Feral Megathread - Page 239

Duilliath · 05/09/08, 9:31 PM

Originally Posted by Ledneh

To be honest I was thinking of just being crittable during trash, so I can repurpose the pvp chest for cat DPS (it's one of my shared pieces right now). The only threatening mobs in T6 trash with regards to crits (that I can think of anyway) are Hyjal Abominations, and that even assumes their knockdown can crit.

Far as I know, that's a fixed 4k damage. More dangerous bit about it is that you can't dodge anything during the stun and having a couple of 'em on your can easily ramp up the damage with a few consecutive stuns. But, being crit immune won't affect that anyway.

♦ Regen · 05/09/08, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

Right as SP hit test realms, a bunch of druids talked about how Brutallus hit hard enough that more stam was the way to go. During that period, I acquired all my T6 gear, so some of it is stacked with stam. I end up actually fairly balanced between stam and dodge.

I call BS on you using total damage taken as an accurate metric for Brutallus. The true metric is chance of dying. If you take 100k over 100 seconds, it's worse than taking 0 in the first 98 seconds and 50k in the last 2.

If I can survive 4 hits while the warrior can only survive 3, he needs to get enough avoidance that he can guarantee that he only gets hit less than 3 times in a given period where I'm taking 4.

Also, the deadliest point in the fight is the stomp. What kicks in during a stomp? Armor over the armor cap, which you don't get any mitigation from when stomp isn't up, but do when stomp IS up. Do you ever get inspiration procs? I bet if you looked at only damage during stomp, or did some math on the damage you'd take if armor weren't capped, you and the warrior would end up pretty similar in overall damage taken.

I didn't mention it was an accurate metric --- It was merely a reference to the fact that you will take even more overall damage than perhaps a sub 100k gap between a warrior also gemed for avoidance.

Do I spike alot less than the warrior? Yes by far, but surely you aren't stupid enough to attribute that to stacking stamina. Between Armor cap(+Ironshield) and Inspiration during stomps I take by far more consistent and lower damage from stomps simply because my armor is significantly higher, but the warrior's total avoidance is still lower and therefore takes lower total damage over the entire fight. If a wipe ever occurs it is never because I died.

Even without Inspiration up a Stomp+Double Melee hit with zero avoidance will never kill you --- however will possibly trigger the Commendation of Kael'thas, which despite mockery from our MT I think is a decent option for that encounter, for me at least. Is stacking those stam gems going to allow you to survive a Stomp +MH/OH +MH/OH with zero heals and zero avoidance.... probably not, which is exactly why stacking stam on Brut is pretty useless, hell you shouldn't even have an imp or fort flask or elixir (agi+ironskin), it just makes it all that more pointless.

Inspiration uptime is pretty consistant across the board on both tanks and I do pop Ironshields every CD / pre-barkskin on taunts ... and in the past 6ish kills he has consistently ended the fight with 50-100k less damage taken while gemed for avoidance, which is expected considering higher total avoidance.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think Brutallus is the one fight where every extra point of avoidance is more beneficial than anything past the 3 required stam gems for the meta.

Daboran · 05/10/08, 3:26 AM

Taking 100k more damage than a Warrior is completely irrelevant in the context of Brutallus. I've never seen a MT healer go oom on this fight and you're getting spam-healed virtually.

The real issue is answering the question of whether you can guarantee to survive the worst-case scenario of Stomp or Burn plus unavoided hits plus Meteor Slash before enough heals land and the next round of attacks. In this respect the average well-geared MT Warrior entering Suwell cannot, therefore it makes sense for him to stack avoidance to lessen the chance of that situation occurring.

In the case of the Druid with equivalent gear, the answer is most definitely yes, provided you stack stamina and armor. Gemming agility before you reach that point is very risky as Druid does not have the emergency buttons of a Warrior and you're not saving your healers anything - the heals are going to land anyway.

There are so many variables on the fight and ways of stacking groups (do you use Aff Lock or Pali in MT group etc) that stating that agi is better than stamina is just as foolhardy as stating the opposite. You need to decide in the context of your raid composition and the abilities of your MT healers.

Skysec · 05/10/08, 3:28 AM

Originally Posted by Regen

I didn't mention it was an accurate metric --- It was merely a reference to the fact that you will take even more overall damage than perhaps a sub 100k gap between a warrior also gemed for avoidance.

Do I spike alot less than the warrior? Yes by far, but surely you aren't stupid enough to attribute that to stacking stamina. Between Armor cap(+Ironshield) and Inspiration during stomps I take by far more consistent and lower damage from stomps simply because my armor is significantly higher, but the warrior's total avoidance is still lower and therefore takes lower total damage over the entire fight. If a wipe ever occurs it is never because I died.

Even without Inspiration up a Stomp+Double Melee hit with zero avoidance will never kill you --- however will possibly trigger the Commendation of Kael'thas, which despite mockery from our MT I think is a decent option for that encounter, for me at least. Is stacking those stam gems going to allow you to survive a Stomp +MH/OH +MH/OH with zero heals and zero avoidance.... probably not, which is exactly why stacking stam on Brut is pretty useless, hell you shouldn't even have an imp or fort flask or elixir (agi+ironskin), it just makes it all that more pointless.

Inspiration uptime is pretty consistant across the board on both tanks and I do pop Ironshields every CD / pre-barkskin on taunts ... and in the past 6ish kills he has consistently ended the fight with 50-100k less damage taken while gemed for avoidance, which is expected considering higher total avoidance.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think Brutallus is the one fight where every extra point of avoidance is more beneficial than anything past the 3 required stam gems for the meta.

Avoidance vs stamina on Brutallus has already been discussed a few pages back. Both ways work for druids, and if you need more argument from the stam pov, just read the thread.

Stamina isn't only useful for surviving Stomp + MH/OH, it also adds in to your survivability for the next MH/OH, A person with 2k more hp is going to require 2k less healing to surviv the second MH/OH, nobody says you're going to get zero heals, its a matter of how much healing you get during that time. If your healers aren't going OOM, then there's no argument against stacking Stam, since you're getting overhealed 50% of the time anyways.

Originally Posted by Regen

What gave you the idea that gemming pure stam is advantageous for Sunwell? I suppose Brutallus is the only encounter that it helps to stack avoidance --- I'd consider it if Sunwell Radiance was ever removed but... as it is now having gemed pure 10 agi with 15/15/18 stam gems to meet meta requirement I still end up taking on average 100k more damage than our equally geared warrior (I suppose slightly more geared now with felmyst gloves/shield brut legs) who also gemmed for avoidance for Brutallus. I rarely come in danger of dying on Brut, and more avoidance definitely helps --- where as with a slightly larger hp pool you gain a slight buffer from overheal... and that's it, you are going to take even more damage over the course of an entire fight which is already higher than a warrior.

Doable stacking stam? Definitely
Optimal? I disagree

Do you not know how avoidance works? Avoidance scales with itself, the more you have of it the better it is, the less you have of it the worse it is.
Going from 98% avoidance to 99% avoidance means you cut your incomming damage by 50% (Averaged out over the fight)
Going from 0% avoidance to 1% avoidance means you cut your incomming damage by 1% (Averaged out over the fight)
If anything, Sunwell radiance promotes stacking stam over agi

Originally Posted by Ledneh

To be honest I was thinking of just being crittable during trash, so I can repurpose the pvp chest for cat DPS (it's one of my shared pieces right now). The only threatening mobs in T6 trash with regards to crits (that I can think of anyway) are Hyjal Abominations, and that even assumes their knockdown can crit.

Though now that I think on it, even if I reenchant the PvP chest to not have +15 resilience I'll only be one resilience under the crit cap, so maybe I'll just wear that for trash instead.

But I'm criminally lazy

Does anyone else think being crittable on most T6 trash is all that significant a threat? (keep in mind that we're done with Hyjal but still working on RoS, so if there's any rough trash after that I don't know about it)

When you get past T6 level, and near the mid-end of T6 I would not tank anything while being crittable. The trash before RoS/Bloodboil + One shot the robot before council both hit hard enough to scare your healers a lot when you take a crit. And tanking sunwell trash, I would not even consider going in there while being critable, I've been hit for 8k by twins trash before.

Falk · 05/10/08, 9:30 AM

As mentioned on this page, stam vs avoidance on Brutallus has been beaten to death. I won't directly comment on that.

My original target metric for Brutallus was 25k hp with commanding/imp/every consumable in the world (And of course, capped armor, or slightly above with raid buffs). At the point where Sunwell launched, this meant 15sta in almost every slot you could think of which didn't have a logical tanking socket bonus. Now with better gear, I'm finding ways to cut back on stam while maintaining that 25k quota. 18sta-helm/12sta bracers became KoT-helm/12def bracers (Still 0.01% over crit immune :V) this week, and I'll probably be swapping a bunch of 15's to 10agi's as well as 7sta/5agi to 60agi's in belts/boots/bracer once the gem vendor opens. I'm still waiting for Felmyst to drop my pants, though. Getting that is an effective 5-6% avoidance while maintaining my HP quota.

While that huge survival buffer is still integral to our Brutallus strategy (7 healers, go lighter when I'm tanking, especially when Barkskin is up - ironically while I'm taking more damage overall from less avoided hits) you'll definitely wanting to ramp up avoidance, threat and DPS for M'uru while in tanking gear. Oh good Lord, trust me on that.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Skysec

Do you not know how avoidance works? Avoidance scales with itself, the more you have of it the better it is, the less you have of it the worse it is.
Going from 98% avoidance to 99% avoidance means you cut your incomming damage by 50% (Averaged out over the fight)
Going from 0% avoidance to 1% avoidance means you cut your incomming damage by 1% (Averaged out over the fight)
If anything, Sunwell radiance promotes stacking stam over agi

Since I'm a fickle asshole, I'll just forget what I said about not commenting on stam vs avoidance and quote myself from something I should have posted in this thread instead of a different forum.

Originally Posted by Falk

Fact 1) Avoidance is better point for point, the more avoidance you already have. Therefore, Sunwell Radiance reduces the value of avoidance, since, for example, 25% + 1% is less total damage countered as opposed to 50% + 1%

Fact 2) The more incoming melee damage there is, the more valuable avoidance is. If a boss is going to lay down an average of (let's just say) 100k damage in 10 seconds, 5% more avoidance is going to help you a shit ton more than 1.7k more HP (Comparing ~75 agility to ~113 stam - obviously the conversion rate will be a lot worse for non-druid tanks)

Yes, of course, avoidance would have been far more valuable if Sunwell Radiance didn't exist, but just because it does, doesn't mean it still isn't better than Stamina in certain cases.

As long as you're over your safety buffer (which in itself is subjective), avoidance >>>>>>>>> stamina because of Fact 2.

Oaken · 05/10/08, 11:24 AM

I'm curious what people think of Tom Chilton's comments on Death Knight tanking from the Curse/MMOGamer/Ten Ton Hammer WotLK interview:

TTH: I have a question since you're here Tom, about the Death Knight. With the Death Knight's DPS and tanking ability, how will Warriors and Paladins continue to have a presence in groups and raids, since there are going to be so many Death Knights when the expansion comes out. There's gonna be like 8 million of them running around.

TC: 8 million level 55 Death Knights; there won't be 8 million level 80 Death Knights. Well, I think in a lot of ways you can actually make the same comparison to Warriors also, as a hybrid DPS/Tanking class, but that doesn't mean necessarily the Paladin has no role in tanking. I think it's in terms of the way we set up their tanking niches. We're kind of designing the Paladin tank to be the best AE tank, and we're designing the Warrior to be the best sheer mitigation tank, and we're designing the Death Knight to be the anti-spellcaster tank. At the same time we want those lines to be blurred enough to where in a 5 man run you won't notice a difference, or all of them should be viable for a Heroic run for example. But at the cutting edge of the competitive endgame, when you kind of cross into that spellcasting boss, you'll probably want the Death Knight to tank it, for example.

TTH: Sorry to follow up, but why'd you decide to make another tank class?

TC: Well, we felt like that's where the biggest need was, as far as the whole looking for group activity. We felt like the Death Knight both fits the kit of the Northrend expansion, and also fills the biggest need. Seems like most often people are looking for a tank, and then possibly a healer after that.

No "zomg they didn't mention druids, we won't be viable tanks in WotLK" angst please. Clearly if the impetus was a perceived lack of tanks then they aren't going to fix the problem by adding a new class and deprecating an old one.

Having said that, is having more unique tank classes, each with their own niche, necessarily a good thing? Something that is impacting all of our tanks right now in SP is the rollercoaster tank-requirements nature of the fights. The shifting requirements, coupled with the low-tolerance-threshold of the dps and/or healing on each fight, mean a lot of sitting out - especially for the specialist tanks - there is no Hyjal or BT analog to "oh, we need a different tank this fight, just put on your dps gear".

What is the druid niche, anyway? It isn't really the "anti-physical damage" yin to the Death Knight's "anti-magical damage" yang because overall Warrior avoidance against physical damage is still higher. It seems like more of a subset "anti-hard-hitting-physical-spike-damage-reliant-boss" niche. It will be interesting to see how things play out.

♦ Regen · 05/10/08, 5:46 PM

Originally Posted by Skysec

Stamina isn't only useful for surviving Stomp + MH/OH, it also adds in to your survivability for the next MH/OH, A person with 2k more hp is going to require 2k less healing to surviv the second MH/OH, nobody says you're going to get zero heals, its a matter of how much healing you get during that time. If your healers aren't going OOM, then there's no argument against stacking Stam, since you're getting overhealed 50% of the time anyways.

Do you not know how avoidance works? Avoidance scales with itself, the more you have of it the better it is, the less you have of it the worse it is.
Going from 98% avoidance to 99% avoidance means you cut your incomming damage by 50% (Averaged out over the fight)
Going from 0% avoidance to 1% avoidance means you cut your incomming damage by 1% (Averaged out over the fight)
If anything, Sunwell radiance promotes stacking stam over agi

When you get past T6 level, and near the mid-end of T6 I would not tank anything while being crittable. The trash before RoS/Bloodboil + One shot the robot before council both hit hard enough to scare your healers a lot when you take a crit. And tanking sunwell trash, I would not even consider going in there while being critable, I've been hit for 8k by twins trash before.

Stamina is not useful at all for surviving stomp + mh/oh since you should be topped or very close to it when it happens anyway... It is also not all that usefull for surviving the next MH/OH because if you are taking that without being topped back off your raid is already doing something wrong and the 2k hp is not going to save you.

Old discussion no point in further discussing it as previously said. Also as already mentioned.... Unless you are wearing complete dps gear and no def/res on trash the chances of you being critable vs 71/72 is almost non existant. Twins trash is pretty unique in a sense that commanders buff the living crap out of other mobs and the Vanquishers can lower your armor a signifcant amount, still can get away with tanking at least 3

Mijae · 05/10/08, 10:41 PM

I'm not sure where people are getting this info that trash has significantly less crit chance than bosses. An equal level mob has a base 5% crit and goes up by .2% per level. I would definitely not call 5.4% (72) significantly less than 5.6% (73).

Skysec · 05/11/08, 1:29 AM

Originally Posted by Regen

Stamina is not useful at all for surviving stomp + mh/oh since you should be topped or very close to it when it happens anyway... It is also not all that usefull for surviving the next MH/OH because if you are taking that without being topped back off your raid is already doing something wrong and the 2k hp is not going to save you.

Stomp MH/OH hits for around 17k worst case scenario, so unless your healers timed all their heals perfectly that you get topped off in that 1.2s window right after the combo, every extra bit of stam helps. Say you have 22k hp, that combo leaves you 5k hp left over meaning you need another 7k healing to survive the next hit, I highly doubt that every single attempt your healers can immediatly top you off after a 17k burst, stamina helps tide you over to when they do top you off

♦ Regen · 05/11/08, 3:23 AM

Originally Posted by Skysec

Stomp MH/OH hits for around 17k worst case scenario, so unless your healers timed all their heals perfectly that you get topped off in that 1.2s window right after the combo, every extra bit of stam helps. Say you have 22k hp, that combo leaves you 5k hp left over meaning you need another 7k healing to survive the next hit, I highly doubt that every single attempt your healers can immediatly top you off after a 17k burst, stamina helps tide you over to when they do top you off

I have never died on a single attempt since the first kill. Pop Shadowmoon Insignia, no big deal. Some stam is nice, as I still wear commendation despite mockery from the warrior, I just don't think its an excellent idea to mass socket for stam (Maybe on a 2nd set?). Neither form of gemming is gamebreaking I suppose.

Mijae: Each .2 is essentially another piece of threat gear with zero def/resilience, pre-kalecgos trash is 70, pre-twins is 71, 2-3 extra pieces is something I call significant, but maybe to some over-exagerated.

Coldturkey · 05/11/08, 11:54 AM

I know this will sound kind of weird but has any druid successfully tanked Kael (the eye not mgt)? If so, how? Did they barkskin the pyroblasts and just have a ton of hp? I run regular t5 pugs on my server and i haven't been able to find a good warrior to tank kael so i've been trying to figure out a way to tank it myself. Is this within the realm of possibility or more trouble than it's worth?

Miranger · 05/11/08, 1:07 PM

First time poster long time reader!
I have had a problem with keeping myself over the 2.6 uncrit cap.
Recently I picked up 3/5 T5 (where i used to use season 3)
Of course with all the res gone this problem arose again just like before when i had pre raiding gear.
I'm also debating whether to buy the new ring from badges and the boots from badges and socket them for res (to help me reach the uncrit) Heres what i mean:

Head: Malorne (with def/dodge enchant - 12agi meta & 4agi4hit orange gem)
*** Neck: Brooch of Deftness (i love this thing but i also have the Necklace of Juggernaut if i must change)
Shoulders: Nordasill (def/dodge enchant - x2 4agi6stam purple gems)
Cape: Slicks Cloak of Placation (12 agi enchant)
Chest: Malorne (15 res enchant - x2 4agi6stam purple & 4agi4hit orange gem)
Bracers: Band of the Swift Paw (12 def enchant & 8agi red gem)
Gloves: Nordasill (with 15 agi enchant)
Waist: Belt of Natural Power (x2 8agi red gems)
Pants: Nordasill (4agi6stam purple gem & clefthoof stam/agi enchant)
*** Boots: Veterans Leather Boots (rogue s2 basically with minor speed/9stam)
*** Ring 1/2: Violet Signet of The Protector - Ring of Undying Force (both enchanted with 4 to stats)
Trinket 1/2: Badge of Tenacity - Commendation of Kael
Wep - Relic: Wildfury - Idol of Terror

Sorry for the wall of text there heh... dunno how to link the actual armor so i had to type it out... either way
Im looking to get:
Ring of the Stalwart Protector
Footwraps of Wild Encroachment (x2 8res yellow gems)
Swap the Brooch for the Juggernaut
Swap the 2 4agi4hit gems from head/chest for some Glistening fire Opal 4agi5def

To be honest im not sure if the boots are worth it... but then again im tired of wearing old s2 rogue boots... (which i only have because of the Res now) Were already progressing fairly fast in Hyjal and BT isn't too far off so im wondering if waiting for the Den Mother Boots its worth it but i still want to pick up that ring... although i still have to change some things around... As far as making it easier for myself I could just put my S3 gloves and pants back on again and make this go away... so thats my dilemma any pro suggestions are always welcome

david0925 · 05/11/08, 1:34 PM

Originally Posted by Coldturkey

I know this will sound kind of weird but has any druid successfully tanked Kael (the eye not mgt)? If so, how? Did they barkskin the pyroblasts and just have a ton of hp? I run regular t5 pugs on my server and i haven't been able to find a good warrior to tank kael so i've been trying to figure out a way to tank it myself. Is this within the realm of possibility or more trouble than it's worth?

Pyroblast hits for 45000-55000 (Pyroblast - Spells - World of Warcraft)

After the mace buff is on you, that reduces it to 22500-27500. If you barkskin it, the damage is further reduced to 18000 to 22000. Assuming you're topped off and have at least 22k life, you will be able to live through every Pyroblast.

Cluey · 05/11/08, 2:01 PM

Originally Posted by Coldturkey

I know this will sound kind of weird but has any druid successfully tanked Kael (the eye not mgt)? If so, how? Did they barkskin the pyroblasts and just have a ton of hp? I run regular t5 pugs on my server and i haven't been able to find a good warrior to tank kael so i've been trying to figure out a way to tank it myself. Is this within the realm of possibility or more trouble than it's worth?

I recall reading that someone has done this and it was discussed in this very thread.
Did you search the thread for Pyroblast or just ask so we can spoon feed you?

I suggest going to the top of your page and just under the page numbers there is an option to Search This Thread, click on it and type in Pyroblast into the search field which pops up.
Have a look at the posts it returns and if there is nothing of use ask some more specific questions.

Knoli · 05/11/08, 3:09 PM

Hello,

At the start of the topic we have a Bear section, there is a point about deffence. I really do belive it, but please look at this:

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> So how much?!(i really awaits a blue post)

For now a totaly distracted about how much DR we need for a 1 Deff point. I'm really not so pro at the theory just coz of my eng is not so perfect, so i cant read all i want.

I just thought maybe thise point about deffence in a Bear section wasnt update or something?

Please can someone explain maybe how we can know the 100% truth ^^

Thank you!