Warning for ionasej: Useless Post

LodeRunner · 08/13/08, 3:12 PM

Post: [Druid] Feral talents/abilities - WotLK preview / discussion
User: ionasej
Infraction: Useless Post
Points: 0

Administrative Note:

Message to User:

This all sounds very impressive but I see nothing but numbers you've pulled out of your own ass to determine what a class "should" and "should not" be doing in terms of DPS. This is just a warning. Hey, if you can back it up with some cool blue post or something I'll even reverse it.

Original Post:

On the our niche

Well the niche thing is just required because Blizzard cannot make sure that the differences between tank classes in regards to their raid effectiveness is almost similar. To reach this goal the extensively discussed itemization and stat conversion point is important as well as the basic (magic) damage reduction that applies to every class but not the Feral.

We are trying to move all 4 tanks a little closer together so that, for example, warriors don't have to tank heroics without pants on in order to have enough rage, and to make maintaining threat on multiple mobs less frustrating.

We still would like all 4 tanks to have their own niche, and unless we change something down the road, the design is still for the warrior to be the best tank for single bosses that hit hard for physical damage (which to be honest, has tended to be most of them so far).

Source: Blue on Icebound Fortitude
See also: Blue on tanking comparison

To fix things just Paladins and Warriors should have a tanking niche and Druids and Death Knights just the same generic tanking ability that all 4 tanks should share. The niche should just be a small bonus, nothing like Shield Reflect (RoS) or Shield Block (shear). For example Warriors would have an oh shit buttons and Paladins would be kings of AoE tanking. The legitimation for Ferals and DKs is that they a.) do better off-tanking. they can role-swap better, and b.) can fulfill their off-role a lot better. Off-roles for those 4 tanks would be DPS and healing. That way every raid could bring at least 3 tanks - maybe 4.

Given equal skill and equal gear and a rogue/warlock/mage/hunter damage base line of 100%:
- Druids in tanking gear should do 70% damage of a rogue single or 30% AoE.
- Death Knights in tanking gear should do 50% single or AoE damage.
- Protection Paladins in tanking gear should do 20% single target or 70% AoE.
- Protection Warriors in tanking gear should do 30% damage.

In DPS gear though you should see numbers like:
- Druids in DPS gear should do 90% damage off a rogue or in heal gear heal 40% of a Restoration Druid.
- Death Knights in DPS gear should do 80% damage solo target and 120% AoE.
- Protection Paladins in DPS gear should do 40% damage of a rogue and 80% AoE or in heal gear should heal 60% of a Holy Paladin.
- Protection Warriors in DPS gear should do 60% damage.

On other issues

Infected Wounds / Improved Leader of the Pack
IW 1/3Pts is a very good investment, after that it diminishes. What about making iLotP the same
Relating WotLK PvE Feral build
Suggestion iLotP 1/2: Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to have a 50% chance to heal themselves for 5% of their total health when they critically hit with a melee or ranged attack. The healing effect cannot occur more than once every 10 sec. Instead of 2% by 100% at max every 6sec? Can one suggest that on the beta forums? 2/2 could reduce the cooldown from 10 to 5sec to make it still beneficial.

Survival of the Fittest / Primal Tenacity / Daze / (Magical) damage reduction
And in regards to SotF and PT - reducing chance to be dazed by maybe 10/20/30% should be on one of those talents and damage reduction by 2/4/6% or magical damage reduction 5/10/15% on another one. Had that been suggested yet on the beta forums and do you agree?

King of the Jungle
KotJ is a more or less cat specific talent right now. Why not add a small bear bonus and fix our missing scaling with strength: In addition 3 strength reduce damage taken by 1 (1pt) - 3pts would be 3 strength reduce damage taken by 3. After fixing that only defense rating needs to be addressed (and conversion should end up pushing benefits from -crit, block, parry, miss, dodge into the latter if there is no more additional benefit from -crit, block, parry) - that would fix DKs scaling with defense rating as well.

Omen of Clarity
OOC should be a non magic passive base class self buff. Right now every spec, be it Balance, Feral or Restoration aims at that talent. Example WotLK PvE Balance build (that talents spec also shows why Master Shapeshifter should be unlocked and tier 2 from a PvE Moonkin's point of view)

Barkskin
In regards to the addition/changes off Icebound Fortitude, Shield Wall and Divine Protection, Barkskin should be changed to 3mins and cost 50 rage, 25 energy or 10 mana (castable in forms).

Rend and Tear
Should affect any direct damage feral attacks (Maul, Mangle, Swipe, Shred, ...) to justify putting points into it. If to add Mangle(Cat) depends on if Mangle(Cat) surpasses Shred (and it should not).

In regards to PvP
Example WotLK Feral PvP build.
Do you agree that there are too many talent point investments to make?
I suggest to add a bonus to Lacerate on the Swipe talent and move the stealth bonus into the base class abilities? Further why not make FFF trainable? Another suggestion would be to make Predatory Instincts a 3pt instead of 5pt talent to reduce bloat on mixed bear/cat talents (=we need those for PvP)?

p.s.: If you happen to be on beta (lucky one) - this is an important thread to bring up (Feral) tanking issues: WoW Forums -> Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King