Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 132

kalbear · 09/16/08, 6:11 PM

Wouldn't Maul benefit from the 4% increase in damage with Master Shapeshifter?

It would and does, kinda; maul has about 1/4th of the total threat it produces as innate, so you get a bit less than a 1% increase in TPS per 1% increase in DPS. In any case, the point is reasonable, but I'm presuming that 1100TPS is using maul. That's about what mine is on fights with unlimited rage.

Mijae · 09/16/08, 7:22 PM

Originally Posted by Malazaar

Mijae, could you please post the stats you are basing your calculations on ?

Sorry I don't have my current spreadsheet with me atm, but it has not varied to widely from what I have saved as "80 rare" and "80 epic" sets in what I posted. I think I added [Commendation of Kael'thas] and [Shadowmoon Insignia] for the 80 rare MT numbers.

I'm sure it's slightly off on some base values (crit and dodge) since i just added in a couple percent before. Previously these were identified as 24 agility for crit and around -35.15 dodge rating (I can't remember where I got these value from), but I'm sure this would have changed. I can't remember the exact differences I saw on the PTR last night, but they did not match. I was able to confirm diminishing returns on dodge rating, haven't figured how to implement it yet. I can calculate a best fit curve now, but that won't address how it scales to 80. I'll also need to identify how the base values change with level.

I assumed Sunder Armor and Faerie Fire would be converted to rating also, but testing shows this has not happened yet if it will.

Originally Posted by Tap

Mijae, are your Avoidance values based against mobs that are level 80, or versus ??? level bosses?

Numbers are based on level 83s. Again, base avoidance could be off and I have not accounted for diminishing returns on dodge rating - it's not huge but is there.

Targets are selectable on the sheet, I estimated boss armor to increase proportional with current boss mitigation values (to give equal damage reduction percent before ArP). However, I should probably add seperate generic high and low armor bosses ("Boss Average" takes a value 1/3 the way between low and high). My PvP targets were based on average armory data for relatively high rated players, so those have not been updated either.

Originally Posted by kalbear

They baked in the threat for bears as well. This was not mentioned in patch notes but was confirmed from blizzard comments. All 'improved' versions were brought as baseline, making druid threat in bear form a stock 45% increase.

Unless they've changed threat of our abilities drastically, 45% will only put us barely above dps.

5000 dps * .71 (cat threat) = 3550 TPS
3300 tps / 1.3 * 1.45 = 3680 TPS

kalbear · 09/16/08, 7:26 PM

5000 dps * .71 (cat threat) = 3550 TPS
3300 tps / 1.3 * 1.45 = 3680 TPS

Where are you seeing 5k DPS for cats? The only thing I've seen get remotely near 5k DPS on the Beta is rogues, and that's with poison being totally broken. Rogues aren't going to get 5k DPS, and neither are cats.

Agility is IIRC 40 agi to 1% dodge. It's stated upthread.

Vaeys · 09/16/08, 7:35 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

I don't believe this is implemented currently; it probably was a datamined spell that doesn't actually get applied. Salvation was baked in basically to tank's abilities by increasing the threat they output, usually by increasing the damage they do.

I may be misinterpreting what you're saying, however:

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Ghost: When does Warrior tanking get easier?

More recently in the beta, we did a similar thing with Salv. We pulled Salv as a blessing some time ago, so we baked even more threat into Defensive Stance (and equivalents for other tanks).

If this makes it easier to understand, imagine that everyone except the tank always has Perma Salv up and every tank has Defiance as a core ability.

This is separate to them increasing tank damage.

Mijae · 09/16/08, 8:18 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

Where are you seeing 5k DPS for cats? The only thing I've seen get remotely near 5k DPS on the Beta is rogues, and that's with poison being totally broken. Rogues aren't going to get 5k DPS, and neither are cats.

Agility is IIRC 40 agi to 1% dodge. It's stated upthread.

My spreadsheet is estimating 5K dps in full Naxx gear (3300 tps was also full Naxx tank gear). I highly doubt anyone is there yet. The ArP difference from sunder will reduce it some (potentially a few hundred dps), as well as if those base numbers are lower (possibly another 100 dps or so). However, I'm not yet counting in period energy gains from things like Replenish. I'm estimating 2k dps just from white damage alone. I'd be more than happy if anyone can point out other errors in my spreadsheet logic.

I was refering to base dodge, not the agi to dodge ratio. Blues have posted they raised our base crit and dodge 5%. This is in addition to some other base number, I'm guessing level based. Again, previously this was actually a negative number for dodge.

Mode · 09/16/08, 8:25 PM

Originally Posted by Mijae

Unless they've changed threat of our abilities drastically

They did. Testing over in the Warrior WOTLK thread has shown that warriors have a 207.35% threat modifier in defensive stance. It's very safe to assume you will have the same in bear stance.

kalbear · 09/16/08, 8:34 PM

Okay, Mijae - according to your spreadsheet a cat should be doing about 3800 DPS with lvl 80 rare items, right? That's nowhere near where they are on live. That alone tells me something is off. I'll try and look into it more, but your cycle is shred/mangle to 4/5, rip, shred/mangle to 5, FB, shred/mangle to 5, SR? Is that correct? And you've also got 4pT6 as a bonus?

There's got to be something off here.

Mijae · 09/17/08, 12:40 AM

Originally Posted by kalbear

Okay, Mijae - according to your spreadsheet a cat should be doing about 3800 DPS with lvl 80 rare items, right? That's nowhere near where they are on live. That alone tells me something is off. I'll try and look into it more, but your cycle is shred/mangle to 4/5, rip, shred/mangle to 5, FB, shred/mangle to 5, SR? Is that correct? And you've also got 4pT6 as a bonus?

There's got to be something off here.

I tried playing with Toskk's WotLK calc to compare my results. With the exception of OoC, our numbers are quite similar. Turning off OoC and all the mechanics he does not have implemented, for a 4 Rip / 2 SR rotation my sheet shows 30 dps higher (3696 vs 3726). With OoC mine goes up to 4225, Toskk's to 4102 (123 diff). Turning on all other mechanics puts mine up to 4872, then switching the cycle puts it over 5k.

Mechanics I don't see in Toskk's current calc: Ferocious Inspiration, Blood Frenzy, Improved Moonkin Aura, Bloodlust, Relentless/Chaotic Meta Gem, and Berserk. Assuming I have these implemented even remotely close, 5k dps does not seem unreasonable. Seeing this does give me slightly more confidence in the estimates.

I did however notice I haven't implement the R&T interaction with Rip uptime. Right now it assumes the target is always bleeding (which should generally be true).

Stats: 9534 AP, 52.65% crit, 94 hit, 12 dmg, 130 exp, 391 hst, 303 ArP, 9740 armor.

charriu · 09/17/08, 2:43 AM

Originally Posted by Mijae

Stats: 9534 AP, 52.65% crit, 94 hit, 12 dmg, 130 exp, 391 hst, 303 ArP, 9740 armor.

Just to be clear: 9534 AP is before SR?

Mijae · 09/17/08, 3:40 AM

Originally Posted by charriu

Just to be clear: 9534 AP is before SR?

Yes, those values were with full raid buffs before SR.

An interesting point... I updated the support for armor penetration of SA and FF being applied before ArP rating. The results make ArP flip-flop from the best stat to the worst (even lower than haste) when SA is applied. So, I've swapped all ArP gems to all Str gems and a few pieces of gear.

Stats: 10211 AP, 53.29% crit, 147 hit, 12 dmg, 160 exp, 396 hst, 62 ArP

It's also quite interesting to see how stat equivalence points can change drastically now when comparing the next 1 stat point versus the next 20 points (new epic gem amount). It also seems there are many points where what the best stat is changes depending on current stats. This can cause large differences in gear spreadsheets using this type of setup (Rawr does not).

I've updated my base crit and dodge values based on testing from PTR. These might change slightly at 80. Can anyone post naked, untalented base agi, dodge and crit at 80 (and for NE at 70)?

Duilliath · 09/17/08, 4:49 AM

Anyone else a bit surprised at those numbers ? I don't even hit that much crit currently in 4t6 raidbuffed and the impression gotten so far earlier in this thread would be that crit was taking a wee bit of a nose-dive at first.

Inaiwae · 09/17/08, 6:48 AM

Originally Posted by Mijae

An interesting point... I updated the support for armor penetration of SA and FF being applied before ArP rating. The results make ArP flip-flop from the best stat to the worst (even lower than haste) when SA is applied. So, I've swapped all ArP gems to all Str gems and a few pieces of gear.

I guess i am missing something - what is the deal with ArP and SA + FF? I checked the thread few pages back but didnt find an answer.

Kieran · 09/17/08, 6:53 AM

Originally Posted by Inaiwae

I guess i am missing something - what is the deal with ArP and SA + FF? I checked the thread few pages back but didnt find an answer.

Sunder Armor and Faerie Fire reduce effectiveness of the new Armor Penetration because both debuffs are applied before ArPen is taken into account (So your shiny 5% Armor Reduction per melee hit has less of an impact).

• Melthu · 09/17/08, 8:15 AM

Originally Posted by Inaiwae

I guess i am missing something - what is the deal with ArP and SA + FF? I checked the thread few pages back but didnt find an answer.

Just to clarify Kieran's post, Armor Penetration is being changed to become a rating. Instead of removing a static amount of armor it will now remove a percentage of armor based on your ArPen rating. Armor reducing debuffs like SA and FF, however, remove static amounts of armor, which reduces the effectiveness of percentage armor reduction from ArPen rating.

• Melthu · 09/17/08, 9:08 AM

It looks like we know where Blizzard is going with our itemization, particularly on the tanking side:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
I don't understand why it would be so hard to give rogues 2ap =1str, and add str to all rogue loot, making cats happier, and giving bears some more threat (there hasn't been any reports I've seen of bears being too good at building threat compared to other tanks, but admittedly this could be an issue).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Because of the way the Feral is designed, there are not a lot of knobs to turn. If we improve your Strength too much, bear dps might be too high (a problem we've had before), which infringes on not only cats but also other tanks. If your threat is too high, we have similar problems.

Imagine for a moment that you had one stat, Agility perhaps, and everything -- dodge, armor, crit, stamina, mana, etc. -- all derived from Agility. Obviously you would take nothing but Agility. And you would be a god. We would build a temple to your awesomeness in Zul'Drak with the other animal gods. And all the other classes would reroll. I exaggerate, but that is the risk with the bear especially (less so the cat). It's very easy to make bears too good, so in some sense we are keeping you in a state of denial. You want the gear that makes you the best, but if we let you have it, you're too good.

Now, we could change the way the Feral works, and to be fair, several posts have asked for that. We could make the bear care more about defense, parry and other stats. It might make our itemization easier, but it might also lose something special about the druid class. We like that you play differently. We like it when you pick up a ring and say "THIS is a great tanking ring," and have other people stop and ask you how that could be. We want druids to work differently, so we're going to try this system out this time. If it doesn't work then in a future patch or expansion we might try a different model where your stats are derived differently.

As WoW matures, it's easy to adopt the lazy designer syndrome and say that every spec needs a version of Mortal Strike, an interrupt, an intercept, a root breaker, as ranged stun, a bubble, a pet, a different form they can take on, a cheat death, an ice block, and so on. It makes the game easier to balance, probably even easier to design if we went that route, but we also think we'd lose what makes the classes cool and unique. I know it might feel like we're swimming upstream sometimes in order to protect that flavor, but consider how dreary the alternative might be too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
Your gear comparisons and comments seem to suggest that bears will be gemming for nothing but stam now, which leads me to be concerned that we'll become the mana soakers we strongly don't wish to be. I'd much rather have less of a HP lead over a warrior, while being closer on avoidance, than being 8k hp's over a warrior and running the healers oom from needing alot more healing :S
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As long as your armor is high, this shouldn't be a big problem. Part of the mana-soaker mentality came because you just ate crushing blows before. But those are gone. If anything, I worry sometimes that we'll have trouble challenging the healers with all of the different toys we have given them.

In short, we're going to be balanced around being OP but restricted by poorly itemized gear. I suppose if we end up balanced with everyone else it can work, but I'm not aware of any other class/spec balanced like this. I think this is a frustrating approach to take since you can see how powerful your character would be if only given the right gear. I'd prefer to have our base abilities and talents toned down but changed to make us scale with rogue leather and plate tank accessories so that we can be honestly excited about gear upgrades instead of feeling "Well, I increased my armor by 100 and agility by 10, but I sure wish I had some use for this parry and strength".