◊ Regen

Well for one, being in the "melee group" you are talking about yeilds you nothing but battle shout.... really not noticable (compared to max Synergy), it turns amazing with an enhance shaman, however 2 BM hunters+ 1 Survival hunter + Shaman is also a decent group to be in (even if the Survival hunter isn't contributing to group synergy it is still awesome for rDPS)

In my opinion you should start bring 3 tanks, Tell the prot pally to go ret OR tell one of the warriors to fury.

Rogues and hunters will always complain, just get used to it, explain yourself a few times and try your best to befriend them...

 

Morthis

It's the lack of enhance shaman.

A resto shaman will drop windfury and str, and nothing else added, which isn't all that great.

When you have an enhance shaman who twists windfury and GoA, along with str, all improved, on top of the +10% AP, the difference is huge.

A lot of people have the misconception that ferals don't really benefit from the melee group due to windfury not working (as if that's the only thing the melee group offers), and while we don't get windfury, we easily gain double as much AP as anyone else from unleashed rage, and if your enhance shaman is good by twisting GoA/windfury, you've got a ton of agi as well. Overall, when you look at it, we can't get windfury at all, but we benefit more from agi than any other melee, and get the same AP as war/pally for str, and gain more AP than anyone else from unleashed rage. So to pretend feral druids get nothing from the melee group because windfury doesn't work is silly, yet is seems to be a common notion (on top of that we also give crit to the group of course, along with the patch healing from imp lotp).

 

Tidia

I recently 'discovered' the benefit of having an enhancement Shaman over a Resto Shaman. The difference is quite large, enough that I normally include one in my regular Karazhan Badge runs. Rather have the Resto Shaman in the caster group and take another Shaman rather than a rogue. (I'm a Feral Tank so the Shaman means less damage and more threat)

Putting the um in Forum.

 

tagrat

Hello

In Bear Form what is the best idol for aggro generation? I personally use [Idol of Brutality] but maybe [Idol of Terror] is better? Im not sure.
With and whithout the 4t6 bonus +15% to swipe damage ?


I see also some change in patch 2.4 on [Idol of the White Stag] up from 12seconds to 20seconds and on [Idol of Feral Shadows] up from 4damage by rip to 7
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ewhitestag.jpg
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ralshadows.jpg


Is [Everbloom Idol] always the best dps idol? In rawr it seems that the new [Idol of Feral Shadows] is better now, what do yo think about that?

 

• Daboran

All these questions have been discussed in this thread already.

 

herzausgold

its propably only better if you have zero armor ignore effects in place plus you can use rip to full extent, which should be a rare situation. try configuring sunder armor or expose armor in rawr, and see if feral shadows is still better.

 

Deltronzero

This has been touched on sparsely a couple times, but in anticipation of 2.4 I keep finding myself wondering whether to go for the feral conversion pieces first, or keep the rogue dps set first. Obviously a couple things factor into that decision: 1) we all have yet to see how taxing the (off)tanking requirements are throughout Sunwell, and 2) how much time you spend tanking/off-tanking/dps in your raid.

Let's assume the following scenario: you're not MT in one-tank fights, trash is trash, and off-tank roles (like soaking Lash-type moves) aren't any more intense than they've been. However, there's a reasonable chance you may be tank #2 on a given day and will be asked to tank something of boss caliber (either as a part of some fight we still haven't seen on PTRs, or whatever... I haven't been keeping up with what the PTR fights have required tank-wise and its against the wishes of the forum mods to discuss those strats anyway). Hence the dilemma; you're mostly going to be DPSing when it counts but can't afford not to progress as a tank.

Given this context, I'm curious about how you guys picture the transitional period from BT gearset to Sunwell-on-farm gearset.

I'll start with one path I've considered, as an example. This one assumes that there's some rowdy tanking to be done.
Step 1- Most agree that the new t6 pieces are the ideal minimal way to get 4t6, and by gemming/enchanting for agility they have great cross-over. Go for those asap and use em in both roles.
Step 2- If the Sunwell crafting recipes drop nearly as much as the shitty BT/Hyjal ones, getting a hold of the leather dps pieces should be relatively easy. Use the chest and gloves for dps.
Step 3- I use 4t6+nether shadow... here's where I would consider switching back to 2t4 (helm/shoulders) as soon as I can do it without losing 4t6 (ie- after getting 2 or 3 of the new t6 depending on whether I've already replaced other t6 with the craftables).
Step 4- convert rogue pieces to feral for tanking. this leaves you in 2t4 (helm/sh), 4t6 (new pcs + legs), crafted chest/gloves... which as I understand it is not that far from the theoretical top set.


I guess the answer here is very subjective, and if you know you won't be tanking more than trash and lashes there's no reason not to just go for the rogue set.

Thoughts?

 

tagrat

I have not much to say because i have the exact same plan than you
As i understand, the chest and gloves LWcrafted are equivalent to the rogue sunwell set.
For head and shoulder, there is nothing better than the 2t4, even better than the head ilvl164 that drop on kiljaedan.
And so the 4t6 with the 3 new piecess.

So in sunwell i will just go for the druid set to tank.

Of course if someone is not LW, he will need 2 pieces of the rogue set to maximize the dps, most likely chest or gloves or legs, because for the t4 the 2 better pieces are head and shoulder i think.

 

Morthis

I don't know about you, but personally I have 12 defense to wrists, and I need that enchant to stay crit immune, meaning the T6 bracers don't fully transfer between roles, since you'd want 12 str for kitty.

As for the new "feral set" for tanking, that's what I imagine I'll do. The new "feral set" is a very solid upgrade over T6. Just went over the calculations, I'm might have made some mistakes, but it still creates a fairly accurate picture overall.

All these numbers include set bonuses, although the new shoulders have better colors in them than the T6 shoulders (RB vs BY).

Going from T6 to the new set:

-30 Str
+35 Agi
+63 Stam
-27 Hit rating
+30 Crit rating
+630 Armor Pen
+ 3 Red Sockets

And then on the bp you have the set bonuses 4 str on T6 and 4 agi on the new set, but both have RYB so I didn't include either in this list, although it's a lot more reasonable to fit in a yellow gem for the 4 agi bonus than it is to get the 4 str bonus as tank.

Still, looking at those stats, that's a pretty strong upgrade over T6. We lose out on str and the 4T6 set bonus, which might put lacerate ahead of swipe again, but it'll remain to be seen how much the 630 AP, 30 CSR, and 35 agi helps in improving swipe damage to the point it passes lacerate again (along with 3 Red sockets, whatever you put in them). Overall though, I believe it will be well worth the tradeoff (if you can even call that a tradeoff), and this is easily a solid upgrade over the previous set. In terms of stats, a much bigger upgrade than T5 > T6 was (and we don't need the armor boost, since it's becoming increasingly hard to avoid going over the armor cap these days).

 

Deathwing

I thought gloves and shoulders were the best slots for getting the 2T4 bonus.

 

Morthis

I believe they were in T5, now the helm and shoulders are generally the best slots.

The shoulders are a very easy choice, after that the helm has a small edge over the gloves for the second choice. It's not a massive difference, so it's not like you're really missing out by doing gloves/shoulders for T4 and getting the new rogue helm.

Although gloves are craftable, which is a big bonus and might make them much easier to get than the helm.

 

oldmandennis

Most people are finding that head and shoulders are better, because the head is one of the least bad slots of T4.

 

coredumperror

I primarily offtank for my guild, and we're 3/5 Hyjal, 4/9 BT. I'm trying to decide how best to upgrade my gear once 2.4 comes around. My armory link is The World of Warcraft Armory which at the moment contains my "high stam" set (which forsakes some dodge for more stam), since I always feel like I'm ridiculously low HP compared to our prot tanks.

With the new badge gear from 2.4, would it be worth finally dropping 4t4? I'd love the massive additional stats, though I think I would lose some armor. I was also considering S3 helm for the anticrit (since I'd get the 2pc bonus) and high stam, so I could socket/enchant more agi.


On a related note, our only true Azgalor attempts have been with me tanking, but our healers don't have much sresist (well under 200 buffed), so I kept dying to silences even though I'd stop attacking to prevent parries. We don't have any resto druids, since we lost both our keyed restos in the last month Would it make sense to have our better-geared-than-me prot war MT tank him, even though he doesn't crush me?

 

Tuhalu

As overpowered as the 2t4 head/shoulder combo is for dps, you can afford to put tanking enchants in your T6 gear for those slots. Either one would make up for the loss of the tanking enchant on the wrist (especially the ).

Str and AP are virtually interchangeable. 630 AP vs the loss of 30 str (equivalent to 68 AP with kings + talent) is a 562 AP increase. And honestly, I don't see why you would drop the 4t6 at all. You would simply retain one piece from the old T6 to keep the bonus in a threat tanking set. Given those factors, there is no way the extra bleed damage from Lacerate (which does not count for anywhere near as much threat as the initial hit) is going to outdo swipe for pure threat.

 

Touf

How much better? If you're really having trouble get him to wear max avoidance, chain ironshields and assign a shaman/priest to spam rank 1 for armor procs. Also, are you getting TC/Demo when you're tanking?

 

coredumperror

He's a lot better geared than me. 4t5, every piece of gear is SSC/TK level, one or two pieces of Hyjal/BT stuff. I'm still stuck in 4t4, Wildfury, Ring of Unyielding Force (we only killed Mag 3 times, and I never got the head), and the rest are best-in-slot for pre-T6 while staying crit immune. He has almost 2k more HP than me raid buffed in his stam set.

 

david0925

Playing with Rawr gave me the following "best" results, if anyone want to compare notes.

Helm: Malorne, 5agi/5hit gem, 12crit/3% crit bonus meta (lol T4)
Neck: Clutch of Demise (Brutallus drop)
Shoulders: Malorne, 2 10agility gems
Cloak: Thalassian Wildercloak (Kael'thas drop thank god for Essence, maybe i'll get one now, heh.)
Chest: Bladed Chaos Tunic (5hit/5agi, 10agi, 5agi/7sta)
Bracers: Thunderheart (10 agility)
Gloves: Thunderheart (5agi/7 sta, last piece needed for meta requirement)
Belt: Thunderheart (10agi)
Legs: Leggings of the Immortal Night (10agi, 10agi, 10agi)
Boots: Thunderheart (10 agi)
Ring: Hard Khorium Band (JC)
Ring: Angelista's Revenge (aka Sunwell badge Melee Ring)
Trinket: Shard of Contempt (Magister's Terrace)
Tirnket: Dragonspine Trophy (so much /sigh over this)
Weapon: Stanchion of Primal Instinct
Relic: Everbloom Idol (so much /sigh over this)

Edit: this setup came out a little bit over running T4 Chest + Duplitious Guise instead of T4 Helm + Bladed Chaos Tunic. It is also worth mentioning that this setup is more feasible to get (and having a point) since T7 Helm come from Kil'jaedon.

 

Carlos

Some Questions regarding the Set results:

Do you reach hit cap?
What would be the replacement for the JC Ring?

 

Vaccine

The JC ring is BoE so no problem there and it seems relatively cheap if you have access to Sunmotes.
[e]If you really couldn't get it/afford it the fallback choice would either be the ZA timed ring or possibly hydross/akama ring if you wanted to make up some hit.

For hit he has:

Helm: 5+ (16) = 21
Chest: 5
Legs: 32
Total: 58 hit rating

Seems the Sunwell pieces are drastically lacking hit.

If he replaced all the 10 agi with 5hit/5agi you'd be able to get another +45 hit for 45 agility.
Or +90 hit if you went full out with +hit gems (for a total of 148 hit rating).

 

Draugdae

The only "cost" of missing that is not modelled in Toskk's calculations (and hence Rawr's) is going on autopilot and not realizing that you missed a rip until after you've mangled. Thus, if you are attentive to your cycle you don't need to be wedded to the stat and can make itemization decisions based purely on max dps not max hit.

I for one am glad that the sunwell pieces don't have much hit since the stat is fairly lackluster compared to strength and agility.

 

Tuhalu

The "going for the Hit Cap" version would be as follows:

Helm: Duplicitous Guise (5Agi/5Hit Gem, RED)
Neck: Choker of Endless Nightmares
Shoulders: Malorne, 2 10agility gems
Cloak: Shadowmoon Destroyer's Cape
Chest: Bladed Chaos Tunic (10 agi, 5agi/5hit gem, 5agi/7sta gem)
Bracers: Thunderheart (10 agility)
Gloves: Gauntlets of Malorne
Belt: Thunderheart (10agi)
Legs: Thunderheart Leggings (5agi/7sta gem)
Boots: Thunderheart (10 agi)
Ring: Hard Khorium Band (JC)
Ring: Angelista's Revenge (aka Sunwell badge Melee Ring)
Trinket: Shard of Contempt (Magister's Terrace)
Tirnket: Dragonspine Trophy (so much /sigh over this)
Weapon: Stanchion of Primal Instinct
Relic: Everbloom Idol (so much /sigh over this)

and then use +20 hit food instead of +20 agi food.

According to RawR, it's a 14 dps loss (from ~1464 to ~1450), but at least you would be comforted with the thought that you are still hit capped. Keep in mind that both versions come with 64 Expertise, reducing your "miss" by another 4% due to dodge reduction.

 

Kioga

It was my understanding that we only need 20 EXP rating and that anything over that produced miniscule results to even bother worrying abt. Assuming the T6 boots haven't changed and still provide that magic number, can someone plz explain why rawr shows Shard of Contempt as being better than a Tsunami or Madness which provide what would appear to be more wothwhile stats and still have nice procs?

Does Shard of Contempt have some ungodly proc rate im not familiar with?

 

Ducimus

That was when it was Feral Combat Skill. Expertise functions differently than FCS did, reducing the targets chance to dodge or parry your attacks linerarly as your rating increases. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it takes ~94 Expertise rating for you to mitigate a level 73 boss's dodges while doing DPS.

For DPS, Expertise Rating has an effect similar to Hit Rating, making the Shard of Contempt pretty good, and possibly better than the two trinkets you mention. For tanking, it's even better as it mitigates your chance to be parried and dodged, increasing your threat.

 

Valerian

Looks solid though I think the new Idol of the Rave Goddess is better than Everbloom if you're in a high DPS melee group.

 

• Astrylian

Correct, 94 exp rating is capped. Exp rating is identical in value to hit rating, when attacking from behind, and doubly valuable when attacking from the front, until capped.

Also, there's nothing special about being hit capped if you're not also exp capped.