In regards to my earlier statement of Bear Stamina -> Armor...
I personally do not like the option, but I feel it is a good idea to highlight the possibility that Blizzard will take this route or a similar one to 'scale' us. Partially our conjecture will give us a head start when they do announce how our new scaling will take place.
I'm really hoping they give us new scaling either by converting parry rating and / or block rating (currently useless) into either Armor or Dodge. By converting those stats we can use jewelry and trinkets that the other tanks can, but I am thinking that the conversion would be complicated enough that Blizzard will likely avoid that option.
Stamina is already a defensive stats. What we really need is scaling with More stats, stamina is already our best scaling stats, having stam > armor conversion will make us goodly sponge, with all bears socketing and enchanting only stamina on gear.
AP will give us something different. From another point of view, making armor scales better with lether and/or other stats and trinket/rings nerf it's a pretty good buff for PvP.
To add to this note, being a mana sponge is also a huge disadvantage to the entire raid. More healers will have to focus on the tank, which means less healers on the entire raid, which clearly is not something you want.
Not necessarily. That depends on how much overhealing the healers to the tank are already doing and whether enough stamina is gained that safety can be maintained while using the same number of healers outputting the same amount of healing, more of which will actually heal the tank rather than overhealing (in which case the tank is only a mana sponge if one tries to maintain the same old overhealing rates or does not adjust to a worldview where one tank's health is allowed to fluctuate more than another's).
As a rule of thumb I'd tend to agree with you on the grounds of playing it safe, but whether it is really the case in a specific situation depends on a number of factors outside the straight survival vs. mitigation calculation.
Yep, I agree with Nightcrowler. As it stands at this point, armor scaling off of equipment based AP (excluding temporary raidbuffs) would be a good solution.
However, they have stated that they want to remove FAP at some point (recent blue post) and that could possibly lead to yet another rebalance of the numbers if the changes werent applied at the same time, something that easily can make old quest reward desicions and likes (hello Mark of Tyranny) invalid.
Dont get me wrong here, I approve of the AP to armor conversion idea as it stands now, but it may lead to problems further on.
I'm actually a bit surprised noone has picked up on the thing i mentioned earlier, which is that base armor seems to be scaling at a drastically reduced speed.
For 1.0 epic base armor was approx Ilvl*2,75 + 46
For 2.0 epic base armor was approx Ilvl*3+18
For 3.0 epic base armor is approx Ilvl*1+364
Essentially, the armor we are getting in wrath will only be seeing minor increases throughout wrath.
The same pattern repeats itself for platearmor, though with a ~4.3 mod on all values.
I'm actually a bit surprised noone has picked up on the thing i mentioned earlier, which is that base armor seems to be scaling at a drastically reduced speed.
For 1.0 epic base armor was approx Ilvl*2,75 + 46
For 2.0 epic base armor was approx Ilvl*3+18
For 3.0 epic base armor is approx Ilvl*1+364
Essentially, the armor we are getting in wrath will only be seeing minor increases throughout wrath.
The same pattern repeats itself for platearmor, though with a ~4.3 mod on all values.
how will that affect our scaling in wrath?
As it seems to be the same for the other tanking classes, i don't think it will affect our scaling at all - apart from that all tanks will scale worse than in BC.
Stamina is already a defensive stats. What we really need is scaling with More stats, stamina is already our best scaling stats, having stam > armor conversion will make us goodly sponge, with all bears socketing and enchanting only stamina on gear.
AP will give us something different. From another point of view, making armor scales better with lether and/or other stats and trinket/rings nerf it's a pretty good buff for PvP.
No offense but I am not trying to argue with you. Ap to Armor is the better option. I am not saying that Stamina to armor is the best way to do it. I'm simply trying to show another strategy that blizzard might try to take so that if they do go a Stamina based route we will have already run a few numbers, and have a head start on our thinking on it.
There is no one here who can change anything, so there is no reason to change anyones opinion on what is 'best'.
Anyway, if we were to look at this purely from Blizzard's viewpoint on what factors they are looking for when it comes to this change...
A. Must bring Bear tanks in line with Paladin and Warrior tanks (and possibly DK)
B. As little changes as possible to current gear
C. Must scale with Rogue Leathers
D. Scales as well as other tanks do (I'm hoping they are considering this one)
Looking at B. above we can pretty well assume that we will likely scale with a stat already heavily present in tier gear, and since there are a limited number of stats to choose from, we could probably very easily surmise a way for even those minor stats to convert to a defensive stat.
Now if we are to look at this from the viewpoint of appeasing factor A then we could find it likely that our general avoidance will go up to meet the other tanks, and they will leave our armor close to what the other tanks are sitting at. You can already see on our T7 set that they have lowered the stamina on our gear in comparison to Paladin, Death Knight, and Warrior T7 such that after our % boost for bear form we come out almost exactly in the same place that they do. So there is a chance that after the balancing, you will find that our Armor is the same, our Hp is the same, and our avoidance is also the same.
Obviosly I didn't want to be polemic.
My ap->armor idea went from those consideration:
- Stamina is already scaling "too well" for us, adding another scaling factor is not a good idea.
- agility is our second best scaling stats, if they increase agi->armor conversion we will gem/enchant only for agi and being back to tbc.
- defensive stats like dodge/parry/block/defense are only on warrior gear, but having us share all gear with rogues make more sense and expecially in a double spec point of view will partially avoid gathering different sets.
-Str is not on our gear so it's out of question.
So basically the only choce left are AP or simply armor or both. Actually i prefere both because I'd like the idea of AP trinket and gemming for streght. Obviosly it should be only AP from equipment.
As for the FAP removal from GC post, I've understand that they'll follow the simplier way of weapon-dps ->ap conversion, so our ap will be unchanged.
I'm still a bit curious as to why you think Stamina is our best scaling stat. Is it because it gives the most "mitigation" point or "survival" point? Despite the fact that these simulations offer great insight, assuming no incoming healing is something that just won't happen. Even before the agility changes, using stamina has been giving me more mitigation points and survival points in RAWR, but I think that's something that needs to be analyzed more closely. Going from 40k life to 50k life really isn't going to do much, while going from 40% dodge to 50% dodge can help healers, especially on fights that tank damage is predictable, and if the healers are good with cancel-casting now that mana is actually an issue.
I just want to see the argument behind the superiority of stamina against avoidance and see what I'm missing, not that I already assumed I will be 100% right on this issue.
No one is saying Stamina is our best stat. Just that it already scales the best, due to the Bearform modifier, HotW and SotF. Tying it to mitigation as well would just make it that much better. Similar to how good Agi was pre-patch, except even worse due to the massive multipliers on it.
Ignorance can be solved with a book. Stupidity requires a shotgun and a shovel.
Not saying it's a good idea, but there are other stats on rogue gear. Exp/Hit are bad choices to scale our mitigation on because they cap. Crit, however, doesn't cap. I could see them giving us some sort of short duration buff that increases mitigation, off crits. (That said, I still think AP is probably the better stat to give us mitigation from)
My guess currently is that they will tie it to Attack Power *from gear* and do it at the exact same time as removing the FAP on weapons. Those announcements came a bit too close together to really believe otherwise.
It's really the only consistent stat I can see that doesn't give problems elsewhere (either through capping or massive multipliers or simply a lack of presence on gear) and keeps scaling well throughout the tiers.
Ignorance can be solved with a book. Stupidity requires a shotgun and a shovel.
My guess currently is that they will tie it to Attack Power *from gear* and do it at the exact same time as removing the FAP on weapons. Those announcements came a bit too close together to really believe otherwise.
It's really the only consistent stat I can see that doesn't give problems elsewhere (either through capping or massive multipliers or simply a lack of presence on gear) and keeps scaling well throughout the tiers.
Hmm. Did I miss something about removing FAP from weapons? Is there a blue post on it? Can't find it here: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Druid Someone please link me to that change.
Hmm. Did I miss something about removing FAP from weapons? Is there a blue post on it? Can't find it here: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Druid Someone please link me to that change.
Hmm I did see something on the forum here about it. Must have reado over it.
Somehow on Bluetracker, for me at least, it is not in the Druid section. Kinda not updated yet since the 5th of November.
Thanks for the link. Now if I get a great mace I will keep it!
I think people are reading too far into this. They've stated many times that FAP is stupid and should be changed. I have not read anything that makes me believe they are actually fixing it any time soon though. They have only confirmed that it should be changed.
I think people are reading too far into this. They've stated many times that FAP is stupid and should be changed. I have not read anything that makes me believe they are actually fixing it any time soon though. They have only confirmed that it should be changed.
I disagree, I bet this is going to come out before the next season. I mean look at this staff. It's druid only, but clearly feral stats. Yet...no FAP.
That staff's been like that since the day beta opened. It means nothing, other than that someone forgot to check the FAP flag on that staff, and nobody bothered to fix it because it won't matter until a whole arena season later.
There was the same issue with WoWHead not showing FAP on some items at the start of TBC. All the items shown on the page are missing a proportion of their standard DPS for that iLVL already.
Otherwise the Deadly Staff should be around 200 DPS instead of 135.
Not saying it's a good idea, but there are other stats on rogue gear. Exp/Hit are bad choices to scale our mitigation on because they cap. Crit, however, doesn't cap. I could see them giving us some sort of short duration buff that increases mitigation, off crits. (That said, I still think AP is probably the better stat to give us mitigation from)
I believe that this option has been given a couple of pages before. The idea is to remove the 6 second limitation on improved leader of the pack (just on the bear that is giving the buff), so that crits work on a similar way as block works for shield tanks. If that change is viable, then we will have sort of a defensive ability that will scale with sta, agi, crit, hit, exp and haste... and all rogue gear has at least a few of those stats.
Hmm I did see something on the forum here about it. Must have reado over it.
Somehow on Bluetracker, for me at least, it is not in the Druid section. Kinda not updated yet since the 5th of November.
Thanks for the link. Now if I get a great mace I will keep it!
Blizzard dropped the old class forums and changed it to healing/tanking/dps forums which is why you can't find any note about it any more.
Hmm, giving us a bear-bonus based on our crit% (possibly having the proc chance scale with DR, without affecting crit itself), could be an interesting idea. Same goes for the "no cooldown on LotP" mechanic, though i could easily see that one becoming a problem in solo-swipe-tanking, where a bear might run into situation where we regen more than we ever loose, letting us do silly stuff. Resilience would also do it's part in keeping it in check, for pvp.
Hmm, giving us a bear-bonus based on our crit% (possibly having the proc chance scale with DR, without affecting crit itself), could be an interesting idea. Same goes for the "no cooldown on LotP" mechanic, though i could easily see that one becoming a problem in solo-swipe-tanking, where a bear might run into situation where we regen more than we ever loose, letting us do silly stuff. Resilience would also do it's part in keeping it in check, for pvp.
If that was an issue they could make it so it has no CD but can only proc X times a second or only a couple times per swipe. In the same situation, AKA one where you have a dozen+ low damage mobs you are swiping away at a paladin or Warrior will take far less damage than we will because many swings will be either wholly blocked or mostly blocked. Higher armor and HP is an advantage on the big swings but shield block shines on the thousand paper cut attacks.
They could always give us a ghetto block as well that scaled off crit or a percentage of crit. Perhaps a proc effect that every time we are struck we have X% chance(crit based) of reducing the next incoming attack by Y damage. Values would have to be determined considering we are likely to have a higher crit than the other classes will have block. I also have no idea how to determine the damage reduction scaling, it couldn't be strength because we have almost none on gear now.
Either would bring some parity in the situation of tanking vast numbers of targets. I still favor a no CD iLOTP. They could even set it so you receive the 4% we currently get every 6s only but every crit gives 1% regardless of how many crits you get. its doubtful you would get enough crits for that much to get out of control unless tanking a pack that a warrior or paladin would take little damage anyway.
I highly support no cd to ImpLoP, if it's too much healing they can alway decrease the healing recived, that added to AP -> armor conversion. Will make us finally full use of roguish gear giving us also a unique way of scaling.
Probably the cut value will be a 1% of total health with 50/100% chance to proc.
They could always give us a ghetto block as well that scaled off crit or a percentage of crit. Perhaps a proc effect that every time we are struck we have X% chance(crit based) of reducing the next incoming attack by Y damage. Values would have to be determined considering we are likely to have a higher crit than the other classes will have block. I also have no idea how to determine the damage reduction scaling, it couldn't be strength because we have almost none on gear now.
I personally prefer this idea compared to the no CD on imp LotP. The problems I see with having no cd on imp LotP are:
- possibilities of absurd aoe grinding
- overhealing
- being vulnerable to Mortal Strike effects
I'd like to see a pseudo-block affect that scaled off of our crit and AP. Taking from your example, we could have Y be a percentage of AP. It also has logical parallels to warrior/paladin block mechanics with crit rating -> block rating and AP -> block value.
So, just using rough ballpark values, it would be something like:
"You have a 50% chance each time you crit to reduce the damage of the next physical attack received by 10% of your Attack Power"
Won't FAP removal be a big hit to SR and all those talents we have that give us %AP increase? Predatory Stikes and Heart of the Wild are mandatory feral talents.
11/09/08, 5:42 AM
