Elitist Jerks
Register
Blogs
Forums


Go Back   Elitist Jerks » Class Mechanics » Druids

Closed Thread
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 11/06/07, 11:04 AM   #601
Farstrider
Back in teh house
 
Farstrider's Avatar
 
Farrstrider
Tauren Druid
 
No WoW Account (EU)
Just use the new heroic badge cloak, that has everything you want, including bonus armour.

Also, [e] the problem with tier chests is that they are both on bosses that guilds seem to stop running fairly soon. We don't run Mag really any more, certainly not as a scheduled event, & I can't imagine us clearing Kael for many more weeks. Fingers crossed though.

<Fric> I think the only kind of gay buttsex I'd enjoy on any level would be assraping a smug hipster douchebag (also possibly a roid head and/or fratboy/Jersey Shore cast member)
<Zyla> If there's gonna be a dick in the room besides my own, i'd rather it have to be my brother's. You know that kinda sounds bad all typed out like that,

Great Britain Offline
Old 11/06/07, 12:44 PM   #602
Yilfin
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Elune (EU)
If someone can answer to me, it will be helpful, thanks

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 1:41 PM   #603
Valerian
King Hippo
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Blackhand
Originally Posted by Yilfin View Post
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
Are you doing this mainly for PvP or PvE? For PvE saving for the S3 helm/chest is probably the biggest upgrades you'll find if you're not at top end raiding. For PvP, its probably better to save up and buy the resto S3 pieces. At the moment Resto is EXTREMELY good in the arena. If you want the shoulders/weapon eventually you're best bet is to go resto for arena and get your rating up that way. While high ranked feral is doable, its far more difficult and really you'll probably be healing an aweful lot anyways.

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 3:13 PM   #604
weency
Glass Joe
 
weency's Avatar
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Farstrider View Post
Just use the new heroic badge cloak, that has everything you want, including bonus armour.

Also, [e] the problem with tier chests is that they are both on bosses that guilds seem to stop running fairly soon. We don't run Mag really any more, certainly not as a scheduled event, & I can't imagine us clearing Kael for many more weeks. Fingers crossed though.
I very well might but still my point is valid as, things like [Band of the Abyssal Lord] are also nice but without the armor can be a problem, especially if endgame I want to use [Shadowmoon Insignia] and [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch] for my trinkets.

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 3:52 PM   #605
Wings
Von Kaiser
 
Wings's Avatar
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Argent Dawn
I was actually wondering about this myself. I'm at a comfortable 35k armour unbuffed now with Badge of Tenacity, but that Shadowmoon Insignia does look very nice. Same goes for other items such as Rings that are pretty nice tanking items, but simply lack the armour. How high should we value the stat anyway?

I've always found this a bit of a pickle, and thusfar I have reasoned that armour is a stat that directly reduces the damage you take on every single physical attack, and thus it's a very important stat - too important to ditch it for some more Sta or Avoidance.

However I also know druids that think differently and swap [Gilded Thorium Cloak] for [Pepe's Shroud of Pacification] without a second thought..

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 4:27 PM   #606
dukes
Bald Bull
 
dukes's Avatar
 
Dukes
Tauren Druid
 
No WoW Account (EU)
I normally run at around 29k armour unbuffed. The offensive stats are too important while trash tanking and tanking bosses that matter (RoS offtanking, Gurtogg) to give up for a bit more armour imo, especially as you benefit with a crapload of dodge from all the agility.

I use [Razor-Scale Battlecloak] (which will be replaced by the Heroic cloak once 2.3 gets here), [Band of the Abyssal Lord], [Scarab of Displacement] and [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch]. I would love to get a [Shadowmoon Insignia] but it's never dropped for us in 4 months of farming Illidan + the month of learning BT before that .

Considering Druids are supposed to be an offtank in most situations (or high-threat tank for trash/gurtogg) it makes sense to skimp a bit on the armour in favour of offensive stats. Obviously if you're MT, that's different. Agility is the most important stat once you're around 30k armour in tanking gear imo. Dodge + crit = good. You get plenty of stamina by default once you start hitting t6 to bother gemming for it unless you put 4agi/6stam (or 5agi/7stam) in blue slots for bonuses.

England Offline
Old 11/06/07, 4:44 PM   #607
Wings
Von Kaiser
 
Wings's Avatar
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Argent Dawn
Hm. I'm getting the feeling I'm seriously overdoing my defensive stats. I guess I'm mainly an offtank, though I do MT bosses now and then. I have to admit it's more exception than rule.

My armory is clickable to the left, if you can be bothered, but basically I'm gemming Stamina pretty heavily (I'm at 16.7k selfbuffed) as I feel it's the most important tank stat.
I have a thing for socket bonuses though, so I use Sta/Agi in red sockets, pure Sta in blue, and Agi/Hit in yellow. (If it's an item I only use for DPS I gem Agi of course).

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 4:45 PM   #608
Arboleaus
Glass Joe
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Black Dragonflight
As you scale Tiers of gear, it becomes easier to take non armored pieces of gear and stay at the level of armor that you want. There was also a rumor about armor kits/enchants being added into the dire bear armor multiplier.

Armor by set:
T4 - 2674
T5 - 2977 (+303 from T4)
T6 - 3152 (+175 from T5)

Also with the addition of hit rating affecting taunt, hit has become slightly more important for raiding as a resisted taunt can wipe the raid on certain fights.

Adding to what dukes said, higher armor means less rage generated. So if you are finding yourself rage starved, for whatever reason, you may want to reevaluate your stat priority towards more agility.

Last edited by Arboleaus : 11/06/07 at 4:52 PM.

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 4:54 PM   #609
weency
Glass Joe
 
weency's Avatar
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Mal'Ganis
I try to only get to the 75% cap. Anymore is wasted, so i only ever try to sit right at it. Then try to max then stam, agi/dodge then ap/str and hit.

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 5:01 PM   #610
Wings
Von Kaiser
 
Wings's Avatar
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Argent Dawn
Originally Posted by weency View Post
I try to only get to the 75% cap. Anymore is wasted, so i only ever try to sit right at it. Then try to max then stam, agi/dodge then ap/str and hit.
The armour cap versus level 73 is 35880 though. Against 70 it's 31672.
I think I'll do some swapping soon, probably after 2.3 when I can re-evaluate all my items with the new PvP and Heroic gear.

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 6:07 PM   #611
Stownhenj
Glass Joe
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Cenarius
A few months ago I found a really great thread that compared defense to resilience for feral druids and warriors. It had a lot of math in it to prove it's point. I've been searching these forums for that thread for half an hour now and can't find it. Anyone have a link to it?

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 8:50 PM   #612
The Grog
Piston Honda
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Dragonblight
Originally Posted by Tuhalu View Post
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.
It's perfectly reasonable basis for analysis. Every miss is about 400 damage lost, give or take a few dozen points depending on gear and a lot more if it's a rip. Alternatively, your miss rate directly affects the effective cost of your specials. This is in addition to non-tangible benefits, like smoother cycles and less irritation. It's not 'just 8 energy lost'.

Remember that in any particular set of gear, some factors are linear scalars and some are % scalars. AP is linear. Crit is a % scalar. Agi is a mixed scalar. In general, as your overall dps rises and your get improves, % scalars tend to dominate over linear ones.

Expertise is great because it introduces a new % scalar that actually works for ferals, unlike haste and armor pen. Even better, it works exactly like an existing one: Hit. Hit is already very good for BT ferals. Expertise will be just as good.

As for resilience, the short version is resilience + agi > defense. So the pvp gear is pretty good, because you are replacing defense gear with items that tend to feature resilience and agi. Socketing or trinketing for resilience is not, as the total effect of defense, point for point, is greater than resilience.

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 9:01 PM   #613
Solstice
Piston Honda
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Sylvanas (EU)
There were some posts in the Bear tanking thread awhile back discussing the merits of armor vs agility for high-end tanking. Conclusions seemed to be that agility is superior in terms of actual mitigation once you reach a certain amount of dodge/AC, due to the fact that dodge gives increasing returns whereas AC diminishes slightly. Sadly I can't find the exact posts now but they're in that thread somewhere.

It really comes down to personal preference though and for me (and my healers) absorption > avoidance. I actively dislike having too much dodge because, despite the fact I'll take less damage overall, each extra dodge % seems to increase my chances of dying exponentially - healers focus their attention elsewhere after a lucky string of dodges and aren't prepared for the three 8k crushings that come afterwards. Also, in a rage limited situation I'm not convinced that agility is a better choice for threat generation than raw AP.

Offline
Old 11/06/07, 9:16 PM   #614
• Vykromond
the staleness of Max's dumps
 
Vykromond's Avatar
 
Vykromond
Tauren Druid
 
No WoW Account
Dukes:

The original post states that "In general, the shoulders and helm are the best pieces to keep for the bonus" w/r/t tier 4 for DPS. This is not strictly correct. At the tier 6 level, the shoulders and chest are the best pieces to keep.

Online
Old 11/06/07, 9:35 PM   #615
Boevis
Bald Bull
 
Boevis's Avatar
 
Tauren Druid
 
Lightbringer
Originally Posted by Vykromond View Post
Dukes:

The original post states that "In general, the shoulders and helm are the best pieces to keep for the bonus" w/r/t tier 4 for DPS. This is not strictly correct. At the tier 6 level, the shoulders and chest are the best pieces to keep.
Personally, I'd just say "don't keep the pants" since you're competing against rogues on everything outside of 3 tanking items at the T6 level. I'm lucky that the [Cursed Vision of Sargeras] goes to me first, other druids likely won't be as lucky.

e: About Tanking, Armor is very important, but so is Sta. In BT you're already going to have a Prot warrior as required MT for several fights, so it's well worth your time (and sanity) to just go for being a great OT, where your primary concerns are being able to stay 2nd on aggro and not suck at DPS when you go catform. This means instead of "Max Armor, and as much HP as possible" you should just be looking for "How much DPS Gear can I get away with?" I push this as much as possible, and you'll often see me drinking [Item not found!] just to avoid wearing additional tanking gear.

I will concede that Gruul/Mag/SSC favors ferals in high sta/armor gear over my current crit heavy build.

Last edited by Boevis : 11/06/07 at 9:43 PM.

Offline
Closed Thread

Go Back   Elitist Jerks » Class Mechanics » Druids

Thread Tools

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Feral-Bear Megathread Rannasha Druids 25 11/14/08 8:29 PM
Feral-Cat Megathread Rannasha Druids 25 11/14/08 4:19 AM