Feral Megathread - Page 230

Thessaly · 05/02/08, 2:53 PM

I don't know if it's a few pages back in this thread or in another thread, but one of the things to really smooth out Heroic MrT is to be creative with pulling. Use Cyclone, Moonfire, even Hurricane to make sure that everything comes to you. You can abuse LoS on almost every pull to get the casters to you, and they're squishy enough that Swipe should hold them over the healers. I typically Cyclone the second dps target to start the pull, Moonfire the kill target as I run back. Cyclone gives you initial aggro on everything, which helps immensely. If you don't have a Rogue for sap, Hurricane for one tick works like a charm as well. Putting HoTs on yourself just before you pull will also help. Finally, be smart about the mob abilities, both in terms of CC and kill order. If your group positions itself so you chain Glaive Throw, it doesn't matter who's tanking, it's going to be a long run.

Zeln · 05/02/08, 3:10 PM

Crappy management of the mobs that can glaive throw is what has lead to a perception that druid's can't tank this. Also, if you have a MC'ing priest, you still need to make sure the glaive throw doesn't knock him out of MC.

Like droeber said, LoS in this instance is key. Make sure your group knows how to handle los too and you are golden.

PimpinShammy · 05/02/08, 3:42 PM

Problem:
S4 feral Head and chest are good pve feral items but require high arena ratings to get, and ferals are largely not competitive at the required rankings.

Solution:
Arena as resto (probably 2v2 with warrior) to earn your rating and then buy the feral pieces you wanted all along.

So, has anyone done this to get the S3 weapon? How hard is it to make the transition in play style? How much dedicated healing gear do you need to reasonably achieve that rating? Is it worth considering 4pc merciless feral set for the speed bonus with the rest of the pieces healing (since merciless mixed healing/feral stats, and will be purchasable with stockpiled honor from S3)? I realize this is more of a PvP question, but it seems relevant to feral PvE since that is the actual goal of the effort and I'm looking for the experience of PvE ferals in trying to accomplish a similar feat.

Jheusse · 05/02/08, 3:48 PM

Originally Posted by seminarca

Back when I was upgrading from T4 to T5 for tanking, I selected 3T5 as an appropriate inflection point for ditching 4T4. With S3 gear in mind, I think 2S3 is perfect. Not only will both pieces have a lot of resilience on their own, you also get the meaty 35 resilience set bonus .. which all adds up to a crapton of crit reduction. Pretty much that, plus enchants, rings and possibly neck should easily see you crit immune, which will allow you to be far more aggressive in item selection in other slots for tailored situations (e.g. high threat sets or resist sets).

Also, you can use rawr (linked in the OP) to do the number crunching for you, while waiting for arena points or drops.

I already have Rawr on my work comp, my wow comp, and my former bot box/backup/wowhead comp, I tinker with it enough if it were another sort of item I'd have gone blind by now. Rawr is the best, but for planning out upgrades that maintain longer lifespan (regem for cat/high threat/resist or the like) sometimes experienced bears are the place to go.

Tirok · 05/02/08, 4:48 PM

Yeah...I forgot that shred ticks every two seconds instead of three, that kinda makes a big difference there. And yeah actually I have horrible luck with ferocious bite critting as often as it should, thinks for all the answers, now I can jsut put that to rest and never bother with it again.

lairpie · 05/02/08, 5:00 PM

I've actually found feral druids to be the best tanks by far for heroic MrT. Paladins have a very hard time tanking only some things. Consecrate likes to interfere with CC and frankly unless you're sporting some very nice gear, one tank simply can't survive with 6 mobs beating on him so you need some cc either way. The fact that their only ranged pull has some seriously gimpy range makes LoSing things harder. Warriors, have the opposite problem, they can't tank enough mobs. I've done heroic MrT enough times to be double exalted on my hunter, and druid who was t4 feral or t6 resto with a t5/t6 feral druid tanking almost every run where I was healing.

In addition to the tips other people have mentioned, another way to use the fact that you're a druid, not just a cat/bear, to bring something other tanks can't, is that paladin/shaman healers have a much harder time healing kael than their hot possessing counterparts. Swap to a healing weapon and throw out some heals while you fly around in circles. It really trivializes the kael fight. Also, assuming you have decent threat, run out and feral charge some of the fire ball casts.

raffy · 05/02/08, 7:10 PM

Originally Posted by Aranan

When the other tank is doing the tanking thing, you can shift to cat and work on DPS. If you just put /equip SotFL after the /cast !Cat Form line in the macro, it'll automatically swap for you. Same for the macro to return to bear form.

On that note: http://oldschoolwow.com/GCDHax.zip
(The warlocks in my guild were bugging me to make something like this after seeing that new 0 +dmg 14% haste S4 weapon.)

GCDHax provides you with two global Lua functions: GCDCheck() and GCDEquip("Name of Item"). These functions allow you to smartly equip items only after the GCD is used (so you don't waste a GCD). While changing idols or weapons does reset your swing timer, this is completely unnoticeable in caster (if used for healing idols) and barely noticeable in Cat form (although not beneficial in pure dps positions, but great for trash, farming, or pvp).

Usage:

/run GCDCheck()
/cast Mangle (Cat)()
/run GCDEquip("Idol of Terror")

/run GCDCheck()
/cast Shred
/run GCDEquip("Everbloom Idol")

/run GCDCheck()
/cast !Cat Form
/run GCDEquip("Staff of the Forest Lord")

/run GCDCheck()
/cast [target=target,harm,target=targettarget,help][] Lifebloom
/run GCDEquip("Idol of the Emerald Queen")

Edit: In v2, I'm gonna try checking Quartz's swing timer for doing "minimal-loss" swaps to see if would work in pure-dps situations.

Duilliath · 05/02/08, 7:27 PM

Druids, to my knowledge at least, are the only tanks that can reliably *tank* the dangerous adds on the Priestess encounter.

On the other hand, Paladins can help heal there.

Warriors are just... well, stuck hamstringing I suppose.

• Vykromond · 05/03/08, 12:49 AM

>So, has anyone done this to get the S3 weapon?

Yes.

>How hard is it to make the transition in play style?

Not hard.

>How much dedicated healing gear do you need to reasonably achieve that rating?

Very little, picked up scrub s1 gladiator gear and went at it.

>Is it worth considering 4pc merciless feral set for the speed bonus with the rest of the pieces healing (since merciless mixed healing/feral stats, and will be purchasable with stockpiled honor from S3)?

Hell no.

Carlos · 05/03/08, 7:51 AM

Originally Posted by Jheusse

I already have Rawr on my work comp, my wow comp, and my former bot box/backup/wowhead comp, I tinker with it enough if it were another sort of item I'd have gone blind by now. Rawr is the best, but for planning out upgrades that maintain longer lifespan (regem for cat/high threat/resist or the like) sometimes experienced bears are the place to go.

Try using the Optimizer and give the available pieces a run. This gives you the best results. I was at the same point some weeks ago when we turned away from Vashj and Kael using the 2.4 possibilities. We went back and killed them and I got to wear 1T6 + 2T5 + 2T4 after the Vashj kill.

Rathyr · 05/03/08, 9:02 AM

Originally Posted by Boevis

It's around 1.2 ppm, ~350 average hit * 2.2 * 1.03 = 793 average crit. 793+350*.5 = 571.5 damage with 50% crit (no miss) * 1.2 ppm/60sec = 11.43 dps. I believe it's also effected by things like Sanctity Aura, Ferocious Inspiration, Curse of Shadows, and Misery

Telonicus is 9 Agi 6 AP higher. Agi is ~3.3 ap so call it 36 ap higher total. 4.3 AP = 1 DPS. That's about 8.4 DPS increase from stats. SSPoM wins by 3 DPS.

As for [Choker of Endless Nightmares] Try turning on Ignore Hit/Expertise cap and/or reducing the hit you have. Choker should go up slightly above the SSPoM, it's 9 dps higher for me according to Toskks if I am not hit capped.

Good thing I double checked here, was about to ask the same question... I must have left some buffs off, because Tsokks was showing me that SSPoM (Scryer) was a good bit higher than even the Sunwell neck. Readjusting, its a bit lower. I was starting to store up Eye's for the move over from Aldor to Scryer =p. I'd make the change if it was better than the Sunwell neck but as is, it's pretty much only a 15 kitty point upgrade over the Aldor. Prob not worth the hours and hours of farming >.<

Druidicbeast · 05/03/08, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by bluenote

Druidicbeast, you have 378 Def and 15 Resil, you aren't crit immune. Download Rawr and play around with your gear setup with different items/gems and try to get crit immune. The Druid Wiki � Rawr

Also, armory is showing your T6 helm un-enchanted, putting +18 resil is probably a good idea. Also, using PvP bracers is usually the best option to stay crit immune, armory me if you need to see my tank gear. Also, [Brooch of Deftness] is a good option for tanking since you can stay crit immune from resil enchant to helm and PvP bracers. Try it out on rawr, see what kind of stats you can come up with.

Yeah sorry about that, probably should have mentioned my current tanking helm is/was T4 with the 18stam meta and 18stam enchant. The lack of gems and enchants in my new T6 is kinda why I am here, I didn't want to socket with the wrong ones only to have to go back and do it over.

Thanks to everyone who put their 2cents in. It is greatly appreciated, keep up the good work this thread is always a pleasure to read.

Akhtal · 05/03/08, 5:15 PM

Originally Posted by PimpinShammy

Problem:
S4 feral Head and chest are good pve feral items but require high arena ratings to get, and ferals are largely not competitive at the required rankings.

Solution:
Arena as resto (probably 2v2 with warrior) to earn your rating and then buy the feral pieces you wanted all along.

So, has anyone done this to get the S3 weapon? How hard is it to make the transition in play style? How much dedicated healing gear do you need to reasonably achieve that rating? Is it worth considering 4pc merciless feral set for the speed bonus with the rest of the pieces healing (since merciless mixed healing/feral stats, and will be purchasable with stockpiled honor from S3)? I realize this is more of a PvP question, but it seems relevant to feral PvE since that is the actual goal of the effort and I'm looking for the experience of PvE ferals in trying to accomplish a similar feat.

I switched from feral to resto (for arenas only) last season... I used my 5k stockpiled arena points to get S3 gear, got the shoulders for the runspeed (because it WAS good

) and used pve gear in the other slots... By the time the brackets were spread out enough and I got good enough to play at this rating, I had nearly enough points saved... if you have better than Karazhan resto-gear, it would be even easier to do assuming you play with a partner that can keep double-DPS off you (hunter/lock/rogue > warrior for this)

I know I will buy feral gear first next season as it's such a minimal upgrade from S3 to S4 really...

raffy · 05/03/08, 11:46 PM

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...skmuruloot.jpg

Ring:
308 armor, yeah!
48 stam, yeah!
32 defense, yeah!
22 expertise, yeah!
42 block value, ye....what?

It's still pretty good, but it would be much better with dodge rating or something.

I wonder if the tank trinket will have a similar group-style effect?

Falk · 05/04/08, 1:44 AM

Group style effect?

The tank ring is a net tradeoff of a bit of stam and ~500 armor for some defense and a boatload of Expertise. Considering warriors are pretty much trying to get rid of expertise at this point and Armor doesn't benefit warriors as much as it does druids, I'm still trying to figure out what the ring is meant for. Yeah, it's definitely best in slot as it is, but it could have been so much better for one tank class or the other. :|