The [Demontooth Shoulderpads]are the Sunwell dps shoulders for us (and not bad for several other classes for dps, too), with the [Shoulderpads of Vehemence], as you note, not being worthwhile. For the ultimate dps set, however, that will not be a slot filled with the 4th piece of t6, since I'll (eventually) be using t4 head + shoulders. Without having access to Rawr now, I recall it was extremely close between using t6 chest and, I think, legs (which surprised me) for the 4th piece.
That leaves several t6 pieces that I intend to leave gemmed for max burst tanking (i.e., +15 sta) along with the [Belt of Natural Power], while going back to my standard avoidance bias in new pieces if it's clear that I have indeed established a new level of "enough" stamina for the rest of the fights (balanced where reasonable, e.g. sacrificing 1 agi for 7 sta by using a [Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst] in [Leggings of the Immortal Beast]'s blue socket).
Again, without having Rawr available now, I believe (and it appears) that t6 shoulders are the best piece to keep for 4t6 for tanking. But then I'm not convinced 4t6 will be needed for tanking anyway. One problem with just using Rawr for determining max mitigation/survival is that threat does matter, too, as we acknowledge when deciding to override it for this set bonus. The Sunwell pieces carry additional stats that provide added threat, and one should take those into account with an accurate model. The benefit to retaining 4t6 may not be so large then, and I expect to do fine tanking with all 5 Sunwell pieces.
So while 2pc t4 is really really really good, so good you would use it till you get KJ loot (I switched Duplicitous Guise with Cursed Vision and got 1795.185 overall pts) I think in the end, with the best gear possible, it won't be the best. But seeing as how many of us won't be "done" with our dps gear I can see a lot of druids still using t4
I'm fairly confident about what I know I want for a kitty set, but tanking sets go much deeper then that, maximizing threat, maximizing avoidance and so, so I was looking for more discussion as to which pieces people would be using for their tanking set. Namely, keeping 4pc t6 and losing out on the mitigation you get from using all 5 sunwell pieces + Belt of Natural Power but gaining threat as a trade off.
I believe someone did some testing a while back and it came out that once you get EVERY possible DPS upgrade, that the Sunwell loot beats on 2t4 by a tiny amount(around 4-5dps)
And because of that reason, I will gladly give every other DPS that wants it, the Kil'Jaeden helm over taking it myself.
Sigh ... this is what I get for making a post with such a claim while on the road. You may have had a much smaller set of buffs than I used. I got a total just under 2000 dps with a manual optimization using the t6 chest, and Rawr found an arrangement with [Bladed Chaos Tunic] and some other t6 piece for maybe 2 more dps. I'll check on that setup when I can and whether changing the buffs makes a difference before I suggest you may have missed something. Also, I believe evaluating the 2t4 bonus to a precision of 1 or 2 dps is unreasonable. If the difference were really that small, moreover, I'd go without it, since one is in practice likely to miss a bit of its potential even with very good reflexes.
I guess it all really depends on what set of raid buffs you're using, what armor value the boss is set at, and how often you powershift. I know the JC neck pushes ahead for me over clutch when on a 6200 armor boss.
I was hoping some of you might have some thoughts on twin tanking.
The last two raids both myself and/or another feral have been tanking on Lady Sacrolash, one of main issues we are having is Sacrolash crushing one of us, most of the time it would be something like this.
MH - 4800
OH - 2500
MH - 8000 (Crushing)
With plenty of attacks from the images in between. I did also notice that the image damage could be partially resisted.
Is there anything further I could do or would you suggest it would be better for a Prot warrior to tank this?
(we are also using 3 tanks rather than 2)
The proc rate for 2T4 is 4%. When you say you only saw it 2 times, how long were you testing? Over the course of a normal fight, it can easily return 200-300 energy, which translates to a lot of damage. You said you're using hands and legs, but T4 legs are pretty horrible for DPS. Personally, I'd use the T4 helm instead. Grimgrin doesn't have a meta socket, and [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond] is VERY good for dps.
So, drop Grimgrin, use T4 helm for DPS, and get a new pair of pants. The badge ones are quite good, but if you're saving badges for other upgrades, there are more easily accessible options (e.g. Skulker's Greaves from Karazhan).
The proc rate for 2T4 is 4%. When you say you only saw it 2 times, how long were you testing? Over the course of a normal fight, it can easily return 200-300 energy, which translates to a lot of damage. You said you're using hands and legs, but T4 legs are pretty horrible for DPS. Personally, I'd use the T4 helm instead. Grimgrin doesn't have a meta socket, and [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond] is VERY good for dps.
So, drop Grimgrin, use T4 helm for DPS, and get a new pair of pants. The badge ones are quite good, but if you're saving badges for other upgrades, there are more easily accessible options (e.g. Skulker's Greaves from Karazhan).
ofc
I have tested bonus for many fight (1 month almost), maybe I don't see return energy correctly, my fault probably.
Actually use Hydross shoulder because want testing expertise stat.
I use for much time, Vengeful helm with meta, but around I read that Grimgrim is better, cause agi and AP.
I have Skulker's Greaves but badge legs is better I think.
Helm and other piece is better to have bonus set?
I was hoping some of you might have some thoughts on twin tanking.
The last two raids both myself and/or another feral have been tanking on Lady Sacrolash, one of main issues we are having is Sacrolash crushing one of us, most of the time it would be something like this.
MH - 4800
OH - 2500
MH - 8000 (Crushing)
With plenty of attacks from the images in between. I did also notice that the image damage could be partially resisted.
Is there anything further I could do or would you suggest it would be better for a Prot warrior to tank this?
(we are also using 3 tanks rather than 2)
Without going too much into detail - try wearing armor capped gear with around 22-24k HP fully buffed, you can use ironshields to achieve that and gear for more hitpoints (ironshields can be safely used with a macro while sacrolash is casting).
I wouldn't recommend gearing for avoidance as your healers pretty much have to expect a spike anyway. Also if you were suggesting to wear Shadow Resistance, i wouldn't do that either (there are other ways to prevent shadow image damage on tanks).
While i usually did take more average damage than my warrior tank buddy, my spikes were lower (and if we had a tank death, it was usually him).
Also i see no reason to use 3 tanks, 2 deftanks as well as 2 ferals would both be possible imo but i'd prefer the combination for various reasons.
Hmm, I asked this about a month ago, but it's the only explanation I can come up with, so I'll ask again.
Since a month ago, I've begun to move into an aggressive powershifting style, shifting almost every 12 second cycle. I've been able to keep it up throughout entire fights without using a single pot, no BoW, or mana totem. Someone said that Judgement of Wisdom (which is usually up since I have a ret pally in my raid) doesn't restore mana in forms, but it's the only thing I can think of that's restoring this much mana.
My only thought is that when you're in form you're out of the 5-second rule. I'll see if I can test this some tonight, but I've noticed that too; the only time I run out of mana when shifting a lot is when I'm shifting and then doing some castings (usually in pvp). When powershifting it seems like it's never actually an issue. Then again - at 829 mana I can powershift 9 times without any mana gain; given 12 seconds between shifts, that's 108 seconds. That's pretty long for a lot of fights. Only on raid bosses would I imagine it would be difficult.
I have tested bonus for many fight (1 month almost), maybe I don't see return energy correctly, my fault probably.
Actually use Hydross shoulder because want testing expertise stat.
I use for much time, Vengeful helm with meta, but around I read that Grimgrim is better, cause agi and AP.
I have Skulker's Greaves but badge legs is better I think.
Helm and other piece is better to have bonus set?
If you're interested in the actual energy return from 2t4, log the combat and upload it to wowwebstats. Look for the gain "Bloodlust" which is the name with which 2t4 energy shows up in the combat log. An addon like recount can also be used to track this in-game.
Unless skulker's greaves put you over the hit cap, they're better than shallow-grave, but not as good as the new badge legs ([Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer]). I'm almost certain that grimgrin is a significant downgrade from vengeful helm, but using t4 helm+t4 gloves should yield significantly better results than vengeful+badge gloves. The hydross shoulders are an excellent piece on their own, though for my part I prefer to use t4 shoulders to maintain 2t4.
If you're looking for further help optimizing your gear, I strongly recommend using a tool like Rawr to help. You can input your gear and it does the rest of the work for you, including telling you what items are upgrades and how much dps you can expect to gain by switching them. Obviously it won't be 100% perfect, but it will help give you an idea of what gear pieces are better than others.
My only thought is that when you're in form you're out of the 5-second rule. I'll see if I can test this some tonight, but I've noticed that too; the only time I run out of mana when shifting a lot is when I'm shifting and then doing some castings (usually in pvp). When powershifting it seems like it's never actually an issue. Then again - at 829 mana I can powershift 9 times without any mana gain; given 12 seconds between shifts, that's 108 seconds. That's pretty long for a lot of fights. Only on raid bosses would I imagine it would be difficult.
See, the thing is I'm keeping it up on long fights, like Council, and having full mana at the end of it all. I don't have intensity, so I average about 7-8 seconds of regen time between shifts. Unbuffed my non-5sr mana regen is about 90mp5, so I don't see how I could regen this much mana to sustain this aggressive powershifting. I'll have to check again when I raid how big my mana regen is, but I don't believe I could get THAT much mana regen from buffs.
Borrowed a pally and just went for a quick test in blasted lands, JoW is still not working in cat. Raidbuffed in cat gear gives me about 300mp5 O5SR.
That just doesn't seem right. I did a Magtheridon run today for gems and the 20 slotter. Midway through the fight, I was down to about 800 mana from aggressive power shifting, and asked for our ret to throw up JoW for a minute. It wasn't long, and I was back up to 3000 mana while still shifting quite frequently. I know it wasn't an Innervate, since the only other Druid was tanking.
Though, now that I think of it, it might have just been a DruidBar display error. I never physically checked my mana, I was just going by what DruidBar was showing me.
Hmm, I asked this about a month ago, but it's the only explanation I can come up with, so I'll ask again.
Since a month ago, I've begun to move into an aggressive powershifting style, shifting almost every 12 second cycle. I've been able to keep it up throughout entire fights without using a single pot, no BoW, or mana totem. Someone said that Judgement of Wisdom (which is usually up since I have a ret pally in my raid) doesn't restore mana in forms, but it's the only thing I can think of that's restoring this much mana.
Any ideas?
I don't use shifting's tecnic for generate energy, in long fight (vashj fox example) normally save my mana for combat rez or little heal.
Originally Posted by teiglin
If you're interested in the actual energy return from 2t4, log the combat and upload it to wowwebstats. Look for the gain "Bloodlust" which is the name with which 2t4 energy shows up in the combat log. An addon like recount can also be used to track this in-game.
Unless skulker's greaves put you over the hit cap, they're better than shallow-grave, but not as good as the new badge legs ([Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer]). I'm almost certain that grimgrin is a significant downgrade from vengeful helm, but using t4 helm+t4 gloves should yield significantly better results than vengeful+badge gloves. The hydross shoulders are an excellent piece on their own, though for my part I prefer to use t4 shoulders to maintain 2t4.
If you're looking for further help optimizing your gear, I strongly recommend using a tool like Rawr to help. You can input your gear and it does the rest of the work for you, including telling you what items are upgrades and how much dps you can expect to gain by switching them. Obviously it won't be 100% perfect, but it will help give you an idea of what gear pieces are better than others.
Thank you mate, nice explanation.
I use already RAWR, wonderful program, it help me much for compare equip.
With rawr I see that best equip for dps (for me, actually ofc) are 2t4 (helm + shoulder) and [Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer]), [Trickster's Stickyfingers].
I think haste rating can increase a bit white damage, what you think about this stat for kitty?
I don't know if anyone else tried this, but I was looking for a max dps setup in Rawr, and forgot to tell it to enforce metagem requirements. Odd thing was, it found a higher dps set than anything else I've tried since and the Metagem wasn't active due to all red/yellow/orange gems.
I'm kicking myself I didn't save it, but it was so "obviously not true" that I just cleared it and started again. One thing i do remember is that I told it not to consider +10agi gems (I have to fight hard for those vs our casters) - it filled the sets with +8agi and 5agi/5hit gems. It was also almost exactly hit-capped for ~9%+ and was using T4 helm/shoulders with only standard raid buffs active (MotW, Kings, Agi elixir)
Best DPS set I can get using the Rawr optimiser is slighty under 1500 dps. Thats with raid buffs and boss debuffs and all that. It decides to use 4xt6, 2xt4. It also doesn't play to the meta gem requirements when using All Gems. I'll have a go tommorow see if I can get anything better manually.
Originally Posted by Shadowed
The best part is, not only were you late in linking it, that's an April fools topic from 6 months ago.
There's a checkbox on the options tab for Enforce Metagem Requirements. If that's checked, you only get the meta bonus if you have the required gem colors. If that's unchecked, you always get the meta bonus. So yeah, if you have that unchecked, the optimizer won't bother with blue gems at all unless there's some really incredibly socket bonus.
And something's wrong if your best dps is slightly under 1500. Get more buffs/debuffs? Did you mark gems and enchants as available? Are you perhaps set to a very high boss armor or something? If you still can't figure it out, send me your character file.
04/20/08, 2:01 PM
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