Bears Versus Warriors Tipping Point - Page 2

Aphyrax · 02/28/07, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

Call me crazy but I have a bit of faith that there are some high armor purples awaiting us in serpentshrine and/or tempest keep that will keep bear tanking relevant

Given Blizzard's track record with druid tanking in general and itemization in particular, please forgive me if I take a "show me the money" attitude. Because you know, the hope that there would be feral drops to keep bear tanking relevant did not quite pan out in Naxx.

TheOnly · 02/28/07, 5:59 PM

Originally Posted by Lavode

Back: Bogstock scale cloak, 223 armor, 22 stanima, 12 agi, 16 defence rating. I could get thoriumweave, but I am riding the thin edge on having enough defence/resillience for crit immunity, and swapping would drop me below the magic 5.6% total, so.. Not going to happen.

Wrist: Umberhowls collar enchanted sta +12: 281 armor, 17 str, 10 agi, 36 sta.

Enchant the bracers with +defense, and use the thoriumweave.

Aphyrax · 02/28/07, 6:00 PM

Originally Posted by Kytrarewn

Blizzard's awful history indicates that they itemize oddly based on instance. Think about MC feral gear (bracers and maybe ACL gloves before +skill was "discovered"). BWL: Malfurion's, Taut Dragonhide belt/shoulders. AQ40: Feral Heaven. Naxx: Ghoul Skin Tunic, 4H leggings.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if TK was feral heaven.

Problem is, a tank that is only viable every second instance is not something a guild can or should rely on. We know that warriors will always be the best tanks. We know they will always be itemized well. Druid tanking has fluctuated from being nearly as good as warrior tanking (now) to being completely not viable (Naxx). As a guild and a player you need predictability. I am not dedicating my play time to something that might be taken away on a whim.

◊ Fellwraith · 02/28/07, 6:06 PM

Originally Posted by Nightsmoke

But it still doesn't change the fact that warriors are rolling 3 crushing blow avoidance dice vs a druid's 1. Spike damage wipes raids, and warriors are have a bigger basket of avoidance tactics (not to mention better tailored gear; think +def) when it comes to crits/crushings than do druids. Increasing ones odds to not have crushings land at all, versus having them land more often for less, seems like the lesser of two evils IMO.

Only shieldblock matters, you can't dodge or parry a crit/crush based on most of the testing people did in WOW 1.0. Also, druids start with a lower base chance to be crit in the first place if they're actually spec'ing to tank. The crit avoidance is probably close to equal today for warriors and druids when everything is said and done. Any of the serious tanking builds will stack whatever resillience or +def gear is necessary to do so. Yes, there's fewer pieces with +def on them, but you need fewer of them as a bear.

So it really comes down to how many hits are going to land outside my shieldblock uptime (those that do have a 15% chance of crushing), how much damage do they do before mitigation, and what's the armor mitigation difference between a bear and me. That's a function of mob attack speed, base damage, and armor scaling. The answer changes depending on the fight. I know I'd love more AC for the prince and romulo because they attack very quickly and they hit hard.

Monsanto · 02/28/07, 6:22 PM

Originally Posted by Zyla

I keep repeating my old theory that many of the "tanking" pieces were pure accidents of itemization. See Thick QuirajiHide Belt for a classic example.

In a sense its really all our fault for putting all of the disparate abberations and combining them to get us to places blizzard didn't intend. QA indeed.

If I had a dime for every time I was made fun of for having parry on my belt...

And before that, it was +dagger skill on my gloves (there was also a nice helm off the world dragons with +daggers on it)

• Whiteknight · 02/28/07, 7:32 PM

Honestly, I don't think it's nearly as simple as 'bears are better than wars' and at some point that will be reversed. I think people are looking at the stats in an over-simplistic manner.

There are a lot of considerations when it comes to looking at tanking, but one of the most important is 'failure mode'. What I mean by that is: at what point do you simply take a spike larger than your hitpoints without recieving a heal. There are two ways of avoiding this - make the spikes smaller (armor, demo shout, crit immunity, remove crushing blows, etc), or make your hp bigger (sta gear). Dodge/Parry/Miss simply increase mean time to failure, they don't reduce the level at which failure occurs.

When comparing druids and warriors, it's instructive to see what spike damage looks like. For example, assume a raid buffed warrior at 60% armor mitigation (17.8k armor) takes a 7000 damage hit from Maulgar. This means Maulgar's unmitigated hit is (armor + def stance)

7000 / (0.4 * 0.9) = 19444

Assuming the druid has 70% armor mitigation (27.9k armor), the druid would take

 19444*0.3 = 5833

A lot of folk stop the analysis right here saying the druid is clearly better, but this is not failure mode. Druids take crushing blows 15% of the time, so the max hit on the druid is actually

 5833 * 1.5 = 8749

This is aproximately 25% larger than the max hit on the warrior. Meaning the druid must have at least 25% more hitpoints than the warrior just to equal the failure mode of the warrior.

Picking a bear tank just on the basis that they have more armor and hp than the war sets your raid up for long streaks of easy-mode healing followed by 'oh crap, he just died' moments if you're not careful to ensure that the bear really is mitigating the max-damage spike better.

In practise of course, there are a lot of other factors which need to be considered when comparing roles.

To touch on a prior point made in this thread, yes it's not always possible to mitigate crushing with shield block. But on a mob like Maulgar it comes close. Dodge and parry might not affect crushes directly, but they directly increase the uptime of shield block, which helps mitigate crushes.

For reference, here is a short snip from one of our first learning attempts on Maulgar. (parry/miss/dodge are removed)

2/22 20:14:40.578  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 6049. (280 blocked) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 20:14:49.843  High King Maulgar hits you for 6938.
2/22 20:14:54.250  High King Maulgar hits you for 5451. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:14:56.906  High King Maulgar hits you for 6134. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:14:59.062  High King Maulgar hits you for 4189. (1635 absorbed)
2/22 20:15:01.890  High King Maulgar hits you for 5241.
2/22 20:15:07.140  High King Maulgar hits you for 5740. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:15:16.296  High King Maulgar hits you for 5246. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:15:17.968  High King Maulgar hits you for 4384. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:15:20.687  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 5778.
2/22 20:21:20.187  High King Maulgar hits you for 8610. (crushing) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 20:21:22.796  High King Maulgar hits you for 12194. (crushing)
2/22 20:28:52.437  High King Maulgar hits you for 6033. (280 blocked) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 20:28:56.984  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 10077. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:28:59.953  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 7117.
2/22 20:43:04.109  High King Maulgar hits you for 9871. (crushing) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 20:43:09.562  High King Maulgar hits you for 7110. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:12.390  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 10711. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:17.265  High King Maulgar hits you for 5330. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:18.843  High King Maulgar hits you for 4549. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:22.140  High King Maulgar hits you for 4287. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:23.781  High King Maulgar hits you for 4728. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:30.140  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 7815. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:32.562  High King Maulgar hits you for 4245. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:38.078  High King Maulgar hits you for 5133. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:39.765  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 6446. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:40.718  High King Maulgar hits you for 4227.
2/22 20:43:43.375  High King Maulgar hits you for 4520. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:45.875  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 7355. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:48.312  High King Maulgar hits you for 4863.
2/22 20:43:50.890  High King Maulgar hits you for 5611. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:43:53.640  High King Maulgar hits you for 4387. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:44:02.265  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 5597. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:44:06.265  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 4419. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:44:08.343  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 5814. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:44:11.125  High King Maulgar hits you for 5953.
2/22 20:44:13.984  High King Maulgar hits you for 5720. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:44:14.328  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 7178. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:44:16.750  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 8484. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:51:47.281  High King Maulgar hits you for 6130. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:51:51.359  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 10155. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:51:53.578  High King Maulgar hits you for 6416. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:00.937  High King Maulgar hits you for 5893. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:06.156  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 5874. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:06.375  High King Maulgar hits you for 3951. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:09.437  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 10385. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:14.437  High King Maulgar hits you for 5898. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:16.093  High King Maulgar hits you for 6488. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:17.546  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 6296. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:21.421  High King Maulgar hits you for 6261. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:26.718  High King Maulgar hits you for 5250. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:29.562  High King Maulgar hits you for 5996. (280 blocked)
2/22 20:52:32.203  High King Maulgar hits you for 6985. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:06.359  High King Maulgar hits you for 5560. (280 blocked) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 21:01:09.000  High King Maulgar hits you for 5637.
2/22 21:01:19.828  High King Maulgar hits you for 7970. (crushing)
2/22 21:01:23.109  High King Maulgar hits you for 4219. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:25.187  High King Maulgar hits you for 4423. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:27.593  High King Maulgar hits you for 4535. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:30.296  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 5676. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:30.312  High King Maulgar hits you for 4269. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:35.562  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 6102. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:41.015  High King Maulgar hits you for 5410. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:41.593  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 6505. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:43.843  High King Maulgar hits you for 5224. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:01:46.500  High King Maulgar hits you for 2320. (280 blocked) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 21:01:57.531  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 5708.
2/22 21:01:59.640  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 5361. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:02:03.765  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 5477. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:02:13.406  High King Maulgar hits you for 6637. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:14.968  High King Maulgar hits you for 4123. (1413 absorbed)
2/22 21:22:16.281  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 5191.
2/22 21:22:20.375  High King Maulgar hits you for 3839. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:23.265  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 7269. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:25.593  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 7040. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:35.593  High King Maulgar hits you for 6346. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:36.843  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 7680. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:41.265  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 7794. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:46.453  High King Maulgar hits you for 3989. (280 blocked) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 21:22:49.015  High King Maulgar hits you for 4672. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:55.671  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 5330. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:56.312  High King Maulgar hits you for 4587. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:22:59.296  High King Maulgar's Mighty Blow hits you for 7869. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:10.125  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 6098. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:14.296  High King Maulgar's Whirlwind hits you for 5327. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:19.109  High King Maulgar hits you for 6135. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:21.921  High King Maulgar hits you for 5960. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:22.703  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 6776.
2/22 21:23:29.328  High King Maulgar hits you for 6022. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:32.093  High King Maulgar hits you for 5044. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:33.500  High King Maulgar's Arcing Smash hits you for 6323. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:37.578  High King Maulgar hits you for 5348. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:43.546  High King Maulgar hits you for 4730. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:48.781  High King Maulgar hits you for 5883. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:51.656  High King Maulgar hits you for 5896. (280 blocked)
2/22 21:23:53.359  High King Maulgar hits you for 5773. (280 blocked)

(continued...)

• Whiteknight · 02/28/07, 7:33 PM

(split across two posts because I hit the 10k char post limit)

From this parse, it's easy to see the shield block uptime. Also, you can see tanking mistakes which let crushing blows wipe the raid.

For example, this happened right at the pull, I'd missed stoneshield, demo shout was not up, and neither was shield block. Lets just say this 2 seconds set the tone for the rest of that pull:
2/22 20:21:20.187 High King Maulgar hits you for 8610. (crushing) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 20:21:22.796 High King Maulgar hits you for 12194. (crushing)

If you inspect the later part of the parse, you'll see virtually 100% block rate sustained.

Monsanto · 02/28/07, 7:51 PM

Originally Posted by Whiteknight

stuff

One of the most incredible posts ever written.

And might I say, your parsing of the combat log to get a look at shield block uptime makes me even more depressed to play a druid tank, to be honest. Crushing blows are a big deal, and I have to eat 15% of all attacks as crushing blows.

◊ Fellwraith · 02/28/07, 7:55 PM

That's a great post Whitenight. I think it does a good job of illustrating some of the differences people don't consider when they jump to conclusions about the two classes tanking stats.

My post about block being the only thing that mattered was more in reference to it's direct effect on crushing blows vis-a-vis parry and dodge. You can't parry or dodge a crushing blow based on what we know. It's a very good point that avoidance also saves "charges" for your shieldblock to affect subsequent attacks.

I also think people need to consider the block value from that combat parse and look at it in relation to the damage taken. Block was shaving 4-7% damage off many of the hits you were taking for that particular fight. Not only is that an extremely high damage per attack fight, but you also looked like you had a lower block value than what I would consider "normal". Did you change your gear loadout to maximize AC, defense and avoidance?

If you took a parse from a much faster attacking mob (aka prince Malchezzar in stage 2) the results may be different, but I think that's a nice way of illustrating what a lot of people were talking about when the first couple "feral > prot" threads were popping up.

GrizleyCQ · 02/28/07, 8:18 PM

Originally Posted by oldmandennis

This is not a whine thread!

Assuming there is no more itemization for bears, but warriors continue, at what point are warriors going to be clearly the superior tank, and bears only asked tank I'M LOOKING FOR A BEAR encounters and adds?

To me it looks like bears top out at 25k armor and 13.75k health with 33.5% avoidance (dodge+miss) unbuffed, or 26k, 17.25k, 37% buffed. (hope I did the math close to right)

Warriors probably start be better when they have roughly 80% of those stats, due to defensive stance and block pushing crushing off. What I would like to know is if that's achievable in Karazhan, is it likely possible in Serpenshrine, or what.

I've moved to the acceptance phase :P I'm trying to figure out when to switch over and start acquiring resto gear (or leveling an alt).

You have a failure in your assumptions right there.

One of our druids has over 20k armor and 50% dodge. I don't remeber the hp but it was higher than any of the warriors.

The combination of talented grace of air and kings gives an incredible amount of avoidance to a bear. That is probably what will get the bear nerfed eventually, they will get to a point where you can raise agil to the point of 70-75% avoidance with 75% mitigation. Even crushing blows wont balance that out.

oldmandennis · 02/28/07, 8:41 PM

Finally a good post, and not a bunch of random crap that could really go in one of the billion other feral threads. Thanks Whiteknight.

I realize there isn't going to be a hard and fast number. However, given that bears are probably be a pretty static target as far as gear upgrades go, at some point warriors are going to pass them and be the obvious choice for any hard hitting boss who doesn't knock back or poly.

With regard to "can't give druids epics, they'll be over the cap with inspiration", you could make epic items with a small boost to armor (putting them in line with the quest rewards) and generous portions of other important stats.

• Zyla · 02/28/07, 9:36 PM

this thread has turned out far better then expected

Grats to all.

Frag · 02/28/07, 9:54 PM

Originally Posted by GrizleyCQ

The combination of talented grace of air and kings gives an incredible amount of avoidance to a bear. That is probably what will get the bear nerfed eventually, they will get to a point where you can raise agil to the point of 70-75% avoidance with 75% mitigation. Even crushing blows wont balance that out.

I agree. When I saw the patch notes I was a bit surprised that they didn't include a nerf to the druid agi->dodge rate. I think the right way to fix this is to change the base dodge rate from agi for druids to match warriors, then have catform increase dodge rate with a multiplier (so catform will still have a similar dodge rate to what it does today, but bearform won't.) Then to balance that out a bit more give bears a bonus to dodge from defense (0.04% more dodge per point of defense when in bearform, basically making up for the missing parry avoidance from defense.) Sadly I suspect druid dodge is in for a nerf and that nerf will hit catform too when it's really a problem exclusive to bearform.

Shiftir · 02/28/07, 10:05 PM

Originally Posted by Frag

I agree. When I saw the patch notes I was a bit surprised that they didn't include a nerf to the druid agi->dodge rate. I think the right way to fix this is to change the base dodge rate from agi for druids to match warriors, then have catform increase dodge rate with a multiplier (so catform will still have a similar dodge rate to what it does today, but bearform won't.) Then to balance that out a bit more give bears a bonus to dodge from defense (0.04% more dodge per point of defense when in bearform, basically making up for the missing parry avoidance from defense.) Sadly I suspect druid dodge is in for a nerf and that nerf will hit catform too when it's really a problem exclusive to bearform.

They changed dodge specifically so that bear avoidance would match warriors. I have around 28% dodge in my tanking gear, which is perfectly reasonable considering it's ridiculously easy for a warrior to have 14/14 dodge/parry.

The fact that buffs increase it in ways the designers probably didn't intend, well - I think it's pretty obvious the designers aren't very savvy about the game considering the nerfs incoming.

Besides - I think it's pretty obvious that a skilled prot warrior with good gear already takes less damage than a feral druid, even with 27k armor (see whiteknight's post) which we won't be able to get post-patch, while the warriors in my raid barely have less health than me and will probably have more than me post patch considering the commanding shout changes and the bear health nerf. What is your goal for druids with these nerfs + your suggested further nerfs?

• squiffy · 02/28/07, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by Shiftir

Besides - I think it's pretty obvious that a skilled prot warrior with good gear already takes less damage than a feral druid, even with 27k armor (see whiteknight's post)

OK, just to throw a bit of perspective on there, and even as he said himself it is not 100% possible to avoid all crushing blows and his analysis is _one_ boss fight.

There will undoubtedly be fights where the mob melees faster than shield block allows, has a stun mechanic etc, and where crushings are going to have to be catered for in your tanks health/armour pool.

Shiftir · 02/28/07, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by squiffy

OK, just to throw a bit of perspective on there, and even as he said himself it is not 100% possible to avoid all crushing blows and his analysis is _one_ boss fight.

There will undoubtedly be fights where the mob melees faster than shield block allows, has a stun mechanic etc, and where crushings are going to have to be catered for in your tanks health/armour pool.

Right, which means for some fights a warrior would be better, and others a druid better. Whats wrong with that?

• squiffy · 02/28/07, 10:30 PM

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

My point was that Whiteknights "failure mode" demonstrated in his post was for one boss, but responses after that post seemed to be holding it up as the fait accompli for warriors being the only viable MT on any hard encounters.

Jayde · 02/28/07, 10:37 PM

Whiteknight, you make a lot of extremely good points in your post. I do think you could have looked into a few more aspect in addition, though.

For instance, I don't think it's as clear-cut to just pretend Druids have a monopoly on crushings. In your case, you did manage to avoid crushings in the later parse for a very long time--but this is certainly not something that is 100% either. A lot of luck is still involved, and it's helped by the fact that Maulgar himself is one of the slowest hitting mobs out there.

If a Warrior is taking 7k damage, that means IF he gets crushed, it's gonna hurt. Bad. A 10500 point crush is not something you want to see happen, but it -will- happen eventually. Basically, a 10500 crush combined with a 7k Arcing Smash will flat-out one-round many Warriors, especially if they are not topped off.

A 5833 Arcing smash combined with an 8749 crush will not one-round a Druid. In fact, it won't really come close to one-rounding a Druid. In that situation, the Druid is taking 14582 damage vs. the theorhetical 17500 damage of a Warrior.

Also, the simple fact is that in addition to more "surefire" one-rounding protection, a Druid in that scenario just takes less damage over time. Assuming 50% total avoidance, the remaining hits would be split 70% normal, 30% crushing.

5833 * .7 + 8749 * .3 = 6707.8 average hit

So many people just say, "because Druids get crushings 'all the time', they take more damage." They don't really. On average, a Druid -still- takes less damage, even if the Warrior were to get zero crushing blows--which, as a Warrior, I know is virtually impossible to assure. Even with Shield Block, Warriors don't usually pack 300 shield block value with most gear setups...or, if they do, it is at the expense of total avoidance stats such as dodge/parry--which would change the formula somewhat. So, best case they take less...worst case, they take nearly the same. What's the issue here?

In my opinion, the reason the whole crushing thing is overblown is a bit simple... As an argument, I would propose the statements:

1) If you can avoid being one-rounded, the damage is always healable.
2) As you take less damage over time, your healers are generally better equipped to have the resources to heal the spikes.
3) In the event that a mob is hitting too fast that the risk of multiple crushes happening back-to-back, it means you are getting hit by at least 3 attacks in short sucession--and, as Shield Block has 2 charges, you are probably just as likely to be "at risk" as a Warrior for that final hit. (Who would also be killed by it.)
4) In the event that a mob hits extremely fast (DW, triple hits, ability combos, etc), Warriors are probably more at risk due to the fact that they are more likely to be killed by successive crushing blows than a Druid. As the ratio of Druid vs. Warrior crushing blows becomes closer, the risk level of the Warrior may outpace the risk level of the Druid.

Now, I've played a Warrior as MT for a very long time... I love Warriors. I'm not going to proclaim that either class is better in every situation, but I honestly think that so much about crushing blows being the issue is horribly overblown.

Warriors avoid crushing blows because they must. Warriors are far more vulnurable to crushing blows than Druids. When a Warrior is taking 1.8k more damage from a crushing blow and typically has less HP, that is a very scary proposition for a tank and for a healer.

This:
2/22 20:21:20.187 High King Maulgar hits you for 8610. (crushing) (1413 absorbed)
2/22 20:21:22.796 High King Maulgar hits you for 12194. (crushing)

...is the type of thing that will have a high chance of killing a Warrior flat-out, when it is actually somewhat manageable by a Druid.

Using the theorycraft numbers above 17498 damage from x2 crushings will often not kill a Druid. 21000 damage from x2 crushings will often kill a Warrior.

If I wanted to "play it safe", I'd personally prefer going with the Druid (and have) on Maulgar and tell your healers to be prepared to heal the spikes if he drops rapidly. I don't want to them the Warrior and tell my healers, "don't worry about it if he dies, there's nothing you can do about it if he misses a shield block rotation."

Druids are great tanks now, and will continue to be great tanks after the patch from everything I have seen on PTR. The main thing Druids are struggling with right now is that so many of them are convinced they will be horrible that they are not as interested in tanking now as before.

• Zyla · 03/01/07, 1:08 AM

Your numbers on druids are somewhat unrealistic. We can have 27k armor or 20k life, but we can't have both, and neither can we have a substantial amount of dodge if we stack life or armor. My choices with all of the best gear around are roughly :

20k life /17k armor/25% dodge
13k life /27k armor/24% dodge
14k life/16k armor/ 41% dodge

Taking a mix of them i end up with

16k life/21k armor/35% dodge, which seems to be about the most effective.

I'm just as likely as you to get one rounded by that crushing string, and its significantly more likely at any give time for that to happen, possibly even many multiple times over the fight. I don't think the grass is any greener on this side, or well, used to be. Knocking my best tanking gear down to 15k life/19.5k armor/35% dodge isnt going to help matters.

A string of crushings is catastrophic for any class. Both of us are dead or dying from bad rolls like that. Assuming that we both survive, which of us has cooldowns we can use to instantly begin to alleviate the problem? You guys. Certainly they won't always be up but the options are there. If a third crushing blow is incoming which is significantly more likely to occur to the druid, all the druid can do is try to regen 250 hp/sec and hope his healers are on the ball.

This is the balance that we've all come to know, which is in serious question now.

Zacara · 03/01/07, 3:45 AM

I don't think an outright nerf to druid avoidance should be put in on top of what has been done in the latest patch. If druid armor won't scale much more from the current point then druid avoidance needs to stay at a respectable level. I do however agree that the system as it is now will probably break in the not so distant future.

Changing the dodge --> Agility ratios to something like 25 agility/dodge and then adding another 10% dodge chance as a static modifier in bearform would probably be a better way to go in the long term. Haven't done any calculations on that part though but a 14.71 agility per dodge ratio is bound to be abused to get 70-75%