Yeah, looks like collateral with this nerf. That really bites considering I took a Blue Dragon card in anticipation of having more mana problems come the Ulduar patch.

With regard to Savage Defense, in the case of hard hitting bosses like Sarth3D & Patch, the ~1.5k shield is pretty small compared to the size of the hits coming in. In addition to this, our crit rates aren't particularly high and on the big hits you take, you will be taking more damage than currently due to the armor reduction.

It seems that overall we will take a bit less damage (helps healer mana a small amount) but the risk of us dieing in an encounter seems to be higher than we currently have. I hope they look at this talent closely as to me it feels like we may be better off now than with what they are currently suggesting.

That is one good thing about this change, people can finally shut up about that damned stupid card because it's bad and needed to die last expansion.

Are we ever in danger of dying to an attack or flurry of attacks that are armor mitigated though? Bear tanks get to levels of health where sarth can't kill them with a triple-drake breath: it would seem that the risk of being insta-gibbed is, at present, effectively nil.

So the issue is that worst-case mitigation goes down, while average mitigation would appear to improve (unless the internal-cooldown gremlin screws up yet another balanced mechanic...). That just means that the stamina soft-cap will go up.

The problem with Sartharion is that during Twilight Torment, you're probably not hitting him. That tends to reduce the likelihood of scoring a crit rather severely.

I would suspect that even on a fast hitting single target like Patchwerk, you'll see higher uptime than you are anticipating because our avoidance, which is pretty damn good, helps prolong the life of the shield.

As with another commenter, I'm somewhat concerned that they won't add rage generation to absorbed damage for us like they are doing to warriors, and that we'll end up rage starving. I'm constantly complaining to priest healers when I do 5-man content to get them to stop shielding me so I can keep my rage up as it is, and this won't help (it makes maul a potentially larger rage sink than it already is, since hitting 2 targets roughly doubles the likelihood of bringing up the shield if it's down.) At a guess though, if they don't do it initially, they'll immediately realize it's not right and fix it--so I'm not genuinely worried, and in fact, I expect that this will make life better in heroics once they get it all worked out.

First, they seem to be struggling with rage generation much more than we do.

Second, by tying it to crit, Primal Fury ensures that any time the shield goes up you get 5 rage.

Wow, when I read these proposed Savage Defense changes I nearly spat my drink out! As it is exactly the sort of thing that was discussed here pre-wotlk and I actually suggested something near identical:

http://elitistjerks.com/971867-post3674.html

Similarly as was discussed back than, it would need to have stackable charges to be truly worthwhile. Otherwise it could be much harder for us to tank faster hitting bosses, especially those with hard hitting specials. Something like Halaazi from ZA with very fast auto-attacks but a powerful Sabre Lash.

It would actually be completely opposite that. We would need to be critting faster than we are getting hit. A fast hitting boss will easily use up the buff faster than we can stack it.

People say, that SD coming along with lower armor modifiers on SotF will be an overall nerf to bear aoe tanking. Let's take a look at this (more napkin math inc):

The difference in dmg reduction is roughly 8% between bears (70%) and warriors or paladins (62%) when it comes to armor mitigation (not sure about dks at the moment). The mob taken from the ThinkTank example deals 10k with a swing timer of 1.5sec. I can't think of an example, where actually 10 mobs need to be tanked at once (maybe utgarde pinnacle or maexxna?), so let's just take this one. We leave out any avoidance, so keep in mind, that 10 hits is already the worst case when tanking 10 mobs at once.

According to the ThinkTank this can be expressed as 1 mob hitting every .15sec. for 10k. With a shield proc occuring every 1.2sec every 8th hit is mitigated by SD's shield. With current numbers, the shield will absorb 1250 dmg. So the mitigation we gain from SD is 1250dmg/1.2sec.
How much do we lose from the loss of armor mitigation?
Blizzard thinks about bringing bear armor in line with the armor other tanks have. So, regardless of the actual numbers, this would require a loss of about 8% mitigation. So lets see what happens, if the lower SotF modifiers result in a 8% mitigation loss (note that at this point I ignore the fact, that this might not even be possible, even if SotF would not give any bonus armor. We will see later on).
Every hit would be mitigated by an additional 8% which is 800 dmg per hit. In 1.2sec. we get 8 hits, so we gain 6400dmg/1.2sec. This is in fact better than SD, but it is also absolutely unrealistic, because we ignored avoidance. Considering avoidance and misses, the benefit of 8% more mitigation from armor is reduced to approximately 3500dmg/1.2sec effective dmg reduction.
So far, armor is still far ahead of SD and this is why people keep saying, that SD is bad for aoe tanking.

What a nerf of SotF is needed to achieve a loss of 8% armor mitigation?
Again, using the ThinkTank numbers 29866 armor results in 64% mitigation. 56% mitigation is reached having 21k armor. This means Blizzard had to reduce the SotF bonus to something like 5/10/15 which is highly unrealistic since this would bring us way below other tanks. It is realistic to drop us to about 25k (60%) which means something like 13/27/40. This is in fact only 4% loss in armor mitigation so the above aoe tanking example would cut the effective dmg reduction to 1/2. 4-5 hits during a 1.2sec. period hitting for 400 less dmg means 1600-2000dmg/1.2sec.

In conclusion, bringing us exactly in line with other tanks armor wise, SD will be a slight nerf when tanking 10(!) mobs at once. We reach a balanced state at roughly 3 hits taken per 1.2sec. (1200 more dmg taken because of 4% less armor mitigation and 1250dmg less dmg taken due to SD's absorb). This is the case while tanking 6 mobs at once (2.88 hits per 1.2sec). So, whenever we tank a total number of 6 mobs or less at once we actually benefit from Savage Defense, even if the bonus of SotF is reduced to bring us exactly in line with warriors and paladins. In other words, unless Blizzard reduces the SotF bonus below 40% at 3/3, SD will be a buff everytime we tank 6 or less mobs at once.

Note: Actually I had this all done earlier, but I didn't have the time to post the results. Then, kalbear came up with his ThinkTank entry and so I decided to change my calculations in a way to reflect his numbers and to prevent reinventing the wheel.

This was an accidental double posting, but I decided to use this for a small addition. In the end I forgot about the armor bonus we get from agility (around 1500 armor), which is worth even more mitigation when the armor level gets lower, since it is a constant. As a result, if the SotF armor coefficient drops to 10/20/30 we would still be in line with warriors and paladins. This is slightly less than the 40% I mentioned above. Keep in mind that this is only correct when looking at many mobs hitting for 10k. Against a slow and hard hitting boss SD becomes much less effective than armor mitigation.

As a note to druids thinking about rage vs shield problem.

Why are you worried? It's obvious that we will get the same rage x damage absorbed as warrior. When they change that they don't change something in warriors or druids formulas, they change something in rage formulas, applyied to both class. Every change from vanilla wow to rage has affected both classes, because when you are a bear,you are a warrior for the game mechanic. As already stated back at the begining of wotlk from a blue (i don't remember the exact post): every change in mechanic affecting warriors have it's counterpart for druids, that's all.

Not sure if its been brought up yet... but the feral mitigation change will also negatively affect us during stuff like web wraps/stomps/stuns, we wont be attacking during those so we wont be proccing SD.

Yeah, this is what I was thinking. If they truely want it to be like block is, would it not be better for it to be:

"When receiving damage the druid has a chance equal to their crit chance to absorb an amount of damage equal to 25% of their attack power"

Shield-tanks can't block during stuns either, so there's no extra disparity between SD and block in that case.

I know, the point I was making was meant to be seperate from what I was quoting.

No theres not, but since they're nerfing our armor to make room for SD, it would be a nerf to druids during those things... which is all i was saying.

I'll try out some math and comparison:

I'm currently at 32% crit, 50% avoidance, 36.5k armor, 6800 ap raid buffed, with haste+buffs I have an attack speed of 1.85 sec (I'm also hit capped and near expertise hard cap so I'll assume 0 misses)

Now we can easly assume an attack each GCD.

So I'll do 10+8 = 18 attack every 15 seconds or 1 attack every 0.83 seconds.

Now suppose the boss has an attack speed of 1.5 seconds, he will do 10 attack over 15 seconds. So on average I have 2 chance of proccing the shield every boss attack or 4 chance if we consider avoidance.

With a 32% crit, it's about 1-(1-0.32)^4 = 0.75 = 75% chance.

So on average I'll be shielded 3 attacks over 4.

Now with 6700 ap I'll be shielded for 0.25*6800 = 1700.

1700 damage absorbed with a 75% chance it's not bad at all.

For example our warrior MT has a 22% block chance with 1300 block value.

Those value are far below what will gain a druid.

Pro:
we will get a better uptime
we will get a better "block value"
we will get more magica mitigation

Contro:
We need to attack to get it (look at sarth 3d for example)
it will scale with raid buff more than the warriors/paladins so we will get a lesser effect in istances and 10 men.
Going from armor to block will make our damage more spiky.


Now let's look at a 2 target tanking:
Our attack/sec. will be the same but we can crit on both target. But basically we will take 1 attack every 0.75 seconds.
considering 50% avoidance, 1 attack every 1.5 seconds.
We can crit on both target so we have a (1-0.32)^2 = 50% chance to proc a shield for any attack. Considering that we will do on average a little less than 2 attack each attack taken we will have about the same uptime of 75%.

Now let's consider 6 target tanking:

We will do 6 attack each 1.5 seconds and 2 attacks each 1.85 seconds = 68 attacks every 15 seconds. Consider for example a swipe with 6 target we have a 90% chance to crit. Just make it 100% for simplicity. We will have our shield up every 1.5 seconds. But we will recive an attack every 0.25 seconds so we will have a 16% uptime. If we want to consider mauling for extra shiled the chance can go up a little to 20-25% maybe.

All that math (gross math I admit it but I only want to know the "magnitudo" of the problem) is to say:

The effective coolness of the new ability is based only on how much they will nerf our armor.
They will nerf our armor considering average damage taken.
It's true that more mobs will hit for less each than a boss so also with a lesser uptime we will cut of more % of damage for each attack but not for the total damage taken.

Differently from warr/Pala, our shield will lose effectivness becouse it will lose uptime scaling negativelly with the number of boss. So:

Will blizz balance us on boss fight? With what kind of pre-mitigation damage and attack speed?
Will blizz balance us on trashes or multiple add fights?

I'm under the impression that balancing us toward boss fight will make less able to tank adds.
I'm under the impression that balancing us toward adds will make us OP vs. boss fight.
Also I'm worried that we will lose our Hard-Hitting-Bosses primatum.

What is cool about those changes is that now every single stats on our gear has a defensive effect letting us scale more properly.

That solution will scale negatively with avoidance. Because will surerly be based on a 2 roll system. Block+Avoidance is a 1 roll for warriors/pala so if they don't avoid the attack they have a xx fixed chance to block. Increasing avoidance push normal attack off the table.

Instead for druids your solution will be: If you don't dodge you have an xxx chance to put a shield on you. With 0 avoidance your "block" chance will be = crit chance. With 50% avoidance will be halved.

EDIT: Sorry for 2 consecutive post. Merge it if you want, thanks.

So with regard to Savage Defense, what do you think would be the best consumeables come 3.1 ?
I stopped using Flask of Stoneblood a long time ago and mostly use ap flask for more threat, or resistance for S3D. With SD there is another reason do use dps based consumeables. So i think we have do choose between:
[Elixir of Mighty Agility] + [Elixir of Protection]
[Elixir of Mighty Strength] + [Elixir of Protection]
or
[Flask of Endless Rage]
I think i will stay with the latter as long as my HP is not the reason for wipes.

edit : linked an the old version flask.. corrected that.

Yes. I am pretty sure we will lose our advantage against hard hitting mobs. The slower the boss hits AND the harder it hits SD becomes more and more ineffective and armor mitigation is highly favorised. As it was mentioned before, it is very likely the SotF nerf will bring us in line with other tanks which is already enough to take away our advantage. I have the impression that SD is actually a slight nerf to bring us to where other tanks are already. This also takes away some flavor since it feels a bit artificial, but, well, we do gain a little against casters and in PvP this shield might even be close to overpowered.

I am not sure why you would want to use an old flask, but I would still recommend using agility buffs since it gives you almost everything a bear might want: armor (mitigation), dodge (avoidance), crit (threat, SD procs -> mitigation/magic mitigation). The way I understand SD is more like we still want to stack stats that we used to stack (maybe favorising agility even more), but now all the +str and what not will actually be useful in a way and the hybrid gear will fit a little better in order to fully support the class mechanics, which is important for PvP, where classes just don't have a lot of choices when it comes to gear.

Edit: For situations where we are being stunned and can't get shield procs we actually already take a lot less dmg in case you put points into primal tenacity, which should not be much of a problem. So the lack of shield procs doesn't really matter at all.

Additionally, I would like to see a change to master shapeshifter so that it doesn't increase the bear damage but the ap by a certain percentage. This would make the talent a little more attractive to bears and it supports the hybrid once again by introducing small synergies.

tr33hugger changed the link of the flask, but still, I would probably use the first example.

An idea regarding Savage Defense and multi-mob tanking: I was wondering if instead of putting a buff (stacking or otherwise) on the druid to reduce damage taken, how about getting a crit on a mob put a debuff on that mob that reduced the damage it did on its next attack?

I can think of two complications with that up front, in that the damage reduction should only be used against the druid that applied the debuff, and a question of whether an avoided attack would still eat the debuff off the mob.

On the plus side it would seem to match the mechanics of block a little more closely, where you mitigate damage against a particular mob based on a roll against that actual mob. The other models I've heard so far can have you crit on a boss, but waste your shield on an add, or vice versa.

My biggest concern about Savage Defense is that, on a single mob, it's relatively easy for Blizzard to balance things out so that the nerf to SotF and the addition of SD balance out. It gets a bit more wonky with multiple mobs but isn't impossible to balance out. I'm not keen on it, but it's not terrible. Where I foresee a problem is on fights with periodic insignificant damage. I'll use a PvP example but I'm certain there are many PvE examples of this - a bear versus a hunter. The hunter drops a snake trap. Savage Defense procs and one of the many snakes bites the bear doing an insignificant amount of damage but, in doing so, eliminates the shield. Now, expand that up to a raid boss - boss hits like a truck but there's some form of minor-yet-annoying damage that's inflicted often. That minor-yet-annoying damage has a high chance of negating the SD shield, thereby allowing the massive hit to get through unaffected.

I like that Blizzard is trying something new and thinking outside the box but I don't think these mechanics are quite there. Hopefully they'll be refined before 3.1 hits.

(Edited because I spell stoopid before my morning coffee...)