Feral Megathread - Page 180

kalbear · 07/14/08, 6:55 PM

I'm in a similar boat to others; I tank first, DPS second, and am not allowed to bid on DPS gear. Which is kinda ironic given that for a large chunk of fights where I am (BT) I DPS if I'm there at all. But it's still not hard to get a DPS set from that. Most of the better DPS gear is badge gear anyway or is hybrid gear, a few pieces are PvP, and a couple others are just lucky drops that no one else wanted. It seems very, very odd to not have any alternate DPS gear.

Mijae · 07/14/08, 8:08 PM

There is absolutely no excuse to be without a dps set. If you're in a T6 guild you should at least have 2t4/2t6. Using the T6 legs and gloves even with pure stam gems in them is still damn good. Sure I am last in line for all dps upgrades in 25 mans and most I'll never get, but they're are pretty minor upgrades for us anyway. You can use any old tier gear and regem for dps. Even kara dps gear is still decent (I'm still using the cloak). Almost every slot can easily be filled by pvp or badge gear.

Alandriel · 07/14/08, 8:09 PM

Originally Posted by Darkkazul

If he claims to be a bear and only bear then he is useless... One of the main advantages of being a feral is the ability to dps during offtank/not needed tank bosses. I've actually never seen someone who's only a tank but its much more common to see feral druids say, "Oh, you wanted a tank? I only dps." We're not a dps class, we're a tanking/dpsing/healing (screw you KJ)/oomkining class.

Why would a guild keep a feral in for DPS?

Serious question here - our guild will rotate out a feral for a dps sitting on most any boss. How do you justify your spot if there is a DPS sitting of any flavor? Our roster is 35ish at the moment, and if 30 people are on, extra tanks aren't needed and get sat. Unless the fight is dynamic (Muru, for instance), a mage goes in for the feral.

• Astrylian · 07/14/08, 8:20 PM

Some guilds aren't that hardcore, and prefer to maintain one raidgroup for the whole night.

Also, they could just be better players. I've never DPS'd for Brut, but based on Teron performance, I expect I could hit 1700-1800 dps, plus the impact of 5% crit for my group, Faerie Fire, and Mangle. It's not amazing, but it's probably enough to beat a bad to mediocre pure-DPSer.

seminarca · 07/14/08, 8:52 PM

I'm also tank first, DPS second. We run with a progression minded loot council system as most Sunwell guilds seem to be using nowadays.

I've had no qualms about passing DPS stuff to other classes, I've even gone as far as passing DPS leather ([Insidious Bands], [Shadowmaster's Boots], [Don Alejandro's Money Belt]) to Enhancement Shamans and Ret Paladins .. not to mention shared drops like [Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape] or [Choker of Endless Nightmares] I wouldn't even dream of taking over some of our regular, solid DPS players. This kind of system works great when everyone is on the same page (ethics/greed wise).

Having said that, Ferals are by no means without options, considering outside of raid items. As people have mentioned, 2T4 is pretty much mandatory for DPS, and once you can swing it, 4T6 is pretty decent, even if gemmed/enchanted for tanking (choosing the best compromise where possible .. e.g. T6 gloves and pants with Shiftings or Delicates wouldn't be horrible for DPS). That's 6 out of the 8 main slots taken care of. Vindicator's Dragonhide stuff (or Guardian's if you can get the rating) is still great for DPS, and [Belt of Deep Shadow] isn't a poor option either. Much of the Vengeful Dragonhide (or Brutal, again, if you can get the rating) is also well worth looking into, and then you've got the latest round of badge items (e.g. [Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer]) to fill in gaps. [Shattered Sun Pendant of Might] is trivial to get, and a very decent filler item. Then you've got [Cloak of Fiends], [Drape of the Dark Reavers] is still alright and at worst you can always get a [Vengeance Wrap]. Finally, [Shard of Contempt] and [Berserker's Call] or [Bloodlust Brooch] is a solid trinket setup if you haven't been lucky enough to PuG yourself a DST.

You end up with a fairly respectable set, and though it won't be as powerful as having "best in slot", it will still be pretty close.

Oaken · 07/14/08, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by Alandriel

Why would a guild keep a feral in for DPS?

Serious question here - our guild will rotate out a feral for a dps sitting on most any boss. How do you justify your spot if there is a DPS sitting of any flavor? Our roster is 35ish at the moment, and if 30 people are on, extra tanks aren't needed and get sat. Unless the fight is dynamic (Muru, for instance), a mage goes in for the feral.

Serious answer here - it depends on lots of things. For example, I've dps'd on Felmyst (I've MT'd him too). Why? Because we wanted a warrior tank in just in case the shield drops and we want to give the ferals the boot token so swapping one for the other doesn't make sense. Do I do as much dps as a rogue? Hardly but if we wipe on Felmyst its not because we lack a few hundred dps.

You don't need perfect raid makeup after you've geared up a bit and learned the encounters. And if you're in a guild that won't try something on farm just because you haven't maxed every single raid slot...well, I guess you can decide if that's the way you want to roll. Seems kind of limiting to me.

ganwb79 · 07/14/08, 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by Regen

I would most definitely not drop yourself below 21k~ I'm not sure why you are so low (probably commendation) but I use a decent amount of avoidance gear for brut and also do not get commanding/bloodpact (only Stam in helm/legs usually).

EDIT: Tauren are Overpowered

Originally Posted by Garanthir

Bah I had a nice post all made up, but the Interwebs ate it.

Anyway I'd say 20k is as low as you would want to go. SWP favors stam(at least early on it seems), but the real key to Brut is clear concise tank communication and healers being on the ball. We've killed Brut 3 times and on 2 of those kills I've been a tank along with a Warrior. At each transition we simply say "preparing to taunt" pause a second or so and then "taunting". Whenever possible let the other tank eat the Stomp and then taunt. Taunting right in to a Stomp is really bad. My gear is roughly similar to yours (except Illidan hates me and I still rock a T4 chest) and I use the BB trinket over the Stop Watch (I'd use the Commendation over that if I could get one to drop). So I'd say your gear is not the limiting factor, if anything a bit low on stam, but that's about it.

On edit: Don't forget to use nightmare seeds!

Yes, going under 20k hp is rather taboo to me too. On other bosses I use Commendation + BoT so I have been keeping somewhat close to 21k. I used a countdown macro going 3,2,1 and then taunting afterwards for last night's attempts, seems to help.

Wow Web Stats

I managed to survive through the 6 minutes here and got one-shot by the enrage

Question about nightmare seeds, when do I pop them? I usually macro up to drink an ironshield potion and barkskin 5 seconds before slash cooldown is up and taunt after that. Do I pop the seed at the same time? I'm rather apprehensive of using cancelform to pop the seed while Brut is beating on me.

seminarca · 07/15/08, 12:56 AM

Using Nightmare Seed at that time is what I've been doing as well. It lasts for 30 seconds, which is about the same amount of time as one tank keeps him for. You can judge based on the Stomp cooldown whether Nightmare Seed will last through it (Stomp cooldown remaining + 10 seconds .. if that's less than 30 seconds, you're safe to use Nightmare Seed).

Loreki · 07/15/08, 2:01 AM

I'm using the formula from bear comparisons to make a spreadsheet which will let me enter the crit reduction of each of my items and add it up to total given reduction as a percentage.

While I have no doubt the formula is right as posted, I'm less confident in my spreadsheet making abilities.
Could someone please check for me that the figures shown in the following image (78resilence and 74 defence rating) do in fact add up to 3.21% crit reduction.

Thank you in advance.

Inaiwae · 07/15/08, 4:37 AM

Originally Posted by Junakit

On a tangent, I've just seen yet another feral app to a guild that claims to be a tank and not have any DPS gear worth mentioning. The last guy I saw like this literally DPSed in full tank gear, in all its stamina-gemmed glory. Am I just weird for expecting other druids to have both sets of gear? How common is the "bear and only bear" syndrome?

If he does not have dps gear, he is only half-usefull even if i consider tanking duties only. My offtank / trash tanking set is basically 1/2 dps set. In true tank gear my threat on trash is pathetic and it would slow the raid down.

As for the druid sitting out when he's not tanking - i think this is based on lack of proper dps gear or lack of skill, because in BT cat druids can do very nice damage. The first fight in the whole game where i'd consider sitting out as dmg is Brutallus (first kill).

edit: or maybe i am not hardcore enough to consider small dmg difference relevant on fights which are not that big dps races?

@ Loreki: offtopic - cant you make use of the macro that evaluates resilience and defense and lets you know the chance to be critted? It seems much more convenient than entering stuff in spreadsheet:

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(2.6-(GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)*.04+GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_CRIT_TAKEN_MELEE)),1,0.5,0)

(assumes 3/3 SotF)

Carlos · 07/15/08, 5:44 AM

I am Guild Leader, Raid Leader and Druid Class Leader in one person. we are currently progressing through BT (5/9). We are Raiding in an Alliance of 4 Guilds (as we are a bit more casual). We usually have a "Tank Heavy Setup" with 2 Prot Warrior, 1 Pala and 2 Ferals. We only swap one Warrior out for Heal or DPS when needed (e.g. Teron, Archimonde and RoS). Pala moves into Heal gear provided by Off-Specc loot (see below).

Loot Rules (set by myself) are Fixed Prices for every item and you can need it if you have the most DKP. Tier Tokens should be spread for one per Person so when drop luck is on me I can get the second Item for 25% of the original price, when nobody else wants it. Off-Specc would for me only be Heal and Moonkin. This way we don't end up with Void Crystals in the Raid Bank.

People can pass on other items to stay on top for one special sought item.

Well, Raid rules set by a Feral are probably different...

Sahrokh · 07/15/08, 6:53 AM

I'm in a similar boat to others; I tank first, DPS second, and am not allowed to bid on DPS gear.

I'd gquit in an instant off that guild.

You play a tank + DPS class, you can use and should use both.
If you use loot council, the leaders would insure you don't get "too much" anyway.

If you use DKP, you have to gather 2+ sets hence you will automatically get DPS gear slower than ie rogues, so what's the deal at forbidding you the drops?

I'm also tank first, DPS second. We run with a progression minded loot council system as most Sunwell guilds seem to be using nowadays.

I switched thru 3 guilds in TBC (one farming Illidan since Sept 07) and every time it was the same.
Asked to pass on DPS gear, you end up so behind that you really become a dead weight on the raid if you need to DPS (expecially true in the past, when badge gear etc. was not available).
Then it becomes perfectly fair to have you sit out.

If I had been a raiding guild leader in TBC (have beein in vanilla WoW) I'd consider a feral druid without a DPS set as a lazy person not interested in improving his performance.
If a rogue misses one DPS piece it's how much, a loss of 10 DPS? But a raider not interested at figthing to get those 10 DPS (be it the rogue or a feral) would not be a suitable member of my guild.

It's why I always attempted joining "points" based loot policy guilds. With my 100% attendance and dedication I'd have a chance to improve all my sets in a timely manner.

Carlos · 07/15/08, 10:18 AM

We recruited a new Feral and we knew that he had excellent Tank gear. He was a late starter and so he did most of the improvements via badges from heroics. First thing I asked him to do was to join Gruul PuGs to get T4 Shoulders, which he had not before and to ran Karazhan because he passed on those T4 Tokens. So basically he was asked to improve DPS to be a good part of the Raid Team.

Tank is only half of being Feral. I would not join Guilds with above mentioned loot rules.

Thessaly · 07/15/08, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by ganwb79

Question about nightmare seeds, when do I pop them? I usually macro up to drink an ironshield potion and barkskin 5 seconds before slash cooldown is up and taunt after that. Do I pop the seed at the same time? I'm rather apprehensive of using cancelform to pop the seed while Brut is beating on me.

In the first post is an example a macro for checking whether you are in the global cooldown or not, and only using an item and returning to form if you are not. I start out tanking, and get taunted from after the first stomp, so I start with two slashes. The next time I'm taunted off of, I get stomped and have him for a second or two, so before that happens I swap Pillar in for Forest Lord. The next three stomps are the only full stomps I take, as after that it goes back to taunting immediately after the stomp. The first full stomp, I use Badge of Tenacity 5-10 seconds before it lands. The second full stomp I use Nightmare Seed 5-10 second before it lands. The last one, Badge of Tenacity is back up. It's as important to be at full health going into Stomp as it is to get the right kind of healing and have extra avoidance or health during Stomp, so you really do want to lead stomp with your usage of trinkets or Seeds.

Torpesh · 07/15/08, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Alandriel

Why would a guild keep a feral in for DPS?

Serious question here - our guild will rotate out a feral for a dps sitting on most any boss. How do you justify your spot if there is a DPS sitting of any flavor? Our roster is 35ish at the moment, and if 30 people are on, extra tanks aren't needed and get sat. Unless the fight is dynamic (Muru, for instance), a mage goes in for the feral.

Since we've picked up a second feral druid who is more into tanking I'm almost solely DPS now. Here's why my guild keeps me in on pretty much every progression content fight. This is going to sound like bragging (which is not my intent), but my point is that there are ferals out there who can earn their spots in a raid as DPS.

1. I usually end up between 5th and 7th on the DPS meters in a 25-man raid (except on fights that require AoE or are severely tilted against melee). Compared to other similarly geared guilds (5/5 MH, 7/9 BT) we're typically on the very high side when it comes to DPS, so I'm pretty happy about that. I'm usually behind the hunters and rogues, maybe one or two of the warlocks. I'm almost always above the mages, shadow priests, raid utility specc'd hunter, fury warriors, and boomkin. We have a fantastic retribution paladin who keeps right up with me, along with a very good shaman who can do the same on some fights.

2. I provide Mangle for the various bleeds, and most importantly a lot of +crit for our hunter group (between LoTP and [Idol of the Raven Goddess]. On top of that I add some passive healing from impLoTP. When the boomkin is out I keep up Faerie Fire as well.

3. I'm a good player. One of the most important things in a lot of the TBC fights isn't so much DPS, but situational awareness. I almost never die from standing in flames or some other boss AoE attack. If someone gets a spine from Najentus near me it's quickly picked up. If a more than one healer on the MT goes down I'm quick to go out to caster form to keep him healed up. I know which players to battle rez and which to leave on the ground depending on the fight. I also know WHEN to battle rez them during the fight. You can't easily measure this stuff on a DPS meter or WWS.

4. As mentioned in #3... battle rez.

5. When something goes wrong I can often jump in as a tank. This is usually more useful on trash than bosses, since in DPS gear I can't stand up to most bosses for very long, but we've had more than one fight where we were able to take down the last 5% of a boss because I was able to tank him just long enough. That's becoming less common in later content bosses though.

6. As Astrylian mentioned, some guilds are more interested in other things beyond absolutely maximizing progression. It's a lot more enjoyable in my opinion to have a raid where you're moving at a good pace rather than stopping at every boss to sub out your mages because they did their job sheeping trash and can't do the same DPS as a rogue. It's also a lot more fun to me to play with friends (since this is a game and all). I'd much rather wipe on a boss while having fun with my friends than kill a boss in silence because we've got a bunch of "ringers" who don't know each other and don't care about each other.

MisterMerf · 07/15/08, 1:50 PM

Originally Posted by Loreki

Could someone please check for me that the figures shown in the following image (78resilence and 74 defence rating) do in fact add up to 3.21% crit reduction.

My spreadsheet gives me 3.23% and I used wowwiki as my source. So I'd say you built it correctly.

I also know WHEN to battle rez them during the fight.

Rather than that, they should know when to accept the rez. Convenient times for me to rez someone usually don't coincide with good times for them to accept that rez.

Garanthir · 07/15/08, 1:56 PM

Originally Posted by ganwb79

Yes, going under 20k hp is rather taboo to me too. On other bosses I use Commendation + BoT so I have been keeping somewhat close to 21k. I used a countdown macro going 3,2,1 and then taunting afterwards for last night's attempts, seems to help.

Wow Web Stats

I managed to survive through the 6 minutes here and got one-shot by the enrage

Question about nightmare seeds, when do I pop them? I usually macro up to drink an ironshield potion and barkskin 5 seconds before slash cooldown is up and taunt after that. Do I pop the seed at the same time? I'm rather apprehensive of using cancelform to pop the seed while Brut is beating on me.

What seminarca said, as long as you are not in CD (or have the check in your macro) you're OK to pop it.

I'm not the best WWS analyzer, but it doesn't look like your group(and some of the others too) is setup well and overall raid DPS is low. I tanked Brut with 2 BM Hunters, a Survival Hunter, and Resto Shaman(dropping at least GoA) in my group. I think that is kind of the "accepted" Feral group nowadays, it really has good synergy and you will put out wonderful TPS especially with Drum rotations. That should help your DPS open up if threat capping is the reason for some of the low rDPS.

Garanthir · 07/15/08, 2:02 PM

Originally Posted by MisterMerf

Rather than that, they should know when to accept the rez. Convenient times for me to rez someone usually don't coincide with good times for them to accept that rez.

For sure, I discovered that if you rez a player who is in Felmyst's breath they are resurected MC'd. Luckily all he did was go Tree form and skelly AOE killed him

TimWischmeier · 07/15/08, 2:19 PM

Originally Posted by MisterMerf

Rather than that, they should know when to accept the rez. Convenient times for me to rez someone usually don't coincide with good times for them to accept that rez.

In a way you can and even should be on this task. If its not safe, I always give a quick "don't accept yet, I'll tell" on vent, as I have more overview over the fight and can say when it's safe.

• Astrylian · 07/15/08, 2:26 PM

Indeed, my Rebirth macro includes "/w [target] DON'T ACCEPT THIS REZ... until I tell you it's safe, or you're sure you won't be instagibbed by some stray aoe or something when you pop up."

kalbear · 07/15/08, 2:44 PM

I'd gquit in an instant off that guild.

You play a tank + DPS class, you can use and should use both.
If you use loot council, the leaders would insure you don't get "too much" anyway.

If you use DKP, you have to gather 2+ sets hence you will automatically get DPS gear slower than ie rogues, so what's the deal at forbidding you the drops?

It makes sense, at least most of the time. While I'm doing DPS more than half the time right now, the situation is that I need to have good gear as a tank. I don't need to as a DPS. As such, I should be spending my points on that first and foremost. I'm also not DPSing 100% of the time, so gear given to me for DPS is in that sense a waste.

And honestly, a lot of the best in slot gear isn't drops anyway. Where this tends to be the biggest deal is in a couple of small slots like the belt or neck. Most everything else is badge loot, tier loot (2pt4/2pt6), pvp gear and random trash mobs. And while I don't get the great DPS drops like the rogues or enhancement shamans or fury warriors do (stupid belt of 100 deaths), I do get my tier pieces a lot more quickly. It also helps that a lot of the gear that no one actually wants is perfect for cats; one example is the [Nether Shadow Tunic], which no one rolled on. Only the survival hunter wanted it but he didn't want to spend DKP.

The long and short of it is that it's meant I haven't been able to cash in on the gems for badges money as early as other guildies, but that's really the only hardship. Proper planning ahead of time and making sure I know what to look for and what pieces to go for next are basically sufficient.

• Caniki · 07/15/08, 3:11 PM

It's worth noting that you can get a lot of fantastic DPS gear from ZA, which is trivial content if you're T6 raiding. I'm sure I'll never get [Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape], but [Cloak of Fiends] works just fine.

I was happy to get [Shadowmaster's Boots] when a rogue tried to claim they were for his offset

• Falk · 07/15/08, 3:35 PM

Er, Agility is much better than crit rating, anyways. Those two cloaks are really close.

Duilliath · 07/15/08, 3:39 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

I'm also not DPSing 100% of the time, so gear given to me for DPS is in that sense a waste.

This is a bovine-excreta argument. You are DPSing part of the time, ergo - you are not Tanking 100% of the time.
Does this now mean you should pass every single tanking upgrade such as the ring from Supremus or necklace from RoS to the full-time tanks (read: Warriors) ?

If it worked that way, Ferals would still be in t4 by the time they hit the end of Sunwell. Or, more likely, be subbed out on account of sucking with their gear not up to par.

That's the whole idea of DKP - if you spend enough time, you get the points. Then someone else should not bitch n moan about you taking items. If they hadn't been so loot-greedy or simply been more active, they've have gotten the item due to having the DKP.

• Falk · 07/15/08, 3:46 PM

Well, another way to look at it is, at the points that gear really, really matters, (Brutallus, M'uru) people roster Ferals for tanking. I'll take dps loot if no one else needs it. If it's going to help rogues help the raid kill new bosses faster, though...