Come on, let's not get carried away here. What exactly was nerfed?
* Bear form armor multiplier reduced
* Bear form increasing sta instead of hp (effectively reducing our hp pool)
* Bear Maul/Swipe/Mangle removed from the 20% talent
* Bear Mangle's multiplier removed (then later reinstated at a lower value)
The defensive nerfs were more than compensated for by the 2.1 gear fixes, specifically the ones to our tier gear. It's not a stretch by any means to assume that the defensive nerfs were made with the upcoming gear buffs in mind. The offensive nerfs can be attributed to PvP (the immediate threat hotfix further attests this notion).
Not a thing was done to nerf Cat form damage, it didn't need nerfing.
edit: Going back and reading the patch notes, PI was lowered from 15% to 10%, but that in itself isn't/wasn't devastating and, again, seemed more slanted to reduce Bear's offensive abilities than Cat dps.
dukes certainly has a valid point about itemization. When Cats first prowled into Kara, they were mainly geared from quest rewards, many of them tailor made for us. Heavy Str/Agi stuff, the Aldor quest shoulders from Netherstorm, the green bracers which are better than the Maiden ones, Talon chestguard etc etc.
But throughout Kara, you get much "Rogue" gear, and not a lot of "Druid" gear. So once you're at the SSC/TK level, you've outgrown your tailor made quest rewards, and begun to wear the Rogue gear .. it doesn't quite fit, it's uncomfortable in places (crotch area is too tight?), but it's better than what you had before, so you make do. And you're still making do in Hyjal/BT.
But it's apparent Blizzard doesn't want to pollute loot tables too much with Feral gear.
As I said, gear partially returned some of the strength to us. Claiming that we gained everything back is a rather large exhageration when we could be gaining stats instead of the extra armor and stamina we need to make up the difference in what we lost (not to mention the substantial reduction to maul, mangle, and swipe). What purpose does it serve us to go off on this tangent anyway, my point was simply to say druids were fairly needlessly nerfed in opposition to the Hunter's remarks about druid scaling, and to point out the differences in reliance on gear (or how well we scale into the T5-6 level and beyond).
You are reinforcing my position that the nerf was fairly baseless given that they turned around and returned much of what we lost. The gear "buff" could have easily taken into account 450% armor over 400%, while at the same time giving druids more of their precious iLevel stat distributions to DPS stats instead of armor. This indicates that the nerf served only to satisfy the nerf cries of warriors over the amount of armor bears were capable of while sneaking us back up to the same amounts as before. Having the same itemization for cat/bear gear certainly does not help things, but that has nothing to do with what I was speaking of. Honestly, at this point it looks like you are arguing simply for the sake of arguing. Can we please get back on topic?
I shall live as Lord BEEF does, hoping that there will be high lvl cat gear in ZA's loot tables. Maybe Blizzard will drop Intellect off our tanking gear as well!
P.s. As a bear I was cursing Zierhut's. I wear the Edgewalkers for tanking still because I am not a leatherworker and only going into BT this week.
P.p.s. 3 replies while I typed 2 paragraphs over lunch.
Last edited by angral : 08/22/07 at 10:47 PM.
Reason: Too many new posts.
Actually my post said *druids* were nerfed, as the nerfs to both forms are (unfortunately) linked and came at the same time. You went off on a tangent to claim that only bears were affected, which I can see by your edit you realized was incorrect. As this is not a bear DPS thread my intension is not to discuss bear form DPS. The only thing I said about bears is that armor basically came out even, and that is a very important point that has everything in the world to do with this discussion, which I will get back to later. The talents saw a reduction for both forms, you can call them minimal, but a 5% reduction on two key talents works out to a decent chunk of Cat DPS in the long run.
The nerfs impacted itemization, feral DPS, and our ability to compete beyond the T4 gear level. My point is the nerfs could easily be reversed right now, items could have their Armor values reduced to compensate (since all feral gear is both cat and bear gear), and druids would be much more competitive. It would allow for more DPS stats to be loaded onto our gear in place all that armor. We would do more damage in Cat form with gear tailored towards DPS as well as a return to the old values on the nerfed talents. We would not surpass rogues or warriors as we did when everyone was still in greens, so the cries to re-nerf druids would never come (when I say reverse the nerfs, I am speaking of the cat DPS and bearform defense nerfs only). It would increase our attack power in bear as a result; however, it would not be a large enough boost to be overpowering.
I will reiterate: my point is the nerfs were unnecessary and should be reversed to return druids to a better place for DPS. I don't see why we're having this disagreement as we both seem to be saying essentially the same thing, "druid gear is not good enough." I'm simply taking it a step further and saying druid talents aren't good enough and need to be returned since it will allow for itemization to take upgrades without having to change the ilevel of every piece.
Blizzard has their system for determining what stats get put on gear in what amounts for drops, and I do not think they are going to change that just for druids. It is also quite apparent they will not itemize seperate gear for each feral form, which leaves us with talents, skills, and class mechanics. Returning bear form defenses to their old values allows for gear to be tailored better towards cat DPS, while remaining equally useful for bear form. And it does this without actually changing the strength of the item itself relative to the iLevel system.
If they replaced intellect with hit/crit/feral combat skill/haste/armor penetration, rather than what we have now, we'd be better off. Base mana + standard raid buffs of int are good enough for me in pretty much all situations when DPSing (although I don't powershift, I think even Spirit would be a better stat than int on those items anyway). As it is, we have 2/5 of the item stats used on DPS stats in our feral gear, as opposed to 3/4 or 4/5 on gear designed for DPS classes.
Our biggest shortfall, in my opinion, are that we're the only class in the game with itemized weapons that are completely useless to other classes, so blizzard can't provide us with any meaningful selection without bothering others or dictating professions to us. Which is the main thing that makes FAP dumb-- it's an itemization nightmare for a class which already has itemization problems. So we end up with a PVP weapon being our best DPS upgrade beyond Karazahn.
If I have to pick up inscription to craft a staff after already having had to pick up enchanting and leatherworking for my feral role, I won't be happy.
If they replaced intellect with hit/crit/feral combat skill/haste/armor penetration, rather than what we have now, we'd be better off. Base mana + standard raid buffs of int are good enough for me in pretty much all situations when DPSing (although I don't powershift, I think even Spirit would be a better stat than int on those items anyway). As it is, we have 2/5 of the item stats used on DPS stats in our feral gear, as opposed to 3/4 or 4/5 on gear designed for DPS classes.
Our biggest shortfall, in my opinion, are that we're the only class in the game with itemized weapons that are completely useless to other classes, so blizzard can't provide us with any meaningful selection without bothering others or dictating professions to us. Which is the main thing that makes FAP dumb-- it's an itemization nightmare for a class which already has itemization problems. So we end up with a PVP weapon being our best DPS upgrade beyond Karazahn.
If I have to pick up inscription to craft a staff after already having had to pick up enchanting and leatherworking for my feral role, I won't be happy.
I think they could easily add a FAP component to 2H maces that drop in raid instances without needing to nerf the base damage of those weapons. Since a Druid using it won't use the base DPS of the weapon, and anyone else picking it up won't use the FAP, it's a wash. The point is, they *could* itemize better for Druids, but they choose not to. And of course there is always the option of a "hybrid" weapon like Benediction. A single weapon that can morph depending on your spec...you can make all sorts of Druids happy with one drop! I wish they would introduce more of these.
I'd agree with Usarte. At some point they decided that if a weapon is to have feral attack power, it must also have lower base DPS. I think they should just reverse that decision and let us share dps maces with warriors and ret paladins
I've also been proclaiming for ages that rogues should get two attack power per point of strength so they could just make "dps leather" and "tanking leather" "moonkin leather" and "healing leather" instead of all of those types in addition to feral dps leather.
I mean goddamn, there are only 2 leather wearing classes. Having 5 types of drops for that is a nightmare.
I'd agree with Usarte. At some point they decided that if a weapon is to have feral attack power, it must also have lower base DPS. I think they should just reverse that decision and let us share dps maces with warriors and ret paladins
I've also been proclaiming for ages that rogues should get two attack power per point of strength so they could just make "dps leather" and "tanking leather" "moonkin leather" and "healing leather" instead of all of those types in addition to feral dps leather.
I mean goddamn, there are only 2 leather wearing classes. Having 5 types of drops for that is a nightmare.
I don't know why I've never heard that suggestion or thought of it myself...but that is superb. Rogues getting 2 AP per Str would benefit them because they would now get a greater benefit from Kings, which they don't get much of now since they have so much +AP gear. Not only that, but it would solve a long-standing rivalry between Hunters and Rogues wanting the same gear! =P
Blizzard really could consolidate some of the itemization to make things not only easier, but better for everyone.
Our biggest shortfall, in my opinion, are that we're the only class in the game with itemized weapons that are completely useless to other classes, so blizzard can't provide us with any meaningful selection without bothering others or dictating professions to us. Which is the main thing that makes FAP dumb-- it's an itemization nightmare for a class which already has itemization problems. So we end up with a PVP weapon being our best DPS upgrade beyond Karazahn.
I think the closest things there are to druid weapons are hunter ranged weapons- rogues and warriors can get a little benefit from the ranged slot, but a high dps, slow attack speed ranged weapon is basically designed for one class.
There are 5 hunter- oriented ranged weapons past karazhan and only two feral staves and that's just disturbing.
I think the closest things there are to druid weapons are hunter ranged weapons- rogues and warriors can get a little benefit from the ranged slot, but a high dps, slow attack speed ranged weapon is basically designed for one class.
There are 5 hunter- oriented ranged weapons past karazhan and only two feral staves and that's just disturbing.
The thing is, regardless of if it's useful or not to a hunter (see here), other classes can still use it. It's also items designed for an entire class, not one third of a class (although in reality I assume the druid population to be split approximately 20/40/40 right now, with balance in the minority). The only ranged weapon in TBC that is not really useable by other classes is the Illidan bow (due to the mana leech on it replacing the majority of the stats). Theres also 4 ranged weapons total in BT/Hyjal, of which 2 are definitely specifically designed for hunters (also the two that are ilvl 151) compared to the one staff, which is hybrid designed (and so non-optimal) for druids (ilvl 141).
Making feral AP a function of base weapon DPS (that's included on everything useable by druids pretty much i.e. maces/staves) rather than an added on stat looks like the easiest solution to me, and they can still tailor weapons that aren't supposed to be useable by druids by using polearms, swords or axes.
The issue with creating a system that doesn't imbalance the classes while trying to consolidate some of the itemisation problems Druids have as a unique class is too big to be able to say "lol do this and you have an answer" because it needs thinking through at the PvP, PvE, leveling and general levels. Blizzard have never been ones for particularly hasty actions when it comes to completely working over a class or system.
I think the closest things there are to druid weapons are hunter ranged weapons- rogues and warriors can get a little benefit from the ranged slot, but a high dps, slow attack speed ranged weapon is basically designed for one class.
There are 5 hunter- oriented ranged weapons past karazhan and only two feral staves and that's just disturbing.
Good analogy. Blizzard finally started putting decent ranged options out there (though T6 ranged for Hunter are still itemized innappropriately; at least they got the speed and DPS right on them though) with TBC. Hopefully that means they do eventually learn from past mistakes (for non-Hunters, pre-TBC ranged weapon itemization was a complete nightmare).
Making feral AP a function of base weapon DPS (that's included on everything useable by druids pretty much i.e. maces/staves) rather than an added on stat looks like the easiest solution to me, and they can still tailor weapons that aren't supposed to be useable by druids by using polearms, swords or axes.
Do you mean to put FAP on all 2h maces and staves, or have attack power added to feral forms as a function of white damage?
I think they could easily add a FAP component to 2H maces that drop in raid instances without needing to nerf the base damage of those weapons. Since a Druid using it won't use the base DPS of the weapon, and anyone else picking it up won't use the FAP, it's a wash. The point is, they *could* itemize better for Druids, but they choose not to. And of course there is always the option of a "hybrid" weapon like Benediction. A single weapon that can morph depending on your spec...you can make all sorts of Druids happy with one drop! I wish they would introduce more of these.
I think the problem with allowing druids to use all weapons leads us down the path that Hunters currently face with their melee weapons: they need them as "stat sticks" and the weapons do a lot; however, rogues and warriors were losing some of the best weapons available in the game to hunters who did not actually make use of their damage component. As a result, in TBC you now see a large divide in weapons where you can easily point at something like the Halberd of Desolation and say, "stat stick" while the epic weapons off Illidan can be easily pointed at to say "rogue/warrior gear." How upset would you be if the best feral weapon in the game was taken by a warrior who wanted to use it for a Mortal Strike build?
I think it's good that weapons have a clear divide between who gets the best use out of them. With the lower base damage on feral weapons, we essentially never have to worry about another class taking our weapons, nor do other classes have to worry about us taking theirs.
This would lead us to the same discussion with warriors that hunters had: who gets first stab at the weapon based on who gets more use out of it? The argument always has been, and probably always will be, that the person who gets to use the actual DPS of the weapon gets first dibs.
I think the problem with allowing druids to use all weapons leads us down the path that Hunters currently face with their melee weapons: they need them as "stat sticks" and the weapons do a lot; however, rogues and warriors were losing some of the best weapons available in the game to hunters who did not actually make use of their damage component. As a result, you now see a large divide in weapons where you can easily point at something like the Halberd of Desolation and say, "stat stick" while the epic weapons off Illidan can be easily pointed at to say "rogue/warrior gear." How upset would you be if the best feral weapon in the game was taken by a warrior who wanted to use it for a Mortal Strike build?
Intelligent loot systems prevent this. If having to use "warrior weapons" would make our missing weapon DPS suddenly appear, I am all for it.
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There are 5 hunter- oriented ranged weapons past karazhan and only two feral staves and that's just disturbing.
Granted, 1 of them is off a world boss, which puts hunters that raid as having 1 upgrade in SSC from vashj, 1 in TK, 1 in Hyjal, and 1 in BT. It is a major sore point for hunters to have so few upgrades to their weapons, so druids having only 2 beyond Karazhan is absolutely ridiculous (I had no idea there were so few). Personally, I am hoping the new 10man will help address a number of itemization gaps (I think most classes have certain items with equally large gaps between upgrades).
As far as the mace discussion, are we requesting that FAP be added to all maces, or that the base DPS of the weapon should somehow translate directly into FAP?
I think the problem with allowing druids to use all weapons leads us down the path that Hunters currently face with their melee weapons: they need them as "stat sticks" and the weapons do a lot; however, rogues and warriors were losing some of the best weapons available in the game to hunters who did not actually make use of their damage component. As a result, in TBC you now see a large divide in weapons where you can easily point at something like the Halberd of Desolation and say, "stat stick" while the epic weapons off Illidan can be easily pointed at to say "rogue/warrior gear." How upset would you be if the best feral weapon in the game was taken by a warrior who wanted to use it for a Mortal Strike build?
I think it's good that weapons have a clear divide between who gets the best use out of them. With the lower base damage on feral weapons, we essentially never have to worry about another class taking our weapons, nor do other classes have to worry about us taking theirs.
This would lead us to the same discussion with warriors that hunters had: who gets first stab at the weapon based on who gets more use out of it? The argument always has been, and probably always will be, that the person who gets to use the actual DPS of the weapon gets first dibs.
Sadris kinda answered this, but I'd go beyond an intelligent loot system and point at intelligent guildies. Drops being shared is part of WoW, and I don't have any problem sharing drops with any other class as long as it's an intelligent looting decision. If a Prot Warrior wants that 'best-in-game feral mace' for a weekend MS build, that's great, but a player in my guild in that situation will wait till I get it since I use it in a raid. If the guy raids as MS and this is an amazing upgrade for him, too, DKP will decide the winner.
I'm all for reducing the number of drops and expanding the number of people who will use those drops, because it means its more likely for everyone to get what they want and less likely we will shard drops off a boss. We have been killing Vashj for a month and the DPS plate chest went to a Pally last night as the only bidder. The gun from Al'ar will be sharded on the next drop. These are examples of loot that are good pieces, but only for like 2-3 members of your guild...let alone your raid that night.
The more class-specific loot you have, the more drops you need to make everyone happy.
I doubt blizzard would change the STR reward for rogues-- the class is so near-OP already. More likely would be simply flipping the HOTW talent to reward us based on AP rather than STR, and then all the current rogue DPS gear becomes simply DPS gear. It won't happen, though, because it'll overpower AGI (so you'd have to expect an agi-to-crit nerf along with it).
As for hunter bows-- those items really are optimal. They are designed to be optimal for one class and usable for others. Pretty much all the feral druid loot, OTOH, is pretty useless for every other class, which means they can't make many of those items (except their new recipe-dropping system, which has its own flaws).
Granted, 1 of them is off a world boss, which puts hunters that raid as having 1 upgrade in SSC from vashj, 1 in TK, 1 in Hyjal, and 1 in BT. It is a major sore point for hunters to have so few upgrades to their weapons, so druids having only 2 beyond Karazhan is absolutely ridiculous (I had no idea there were so few).
Hmm, to me, 1 per raid zone seems exactly the right number for a single class high priority/specific weapon.
Granted KZ had 3 usable weapons, I don't think hunters have any room to complain (but they may choose to anyway).
In the end, I don't think having only two weapons for feral druids would be so much of an issue, if the Pillar didn't have such a schizophrenic design.
Hmm, to me, 1 per raid zone seems exactly the right number for a single class high priority/specific weapon.
Granted KZ had 3 usable weapons, I don't think hunters have any room to complain (but they may choose to anyway).
In the end, I don't think having only two weapons for feral druids would be so much of an issue, if the Pillar didn't have such a schizophrenic design.
1 of the weapons is a tank/rogue stat stick at 1.9s that any hunter would have to be out of his mind to consider an upgrade. Also keep in mind that beyond karazhan the only upgrade through 3 raid instances is at the very end of SSC off Vashj, which is comparatively a much more difficult and less frequently downed boss than most, while a feral druid staff drops of trash in SSC. Realistically there are 2 upgrades for the ranged slot (1 a gun, the other a bow) until you 'beat the game' and get access to the last. Hunters have similar issues with their weapons being poor DPS choices as speed plays a much larger role in hunter DPS than both base damage and stats (imagine upgrading over 10 weapon DPS, only to find that you just gimped your over-all damage). I think having very limited options is every bit of an issue for any class, and I fail to see how minimizing hunter ranged selection issues is going to help things here. If anything it should be used to strengthen the druid's stance on feral weapon itemization.
Compare what hunters/druids have: 2 upgrade options through raiding, while hunters get that +1 at the very end-game. Then look at rogues/fury warriors who get at least 2 of each 1h weapon type per raid instance, and 2h weapons that come at least 1 per instance. What rogues and warriors both have access to are upgrades, and to find a rogue using some world drop mainhand over something out of SSC is not going to happen. Yet you will find druids and hunters making decisions like that because of poor weapon itemization.
Sigh...
There is 1 (2 in BT) legit itemized upgrade in each instance (not counting the 1.9 Tank weapon). True that currently some are not pure sustained DPS upgrades for hunters, but that is the fault of stupid Hunter mechanics (not the itemization team).
One Hands
17 One Hand Weapons
- Two Rogue/Fury Warrior Mainhand Swords.
- Two Rogue/Fury Warrior Offhand Swords.
- Two Rogue Mainhand Daggers.
- Two Rogue Offhand Daggers.
- One Priest/Druid/Shaman Healing Mace.
- One Paladin Healing Mace.
- One Caster Sword.
- One Caster Dagger.
- One Mainhand Fury Warrior/Enhancement Shaman(and Offhand) Axe.
- One Mainhand Fury Warrior/Rogue/Enhancement Shaman(and Offhand) Mace.
- One Offhand Fury Warrior/Rogue Mace.
- One Prot Tanking Axe.
- One Prot Tanking Sword.
Two Hands
8 Weapons
- One Druid Tanking Staff.
- Two Priest/Druid Healing Staves.
- One Caster Staff.
- One Hunter Stat Stick.
- One MS Warrior Mace.
- One MS Warrior Axe.
- One MS Warrior Sword.
So for Rogues as you can see Hyjal and BT bring 10 upgrades to the various weapon setups, with 2 for each MH and OH for Dagger and Swords, and 1 for MH and OH for Mace speccers.
For Warriors there are 12 weapon upgrades for the different specs, One for each MS 2hand Mace, Sword and Axe. 2 upgrades for Prot with an Axe and a Sword. 7 upgrades for Fury, including 2 MH Swords, 2 OH Swords, 1 MH Mace, 1 OH Mace, and 1 MH Axe.
Paladins may look lacking, but while not optimal, there can still use the Warrior loots to about equivalent effects that we see from our offset rogue loots that we are forced to wear. With that thought, Retadins have 3 2hand Upgrades, Protadins have 2 Tanking Upgrades, and Healadins have 1 primary upgrade with another "better than previous tiers but not optimal" upgrade.
Enhancement Shaman, yeah those guys who complain they have the worst itemization in the game, have 2 MH/OH upgrades from tier 6 including a Mace and an Axe.
Casters get a Dagger, a Staff, and a Sword for those who can equip.
Even hunters have a Stat Stick and a couple slightly less optimal upgrades from this tier.
Meanwhile we have 1, count them 1 single upgrade, and only a tanking upgrade from this tier. If our damage was based on just ilvl, or DPS, our amazing list of massive upgrades from this tier would extend from 1 all the way to 2 from this tier. One for Tanking and One for DPS. I think that long list of raiding MS Warriors can share 1 of their 3 weapons from tier 6, considering my guild alone, every single Warrior now, not even our 1 MS, but also 2 other Prots and Furys each now have at least 1 tier 6 2hand weapon.
Who would it hurt, they could continue to make our tanking staves/maces, but give them decent DPS for potential Retadin/Warrior builds, but allow us to poach well DPS designed 2hand Maces, and (Oh Noes) allow us to be able to craft a decent upgrade from Blacksmithing.
12 friggen upgrades from tier 6 alone, I think they can share 1 with us...
Actually we don't have any 141+ upgrades because the PoF is a downgrade from Wildfury for tanking, and a downgrade from Merciless Gladiator's for DPS.
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Also keep in mind that beyond karazhan the only upgrade through 3 raid instances is at the very end of SSC off Vashj, which is comparatively a much more difficult and less frequently downed boss than most, while a feral druid staff drops of trash in SSC.
Not to dilute your point about melee weapons being everywhere, but I don't think anyone considers getting a crappier weapon sooner equal to a great weapon later. That's an issue druids have had since the beginning, and it's generally never addressed.
To me, the prot warrior stat-stick is a particular offensive piece of itemisation. Firstly the available ranged weapons are much better than the idols we can wear. Secondly extra sockets, especially on weapons are godly for stat customisation. Finally it's yet another nice crafted item for warriors.
Consider instead of [Wildfury Greatstaff], the trash instead dropped the plans for a boe variant of [Hammer of the Naaru] with say beasts stats (agi/str/sta) and the 3 sockets. Then it could be made into a tanking weapon if that's what you're lacking, or alternatively a dps one.
Interestingly enough if you look at the available 2Hers at the high-end, making FAP implicit wouldn't actually help our dps much. Of the weapons we can actually equip, only the crafted [Stormherald] actually competes with the [Merciless Gladiator's Maul] with its 42 agi vs 42 crit and 18 hit, so it's only a very small win.
Looking across the other 2H weapons, they don't have str+agi combination that works well, although the armour penetration on [Cataclysm's Edge] could be a goer.
While we have such weird class mechanics, the only fix for our itemisation issues is to include more feral items. To make it worse, as mentioned above, due to bonus armour and other similiar mechanics, you really need to add separate feral tanking and feral dps gear. While I don't think it's realistic to adjust the mechanics until WotLK, I think it really needs to be done if they're going to have a realistic attempt at itemising ferals.
ETA: By adding FAP, it means that adjusting HotW to work off AP is more complicated than it seems. As it is, we get some additional benefit out of unleashed rage as a result. If they want to fix it and still itemise us with intellect (and sometimes +heal), then having HotW adjust your AP in feral forms based on say int might be a better way to go, although it doesn't exactly help the itemisation issue. The biggest issue with balancing our itemisation at the the moment is a result of how much more valuable the core stats of agi, sta and str are than the more specialised ones which other classes typically prefer.
08/22/07, 10:33 PM
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