In regard to the hitbox issues, it's really about where the hit box is centered on the model - for creatures like the Hydra in BT (with the absurdly small hitbox) you kind of have to jam yourself halfway through their model to be in range for specials, which is clearly not game breaking, but unintuitive, and annoying. For PvP, even excluding synch issues, and positioning requirements, it's kind of awkward to have to follow a target around, while actually being stuck partially through them (visually, ahead of them) to meet the melee range requirement.

I have no real experience with other melee classess, so I can't really comment on the specials versus white attacks, beyond that I find it really strange that different melee attacks would have variable ranges.

From Koraa's Post
That's quite a quote coming from a developer; acknowledging they've had internal bug reports and documents since 2004, but in the same sentence stating that it hasn't been 'Ignored' or 'not understood'. Surely 4 years is long enough to resolve an well understood bug that has not been ignored?

Anyways, I think the devs and anyone even mildly interested could find many videos, rants and pleas regarding the range issues, but like skins and costumes, there are bigger fish to fry for the druid class.

Edit: Aqueous Lords are not the mobs I was looking for.

I don't think that issue is addressed by the blue post. The issue they mentioned is one I see all the time in BG PvP and have never seen in PvE. The case where you are running on top of a toon and can't hit it at all. In that case it is easy to see how latency would be a major issue, made worst by the fact that 2 players are involved, so the latency could be doubled (if not more). Whereas in PvE, the latency issue isn't as severe given that mobs are typically stationary while you are attacking them and only your latency is an issue.

How can I replicate the hit box issue in PvE?

What I said is feral model affects pve, not hit box issue affects pve.

I meant the view-blocking bear rear when tanking. And both problems could be simply removed by unnerfing costume in forms.

If you want a good PvE example of a hit box that is disproportionately small, take another look at the Temporus (second BM boss) fight. I just did it my very first time as melee DPS (every other time has either been tanking or as a ranged DPS). I was astonished at how I would basically have to stand in the middle of the visible red targeting circle to not be out of range. My DPS was substantially lower on that fight for that reason, since the tank did not keep him totally still.

And I totally agree on the large size of the bear ass too often blocking the view of a boss, especially when a terrain feature prevents you from zooming out.

Hey,

I just found a link of guild using some beta version of WWS for WotLK.
Here is the link:

ER WotLK Beta Raid History

Apparently feral druids are doing pretty well, but the kings of DPS (at least on this guild) seem to be a DeathKnight, and a few Retribution pallies. I guess that they need to nerf Deathknights, the difference is very big.

The highest DPS I found for a feral druid was around 4900 (pretty close to some of the simulations I've seen here). But apparently this druid is not using rake on his rotation. This is the link for that fight:

Loatheb

I don't know how precise is this beta version of WWS, but I like some of the things I'm seeing there (Ferocious Bite crits for 12,000!)

Well in that report FB crits for 20k not 12k... As for rake, it's a new things, the good things is that the dps from simulation and his dps are comparable (on a side note it seems he is using a 4SR/5RIP/5FB cycle)

You're looking at a Thaddius fight, and that's presumably due to Polarity Shift with matching charges.

Loatheb isn't a good damage test either, though, due to Fungal Creep.

Has anyone created macros to optimize the use of the new TF? Or will the old powershifting macros (slightly modified) do the trick?

For Mangle:
#showtooltip
/run local f="Cat Form";f=GetSpellCooldown(f)>0 or UnitMana('player')>25 or not IsUsableSpell(f) or CancelPlayerBuff(f) end
/cast [form] Mangle (Cat)()
/stopmacro [form]
/cast Tiger's Fury

For Shred:
#showtooltip
/run local f="Cat Form";f=GetSpellCooldown(f)>0 or UnitMana('player')>25 or not IsUsableSpell(f) or GetComboPoints()>3 or CancelPlayerBuff(f) end
/cast [form] Shred
/stopmacro [form]
/cast Tiger's Fury

Can anyone A) Correct me if my macros are messed up B) Test or confirm that they work in beta?

Currently at work and cant test on the PTR. Cat bar there (and bear to a much lesser extent) is driving me nuts with how many extra things I have to pay attention to / keep up and use on just about every cool down.

I wish there were some clarity on Blizzard's intentions for tanking. Do they want any type of druid to be able to tank a 5-man, or any type of feral druid? Do they want any type of paladin to be able to tank a 5-man, or only prot? prot and ret? Are death knights supposed to be similar to warriors in that there's one tree that's meant for raid tanking, and two that can be used for 5-man tanking? Is a cat-specced feral druid supposed to be a viable off-tank in a 25-man raid, or would you want true raid-tank-specced classes to do that? Are prot warriors and prot paladins supposed to be good at anything other than tanking? i.e. if I'm in a 25-man raid as a bear-specced feral druid and there's a prot-specced warrior there, could he DPS while I tank, or does it make sense for him to tank because he's useless doing anything else?

They've said a number of times that they want DKs, druids, paladins and warriors to all be eligible for the main-tank job, but I haven't seen clarification on some of those questions. If a guild did pick a bear-specced feral druid as the main tank, would there be any room for a prot-specced warrior or paladin? In the past if you had a prot warrior and a feral druid in the raid, both equally skilled, both equally geared, and you had a boss that didn't favor either, but required only one tank, the druid would end up DPSing, not because the fight was tanked better by a warrior, but because the warrior wasn't all that useful if he wasn't tanking. I hope that in balancing things so that any class can tank, they also balanced things so that when they're not tanking all classes can do something else useful.

If anybody knows of any blue posts where they explain their vision for tanking I'd love to see them. I've been looking and aside from the basic questions, I haven't seen answers to those.

This only works for powershifting. Those macros will leave you in caster form if you don't meet the requirements.

You can't make the macro decide depending on energy as there is no macro conditional for energy amount.

An explanation:
Conditional macros and UI code were used a lot in the past. So much that mashing one button was enough to do complex things using those addons. The original decursive allowed you to decurse just by pressing the decursive button again and again. The addon checked the raid for debuffs and used the right dispel automatically. Other addons did the same for healing.
Blizzard did not like that. You were supposed to play the game, not let addons play it for you.
So they removed the possibility to use abilities in combat from addons. Instead you can only bind a certain action to a certain button with a specific target (which can be currently selected target and similar though).
Macros can still start script code, but that code cannot actually use anything. You can only use /cast and similar commands directly in the macro which does not allow "if" or similar general constructs.
Then they slowly readded some convenience conditionals to macros but those cannot depend on things like energy amount.

The loophole that allowed the powershifting macros is that the script command to cancel a buff still works even in combat. And cancelling the buff for a form makes you leave that form. So the script part can actually use an ability: shapeshifting to caster and it can do that depending on elaborate conditions.
That alone would not help you much. But there are macro conditionals to check which form you are in. So you can use different abilities in the macro depending on if the script code decided to leave the form or not.

I am sure Blizzard will remove the possibility for script code to cancel buffs in combat at some time. But even while it still works, you can only use that for decisions that involve leaving cat form (or whatever other form).