scient

I have seen the Polar set useless from the beginning tbh. Stacking stamina like that doesnt seem to do any good.
And stamina is something druid have imho had loads of since day 1 of WOTK.

Right now im running with my tank set in raids and im getting roughly 47k HP, 45-47% dodge, 32k AC with a decent amount of AP to do around 2,5-3k DPS on patchwerk while tanking. I do have to give up Defenders Code for Gossamer for the sake of HP to get these stats but everything else stays the same in my gear, no polar pieces etc.

So i would say stacking that set for stamina seems meaningless, you will get those health numbers with actual tanking gear too

Ah.... just figured out that you must have had 47k AFTER the 25% hp reduction from Sartharions add?
What does that make your raidbuffed stamina before the debuff in this gear?

 

Mihir

Vesperon's debuff doesn't change your stamina, so it'll be the same with or without the debuff.
Power of Vesperon

As for health, our current Sartharion MT runs with around 53k raidbuffed hp on this encounter, but that's with sta trinkets and polar gear. I'm pretty sure he switches those out for avoidance/armor on other encounters.

 

Acearan

Regarding expertise, how does it equate in PvP? is there a cap like hit rating on a lvl 80?

"Druids, they are so stupid they can tank better than warriors, out damage rogues, and nuke as well as mages. On top of that they can turn into a mutated seal."

 

Changer_executus

Before pulling Sartharion and his buddies, i have about 52k hp in my polar set with these trinkets: [Indestructible Alchemist's Stone] and [Essence of Gossamer] - and i would probably take more if i could find it. My dodge is fairly low, i.e. about 35% however as Sartharion's melee damage is rather insignificant compared to his breath, Stamina is really the main focus.

I could regem even further down the pure stamina route, but i feel that i'm pretty much comfortable with around the 52k mark for this fight, so im not going 100% stam gems and i've tried to add back in some mitigation through dodge/stam or expertise/stam gems in places where socket bonuses are worth while.

We do execute the fight in a strange way tho, which involves never taking portals, and burning down Tenebron and Shardron as fast as possible. The only way to do this is by having a massive HP Pool, and sharing damage with paladins and hunters pets so that i never take a full strength blast. I only have to survive until Shardon dies then a properly geared tank takes over so from me and i go to tank Vesperson adds.

 

◊ Abradix

No you don't, the 45k+ number is before Vesperon's debuff and it doesn't require the polar set, but if people are lacking gear in those few slots the polar set could help. Regardless of that, I really would not ever switch out Defender's Code for Essence of the Gossamer (except the aforementioned Sarth+3), 32k armor is very little (I have 39.5k atm with zero buffs, as reference) and unless you're tanking Sarth+3 the extra few thousand health is worth nothing compared to the armor you lose by not using Defender's code and other armor items.

 

Mijae

Dude, my avatar!

And it depends on who you are fighting and how. Expertise does nothing when behind your target in PvP. When in front it will depend on their dodge/parry.

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

 

darkeminence

So I was under the impression that Str was > Hit/Expertise until an absurd amount of buffed AP without Savage Roar, but Rawr is telling me to gem Expertise/Hit. Is this Rawr being screwy, or is there new math showing that 1 Hit/Expertise is > 1 Str now?

 

bejean

I believe with very low crit chance, hit/expertise will outweigh str. Not sure what your level of gear is, so I don't know if this is what you're seeing. If so, you should get crit pretty quickly though, which will make str king again. Try swapping out 1 or 2 pieces in rawr for more crit and see how that changes the weighting.

 

coldbear

Going into Wrath-raiding on a backwater server with 2T6, nada from SWP, and only so much time to run Heroics, the Polar set was a godsend.

From looking at your gear I can only guess that you're in a fairly advanced raiding guild on an established and well-progressed raiding server, so I'm assuming the Polar set wasn't much of an upgrade in any aspects for you.

My point is that the set isn't worthless to feral tanking just b/c T6-level gear and SWP gear or the best gear from Heroics is better. For guilds that have problems on Sapphiron the FR gear can be the tiny little advantage that pushes them to Kel'thuzad.

Author of "Every Boss In The Game" (3.0.9), "100 Dead Death Knights", "Fun In Ulduar", "Guide: How To Feral DPS" videos:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/pv.php?t=3&l=parl2001

 

darkeminence

I have ~54% crit raid buffed, so it isn't that. Does it show other druids that hit/expertise are better? Or is this just some strange thing I'm seeing?

 

Blame

Hello.
I'm glad this forum exists you guys do amazing work for all ferals and we are thankful.
But
since the feral druid mega threat was closed few things i'm looking for doesn't seem to appear around here namely some stats i'm interested in. I'm playing bear and I do see alot of parry/misses altho my gear isn't that bad. Since I'm clear thats due to expertise/hit can you please add around here:
hit cap to reach:
exp cap to reach:
that I should get. Its greatly affecting my agro. I'm sticking +hit stam gems as yellow to fix that.

Another point I'm interested is to what amount should I stack armor before I start going for more dodge/stam. I'm currently with 30k armor unbuffed and ~38% dodge.
I have the greatness card and I find it lovely (gives me around 5% dodge on proc) so I'm unsure if i should get more dodge or just fix up some stamina. Instead of being happy about it it just gives me a headache to think should I stack more dodge or not (not to nerf the effect of the card). Card is up 1/4 of the time and I'm wondering what is the point of dodge where the diminishing returns hit it too hard. I didn't see anywhere around a table of the diminishing returns on the dodge or armor.
Any help will be appriciated by my guild and me. Thank you.

 

Pike

 

coldbear

Seems I missed the question and no-one else answered. Every item has a 'level'. Similar difficulty bosses generally drop similar item level loot. For each item of a certain level there is a budget. Each stat that is added to an item during development draws from this budget. The formula has been reverse-engineered to a somewhat accurate approximation iirc, see elsewhere on EJ forums or wowwiki.

Sometimes an item comes in under or over budget, i.e. the devs don't necessarily follow this calculation slavishly. Bear tanks generally care about:
Armour
Agi
Sta
Dodge
Expertise
Hit
Defense (to a lesser extent - except at stratospheric gear levels)

...and all other stats are kind of not-applicable in a mitigation/survival/helps-me-do-my-raiding-job-better way, and can thus be thought of as 'wasted' if the item is used for tanking.

Author of "Every Boss In The Game" (3.0.9), "100 Dead Death Knights", "Fun In Ulduar", "Guide: How To Feral DPS" videos:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/pv.php?t=3&l=parl2001

 

Pawz

My guild has a general policy that before tanks and dps go into 25 mans, they have to be defense/hit capped. Unfortunately I'm the only feral druid (main) that plays consistently in the guild. I quickly learned that there was no defense cap for us feral druids, but there was a hit cap. My officers (who don't play feral druids, but have said they read these forums) said that I needed to be hit capped before I could tank raids.

Personally, I would rather be expertise-capped (which I'm pretty sure there is a cap). My question is:

Should I go for the 291 (<- Or is it 296? I forget) hit cap, or tell my officer it's not reasonable to go for the hit cap as a feral tank and just stack expertise instead. (Which would make my life easier since the gear I've been getting has a lot more expertise than hit.) I would also like to know what the expertise cap is.

I'd also like to mention I'm not a complete [ZOMFG N00B] and I do know the difference between hit and expertise and why expertise is both an offensive and defensive stat.

 

Sarasper

@Pawz. A bears best stat is armor then avoidance/stam. Hit and expertise are ok but not high on the list.

 

Unity

Pawz: Pike linked to the numbers you asked for in a post two before yours.

Presuming that "the tank is dead" is a larger risk for your guild than "the tank can't hold aggro" then survivability should take priority over other stats in your tank set. Specific numbers to aim for aren't important if you're already your guilds MT - if you can handle heroics it's not worth delaying the start of Naxx for your whole guild while you farm rep/badges/rare drops. Do get what you can from crafts and enchant and gem everything.

 

Moosey

Is there any thing i should change?

The World of Warcraft Armory

 

blackhand0114

Get ride of the points in Natural Shapshifter and Master Shapshifter. The dps increase while tanking isn't needed right now. Your better off getting more expertise in Primal Precision and dumping the rest into Feral Aggression depending on raid set up.

 

Santorayo

I know it's unlikely to work: but has anyone tried if [Idol of Perspicacious Attacks] works with cat swipe on PTR? Might be usefull to change the idol before aoe packs.

 

Acearan

Pwnz

Tell your officer's they need to understand this. There is no possible/viable way to be hit capped pre-naxx gear. NOTE, the reason being that to achieve this, you would need to sacrifice so much "Defense" stats, that it would be unreasonable and franking not a smart move. As a guideline I use, stack defense stats, Armor/stam/dodge, once your defense stats are adequate then you can look into gemming for hit, or even trading defense stats in your gear for hit/expertise. (assuming you out gear the instance/raid you are running.)

To sum it up, If the gear you get has those stats on it great. Don't trade defense stats for agi/expertise, until your gear is adequate that you can afford to loose stam/armor/dodge for those stats.

Hope that helps!

"Druids, they are so stupid they can tank better than warriors, out damage rogues, and nuke as well as mages. On top of that they can turn into a mutated seal."

 

Celeras

What is the better DPS talent per talent point, PI or Naturalist? Obviously 5/5 naturalist is better than 3/3 PI... but would 2/5 Naturalist and 3/3 PI be a better alternative then just the usual 5/5?

 

• Polynices

Naturalist increases all damage by 2% per point. Predatory Instincts increases critical damage by 3% per point. But only about 2/3 of your damage benefits from criticals (since the rest is rip and rake bleed ticks).

Working some math suggests that at 100% crit rate you'd increase 2/3 of your damage by 3% per point. Or 2% per point. So for less than 100% crit, go with Naturalist. I probably oversimplified somewhere, but I think I'm safe in saying that for normal amounts of crit, Naturalist is it.

 

halmmar

I doubt you get any rogues in your raid, then. That 755 (talented) hit rating requirement would be killer...

Considering your tier gear doesn't have a single point of hit rating on them, I'd tell them you need to hit the soft expertise cap (6.5%). Expertise is twice as good as hit rating up to this point (131~132 rating with talents). (And after this point, is mostly effective against raid bosses since they have the highest chance to parry).
If they tell you that you need hit for taunting, buy the [Glyph of Growl].

 

darkeminence

So does anyone know the answer to this? Is Rawr so well coded that I should just listen to it, or is it wrong?

 

killets

Are you fully raid buffed, flasked, etc? Str and such scale pretty well with raid buffs. It's possible that you're either, when raid buffed, so absurdly high in AP that improving your hit/expertise 1% means a lot more than improving your AP .5%.

Or on the other hand, if you're quite low on AP and such, and not fully raid buffed, Str ends up taking a lesser value than hit/exp.

Honestly, I'm inclined to believe Rawr. I've noticed that in certain item configurations, hit/exp are valued pretty high, but in my main item configurations, it values Str > all.