[WOTLK 4.0] Bear Discussion - Page 5

politikinc · 10/23/10, 4:14 AM

Originally Posted by Mahot

Hi everyone, I have one little question about Growl - Spell - World of Warcraft - is it considered as spell or physical ability in 4.0.1? The core question is how much hit we needed in order to not miss the target - 8% or 17%? Considering the fact that there is no more glyph on it, I think is should be physical. Thanks in advance.

Wowhead.com details Growl's school type as physical, which I assume now allows Growl to be cast while silenced. However, tests completed at (though the following has not been officially confirmed) TankSpot has indicated that Growl and other Taunt effects now have a 0% miss chance against targets, including those that are boss-level.

Edit: Have tested it and despite Growl being listed as physical, it cannot be cast during silences. However, the rest of the post still holds true.

Capable · 10/23/10, 6:48 PM

The changes to stat generation from base stats is really quite interesting as it's taken away from a bear needing to gear with dedicated "tank" items.

With our AP coming from Agi now as well, it completely does away with any need to look for Str on items.

With this we can stack more Agi giving us, in the process, more Dodge/Crit, which means more Avoidance/Mitigation(from SD procs).

Also with the bonus armor on Rings/Trinkets/Cloaks/Amulets not benefiting from the Bear armor bonus (carrying over from previous patches), it has become viable for a druid geared/gemmed/chanted as Cat DPS to pick up a Bear Tank role and be rather proficient at it, perhaps no less than a druid who has concentrated on gear for a Tank role primarily.

However, with Armor no longer being generated from Agi, the bonus armor on items may be the difference between a good tank and a great tank. Certainly having that extra armor to reduce damage from hits you do take would be ideal, as too much dodge will ruin your ability to generate rage, and therefore threat, as you wont be getting hit and against a boss, there wont be enough incoming hits to dodge to benefit from Natural Reaction.

All in all the changes are good. They have taken away the simple face-roll fest that feral tanking was an made us actually do something like we use to have to do before the later patches of BC when swipe started to hit everything in 360. A simple tabbing rotation with swipe/mauls thrown in when they're off CD solves all issues. Threat is a non issue, if you have rage. Rage is a non issue, if you have aggro. So as long as your DPS/Healer aren't useless/gung-ho/impatient/over-excited then you wont have any problems. You just have to make sure that they realize that you are a druid and not a threat bomb made of some highly unstable substance and that you need a good 2-3 secs by yourself with the mob/trash/boss for some special time before you let them in on the action.

If anyone has done some testing with a more Agi/Stam based tank set, rather than a Tank-Ring/Trinket/Cloak/Amulet based tank set lets us know how it performs. I'm currently trying to get some different gear pieces to test myself but time is proving to be unfavorable to me at the moment.

Cuer · 10/24/10, 4:56 AM

It was confirmed by the devs at one of the Blizzcon Q&A panels, that bears are expected to wear the "Rogue gear" in jewelry and similar slots, now. It seems like a good idea to start looking at that gear as more than just what we use for our DPS set. This will likely be even more pronounced in the gear available in Cataclysm, if they continue to itemize along those lines.

With the LK content and health pools vs. boss damage, Stamina is still king to gem and such. But given how things shake out in Cataclysm, we may end up with a situation where the main focus for gems/enchants/reforging is on Agility and Expertise. If so, this would work nicely for feral druids who change between cat and bear responsibilities during raids, to finally be able to share the same gear without losing a large amount of viability in either role.

madar · 10/24/10, 6:23 AM

Originally Posted by Capable

However, with Armor no longer being generated from Agi, the bonus armor on items may be the difference between a good tank and a great tank. Certainly having that extra armor to reduce damage from hits you do take would be ideal, as too much dodge will ruin your ability to generate rage, and therefore threat, as you wont be getting hit and against a boss, there wont be enough incoming hits to dodge to benefit from Natural Reaction.

I am a bit confused now because this:

Originally Posted by Satrion

When a mob misses, it internally still rolls for how much damage it would have done if it hit you and gives you that amount of rage. What this means is that increasing your chance to be missed has no affect on your rage gained. Dodges are handled the same as a miss, except you get an extra 3 rage if you have Natural Reaction. What this means is that increasing your dodge chance actually increases your rage gained. It is a fairly small increase compared to the rage gained from your own white swings and even from the rage gained from getting hit by a raid boss, but it still not negligible. The only things that really affect rage gain are how hard the mob hits and how much total health you have.

Personally I did not find to problem the high dodge, since the ICC dodge-penalty is removed I still have no problem with the rage.

Lolercaust · 10/24/10, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Protagonist

Yes, but that's including the base armor on an ilvl 264 cloak, which is 556 armor. 716 - 556 = 160 bonus armor.

Did Blizzard confirm that the bonus armor nerf on items is intended? It could simply be a glitch related to the 4.0.1 stat conversions.

Right, of course, sorry thank you for that!

Woahzie · 10/24/10, 11:03 AM

Hi guys just spent the greatest part of an hour planning my Worgen druid for Cata

Just wondered if you could throw a couple of opinions my way on this build

Much appreciated.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

(I'm new to the forums so If I did something wrong just please tell me)

Capable · 10/24/10, 5:50 PM

I had no idea that a miss/dodge still rolls for rage.

That changes my thinking a bit.

Do absorbs behave the same way? So say you take a 10k hit but absorb 8k, would you get rage from the 2k hit or from the total 10k damage that was the initial incoming value?

My rage issues must be coming from when I pop Survival Instincts and Barkskin at the same time, because that puts my damage mitigated up massively so I don't actually take any damage.

On another note, with regards to your spec for Cata, Woahzie, it's in the wrong thread to begin with, but as you've posted in the bear thread I'm assuming you'll be looking at a tank spec. If that is the case then the spec you've linked can be changed around a bit. On the basis of current information I would recommend something like this:

Feral Bear Spec

Now the 2 points in Endless Carnage could probably be put into Primal Madness, its up to you, I feel Pulverize will be used more than Enrage and Berserk so the extended duration of Pulverize from Endless Carnage is more useful than the instant rage from Primal Madness. They could also go into Brutal Impact but that would only be something to look at if your raid doesn't have the necessary interrupts and you need to use Skull Bash. If you will only be running 5 man heroics/Pugs then the Brutal Impact would be better because (at the moment) 5 man content is too fast to worry about the extended duration on Pulverize and then you have a 10 sec CD on Skull Bash which makes it a viable interrupt. With regards to the glyphs, all fairly self-explanatory. I chose Faerie Fire over Frenzied Rejuvenation because I feel that fact that it converts rage into health is the best part of the spell and taking that away makes it useful for bursts of health and nothing more because I tend to use it when the healer is having mana issues or is dead so I wont be getting heals anyway so an increase to healing received seems pointless.

Anyway that's my view on it with the current information at hand. Things may change in Cata, they may not. We'll just have to wait and see.

madar · 10/24/10, 6:04 PM

Yes, you get the rage from the absorbed damage too. At this moment the bubble have negative effect only for the Vengeance.

Rage problems was happen when the boss cast too much (mainly not damage spells against you) - for example Lich King phase 1, when he does Infest and call ghouls. We was able to burn our 100 rage before he finished the spells, and was need to wait until we get back his attention. Now is prevented with the cooldowns as i see.

Thorinson · 10/25/10, 3:56 PM

So far, I have only found dodge conversion numbers for patch 4.0.1 on Blizzard's US WoW forums in a guide by Reesi.

He lists the following:
1 Dodge Rating = 0.0220982% Dodge
1 Agi = 0.0225641% Dodge

After some lengthy calculations, checking results with in-game numbers (and a lot of trial and error), I'm pretty sure I can conclude the following:
- the diminishing returns on avoidance as explained for patch 3.2 in a guide by Satrina on the Tankspot forums, still hold true for Bear dodge
- the dodge rating to dodge conversion numbers by Reesi (listed above) are correct
- the agility to dodge conversion numbers by Reesi are incorrect; they should be 1 Agi = 0.02404% Dodge.

Giving us:
1 Dodge Rating = 0.0220982% Dodge
1 Agi = 0.02404% Dodge

Making agility even more valuable than it was previously considered.

I wanted to let Reesi know, but it seems I can't post on the US forums, having a EU WoW account. Could somebody point him to this post?

Lolercaust · 10/25/10, 4:27 PM

Originally Posted by Thorinson

So far, I have only found dodge conversion numbers for patch 4.0.1 on Blizzard's US WoW forums in a guide by Reesi.

He lists the following:
1 Dodge Rating = 0.0220982% Dodge
1 Agi = 0.0225641% Dodge

After some lengthy calculations, checking results with in-game numbers (and a lot of trial and error), I'm pretty sure I can conclude the following:
- the diminishing returns on avoidance as explained for patch 3.2 in a guide by Satrina on the Tankspot forums, still hold true for Bear dodge
- the dodge rating to dodge conversion numbers by Reesi (listed above) are correct
- the agility to dodge conversion numbers by Reesi are incorrect; they should be 1 Agi = 0.02404% Dodge.

Giving us:
1 Dodge Rating = 0.0220982% Dodge
1 Agi = 0.02404% Dodge

Making agility even more valuable than it was previously considered.

I wanted to let Reesi know, but it seems I can't post on the US forums, having a EU WoW account. Could somebody point him to this post?

I have posted to inform him of your new discoveries

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Ah! Bears! Cataclysm Tanking (v4.0.1)

Capable · 10/25/10, 6:54 PM

Well that's good news that absorbs count for rage.

Yea, ran a few heroics last night and noticed that some bosses cast times let my rage drop to almost starving level and i had to let a white hit or two off.

Went through and bought some JP gear too, rogue gear not tank, to see how it compares. I was pleasantly surprised that it did as well, if not better than wearing dedicated tank pieces. Will run a few more tonight and maybe try get a ICC10 man going to try get a better amulet, because I only had a lower ilvl (rogue one was 219 tank one was 232) one but it still came out about equal.

I then reforged all my haste to mastery instead of dodge, I only lost like 1.5% dodge chance but gained 4.5 mastery. So savage defense mastery got to 50% increase which is nice.

I still need some exp and hit to cap for level 83's (capped for 82's at the moment) but I'm not have any issues with threat from not hitting.

Oh, there is one issue with threat. Tanking casters. Any tactics for this? Ran FoS last night and had a lot of difficulty picking up and holding the casters. I'm fine with one or 2 but when there is 4 it gets kinda tricky.

Omgzwtf · 10/26/10, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by Capable

Oh, there is one issue with threat. Tanking casters. Any tactics for this? Ran FoS last night and had a lot of difficulty picking up and holding the casters. I'm fine with one or 2 but when there is 4 it gets kinda tricky.

The most reliable way of handling casters is to just make room on your spec for brutal impact. The days of 1x 1min interrupt has been replaced by the days of 2x 1min interrupts. Unfortunately for the caster conscious tank this pales in comparison to the prot war's 5 stun/interrupts. Luckily brutal impact gives us a 10sec interrupt, since skullbash is not a stun, we now have the option of silence & drag vs caster mobs.

Thorinson · 10/26/10, 3:12 PM

Originally Posted by politikinc

10 crit rating = 0.21782% Crit = +0.21782 Savage Defense procs (0.21782 x 50%, as only 50% of crits proc SD) = +0.10891% damage absorbed
10 mastery rating = 0.21782 Mastery = +0.87127% SD absorption (0.21781 x 4, as each point of Mastery increase SD absorption by 4%) = +0.87127% damage absorbed
10 haste rating = 0.30497% Haste = +0.076245% SD procs (0.30487 x 50% x 50%, with an assumed 50% chance to crit. and 50% of those crits proccing SD, 25% of additional auto-attacks proc SD) = +0.076245% damage absorbed

Point-for-point, mastery is 8 times the value of crit and 11.4272 times the value of haste.

I thought your assumption that every SD proc would be used (instead of overwritten by another SD proc) might not be that accurate. So I sat down and tried to come up with a model that took a few more things into consideration.

My model takes into account that:
- SD procs might be overwritten, because
- the boss has a certain attack speed and attacks will not follow every SD proc, and
- the boss' attack might not hit you (miss and dodge), further increasing the chance that an SD proc is overwritten.

Of course its far from perfect and there are still some assumptions. Most notably:
- when the boss does hit you while you have SD up, the entire shield's worth of damage is absorbed
- you have enough rage to use a special every GCD and Maul every CD
- all used specials (including Maul) can proc SD

A Google docs spreadsheet of my model can be found here. Just fill in the yellow cells to make it work its magic. The SD effect number is what it's all about; the higher the better.

Using my character's stats as a starting point, I added 10 crit rating, 10 haste rating and 10 mastery rating and compared what that did to the SD effect. This resulted in the following ratios:
1 mastery rating = 3.27 crit rating
1 mastery rating = 18.47 haste rating

Although these values will probably vary for each character, I think it's safe to assume they will not vary in a meaningful way.

TL;DR version: Don't reforge crit rating to mastery rating if you can reforge haste rating to mastery rating instead.

Tiffara · 10/26/10, 6:02 PM

You seem to be assuming that when SD is refreshed, it is reset to a given value. Has this been shown? It seems possible that procs could be additive, rather than overwriting previous ones.

Yoha · 10/26/10, 6:38 PM

Originally Posted by Thorinson

So far, I have only found dodge conversion numbers for patch 4.0.1 on Blizzard's US WoW forums in a guide by Reesi.

He lists the following:
1 Dodge Rating = 0.0220982% Dodge
1 Agi = 0.0225641% Dodge
...

I believe that Whitetooth (Combat Rating Expert) had already posted the latest figures. - I must admit that finding this post wasn't exactly easy though.

Somebody was asking for a bear spreadsheet on mmo-c, and i checked with the numbers that have been posted from the thread "Combat Rating at level 85" - Whitetooth had kindly also included the table for level 80 stats.

I then modified my old spreadsheet that had the old combat ratings in, and voila; MMO-C - Bear Spreadsheet (that thread contains everything).

Toskk's bear calculator also seems to have been updated, from looking at that mmo-c post too (which i'm sure is much more helpful, than what i made :P).