Hit rating is not that important for normal specials. The reason is because you always get a refund of all but 8 energy for them. That means you have to miss 42/8 = 5.25 shreds before you've actually lost one full shreds worth of damage. For finishers it's different as you lose all the energy, but you don't do as many rips as you do other special attacks. This whole topic was discussed a lot in the "value of +hit" thread (see the useful links in the first post, it will probably be quite enlightening if you haven't ever read it, even if you just skip through it).

And yes, as Allev pointed out you could easily use T4 shoulders with the helm and keep your pieces with +hit on. If you put pure agility gems in they're virtually equal anyway (30 AP more on Malorne compared to the 16 crit rating on Stranger - I'd take the Malorne until 2.3, unless you've gemmed them differently obviously).

[Mantle of Malorne]
[Shoulderpads of the Stranger]

Greetings everybody

I'm currently in front of a difficult choice. I have 5000 arena points saved up for the season 3, i'm feral, with only the s2 shoulders and the 3 pvp battleground pieces, and i have a 2vs2 arena team with 1600 rating, that give me 350 arena points per week. As we don't know when the s3 begins actually, what should i do ? Spend 3750 points now to not waste weeks of arena until the s3 starts, and buy the s2 weapon (i have the terestian stranglestaff actually for dps), as i don't want to buy something else since the s3 gear will be very good and better than the s2 one ? I'll have 1250 points left, and i think that i'll have the time to save 1800 points to buy the s3 chest. Or should i keep these 5000 points to buy the chest, the helm and the hands when the s3 begins, that will allow me to have the 4 pieces bonus, a lot of resilience, and finally be better geared to start the new season and try to buy as soon as i can the s2 weapon or even the s3 one if i reach 1850 rating ?

Thanks in advance for your advises

The S3 bracers, as it stands, are better than the Master Assassin's Wristwraps (though they may get nerfed meaning the Master Assassin ones will be better then). Also, the heroic badge legs are superior to the T5 legs for pure DPS (and Skulker's Greaves are better than both). Also, the Belt of Deep Shadow is better than the heroic badge belt by a little bit. Otherwise it looks pretty solid.

Feral Druid DPS 1.1.4

-Updated the sheet to include the [Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots].
-Fixed SOTF adjusting Base stats
-Added Tauren Racial Bonus to HP (need a Tauren Druid to check those values for accuracy)
-Sorted the Lists of gear
-Fixed a few minor math errors
-Changed Dodge Calculation and included the talent Feral Swiftness
-Added the framework for Armor and Crit reduction calculations. (For calculating Offtank/DPS sets)
-Changed Feral Skill to Expertise and re-did math to match that (somebody please double check this) (UnbuffedDPS and BuffedDPS Sheets for the math on that)


--The gear that is currently selected generates the Highest DPS I was able to find just messing around. It may not be the absolute theoretical max DPS, but it should be fairly close to what is possible for a straight Tank and Spank fight.

That's not a very analytical way to look at it at all. You need to analyse whether overall you gain or lose damage trading your AP and Crit for Hit or Expertise. That's the only metric that counts. Yes, sometimes you'll lose damage from a Rip missing a tick or mangle not being up during a Rip, but the impact of those are calculable on a statistical level. The way gear is currently itemised, a true statistical analysis will tend to show that somewhere near the hit cap and a small amount of expertise, both coming naturally from the right items do just as much or more than trying to get to the point of absolutely no misses at all.

If you are referring to [Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots] being better than [Shadowmaster's Boots], I think that is not true. The T6 item provides a small dps upgrade over the badge item and nearly double the health of the badge item if you make a number of different gear choices along the way. Also, Voldin's base spreadsheet starts with the assumption that you are using the Stormrage Signet Ring and does not include the Exalted dps version of the Band of Eternity. Choosing the Band of Eternity (exalted version) means you can choose the Choker of Endless Nightmares over Telonicus' Pendant of Mayhem, Shadowmaster's Boots over Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots, Insidious Bands over Vindicator's Dragonhide Bracers and Madness of the Betrayer over Dragonspine Trophy for an overall buffed dps increase of 2.91. Which really just stresses how important the overall effect of your gear is compared to just picking whichever items are individually the best.

I am trying to make a list of 'must have' when 2.3 hits, let me know what you think.


[Idol of Terror] x 20 Badges
[Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots] x 60 Badges - Awesome upgrade over edgewalker's for dps
[Band of the Swift Paw] x35 - Best tanking bracers

Not sure
[Master Assassin Wristwraps] x 35 - How do these compare with other bracers for raid dps?
[Vestments of Hibernation] x 75 badges - I don't think this is worth it over the shadowprower chesguard because of no sockets or hit, even though it's barely better.
[Waistguard of the Great Beast] x60 badges - Seems pretty good, but I am not sure either this or belt of deep shadows.

In my opinion Band of the Swift Paw is pretty marginal vs the PvP bracers, either series 2 or 3. The Wristwraps you put up twice.

As for the Waistguard it just fills in an already overpopulated itemization spot i.e. feral belts with high armour, and I wouldn't waste badges on it. The Vestments I will be getting for tanking if I haven't been lucky enough to get tier 4 or tier 5 by then, but I definitely wouldn't get them just for dps, shadowprowler's is better when gemmed.

[Insidious Bands] are amazing, but I won't have access to them for a while, Kael's gonna take us 3-4 weeks I am guessing. I might as well save the badges and get those, since all of the rogues will get BT leather over me like always

Sigh. Stupid forums ate all my math.
Idol = great.
Boots = great.
Bracers = search my posts in this thread, 4 or 5 pages back I did the math and to me at least proved S3 was a better upgrade than this so long as you needed the resilience. There are plenty of slots I'd much rather have pure tanking items than resilience items so it makes sense to use S3 bracers.

Wrists:
Vambraces:
(32x1x1.1x1.03x1.1)+(52x1.1)=97.08 AP
32/25 = 1.4% crit

Shard bound
(28x1x1.1x1.03x1.1)+(42x1.1)=81.1 AP
28/25=1.12%

Master Ass
(25x1x1.1x1.03x1.1)+(50x1.1)=86.16 AP
(25/25)+(18/22.1)=1.81%

S3 PvP Bracers
(22x2x1.1x1.03x1.1)+(30x1x1.1x1.03x1.1)=92.23 AP
(30/25)+(21/22.1)= 2.15% crit

So you get .69% crit and 5.06ap going from shard bound to master assasains which is a pretty solid upgrade.
Going from Vambraces to Master assasain you drop 10.92ap and pick up .41% crit. Fairly debatable whether its worth it but definately a small ugprade going to Master Assasain.
Edit:
Had forgotten the pvp bracers. They edge out master assasains by a fair bit. As they aren't unique I'll buy a set for dps and a set for tanking/pvp.


[Vestments of Hibernation]
I don't really rate this as an upgrade to shadowprowlers, especially with the FCR change meaning I now need even more hit. I don't know how to model armour penetration as it changes on a per mob basis.

Unless I'm drastically under rating the 150 armour pen I really wouldn't ugprade from shadowprowlers to this. That said its a nice stop gap between Heavy Clefthoof and T4 for tanking.


[Waistguard of the Great Beast]
Great Beast:
(29x2x1.1x1.03x1.1)+(44x1x1.1x1.03x1.1)=127.12 AP
44/25=1.76% crit
18 hit (dunno how to work out hit but they both have same so cancel each other out)

Deep Shadow:
(48x1x1.1x1.03x1.1)+(66x1.1)= 132.4224 AP
48/25 = 1.92% crit

So they are pretty similar, deep shadow having 5 APish more and .16% crit more but the beast has 16 more stamina and bonus armour facilitating cat and bear form fights better than the extra dodge of deep shadow.

For such a low price of 20 badges I will definately get this and let someone else take vortexes. Not to mention the 5-700g depending on server prices you would save on the other mats.


Hope that helped.

Edit: Had forgotten pvp bracers in dps comparison.

Thanks for the info, Vaccine!

Just remember the PvP bracers are likely going to be nerfed at some point and will probably fall below the Badge bracers in terms of DPS. I probably wouldnt waste badges on the belt either since both belts from SSC are better for their respective jobs and are relatively easy to obtain. Now I suppose if vortexes are tight in your guild or you've stopped running SSC/TK it might make sense to get.

The heroic badge chest piece just seems subpar to me. The S3 gladiator chest is far better for dps (as is shadowprowlers) and the tier pieces are quite a bit better for tanking.