Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 124

Druidas · 09/12/08, 1:46 AM

Speaking about tanking gear, there is always an option to make some druid tanking orientated items through leatherworking and jewelcrafting. heavy clefthoof set or [Necklace of the Deep] in TBC can be an example.

coredumperror · 09/12/08, 1:57 AM

For those of you who are wondering, I just barely got into beta, so I did some dodge/armor comparisons on my newly-copied druid and my live server druid. In the boss-tanking set I have linked in my signature, with no buffs, I have 619 agi on beta and 586 agi on live (3% more from better SotF and a little more from the recent changes to t6). In order to even those out a bit, I took a major agi pot on live to get 622 agi, and I get these dodge/crit rates from my agi:

The agi tooltip says I get 22.95% crit in beta (619 agi), and 25.84% crit in live (622 agi). That difference doesn't seem nearly as harsh as I was expecting.

The I figured out the dodge by comparing my paperdoll dodge, since I have the same dodge rating on beta and live (they give the same dodge chance, according to the tooltip). I get 50.16% dodge in bear form on beta, and 54.27% dodge in bear form on live. I didn't spec Natural Reaction so I'm only getting the same 4% from feral swiftness as I get on live. But if I had, I'm pretty surprised to see that I'd actually have *higher* dodge on beta at 70 than I do on live. That's not really good news though, cause once I reach 80 my agi->dodge scaling will be worse, and the static bonus from natural reaction will be less valuable as gear improves.

As for armor, the complete removal of bonus armor from all gear leaves me with 27363 armor on beta vs. my 34838 armor on live. Ouch.

Garanthir · 09/12/08, 2:50 AM

I was able to get my Druid over to Beta today as well. I picked up Natural Reaction so I saw a really good increase in Dodge (stam heavy set equipped), AC goes from 35912 to 26332 SS's below to see more stats;

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/g...beta_stats.jpg

Just for FYI here's a kitty SS, crit down AP up.

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/g...tats_kitty.jpg

Now I just need to find a spec I like at 70...

Selmarix · 09/12/08, 3:57 AM

Originally Posted by Tappin

Here's something else that has been bothering me:

Armor - Items - World of Warcraft

We're supposed to share gear. I assume they want us to share leather with rogues and other slots with other tanks. They can't possibly want us to tank in cat rings/necks/etc. So, why are they making so many tanking items that are good for 2-3 of the tanks and awful for us?

Compared to those 18 necks and rings without armor there are 9 that have armor:
Armor - Items - World of Warcraft

And there are no epic rings with armor in there yet compared to 4 epic tanking rings without armor.
That really does not fit with the supposed gear homogenization.

Skytor · 09/12/08, 6:44 AM

For feral what is the "wow factor" that gets you excited about it as an option in Wotlk?

Balance is getting (a possibly unfair share of) group/raid buffs, more interesting rotations and talents that look to be offering raid worthy DPS.

Resto gets a new emphasis on "direct" healing while retaining the HoT flavour - a flash heal, AoE heal, ooc res, not to mention instance CC and gear that should allow great solo experience without the need for a "farming set" of left over tat.

Cat - gets a slice and dice equivilent, a reason to use haste, charge and the promise of proper scaling DPS

In general bear still feels very lacklustre in terms of "wow factor" changes - last stand and an extra swipe target, thats it!? and is still (after 3-4 years) going to have itemisation issue where you are just not seeing the frequency or flexibility of gear upgrades avaiable to plate tanks.

Edit: Talents that "fix" our numbers to bring us to the tanking baseline, like mother bear, are really not wow factors - they are just fixes needed because of other aspects of number juggling.

Valerian · 09/12/08, 8:40 AM

Spec at 70:

Pure DPS
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000

Not terribly sure about this. Savage Fury and Improved Mangle are both fairly weak in terms of DPS. I'm not sure if Rend and Tear is better though. The numbers really need to be run on FB vs Rip I think. I had one free point that I threw into Infected Wounds for some utility but really this could go into Savage Fury or Imp Mangle I think.

Tanking:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000

This too seems kinda sketchy. Infected wounds can be removed if we have an improved thunderclapping warrior I suppose. I cannot fit the extra point in feral instinct anymore either. At 70, at least improved Demo roar won't be needed but Im kinda worried that at 80 we may need to spec into that.

After making these trees I have some thoughts.
1) Rend and Tear is far too weak for being that low in the tree. The fact I can easily consider skipping it on either build for other things tells me something is wrong.
2) The HUGE constraint of needing to spend 10 talent points for Naturalist (and another 1 for OOC for DPS) in the resto tree is absurd. If OOC is really supposed to be like our combat potency, why is it in the resto tree?
3) Even at 80 I cannot get all the tanking talents. Something is wrong with that. For DPS I can currently fill out a good tree with all the necessary talents, at 80. But they haven't added a bunch of Cat only talents yet.

One of the real talent bloat problems is that there are talents (such as Master Shapeshifter) which are clearly meant to be taken for Feral (since they have Feral components). However, they are in locations that make them strictly sub-par talents that will NEVER be taken if the current bloat remains. I mean removing cookie cutter specs makes sense...unless there is a clearly better route to take. And if the routes are exactly equal whats the point? Its as if they're laying traps for the players who do NOT do the research and see what is the optimal build. Isn't this counter-productive?

spartakos · 09/12/08, 9:13 AM

Originally Posted by Valerian

Spec at 70:

Pure DPS
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000

Not terribly sure about this. Savage Fury and Improved Mangle are both fairly weak in terms of DPS. I'm not sure if Rend and Tear is better though. The numbers really need to be run on FB vs Rip I think. I had one free point that I threw into Infected Wounds for some utility but really this could go into Savage Fury or Imp Mangle I think.

About "Pure DPS" you really don't need any tier 2 talents its definitely better to go for Feral Aggression 5/5. Especially in your build where you have 5/5 Rend and Tear instead of Master Shapeshifter.

Thessaly · 09/12/08, 9:53 AM

Does anyone who's switched to the beta recently have a M'uru add tanking set they can compare? Or thoughts about how that tanking might change once 3.0 goes live?

Tappin · 09/12/08, 9:55 AM

Originally Posted by Valerian

Spec at 70:

Pure DPS
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000

Not terribly sure about this. Savage Fury and Improved Mangle are both fairly weak in terms of DPS. I'm not sure if Rend and Tear is better though. The numbers really need to be run on FB vs Rip I think. I had one free point that I threw into Infected Wounds for some utility but really this could go into Savage Fury or Imp Mangle I think.

That looks like kind of a hybrid build rather than pure dps. For pure dps, you could drop thick hide, instincts and infected wounds?

You're right about savage fury and imp mangle for dps. They would be useful soloing for dps, but there are lots of better talents for dps.

For group dps, Imp mangle is somewhere between 1/2 energy per second (mangle every 12 seconds) to 0 energy per second (another feral doing mangle). Similarly savage fury is a 20% increase on 0 to 1 moves per 12 seconds (18 with the new glyph).

I still plan to pick up the talents, but for bear. Savage fury is now the most bear threat per talent point you can get. And imp mangle ups threat a lot too.

Rend and Tear is pretty expensive for what you get, especially if you spend more time in bear form. Without the FB portion, it's 10% increased damage to about 30% of your damage, or about 3% more damage for 5 points. There are lots of talents that provide more the .6% dps per point and/or more use while tanking.

KytonKhans · 09/12/08, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Lolaan

This 49k armor cap assumes that they don't inflate armor again like they did in the burning crusade transition. Remember, the formula changes post 60. It may very well change post 70 and we'll be required to have more like 70k armor to cap out. Hard to know for sure at this point.

The gear we will recieve in WotLK will actually have less armor from what we have been seeing and the reason for this is because they removed crushing blows, thereby rendering the need for HIGH armor far less useful and the cap probably nowhere near 49k (although it may very well be).
WoW-Europe.com Forums -> No Crushing Blows in WotLK! Confirmed!

The problem i see is exactly what is being discussed here...
WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Tank Itemization: How Do Druids Compare?

Garanthir · 09/12/08, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by Thessaly

Does anyone who's switched to the beta recently have a M'uru add tanking set they can compare? Or thoughts about how that tanking might change once 3.0 goes live?

My initial thoughts are it will be better. With talents and the new racial it will be +~7% dodge right off the bat, plus you don't have to worry about def/res at all. I cannot log in at the moment, but when I do I'll post before and after stats if you'd like.

Emi · 09/12/08, 11:41 AM

And the Naxx 25 Feral Staffs are here !
DPS

Tank

A couple of observations :
- No expertise and no hit rating but has critical strike rating
- DPS and Tank have the same Str, Agil only the DPS staff edges by 1 stam (?!!)

I was actually expecting to see some hit and/or expertise on both staffs considering previous gear examples that we've seen. Expertise seems abundant but hit rating not as much.

TheNameLessOne · 09/12/08, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Skytor

Balance is getting (a possibly unfair share of) group/raid buffs, more interesting rotations and talents that look to be offering raid worthy DPS.

Careful about talking about balance like that. They are in just a bad as shape as ferals are, possibly worse. Its lack of clear direction (PVE wise balance is far worse than feral), terrible itemization and non-resto talents in the resto tree that both specs are forced to take.

On a slightly different topic :

Does Genesis also buff Rip? The wording on that spell is rather odd and Tossk's posts on the beta forum makes it sound like it does.

Skytor · 09/12/08, 12:03 PM

Sorry, was mostly going by hearsay there - balance has never been a spec thats held any interest for me in 3-4 years on my druid. (Its not just balance, i don't enjoy Warlock, SPriest or Ele shaman much either - just not the ranged nuker type)

bracul · 09/12/08, 12:04 PM

Since I can only find the linked screenshots above - does anyone happen to know which boss/mob will dropp it? (beta-wowhead didn't show any results, but maybe I just did something wrong)

Considering Grobbulus dropped "The End of Dreams'', I'd suspect that he could be the one being responsible for dropping feral loot. I hope it's a relative easy boss, so we won't have to wait that long to replace our Wildfury Staff

edit: My bad, due to some stupid filters of mine I missed some feral staves ~ But still, any other information about both staves?