Originally Posted by Aldriana
Sure - if the difference between doing 80% of a rogue's dps and 85% of a rogue's dps was the determining factor. But lets be honest: no one brings feral druids to raids because they match a rogue's dps. People bring feral druids to raids because they do pretty good dps and are great OTs. Which, regardless of temporary dips of itemization that might drop their dps relative to a rogue by 5 or 10%, is going to be true.
Besides which, it's not as if druids still don't benefit massively from weapons; not as much as other classes, perhaps, but they can still pick up 100+ AP in a shot, which is not to be underestimated - a druid that gets a weapon before the rogue does is going to experience a temporary boost as well - just a slightly smaller one.
|
First of all, a 5% difference could be a determining factor quite easily. If the utility of an extra OT is lower than the utility of 20% more damage then the druid absolutely looses his slot to a rogue or some other primary DPS class. If the breakpoint between OT utility and extra damage utility is anywhere near the damage difference a DPS class can get from a single item upgrade this is an issue. You cannot simultaneously argue that the utility and DPS scaling are balanced in the end and that changes to relative DPS and utility through itemization are negligible. If they're balanced in the end and itemization can create 5 to 10% shifts in their realtive differences temporarily then you must conclude that there are temporary points where they are not balanced.