Can't seem to find the answer to this even though it's a really basic question... I looked at Melee Combat Mechanics but it clearly states "This article has not been updated for 3.0" at the top.

Back in the day, the theorycraft was that melee's attack table looked something like this:

1. Miss
2. Dodge/Parry
3. Block
4. Glancing
5. Crit
6. Hit

...and the hit just filled whatever % was left after the first 5, such that it was possible (without a good amount of +hit and weapon skill) for all attacks that landed to be crits (the "crit cap").

Blizzard has overhauled melee mechanics a ton since then, but my question is this: is paper doll crit chance still the % of attempted attacks that should crit, or is it now the percent of landed attacks that should crit?

This fact is relevant with the introduction of Savage Defense because it determines if/how Savage Defense's proc chance scales with hit and expertise. If the crit chance is the % of attempted attacks, then hit and expertise would not affect Savage Defense directly.

That's true for the basic table, foxglove. For yellow attacks it appears to be a two-roll system. Though honestly, I don't know whether or not this has been reverified as truth for WotLK.

For the two roll system, a yellow attack is tested to see whether or not it's a hit - and then checks whether or not it's a crit. So only hits can be crits in that case, and your crit chance determines what % of your hits are crits.

So, in that case, the crit chance of Mangle, Lacerate, and Swipe would be affected by hit and expertise, but not the crit chance from Maul/Autoattacks? (I am assuming next swing attacks count in the same category as white hits? Or do they count as yellow? Not something that ever mattered as a rogue...)

So proc rate per second for Mangle, Lacerate, and Swipe spamming would be roughly:
((crit vs. 83) * (1 - (chance to be dodged + chance to be parried + chance to miss)))/1.5

Whereas the proc chance from Maul/Autoattack (assuming not crit softcapped) would be:
(crit vs. 83) / (2.5 * haste factor)

and the total proc rate per second for SD would be the two summed together.

Perhaps I should migrate this to the numbers thread or look at how Rawr is modeling it.

Edit: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t36999-f...7/#post1155399

Savage Defense Vs Armor.

With most all Staffs/cloaks not having Armor bonuses on it how well does lets say [Origin of Nightmares] compare to [Twisted Visage]?

For Cloaks its a similar question, The new cloaks that can be best for tanking from Ulduar all have no armor. So what is the best cloak now for tanking? Does the new dps cloaks help with tanking at all since Agility on cloaks only comes from dps cloaks? or is it Tanking cloaks that don't have shield mods/parry better?

I was wondering this also so ran a check in the latest version of Rawr. In full Ulduar gear, and completely raid buffed minus consumables I got the following results:

Twisted Visage:
Total Armor: 32963
Total Health: 42109
Total TPS: 7643
Savage Defense: 93.637% uptime, 1892 absorbed
Total Damage Taken: 10.003%

Origin of Nightmares:
Total Armor: 33625
Total Health: 42589
Total TPS: 7056
Savage Defense: 92.377% uptime, 1749 absorbed
Total Damage Taken: 10.051%

The difference in the amount of damage you take with either weapon is insignificant. Both armor and savage defense are physical, so the only difference is on magic fights which is where the health comes in.

The main difference is 480 health vs 587 threat.

What gems shuld i use in 3.1? ArP or Agi as cat, Stam or Agi as bear? regards

manapaws, Does your Calculations include the fact that most Feral Druids in BiS are under hit capped, or the amount of Dodge gained from [Twisted Visage]?

It isn't my calculations, it's just RAWR with my dream Ulduar gear. All that was swapped was the weapon for the purposes of answering the previous person's question.

But yes, does include those things by default.

With Savage Defense having it's absorb damage based on AP, what are your thoughts on having the Mirror of Truth equipped as a tank, seeing how both proc off of crits?

I think Rawr is also counting the [Austere Earthsiege Diamond] as applying to all armor, when it currently isn't, that's going to work in favor of Twisted Visage.

I'd only recommend using Mirror of Truth if you're planning on DPSing in cat form during the same encounter. If you're just tanking stick with a tanking trinket with a more reliable avoidance or mitigation use effect.

I've built a Savage Defense friendly tanking set using Twisted Visage and AP/crit trinkets for fights that I don't tank for the duration. Off-tanking XT (Pummel bots) and Iron Council (After first target dies) and the majority of trash works well with this setup. Quite a few of these encounters can be tanked in an AP heavy set as the majority of damage is physical. Both Primal Gore and Shredding Attacks are fantastic talents for this role.

Being able to tank at points in an encounter, while still putting out competitive DPS makes Feral an invaluable asset in Ulduar.

Depends how much armor penetration you have.

You may want to try Nightcrowlers Feralbynight thread, it has an extensive section on it.

Didnt find a pvp thread so thought id give it a go here,

Trying to gain some pvp gear now for doing some arena, and i was wondering if anyone had some experience to share regarding setups for a feral. Currently thinking to try with a priest, anyone know this setup ?.

I also wondered abit about balancing pvp gear and pve gear for optimal dmg output. How much resilience do you go with to not be too squishy ? Do you find yourself popping into cat form getting dots up and go bear dps when you are focused ?

Also on a sidenote, is any of the wg rewards any good ? Seems to me the trinkets are all inferior if you got some naxx 25 gear and only one i could think of is the 190 ap and cc removal one if i was good on resilience from other slots.

Sorry if my questions are silly, never was too good at arena but would like to give it a chance now.

There is a feral pvp thread over here in the Player vs. Player forums.

Anyone have a good addon or method for monitoring the number of Shreds you've done to extend your current Rip? I find it's easy to lose track of this during an encounter, and I also have discovered that I'm not actually guaranteed to be doing three Shreds off the bat, especially if I am refreshing SR, Rake, and Mangle early in the Rip. A lot of times I feel I need to know in a split second if I need to put another Shred on the Rip before it fades--this affects my decision as to whether I save my CP and energy to Rip, or do something else like pop FB or refresh SR early.

Ideally I'd like something simple as a big counter that shows me a giant 3 - 2 - 1 next to a Shred icon, or even just a square with that number in it that starts red and turns green when at least 3 Shreds have been applied since the last Rip. I'm sure there's other things that would work; that's just an idea.

Any suggestions?

Well i kinda disaggree there, the rake doesn't really improve my dps at all, it's just to add the last of my cp (5th one) rly quick and not too expensive of energy. i just make sure my mangle is constantly on. And using shred for cp stacking. Alsi i prefer Rip instead of the SR, i've tested my dps whole lot of times and i found it this way, any others have other experiences ?

Switch Rake and Rip. Rake DoTs can't crit

Hey I was wondering about some tanking enchants/gear options. I'm primarily a healer but I just started to dabble in tanking for my guild. There are enchants with defense on them that rawr says are the best. Also some pieces of gear with resil which are much better than what I have. I was wondering how desirable defense rating and resil are for tanks, and could you please direct me to the numbers on how much crit reduction and all thiese stats provide? I assume that if we stacked enough resil/defense we could move some points out of SotF and into something else?

my guess is: dropping sotf is... ugh... bad.

I am interested in the scaling values of stats on items for 3.1. I have seen several posts about it on these forums but I wonder if anyone has updated their models to reflect the actual armor penetration mechanics that Ghostcrawler recently posted in a blue post. The general consensus is that armor penetration is the top stat if you stack more than ~200 of it but a model I am looking at on Druid Wiki has agility still the top stat with crit being #2 and armor penetration being a very close #3 (ignoring strength since if given the choice you would take agility) even in cases where you stack a lot of armor pen.

madmike253, there is literally nothing else you could possibly take that would match up with what SotF gives you as a tank.

So then defense rating and resil for a bear tank are 100% useless?