Feral Druid Megathread - Page 175

• Astrylian · 07/03/08, 11:42 AM

Originally Posted by iamrelevart

Ok, so using my peanut sized brain with too little sleep, the net result of this is that we reach our hard and soft cap at the same time? That's kind of a bummer really, because there's a lot more value (imo) from not missing or being dodged on specials versus white damage. Lucky rogues... Thank you for the detail, that was most informative. Now back to trying to cheat the system!

...what? We all softcap at 9%hit/6.5%dodge (or whatever the dodge cap is, see next post). Cats just also get hardcapped. That's lucky cats, not lucky rogues. Also, don't misunderstand and think that we *should* be hit/exp-capped. Cat's aren't rogues, and Cats don't need to be hit/exp-capped. Don't gem or food for it or anything like that. If you happen to get hit/exp-capped, that's cool, but don't go out of your way to get there.

And to the other poster... PvP gear isn't available to everyone? How so? Just get the bracers, their 19resil really helps. I swap those in for trash (with def enchant), or any time I don't want to use an elixir.

Mijae · 07/03/08, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Rannasha

Against boss-level mobs:

142 (hit-rating)
89 (expertise-rating)

What are these numbers based on? From the last research I remember reading it was actually estimated for dodge rate to be 6.5% rather that 5.6% (0.5% per level). However, I did not do testing on this myself and would need to search again to find the source. Both Tangedyn and Toskk use 6.5% in their formulas as well.

89 rating would have to be based on a non-rounded formula to get 5.6%. However, expertise is similar to defense in that it is rounded down to one expertise value, not directly from rating. So, even if 5.6% was correct it would require 91 expertise rating.

87 exp = 5.5%
91 exp = 5.75%
103 exp = 6.5%

kalbear · 07/03/08, 1:41 PM

1) Badge of Tenacity is too expensive on my server
2) With neck from RoS and defense on chest i can lose the trinket which gives me an oppurtunity to get something better.
3) Getting pvp gear is not available to everyone and the 30 resil from the pot won't do the trick if you lose too much defense

But your right about my gear issues

Badge is worth whatever it costs. It's an amazingly good trinket for bears, and it makes me sad whenever I have to lose it for some random fight. Unless you're armor capped, it is the best trinket for bears, period.

If you use resilience gear (or resilience enchants, like on the chest, it allows you to have more flexibility in your gear choices as well as choose better-itemized gear. In a perfect world defense would be best; it is slightly more efficient than an equivalent amount of resilience and agility for giving the best mitigation and avoidance. But we don't have perfect worlds. For instance, you have the Gilded Thorium cloak instead of slikk's cloak. Slikk's cloak is much better itemized, but you need Gilded Thorium because of the defense on it. You need the very bad defense trinket instead of a badge or moroes or shadowmoon.

Actually, that's not true - with your setup, you don't need that defense trinket at all because you have the VG gloves. You're already well over the uncrit cap. I personally found that the gloves were a poor choice to get resilience from due to the good options at gloves; the bracers seemed to be the least loss in stats in exchange for resilience. For you with the thunderheart, though, that might not be true.

I don't have as many T6 pieces as you do, but I have more armor, more HP and more avoidance than you do because resilience works so well. And I have more expertise thanks to the brooch of deftness.

I'm also curious how pvp gear isn't available to everyone, but you have the VG gloves. So you can do arena but not a battleground? Or are you talking about someone else? I figure that if you can raid you can do BGs.

I don't mean to offend here, but that is kind of a selfish approach. You need your Warriors during progression, and letting your Prot Warriors skip the boss, who has 3 upgrades in stock, isn't much progress for them.

It's selfish one way or another, isn't it? The original suggestion was whether he should sit one feral druid or two. That's pretty selfish in favor of the warriors. I thought it only fair that the suggestion be made to sit one prot warrior or two, especially since the ferals shine in the Brutallus fight. If you're talking min-maxing I still believe two feral druids will do more damage than a war/druid will for tanking, even if some other dps warrior has to keep up tclap. This is based on experience in the game more than hard numbers, but talking with a fury warrior he estimated that it would hurt but not severely so. It probably isn't a huge difference - maybe a few hundred dps + whatever group buff the feral provides. But it is better. I wouldn't advocate it personally; I'd try and get everyone in if at all possible. But sometimes it's not, and it's better to down a boss while sitting some people than it is to not down a boss while pleasing everyone.

Coldturkey · 07/03/08, 4:27 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

It's selfish one way or another, isn't it? The original suggestion was whether he should sit one feral druid or two. That's pretty selfish in favor of the warriors. I thought it only fair that the suggestion be made to sit one prot warrior or two, especially since the ferals shine in the Brutallus fight. If you're talking min-maxing I still believe two feral druids will do more damage than a war/druid will for tanking, even if some other dps warrior has to keep up tclap. This is based on experience in the game more than hard numbers, but talking with a fury warrior he estimated that it would hurt but not severely so. It probably isn't a huge difference - maybe a few hundred dps + whatever group buff the feral provides. But it is better. I wouldn't advocate it personally; I'd try and get everyone in if at all possible. But sometimes it's not, and it's better to down a boss while sitting some people than it is to not down a boss while pleasing everyone.

Druid/warrior will yield more dps than druid/druid because besides losing the dps on your arms warrior you're also losing the 5 stack of sunder which will force a rogue to expose or another warrior to sunder instead. The 400-500 dps difference between a prot warrior and feral druid isnt worth it. Survivability wise it might be easier to do it with 2 druids (probably if your tanks are dying during stomp a lot)

kalbear · 07/03/08, 4:33 PM

Rogues doing improved expose armor is actually better dps for the raid than a warrior doing sunder, even with the rogue's dps loss. That was shown elsewhere on this site. And you're not factoring in a second LotP for raid damage either.

iamrelevart · 07/03/08, 5:36 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

...what? We all softcap at 9%hit/6.5%dodge (or whatever the dodge cap is, see next post). Cats just also get hardcapped. That's lucky cats, not lucky rogues. Also, don't misunderstand and think that we *should* be hit/exp-capped. Cat's aren't rogues, and Cats don't need to be hit/exp-capped. Don't gem or food for it or anything like that. If you happen to get hit/exp-capped, that's cool, but don't go out of your way to get there.

And to the other poster... PvP gear isn't available to everyone? How so? Just get the bracers, their 19resil really helps. I swap those in for trash (with def enchant), or any time I don't want to use an elixir.

Well there seems to be an abundance of these stats (particularly hit) on rogue gear, so it's nice that they have a soft cap that is easier to reach (in a comparitive way, considering their gear) than say a druid. Of course we begin to infringe upon their gear anyway, so I suppose, lucky cats. But I bet the rogues don't see it that way.

seminarca · 07/03/08, 10:02 PM

This is debatable, but I really don't believe Druids are categorically better at Brutallus than Warriors. It goes back to EHP vs avoidance, once you've passed the Stomp/MH/OH (+some margin) survivability threshold, avoidance is useful to stack since you're unlikely to survive another MH or OH hit outright. With the amount of spam healing going around, it becomes useful to lessen the chance of RNG gib Stomp/MH/OH/MH/OH than to attempt to survive it. Smart use of clicky trinkets, nightmare seed (for both of us) and Last Stand (Warriors only), makes both classes very suitable for the task. We can argue about Barkskin taunts, DPSing while not tanking, threat, Last Stand, Shield Wall etc ad nauseum, but I honestly don't believe either one of us has a distinct advantage.

I certainly prefer using a mixture of both.

cana · 07/04/08, 6:23 AM

In my oppinion, the only real advantage Druids have over Warriors is the Barkskin taunt to counter slow healers

Without stomp, you might survive 3 Main-/Offhand Combos with only 1 Healer that reacted properly to the tank switch.

sal · 07/04/08, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by seminarca

This is debatable, but I really don't believe Druids are categorically better at Brutallus than Warriors. It goes back to EHP vs avoidance, once you've passed the Stomp/MH/OH (+some margin) survivability threshold, avoidance is useful to stack since you're unlikely to survive another MH or OH hit outright. With the amount of spam healing going around, it becomes useful to lessen the chance of RNG gib Stomp/MH/OH/MH/OH than to attempt to survive it. Smart use of clicky trinkets, nightmare seed (for both of us) and Last Stand (Warriors only), makes both classes very suitable for the task. We can argue about Barkskin taunts, DPSing while not tanking, threat, Last Stand, Shield Wall etc ad nauseum, but I honestly don't believe either one of us has a distinct advantage.

I certainly prefer using a mixture of both.

One warrior tank is a great advantage for providing sunder, tclap, demo shout, commanding shout with no losses.

Feral provides LotP, consistent incoming damage, generally higher threat.

Both classes have similar damage mitigation, tricks for initial damage, survivability. The synergy is what favors both.

In other news I look over my parses and typically see warrior tanks taking less overall (but more spikey) damage than ferals. Is this something that is typical or am I doing something wrong? I have leaned most gear for as much avoidance as possible but it is still not enough to equate.

For reference the warriors have mostly everything up to twins as do the ferals. Feral reference gear is two high armor rings, SMI, commendation, brut/RoS neck, 8/8 T6, defense/agi enchants, wildfury/stanchion. Warrior reference gear is 8/8 T6, same trinkets, same necks, various rings/weapons, felmyst shield. Mix of stam and avoidance.

• Astrylian · 07/04/08, 12:47 PM

Equally geared warriors will actually take less damage overall on Brut, most likely, for a few reasons... Block is exceptionally valuable on Brut. 400-500 dmg knocked off of every attack (and he attacks extremely fast) is quite significant. But most importantly, due to the way healing is done on Brut, the warrior probably has Ancestral Fortitude 100% of the time that he's tanking. That heavily negates the armor disadvantage that warriors have, other than when stomped. Then there's also the fact that depending upon your taunt rotation, and how long it takes you to kill him, one tank may be tanking for significantly longer than the other, and one may tank through more stomps than the other.

sal · 07/04/08, 3:26 PM

I have seen this on most encounters by keeping assessment open or comparing total taken for single-target fights. I did not think of the 30% increased armor debuff and forgot the chaining of ironshield potions offering a significant difference in mitigation.

My next chain of thoughts is comparing stanchion coupled with natural power and badge of tenacity to wildfury coupled with commendation and T6 belt. Both of these offer similar armor, however the stanchion setup offers more threat and mitigation at the cost of stam. The second difference is the proc on trinkets, commendation has a proc half as powerful but available every 30 seconds? tenacity offers twice the avoidance but manual and every 2 minutes.

If I used bear pot macros I could change the weapons, ironshield and nothing else, but I am not comfortable with it.

Still comparing the two setup, seems to be a loss of survivability for avoidance and threat. Thoughts?

Mijae · 07/04/08, 4:13 PM

I've alway taken less average damage than our warrior, anywhere from 200-700 per hit. Of course, he takes slightly less per hit of Meteor Slash damage, but that's significantly less. Overall I take less damage than him.

After everyone had learned the encounter he was the only one ever dieing from spike damage. We have fairly equal gear levels. He is gemmed pure avoidance, I'm still fairly stamina heavy. I do consider [Commendation of Kael'thas] a superior trinket in general, but using [Badge of Tenacity] and [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch] allows having extra avoidance every stomp guaranteed. This could also account for the lower damage since my overall avoidance is about 2% less.

sal · 07/04/08, 5:29 PM

My problem with using the commendation is dropping SMI and remaining crit immune. I do not use any resilience in my tanking setup and do not have an extra 32 defense to remove the shadowmoon insignia. Off the top of my head my only options for removing the SMI is obtaining Season 4 PvP bracers and gaining 10 defense via gemming or enchanting shoulders with defense. If I obtain the ring from m'uru I should only need the bracers for crit immunity.

My second and more favorable option is changing my defense elixir to ironskin when I need the armor of tenacity coupled with the survivability of commendation. This result should offer 10-20% more threat by using stanchion over wildfury.

For non-radiance bosses I would look at SMI, tenacity/moroes, and stanchion.

For radiance trash season 4 bracers, stam trinket, commendation (if I really care about survivability on trash).

For radiance bosses I will look at tenacity, commendation, stanchion, ironskin elixir.

For radiance bosses i'm lazy with, SMI, commendation, wildfury or pillar if there's healing to spare

To mijae I believe SMI has about a quarter (0.25) percent more avoidance than the pocketwatch. The crit immunity is what makes this trinket so popular as immunity can be obtained without resilience. I am interested in how you and your warrior are taking similar damage when you stack survivability and the warrior avoidance, my warrior counterparts and myself are opposite and I still take more damage than them.

How many priest/shaman/paladin healers do you use? are they specced for armor increasing heals? does your warrior chain ironshield pot? These reasons might makeup the difference.

Mijae · 07/04/08, 6:21 PM

[Elixir of Ironskin] opens up so many options. I also use [Staff of the Forest Lord] for the extra threat and avoidance on Brutallus (don't have Stanchion yet). With an [Ironshield Potion] I'm still over the armor cap normally. I'm still right around 22k health with stam gemmed gear. Perhaps when we get him on farm and don't need to use as many consumables I'll change gear up. Again, the main reason I prefer pocket watch over SMI (or CoT) is the active use. Since both trinkets have a 2 minute cooldown, alternating between it and BoT means one of them will always be up during stomp. So, my normal avoidance is lower but it jumps up whenever the real damage is incoming. I'm logged in my Brutallus gear atm. I use slightly different gear on say Kalecgos and the warriors do end up taking less total damage than I do, especially since I normally don't have a shaman or use heavy consumables there.

When learning an encounter (before serious attempts) I'll use a flask. For normal attempts I use ironskin elixirs when tanking on all bosses now though.

sal · 07/04/08, 7:04 PM

looks like a pretty solid setup, and I would say keep your stam and survivability as felmyst can crush and survivability is a must if you tank, twins offer extreme damage and irregularly switches between tanks, again surviability and stam is still very nice.

I lean towards avoidance now to get past m'uru. Not sure how I should prepare for kil'jaeden but it looks like consistent magical damage and i'm assuming a feral is tanking for high threat, avoidance is negligible? perhaps warriors debuff and disarm adds so they're on them, paladin for their AoE abilities.

Darkkazul · 07/05/08, 1:38 AM

Originally Posted by sal

looks like a pretty solid setup, and I would say keep your stam and survivability as felmyst can crush and survivability is a must if you tank, twins offer extreme damage and irregularly switches between tanks, again surviability and stam is still very nice.

I lean towards avoidance now to get past m'uru. Not sure how I should prepare for kil'jaeden but it looks like consistent magical damage and i'm assuming a feral is tanking for high threat, avoidance is negligible? perhaps warriors debuff and disarm adds so they're on them, paladin for their AoE abilities.

For KJ its pretty much just full DPS gear (if you choose to use a feral tank). We haven't kill KJ yet but when we started attempts I was tanking in full dps gear doing near 2k TPS (Not Omen TPS). You don't need avoidance because its fully magical dmg BUT if you get chosen to help tank adds then you need your normal tank gear (the adds hit hard both magical and physical).

EDIT: I should add that we switched from a druid tank to a warlock tank. Also one thing to note about a melee dps/tanking on KJ. The top threat (or near it) in melee range gets knocked back every ~5 seconds, far enough to get outside of melee range. It gets to be really annoying when/if you're trying to tank/dps.

HaklePrime · 07/05/08, 3:09 AM

Originally Posted by Boelies

1) Badge of Tenacity is too expensive on my server

Get it yourself.

[Crystalforged Darkrune]

I also find it amusing how few people utilize PvP bracers, and [Signet of Eternal Life]. Those two items alone put you within one Def/Res item of the uncrit cap (Assuming standard tanking enchants on head/shoulders). 2 pieces of gear make your kit much more adjustable, as opposed to relying on anti-crit from 5+, +gems, +enchants, etc.

• Daboran · 07/05/08, 5:06 AM

Originally Posted by HaklePrime

I also find it amusing how few people utilize PvP bracers, and [Signet of Eternal Life]. Those two items alone put you within one Def/Res item of the uncrit cap (Assuming standard tanking enchants on head/shoulders). 2 pieces of gear make your kit much more adjustable, as opposed to relying on anti-crit from 5+, +gems, +enchants, etc.

Early SW encounters make the Karazhan and Badge rings superior simply due to the amount of armor and dodge you gain, add this to the +def you get from Slikks anyway and wearing the PvP Bracer/Ring combo leads to wasted stats especially if you don't have spare T6 pieces to gem alternately for different encounters.

I've go that ring, but hardly ever use it, even situationally.

seminarca · 07/05/08, 7:21 AM

I don't like Commendation for Brutallus, being proc based means it's not guaranteed to be up on every stomp (e.g. it could be on cooldown from having procced after taunting but before getting stomped).

Originally Posted by sal

felmyst can crush

Actually, Felmyst doesn't crush.

HaklePrime · 07/05/08, 3:43 PM

Originally Posted by Daboran

Early SW encounters make the Karazhan and Badge rings superior simply due to the amount of armor and dodge you gain, add this to the +def you get from Slikks anyway and wearing the PvP Bracer/Ring combo leads to wasted stats especially if you don't have spare T6 pieces to gem alternately for different encounters.

I've go that ring, but hardly ever use it, even situationally.

You hardly ever use it because you appear to be gemming for resilience on multiple pieces of gear, which is counter to exactly what I just suggested, and can lead you to your 'wasted stats' opinion.

It is significantly easier to upgrade, and reinforce your overall setup, when you're relying on 2-3 pieces of gear, as opposed to 4+ pieces, plus gems, plus enchants. Additionally, by ensuring your anti-crit is on as few pieces as possible, it is easier to adjust gear for specific encounter requirements.

• Daboran · 07/05/08, 5:54 PM

Originally Posted by HaklePrime

You hardly ever use it because you appear to be gemming for resilience on multiple pieces of gear, which is counter to exactly what I just suggested, and can lead you to your 'wasted stats' opinion.

It is significantly easier to upgrade, and reinforce your overall setup, when you're relying on 2-3 pieces of gear, as opposed to 4+ pieces, plus gems, plus enchants. Additionally, by ensuring your anti-crit is on as few pieces as possible, it is easier to adjust gear for specific encounter requirements.

Try looking at my tanking gear, not the mixed set that I logged out in.

Keeping it general, Feral tanking is all about choices. My choice would be that wearing something just for the anti-crit that has no additional benefit (you can't count stamina on the ring because you get buckets of stamina on every Feral ring) is a waste unless you gain MORE by being able to wear better items elsewhere. Most of the best Feral slot items have +def anyway (such as Slikks) it's not as if you're struggling to make the cap all the time.

[Ring of the Stalwart Protector] gives you far more defensive stats, can you really make up 392 armor and 1.48% dodge (both very useful Sunwell boss stats) elsewhere just by not having to wear items with +def on them?

Each to his own, I just dislike intensely not having the flexibility to change