I have a couple of gripes myself... not being able to zone into an instance, for instance, is irking me (nothing killing some zombies didn't fix). Having to put talents into my two trees... every time I log in (which may have been fixed this morning with rolling restarts) is irking me. However, that's basically it.

I think that Guntir and I need to step into a few skirmishes and see just how bad bearform survivability has been hit... the QQrs seem to think that there's no point in leaving cat form anymore, but I have my doubts. The math they post all seem to assume that we're taking HotW for PvP at a 10% loss of hp... whilst I NEVER took HotW and thus never had 20% hp, let alone the additional 10%. The only place my bear form is getting hit in terms of survivability is in the armor and damage while stunned. I really only lost 5% physical damage mitigation from armor, I went from 65% to 60%. That's not terrible, but I am also losing a flat 30% reduced damage taken while stunned while in bear form... that hurts a bit. In reality, it turns out to be about 16% physical damage reduction LOST while in bear form and stunned, and ~5% physical damage reduction lost all the time (the 16% includes this 5% number).

Looking back, however, the Primal Tenacity change really doesn't mean ALL that much. For instance, I basically never got stunned by a rogue in bear form... the good rogues always saved Kidney Shot for when I was out of bear form to get the extra damage from the loss of armor. Let's get some stuff clear right now. Armor, for druids, is a really relative term. One never really "loses" armor or "gains" armor; rather, one's armor simply changes depending on the situation. Prior to 3.1, I would be taking about 5% less damage against good rogues based on the armor nerfs alone. That's all that really matters. On the other hand, I will be able to effectively "block" some damage now with the addition of Savage Defense, the trick will be getting it up and setting up for burst-cycles.

Another thing that is apparently worth complaining about is the change to Maim. Sure, it shares DR with Bash and Warstomp now. Sure, it lasts 2 seconds less now. Sure, mages can blink out of it now, pallies can HoF remove it, and DKs can IBF out of it. Sure, there are a slew of classes who pick up talents to reduce its duration. HOWEVER, it won't break on damage anymore and I really don't think that I will be using Maim as much as Rip. To be specific, Rip does an overpowered amount of damage. Here are some facts that add up to Rip being overpowered:

1) Rip only has to land once to get full benefit.
2) Rip ticks can critically strike
3) Rip ticks that DON'T critical strike do more damage than mutilate noncrits.
4) I can collect combo points, turtle, then bash and apply Rip, then turtle some more and Rip will STILL put out one of my best sources of damage for me while I'm taking reduced damage.
5) Rip ignores armor.
6) Rip cannot be removed by ANYTHING in the game.

The ONLY thing keeping Rip from being RIDICULOUSLY overpowered is the fact that to get the best "bang for your buck", one needs to have Savage Roar up at the time that Rip gets applied... this is why I'm not really concerned with Maim. I now have 2 finishers that I NEED to keep up to keep pressure on my opponents, and Maim ain't one of them. So, a lot of my matches have me opening up on my opponent, busting a 2-3 point Savage Roar, then using Tiger's Fury to get up a 5 point Rip. Against almost ANY team, this strategy is going to produce TONS of damage... and when they get into turtle mode, I am even MORE effective... as everyone's turtle mode involves armor, for the most part.

Anyway... everyone's complaining... and I think Guntir and I need to hit up some skirmishes to test out how effective we are with all the changes in 3.1. I am expecting greatness; I just don't see that many nerfs in the patch notes... but every other feral (especially some of the higher-ranked ones: Datah, Deep, etc) seem to think that we're done (though they always take HotW... so maybe I'm on the cutting edge here). I think that we'll hit 2k this season... maybe more. The hope is that all the feral QQ going on will keep the fact that Rip is obviously the most overpowered ability in the game off the blues' radar.