Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 166

teiglin · 09/30/08, 8:35 PM

Originally Posted by Garanthir

World of Raids words it like this;

Protector of the Pack - Now reduced damage per party member by 1/2/3% instead of a flat 3% for all ranks.

Edit: Bleh that looks like the old tooltip.....

Is it the same? That implies that it used to be the full damage reduction for only one point, which would have just been silly. If that's true, then this change is just a fix of a dumb mistake on Blizz's part, not a nerf. Either way, it appears to be 12% for 3 points, still.

Malazaar · 09/30/08, 8:37 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

I would believe all of the rake is bleed, but I admit the tooltip is confusing:

I would also imagine that the main effect of this would be to remove rip entirely from the rotation. If you can keep a rake up and gain CP, you should be able to do something like mangle->rake->shred to 5cp->SR->(rake->shred to 5cp->FB) (with mangle inserted as needed). From earlier indicators the primary reason to do a rip was to keep the bleed debuff up, but if rake can do that instead there is likely no need for rip, at least on lower-armored targets.

The idea of doing no rips and ferocious bites as a cycle is more than a bit odd.

I haven't run the numbers for lvl80 yet but at lvl70 rip was by FAR the best ability in terms of damage per energy - so why would you ever leave it out ?

Rake being buffed is very welcome, AFAIK all of Rake is considered bleed (at least the initial part also ignores armor) so the damage with mangle up is pretty much:

(1351 + 0.19*AP)*1.1*1.2*1.3 = 2318.3 + 0.326*AP

Shred, as a comparison is:

(742.5 + 0.161*AP)*1.1*1.3*1.2 = 1168.0 + 0.253*AP

This is before crits though (which will do little for Rake but wonders for shred) but even with 50% Crit it looks like this:

2513.9 + 0.353*AP for Rake

1868.8 + 0.405*AP for Shred

For AP < ~12000 this already means more damage for Rake than Shred and this is not even considering that Rake is 35 Energy vs 42 Energy Shreds (assuming Ferocity).

So i guess we'll have to find a way to implement Rake in our rotation now.

Edit: Totally forgot R&T, fixed now.

Edit2: Also keep in mind that shred is modified by armor so rake will probably surpass it by a fairly big margin under realistic conditions.

Vaccine · 09/30/08, 8:40 PM

Originally Posted by teiglin

Is it the same? That implies that it used to be the full damage reduction for only one point, which would have just been silly. If that's true, then this change is just a fix of a dumb mistake on Blizz's part, not a nerf. Either way, it appears to be 12% for 3 points, still.

Yes in the last beta patch 1 point in it got you the same mitigation as 3 points, it was just the bonus AP that scaled.

I think this change is just that it now scales mitigation too and that it is still a 3 pointer. MMO champ lists it as 1/2 on their front page but the updated talent calc is 3 points.

seminarca · 09/30/08, 8:47 PM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

Yes in the last beta patch 1 point in it got you the same mitigation as 3 points, it was just the bonus AP that scaled.

That was just an incorrect tooltip, 1 point only got you 1% per party member. You needed 3/3 for 3% per party member.

teiglin · 09/30/08, 8:59 PM

Thanks for clearing that up, Vaccine and seminarca. Whether it was a bug before or not, the updated tooltip behavior seems more reasonable anyway.

@Malazaar:
That math is very helpful, thanks. I'd like to add though that based on your numbers with 50% crit, your mob only needs to have ~13% armor reduction before rip scaling will once again overtake shred's in terms of damage per GCD (relevant only during omen of clarity procs I guess -_-). In terms of DPE, rake gets just over 1% of your AP per energy, and shred gets .96% of your AP per energy, again at your 50% crit numbers. So clearly rake is a winner.

I don't really understand what you mean when you say "i guess we'll have to find a way to implement Rake in our rotation now." It seems as simple to me as "use rake if we need to use a cp generator and rake is not ticking." Am I missing something?

Malazaar · 09/30/08, 9:10 PM

Originally Posted by teiglin

I don't really understand what you mean when you say "i guess we'll have to find a way to implement Rake in our rotation now." It seems as simple to me as "use rake if we need to use a cp generator and rake is not ticking." Am I missing something?

You want to make sure rake gets the full benefit of mangle. But i guess with all the recent changes (and the buff to mangle) we will be back to perma-mangling anyway.

Also here's a complete table of Damage per Energy numbers relative to AP.

This is with 15% Damagereduction through target armor and 40% Critrate.

AP	Claw	Rake	Mangle	Mangle Imp	Shred	Shred RnT	Rip	Rip +4s	Bite	Bite RnT/Agg	Pounce	Ravage
5000	32.47	118.46	60.54	67.27	71.52	85.83	224.22	298.97	131.26	212.15	85.80	77.44
7000	38.40	137.56	72.40	80.44	85.29	102.35	252.82	337.10	158.94	256.88	96.10	90.13
9000	44.33	156.67	84.26	93.62	99.06	118.87	281.42	375.23	186.62	301.61	106.39	102.81
11000	50.26	175.77	96.12	106.80	112.82	135.39	310.02	413.37	214.29	346.34	116.69	115.50
13000	56.19	194.87	107.98	119.98	126.59	151.91	338.62	451.50	241.97	391.07	126.98	128.18

(RnT = Rend and Tear, Agg = Feral Aggression)

Rake is far superior to any other CP-building move, the gap between Mangle and Shred is a lot smaller now (especially with imp mangle) and Rip needs the Glyph to surpass a fully talented Bite.

Edit: Running preliminary numbers i would propose this 'cycle':

- Keep up SR continiously (preferably with 4+ CP)
- Rake every 9 seconds (make sure you have the energy in store)
- Mangle every 18 seconds (if you have the glyph and no other mangle/trauma source)
- Rip every 16 seconds (assuming the glyph)
- Shred in between whenever possible

According to my napkin math this is very close but doable (in terms of CPs) with 40% crit. No room for FB though.

Edit2: Those numbers for the finishers above are all for 5 CPs.

teiglin · 09/30/08, 9:28 PM

Thanks for that--I'm very glad to see math on FB vs. Rip (been too lazy to do it myself >.>). Wowhead makes it look like they fixed rip scaling so that it gains more AP at 5pt than 4pt, so I assume all your finishers are 5 and not 4+?

I see what you mean about rotation, but yea, I think our "rotation" will be less consistent than the shed to 4+->rip->mangle. I envisioned it as keep mangle up if no arms warrior, (now) keep rake up, then if 5CP SR->rip->FB, shred if <5CP. Will a three-finisher cycle be possible?

An interesting corollary is that 2t6 talented mangle is now within ~5% of RnT shred in terms of dpe. The stellar combination of rake buff and mangle buff means that, until I'm 80, I won't need to bother with stealth openers--mangle, rake, mangle, mangle, fb, win.

dlanod · 09/30/08, 9:28 PM

Originally Posted by Garanthir

Also I meant to add if you pop Berserk while Mangle is on it's cool down (not GCD the 6 second CD) you'll have to wait for that CD before it goes instant. Not sure if that is intended or a bug.

It's consistent with how other classes' skills work - I've been betaing my hunter as SV, and a Lock and Load proc while Explosive Shot is on cooldown has exactly the same behaviour as you've described there. Not going to comment on how easy/hard it would be to change because that'd be entirely dependant on how Blizzard's back-end code is set up.

Felyae · 09/30/08, 9:37 PM

Originally Posted by Malazaar

Rake is far superior to any other CP-building move, the gap between Mangle and Shred is a lot smaller now (especially with imp mangle) and Rip needs the Glyph to surpass a fully talented Bite.

What energy did you assume for a Bite? I assume 35? Can you add the dmg/energy ratio for the "bonus" energy->dmg conversion of Bite? Thanks.

Valerian · 09/30/08, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by Malazaar

- Keep up SR continiously (preferably with 4+ CP)
- Rake every 9 seconds (make sure you have the energy in store)
- Mangle every 18 seconds (if you have the glyph and no other mangle/trauma source)
- Rip every 16 seconds (assuming the glyph)
- Shred in between whenever possible

According to my napkin math this is very close but doable (in terms of CPs) with 40% crit. No room for FB though.

Numbers for other CP versions of FB would be good. The cycle above seems to me like there'd be some wasted combo points every second cycle (since SR lasts 2 full rip cycles). It may be worth it to throw in some lesser combo point FBs if they turn out better than shreds.

coredumperror · 09/30/08, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by teiglin

The stellar combination of rake buff and mangle buff means that, until I'm 80, I won't need to bother with stealth openers--mangle, rake, mangle, mangle, fb, win.

Don't forget the value of Pounce's stun, and the complete inability of the attack to not land if you're hit capped. Since I open with Pounce while leveling right now (I just hit 77 in Zul'Drak), I have 0 downtime, even to heal myself, since I take less damage than iLotP heals me for. It's also a lot of fun to be able to stunlock mobs from 100% to dead. Pounce leading into Maim for more shreds is much more fun than spamming mangle, too.

Mijae · 09/30/08, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by Malazaar

This is with 15% Damagereduction through target armor and 40% Critrate.

Rake is far superior to any other CP-building move, the gap between Mangle and Shred is a lot smaller now (especially with imp mangle) and Rip needs the Glyph to surpass a fully talented Bite.

Edit: Running preliminary numbers i would propose this 'cycle':

- Keep up SR continiously (preferably with 4+ CP)
- Rake every 9 seconds (make sure you have the energy in store)
- Mangle every 18 seconds (if you have the glyph and no other mangle/trauma source)
- Rip every 16 seconds (assuming the glyph)
- Shred in between whenever possible

According to my napkin math this is very close but doable (in terms of CPs) with 40% crit. No room for FB though.

ArP rating is already a the worst stat for us and adding more bleed damage with the buff to Rake will make it even worse. With just ArP from sunder/FF, boss damage reduction is closer to 20% for low armor bosses and 27% for high.

Crit ratings will also be higher raid buffed - around 45% in blues and a few over 50% in epics.

Tappin · 09/30/08, 11:19 PM

So with a rotation including rips and rakes, ArP and crit are not as good for us as other classes. Our low white hit damage means we scale worse with hit and haste and expertise. Who would share our gear if that's the case?

So basically we like Str, AP and agi? It seems like long term scaling and itemization will be difficult again with this.

Solution: reduce yellow damage and increase white damage. We now care more about all of those other stats. Maybe we don't care 'as much', but at least they're not drastically worse.

Brute · 10/01/08, 12:43 AM

Glyph of Maul 'works' now, in that its hitting 2 targets. Its too bad Blizzard never figured out/implemented a fix to allow cleave/frontal multitarget attacks to not break cc because the dmg output with mutlti target maul, berserk and swipe is quite amazingly fun right now....

Deathwing · 10/01/08, 1:04 AM

On the PTR, rake's initial hit doesn't seem to be affected by mangle. Anyone else noticing this? DOT portion definitely is.