14.7 Agi per Dodge

The formula that I found matched was =TOTAL_AGI/1470-0.8775% which I'm using in my partially finished spreadsheet (working on finishing all the talents at the moment but it presents your stats in caster form all correctly as it shows on the paperdoll screen).

So yeah for avoidance Agi is king for druids.

Well, I guess this is sort of the best place to put it, since I wasn't sure where else.

Some guildies and I were running Hellfire Citadel - Blood Furnace last night while our server was repeatedly crashing (between 6PM and Midnight, the outlands server was stable for no more than 30 minutes at a time, but thankfully the instance server was okay). On our third trip through, the server bugged out - in a weird way. All of the mobs were doubled. A pack of two trash mobs ended up being four, a pack of four mobs was eight... a boss was two bosses at once.

I was too busy desperately trying to hold onto the mobs to take many screenshots, but I got one with both "The Maker"s alive, here and then one showing both corpses.

I can't say for sure a warrior wouldn't have been able to handle it, but holding 6 or 8 orcs at a time was not easy, even for a druid - thankfully we had two healers because the amount of incoming damage was pretty ridiculous at times. We were planning on trying to clear the whole instance this way, but as we were getting close to Broggok, the server crashed and when it came back up, our instance was no longer bugged.

Despite how painful it was, I'd have to say it was the most fun I've had tanking EVER - and it was very challenging. I almost wish there was a way to force instances to bug out like that so I could do it more often. :)

There are many situations with mixed melee and magic damage. Nefarion is a good example. Do you want 20% less damage on the shadow flames but more damage from his melee and cleave or the reverse? Even if a druid is a better physical damage mitigator by a small margin, that doesn't make them a better choice than warriors.
Even most trash pulls have a mix of physical and magic damage.

I don't think this is right. I may even be so bold as to suggest that a warrior is within striking distance of a druid for total mitigation vs physical attacks.

First, the value of avoidance is inversely related to AC mitigation values. If you didn't avoid the blow, your AC would soak it. Avoidance is LESS valuable for a druid than it is for a warrior, because MORE of their mitigation comes from AC. Warriors are different in that they avoid, they block + soak, or (more rarely) they just use their AC + stance to soak.

Using your numbers posted previously:
- The druid with 24k AC only receives a mitigation benefit of (1-AC mitigation of 67%) or 0.33% more mitigation per 1% of incremental dodge.
- The warrior with 15K AC (56% AC mitigation) receives a benefit of 0.4% per point of avoidance, factoring in defensive stance.

Yes, in absolute terms, the difference is 8%. However, once you factor in the AC differences, the benefits of that incremental dodge are small. I'd also point out that it becomes much more expensive itemization-wise to stack 2-3 stats (dodge, agi, def) than it is to stack 5+ (parry, dodge, agi, def, etc.)


Second, if you're going to completely omit a very important function of a class' mitigation profile (in this case block), your results are going to be skewed. It won't be uncommon for a warrior to have 500+ block value with talents and gear at 70.

If a hit comes through for 5-10K after armor and is blocked, that's a HUGE chunk of mitigation that you're not considering. Even if you get 3 incoming attacks from the same mob in 5 seconds, you're still going to block at least 2/3 of them. Block could come close to making up the 6-7% AC mitigation differences between the two classes from the example above.

I don't think we're looking at two classes that are worlds apart in terms of total physical mitigation, I think they are both very close. Ultimately it's going to come down to encounter design and getting players who know what the hell they're doing.

Don't forget the side benefit of block.. no crushing.

Armor will sitll be superior to shield block for Spikey damage mitigation. Spikey damage "can" potentially happen on a Crushing Blow, but the general soruce of Spike damage is special boss moves that deals a high amount of damage. Typically this will include moves like BroodLord Lashlayers mortal strike or Unbalancing Strike from Twin Emps (not counting Patchwerk because its not a 1 time damage spike but a move he uses constantly).

I was recently, before beta ended, doing a quest with a group where i was the healer in a resto spec. Its basically an arena challenge where you kill a boss, get a 1 minute break, kill another boss etc. At the second last boss we had to replace the warrior after wiping 3 times because his 7.5k HP simply didn't cut it (the boss was doing 4.5k Mortal Strikes every 8 second or so) and it was simply impossible for me to predict the spike damage and heal it even though i actually had the mana and gear for it. After third wipe on that boss the hunter left and we got a warrior with 10k HP and did it flawlessly (the other warrior was level 65 while the new one was level 70). This is an example of Spike Damage moves, these are far worse than crushing blows, and druids handle moves like that easier. A 4.5k Mortal Strike would have hit me, assuming i was tanking, for around 3.8k which makes it alot easier for the healer to heal me and handle spike damage. Cruching Blows really aren't spike damage, its so easily mitigateable, even a warrior should have no death problems with crushing blows if he was forced to take them just like a druid.

Regal protectorate <3 Yes, I actually picked that award over the dps ones.

Agreed.

Im a fan of passive compensation though, so i must admit i favor druid armor over LGG and Last Stand. Sure i love healing a warrior with 5 digit HP pool against spikes, but once it ends its kinda... meh ;)

I'd recommend it for anyone who tanks even occasionally. The other two rewards will be obsolete by 70, but nothing replaces RP unless you already had a LGG.

Quick question about the Blood Furnace: Do the Felguard type elites near the end have a random aggro associated with their charge?
If so, that's an easy fixit for future runs...

Yes, they deaggro and charge a random person every X seconds. You just have to run and taunt them back or charge them and taunt them back when they do it.

Please explain that. Why does Yellow damage favor the warrior? Yellow damage is not necessarily magic damage, we might, as example, be talking special moves. Special moves can't crit or crush already, giving the druid a Slight Advantage. Also, a yellow attack might also be a Cleave, which from my information works with the druid AOE Avoidance Talent, Predatory Instinct.

Also, just to mention it, there might be some gimmick fights where the druid move, Barkskin, comes into play. Amongst other things i have seen it used on Twin Emperors and 4 Horsemen during tank rotation. While the new 2 minute cooldown sux a bit the fact that a druid can activate it, pop Bear Form and taunt plays a large role when your tank takes 20% less Physical damage the first 10-12 seconds after a Tank rotation.

I cried a little on the inside when I saw that druids compete with warriors and priests for the tokens. That's some serious competion for loot, especially for a hybrid class that's going to need 2 sets of gear.

Bring back the salad days of druid/hunter/shaman tokens.

This is an interesting point. I wonder if we will see raid stacking of warriors/priests in the new 25 mans or if there will be a much more balanced mixture. I guess it depends on the guild as well as the fights but I'd assume they tune fights to be more "hybrid friendly".

If they do it probably won't matter which classes share tokens.

This is largely a fallacy, 16% yellow damage mitigation is comparitively small:

Druid has 80% White damage mitigation, and 0% Magic damage mitigation.
Warrior has 75% White damage mitigation, 16% Magic damage mitigation.

Assume Boss A has 2 abilties, auto attack for 1000 (after mitigation) every second. Breath of Fire for 5000, every 5 seconds. I think a reasonable sum of abilties, in fact, probably biased towards Magic Damage.

So, Boss A does 5000dps White damage(before mitigation) , 1000dps Magic damage (base values)

Druid : 1000dps from white damage, 1000dps from Magic damage. total incoming 2000dps
Warrior :1250dps from white damage, 840dps from Magic damage. total incoming 2090dps


In fact, assuming that a druid has 80% white mitigation, the % of damage that comes from Magic sources has to be 40% white, 60% magic before the druid loses ground to the warrior.

For example, if incoming White DPS is 1500dps, incoming Magic DPS has to be 2343dps before the druid takes more damage than the warrior. 2343dps is the equivalent of 10,000 damage fireball every 4 seconds...

Most people evaluations on this topic are erroneous, because they assume the difference between (0%-16%) mitigation is larger than the difference between (75%-80%). It is not. 0-16% is an decrease of 16% damage taken. 75%-80% is a difference of 20%.

I know my math is basic here, and I only used one example, but i'm at work ;)

Why do people equal yellow damage with spell damage? It isn't. If you want to talk about spells, just say "magical damage" or something instead - anything else is misleading.

Bear in mind (sorry) that those are based off a specific set of assumed stats which already has a relatively high armour assumed (25k if memory serves). Consequently armour is valued relatively lowly and if you went solely by such values you'd end up with a comparatively low armour set of gear consequently distorting those ratings quite a bit.

Of course a mod that redid said calculations based off your currently equipped gear would be something I'd dearly love to see :).

Huh? Care to explain how it makes sense on leather but not on the other item slots? The Bear gear and the armor multiplicatior is tuned with the gear (leather and non leater slots) you can aquire so I don't get what your problem is. And how many trinket or necklace slots in TBC do you know that have +Armor on them? I'll tell you: Zero.

If I'd ask you why a trinket with +Parry/Block gets Warrior/Paladin preference, what would you answer me? Probably the same I'd say about non-leather items with Armor (well, technically the Armor on the items benefits Warriors too compared to Block/Parry stats on a Druid).

Druids have no parry or block/shield associated benefits which has been the generally accepted reason behind the value of the ring/trinket armour items. They also tend to get notably less armour from even the really high armour weapons than a good shield provides.

There are also no new armour trinkets so those will gradually get phased out and no armour necklaces at all so it's really only the rings that look like they'll provide a notable amount of armour to bear tanks come 70 end game at least so far and using armour rings does also restrict your gear choices somewhat - it's not a free stat so there is a tradeoff involved.

See, Nezralix, it's not even half as bad as you thought. Honestly I am surprised you are not angry about the tokens since we share the same one. 5 token slots vs the odd armor ring... >_>

EDIT: That is because he doesn't need to. Did you even read the part about Druid Bear multiplier being designed with the items in mind?

If you only came to this thread with the purpose of trolling and not to discuss things constructively: Do us all a favor and leave.

EDIT: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...71357419&sid=1 Kromzul=You?

As Liar says the bear multiplier/itemisation does seem to account for the concept of the AC rings according to the various mitigation calculations floating around which are pretty comparative. While there are high AC weapons the best is 500AC in caster which translates to 3025 in bear, well below the shields available to warriors/paladins.

Regarding Smoking Heart/Mark of Tyranny I certainly expect them to have a far longer life than other pre TBC blue trinkets, Mark in particular, however the AC cap (especially with Inspiration/Ancestral whatever it's called) should be achievable without them in time so I expect to see them phased out eventually and there's not a single replacement in sight with armour.

The high dodge rate granted does compensate pretty well for the lack of parry, block however especially with shield block and crushing blows is still a very valuable warrior tool (won't sidetrack into other defensive abilities since we're focused on itemisation here). Resilience for PVE is pretty poor for druids by the way - given it's budget includes reduction in the strength of crits as well as the frequency it's extremely expensive given the goal will be to minimise or even eliminate crits where possible so defense is still the better choice for a druid though nowhere near as beneficial as it is to a warrior/paladin, could draw a comparison here with high AC miscellanious items here.