Feral Megathread - Page 181

MisterMerf · 07/15/08, 4:06 PM

Originally Posted by TimWischmeier

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.

Originally Posted by Astrylian

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."

I don't understand this. Why should they have any less ability to determine whether they should rez than you do? Do your guildies relase and run back to the door when they die?

That said, I do warn people in vent when I am ressing them into an unsafe place or at an unsafe time. Mainly because people have frequently auto-accepted into an instant death in the past.
This warning also helps remind the healers about them to plan ahead as well, since I can't always res immediately when the RL calls for one.

All the same, I don't see why the ressed persons should be any less able to determine their chance of survival. Am I missing something basic or are we ferals just more aware of our surroundings?

EDIT: Determined the answer to my own question, which I was forgetting. They can't always see where I'm standing when I res them. Some potential deaths are determined by my placement, some not.

kalbear · 07/15/08, 4:28 PM

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) ?

Yes to some, no to others. The [Band of the Abyssal Lord] isn't an upgrade over the [Ring of the Stalwart Protector] or [Violet Signet of the Great Protector] in the general case, and it benefits a warrior a lot more than it benefits a druid. I have passed a couple times on it, and I'll pass again if another prot warrior needs it. The [Pendant of Titans] is great for Bears and Warriors alike; I'd expect to roll on it like anyone else. The [Shadowmoon Insignia] is another situationally useful trinket that I'd rather have the pally get over me (due to how good defense is for them relative to bears and warriors, and how good other trinkets are for bears). Just because we're using DKP doesn't mean that the tanking corps has to be idiots about it.

Any specific warrior tanks about as much BT content as much as I do. The difference is that as a whole, warriors tank more because they can't DPS as well, and I can. The other difference is that for the content coming up I need to have the best tanking gear I possibly can, but I don't need the absolute best DPS gear I can. I don't know if the situation is ideal, but it's hardly worth gquitting over.

• Astrylian · 07/15/08, 4:38 PM

I'd strongly suggest rethinking passing [Shadowmoon Insignia]. It opens up tons of possibilities for reaching uncrittability, and is a decent clicky-trinket on its own.

dukes · 07/15/08, 4:45 PM

I'm really not sure the argument about loot belongs here. It's a guild and person specific thing.

Adding my thoughts though:

A couple of questions:
Do you wipe to the tank dying because of poor survivability?
Do you wipe to not enough DPS on a fight where you have a feral DPSing?

Generally it's the first, not the second. Enrage timers are a problem on a very small number of bosses, while poor survivability will cause a wipe on any boss. Gearing up someone who is primarily a tank in full DPS gear to the detriment of others seems a bit weird. Sure, there's no excuse not to have the gear that is available, but, if primarily a tank, I wouldn't take a DPS upgrade over a "full time" DPSer unless it's useful in some role for tanking aswell (even if "by rights" in a DKP system it would be mine). That's an opinion though - there's no point getting angry that someone won't take an upgrade in a different system on a different server or in a different guild. Everyone's different.

As previously pointed out, half the best stuff (and a lot of comparable/second best stuff) isn't even from high end instances anyway.

On the res thing: I've had people accept straight into an Alar add exploding, into an Illidan flame and just as Maulgar begun whirlwind. Even when you tell them multiple times people don't always listen (not like any of those times actually mattered anyway).

kalbear · 07/15/08, 4:53 PM

I'd strongly suggest rethinking passing [Shadowmoon Insignia]. It opens up tons of possibilities for reaching uncrittability, and is a decent clicky-trinket on its own.

The problem with SMI is what to give up in its stead. The click is decent, but so is the pocket watch and so is the badge. The biggest issue that I find is that if I use the SMI, I could replace one item - but the only item I'd really want to replace are the bracers, and they're simply not that large an upgrade. I mean - do you go with SMI + Band of the Swift Paw or Badge/Commendation/Moroes + Vindicator? That's essentially the option it opens up, at least right now. As I gear more towards M'uru and massive avoidance I plan on using it, but I'd still rather it go to the pally who will use it right now over me.

When we start doing Sunwell content and the [Thunderheart Wristguards] become available (and I've continued to be lazy and not get the [Guardian's Dragonhide Bracers], it might become more viable. As it stands I tend to prefer the clickable dodge bonus of Moroes to SMI, and usually prefer badge/commendation or badge/shard in general.

Melthu · 07/15/08, 4:54 PM

Originally Posted by MisterMerf

I don't understand this. Why should they have any less ability to determine whether they should rez than you do? Do your guildies relase and run back to the door when they die?

That said, I do warn people in vent when I am ressing them into an unsafe place or at an unsafe time. Mainly because people have frequently auto-accepted into an instant death in the past.
This warning also helps remind the healers about them to plan ahead as well, since I can't always res immediately when the RL calls for one.

All the same, I don't see why the ressed persons should be any less able to determine their chance of survival. Am I missing something basic or are we ferals just more aware of our surroundings?

EDIT: Determined the answer to my own question, which I was forgetting. They can't always see where I'm standing when I res them. Some potential deaths are determined by my placement, some not.

I would say that there are 2 reasons to warn people not to take the res right away. The first is what you pointed out: they probably won't know where they are going to pop up, so they won't know if there's fire/shadow/mobs in the vicinity.

The other reason is that people get impatient. In a perfect world the players on the receiving end of a battle res would be calm and aware enough to wait for a good time to accept the res. However, in a perfect world there would almost never be a need for a battle res in the first place. That rogue doesn't want to fall in his damage charts, or the healer sees health bars falling dangerously low, and they forget to watch out for their own safety and accept the res the second they get it. From personal experience it's extremely aggravating to blow a 20 minute cooldown just to see the person die again within 5 seconds anyway, so I'm going to be more careful with making sure that it's used properly than the person who died.

• Astrylian · 07/15/08, 5:18 PM

When we start doing Sunwell content and the [Thunderheart Wristguards] become available

Bingo. I get to use T6 bracers alot of the time, because of that trinket.

• Caniki · 07/15/08, 5:19 PM

Originally Posted by Melthu

From personal experience it's extremely aggravating to blow a 20 minute cooldown just to see the person die again within 5 seconds anyway, so I'm going to be more careful with making sure that it's used properly than the person who died.

But it is really fun to mock them (and their repair bill) afterwards, provided the raid didn't wipe.

For what it's worth, we never do battle rezes on Illidan until Phase 2 is over. It's almost smooth sailing to a kill once phase 2 is over, and one (non-tank) person being down rarely makes a difference in Phase 2.

Also, my standard tanking set has the [Commendation of Kael'thas] and [Shadowmoon Insignia]. Using SMI lets me use the t6 bracers, which are fantastic. I'm also uncrittable without elixirs/flasks in my standard set. When I need to mix the trinkets around, I pop an [Elixir of Ironskin].

• Astrylian · 07/15/08, 5:21 PM

Originally Posted by droeber

But it is really fun to mock them (and their repair bill) afterwards, provided the raid didn't wipe.

For what it's worth, we never do battle rezes on Illidan until Phase 2 is over. It's almost smooth sailing to a kill once phase 2 is over, and one (non-tank) person being down rarely makes a difference in Phase 2.

Well, that, and if you rez someone during P2, they bug the elementals, who immediately charge that person, enraging them, wiping the raid.

kalbear · 07/15/08, 5:27 PM

Also, my standard tanking set has the [Commendation of Kael'thas] and [Shadowmoon Insignia]. Using SMI lets me use the t6 bracers, which are fantastic. I'm also uncrittable without elixirs/flasks in my standard set. When I need to mix the trinkets around, I pop an [Elixir of Ironskin].

The big problem with that for me is losing the [Badge of Tenacity]. That 1400 armor is still very strong for a lot of fights, and the on-use is great. It's hard for me to justify that dodge and defense over 1400 armor unless going against M'uru's adds. Which is a fair point, but again - situationally useful, but not useful all the time.

• Caniki · 07/15/08, 5:38 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

The big problem with that for me is losing the [Badge of Tenacity]. That 1400 armor is still very strong for a lot of fights, and the on-use is great. It's hard for me to justify that dodge and defense over 1400 armor unless going against M'uru's adds. Which is a fair point, but again - situationally useful, but not useful all the time.

It's all about tradeoffs, and what works best for you, your party, and your overall raidgroup. I personally don't mind dropping below the armor cap, because it works for me and my raidgroup. Despite it's low Rawr ranking, I still find [Band of the Abyssal Lord] to be a valuable tool for certain situations. Same goes for SMI.

kalbear · 07/15/08, 5:41 PM

Agreed. My original point was that I would rather the first drop go to someone who will use it more often than a situational use case on specific and only specific fights. I still plan on getting both; they're just not as high a priority as other gear is.

Maeltne · 07/15/08, 5:42 PM

On the loot mindset, I a little bit of a loot whore. I've passed 'for the good of the guild' far too many times, only to have the recipient then go casual, quit, transfer, etc. If I desire an item, I do my best to get it, end of story.

I suppose it's more of a 'for the good of the guild I'm in mindset'. I'm certain I'll be in the guild and active for as long as I am in the guild and active (my entire raiding career is 2 guilds from MC to Felmyst, and I've been near 100% active for the entire time), whereas I cannot say that about ... anyone else :P.

Thats not to say I try and take everything. I'm very particular about my upgrade path.

taigabear · 07/15/08, 6:42 PM

And yes, Commendation of Kael'thas. Not having that in this fight is almost a sin.

Commendation is pretty overrated on M'uru and a lot of bosses. It provides avoidance IF you get that low. I used to be all about the use trinkets for the oh crap moments, but as I progressed further into sunwell, I've been trying to maintain a really high amount of avoidance where my HP remains stable near the 80-85% range. Hence the creation of the Guardian's Alchemist Stone. It allows me to use my cape with 12 agi instead of 12 def rating. I switch in the 12 def rating cape if I need the JC figurine on. So many druids in this thread swear by commendation, my choice for any type of set I use is Badge of Tenacity.

And I've tanked Brutallus with 18374 hp give or take on a regular basis. I switch in the JC dodge trinket for 2 use trinkets on that fight. I have an Ironshield on and switch to Pillar for the period when stomp hits and then I switch back to the badge staff for more avoidance and tps.

Tanked 3 M'uru adds along with Entropius with 18374 hp on our first kill averaging 75-80% avoidance. My choice of consumable was 20 agi food and flask of chromatic wonder which has been an amazing.

Stam for bears in sunwell is way way overrated; nothing in sunwell really hits you THAT hard for anyone to need 22k+. I have a full stam set that hovers at 25k but I've never thought twice about needing to ever use it.

And for the bears that cry about not enough expertise/hit rating for threat while gemming stam, regem into agi and you'll get enough crits on your white hits, specials to make up for misses.

david0925 · 07/15/08, 6:51 PM

I have pretty much the same mindset as Taiga in terms of general itemization. I never really understood the rationale behind "stacking stamina" (I respect it, but never understood it well). The argument is that heals are being spammed on you anyway that avoidance doesn't matter, and that max stamina helps with worst cast situation. When gemming for agility, you're decreasing the chance that the worst case scenarion happens, and to a pretty high level as well. This is all ignoring the fact that agility also scales very well with threat due to primary fury and crit modifier.

For Brutallus, I use the pillar full time merely because I am lazy. For M'uru I'm a bit more offensive when it comes to trinket choices (Shard+ DST)

Edit: Taiga for M'uru why do you not use The Bloodberry Elixir since it's only 3 to all stats off, but much cheaper. In min/max situation i'd imagine using a Major agi elixir and a guardian elixir of some sort, but in terms of highest effiency Bloodberry seems to be better.

CD · 07/15/08, 7:36 PM

Originally Posted by taigabear

Stam for bears in sunwell is way way overrated; nothing in sunwell really hits you THAT hard for anyone to need 22k+. I have a full stam set that hovers at 25k but I've never thought twice about needing to ever use it.

And for the bears that cry about not enough expertise/hit rating for threat while gemming stam, regem into agi and you'll get enough crits on your white hits, specials to make up for misses.

It isn't about being hit exceptionally hard, it is about the massive amount of unavoidable/ unresistible damage present in every single sunwell encounter.

Agility is no substitute for hit/ expertise in terms of snap aggro, people worry about snap aggro rather than sustained tps. All the crits in the world won't help at M'uru if they come after you miss your first 2-3 attacks on a berserker.

taigabear · 07/15/08, 7:52 PM

The additional 35 resistance that the chromatic wonder flasks helps mitigate some shadow and some fire damage in both phases. Also the 3 to stats is important to me as for min/maxing as I try to make the most of every point that I can get for threat and mitigation. The chromatic flasks gives a total of 54 stat points (along with 5-7% magical resistance) while major agi + major fort elixirs provide 50 stat points (zero magical resistance). Yes bloodbery is much cheaper, and I've been using it on some farm content, but nowadays gold is fairly easy to come by and I have an herbalist alt =P.

Glad to see some bears agreeing with my train of thought.

With Kj, I tend to use more offensive trinkets also, namely Berserker's Call and Steely Naaru Sliver. Many people may think the 2nd one is terrible, but how often do we get expertise on our gear? Perhaps, it might get an upgrade in the future for some mitigation stats, but I was glad to pick it up when it dropped. For Kj, I'm sitting at 141 hit rating and 21 expertise while sustaining easily 2k tps and peaking at 3500 tps without the dragon's haste buff.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by CD

It isn't about being hit exceptionally hard, it is about the massive amount of unavoidable/ unresistible damage present in every single sunwell encounter.

Agility is no substitute for hit/ expertise in terms of snap aggro, people worry about snap aggro rather than sustained tps. All the crits in the world won't help at M'uru if they come after you miss your first 2-3 attacks on a berserker.

The unavoidable/unresistable damage still doesn't merit that much extra hp at a such a huge loss of avoidance. I'm seeing a lot of bears trading 15% avoidance for 2-4k hp. I guess whatever feels more comfortable to the player.

On M'uru, my priority is that snap aggro for adds and not sustained tps. The sustained tps is just a result of gemming and threat moves.

Between a stam and agility gem, I'd assume most of the people on this thread will agree that agility will provide more tps. So my point was that the additional tps provided from agility will make up the misses you will be getting anyways. Since the discussion was about gemming and threat, and we can't gem expertise.

seminarca · 07/15/08, 8:47 PM

I've also recently gone through a full about turn in terms of general gearing and stat preference for Sunwell, and the encounter that made me do it was Brutallus.

Druids are supposed to be great for that fight, yet in all our learning it was me that died more often than my Warrior partner due to long no avoidance streaks (sometimes even outside of Stomp), despite being well over the armor cap (and still having ~24k armor during Stomp with Inspiration up). So I slowly started dropping Stamina in favor of Agility, not only in gem selection but also in other slots when possible. And my suvivability on Brutallus went way up .. to the point where tank deaths are extremely rare for us now.

I'm now down to 20.7k hp fully buffed on Brutallus, whereas when we were learning him I was somewhere in the ~23-24k range (in a Hunter/Resto Shaman group for this), but my avoidance has gone way up (still armor capped and chugging Ironshields though). Taiga, did you mean 18374 hp fully buffed ? >.< Because that seems dangerously low =x .. personally I wouldn't feel comfortable dipping below ~20k on Brutallus.

Of course, the other benefit of going avoidance heavy is you're ready for M'uru by the time you get there.

edit: And by no means do I wish to suggest avoidance is the way to go on every fight. Like for Kalecgos you still want a deep HP pool for Corrupting Strikes (unless you're still FAPing on every cycle I guess), and even for Felmyst (I MT her) I'd want ~22k-ish to be able to take a hit and a cleave + a tick or two of the 1k dot during Corrosion and not die.

Boevis · 07/15/08, 9:00 PM

I think you must have amazing healers to be able to run Brutallus with under 19k health. Gemming for avoidance may decrease Failure Mode, but that only applies if it's possible to begin with, otherwise you just open up the potential for being instagibbed as Taiga seems to be doing on Brutallus. There's 2 extremes and both are bad ideas.

You also seem to be forgetting that Major Agi is actually 55 stat points by itself. I'm not going to claim to know the ins and outs of threat mechanics, but when comparing 18 str 18 agi to 35 agi 20 crit rating in terms of threat, I'm fairly sure the latter wins, and 250 hp 10 hp5 > 270 hp (262 vs 292 for tauren), especially when taking your stance of lots of dodge > a little hp (1.3% dodge vs 20-30 hp)

Odas · 07/15/08, 10:55 PM

I've been doing stealth heroics for a while now (stealth to the boss, kill only a few trash mobs), and I was wondering if anyone else does them, and if so what instances.

I have all of coilfang down pretty well, clearing all three instances in about an hour. I was just wondering if anyone had tried any other instances with any luck. I know Sethekk Halls is doable, but the first boss must be a pain, and I seem to remember you either need improved stealth, or you have to bring a rogue.

david0925 · 07/15/08, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by taigabear

With Kj, I tend to use more offensive trinkets also, namely Berserker's Call and Steely Naaru Sliver. Many people may think the 2nd one is terrible, but how often do we get expertise on our gear? Perhaps, it might get an upgrade in the future for some mitigation stats, but I was glad to pick it up when it dropped. For Kj, I'm sitting at 141 hit rating and 21 expertise while sustaining easily 2k tps and peaking at 3500 tps without the dragon's haste buff.

For KJ, I use my entire DPS set, save for the neck (I use Brutallus tanking neck over Endless Nightmare for expertise and stamina buffer), it is an amazing fight to see big numbers on tps.

ganwb79 · 07/15/08, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by Garanthir

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.

I'll agree, raid dps was bad, and the group setup is not optimised. I am the 2nd tank but so far during my turns threat has been fine.

Our objective was survival till enrage first, now that we have done so we will start looking at optimising the dps like getting a drums rotation going for all our dps groups. I probably only require the GoA totem so I am suggesting to take out the tree druid and the paladin and bring in 2 hunters to my group.

taigabear · 07/15/08, 11:59 PM

You also seem to be forgetting that Major Agi is actually 55 stat points by itself.

You're right, I forgot about the crit rating. But, correct me if im wrong, the +18 for str, sta, agi are all increased by kings, and not to mention the additional +35 resist does provide some magical mitigation which bears lack, which also played a role in my selection of that flask over major agi/major fort.

I haven't been instagibbed on Brut with that setup. And yes the healers in Insomnia are pretty good for me to be running at 18374 fully buffed. But my initial post, I mentioned switching to pillar and use a trinket per stomp. At stomp I'm about 19k hp, 24.5k armor, and 75% dodge - 20% sunwell radiance= 55%. The healers have felt pretty comfortable with that, and no one has mentioned anything about being hard to heal for brut. The train of thought behind a sub 20k hp pool is that stomp at most hits me for 13k MH + OH, and the melee hits are 4-5k. 1-1.5k additional hp won't save me from another 4-5k hit that will follow if I'm not getting the heals. Likewise with Entropius, his max hits are about 9k for me and if I take two I'll still be up. I usually average 80-85% avoidance on Entropius, and healers have been fine with my health.

I know rng is a factor that makes dodge unreliable, but I'm just trying my best to lower the chance for rng. That's just my two cents if people were interested in hearing from someone who has tried from one extreme to the other and everything in between.

Mijae · 07/16/08, 2:12 AM

Originally Posted by Boevis

You also seem to be forgetting that Major Agi is actually 55 stat points by itself. I'm not going to claim to know the ins and outs of threat mechanics, but when comparing 18 str 18 agi to 35 agi 20 crit rating in terms of threat, I'm fairly sure the latter wins, and 250 hp 10 hp5 > 270 hp (262 vs 292 for tauren), especially when taking your stance of lots of dodge > a little hp (1.3% dodge vs 20-30 hp)

The threat value of chromatic wonder is almost identical to that of major agility, with agility being only about 2-3 TPS greater. However, double elixir is far better in terms of defensive value.

I'm not sure what fight you are referring to in regards to the resistances though. I did originally use them when learning Illidan just so I could switch out my FR gloves for T6 to get the 2t6 bonus. Once we stopped wiping a lot I switched back to elixirs.

angi · 07/16/08, 4:48 AM

Originally Posted by Boevis

I think you must have amazing healers to be able to run Brutallus with under 19k health. Gemming for avoidance may decrease Failure Mode, but that only applies if it's possible to begin with, otherwise you just open up the potential for being instagibbed as Taiga seems to be doing on Brutallus. There's 2 extremes and both are bad ideas.

I think its the other way round, if you have good healers you can stack stamina, because you are healed anyway and they pot enough to heal allways with big ranks. With high avoidance you can be gibbed by RNG, but in 70-80% of the tries you have more room for bad healers casting low heals or running with burn and healing themselfs or other wired behaviour. On Brutallus the only thing that matters is timing of heals and Brutallus-DPS vs. Healer-HPS. With avoidance you simply lower Brut-DPS, timing of heals is not our job.