It's somewhere less than 4%. We also gain threat from other things like the static modifier to lacerate and maul and rage gains. Similarly, it's less than 4% damage in cat form, because not all of our moves can crit and we have more than 0% crit to start with.

Personally, I can't seem to fit 16 points in resto in any tanking build I come up with.

You're right, I'd discounted the static threat component of lacerate in particular, so it probably comes out closer to that 3% on the other two, though I still feel it will be higher (might be worth running the numbers to see exactly where it lands versus RnT and PI). I think all three talents can be considered in the same category, and it just depends what side effect you want to get out of those 5 points (AOE avoidance? Less mana-intensive form-switching? The best cat raid DPS alongside?); what your other talents are; which cycle you are using (Mauls or no? Lacerate or Swipe?); and on how good your gear is. The higher your crit is, for example, the more valuable PI is compared to MS; and if you don't have shredding attacks, I suspect RnT's cat component is weak since (I think) a mangle-spamming cycle would honestly be more DPS.

Unfortunately, I keep ending up with bear builds that have none of the three.

Did anyone else have a geargasm when they saw:
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...0_loot_081.jpg

Staff of the Plague Beast
630 Armor
68 Str
89 Agi
135 Stam
1845 FAP

Yes, it's nice to see a sure upgrade for at least one of our T6-level items.

I thought it would be good to consider the different debuff categories, and which we should be expected to provide in a raid (for purposes of talent budgeting). Here are the categories that include Feral debuffs, from MMO Champion:

1. Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness. Ideally, a moonkin will provide this, since their version is a 2-for-1. CoR nerfs a lock's DPS and has the icky side effect of buffing the boss. As for Sting, I guess that depends how many hunters end up choosing wasps... We may or may not need to provide this one.
2. Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage. Our version is better. Rampage won't have 100% uptime and doesn't have the healing side effect of iLotP (if we spec for it).
3. Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma. Since mangle is integral to our tank cycle, we'll be providing it there. On the other hand, I see some occasions of happy shred-spamming for kitties if there happens to be an Arms warrior around. Edit: Okay, that's if it actually buffs Shred.
4. Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap. Each tank class has an equivalent, but only the Feral and Paladin versions come from talents. The pally version only costs 2 points. At the moment, IW is actually the best of the lot, but I'm betting they will all be normalized. Also, pallies and ferals don't have to use any extra GCD or mana-rage-stuff to apply IW (and we can apply it even while DPSing), but DKs and warriors do.
5. Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout. Again, using Curse of Weakness nerfs a lock's DPS. I assume the effects of all three will be normalized. Whether or not we're responsible here probably depends on whether or not we're the only tank in the neighborhood.

Based on this, I'm considering skipping Feral Aggression as I did in BC--and also considering whether, for the good of the raid, I should spec IW even in my cat spec.

According to wowhead, the Mangle (cat - bear is the same except for damage differences) debuff reads

while the Trauma debuff reads

Which means cat druids - regardless of Trauma - will still need to be applying Mangle to get the Shred bonus.

(unless someone in beta can confirm that Trauma boosts Shred as well)

By my current estimates, Savage Fury is by FAR the best TPS over any other talent. Each point is worth slightly more than one and a half times even the 5% crit from LotP. This is based on the static threat for Maul and Lacerate scaling equal to base damage scaling. It's also assuming Mangle still has the 1.3 threat multiplier.

But cats won't be able to just shred-spam if Trauma is available - they'll have to use Mangle themselves to gain the bonus to Shred. (which is what I was referring to with the original quote).

Though do both debuffs show up on the mob (and only one apply), or does one get replaced? (given the difference in durations)

If it doesn't overwrite, I'm sure it will soon. Part of the reason that's they're consolidated and non-stacking a lot of previously stackable debuffs is to make room. Adding more debuff slots to every mob nearby adds a lot of overhead to the data you need to synch with the servers. Adding DKs and new talents potentially made a lot more debuffs. If you have too many some just pop off. They've said they'll try to add more slots. But they also seem to be deliberately reducing the number of distinct debuffs on mobs.

It would be very problematic for ferals if Trauma overwrites Mangle (being of a longer duration) and also does not buff Maul/Shred, especially since the warrior version is involuntary. Hopefully the devs will keep that in mind when they are evaluating how the debuffs interact.

Here's more detail...

Gear (no idol or trinkets):

Hewn Sparring Quarterstaff
Scabrous-Hide Helm
Amulet of Wills
Spaulders of the Careless Thief
Flowing Cloak of Command
Crystal-Infused Tunic
Shackles of Dark Whispers
Sidestepping Handguards
Ley-Whelphide Belt
Constellation Leggings
QR ZDBlue6 Leather Physical Boots
Titanium Earthguard Ring
Titanium Earthguard Ring

Includes all currently available raid buffs.

AP: 4903
Crit: 32.15%
Hit: 7.35%
Expertise: 2.5%
ArP: 5710
Haste: 130.7%
Estimated TPS (unlimited rage): 2822

This is based on all talents enabled. By disabling each talent individually gives the following:

Feral Instinct: 67.72 (22.57)
Sharpened Claws: 119.89 (39.96)
Predatory Strikes: 142.39 (47.46)
Primal Precision: 167.65 (83.83)
Savage Fury: 341.35 (170.68)
SotF: 36.98 (12.33)
LotP: 99.9
Predatory Instincts: 108.16 (21.63)
Imp Mangle: 120.21 (40.07)
Rend & Tear: 128.13 (25.63)
Naturalist: 220.87 (44.17)
Master Shapeshifter: 93.11 (18.62)

Estimated equivalence points (for TPS):

AP: 1
Str: 2.36
Agi: 0.82
Crit: 1.23
Hit: 2.9
Exp: 5.8
Haste: 1.51
ArP: 0.35

I'll post my updated spreadsheet when I get a more stable version. I'm still working on implementing Savage Roar and refining other calculations.

I was thinking the opposite. That mangle, being a better effect (as iLotp would be) would overwrte trauma.

Thanks for the work! Assuming your numbers are correct, ordering those for threat gained per talent point

Savage Fury: 341.35 (170.68)
LotP: 99.9
Primal Precision: 167.65 (83.83)
Predatory Strikes: 142.39 (47.46)
Naturalist: 220.87 (44.17)
Imp Mangle: 120.21 (40.07)
Sharpened Claws: 119.89 (39.96)
Rend & Tear: 128.13 (25.63)
Feral Instinct: 67.72 (22.57)
Predatory Instincts: 108.16 (21.63)
Master Shapeshifter: 93.11 (18.62)
SotF: 36.98 (12.33)

SotF is an obvious choice.
PI you take also for the 15% AE avoidance for tanking.
FI: I'm assuming this is against a single mob and the talent could offer as much as 4+ times the threat on multi-mob trash

So, unless things change I feel pretty good about skipping Rend and Tear and Master Shapeshifter for a mostly tanking build.

This is very interesting; thank you for the numbers. So Master Shapeshifter really is the weakest of the lot (aside from SotF but we're not getting that for threat anyway), assuming a rage-capped situation. It would only be worthwhile in non-raid boss situations.

Naturalist looks like the per-point is based on 5 points. If one is of the furor-is-useless school and chooses to treat Naturalist as being "10 effective points" (as if anyone would spec 71 feral?), then it actually comes out pretty low as well (since OoC is useless in a rage-capped situation).

Feral Instinct also comes out pretty low--is this against a single target? Mangle-Lacerate-Swipe cycle? I look forward to the new version of the spreadsheet.

Edit: gah, too slow!

With this I really am getting concerned about being expertise capped fairly early. Nearly all our set pieces have expertise, this staff has a HUGE chunk and a bunch of off-set pieces I've seen also have expertise.

For DPSing, the concern is certainly valid. Primal Precision could definitely be axed depending on how close to being hit capped one is (in that if you're close to hit/expertise capped, the energy refund loses value). But for tanking, parries go all the way up to 13.75% as per recent Warrior testing, so it still retains value threatwise (and to an extent, for reducing parry/thresh chance).

With regard to the effectiveness of Primal Precision for Cat DPS, has anyone seen any info on how much expertise rating and hit rating we will need to hit the cap?

Looking at the beta stats for the 10man Naxx raid, the feral druid set has expertise on 3 of the pieces totalling 115 expertise rating. That alone is well over the current expertise cap for us so I assume the ratio of ExpertiseRating to Expertise is changing, but I have been unable to find any information on the new caps.

Awesome. That means one of our talents is half useless with T7 gear. They went way overboard with the expertise.

Ehh.. I just tried building another "All bear, all the time" build while prioritising survival above all else, and taking threat talents in the optimal order only when the layout of the talent tree prohibited me from taking survial talents.

Dropping every single point into feral makes a scary amount of sense. Naturalist is purely more threat and damage, and at every point you can grab either more survivability, or more tanking utility instead... Doing this also lets you max out feral aggression and infected wounds in the same build without giving up anything but damage, meaning that you are fully selfsufficient when it comes to tanking debuffs.

Looking at the tier 7 sets i am a bit shocked to see no intellect at all.

Of course a feral is mostly in feral form in raids and either doing DPS or Tanking - however talents based around healing or intellect make no sense anymore, decursing in fights will make us go OOM even faster.

Will a feral druid be totally useless for decursive fights and from the playstyle a watered down warrior or rogue? Frankly i have seen the druid changed so often, and call me oldschool but i really rather shift out, decurse and toss a heal on a melee who ran into doomfire on archimonde, even if it lands as overheal than stay dead locked on dpsing.

Not actually--if there is 115 rating on the available gear, then a feral needs 33 more rating yet to get to the dodge cap for expertise with Primal Precision, and is still about 100 rating below the cap without it. The two talent points are worth 66 rating.

In any case, I don't see it being that different than any other cap. If we had 142 hit rating, we swapped out hit gear for stuff with more stats or (later) haste. If we were at the armor cap, we swapped out high armor items for things with higher stamina and agi. This will be the same, I am sure. I'd rather be able to get to the cap and change an item to balance my stats, than to never approach it, as was the case in BC.

Still, might be useful to do a little "alt click for feedback" and suggest that they give us more hit and less expertise in some cases. Edit: while you're alt-clicking, also ask them why the heck our Naxx 10 set, the feral Naxx 10 set which will not be used by other classes, has AP instead of Str, when Str is a 16% better stat per item budget point for both Cat and Bear, and they are otherwise interchangable. Maybe with feedback they will reconsider; it is in beta after all.

Also, don't discount the second portion of Primal Precision: "You are refunded 40/80% of the energy of a finishing move if it fails to land." This is non-trivial until we are both hit and dodge-expertise capped.

I am confident we'll have enough mana to battle rez, IV, and throw the occasional emergency heal or decurse, especially now that powershifting is dead, long live King of the Jungle. For a long time my DPS set was 2pT4 and the rest rogue stuff; no int on my gear was never an issue for me. Edit: that was with Intensity and Natural Shapeshifter, but nonetheless I am not too worried. I always carry a stack of mana potions to be safe. The 20% int portion of HotW does feel a bit vestigial, but eh.

I think we will be fine without INT on our feral-gear. The reasons are:

1. Powershifting will be gone -> In most cases there will be no mana usage while tanking or DPSing (Except inervate, b.rez. or rooting effects.

2. We have our base INT, enchantments that give all 5 stats (at least i think there will be some new) and the raidbuffs (Kings, AI, MotW)

3. If you need more mana in a fight a main Decurser/Healer died and you only have to decurse 1 or 2 persons, place a hot and b.rez., nobody can be expecting extraordinary healing performance in feral-spec /-gear.

4. If there will be an encounter where we have to multirole (DPS+decurse) there still will be the possibility of manapotions and some jewelery/cloaks/castergear/weapons with int.

Edit:

I forgot PVP/Arena: a tiny bit of int on arena gear (not more than 10-15% of item-points) would be nice, since the multi purpose of ferals in 2v2 or 3v3 can make the big difference, but for pve i like my gear "raw".

Well with 115 on available gear and 59 from the new staff (which is a DPS staff by the look of no armor on it) we're already over the DPS cap if we have the talent. That seems fairly wasteful. Now the point about switching out gear and all is good, but we get over capped here with 4 pieces of gear. I can't imagine there'll be another feral DPS staff at that tier so that piece probably won't be replaceable. Similarly I'd imagine we'd be encouraged to use our set gear via decent set bonuses (hopefully not ridiculously OP ones like the current 2T4) which means switching any of these out will also be tough. And this is the FIRST TIER of gear we're seeing. Unless they are going to intentionally keep the expertise on gear so that we're always capped (and increase the other stats instead) its just going to get worse. And if they DO keep the expertise the same we start "losing" stat points due to stacking of other stats higher in the future.

I think having expertise on the set gear is good. Bear needs a good chunk of it (presumably double what cat needs). Remove it from our DPS weapon and it'd probably be ok (replace it with armor penetration or something).