Hunter's Distracting shot does on Live. I used it often on my hunter when I noticed my trapped target had changed his target from me to someone else (usually the healer). It doesn't break the trap yet adds threat.

The warrior one, by a lot. Its still an OH *&^%$ button, so either the druid is blowing it randomly when they don't need it (running the risk of not having it when they absolutely need it) or does save it but ends up 40% worse off than the warrior.

That depends on encounter design. If the higher damage phases happen more often than the warrior has shieldwall up, then the druid version is better. As strict emergency button the warrior version is a lot better of course (assuming that such situations do not occur often in a fight).

They most certainly do, but since they are CC'd most of the threat applied to them is global threat. ((Effective threat / Number of Mobs in Combat) from heals at least. Buffing, drinking, etc. also cause global threat (maybe buffing was changed, not sure)) Sundering would most definitely generate threat, you can also taunt mobs that are CC'd to bring your threat up to the highest players threat (which makes taunting before smashing mangle/maul the best option for trash).

Without sounding like to much of an asshole Taleden "cycling through sheeped mobs and FFF'ing for threat" to me sounds like your time could be better spent, because honestly FFF threat is quite minimal. If a sheep breaks "early" then the mage was not doing his job. If you have time to be cycling through CC'd mobs with FF and your not tanking something you probably should be, and if thats not the case you could probably DPS or build a full rage bar to break the next mob with. I honestly can't think of a situation where I thought to myself "hey I should probably FFF that sheep, wait for the CD and FFF another sheep". Maybe I'm over-reacting a little but it seemed wierd to me.

Sure, in any tough content where GCDs are actually on a budget, there are better things to do. But on easy stuff where I've got enough threat on my target I could stop attacking completely if I wanted to, FFF-the-CC does come in handy sometimes. More than once, some sheep I'd put a few FFFs on got broken by some careless AoE, and the mob ran to me and took a swing before the mage got him down again. If I hadn't done that, that one swing would probably have killed the mage, which would waste even more time than me using GCDs on "sub-optimal" threat like FFF.

Its situational, to be sure, but I'll be disappointed to not even have that tool at my disposal anymore.

*checks to see if guild is watching*
*crosses fingers that they aren't*

On 'easy' content I try and kill as many mages as possible.

Seriously though, does FF threat really add up and cause the mob to come to you? As I see it, either (a) threat isn't counted while sheeped/CC'ed, hence FF doesn't mean anything, or (b) threat is counted while sheeped/CC'ed and a butterfly in the next room, let alone the healing and AoE going on, will mean FF doesn't mean anything.

I've never had a mob come to me after a sheep when I FF it. If FF does put threat on that actually is stored, it isn't enough to stop the residual threat from the CC.

In other news, apparently some items which granted parry rating now grant "parry/dodge" rating, which gives parry if you can parry and dodge if you can't. My suspicion is that warriors/paladins will complain about this because they'd rather have the dodge rating (better conversion rate) but this is a big win for druids. No word on whether defense does the same thing.

Unless CCed mobs ignore global threat, they should be going for the healers after a sheep breaks, but I rarely find this to be true. Tests anyone?

This might just be some of the best news to come out of the expansion thus far, if they follow up on it.

Actually it's 100% more damage, isn't it? Shield Wall reduces incoming damage by 60%, meaning you take 40% of the actual damage. Barkskin reduces the damage by 20%, meaning you take 80% of the actual damage. 80% is double 40%.

WOTLK Shield Block -> WOTLK Barkskin
WOTLK Shield Wall -> ?

If I hadn't been doing it and getting that result for a good while, I'd agree with you. But my (anecdotal, admittedly) experience says, it does work. Maybe it takes several FFFs to pass the CC aggro, but it is possible and I've put it to use more than once.