Homer's WoW Patch

So just recently, I finished my rep grind and nailed my Earthwarden. Then I blew some cash to feed my impatience and enchanted it for +35 Agility. I was a VERY happy camper. This was Monday night.

Tuesday, 2.1 went live and my uber tanking weapon of doom...isn't. What the hell happened?

Well, I'm not sure. I may just be imagining things, but there is some support for what I'm seeing. First, though: background.

During the last big patch, 2.0.12 or whatever it was, Bear Mangle was gutted. In addition, Savage Fury, a talent that for 2/2 boosted several moves by 20%, including Mangle, was changed so that it no longer affected Mangle (Bear), and only Mangle (Cat). So the damage nerf to Mangle was incredible, no matter how you look at it. Druids could once do some soloing and handle multi-mob pulls with bear, but the nerf to Mangle's damage in that form took it out of any serious consideration. Maul was, and is, competitive.

They also removed the threat multiplier from Mangle in that patch.

To make tanking remain viable, Blizzard hotfixed the threat multiplier and put in a lesser one than existed before. By the time most of us had logged on, our threat was fine, but the damage...there was none to be had.

So along comes 2.1. By this time, Warriors and Rogues have geared up with 75+ dps one-handers and their damage has skyrocketed, especially in arenas. Blizzard says to themselves, "Okay, we can give some back to the fuzz-butts."

So they give Mangle back 15% of it's damage, but still don't change Savage Fury. Okay, it's not much, but it's something. Cool. They also change the threat multiplier so our threat will remain relatively static. This is reasonable, but given the prior over-reaction, it can hardly be considered a real buff.

But...and there's always a but, isn't there...something's wrong.

My Mangle damage in Bear has gone down. It is virtually indistinguishable from my Maul damage, and both crit for the same in the 800 range. I haven't really paid enough attention to know if there is a real problem, but the boards are starting to talk about Feral AP not being applied correctly. I should be seeing benefits from 200-ish AP and +15% damage here, but my numbers are smaller.

I'm not the smart type that can do the tests that are done regularly, so I'm going to be watching the boards, and I won't rule out that it's my imagination, but people are pulling aggro off me now that were utterly incapable of it before. If my damage has gone down AND my threat has gone down, that's an easy explanation. I do know I didn't suddenly start to suck at tanking and those people didn't suddenly get 4 free epics.

I guess we'll see how this one shakes out.