So, let's talk a little bit about Mangle. Mangle is going to get some MUCH needed love by way of having its damage increased by 10% glyphed, and lasting a full minute on targets. There are two aspects of this change worth noting: first, the fact that the Shred rotation is going to be MILES easier to kept up in a dynamic situation and will likely cut down the ramp-up required in most encounters past the first Mangle (it also means that if you have an Arms warrior present, Trauma will NEVER fall off... Kittycleave looks even stronger); secondly, it means that we have to rethink whether Mangle-spamming in PvP is a viable solution for certain comps. In order to do that, we have to run the numbers... again. A while back (something like June of last year), I ran the numbers of Mangle; however, the base numbers have since changed a bit, so we'll update the entire view on this post.

Revised math -

Multipliers:
SR = 1.3
Mangle (Shred) = 1.3
RaT (Shred) = 1.2
Crit = 2.0
Predatory Instincts: 1.1
Crit meta = 1.03
Savage Fury (Mangle) = 1.2

Shred:
(2.25 * x + 666) * 1.3 * 1.3 * 1.2 =
4.563 * x + 1350.65

Shred Crit:
(2.25 * x + 666) * 1.3 * 1.3 * 1.2 * 2.0 * 1.1 * 1.03 =
10.34 * x + 3060.57

With 50% crit, we can work out Shred's average damage per cast:
((4.563 * x + 1350.65) + (10.34 * x + 3060.57)) / 2 =
(14.903 * x + 4411.218) / 2 =
7.4515 * x + 2205.61

and now we can work out the average damage per energy:
(7.4515 * x + 2205.61) / 42 =
0.1774 * x + 52.5145

Mangle:
(2.0 * x + 566) * 1.3 * 1.2 =
3.12 * x + 882.96

Mangle Crit:
(2.0 * x + 566) * 1.3 * 1.2 * 2 * 1.1 * 1.03 =
7.06992 * x + 2000.79

average the damage:
((3.12 * x + 882.96) + (7.06992 * x + 2000.79)) / 2 =
(10.18992 * x + 2883.75) / 2 =
5.09496 * x + 1441.87

average damage per energy:
(5.09496 * x + 1441.87) / 34 =
0.14985 * x + 42.41

Shred vs. Mangle (DPE):
Shred: 0.1774 * x + 52.5145
Mangle: 0.14985 * x + 42.41

================================
====== New Glyph of Mangle ========
================================

Proposed Mangle:
(2.0 * x + 566) * 1.3 * 1.2 * 1.1 =
3.432 * x + 971.26

Proposed Mangle Crit:
(3.432 * x + 971.26) * 2 * 1.1 * 1.03 =
7.776912 * x + 2200.87

Average damage:
((3.432 * x + 971.26) + (7.776912 * x + 2200.87)) / 2 =
(11.208912 * x + 3172.13) / 2 =
5.604456 * x + 1586.06

Average Damage per Energy:
(5.604456 * x + 1586.06) / 34 =
0.164837 * x + 46.65

Shred ADPE vs. Proposed Mangle ADPE:
Shred: 0.1774 * x + 52.5145
Mangle: 0.164837 * x + 46.65

Now, these damage-per-energy numbers are a bit out of the ordinary... what do they mean exactly? Obviously, you have gathered that they mean that if one could use a 1-energy Shred and a 1-energy Mangle, this is how to calculate the average damage (assuming a 50% crit rate; it gets a little more complicated with any other crit rate). What does this mean, though? Well, we could walk through an example with a base 500 damage in cat form to see...

Shred (Nothing)
hit: 2034
crit: 4609.12

Shred (Bleed)
hit: 2542.51
crit: 5761.40

Shred (Mangle)
hit: 2905.72
crit: 6584.46

Shred (Mangle+Bleed) -
hit: 3632.15
crit: 8230.57

Mangle (Current) -
hit: 2442.96
crit: 5535.75

Mangle (3.3.3) -
hit: 2687.26
crit: 6089.326

However, all we see here is that Shred will out-damage the new mangle in basically every situation EXCEPT when there is a Mangle and Bleed present on the target (Shred with one or the other is largely a wash... it's a difference, but it's small enough for the energy-consumption difference to take over). Also, we see (as expected) that Mangle(Current) to Mangle(3.3.3) has gone up roughly 10% in damage.

Bah... none of this is horribly useful unless we look at it from the point of view of REAL damage (i.e., Resilience considerations) and combo points (i.e., Energy impact)... so, let's do that!

Okay, through the magic of the internet, I went off and wrote a couple of java programs to simulate the differences between the best-case examples to see which would be better.

Shred Rotation (with zero interruption over 3 minutes):
~8500 dps (with my PvP gear on)

Mangle-spam (with zero interruption over 3 minutes):
~7500 dps (with my PvP gear on)

Well, that's pretty sizable; if you have zero interruption, the Shred priority rotation is about 1000 dps better (duh). However, PvP is SOOOOO dynamic that it ends up causing LOTS of little interruptions; CCs peel you off long enough for SR to drop and you have zero CPs on anyone, you have to target-swap meaning no Mangle/Bleed on your target and maybe SR just fell off, etc >_<. The real point here is that the Mangle-spam option is MUCH closer to the best-case Shred rotation, yet it requires MUCH less ramp-up (just SR).

Therefor, we can safely assume that our target swaps are going to be MUCH more powerful. So much so, we can actually say at this point that the Mangle-spec in PvP (on non-kittycleave teams where the debuffs will be provided for you on hardswitches) is actually going to be better DPS, DPE, CP-gen, and basically more reliable damage output.

BTW, for anyone savvy enough to be able to fiddle with Java, here are the links to my source (in case you wanted to test my maths or see it in action):

Mangle
Shred

Well, we're all hoping that 3.3.3 drops tomorrow, and if it does I will likely be switching to the Mangle-spam spec and testing it out with (hopefully) Feral+Marks+HPally...

I'll report more as it comes to me.

EDIT:

Here's a funny video of a 2800+ team on our BG. The run RestoSham+Disc+ProtPally...