Suggestions for Cataclysm's Druid talents

A while ago, Blizzard announced their intentions to trim down the talent trees for Cataclysm, making them smaller, while also making each talent choice more fun and meaningful. I can't find the exact quote, but the announcement, or one of the same topic, mentioned that, these days, we have to take quite a few boring talents just to open up the more interesting talents, the ones that will actually change the feel of our class, and Blizzard wants to change that. This is a design philosophy that, assuming they can pull it off, I am totally in support of; I'm willing to trade off the excitement of getting a talent point each level for making each talent itself more exciting, and after looking at the new trees themselves, the current trees seem bloated and cumbersome by comparison.

Which brings me to the point of this post: the first drafts of the new talent trees have come out, and thus we can finally give our thoughts on them, and I intend to do so right now. Specifically, I'll be giving my thoughts on the Druid talents, since that's the class I play. I'll be skipping over issues discussed in the latest developer chat, like the fact that the first tier of the feral tree only has two talents, the fact that some talents had their maximum number of points one could spend in them reduced without the effects of their ranks being increased, the loss of the shapeshifting cost reduction from King of the Jungle, the the fact that Primal Fury no longer causes critical strikes of combo-point generating abilities to give and combo point, or the fact that Swiftmend is gained from taking Restoration as our main spec and still present as a talent within the tree (no pun intended) itself. All of these issues were acknowledged during the developer chat and are scheduled to be fixed. So let's focus on the things they didn't mention. Also, because I dual-spec and feral/resto, I won't be giving my thoughts on Balance, since I have no useful thoughts on Balance to contribute. Sorry, boomkins.

-Move Furor into the Feral tree.
This long-suffering Restoration talent needs to be put out of its misery and resurrected as a Feral talent. As it stands, this talent is one of three in the first tier of Restoration, yet serves no purpose for healers. There aren't any other talents any deeper in the Resto tree that Balance or Feral Druids would want (except maybe Perseverance, which could be moved up a tier), so why have this here? It forces Resto druids to take Blessing of the Grove and Natural Shapeshifter, the former of which is pretty underwhelming as a healing talent, the latter of which is greatly underwhelming. It would be far better to put a talent that all Restoration druids would find useful in Furor's place (Genesis, perhaps?)

-Blessing of the Grove should include Mangle (Cat)
As it stands now, Blessing of the Grove increases the damage of Claw and Shred, yet does not increase the damage of Mangle (Cat). However, Mangle (Cat) is designed to flat-out replace Claw. It costs the same amount of energy, adds a combo point like Claw does, and causes much more damage, in addition to making bleeds cause more damage on the target. There is, quite simply, no reason for a Feral Druid to use Claw, so if this talent is going to increase the damage of Claw, it should also increase the damage of Mangle (Cat), or else Claw's inclusion will be completely meaningless.

Now, some might argue that, because one needs to be spec'ed as Feral Combat to acquire Mangle, and thus not all druids have it, the inclusion of Claw isn't completely meaningless. But here's the thing: Balance and Restoration Druids have no reason to ever enter Cat Form and fight their enemies with melee attacks. Balance has all of its offensive spells to help it fight, and if a Restoration Druid needs to cause some damage, it's going to do so with Balance spells, as well. After all, any Restoration Druid will have gear with intellect, and thus spellpower, rather than gear with agility, and thus attack power, so the damage of their Balance spells will gain a bonus from their gear, while the damage of their Cat Form attacks will not. The only Druids that would conceivably use Claw are Druids with agility on their gear, i.e. Feral Druids, and they get Mangle right off the bat. In fact, Claw is looking to be pretty useless in general now...

-Fury of Stormrage should be retooled to be more useful.
One of the things the developer chat revealed was that Blizzard wants to give healers a way to cause damage when they don't have to do any healing, as a way of getting some mana back. That's why Restoration Shamans have the spell Telluric Currents. If that's the way that they want offensive abilities to work in the hands of healers, then Fury of Stormrage can't remain in its current form. As it stands, Fury of Stormrage gives Druids the occasional opportunity to use an offensive spell (Wrath, specifically) without using mana to do so. However, there are no benefits to the Druid himself for using Wrath under these circumstances, and the Druid needs to work the casting of Wrath around his healing, or else he risks wasting the proc. While homogenization isn't necessarily a good thing, I'd much prefer a talent that resembles Telluric Currents to the current incarnation of Fury of Stormrage.

-Rend and Tear should increase the damage of Mangle on bleeding targets.
I've never been a fan of Rend and Tear, and have always viewed it as a talent that is only useful to Cats doing raid DPS. Maul doesn't account for nearly enough of my threat to justify taking it as a Bear tank--and it won't account for much more when Cataclysm comes--and the only time a Cat uses Shred a lot is while DPS'ing a raid boss. While solo-ing, Mangle is used much more, and on trash, Swipe is used much more, though that will probably be changing come Cataclysm. Regardless, R&T is only useful to Cats during raiding, but in Cataclysm, it will be a prerequisite for the Bear ability Pulverize. Since talent points are going to be even more scarce in Cataclysm than they are now, I'm really not comfortable with needing to spend so many talent points on a talent that is only useful to Cats in order to get a Bear Form ability. However, there is a simple way to remedy this situation: make R&T increase Mangle's damage as well. Not only will this make it a useful talent for Bears (for whom Mangle accounts for a good portion of their threat), but it will also make it useful for Cats outside of raids.

-The second tier of Restoration needs another talent.
As it stands now, not only does the top tier of Restoration only offer two marginally useful talents for trees, the second tier doesn't even offer five points for those spec'ing purely for higher healing. As it stands, Restoration Druids can put three points in Perseverance and three in Improved Rejuvenation. While some Restoration Druids probably appreciate the opportunity to take some defensive talents, unless wide-spread magic damage is going to be a huge part of the Cataclysm raiding scene, there just isn't enough choice in the second tier of Restoration.

-Nom Nom Nom [name not final, unfortunately] is too specialized to be worth two points.
Currently, Noms has the benefit of allowing Cats to keep one of their longer lasting bleed effects active on their target as it nears death, which is beneficial, considering that as a raid boss gets closer to dying, most Cats likely start using Ferocious Bite instead of Rip, hoping to avoid the lost damage that would result from Rip not lasting its full duration. However, this talent will only provide its bonus during the last minute or two of a boss battle. After all, Cats don't use Rip on trash, and even if we get long-living trash in Cataclysm, the limited health range of this talent means Ferocious Bite may only benefit from it once per a fight, twice, at most. And yet, we are forced to spend two points to get that limited effect, and with points much scarcer in Cataclysm, that's not something I'm comfortable with Now, if they made it so that this talent applied at all health levels, then I could see it being worth taking.

-Bring back Omen of Clarity
Seriously, where did it go? It was here one expansion, and gone the next. That free ability every so often is an important part of the Druid's identity. I suppose they may have gotten rid of it because it was pretty much a mandatory talent for every druid, yet was also in the third tier of restoration, which is now inaccessible to all non-Restoration Druids. Say... perhaps Omen of Clarity could be the replacement for Furor. Just turn it into a multi-point talent, add the phrase "(higher than rank 1/2)" after the word "chance" in ranks two and three, et voilà!