dukes

Those are all with 5.14% hit and Shapeshifters, leaving me with about 1.5% hit deficit (according to the current theories, at least) - I'm pretty sure that there's only one actual miss in the whole set, as the rest are comprised of mace misses (only had 300 2hmace skill, which is now 349 after some blasted lands afking). Once you get to significantly end-game gear, there's a fair amount of hit floating around on items anyway ([Nether Shadow Tunic][Insidious Bands][Belt of Deep Shadow][Merciless Gladiator's Maul] give a total of about 6% hit in themselves). There's not really any gain from avoiding hit entirely because of the itembudget system. The above items give 35+12+18+18 = 83 hit, and then adding on 10 hit from 2x5hit/5agi (to make up the yellow slots for the [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond]) gets you 93 hit - a total of 6.64% hit. This is 2% off the cap, which is perfect for Shapeshifters, or you can just ignore it and grab a couple of other hit items ([Tsunami Talisman], [Madness of the Betrayer] (if you can get it) or Garona's/Ring of Lethality for example).

The thing is, you don't notice not missing. When you miss and then powershift so end up gaining a total of 5 energy, you notice it a lot.

 

Umph

What do people think of the [Cloak of Darkness] coming in 2.2? I was unable to get my hands on a Razor-Scale and we've not run SSC for quite some time so I'm looking for an upgrade to my Farstrider Wildercloak. I'd lose some AP (10 or so), but gain a nice lump of crit rating. I'm thinking of tossing either a 10agi or a 5agi/7sta gem in the socket.

(I did a thread search for cloak of darkness and came up empty handed).

 

seminarca

It's definitely huge compared to Farstrider Wildercloak. I assume if you're not running SSC, then [Drape of the Dark Reavers] off Aran isn't a suitable suggestion either =x (it's quite good if one still needs the +hit), or [Thalassian Wildercloak] (no SSC means no TK?).

Aside from the above, [Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape] is the only one that registers as better which may or may not be a pain to get depending on how many of your melee DPS have it yet.

So, ya Cloak of Darkness is looking quite good.

 

david0925

Cloak of Darkness is quite nice. For current gear, even the [Blood Knight War Cloak] is probably better than the farstrider

BTW is armory broken? It shows you have 6 stamina vendor gem in your Thunderheart Leggings @@

 

Bag

Cloak of Darkness is not all that exciting to me. I don't really get why they itemize cloaks like that, since wars get a good amount of crit and dodge from agi, why not just budget things with str, agi, and sta for dps wars? Not to mention that raw stats are improved by raid buffs... I mean no rogue or hunter is going to take that cloak; it's OBVIOUSLY designed for retadins, wars, and druids, so why bother with crit rating? Seems like crit should be a hunter, rogue stat.

 

dukes

Warriors need 33 agility for a crit, and only 22 crit rating for a crit. This means crit is much better than agility for a warrior, even if you factor in Kings - just look in this forum, there's a thread asking why the Warrior DPS tier sets have agility instead of crit rating - it's just not worth it for them.

 

Valerian

The cloak is decent but Aran's is better than it as is the one from SSC. Also unless they changed the mats the [Cloak of Darkness] is rediculously expensive to make especially the 4 nethers it requires.

 

dukes

It's just occured to me that [Capacitus' Cloak of Calibration] is probably still better than any of the alternatives to Razor-Scale (except possibly Drape of the Dark Reavers/Thalassian Wildercloak). 22 str = 60 AP, 18 agi = 20 AP and ~0.8% crit. If you can bring yourself to do some speed runs of Mechanaar for the key to the chest, you could probably get it very quickly, and the cost of the Cloak of Darkness is pretty prohibitive (unless you have all the mats already, obviously).

 

Valerian

[Capacitus' Cloak of Calibration] is good but from a strict DPS point of view [Blood Knight War Cloak] and even [Vengeance Wrap] are both better and almost as easy to get.

 

Bag

What IS the hit cap for druids on bosses? I've heard 8.6% and I've heard over 10... on a ??-level raid boss, is it effectively 8.6?

 

david0925

In terms of absolute end gear, its actually fairly simple to reach the hit cap without compromising other stats. The problem is the fact that we need to compete some of those items with Rogues. Lets look at a setup with 2piece T4, and 3 Piece T6

Helm: Yellow Socket: 4agi/4hit: 4, 16 hit rating enchant= 20
Chest: Yellow Socket: 4agi/4hit: 4
Bracers: [Insidious Bands] 12 Hit, yellow socket, 4agi/4hit: 16 hit
Belt: [Don Alejandro's Money Belt] Yellow socket: 4agi/4hit: 4 hit
Legs: 27 Hit Rating
Rings: [Ring of Deceitful Intent]: 19
Weapon: [Merciless Gladiator's Maul]: 18

Just these pieces alone will put the druid at 108 hitt rating. [Madness of the Betrayer] provides 20. And if it is REALLY necessary all red socket can be socketed with Orange gems, not to mention Epic gems puts one higher

 

Valerian

The weaponskill thread has the current theory at 28% for dual wielding which would mean 9% on a 73 mob for druids.

 

Daenerys

The problem with Agi for Warriors is that unlike Rogue/Druid/Hunter, they get no AP from it. Str/crit are the DPS stats for Warriors, not Agi (if they can avoid it). If they got 1 AP for Agi, then it would be a difference story.

 

Bag

Wars do not get ap from crit rating, either. They get 1 crit per 22 crit rating and 29 agi. I supposed for raw dps, wars get more out of crit rating, but I'd still like to see more str/agi gear. Many fury wars that OT fights would like it and it's ideal for retadins and druids.

 

Daenerys

Yeah, that's the point I was making. 1 CR and 1 Agi are basically the same item budget, so if a Warrior is looking at getting something with 20 CR or 20 Agi, they want the CR (since 20 CR is worth more crit % than 20 Agi).

I agree, I would love to see more Str/Agi items, but it's a narrow group that really gains full benefit from that itemization setup, with clearly Druids being the best match. Given that, I think it unlikely that you would see a *ton* of options with that stat setup. You see rings, necks and cloaks with it, but beyond that you can't expect it to be overly prevelant because once the guild's Feral gets it, it's relatively useless outside of farming/PvP gear.

Edit - I don't really mean "useless," since certainly a Warrior might like the piece, but what I really mean is not ideally itemized for anyone besides the Feral Druid.

 

HaklePrime

Why would you force yourself to have 3 pieces of T6? The tier slots are good, but there are questionably better items, such as [Cursed Vision of Sargeras], and if you're off the hit-cap, I believe [Nether Shadow Tunic] competes quite handily in the chest slot.

At any rate, yes, it's really not difficult at all to attain the hit cap, even ignoring weapon skill. What is difficult, however, is maintaining meta-gem benefit while you're in the gearing process :P Stupid yellow gems.

On that note, why isn't there a +hit rating/stam gem? Yellow/Blue gem that would be perfect for filling some blue sockets on DPS pieces. There's a caster equivalent, just found it odd there's no melee version.

 

Umph

Haha, it's not, I'm waiting for one of our JC's to send me back a 10agi gem.

 

seminarca

Don't forget Enhancement Shaman, they'd also prefer crit rating over agility for the same reasons.

Keep in mind, the agility to dodge ratio isn't nearly as generous for other classes as it is for Druids, though some dodge is obviously better than none.

 

dukes

The agility->crit ratio for shamans is the same as for druids (~25:1%) so for them the stats are interchangable as long as they have Kings.

As for dodge, I currently have over 50% raid buffed in my DPS gear in cat form. It's bordering on the ridiculous, to say the least.

 

Septus

I'm gonna try some powershifting on Lurker tonight, any tips on a really good energy watching mod? Energywatch tracks combo points too and is screwing with my target frame.

 

seminarca

Well it's 0.96% crit vs 1% for 22 agi/crit with Kings but yeh <.<

Agility really is the new "Druid stat", funny turnaround that considering the "leather with agility? rogue item!!" mentality from pre-TBC.

I know some unit frame mods now come with built in energy tick bars. X-Perl does, I think Pitbull does as well.

 

Boevis

The more I hear about BT/Hyjal, the sadder I am to be a feral druid. The massive amount of Agi/AP/Hit (Rogue/Hunter) or Str/Crit (Shaman/Warrior) gear at the exclusion of Str/Agi ...

The difference between Crit rating and Agi is rather unimportant for Shaman/Warrior, whereas it's a huge deal for Druids. Same with Str/AP.

I'm really hoping ZA fixes our itemization. Using world blues and Badge rewards because they're better than drops from SSC/TK is just stupid.

 

Vaccine

My hope still lies in the Hyjal trash loot that they plan to implement. I mean it will suck to have to get 2-3 items from trash but a chance at it is better then no items at all.

Theres also the implementation of ZA coming later and with that patch new Heroic items for offspecs. Hopefully that will all but solve our item issues.

 

• sadris

I highly doubt anything other than gems will drop from trash. Trying to distribute BOP items between waves could be ... catastrophic.

 

Valerian

They could make them BoE with hyjal rep requirement. Though its more likely you're right and it'll just be gems.