Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 133

Duilliath · 09/17/08, 9:29 AM

I saw that quote as well. And quite frankly, it doesn't make me real happy to know that the Devs say "Nah, we'll keep your gear crap so we're not giving one of a plethora of options just to keep you balanced". What fun. New gear drops and it'd be better off in the hands of everyone else.

nightcrowler · 09/17/08, 10:15 AM

I've updated my calculator with the latest patch and used Naxx-10 level gear to run some simulation.

I've posted a very long post with all the rating, mechanincs, simulations in different situations and so on.

I'll post here only some consideration. If moderators think that I can copy & paste my posts here I'll do, I just don't want to fill a page with my post.

You'll find the full post here: WoW-Europe Forums: Feral by Night Simulations

X theorycrafter above: You'll find there all the lvl 80 vs boss mechanics tested.

High armored boss:

4SR/5RIP/5FB: 4379 dps
2SR/5RIP: 4292 dps

Low armored boss:
4SR/5RIP/5FB: 4749 dps
2SR/5RIP: 4644

Bear vs High Armored boss:

Rage starved: 1961 dps, 2477 tps
Unlimited rage: 2781 dps, 4641 tps

Tank specced druid doing dps in dps gear/cat form using 2SR/5RIP cycle:

2934 dps without naturalist and OOC
3983 dps with naturalist and OOC.

Seing that number I think I'll go for this spec: lvl 80 Bear Spec
that allow me to tank efficiently while doing only about 7-10% less dps than a cat-druid.

Anaram · 09/17/08, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Melthu

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'd say the last time they did that to a significant extent (for someone other than feral) was in the very early days of level 60 play where agility and attack power could not be on same piece (with a few notable exceptions which were used for that very reason for a long long time). That's why early rogue tiers have strength instead of agility.

Of course, if we look at druid argument of strength against attack power that's really no different than plate classes have been dealing with for a lot of their item slots (getting attack power instead of strength - they'll probably have to keep dealing with that).

Of course there's the odd other examples such as crit being shoveled at shadow priests or spell penetration on mage tiers (or spirit being thrown around in general).

tlbj6142 · 09/17/08, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

Seing that number I think I'll go for this spec: lvl 80 Bear Spec
that allow me to tank efficiently while doing only about 7-10% less dps than a cat-druid.

No fair, that was going to be my spec! I still have a hard time believing that 5/5 PI > 5/2 MS. You theorycrafters say its so, but I keeping thinking something has to be wrong. As it just seems like 4% Crit, or DPS/TPS (for bear), would be better than 10% extra damage on a crit. But, I trust you guys.

So, which DPS rotation would you use with your build? The last one you mentioned 2SR/5RIP? Are you considering any Glyphs in your rotation? Or is that all posted in your wow forum post (I can't see it a work)?

Skytor · 09/17/08, 11:13 AM

Thats a great looking piece of work - any plans to release the source code for your simulator?

As it stands the 7-10% gap beteen cat and bear spec just doesn't seem big enough to meet the goal of having Bear druids and Cat druids.

Did you do a run that tests the value of OOC alone?

Depending how much of the 1000dps difference is OOC i can see denying bears enough points to reach it being the key way of differentiating Cat/Bear spec - even if it means pushing it even deeper into resto.

Selmarix · 09/17/08, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by Duilliath

I saw that quote as well. And quite frankly, it doesn't make me real happy to know that the Devs say "Nah, we'll keep your gear crap so we're not giving one of a plethora of options just to keep you balanced". What fun. New gear drops and it'd be better off in the hands of everyone else.

The problem is mainly that with that method of balancing class balance can vary greatly depending on if the itemization team decides to provide you with a certain type of gear in a certain tier or not.

In vanilla WoW that happened in many slots with greens, blues and epics that had a high amount of armor.

In TBC certain quest greens and blues had that property at the start and items like Badge of Tenacity and the Kara exalted ring were very powerful throughout all tiers.

In WotLK there is no epic armor ring at the moment, only blues and greens and even the TBC epic armor rings are still viable choices. If they don't add any epic armor ring then feral druid might wear a blue ring for several tiers.

So while this adds flavor to feral druids, it also greatly reduces choice and the chance to upgrade your gear.

dukes · 09/17/08, 11:17 AM

It depends on your crit%, but a flat crit% bonus technically doesn't scale, while the crit damage bonus will scale with your crit percentage. When you consider the benefit to snap threat and longer term threat considering that we will be tanking in what is effectively DPS gear (i.e. relatively high crit percentage) and the bonus to mitigation (however small) from AoE avoidance, I think PI wins out over 5/2 Master Shapeshifter.

slant · 09/17/08, 12:02 PM

I was disappointed to read that the developers are intentionally balancing a spec around poor itemization. I find it surprising given their generally well thought-out high level goals for the expansion. They may not realize all those goals, but they pretty much all make sense-- except for this one.

Malazaar · 09/17/08, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by slant

I was disappointed to read that the developers are intentionally balancing a spec around poor itemization. I find it surprising given their generally well thought-out high level goals for the expansion. They may not realize all those goals, but they pretty much all make sense-- except for this one.

I guess the priority is to make the spec work, however messy it might turn out. I don't like it either but as long as it works i can live with it.

Better than having good items and dealing with screwed up mechanics like in BC.

slant · 09/17/08, 12:11 PM

I wouldn't exactly call itemization in TBC fantastic. Look at feral tanking weapons for a good example. Ferals used a faction reward (earthwarden) until we picked up a random zone drop from tier5, a tier that was largely skipped for the past year or so after attunements were removed. After that there were no clear upgrades until we started capping stats through other gear and just didn't need tanking weapons anymore, and started tanking with DPS weapons. That's not good design, and I always assumed it was an oversight.

But it wasn't. It was intentional!

nightcrowler · 09/17/08, 12:11 PM

Replying to previous posters about my model:

Yes PI wins out over 5/2 Master Shapeshifter. From a dps point of view they are about the same for cat druids but you also have 15% AoE resist.

As for 7-10% difference as I said in my WoW-forum topic the difference is using a spec with Naturalist and OOC (sacrifing Demoralizing Roar and ImpLoP) if you don't take Naturalist and OOC the difference is about 30%.

As for rotations: for a Bear specced druid (No R&T) 2SR/5RIP is better, you'll trow in 1 or 2 FB x fight when you use Berserk.

Code: I'll release the code here in some days, I just need to translate some piece of comment (I'm italian) and erase some old unused parts.

Pharmacon · 09/17/08, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Anaram

I'd say the last time they did that to a significant extent (for someone other than feral) was in the very early days of level 60 play where agility and attack power could not be on same piece (with a few notable exceptions which were used for that very reason for a long long time). That's why early rogue tiers have strength instead of agility.

Of course, if we look at druid argument of strength against attack power that's really no different than plate classes have been dealing with for a lot of their item slots (getting attack power instead of strength - they'll probably have to keep dealing with that).

Of course there's the odd other examples such as crit being shoveled at shadow priests or spell penetration on mage tiers (or spirit being thrown around in general).

Spriest crit
"We'll be increasing Mind Flay's coefficient (base) by roughly 30% to start, and allow Mind Flay to crit. We may also do some tuneups to the Shadow tree as well, but as other players have mentioned the tree is really not the problem, just the base spells not scaling.

Hopefully we can get the new Mind Flay in the next build, but allowing it to crit involves rebuilding the spell completely, which may take some time."

Spirit
Can't find the quote but blues have stated Blizz wants to go back to people having to think about mana conservation unlike is the current issue in TBC. Hence changes like potion sickness.

As for spell penetration, I can't speak to that end as I haven't seen anything about it (or know much about it anyways).

Centarion · 09/17/08, 1:36 PM

Anyone thought of a n SR/5FB already? I'm actually too tired to make a calculation, but having a warrior giving you the bleed shouldn't be too difficult...

edit: Nevermind, found it in Nightcrowlers post... Though the difference of 10dps seems to be quite low

Astrylian · 09/17/08, 2:02 PM

I haven't seen it mentioned here, and I don't know if any of the 3 calculators take it into account or not... but currently on beta, SR doesn't stack with UR/AbomMight. Since we're pretty certain to have one of those, SR is effectively +30% AP, not +40%. I'm guessing this is a bug though, and should be reported to Blizz, if anyone has the chance. (Same with Trauma overwriting Mangle)

kalbear · 09/17/08, 2:50 PM

I posted this on the beta forums, but I figured that more eyes on it would be nice. I'm very troubled with the best tanking gear coming from pvp. The long and short is that it looks like PvP gear is going to be better for tanking (or at least very, very comparable) relative to tier gear at any level.

Gear name	agi	stam	sockets	AP	crit	resil	exp	hit	haste	arpen
DeadlyLegs	84	102	RB	134	51	66				
T725legs	85	102	RY	154	55		42			
Infectious S	77	87		200	72				50

The Tier legs win out again, barely edging the deadly legs thanks to more expertise. NOte that the infectious skitterer leggings are worse than the 10-man loot for bears. This is disappointing, as it means bears will not have a particularly good set of options to choose from.

DeadlyGloves	67	75	B	100	31	39				
T725gloves	59	75	R	114	50				37	
Dislocating H	55	75		150			38	50

The PvP gear wins again, having more agility. Note again that the dislocating handguards are strictly worse than the 10-man loot for bears.