Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 103

kalbear · 09/02/08, 5:46 PM

This has been true up until now, but I'm not sure if it still is. The current list for attack power debuffs is -416 (wowhead) or 478 (MMO champion) for Curse of Weakness, -410 for demo shout, and -408 for demo roar. I suspect they will end up exactly equal when talented, but even if they aren't, the 0.5% difference between warrior and druid will probably still be less than the rounding error on most attacks.

That's good to know. When I looked this up previously, warriors still trounced druids, but that was a few builds ago. That's a shame though, as the feral tree is already pretty insanely bloated and feral aggression is an otherwise poor talent to take.

If that's the case, predatory instincts would likely be the one to go, as it's only an increase in damage dealt.

TimWischmeier · 09/02/08, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by dukes

The other options are Feral Charge (MT = less use?), FFF (which I'd take for 10 mans where there may not be another druid),

I don't quite agree with those. The keyword is: adds. FC and FFF may be useless in the "typical" bossfight. But: in nearly every fight which has adds those two skills add some convenience to tanking / dps.

Firstly, FFF is very helpful on every pull where you don't have a misdirection: Maulgar, Council, even some adds spawning where you can genereate enough aggro to just stay above healers until adds are in range (Nagas in vashj encounter, adds after banish at Hydross, skeleton spawning in felmyst beam). Beside that, I find FFF quite helpful to make sure your add(s) will come to you on trash pulls.

Feral charge can always be used if you have to pick up adds which are running away from you. Again, Hydross, Felmyst and Hyjal Trash (which is part of the bossfight to some extend) come to my mind. It's also useful closing up to supremus or quickly get in range to taunt Kalecgos (but not on Leotheras

). And you can even use it if you are on dps duty to close up on adds i.e. on Vashj elementals, Illidan demons. I sometimes also use it in Felmyst p2 when I get dazed and our pally tank is in my run direction so I can charge one of his skeletons.

So while the use of FC and FFF ist quite situational, I would have a hard time when I had to drop them.

Mijae · 09/02/08, 6:58 PM

Feral Charge is extremely useful and well worth a single talent point, even further than previously mentoined. For fights with knockback mechanics like Void Reaver and Bloodboil not having it can mess up positioning (I often still have agro after knockbacks). It is great when tanking the IC rogue to pick him up after vanish. It was even good for interrupts on fights like Solarian, Kael'thas, and IC priest.

I would have a hard time living without FFF for adds also. Trees can't cast it last I checked, so if you don't have a moonkin it will default to a feral putting it up. FF is much better than CoR (which will no longer stack).

Anaram · 09/03/08, 3:04 AM

Originally Posted by Mijae

FF is much better than CoR (which will no longer stack).

As of latest beta, FF is equivalent to affliction CoR (which no longer grants +AP with talents). Still, feral applying it is probably most convenient as a general rule even if it has to be refreshed more than CoR.

dukes · 09/03/08, 4:20 AM

My point in saying they could be cut is that if you are the MT for the guild, bosses are the major thing you care about. If threat is an issue, a point in RnT would be worth more than a point in Feral Charge, which is situational in that role (assuming that you are the one tanking the boss, not handling adds). FFF is the same as CoRecklessness now, and could be provided by a Moonkin if you have one in the raid.

Basically, it's an option that depends on personal preference. There are quite a few different talents (which I highlighted some of) that could be dropped for the point in OoC, but which one you pick to drop is a personal choice depending on preference and role in the raid. As it stands, I'm not sure we've seen the end of tinkering with the talent trees anyway.

Vaccine · 09/03/08, 6:44 AM

Originally Posted by dukes

My point in saying they could be cut is that if you are the MT for the guild, bosses are the major thing you care about. If threat is an issue, a point in RnT would be worth more than a point in Feral Charge, which is situational in that role (assuming that you are the one tanking the boss, not handling adds). FFF is the same as CoRecklessness now, and could be provided by a Moonkin if you have one in the raid.

Basically, it's an option that depends on personal preference. There are quite a few different talents (which I highlighted some of) that could be dropped for the point in OoC, but which one you pick to drop is a personal choice depending on preference and role in the raid. As it stands, I'm not sure we've seen the end of tinkering with the talent trees anyway.

I'm still not convinced on dropping FC to be honest Dukes, as said already knockback is a faveourite mechanic of the designers and feral charge is a fantastic way around that. Theres also any times the boss may move or you have to run to him, I think its worth more than a little extra threat.

On primal precision I'm kind of siding with the "We'll probably be capped off rogue gear" side. But really its tough to say at the moment, need to wait fro more itemisation. I honestly haven't had too much trouble making a decent MT build with FC and FFF which as I said above are both many times more valuable than they look on paper.

On tanking talents I'm not overly impressed with the new Feral Instinct. We won't know till we start getting some end game tank figures in but I always assumed that having a break point where swipe threat generated more than Lacerate was unintended. If thats fixed then Feral Instinct isn't really that great.

Another couple of points you could salvage for an MT build is shredding attacks. If we're working under the assumption you'll always have the rage to maul then 1 or 2 rage off lacerate might be overkill in that regard. Problem there is the talent is pretty nessecary for PvE DPS so you really restrict yourself to one aspect there.

Then again all this could be a mute point if the previously talked about dual spec system goes in, because I'll simply have a tank one and a DPS one (as opposed to before this diversification when I was going to have a tank one and a healing one).

I'm just hoping to get on beta soon or the PTR to start testing FB in cylces, especially with these new boss level target dummies.

Skytor · 09/03/08, 7:35 AM

On the scaling with gear and itemisation thing...

I recall (perhaps wrongly) that for quite a long time in the TBC beta SotF was 5% crit reduction and it was changed at the last minute to 3% - I wonder if this was to make us want the Warrior rings, necks, trinkets and cloaks with DEF rather than having to itemise us seperately and if this may end up being the "solution" again given the fact we dont really want the Pally/DK/Warrior tank rings for anything other than Armour and Sta.

Really the whole armour multiplier and +armour as an item budget thing is always going to warp itemisation for bears ... how can it not when a stat in certain slots is worth over 5x as much to us as anyone else?

dukes · 09/03/08, 7:37 AM

The number of points available really comes into question if you are getting Feral Aggression while trying to pick up all the threat talents as well as Naturalist. Then again, like you say, you could have a "full bear" build and a "full cat" build and just take the talents that are optimal for each (such as Shredding Attacks for Cat). Personally I'm still not ruling out FC as a point that has the potential to be dropped from an MT build though.

Feral Instinct I can see being very useful at the 5/10 man level, but less useful at the 25 man level. With swipe being upgraded to hit 4 targets instead of 3, it looks to be an even better tool for multi-mob tanking than currently, but, as you said, I'm not sure about the lacerate/swipe crossover point, especially if they don't implement a similar bonus to the 4t6 one at level 80.

Originally Posted by Vaccine

mute point

moot point - Wiktionary

Anecdotally, FB is pretty powerful. I've been getting 5-6k 5p FB's with Feral Aggression and 4t6 pretty regularly (about 85% crit rate due to RnT and base crit) whilst killing standard mobs. I'm not convinced on it's worth in cycles once higher level due to not having the 4t6 bonus and Feral Aggression being a lot of points for not a massive increase in damage output compared to a lot of other talents, although the revised energy generation certainly would help in not wasting more energy. In raids with full armour penetration debuffs (sunder+ff or equivalents) it would seem to be of more value than Rip, especially with the requirement that Mangle or Trauma be up for Rip to be worth using (although similarly the mob needs to be bleeding for FB to be worth using in that context).

nightcrowler · 09/03/08, 8:33 AM

I've finished my simulations for the cat/bear powershifting.

The stats:

Boss armor reduction: 25%, Attack Power (cat): 8500, Attack Power (bear): 6727, Cat crit: 40%, Bear crit: 36%, Hit: 9%, Expertise 10, Haste: Bloodlust+Moonkin buff + WindFury.
Latency 100ms.
7200 mana, base intellect and spirit + raid buffs + 2 mana battery.
RIP and Mangle Glyphs.
All DPS talents active.

The cycle:

Cat only: 2SR/5RIP with a wait time of 81-2*lag before SR: wait - SR - mangle - shred... - RIP - Shred... - Wait
Cat/Bear: 1SR/5RIP + Bear: SR - mangle (if needed) - shred... - RIP - Shred - Powershift (mangle/Lacerate/maul) - Powershift.
Bear only: Mangle / Lacerate /Maul Rotation.

Note:
In the cat cycle I use Berserk after SR and Tiger's Fury when I have less than 40-lag energy.
In the bear cycle I use maul when I have more than maul+mangle energy.
The threat is based on the lvl 70 threat scaled with the ability damage (for istance I've supposed flat maul threat to be (lvl 70 flat threat)*((lvl 80 maul)/(lvl 70 maul)) ).

Report

CAT ONLY

DPS: 3008.95, Cat: 100%, Bear: 0%, TPS: 2136.36

**************************************
CAT

White cat: 1141.39, Yellow cat: 1867.56
White: 37.9332% (SR: 24.2357%)
Mangle: 5.77213% (SR: 19.3562%), Shred: 36.5441% (SR: 18.2934%), RIP: 19.7505% (SR: 17.7159%)
Rake: 0% (SR: nan%), Ferocious Bite: 0% (SR: nan%)
SR Total Value: 20.4948%, (RIP Value without SR)/(SR Value): 79.296%, Savage Roar uptime: 90.7187%

**************************************

OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 75.8155%, Mangle debuff uptime: 89.5708%, Mangle-RIP debuff downtime: 0.0494717%
Average Cycle Time: 20.4541

CAT/BEAR SWITCH

DPS: 3167.45, Cat: 80.1891%, Bear: 19.8109%, TPS: 2590.63

**************************************
CAT

White cat: 776.324, Yellow cat: 1763.63
White: 30.5645% (SR: 22.8534%)
Mangle: 3.22672% (SR: 19.3739%), Shred: 46.3101% (SR: 17.7138%), RIP: 19.8987% (SR: 17.1929%)
Rake: 0% (SR: nan%), Ferocious Bite: 0% (SR: nan%)
SR Total Value: 19.2346%, (RIP Value without SR)/(SR Value): 85.6662%, Savage Roar uptime: 58.26%

**************************************
BEAR

White bear: 134.531, Yellow bear: 492.971
White bear: 21.4392%
Mangle bear: 26.0675%, Maul: 33.3642%, Lacerate: 19.1291%

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 94.2756%, Mangle debuff uptime: 94.2529%, Mangle-RIP debuff downtime: 0.02194%
Average Cycle Time: 25.5771, Powershifts each 13.0996 seconds (average), Out five seconds rule time: 61.995%, Average time before oom> 10 min

BEAR ONLY (limited rage, the bear is off-tanking)

DPS: 1682.68, Cat: 0%, Bear: 100%, TPS: 2443.56

**************************************

BEAR

White bear: 416.133, Yellow bear: 1266.54
White bear: 24.7304%
Mangle bear: 29.2455%, Maul: 35.9681%, Lacerate: 10.0559%

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 99.9542%, Mangle debuff uptime: 99.8822%

BEAR ONLY (UNLIMITED rage)

DPS: 2535.02, Cat: 0%, Bear: 100%, TPS: 4710.39

**************************************

BEAR

White bear: 0, Yellow bear: 2535.02
White bear: 0%
Mangle bear: 20.9446%, Maul: 72.1109%, Lacerate: 6.9445%

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 100%, Mangle debuff uptime: 99.9645%

------------------------------------------

Conclusion:

The "new" powershifting is a minimal gain in dps 5.2% vs. the old powershifting (20% without going oom on a 10 min fight or 25-30% going oom in 2-3 minutes).
Powershifting between cat and bear generate more threat than doing dps in bear form (could be good for off-tanking if not taking damage, but probably including swipe the bear tps will go higher but that bear is also equipped and specced for dps).

SO:
Powershift is RIP, shifting from cat to bear increase DPS but not by a large margin like the old powershift and the overaggro risk will be probably too high.

dukes · 09/03/08, 9:35 AM

If you are assuming 4% more crit for Cat, I assume you have taken Master Shapeshifter, which means 4% more damage for Bear. Did you include this in the simulation? For the Bear simultion Swipe would be more damage than Lacerate (and potentially less threat), especially with the Feral Instinct buff to it's damage (although a 5 stack of lacerate may be worth keeping going).

Vaccine · 09/03/08, 9:50 AM

Blizzard have made it clear they don't want Powershifting. If it turns out Cat/Bear shifting is more dps than Cat I wouldn't count on it lasting till live.

Mijae · 09/03/08, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

Boss armor reduction: 25%, Attack Power (cat): 8500, Attack Power (bear): 6727, Cat crit: 40%, Bear crit: 36%, Hit: 9%, Expertise 10, Haste: 16%.

I'm curious about these base numbers. What did you use as a basis for choosing these AP and crit values? Are you not expecting any expertise beyond the talent? I would count on quite a bit more weapon haste than you currently have: Imp WF alone is 20%, Swift Retribution is 3%, if you average the gain from Bloodlust is 30%*40/300=4%. While I haven't verified I'm pretty sure these stack multiplicative so 1.2*1.03*1.04 = 128.5% before haste rating (which I'm sure we'll have).

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

The cycle:

Cat only: 2SR/5RIP with a wait time of 81-2*lag before SR: wait - SR - mangle - shred... - RIP - Shred... - Wait
Cat/Bear: 1SR/5RIP + Bear: SR - mangle (if needed) - shred... - RIP - Shred - Powershift (mangle/Lacerate/maul) - Powershift.
Bear only: Mangle / Lacerate /Maul Rotation.

Note:
In the cat cycle I use Berserk after SR and Tiger's Fury when I have less than 40-lag energy.
In the bear cycle I use maul when I have more than maul+mangle energy.
The threat is based on the lvl 70 threat scaled with the ability damage (for istance I've supposed flat maul threat to be (lvl 70 flat threat)*((lvl 80 maul)/(lvl 70 maul)) ).

I thought testing was showing a SR/FB/Rip type cycle as best dps? Why Lacerate for bear? If you're not stacking the bleed wouldn't Swipe be better? Are you using enrage for bear?

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

Conclusion:

The "new" powershifting is a minimal gain in dps 6.4% vs. the old powershifting (20% without going oom on a 10 min fight or 25-30% going oom in 2-3 minutes).
Powershifting between cat and bear generate more threat than doing dps in bear form (could be good for off-tanking if not taking damage, but probably including swipe the bear tps will go higher but that bear is also equipped and specced for dps).

Old powershifting was never a 20%-30% increase. Going from no shifts to 1 shift per cycle in end-game gear is about a 7% gain, 2 shifts is about 12-13%.

Also note that cycles and dps numbers can shift drastically based on set bonuses. Are you including any current mechanics?

nightcrowler · 09/03/08, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by dukes

If you are assuming 4% more crit for Cat, I assume you have taken Master Shapeshifter, which means 4% more damage for Bear. Did you include this in the simulation? For the Bear simultion Swipe would be more damage than Lacerate (and potentially less threat), especially with the Feral Instinct buff to it's damage (although a 5 stack of lacerate may be worth keeping going).

Yes I've included 4% more damage in bear, and no, swipe will not be better than lacerate because you will have 5 stack lacerate always up (5 stack lacerate > swipe dmg wise) and you will always have the bleed debuff up.

Blizzard have made it clear they don't want Powershifting. If it turns out Cat/Bear shifting is more dps than Cat I wouldn't count on it lasting till live.

Well the increase is not too much, and you also need low latency and an optimal cycle with no downtime to do it efficiently.

I'm curious about these base numbers. What did you use as a basis for choosing these AP and crit values? Are you not expecting any expertise beyond the talent? I would count on quite a bit more weapon haste than you currently have: Imp WF alone is 20%, Swift Retribution is 3%, if you average the gain from Bloodlust is 30%*40/300=4%. While I haven't verified I'm pretty sure these stack multiplicative so 1.2*1.03*1.04 = 128.5% before haste rating (which I'm sure we'll have).

I've raised the haste according to your buff, as for expertise one value is equivalent to another one, it will raise the dps of all the different cycles. As for ap/crit value, I'm actually at about 5k ap and 50% crit raid buffed, I've assumed a 35% increase in ap (according to the 35% increase in stats I've seen in Wotlk) and a 10% crit nerf due to the agility nerf. Obviosly real value will differ from druid to druid. As for Bear AP basically the only difference from cat is Bear AP = (Cat AP / 1.1) - Agility - (flat ap), I've assumed a cat with about 800 agility, slight change in the relative ap will not change the simulation a lot, I suppose.

I thought testing was showing a SR/FB/Rip type cycle as best dps? Why Lacerate for bear? If you're not stacking the bleed wouldn't Swipe be better? Are you using enrage for bear?

If you don't powershift the value are about the same (about 1% difference) and you should waste 5 talent point to improve FB, The FB cycle will be better only with a crazy powershift (going oom in 2-3 minute).
Yes I use enrage.

Old powershifting was never a 20%-30% increase. Going from no shifts to 1 shift per cycle in end-game gear is about a 7% gain, 2 shifts is about 12-13%.

With live mechanic and ability I agree with you, but with the latest furor before the nerf and the new ability, powershifting every 8 seconds was a 20% increase for a SR/RIP cycle or a SR/FB/RIP cycle with finite mana or a 30% increase for a SR/FB/RIP cycle for a 2-3 minute fight.

Also note that cycles and dps numbers can shift drastically based on set bonuses. Are you including any current mechanics?

No, we don't know how will behave the set bonuses yet.

dukes · 09/03/08, 11:50 AM

Once 5 stacks of Lacerate is up then there will be a reduction in the effectiveness of spamming Lacerate (just like there is now). Starting with Lacerates up to a 5 stack (with mangles as applicable), then using a Mangle/Swipe/Swipe rotation with a lacerate every 12 seconds or so to keep the stack up (to allow for a second GCD for another lacerate in case it misses) would be the best DPS cycle. It should also decrease the TPS for that cycle.

My current agility is around 650, so applying your 35% bonus gives around 900, not the 800 you state (although there's little difference to the output).

Vaccine · 09/03/08, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Mijae

700 - Bloodwood Greatstaff
443 - Arena Druid Melee Helm
409 - Arena Druid Melee Shoulders
545 - Arena Druid Melee Chest
341 - Arena Druid Melee Gloves
477 - Arena Druid Melee Legs
230 - King's Square Bracers
296 - Ouroboros Belt (80 caster)
337 - Scytheclaw Boots (75 caster)
504 - Flowing Cloak of Command
364 - Titanium Earthguard Chain
420 - Titanium Earthguard Ring
308 - Signet of Arachnathid Command (72 ring)
------
5374 x 5.5 = 29557

Out of interest I totted up what a warrior in similar gear would have and it came out about 23-24,000. We've still got a nice gap on armour which I was thinking might have gone. From my napkin math it also looks like with our multiplier we should actually stay ahead and gain a little armour each tier of upgrades over warriors/paladins.