Vengeance

#0 - April 8, 2010, 5:10 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

From the Warrior preview that's up now.
#81 - April 9, 2010, 1:32 a.m.
Blizzard Post
Vengeance is based on damage actually taken (physical and spell). This means it might take a bit to get stacked up to the max value, but it generally will get up there on longer fights and can even stay there in between pulls if you pull quickly.

Remember, the problem we're trying to solve here is sustained damage and threat. We're not as worried about mobs sticking to you initially because you have plenty of tools to handle that now (including telling the mages they need to wait for half a second). Yes, your AP might start out a little lower if you get a string of avoidance, but with lower avoidance in Cataclysm, that is probably less of a problem as well.