Originally Posted by spoke

While this is a very welcome and long overdue change, is anyone else a little concerned about how this will actually translate in PVP gear? I'm fairly sure I drop a fair chunk of agility compared to DPS pieces.

I'll check the actual differences when I get home, but the way the non-class-specific pieces (and the belt/boots/bracers to an extent) use crit rating instead of agility, I'm guessing this won't actually be as big a buff as it first looks.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by Coada

About new Nurturing Instincts I'm wondering if it will work with procs from Improved Leader of the Pack.
Anyone tried it?

Originally Posted by North101

Doubt it since ILotP is a % of your health and Nurturing Instincts increases healing done by spells to you.

Originally Posted by Krag

It's not that far fetched to believe ILotP will be affected by NI. ILotP heals is affected by the aura in phase 2 of RoS for instance.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by Aranan

As far as I know, Rawr ranks the various items in a slot as if you had nothing in that slot. So your 25 hit rating hat and the 30 hit rating hat would both be accurately reflected in terms of the hit cap if you were at 137 hit rating.

Originally Posted by Astrylian

That's correct.

Originally Posted by BeldDD

If I am at 137 hit rating and I have a helm that has 25 hit rating currently and am evaluating a helm with 30 hit rating, unless the program itself does the calculation (which I don't think rawr does), ignoring the hit cap allows me to compare those two helms together in an absolute manner. Even if its not helm to helm, there are times I will want to compare two items together without regard to the hit cap. If I am deciding whether or not I want to DKP something I want to see if its better in a pure sense than what I have currently, with the understanding that I may need to regem, or replace another piece. If I am evaluating set bonus items, ignoring the set bonus is useful for determining which 4 out of 8 pieces I want to use to get my 4t6 bonus. Using Toskk's calculator, comparing each of the hands, helm, legs, chest and shoulders to their best non set piece items without regard to the 4t6 set bonus let me know which non-set piece was the most minor upgrade. Now I know which of the 5 to use with the 3 new pieces to get 4t6.

There are any number of reasons I would want to make evaluations without regard to caps and bonuses. I'm willing to guess that most people, in fact, have learned how to use these magically complicated gear comparison tools and spreadsheets. They aren't that tough.

Originally Posted by BeldDD

Shrug not a big deal to me as I can just continue to use toskk for my kitty purposes.

Originally Posted by Maeltne

One thing that annoys me greatly about Tossk is the assumptions that it makes with regards to sockets. It always assumes that you want the socket bonus, and doesn't evaluate if using other gems would have a greater effect.

I find that for any items with sockets I have to completely recalculate it's value, with the supplied values to get it's true value with appropriate socket usage.

Originally Posted by Mijae

Again, the only way it would be possible to evaluate an item over the cap is to use equivalence points. You would first find out how much the next value of each stat is at some baseline (possibly without that item equipped). You would then sum up the products of the stats to get a point value. However, this method does not accurately measure the true value of that item.

Equivalence points are only valid for the next point of a stat (and as pointed out a few pages ago in this thread, can be inaccurate as well). Many items can have up to 75 points or more of a particular stat on one item.

Originally Posted by seminarca

Unfortunately, PTR hasn't been updated with these new changes yet, so we'll have to wait before we can verify. But I'd be very surprised if it was in every form using Cat Form's AP for the calculations. Worth testing though, I suppose.

edit: New tanking cloak:
[Crimson Paragon's Cover]
Binds when picked up
Back
108 Armor
+61 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 28 (1.48% @ L70).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 28 (7.1 @ L70).

Originally Posted by Vykromond

[Elixir of Ironskin]?

Originally Posted by Inaiwae

I am a bit concerned about the badge tank gear. All 3 items have haste on them: [Tameless Breeches] [Embrace of Everlasting Prowess] [Handwraps of the Aggressor]

Is haste on tanking gear reasonable? For cat, haste is least wanted stat according to Toskks gear methodology. How useful is it for threat? I'd say that expertise would be superior for both tanking and damage dealing. If we agree on this, i'd suggest filling a feedback on these items to get them in proper shape on live ...

Originally Posted by bluenote

[Tunic of the Dark Hour] - You might want to check out the new badge vendor chest, probably worth getting on the patch day until you can get better upgrades like the LW Sunwell chest.