Feorthas

Yeah--that's what I've been thinking all day: "Oh look, Blizzard gave Druids 'Enhancement Shaman Form'".

This pretty much completely puts to rest the question of whether Druids & Rogues will be sharing non-set DPS gear simply by giving Druids a serious need for at least a decent amount of +Hit. Personally, I would've preferred getting a slower swing speed rather than an 'offhand' but beggars can't be choosers.

 

Ja7us

Well, since Druids don't feel any particular need to hit-cap now, I don't know why they would desperately need more hit in WotLK. It's still underbudget compared to some other choices, and the soft-cap will still be the same as it is now.

 

Valerian

With an offhand attack white damage will increase its % contribution of our total damage. As such hit will increase in value since it will reduce the now increased miss chance that comes from this new, increased damage source. Depending on numbers it may or may not be more valuable than Agi. That can only be decided once all the solid numbers are in on the ability.

 

Duilliath

Even if it will not be as good as +Agi, the combination of +Agi and +hit would still be better than merely stacking one stack on items (not necessarily talking about gemming), so I don't quite more. More bang for your buck really.

 

Roywyn

The reason is that agi is just so strong right now. "1 agi = 1.5 crit + 1.5 dodge + 1.x AP + 2.x AC" with buffs roughly?

As far as I know, the agi:crit and agi:dodge ratios are revised.
Add in windfury, which gives another little edge towards hit, and capping hit is likely preferable again.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput
This assumes Rune of Razorice and Slow for Torment unless noted as "No TtW".
More detailed at http://elitistjerks.com/923110-post2775.html

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.

 

angi

Hitrating ratio will change too, so it all comes down to how much white vs. yellow damage we do in wotlk. Hopefully the white damage is more than 50% that will give us more value from haste and hasteeffects, too.

 

Beregon

40% dodge is still probably lower than the rogues' combined dodge/parry. Disease helps in comparison to poison although it lacks flexibility and will be applied/reapplied much slower since poison is applied by white attacks, not just specials. That speed and resistance to CC along with bear and caster form abilities makes up for lack of Kidney Blow, Preparation, Blind, Vanish, Cheat Death, Kick and Evasion and our Gouge requiring combo points.

Overall, I'd say it probably puts the feral on a par with the rogue...which is what it needs to be.

Impossible to really say though without being able to test drive it.

 

Valerian

Hmm I mentioned it before but didn't get any responses. Am I misunderstanding the part that reads "feral attack power contribution from your equipped weapon by 100%" cause that seems like its a pretty crazy boost that makes our weapons end up at a much higher dps than any other classes comparable ones.

 

Mynea

It's a way of making us scale better with weapon dps, which makes it comparable to DW Spec, Sword Spec, Slice and Dice, and the like. We are edging into a lot of stacking multipliers on that AP, but in theory we're being balanced around having very high AP, and this is a leak of a skill that hasn't yet made it to alpha. There's still plenty of time to make the numbers work out right, and we won't know how it compares until those numbers have been pinned down.

I'm hoping that in addition to the Dire Cat/updated Bear change, we'll see some form-altering cosmetic inscriptions. Please, Blizzard, I would like to have a choice to not look the same as every other horde bear.

 

Gib

Right now the feral AP bonus on weapons is only applied to bear, dire bear, cat and moonkin. So the "feral attack power contribution from your equipped weapon by 100%" could just mean, FAP works for dire cat. It's maybe easier for testing purposes to modify dire cat than all FAP weapons.

 

Duilliath

I'd give the link, but my account @ worldofwar.net is screwy so I can't access the index to older articles. One of the WWI articles addressed this as I asked them to poke Blizzard about it. So far, no such plans other than a separate skin for Dire Bear and Dire Cat forms.

 

angi

Has anyone read or seen a new rank of Cower or a similar threat reduction ability? I think this will be needed in conjunction with all the damage boosts we get. I have serious threat problems on some encounters now (and it will get worse with alle the new talents and lvl80 gear), but cower is not really an answer to this these days. Perhaps they could make Cower reduce threat AP based or something like that making it scale.

 

Duilliath

Play Dead !



Probably not, but one can hope...

 

Moof

I must agree here. Cower not scaling is definitely an issue. If for some reason I don't have salvation, I find myself threat capped very quickly and even hitting Cower every time the CD is up is not enough to prevent me sitting there just auto attacking. A simple AP modifier could solve it quite easily.

 

Maeltne

So I'm looking at the talents now and considering a few things

#1 The talents to take from 70-80
#2 The talents to take at 80 for primarily tanking

I'm not overly concerned about #2 right now, I'm looking for at #1.

And for that my question is...

Berserk or OOC on release (i.e. @70)?

I'm thinking OOC, and I'm considering picking up Berserk not until 74, 71-73 going for improved mangle as I mangle spam when grinding.

 

Mijae

MMO Champion has skills and levels posted. We get a new rank of Cower at 76. There's no info on a scaling change though.

DruidStats_v3.0.2.2.xls - 10/17/2008

 

Khanus

Crossing my fingers that maybe they'll reduce a 5/5 talent to 3/3. Just need two more points...

At any rate, I'm a bit concerned at my OT/DPS role with regards to Dire Cat. Right now in tank gear (Khanus of Icecrown if you care, I think it's what I logged in), my hit rating isn't great (swap a few things for some fights), but thanks to Cat being what it is, I can do more with the little hit I have when I switch to Cat.

It had been speculated that we'd be using "Rogue Leather" to tank, but the removal of that second armor bonus suggests otherwise. So what I'm worried about now is, will this DW Dire Cat lead to less DPS when I switch roles mid fight? If they're aiming to make cat DPS like rogue DPS, where much damage comes from white attacks, am I wrong in thinking this will sting a bit?

 

Vair

If it works like normal dual wield, you'll see a 19% penalty to hit but swing twice as much, with your off-hand doing 50% of the damage of your main hand. So .81*Normal damage + .81*.5*Normal damage for ~20% more white damage and a few extra Omen of Clarity procs.

 

Pitbuller

Dual wielding lower benefit for WF totem. With +9% hit without DW auto attack dps would be 1 + 0.2(some ap boost too) = 1.2 but with DW autoattack dps is 1 * 0.81 + 0.5 * 0.81 + 0.2 * 0.81 = 1.377.
Dual wielding give 14.75% benefit with wf totem versus single wielding. Without Wf totem benefit is 21.5%.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Mynea

Dual wielding isn't as big a benefit if you have WF, both because of the increased miss rate and because WF only currently affects your main-hand attacks. However, it doesn't matter. They are both increases and we want both.

It is also possible that, since WF is becoming a player-buff instead of a weapon-buff, it will affect off-hand attacks.

Edit: increased miss rate against 73, durr.

 

seminarca

Actually, dual wielding decreases base hit chance to 72% .. it's a widely accepted value after months of testing by Rogues.

 

PSGarak

Dual Wielding decreases hit chance by 19%. With a base miss chance of 5%, this is a 76% chance to hit. Against a level 73, the base miss chance is somewhere in the realm of 8%, the same as it is for specials, giving a hit chance of 73% or so. While the miss penalty lowers the benefit from Windfury, Windfury greatly increases the value of hit rating, even though it already means more to a DW build than a normal build. Note this is even before the specials/1H hit-cap: a 1% increase from 74% to 75% is worth a third more than a 1% increase from 99% to 100%, plus the 74% is doing 20% more damage base, making hit worth about half again as much DPS for the DW setup as the normal setup. Windfury increases the one-third by even more.

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....88847noszh.png

 

seminarca

Base miss chance vs level 73 mobs is 9% =/

 

Mowen

So I rolled a druid recently because I decided I wanted to tank. I already spent all of BC raiding on 2 seperate healer classes so I felt druid would be a better choice to warrior in case I wanted to go back to healing (or casting). Anyway the point of my druid right now is just to tank.

Looking at the new top tier talents, I think I'm seeing a serious lack of thought to expanding our tanking.

King of the Jungle will be great for kitty DPS but who enrages while in combat to take advantage of the 15% increased damage?

Infected Wounds may have its advantages in some situations if mobs aren't immune and you have rage coming out of your ears to keep mauling. But generally there will be others who can keep similar debuffs up easier than us.

Imp Mangle I can't see the point of. Does anyone really have trouble generating enough threat with mangle how it is? Do people have trouble getting lacerates off before the debuff fades? The only advantage I can see if having the option of tanking 3 mobs at once and having more freedom to stick a mangle on your second and third targets without having to sacrifice the debuff on your primary one.

Primal Aggression will increase our maul damage by 10% which would be useful for when you are rage soaked and desperately need more threat than mangle lacerate/swipe can put out. But really how often is this? And even so in this situation normal maul would be fine.

Berserk is the only worth while tanking talent I can see. Obviously the 30% extra health for 'oh shit' moments has been long needed and the ability to break yourself out of fear is a no brainer. I get the distinct impression that Blizzard may be focusing bears to be the master of tanking groups of 3. Shift and enrage for some range and pop beserk and pull. You have increased health to take the initial attacks and can open with a maul that will hit all 3 for snap aggro. Maybe pop a second maul if you can and start swiping, put up mangle on targets with imp cooldown.

Looking at the current tanking specs and proposed WOTLK tanking specs they seem very much the same besides some points spent in seemingly PVP/Kitty primed talents just to get Berserk. Its like most of the top tiers of feral is made to improve your ability to DPS in a hybrid build or to PVP but not giving us enough points to properly do it.

 

• sadris

Improved Mangle is terrible.

We need something to reduce the GCD of Swipe, or un-nerf it. Consecrate does 278 threat per second per target, swipe does 291 tpspt. If you add in Retribution Aura and the fact that the number of targets is uncapped, its quite a sad state of affairs.