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I realized I really shouldn't be ninjaing Cliff's post about the creepy awesomeness of the priest T13 armor set....

I ready this blog on t13 set bonuses: http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/27/shift ... t-bonuses/

Tank set bonuses(quote from article):

Death knights Your Vampiric Blood ability also affects all party and raid members for 50% of the effect it has on you. May or may not be affected by Glyph of Vampiric Blood. 1-minute cooldown.

Druids Frenzied Regeneration also affects all party and raid members (keep in mind that the tooltip is incorrect; maximum health is increased by 30%). May or may not be affected by Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration. 3-minute cooldown.

Paladins Reduces the cooldown of Divine Guardian by 60 seconds and increases the radius of its effect by 70 yards. With the four-piece bonus, this is now a 2-minute cooldown. Bastards.

Warriors Your Shield Wall ability now grants 50% of its effect to all party and raid members. May or may not be affected by Glyph of Shield Wall (though I can't see why it wouldn't be). Cooldown time will range from 2 minutes (assuming Shield Mastery) to 4 minutes if glyphed.

It's from a druid perspective, but it's talking mostly about tanking. It has an interesting view of ferals in 4.3. As a cat, when I get my 4p bonus, I'm in an interesting position. I basically have the ability to pop a raid Last-Stand for the cost of dps (I need to stay in bear form for the duration). I guess that's kinda my position as a feral... on the fly tank-type raid utility.

I do find the idea of raid wide damage reduction/last stand type buffs interesting/fun. I can't wait to try them out.

I do find the idea of raid wide damage reduction/last stand type buffs interesting/fun. I can't wait to try them out.

It's not all that it's cracked up to be. For several content cycles now, there's been the concept of a "raid CD arms race".

Imagine being a Holy Priest and seeing that all the other healers have Spirit Link Totem, Tranquility, Aura Mastery, and Power Word: Barrier. In a fight like Staghelm, where the scorpion phase means that any and all raid-wide cooldowns get blown as hard as you can, what do you provide? Blizzard claimed "there are still plenty of reasons to bring along holy priests" when called on it, but "because they are good at mitigating heavy raid damage" wasn't one of them, and it was a sticking point for months.

Same with tanks. Paladins had Divine Guardian. Warriors had... umm, nothing? DKs had the ability to spec Unholy and take Anti-Magic Zone. And bears got, uh, Stampeding Roar. Excuse me while I try to act like that mattered for as many fights as paladins and Raid Wall.

Put in over-simplified mathematics (I'm not counting the normal 24.92% damage reduction from resistance for argument's sake, and I'm also not counting the damage buff he gets as the fight goes on): on 25-man pre-nerf, Staghelm's scorpion swipe did 2,250,000 fire damage split among 25 targets. Hitting Spirit Link totem makes people take 10% less damage, so at the cost of one pre-emptive GCD, a shaman can prevent 225,000 damage. A prot paladin using Divine Guardian prevents 425,000 damage without even invoking the GCD. A disc priest with PW:B or a Holy Paladin with Aura Mastery prevent half a million damage by pressing a button. Aura Mastery isn't even on the global cooldown! Compare that to, what, Circle of Healing? Prayer of Healing?