ionasej

Pro-actively healing can be replaced with a skillful chain setup of healers, stopping their casts and with VirtualHealth/IncomingHeals addons. I already decide if to use my Nightmare-Seed/Healthstone/Healpot-Macro based on that addon information. This almost entirely eliminates overheals while it still allows to let the tank go for more avoidance and mitigation and less health buffer.
I can only quote from my own experience having been an HT4-downranker in pre-TBC. We had nice setup and the spikes on lets say Nefarian were hilarious - still we managed it - and probably without much overheal, since staying behind 5 seconds (rule) by stopping casts gave you so much more additional regeneration (and healer regeneration was an issue in pre-TBC).

High avoidance tanks will thus allow to push progress on encounters that push your healers (mana, regeneration) to the limits.

 

Mijae

We get that extra tick now.

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

Kazanir

You guys are speculating based on hypothetical example by a blue post. Please knock it off, this line of speculation is very very dumb.

Exactly.

A niche or a somewhat different style is different from a role that needs to be filled.

Currently on live, bear tanks and warriors are mostly interchangeable. Bears have advantages that warriors do not have and vice versa. That changes dramatically on fights like Illidan and Archimonde where warrior abilities are required.

Paladins have weaker mitigation/avoidance/threat than the other two tank classes but fill a role that neither warrior nor bear can successfully fill -- threat-safe AOE tank for 8+ mobs. Since two Sunwell fights basically require one, they have a role that needs to be filled.

That is what Blizzard is trying to get away from.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

kalbear

We actually prefer having a druid tank archi since archi doesn't crush. We deal with the fears with having a fear ward rotation.

If WotLK has mechanics like that I'll be happy. Either you can go with tank A, who has innate ways to deal with one problem but has disadvantages, or you can go with tank B who can cover up one type of problem but has more overall advantages. I'm hoping that is what they're trying to do with having multiple classes do similar kinds of raid buffs, multiple tanks having similar powers, etc. It's still disheartening when they say that they don't know what the druid niche is but take the current druid niche and give it to warriors.

 

Mara

Amphitheater Event - Final Quest - World of Raids Gallery

Is it any surprise that when the Developers don't have a clear picture re: feral tanks, that there is no feral weapon (tanking or otherwise) in the WotLK equivalent of the BC Ring of Blood Quest? [Sidenote: Armor Penetration Rating? on the dagger? Blizzard appears to be further tinkering with mechanics still].

To clarify. I did not post this to whine. However, I did think it was worthwhile contrasting and comparing Blizzard's BC treatment of Feral itemization and what we have seen of WotLK, especially given Blizzard's stated goal of consolidating gear across different specs so that they don't have to have 10 different quest rewards to make every spec happy.

 

TheNameLessOne

Kind of silly to give hunters, hybrid casters and melee DPS at least 2 possible weapon choices there.

Feral Weapons Most very badly itemized, of course its not like everyone else has perfect itemization either.

 

Enoon

I hit up WoWhead after noticing a lack of a feral weapon in that quest and had the same thought. Though I had really hoped in LK Blizz would drop the FAP on weapons. The amount of FAP on feral weapons was staring to irk me and felt ludicrous in nature. Each weapon was just a bigger and bigger band aid.

 

ionasej

Besides the mentioned SR being buffed from 25% to 35% AP
- Feral Instinct seems to have go form 5/10/15 to 10/20/30% increased swipe damage.
- Savage Fury seems to affect Maul and Mangle(Bear) (like pre nerf TBC ones)

Can one on beta confirm this?
Source: WoW-Europe.com Forums -> New Beta Build Feral Changes

Edit: sorry, I did not notice, and - wow, that's great, I really hope they keep up buffing the scaling and if nerfs are required nerfs basic damage output. ^^

 

• Astrylian

Those changes are from the previous build, that's been there for a week.

Rawr - A theorycrafting tool for Bears, Cats, Moonkin, Trees, Healadins, DPSWarrs, Retadins, Mages, ProtWarrs, Tankadins, HealingPriests, ShadowPriests, Warlocks, Rogues, EnhShams, Hunters, Elementals, RestoShams, Tank DKs, and DPS DKs!
Download Rawr v2.2.27 <--NEW Nov9th!

Are you an active Rogue / Hunter / Warlock theorycrafter and an experienced C# dev, with some spare time and a desire to help build something great for the WoW community? Send me a PM!

 

Tappin

I find the whole FAP thing a mess. They could much more easily implement it with something like a 'feral dps' stat. Cats would get 1 damage per 1 feral dps (1 second base swing). Bears would get 2.5 damage per 1 feral dps (2.5 second base swing). Then they could just make feral dps equal to the different in our base damage and weapon damage of other weapons of that iLvl.

That said, it might not be so bad to have more AP than weapon damage once we start getting 2000ish FAP on items. 35% AP from roar and +10% AP from enhance (without being in the dps group) should benefit the ridiculous FAP values on weapons?

 

Valerian

Yeah FAP is a somewhat bandaid mechanic but it does provide a fairly significant benefit over simple weapon damage and that is the fact that %AP increasers are that much better (and a high AP affects our primary finisher whereas weapon damage would not).

The lack of FAP weapons so far may be because they are still tinkering with the mechanic (perhaps thinking of changing it) or might just be they haven't gotten around to the feral itemization. BC leveling feral weapon itemization was definitely up to par. I can't imagine they'll just "forget" about it this time around.

 

ionasej

On magical damage reduction
If there will be no percent damage reduction or magical damage reduction folded into Primal Tenacity or Survival of the Fittest or King of the Jungle it could be added onto Enrage (as a base ability or via King of the Jungle) like:
"While enraged you take 10/20/30% less magical damage" - given that we might reach insane armor values again, the armor penetration by Enrage could be higher though then - or one could add "... but take 1/2/3% more physical damage".

This would make us "different" - but not too much - just a different flavour. Where there is spiky magical damage we could cope with that (maybe instead of having Shield Reflect) and where there is steady high magical damage we have a reduction once a while (10sec out of 60 sec) - should be (10 / 60) * 30 = 5% flat magic damage reduction all time if activated all time - less than other tanks, but that's okay.


On the life-stealing mechanic mentioned above:
It is very speculative - and it does fit more into the Death Knight Lore scheme.


Simpler suggestion (on avoid mechanics)
Lets make the check for miss, dodge, parry not a 1-hit-table-check but a 3-times check - and that just on bosses (to save cpu bandwidth) and just on a boss-hits-you way, not the other way around. Max damage reduction should be 80% - in addition to that the DR/Armor cap could also apply to any form of damage reduction that is not by avoidance - like Shield Wall and a like.

Why you ask?

Multiple stage hit table should (I am no mathematician - but it should) work against the exponential scaling of avoidance (if you have 80% combined miss/dodge and add 5% you effectively take 15% instead of 20% damage which is 25% LESS) - checking at multiple states will move that into 4 parts - its still effective as a mechanic, but it is weaker.


Currently, if you had 15% miss, 30% dodge and 25% parry you would end up only taking 30% of the hits: (1 - (1 * (0.15 + 0.30 + 0.25))) * 100 = 30.

With multiple checks and the same values you would end up taking: 1 * (1 - 0.15) * (1 - 0.30) * (1 - 0.25) * 100 = 44.62500 % of all hits.


Adding 5% dodge in the one-check case - you would end up taking 25% damage instead of 30% which should be (1 - (25 / 30)) * 100 = 16,6666667 % less relative hits by adding 5% dodge.

Adding 5% dodge in the multiple check case - you would end up taking: 1 * (1 - 0.15) * (1 - 0.35) * (1 - 0.25) * 100 = 41.4375 % and it should be
(1 - (41.4375 / 44.62500)) * 100 = 7.14285714 % less relative hits by adding 5% dodge.


If one currently went for 20% miss, 40% dodge and 30% parry he would get 1 - (1 * (0.2 + 0.4 + 0.3)) = 0.1 - 10% of all hits.

If one would went for that values on a multiple check:
1 * (1 - 0.2) * (1 - 0.4) * (1 - 0.3) = 0.336 - he would still take 33.6% of all hits.


If both added 5% to their miss chance - results would be
A: 1 - (1 * (0.25 + 0.4 + 0.3)) = 0.05 = 5% - a relative change of 50%
B: 1 * (1 - 0.25) * (1 - 0.4) * (1 - 0.3) = 0.315 = 31.5% - a relative change of 6.67%


If both added 5% dodge instead of miss chance - results would be
A: same as above 5% more total avoidance and 50% more relative avoidance
B: 1 * (1 - 0.20) * (1 - 0.45) * (1 - 0.3) = 0.308 or 30.8% hits taken - a relative change of 9.09%.

As you can see stacking ONE TYPE of avoidance would still be "more beneficial". Knowing that an avoid cap of maybe 50% (of one type) would be good (max 50-60% miss and max 50-60% dodge and max 50-60% parry).

A warrior with 15% miss, 30% dodge and 25% parry would then take (1 - 0.15) * (1 - 0.30) * (1 - 0.25) = 0.44625 - 44.6% of all hits - while a druid with 5% miss and 50% dodge would take 0.475 - 47% of all hits.

A death knight with 10% miss, 20% dodge and 30% parry would take: (1 - 0.10) * (1 - 0.25) * (1 - 0.30) = 0.4725 47% of all hits. Maxing parry to 50% and dropping dodge to 20% he could reach (1 - 0.10) * (1 - 0.20) * (1 - 0.50) = 0.36 - 36% of all hits taken.


The above calculations just show off possible different mechanics - currently having more and more avoidance gives you more than more benefit (exponentially - like it is the case with Armor Penetration)

A multiple check for being missed, dodging, parrying would help greatly to balance out avoidance vs armor IMHO.

The one-hit-table is contra-logical and is just there to save up CPU-power on the server side, nothing more. its cheaper to have one check than to have 3.


(edited: calculation errors, theory mistakes on avoid caps, added extensive calculation examples)

 

• Falk

This is sorta a tangent, but am I missing something regarding the damage pushed out at earlier levels in WotLK? Is armor reduction and/or physical damage still bugged? Because as it is I really can't see bear talents going live as it is from a DPS standpoint. --> balanced2.wmv

That's at lv71, pulling a bunch of lv70 mobs, including a named one.

 

ironwolfw

Just as a point of order, the bear in that video has berserk and enrage popped. In addition two other buffs (one looks to be the Idol of terror buff) are active. So... for the duration of that video he's getting 15% increased damage (assuming he has the talent as there is no other reason to enrage) and his mangle/maul are hitting 3 targets.

In short this is a terribly out of context example for bear dps.

 

• Falk

I had Shard, BT trinket (Best soloing trinket. Ever), Terror, and even the Hyjal ring buff procced - when you're pushing out a million hits, you can more or less count on everything proccing. That's besides the point, though - Even though that's my farming setup on live, I frapsed it with the proc-spam only to accentuate the point.

You'd still be able to see 2.4-2.5k largest hits instead of 3.2k with 'lesser' gear. That is a -lot- of burst, even for a 5-minute timer. It's literally at TBC beta levels of absurdity.

 

Snarley

Previous poster beat me to it

 

ironwolfw

I hadn't really considered the effect of berserk on your proc chance and you're certainly right in that the proc mechanic makes that skill more powerful from a bear burst DPS perspective. However, I think you're overestimating its effect on those of us with lesser gear. 2.4-2.5k on a mangle crit is a hell of a lot more then a 15% damage increase for me even if I assume that all of my procs are active. My napkin math to include the new savage fury et all might be off but I come out will more of a 1.7-1.9k top end which seems reasonable for the timer.

However, stipulating that you're correct with your estimate I would still argue that 2.4-2.5k is not overpowered especially for this stage in the beta. From a PvP perspective this makes us the new 3 minute mage. Except we're a 5 minute bear (Greater survivability -> Longer timer). Yes we've got lots of burst in this situation but once it's done we're stuck for 5 minutes. No class fear/stun break. No long CD burst for Cat. No emergency health button, no PBAoE IW. The only PvP situation where I can see this really shine would be resource defense (WSG Flags, AB Nodes, etc.). I can see a single Feral on defense being a real pain in the arse for a group of offense to overcome. Not impossible but certainly one hell of a speedbump.

In PvE I can see where this would be overpowered in re: soloing elite quests. For farming though the timer is too long to make it efficient and in raiding you're still going to get more damage out of cat.

One final point is that Blizzard has repeatedly stated that they've not gotten to fine-tuning balance yet. While this scenario may require some adjustment I don't think it requires a major reworking of the synergy between the talents/abilities. As such I would expect and hope it stays this way 'til we see what's possible in lvl 80 starting raid gear and in comparison to other classes lvl 80 performance. Then, as Blizzard says, they can pull our knobs

EDIT: Added Resource Defense to PvP

 

ionasej

A.) I do not see an issue.
1. You were wearing T6 level gear at LvL 71, which is vastly superior to green/blue gear on that level - right?
2. Berserk is on 5min CD, right?
3. What kind of damage or other classes/specs doing now in WotLK. There IS a damage upgrade, for all classes. In TBC we were not buffed as much as one believed, after nerfs Maul and Swipe did exactly the same damage as on level 60, do you want Bear Form at 80 still be doing 1400 Maul crits?

B.) The damage nerfs to Bear Form, "as they were" - were wrong - you can clearly see that in arena, as soon as a Druid is focused he goes Bear Form and then is being laughed at for his "threat" to others even though his rage bar is full. The problem occurred when Rogues without their mid-TBC buffs and without their insane gear scaling were being eaten by druids, when Warriors without gear stood against Druids without gear, and failed hard, cause of their insane gear scaling and low base viability.

But you HAVE gear. What I want to see is a comparison at LvL 77 in complete WotLK greens/blues, no single TBC item. If the damage output, WITHOUT BERSERK, is to high in that circumstances, then there is need to nerf BASE damage (like the static parts of Maul and Mangle(Bear)). See:
Mangle (Bear) @ 77 and Mangle (Bear) @ 80
Maul @ 73 and Maul @ 77

 

Psibeast

Umm... what life stealing? The druid wouldn't be stealing life from his opponent. He would just instantly regenerate the damage the hit has caused. He isn't stealing it from anywhere. Think of it as an advanced form of the "Frenzied Regeneration" ability. I don't see how that would fit more into the DK lore scheme. Druids are all about natural regeneration.

And what do you mean about speculative? How is it more speculative than, for example, parry?

 

tlbj6142

Don't we already do this with imp LotP? Though it is crit based with a cooldown, rather than a percentage of every hit's damage.

 

Psibeast

I'll formulate my suggestion as an ability to make it perhaps clearer:

Natural Absorbtion
Cost: 20 rage
Cooldown: 6 seconds
The next time you receive damage, it is instantly healed.

 

tlbj6142

They could tie this "bear health regen based on DPS" to enrage via the KotJ talent. Seems like a good fit. And would make for a reason to use enrage after the pull rather than before.


Edit: Just realized you were talking about health regen on damage taken, not damage dealt. Given what appears to be improved bear DPS (and kitty/bear gear being shared), the later might make sense as well.

 

Psibeast

Similar (just goes to show this is a trend for Druids), but imp. LotP procs on crits YOU make. I'm talking about an ability that is a form of mitigation. imp LotP was never considered to be a form of mitigation. It was a nice little perk, but it didn't scale with the damage we were receiving and was balanced as being a group buff.

 

Psibeast

It would not have the same tactical use though. Think, for example, of a boss that deals sudden spikes of damage. This would give the Druid an active way to mitigate it, and would involve a bit more skill on the part of the druid.

Let's be honest, today in TBC, once the fight has started the druid is MOSTLY at the mercy of the healers. The druid can do very little short of maybe have a couple of trinkets to help his mitigation once the fight has started. Warriors and Paladins have a shield that they can actively block with, and other tools. I'm suggesting to give Druids a tool like that which would introduce another skill variable to druid tanking, while at the same time improve our spell mitigation and AoE threat.

 

tlbj6142

I see that now. I like the idea. Which, of course, means it won't happen.

So, are you thinking of it as a new skill/talent? Or as something that is triggered from an existing skill/talent (like enrage combined with KotJ)?