If a cat can keep up with a rogue's DPS, either the cat will be nerfed or the rogue will be buffed. (Will just throw that out there.)

Ferals do certainly look much stronger however, and yes, I would imagine infected wounds will be very good in arena (might be some synergy with a death knight partner there too).

I am reminded of what was said a while ago on the German forums - how cats would get Barkskin in forms. That never happened, but could possibly go towards the Dire Cat.

It would only make sense at the cost of a small amount of energy, also bark skin should be able to be used in bear form at the cost of some rage. I don't understand why our limits while we are shape shifted are so small. You could always wonder if Blizzard would take out Nurturing Instinct because it's such a useless talent and add something like "Feral Barkskin".

Eh, that would obviously make to much sense to them and they probably wouldn't put forth the time and effort to do such a thing.

I have to refute your point about Nurturing Instinct - I find it hugely useful even in PvE encounters.
+20% healing taken with all the AoE damage flying around in TBC raids is useful, no two ways about it.

I do believe original post was even talking about Dire Katze, though that seems to be the general german term - and it certainly was far enough back in time that I seriously doubt that was any 'real' knowledge about WotLK.

You should be in cat form... about 20% of Kalecgos, assuming a 3-tank strat; about half of Brut (though you take no damage during it unless burned); either almost all of Felmyst or very little of it, depending on whether you're MTing or not; half of Twins; and all of p2 M'uru unless you're MTing that. (Most of Kil'Jaeden too, from what I understand, although I don't know the fight well enough to comment in any concrete fashion.)

However, the two talents are different things. Obviously 20% less damage received is better than 20% more healing received, but nurturing instinct is a passive effect (100% uptime) whereas barkskin is not. Either effect would be overpowered in bear form. Neither effect would be overpowered in cat form.

I'm not in SWP - but in BT.
I'm in cat on Naj'entus, possibly on Supremus (we run 2 warriors/2 ferals generally, possibly a paladin and use 3 tanks there), Gorefiend, RoS, possibly Gurtogg. MH, definitely Archimonde and other boss fights. Plenty of time in catform.

I still think it's pointless to make it a talent - just allow it to be activated in catform, as is, and yer done - instead of taking out a useful talent.

I would like Barkskin usuable in Bearform (mini Shield Wall thingy), but can see it being a little out of whack. That said, Ferals still use Barkskin on Brutallus or used it to tank Kael'thas.

Wha? Where, exactly, would you spend those points, anyway? Feral Aggression? The build I use currently has more or less every important PvE talent and still has room for Savage Fury, Natural Shapeshifter, Nurturing Instinct and 1/2 Brutal Impact. I guess you could get Primal Tenacity, but after speccing for it for months back when NI was terrible, I have to say I'm wholly unimpressed with it. NI is really one of the better filler talents for those extra points, in my opinion.

What else would you spend the points on anyway ?

Savage Fury ? I use Mangle once every 12 seconds. If I'm tanking it doesn't do anything at all anyway.

Anyway, it's getting fairly off-topic here.

I know any information floating around about WotLK is just Alpha info, but can anyone speculate as to why the devs made Nature's Reach affect FFF? It seems to me that it wouldn't make sense for a Balance druid to spec into Feral for FFF or vice versa.

Probably easier with regards to normal FF ?

Well first off, you'd have to post the build you were considering. Second, unless things change drastically with regards to what effects can be applied to raid bosses (as well as the abilities they preform that you are able to mitigate with talents) I think its safe to say, from a pure PvE perspective, that you can completely ignore Infected Wounds, Brutal Impact, and Primal Tenacity. They are solid PvP talents, but currently any stuns/fears that exist in a raid environment that are worth spending talent points to resist - are unresistable. I also believe its fair to assume we won't be able to apply infected wounds to (or stun) raid bosses in WotLK.

If things stay as they are, my talent selection for raiding at 80 will look like this. The only things I've given up from my current spec are 2 points in Savage Fury, 1 point in Imp. LotP, and 2 filler points in Nurturing Instinct (which, in my opinion, is far from a worthless talent for raiding if you spend a decent amount of time in cat). Barring any change which would make rake worth keeping up as a significant source of damage in-and-of itself, Savage Fury is one more example of something you would take because no better options exist. A talent which gives a 20% damage increase to an ability [Mangle(cat)] we aim to use as little as possible, seems to be an easy place to free up 2 points.

Finally, it doesn't seem too terrible dropping 1 point out of Imp. LotP; most of the time the healing it provides is nothing more than overheal anyway. Don't get me wrong, it's a great source of free healing and does help in some situations to a noticable degree, but even if the benefit was questionable at best I'm not sure theres a better place to spend that last single point.

Given the current talent trees, I can't see how we have any hard choices to make when it comes to raid tanking/dps. If anything I wish they would reduce Naturalist to a 3/3 talent with the same bonus (or hell, even scrap the HT aspect of it) since we're the only ones really taking it, and give us 2 more points to spend elsewhere, especially if Rake becomes a viable source of damage.