Ghostcrawler just posted this in the beta forums:

The changes made to things like armor were done mostly to solve itemization problems. We didn't make them to nerf Ferals (or anyone). We did them because we started to consider bosses who needed to drop 30 different pieces of armor (or tokens to trade for them or whatever) because classes and even specs were heading off into distinct niches. You'll get something to make up for it. No, you aren't there yet.
We're not entirely happy with the way the Feral ended up in BC. The idea was that you could be a decent tank and a decent melee dps class, so Ferals were something you wanted to bring if you weren't the kind of guild that swapped different people out for every boss. But I don't think "convenience factor" is ultimately a great value to bring to a raid. The problem was we were kind of stuck because if we made Ferals end-game tanks and amazing melee, then the rogues were screwed, because they couldn't go respec to tank or heal.
But now we have a chance to add some new talents, and we'd like for some of them to be the kind that let a druid declare that she is more of a cat or more of a bear. It doesn't have to be shoehorning two whole talent trees into one, but even offering a few choices would go a long way.
I didn't mean to sound condescending. The pot example was to offer that we haven't forgotten about bears. My point was NOT: hey, you lost armor but gee you got health stones, so why all the QQing? It was cool to see those big armor numbers on bears, and we have some plans for how to replace them (and not just with pots).
The DK gets a lot of attention because it has a lot of catching up to do. There were no DKs in UBRS or MC or TK or even Arathi Basin. Nobody knows how their abilities and power system are going to work so we feel like we have to cover a lot of the ground that was explored literally years ago for some of these other classes.
We will be really disappointed if there aren't bears main tanking Naxx and later raids, and cats that if not consistently as high as rouges, are at least a lot closer than they are now.
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Just want to highlight the bolded points. Firstly, it's great they recognize "convenience factor" is a lame class design paradigm. It's funny that he posted this, yet Druids are actually doing decently in Sunwell, due in part to things like a distinct scarcity of Crushing Blows, Sunwell Radiance and Stomp.
The gear changes however, are still a concern. So it's pretty clear they're going to take away our armor cap'd-ness, and replace it with something else. Fair enough too, if Warriors and Paladins are losing their crush immunity edge. But this tips the scale too far.
Strength is something they're piling on tanking gear like it's nobodies business, so I expect we'll have to contend with it in one way or another on our shared slots (jewelery, cape, trinkets). I'm deathly afraid it's ("it" as in what they're going to give us to replace our former armor dominance) going to be a completely uninspired, bland, retarded "lump" of an idea (like Sunwell Radiance was) .. maybe a deep Feral talent worded something like "for each point of Str, you get x% dodge". This would be pretty dumb though (and pretty much a direct copy of something Deathknights get).
Having said that, what other options are there to improve Feral mitigation asides from high armor and avoidance? They need to be really careful here with the balancing, we can't afford to get left behind.
From a defensive perspective, to reduce the amount of damage taken, the following mechanics exist in WoW:
o Flat percentage reduction (exists in two forms):
- via Armor
- via Defensive Stance, Imp Righteous Fury type skills
o Avoidance
o Static reduction per hit
o Resilience (reduction of crit damage)
Everyone gets armor, we used to get far more than the others but in WotLK we won't.
Everyone gets avoidance, it spiraled out of control in TBC, and needs to be reigned back in.
Warriors and Paladins also get further percentage based reduction from Defensive Stance and Imp Righteous Fury. Option A) Strength gives Feral Druids some additional flat percentage based damage mitigation scaling such that fully geared out from level 80 instance blues, you're at roughly 5% and after killing Arthas, you reach something like 10%. Tweak the numbers vis a vis our eventual armor/mitigation levels for something that's balanced vs the other classes throughout raid progression from beginning to end.
Static reduction per hit exists in the form of block value for Warriors and Paladins. I haven't kept up with DK mechanics enough to know whether they have something like this. Block is going to take an interesting turn in WotLK, block values are reportedly going up very quickly, both for threat and mitigation purposes. Shield Block is changed to be used at opportune moments, as opposed to spamming it constantly. I don't know if or how Holy Shield is changing. Another opportunity exists here though, to give Ferals "block value" from Strength, though I imagine conjuring up a flavor reason for such a skill to exist would be quite the feat.
Anyways, the only reason I bring this up is that there really aren't very many ways of reducing incoming damage, and if they're going to nerf one of the only 2 methods Ferals have, and then announce they're going to give something back to us to compensate for it .. I really can't begin to imagine what in the hell it might be =/
Thoughts?