[MoP Bear] Basically confirmed: still no tanking leather

[matters]

I am pretty sure the reason why every thing that appears somewhere about the beta says "This is an early beta build and things are likely to change" (or something to that effect) is because we are still in early beta, things are most likely going to change, and just because something is the way it is in the beta right now does not mean it is "basically confirmed". Let the testing go on, and if Blizzard decides to make a change like the one you are speaking about then good for tanking druids and tanking monks alike, if however they decide to change nothing then things will remain the same way they have for the past seven years, completely playable and otherwise unbroken.

It may be something that druids have wanted for a long time, it may be something that only a select amount of druids wanted for a long time, either way if Blizzard thinks that it will change the game and the druid tank playstyle for the better then they WILL do something about it. When that is remains to be seen though .

[Handlebardoc]

Like I said, my only complaint about the change is that we are losing versatility and gaining nothing in its place.... Well now we are being split, our versatility gone and yet we get nothing.

Now you are simply being greedy. Perhaps you do not understand the extreme versatility and usefulness of a bearcat in both PvP and PvE? Like I said in my earlier post, bears are too powerful of tanks right now, because they can also put out substantial dps anytime they don't have something to tank. That is something no other tank can compare, and that is not a good thing. And please don't respond with "Us dpsing is what makes us unique don't homogenize Blizz!!" because it isn't just unique, it is - at the risk of feeling like a broken record - OVERPOWERED.

[Bearshield]

Why do you need tanking gear when you are balanced around using offensive stats to survive, sorry? DKs tank with DPS orientated 2Hs, and are meant too, obviously they prefer mastery or expertise over haste and crit, but if they got a 2H with parry and dodge, it would be superfluous stats, giving them an unintended edge.

Druids with tanking gear would be exactly the same. Seconding the ''You want your own loot for the sake of it.'' No justification given other than that.

Using your example of the DK, I never understood why Blizz didn't just go back to tanking 2handers, make maces again and design weapons for DK's AND Druids to share. But then they decided Druids weren't going to use Strength anymore.

It's not about wanting gear for the sake of having gear, it's about wanting gear designed to benefit us just like everyone else has. We aren't "balanced" around dps gear, we reforge the crap off we don't need to make it useable. Would you care if they removed ALL class armor and your loot choices were generic Plate piece A or generic Leather piece B?

[Sanguinare]

because you had more versatility then every other tank you need to lose it . not some trade just lose.

now druid tank gear come out 100% of your set is useless so you now have no gear at all so all druids can't tank anything until they dps 5mans to get tanking gear i think just that would have a lot of you crying.

monks will use dps leather for tanking not only will it fit the idea of how a monk will tank but it works over all (ps i am kind of pissed why do i need 3sets of gear but monks only need 2 to do all 3 rolls i am a paladin)

[Bearshield]

Now you are simply being greedy. Perhaps you do not understand the extreme versatility and usefulness of a bearcat in both PvP and PvE? Like I said in my earlier post, bears are too powerful of tanks right now, because they can also put out substantial dps anytime they don't have something to tank. That is something no other tank can compare, and that is not a good thing. And please don't respond with "Us dpsing is what makes us unique don't homogenize Blizz!!" because it isn't just unique, it is - at the risk of feeling like a broken record - OVERPOWERED.

If it's so OP, why has it gone unchanged since TBC? I don't pvp so no, I dont really care about how it feels in pvp. I have no problem with class/spec restrictions that affect ONLY one or the other but not both. And how can you say Bears are such powerful tanks when your argument is based solely on our dps ability? If we are such great tanks then why is the concern over our dps and not how well we mitigate or something similar?

All I am saying is that we are being split into 2 dedicated specs, yet bears on beta feel watered down compared to live. (I will admit I have no comment on cats because I have not yet been able to respec my OS to cat on beta) And before you say it, yes beta is beta, but beta is the time to bring up concerns. Waiting until things go live it's too late.

[Handlebardoc]

If it's so OP, why has it gone unchanged since TBC? I don't pvp so no, I dont really care about how it feels in pvp. I have no problem with class/spec restrictions that affect ONLY one or the other but not both. And how can you say Bears are such powerful tanks when your argument is based solely on our dps ability? If we are such great tanks then why is the concern over our dps and not how well we mitigate or something similar?

All I am saying is that we are being split into 2 dedicated specs, yet bears on beta feel watered down compared to live. (I will admit I have no comment on cats because I have not yet been able to respec my OS to cat on beta) And before you say it, yes beta is beta, but beta is the time to bring up concerns. Waiting until things go live it's too late.

There are a few reasons it has gone on so long:

1. It takes the class change of a new expansion to implement this type of design, that of adding another entire spec.

2. The problem was not as pronounced throughout all of the past as it is now

3. It is true they could possibly fix it in other lesser ways if they were still using the old talent system, but with the new and better design choice for talents and specializations, this makes the most sense.

When making a big design change like this, you have to consider all areas it affects to understand why they make the change. Ignoring PvP when trying to understand the change is just shortsighted.

I am saying the reason bears are better tanks right now is BECAUSE they CAN dps like they do. It is unbalanced. Let me put it this way. An Arms warrior could switch stances and put on a shield, but he would be around 1/4 of a tank. A DK could jump in Blood presence and maybe be 1/3 of a tank. A disc priest can atonement heal and its about 1/3 of a dps. But a bear can switch to cat and be 3/4 of a dps, if not more - similarly, a cat can switch to bear and be 3/4 of a tank. Now, as it is, bears are actually doing better than pally's/warriors right now because their scaling is more linear and do not reach a "soft cap" in their mitigation like the aforementioned do when they reach CTC.

As for beta, all the tanks feel watered down atm. They are implementing a role-wide change, that of active tanking. It will take some time for them to make them feel right. Remember, beta is beta, but don't forget that also means you need to report your findings to them (as in on the official forums).

[Jeffyjimbob]

There's nothing to rebalance though. The biggest change they made to us going from the old tank gear to rogue gear is now we don't care about strength anymore. If they designed actual tank gear for us, it would be no different than how they do the plate tanks. The agi on it would go down, there would be no crit or haste, in its place we would get dodge, perhaps more mastery, hit, expertise. Yes our crit would go down but other than that, I fail to see what would need rebalanced.

How about our dodge formulas? And our DPS formulas?

I don't know how much of beta you've been watching, but recently our DPS as bears has been in the shitter. We just got a buff so if we suddenly lost AGI, we'd lose DPS and in turn threat, again.

As for dodge, I think I get ~80 dodge from each piece of armor now, just from reforging. If I suddenly had gear with dodge as a base-stat, I'd be getting ~200 dodge per piece of armor. That's more than twice as much dodge. Tell me again, that I wouldn't need to be rebalanced.

I'll say it once more, if we're currently balanced around DPS gear, and they suddenly released legitimate tanking leather, we would need to be reworked. And in the end, we'd have the same exact tanking stats. If you think that we wouldn't need to be reworked, that by some sort of magic we would still have the same stats in tank gear, then what's the point in having tank gear, if our stats are going to remain unchanged?

[Myzou]

They say the opposite of this int he warlock tanking thread.

They said they didn't want to make warlocks tanks because they want tank and DPS gear to be different, and they finally got rid of druids using DPS gear in MoP.

[Bearshield]

How about our dodge formulas? And our DPS formulas?

I don't know how much of beta you've been watching, but recently our DPS as bears has been in the shitter. We just got a buff so if we suddenly lost AGI, we'd lose DPS and in turn threat, again.

As for dodge, I think I get ~80 dodge from each piece of armor now, just from reforging. If I suddenly had gear with dodge as a base-stat, I'd be getting ~200 dodge per piece of armor. That's more than twice as much dodge. Tell me again, that I wouldn't need to be rebalanced.

I'll say it once more, if we're currently balanced around DPS gear, and they suddenly released legitimate tanking leather, we would need to be reworked. And in the end, we'd have the same exact tanking stats. If you think that we wouldn't need to be reworked, that by some sort of magic we would still have the same stats in tank gear, then what's the point in having tank gear, if our stats are going to remain unchanged?

Part of why our dps keeps getting tweaked is because we are tanking in dps gear. The changes they made in this recent beta patch were to fix what they did going into beta. They lowered all tank dmg and went overboard with some so it was fixed in this recent patch. We have had our dmg tweaked prior to that though and it's in part due to the fact that we are using dps gear with dps stats to tank in. So with a lower AP, yes, they would have to readjust the amount our abilities hit for but in the end it would work out more similar to the other tanks.

As for dodge, if I remember correctly, the amount of agi required to reach a full % of dodge was made higher in Cata than ever before, again because we are getting most of our dodge from agi. These are minor changes and I will give you, they are changes that would need to occur but they are still minor.

When MoP goes live and we are having to reforge into dodge, expertise, and hit while maintaining high levels of crit and haste to work with the new system, how balanced is that going to feel when the plate tanks are simply reforging away small amounts of avoidance to get a bit of hit and expertise?

[Jeffyjimbob]

Part of why our dps keeps getting tweaked is because we are tanking in dps gear. The changes they made in this recent beta patch were to fix what they did going into beta. They lowered all tank dmg and went overboard with some so it was fixed in this recent patch. We have had our dmg tweaked prior to that though and it's in part due to the fact that we are using dps gear with dps stats to tank in. So with a lower AP, yes, they would have to readjust the amount our abilities hit for but in the end it would work out more similar to the other tanks.

As for dodge, if I remember correctly, the amount of agi required to reach a full % of dodge was made higher in Cata than ever before, again because we are getting most of our dodge from agi. These are minor changes and I will give you, they are changes that would need to occur but they are still minor.

When MoP goes live and we are having to reforge into dodge, expertise, and hit while maintaining high levels of crit and haste to work with the new system, how balanced is that going to feel when the plate tanks are simply reforging away small amounts of avoidance to get a bit of hit and expertise?

Alright, I'm confused. Why, do you want tanking gear?

Do you think blizzard is over complicating our stats, and therefore, you think we're going to suffer as tanks?

Or do you just want a set of gear only for tanking, because you want to be able to say "that's my gear, no one else can use it"?

Edit: My point is, they have an idea of what they want us to have for our stats. Regardless of what gear we have, we will reach those stats, because they're planning for it.

[Bearshield]

Alright, I'm confused. Why, do you want tanking gear?

Do you think blizzard is over complicating our stats, and therefore, you think we're going to suffer as tanks?

Or do you just want a set of gear only for tanking, because you want to be able to say "that's my gear, no one else can use it"?

Edit: My point is, they have an idea of what they want us to have for our stats. Regardless of what gear we have, we will reach those stats, because they're planning for it.

Well first, your theory of Blizz having a plan for where our stats should be and thus we all have the same stats doesn't work in a game where players choose how to gem, enchant, and reforge their gear. Just look at today where you have Bears who focus solely on tanking and Bears who spend more time dps'ing than tanking and thus focus more toward dps. Which of these two ideas matches Blizzard's goal for Bears currently in live?

As to your question though, I personally feel we would be in a better place all around in actual tank gear. Hell if we'd been tanking in actual tank gear all this time, our dps in cat wouldn't be as high and the argument against Bearcats would be out the window. As long as bears tank in dps gear, our dmg will fluctuate considerably more than the plate tanks. From a stat point of view though, at our core our defensive stats are armor, dodge and mastery. In MoP we will also need hit and expertise. Going with the current system, in addition to the stats I just mentioned, we will also be focusing on Crit and Haste. So when this drops (I'm making up armor here):

Random Leather Agi Chest
1979 Armor
468 Agi
737 Sta
2 sockets
equip: 200 crit
equip: 150 mastery

We are lacking hit, expertise, and haste from this piece. Given the current agi to dodge conversion ratio, you would also get more dodge from straight dodge rating than agi. So if every piece looks similar to this, how do you get your stats where you need them? You can reforge, but with no stat being wasted anymore (which I admit, is a good thing), what do you give up and where do you make it back up? If we had actual tanking gear, however, then we would need fewer stats and have an easier time reaching what we need on them.

I'll use current example to show where I'm going with this.

This is an actual piece of plate tanking gear:

3622 Armor
368 Str
611 Stam
2 sockets
equip: 280 dodge
equip: 238 parry

If Druid tank gear were reinstated, you could follow the same model to create something like this:

1979 Armor
311 Agi
700 Sta
2 sockets
equip: 200 dodge
equip: 150 mastery

With the example I gave, you have both defensive stats covered in this piece and could in theory gem for hit/expertise. With fewer needed stats, it is also likely you would get some pieces with hit/expertise on them already as well. (yes I know these stats appear on dps gear also, but again with the current system we need everything on our gear so it comes down to where to lose what and how to build up what we need most)

[Braindwen]

Why, do you want tanking gear?

I wouldn't mind my DPS being balanced in tank gear, would make tanking in DPS gear all the more enjoyable.

But anyway, haste, crit, and hit all look useful currently. Expertise is the new haste, though hopefully they'll wise up and change dodged/parried attacks to not generate rage. I don't see why they'd make DPS stats useful to us, just to make tanking leather so we won't use them.

Besides, "tanking leather" wouldn't buff us in any way, so saying it should be our compensation for splitting the currently OP feral spec is kind of silly.

[Bearshield]

I wouldn't mind my DPS being balanced in tank gear, would make tanking in DPS gear all the more enjoyable.

But anyway, haste, crit, and hit all look useful currently. Expertise is the new haste, though hopefully they'll wise up and change dodged/parried attacks to not generate rage. I don't see why they'd make DPS stats useful to us, just to make tanking leather so we won't use them.

Besides, "tanking leather" wouldn't buff us in any way, so saying it should be our compensation for splitting the currently OP feral spec is kind of silly.

Oh I wasn't saying that should be our "compensation", simply saying they're running out of excuses why we don't get things. (i.e. like when we were told the reason bears don't get parry is "flavor")

---------- Post added 2012-04-07 at 06:33 PM ----------

3. It is true they could possibly fix it in other lesser ways if they were still using the old talent system, but with the new and better design choice for talents and specializations, this makes the most sense.

And here is where I strongly disagree with you. I don't find anything better about the new design for talents and it has nothing to do with the splitting of feral. I liked the talent system better before Cata. I like assigning points into things as simple as stats. It comes from playing MMORPG's since well before WoW, where you literally just assigned numbers to stats when you leveled. I also feel that there was more room for them to play with our characters in ways such as your example, where a bear could have specific talents to affect choices of armor or stats or whatnot. In the new system a bear is a bear and a prot warrior is a prot warrior, there is no difference between one player and the next and you can completely function without talents now.

The reason bearcats are in the spotlight this expansion is because it's become more common than ever before in Dragon Soul. Blizz screwed the pooch and once again made several single-tank fights along with making the other tanks more desirable overall in there and thus, many bears are spending more time dps'ing than tanking. If bears were the preferred tank right now, nobody would be complaining about what we can do when we're not tanking. The problem is that bears aren't tanking enough right now. (and no, I'm not saying bears can't, I'm saying the others are preferred)

I copied over 3 of my 4 tanks to beta and of the 3, the Bear is the one I'm finding least enjoyable and most different so far. My paladin feels relatively unchanged and I'll admit I haven't done much with my warrior on there yet but from what I've seen so far, it's not as boring as the bear.

[Jeffyjimbob]

*snip*

Alright, just gonna say this. While I disagree, and do not wish to have tank gear added for druids, I do understand why you want it now and I think it's a good reason. I thought you wanted it for some other reason, or no good reason at all, I just personally like using DPS gear so sorry if I came off as rude at any point in my disagreements.

Last thing I will say, is I don't think blizzard really intends for bears to use every single secondary, I think they just want it to penalize us less, when we have to pick up haste or any other undesirable stat.

[Mnemon]

This thread is hilarious. People still actually want druid tanking gear? You realize the tank spec is balanced around us using dps gear right? Do you really think if they added tank gear we would get better? Of course not, they would rebalance us to use the tank gear. How ignorant of the game can you be to not see that? All it would do would be to add another type of gear to the game that the majority of people can't use, thus resulting in more wasted loot. Look how much stuff gets DE'd in DS now with only 1 item and 1 token dropping per boss. If I had to try and get two sets of gear just to be feral I would go crazy.

They already said the new style of tanking is meant to make crit and haste more valuable because we have to generate more rage to give ourselves mores more survivability. If they added actual tank gear, they would just rework it so we would be in exactly the same place. Bears are good tanks right now and good part of that is because we can use tank with dps gear. Stop being so ignorant of how the game works.

Judging by the OP's love of the old talent system also reinforces the fact that he just loves illusions and not real things. The only talent system was worthless, you just assigned more points to things you already get now. You had no choice, you just clicked more buttons when you respecc'd. People need to stop falling in love with the illusion of choice and just try to be better at the game.

[mercutiouk]

So you're saying that the way feral has been since TBC is OP? Feral druids have been THE ot since feral became a common playstyle back in TBC. (I didn't mention vanilla because there were too few of us playing feral to matter then) Why? Because of all the tanks we had the best dps while not tanking. This isn't something new to Cata. But now all of the sudden that is OP with the "changes" in MoP. Well what changes? People keep saying that to me but I still don't see what Bears or Cats are getting that the other will not have access to that make our current playstyle OP.

Like I said, my only complaint about the change is that we are losing versatility and gaining nothing in its place. For years we asked for more tools or better utility etc to do our jobs better as feral and for years our versatility was held over our heads as an excuse not to fulfill our request. Well now we are being split, our versatility gone and yet we get nothing.

I think you are missing some of the changes or are simply ignoring a large part of them to try and make a case.

The talent tree's are basically gone.
You now choose 8 utility skills from all trees.

This means that when you spec bear you get bear talents baked into the spec. When you choose cat spec you get cat talents baked into the spec. If you just had "feral" it would effectively be a bear+cat with ALL BEAR AND CAT TALENTS. No having to pick a few options that boosted one more than the other. Everything, at once, all of them available to you as cat or bear.

It wouldn't be a "cat that's a decent tank" or a "bear that can do decent DPS" it would be FULL cat and FULL bear talents. THAT'S why it would be OP. Now various people have tried to break this down and explain it various ways. You are ignoring each time and re-focusing on "it's been fine for X years" without paying ANY attention to the fact that talent trees are GONE. You get talents based on spec and utility of your choosing.

[Handlebardoc]

And here is where I strongly disagree with you. I don't find anything better about the new design for talents and it has nothing to do with the splitting of feral. I liked the talent system better before Cata. I like assigning points into things as simple as stats. It comes from playing MMORPG's since well before WoW, where you literally just assigned numbers to stats when you leveled. I also feel that there was more room for them to play with our characters in ways such as your example, where a bear could have specific talents to affect choices of armor or stats or whatnot. In the new system a bear is a bear and a prot warrior is a prot warrior, there is no difference between one player and the next and you can completely function without talents now.

The reason bearcats are in the spotlight this expansion is because it's become more common than ever before in Dragon Soul. Blizz screwed the pooch and once again made several single-tank fights along with making the other tanks more desirable overall in there and thus, many bears are spending more time dps'ing than tanking. If bears were the preferred tank right now, nobody would be complaining about what we can do when we're not tanking. The problem is that bears aren't tanking enough right now. (and no, I'm not saying bears can't, I'm saying the others are preferred)

I copied over 3 of my 4 tanks to beta and of the 3, the Bear is the one I'm finding least enjoyable and most different so far. My paladin feels relatively unchanged and I'll admit I haven't done much with my warrior on there yet but from what I've seen so far, it's not as boring as the bear.

First off, I will agree that the era of true hybrids was fun and interesting. I personally played a very hybrid DK in wrath that was quite fun, being Frost/Unholy, truly splitting my talents. But, blizzard had to get rid of that system for a few reasons. One was that it was an enormous pain to balance. The number of different combinations someone could enter PvE or PvP in was astounding, and sometimes unique hybrids popped up and were completely overpowered, and it was inevitable that some combo's would be missed by blizzard. Even for theorycrafters it was sometimes miserable trying to min/max. So blizzard made the right move in the spec we have today (even if it was an unfinished idea more than a perfect solution), because it cut down on a lot of development time and money to balance the aforementioned monstrosity. Now, in our actual talents, we don't really have a choice were to put our points. We have about three to four choices really, and they are not that compelling. That is why I like the new talent system of choices you can make and make a difference.

As for what you said for tanks in DS... Bear tanks are one of the most desirable, if not the most desirable tank in Dragon Soul. Their only competition is the DK for high magic damage fights like Yor'sahj, but even there you would prefer the bear so he can go cat and dps between globs, because during progression the enrage timer actually mattered. The Bear does better by far right now than warriors and paladins, the only exception is H Spine blood tanking, but that's more because warriors can lolwtf stun and kite. I wonder how much H raiding you do (because most everything is balanced off of the high-end, e.g. PvE off of Heroic raiding), because if you did much of it, you would know bears are in a very good spot right now, not just because of their capability dps-wise.

[Bearshield]

I think you are missing some of the changes or are simply ignoring a large part of them to try and make a case.
The talent tree's are basically gone.
You now choose 8 utility skills from all trees.

I'm not ignoring anything. I have my druid on the beta server, I've seen firsthand what the changes are and the only real change is what abilities you have access to. For choosing to spec as a Guardian you get:

Mangle
Frenzied Regen
Savage Defense
Lacerate

As a Feral you get:

Mangle
Savage Roar
Rip
Rake
Shred

Anything one spec can get through talents, the other has access to as well. Here's some of the mutually usable feral abilities that still exist on beta:

Swipe
Thrash
Bear Hug (new)
Berserk
Ferocious Bite
Growl
Maim
Maul
Pounce
Prowl
Might of Ursoc (new)

You're telling me things are so different in beta with the "talent" change from on live, I'm asking you where the difference is besides no longer having access to abilities that are just "feral" on live. Right now I raid in a small casual guild as one of our two tanks. Since I often dps on the many 1 tank fights in DS, I raid with a Bearcat spec and reforge my gear accordingly. If you armory me you will see my spec fully supports both tanking and dps. I am not the only druid currently doing this either. Druids have been playing this way for years.

With the new talent system, your talent choices have nothing to do with your spec. All specs have access to the same small pool of talents and most of them are utility related.

[exochaft]

The bearcats of DS were probably the point in which the feral tree crossed the line of what was "acceptable" in dev eyes.

Actually, this problem has been unacceptable for much longer, and it reared its ugly head back in BC. Back in BC, you literally could have one spec that had it all: all the survivability you'd want as a tank and all the DPS output you'd want as a kitty. While this was a "nice change" from the vanilla state of feral druids, it made our potential a little too high in PvE and PvP. And it all stems from the design of the talent tree: having two roles in one talent tree.

Now, there was some leather that had defense on it back in BC, but once resilience came into the picture, it was worthless. With the advent of crit immunity for PvE purposes for tanks and the changes to resilience since BC, there's no need for defense anymore. Why hasn't any more leather popped up with dodge as a secondary stat appeared? Because, as many have stated, loot tables are already a big enough mess as it is.

Even back in WotLK, Blizz actively acknowledged the hybrid bear/kitty spec and showed its disapproval of it. Long story short: it becomes a nightmare to balance both bear tanks and kitty DPS against a potential hybrid spec, other tanks' abilities to tank and/or DPS when not tanking, and full-time DPSers. The end result becomes pigeon-holing tanks into specific roles despite what the player may want, the reduction of the abilities/tools of bears and cats alike away from their full potential to avoid huge imbalance, etc. Some players said the extra DPS they could put out over other tanks was "utility," Blizz said it was a problem they didn't have the structure to fix yet.

Finally, in MoP, Blizz has the structure to do what they've wanted to do since the problems of the feral BC talent tree came along: specialization of roles independent of a talent tree. Basically, Blizz can finally control and limit the abilities of a player depending upon the role they choose, whether it is healing, tanking, or DPS. Now, if a balance issue arises with a spec, it should almost universally be contained to the role, and not trickle over into another role. For example, suppose bear tanks' survivability and/or tanking damage seems a bit low... instead of having to tweak kitty damage output and/or survivability due to how they both have overlapped in the past in terms of talent trees, the changes should only touch bears and leave kittens untouched. In layman's terms, if Blizz has to buff or nerf druid tanks, they will not have to buff or nerf druid feral DPS because of changes to bears (and vice versa).

With the talent trees being separate from specs, we can finally rejoice in having new utility tools at our disposal. While some may think if the feral spec allowed tanking and DPSing at the same time, we'd still have these talents... however, I, and more importantly Blizz, would not agree. The reason we have access to so many new toys is because the roles are finally separated. Could you imagine the outcry in MoP, especially in PvP, if you had to compete with a feral druid that could pump out DPS as good as any other class, have the survivability any other tank, and had access to as much utility/CC as the talent trees allow?

Now, more onto the loot issue again, in terms of adding additional "tanking leather" to the game again (and I'd assume tanking agi rings/necks, as well). Besides bloating the loot tables more than they already are, how many classes actually use agi leather right now on live? Two, rogues and druids. While we could get into a whole of discussion of separate specs needing different things, it still boils down to the number of people on average in a raid that roll on agi leather is pretty low (only beat by resto plate, yay!). So with already a low amount of people rolling on agi leather, the droprates are generally lower for said items (think like how Vanq tokens are supposed to drop more often since more classes need them). If you start adding "tanking leather" into the mix, even with the addition of monks, not only would that be bloating the loot tables unnecessarily for such a small representation, but the droprates would be horrid for the items. One way you combat bad drop rates and loot bloating is to have more classes/roles need agi DPS leather.

If your concern is about the secondary stats not being ideal for tanking... well, sorry to break it to you, not everyone's gear (even their BiS gear) has the secondary stats we want. Granted, as feral tanks, we've felt rather overrun with secondary stats recently (especially Haste) that rates so low in priority it makes us want to scream, we have Reforging for a reason. Also, in MoP, our generally lowest rated stats as tanks, such as Hit/Expertise/Haste, will become much more useful since our only method of generating rage is from auto-attacks and making contact with the boss with rage-generating yellow attacks. There will always be a time when some stat becomes less than desirable, but it's rather impossible to strike a perfect balance where all secondary stats are literally equal in weight at all times... at that point, secondary stats become rather boring. All else fails, if you truly want to be a feral tank and DPS (at separate times of course), at least your tanking gear will be pretty useful regardless of the customizations made for the sake of tanking.

I've been a feral since the beginning of classic WoW, and after observing many of the changes to ferals over the expansions, I'm rather happy at the separation of the roles of feral tanks and DPS. While I can enjoy the moments where our power becomes too great, I can understand that it presents a problem to the rest of the community. And frankly, I'm rather tired of the nerf yo-yo of a feral when one side's adjustment, whether it be tanking or DPS, inhibits the other. Both feral tanks and DPS should be happy for this, at least.

[huth]

You're telling me things are so different in beta with the "talent" change from on live, I'm asking you where the difference is besides no longer having access to abilities that are just "feral" on live. Right now I raid in a small casual guild as one of our two tanks. Since I often dps on the many 1 tank fights in DS, I raid with a Bearcat spec and reforge my gear accordingly. If you armory me you will see my spec fully supports both tanking and dps. I am not the only druid currently doing this either. Druids have been playing this way for years.

You do realize that you're asking for your current gear to be made useless for tanking?