Feral Megathread - Page 163

Malazaar · 03/07/08, 6:50 AM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

I've got a set I use on trash that has its main priority in TPS over mitigation. I run with about 28-29k armour, a fair amount of hit (about 130) and expertise from [Shapeshifter's Signet] and [Brooch of Deftness]. I'm confident if a boss was in Sunwell that required high/maxed hit that I could juggle things about to reach that.

I'm kind of waiting to see how Brutallus fight goes. With all the problems on EU ptr we never got on to test him. I originally socketed my entire T6 gear with +15 stam gems simply because Spinels and Shadowsongs were so rare and in demand.

The new spelldmg/haste gems in 2.4, the badges for gems change and the various other ease of getting gems (essence of immortals turn in, Mag bag) led to relaxing these rules so I think I can now attain 7 or 8 spinels with relative ease to socket for 10 agility.

But I'm worried what I've heard about Brutallus and that I'm going to need these gems to survive it. Raid buffed I run around 25,500 hp at the moment.

With respect to EJ's no spoilers poilicy has any Feral tanked Brutallus on test server and could give some insight into what they think would be the best route for gemming (15 stams, 5agi/7stams or 10 agis) specifcially thinking about off tanking the bosses in there. We tend to roll with 2 prots and myself as tanks. We do have a prot pally too but hes pretty fragile and we wouldn't take him on progression raids I don't think unless the fight specifically benefitted from it (like I hear felmyst might).

I would be a little worried with your armor. Depending how many priests/shaman you take to your raids, you will not always have the 25% armor buff. I tanked him with armor capped and 25k hitpoints and he often got very close to destroying me with a spike.

Vaccine · 03/07/08, 7:34 AM

Originally Posted by Malazaar

I would be a little worried with your armor. Depending how many priests/shaman you take to your raids, you will not always have the 25% armor buff. I tanked him with armor capped and 25k hitpoints and he often got very close to destroying me with a spike.

Ah no, the begining about armour was in response to the hit tanking set and trash tanking talk before.

In my boss tanking set its pretty much standard, around 35600 armour or so.

Inaiwae · 03/07/08, 7:41 AM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

... With respect to EJ's no spoilers poilicy has any Feral tanked Brutallus on test server and could give some insight into what they think would be the best route for gemming (15 stams, 5agi/7stams or 10 agis) specifcially thinking about off tanking the bosses in there. We tend to roll with 2 prots and myself as tanks. We do have a prot pally too but hes pretty fragile and we wouldn't take him on progression raids I don't think unless the fight specifically benefitted from it (like I hear felmyst might).

Remove this if it falls into "spoiler" category, however i think its ok (no abilities or strategies included). I am also not sure what gear is best to tank such boss, so i'll post the data and lets discuss it.

I tanked Brutallus on PTR (one version lower before he was disabled - the one where stomp didnt remove burn yet). He hits fast and hard. Here is combat log that covers about 8 seconds, boss does 14 attacks. Mainhand on me averages 5k, offhand 2.5k. So if 4 consecutive attacks hit, it is 15k dmg / 2 seconds on armor capped tank. I will not go into details but the boss of course has specials which increase this burst.

I joined my guild only recently, so i am not "decked out" in t6 yet. Buffed without GoA i am at armor cap, 22.5k hp and 50% dodge.

2/21 20:01:55.500 SWING_MISSED,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,DODGE
2/21 20:01:55.937 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,360,1,nil,nil,1923,nil,nil,nil
2/21 20:01:56.671 SWING_MISSED,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,DODGE
2/21 20:01:58.890 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,4357,1,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil
2/21 20:01:58.906 SWING_MISSED,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,DODGE
2/21 20:01:59.687 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,5550,1,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil
2/21 20:01:59.875 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,2594,1,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil
2/21 20:02:00.734 SWING_MISSED,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,DODGE
2/21 20:02:00.921 SWING_MISSED,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,DODGE
2/21 20:02:01.281 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,5407,1,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil
2/21 20:02:01.906 SWING_MISSED,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,DODGE
2/21 20:02:02.453 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,4332,1,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil
2/21 20:02:02.890 SWING_MISSED,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,DODGE
2/21 20:02:03.296 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130006132002E1F,Brutallus,0x10a48,0x00000000009942B4,Bobby,0x511,4986,1,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil,nil

My opinion is that dodge wont be reliable considering his attack speed. I will stick to good old effective health theory and gem 15 stamina to get sufficient health buffer to survive burst damage.

edit: edit deleted

Inaiwae · 03/07/08, 7:51 AM

Originally Posted by angi

I can`t find the point in wearing hit/expertise for trash. Correct if i am wrong but most trashmobs are level 71/72, so you need much lower hit rating/expertise for trash anyway. I mostly wear the pillar for trash and have zero expertise, but with the correct spell-rotation (mangle on cooldown, swipe/lacerate in between, malm only if enough rage) i can`t see a problem in getting enough aggro on single trashmobs regardless of gear choices. The only problem holding aggro is when a pally buffs salvation on druids and i didn`t recognize and click it off.

For me, what matter most on trash is that my 1st mangle lands. Expertise and hit rating provide that.

Expertise is also the best threat-building stat available (intil capped for dodge, i guess). I tank in half dps gear and if i am not a bit lucky with crits doing 1500+ TPS, sometimes our DPS pull aggro and i have to use taunt.

angi · 03/07/08, 9:11 AM

Originally Posted by Inaiwae

For me, what matter most on trash is that my 1st mangle lands. Expertise and hit rating provide that.

Expertise is also the best threat-building stat available (intil capped for dodge, i guess). I tank in half dps gear and if i am not a bit lucky with crits doing 1500+ TPS, sometimes our DPS pull aggro and i have to use taunt.

How much Hit is needed to be hit capped against lvl 72 targets? Assume its 4% you have half of that already with t6 trousers. If Mangle fails because of dodge or not-hit, just Taunt and you will not loose aggro for enough time to build aggro. I don`t like wearing DPS-Pieces while tanking, because sometimes things go wrong and you have to tank more adds than normal or healers are afk or drinking and the incoming heal is not enough to keep you alive. Perhaps it works for me and my guild because our hunters MD often. I for me really don`t see any point that I have to use exp/hit-pieces to improve my aggro-build with t6, not on trahs and not on bosses. (If you can`t hold aggro on trash with the tankset what do you do on bosses to build enough aggro?)

When you have problems with building enough aggro, firstly check if you are pressing the buttons in the correct order. For me it was a really great boost to have a macro for the mangle/lacerate-rotation, that resets automatically after 6 seconds to grant that i use mangle every cooldown, lacerate don`t falls of and autoattack is turned on when i fight a mob. Just smashing 3 buttons like a wild beast doesn`t do the trick.

The problem with expertise is simply the fact that you have to give something up for it. Currently there is no piece of gear for us that gives us expertise and is the best piece in points of mitigation/survival on one item.

And coming into Sunwell, you have for sure no place for items that are not best-in-slot for survivability/mitigation, because mostly you will wipe because the tank dies not because the tank didn`t build enough aggro.

Malazaar · 03/07/08, 9:18 AM

Originally Posted by angi

How much Hit is needed to be hit capped against lvl 72 targets?

70 - 5.0 %
71 - 5.5 %
72 - 6.0 %
73 - 9.0 %

Tere · 03/07/08, 9:35 AM

Originally Posted by bluenote

The other night we were talking about tanks being hit capped and how two of our prot warriors both happen to have 142 hit rating. I was wondering if there are any druid tanks who are hit capped or over 100 HR? I am pretty sure we need the HR for the first Sunwell boss, don't we?

Despite my best attempts to avoid it, every boss fight so far up to and including M'uru I end up using ~120 HR just because initial aggro or improving the success rate on taunt is so vital.

Vaccine · 03/07/08, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by Inaiwae

My opinion is that dodge wont be reliable considering his attack speed. I will stick to good old effective health theory and gem 15 stamina to get sufficient health buffer to survive burst damage.

edit: edit deleted

Yer that does look tough. Think it will be max armour, max hp set then. Could even possibly load up on stam trinkets, though probably dropping pocket watch for the heroic MT trinket asap anyway, that'll go a long way. Tanks rotate on this fight right?

The socket pieces on the new items though are generally very good, they are good colours (blue or red) and excellent bonuses which make it tough to ignore them.

eg: Leggings of the Immortal Beast:
Red Socket
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Agility

Thats pretty hot and whether you're gemming for max stam or max agi, its hard to argue against using [Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst] to fill the red or blue sockets respectively. All the pieces have +agi bonuses except for the helm which has a red socket + stam bonus. The three new T6 have 1 red socket each with a +stam bonus on each of +3 stam. You could gem them all for +15 stam to gain 45 stamina, or you could gem them all for the above gem which effectively makes each one 5agi/10 stamina including the bonus, which is a very nice gem. 5 agi is well worth 5 stamina.

angi · 03/07/08, 9:41 AM

Originally Posted by Malazaar

70 - 5.0 %
71 - 5.5 %
72 - 6.0 %
73 - 9.0 %

thanks, so lets assume the mob has a chance of 5,4% to dodge or parry your first mangle (0 expertise) and a 2% chance to miss the attack (with 3-4% hit from t6 trouser and eos neck), so 8 out of 100 times your mangle fails and you have to use taunt, which has only a 2% chance to miss so 0,02*0,08 thats a chance of 0,16% that everything goes wrong and you loose aggro. Perhaps that was no problem to me because i nearly chain pull trashmobs, so i have a little time to build aggro. (or i simply don`t remember those times

)

angi · 03/07/08, 9:50 AM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

Yer that does look tough. Think it will be max armour, max hp set then. Could even possibly load up on stam trinkets, though probably dropping pocket watch for the heroic MT trinket asap anyway, that'll go a long way. Tanks rotate on this fight right?

The socket pieces on the new items though are generally very good, they are good colours (blue or red) and excellent bonuses which make it tough to ignore them.

eg: Leggings of the Immortal Beast:
Red Socket
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Agility

Thats pretty hot and whether you're gemming for max stam or max agi, its hard to argue against using [Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst] to fill the red or blue sockets respectively. All the pieces have +agi bonuses except for the helm which has a red socket + stam bonus. The three new T6 have 1 red socket each with a +stam bonus on each of +3 stam. You could gem them all for +15 stam to gain 45 stamina, or you could gem them all for the above gem which effectively makes each one 5agi/10 stamina including the bonus, which is a very nice gem. 5 agi is well worth 5 stamina.

The stamina trinket from MT looks nice, but without devotion aura i am not at the armor cap without badge, so i don`t think i will remove the badge if i don`t have the aura. I think if you can down the bosses with 24/25k hp buffed it should be no problem to socket the new pieces of sunwell gear with 10agi and 5agi/7 stam gems, because you simply loose no hp when upgrading from t6. The socket boni look really nice on those pieces, so much better than the t6-boni.

Vaccine · 03/07/08, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by angi

boni

He he he.

Ahem. Yer I'd be using Badge + MT trinket. Never really rated Gurtrogg trinket that much, preferred the emergency button that the trinket and watch provide together, and the MT trinket is just like the watch only it uses itself

But I'd imagine for Brutallus I'll be in my normal group which is me, two hunters, a shaman for GoA +1 random. The random could be a warlock for imp, or a pally for devotion I guess. May just use stoneskin though instead of the pally.

Again without going into detail, what will our roles be in each fight?

Kalecgos: Tanking
Brutallus: Tanking
Felmyst:? Tanking
Twins:? DPS
Muru: Tanking

Is what I think from what I've heard, unsure on twins (actually its a complete guess based on...well...that theres two of them

). Assuming that the feral is 3rd in line after 2 prots this is.

I'm trying to decide if the good sockets/boni are merely Blizzard feeling that they can itemise to max potential in the last patch before the expansion, or if they've actually just worked out what we want/like.

Inaiwae · 03/07/08, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

Yer that does look tough. Think it will be max armour, max hp set then. Could even possibly load up on stam trinkets, though probably dropping pocket watch for the heroic MT trinket asap anyway, that'll go a long way. Tanks rotate on this fight right?

The socket pieces on the new items though are generally very good, they are good colours (blue or red) and excellent bonuses which make it tough to ignore them.

...

Yes, tanks rotate.

And you are right, i didnt check the socket bonuses. I expected usual crap so i didnt plan to care, but if agility is the bonus then i'll probably go for agi/stam in red sockets too.

Inaiwae · 03/07/08, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by angi

How much Hit is needed to be hit capped against lvl 72 targets? Assume its 4% you have half of that already with t6 trousers. If Mangle fails because of dodge or not-hit, just Taunt and you will not loose aggro for enough time to build aggro. I don`t like wearing DPS-Pieces while tanking, because sometimes things go wrong and you have to tank more adds than normal or healers are afk or drinking and the incoming heal is not enough to keep you alive. Perhaps it works for me and my guild because our hunters MD often. I for me really don`t see any point that I have to use exp/hit-pieces to improve my aggro-build with t6, not on trahs and not on bosses. (If you can`t hold aggro on trash with the tankset what do you do on bosses to build enough aggro?) ...

On boss, i dont have rage problems and dps actually cares about threat. On trash, in tank gear, i have 0 rage. And dps do not care.

Axl · 03/07/08, 1:18 PM

From what I've seen, we'll be tanking almost every single fight in Sunwell, or at least untill the raids don't require so much stacking. On Kalec, we'll be tanking. On Brutallus we'll be tanking.

Felmyst actually seems like we'll be dpsing, but lets face it, the fight before they removed it was so incredibly melee unfriendly and untuned, its hard to say what we'll be doing (if not totally sitting outside the zone.

Twins we'll be tanking again, because when you're extreme stacking the raid, a feral druid tank is better than another prot warrior. From my initial experience with M'uru we'll definately be tanking there too.

And from what I've seen, we're going to need all those stamina upgrades on sunwell gear. Kaelc Brutallus, Twins, and Muru's adds are like blenders. The spotty nature of avoidance won't help when the twin lands a double crush + 9.7k shadow disorient.

angi · 03/07/08, 2:08 PM

Originally Posted by Axl

Twins we'll be tanking again, because when you're extreme stacking the raid, a feral druid tank is better than another prot warrior.
...
The spotty nature of avoidance won't help when the twin lands a double crush + 9.7k shadow disorient.

I don`t think that a feral as second tank is really a great idea if the boss crushes and does magic damage, but the melee dps increases if we support dps on this boss (especially on the twin tanked by range), so i think we will dps at twins.

@Inaiwae If you have rage problems at trash sit down and get critted, helps everytime on rage generation

.