Valerian

I think you need around 88-89 expertise rating to get capped on it. For cat form this may be nearly doable with top end gear since the new trinket is 44 expertise rating. You get another 20 from the T6 boots and 18 or 21 from a neck piece. Now some numbers had it at around 100 expertise needed to be capped so you could add Vashj's belt in for another 25 expertise. Now it may not be worth it to do this considering the tradeoffs (Vashj's belt is significantly worse than the new T6 belt). As there is a nice expertise ring for tanking (high armor, sta and expertise). Haste CAN be good for tanking, but its certainly not a fantastic tanking stat. Expertise here would almost certainly be superior for both DPS and tanking. However, as was discussed in the 2.4 patch thread, it appears a lot of the T6 badge level gear is sup-optimally itemized to make it less appealing than the actual BT/Hyjal loot. In this regard it makes sense they added a slightly sub-par stat to the gear though one that is still useful in both forms.

 

Yaelle

Correct me if I'm wrong, but could we not take the calculations the Rogues made over here

and assume Druids are like 0/2 Weapon Expertise, non-Human: 103 ?

 

Valerian

Yeah thats where I saw that ~100 number from. I wasn't sure if that was fully, thoroughly tested. In any case full expertise capped is nearly doable in cat form with decent gear though its probably not ideal (unclear what those Shattered sun neck abilities do, Vashj belt being worse than T6 belt etc).

 

Yaelle

According to the comments found here.

Edit: Correction.

The abilities differ from one item to another. The procs above are for [Shattered Sun Pendant of Might].

The [Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve] will proc 100 Expertise rating for Scryers and 100 Dodge rating for Aldor.

 

Malazaar

I'm finding the 100 expertise proc a little odd, as it will push you over the cap everytime it procs (just from the additional expertise on the neck itself).

Regarding the DPS Necks - it really depends on the proc rate - if it's 1 ppm they are no match for Clutch of Demise / Hard Khorium Choker.

 

• Falk

The cap is with relation to dodges, from behind (as they pertain to rogues). The parry cap is significantly higher.

The procs on all of them necklaces, from initial testing (yes, I'm exalted with SSO on PTR - don't ask ) seems to be roughly 15%, although I need more time to do a proper sample size. It's 10secs, with a 45sec cooldown. It's still pretty good considering it's rep quartermaster gear (look at the other factions!) but obviously is going to be outclassed by higher level raid gear, as is should be.

p.s. If anyone has a decent way to parse a combat log for proc rate calculations, I'm all ears. Right now I've been doing it manually, and it's a complete pain. Procwatch etc are understandably choking on PTR atm.

Edit: Changed rep reward to quartermaster gear for clarity and to differenciate from rep rewards like Karazhan/Hyjal rings.

 

Akhtal

You can buy both necklaces right? (and the healing one too if you want?)

I feel like it's going to be very easy to set a high-threat set with the new items

 

BeldDD

Nice work as always. Is there a place for "ignore hit/expertise cap"? I think one of the errors I am seeing is i have choker of endless nightmares equipped which leaves me within 4 or 5 of hit cap. The rating system puts, for instance, mithril chain of heroism above it. I assume that is because the vast majority of the 21 hit on the Choker would be wasted as over hit cap. Toskk adjusted for this with the ignore hit/expertise option.

Or at least I think that's what I am seeing.

Edit: I guess I would ask the same question of the tier bonuses. Malorne will always come out on top for a few pieces without the ability to ignore the 2t4 bonus.

 

• Falk

Yes. They're regular quartermaster items, not rewards from a quest or anything. It was about 18g each when I purchased them; might have rep discount coming into play there.

 

Allev

I don't think there is an option to disable caps right now. It's slightly annoying to have to remove hit-gear to see what an item is like under the hit-cap; but on the other hand, it forces you to plan HOW that item will be valuable to you. I kinda like that, and don't consider it an error.

Toskk's, on the other hand, is meant more for a "input everything, and see what the next piece rates" tool, where it's impractical to do the planning on-the-spot yourself, and thus you'll tend to want to ignore hit/expertise caps.

 

BeldDD

Indeed. I'm not saying it is so much an error as it is a possible explanation for why people would be seeing odd results in the gear ranking. I think to the extent there is a system in rawr that ranks gear for you, it should probably enable you to discount things like set bonuses and hit caps. Just a friendly suggestion, but a prime reason why I don't use rawr for DPS.

 

• Astrylian

Aye, I would like to add options to ignore the hit/expertise caps, and also to not auto-calculate set bonuses. Perhaps in the next version, depending on time.

 

Mijae

To be honest, I don't think it's ever a good idea to ignore things like bonuses or caps. Items should never be looked at individually, but as part of a set. How can going over hit cap ever increase your set value? The only way this calculation would be possible is to value one hit rating when under the hit cap and assume that value is static as you raise it. I am strongly against using any form of equivalence points though. They only tell you the value of the next point of a stat. Applying those points to an item and adding up the results does not accurately reflect the value of an item. The only way to truly find the value of a particular item is to update all your stats using the current item and find the new total value. If you only use equivalence points, you'll never be able to accurately identify trends like stacking a particular stat.

People need to learn that individual slot rankings cannot show you absolute, always, best-in-slot items. Any ranking system can only show you value in relation to some baseline. In some of the earlier rankings like Emmerald's, a static average base set was used. For Toskk's, you enter values of your choice. Spreadsheets like mine and Voldin's (and I assume Rawr) use the rest of your current set with the item slot empty as the baseline.

 

Cainman

I first noticed it on Grace of Air Totem, but I believe it applies to any of the buffs to agility. (Elixir of Major Agility, Scroll of Agililty V, etc.)

 

• Astrylian

This is exactly how I feel, though I do see the value of having an option to temporarily uncap these stats. I'd personally use it just as a quick "Is this item even worth bothering adjusting my gear to evaluate?". If I turn the cap off, and it's still significantly under the value of my previous item, I won't bother with it. It's basically a matter of showing the 'potential' of an item.

 

Xertigo

For dps maybe, but for threat generation, haste could be pretty good. Although, with the changes to lacerate, it might not be as much of a benefit in 2.4 as it is in 2.3. As I see it though, attacking more often means more rage assuming that rage normalization is based on the un-hasted weapon speed. In any case, my melee + maul damage is typically 60%-70% of my damage in single-target situations, so I can see haste providing a significant benefits then. However, in a multi-mob situation, armor pen does *amazing* things for swipe so I do like to stack armor pen for trash whenever possible.

 

Malazaar

The Lacerate change isn't going to do anything noticable to your threat generation (unless the inert threat scales too). It will give you a substantial dps boost though. However, as far as i see it, we don't have a threat generation problem anyway.

 

raffy

Having high threat in DPS gear is pointless for tanking comparison --- Woot! 2500 TPS at 14k HP, 20k armor, and 2.6% chance to be crit!

Our threat sucks in full armor/stamina MT gear compared to both Paladins and Warriors. We need proper and competitive threat scaling when we wear real tanking gear.

Raid buffed, threat wise, in a primary tank role/group, we only gain AP from BoK, BoM, and possibly Hunter's mark, we also gain crit from a possible agility/food potion, and increased damage from possible Blood Craze.

So we may gain 3-5% crit and 700 attack power, which is basically an gain of 10% more crit and 25% more ap. Unlike a Protection warrior, which probably gains 50%+ more crit and doubles their attack power. Not to mention, Warriors gain the benefits of weapon enchants and Windfury.

Beyond buffs, the rest of our TPS gains come purely from raid-wide armor reductions. Otherwise, we provide almost the same threat as we do solo, unbuffed.

Lacerate is virtually static threat. We have no expertise on our gear and limited hit.

How can you say we don't have threat generation problems?

Without 2/5 and 4/5 T6, our end-game TPS issues would probably already have been addressed.

Generally speaking, giving us Lacerate was dumb. Swipe was so much better (and still is) anyway. A better ability would of been some kind of active avoidance/mitigation on a short cooldown or a reactive ability like Revenge.

Destroying Swipe scaling was even dumber. Swipe used to be a key advantage of having a Druid tank and now with more than 3x the AP we had at 60 in Bear, we get easily out-aoe-tanked by undergeared Protection Paladins. I don't even do anything in Hyjal, I'm afk basically 100% of the time because 1 paladin can tank virtually every single pull and provide much better threat on 20 mobs than I can on 3.

Other than the possibility of gaining full physical avoidance with the new Sunwell gear and a bucket of spinels, we're basically just a crushable Warrior with poorly scaling threat, pathetic mitigation/avoidance scaling, and subpar oh-shit buttons.

Don't get me wrong, we are the best "tank" for fights offtankable in DPS gear (with our free time spent in Cat form), but in the full-time tank role, we don't scale properly.

Quick Fixes:
-- We need a new tank weapon (missing from 2.4).
-- We need Expertise (mostly addressed in 2.4).
-- We need Lacerate scaling (somewhat/sorta addressed in 2.4).
-- We need properly itemized gear outside of the core pieces of gear (somewhat addressed in 2.4)
(t6 belt, t6 bracer, t6 boots, new ring -- still wearing kara ring, badge of tenacity, wildfury)

Long-term Fixes:
-- Fix Swipe.
-- We need to get to armor cap with less gear so we have more options in other slots and/or the armor cap needs raised to 75% to 90%.
-- The crushing blow mechanic needs rethought (I believe this will be fixed somewhat in next expansion -- Blizzard is making less and less bosses crush, and we still have the full avoidance possibility)

Sorry, this probably looks like QQ, but to just assume we have a "threat generation problem" is wrong. This was something we used to have, but severely lack in T6+ content.

 

Tidia

I am not experienced in T6 content, my personal experience only extends to T5, it does seem strange that your threat generation seems so lacklustre when compared to your peers, (Not a personal dig just highlighting differences) where as in the mid T5 progression guild I am in Druids have far superior threat generation. (For example Void Reaver, who while easy is a good 'threat race', is very trivial when tanked by 2 Druids, compared to the 4 tanks we use to take, Note the previous Feral Druid wasn't very good).

Having said that, I agree that we need a new Tank weapon, anyone trying to say the Hyjal staff is an adequete tanking staff is incorrect. Maybe so if weapon switching was not an option however.

Expertise is lacking on Leather (Nonexistant?), I have the Broach of Deftness personally (Hate Dodge/Parry/Missing), but 5 Expertise doesn't cut the mustard.

As for Swipe vs. Lacerate, I'm satisfied with both of them in the light of 2.4, not entirely happy but it could be worse.

In regards to Crushing Blows, I do not believe that Tanking has enough...depth? Not sure if that is the right word, Right now as a Feral Tank with a focus on Main Tanking stats are Defence/Res to 2.6%, Armor - capped when MTing, Stamina - not terribly useful after a point reached around T4-T5, Agility(Dodge) - this is the 'last' stat that is effectively capped, (I know 102.4% avoidance)

Hit Rating and Expertise are not a major concern, Haste is purely for increasing Damage, Crit comes with Agility. Threat comes with the upgrades (Tanking gear [read: Tier] comes itemised like DPS gear, once at the Armor cap Tanking gear quickly becomes very similar to DPS gear [Due to stacking Agility, possibly Stamina])

The problem is twofold in my opinion:

#1 The effective armor cap is reachable in Teir 4. By effective I mean that the far majority of the time Inspiration and the Shaman Armor buff (25%) will be active when Main Tanking (usually OTing to).

FIX: Extend the armor cap through to 80-90%. The amount of armor needed would massive, however this means scaling is possible (realistically only 42-45K armor is possible buffed, correct me if I am wrong).

Or replace 4T4 bonus. Add another bonus.

#2 The second problem is that Druids are just not as adaptive as Warriors. We are in essense a one trick horse. Once you have enough Stamina, capped or nearly for Armor all there is left to stack is Dodge (normally through AGI) and increasing Threat generation.

FIX: Add another mechanism for reducing incoming damage, for example giving Strength a bonus to mitigation of Spell Damage,or the ability for some form Block. [Poor example but it gives another stat value when tanking]

EDIT: Generally speaking, giving us Lacerate was dumb. Swipe was so much better (and still is) anyway. A better ability would of been some kind of active avoidance/mitigation on a short cooldown or a reactive ability like Revenge.

Perhaps that is a better idea than mine, same effect however.

This has sort of been thought up on the fly, and is based on my personal experience, however it would correct some of the issues I believe Blizzard have not thought out. (Personally I don't think they beleive the Armor Cap was reachable so easily)

Putting the um in Forum.

 

Toskk

Hi Valerian,

Although my tests are far from complete, at this point I don't see any justification for a two-roll white attack system. I *believe* that what I'm seeing is instead a flat crit reduction against a raid boss (very much like the flat hit chance reduction). I've currently averaged this at 4.20%, although it could perhaps be as high as 5% (or as low as 4%). For any interested, my own tests can be found here:

The Druid Wiki » ToskksDPSData

 

seminarca

Patch notes have been updated, the new ones contain many of the changes from the fake lists, the Feral relevant bits:
Re: the bolded text, they intended that to be a buff for Feral PvP I imagine, not for Bear tanking. Kind of disappointing.