Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 145

Beace · 09/20/08, 8:20 PM

I'm guessing it has to do with keeping tier and non-tier pieces similar for us. If they designed our tier set "perfectly", then all of a sudden all non-tier leather rogue pieces would be useless unless it had a lot higher item level.

It kinda sucks, but also makes sense. If they've made the decision that we're to use rogue gear, they also have to give our feral druid tier pieces rogue stats.

Skytor · 09/20/08, 8:22 PM

GC stated in respose to the question of STR instead of AP something close to:

If we put STR on druid only leather it becomes strictly better than leather shared with rogues and will be the only items sought after by druids. Leaving druids in the current position of only wanting Tx pieces out of each raid and none of the intermediate upgrades.

manapaws · 09/20/08, 9:51 PM

Originally Posted by Tappin

Manapaws: on beta, how is threat compared to dps classes? On trash? On bosses? I ask because I find myself comparing the threat provided by talents like shapeshifter, rend and tear, improved mangle, etc. If we're in no danger of losing threat, though, it's probably more important to ask what provides more survivability in bear or dps in cat.

I don't have any working threat meters on there to get an exact figure, but I dont remember a single aggro pull on beta so far. Either while dpsing or tanking. If the 'swimming in rage' factor remains true, we'll be mauling every single swing (and I like improved mangle for frequency, not sure if others agree) then threat is going to be great.

Edit: Speaking of beta, quite alot of the necks and rings I've seen from heroics, heroic badges and from raids are of the format:
strength
stamina
defense rating
dodge rating
hit or expertise.

Although as bears, we don't get a whole heap from strength (perhaps if we had a bit of it tho we could use more surv talents and less threat talents as per Tappin's post) and from defense, what are everyone's thoughts on items of this format? Stamina, dodge and hit/expertise has it's obvious uses while tanking. Perhaps some substandard stats are worth it to get the great stats the rest of the item has on it? I also have the feeling blizzard doesnt want to put any agility on tanking loot because of the dual use bears get from it... then we'd *only* go for these pieces and not take any intermediate upgrades - similar to what another post above me said about strength on dps gear.

Nitz · 09/20/08, 11:31 PM

They just should convert all existing AP to Strenght and adjust classes conversion instead of adding another stat that does exactly the same thing but in green.

halmmar · 09/20/08, 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by Skytor

GC stated in respose to the question of STR instead of AP something close to:

If we put STR on druid only leather it becomes strictly better than leather shared with rogues and will be the only items sought after by druids. Leaving druids in the current position of only wanting Tx pieces out of each raid and none of the intermediate upgrades.

But if they gave us less STR (so it becomes the same with kings) they could have given us some INT on our tier sets.
68+35+4 = 107% base mana to cast rebirth, innervate and go back to cat form. A tiny bit of INT would help.

Merendel · 09/21/08, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by halmmar

But if they gave us less STR (so it becomes the same with kings) they could have given us some INT on our tier sets.
68+35+4 = 107% base mana to cast rebirth, innervate and go back to cat form. A tiny bit of INT would help.

True but after AI and kings and mark you should be at at least 130-140% of your base mana even if you have 0 int from gear. I recall they talked about a mana regen component on ILOTP for the feral when it procs although I dont remember if they put it in yet or not. been testing boomkin the last couple days I'll have to go back feral and play around agian.

manapaws · 09/21/08, 1:13 AM

Originally Posted by Merendel

True but after AI and kings and mark you should be at at least 130-140% of your base mana even if you have 0 int from gear. I recall they talked about a mana regen component on ILOTP for the feral when it procs although I dont remember if they put it in yet or not. been testing boomkin the last couple days I'll have to go back feral and play around agian.

Yes it is in, but it's extremely difficult to fit ilotp talents into a pve build.

Falk · 09/21/08, 1:21 AM

Originally Posted by xpuntar

Yeah right

Look at those PTR changes on heavy clefthoof set

Blizz changed armor bonus into dodge rating while defense is still there? I mean WTF. Why do feral druids even have a talent to remove defense from feral tanking itemization, then?

Random blue of the Beast post 3.x WILL BE better for tanking that this.

... The defense was there because those items were designed during TBC where you can't get immunity from talents? Why are you expecting a top polish job on retroactive itemization when there's still so much work to be done on WotLK itemization?

Obviously leatherworking crafted items in WotLK are going to be good for tanking in WotLK. Case in point: trollwoven - Wowhead Search

Sure, the Sta:Agi ratio could be higher, but they're excellent upgrades over anything in TBC.

coredumperror · 09/21/08, 1:33 AM

The new Malygos kill quest rewards have me even more worried about feral tanking itemization than I already am:

Every green stat on the tank neck is worthless to a feral. You could take the DPS neck, and get ~2% dodge, but that's all the survival stats you'd get. Is there some other equivalent tanking neck that has feral-friendly stats?

Falk · 09/21/08, 1:36 AM

Yes. Boundless Ambition drops off KT: Amulets - Items - World of Warcraft

Prone to RNG, but hey, you give and you take. At least you won't have to decide between a DPS neck and a tanking neck for the quest reward. :P

Edit: BTW, we're not getting anywhere near 2% dodge with 40-odd agility at 80. That screenshot is misleading.

manapaws · 09/21/08, 1:38 AM

As i mentioned previous, the necks/rings have very little if any agility. I'm almost curious if it'll be worth taking the dps option in most cases. Most of it has fairly decent stamina, and agility is pretty win for us - even with the ratio nerfs.

Am i out of my mind here, or is that the direction we're heading?

Yes. Boundless Ambition drops off KT

I'm not sure if that's a raid or heroic, but I'm curious if guilds will allow druids to loot raid items with defense over those who can get more use from it?

edit: spelling.

Falk · 09/21/08, 1:44 AM

The way I see it, tanking itemization for druids in wotlk is going to be pretty convoluted, but workable.

Your main sources of income are as such:

Body slots - Stam/Agi, secondary threat i.e. crit/haste/expertise
Non-body slots - Armor/avoidance, secondary threat i.e. strength

You'll be crazy not to load up on armor on the non-body slots regardless what other stats are on them, as they're going to make up *a much more significant chunk of our total armor* compared to TBC. This is from two factors: No more bonus armor on body slot items, and the abundance non-body slot armor items, i.e. introduction of armor necks, and a plethora of armor trinkets (i.e. you can have two, instead of just BoT in TBC)

Editedit:

Originally Posted by manapaws

I'm not sure if that's a raid or heroic, but I'm curious if guilds will allow druids to loot raid items with defense over those who can get more use from it?

It's from Kel'thuzad 25, which is equivalent to Gruul if Gruul were the endboss of an introductory 25-man raiding zone. Druids have the fallback option of the JC neck - Titanium Earthguard Chain.

Also turn that idea on its head - would guilds allow non-druids to loot raid items with armor over druids who gain 5x as much out of it? Also just as important to note is that while our agility ratios have been nerfed out of orbit to something more reasonable, we still gain a shitload more out of straight stam than the other tanks. Blizzard has to take that into account when designing items.

I guess who loots it will really depend who's tanking more often. Remember: The current design paradigm regardless of current situation/beta build is for all 4 tanking classes to be able to MT. This is way, way, different from the design paradigm in TBC.

Ultramax · 09/21/08, 1:53 AM

Deathknights will probably want any jewelery with armor on it as well.

Falk · 09/21/08, 1:55 AM

The bottom line is, as long as we don't see something that has both armor and block rating on it, I'm going to assume Blizzard knows what they're doing. Or at least if the current build is failing, what they want to do.

Niton · 09/21/08, 2:34 AM

Originally Posted by Falk

The bottom line is, as long as we don't see something that has both armor and block rating on it, I'm going to assume Blizzard knows what they're doing. Or at least if the current build is failing, what they want to do.

With both the Malygos-10 and Malygos-25 quest reward necks being pure Paladin/Warrior fodder, it's still midly concerning. You'd expect the quest rewards to be the most generic items of the lot, yet they seem to be about as specialized as they could be. Warriors and Paladins have use for Armor, as influenced by design choices for items such as [Ring of Hardened Resolve] - you'd expect one of those two rewards to be at least useful to all 4 tanks, if not favoritized.