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.
Depends on the implementation.
A talent of passive skill that says "Your AP in bear/cat form is increased by 14 times the base dps of your equipped weapon minus 55.4" will provide exactly the same final AP. Ghostcrawler hinted at such a conversion.
Another way is to somehow rebalance those talents and abilities with a lower AP to work with.
It's all speculation on our part at the moment, but I believe what they were talking about was a system where you get (Weapon DPS - 54.6) * 14 AP. This would give the same basic scaling as current FAP weapons, preserve the scaling effects of talents and other abilities, but at the same time open up many other options for gearing. Not that, in the end, it will matter anyway, all raiding druids will be using the same 2-3 weapons depending only on which drop they've gotten and personal preference, and I'm sure we'll have a debate exactly like the Brutallus Pillar vs Wildfury vs Stanchion debate. The only difference would be that Hunters/Ret/Arms hate us for taking their gear instead of everyone hating blizzard for giving them 5 feral staves.
Ex. assuming it was a staff, [Shivering Felspine] would also give 1201 FAP, making it an amazing looking catform weapon
If there were a direct weapon-dps -> cat-dps conversion, and if they change the modifiers, wouldn't we benefit from AP-buffs like anyone else?
now we have lets say 4k AP. A buff of 200 AP would mean a 5% buff.
if we only have 2k AP, a buff of 200 AP would mean a 10% buff.
regarding the AP-dependent self-buffs and dots, that wouldn't change anything, but would our white damage raise?
Why should we benefit more from AP, unless they also change the way our abilities scale ? The reason we didn't scale well with AP buffs was because our abilites scaled badly with AP, not that we had much of it.
Guys, as MT of my old guild i did about 95% of the tanking in raids, we did full BT (illi past-nerf tho). Now, having said so, i aint exactly used to doing kitty dps anymore. My question is that i need to be grinding to 80 from wednesday on, would my current gear gear/spec be fit for such?
My original thought about grinding is not sneaking up by mobs and pounce-mangle-... but doing chainpulling with FFF and mangle/FB m to death for I find this to be more time-efficient. Read most of this post, havent found an exact answer to my question yet tho. Considering i got both cheap mangle and imp FB with the T6 im curious how you guys think about this.
Hope i didnt offend any rule or anything, its my first post. Ty for the help
If you have 4t6 mangle spam + FB is the best way to grind content to level 80. The difference between shred and mangle if you have both improved mangle and t6 bonus is really little.
I leveled to 77 in the beta with gear very slightly better than your own, so here's my suggestion:
With your gear, you almost certainly will find that the Pounce->Mangle->Shred opener, followed by either FB or Maim->Shred, will be fastest for leveling. The small amount of time you lose by not bothering to stealth will be more than made up for by the complete absence of downtime, as you'll take barely any damage due to keeping your targets stun-locked. Imp LOTP will more than make up for the piddly damage you're taking. For that strategy, you'll definitely want [Glyph of Shred], Brutal Impact, and as many points in Rend and Tear as you can spare, because you'll always be attacking a bleeding (pounce), stunned target (pounce/maim), giving utterly ridiculous bonuses to your Shreds (I've seen 6k Shreds at lvl 62 against clothy mobs in Borean). I'd recommend taking Omen of Clarity instead of Berserk until 71 (when you can have both), so that you can sometimes get off that extra shred before the Pounce stun wears off, often killing your target without any need for FB at all.
I currently use the FFF pull, mangle spam + FB technique for dailies because that's still faster against the lower armor, lower HP mobs in Outland, but it's not nearly as effective against Northrend mobs.
While we're on the topic, has anyone tried bear AoE grinding as a leveling strategy? Not because I think bear spec will be at all necessary for tanking Northrend leveling instances as long as you're starting out with high quality BC gear, but between infinite-target swipe and glyphed-2-target mauls, I've had a fair bit of success pulling lots of mobs around level 70 even without Protector of the Pack. Obviously it only works for non-caster mobs when there's plenty in the vicinity, but unlike our prot paladin friends, we can still deal with those situations as a cat. It would also mean having some handy bear talents like PotP for soloing 2-3 person group quests.
I only really leveled my shaman on beta, so I never had a chance to try it out.
The future of this thread & the Feral Druid Megathread
With WotLK around the corner, the difference in discussiontopics between this thread and the Feral Druid Megathread is tending to zero. In order to keep the discussion in one place, it stands to reason that one of these threads is discontinued and the other has its starting post updated (the FDM currently has solely pre-WotLK information, while this thread only lists the changes to Ferals in WotLK). I'm willing to update the starting post of this thread to make it a better introduction like the FDM starting post is for pre-WotLK. On the other hand, dukes (FDM starting-poster) might be planning on updating his first post.
I'll send dukes a PM to find out what he thinks, but in the meantime, suggestions for (re)organization of the first post of whichever thread we decide to stick with are welcome.
edit: dukes mentioned that he had already resigned from updating the FDM, so i'll be looking at updating his FDM-startingpost for WotLK. Any tips, comments and suggestions on how to improve on its current format are probably best handled through PM to reduce the noise in this thread.
In response to the recent possible changes, and basically summarizing other people's ideas as well as reflecting a little of my own (so maybe the random blue person wandering these forums can catch it more easily)
-To offset the armor changes on jewelries, trinkets, and feral weapons, a conversion from AP to Armor is going to be the best solution. First of all, this matches the theme of offensive (threat and DPS) and defensive stats benefitting each other. For warriors and paladins, strength translate to AP (offensive) as well as block value (offensive and defensive), for a paladin stamina (defensive) also translates to spell power (offensive). Second, AP is going to be the most prevalent stat on leather gear since we share such gear with Rogues, which will ensure bears scale at the proper level.
Possible concern about this will be bears using DPS jewelries as tanking jewelries since it has Agility and AP, which will both translate to best defensive stat for a bear, as opposed to strength and defense that are prevalent on tanking pieces. I personally DO NOT have a problem with this: it thins our need to carry 2 sets of gear or loot whore gear over other people that can use it in order to function well as a hybrid class that can excel in both roles.
In terms of Feral attack power and shared weaponry, giving bear and cat form the passive ability to convert weapon damage to AP using mentioned formula: 14 * X - base weapon DPS is a very solid idea, as it opens up maces for ferals to use. This will probably be a good time to re-allow druids to use polearms- I never saw the issue of this to begin with.
I'd be happy to supply someone with all the technical info and changes required, to update and maintain a new Feral Druid Megathread. (Though we may want to consider splitting Cat and Bear?) I just don't have the time to maintain it myself what with Rawr, work, and raiding.
In terms of Feral attack power and shared weaponry, giving bear and cat form the passive ability to convert weapon damage to AP using mentioned formula: 14 * X - base weapon DPS is a very solid idea, as it opens up maces for ferals to use. This will probably be a good time to re-allow druids to use polearms- I never saw the issue of this to begin with.
The easiest thing to do would probably simply be 'Weapon DPS * 14' and set base damage to 0 instead of the somewhat random number that never continued to scale.
I'd happily trade Fist Weapon (main) for Polearms. Or be given the option to actually use offhand Fist Weapons, like all other classes that can use them. I have my doubts that'll happen as it'd open a whole new can o' worms.
Ignorance can be solved with a book. Stupidity requires a shotgun and a shovel.
No. Hence Boevis' addition of "Assuming it was a staff."
I am blind. Argh.
The purple shiny thingy deceived me.
On the cat leveling tactics. I expect to do some instances in WotLK. Since most my tanking gear is T4 I have specced tanking. I will loose some dps, but since I will try leveling together with my Girlfriend who is balance druid tanking seemed more appropriate.
My current tactics on dailies is cat, even with tanking spec. Just mangle till they are dead. Not often I have to use FB (depends on level). FFF + mangle is good. but also charge + Mangle is nice. Even faster cause you save time on travel!
Dpssing as bear is not really an option. Speed is just 100% (and not increased). Mostly you are fighting one mob. However if you get multiple mobs, bearform with the new Swipe is very good. If berserk is ready you can choose to go bear and get 4 or 5 mobs and nuke em down.
Ranassha, as I said earlier it might be a good idea to have 2 threads, but instead of 2 similar threads follow blizzards forum approach. Split the druid thread in DPS and Tanking.
Cooperate with Dukes and make 1 combined opening statement or make 2 opening statements, let the discussion begin on comment on those.
And as I said, (beaten to it by Astrylian) split em in Cat and Bear.
The easiest thing to do would probably simply be 'Weapon DPS * 14' and set base damage to 0 instead of the somewhat random number that never continued to scale.
I'd happily trade Fist Weapon (main) for Polearms. Or be given the option to actually use offhand Fist Weapons, like all other classes that can use them. I have my doubts that'll happen as it'd open a whole new can o' worms.
subtraction of base weapon "cat paw " damage is the same as "setting it to zero". So we have the same ideas here.
I think dual wielding is a little hairy because it requires additional formula of converting offhand weapon damage to have 50% damage penalty. In addition it opens up druids to too many weapon options (which is a valid concern, as most classes have limited number of weapons they can choose from). The pole-arm idea is just to give druid another option now that we're trying to integrate hunter, paladin, warriors, and druid weapons.
As for maintaining a readable Feral Druid Megathread, I would be willing to do it, or help it, as long as the most current and correct theorycrafting are provided.
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"
That would still leave us with the only potential of a single block per GCD and auto attack. This would be much weaker than shield block. If a shield user has 30% block chance he has a 30% chance to block each swing from the 10 mobs he's tanking. he could reasonably expect 3 blocks every 1.5s if that was the mob's swing time, if the RNG is nice it could be all of them. Your method we would have 1 block every 1.5s (swipe would always proc it with 10 targets) and possibly a second block if maul crit. Unless the crits could build up charges of block it would not scale with number of targets like shield block does.
I support the splitting of the new thread into separate DPS and tanking threads. Would make it easier to find relevant information.
The removal of FAP would be a pleasant change. They could also allow us to use pole arms again instead of fist weapons. Fist weapons do looks cool and all but we can't see them in forms any way. Also we have very similar weapon stat desires with hunters and it would be good to share weapons. What with the stated desire to consolidate drops.
The ILotP no cd idea is excellent. Very original and would help greatly but as stated most likely need to be slightly modified.
AP --> armor conversion is solid. Between the two changes it would be a great way to enable bears to have better scaling and still have unique mechanics. As I have no desire to simply be a furry warrior.
Ranassha, as I said earlier it might be a good idea to have 2 threads, but instead of 2 similar threads follow blizzards forum approach. Split the druid thread in DPS and Tanking.
Cooperate with Dukes and make 1 combined opening statement or make 2 opening statements, let the discussion begin on comment on those.
And as I said, (beaten to it by Astrylian) split em in Cat and Bear.
I'm personally not too fond of the idea of 2 separate threads. For me Cat and Bear are still very much tight together and i think alot of Ferals will strongly consider using the "other" feral build as their secondary spec once that feature becomes available.
In any case, i've started updating dukes' original FDM opening posts with WotLK info. That stuff is already divided in a cat and bear section, so the final decission on 1 or 2 threads can be done once i'm done writing the updates.
I'm not a fan of the idea of splitting into 2 different thread either. The difference between the two seems to be slight in both terms of gear and talents that completely separate discussions may miss.
I've been parsing both threads and breaking bits and pieces that I consider relevant to me. If anyone has other information that they want to send me, I might consider forming/maintaining such a thread. I'm not jumping in line thought ... only expect me to do it if someone else hasn't done it in a week.
My "dps" gear is 4/8 t6 and 2/5 t4 for the bonus. When can i change the t4 pieces for higher dps? I didn't play on the beta and I just checked the healer gears
btw i was resto and i'm not really updated my knowledge about feral druid dpsing so maybe there are some better items atm then the t4
My "dps" gear is 4/8 t6 and 2/5 t4 for the bonus. When can i change the t4 pieces for higher dps? I didn't play on the beta and I just checked the healer gears
btw i was resto and i'm not really updated my knowledge about feral druid dpsing so maybe there are some better items atm then the t4
Thanks!
First of all, 2 t4 proc chance will decrease as your level increase, reaching 0% at 70. Second, 2 piece T4 isn't really worth it when you're spending more time running around. So what I'd do is change those t4 to better pieces right now if you're able, or as soon as you enter wrath.
I know I personally am currently running 2t4, 4t6 and right around the hit cap with a draenei (which i'll also have leveling with me) and planning on dropping the 0 +hit peices of t4 for s4 gear with a bunch of +hit when my hit % drops low enough to justify it. If i can get a t6 belt this week though, I'll be doing 4s4/4t6 all the way to 80 probably. For leveling, runspeed is just vastly better. The only reason I don't do that anyway is I do have to wait for the hunter I'm leveling with to catch up.
I'm not a fan of the idea of splitting into 2 different thread either. The difference between the two seems to be slight in both terms of gear and talents that completely separate discussions may miss.
I've been parsing both threads and breaking bits and pieces that I consider relevant to me. If anyone has other information that they want to send me, I might consider forming/maintaining such a thread. I'm not jumping in line thought ... only expect me to do it if someone else hasn't done it in a week.
I'm already working on a start-post, so unless you're really eager to do it, it's probably best to prevent double work
11/10/08, 6:49 AM
