Solstice

I agree. I'm sure if you ask pretty much any feral with 2.1k+ rating in 2s or 3s whether they value +healing on a pvp set they'd all say yes. The fact that the vast majority spec NI supports this. Overall I'd use this set for 5s (if I even played feral in 5s) but for 2s and 3s I'd be reluctant to give up the +healing from s2 set.

The change has probably come about from the vast number of 1200 rated mangle-spamming ferals clamoring on wow forums that they "no wan heal" in pvp. /sigh

 

VoroX

Nop. Healing on our PvP sets just SUCKS, except for 2v2 and even there you can just get 2 pieces of resto season 3 and still heal your ass off..... or just put healing gems into s3 feral who cares how your doing it. Sockets are there for a reason!
I am NEVER (SMALL exceptions where +200 heal would NOT help) healing in 3v3 yet we managed to get 2300 in season1 but we dont play that often now..

The new set is awesome, you can reach the hit cap easily and have like 8% more crit AND armor penetration... AND that glove bonus that is finally usefull to some extent
Stop complaining!

 

Carlos

The Battle Groups are quite different. I have not checked yours but if I search for a competitive Battle Group I check BG9 US or Blood Thirst (EU). There is really tight competition and I know people how switched away from Blood Thirst (EU) who got easily to a 200-300 point higher Arena Rating.

 

VoroX

i still don't know how you can complain about the loss of ~200 healing, u can easily use the resto set/honor rewards/necks/rings or just put healing gems into your sockets...

 

Valerian

Vaccine, where did you get the stats for the new honor pieces from?

 

seminarca

MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft Guides and Raid Strategies

Specifically, http://www.mmo-champion.com/images/n...-sanctuary.jpg for the Feral stuff, and http://www.mmo-champion.com/images/n...-vestments.jpg for the Rogue accessories.

 

Valerian

Ah cool, thanks. Didnt notice they were lumped in with the gladiator gear.

 

◊ Vaccine

Oops, sorry forgot to link the source.

Yer as said they are tagged onto the sides of the pictures of the S3 arena sets on mmo champ.

I checked out the rogue versions too as I currently prefer them for tanking but the S3 rogue versions aren't great compared to the feral ones. Not that I'll be needing them now, speccing Resto when 2.3 hits!

 

Valerian

Some quick calculations using Tossk's calculator and a base of 4500 AP, 45% crit and non-maxed hit rating (so I can see the value of hit gear) gives some of the following:

1. New pvp feral bracers are better than anything besides Insidious Bands
2. The S3 gladiator's helm blows every helm out of the water except for Cursed Vision of Sargeras
3. The S3 gladiator's chest is significantly better than everything besides the Nether Shadow Tunic which it is only 5 AP behind.

Now for full T6 geared people this probably doesnt make much of a difference in terms of top gear lits. However if you're in SSC/TK there is EASILY obtainable gear now that will put you near top BT/MH gear. A quick list off the top of my head for SSC/TK druid DPS would look like:

Head: S3 Gladiator
Neck: Choker of Vile Intent
Shoulders: Malorne
Back: Razor Scale Battle Cloak (or Drape of the Dark Reavers)
Chest: S3 Gladiator
Wrist: S3 (equiv) PvP Feral Bracers
Hands: Malorne
Belt: Belt of Deep Shadow or ideally Belt of One-Hundred Death's (ZA belt is closer to the same value here as is the new badge belt)
Legs: Skulker's Greaves
Boots: Nyn'Jah's Tabi Boots
Ring 1: Ring of Lethality
Ring 2: Garona's Signet Ring (the timed ZA ring is better than both of these but may be tough to get)
Trinket 1: DST
Trinket 2: ZA trinket off Zul'jin (bloodlust brooch and crystalforged are also good here)
Weapon: S3 Staff (S2 Staff if you cant get the appropriate rating)

The difference between this gear set and the top gear set is pretty small (probably less than 200 AP equiv). Looking at the gearlist you need to hit 25 man raids for only 3 slots (one of which is from Gruul).

Note:
The Difference between the T4 Helm and S3 Gladiator helm is 78.83 AP equiv and the difference between the T4 Chest and S3 Gladiator chest is 81.01 AP equiv. The shoulders are only ~50 AP better than the S3 gladiator ones and the T4 gloves are only ~50 AP better than the Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation, so clearly the T4 shoulders and gloves should be used. I think most people didnt realize just how small the difference between the T4 gloves and the top end gloves were. Its MUCH better to use the Malorne gloves and shoulders instead of giving up one of the sweet other slots like chest or helm. Maybe I calculated something wrong but it sure looks that way to me.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

I realize this isn't the pvp forum but I think the fact that this gear is even in the same ballpark as t6 for dps means that it could be a massive boost for feral viability in arenas.

I mean goddamn, the chestpiece splits its budget 9 ways (8 stats, and then bonus armor) and then has 3 sockets.

 

dukes

I know this isn't really the place for whining horribly, but I think it's a bit crap that the s3 helm is better than everything for DPS other than the cursed vision. I know that the PvP gear shouldn't be heavily behind the equivalent PvE gear (in this case Tier 6) but to actually be ahead of it in a pure DPS perspective is a bit... weird.

Then again, to use that stuff you have to give up set bonuses. The fact T4 is so good for set bonuses right now is what screws all this up, as using 3 pieces of s3 with 2 pieces of t4 is probably one of the best combo's available to most people.

There also need to be more trinkets. The 9 (or however many) I listed on the main page, plus the new one from ZA isn't enough! More trinkets!

 

• sadris

But on a more beneficial note, Vengeful Gladiator is even better for tanking due to this change.

http://elitistjerks.com/f57/t26374-savage_2_a/

 

schmurfy

I really think our best equipment should not come from pvp, too bad the druid class designers at blizzard do not think the same way :/
At least they added good items from heroic bagdes but for the weapon it seems we are stuck with the arena one, I have the S2 and will manage to get the S3 but a "real" weapon in bt/hyjal would be great.

 

Boevis

OT, but is it just me or are the Rogue non-set items really underbudget compared to the druid ones?
Boots/Belt (carbon copy items
-42 Armor
-10 Str (1 str = 2 ap)
+4 Agi
+7 Sta
-2 Crit
+4 Resil

Bracers
-42 Armor
-9 Str
+3 Agi
+4 Sta
-9 Crit??
-2 Resil

The Belt/Boots might balance out, or close enough, but those bracers ... either ours are way over, or theirs are way under, Our bracers are almost better for rogues than the rogue ones (-7 AP vs 9 crit)

And on a personal note [Grimgrin Faceguard] seems pretty good, and is a nice upgrade for my "Dodge set" at 70! agility. After kings, it's 5.38% Dodge Lack of a Metagem makes it pretty worthless compared to pretty much anything with a Meta

 

david0925

I don't really think its an issue with PVP vs PvE gear itemization, but the fact that PVP gear is always higher in terms of ilvl (Vengeful is what, 149?)

On a more positive note (or potentially positive), Season3 will be last arena season for this expansion, and we still have Sunwell to go into. So maybe pve vs pvp item progression will be more reasonable in there

 

Kadaan

Where did you get the info that S3 will be the last season till WotLK? There's still at least a year till the next expansion, and a 12+ month S3 would be pointless.

As far as the S3 feral set goes for PvE tanking, I was sad to see that only the head/shoulders would be upgrades from T4. With a 2k personal rating on the shoulders, the S3 hat is the first piece to shoot for towards a PvE tanking set.

 

Valerian

I noticed the same thing at first glance, running the numbers

Druid bracers: ilvl 141 (not including extra armor because I dont know what the armor value is by default)
Rogue bracers ilvl 124 (again not including the armor, but they have LESS extra armor anwyays...)

Whats the ilvl of that gear supposed to be? Somewhere around 130-135 no? I think it means the druid ones are WAY overbudget, unfortunately.

As I posted above, the S3 set is fantastic for DPS too especially if you're not raiding BT/Hyjal. Also can anyone check my numbers on the whole Malorne gauntlet thing for Endgame dps? It seems to me that you lose less AP by using the gloves and shoulders over their respective top end pieces than you do using shoulders +helm or chest.

 

Carlos

Take a look at the picture on WoR the item lvl is 146. http://www.worldofraids.com/news/oct...ruid/feral.jpg

Better at the hunters were the item lvl is on 4 items
http://www.worldofraids.com/news/oct...ena/hunter.jpg

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Have you done new math to see how close you can get to 100% avoidance with the new items available yet?

I'd imagine you can get really damn close now, at least while idol of terror is procced

edit: Hello Alev thanks for reading my mind

 

Allev

I'm personally not going to whine until the patch is released. And I strongly believe they should re-itemize T6, as I'm shortly going to explain.

Simply: the age of the hit-immune bear tank is really, really possible. And they can't allow us to continue going in that direction; they can't create another level in Sunwell.

If you've ever played with Rawr (linked up in the first posts) you know it's a very good tool for evaluating data. In addition, with the advent of our first mitigation idols in the game, we have an on-proc 5% dodge idol.

I went and tried to maximize dodge in Rawr. I optimized every piece of gear for the most AGI/Defense/Dodge possible. I got to 100% dodge+miss WITHOUT using trinkets, against normal mobs, with a hunter scorpid sting and a single Insect Swarm, with all the AGI consumables, etc. HP and Armor were fairly low, but that's not the point-- he was hit immune. Ask me if you want a copy of the XML or a gear list-- but essentially, high AGI gear with the most sockets, crimson spinels in each socket.

There have been a few discussions on "is it possible to get hit immune", and now the answer is a "yes, if you plan for it." I won't bother going into what a hit-immune tank means; however, I can only assume that Blizzard would think it's a Bad Thing.

So they purposely have to restrict the AGI on our items. They can't afford to put it on weapons because we could swap in a 50 AGI weapon and have every T5 druid be within trinket range of hit immunity. They can't just switch the STR and AGI on T6 because we'd all be at 80% dodge, standard.

If they can't let us easily become hit immune, they'll need to either:
- rework dodge ratings/etc to have diminishing returns (which would probably also encourage similar reworkings for parry, block, miss, etc, which may have an impact on the entire hit table, which they probably won't do)
- re-itemize to prevent us from getting more dodge on any item we already have.

In my 100% dodge set, I'm using 3 pieces of T6. I would be very surprised if they didn't reduce the AGI in at least the head/shoulders/chest in return for different DPS stats, much like S3 gear.

 

Tiffara

I've seen 156 defense rating thrown around a lot, for the amount necessary to be uncrittable (assuming no resilience). I do not believe this is the correct number, based on my research. It appears to be based on some mistaken assumptions in how defense rating is converted to defense and how this is displayed on the character panel.

1) 2.4 defense rating = 1 defense skill (at level 70) - Incorrect

This number shows up a lot, probably because it was stated by a blue. And it is very close to the correct number. However, if you stack defense rating, you'll find that it's simply incorrect. The actual value is 1.5*82/52 (1.5 is the level 60 conversion, and 82/52 is the scaling for level 70 ratings), or about 2.3653846153 - which looks a lot like 2.4 if you round it. To test this, I put on 363 defense rating - 151.25 using 2.4, 153.463 using 1.5*82/52. The character sheet read 153.

2) The character sheet rounds the displayed defense skill - Incorrect

Actually, it truncates the value, just as it does for weapon skill. This is also easy to test - 359 defense rating gives 151.772 defense skill, which displays at 151.

Thus, the correct value for uncrittable defense rating is 154. There is no difference between 154 and 156 defense rating - both give 65 defense skill.

Now, I know people have been critted with 154 defense rating. They've also been critted with 156 or more. To date, I have seen no one offer a reason why this happens other than player error (sitting) or game bugs (some equipment not giving defense rating, talents not being properly applied). I see no reason to distinguish the 154-155 crits from the 156+ ones.

This isn't to say there isn't a mechanic that takes higher defense levels into account, simply that I have seen no evidence of one, nor have I seen any one offer evidence for one.

 

Allev

Didn't see the new item before my post The gear list, btw:
Head: [Thunderheart Cover]-- 39+10+12 AGI
Neck: [Necklace of the Deep]-- 21+10+10 AGI
Shoulders: [Thunderheart Pauldrons]-- 36+10+10 AGI
Cloak: [Thalassian Wildercloak]-- 28 AGI (change to Slikk's new cape to go higher)
Chest: [Thunderheart Chestguard]-- 36+10+10+10 AGI
Wrist: [Insidious Bands]-- 28+10 AGI
Hands: [Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation]-- 35+10+10 AGI
Waist: [Belt of Deep Shadow]-- 32+10+10 AGI
Legs: [Skulker's Greaves]-- 32+10+10+10 AGI
Feet: [Shadowmaster's Boots]-- 30+10+10 AGI
Ring1: [Delicate Eternium Ring]-- 25 AGI, 16 dodge
Ring2: [Band of the Eternal Champion]-- 29 AGI
Trinket1: [Shadowmoon Insignia]-- 32 dodge, 36 DEF
Trinket2: [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch]-- 38 dodge
Weapon: [Wildfury Greatstaff]-- 54 dodge

Enchants:
Head: 17 dodge, 16 def
Shoulders: 10 dodge, 15 def
Back: 12 AGI
Chest: 6 stats
Wrists: 12 Def
Hands: 15 AGI
Legs: Nethercleft 12 AGI
Feet: 12 AGI
Weapon: 35 AGI

Misc buffs:
imp. MOTW
GoA
BoK
Major AGI elixir (35 AGI)
20 AGI food
Scroll of AGI V (20 AGI)
Scorpid Stingx1
Insect Swarmx1
Idol of Terror

Final Stats:
1105 AGI
13464 health
23376 armor
1105 AGI
79 Defense rating
167 Dodge rating
87.283% chance to dodge
12.716% chance to miss
100% dodge+miss (hit immune when idol of terror or trinket is up)