Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 69

Skytor · 08/14/08, 6:01 AM

The issue with more health vs more avoidence / mitigation is:

Boss A does an attack for 15k (post equal mitigation) every 3 seconds - with the "idea" being that the tank dies in 2 hits if not healed between them

Warrior takes 12.6K, druid takes 15k - so for the fight to be "balanced" per the design druid needs 30k hp to the warriors 25.2k ... about 20% more (co-incidently the amount added by our +sta talent)

In addition to staying alive - we have to consider healer mana - if this fight lasts 10 mins the druid is sucking up 480k more healing (something over 48k mana at current conversion rates...) so we also need to either return mana when healed or take 20% more healing to maintain equality.

And thats just the damage reduction offered by defence stance - it gets much much worse when you start to add in avoidence strings...

If i get some time i'd like to work out the "chance of death" after X sec in the above fight with differing rates of avoidence, and how much extra health would be needed to make them equal at various avoidence levels.

This logical issue I can already see coming out of this is - if you set the death at 4 unhealed "swings" of which the warrior avoids 2 and the druid avoids 1 (50% vs 25% avoidence) the druid needs 45k health to the warriors 25.2K and therefore never dies in 2 hits while the warrior can (and will 25% of the time).

Shakes · 08/14/08, 6:04 AM

It's only mid-August, which leaves 4 months of development to get it out "this year" if they need it. I also have no doubt they've got level 80 content they haven't pushed onto the beta server yet.

This is how betas are supposed to work: throw your work out to a wider audience and see what works and what you need to fix before release. I'd be a lot more worried if they weren't calling it a work in progress. All they're really saying is there's no point painting the detail until they get the broad brush strokes in place, they're not going to waste time adjusting abilities up and down a couple of percent when for various reasons it could all be invalidated tomorrow.

You've also got to consider theorycraft is fine, but encounters make a big difference. For the bears having a bigger health pool example, depending on encounters, perhaps healers might be able to save mana because they know they can heal purely re-actively with a bear vs pro-actively vs a warrior. The theorycraft in isolation can't show that, just that bears take more damage which needs more healing.

Skytor · 08/14/08, 7:05 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

You've also got to consider theorycraft is fine, but encounters make a big difference. For the bears having a bigger health pool example, depending on encounters, perhaps healers might be able to save mana because they know they can heal purely re-actively with a bear vs pro-actively vs a warrior. The theorycraft in isolation can't show that, just that bears take more damage which needs more healing.

I agree that encounters make a big difference - but i'd say that an encounter where one tank can be healed re-actively and another needs pro-active healing co-ordination is effectively trivial for one tank.

We have been here before and the "gem for stamina" bears lost the argument

Duilliath · 08/14/08, 7:10 AM

Originally Posted by Skytor

I agree that encounters make a big difference - but i'd say that an encounter where one tank can be healed re-actively and another needs pro-active healing co-ordination is effectively trivial for one tank.

We have been here before and the "gem for stamina" bears lost the argument

And I say we're making a big fuss out of nothing - Ghostcrawler specifically stated it was nothing but an example, so I've got no clue why people are getting up in arms about something that hasn't even been committed to paper yet, let alone hit the beta.

Valerian · 08/14/08, 10:12 AM

With the changes to downranking I'd be very wary of speculating on any tanking "niches". The old "spam the tank" strategy may not be feasible anymore without running out of mana, which will require a shift on both the tanks side AND the healers side. Reactive healing (which tends to favour a larger hp pool) may become more prevalent. It really depends on the fight length, how hard the bosses hit and how mana efficient (or inefficient) the new spells are. All these can create "niches" that need to be filled, tank wise.

ionasej · 08/14/08, 1:46 PM

Originally Posted by Skytor

...but i'd say that an encounter where one tank can be healed re-actively and another needs pro-active healing co-ordination is effectively trivial for one tank.

We have been here before and the "gem for stamina" bears lost the argument

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 · 08/14/08, 2:00 PM

Glyph of Rip - Increases the duration of your Rip ability by 4 sec.

We get that extra tick now.

Kazanir · 08/14/08, 2:13 PM

Originally Posted by Nathariel

Does anyone else feel that this is looking more like a major shift in our position?

Originally Posted by Skytor

Yes it is a big shift - and a somewhat worrying one

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

Originally Posted by Duilliath

And I say we're making a big fuss out of nothing - Ghostcrawler specifically stated it was nothing but an example, so I've got no clue why people are getting up in arms about something that hasn't even been committed to paper yet, let alone hit the beta.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by Valerian

With the changes to downranking I'd be very wary of speculating on any tanking "niches". The old "spam the tank" strategy may not be feasible anymore without running out of mana, which will require a shift on both the tanks side AND the healers side. Reactive healing (which tends to favour a larger hp pool) may become more prevalent. It really depends on the fight length, how hard the bosses hit and how mana efficient (or inefficient) the new spells are. All these can create "niches" that need to be filled, tank wise.

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.

kalbear · 08/14/08, 2:17 PM

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.

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 · 08/14/08, 3:17 PM

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 · 08/14/08, 3:28 PM

Originally Posted by 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].

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 · 08/14/08, 5:29 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 08/14/08, 6:41 PM

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 · 08/14/08, 6:49 PM

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

Tappin · 08/14/08, 7:27 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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?