Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 226

Rhaegal · 10/31/08, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

- group: when I have a Shadowpriest proccing misery (i suppose it's called misery the +3% hit buff) I had "a more powerfull spell is already active" bug. This is a real bug, they are probably considering FFF<ImpFF<Misery, but misery doesn't give armor debuff so the should be really stacking (please report to beta forums).

Minor correction: FFF does stack with Misery... sort of. As has been mentioned (and I've confirmed from testing on live), if you apply FFF before Misery, you won't be able to overwrite it. If you wait until your s.priest casts something before putting FFF into your rotation, you can refresh it every CD.

Still, that doesn't change your point that it's due to buggy debuff stacking. Another solution would be to just make it so all buffs/debuffs could be "active" on a target, but only the strongest ones from one category would actually affect the mob/player, allowing multiple-component buffs/debuffs to do what they need to do without worrying that one of their aspects isn't as powerful as another buff/debuff that's already up. This sort of thing is sort of already in game, just doesn't really work right--consider the IQD zone buff. If you're in a group on the island and a priest casts improved fort, you all gain the new buff and the difference in hp between normal and improved fort, and you retain the int bonus. But if you're in a group with a priest before you go to the isle, it sees that you have improved fort and doesn't overwrite it... leaving you without the AI portion of the buff. My guess is that is derived from the same stacking issue that's causing our FFF problems at the moment.

nightcrowler · 10/31/08, 9:57 AM

Originally Posted by Grubsnik

Just for the heck of it, i also did the math for [Inherited Mark of Tyranny], it comes out at ~5.6% extra TTL, ahead of the darkmoon card, and any other tanking trinket found in Wrath...

well no. There are 2 heavy armor tanking trinket in Wotlk that are better than Mark of Tyranny and Badge of tenacity.
Defender's Code
Offering the Sacrifice

halmmar · 10/31/08, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

well no. There are 2 heavy armor tanking trinket in Wotlk that are better than Mark of Tyranny and Badge of tenacity.
Defender's Code
Offering the Sacrifice

I guess the point would be to compare against any trinket without armor.

I can't see why Ghostcrawler thinks bears will use trinkets without armor because of threat problems. With abilities like Tricks of the Trade threat won't ever become an issue for single-target bosses.

Harrygoz · 10/31/08, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by halmmar

I guess the point would be to compare against any trinket without armor.

I can't see why Ghostcrawler thinks bears will use trinkets without armor because of threat problems. With abilities like Tricks of the Trade threat won't ever become an issue for single-target bosses.

There are still the possibilities of threat-reducing abilities, the need to multitank (ie ZA bear boss/Void Reaver)
Presumably they do testing a few tiers ahead of what is in game, so threat might still be more important later on

Grubsnik · 10/31/08, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

well no. There are 2 heavy armor tanking trinket in Wotlk that are better than Mark of Tyranny and Badge of tenacity.
Defender's Code
Offering the Sacrifice

The comparison was meant vs. non-armor trinkets in WotLK, it's true they at least had the decency to include 2 armor trinkets in WotLK, but that still means once we get our paws on those, we are pigeonholed once more.

Some other posters had the notion that just by getting higher i-lvl trinkets, the armor trinkets would fall behind. So i found an ilvl 63 blue armor trinket and compared it to the "best" ilvl 200 epic non-armor trinket.

Since Offering the Sacrifice is ilvl 200, should we expect an epic of ilvl 337 or higher, before we get it replaced.

Really looking forward to spending all of wrath wearing blue gear, again...

halmmar · 10/31/08, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by Harrygoz

There are still the possibilities of threat-reducing abilities, the need to multitank (ie ZA bear boss/Void Reaver)
Presumably they do testing a few tiers ahead of what is in game, so threat might still be more important later on

Void Reaver you could pretty much tank alone. You could also let DPS warriors pull aggro and tank him in their dps set because he hit so weak. ZA bear is tauntable.
Other fights include Gruul, Gurtogg Bloodboil or Eredar Twins.
Gruul offtanking was just about having high enough armor to survive the big hits (we're talking pre-nerfs now). Bloodboil is just really trivial since he hits like a pussycat (it's the DoT that hurts - his damage is low even with -10000 armor from his debuff) and the fight is just about balling around threat (but he's really easy to build threat on since you can control how many debuffs you get (which controls how much rage/sec you get)).

Of couse you will want some good threat trinkets for trash and the occasional fight focused on threat or dps (twins seems to be the only progression fight in TBC that I'd use threat gear rather than survival - even with vigilance up I can't do full dps as tank-speced kitty on that boss). You'd also want a nice dodge/stamina trinket for some elemental tanking (but you'd never ever use it on mobs that do physical damage).
So yes, for your survival set, you pretty much won't upgrade your armor trinket until you get one with a higher ilvl. And I doubt you'll have issues with threat on the multi-tank fights even if you do use trinkets/jewellery that stack armor.

• moz · 10/31/08, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by halmmar

Void Reaver you could pretty much tank alone. You could also let DPS warriors pull aggro and tank him in their dps set because he hit so weak. ZA bear is tauntable.
Other fights include Gruul, Gurtogg Bloodboil or Eredar Twins.
Gruul offtanking was just about having high enough armor to survive the big hits (we're talking pre-nerfs now). Bloodboil is just really trivial since he hits like a pussycat (it's the DoT that hurts - his damage is low even with -10000 armor from his debuff) and the fight is just about balling around threat (but he's really easy to build threat on since you can control how many debuffs you get (which controls how much rage/sec you get)).

I think his point was new encounters that use similar mechanics. At this stage of the game I doubt anyone cares about those old fights, most everything is trivialized now anyway. Things like %-based deaggro, multi-tank fights etc., will be sure to return in the expansion in one form or another.

ajthebest · 10/31/08, 2:03 PM

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

Stamina (bear): 3231
Cat armor: 11163
Bear armor: 36854
Physical Damage Reduction Bear: 73.4532%
Defense: 412
Chance to be critical hit: 0%
Dodge (bear): 40.6721%
Miss: 9.88%
Total Avoidance (bear): 50.5521%
Total HP (bear): 40291
Tank Points (hp equivalent with 0% avoidance, 0% Damage Reduction and without parry from the boss) (bear): 294235

--------------------------------------------------------

I didn't really understand how the bear had 73.45% DR against physical attacks when it only has 36.9k armor. Isn't the cap something like 50k against level 83 mobs?

kalbear · 10/31/08, 2:12 PM

I didn't really understand how the bear had 73.45% DR against physical attacks when it only has 36.9k armor. Isn't the cap something like 50k against level 83 mobs?

This also includes protector of the pack and any other related benefits.

ajthebest · 10/31/08, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

This also includes protector of the pack and any other related benefits.

Assuming Devo was already included...37k armor should result in around 55% DR. Add Potp to that.. if the boss hits for 10k per swing:

5500 pre-potp
5500 - (5500*.12) = 4840

so you have a physical DR of 55+6.6 = 61.6%. Thats an approximation... I didn't take into account the diminish on armor : /

That and if druids are armor capped by the end of t7 with the help of other raid buffs then we just got pigeon-holed again. We would just stack armor until that point then just try to find ways to improve ourself and not really scale.

kalbear · 10/31/08, 2:36 PM

Assuming Devo was already included...37k armor should result in around 55% DR.

According to this calculator, that's not true. 37k armor against a level 83 boss is 68.9% reduction. Protector of the Pack is 12% on top of that, which would be a (1- ((1-.12)*(1-.689))) reduction, or 72.7% overall reduction. If you include things like grace I believe you'll get the numbers above.

ajthebest · 10/31/08, 2:42 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

According to this calculator, that's not true. 37k armor against a level 83 boss is 68.9% reduction. Protector of the Pack is 12% on top of that, which would be a (1- ((1-.12)*(1-.689))) reduction, or 72.7% overall reduction. If you include things like grace I believe you'll get the numbers above.

I see where I went wrong... I thought leaving out the diminshing returns would've effected the DR by maybe a percent or two, but in actually itsa lot more. Sorry.

Back to my other point... that would mean that we would be armor capped pretty quick. Also! I've really wanted to know why stacking armor to get from 73% (43k armor) DR - 75% (~50k armor) DR is favored over other stats. I mean getting 5k armor in WotLK is probably going to be pretty hard, so why not stack other stats i.e. stamina and agility?

Another question!! (I don't post often >.<) What type of gems are we looking at in terms of dpsing and tanking? If its already been posted... is it possible to give me the link to the post? Thank you!

• Melthu · 10/31/08, 2:48 PM

While armor does suffer from diminishing returns if you consider the amount that incoming damage is being reduced, it is actually linear if you look at it from a time to live (TTL) point of view. The math is already done and easy to reproduce on your own so I won't repeat the calculations here, but when it comes to extending your time to live armor is always worth the same amount, whether you're at 500 armor or 40,000.

kalbear · 10/31/08, 3:02 PM

Another question!! (I don't post often >.<) What type of gems are we looking at in terms of dpsing and tanking? If its already been posted... is it possible to give me the link to the post? Thank you!

Use Rawr to determine specific needs. Currently it looks like the strategy is to stack stamina until you have enough, then stack agility or dodge. In the future threat/dps may become important enough that stacking hit,expertise and strength will be important, but so far that appears not to be the case.

ajthebest · 10/31/08, 3:06 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

Use Rawr to determine specific needs. Currently it looks like the strategy is to stack stamina until you have enough, then stack agility or dodge. In the future threat/dps may become important enough that stacking hit,expertise and strength will be important, but so far that appears not to be the case.

Thats the general idea, though what is "enough"? 25k?30k? etc. Also is agility still > dodge rating?