Who will tank in TBC?

[Trien]

I don't have exact numbers, but from what I remember from those who worked out the mathematics behind druid threat, a well geared druid can have higher sustained threat generation than a warrior, and I believe a better threat:rage ratio, with controllable burst threat being worse than a warrior due to the bear's slow (2.5s) attack speed.

Druid threat is based completely off physical damage, ie. damage done from maul for the most part. So having 5 sunders up on a mob, while giving the warrior agro during the placement of sunders, also greatly increases the amount of threat a druid generates per hit as well. A maul crit on a fully sundered mob from a raid-buffed tank druid can hit well in the 1000+ range, and if I remember the numbers right, a 1000 damage maul from a druid with Feral Instinct (+15% bear threat) is worth something like 6-7 sunders worth of threat from a warrior with Defiance. And on raid mobs, typically a bear tank has more rage than he can dump with maul, so he'd probably be spamming swipe in the meantime and still be able to non-stop maul every attack swing.

Downsides to druid tanking... though the bear can be a great physical damage sink, it does take in general more damage than a warrior due to lack of blocking, parry, and crit avoidance from a lack of defense, so will require more healing overall.