I see GC mentions we need better AoE threat in this blue post.The fact that he mentioned it makes me think they are working on something. Otherwise it would have said "Dude, use Berserk and Mangle/Tab" for AoE.

They keep saying they don't want to buff swipe because that's all we'll use. I assume they mean we'll use it when single-target tanking as well as multi-target tanking. (Anybody remember tanking pre-BC)

Why don't they just make the damage/threat scale based on how many mobs are affected so more mobs = more damage / threat. If you're tanking 1 mob swipe is never worth it. If you're tanking 2 you're better off tab-mangling. If you're tanking 4 or more, swipe is the way to go?

I would like something like this to resolve the AoE-issue:

"Blind Rage (5s CD): Your next attack will hit every target within 10m range but only do 25% damage".

So you basically use your existing abilities and just pop blind rage for every other maul/mangle to keep up your aoe threat.

Also this could be used for things like getting a bleed on every target for increased maul damage (via r&t) or just for insane dot damage (if you stack lacerate high enough).

The diminishing returns on avoidence have been implemented - with some significant work on understanding them going on over in the Combat ratings at 80 thread

All of the data provided so far has been from warriors and indicated that for them Parry and Dodge operate on seperate diminishing returns.

Some data from druids, especially those with ultra-high avoidence sets would be good - the key question (and hope) is does dodge for us diminishes by a different factor?

No, shred and maul were adjusted to work with effects that also increase bleed damage (e.g. new mangle and trauma). So you still have to mangle if you don't have an arms warrior with you.

I'd prefer to get AE threat in a way that doesn't do a lot more damage. I want to hold threat and take a beating as a bear. Damage is a perk. I'd rather not get another 'bear damage is too high, beat them back into place!' nerf. Bear damage got a lot of love (so did the other tanks, but still, it's bear dmg vs other classes).

Beserk is bear mangle dps goodness.
Maul can be 1.2 (SF) x 1.3 (Mangle) x 1.2 (RnT) better than it is today.
Maul can hit a second target with a glyph.
Swipe gets 30% more damage, hits a 4th target and gains an extra +5 rage proc chance.
KotJ can increase dps slghtly.
From what I hear we have a lot of rage.
We should land a lot more hits with precision and expertise.
We have a LOT more ap on our tank gear than TBC.
We get 20% windfury haste (maul / white hit only)
Strikes scales better than it used to.
Some people will pick up 4% more damage in bear (shifter)

My solution would be much simpler: add a large threat component to demo roar, something along the lines of the other 3 tanks' 'X mob threat' moves. It doesn't make us go nuts on the damage meters. It hits X mobs in 360 degrees. It doesn't involve another button. It makes it a good idea to attack debuff mobs on an AE pull instead of wondering if you can afford the rage on a low threat move.

Ah, I misread the tooltip, "Effects which increase bleed damage also increase shred damage". That's some confusing wording imo... well a confusing mechanic at least.

Mijae would have more accurate numbers, but those are based on RnT being 10% damage and PI being 5 talent points. But, I'd guess it's a lot closer to

Savage Fury: 341.35 (170.68)
LotP: 99.9
Primal Precision: 167.65 (83.83)
*Rend & Tear: 256.26 (51.26)* NEW
Predatory Strikes: 142.39 (47.46)
Naturalist: 220.87 (44.17)
Imp Mangle: 120.21 (40.07)
Sharpened Claws: 119.89 (39.96)
Predatory Instincts: 108.16 (36.05)
*Rend & Tear: 128.13 (25.63)* OLD
Feral Instinct: 67.72 (22.57)
Master Shapeshifter: 93.11 (18.62)
SotF: 36.98 (12.33)

RnT depends on how much you use it though. It depends on having lots of rage, since other moves can be better if you're rage starved. It also scales with haste and winfury where mangle, swipe, lacerate do not.

I'm kinda wondering about the conventional wisdom of holding off on maul when rage starved. Yes you lose white hit rage generation. But with talents and glyph, it seems like maul is getting a lot better scaling than most of our other moves.

With talents and a bleeding mob, maul is likely to be:
[Base] x 1.2 (sf) x 1.2 (RnT) x 1.3 (mangle) x 1.1 (naturalist) = 2.06 base dmg

If you have the glyph, a second mob, and mangles / bleeds spread around, that goes to 4.12 base

Spreading mangles and lacerates is work. That would be hard to do, but with 2 mobs, it would be easy to add another:
[Base] x 1.2 (sf) x 1.1 (naturalist) = 1.32 x base.

So on 2 targets with the glyph, it would be easy to get 3.38 x base maul damage every application. I don't think any of our other moves scale that well. Once you get mangle and lacerate up, maybe that's worth losing white hit rage? For two targets, it's probably better to mangle, lacerate, mouseover mangle #2, mouseover lacerate #2 and then get a few juicy 4.12 x base damage mauls?

Yes but then you are back to the "just spam one button to death and you're fine" problem - the same reason they didn't want to buff swipe further. I think an ability with a short cooldown that also involves some thinking and variety would be a better solution. If you are worried about too much damage, that modifier on Blind Rage could easily be 10% or so, this was just an example - also the rage cost could be huge (like 50 rage or so) so that we lose some mauls when using that ability.

I agree that we have to be careful about doing a lot of damage, especially early on. I wouldn't mind being the highest damage single-target tank. That makes sense as a niche for ferals. It sounds like we will need to be able to tank large groups of mobs. The other talent I could see us getting some multi-target tanking love built into is thorns.

Right now thorns does very little damage/threat and doesn't give druids any kind of an edge because it can be given to other tanks too. What would be nice is to add something onto Survival of the Fittest or Natural Reactions saying "Any thorns effect on you does 100/200/300% more damage to attackers". Paladins grab targets with consecrate, but I think most of the threat they cause is with retribution aura and holy shield. Warriors will be grabbing mobs with thunderclap, but I think a lot of their AoE threat will come from "Damage Shield".

I think what we need is something to convince mobs to start hitting us instead of running past us to our healers, and then something else to keep them on us once they start attacking us. Thorns is the obvious source of reflective damage, and a deep bear talent like SotF or Natural Reactions makes perfect sense for a buff like this.

I know the idea has been beat to death but they could give us another roar with a damage + silence compontent and do double duty for pvp. The problem with that will be that it will need a long cooldown (45+ seconds would be fair) and that could be used as snap aggro on the mobs and then maybe a % based reflection baked into thick hide or some other bear heavy talent (ie 5% of damage taken is reflected at the attacker) which would allow our aoe threat to scale but not too quickly. The only problem i can see with the "thorny fur" is that against bosses 5% of a swing is a considerable amount and it might not work so well against casters and ranged physical.