What I don't really get is, what is our role now in WotLK?

With the most points available in 1 talent tree(feral, 77points) and only 71points available, we are forced to pick either kitty or bear.

Bear:
The reason why Druids are used to tank in raids is because they can Offtank and dps just about as good as other classes.

Now that we have this hidden nerf of 'pick bear or kitty' spec, I don't think we will be able to tank or dps.

We don't have the advantage of AOE tanking, warriors are getting shockwave, Paladins will be doing consecrate, with the stam = spellpower buff. All we have is a frontal swipe which made things difficult for us even though it is buffed to unlimited targets.

We basically can't tank at all if we picked all kitty talents, even using tanking gears. We only have dodge, and our agil>dodge ratios are nerfed about 100% in WotLK, diminishing returns will kill us and therefore we will be looking to stack defense again for chance for boss to miss.


Kitty:
If we picked bear talents, our dps will be horrible, a prot tank would most probably out dps us. The nerf to shred dmg and buff to mangle dmg is just an obvious case. How often do you mangle? Rake buff? So we have to spend more energy to make use of a buffed spells we never used in BC and force it into our rotation? We need to spend 5points deep into 9th tier to make shred even worth it?

Our Slice and Dice would be the only thing that is considered a buff. Our 'adrenaline rush' is decent, but definitely not as good as rogues. We would be owning rogues in dps meter on a dummy at early 75-80, but late 80s when rogues are getting all the uber weapons, we will be like nothing compared to them.



So all in all, if we spec kitty, we can't tank, if we spec bear, we can't dps. We are a class that is going back to the 'master of nothing' title.

Resto you say? Wild Gay must be cool am i right? grats on spending 51pts for a useless spell. Have fun renewing the HoT of a target you don't want and waste more mana. Have fun getting beaten on healing meters. (OMG spamming CoH/chain heal/beacon is so hard!)

Balance? Just how many raid spots will be made avaliable for oomkins now with raid wide buff? You sure you want to be hated reputation with your guild's mage/priest/warlock/cloth+leather healers?

Do you really want a feral druid to MT bosses when you have warriors and paladins who can't really dps as much as feral druids in BC?

Why would you force a druid to MT role to stay in bear instead of tanking trash here and there and go kitty and dps the boss just about as good as any other classes(except lock).

There should be a reason to bring a druid tank instead of a warrior tank, if we are just like another warrior tank, why would you bring a feral druid when warriors have spell reflect/shieldwall, why would you bring a druid tank when paladins are master of AOE tanking. 5% crit buff?

Why would you bring a kitty dps when a rogue can interrupt without using combo points, poisons that is vital to the encounter?

Is there a reason to give 2 sets of gears to a class that is only able to do 1 job with 1 spec?

I am not whining, I am discussing, if people managed to convince me that what I have mentioned is WRONG, then I will accept my mistakes.

The fact that we are nerfed and we will not be the preferred tanking choice compared to warriors and paladin is obvious. You can say I am lying now, but it has been the case in late BC, though we were loved in early 70s in the first few months of BC release.

The nerf will just make us disappear even faster this time in WotLK, believe it or not, the result will be clear in 1-2months.

Also, my question is, "What is our role in WotLK?"

It could just be me, but I always feel like my single target threat is lacking and I am really getting irritated by it. I cannot seem to keep up with the prot paladin main tank in my guild. What is the best proper rotation for tanks now? Is it unchanged or do I add in FFF on CD?

We went to Void Reaver not to long ago, and yes I know its outdated content especially with the nerf to bosses but he was putting out a consistent 2-3k threat and I'm barely able to hold 2k if that. What can I do to improve my threat now? Should I wear strength gems? Us Maul something to spam even below 50 rage?

I am Baelther of Cairne by the way.

I told you. You will either tank or DPS. Why would they bring you instead of a protection warrior or a rogue? Because you're a better player. Rogues poison vital for an encounter? Kick being important? Ask warriors how many boss abilities in LK they can spell reflect in raid instances. Zero. You're right, there isn't a reason to say "Hey guys, we really need to get a feral into this group". Likewise, there isn't any reason to say "Hey guys, we really need a rogue in this group". Or a protection paladin.

You won't be brought anymore because your specific spec is required. You'll be brought because you're good.

Void reaver isnt the fight you use to determine your tps.

If VR somehow didn't hit you at all, without rage, theres nothing much you can do.

Don't stack strength, with the new talents, you should only stack agility, even more so now compared to prepatch i'd say.

More crit = more rage, more dodge = more rage as well.

You have to choose between OoC and berserk, i prefer OoC, with things are now, you will be only using 1 berserk per fight, which is quite useless tbh, and the fact that swipe is unlimited target now, there is no reason to let mangle hit 3 targets, it doesnt help you much in AOE tanking.

Mangle whenever its up, renew lacerate when its about to fade and keep it 5stacks, FF when its about to fade, spam maul when you are tanking a boss. My rotation could be wrong, but if theres any difference, it would be minimal.

No spell reflect? TK robots? RoS?

ok next spell, shield block for illidan.

Rogues poison not vital? mind numbing/wound, remember magtheridon?

would you shiv on kael MC peeps and kick the spells they use or do you want a kitty to mangle them to death?

kick not important? tell me you don't have kicks on hkm, council, karathress, kael, solarian, mag, hey the list could go on.

Good players? Would you bring a good warrior or a good feral druid to tank? Would you bring a rogue to dps or a good feral druid?

You are totally out of topic.

Read the important part. This is about Wrath of the Lich King, not The Burning Crusade. I can assure you, absolutely none of those things matter in any raid instance in beta right now.

It's about time I write down a longer post with some info and some replies:

@ boss armor buff:

I've added extra armor (going from 10900 to 12000) to bosses in my simulation, the dps goes from 5020 to 4820, that's barelly a 5% dps nerf, I think we can live with it. What does it do? As for the rotation it stay about the same you will use 1 FB every 2 RIP on average. 25% of total damage will be bleed and rake will be "epic". Crit rating will be a bit lower budget wise and Armor Pen has it's value increased.
Conclusion: I don't think it's so bad as a nerf, APrating will be better and more in line with other abilities, our dps will still be competitive and our threat... well threat is not a problem.
On a note: Does they finally fix SR stacking?

@ Bear/Cat and no more hybrid:
I really don't see your problem, we had 2 main tanks (me and a warrior) before the patch and we still have 2 main tanks now. Yes, before the patch my dps were more competitive while not tanking but this is only because we are not at level 80 yet. I am our guild MT because I'm a good player, not because of buffs and so on.
At 80 we will be competitive tank and/or competitive DPS, as I wrote in a previous post you can come up with a build hybrid with basically all you need for tanking and with an 85-90% dps capability.
Also they will soon introduce dual spec and mantaining 2 sets for us will be far easier than for paladins, DK and warriors.

@ threat problem
With my gear (you can armory me - Nightcrowler - runetotem - EU) I'm able to push 1.1-1.3k dps while tanking and about 2.5-2.7k TPS (I didn't look at it intensivly). I've only done a BT and a MH run after the patch, I never had problem of Aggro. The only time I lose aggro was versus some locks or mages doing intensive AoE with 10+ mobs (BT multipulls or MH) but with Challenging Roar on a 150 sec CD and Growl at 20yard it wasn't a problem at all.

My rotation:
single target: mangle-lacerate-swipe-mangle-FFF-swipe-mangle-lacerate-FFF Repeat
multi-target: swipe-swipe-swipe... after 4-5 GCD if I have Berserk I'm mangle-tab with berserk and/or trying to put a lacerate on my first target to have more aggro mauling vs. single target dpser like rogues.

I agree, even though FFF is quite difficult to refresh at level 70 in a raid because of the "higher spell is already active bug (?)".

On a side note though, I was tanking the deadmines with a balance spec druid (yes, I love druids) and FFF alone was able to do the single target TPS needed, being the highest TPS-move. While this does actually seems very far off, I'm only telling this story to illustrate how strong FFF is on a very low scale.

Concerning the FFF reapply bug

I told our Boomkin to leave Imp. FF out of his specc as he was also complaining about "Higher spell already active" errors and the Spell Hit Bonus could be provided by Shadow Priests as well.
IIRC I haven't seen any problems reapplying FFF since then, next raid night I will take an even closer look.

It's assumed. With unlimited rage, why wouldn't you maul? It's on a separate CD, so it doesn't have to be considered for the cycle of other abilities.