5% of AP + 1] damage (in any form)
• Additional threat when used in Bear form or Dire Bear form

Someone in beta should be able to tell us though.