Ferocious Bite: Book of Ferocious Bite (Rank 5) now drops off The
Beast in Black Rock Spire. In addition, Ferocious Bite now increases
in potency with greater attack power.
UGH UBRS
Time to do all shaman/druid runs for flame shock and ferocious bite
Oh sweet that drops in UBRS too from Rend, didn't even read that far the first time. All the more reason for pub UBRS runs to have all the rogues suddenly disconnect after Rend
Maybe it's more about the hybrid built but anyway.
Here are the problems as I see them with a tank feral druid versus a warrior.
The warrior get:
-Defensive stance for 10% reduction, this work on spells too.
-Parry
-Block. Incidentally with the way shield block work and the hit table, you cannot ever get critted or crushed (or even hit normally) with it on, no matter if you are at 440 defense or no. This reduce damage alot on attacks that can crit or crush. (I personally feel that this is an unplanned side effect of shield block, I doubt early warrior devs thought about that when they did the hability back then).
Bears have:
-Slightly more hp.
-More ac which should put them at 75% cap even on level 63 mobs.
One of the problem bears have is defense gear, not only it seem it's not really possible to get higher then 365 (which mean 2.5% crit rate or so) defense in general is weaker on them then on warriors due to no parry and slightly due to no block.
As warriors gear get better in tier 3, the gap from around 65% mitigation to the cap of 75% grow closer. If you use paladins the gap is closer. If you use stoneshield potion it's probably nearly maxxed. A druid sitting at the cap cannot improve this.
Warrior with 65% mitigation get hit for 3500 * 0.9 = 3150 potentially -200 from the block = 2950.
Druid with 75% mitigation get hit for 2500. 15% crushing blow and at best 2.5 crit rate mean an average damage of 2750.
That's with a base of 65/75 difference favoring the druid.
Warriors using potions, paladins or with enough mudflation will inch closer to the point that not only do they take less damage then druids from straight melee damage but also avoid an incredible amount of damage from parry and higher miss rate assuming dodge is somewhat equal.
Like it was mentionned on another thread, for patchwerk it seem a druid will take more damage then a warrior and that's an hability that cannot crit or crush in the first place, thus negating the defense or block advantage.
1. Swiftmend is really freaking good. I mean, really, really good.
2. NS > LotP. Any day of the week, unless you're specifically grinding out faction, or somehow lack rogues.
3. Kaubel is right about the DPS slot. Speccing feral will help you clean up on non-trivial content faster, but as for bringing a druid "for DPS" is simply not the best way to manage classes. Sure, popping out and innervating a priest/combat ressing someone who died is useful, but perhaps mana would not be so lacking, or the person would not have died had you been healing.
4. This is from a former 0.30.21 avid PvPer, who wouldn't switch back, even for PvP. Swiftmend is better for that too.
swiftmend is hilarious in pvp...i can literally never die unless I do something stupid. I've taken to pvping in full stormrage because its so imbalanced. good luck killing me through 600 a tick hp regen and instant heals every 15.
Not to mention NS+HT, which is pretty much a complete heal, and innervate.
There's something vaguely satisfying about hitting BGs for an hour and having your buffs expire due to time and not from death.
This is my first post here but at least I found a thread I can say a lot too. I'm a raiding feral specd druid (14/32/5) and of course I am healing in about 90% of end end game content. My spec is just starting (with nax and fights centered around fast, smaller heals) to show a larger healing gap, but this is party due to gear. The gap between a druid with 31 in feral and one with 31 in restoration is not as great as one would think. The main losses are improved healing touch and swiftmend, but only two or three druids need to have swiftmend.
Originally Posted by Chupa
Also, who were they pulling aggro against? There is no way a cat would draw aggro on our tanks with 4 pc DN or be able to come anywhere close enough to our rogues' damage output to make it more than a passing fancy.
With the way cat form ap scales, raid buffed, a druid can reach 1800 pre buffs with around 30% crit with optimul gear. Toss in the raid buffs and druids with no threat modifier and a all too worthless cower (-600 threat) will easily pass the 110% threshold and pull agro eventually. This is, of course, assuming that there are no special mechanics to threat in the fight and that it's a stationary target. With the 1.12 change druids will more easily max out not from threat but from their damage potential.
Originally Posted by Oggie
Personally, I'm extremely curious if the scaling of AP (coupled with the absolutely insane AP catform hits) and the new FB rank are, overall, going to provide a fully AQ40-geared and full feral specced (I mean the full 11/31/5 +4 or whichever) with enough dps to potentialy justify one (not merely on thier dps- on thier dps + additive group dps + innervate +combat rez, though no healing). Or if this is just going to be sort of a vauge band-aid as rogue/fury warrior dps jumps ahead by leaps and bounds.
I can answer your question right now. No, it's not going to push druids up anywhere near that of a rogue or fury warrior because there is no new gear for feral druids in naxxramas aside from Ghoul Skin Tunic, End of Dreams, and the pants from the horsemen. FB does less damage than rip unless you can crit a majority of the time, and even with the new attack power contribution and new rank, rip is a better alternative because it is unmitigated, consistant damage that doesn't cause agro spikes.
I can't imagine giving a debuff slot to Rip, even with the newly scalar nature of it (mmm...rolling Rips? that'd be interesting), so FB being a scaling raid finisher...worth it?
Can't imagine giving a debuff slot to the highest damage dot in the game (last I checked)?
I suspect the answer will be no, now respec and heal, but I think it'd be cool if it were close enough to debate (speaking from a purely min/max situation, of course real world is a lot more flexible).
Druids will still be best healing than performing in any other role (except tanking, which until your guild gets some naxx gear, druids are a viable alternative to warriors), because the gear and mechanics for druids in other roles is garbage. Restoration is an almost perfectly desgined aspect of druids that provides a lot of raw healing power (but not quite what a priest can do) and makes up for that gap with increased utility (more hots, specialized spells like innervate/battle res).
A druid in a pure damage dealing role loses utility because of their poor mana pool and poor mana regeneration. They can still shift and innervate or battle res someone, but with feral gear a druid will only have 3000 to 4000 mana raid buffed with little to no +healing which isn't good enough to heal "in a pinch." Leader of the Pack gives 3% crit to the party which is a maximum of a 3% increase in damage for each person in the party, but given that most physical dps classes are already around 30% crit, they get little out of the buff compared to attack power from Trueshot aura, battleshout, or shaman totems/paladin blessings.
If a druid uses "hybrid" gear (think genesis) they do not have enough power to excel in any one area and end up useless on a raid. Shifting takes too much mana to do often and the regen of druids is pitiful in this kind of gear, especially when given little time for the five second rule. I could go into more detail here but I've written up a long post on the wow druid forums about various issues with the druid class and while some of the suggestions may not be in tune with proper game balance, it does give a non druid some idea of some of the problems druids face trying to perform in another role.
This might seem retarded, but I'm beginning to think that LoTP is overrated. Sure, it's great for bear, stam is always good, but natural weapons over in balance gives a 10% damage increase across the board. And OOC procs are always fun.
For Kitty, Lotp is giving me a 106 AP boost. 7 dps. Vs. 10% dps increase across the board. o.O
I'm sorry, but you are completely retarded.
HotW is not good because it gives a 106 AP boost in cat. I VERY rarely use cat in raids any more, but I bear all the time. Having 8k health creates a nice buffer for the healers since no one ever remembers to heal the bears :(, and the boosted int is VERY useful on those long boss fights.
I've tried 31 resto, and balance efficiency, and every combination of feral specs under the sun, and in my opinion, HotW is the single best talent we have, due to how incredibly versatile it is. (Well, maybe excepting NS)
HotW is not good because it gives a 106 AP boost in cat.
Congrats Mr. Holmes, you're amazing. Now turn your awesome dedecting skills towards the post I was refereing to. You know, the guy saying something about cat dps as a 30/21 spec. OMG! I was talking about HoTW being a valid CAT dps talent? And now we see the link. HoTW as a DPS (aka Cat) talent.
I VERY rarely use cat in raids any more, but I bear all the time. Having 8k health creates a nice buffer for the healers since no one ever remembers to heal the bears :(, and the boosted int is VERY useful on those long boss fights.
Jinkies! Look a clue! Why yes, our op DID say stam was always nice!
But the "extra Int for long fights"? o.O I'm sorry, but you are completely retarded.
I've tried 31 resto, and balance efficiency, and every combination of feral specs under the sun, and in my opinion, HotW is the single best talent we have, due to how incredibly versatile it is. (Well, maybe excepting NS)
But you see, I'm beginning to question it's versatility. There's not much decent STR gear around. Alot of +AP gear tho!
Extra INT for casting? The last time I ran into mana problems was back when I was 14/31/5. And even then I had a stack of mana pots.
So... it's versatility... isn't really that versatile.
Thanks for the response Azoth- you basicly covered everything I was curious about with regards to raiding kitty.
I had no idea Rip was that strong! Someone on test pulled out an increase of over 100 damage from old (nonscaling) to new (scaling) rip, with a paltry 1k AP on Test, but somehow I doubt that the AP->damage is linear. I'd always thought Rip was kind of a blah finisher overall....
On a somewhat-related note, is FB actually worth building Energy for, with the new rank (assuming there's no beyond-base bonus for extra AP, assuming the 2.7 damage/energy modifer on thott is correct), or simpy a spam as you can? Honestly don't know the answer to that one, always wondered....curious if the AP scaling applies to the extra energy transfer in addition to base or if it's just a static +damage to the attack (scaling would be cool, but it's likely static).
Is there ever a case where the added-value of 3% additional to crit overcomes the potential of simply +3% dps? Specificly on-crit abilities (hunters with that set bonus?), or tanks....is the value-added + catform dps simply not in shouting distance, or might specific abilities/combos push it up there?
You mentioned itemization- is this really the only choke point? If items with equivilant ilvls were added in on trash/bosses (and I'm assuming you're working from a full datamined Naxx loot set since you mentioned 4H drops) that complimented feral a lot more, but were not grossly overbudget, would this possibly bring ferals into rogue range, or is there simply an issue of base class mechanics/scaling?
Sorry to derail this stuff, I've always liked the concept of druids being somewhat functional in catform (and I'm under no illusions they can pop out in heal in same). Of course, with rogues already being marginalized by fury warriors to some degree, there's obviously a limit to how far down that path to go- not to mention the higher raid utility for druids than rogues.
Ah, well, now I'm just rambling.
Originally Posted by bartolimu
It makes me want to hit Marge Thatcher on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Don't forget overhealing. If you're at the top, you're absolutely overhealing.
This is a bit of an aside, but overhealing means nothing, especially comparing between classes and heal styles/responsibility.
Compare:
Player A: 50% overheal but with heals that give 9 health per mana
versus
PlayerB: no overhealing with spells that give 4.5 health per mana
Then factor in unique regen rates in and out of the 5 second rule and its just a horrible stat to look at out of context.
The only healing stat that matters is actual healing (gross heal - overheal) and (much more important) whether or not the individual is running out of mana or not. Those that can get to the top of the actual healing and never need an innervate are the best endurance healers, regardless of what their overheal % is.
With enough + healing gear and regen, only reflection, nature's swiftness, and any talents that reduce mana cost are truly valuable in the resto tree. Moonglow is amazing in the balance tree, and HoTW increases flexibility a large ammount. HoTW is the only talent that allows a druid to _truly_ do more than one role decently in the same encounter with the same set of hybrid gear. We use 1 or 2 feral druids a lot primarily because we might have 4 warriors one night and 7 the next. When we have 7, in most fights it is better to have the dps warriors dps and let a druid or 2 off tank. In others its obviously pure heal mode.
It is great for us to have a handful of these flexible sorts. We have a shadow priest too -- whom is slightly undergeared and often near the top of the healing meters (when not dpsing which is ~50% of the time) and NEVER uses an innervate -- i don't know how honestly but I do know he is usually healing non-tanks . This is even more true when the flexible sorts are good players that have high attendance and thus let us fill the raid full of what is available, adapt, and do just fine.
Prettty much all our first kills from Rags through Sartura have had "unoptimal" raid makeups. I think we only had 4 rogues on for the first Vael kill (which did run a good chunk past the 3 minute line). For some guilds, hybrid classes used as hybrids are a huge strength because we don't have the luxury of filling the raid with the exact class makeup we want each day. Honestly, its more fun and rewarding overall this way anyhow.
( Entering our get-a-lot-of-NR-gear and collect BWL loot phase to prepare for Huhu and beyond, while having fewer raid days a week as a bit of a rest after making a big push from Razor to Bug trio. )
Where was it announced that we're getting -20% threat?
latest test realm patch notes.
Wow. They finally did it (aggro at 80% for base in cat form).
Add AP scaling to specials....
That is actually significant. Its not stupid anymore to have one 33 point feral druid in the raid that can dps trash and some bosses, off tank better than non-prot warriors in some encounters, then throw on healbot gear and be pretty good at that (oh, 75% to 80% or so as good as a resto druid I suppose) and have innervate and battle res available.
I wouldn't want more than one, but it does make a more "full" feral build even better all around. Not as much dps as a DPS warrior or rogue, but a better tank than either. And an extra healer when needed and innervate/battle res caddy.
Naxx itemization does eat into this a lot though, since feral utility does seem to peak during AQ40.
Trying to compare it to a rogue or warrior slot directly is not right. A warrior or rogue don't innervate, battle res, or heal. Its totally different. It may be unnecessary, it may be advantageous, it may be disadvantageous. That all depends on the encounter. When looking at the spread of all encounters on a raid though, having one such druid is probably beneficial or at least neutral unless you are stacked deep in rogues/warriors and low on healers.
Some guilds are stacked deep in warriors and rogues -- Some aren't.
You mentioned itemization- is this really the only choke point? If items with equivilant ilvls were added in on trash/bosses (and I'm assuming you're working from a full datamined Naxx loot set since you mentioned 4H drops) that complimented feral a lot more, but were not grossly overbudget, would this possibly bring ferals into rogue range, or is there simply an issue of base class mechanics/scaling?
I was curious about this so I plugged in Bonescythe gear into a Catform DPS calculator that was posted on these boards but I was too dumb to get it to work right.
On another note, is there a web page that lets you plug in stats for an item and set its Itemlevel or any sort of item creation tool that calculates item budget as you go? I remember seeing something like that posted here but I can't remember
Congrats, smartass. Not only are you unclear about what it is you're trying to say, but there's also only room for one dick on these forums and I was here first. I'm giving you a 3 day break to clarify your argument.
Originally Posted by Azoth
With the way cat form ap scales, raid buffed, a druid can reach 1800 pre buffs with around 30% crit with optimul gear. Toss in the raid buffs and druids with no threat modifier and a all too worthless cower (-600 threat) will easily pass the 110% threshold and pull agro eventually. This is, of course, assuming that there are no special mechanics to threat in the fight and that it's a stationary target. With the 1.12 change druids will more easily max out not from threat but from their damage potential.
That's not a valid point since we've already addressed the fact that feral druids are hardly ever in "optimal gear" during raids. Once again, if you're in DPS mode for more than a few trash pulls (in a progressive instance), you're hindering the raid and your raid leader is an idiot for allowing you to pretend that you're a rogue.
Originally Posted by TheOnly
Originally Posted by Kaubel
Don't forget overhealing. If you're at the top, you're absolutely overhealing.
This is a bit of an aside, but overhealing means nothing, especially comparing between classes and heal styles/responsibility.
You're arguing against a point that was made back in March when the only post-fight healing stat we had to show was raw healing.
Originally Posted by Lyta
I've been trying to concentrate on studying for my Proof Methods test tomorrow, and all I can think of is your hotness, radiating out from the pixels on my monitor, seared straight into my neurons.
On another note, is there a web page that lets you plug in stats for an item and set its Itemlevel or any sort of item creation tool that calculates item budget as you go? I remember seeing something like that posted here but I can't remember
I've been trying to concentrate on studying for my Proof Methods test tomorrow, and all I can think of is your hotness, radiating out from the pixels on my monitor, seared straight into my neurons.
You mentioned itemization- is this really the only choke point? If items with equivilant ilvls were added in on trash/bosses (and I'm assuming you're working from a full datamined Naxx loot set since you mentioned 4H drops) that complimented feral a lot more, but were not grossly overbudget, would this possibly bring ferals into rogue range, or is there simply an issue of base class mechanics/scaling?
I was curious about this so I plugged in Bonescythe gear into a Catform DPS calculator that was posted on these boards but I was too dumb to get it to work right.
I'd be surprised if Bonescythe was actually great for druids. At least at the gear levels I attempted to do the math on, strength was significantly better than agility for druids. There's one piece of Bonescythe with only agility, and a few more with more agility than strength, which while great for rogues is suboptimal for druids. It could easily be better than anything druids can actually wear, though.
You mentioned itemization- is this really the only choke point? If items with equivilant ilvls were added in on trash/bosses (and I'm assuming you're working from a full datamined Naxx loot set since you mentioned 4H drops) that complimented feral a lot more, but were not grossly overbudget, would this possibly bring ferals into rogue range, or is there simply an issue of base class mechanics/scaling?
No, it isn't the only choke point. Agro was a choke point until 1.12, which presumably fixes that. The other problem is how cat damage scales. Since cat is based on a 1.0 attack speed it takes absurd amounts of attack power to be in a position to be of any use doing "dps," but then again druids shouldn't be slotted like another dps class because they can do more than simply hit the enemy (res, innervate, minimum healing, etc). This guy has the right attitude about the feral druid, which should be seen as a utility addition to the raid and not a healer/tank/dps, though a druid can certainly and easily fill a "pure" role as well. Druids with the right gear can take up almost any role, but the damage role is currently their worst.
Originally Posted by TheOnly
Trying to compare it to a rogue or warrior slot directly is not right. A warrior or rogue don't innervate, battle res, or heal. Its totally different. It may be unnecessary, it may be advantageous, it may be disadvantageous. That all depends on the encounter. When looking at the spread of all encounters on a raid though, having one such druid is probably beneficial or at least neutral unless you are stacked deep in rogues/warriors and low on healers.
Originally Posted by Kaubel
That's not a valid point since we've already addressed the fact that feral druids are hardly ever in "optimal gear" during raids. Once again, if you're in DPS mode for more than a few trash pulls (in a progressive instance), you're hindering the raid and your raid leader is an idiot for allowing you to pretend that you're a rogue.
I agree with you there, I was just mentioning that it is possible for a druid to pull agro under certain conditions. Druids need some work before they can be seen as a viable addition to a dps group, not as a replacement to a dps class. A simple buff to leader of the pack would greatly help this out, if it were to apply 10% of the druid's attack power to the group, it would be a truly powerful buff that would be more useful than just having rogue #5 in that dps group.
I'd be surprised if Bonescythe was actually great for druids. At least at the gear levels I attempted to do the math on, strength was significantly better than agility for druids. There's one piece of Bonescythe with only agility, and a few more with more agility than strength, which while great for rogues is suboptimal for druids. It could easily be better than anything druids can actually wear, though.
I'm more interested in what COULD be done if the devs decided to make cat DPS gear, so when I would calculate it I'd change all of the pieces that have +attack power to be +strength (so 62 ap on an item would be 31 strength on the druid version). When you do that, the set has significantly more STR than agi and the pieces that have both have nearly equal amounts on each piece, so it's pretty close to optimal, though it has excess +hit that you could swap out for more strength or whatever.
That's not a valid point since we've already addressed the fact that feral druids are hardly ever in "optimal gear" during raids. Once again, if you're in DPS mode for more than a few trash pulls (in a progressive instance), you're hindering the raid and your raid leader is an idiot for allowing you to pretend that you're a rogue.
I agree with you there, I was just mentioning that it is possible for a druid to pull agro under certain conditions. Druids need some work before they can be seen as a viable addition to a dps group, not as a replacement to a dps class. A simple buff to leader of the pack would greatly help this out, if it were to apply 10% of the druid's attack power to the group, it would be a truly powerful buff that would be more useful than just having rogue #5 in that dps group.
Understood. I never intended to give the impression that druids can't do DPS, only that they shouldn't on raids; therefore, a reduction in threat isn't much use to a raiding druid regardless of his or her spec.
Originally Posted by Lyta
I've been trying to concentrate on studying for my Proof Methods test tomorrow, and all I can think of is your hotness, radiating out from the pixels on my monitor, seared straight into my neurons.
"this script ignores the possibility of extra armor (for now)."
Dammit. I wanted to make a tanking set to see what kind of stats I could actually get, but its not really possible without being able to inflate armor
I was curious about this as well, so I compared a couple of existing items:
Eg.
+22 Stamina
+18 Strength
+21 Agility
+6 Resist_shadow
Epic Hands
Raw ItemScore: 15410
Act. ItemValue: 100.88
Est. ItemLevel: 76.3
vs Gloves of hidden temple
ItemValue: 107.5, (+0.9 over budget)
ILvl: 81
From the site:
+22 Stamina
+40 Strength
Epic Chest
Raw ItemScore: 14260
Act. ItemValue: 115.57
Est. ItemLevel: 63.64
vs Malfurion's blessed bulwark
ItemValue: 129.1 (-5.1 underbudget)
ILvl: 75
If you wanted to theorycraft a good bear set, just aim for about 5 or so Ilvls lower than an equivalent piece, and whilst you won't know the exact armour values, it should give you enough to get fairly close to the cap if you do so for all 8 pieces (with appropriate existing pieces in the other slots)
08/07/06, 4:28 PM
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