Looking for clarification on AMS buff.

I'll be honest, we are trying to find the right number here that lets the ability (AMS) be useful in PvE without being OP and lets it be useful in PvP without being underpowered.

If we think DKs are still able to make some boss encounters too trivial, this is likely one of the first things we will hit again.

Please don't clutter this tanking thread with "OMG DKs AR OP IN PVP AND NO NEED BUFFZ." If you feel that way, you are welcome to start or contribute to another thread on the topic (I'm sure you can find a few :) ) but we think DKs are in a more appropriate place for PvP in 3.1.

I think we've been pretty clear about our model. We want you to have flexibility in which class is your MT. We don't want you to have stop and recruit in the middle of progression because you picked "the wrong" MT.

How different performance can be between the optimal MT and the second best on each fight is going to be a subjective call. We won't promise it will be identical performance on every fight, because that's not realistically going to happen as long as classes have different numbers and mechanics. It only has to be close enough.

We think it's close enough now (this is on our build, which might be slightly more updated than yours), but we're basing that conclusion on some relatively small data sets. We'll have a lot more data when more of you start trying Ulduar hard modes. We think it will be pretty clear when some classes are at a significant enough disadvantage that it's a problem. But again, it's going to be subjective. There isn't a metric you will be able to run to in order to prove one tank isn't good enough. (That's not an attempt to shut down these debates -- just an acknowledgement that there is no thermometer to measure tank success.)

In the short term we'll keep adjusting things like health, mitigation, avoidance and cooldowns. If certain mechanics always seem to convey an overwhelming advantage, then we'll have to redesign some things, but we really want to avoid further homogenization where we can help it.

Q u o t e:
Actually, the Devs have admitted to putting a handicap on non-Resto Druids in BC. Just because it is not openly admitted to right now, does not mean that it went away. If we want to play a Feral, we just can't excel at it. GC admitted to it in the thread "4 Years of WoW" in the Healer forum. Go check it out.

Derail, but I am openly denying it. It went away.

Vanilla WoW -- endgame druids are supposed to heal.
BC WoW -- endgame druids can tank or do ranged or melee dps, but at a substantial deficit compared to other classes.
LK WoW -- endgame druids can tank or heal as well as anyone, and their ranged or melee dps will be as high as anyone but the pure dps classes, and possibly higher than them in some situations.

That's the model. You can choose whether to believe me or not, though it's a little confusing why you'd accept my word for our BC model and not for the LK model.