Elitist Jerks Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion

10/28/08, 9:23 AM   #3316
pdpi
Von Kaiser

Tauren Druid

Argent Dawn (EU)
 Originally Posted by AForgottenTome 1) How much better is the [Treads of the Den Mother] over the [Footwraps of Wild Encroachment]? I notice it is an armor boost (which is big) but it seems like a fairly large effective health loss.
Irrespectively of the "ask in the Rawr thread" thing, there's one important thing to notice here. You're stating you get more armor, but less effective health, out of the trade.

The correct answer as to which to pick depends on the rest of your gear, and the content you're doing. First and most obvious, for resistance fights the armor is useless: go with the extra stamina. Then, if your effective health at present is enough to soak up incoming burst damage such that you're not at risk of getting insta-gibbed, the extra armor means more damage reduction, which means predictably lower damage incoming for your healers to go through (as opposed to the unpredictably lower damage incoming when you boost avoidance).

For fights where you, personally, are comfortable with the burst, but you're wiping to healers going OOM or having too much pressure, the extra armor is the right answer. On most progression fights, and generally anything that involves silly amounts of burst, the stamina is better under the assumption it provides better effective health. Whether or not it does will depend on the exact values and the rest of your kit.

As a side note, I didn't actually do the maths to check the actual values, but the way you offhandedly equated effective health with stamina leads me to think you're thinking of "health" not "effective health".

$EH= health \cdot (1 - DR)$

where EH is effective health, and DR is the guaranteed damage reduction you get (e.g, 75% maximum from armor, protector of the pack bonuses, etc).

10/28/08, 10:23 AM   #3317
Daboran
King Hippo

Tauren Druid

Twisting Nether (EU)
 Originally Posted by AForgottenTome Sorry but what is Rawr? I assume it is some kind of program for weighing stats but I have never been one for computations and all kinds of numbers, and honestly Parma ... why the attitude? Sure I may have been able to do alittle more research but I guess I'll google it =(

A major rule of the forum is "read the sticky" and "read the first post of the thread". After those two, read the whole thread, after that if you still don't find what you need, then post. Those places tend to provide answers to 95% of questions like the ones you have and are the reason that gear-related enquiries generate that sort of respaonse.

On a wider note, from your question you probably already know the answers. You only need enough HP to prevent a boss from instagibbing you before your healers can react. You only need enough threat to keep it off your dps. Every tank has to make gear choices based around those two factors. There's no "right" set of gear, only what is "right for you".

 10/28/08, 10:35 AM #3318 bobby_franx Glass Joe   Durotard Tauren Druid   Llane Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I've noticed that a lot of cat specs are skipping berserk for omen of clarity, whereas bear specs seem to always take it -- is there a reason for this?
10/28/08, 10:42 AM   #3319
• Melthu
Confused

Troll Druid

Alterac Mountains
 Originally Posted by bobby_franx Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I've noticed that a lot of cat specs are skipping berserk for omen of clarity, whereas bear specs seem to always take it -- is there a reason for this?
Omen of Clarity is the best talent for cat dps in the game. Any build that skips it will not be competitive in dps. However, OOC is of very limited use to tanking since you generally have more rage than you can spend anyway, so the free procs are worthless. Berserk, on the other hand, is great for building a nice threat lead at the start of a boss fight, so it's taken in almost every serious bear build.

 10/28/08, 11:56 AM #3320 Rorgg Glass Joe   Haunau Tauren Druid   Baelgun Let me explain why I took Berserk over OoC: 1. I tank more than I DPS and OoC isn't all that exciting for tanking, since either you don't need the free rage, or things aren't hitting you hard enough to matter; 2. Berserk's still reasonably good in catform; 3. OoC is great for leveling, but I think I can make it from 70 to 71 without it just fine. I handled 60 to 61 last time around; and 4. Berserk's a new toy and I wanted to play with it for a month. If I were committed to catform for the next couple weeks, then was going straight into the level grind, I may have gone OoC, but I sense there are a lot more calls to the bear to tank stuff coming, and probably still will be through the grind.
10/28/08, 12:26 PM   #3321
Oiysters
Von Kaiser

Tauren Druid

 but we are still vulnerable to aggro hounds who dps right away, while from what I've seen, other tanks are far less so.
We simply cannot out 'snap' a pool of aggro on the ground that lasts for 8 seconds that is created with a single button push on pulls > 3 mobs (assuming Maul glyph). The nerf to instances has made pallies even more desirable as instance tanks because dps players can be utterly retarded and not pull aggro on aoe pulls. Waiting 5 seconds for me to position the mobs and get a couple swipes in is seen as an inconvenience.

Ghostcrawler has stated that threat will be a factor again in LK, although less of one than in BC. Personally I'm looking forward to it.

 10/28/08, 12:47 PM #3322 kalbear Bald Bull   Fellhoof Tauren Druid   Balnazzar The threat/damage changes are amusing, to say the least. I'm doing consistently 1400 DPS as a bear when tanking KJ in cat gear right now, which is some absurd amount of TPS. I realize this is cat gear, not bear gear, but I'm finding that threat and damage scale incredibly well with AP now. Also, faerie fires can crit damage now. The crit appears to be based on spell crit, not melee crit; at least that's the only reason I can think that the crit rate is so much lower than any other ability over time (22% vs 40ish% on melee attacks). Something to at least consider when modeling its threat/damage and whether it's worth doing it on every 30 second interval on the dot.
10/28/08, 1:06 PM   #3323
Blazefire
Von Kaiser

Tauren Druid

Zul'Jin
 Originally Posted by kalbear Also, faerie fires can crit damage now. The crit appears to be based on spell crit, not melee crit; at least that's the only reason I can think that the crit rate is so much lower than any other ability over time (22% vs 40ish% on melee attacks). Something to at least consider when modeling its threat/damage and whether it's worth doing it on every 30 second interval on the dot.

I don't know what the case is, but it would seem to me that if it was based on spell crit, you wouldn't be getting 22% in feral gear. I'd expect something more along the lines of 10-15% tops.

Also, why a 30 second interval? The cool down for Feral Faerie Fire is 6 seconds.

 10/28/08, 1:37 PM #3324 manapaws Piston Honda   Päws Tauren Druid   Blackrock I'd have to agree with it being based on spell crit. It doesn't proc ILOTP either.
 10/28/08, 1:44 PM #3325 Thessaly Piston Honda   Thessaly Night Elf Druid   Kargath Has anyone figured out why we're getting "more powerful spell is in effect" errors with FFF? I had chalked it up to CoR or Hunter pets, but none of our Hunters use the appropriate pet/ability, and our warlocks decided not to show up last week, and I was still getting the message. I've even seen it in 5 mans, with a Hunter (cat pet, no armor debuff), Shadow Priest, Rogue (not using expose), and deep Resto Druid. Is it possible that it's somehow interfering with itself? I'll play around with it a bit once the servers go up.
 10/28/08, 1:47 PM #3326 Pharmacon Von Kaiser   Pharmacon Undead Rogue   Scilla Being that it is a spell (can't cast when silenced, can be resisted) pretty much has to be based on spell crit. 22% I would assume is raid buffed, although does still seem a bit high for feral gear unless you are stacking a lot of crit rating. The threat/damage modeling would be done on something around 35-40 seconds depending on how close you want to push the chance of letting the debuff fall as it is on a 6 second CD but has a 40 second duration. You won't be refreshing it every CD as there's much better ways to spend your GCDs. But 30 seconds isn't unreasonable either. I know I start refreshing debuffs more frequently once I have a nice threat lead.
10/28/08, 2:56 PM   #3327
Astrylian
Rawr

Night Elf Monk

Stormrage
 Originally Posted by Pharmacon You won't be refreshing it every CD as there's much better ways to spend your GCDs.
Not usually. FFF > Lacerate > Swipe for single target threat, even in Sunwell gear. With scaling, that may change, but that's how it is now, and looks like how it'll be for quite a while at 80.

Rawr!

10/28/08, 2:58 PM   #3328
kalbear
Bald Bull

Tauren Druid

Balnazzar
 I don't know what the case is, but it would seem to me that if it was based on spell crit, you wouldn't be getting 22% in feral gear. I'd expect something more along the lines of 10-15% tops. Also, why a 30 second interval? The cool down for Feral Faerie Fire is 6 seconds.
I do it every 30 seconds because currently it cannot be cast if it's up; I'll consistently get the 'more powerful spell in effect" message.

22% crit is probably reasonable raid buffed. Between moonkin aura, int, kings and random things that buff spell crit 22% seems close to reasonable, if a bit high. I'm just going off a night of raiding's overall value.

10/28/08, 3:07 PM   #3329
sordee
Priest for Hire

Sordee
Tauren Priest

No WoW Account
 Originally Posted by Melthu Omen of Clarity is the best talent for cat dps in the game. Any build that skips it will not be competitive in dps. However, OOC is of very limited use to tanking since you generally have more rage than you can spend anyway, so the free procs are worthless. Berserk, on the other hand, is great for building a nice threat lead at the start of a boss fight, so it's taken in almost every serious bear build.
I'm a terrible druid, and on my respec right before my first jaunt into tanking BT this weekend, I picked up OOC (along with Thick Hide which was the main reason for the respec).

Why? Because I hate dps cooldown based trinkets and rather prefer passive procs. And as it was, my first two weeks with berserk I was using it primarily to break fear/CC. Yes, OOC and its current proc rate is a must for Cat form.

As for threat boost on a boss? Didn't really have problem. Trash? A bit of trouble on the Ret Pallies. But for Mother and Illidan (the two I MT'd for) I had no problem with building a pretty decent threat lead within 5-6 seconds. (Yay for being the new tank with 0 Resistance gear)

10/28/08, 4:50 PM   #3330
Drashian
Von Kaiser

Night Elf Druid

Argent Dawn
 Originally Posted by kalbear I do it every 30 seconds because currently it cannot be cast if it's up; I'll consistently get the 'more powerful spell in effect" message.
On the "more powerful" bug, has anyone tested if it's because of temporary AP buffs? Since FFF damage scales with AP, it's possible that the "power" level of it is still determined by AP at casting too (like Rip), even though it doesn't actually affect the debuff portion.

 Elitist Jerks Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion