Invulnerable Mail - Nerf in Patch 1.7

[nobbie]

There are some hefty discussions going on about the patch 1.7 nerf of the "Invulnerable Mail", an epic dream armor for Shaman and Hunters that a level 300 Armorsmith can create as BoE (tradable!) item. Neither are the plans easy to come by nor are the extremely expensive ingredients to create it, incl. 30(!) Arcanite bars. If you would sell the 30 Arcanite bars, and the other ingredients, seperately in the auction house, you could easily make around 1000 gold (worth an epic mount), so the 1.7 nerf of this very expensive piece of armor certainly deserves a close look as to what exactly has been changed.

This are the 1.7 patch notes:

- Invulnerable Mail changed to a lower duration effect, but your own melee swings will not interrupt the invulnerability.

and this are the stats before and after the 1.7 nerf:

BEFORE

554 Armor
Increased Defense +20
Physical Attacks will be harmlessly deflected 5% of the time

AFTER

554 Armor
Increased Defense +13
When struck in combat has a 5% chance to make you invulnerable to melee damage for 3 sec. This effect can only occur once every 30 sec.

The change in Defense is clear, +13 instead of +20 is the 33% Defense nerf all items with that stat got in patch 1.7. Of much more importance is the significant change of the proc effect on the armor: Before patch 1.7, it said "Physical Attacks will be harmlessly deflected 5% of the time", and after 1.7 "When struck in combat has a 5% chance to make you invulnerable to melee damage for 3 sec. This effect can only occur once every 30 sec.". I've heard that the proc effect duration was 8 seconds before (now it's 3 seconds), which seeems to be a very heavy nerf at first glance. The proc effect works similar to a paladins invulerablity shield: it completely absorbs all melee damage for 5-8 seconds. However, ranged and magic attacks are not "deflected" and the real issue is/was, if you use a melee weapon while the effect is activated it will cancel the immunity! Magic and ranged attacks are ok, but not melee. So, anyone who uses a melee weapon primarily will get no benefit from this armor at all. Sounds like a rather stupid bug/oversight, right? According to the new patch notes however, it seems that this wasn't an oversight but intended: The 1.7 patch notes now say that the effect duration was lowered to 3 seconds (and that the effect can occur only once per 30 second), but that your own melee swings will not interrupt the invulnerability anymore.

I would be interested in some "expert" insight and opinions about this change, because I got the plans today but am very unsure if I should ever make this armor for my Orc Shaman. Is this change in 1.7 a nerf at all, or is it even an improvement given the patch notes statement? How effective would that armor be for a soloing melee-focused Shaman now in all imaginable combat situations:1 vs 1 PvM, 1 vs 2 and more, tanking in instances, PvP etc.? Is it really worth 30 Arcanite bars?