Monday, October 5, 2009

[Druid]It's time to play that game again - NERF THAT DRUID

Okay, not really. But this is getting kinda silly.

I've talked in the past about how druid stamina scales somewhat stupidly, and how they can wear gear that is just wrong (like pvp gear) and not really care. I've shown what that means and how it means before. And I've even talked about how to nerf bears the right way, once and for all.

That's not what this is about though. This is about stupid things. Like how much health you could conceivably get now.

And according to Rawr - it's 72.0k assuming LW/JC and a Tauren, and all raid buffs.

I realize this set is a bit ridiculous - it relies on a fair amount of pvp gear - but it's also kinda silly that it's even possible. Here's the full list of gear. Everything save one piece is gemmed for stamina (the second ring has a red gem for the meta). Everything has a max stam enchant. Otherwise it's just like you'd expect:

Head Relentless Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm
Neck Legionnaire's Gorget
Shoulders Shoulderpads of the Intruder
Chest Polar Vest
Waist Polar Cord
Legs Legwraps of the Broken Beast
Feet Polar Boots
Wrist Armbands of Dark Determination
Hands Relentless Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves
Finger1 Band of the Twin Val'kyr
Finger2 Band of the Traitor King
Trinket1 Juggernaut's Vitality
Trinket2 Juggernaut's Vitality
Back Cairne's Endurance
MainHand Relentless Gladiator's Greatstaff
Ranged Idol of the Corruptor

Health: 72056.19
Agility: 1462
Armor: 34329
Stamina: 5952
Dodge Rating: 156
Defense Rating: 196
Resilience: 303
Dodge: 43.474%
Miss: 8.859%
Strength: 750
Attack Power: 8137
Crit Rating: 290
Hit Rating: 190
Expertise Rating: 47
Haste Rating: 102
Armor Penetration Rating: 0
Avoided Attacks: 14.589%

That's the worst part - this includes about a 50% avoidance rate. Yeesh.

Okay, you say - what if we take out the polar gear and the pvp gear, and we don't use things like Band of the Traitor King? That sounds almost like it'd be okay...except that the best in slot gear is perilously close to polar gear anyway. Still, let's take a look at what that would be like.

(here's a fun game - guess what the health will be!)

Head Runetotem's Headguard of Triumph
Neck Legionnaire's Gorget
Shoulders Shoulderpads of the Intruder
Chest Vest of Calamitous Fate
Waist Belt of the Pitiless Killer
Legs Legwraps of the Broken Beast
Feet Icewalker Treads
Wrist Armbands of Dark Determination
Hands Runetotem's Handgrips of Triumph
Finger1 Band of the Twin Val'kyr
Finger2 Signified Ring of Binding
Trinket1 Juggernaut's Vitality
Trinket2 Juggernaut's Vitality
Back Cairne's Endurance
MainHand Anguish
Ranged Idol of the Corruptor

Health: 69256.19
Agility: 1866
Armor: 37249
Stamina: 5672
Dodge Rating: 119
Defense Rating: 206
Resilience: 15
Dodge: 47.940%
Miss: 8.926%
Strength: 649
Attack Power: 8165
Crit Rating: 321
Hit Rating: 402
Expertise Rating: 133
Haste Rating: 343
Armor Penetration Rating: 165
Avoided Attacks: 7.194%

Wow, a 3k loss in health. Ouch. For that we gain almost 2k TPS, 8% fewer avoided attacks against us, and another 4% dodge.

Oh yeah - we're still over 69,000 health! And the funny thing about this gear set is that it's very, very approachable by many out there. The T9.258 gear is a bit harder to reach - but there are only 2 pieces of them, and things like the non-tier pieces will likely be achieved by many bears before Icecrown hits. The hardest thing to get here is the cloak, but that's only a gain of about 20 stam. The weapon is actually from the hard mode 10 man. The rings are from 10-man and Ony-25.

Heck, realistically? I could likely obtain this in the not-so near future, or close enough to it that it wouldn't matter.

Here's the thing, though - this doesn't matter by itself. 69k is a huge number - it's nearly 3 times as much health as a sunwell-geared bear had back in the day. But as long as this doesn't confer a significant advantage, I doubt you'll see it nerfed. Also, as long as it's not significantly higher than the next tank, you probably won't see it nerfed.

Still, it's pretty nuts, isn't it?

The worst part? The best I could get a similarly-geared tauren warrior to was 58.9k. That's...not a good sign. The druid would at that point have 17% more health than a warrior without pvp gear; with pvp gear, it pops up to 22% more. That's close to where blizzard starts thinking about nerfing.

11 comments:

bearmount said...

Yeah, I've been noticing somethings up recently. My guild's warrior tank wears double Juggernaut's Vitality and he gets maybe 52k in raids. Usually wearing DMG: Greatness and Glyph I'm around 56k. I remember not so long ago being about even with a DK tank with similar gear, now no one else comes close.

hampi said...

I agree, it's approaching silly levels. I'm at 57ish in raid, but that's with the scarab and black knight.

Then again, I still die to bosses, which indicates that maybe it's not yet too much.

Alaron said...

Kalon, shhh. :)

I'm so close to the gear set that will let me break 100k (with glyphed SI). It's quite fun when you're in a PUG, and the RL/someone says "well non-druid tank XXX should be MT since they have more HP" and you're like "oh hold on, let me put on my bear gear" and then OH SNAP. :)

Unknown said...

whats better... all this while maintaining 34k+ armor, probably higher...

Unknown said...

my question would be - what do you get without JC/LW?

Rauxis, chosen of CAT

Chambord said...

I'm surprised you consider pvp gear "just wrong." It sounds a bit like how some raiders looked down their nose at "welfare epics" once available in battlegrounds (but now available in 10 mins in Vault). Having just started arena this season, but having MT'd Ulduar 10 (up to Yogg) on my bear when it first launched, I can unequivocally state it takes much more time, effort and SKILL to get high-end relentless gear than the PVE equivalent.

The fact that I can then use a few pieces (your BIS stam list, it's worth noting, only includes 3 PVP pieces) for dual-purpose (and not stam as one wouldn't gem for stam in arena) seems quite reasonable. I'm not sure I'll ever be good enough to get the 2200 rating and 2k+ arena pts necessary to get that relentless staff, but for those who do, props to them and may they beat Arthas over the head with it.

Kalon said...

bearmount, that's what I've noticed too. With the prevalence of sockets and the hyperinflated gear level increases from Ulduar, you're seeing the scaling jump quite a bit.

hampi, that's an interesting point and one that I'm glad you brought up - namely, does it matter what the health is if you're still dying when other tanks aren't? As I've said many times before, raw health (and EH) are good, but they're not the sole arbiter of which tank is best for an encounter, and oftentimes they're not even the most important one. Especially in WotLK, where cooldown use is so important.

Alaron, good luck with that :) I had to deal with a whiny PuG DPS the other night who complained about my low health in my DPS set (only 31k! Oh noes), so I swapped to my normal bear set of 50k and proceeded to drag every single mob that could cleave/aoe to him and let him die over and over. I was bad, but it felt good.

Michael, I've seen as high as 37k armor with various bonuses and averaged values. It's pretty absurdly high. Assuming you're the same Michael, each profession adds about 62 stamina (give or take). Take away both, and you're losing 124 stamina, or about 1800 health.

Chambord, I think it is wrong that a bear can so easily use pvp gear over pve gear and get significant advantages over said pve gear for pve content. It puts pressure on bears to do pvp when they might not otherwise want to, and no other spec has to do pvp to get so many good pieces. It has nothing to do with looking down on welfare epics and everything to do with the power level of pvp gear relative to pve gear and how it's simply wrong that pvp gear outclasses pve gear at pve.

I personally think it would be great if pvp gear was nearly as good as pve gear but more obtainable. What I don't like is pvp gear being so significantly better than pve gear that it puts pressure on those min-maxxers to go out and grab some. Especially in the weapon slots. Ugh.

Unknown said...

no we are different Michaels... one more reason to sign as my WoW char :)

Rauxis, chosen of CAT

Unknown said...

Ay, 2 different Michaels. I'll change to this identity instead to make it easier... I was also the one askin about the armor cap a little while back specifically because I had so much more than the other tanks I ran with. 37k seems reasonable, as I haven't really had a shot at 25H yet.

Big problem with pvp gear is no hit :/

Anonymous said...

Hi Kalon,

Maby you can make a (in you opinion) best tank geared druid with the best items availible in rawr (just at you did with the extreem stamina set here).
I know different bosses require different gear but anyway - it could be interesting to compare a "real" best in slot geared druid to the no-brainer stamina stacking druid. How much more Hp will the stamina-file druid have compared to the "best in slot druid tank" and how much avoidance does the stamina stacker loose?

Will the stamina stacker be severly worse off then the "smart" druid tank who put some more thoughts into his gear or will the stamina geard tank come out ahed?

Kalon said...

Anon - for the most part the best in slot non-pvp/polar gear is best in slot geared, and in a sane way. There might be a couple choices here and there that I'd change like favoring armor rings over pure stam and the like, but largely it's very similar. I'll play around a bit and put together my BiS list and see what it looks like.

My suspicion is that the biggest difference between the two won't be avoidance; it'll be expertise.