Druid: Simple Questions/Simple Answers - Page 54

shibbytastic · 06/08/09, 11:02 AM

I recently picked up an [Elemental Focus Stone] for my moonkin set and am trying to decide how much to modify my rotation to take advantage of the proc (522 haste).

When using a lunar rotation I have three options that i am trying to decide between:

a) proceed with my normal rotation. This results in better utilization of eclipse, but can also result in bad wrath clipping when trying to proc eclipse

b)drop whatever i'm doing and cast starfire during the proc. This can result in lower returns from eclipse since I would likely be casting starfire during an accidentally procced wrath eclipse.

c) find a trinket that is more compatible with all of my spells.

Isambaard · 06/08/09, 4:27 PM

Originally Posted by Zytheanties

Hi, i have litterally been searching and searching for up to date information regarding feral Cat stat theory craft. I oplogise that this information is likely somewhere, but iv kinda got fed up of looking all over the internet now.
My questions are:

1) atm which is more useful for raw dps Agi or Strength

2) what impact does Armour pen have on feral DPS

The FBN thread someone else linked has the detailed answers.

Short answers:
1) Agi
2) It increases it, with each point better than the previous one up to around 560 passive arp.

klüger · 06/09/09, 3:33 AM

Originally Posted by shibbytastic

I recently picked up an [Elemental Focus Stone] for my moonkin set and am trying to decide how much to modify my rotation to take advantage of the proc (522 haste).

When using a lunar rotation I have three options that i am trying to decide between:

a) proceed with my normal rotation. This results in better utilization of eclipse, but can also result in bad wrath clipping when trying to proc eclipse

b)drop whatever i'm doing and cast starfire during the proc. This can result in lower returns from eclipse since I would likely be casting starfire during an accidentally procced wrath eclipse.

c) find a trinket that is more compatible with all of my spells.

do a)

hobitzz · 06/10/09, 12:05 PM

Is there such a thing as a Crit Cap for druids. With primal gore I ideally think it needs to be as high as possible but dont wish to waste a chance to stack armor penetration too..

Omidin · 06/10/09, 12:30 PM

With recent Armor Pen changes, do I gem my feral cat gear purely for that (except for whats required for my meta gem)?

Isambaard · 06/10/09, 1:17 PM

Originally Posted by hobitzz

Hello all,

While I have been a member of Elitist jerks Forums a while this is my first postso be kind :P

My "simple question is this".

Is there such a thing as a Crit Cap for druids. With primal gore I ideally think it needs to be as high as possible but dont wish to waste a chance to stack armor penetration too..

Yes, above about 60% you see drastic diminishing returns on crit as you virtually always generate 5cps in 3 CP builders, above that point your CP wastage increases and thus other stats are stronger.

In reality stacking armor pen even earlier tends to make sense, rawr with an armor pen gem set or the feralbynight addon can give you more detailed answers for your specific gear.

kalbear · 06/10/09, 2:22 PM

Is there such a thing as a Crit Cap for druids. With primal gore I ideally think it needs to be as high as possible but dont wish to waste a chance to stack armor penetration too..

The only real crit cap is at 75% or so, and that's due to FB and R&T. After that in theory there's one at 85% for glancing blows as well, but that's about it. In practice crit always benefits, since those numbers are practically unobtainable.

Yes, above about 60% you see drastic diminishing returns on crit as you virtually always generate 5cps in 3 CP builders, above that point your CP wastage increases and thus other stats are stronger.

Crits also do damage, and point of fact druids do more 'extra' damage with crits than almost any other class.

Isambaard · 06/10/09, 4:20 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

The only real crit cap is at 75% or so, and that's due to FB and R&T. After that in theory there's one at 85% for glancing blows as well, but that's about it. In practice crit always benefits, since those numbers are practically unobtainable.

Crits also do damage, and point of fact druids do more 'extra' damage with crits than almost any other class.

I'm not saying crit becomes useless, rather that there is a "soft cap" after which other stats are stronger and thus should be gemmed for or favored in gear selection. In this case there is such a "soft cap" at ~60% crit due to the specials to reach 5CPs I mentioned.

That is to say, if you have an open gem socket at 60% crit you are almost certainly better socketing armor pen than agility.

kalbear · 06/10/09, 5:10 PM

I'm not saying crit becomes useless, rather that there is a "soft cap" after which other stats are stronger and thus should be gemmed for or favored in gear selection. In this case there is such a "soft cap" at ~60% crit due to the specials to reach 5CPs I mentioned.

That is to say, if you have an open gem socket at 60% crit you are almost certainly better socketing armor pen than agility.

But there's a very hard cap on armor pen. You're better socketing armor pen over agility until that point anyway, and then afterwards you're always better off socketing agility over armor pen.

Also, agility doesn't just contribute crit. And 60% isn't what you'd need to reach 5 CP in 3 attacks totally reliably; you still have a 6% chance to not have any three attacks in a row crit, for instance, and about a 20% chance to not have at least 2 of the three crit.

The main point I should have said is that even if CPs are diminishing over time with each point of crit, CPs are not the best way of determining damage output and any soft cap of crit relative to CP should note that the actual DPS value of a CP is fairly low compared to the raw damage output. In general, you're spending the vast majority of your energy on normal attacks, and at best we're talking about 100 energy in a 30-second span devoted to CP use.

nightcrowler · 06/11/09, 4:43 AM

Well as kalbear pointed out you can't talk about a stats without taking into account other stats. Basically arpen stack with itself so untill you reach the cap it's better to stack it. After that you want to stack agility simply because it's our best stat also if it give us crit and ap.

As for crit "soft cap". Actually:

you can reach 100% crit with yellow attacks (but it doesn't mean that every yellow attack will crit).

you can reach: 100% - glancing (24%) - miss (0-8%) - dodge (0 - 6.5%) with white attacks. So the white crit cap is from 76% to 61.5% depending on your hit/expertise.

What you can easly see (look at FeralbyNight (Cat & Bear simulation tool) )
is that the increase in cp/waste is about linear from 30% to 60% crit while after 60% crit there is a power increase of wasted cps. So yes, crit/agility value is nearly stable untill you reach 60% crit and after that it goes down, but as already told kalbear cps generation is only a small part of agility value. For istance if at lower tiers 1 agi is around 2.6 AP, in very high gear and with for istance 70% crit (not possible atm) 1 agi can be around 2.3-2.4 AP (still pretty high).

The only thing we should take care (for future tier levels) will be the value of hit/expertise. The value of hit/exp increase pretty quikly (from 1 hit = 1.8 AP in blues to 1 hit = 2.4 AP in full t8.25) because it's direclty proportional to damage done. So we can easly assume that in t9 or t10 we can have a situation where after reaching arpen cap we will reach hit/exp cap and THEN we will go for agi, but at the moment that's not the situation.

Spink · 06/11/09, 8:55 AM

should I drop IS glyph for 3% miss or should a hunter drop serpent sting for scorpid sting or should we forget the 3% miss chance entirely.

klüger · 06/11/09, 9:29 AM

Originally Posted by Spink

should I drop IS glyph for 3% miss or should a hunter drop serpent sting for scorpid sting or should we forget the 3% miss chance entirely.

depends on your guild, if mt damage/spikes is a problem, get the hunter/moonkin with the worst dps (but ok survival skills) to do it. I think it is a much bigger dps loss for a hunter then a moonkin, but it prolly depends on spec as well.

Xerophyte · 06/11/09, 9:39 AM

It's a considerably smaller loss for you to keep the 3% miss buff up (~100 DPS) than it is for the hunter to do the same (~500 DPS). We can't really tell you if it's worth it or not. There are certainly both fights like Thorim where tank avoidance is more important and fights like Yogg where it's less important; the obvious solution is carrying around stacks of IS and SF/SFall glyphs and swapping them as required.

Bxi · 06/11/09, 5:42 PM

Hello,

Tonight my guild ran through Naxx 10 man to gear up one of our new tanks.

At Patchwerk my dps was around 5100. But later when we arrived at Loatheb my dps was just 200 points higher. Can the lack of Sunders on the target explain this low increase of DPS? Please note that I had the spore debuff at all times during the Loatheb encounter, which put my crit percentage above 100%.

//Bxi@Nagrand-EU

alarge · 06/11/09, 5:59 PM

Originally Posted by Bxi

Hello,

Tonight my guild ran through Naxx 10 man to gear up one of our new tanks.

At Patchwerk my dps was around 5100. But later when we arrived at Loatheb my dps was just 200 points higher. Can the lack of Sunders on the target explain this low increase of DPS? Please note that I had the spore debuff at all times during the Loatheb encounter, which put my crit percentage above 100%.

//Bxi@Nagrand-EU

Did you the same buff profile for Patch? In particular: sunder state, BoM+BoK and horn/totem.

I usually have a *much* higher delta between my Patch and Loatheb numbers. My Patch numbers are about where yours are, but I see around 7k on Loatheb. Loatheb and Thaddius are the two fights where my kitty dps really shines relative to other classes. In both cases, I believe this is due primarily to the % of my damage that comes from bleeds (which keep ticking even while shifting to kill a spore or rotating around Thadd). So if raid buffs aren't the cause, are you letting your rip/rake fall off too often?