Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 171

kalbear · 10/01/08, 3:35 PM

Kalbear: using your latest case, of no additional return on jewelry and weapon(this one doesn't matter since it's unique to feral 5 time 500 is the same as 2500). That'll create another formula that favors our leather pieces. I don't see how this addresses scaling any better or worse than what blizzard did, aside from maybe number tweaking, so if you can explain to me a bit so I can understand more, I'd greatly appreciate it.

For starters, it means that there wouldn't be a dependence on jewelry having armor, which would allow more stats to be used for scaling. Dodge trinkets, stam trinkets, avoidance jewelry, etc - all could be utilized a lot more. That allows druids to effectively scale with more stats since they basically had to take jewelry before.

I admit though, that's a bit of handwaving.

Another reason it helps scalability is that it increases the time to armor cap, which is a concern.

The main reason that it helps with scalability is that it allows other things such as talents or stat conversions to take that armor's place. Right now you can't add something like AP->armor or AP->dodge (or even add parry to a bear) because they've got such high armor and those items exist. If they don't have as high of armor, you have many more options to improve scalability.

Promethius · 10/01/08, 3:46 PM

Doesn't starting out with too much armor actually hurt scaling? At 39924 armor, we've soft capped armor against a level 83, meaning we hit the 75% hard cap of 49905 with an inspiration or ancestral fortitude, assuming armor DR calculations remain the same. If druids are hitting 40k armor after the 1st tier in the expansion, we're now in the same place we were after T4 content in TBC. By the 3rd tier of raiding, we'll be armor capped and further on we'll be scratching our heads wondering how to drop armor to gain other stats because we've gone over the cap.

I don't think the armor nerf is bad from a balance perspective, though I disagree with where Blizzard is pulling the armor from. Blizzard should look into how to give the offensive stats on leather some amount of mitigation ability so that armor, agility, dodge and def aren't the only stats druids have as mitigation, especially given that our best stat, armor, goes from the most valuable to 0 use once it caps and defense is so weak in comparison to shield users. I assume it was deemed a bad idea since no one wanted to expand on it, but I still think modifying iLotP to become a self only, no cooldown, proc on any crit like primal fury, with a balanced amount of %hp/mana restore to work as a pseudo block, with the agi, crit, haste, expertise and hit ratings on leather mimicking block rating and stam mimicking block value, would be a good way to incorporate offensive stats as a means of defense.

Neddie · 10/01/08, 4:17 PM

Originally Posted by Malazaar

Are we even sure DKs want armor jewelry ? AFAIK they only gain 167% from Armor while we gain 517%. There is a _minor_ difference there. While DKs may desire armor to some extent, they are nowhere near as dependent on it as we are.

Not only that, but they get lots of armor already by wearing plate. Our leather shoulders have on the order of 300 armor on them, which is about the same as the Badge of Tenacity. A warrior's shoulders have more than triple that amount of armor on them.

Doing some really fast calculations based on random armory pages, the Badge of Tenacity adds about 10% to our armor, but only about 3% to a DK's armor.

I think they'll probably be somewhere in the middle ground between warriors and druids. Warriors see bonus armor on a ring/trinket/etc. and it doesn't do much for them, they look at all the other stats. Druids look at the armor on something and don't care about the other stats. Death Knights will probably end up caring a bit about both.

seminarca · 10/01/08, 8:37 PM

Having separate multipliers for leather slots vs jewellery slots is an unnecessarily convoluted solution. Removing armor from accessory slots is not feasible due to the ripple effect on Deathknights. I sort of liked Edgy's suggestion of removing armor on Feral staves, but that's not something that would quite work in practice either. Staves would still stratify towards being more tank oriented (higher stamina, expertise, hit) or more DPS oriented (lower stamina, no expertise, crit, haste, APen). While it would work in reducing Feral physical mitigation, it wouldn't necessarily result in less loot table clutter (or if they did end up removing weapons, we'd be complaining about lack of choice on how our DPS staves have too much expertise or our tanking staves don't have enough stamina).

It has to be done via skills or talents. Changing Bear to 370% makes the multiplier 5.17 with a 10% 3/3 Thick Hide. I think Promethius' suggestion of rolling Natural Reaction with Thick Hide and making the armor boost 1/2/3% is a good compromise. Leaving Bear at 400% with this new merged talent gives a 5.15 multiplier and frees up 3 talent points.

Kazanir · 10/02/08, 1:20 AM

Originally Posted by seminarca

Having separate multipliers for leather slots vs jewellery slots is an unnecessarily convoluted solution. Removing armor from accessory slots is not feasible due to the ripple effect on Deathknights. I sort of liked Edgy's suggestion of removing armor on Feral staves, but that's not something that would quite work in practice either. Staves would still stratify towards being more tank oriented (higher stamina, expertise, hit) or more DPS oriented (lower stamina, no expertise, crit, haste, APen). While it would work in reducing Feral physical mitigation, it wouldn't necessarily result in less loot table clutter (or if they did end up removing weapons, we'd be complaining about lack of choice on how our DPS staves have too much expertise or our tanking staves don't have enough stamina).

It has to be done via skills or talents. Changing Bear to 370% makes the multiplier 5.17 with a 10% 3/3 Thick Hide. I think Promethius' suggestion of rolling Natural Reaction with Thick Hide and making the armor boost 1/2/3% is a good compromise. Leaving Bear at 400% with this new merged talent gives a 5.15 multiplier and frees up 3 talent points.

This is a terrible plan because it continues to chain us to stats that either scale too well for our class, or don't scale at all because there is no item progression. The best plan is one of the following:

1) Remove armor from jewelry entirely. If that's not feasible because warriors and DKs need it, then

2) Change armor on jewelry to an "Equip: +X Armor" bonus. If that's not feasible because DKs need their multiplier, then

3) Restrict all "armor" rings/cloaks/necks to "Class: Warrior, Paladin, Death Knight" to effectively make them plate.

This would free bears up to use rogue/DPS jewelry instead of crappily itemized war/pal/dk defense/parry/block jewelry just because the second kind has armor on it. It would remove the possibility of being stuck with a blue trinket in T8 or T9 because there was no second epic upgrade. It would prevent us from always being forced to use whatever armor item is available because it's *just that good*. Having a stat that scales as well as armor does in unusual slots is not a healthy mechanic. You'd think we'd have learned that over the course of 4 years but apparently some of you guys are as dense as your fur.

nightcrowler · 10/02/08, 2:49 AM

Ok. I've finished simulations.

The following reports are for a full raid buffed feral druid at lvl 80 vs a lvl 83 boss.
Equipment = full t7.10 and heroics item.
Buff = All raid buffs, scroll, food, full enchanted and epics gems.

The cat report is for this spec:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000

The Bear report uses this:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000

Trinkets are averaged out into ap for cat while for bear I didn't used any "on effect" or taken into account thinks like barkskin and survival instinct.

All the simulation have a "latency" of 100ms.

I've supposend that +10%ap buffs stack with Savage Roar.
I'm not using FFF in the bear cycle, it need some testing.
The boss in the simulation has a swing timer of 2.0 seconds doing 40k damage x swing.
-------------------------

CAT (uses 4SR/ 2 x 5Finisher)

Ferocious Bite vs RIP, mob IS BLEEDING

Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 1, Rip debuff counter: 17
Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 2, Rip debuff counter: 15
Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 3, Rip debuff counter: 13
Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 4, Rip debuff counter: 11
Use Ferocious Bite if you have less than: 97 energy, Rip ticks: 5, Rip debuff counter: 9
Use Ferocious Bite if you have less than: 68 energy, Rip ticks: 6, Rip debuff counter: 7
Use Ferocious Bite if you have less than: 40 energy, Rip ticks: 7, Rip debuff counter: 5
Use RIP, ticks: 8, Rip debuff counter: 3
Use RIP, ticks: 9, Rip debuff counter: 1

Ferocious Bite vs RIP, mob is NOT BLEEDING

Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 1, Rip debuff counter: 17
Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 2, Rip debuff counter: 15
Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 3, Rip debuff counter: 13
Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 4, Rip debuff counter: 11
Use Ferocious Bite for any energy value, Rip ticks: 5, Rip debuff counter: 9
Use Ferocious Bite if you have less than: 95 energy, Rip ticks: 6, Rip debuff counter: 7
Use Ferocious Bite if you have less than: 47 energy, Rip ticks: 7, Rip debuff counter: 5
Use RIP, ticks: 8, Rip debuff counter: 3
Use RIP, ticks: 9, Rip debuff counter: 1

Aggressive Stats after all the buffs (full stacked raid + Bloodlust used 2 times in a 10 min fight and haste drums used every 2 minute)
_______________________

Cat (crit% vs. a boss (-4.4% added)): 50.0185%
Bear (crit% vs. a boss (-4.4% added)): 46.0185%
Cat (AP): 9552
Bear (AP): 7275
Agility: 1381
Strengh: 596
Intellect: 379
Spirit: 357
Mana: 7220
Average MP5 In combat: 181, Average MP5 out of combat: 374
Expertise: 39
Hit: 8.93565%
Armor Penetration: 3.76738%
Haste (from equipment): 4.54407%
+weapon damage: 14

Boss base Armor (before penetration and debuff): 10900
Boss modified Armor (after penetration and debuff): 5499.69
Boss Damage Reduction (after debuff and penetration): 26.5273%
Weapon Speed Reduction % (Total without Bloodlust): 22%
Missed % (Total): 0.064346%
Dodged %: 0%
Not normalized attacks parried by the boss: 0%

DPS: 5090.42 +/- 18.3512, (Min-Max variance: 16.9486%, Lower dps sample: 4716.24, Upper dps sample: 5579.85) , Cat: 100%, TPS: 3617.81

**************************************
CAT

White cat: 1774.96, Yellow cat: 3320.55
White: 34.8339% (SR: 24.411%)
Mangle: 4.20732% (SR: 19.7914%, Avg dmg: 4097.17, #/cycle: 1.57637), Shred: 27.144% (SR: 16.9341%, Avg dmg: 6829.22, #/cycle: 6.10153), RIP: 11.0973% (SR: 15.6824%, Avg dmg: 16016.6, #/cycle: 1.06362)
Rake: 12.2751% (SR: 17.3914%, Avg dmg: 6883.23, #/cycle: 2.7376), Ferocious Bite: 10.4424% (SR: 22.5652%, Avg dmg: 18251.5, #/cycle: 0.878289, Average Energy Usage: 38)
SR Total Value: 20.1641%, (RIP Value without SR)/(SR Value): 46.4043%, Savage Roar uptime: 91.7928%

**************************************

OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 94.4146%, Mangle debuff uptime: 89.6518%, Mangle-RIP debuff downtime: 0.0351383%
Average Cycle Time: 30.1265
_____________________________________

Defensive Stats after the buffs (vs. a raid boss, full stacked raid + Devotion Aura)
_______________________

Stamina (cat): 1571
Stamina (bear): 2356
Cat armor: 8221
Bear armor: 20938
Physical Damage Reduction Cat: 35.0823%
Physical Damage Reduction Bear: 57.0544%
Defense: 400
Chance to be critical hit: 0%
Dodge (cat): 35.531%
Dodge (bear): 35.531%
Miss: 9.4%
Total Avoidance (cat): 44.931%
Total Avoidance (bear): 44.931%
Total HP (cat): 23041
Total HP (bear): 30896

BEAR

Aggressive Stats after all the buffs (full stacked raid + Bloodlust used 2 times in a 10 min fight and haste drums used every 2 minute)
_______________________

Cat (crit% vs. a boss (-4.4% added)): 37.2895%
Bear (crit% vs. a boss (-4.4% added)): 37.2895%
Cat (AP): 8277
Bear (AP): 6636
Agility: 1249
Strengh: 686
Intellect: 379
Spirit: 357
Mana: 7220
Average MP5 In combat: 181, Average MP5 out of combat: 374
Expertise: 26
Hit: 1.58585%
Armor Penetration: 5.39126%
Haste (from equipment): 3.96462%
+weapon damage: 14

Boss base Armor (before penetration and debuff): 10900
Boss modified Armor (after penetration and debuff): 5406.89
Boss Damage Reduction (after debuff and penetration): 26.1969%
Weapon Speed Reduction % (Total without Bloodlust): 22%
Missed % (Total): 7.41415%
Dodged %: 0%
Not normalized attacks parried by the boss: 7.25%

DPS: 3001.06 +/- 11.4657, (Min-Max variance: 17.2607%, Lower dps sample: 2770.13, Upper dps sample: 3288.07) , Cat: 0%, Bear: 100%, TPS: 7037.56

**************************************
BEAR

White bear: 0, Yellow bear: 3000.72
White bear: 0%
Mangle bear: 14.4942%, Average Damage: 2736.31, Maul: 66.9555%, Average Damage: 4410.15, Lacerate: 12.0382%, Average Damage: 4413.26, Swipe: 6.51205% Average Damage: 675.126

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 99.6514%, Mangle debuff uptime: 95.9622%

Boss crit: 0%, Boss hit: 49.5208%, Boss miss: 50.4792%, Boss white dps: 2747.15, Boss average weapon speed: 1.91416 sec., Boss average parried attacks x sec: 8.33233%, Average Boss White DPS increase due to parry: 4.29218%
Chance to die: 0.164167% without heals in: 5 seconds

_____________________________________

Defensive Stats after the buffs (vs. a raid boss, full stacked raid + Devotion Aura)
_______________________

Stamina (cat): 2154
Stamina (bear): 3231
Cat armor: 11163
Bear armor: 36854
Physical Damage Reduction Cat: 41.9528%
Physical Damage Reduction Bear: 73.4532%
Defense: 412
Chance to be critical hit: 0%
Dodge (cat): 34.6721%
Dodge (bear): 40.6721%
Miss: 9.88%
Total Avoidance (cat): 44.5521%
Total Avoidance (bear): 50.5521%
Total HP (cat): 29521
Total HP (bear): 40291
Tank Points (hp equivalent with 0% avoidance, 0% Damage Reduction and without parry from the boss) (cat): 87945
Tank Points (hp equivalent with 0% avoidance, 0% Damage Reduction and without parry from the boss) (bear): 294303
_____________________________________

seminarca · 10/02/08, 3:21 AM

edit: @Kazanir

Only this time around, there is progression for items with these stats. You've got Offering of Sacrifice at the preraid level, and Defender's Code at the raid level for trinkets. There is also a clear progression path for necks, rings and cloaks with bonus armor. They are going to make sure gear upgrades exist across tiers, they have said as much. As for armor scaling too well, this is why they are looking at reducing armor multipliers (many have reported a stealth nerfed 370% Dire Bear Form multiplier on beta).

If not armor, what stat do you feel we should be chained to? Druid damage reduction only scales with 2 things (armor and avoidance), do you really care that much if it's armor? If you're wanting them to add some kind of a Druid:Warrior::AP:blockvalue mechanic, it's been suggested many times in the past both here and on the beta boards (by myself amongst others, so it's not like this is something that I am against or anything), but it's clearly something Blizzard isn't interested in. Realistically, it's not going to happen.

Yes, it does suck that the shared jewellery we are having to use isn't optimal, but the same could be said about melee DPS jewellery. It's generally not going to have as much Stamina as one might want for a tanking item (or if it does, DPS classes will complain about wasted itemization points). Not only this, but it puts you into direct contention with all physical DPS classes, Rogues, Hunters, DPS Warriors, Enhancement Shamans, Ret Paladins, Cat Druids, DPS Deathknights; while letting tanking jewellery rot. And this really makes more sense to you than having not-quite-perfect jewellery to use?

FYI, there is no WotLK item with bonus armor in the neck, finger or cloak slot that has Parry Rating, Shield Block Rating or Shield Block Value that I can find on wowhead (Shadow of the Ghoul is a "normal armor" cloak). Defense, of course, is going to be mostly wasted. I know you were probably referring to Ring of Hardened Resolve, but hopefully we're not going to see a repeat of that.

As for being forced to use certain items, I'm not certain that's a valid complaint to begin with. It's not like other tanking classes have tough decisions like this to make. I didn't see many Warriors mull over whether to drop their Band of the Eternal Defender or Band of the Abyssal Lord for a Ring of the Stalwart Protector.

Having a stat that scales as well as armor does in unusual slots is not a healthy mechanic.

One solution could be not having armor in unusual slots. Another could be not having armor scale as well as it does. Either would work, so I'm not sure we should be getting upset about the direction Blizzard has chosen.

Cluey · 10/02/08, 3:35 AM

Originally Posted by seminarca

Yes, it does suck that the shared jewellery we are having to use isn't optimal, but the same could be said about melee DPS jewellery. It's generally not going to have as much Stamina as one might want for a tanking item (or if it does, DPS classes will complain about wasted itemization points). Not only this, but it puts you into direct contention with all physical DPS classes, Rogues, Hunters, DPS Warriors, Enhancement Shamans, Ret Paladins, Cat Druids, DPS Deathknights; while letting tanking jewellery rot. And this really makes more sense to you than having not-quite-perfect jewellery to use?

Given that we appear to have too big a lead in the health department too this could fix two birds with one stone.
As for the competition on good rings or tanking stuff rotting I would be surprised if they drop in a one to one ratio, if the change were to go through then they might need to shift the ratio's a bit more or even have an item exchange deal like they do with the current Sunwell stuff.

Edit. Summing this up.
If we currently have too much armor and health changing the accessories to have no armor would allow us to use DPS rings which also have less stamina but less wasted item budget.
Basically if the tanking rings didn't have armor the main thing they have going for them is stamina, without the armor would they be good enough to use instead of a DPS ring?
I expect not so we could take the stamina loss, because we are ahead by a large margin already, and use rings with agility on them which happen to be DPS rings.

Personally I would prefer to not feel tied to accessories with armor on them because the armor makes them better despite the rest of the stats, excluding stamina, being mostly redundant.
It would also mean that my bear and cat rings were the same, along with most of my armor being dual purpose I would have bag space!
Sure there are always going to be items which are better for one than the other but a few items is better than nearly complete sets being different, there will still be resist sets taking up bag space too.

Cuer · 10/02/08, 5:08 AM

More from Ghostcrawler:

Druids mitigate a lot more damage at the moment than warriors do without any block at all. If DKs are low, improving their armor will have a similar effect. We just have to be careful, because DKs do have a lot of cooldowns, and it's possible they'll mitigate too much if we overcompensate.

Now, it's possible that block might eventually surpass druid armor for mitigation, but that makes a lot of assumptions based on fights, item levels and content in general that doesn't exist yet. We have done some comparisons based on theoretical gear, but it's going to be theoretical for many months.

Also remember that while avoidance is still dangerous to rely on as a tank, it is less dangerous than it used to be since bosses won't be doing back to back crushing blows. Druids were amazing tanks in BC even with crushing blows, and only started to fall down because they ran out of gear to improve their mitigation, hit the armor cap, and ran into Sunwell Radiance.

Hopefully these tweaks will help keep bears from "falling down" even earlier in this expansion...

Grubsnik · 10/02/08, 5:24 AM

Having +armor pieces ties Druids into using them exclusively. Seriously, the armor provided by trinkets/rings/neck/cloak/weapon provides more armor than the actual armor we are wearing. The benefit from them is so high that they could make all of those slots green items with just +armor on them, and we would still we wearing them over I-lvl 252 epics with no armor on them.

The current state of beardruids means i'll be tanking on my warrior come WotLK. Not because druids won't be good at tanking, not viable or fun, but simply because I can't work myself up to not having ½ an upgrade possible for me for every tier of raiding. I like choice, i like picking my own gear for tanking that suits my style. Sadly with a bear, i get the option of maxing armor or being stupid, so once again, i'm looking at running the same heroic 27 times, just because there is a best in slot item, and it's a non-raid drop.

Bah, too much QQ in this post. Essence is, dropping the overall armor scaling might solve bears vs. other tanks (and postpone hitting the armor cap). But it does nothing to address the tragic existance that is bear itemization.
Removing or lowering non-armor armor multiplier, would address both issues (most likely leaving bears taking too much damage, until they balance it out). Can they do it "trivially"? I should think so, someone else already mentioned that Deathknights are getting 166% armor bonus from non-armor pieces.

Yaelle · 10/02/08, 5:52 AM

Exclusive loot, like armor rings or feral stave's does have the advantage of being cheap when purchasing them for DKP.
I recall our defensive Warrior saying, I can put out all I want for off spec loot, because the defensive stuff is for free (minimum DKP) anyway. I seriously hope this is taken into consideration when making us deal with rogues, enhancement Shamans, Hunters, fury Warriors for our tanking leather and rings if they get their armor removed.

What I mean to say is, be careful what you wish for.

Korhaug · 10/02/08, 6:01 AM

Originally Posted by Yaelle

Exclusive loot, like armor rings or feral stave's does have the advantage of being cheap when purchasing them for DKP.
I recall our defensive Warrior saying, I can put out all I want for off spec loot, because the defensive stuff is for free (minimum DKP) anyway. I seriously hope this is taken into consideration when making us deal with rogues, enhancement Shamans, Hunters, fury Warriors for our tanking leather and rings if they get their armor removed.

They're going to calculate the loot tables to account for rogues and druids wanting leather, and rogues, druids, shamans, hunters, warriors, paladins, and death knights are going to end up rolling for it.

Prepare yourself accordingly.

Vaccine · 10/02/08, 7:23 AM

Leather is going to be the very last thing I bother to upgrade. Armour Rings/Neck -> Trinket -> Staff in that order. Once you get nax 10 t7 I don't see any rush to pick up 25 man nax stuff, the upgrade is so little it is kind of pointless, much rather save dkp for shared armour rings and neck, pick our feral staff and trinket for min dkp and coast along till whatever random leather/tier piece is going for min dkp.

The random leather pieces we actually want are the ones with stamina >= agility anyway and those pieces are the ones that won't be as big an upgrade for rogues as the ones with agility > stamina so I don't think the competition will be that big.

Selmarix · 10/02/08, 8:07 AM

Getting leather gear from arena and armor jewelry and weapons from raids is probably the best choice to gear up fast for tanking.
The arena leather is worse than the expertise leather gear but better than most of the other stuff.

Grubsnik · 10/02/08, 8:42 AM

Originally Posted by Yaelle

Exclusive loot, like armor rings or feral stave's does have the advantage of being cheap when purchasing them for DKP.
I recall our defensive Warrior saying, I can put out all I want for off spec loot, because the defensive stuff is for free (minimum DKP) anyway. I seriously hope this is taken into consideration when making us deal with rogues, enhancement Shamans, Hunters, fury Warriors for our tanking leather and rings if they get their armor removed.

What I mean to say is, be careful what you wish for.

DKP values are an artefact of your own guilds looting system. People using lootcouncils, fixed price dkp or whatever people choose to do, won't be affected.

Getting your tanking gear cheap is a measly bandaid for not having any choice in the matter in the first place.