tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18721625804923217722024-03-05T21:09:46.488-08:00ThinkTankTheorycrafting and strategy of the various tanking classes of World of WarcraftKalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.comBlogger250125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-68593332742265765672011-11-01T10:40:00.000-07:002011-11-01T11:59:06.523-07:00[Druid]Pandarian Talents, cat bugs, and legendariesSo hey - I have another child. That seems a lot more pertinent than anything else I could post. He's more than a month old and is one of the easiest babies ever. Welcome to the internet, Joshua. It's a scary place, but at least there are lots of boobs everywhere you could look. <div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span">State of the current game: more broken crap</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>On cat bugs: I haven't seen this reported nearly enough, so I'm doing my part. Reesi of <a href="http://theincbear.com/">Inconspicuous Bear</a> found a wonderful bug where <a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t123596-feral_cat_4_2_fire_cat_funtimes/p7/#post2033394">bleed buff effects other than Mangle do not actually boost shred damage</a>. This is especially important if you have a rogue putting up hemo, as hemo overwrites mangle. Note that trauma does work, but tendon rip (hunter) does not. As of this posting they have not addressed or fixed this. So cats - if you've found your damage dropping suddenly when a rogue switches specs for some reason, now you know why. The 'solution' if you want to call it that is to yell at your rogues or, more likely, put up mangle manually every time it drops. And yes, that messes up all sorts of things like Ovale.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Mists of Pandaria: fare thee well, Antitank</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>On MoP: I was not particularly impressed. Mostly because I think Blizzard didn't do a very good job selling it to the raiders. <a href="http://www.restokin.com/2011/11/why-you-should-be-excited-about-pandaria/">Lissanna loves</a> that we don't know who the end boss is, but this also means there's not a lot of excitement about who the next boss is. This is the first patch announcement ever (expansion or patch) that does not focus on the raid as the primary thing to deal with. So if you're a raider there wasn't a lot of info for you as far as things go. </div><div><br /></div><div>I will miss the bearcat ability. I will especially miss that ferals are no longer both bear and cat in word or deed. This was a feral's identity for their entire lives, and it is no longer the case. It can be incredibly frustrating as a tank to be balanced around cat abilities (and vice versa) and it caused all sorts of pain in pvp. Rationally I understand the change and realistically it will not make a lot of difference, but emotionally it makes me a bit sad. Goodbye, antitank.</div><div><br /></div><div>I do not like the talent tree removal. I am happy with the new talent tree system to a point, but I like in games when they have a clear differentiation between people who know how to play and people who do not. When all you do to differentiate yourself from the countless other class/spec combo is pick 6 choices that don't mean a lot, it's not really that great. Furthermore, choice with consequence is a Fun Thing in gaming. That's ultimately what a lot of gaming is all about - making choices and then seeing if they work or fail. And they're removing that.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Monks: what druids have always wanted to be, sorta</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Drunken tanks that look like bears but have cool animations? Melee DPS with lots of movement and no autoattack? Healers that get into melee and have good defense? Wow, that sounds great! </div><div><br /></div><div>For druids, here's something that's going to be interesting: I will bet you a shiny nickel that there will be at least one legendary that will be usable for ferals this expansion. Why? Because I believe they will make sure monks get a legendary, healers already recently got one, they've already done the two paired weapon idea and a legendary agility staff makes a lot of sense as far as a Mighty Quest. I could be wrong; they could go for a legendary awesome sword or something. But for monks their iconic weapon is a staff; I think we'll see a legendary for them that also happens to be usable by ferals. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>The meat - the new talent tree and how to make it right</b></span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgge4L2Kj4x09UHIPb92hI5k4w2MtoGxL3KLVEtG4qcVUxf-seWbaGAG8VmWZtnGdR_q_KHGQ4hq67t19ylcCIz7ad6A5Yw-CutaV5eCHFQQWnzO1Xh3gKTQ1rCBSemavWDIAIxbjdKg958/s1600/druidmoptree.PNG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 247px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgge4L2Kj4x09UHIPb92hI5k4w2MtoGxL3KLVEtG4qcVUxf-seWbaGAG8VmWZtnGdR_q_KHGQ4hq67t19ylcCIz7ad6A5Yw-CutaV5eCHFQQWnzO1Xh3gKTQ1rCBSemavWDIAIxbjdKg958/s320/druidmoptree.PNG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5670103688539874034" /></a><br /><br /></div><div>But I don't want to dwell too much on this; what I want to talk about is the new talent trees and how they can work for hybrids. Multiple druid authors have talked about how the talent trees presented for druids do not offer particularly interesting choices for most specs, and that is ultimately a weakness of this model and hybrid specs. It's easy to offer choices for rogues when all three trees are DPS, but how do you offer choices that matter for a class that can tank, DPS and heal?</div><div><br /></div><div>We've seen some similar options for things like Guardian of Ancient Kings. That's a model for one of the three cooldowns on a given tree, but it's going to feel a bit annoying if that's what it's always like except for four modes. Still, it's a starting point. Keep that in mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some rules as to what not to do:</div><div><ol><li>Do not force a form. Anything that requires or puts you into a specific form is immediately unusable for a bear (unless it puts you in bear form). It's also unfun for most everyone else; why does a moonkin want to get stuck in cat randomly? These things hearken back to the days where warriors could only do certain essential things in certain stances. It was something they thankfully removed and should not do here. This sadly removes two of the three movement related abilities in the first tier right off the bat. The good news is that those abilities would be totally fine if they simply removed the 'in cat' part and this would make a good tier for druids. This is probably the biggest 'loss' throughout the tree; multiple tiers focus on 'cannot be cast in x' or 'when in y'. Don't do that!</li><li>Do not focus too heavily on one spec. Tier two (an instant healing spell and a special healing spell) both do that here. Cenarion Ward should be part of the resto kit, not a talent that anyone can take; why would a cat or moonkin take this most of the time when they could instantly heal themselves 30%?</li><li>Have a PvP 'tier' but make something useful for PvE. This is not a choice if there's only one thing remotely valuable for PVE. I'd be actually fine with an entire tier having nothing but PvP value talents - but do that!</li><li>Shapeshifter: sorry, but shapeshifting as the 'thing to do' for druids is no longer a mechanic and hasn't been one since BC days when T5 came out. It's been 4 years since this mattered. Please don't force moonkin to go cat. (not that bears or resto care about that either). I actually like the 'emergency awesome druid' as a cooldown, but that needs to be put in some kind of tier where all the fun things are. It really shouldn't be the level 90 tier; that tier should be the OMG awesome tier where every talent is amazing and you want all of them.</li></ol><div>So based on that, what works? I'm using <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/mists-of-pandaria-talent-calculator#d">the calculator over at wowhead</a> for reference.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Tier 1 has one talent that is okay - Feline Swiftness. The rest would be fine if the cat functionality was removed. This in general is exactly the sort of talent tier that druids should have; everyone wants movement abilities, but short cooldown vs. long cooldown vs. passive boost are all useful in various places.</div><div><br />Tier 2 is entirely too healing-centric. The only one that is generic is Renewal. Nature's Swiftness is not good enough compared to it and Cenarion Ward is far too specific and too healery. Realistically Nature's Swiftness should also massively boost some DPS ability so that it can also be a DPS cooldown or make it a group heal ability instead of the personal heal of Renewal. Cenarion Ward should be replaced with something along this vein. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tier 3 is actually almost fine. Faerie Swarm needs to not be bear-centric and be great in all forms (resto doesn't care). Mass Entanglement needs to be castable in bear or cat, though it's not that useful for cats. Typhoon is perfectly fine and usable regardless. I would like to see Faerie Swarm have more use in general and specifically for resto use.</div><div><br />Tier 4 is almost perfect except for Wild Charge. Wild Charge really should be in the movement tier. Incarnation and Force of Nature are both fine Guardian of Ancient Kings-style CDs that could each have their own pros and cons. They need a third ability like this. Wild charge is a perfectly great ability but it doesn't belong here.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tier 5 suffers the 'usable only in form x' issue. It's flavorful but not good game mechanically. The abilities are also kind of useless outside of PVP or tanking as well; these (like tier 2) are far too tied into a specific form. Bear hug should be specific to tanking and be a tanking-talent (if that), Ursol's Vortex is probably a good pvp talent and demo roar is really something that should be baseline bear. This entire tier probably should be reworked.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tier 6 is...offensive. If you look at other T6 abilities for other classes they get things that are simply amazing. Just...wow. Death knights get a LK ability. Paladins get three great CDs. Priests get two great CDs. Rogues get shadow dance and killing spree. Warlocks get three talents named after the biggest badasses of the burning legion.</div><div><br /></div><div>Druids get the ability to become emergency crappy druids, to force you to shapechange to get maximal DPS (hah!) or to heal yourself, which they already saw in another tier. Really, disentanglement should be nerfed and replace Cenarion Ward in T2 ( make it 10% health every 30 seconds and it's probably good enough to compare with Renewal). But these other two choices? Bah. Becoming herobear every 6 minutes is neat, but it's not exactly something you're looking forward to doing. Master Shapeshifter is horrible in every way possible; a bad idea and a bad implementation of a bad idea. This whole tier needs considerable work. Probably the best thing to do is make the T4 talents really really great and move them to T6 so that you're looking forward to your amazing CDs that you can get then. Then, change T4 to be a fun tier, have Heart of the Wild stick around as one of the two talents, and add two more 'herobear' level talents there as well. What those might be? Not a clue right now. Possibly Nature's Swiftness as one candidate (in all forms). Maybe some incarnation of Cenarius that turns you into a centaur and allows you to do all casting while moving while also granting bear/cat some boost? </div><div><br /></div><div>I do think that this talent system can work, but they're going to have to be very thoughtful about how to do it for hybrids. Paladins, Druids, Monks and Shamen are all going to be tough. Warriors, priests and DKs a bit less so. </div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-14859520796611141132011-09-13T13:14:00.001-07:002011-09-13T13:17:22.001-07:00[Druid]Feedback for the devsI'd recommend everyone <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3123249662?page=57#1123">go over to the battle net thread and post constructive, meaningful feedback</a> for their class/spec of their choice. <a href="http://www.restokin.com/2011/09/druid-class-feedback-resto-edition">Lissanna has been doing the resto/moonkin stuff,</a> and it's great. Here's mine, reposted from the forums.<div><br /></div><div><div><i>[i]What type of content do you focus on? [PvE/PvP/Both][/i]</i>PvE</div><div><br /></div><div><i>[i]If PvE, what type of PvE? [Heroics/Raids/Other][/i]</i>Primarily heroics. Some raids when I have time or when I can fill in with my guild. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>[i]If PvP, what type of PvP? [Arenas, BGs, Rated BGs][/i]</i></div><div><br /></div><div><i>[i]What are your biggest quality-of-life issues? For instance, no longer requiring ammo could be considered a quality-of-life improvement for hunters[/i].</i> For bears, it is a lack of meaningful interaction with other party members or with the mobs. Aside from berserk attacks feel less than interesting and there is very little visual or behavioral change when doing attacks on mobs. Because it requires shifting out of bear there is even less interaction with the rest of the party while tanking. </div><div>Rage gain is poor and inconsistent, and ultimately meaningless past the first few seconds.</div><div>Too little control over incoming damage. Savage defense works, but there's no control over it - and that's all a bear has other than the long-term cooldowns. </div><div>Too little raid utility for a bear. Faerie fire is basically it. Innervate, tranquility and rebirth are all unusable while tanking.</div><div>Cats: poor options when attacking from the front. A very long buildup time for maximum dps means that anything that dies quickly doesn't die from cat DPS. Positioning in general appears to be fickle and odd at times. Charge takes long and doesn't actually go to the target if the target is moving. Compared to other classes ferals do not have a lot of burst DPS CDs to use regularly. </div><div><i>[i]What makes playing your class more fun?[/i]</i>The mobility of a cat/bear is awesome. The transformation into multiple forms and activating different abilities in those forms is great. Flight form is awesome. Being able to do things like hibernate is great now. </div><div><i>[i]What makes playing your class less fun?[/i]</i>For the bear side, the fairly boring rotation and relative lack of interaction with mobs other than hitting them. The lack of root/fear breaks. Missing out on all the druid abilities and being locked into just bear stuff. The gearing is also fairly boring and is very ilvl-dependent; it would be nice to care a bit more about things other than stamina or agility. </div><div>For cats: fewer burst options , fewer mobility options than other classes. Less raid utility (thoguh the raid utility I have is awesome, there's just not that much of it). No sign of gear in forms aside from a very small set of pieces. Having to deal with multiple mobs is not so fun. Having to have multiple debuffs on a mob to start optimal DPS isn't fun either. Having no real satisfying 'nuke' is kind of sad too. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>How do you feel about your “rotation”? (Rotation is the accepted order in which abilities are used to maximum efficiency.)</i>For bears: it's fine, if a bit boring. Multiple target rotation is dull and robotic. Single target is fine, particularly maximizing mangles. Would be nice to have something else to do for actual tanking other than demo roar.</div><div>Cats: requires external tools to track well, but it's fairly nice after that. I miss the complexity of WotLK. I miss wanting to do something other than rip or savage roar. The ramp up to get to the rotation is long as well.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>[i]What’s on your wish list for your class?[/i]</i>For ferals to be actually designed from the ground up. Ferals feel to me like an organically created class, where they have been built up from a poor foundation. Abilities feel tacked on that don't seem to make sense (savage defense, blood in the water, tiger's fury) and don't work that well together (lacerate/pulverize). Gear choices, especially for tanking, feel flat and lifeless; there really aren't exciting pieces for cats or bears any more other than weapons. Compare to warriors or paladins where everything is at least designed thematically well if not working perfectly in execution and it feels like ferals are duct-taped together. Things work, but they aren't nice. I would also like more druidry in the feral tree. Not being able to use any spells in forms is a drag. Getting things like wild mushroom as the 'big' spell this expansion and not having any use for it as a bear or cat was disappointing, especially compared to Guardian of Ancient Kings.</div><div><br /></div><div>I would also like to see more interesting animations for cats and bears. Particularly bears. Bear tanking doesn't feel mean and hard. When you shield bash or shockwave it looks impressive; when you pulverize it looks fairly boring. Cats are a bit better but only just. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>[i]What spells do you use the least?[/i]</i>As a bear, I don't use challenging roar very often; it tends to not work well enough when I'd need it and that it aggros everything tauntable (including the boss) is problematic. As a cat, I never use pounce or start in stealth. </div></div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-67116318038976669652011-06-27T15:21:00.001-07:002011-06-27T15:50:03.026-07:00[Cat] Stat weights and you part 2:it doesn't matterFollowing up <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2011/06/cat-42-stat-weighings-and-you.html">from an earlier post</a> and <a href="http://fluiddruid.net/2011/06/4-2-and-feral-secondary-stats/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fluiddruid+%28The+Fluid+Druid%29">Alaron's great recent post on the topic</a>, I thought I'd talk about the futility of changing secondary stats given the current model.<div><br /></div><div>So before - in that time when Alaron talked about the difference between Agility and Arpen - secondary stats varied all over the place. Agility was not as good as it is now (it only offered 1 AP), strength was fairly good, and the real debate for high-end druids was whether to go arpen-crazy or go agility. Arpen was an odd, nonlinear stat that gained value as you got more of it, which meant that having 1000 arpen was a very different value for arpen compared to having, say, 300. </div><div><br /></div><div>This was all confusing and odd, but it meant one big thing: stat weighings <i>really mattered</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>But now? Now primary stats rule all, for everyone. The primary stat is the best stat by a long, long margin for all but the most confusing specs, and ferals aren't a shiny example. In this case, agility is 3 times better than the next secondary stat.</div><div><br /></div><div>3 times!</div><div><br /></div><div>So there's never a question about what to gem for: it's agility. There's never a question about sockets, really - unless you're getting 3x the value of agility, it's always worth it to get agility. In practice this means any socket bonuses get ignored unless they give +20 agility or are a red/prismatic socket. So as far as your gear goes - it's all agility, all the time.</div><div><br /></div><div>That means for the most part DPS classes have almost <i>no flexibility</i> in what they gear for. There aren't many options for DPSers. They almost always have to get 4p of the latest tier, then they get one offpiece, then usually have a choice of one set of boots, belt and bracers or maybe two if they're lucky. They have one weapon that's king, perhaps two. Trinkets are very rarely make it or break it and don't offer reforging ability or gems most of the time anyway. Rings, amulets and cloaks are also one or two per slot at best. Now those things offer some customization, but most of the customization is in reforging and swapping one or two pieces, maybe.</div><div><br /></div><div>How much does that really matter? The answer is...not a lot.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let's take a current 372-geared raider like <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/doomhammer/Reesi/simple">Reesi</a>. Here are their total secondary stats:</div><div>haste: 503</div><div>hit: 398</div><div>crit: 1310</div><div>expertise: 780</div><div>mastery: 1667</div><div>dodge: 717</div><div><br /></div><div>The total value for all secondary stats here is 5375. (for these purposes it doesn't matter that she reforged to dodge, since it's only the raw values we care about). </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, let's take the preweighted values from wowhead for this:</div><div>Agility: 1</div><div>Mastery : .35</div><div>Haste: .32</div><div>Expertise : .29</div><div>hit: .28</div><div>crit: .28</div><div><br /></div><div>Those are older weights from the 4.06 days, but for this experiment they'll suffice. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's do a thought experiment here: what if you could convert all secondary stats to the absolute best secondary stats possible. Let's say your gear was perfectly ideal (in this case haste/mastery on everything). We'll even split it 60/40 in favor of the best stat. What value do we get?</div><div><br /></div><div>5375 * .60 * .35 + 5375 *.40 *.32 = 1816.75</div><div><br /></div><div>That's the best we could possibly do.</div><div><br /></div><div>So what's the worst? Well, we went for full hit/crit (and for this, we'll assume no hit capping). In that case, since they're the same value, you get the following:</div><div>5375*.6*.28 + 5375*.4*.28 = 1505.</div><div><br /></div><div>So it's a huge difference, right? The optimal is 20% better than the suboptimal, and...</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, wait. That's just the value of <i>the secondary stats</i>. As far as a DPS gain, you can assume that one Hit/Exp correlates to about 1.0 DPS, which means that the difference here between the best possible value and the worst is...</div><div><br /></div><div>1113 DPS. </div><div><br /></div><div>So if you got the absolute perfect gear you would be 1k DPS better than someone with the worst possible gear choices. Which, given current DPS levels for most people at that gear level, is <b>less than 5% difference</b>. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is why Alaron says things don't matter; it's not just that things are so close to each other that it really isn't a big deal one way or another. It's that realistically there's just not that much you can do with your gear. Your gems are spoken for you. Your gear doesn't have a lot of variety. As long as you're not going above hit/exp caps, stats aren't going to be wasted or horrible one way or another. This wasn't the case back in the day; gear choices and going full arpen could make a 20-30% difference in DPS. Now? not so much.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that this does not apply in one special case: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59520">Unheeded Warning</a>. Thanks to the direct damage scaling increasing so much in the 4.2 patch this trinket is getting a large boost too; it is competitive with the heroic agility trinkets. Once again, ferals are going to likely be using a trinket that is from a prior tier well into the next one. Just don't use it on fights with tons of adds. </div><div><br /></div><div>What this really means is that how well you do on a given fight is very much dependent on the fight itself, and not your gearing choices. If you do a lot of AoE, you'll find hit/exp/crit to be better than haste/mastery. If you do a lot of start & stop of fights (like Atramedes) mastery will be better. If you have a standup fight haste is going to be better. More berserks? Haste will shine. Lots of target swapping? Hit/exp will do better.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ultimately this also suggests something else, which is that for progression fights where it really matters reforging should be done. It won't make a huge difference - the math above says that the upper bound of your difference can't be more than 5% no matter what - but when every little bit counts, that's a place to go. Understand what your role is and how to best do it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also note that if you care a lot about consistency, hit/expertise are going to win almost always. They are similar to stamina for bears in that while they're not optimal all the time they're never, ever wasted and make life easier. Given how close things are, you won't see much of a hit to your DPS and if you're not an amazing player chances are you'll see significant gains even on fights that don't punish misses.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-29752055219252352062011-06-17T10:53:00.001-07:002011-06-17T11:06:50.645-07:00[Cat] 4.2 stat weighings and youSo, remember a while back when I wrote about <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/09/cat-cataclysm-cats-part-2-case-for.html">what it would take for mastery to be awesome</a> and <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/10/cat-cataclysm-cats-part-4-case-for.html">haste to be less awesome</a>?<div><br /></div><div>Or when I wrote on <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/12/druid-general-comments-on-gcs-recent.html">how I would change it so that haste was more valuable to cats</a>?</div><div><br /></div><div>So in 4.2 cats have been buffed and changed around. Strength has been reduced to providing 1AP, which (with raid buffs) is about a 1k AP loss. However, Savage Roar has been buffed to give 80% more damage (from 50%), every direct attack does a lot more damage and scales better with weapon DPS (and thus AP), and ferocious bite has been improved to do more damage for less energy.</div><div><br /></div><div>While <a href="http://fluiddruid.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=324">it's still up for debate as to the end effect</a>, there are some good indications that haste, not mastery, is going to be the best stat to stack after getting a good weapon. Haste had already started surpassing crit as the second-best stat, though the stats (other than mastery) were close enough to each other that almost any secondary stat was fine.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, though, it's looking more and more like haste is the winner. Why is that?</div><div><br /></div><div><ul><li><b>Bleeds got stealth-nerfed</b>. While direct damage got improved across the board, bleeds got actually hurt a little by the strength nerf - and didn't get re-improved. End result is that when 4.2 hits your bleeds won't do quite as much damage as before.</li><li><b>The <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=90162">T11 2piece bonus</a> is going away in 4.2</b>. Okay, it's not going away - if you have it, it'll still be there. But chances are you won't have it for super long, especially if you weren't raiding heroic raids. That knocks rake damage down too.</li><li><b>The <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=99001">T12 2 piece bonus</a> adds even more direct damage. </b>Yay, shreds hit even more! (though there are issues with this bonus, as it probably won't be rolling damage and will overwrite itself). </li><li><b>Seriously, everything got buffed like whoa</b>. A 20% boost to melee damage, a 15-20% increase in scaling for shred, mangle and ravage. It's a huge deal, and one of the things that it (sadly) does is make <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=59520">Unheeded Warning</a> pretty awesome well into heroic raid gearing. If you don't have it already, make an attempt to get it before 4.2 arrives - because when 4.2 arrives chances are you won't see many of 'em on the AH.</li><li><b>Swipe doesn't get affected by mastery</b>. Because missed swipes don't refund energy and get zero benefit from mastery, any time you're using swipe a lot all that mastery doesn't do jack for you. In fact, hit/expertise are far better for swipe if you can help it, and are the best stats for aoe-friendly fights. The next best stat? Shockingly, it's haste, as it allows for more OoC and more swipes in a given time.</li></ul><div>Anyway, long story short is that mastery may be getting close to the point where it is not the best stat ever, and bleeds are not 40% of our overall damage relative to direct damage. Conversely, this is the point where haste overtakes mastery as a better stat per point. In some tests haste is significantly better than all other secondary stats (by 30%), in others it's neck and neck. Ultimately use mew, run simulations, and test based on your gearing. We'll get more clear ideas of what is best based on profiles of 378 and 391-geared ferals soon enough.</div></div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-33348944309443553902011-05-05T13:58:00.000-07:002011-05-05T14:22:36.548-07:00[Bear]Oh, the joys of savage defense continuedI've talked about how <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/02/druid-savage-defense-guesses-with-math.html">Savage Defense likely would work and how good or bad it'd be</a>, how<a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/03/druid-savage-defense-on-ptr.html"> it works on the PTR</a><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span>and how <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/03/druid-31-state-of-druid-testing-on-ptr.html">it continued to work there</a>, how <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/04/druidmore-wacky-sd-shenanigans-like.html">SD uptime works</a>, how <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/04/druid-limited-savage-defense-analysis.html">good and bad it is against specific fights</a>, and <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/07/druidsome-quick-cataclysm-observations.html">then later comments on SD in cata</a>, especially after we found out that <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2011/04/bear-best-case-for-savage-defense.html">the combat logs are probably bugged</a>.<br /><br />To be clear: I don't like the mechanic. I don't like that it is a static amount of damage in a world where almost all other mitigation mechanics are percentages. I don't like that it has weird interactions with multiple mobs (though at least that is better with 4.1). I don't like the interaction with vengeance.<br /><br />But today: I really don't like how weak it is, and I really don't like the bugs in it.<br /><br />I did some study on the mathematical importance of having Pulverize and having good pulverize uptime, and the results really shocked me. You can find <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2483688511">the long topic at the wow forums</a>, but the basic info is that I wrote a simulator that would simulate a boss attacking and dodging and then tested a few sets of values of avoidance, hit, crit, expertise to see what would happen - specifically what would happen when you assume pulverize isn't there and you lose the 9% crit.<br /><br />I expected that it wouldn't be that big a deal in terms of uptime of savage defense. And boy was I wrong! Pulverize, depending on your gear level and avoidance/crit/cap levels, is equivalent to having about 5-6% block% for a paladin or warrior. In other words, you block 5-6% more of the attacks that land with pulverize active 100% of the time.<br /><br />That's huge! That'd be a big, BIG bonus for a paladin or warrior. It sounds great! And for the first time I have a nice, simple way of testing various uptimes of Savage Defense in a way that is actually simulated and not entirely theoretical.<br /><br />Then I dug into it some more. That 5-6% block? Well, on a boss that does 70k damage after armor (which would be one of the more harder-hitting bosses in the game currently, like Atramedes, but not as bad as Nefarian) this would be the equivalent of reducing the average attack damage (average after avoidance, blocks and not blocked) from 35.5k to 36.7k. And that's assuming a 20k shield - which as you'll see isn't a fair assumption.<br /><br />Huh. That's...disappointing. And that's on something that hits every 2.0 seconds for 70k. For things that hit harder, it gets worse. For things that hit more often it gets MUCH worse; many many more missed attacks means that blocked attacks are even less frequent and less useful when they do happen.<br /><br />Okay...so it's not as great as we thought. It's not as great as Tangedyn's spreadsheet would indicate or my prior calcs indicate or Rawr indicates. That's not the end of the world, and we never thought it was THAT good, right?<br /><br /><a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2483689303">Then today there's a post on SD being 'nerfed'.</a> And the usual folks say logs or GTFO, and that's fair, so they're actually produced. And you see things like this:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>[00:55:48.039] Beradon gains Savage Defense from Beradon (Remaining: 18267)<br />[00:55:54.475] Beradon's Savage Defense is refreshed by Beradon (Remaining: 15009)<br />[00:55:56.929] Atramedes hits Beradon 54922 (A: 21286)</blockquote><br /><br />That's right; SD got refreshed by a later SD proc, but because vengeance was lower the SD shield it created was actually smaller. In other words, it'd be better to not have attacked during that time. That means that any streak of avoidance actually hurts mitigation down the road. Bleh.<br /><br />There are countless other examples in that post about SD not working the right way with multiple mobs, but we don't know whether that's an actual bug or just issues with the combat log. It effectively makes it impossible to determine the actual usefulness of savage defense from log parses, however; either the log is telling us the truth and SD is bad, or the log is lying but we don't know how badly.<br /><br />Man, do I hate this ability. So very, very much. I guess the good news is this: Savage Defense is going to be less and less relevant as we get better gear and as we face bigger mobs, so after a while it won't be worth worrying about.Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-38214233858023297262011-04-28T12:32:00.001-07:002011-04-29T12:11:38.885-07:00[Cat] In case you weren't pumped up for Fireland raidingOne thing I missed from blizzard's various previews of Firelands in the last couple days is <a href="http://kotaku.com/?_escaped_fragment_=5796504/blizzard-turns-up-the-heat-with-world-of-warcraft-patch-42#!5796504/blizzard-turns-up-the-heat-with-world-of-warcraft-patch-42">this gem from Kotaku</a>:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Liberation Serif', serif; line-height: 22px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "></p><blockquote><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-style: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: inherit; font-size: 15px; ">This time around they have, however, resulting in some sexy Ragnaros-styled armor, a new non-legendary version of his mace, Sulfuros, </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span">and a druid staff that drops off one of raid's other bosses that transforms the wielder into a molten cat</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">The new dungeon even boasts three new mounts; one for competing all of the raid achievements, one random drop, and a special mount that drops every time Ragnaros fails. Just don't expect him to be a pushover this time around. Judging by Stockton's laughter at my suggestion, 25 frost mages isn't going to cut it.</p></blockquote><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "></p></span></div><br /><br /><div><br /><a href="http://s288.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/23423.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 376px; height: 519px;" src="http://s288.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/23423.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Huh.</div><br /><br />I might want that. Just a little bit.<div><br /></div><div>ETA: one interesting part seen in t<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eF4UxdaPKo">he blizzard videocast</a> at 10:10 is that he mentions that the staff will allow you to change into Staghelm's feral FORMS. He mentions the cat, but we know Staghelm has at least two forms - cat and scorpion. I suspect but do not know that as a bear you'll get to turn into a molten scorpion.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-27887621464845890342011-04-22T18:03:00.001-07:002011-04-25T10:56:01.606-07:00[Bear] The flood of bear gear in 4.1You've probably seen a bunch of posts on the great set of gear you can get from ZA/ZG when 4.1 hits - how there's finally <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=69559">some bracers that aren't blue</a>, or another shot<a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=69626"> to get a weapon when malevolence hates you</a>. Or heck, how to get twice as much VP per week from heroics as you could before.<div><br /></div><div>All of that is true.</div><div><br /></div><div>But that's not the real source of awesome. The real source of awesome comes from this little gem:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 145, 255); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 145, 255); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; ">Conquest Points are now purchasable from the Valor Quartermasters at 250 Conquest Points per 250 Valor Points.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></div>What does this mean? It means that you can now get any pvp item that doesn't require any rating no matter who you are, provided that you have the VP for it. Which turns out to be <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/items?filter=ub=11;cr=125:158;crs=3:390;crv=0:0;gm=3;rf=1;wt=22:41:21:45:109:170:96:20:117:115:77:119:103;wtv=100:75:48:41:21:16:13:10:10:7:5:5:1;gb=1">a fairly substantial list of gear</a>. So hey, no more pvping for pve gear! You can now pve for pvp gear instead. Which...I guess you'd probably use for pve.<div><br /></div><div>Here's <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/items?filter=si=2;ub=11;cr=125:21;crs=3:1;crv=0:0;gm=3;rf=1;wt=22:41:21:45:109:170:96:20:117:115:77:119:103;wtv=100:75:48:41:21:16:13:10:10:7:5:5:1;gb=1">the comparison with gear obtainable outside of pvp</a>. Some interesting highlights:</div><div><br /></div><div><ul><li><a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60444">The PvP helm, with mastery</a>, is a great bear helm and better than anything non-heroic. This is a hard spot for a lot of people to get anything, and that it beats anything you can get until really rare drops makes it pretty nice. At 2200 conquest points - the same, essentially as legs and chest - this is a good deal, especially considering that the best alternatives come from drops from <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=65190">heroic Nef</a> and <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=65129">Cho'gall</a> (and Al'akir, kinda) Note that if you have <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60202">Tsanga's Helm</a> the difference is probably not worth getting it.</li><li>Similarly the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60447">PvP shoulders are a pretty nice deal </a>and better than anything but heroic gear. If you get the head and the shoulders you also get 70 agility, which is a nice little bonus. It doesn't make it better than getting heroic pieces, but it should salve having two pieces of PvP gear. This isn't quite as great a deal as the helm given that you can get <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=65083">good shoulders off of Omnotron</a>, but it's still pretty good - especially if you're not doing a lot of heroic raiding. The difference here is actually higher than the helm <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=59120">for the comparable nonheroic piece</a>, so still reasonable to consider. They're <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=69574">also a huge upgrade from the troll drop</a>. </li><li>The <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60446">pvp chest is interesting</a>; it's a very big jump between it and the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60287">normal tier chest</a> (which is pretty badly itemized for bears) - bigger than the jump between the normal pieces and the pvp pieces in the head and shoulder slots combined. At the same time, you already likely have the tier chestpiece. Still, consider it; it's a nice piece of gear that is priced to move.</li><li><a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60443">The PvP gloves </a>are about as 'better' as the 359 best gloves as the helm is - so it's a decent upgrade. The big advantage is the energy/rage cost reduction of skull bash, which is great if you're the interrupter. Thus, these are a pretty good buy at some point even if you're just replacing <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=62417">Liar's Handwraps</a>.</li><li>The <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60591">pvp bracers</a> are actually worse than the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=59329">normal drop</a>, but they're also very easy to get. And they are significantly better (about 5%) than the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=69559">troll drop</a>.</li><li><a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=69634">Fasc gets his own boots</a>, but they're significantly worse than the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=58482">BoE valor boots</a> and much much <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=60596">MUCH worse than the PvP boots</a>. Somehow, I think Fasc would have wanted it that way - to be beaten by pvp gear. </li><li>The <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=61340">pvp weapon</a> is about as good for a bear as the troll weapon due to <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=69626">the lower ilvl</a> on it and the wasted resilience. Of course, the real win here is the <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=69843">BoE Mobius' Halberd</a>, which drops from the rare worldspawn and is just slightly worse than <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=59474">Malevolence</a></li><li>Finally, the relic slot is actually <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=61390">best in slot now for bears in pvp land</a>. The haste on the other relic is essentially worthless, and the slight gain in agility and stamina make up for the lost stat otherwise.</li></ul><div>Most everything else is a slight upgrade in the slot - the boots, belt, gloves are all slight upgrades and the legs are basically a wash. But that should give you plenty of things to consider spending your valor points on for a while, especially if you're working on some hard hitting content like Nef and want some easy upgrades for tanking.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>As to cats? It's not quite as simple. Every troll piece beats the corresponding PvP piece as far as a cat is concerned. And honestly, most of the time it's not even close. All that wasted secondary stat really hurts. Even on the wrists, though it's close. So unless you're very unlucky or sitting on a lot of valor points, getting this stuff isn't as good as just going to troll town. </div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-49831111599857121482011-04-01T11:29:00.000-07:002011-04-01T13:14:15.532-07:00[Bear] The best case for Savage Defense<div>TL;DR version:<br />If you take anything from this article, take this bit: <strong>to maximize SD uptime make sure that mauls happen on your special attacks' cooldown, so the rotation for multitarget mobs looks like this:</strong><br /><strong>swipe/thrash&maul/swipe/mangle&maul</strong><br /><br />Obviously you can do demo roar or lacerate or whatever on that mangle bit, but maul is the key thing here. That also means to maximize your SD procs now, you should be doing something like this:<br />swipe/mangle&maul/thrash/lacerate&maul<br />Though in practice this doesn't work as you need to have the swipe & thrash right away to get the best threat.<br /><br />Anyway, onto the article.<br /><br />Savage defense is getting a nice buff in the 4.1 patch, in case you hadn't heard. It will go from having one charge that is used up regardless of attack strength (more on that in a second) to an absorption shield that will absorb the same amount of damage maximum that it could before, but will not go away with partial hits.<br /><br /><br />So yay! It's now a fully fledged PW:S that only works on physical attacks! That's awesome, and it fixes bears and makes it just as good as shield block or DK heals or...<br /><br />Okay, that's not true. Sadly.<br /><br />As <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2267601924?page=19">Ahti put it very well on the tanking forums </a>recently:<br /></div><blockquote><p>The problem is that the upper bound on this is set extremely low compared to<br />blocking (and compared to Blood Shield, I guess, although I'd prefer to stick<br />with the blocking comparison for simplicity's sake). And many encounters already<br />have add situations that push past that upper bound.You don't need that many<br />adds hitting you (and they don't need to be hitting that hard) before you reach<br />the point where the probability is that every single Savage Defense proc is<br />consumed before you can possibly generate another one. Past that point, you'll<br />continue to take more damage, but Savage Defense won't get any better - whereas<br />for a warrior or paladin, block will scale upwards indefinitely.</p></blockquote><div><br /><br />Yep. But what is that upwards bound? Let's go with the best case scenario here.<br /><br />Let's assume that you get an SD proc whenever you can. That means you get one every 2.4 seconds (minus haste) for each autoattack, and you get one every 1.5 seconds for every special attack, and you get one every 3 seconds for every maul. This averages out to a SD proc every 1.03 seconds. Note that this is insanely optimistic - it assumes a crit on each of those attacks AND a SD proc on each crit ,which is only 50% of the time. But again - this is the maximum upper bound you can possibly get.<br /><br />For ease of computation we'll go with a 20k shield. That means every 1.03 seconds we can absorb 20,000 damage intake before taking any more physical damage. Again, sounds pretty awesome - and then it refreshes magically after that 1.03 seconds later. (note that it doesn't; SD doesn't happen every 1.03 seconds but happens on attack boundaries, so you can get times where you don't have much happening and then times when you have many procs - but 1.03 seconds is the average and will be easy to work with.<br /><br />Now, let's go comparing to a blocker, who always blocks 30% of all damage. They're block capped, so they will always reduce damage by 30% no matter what.<br /><br />Where do these things become equivalent? That's pretty easy to figure. It's simply when 20k/1.03 seconds = 30% of incoming DPS. And that turns out to be 64.7k DPS.<br /><br />This means that whenever you're taking more than 64.7k DPS, no matter what, Savage defense will be worse than block. Of course that changes as you add more SD shielding.<br /><br />The real trick is that the above is <em>completely insane</em> with respect to the number of expected procs, especially in a single target scenario. For a multitarget you can expect multiple crits per swipe/thrash, so you'll often see a shield every 1.5 seconds. But you'll also be without a swipe/thrash every 4.5 seconds - and you're not guaranteed to get a shield even when you swipe.<br /><br />Realistically how many shields do bears get? It's tough to say. Another problem is that shields can get overwritten without being used at all, especially on attack boundaries where the normal attack lines up with the special attack. And since Maul always lines up with a special attack, any time you get a crit with the special attack and a shield with it (like with swipe) chances are that you're not going to get two shields worth anything.<br /><br />Actually, that's a good point: to maximize SD uptime on multimob packs you should always - ALWAYS - time it so that a maul happens when both swipe and thrash are on CD. So it should look a lot like this:<br />swipe/thrash and maul/swipe/mangle and maul as the rotation for trash.<br /><br />But realistically you get one every time you swipe or thrash and then one kinda randomly after that. The random part is the most frustrating part; some times shields will be completely wasted as they get refreshed every .6 seconds or so, like this:<br /><br />[19:23:22.825] Maeltne Mangle Halfus Wyrmbreaker *30730*<br />[19:23:22.878] Maeltne casts Maul on Halfus Wyrmbreaker<br />[19:23:23.148] Maeltne's Savage Defense is refreshed by Maeltne<br />[19:23:23.228] Maeltne Maul Halfus Wyrmbreaker *18089*<br />[19:23:23.666] Maeltne's Savage Defense is refreshed by Maeltne</div><div>(this one is fine, as both the mangle and the maul procced SD)<br /><br />[19:23:50.678] Maeltne crits Halfus Wyrmbreaker *12134*<br />[19:23:51.194] Maeltne casts Thrash<br />[19:23:51.448] Maeltne Thrash Storm Rider *8881*<br />[19:23:51.448] Maeltne Thrash Nether Scion 4456<br />[19:23:51.448] Maeltne Thrash Halfus Wyrmbreaker *9167*<br />[19:23:51.285] Maeltne's Savage Defense is refreshed by Maeltne<br />[19:23:51.590] Maeltne's Savage Defense is refreshed by Maeltne<br />[19:23:51.590] Maeltne's Savage Defense is refreshed by Maeltne<br />(this one's more frustrating, as that second SD proc just goes to waste)<br />All those refreshes are basically wasted here.<br /><br />Ugh, this is making me mad about SD all over again. This is also why it's much more important to look at SD uptime and not number of SD procs when doing SD analysis. Or if you like, just look at the amount of damage SD absorbed.<br /></div><div>Anyway - the important thing to note is that while having partial SD absorbs is nice, it doesn't fix a lot of the issues with SD. SD still doesn't scale infinitely like block does, so at some points it simply will be worse than block for mitigation of damage (like on heroic Nefarian currently). At other points it will be better. Sometimes it (like WotLK-era block) will be WAY better than avoidance or partial blocks, as it will reduce far more than 30%; a great example of this is when you can assume you'll get a SD shield every 1.5 seconds and you won't get physically attacked for more than your shield strength, you'll be effectively invulnerable during this time. When 4.1 hits, try out going to Kara and seeing how silly it is. My gut feeling is that you'll be able to do most trash that doesn't have heavy magical components without losing almost any health.</div><div> </div><div>This, among other things, makes old-world content far easier. 15k shields every 1.5 seconds when you're taking 15k damage every 1.5 seconds sounds a lot like most heroics from before and some raid content. This wasn't nearly as good when one hit removed the shield and then the rest piled on (though with latency and the spell reflect bug, that wasn't always the case and often many attacks got absorbed), but now it should be significantly better.</div><div> </div><div>But for current heroics and raids, it doesn't help a lot. The cases where you are going to get a shield and the shield would have been not used up AND would not be refreshed before being used up are small in raids. Most multimob scenarios in raids have mobs hitting for 10-12k each, and while it adds a bit more value here it doesn't add so much as you could reasonably expect to have a shield up fairly quickly. On mobs that hit for more than the shield strength anyway (Mal adds, as an example) this change does literally nothing for you.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-27650961935202561782011-03-29T14:27:00.001-07:002011-03-31T11:12:22.582-07:00[Druidl] Antitanks in Cataclysm part 2: enchants, gems, gear and reforging<span class="Apple-style-span">Continued from <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2011/03/druidantitanks-in-cataclsym.html">the last post</a>.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">While <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/doomhammer/reesi/simple">Reesi </a>and <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/thaurissan/tangedyn/simple">Tangedyn </a> (note: no guarantees they'll stay in their feral spec/gear) did an awesome job about what to do for the spec and glyphs for a hybrid build, I didn't see a lot on the gear. And...I still don't. Probably because it's a lot harder to evaluate.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Also a note on the glyphs: don't be afraid to take a stack of disappearing dust and swap glyphs as needed. You should be doing this on a case-by-case basis anyway. If you don't use feral faerie fire, the glyph for it is not great. If you're not hitting multiple mobs, why take maul? The prime glyphs are almost always going to stay the same for any fights that have you using hybridity, but if you're just tanking swap them out!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">For this I'll give two choices: max DPS and max survival. The Max DPS will give some credit to survival (and vice versa) but ultimately what you need is up to your role; if you're primarily DPSing with occasional tanking light stuff max DPS should be fine. If you're tanking all the time you'll likely have to go with maximum survival.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Gear choices:</span></b></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">The best stat for a hybrid set is agility. Everything should have it. That's true for DPS or survival. The second 'hybrid' stat is mastery. This is the best secondary stat for cats and the second-best for bears. So far, not a lot changes, though your gemming priorities may change somewhat (favoring agility gems over anything else and disfavoring stamina over agility/hit gems). </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span><span class="Apple-style-span">For max DPS go mastery above everything else. For reforging, the primary reforging target should be mastery if the gear doesn't have mastery. The second one should be expertise (if below the dodge cap), then crit, then hit. Why? If you're planning on being a bear expertise is going to benefit you from a threat perspective and from a savage defense uptime perspective more than crit or hit as long as you're below the dodge cap. After that crit and hit are fairly similar. As has been shown recently, going hit/expertise/crit/haste/mastery is really a matter of choice more than massive changes in overall DPS value for a cat.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">For survival, the best secondary stat is dodge. Reforge the highest non-mastery stat to dodge whenever you can, favoring haste, then hit, crit, expertise in that order. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Avoid tanking rings, necks and cloaks. They'll be basically horrible for dps and do not give enough survival gains to warrant their value unless they're significantly higher ilvl (2 tiers) more than what you have.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Tier pieces:</span></b></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">On Tier pieces: the 4 piece for cat is very, very strong when going cat 100% of the time. The problem is that whenever you switch out of cat the buff disappears completely. That means that on any fight where you're switching back and forth every 30 seconds the buff is just going to not be worth it; using 3 GCDs to mangle just to have the buff for 30 seconds isn't going to be as good as having suboptimal stats for bear or cat.The 4p is pretty nice for bears too, but the actual pieces really vary, and for hybrids (especially ones caring about survival primarily) the biggest importance is ilvl over basically anything else. If you have the choice of getting a heroic non-tier piece to replace the nonheroic tier piece - for a bear, this is a good choice. For a cat it's a harder choice but likely the right one. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Note that the 2p for cats is just perfect in this setup as the rake will keep on ticking while in bear form. Yay threat!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">In terms of what nontier piece or pieces you should have, it depends. </span><span class="Apple-style-span">For non-heroic content, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=60202">Tsanga's helm</a> is the best. It is the only helm with mastery. The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=60286">tier helm</a> has hit and crit, the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59490">offset from Cho'Gall</a> has haste and expertise (ugh). A second choice is the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59120">Poison Protocol shoulders</a>, which also have mastery. The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65073">Double Attack Handguards</a> are also not bad compared to tier; at least they don't have haste.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">For heroic, the best bet is the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65060">Sark of the Unwatched</a>, which has crit and mastery vs. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65192">haste and expertise</a>. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">The best tier piece is <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65191">the legs</a>, which have crit and mastery and nothing is better at either level. Then <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65190">the head</a>, then maybe the chest due to the socket bonus being better. In a perfect world I'd go for (non heroic) Tsanga's helm, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59223">Double attack handguards</a> and purchasing <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=67135">Morrie's</a> and then going for tier legs and shoulders. For folks getting most of their gear via valor points by necessity you'll likely pick up the tier chest; buy a helm and then work on shoulders and buy Liar's handgrips. For heroic mode go for tier legs and helm, then <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65073">Double Attack handguards</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65060">Sark </a>and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65083">Poison Protocol</a> shoulders.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Trinkets are interesting. Ideally you will swap trinkets as needed for certain fights and use others for others, but there are some 'much more better' ones than others here and there.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Max DPS:</b></span></div><div><ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58181">Fluid Death</a> has high agility and a reforgeable hit to mastery. Good stuff.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65140">Essence of the Cyclone</a> has the raw agility but the proc is almost completely useless for bears.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59520">Unheeded Warning</a> has lower agi than many of the choices here and has a proc that is completely useless for bear survival (it doesn't even affect SD). Still, it's one of the highest DPS trinkets that exist.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56394">Tia's Grace</a> is almost as good as Fluid Death for cats and actually a bit stronger for bears on most non-Heroic Nef fights due to the extra mastery. (But don't use it for Nef tanking!)</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68776">Quicksilver Talisman</a> has tons of agi and reforgeable crit. The potion part isn't particularly useful but it's a good alternative for a second trinket.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65026">Prestor's Talisman</a> also has high agility but has a meh proc for bears.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62051">DM: Hurricane</a> is similar but even more useless to bears.</span></li></ol></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Max survivability:</b></span></div><div><ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58181">Fluid Death</a> has high agility and a reforgeable hit to mastery. It's likely the best hybrid trinket.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56394">Tia's Grace</a> is almost as good as Fluid Death for cats and actually a bit stronger for bears on most non-Heroic Nef fights due to the extra mastery. While Fluid Death has more overall agility the mastery can overtake it, especially when taking smaller hits. (thanks, Nica!) </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62466">Mirror of Broken Images</a> only has a survival proc, but that it is mastery as the main stat helps both specs and the actual on use ability is amazing for this tier's raiding content. </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65109">Vial of Stolen Memories</a> is horrible for DPS, but between the high stamina and the huge dodge use (which will be very high in an agi-centric gearout), it can be very good - especially on magic-heavy fights.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65048">Symbiotic Worm</a> is a good but not great stamina trinket; use it if you don't have the vial or need a ton of stam for some reason.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68776">Quicksilver Talisman</a> has tons of agi and reforgeable crit. The potion part isn't particularly useful but it's a good alternative for a second trinket.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65026">Prestor's Talisman</a> also has high agility but has a meh proc for bears.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58182">Bedrock Talisman</a> is good for survival but completely useless for DPS.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65140">Essence of the Cyclone</a> has the raw agility but the proc is almost completely useless for bears.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59520">Unheeded Warning</a> has lower agi than many of the choices here and has a proc that is completely useless for bear survival (it doesn't even affect SD). Still, it's one of the highest DPS trinkets that exist.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62051">DM: Hurricane</a> is similar but even more useless to bears.</span></span></li></ol></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">For me personally the choice is clear - Fluid Death is a win for both specs. An alchemist is probably in luck too. After that the generic one would be something like Unheeded warning or Prestor's talisman depending on what you have. For harder fights swap to a stam trinket + mirror of broken images. Trinkets are the easiest, best way to customize your gear on a fight-by-fight basis, so really do collect them all. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Enchants:</span></b></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Head:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68766">Arcanum of the Ramkahen</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max Survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68766">Arcanum of the Ramkahen</a> or <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68718">Arcanum of the Earthen Ring</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">While 90 stamina is quite hefty you may be fine with the stamina you have - in which case the 60 agi beats 35 dodge rating any day. The haste is useless for bears, but it's okay for cats. Note that this is a very good place to get a ton of stamina cheaply, so consider doing so if you need more health. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Shoulder:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62346">Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max Survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62346">Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">While the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62333">Unbreakable Quartz</a> enchant is solid, getting both agility and mastery makes up on the hybrid side compared to both. Again, if you need the stamina go with stamina - but otherwise this is a good place to compromise in favor of DPS and avoidance.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Chest:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS/Max Survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52779">Peerless Stats</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">No real debate here. The stamina is nice but this gives enough overall value that it's worth it. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Legs:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56551">charscale leg armor</a>/<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56550">dragonscale leg armor</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56551">charscale leg armor</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Okay, so technically the dragonscale leg armor wins for DPS - but it's much closer than you think. 55 agility gives 110 AP as well as crit; based on weighings right now that's about 85 EAP vs 55 EAP, which is way smaller. So is 30 EAP worth 145 stam? In most cases you're not going to be able to find a better tradeoff than that. So I'd recommend in either case to go with the charscale legs.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Feet:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52757">Major Agility</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max Survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52781">Assassin's step</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">If you can afford it I'd go with assassin's step in either case, but technically major agility is better for cats since they gain nothing from the movement speed increase while in cat form. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52782">Lavawalker </a>is also a good choice for a hybrid that favors a bear.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Wrist:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS/Max Survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68784">Enchant Bracer Agility</a> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Easy choice here. For leatherworkers it's a bit more tempting to go for the stamina enhancement,but I'd recommend going for the superior agility there as well. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Gloves:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52784">greater mastery</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max Survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=34207">Glove reinforcements</a> (old world)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Yes, the glove reinforcements are still just that good for bears. Sigh. The mastery enchant isn't too bad though. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Cloak:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=44457">Greater Agility</a> (old world)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52767">protection</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">For this I'd recommend having two cloaks if you can or going max survival here; the old world enchant is not super strong (22 agi isn't huge) and 250 armor is quite good for bears (it's worth about 40-50 agi for bear survival depending on the fight).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Weapon:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Max DPS/Max survival: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=95471">Mighty Agility</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Fortunately this is an easy choice.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Gems</b></span>:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">The primary goals for both specs is getting agility whenever possible. Where things differ is mostly in which hybrid gems you use and which sockets you go for.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">For max DPS go for these choices:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Red: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52212">Delicate</a> (agi)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Yellow: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52204">Adept </a>(agility/mastery)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Blue: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52220">Glinting </a>(agi/hit)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">For max survival, go with these:</span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Red: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52212">Delicate</a> (agi)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Yellow: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52229">Polished </a>(agi/dodge)</span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Blue: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52238">Shifting </a>(agi/stam)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span">Then we get to the metagems. And that's a problem. The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68778">metagem for DPS</a> is at least a 3% dps gain overall; no single item or enchant or gem comes remotely close to how good it is. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52294">The metagem for tanking</a>, however, boosts the one thing that bears are great at - armor. While that's a clear sacrifice, the second sacrifice is that the tanking gem also requires having multiple yellow gems, which are also a somewhat contentious choice. Ultimately what you choose is going to have a big effect, and since helms are hard to come by this may be really tough. Since I think that the hybrid build is about tanking first, DPS second I'd likely go with the austere - but either is a reasonable choice. Just make sure you understand what you're choosin</span>g.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-75272756828186562442011-03-29T12:16:00.000-07:002011-03-29T13:08:02.211-07:00[Druid]Antitanks in Cataclsym<a href="http://blog.titaniumdreads.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/anti-tank_dog_mine_001_629x383.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 629px; height: 383px;" src="http://blog.titaniumdreads.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/anti-tank_dog_mine_001_629x383.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><div>(the antitank image from that article oh so long ago - because russian dogs with explosives strapped to them charging tanks needs to be shown at least one more time)<br /><div><br /></div><div><br />Recently we've got a lot - and I do mean a LOT - of various bloggers talking about the joys of feral hybrids and the greatness that is being able to do tanking and DPS in the same spec and the same gear. <a href="http://theincbear.com/feral-utility/">Reesi </a>and <a href="http://theincbear.com/hybrid-feral-guide/">Tangedyn</a> from the Inconspicuous Bear do a great job of illustrating where it's useful and what the tradeoffs and considerations are for doing it. <a href="http://fluiddruid.net/2011/03/feral-hybrids-again/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fluiddruid+%28The+Fluid+Druid%29">Alaron brought it up again</a> (and that <a href="http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/03/13/shifting-perspectives-embracing-the-hybrid-nature-of-feral-drui">came from Wowinsider too</a>). Even <a href="http://jacemora.com/raiding-as-feral/hybrid-tanking-nef-and-hal-heroic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DOTM+%28Druid+of+the+Moon%29">Jacemora got into the mix</a>. <div><br /></div><div>Hell, it's not like I hate it. I <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/01/druidthe-anti-tank-maximizing-dps-for.html">talked about it way back in the day</a>. (Ironically the build is actually a bit less friendly now than it was then for this sort of thing.<br /><div><br /></div><div>It's all the rage! It's awesome! It makes you 100% more awesome than just having flight form! </div><div><br /></div><div>And it's also really, really bad for some folks who want to play ferals. But I'll get to that at the end.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGcoubzrckMcu">the build I'd use</a> (and am likely to switch to soon), if you were curious. The biggest pain point is the loss of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16858">feral aggression</a>, which hurts. For doing dailies having nothing that boosts ravage also hurts, but not so amazingly. Because I took nothing that boosted FB, I did not take <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80318">Blood in the Water either</a>; while it is a DPS boost it is not such a tremendous one that it's required, and more importantly the chances to actually use it when you're tanking and swapping are pretty low, as you're not usually able to get a rip up and then reapply it with the CP necessary. The primary reason I'd switch is simply to get an idea of how to play a moonkin. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here are some guidelines on when it is good and when it's not that useful.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>When it's good:</b></span></div><div><ul><li><b>When the tank is not tanking 100% of the time. </b>Any time that you have downtime on tanking and would otherwise DPS is a time when the hybrid gear/hybrid spec can be significantly advantageous. As Reesi points out, doing 8k more DPS than the next tank is a good reason to bring you over another tank. Being able to do that regularly means that you can either afford to bring an extra tank and drop a DPS slot with little loss to raid viability or be able to bring more utility and survivability in your DPS and make up for raw damage with what you can bring. There are a lot of encounters in this tier where there are significant portions of the fight that you aren't actively tanking and which threat is not a primary concern (such as tank swaps) and Reesi does a good job of talking about them.</li><li><b>When you need to tank only for short amounts of time. </b>Any time you're only tanking for a small chunk of time and that time can largely be covered by defensive CDs is a good time for a hybrid build. Druids are great for this because of things like barkskin.</li><li><b>When your raid for whatever reason likes letting tanks die</b>. This is the herobear case Alaron talks about above, and it's vanishingly rare to happen - but if you find it happening a lot in your raid, consider this as a very useful piece of utility. </li><li><b>When bosses don't hit for a lot or avoidance is otherwise awesome</b>. This one is crucial. This was the primary reason it was okay when I talked about the antitank stuff for WotLK - because bosses hit for almost nothing and avoidance was great since druids hit their stamina check very early, avoidance was much better - and because of that, agility was a big win. Aside from heroic Nef, the bosses this tier don't hit for a huge amount. As a result you can simply adjust gear slightly (using things like stamina trinkets) and have enough health to deal with most bosses while actually taking less overall damage. And since mana is an issue right now, this is a Good Thing.</li></ul></div><div>Now the thing is that all of these things are true <i>right now.</i> That's good to realize. That's good to understand. But it's not necessarily going to be true in the future. Encounters will be designed with all tanks in mind, and those other tanks don't do things like get gear loaded with strength and crit on it. Bosses will hit hard enough to scare those tanks who are stacking stamina. Keep that in mind and make sure you understand when it's bad.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" >When it's bad:</span></b></div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>When you're tanking 100% of the time. </b>If you're the single tank with no swaps, there's not a lot of advantage to being a hybrid. You have more avoidance thanks to your gear selections, but you could have done that anyway if it was better - and chances are that you've reforged primarily to mastery, not dodge, which isn't as good. The difference between a bear in DPS gear and a bear in stam gear in terms of damage isn't so amazing; you get your dividends in dps not from doing it in bear with dps gear, but from going cat. So you're tradiing utility and potentially damage reduction (especially if you skipped infected wounds or perseverance) for...nothing.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>When you're DPSing 100% of the time. </b>Herobear notwithstanding, you are losing DPS if you're speccing this way. Even with pure DPS gear you lose somewhere between 5-10% DPS just from going this route depending on your talent choices. You can also lose some utility that most will expect from you - Nurturing Instinct is often the one that goes by the wayside, and a NI-powered tranq is about twice as good as a non-NI powered tranq. In this case, you're trading DPS and utilty for the ability to not get crit when...nothing attacks you. </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>When specialized gear really matters. </b>Being able to hybridize is mostly a function of gear choice, not spec choice. The spec differences are fairly minor, and the glyph differences aren't going to necessarily kill you (though the 'important' ones are almost all kitty), but the gear choice is huge and is easily a 20-40% difference in damage for a cat. Between the meta, the enchants, the gemming and the reforging it's a very large swing in stats. If as a bear you need to have 200k health and a ton of dodge and mastery doesn't matter (like, for example, if you're going up against heroic Nef as the MT) being a hybrid won't help you. This was the primary death of the antitank in Ulduar times - things just hit too damn hard. </span></li></ul></div><div>As Reesi illustrated above right now the number of encounters that require a 100% tank is not nearly as much as the ones that don't. And the fights that benefit from more DPS from a tank are more common than the ones that wouldn't. Right now, it makes quite a bit of sense.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Except...well, except the bad parts.</div><div><br /></div><div>What are the bad parts? They're basically TBC all over again, is what.</div><div><br /></div><div>If bears are the best tank to do things like tank some of the time, they will almost never be the tank that tanks 100% of the time on fights. If you like being a tank on every single encounter, this is bad news for you. If you like tanking 100% of the time on a single encounter this is also bad. </div><div><br /></div><div>In raid guilds, bears will be deprioritized for tanking gear over the 100% tanks - and rightfully so. Why should they get that awesome tanking trinket if they only use it half the time? This is tough to deal with for some. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's sometimes going to be a fight to get gear as a DPS as well. Why give it to you when you're just using it for offtanking? Shouldn't it go to a DPS who will use it to do more DPS more often?</div><div><br /></div><div>Bears already have a prejudice towards them as being 'bad' tanks (mostly for their AOE threat and AoE mitigation). This isn't going to help.</div><div><br /></div><div>And if you like being a cat - it's also bad news. If you don't care about tanking at all, if that's not interesting to you whatsoever and you like being a feral cat, chances are this is a huge hit. Feral DPS was already meh - but having the trend being doing DPS while not tanking and then tanking something? That's what raids are starting to expect from ferals. Being an awesome offtank means that a lot of time that's what they'll expect from you. They'll want that to be the case and want you to go tank and if you suck at it, or don't like it, or whatever - that'll be a knock on you.</div><div><br /></div><div>And yes, it sucks hard for heroics. You'll miss having things like IW or skull bash on a 10-second CD, you'll miss that utility, and it'll not feel right. That's not a big deal, but it's something to consider; it's something I went through when I had my awesome spec for HAnub that didn't have 5 rage reduction on abilities. For HAnub it didn't matter; I was getting tons of rage and I didn't need it early. But for heroics? Ugh, it was like molasses.</div><div><br /></div><div>And honestly? Feral DPS is so meh in raiding <i>right now</i> and ranged is so awesome that it makes a lot of sense to go feral hybrid/moonkin as your two specs; it gives a lot more flexibility while doing a hell of a lot more damage when not tanking. That's sadly the way it is this tier.</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, personally, this is fine. I enjoy tanking, I enjoy DPS, and I plan on doing both in raids when I'm raiding. If it makes sense to go hybrid on fights because of tight DPS checks, then it's great. Being able to make other tanks cry unfair can be fun. </div><div><br /></div><div>But it can also be fun being the main tank. And it can also be fun being competitive with rogues and warriors on DPS. And as long as hybrid builds are possible and having 'high dps while tanking some of the time' is a feature, it will be very, very hard to get improvements to tanking or DPS for ferals. Keep in mind that for every TBC-era feral that loved being the best offtank and loved being able to do tanking or DPS depending on what mood fit them and loved the herobear, there was a feral that was pissed off their class wasn't being considered for MT and didn't want to screw around with being a DPS - or a feral that loved being a cat but didn't want to tank at all. Hell, in Fire and Blood we had all three kinds of ferals at the same friggin time.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>I guess that's where my animosity comes from (if I have any) - from remembering the arguments from people in my own guild that said that I clearly couldn't get the things like barkskin or shield wall or even a reliable interrupt because I can dps, and you shouldn't be able to both be as good a tank as anyone AND be as good a DPS as anyone. The niche of being the best offtank is not the most fun for a lot of people, and there is some genuine frustration there. Or not being able to be buffed for DPS because hey, you can tank! That changed quite a bit in WotLK, but there's a chance that things are going back to the old way. </div><div><br /></div><div>My gut feeling is that because this is the opening tier things aren't hitting super hard - but they will. That tank damage and danger will start ratcheting up, and EH will start ruling the roost once again. When that happens and stamina, armor and resistance start making more of a sway on gearing choices I suspect that it won't matter on hybridization, and if you're a hybrid you'll be doing tanking only very rarely because you'll need two tanks who can be hit like a nail. But that's just a guess.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-15789887920920096282011-03-17T13:35:00.000-07:002011-03-17T14:26:47.509-07:00[Bear] Agility vs. stam? No, that's not right<div>This got inspired by a <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2228225621?page=3">comment I made on the wow forums</a>. </div><div><br /></div>Most bears these days don't gear exclusively for stamina like they used to - and that's the right choice. Stamina has always been a big win back in the day when the following was true:<div><br /></div><div><ul><li>All that mattered was that a tank could take big, crushing hits one after the other but then get healed up almost immediately after a certain point</li><li>Tanks were getting routinely smashed by nonpredictable damage (such as crushing blows)</li><li>Bears got 25% more health from stamina (or more) compared to other tanks, making it a major gain for them</li><li>Healer mana wasn't an issue</li></ul><div>In Cataclysm virtually none of that is true. Sure, a tank needs to be able to survive the Giant Damage of Doom here and there, but after that stamina doesn't do much. It can increase your vengeance damage (and thus savage defense shields are better) but not nearly as much or as reliably as simply having more AP and more crit. Healers aren't going to heal you to full most of the time and certainly aren't going to be able to do it in one GCD or two at most. And bears (sniff) don't have a stupid OP amount of extra health compared to other tanks.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>So it's clear that the strategy should be go for stamina until you have enough, then go for agility. Right? Good, so we can move on and...</div><div><br /></div><div>Um....</div><div><br /></div><div>Wait.</div><div><br /></div><div>This may shock you, but <i>there are more choices to make than just agility vs stamina</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>In particular, the advantages of armor and resistance continue to be massively understated for bears (and tanks in general). </div><div><br /></div><div>Now I've talked about some of t<a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/07/generalthe-dirty-secret-about-armor.html">he secret advantages armor had over stamina</a>, but that was just talking about effective health. Armor's primary advantage is shared with agility or any other avoidance - a reduced attack does less damage and thus requires less healing. This is a Big Deal in an age where mana matters for healers and tanks are left at partial deficits for longer periods of time. But now, I have some easy math to showcase this.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks to <a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgwIoHaVNwlpdEJWM3VkakI4bnYtcXdzMGlvYk5LRHc&hl=en&authkey=CMf4sYsJ">Tangedyn's spreadsheet</a> over at Inconspicuous Bear, I have an example of this. <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/balnazzar/fellhoof/simple">Namely, me.</a> While I'm not remotely geared to the gills or anything of the sort, the changes should not be significant between me and a very well-geared bear - especially as far as armor is concerned. I'll play with it later with a more geared tank at some point in the future. And if you look at that spreadsheet, 1 point of bonus armor is worth .18 points of agility.</div><div><br /></div><div>So clearly agility wins out, right? Well, that's where it gets tricky. Things like <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58182">Bedrock Talisman</a> have a veritable ton of armor - 1285 to be precise. That's equivalent to 231 agility on its own - but it also has a large chunk of avoidance that could be useful at various points and would cause a big reduction in damage too. Many of the other agility trinkets like <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65140">Essence of the Cyclone</a> have a ton of agility but nothing particularly useful for anything else.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the big thing that wins here is that armor is predictable. While avoidance is nice - good even - being able to consistently mitigate damage from every single physical hit is very nice. Being able to plan on that incoming damage on a regular basis is great. </div><div><br /></div><div>So how does this compare to the two best agility trinkets out there - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56394">Tia's Grace</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58181">Fluid Death</a>?We'll assume reforging to dodge.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tia's grace: 340 agility effectively + 171 mastery + 114 dodge.</div><div>Fluid Death: 380 agility effectively + 193 hit + 128 dodge</div><div><br /></div><div>According to the spreadsheet, mastery is worth .2782 agi, dodge .9110 agi, hit .0838. So we get a total value of:</div><div>Tia's Grace: 491.42</div><div>Fluid Death: 512</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, but what's the value of the proc on Bedrock? In a perfect world you'd get 963 dodge for 1/3rd of the time (which is unlikely), meaning you get 321 dodge. </div><div>Bedrock Talisman: 1285 armor *.1808 + 321 dodge *.9110 = 524</div><div><br /></div><div>Huh. So that means that in a perfect setting where you get procs all the time, Bedrock Talisman is actually better for time to live and dtps than Fluid Death or Tia's Grace. (at least for me).</div><div><br /></div><div>How about someone more geared? Well, while it's not perfect let's go ahead and use <a href="http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/lightnings-blade/sejta/simple">Sejta from Paragon</a>. (it's not perfect because while they're more geared they go for mastery and stamina over agility and dodge primarily)For them, bonus armor is only worth .1632 and dodge .8322 agi. Mastery is worth more (.323) as well, so for them the values of Bedrock are a bit lower - Bedrock, even in the best case, is still not as good as Fluid Death for Sejta. (And I'm sure that breaks his heart).</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, the value of armor's predictability combined with the value of the mitigation is quite nice and something to consider. Especially if the pattern of damage would give you that high avoidance in spikes. Heck, even something trivial like <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56370">Heart of Thunder</a> can be good if the cooldown is more useful than avoidance would be (for instance, on something where you take predictable chunks of large magical damage.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-44227998174333891762011-03-11T00:05:00.000-08:002011-03-11T00:07:46.248-08:00Congrats Fasc!Just saw over at <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2207-Zul-gurub-and-Zul-aman-Loot-List-Blue-Posts">MMO-Champion the loot lists for Zul</a>*, and lo and behold <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/search?q=fasc&f=post">Fasc - a longtime contributor to bear tanking and general tanking theory </a>and help - got an item named after him.<br /><br />Congrats, Fasc!<br /><br />What's awesome about the loot list: a freakin wrist item!<br /><br />What's not? No feral weapon.Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-57364303304966905662011-02-24T14:14:00.001-08:002011-02-24T14:58:01.852-08:00[General]Site update, general thoughtsI've simply stopped posting much any more. Really, I've simply stopped writing much altogether about WoW. <div><br /></div><div>This is mostly to do with me not raiding any more. Cataclysm hearkens back to the days where heroics were decently hard and raiding was challenging, and while that's awesome and everything I wanted improved, it's not nearly as easy to balance farming, rep grinding, valor point capping, and doing all the other things I like doing while also keeping a schedule of 4 hours where you do nothing else but play.</div><div><br /></div><div>So raiding is done, at least as a srs bsns raider. </div><div><br /></div><div>The theorycraft and news side of me has been...well, pretty down too. Part of it is that honestly, <a href="http://fluiddruid.net/">Alaron </a>and <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/853063-So-how-about-that-Yawning-feral-dps-drama?goto=newpost">Yawning </a>were doing such a kickass job that anything I'd add would be largely irrelevant. With them taking up most of what was needed there just haven't been that many topics to discuss. </div><div><br /></div><div>With them likely to be (or already) taking a hiatus, though, don't expect a lot more from me. The thing is that - and Yawning alluded to it - that feral has left me somewhat cold this expansion. Bears haven't grabbed me like I had hoped the dynamic rotation would have, and while it's not quite as boring as it used to be it's still not feeling like my abilities really...well, do much. And cats...well, I spent a lot of time <a href="http://fluiddruid.net/2011/02/the-state-of-feral/">on Alaron's blog</a> talking about why I'm not really thrilled with ferals, but allow me to quote myself as I think this is the clearest indicator:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "></p><blockquote><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">If you switched cata and wotlk in order, here are the buffs ferals would get:</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">-bleeds would be reduced in duration to increase the value of being on the target as well as making the rotation more potent.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Mastery changed to a scaling reduction of the opponents armor.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">FB changed to use all available energy and do significantly more damage, buffed by bleeds and bleed modifiers.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Blood in the watermremoved to increase difficulty of rotation.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Swipe buffed by approx. 300%</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Savage roar increases all damage instead of just autoattack, increasing it’s performance in the rotation and making the time on target more important</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Berserk removes fear.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Shifting forms removes slows and snares</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Fury swipes removed; it was not useful to have so much of the rotations damage on a noninteractive autoattack. This has been readers as damage to other abilities.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">Instead of some attacks scaling with weapon damage all weapons have a ‘feral ap’ stat, allowing all feral attacks to scale with weapon damage naturally.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; ">And that’s just off the top of my head. Yes, it’s nice to not be bound so much by arpen. Yes, skull bash is nice. The rest has been nerf after nerf, affecting either overall dps or simply the fun involved.</p><p style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; "><br /></p></blockquote></span></div>Add to this that ferals are underperforming both overall on DPS and in the melee group aside from one fight (Chimaeron) and you don't have the most compelling experience. At least I haven't. Things are easier, there's less to actually do, and it's not as fun for me. Other ferals differ, and that's awesome. But it's a good reason why I've been so malaise-y.<div><br /></div><div>Then there's the 'we can't have nice things' function of PvP. It's amazing how much I miss removing snares by shifting. This was a really class-defining ability that really, really makes me sad to lose it. I don't pvp, and i don't care that much about pvp balance, so it's doubly sad for me; it's like I can't have nice things because out there, some other cat is thumbing his nose at people. Same thing with zerk removing fear; it's shocking how often I ended up using this in PvE. It's not something that's required, or something that's really awesome. It's just something that is nice, and you miss it when it's gone, and makes the class that much less fun to play.<br /><div><br /></div><div>But anyway, to answer some long-held questions that I seem to get all the time:</div><div><br /></div><div>On weapon DPS: the weapon DPS is the best stat to 'stack' if you can for ferals; nothing comes close. But weapon speed or weapon damage don't matter in the slightest. All 200 DPS weapons are exactly the same as far as a feral is concerned. This is also why <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59520">Unheeded Warning</a> became so amazing for ferals.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>On warstomp: sadly, it does have a cast time - and that means it can be pushed back on and (more importantly) you can't dodge while doing it. It's still very good for some things, but it's certainly not as great as you'd hope as a bear. It's actually a bit better as a cat, assuming you don't piss off the tank by doing so.</div><div><br /></div><div>On stam vs. agility as a bear: stamina isn't nearly as awesomesauce as it was. Bears get roughly the same multiplier that other tanks do, so getting more doesn't help. Bears don't get a whole lot of gain from vengeance with that high stamina either; you get far more AP from agility. Most importantly, stamina marks in heroics are fairly small in terms of what you need to survive big hits. Longtime readers will remember that this was also the case for the Naxxramas era, and that didn't survive very long. I don't know whether or not stacking agility will be better in the long run, but if I had to bet on it I'd always bet on harder encounters having bigger hits to stress out everyone.</div><div><br /></div><div>On capping hit/expertise as a bear: the only reason to do this now is for threat and to a lesser extent, skull bash (which is going away as a reason in 4.1). That being said, threat is kinda sketchy for bears and no other stats are remotely nice. </div><div><br /></div><div>On capping hit/expertise for a cat: theoretically it is the least important thing to do. Realistically a lot of people have a much easier time with a rotation with high hit and expertise. Ultimately the difference between a hit and exp-capped feral vs a mastery/haste/crit feral is fairly small, so as long as you're stacking agility over everything else you'll be fine.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the <a href="http://stateofdps.com">state of dps</a> and ferals - yes, ferals are low. Yes, the simulators and the actual results agree. No, you probably won't see this as an issue if you're not in highly competitive raiding guilds. But statistically and mathematically this is entirely true: ferals are both doing poorly relative to overall DPS and to melee DPS (which is completely getting hosed so far this expansion). Any argument otherwise is essentially baking the numbers in a really quirky way. For instance, looking at the top 10 ferals and seeing that they are performing close to the top 250 overall (on a fight that favors ferals, no less) and thus declaring ferals are doing fine. Err...no. That being said, it's not hard to fix ferals to be more competitive: give them much better AoE and give them more base damage from either white damage shreds, or make their startup cost a bit cheaper. It's really not that hard to fix and ferals aren't so broken that they require a complete change.</div><div><br /></div><div>On blue posts and ferals: no, ferals aren't getting a lot of attention. I don't know why either. I do know that it's much, much faster to bring up an actual broken problem to a person who knows a dev than it is to bring it up on the forums. One has a chance of being fixed. Another...almost never does.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll still very rarely post, and if you do have something you'd like me to talk about I'll be happy to. Otherwise I wish you the best of luck in Cataclysm. :)</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-90665398007282555932011-01-06T13:36:00.000-08:002011-01-06T13:40:11.244-08:00[Bear]The most important PTR change for 4.0.6 is...Sure, you've seen the <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2138-Patch-4.0.6-Patch-Notes-%28PTR%29">patch notes at MMO talking</a> about bears getting nerfed in damage but boosted in armor, and cats getting nerfed on bleeds but boosted on shred & mangle.<br /><br /><a href="http://fluiddruid.net/2011/01/3-0-8-on-ptrs-early-thoughts/">Alaron talked about it</a>, as did <a href="http://jacemora.com/raiding-as-feral/changes-on-the-ptr-and-our-first-boss-down/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DOTM+%28Druid+of+the+Moon%29">Jacemora</a>.<br /><br />But what did they miss? Oh, they missed this little beauty.<br /><br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.</blockquote>Oh, HELL yes.<br /><br />Even on a 3 minute CD this is great for PvE, especially heroics. Interrupts, stopping a lot of damage early on, being able to get stupid achievements like the one from BRC - it has tons of potential use. Just awesome. Of course ,it's something we should have had for a long, long time - but at least we get it.Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-20800885752148234682011-01-05T16:37:00.000-08:002011-01-05T16:43:04.640-08:00[Bear]FYI - looks like skull bash can missThe rumors of skull bash's awesomeness and lack of need for hit (at least as a bear) appears to be a bit dead now, as logs have shown that skull bash can actually miss. Well, okay, it could always miss - but the interrupt can now also miss, and that means hit is actually more useful than it was.<br /><br />What I'm not clear about is whether or not skull bash uses the melee or spell table for hit. More testing is required. In any case, make sure to have some backup hit gear just in case you're the interrupt guy; interrupts are a Big Deal nowadays.Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-91540093955630480922010-12-28T12:49:00.001-08:002010-12-28T13:18:08.777-08:00[Druid] General comments on GC's recent postWanted to handle this separately, since it was a Big Deal over the holidays.<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=50051">Ghostcrawler </a>recently had a very big update on PvE and PvP balance, and actually mentioned ferals a couple times! I know, I was as shocked as you were. The whole thing is over at <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2127-Upcoming-Class-Changes-December-27-Hotfixes">MMO-Champ</a>, but the important relevant bits of ferals I've copied.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><blockquote>We’ll make a pass to make stats that aren’t attractive (but are supposed to be) more attractive. For example, we don’t want <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/irogues.gif" border="0" alt="" /> <b><span>Assassination rogues</span></b> to dismiss crit <b>or <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/idruids.gif" border="0" alt="" /> <span><span>Feral tanks</span></span> to dismiss haste</b>. We are considering making some physical attacks such as <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/idruids.gif" border="0" alt="" /> <b><span>Lacerate</span></b>, <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/ihunters.gif" border="0" alt="" /> <b><span>Steady Shot</span></b>, and <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/iwarriors.gif" border="0" alt="" /> <b><span>Slam</span></b> scale with haste.</blockquote><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 153, 255); "><br /></blockquote><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 153, 255); "><br /></blockquote></span></div>Okay, that doesn't sound THAT bad. Ferals shouldn't dismiss haste like they do now for the junk stat that it is, and improving lacerate and making it scale with haste sounds good, right?<div><br /></div><div>Kinda. See, right now lacerate is the filler attack for bears. It's what bears do when Mangle's on CD and they have rage, or it's what they do to get Pulverize back up while waiting for berserk procs. This works not because lacerate has an awesome bleed, but because lacerate's threat and damage got boosted on the front. It used to be that the actual lacerate attack was pretty insignificant but the lacerate bleed was awesome; they changed that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why did they change that? Well, mostly because (I think) they didn't want bears to be doing thrash and swipe as their 'filler' attacks and only use lacerate for the bleed. They also wanted Pulverize to be less of a threat-negative situation.</div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, haste could make lacerate dots tick twice as often per % and it still wouldn't be worth it. The bleeds just don't do enough damage or threat and the uptime of lacerate is low enough that it's not worth it anyway. Haste could only really improve how often the lacerate dot ticks; it's not like haste can make us gain more lacerate attacks. Thus, the only real way to make haste work better for ferals is to make the actual dot do more damage. </div><div><br /></div><div>Which would put bears back in the 'backloaded, slow threat' mode that they were. Except...well, bear threat is almost entirely defined by maul and mangle. Pulverize is done almost entirely to make maul and mangle hit harder. Lacerate should be up on the target to make mauls hit harder. So even if lacerate is boosted, it's still a very small portion of overall threat.</div><div><br /></div><div>As an example of this, let's say for argument's sake that the lacerate bleed component was a whopping 20% of overall threat for a bear. It isn't that - not even close. And it's not been that, either. 1% haste - 128 haste rating - would improve that bear's threat by .2%. If melee attacks are another 20% of overall damage that makes haste give a whopping .4% threat per 1% haste. </div><div><br /></div><div>Not that thrilling, I know. And because lacerate bleed crits don't proc savage defense any more, you have the fun times of only improving your savage defense via the white attacks. </div><div><br /></div><div>So...how do you make haste more attractive to bears? Here's a few ideas I had.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Make haste also improve avoidance directly. Have a deep feral talent that allows haste to give avoidance at 50% of dodge rating. Intuitive, easy, no real math. If that's too much, make it at 25% or something.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. Make lacerate ticks crit at an absurd rate and be able to proc Savage Defense. Then improve them via haste. You'd need to get like an 80% crit rate on lacerate dots to make this matter, but it could really help. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. Make white attacks have a chance to proc savage defense or some other defensive ability.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. Nerf maul and mangle and make lacerate better. </div><div><br /></div><div>5. Make pulverize not consume the lacerate stack. This alone would improve the threat of the bleed greatly.</div><div><br /></div><div>6. Revamp bears to make rage matter for for survival and less for threat.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of these, I really want 6 to be the case but it won't happen. The main reason that bears don't care about haste is that they don't care about rage, and they don't care about rage because threat isn't ever as important as survival. I don't think that threat is going to be nerfed hugely (though it might be), so it really comes down to making rage actually matter for a bear. What if a bear had to keep x amount of rage to keep their mitigation higher, by improving their armor? Or a bear took 1% less damage for every 10 rage they had stored? Or if barkskin, survival instincts and even savage defense required rage to use? Then we'd care about haste quite a bit.</div><div><br /></div><div>But bears aren't rage capped. They're GCD capped. And rage only helps with threat. So...we just don't care.</div><div><br /></div><div>Onto cats: the other statement in the big post was about druids in general (especially for pvp):</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 153, 255); "><blockquote>Even after we fixed their mastery, Feral druid bleeds still do a lot of damage and are undispellable. We plan to shift some of that damage back to main attacks. They are also a little too hard to control. Given that they are already hard to root, snare, or polymorph, we think the fear immunity from Berserk is too much.</blockquote><blockquote><br /></blockquote></span></div>So the fear immunity from berserk is gone. Oh well. Not hugely missed but it was very nice on a few boss fights, especially as a cat. As to shifting some of the damage from bleeds to main attacks - GOOD. 50-60% of damage coming from bleeds meant ferals were really funky on some fights. When they could establish a bleed rotation or at least establish rake and rip and they could tick for a good long time, ferals could rule. If a feral could get bleeds going on multiple targets at once, they could be good. But on fights where there was a lot of down time or rampup time, ferals kinda sucked. They took a while to get rip up, and often rip wouldn't tick for the duration anyway or couldn't be refreshed properly. Target switching was really lame. Haste, hit, and expertise all were ignored for bleeds since none helped bleeds do more damage once they were applied. It was just a bad move. <div><br />Really, I want haste to be better for cats. There are two ways to make that happen - either make bleeds scale with haste like they were going to originally or make bleeds do less overall damage and make white and yellow attacks do more. Note that ferals don't have a lot of yellow attacks to do; shred and mangle are basically it, and you don't want to mangle more than every 30 seconds (if you have t11) anyway. Still, haste making things faster and making more OoC procs, more white damage and more shred damage would be a good thing. It really doesn't have to be much to swing it that way either; simply make bleeds do about 10% less damage and make shreds and white attacks do about 10% more.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-80916033043789995462010-12-28T12:21:00.000-08:002010-12-28T12:45:32.802-08:00[Bear] Some early bear thoughtsA couple posters asked me to go back to writing some things about bears. <div><br /></div><div>Well, they're fuzzy. And shouldn't be petted.</div><div><br /></div><div>K. Happy holidays!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, fine. Real things to consider. Let's start with some basics:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Interrupts and taunts cannot miss. Note that the interrupt attack (like skull bash) can miss, but the actual interrupt effect will never miss. This has been confirmed by repeat experimentation a ridiculous amount of times. This means that other than threat (and savage defense procs), <i>there is no reason to gear for hit as a tank.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>2. Parry haste does not exist for anyone. For players, for mobs, anyone. That isn't to say that mobs can't parry - or that they don't quite a lot - but it does mean that using expertise to get less of a chance of gibbage is a bit silly. Thus<i>, </i>other than threat (and savage defense procs) <i>there is no reason to gear for expertise as a tank. </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>3. Haste improves the speed of autoattacks for bears. This improves rage generation slightly, but only slightly. It can slightly increase the number of SD procs you get, but only barely. In theory it will let you maul more, but not a whole lot more; mauls are usually a function of damage intake, not white attacks. Thus, other than threat (and savage defense procs) <i>there is no reason to gear for haste as a tank. </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>4. While vengeance improves savage defense, it does have a fairly high ceiling. For most bears this means that they are not vengeance-capped (where vengeance is equivalent to 10% of their health). Which means adding more health does not improve mitigation; just because you have more health doesn't mean you'll be hitting for more via vengeance. This will vary between tank to tank and encounter to encounter; I expect that as you get into heroic raids you'll start pushing the limit of vengeance stacking and it'll improve again. But for the most part, stamina doesn't help mitigation (stopping damage intake), it only improves survival.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. Most of the time stamina isn't helping survival all that much. We are at the point where effective health is not nearly as relevant as taking less damage and being smart with mechanics. Tank healing is pretty simple as long as the tank doesn't screw up a mechanic. Tank survivability is quite high; I've been able to survive for 20 seconds without external healing - and that's with a mishmash of tanking and dps gear. There aren't that many fights where the tank is going to be taking a ton of damage, at least not on normal modes; Heroic Nef hits for about 70-80k on a tank in normal 25-man, and he's by far the worst offender. What this means is that stamina past a certain point is just not that great. Gone are the days where bears got way more multipliers for their stamina, and gone are the days where a stamina gem gives 1.5 times the benefit it does to other tanks. Stamina is not the be-all, end all of a bear's use.</div><div><br /></div><div>What all of this means is the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. For heroics, don't bother stacking stamina unless your gear level is very low (like, just barely able to go into a random). Stack agility and reforge the highest value to dodge.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. Understand the fight and be able to redo gear cheaply. Flasks for agility are good (especially since the stam flask isn't as good as it should be). Swapping cheap enchants is another idea. Use justice points to buy second sets of gear and redo them for stam and agility.</div><div><br /></div><div>3. Threat is largely unimportant right now. If you're really concerned about it chances are you're doing something wrong; on a single target fight it is very, very hard for dps to touch you past 10 seconds.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. There's no reason to worry about misses on important stuff.</div><div><br /></div><div>The end result of all of this is that agility is Very Good. Mastery is Good. Crit rating is Good. Stamina is Good (to a point). Dodge (which gives about 50% more dodge% than agility does) is Good.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hit, Expertise, haste, strength, AP? All meh. </div><div><br /></div><div>Which, interestingly enough, is very similar to what the priorities are for cats. Other than dodge, that is. </div><div><br /></div><div>And armor. Oh yeah, armor! If you are going to go stacking effective health despite what others are saying, keep in mind that armor improves both survival and mitigation. Also keep in mind that the best heroic armor trinket - <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56370">Heart of Thunder</a> - has worse armor than the worst old trinket you can buy - good old <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=47735">Glyph</a>. If you can get your hands on a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=54591">Petrified Twilight Scale</a> it's well worth it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some other fun tricks:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Entangling roots is awesome. You're the only tank out there that has not only one CC but two. Both are situational and not perfect, but both are great and are good in a pinch. Know how to utilize them in various dungeons. Get used to them.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. Remember that you can shift out of snares. There are a TON of snares in dungeons now - Ozrek's paralyze is a good example. Instead of waiting for the damage to free you, why not free yourself?</div><div><br /></div><div>3. Get used to Line of Sight. You don't have an easy silence but you do have a ton of LoS abilities. This helps a ton with caster pulls. Otherwise casters should almost always be CCed; you can take a lot of physical punishment but don't have the control of caster that other tanks do. </div><div><br /></div><div>4. Remember that skull bash is a short charge, too. </div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-3638153243005288322010-12-17T16:21:00.000-08:002010-12-17T17:23:45.891-08:00[Cat] Optional talents (that aren't optional) for cats<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/02/16/nora260.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 260px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/02/16/nora260.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >While Cataclysm's kept me tons of busy, it's been a fun busy. I love the new heroics and their difficulty level and requirements for encounter awareness and ability use. I love the look of most of them as well. The fights are interesting and fairly hard, and most importantly hugely unforgiving. Trash is hard and needs to be respected. Kill orders need to be followed. CC should be used, even creatively at times. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >And normal modes of raiding have gone back to being very interesting in design and scope. Halfus, Maloriak, Theralon and Valiona, Omnitron, Magmaw - all have multiple phases and roles and a lot of movement and raid awareness. They really reward a good druid who can utilize all of their abilities and knows what to do and when to do it. I was very ready to bash Cataclysm's design and the 'coolness' of heroic modes compared to Ulduar, but so far the encounters are really great.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Part of the design for Cataclysm was to give everyone a chance to pick talents that were 'fun' or 'interesting' but didn't specifically boost DPS, because any DPS class that picked a non-DPS talent was obviously wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. In any given build for a class/spec, this means (in theory) that you have 5 or so talent points kicking around that can be used for a preferential talent or two but you don't really 'need' in order to play well.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >And today, I'm going to put that to the dirty, horrible lie that it is.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >The basic cat build is something like this:<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0Zf0GfkzrzbfzMcz"> the 0/31/6 build with 4 points remaining</a>. Even with that you have some options that people are going to argue about - do you take <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16859">Feral Aggression</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16972">Predatory Strikes</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=78892">Stampede</a> or <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48483">Infected Wounds</a>? You have to spend at least 5 points in some of those. Later on, do you take <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16941">Brutal Impact</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=33873">Nurturing Instinct</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=61336">Survival Instincts</a> or <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80316">Primal Madness</a>? Of all of those, you have to spend at least 8 points in there. And that's not even counting herobear/bearcat mixed specs that use something like <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16929">Thick Hide</a> or <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57878">Natural Reaction</a>! So you've got a monumental 12 points to play around with. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >So even if we wanted to skip some of these talents we can't. Here's the dirty secret: many really aren't optional. Here's the list of talents that every raiding and heroic-queueing cat must have, and why:</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" >Must haves:</span></b></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; " >1. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=33873">Nurturing Instinct</a>. Healing is very, very hard, and anything that makes it easier to heal you is good. However, that's not what makes this talent must-have. What makes this absolutely needed is the huge boost it gives to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=740">Tranquility</a>. While it's on a very long cooldown Tranquility is something every druid should be using or ready to use in many situations in raiding, and being able to get a lot of healing out of it is important. It'll never be as good as a Balance druid's version, but it still is much better. Think of it as the new version of innervate; instead of giving mana back to a healer, it's giving mana back to a healer in the form of smart heals that heal for a ton.</span></span></b></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; " ><br /></span></span></b></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">2. </span></span></b><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16941">Brutal Impact</a>. The argument against Brutal Impact was that so many other classes have good interrupts that it's really not necessary. Okay, that's true in 25 man to a point - though there are enough 'random stack on this add' that that isn't quite as true, and it does add a small but significant charge effect. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br />But what about 10-man? In a 10-man you're probably one of 2 or maybe three melee. The chances of any of them having a good interrupt is fairly low. Chances are you'll have to have an interrupting team - and Skull Bash is just as good for it as anything out there. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Where it really shines is in 5-mans. While there aren't that many bosses that have 'must have' interrupts in 5 mans, there are a few. More importantly almost every single trash pack has interruptable abilities that do a ton of damage or cause chaos. If you can interrupt those, the runs go much more smoothly. Help your healers and tank out and go interrupt stuff. Learn how to do it now - because you will be asked to do it later. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >3. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=61336">Survival Instincts</a>. This one is pretty easy to understand: every 5 minutes it's very, very hard to kill you. Again, another mana-saver for healers, a life-saver for you, and a very easy way to prevent damage by going bear, popping this and Frenzied regen. Get used to using it regularly in boss fights, particularly in heroics. It also helps go herobear and use this too. Raid strategies will be based around being able to use personal cooldowns to survive big attacks - and honestly Barkskin just doesn't cut it sometimes.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Most everyone expects you have this, and you do have it right?</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; " >1. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16859">Feral Aggression</a>. This was almost must-have. The primary reason isn't the boost to Ferocious Bite (though that is a small DPS increase at 25% and less), it's the applying sunders instantaneously, 3 at a time, for 5 minutes. This is far better than the warrior or the rogue version. The rogue version takes energy, the warrior version takes rage and a GCD. Faerie Fire gets applied at range (usually before the fight starts), cats aren't GCD bound and usually can pool energy without any DPS issues and having all three sunders up early is a great boost. If you don't have this you're going to take up 3 GCDs and 12 seconds to put up all the FF stacks. While the GCDs don't hurt, this means you're going to be doing a decent amount less damage in those 12 seconds. What's worse is that all your friends are too. It isn't a requirement, but given that it boosts personal DPS and raid DPS and is the best way to put up sunders you should have it - just like you forced those warriors to sunder so the rogues didn't have to, you should too. </span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; " ><br /></span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >The rest are pretty much your choice. Note that if you take these talents you basically have 5 points to split amongst the rest of the optional ones - one of which must go into a tier five talent or less.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >Some of you might be asking why <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80316">Primal Madness</a> is considered optional. The reason is that it's a very situational, small DPS increase. For two talent points you get 20 more energy, which by itself is half as good as Tiger's Fury. That's not great but is okay. The problem is that when the buff fades, you lose up to 20 energy right away. It's very rare that you can end at 0 energy just as the debuff goes off, so most of the time it'll be at best a very small DPS gain. You can in theory micromanage it so that you cancel the debuff just as you use the ability that causes you to lose the energy (for example, macroing shred to cancel the Primal Madness debuff) but even then you're likely to lose 4-5 energy simply from latency. It's just not that great. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >So the reality is that you basically have 5 talent points to spend as you see fit outside of the above, and at least one needs to be in a tier-5 talent. This is one reason that it's hard to do the bearcat build - you have to skip out on at least one of those talents, and chances are it's either Nurturing Instinct (which is incredible) or Brutal Impact (which is mandatory for 5-mans). Or you gimp your bear slightly, not taking <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48483">Infected Wounds</a> or <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80313">Pulverize</a>. It's a hard choice, and ultimately one I can't advocate - even though there have been a ton of times I've had to go herobear and tank something for a while. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >That being said - bear gear and cat gear have never, ever been closer. And if you want to be a herobear, all you really need is Thick Hide.</span></div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-89606215351524522472010-12-13T11:57:00.000-08:002010-12-14T08:21:25.751-08:00[Cat] Cataclysm heroic drops by slot and by dungeon<div>This is a quick and dirty list of all the drops that come from the heroic dungeons. I did this mostly for me to be able to see where I should queue if I have a choice of doing only one or two dungeons a day. Note that there's almost no difference between pieces on this list and other pieces at the same ilvl, so don't worry too much about getting the best piece.</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/items?filter=qu=3;minrl=80;maxrl=85;ub=11;cr=166:23:106:20;crs=4:3:-2323:3;crv=0:0:0:0;gm=3;rf=1;wt=32:21:20:77:170:103:96:117:119;wtv=3.88:2.57:2:0.96:0.91:0.82:0.75:0.71:0.71;gb=1">The list used</a>.<div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Back:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63473">Cloak of Thredd</a> - Deadmines</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56315">Twitching Shadows</a> - BRC</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56379">Kaleki Cloak </a>- Lost City</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65177">Cape of the Brotherhood</a> - Deadmines</div><div><br /></div><div>While there are a lot of options here, there are almost as many options outside of dungeons. There's the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62361">Revered Earthen Ring cloak</a> and a cheap <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56548">LW pattern cloak</a> that are just as good, and one that's <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58191">even better from Valor points</a>. So don't run things just for this - it's a nice thing if it drops. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Chest:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63468">Defias Brotherhood Vest</a> - Deadmines</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56455">Vest of Misshapen Hides</a> - Grim Batol</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=57874">Hieroglyphic Vest</a> - Halls of Origination</div><div><br /></div><div>Another embarassment of riches here. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58131">The justice piece is also good</a>, there's a great <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56562">LW crafted piece</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=60287">an even better T11 piece</a>. There's even a reasonably <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62374">competitive 333 piece from honored H</a>yjal. So don't bother running dungeons for just this slot.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Feet:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56395">Crafty's Gaiters</a> - Lost City</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65178">VanCleef's Boots</a> - Deadmines</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63435">Boots of the Predator</a> - SFK</div><div><br /></div><div>These have much fewer rivals. There's only one vendor piece, and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58482">it's a valor cost</a>. The next best thing is off of a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=66914">long quest chain for Halls of Origination</a> - and it's normal. This is a good one to go for if you want to go for something. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Finger:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56412">Ring of Blinding Stars</a> - HoO</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56310">Skullcracker Ring</a> - BRC</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56282">Nautilus Ring</a> - Throne of Tides</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56445">Ring of Dun Alguz</a> - Grim Batol</div><div><br /></div><div>Rings are always in short supply early on. While there's a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62362">good ring for exalted with Earthen R</a>ing that's only one thing - and as you'll see you'll want to get exalted with Dragonmaw first. One of the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52318">best rings is a JC recipe</a>, but those are going to be hard to get early on since they cost 4 chimera's eyes to make and 5 to acquire. A better choice is <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62348">Therazane's revered ring</a>, which you'll be going for rep-wise anyway (unless you're a scribe). So do try to get one of these and get the Therazane rep ring, with the aim to go for Earthen Ring later.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Hands:</span></b><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56368">Gloves of Haze</a> - Vortex Pinnacle</div><div><br /></div><div>Ouch. The best <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62417">comes from Dragonmaw Exalted rep</a>, but that might take a while. The next best <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58138">is a justice point drop</a>. Vortex Pinnacle doesn't have much, and I'd really aim for getting exalted with Dragonmaw - but if you're unlucky the JP purchase might be the best way to go. Hopefully you get lucky :)</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Head</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56344">Helm of Numberless Shadows</a> - Stonecore</div><div><br /></div><div>Double ouch. The other option<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58133"> is a justice point drop</a>. Well, or a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=60202">trash drop from a raid</a>, but chances are you won't be getting that any time soon. Stonecore is a good instance to run for this and for the weapon, so try to get this early. Otherwise it should be one of your earliest justice point purchases as it won't be wasted any time soon. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Legs:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56309">Beauty's Chew Toy</a> - BRC</div><div><br /></div><div>Another low-drop slot with even less competition than the head - the only other piece is the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58132">justice point legs</a>. Note that there are a lot of good 333-level quest rewards for legs and helm, so this might not be as huge an upgrade for you as other slots (notably the hands) - but this will not be wasted. Also BRC doesn't have that much to offer, making this even better.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Neck:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56338">Pendant of the Lifeless Grotto</a> - Stonecore</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56422">Mouth of the Earth</a> - HoO</div><div><br /></div><div>Not many dungeon drops, but all sorts of weird options abound. There are <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=67137">world drops that are super expensive but awesome</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52350">JC recipes</a> (which are also expensive), a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62378">Guardians of Hyjal Revered</a> purchase, a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=57931">justice point</a> purchase and<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56292"> another random BoE</a>. While GoH doesn't have much going for it to get to revered, you might already be close to it if you did Hyjal - so consider doing that. Otherwise go to Stonecore. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Relic:</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56316">Sandshift Relic</a> - BRC</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63460">Relic of Arathor</a> - SFK</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><br /></b></span></div><div>Forgot this category in the prior list...oops. So this makes BRC and SFK even tastier. The options you have are an <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62245">inscription crafted item</a> or the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=64671">eventual valor purchase</a>. This isn't a crucial slot, so I'd recommend just trying to get it as it comes in one of the two above dungeons.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Shoulders:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56273">Caridean Epaulettes</a> - ToT</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63449">Thieving Spaulders</a> - SFK</div><div><br /></div><div>Another set of short options. The<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=58134"> justice point vendor</a> is good for this if you don't get lucky, and there's almost nothing else. This might be a good thing to buy early since chances are you won't have a good set of shoulders from questing, though a decent entry level piece <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=66905">comes from a quest out of Lost City</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Trinket:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56295">Grace of the Herald</a> - BRC</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56440">Skardyn's Grace</a> - Grim Batol</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56394">Tia's Grace</a> - Lost City</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56328">Key to the Endless Chamber</a> - Stonecore</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56427">Left eye of Rajh </a>- HoO</div><div><br /></div><div>The first two are certainly awesome. I'll go more into trinkets when we move into raids, but there's good reason to first go <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65805">for the quest in Uldum</a> and then go for BRC or Grim Batol. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Weapon</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56343">Darkling Staff</a> - Stonecore</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56382">Seliza's Staff</a> - Lost City</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56325">Berto's Staff</a> - BRC</div><div><br /></div><div>Ah, the real reason to do Stonecore - just like you did Violet Hold last expansion. There is a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=67153#comments">BoE that drops from a world boss</a>, but it's likely that you won't be killing him any time soon. There's also a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62455">revered weapon from the Tol Barad dailies</a>, but that will take a while to get just because of the daily limits. Finally, there's an <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=55066">absurdly expensive weapon from blacksmithing</a>, but don't bother unless you really are loaded and want something now now now.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Waist:</b></span><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56429">Red Beam Cord</a> - HoO</div><div><br /></div><div>Yeah, not a lot of drops. HoO is good because of the sheer amount of bosses in it (and thus JP). But there are a lot of options for belts. There's the<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56537"> epic LW belt</a> which will compete until you get to heroic raids. There's a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=57918">JP belt as well</a>. I'd personally go for the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=62446">revered Ramkahen belt</a>, since you want revered with Ramkahen to get your head enchant for cats anyway. Finally, there is a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=67240">BoE belt from random guys in Uldum</a>, but chances of this being around are rare.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Wrist:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63454">Double Dealing Bracers</a> - SFK</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56409">Poison Fang Bracers</a> - HoO</div><div><br /></div><div>This slot has almost no options. One of the 'best' is the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56522">PvP bracers from LW</a>. Another is the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=55886">normal version of Halls of Origination</a>, but that's painful to do just for this (even if it drops from the first boss). So running SFK and HoO should be something of a priority until these drop.</div><div><br /></div><div>In terms of dungeons, here's how I'd rank the priority of doing them. </div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; ">Blackrock Caverns:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56315">Twitching Shadows</a> - BRC</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56310">Skullcracker Ring</a> - BRC</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56309">Beauty's Chew Toy</a> - BRC</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56325">Berto's Staff</a> - BRC</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56295">Grace of the Herald</a> - BRC</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56316">Sandshift Relic</a> - BRC</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Legs with no other drop competition, a weapon, a trinket and a ring? Awesome. Number one for me. Heck, it even drops the best relic!</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; "><b>Stonecore:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56344">Helm of Numberless Shadows</a> - Stonecore</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56338">Pendant of the Lifeless Grotto</a> - Stonecore</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56343">Darkling Staff</a> - Stonecore</div></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56328">Key to the Endless Chamber</a> - Stonecore</div><div><br /></div><div>A weapon, a neck, a helm without a drop replacement and a trinket make this a really high choice for me. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; "><b>Lost City:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56379">Kaleki Cloak </a>- Lost City</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56395">Crafty's Gaiters</a> - Lost City</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56382">Seliza's Staff</a> - Lost City</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56394">Tia's Grace</a> - Lost City</div><div><br /></div><div>Boots, a decent trinket and a weapon are good reasons to do this one. This gets the nod over HoO simply because of the importance of getting a weapon. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; ">Halls of Origination:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=57874">Hieroglyphic Vest</a> - Halls of Origination</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56412">Ring of Blinding Stars</a> - HoO</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56422">Mouth of the Earth</a> - HoO</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56429">Red Beam Cord</a> - HoO</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56409">Poison Fang Bracers</a> - HoO</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56427">Left eye of Rajh </a>- HoO</div><div><br /></div><div>So much stuff! There's nothing insane here, but there's a ring, bracers, an okay trinket, and a belt if you don't get the rep one. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; "><b>SFK:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63435">Boots of the Predator</a> - SFK</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63449">Thieving Spaulders</a> - SFK</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63454">Double Dealing Bracers</a> - SFK</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63460">Relic of Arathor</a> - SFK</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Boots and bracers are both hard to come by replacements. The shoulders aren't bad either. Not amazingly great, but definitely good. The relic doesn't hurt matters either.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Deadmines:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63473">Cloak of Thredd</a> - Deadmines</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65177">Cape of the Brotherhood</a> - Deadmines</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=63468">Defias Brotherhood Vest</a> - Deadmines</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=65178">VanCleef's Boots</a> - Deadmines</div><div><br /></div><div>While cloaks and chests are easy to come by, boots are not. Plus this is a fun, fun dungeon. Still, it does take a while and is a beast to pug. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Grim Batol:</span></b></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56455">Vest of Misshapen Hides</a> - Grim Batol</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56445">Ring of Dun Alguz</a> - Grim Batol</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56440">Skardyn's Grace</a> - Grim Batol</div><div><br /></div><div>The trinket is the only super awesome piece here. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Throne of the Tides:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56282">Nautilus Ring</a> - Throne of Tides</div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56273">Caridean Epaulettes</a> - ToT</div><div><br /></div><div>I wanted to be excited about this because it's a great instance, but honestly? Skip it. It takes a while and there just isn't that much stuff there. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Vortex Pinnacle:</b></span></div><div><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=56368">Gloves of Haze</a> - Vortex Pinnacle</div><div><br /></div><div>While gloves are hard to get a replacement for, that there's only one drop at all is bothersome. It's a somewhat fast dungeon but not very pug-friendly. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div></div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-5927175047063430242010-12-08T13:29:00.000-08:002010-12-08T14:01:28.780-08:00[Druid, general] Yeah, I heard there wuz a CataclysmNo excuses; I've just had too much stuff going on recently. But I'm around. Fortunately, awesome bloggers galore are out there.<br /><br />For starters, on cat DPS: don't use the built-in weights of wowhead for cat DPS. They overvalue mastery and undervalue agility and weapon DPS significantly. Instead, use <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/items?filter=minrl=80;maxrl=85;ub=11;cr=166:23;crs=4:3;crv=0:0;gm=3;rf=1;wt=32:21:20:77:170:103:96:119:117;wtv=3.88:2.57:2:0.96:0.91:0.82:0.75:0.71:0.71;gb=1">the great results that were generated</a> by Mew and <a href="http://fluiddruid.net/the-fluid-druid-4-0-1-cataclysm-feral-dps-guide/">provided by Alaron at Fluid Druid</a>. The only thing I've done is save the filter that he used in a link - he did all the heavy lifting, and <a href="http://fluiddruid.net/2010/11/the-cataclysm-feral-dps-gear-wishlist-part-1/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+fluiddruid+(The+Fluid+Druid)">even did a gear list for cats that is mostly complete</a>.<div><br /></div><div>For your bear needs, I point you to <a href="http://theincbear.com/">the inconspicuous bear</a>, who really rocks. Hasn't done a gear list yet, but a lot of it looks much like you'd expect it to - stuff with sockets and stamina for leather, stuff with lots of stamina and dodge on jewelry (though the jewelry looks competitive from both dps and tank side). A quick and dirty bear weighing can be found in the <a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110351-feral_bear_cataclysm_release/#post1809023">Elitist Jerks bear thread</a> for both <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/items?filter=maxle=500;ub=11;cr=166:23;crs=4:3;crv=0:0;gm=3;rf=1;wt=22:41:21:45:109:170:20:117:96:77:119:115:103;wtv=50.69:35.77:28.51:21.69:10.9:9.49:7.76:6.35:6.33:3.88:3.19:2.13:0.94;gb=1#main-hand">pre-heroics</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/items?filter=maxle=500;ub=11;cr=166:23;crs=4:3;crv=0:0;gm=3;rf=1;wt=22:41:21:45:109:170:96:20:117:115:77:119:103;wtv=47.13:35.34:22.41:19.55:9.92:7.41:6.35:4.8:4.77:3.19:2.4:2.13:0.66;gb=1">post-heroics</a>. As pointed out by Alaron, the important thing isn't to quibble about how close things are to each other, it's to get something in the same tier of good gear - and towards post-heroics there really aren't that many choices.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've updated the sidebar with the quick wowhead links too.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why dodge and not mastery? With mastery getting nerfed after 4.01, dodge rates already fairly low, crit rates WAY lower and overall things hitting you for metric butt-tons of damage, mastery doesn't work quite as well. When you can regularly absorb every non-dodged attack by 8-10k, it's great. When it works about 1/3rd the time, absorbs only 8k out of 80k, and isn't reliable? Compared to dodge, it's crap.</div><div><br /></div><div>On leveling: well, chances are you're already 85, exalted with everyone and raiding. If you haven't started yet, I would recommend (as a druid) doing Vash'jir. It's not nearly as populated and seal form gives huge, huge benefits to a druid in the zone. However, as soon as you hit 82 get to Deepholm and do as much Therazane (specifically, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=26829">this questline</a> which <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=26828">opens from this one</a>) as you can. Then get 83, do Uldum, then once you're 84 do Twilight Highlands. Don't bother completing each zone at this time; the leveling gulf is brutal, and it's much more efficient to quest in the harder places.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of the things I'm going to work on is a set of gear that you might miss if you don't do all the quests and where to go for those. That's mostly because I like that sort of thing. If you'd like to see something else, please ask.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-63394294224776081712010-10-19T14:26:00.000-07:002010-11-11T09:28:45.578-08:00[Cat] Current best in slot items for WotLK for catsThis was written by me over at EJ; figured it would be useful to folks here as well. Apologies for lack of linkages.<br /><br />Since you can't gear for mastery, the only compromise you're making is whether or not you want haste, crit, expertise or hit. That's all. There is no other compromise to be made. The question then becomes what gear gives you the most potential mastery value while also giving you the most hit and expertise (up to the cap) and the most agility.<br /><br />Doing something like this and evaluating 40% of the highest secondary stat as mastery (no matter what it was), I came up with the following values for gear. This was using 1.1 for agility, .6 for expertise and hit, .5 for haste and crit, 1.1 for mastery, 22 for each socket and assuming that the highest stat would always be converted to mastery.<br /><br /><code>shadowvault slayer's cloak back 228.12<br />sylvanas' cunning back 196.3<br /> <br />gloaming sark chest 416.28<br />ikfirus chest 431.86<br />T10277 chest 412.98<br /> <br />footpads of silence feet 289.6<br />frostbitten fur boots feet 297.6<br />taldaram's slippers feet 265.6<br /> <br />Endless Vengeance ring 209.66<br />bone colossus ring 232.5<br />frostbrood ring 228.12<br />saurfang ring 194.6<br />seal of many mouths ring 234.12<br />Signet of twilight ring 244.72<br /> <br />aldriana's hand 306.4<br />t10277 hand 297.2<br /> <br />discarded bag head 331.4<br />geistlord head 370.38<br />t10277 head 383.46<br /> <br />gangrenous legs 423.18<br />T10277 legs 423.58<br /> <br />sindragosa's cruel claw neck 228.12<br />baltharus' gift neck 216.56<br />precious neck 201.18<br />rimetooth neck 203.4<br /> <br />cultists shoulder 306.4<br />T10277 shoulder 297.2<br /> <br />Oathbinder weapon 434.58<br />Bloodfall weapon 422.18<br />distant land weapon 416.58<br />tainted twig weapon 380.86<br />hersir's weapon 328.32<br />shaft weapon 361.32<br /> <br />astrylian waist 297.6<br />soulthief waist 271.64<br />vengeful waist 283.2<br /> <br />umbrage wrist 247.02<br />toskk wrist 228.12<br />vambraces wrist 203.4<br /></code><br /><br />The highest non-tier piece is Ikfirus compared to any other. The gain is small but there. Another surprise is Seal of Many Mouths, which wins out over the other 277 rings due to the expertise. (note that this doesn't take into account the proc of Endless vengeance, but that shouldn't matter. Mouths, bone colossus, frostbrood, endless vengeance is the order for the 277s. <br /><br />The head and legs for T10 were both superior to their non-offtier values. The shoulders are identical to the Aldriana's in terms of gain; you could use either T10 shoulders or hands as your offtier piece, if it suited you. <br /><br />Based on this you would have the following gear set as a best in slot:<br />Cloak: Shadowvault's (40% of haste to mastery)<br />Chest: Ikfirus (40% of hit to mastery)<br />Feet: Frostbitten (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Rings: Signet of Twilight (40% of crit to mastery), Seal of many mouths (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Hand: T10 (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Head: T10 (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Legs: T10 (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Neck: Sindragosa (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Shoulder: T10 (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Weapon: Oathbinder (40% of haste to mastery)<br />Waist: Astrylian (40% of crit to mastery)<br />Wrist: Umbrage (40% of haste to mastery)<br /><br />This naively would result in the following (including the idol slot)<br />agility: + 1799<br />crit: +753<br />expertise: +272<br />haste: +719<br />hit: +126<br />mastery: +482<br /><br />This is clearly over the cap on expertise and under on hit, so you can simply reforge the ikfirus' expertise instead. Giving you 230 expertise and 171 hit. Not perfectly capped, but pretty close.<br /><br />I believe this is the maximal value of mastery you could get currently. It also has 21 sockets.Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-87286000078166467672010-10-14T11:20:00.000-07:002010-10-14T16:04:30.445-07:00[Bear] FAQ for 4.0.1/CataclysmGah! So busy. This needed to be up, like, yesterday.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span style="font-size: 21px; ">Introduction</span></span><br /><br /><b>Q: What's the point & purpose of this FAQ?</b><br />A: Short & simple answers for people who want a quick fix. You don't need to have followed the beta changes since day one. This is for those who didn't read everything on EJ, didn't pour over changes and just want to know what the heck is going on.<br /><br /><b>Q: You're wrong! My research says blah!</b><br />A: Maybe. And if so, point it out and I'll correct it. But I warn you - I do a lot of research and I'm good at it.<br /><br /><b>Q: But what about 5-mans? Or PvP?</b><br />A: I don't care. This is for bears who are MTing 10 and 25-man content, especially 25-man. It is probably suboptimal for other choices.<br /><br /><b>Q: You smell, and I hate you!</b><br />A: Enjoy the <a href="http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=27265656&sid=2000">WoW forums</a> then. I get flamed over there all the time too.<br /><br /><b>Q: You don't talk about trash mobs, enchants, or detailed gear selection!</b><br />A: Nope, this is quick and dirty. I've talked about professions, gear choices, various good stats and other things elsewhere.<br /><br /><b>Q: You're just repeating stuff on EJ, Tankspot, and Toskk's forums!</b><br />A: Largely yes. That's kind of the point - I do the reading so you don't have to.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: 21px; "><span style="font-weight: bold; ">Mechanics & play changes:</span></span><br /><br /><b>Q: What rotation do I use?</b><br />A@80: For single target it's mangle when it's available, lacerate if there is no lacerate on the target, swipe when it's available, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=80313">pulverize</a> to keep the buff up after 3 lacerates, lacerate otherwise. Faerie fire if you're in a low-rage situation. Maul if you're in a high rage situation. For multitarget it's largely the same, save that you should prioritize spreading lacerates around to proc more mangles if possible. And start the pull by thornsing yourself.<div>A@85: For single target it's mangle off CD, lacerate if there is no lacerate on the target, thrash off CD, swipe off CD, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=80313">pulverize</a> to keep the buff up and lacerate otherwise. Faerie fire when you're low on rage, and maul if you're in high rage or need a quick boost of threat. And start the pull by thornsing yourself. On multitarget, rotate between swipe and thrash and lacerate otherwise, throwing mangles and mauls in when you have the rage.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: Stack lacerate to 3? But I thought it stacked to 5?</b></div><div>A: Nope. Lacerate is only three stacks. And even better, the damage it does to start with is significantly better, and the dot is pretty weak. Which makes it quite spammable.<br /><br /><b>Q: Pulverize is that good?</b><br />A: Yep. Pulverize helps with more savage defense, helps with rage, and does a good amount of damage by itself.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Q: So the single target rotation uses both of our AoE abilities?</b></div><div>A: Yeah, at least right now; both do significantly large amounts of threat and damage.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: What's </b><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=77758"><b>thrash</b></a><b>?</b></div><div>A: <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=77758">Thrash </a>is an ability learned at level 81. It's great threat and applies a bleed.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: So no more swipe spam?</b></div><div>A: Nope! Swipe has a 6-second CD, as does Thrash. You'll want to plan to use swipe based on the fight and make sure that it's up if adds spawn at a specific time.</div><div><br /><b>Q: So no more faerie fire?</b><br />A: Faerie fire costs no rage but isn't that great in terms of threat any more, at least not compared to lacerate.<br /><br /><b>Q: Wait - so what happened to mangle? What's the new berserk thing?</b><br />A: Berserk now gives a 30% chance to your lacerate ticks to reset mangle's CD. There isn't an improved mangle any more - but the lacerate ticks mean that you have a good chance to get extra mangles if you're paying attention. That means lacerate should be up all the time (it should be the first thing you do after pulverize) and ideally you should pulverize only right after a lacerate tick.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Q: All my attacks had /cast maul associated with them - should I keep doing that?</b></div><div>A: No! Maul has a 3-second CD, is off the GCD (so you can use it whenever) and doesn't do nearly as much threat and damage as it used to. Plus it's a huge rage sink, and chances are you don't want to mess with your rotation too much to use it. It's better used in multitarget situations or at the start of a fight to get a good threat lead.</div><div><br /><b>Q: So the magic number for defense was 156 defense rating or 103 resilience rating before. What is it now?</b><br />A: 0. Bear form & <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=16931">Thick Hide</a> automatically take care of being uncrittable.<br /><br /><b>Q: What are the new cooldowns bears have?</b><br />A: <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=61336">Survival instincts</a> has changed to be a true shield wall - 60% reduction every 5 minutes. Barkskin is unchanged. <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=22842">Frenzied Regeneration</a> (with the <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40896">glyph</a>) is now sort of like the old survival instincts but doesn't increase your current health unless you're very low, but adds the guardian spirit ability. All are very strong.<br /><br /><b>Q: Okay, those are pretty big changes - what else has happened?</b></div><div>A: <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=80964">Skull Bash</a> is your new interrupt. And it's a mini-charge too!<br /><br /><b>Q: Anything else?</b><br />A: <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=84840">Vengeance</a> is pretty neat for bears. Especially since Vengeance combines with <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=62600">Savage Defense</a> to make blocking kinda ridiculous at times.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: Wait, </b><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=62600"><b>Savage Defense</b></a><b>? Isn't that kind of a lame skill?</b></div><div>A: Not any more! With it being modified by mastery, increased via vengeance and being fairly large anyway it means big, big blocks quite often.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: So what other goodies am I getting come Cataclysm?</b></div><div>A: Not a lot, sadly. I mentioned thrash, which feels like an answer to a question that doesn't matter any more (how to tank lots of mobs easily, which you shouldn't be doing!). At 83 you get <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=77761">stampeding roar</a>, which is somewhat neat but has such a small radius currently it's not super useful. Still, it's another dash and it's in bear form. And at 85, you get <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=88747">wild mushroom</a>...which is essentially as useful as hurricane.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: What's with </b><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40908"><b>innervate</b></a><b>?</b></div><div>A: It's horrible now for ferals; it gives back mana based on the caster's mana pool. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q:</b><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=20484"><b> Rebirth has a 30-minute CD?</b></a><b> Yikes!</b></div><div>A: Yeah, it's a bad design. I hope it goes away soon. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: is there any good news?</b></div><div>A: well, you can use <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=44203">tranquility </a>to heal anyone, sort of like a divine hymn, but unless you have <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=33873">nurturing instinct</a> chances are it won't be useful.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 21px; ">Gear:</span><br /><br /><b>Q: Where's all my extra armor?</b><br />A: On leather, extra armor is long gone. On nonleather there's a bug that removed a lot of it; it should return soon.<br /><br /><b>Q: So what, we're supposed to wear rogue leather?</b><br />A: Yep.<br /><br /><b>Q: That sucks!</b><br />A: Not really, not any more. Most leather pieces have as much stamina as plate pieces do. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be.<br /><br /><b>Q: What rogue leather is best then? It's got all these weird-ass stats...</b><br />A: The only stats that help mitigation/avoidance directly that are on rogue leather are agility, stamina and mastery. Crit somewhat helps make more savage defense procs, as does hit and expertise, but they aren't big deals. And agility is huge now.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: How is agility huge?</b></div><div>A: Well, for a bear it gives crit %, dodge %and 2 AP per agility point. It's quite the one-stop shop for the well-to-do bear. Note that it doesn't give armor any more. Yeah, I don't know either.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Q: Mastery? </b></div><div>A: It's a lame name, I know. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: Okay, but that wasn't the question. What does it do?</b></div><div>A: For bears, Mastery increases the size of your savage defense shields by 4% per mastery point. This sounds wimpy, but it ends up being quite substantial; each mastery point at 80 increases absorption by about 400-500 damage, and that increases quite a bit with vengeance.<br /><br /><b>Q: But doesn't that mean PvP gear has the best stats for tanking then?</b><br />A: Yep! At least it has the best mitigation/avoidance stats. The PvE gear is better for threat. Sadly this hasn't changed in 4 years either.</div><div><br /><b>Q: So great...I have to pvp now, don't I?</b><br />A: Not really. It may give you a small advantage, but since you can't reforge resilience away it loses a lot of item budget.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: Reforge?</b> </div><div>A: Yeah! This is the biggest thing for bears in a long time. You can convert 40% of a secondary stat (not agility or stamina or strength) into another secondary stat that isn't on the item. For bears, this means that you can convert haste (which is pretty weak for bears) or extra hit into dodge rating or mastery. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: So what you're telling me is...</b></div><div>A: Yes! Tanking leather is back! Sorta.<br /><br /><b>Q: What about the non-leather items?</b><br />A: This is sort of a tough one. On the one hand, the tanking non-leather items can have extra armor. On the other hand, the DPS ones have agility and more threat, which can give more boosts. I'd recommend taking the non-leather tanking pieces with + armor when they exist, take the tanking trinkets that give stamina and armor, but look for high-agility and high-mastery jewelry otherwise.<br /><br /><b>Q: So defense is gone...what does that mean for gear?</b><br />A: It means look for gear with armor, agility, mastery, and dodge. Strength is okay but not thrilling.<br /><br /><b>Q: How about gems?</b><br />A: Stamina is still the king. Agility is better than it was before, but avoidance still isn't thriling compared to the gains you get from stamina. </div><div><br /><b>Q: You have mongoose on your tanking staff?</b><br />A: Sadly Mongoose is still the best bear enchant at 80. At 85 there are going to be better ones, at least.<br /><br /><b>Q: Okay...what about other enchants?</b><br />A: In general, go for stamina and agility, then avoidance.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Talents:</span></span><br /><br /></div><div><b>Q: Wow. What happened to our tree?</b></div><div>A: It went boom. You now pick a specialization (feral) and then get talents roughly once every other level. The total talents that you can have at level 80 is 36, and at 85 is 41. And you can't get any talents from any tree other than feral until you've spent 31 points in feral. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Q: Survival of the fittest is gone! So is MANGLE? HOW IS I DON"T EVEN GAAARHRGHG</b></div><div>A: Relax. Both are baked into the feral specialization or <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=16931">part of Thick Hide</a>.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Q: So what spec would you recommend?</b></div><div>A: At 80, you can't go deep into the resto tree - so I'd go with something like a <a href="http://wowtal.com/#k=-wbD1zmx.a67.druid">0/33/3</a> build.</div><div>A: at 85, you want to get perseverance and you might as well get master shapeshifter along the way, so you end up with a <a href="http://wowtal.com/#k=-wZnH7Iuh.a67.druid">0/32/9 build</a>. There are a few options available for those points.</div><div><br /><b>Q: There don't seem to be a lot of options for bears.</b><br />A: That's not a question, but yeah, you're right. Most of the talents that are somewhat situational are either completely suicidal (<a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=48495">King of the Jungle</a>) or just aren't useful for bears at all (like <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=33873">Nurturing Instinct</a>). Your options come down to <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=16941">brutal impact</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=48484">infected wounds</a> or <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=78893">stampede</a>, basically. Of those I'd recommend skipping stampede, as it's only useful at the start of a fight.<br /><br /><b>Q: What about natural shapeshifter/master shapeshifter?</b><br />A: Master shapeshifter would be good if it were only 2 points, but it's essentially 3. And natural shapeshifter is worthless. There's not a lot else to spend your points on, though.<br /><br /><b>Q: King of the Jungle?</b><br />A: One of the best cat talents, but only meh for bears. Nice for an early threat lead but not all that useful otherwise. And threat really isn't that big of a concern right now. Still, get it if you plan on doing any decent amount of kitty.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; "><span style="font-size: 21px; ">Other choices:</span></span><br /><br /><b>Q: What Inscriptions?</b><br />A: <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40900">Mangle</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=64268">Berserk</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67484">Lacerate</a>, <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40896">Frenzied Regeneration</a> and <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67486">Feral Charge</a>. Also <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43334">Challenging Roar</a>. I'd recommend swapping between the <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40909">rebirth </a>and the <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43332">thorns glyph</a> for the third major.<br /><br /><b>Q: What professions?</b><br />A: Too early to tell, but my guess is jewelcrafting (since it's useful for all specs of druid) and either leatherworking or engineering.<br /><br /><b>Q: If I'm taking all these bear talents, how do I dps as a cat?</b><br />A: Much better than before. The main cat talent you don't have is King of the Jungle, but your shreds, rakes, and rips all hit fairly hard. You also are missing out on glyphs which hurts, but it's much better than it was before.<br /><br />Q: Wow...you're a sexy theorycrafter. You're so smart when you explain things. Where can I find <s>the places that you stole this from</s> more information?<br />A: <a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t101212-feral_cataclysm_discussion/">EJ forums on Cataclysm Feral druids</a> - the big one.<br /><a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t29453-combat_ratings_level_85_cataclysm/">Combat Ratings at 85</a>, which talks about diminishing returns<br /><a href="http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=27265656&sid=2000">Beta forums</a>, which kind of suck right now<br /><a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php">MMO Champion</a>, which has the latest updates on specs and talents<br /><a href="http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr">Rawr</a>, the best damn optimizer on the planet.<br /><br />Plus a whole ton of places that I can't be bothered to mention.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-28655509980252451552010-10-08T17:30:00.000-07:002010-10-08T17:48:41.646-07:00[Cat] Cataclysm cats part 4: the case for haste<div>Previous posts here:</div><div><a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/09/cat-cataclysm-cats-part-1-basics.html">Cataclysm part 1: the basics</a></div><div><a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/09/cat-cataclysm-cats-part-2-case-for.html">Cataclysm Cats part 2: the case for mastery</a></div><div><a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/09/cat-cataclysm-cats-part-3-case-for-crit.html">Cataclysm Cats part 3: the case for crit</a></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(10, 5, 3); line-height: 16px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; ">After a lot of digging on EJ, I found good evidence for the haste regeneration formula, and it roughly corresponds to my somewhat loose testing so it seems to make sense. The haste energy regeneration formula is as follows:</span></div></span></div><div><br /></div><div>energy regeneration/second = 10*(1+ haste%)</div><div><br /></div><div>In other words, if you have 20% haste, you regenerate 12 energy/second. If that sounds underwhelming...you're probably right. At 20% haste, in order to gain one extra shred you wait 20 seconds. That's helpful, don't get me wrong, but with the sorry state of damage on shreds this isn't nearly as impressive as you might think. </div><div><br /></div><div>Furthermore, the relative percentages of damage aren't close to what they are now. With the loss of arpen and the loss of Feral AP, melee damage is significantly less. Ironically bleeds are significantly more than they were before (or perhaps they're the same, but as a relative level they went higher. I'm seeing reports of bleed damage being as high as 50-60% of overall damage at raid-buffed levels, and melee close to 25-30%. </div><div><br /></div><div>With melee that low and with bleeds that high, haste only improves about 50% of your total damage. If you assume that shreds are 20% of your damage (which is actually a bit high) and melee is 30%, each percent of haste does the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>1% haste increases your melee damage by 1%, which increases your overall dps by .3%.</div><div>Assume the rate of shreds per a fight is roughly constant. In a 40 second period <a href="http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/09/cat-cataclysm-cats-part-3-case-for-crit.html">I showed that you have about time to do 7 shreds</a>. This means that each % of haste in a 40 second period gives you .1 shred, such that 10% haste gives you one extra shred in that time. This equates to 1/70 more shred damage per 1% haste, or:</div><div>1% haste = 1/70 * 20% = .28%</div><div><br /></div><div>The total gain of dps for haste is thus about .6% directly. In addition more haste gives you more combo points, which is potentially a source of ferocious bites - but only a small one. You'll get haste%/70*crit rate more combo points per % of haste in a 40 second period, which at 50% crit rate is about .07 CP per haste%. Not thrilling.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sadly, this is about as good as I'm going to get without a simulator, but it roughly confirms reports from others about how well haste scaling and haste conversion is compared to other stats. This disappoints me; I want haste to be an awesome ability because haste is <i>fun</i>. Being able to do more things is more fun. Hitting harder, bleeds doing more, critting more often - these don't directly impact the rotation and ability to do actions like haste does. Sadly, haste doesn't look to be that great.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that if haste made dots scale, haste would immediately be competitive with crit rate and likely close to agility. Which...is what blizzard wants, right? Sigh. </div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-28868074726081488522010-10-05T12:08:00.000-07:002010-10-05T12:15:10.201-07:00[General] Raid Warning podcast<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=6019034ea7&view=att&th=12b780834caa1d76&attid=0.2&disp=thd&realattid=f_gevjllum1&zw"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 166px;" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=6019034ea7&view=att&th=12b780834caa1d76&attid=0.2&disp=thd&realattid=f_gevjllum1&zw" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Just FYI to everyone - I'll be on the <a href="http://www.raidwarning.net/druid/">raid warning podcast</a> October 12th, as part of a general druid roundtable. I'm really excited to be a part of it and getting to talk with folks like <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.codeplex.com/rawr">Astrylian</a>, <a href="http://www.graymatterwow.blogspot.com/">Graylo</a> and <a href="http://www.restokin.com/">Lissanna</a>.<br /><br />If you have questions that you'd like raised, please send them in! I'll do my best to answer them. You can submit questions by calling in or<a href="http://www.blogger.com/raidwarningpodcast@gmail.com"> emailing raid warning</a>.<br /><br />I'm going to try and talk about the direction ferals are going in Cataclysm, the general lack of...anything about ferals in the beta so far and what I think that means, and some ideas for how to get started in 4.0.1 without killing yourself. If you'd like to know more, let me know!Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1872162580492321772.post-48704487597367732292010-10-01T13:18:00.000-07:002010-10-01T13:39:39.458-07:00[Druid] some groovy glyphs for feralsThanks to <a href="http://www.restokin.com/">lissanna over at restokin</a>, I have a better idea of what<a href="http://www.restokin.com/cataclysm-druid-beta-info/glyphs-from-druid-beta/"> glyphs ferals are going to want</a> come the 4.0.1 patch. Note that it's a very good idea to pick these up now if they're cheap, as if you learn them once you'll have them for the rest of your life. Note that I've not figured out exactly what is going to be best; I'm simply posting them to let you be aware of them. They are ranked in order of what I think will be best to worst.<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Bear glyphs:</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Prime:</div><div><ul><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40900">Glyph of Mangle</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67484">Glyph of Lacerate</a> (increases lacerate crit by 5%)</li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=45601">Glyph of Berserk</a></li></ul><div>Major:</div></div><div><ul><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40896">Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40897">Glyph of Maul</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67486">Glyph of Feral Charge</a> (cooldown on feral charge reduced by 1 second)</li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67485">Glyph of Faerie Fire</a> (faerie fire range increased by 10 yards)</li></ul><div>Minor:</div></div><div><ul><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43334">Glyph of Challenging Roar</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43331">Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43674">Glyph of Dash</a></li></ul><div>I don't think the faerie fire extension will be that critical, but it might be nice. And feral charge going from 15 to 14 seconds isn't that amazing of an ability unless they remove the dead zone and allow us to charge in and get the 15% haste.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cat:</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Prime:</div><div><ul><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40902">Glyph of Rip</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=45604">Glyph of Savage Roar</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67487">Glyph of Tiger's Fury</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40901">Glyph of Shred</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=45601">Glyph of Berserk</a></li></ul><div>Major:</div></div><div><ul><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=48720">Glyph of Ferocious Bite</a> (does not convert excess energy)</li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67486">Glyph of Feral Charge</a> (cooldown on feral charge reduced by 1 second)</li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=67485">Glyph of Faerie Fire</a> (faerie fire range increased by 10 yards)</li></ul><div>Minor:</div></div><div><ul><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43335">Glyph of the Wild</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43335"></a><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43331">Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth</a></li><li><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43331"></a><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43674">Glyph of Dash</a></li></ul><div>5 prime possibilities are interesting. The reason Tiger's Fury is so high right now is that Tiger's Fury appears to be one of the things they'll want ferals to manage, as it <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=5217">adds 15% more damage</a> for 6 seconds. Being able to do this ability every 27 seconds instead of every 30 means that you'll get 11% more TFs in a fight, potentially, which gives a 3.2% DPS increase. Furthermore, right now DoTs don't update with buffs like TF, so you'll want to time it so that your rips and rakes are refreshed when TF is up. This might lead to an optimal rotation where you have this, the <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40901">Glyph of Shred</a> and the <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=40902">Glyph of Rip</a> and skip the <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=45604">Glyph of Savage Roar</a> - because if you do this you can always update your rips with 15% more DPS, no matter what. More testing is required of course.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/item=43335">Glyph of the Wild</a> is included because of its ability to trigger Omen of Clarity effects very easily. With feral mana regen fairly low, being able to do this more often will be a good thing.</div>Kalonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05193899462301079034noreply@blogger.com21