New to the forums as a registered user but a long time reader of the thread. I'm looking for some feedback for my situation on how to defend feral druids and their viability in raids.
Currently I'm in a guild that has cleared TBC content to date and we use 2 prot warriors + 1 prot pally as our tanks. For situations that require an additional tank we have one of our dps warriors respec. That being said we do not have any feral druids in our raid. Our GM is a firm believer that feral druids are not viable in raids as there are better options. Since we have 3 tanks already he doesn't feel a feral tank is required. For dps, he would prefer to roll with an extra hunter or rogue vs a cat because they are better dps output.
I currently raid as a resto druid but I'd like to give it a go as feral in 25 mans. I already have a half decent bear/cat set (mix of gear from ssc/tk/hyjal/bt) which can easily be upgraded as we are finished content and loot is rotting. But I am having difficulty convincing my GM that a feral druid would be useful (in our situation) and not gimp/slow down the raid.
Anyone have any thoughts?
On a side note, throughout the thread I've seen a lot of theoretical dps (via Rawr) but I rarely see many actual dps reports. It would be helpful if people could come forward with their cat experiences and discuss what kind of dps they are actually hitting in 25 mans.
Thanks in advance for responses and thanks to all the contributors.
Seriously, if your GM doesn't believe the math, why don't you show him the WWS reports of top guilds on dps dependant encounters ? Pretty much all of them use ferals, enchancement shaman and some even retribution paladins.
The view of hybrid / supporterclasses being not viable or suboptimal in raids is outdated by almost a year.
With the extremely high cost of the badge gear from 2.4, I've got really think about what pieces are worth getting over other choices. So I'm hoping for some help from you guys here, since I'm not very good at figuring out quality choices with Rawr/Toskk.
My DPS set takes a back seat to my tanking set, so my first 260 badges (of which I've already collected 125) will be going to the badge pants, chest, and ring for tanking (I got T6 gloves, the first T6 in my guild, last week, so I don't need the badge gloves). After that, I'm looking at getting the badge staff to upgrade over my S2 mace. After that, though... I'm not sure how best to upgrade myself with the readily available new gear in 2.4.
I expect my guild will be running Sunwell, but I think we'll have a hard time downing Brutalis until we've gotten a lot more BT/Hyjal progression and farming time (we're currently 4/5 and 4/9). So that leaves me with a small hope of getting T6 bracers in a reasonable time frame, and the badge loot and crafted gear to act as a transitional set while we work on progression in BT/Sunwell.
So the question becomes: should I gather badges for the dps gear, or gather mats for the crafted dps gear, or both? Which pieces of DPS badge gear are good upgrades over t5-ish loot? The only T6-level DPS gear I have is my T6 gloves (which have a 15 stam gem in them, and are enchanted for agi) and the bracers off Teron (from our one kill of him so far). I'm at work atm, or I'd go log out in my DPS set so Armory would update accordingly. I'll do that after I get home.
In the meantime, my DPS set, from my best recollection, is as follows:
T4 Helm
Wargen Claw Necklace
T4 Shoulders
S3 Chest
Insidious Bands
Gloves of the Searing Grip
Waistguard of the Great Beast
Leggings of Murderous Intent
Nyn'ja's Tabi Boots
Honored Hyjal DPS ring
Ancestral Ring of Conquest
Hourglass of the Unraveler
Bloodlust Brooch
S3 Mace
Everbloom Idol
In terms of the 2t4 bonus, I don't have the t4 chest (though with the Mag changes in 2.4, I may have some glimmer of hope at getting it after all, if it's worth worrying about any more), but I have the rest, and soon none of it is going to require tanking enchants. Which 2 pieces should I retain for my DPS set at this lvl of gear?
Last edited by coredumperror : 03/04/08 at 3:23 PM.
Haha, you can now get crimson spinels on the test server for 15 badges.
I can finally socket my gear with those coveted +10 agi gems. The caster monopoly over spinels in my guild is finally over!
it will be really nice because with the way the Sunwell loot looks, we'll be playing gem swap constantly to try to keep our hit rate/defense etc up while we go from peice to peice. Will be nice to be able to resocket the epic gems and not feel guilty about it.
Personally, I'm not worried about stocking badges for my main, only alts. Remember that in 2.4 raid bosses will also drop badges, so you'll be swimming in them before you know it. Heh, just from running regular ZAs, I have over 250 badges, and that's after I threw away 120 towards moonkin gear. So, its just going to get worse.
The proc rate listed for the ashtongue is 40%, however all testing I've done (several hundred mangles) and what I kept turning up was between 20-25%, which is terrible since you only mangle to keep the debuff up. I personally think the trinkets is garbage.
Your thoery may be true, but when your not following the standard cycle, or when your out just doing dailies, youll notice that it procs alot more then you think. I was using it from time to time, (I was doing the cycle incorrectly, just wanted to note that) and the proc rate is about 80% when your spamming mangle. Just what Ive noticed from my testing.
Personally, I'm not worried about stocking badges for my main, only alts. Remember that in 2.4 raid bosses will also drop badges, so you'll be swimming in them before you know it. Heh, just from running regular ZAs, I have over 250 badges, and that's after I threw away 120 towards moonkin gear. So, its just going to get worse.
You've got 250 badges. To grab all the feral upgrades, you'll need 570. I'll let you do the math.
With the extremely high cost of the badge gear from 2.4, I've got really think about what pieces are worth getting over other choices. So I'm hoping for some help from you guys here, since I'm not very good at figuring out quality choices with Rawr/Toskk.
My DPS set takes a back seat to my tanking set, so my first 260 badges (of which I've already collected 125) will be going to the badge pants, chest, and ring for tanking (I got T6 gloves, the first T6 in my guild, last week, so I don't need the badge gloves). After that, I'm looking at getting the badge staff to upgrade over my S2 mace. After that, though... I'm not sure how best to upgrade myself with the readily available new gear in 2.4.
I expect my guild will be running Sunwell, but I think we'll have a hard time downing Brutalis until we've gotten a lot more BT/Hyjal progression and farming time (we're currently 4/5 and 4/9). So that leaves me with a small hope of getting T6 bracers in a reasonable time frame, and the badge loot and crafted gear to act as a transitional set while we work on progression in BT/Sunwell.
So the question becomes: should I gather badges for the dps gear, or gather mats for the crafted dps gear, or both? Which pieces of DPS badge gear are good upgrades over t5-ish loot? The only T6-level DPS gear I have is my T6 gloves (which have a 15 stam gem in them, and are enchanted for agi) and the bracers off Teron (from our one kill of him so far). I'm at work atm, or I'd go log out in my DPS set so Armory would update accordingly. I'll do that after I get home.
In the meantime, my DPS set, from my best recollection, is as follows:
T4 Helm
Wargen Claw Necklace
T4 Shoulders
S3 Chest
Insidious Bands
Gloves of the Searing Grip
Waistguard of the Great Beast
Leggings of Murderous Intent
Nyn'ja's Tabi Boots
Honored Hyjal DPS ring
Ancestral Ring of Conquest
Hourglass of the Unraveler
Bloodlust Brooch
S3 Mace
Everbloom Idol
In terms of the 2t4 bonus, I don't have the t4 chest (though with the Mag changes in 2.4, I may have some glimmer of hope at getting it after all, if it's worth worrying about any more), but I have the rest, and soon none of it is going to require tanking enchants. Which 2 pieces should I retain for my DPS set at this lvl of gear?
Not to sound like a kill joy or anything but I tested the 2pct4 for awhile, and I just found that the proc was no where near what I expected it to be. Even with OoC up, fully raid buffed, it just did not proc as often as I thought it would like everyone says. Am I just retarded or have others expereienced this?
Not to sound like a kill joy or anything but I tested the 2pct4 for awhile, and I just found that the proc was no where near what I expected it to be. Even with OoC up, fully raid buffed, it just did not proc as often as I thought it would like everyone says. Am I just retarded or have others expereienced this?
It's been well tested. The DPS gain from 2T4 is huge. The point at which it's worth dropping is some time around killing Kil'Jaeden, and having gotten all the drops in-between.
Seriously, if your GM doesn't believe the math, why don't you show him the WWS reports of top guilds on dps dependant encounters ? Pretty much all of them use ferals, enchancement shaman and some even retribution paladins.
The view of hybrid / supporterclasses being not viable or suboptimal in raids is outdated by almost a year.
Not to sound like a kill joy or anything but I tested the 2pct4 for awhile, and I just found that the proc was no where near what I expected it to be. Even with OoC up, fully raid buffed, it just did not proc as often as I thought it would like everyone says. Am I just retarded or have others expereienced this?
I'm not sure what to say other than yes, on average it procs enough to make it the best dps items we get.
Looking at Rawr even when getting the Kil'jaeden helm the difference is so minimal from 2pc T4 that I'll probably just let the rogues grab helms first and just hope I get one before WotLK release. Not to mention that [Duplicitous Guise] turns into [Mask of the Fury Hunter] meaning that we'll need two Kil'jaeden drops and the tank one looks like the bigger upgrade.
Not to sound like a kill joy or anything but I tested the 2pct4 for awhile, and I just found that the proc was no where near what I expected it to be. Even with OoC up, fully raid buffed, it just did not proc as often as I thought it would like everyone says. Am I just retarded or have others expereienced this?
Not to really harp on this either, but I don't see what being fully raid buffed really has to do with anything. I can see OoC to a very very slight extent, but no standard raid buffs allow you to attack more in a set period of time, or reduce the chances of missing.
Your thoery may be true, but when your not following the standard cycle, or when your out just doing dailies, youll notice that it procs alot more then you think. I was using it from time to time, (I was doing the cycle incorrectly, just wanted to note that) and the proc rate is about 80% when your spamming mangle. Just what Ive noticed from my testing.
Yeah, when I was testing, I was strictly using mangle spam and set my proc meter to disregard white hits. So what turned up, 20-25% was really disappointing.
Yeah, when I was testing, I was strictly using mangle spam and set my proc meter to disregard white hits. So what turned up, 20-25% was really disappointing.
What proc meter do you use? I've been looking for one to do some testing myself, but I've never found one that I like.
Seriously, if your GM doesn't believe the math, why don't you show him the WWS reports of top guilds on dps dependant encounters ? Pretty much all of them use ferals, enchancement shaman and some even retribution paladins.
The view of hybrid / supporterclasses being not viable or suboptimal in raids is outdated by almost a year.
Well, it's not like we don't use hybrid classes to buff our DPS, for example we do use 5 shammies (2 enhance for 2 melee groups, 1 elemental for caster group, 2 resto) But his argument is that the buff provided by feral druids does not outweigh the straightup dps that is produced by an additional rogue/hunter based on our setup.
Is there anything that would support otherwise that I could read up on?
Well, it's not like we don't use hybrid classes to buff our DPS, for example we do use 5 shammies (2 enhance for 2 melee groups, 1 elemental for caster group, 2 resto) But his argument is that the buff provided by feral druids does not outweigh the straightup dps that is produced by an additional rogue/hunter based on our setup.
Is there anything that would support otherwise that I could read up on?
Well, you already said that when an extra tank is needed, you have a dps warrior respec. That's less useful than a feral druid, who with one spec, within an instance without having to leave, is always available to be a tank or dps. Moreover, if you gear for it, you can be pretty good dps and a pretty good off-tank with a mid-combat role swap.
Well, it's not like we don't use hybrid classes to buff our DPS, for example we do use 5 shammies (2 enhance for 2 melee groups, 1 elemental for caster group, 2 resto) But his argument is that the buff provided by feral druids does not outweigh the straightup dps that is produced by an additional rogue/hunter based on our setup.
Is there anything that would support otherwise that I could read up on?
I'd be curious to see some WWSs from your raids. How much do the rogues lose out not having Mangle?
I just asked our Rogues, what I'm hearing is about 20 dps per Rogue from Mangle alone, and about 60-70 dps for 5% crit, based on their gear and the spreadsheet from the Rogue thread here. Since you'd still have an Enhancement Shaman and Warrior in the group, who wouldn't get the benefit from Mangle, but probably would gain at least as much from LotP, if not more due to the extra Rage generation, you can probably assume at least 70ish dps gained per person. So a Druid would need to be doing about 300 less dps than Rogues to not be worthwhile. If I'm in a random leftovers group, that's the case, if I'm in a group with Battle Shout and a twisting Enhancement Shaman, I'm within 100 dps. While this is just napkin math, I'm not sure what math your GM is using. This discounts the (nontrivial) healing from iLotP as well.
It's sort of strange to me to think about doing all that content without a Feral tank, at least as an option. We don't use a protection Pally, but we just haven't found a competent one, it's not because our raid leader or GM thinks they're worthless. Even if a Druid + LotP for four other melee and Mangle for Rupture doesn't beat out Hunter or Rogue dps, an extra Innervate and Rebirth should also count for something.
My biggest conundrum has been having a feral druid in the melee group instead of our ret pally. I just can't bring myself to do it as then the Ret pally's dps just nose dives in comparison to what we lose when not in the group. In going forward though I think I'll end up rotating it a bit to be more fair as I'm sure the rogues/warrior/shaman wouldn't mind the aura.
Feral druids are extremely good for increasing raid DPS, for the following reasons:
1. As pure DPSers in cat form, ferals put out very high damage. Check the WWS reports linked a few posts up for real data.
2. The buffs a feral brings are solid, though perhaps not compelling in and of themselves.
3. A feral can be a tank or a DPSer in the same raid with the same spec. This is the kicker: take a fight like Naj'entus as an example. You only need 1 tank. If you bring 3 pure tanks to a raid, or as you said, have a fury warrior spec tank and actually bring four pure tanks... ouch. That's 3 off tanks putting out very low DPS on the fight.
Now swap out 2 of those pure tanks for 2 feral druids: you just gained a ton of raid DPS on a one-tank fight, while still having 4 top-notch tanks available for every other encounter in the raid.
Feral druids are extremely good for increasing raid DPS, for the following reasons:
1. As pure DPSers in cat form, ferals put out very high damage. Check the WWS reports linked a few posts up for real data.
2. The buffs a feral brings are solid, though perhaps not compelling in and of themselves.
3. A feral can be a tank or a DPSer in the same raid with the same spec. This is the kicker: take a fight like Naj'entus as an example. You only need 1 tank. If you bring 3 pure tanks to a raid, or as you said, have a fury warrior spec tank and actually bring four pure tanks... ouch. That's 3 off tanks putting out very low DPS on the fight.
Now swap out 2 of those pure tanks for 2 feral druids: you just gained a ton of raid DPS on a one-tank fight, while still having 4 top-notch tanks available for every other encounter in the raid.
Ferals are good.
I totally agree, my guild uses two feral druids when raiding Black Temple. With one click of the button we can go from dps gear to tanking gear and be just as viable as a prot warrior, sometimes even better. Or we can support the rogues with LoTP/FFF/Mangle. Hybrid specs, especially feral druids are so benficial in raids now it would be crazy not to have one.
No matter what you do it is only going to reinforce your GMs idiocy. You'll be doing something for the first time in substandard gear, compare this to your established tanks which are experienced and well geared. There is no way that you can overcome your GMs prejudice in this situation.
Post 2258 has a good druid DPS WWS. The point to druid DPS is that it increases all other physical dps, while putting out respectable numbers on its own. +5% crit is pretty sweet for rogues, hunters, enhance shamans, etc - and the +4% heal on a crit is a useful side effect.
Pretty much what he said, sounds like your GM is an idiot and seriously needs a clue. Feral dps and tanking is fine, almost every BT/MH guild has 1-2 ferals and they do just fine. If you wana raid as feral then you should find a new guild.
If you bring 3 pure tanks to a raid, or as you said, have a fury warrior spec tank and actually bring four pure tanks... ouch. That's 3 off tanks putting out very low DPS on the fight.
Thought so until I found this WWS on the fr forum. A spe prot warrior at 1k6 dps :/
3. A feral can be a tank or a DPSer in the same raid with the same spec. This is the kicker: take a fight like Naj'entus as an example. You only need 1 tank. If you bring 3 pure tanks to a raid, or as you said, have a fury warrior spec tank and actually bring four pure tanks... ouch. That's 3 off tanks putting out very low DPS on the fight.
Now swap out 2 of those pure tanks for 2 feral druids: you just gained a ton of raid DPS on a one-tank fight, while still having 4 top-notch tanks available for every other encounter in the raid.
Ferals are good.
Arguments can be made about our personal DPS + Buff (a good rogue instead of the druid would be better RDPS for instance) But this last part really sums up the power of the Feral druid. Unless you are a guild that swaps for maximum efficiency every fight, bringing those "Required for Trash and 4 bosses" OTs just kills your RDPS if they aren't ferals. Prot warriors and Pallies are good tanks, I wish my guild had one of the latter for pesky Hyjal (we run 2 prot warriors + 2 feral + 2 dps warriors at times, depending on the fight/attendance) but their DPS is abysmal. I'm sure that prot warrior doing 1.6k dps is using warglaives and other top end gear, chain drums/bl on a fight like akama or reliquary where there's a +% damage buff, meanwhile we have Antarin doing 2.5k dps on Kaz'rogal (did you resist every stun?! christ)
I've been trying to track feral weapons in 2.4. The lack of a tanking one, any possible changes to the pillar from Hyjal (still hoping) and of course, the [Staff of the Forest Lord]. It's currently at 50 str 52 agility; but I swear I had seen a version of it with different stats. I am fairly sure it was all agility and no strength, something on the order of 75 agility. Anyone know what the various versions of it were? Is this one likely to be final?
Do any of the database sites track PTR versions? If anyone has different screenshots for the staff, or any feral gear, let me know.
03/04/08, 2:49 PM
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