The reason I say this is that if they take crushing blows off the table for druids but keep the current level of itemization for them (IE, early armor caps or even much better armor caps) druids are simply going to obliterate any other class for mitigation of physical damage, and it won't be remotely close. Especially given talents in the tree that appear to give a 160% armor bonus. Something's gotta give there.

Negoveio, what legs are you using? Tameless Breeches, I'd guess. That all being said, the most optimal solution is almost certainly one that takes maximum advantage of socket bonuses, metagem activation and tries to balance things out. For instance, I'd always use a red/purple for the [Belt of Natural Power] because the socket bonus is great. Even using two purples in that slot gives a better return for your gems (and usually for epic purples you lose one stam, but in this case it's worth it). It's insane to not have a metagem of some sort, so 2 is clearly out.

That's pretty similar to what I'm wearing save that you've got the helm instead of the bracers. Honestly, the best policy is to gem for a middle road of stam/avoidance and then swap gear as appropriate for the encounter. You have moroes, so you can swap stam for avoidance fairly easily. I'd probably also have a swap of my neck for somehting like barbed choker of discipline for more avoidance too, and also have the shattered sun pendant or the brooch of deftness for maximizing threat. I'd probably want the Slikk's Cloak over the Cloak of Blade turning, though that might mess up your uncrittability and force you to re-enchant. You'd have to run the numbers and see whether or not that makes sense; my suspicion is that it wouldn't.

We'll never be able to use the same gear as rogues equally. The stat distributions are optimized for their use, not ours.

I still don't understand why they don't get the same strength multiplier as every other melee. It makes sense, though undesirable, to have crit and dodge rating available to give one or the other instead of both (plus ap) via agility. Having 2 stats available for items that do the exact same thing (str and ap) is pointless. The only difference is whether the stat gets multiplied by BoK. So why not give them the str mult?

Also, like it or not we do need int on at least some items (if for no other reason than to powershift).

I don't think that's a really good reason to have it, and certainly not something blizzard wants to emphasize in terms of their itemization.

It's only one example. Even if they don't want us powershifting to improve dps, I still do it often just to get out of roots and such (BT and Sunwell trash for example). We do have spells that we can cast as well.

Yeah, I thought about that, and then I tried setup 2 with 3 +15 sta gems to enable a +18 meta gem.
Result is: 23598 hp, 34528 armor and 59,00% dodge.
And I think that this is the better that I can come out with(overall), since now I do have nice hp AND dodge.
It's better than Gear 3 on all stats. It trades 2,3% Dodge for 800 hp when compared to Gear 2(worth it). It trades almost 5% dodge for almost 600 Hp with gear 4(also worth it). So yeah, prolly the better now(overall).

And yes, I'm keeping in mind socket bonuses(damn yellow ones).

Yes, but being able to break out of roots is not something that needs to be emphasized either. There are very few fights where you'll run OOM by just breaking roots or casting the occasional heal/cyclone/whatever. Especially in raids given the various mana regens you'll likely have access to.

Currently I have a grand total of 153 bonus intellect. That gives me about 2k more mana. Instead of that 153 intellect, in theory I could have 153 more defense, 153 more resilience, 153 more agility, or about 200 more stamina. I would trade that int in a heartbeat for any of those things.

But it doesn't have all the relevant stats. None of that gear has any dodge, expertise, or defense, and only one piece has hit. I realize the nonlinear nature of stats, but that isn't a reason why that int couldn't be replaced with an actual tanking stat that is useful all the time. Simply replacing the int with a mix of expertise, hit and haste would help both bear and cat forms far more than int ever could.

As Malazaar alluded to in his post, you wouldn't get 153 more of any other stat in exchange for that int; additional points in various stats become exponentially more expensive as one piece of gear has more of that stat. WoWWiki has a good reference (here) on how item values are calculated and what parts various stats play in them. If you swap points from a stat to another as-of-yet unused stat on an item, you get a nice trade (25 int for ~167 armor pen, for example) but Blizzard has traditionally resisted producing 'optimal' Feral sets as they'd be way too damn good because of the talent bonuses that we have (at least, that's always been the reason in the past).

Personally, I like having that extra Int rather than the equivalent amount of a tanking/dps stat because it lets me shift more, at the very least. More flexibility--specifically from shifting in a druid's case--is almost always better than less.

Actually, 153 int is closer to 3k mana than 2k. Sure it wouldn't be missed on fights where you are only tanking and never leave bear form. Maybe when you're not tanking you never leave cat form. That is extremely short sighted and you're not using all the tools you have available. On a single trash pull I might shift between cat and bear a number of times. When learning Naj'entus, ferals would go bear form during the explosion and sometimes heal ourselves after. Those are just to name a few.

On the subject of sharing gear with rogues (what my post was about) ... they wouldn't want any of those defensive stats either (other than agility). My point still stands that we will not be sharing most of our gear with rogues.

Items that are meant only for bear only have bear stats (ring, cloak, weapon, etc.). They have designed many feral items to be hybrid rather than pure bear or pure cat. That's exactly why none of our tier gear has defense, otherwise we might end up with 5 different druid sets. Unless we say get a talent that gives mana from strength (or some other mechanism), we need some int on gear.

The Pyrestone gems aren't horrible for filling yellow sockets. At least enough to get you the 3% crit/12 agi meta.

In my dps gear, I have a grand total of 33 int that would be strictly better if it was replaced with hit/expertise or even crit rating. And it could be replaced by any of these since none of the pieces have that stat on them.

Oddly in my tanking gear I have 149 int. All of which is completely useless and could be replaced by again, hit, expertise or dodge rating (or defense even) and it would be strictly better.

Tier gear is worse for almost all dps slots because it has stats "wasted" on int. If there was offset pieces available for tanking they too would be better than the tier pieces again, with no "wasted" stats on int.

For powershifting purposes (or most likely ANY mana using purposes) the int on the gear would even be better off as MP5 (assuming that works in forms). I dont find it that often that I'm blowing my whole mana pool in one shot when I'm performing a dps/OT role and thus the regen would give me "more" mana than the int does, over the course of a fight.

The addition of the deathknight class will mean there will be two shield-less tanking classes that rely on armor multipliers. This will allow blizzard to have pally/warrior and dk/feral share necks/cloaks/rings/trinkets with +block or +armor respectively. The additional armor multiplier could mean that druid leather will lose its bonus armor, but feral tanking leather and rogue leather will never be the same because it would make feral druids unbalanced. I think its more likely that the bonus armor on leather will remain, and the additional modifier is due to Blizzard's plans to make the armor cap harder to reach and their desire to separate the ideal tanking roles. Ferals will be the "high armor" tank for purely physical dmg bosses, DK's for magic dmg, pallies for AoE, and warriors because they have it all mixed together.

If it's an entirely new stat (for example: expertise) it should be a near 1-1 mapping of cost. Same goes for defense, dodge, hit, or haste.

Would you be stacking int if it wasn't there? I'd much rather be able to use other trinkets that don't max expertise, or use other enchants that don't require defense, instead of being required to have some.

Okay, let's go through that. A typical najentus fight lasts what, 6 minutes maybe? 8? Let's go with 6 because that's a worst-case scenario. Assuming you're not tanking, you'll want to shift at least 12 times; 6 to go into bear, 6 to go back to cat. Add in another 3 shifts for pot drinking. So we're talking about 15 shifts. Each of which costs 35% of base mana. Assuming you're only getting an int buff, that means you can do it 4 times without having any mana regen.

Except there's tons of mana regen out there. You've got spirit buffs, you're always out of 5second rule so you're doing good mana regen. You've got JoW. And Najentus is a very heavy shifting fight if you're doing it right; most fights are not so much. And you don't absolutely need to shift that often. It's not essential. And as stated above, chances are that you're not in your bear gear, you're in your cat gear, and that doesn't have much int anyway. People regularly powershift in their cat gear for entire fights; the only fight that anyone ran out of mana in was najentus, and that was with a very aggressive powercycling threshold (basically every 6 swings).

Tanks won't, but cats absolutely will. And if they can make it so that agility is king for bear and cat, and the armor issue is negligible...bears will make up their defensive stats and stamina in other ways.

To paraphrase you, if you don't have 5 druid sets already, you're not taking maximum advantage of your class. I've got a tanking set, an avoidance set, a dps set, a pvp set, a fire resist set, a shadow resist set, a threat set, a resto set and I'm working on a balance set...the point would be that if you put hit and expertise and haste on instead of int, it would be better itemized for both cats and bears and cost the same. I think it would be more useful to itemize for the normal case (wanting hit/expertise) and allow people to gem for int if they feel that would be best.

Why? Powershifting doesn't even cost that much mana, especially when you consider raid buffs. If 33 int is sufficient for DPS needs, 0 int would almost certainly be.

What's with all this unbalanced crap ? It's not the first time it's posted and it's non-sense. You don't even know what we will be balanced against. For all we know, they might finally get things right so Druids get an all-in-one set. Health and Dodge multipliers can both change - they did so last expansion. Armour multipliers are already getting changed.

I don't expect it to be the same, as two dedicated kits generally beat one hybrid kit (one need only look at the enchants), but leave the balance stuff out.

Ok, first of let me apologise if this has been discussed elsewhere. I have been trawling through previous posts the last few days to see if it has been answered but couldnt find a definite answer.

So. I have been having a discussion on the Wowhead druid forms about various methods and tactics about how to get the best dps out of cat form. Various posts from this website (and others) were cited there as reference material as part of the discussion. Then along came a person, who threw a spanner in the works by saying that the was a 'maximum crit rating' after which point extra crit was wasted. The central point this was based of was that 'Your crit rating cannot exceed your normal hit rating' i.e. if you have a 40% chance to hit normally then your crit cannot exceed 40% (modified ofc by +hit and +expertise). Now while I am no expert i consider myself relatively well informed about the mechanics involved here, but was unable to prove or disprove this statement. The only references that we could find were found on wowwikki, and even then there were 2 conflicting reports on the matter.

Long story short.
My question is: Is there a maximum value for your crit rating? and if so how much is it? Obviously if this is true this is modified by your hit rating and your expertise rating, as well as if you are attacking a mob from the front or the rear (thus denying them dodge & parry) but how is it effected?

any help or reference to where I can find the answers is greatly appreciated

My god, who actually shifts to bear form on Naj'entus?

To the above poster - even in crappy dps gear you'll have something like 92% chance to hit so there's not much chance of crit% going hit%.

Actually, you're 46% short of it.

The cap is when all your attacks crit, not when you've got equal hit/crit rates.

See thats what I had assumed before the discussion I was having on wowhead. Now Im not so sure. Can you back that up with something? or are you making the same assumption as I had.

The way I am currently see is that on a combat table there is only so much space. Taken up by %miss chance % dodge, %crit % hit etc etc. all adding to 100%. This means that there is only so much space on the table for things to fit and as one improves another is pushed of that table.

Exactly.

And since crit pushes hit off the table, you reduce your hit % while increasing your crit % (everything that hits hasn't crit).

Don't forget clancing blows, btw... but they don't matter for the crit cap if I'm not mistaken, since they would get pushed of the table, right?

Looking at alpha talent leaks and late BC raiding, esp Sunwell fights, Imp LotP is loosing attractiveness.
It's best, and fairly strong, when looking at a fairly slow and steady stream of incoming damage to the dps group you are in. It's nearly as strong with weak but inconsistent damage. Loatheb was a great example.

These fights are few and far between in BC. No damage source in all of Sunwell boss fights can be described as 'slow'. In almost all fights there is some effect that can potentially burst you down if not topped off, except Brut and Burn takes active healing anyway. If rake has been buffed enough, full savage fury might be quite useful. Similarly, Mangle might outdo Shred with the new cost reduction. Either way, I'm not so sure Imp LotP is worth the 2 points in raid anymore unless Wrath raiding is much easier on the raid damage and on the healers than late BC raiding was.

But then I think Sunwell is really too hard on the healers in general. They clearly work harder then any other group on the first 5 fights, except maybe MTs on Brut if you like to play stomp-stealing games or tanks on Muru, and I doubt KJ will change that. If Wrath raiding opens up in the same vein, I forsee a great lack of raid healers.

Er, no. Glances override crits, I believe. The potential effects of the crit cap were on people's mind back in vanilla.

Yep agreed - It will be hard to find a place for either of Imp LoTP and Nurturing Instincts, I believe.