Druid changes Patch 3.08 - Page 11

Deliverance · 12/18/08, 3:30 AM

How can you consider it a bug, Sadris? PS never applied to the STR on a feral weapon, only the FAP, and SotFs stat bonus is also clear in which stats it applies, so there was no reason whatsover to expect that PS and SotF would apply to the normal AP that STR gets changed to on the items.

As regards being balanced around the old values, for a 100 STR item we lose (200*1.06*1.1)-200) AP = 33.2 AP, for a 200 STR item 66.4 AP - yes, they are clear losses, but they are so small that their impact on performance is of the same scale as rounding errors or making a single mistake in a dps rotation, so we'll not be unbalanced and in need of fixing because of such a small loss; it is entirely within the "Bah, so what? Completely acceptable collateral damage" region of item changes from a design POV.

• sadris · 12/18/08, 9:34 AM

I'm talking about Predatory Strikes: "+ 20% of any attack power on your equipped weapon." When FAP is removed from weapons, then the talent is less beneficial as it no longer increases total character AP via the presence of FAP.

Deliverance · 12/18/08, 11:54 AM

But Predatory Strikes do increase total character damage via FAP after the change, Sadris - the FAP change is that FAP exists for every weapon in the game, not just a few for which it is tacked on.

The only loss that is suffered is that the STR is changed into AP and thus does not benefit from SotF and BoK.

Playered · 12/18/08, 12:27 PM

GC "confirmed" the Polearm thing, despite it not being available on trainers yet (still?)

"We're not completely done with how feral gear works. (As a minor example, we did just allow druids to use polearms.) We have some other ideas to make collecting pieces more interesting than just whatever the melee leather for your current tier happens to be."

TheNameLessOne · 12/18/08, 4:23 PM

Originally Posted by Deliverance

But Predatory Strikes do increase total character damage via FAP after the change, Sadris - the FAP change is that FAP exists for every weapon in the game, not just a few for which it is tacked on.

The only loss that is suffered is that the STR is changed into AP and thus does not benefit from SotF and BoK.

It's still a bug even if it is just a poorly written tool tip. Predatory Strikes says all attack power, not just FAP.

puebloune · 12/23/08, 7:56 AM

Originally Posted by nau

I am still completely baffled by the WG nerf being as hard as CoH, but I really don't think any of us will notice. I use it around 10-15% of my healing on any of the decent bosses. Is anyone going to feel the change really or are we all shrugging our shoulders?

I guess at the highest of spellpowers (~3k+) a non-cooldown WG could become insanely powerful, ticking for almost 1k the first time around. I am sitting at 830 on the first tick full raid buffed and it still just doesn't seem that strong.

Its not the druid getting nerfed, its the one button spammer being nerfed, and this applies for all healing classes. My healing breakdowns seems to be similar to yours, so I won't have any trouble adjusting.

Playered · 12/23/08, 8:49 AM

I've spent my last couple of weeks making sure I never double-cast WG and somewhat treat it like there is a CD in place. I honestly cannot say I am feeling any major loss for doing so - perhaps people should do the same and 'adjust' before the change happens so that you are not in for any shocks.

Grond · 12/23/08, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by Falk

Last I checked, across all gear levels mitigation * avoidance on druids was superior to mitigation * avoidance of other tank classes, on top of being smoother and having a larger health pool.

You didn't look hard enough. Druid avoidance is significantly worse than every other tank.

Falk · 12/23/08, 1:49 PM

Originally Posted by Grond

Druid avoidance is significantly worse than every other tank.

Obviously it is. I said mitigation * avoidance, not flat out avoidance.

Just as obviously, with armor being normalized the way it is, that statement won't hold true anymore. Druids will likely get another form of compensation/scaling (In fact, GC has hinted as much). This was -not- going to happen with how things already were.

Monfalaris · 12/24/08, 12:36 AM

I brought up the issue regarding Predatory Strikes and AP/FAP on the german forums a while ago when Build 8905 came out. Back then, people reported that the PS bonus only affected the FAP portion of the weapon even though the tooltip says 'ANY AP'. Additionally, there was a bug with PS which caused the bonus to fail in case the weapon was equipped being in feral form already, for example, when you switch back from your healing mace.

In case PS works with ANY AP on a weapon, the change of Strength to AP on the Feral Staves might not be so bad overall as PS even overcompensates for the lack of raid buff scaling.

Does anyone have up-to-date information regarding the exact mechanics of Predatory Strikes? Everyone seems to have different infos

As for the WG 'Nerf'. I don't quite understand what's so utterly bad about this. Everything it does is forcing us to use it only when it has run out leading to the most efficient use of it rather than inefficient spamming.

Edit: comment on WG

FuzzyBuddy · 12/24/08, 5:54 PM

Originally Posted by Monfalaris

I brought up the issue regarding Predatory Strikes and AP/FAP on the german forums a while ago when Build 8905 came out. Back then, people reported that the PS bonus only affected the FAP portion of the weapon even though the tooltip says 'ANY AP'. Additionally, there was a bug with PS which caused the bonus to fail in case the weapon was equipped being in feral form already, for example, when you switch back from your healing mace.

In case PS works with ANY AP on a weapon, the change of Strength to AP on the Feral Staves might not be so bad overall as PS even overcompensates for the lack of raid buff scaling.

Does anyone have up-to-date information regarding the exact mechanics of Predatory Strikes? Everyone seems to have different infos

I did some testing on the PTR and it does apply to the converted FAP but does not apply to the STR that was converted to AP. I did not test whether or not it applied to AP enchants. I posted the findings on the PTR forum and Maaven said they would look into it.

Crytz · 12/24/08, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by Monfalaris

As for the WG 'Nerf'. I don't quite understand what's so utterly bad about this. Everything it does is forcing us to use it only when it has run out leading to the most efficient use of it rather than inefficient spamming.

Yes and no. Take 10-man Sapph for example. As it is right now we can cast WG on the ranged group then use the next gcd on the melee. That's two wild growth casts healing about 8 players and 1 hunter pet. In the 25-man version we can easily get it up on 15+ targets. Same goes for Loatheb, Malgyos, Gluth, Noth, periods in Kel'Thuzad...

With that said it's hardly an insurmountable change. Good old preemptive Lifeblooms and Rejuvs will allow a semi-competent player to make up the difference. Honestly, the most negative aspect is that I have yet to see Bliz making a distinction between WG and CoH. To me this indicates a great deal of naivete about how healing actually works in strong raiding guilds, as though they think while we're spamming WG onto every member of the raid, our other healers are just regenning until our last tick.

kameelyan · 12/25/08, 2:14 PM

Originally Posted by Grond

You didn't look hard enough. Druid avoidance is significantly worse than every other tank.

Take the top gear warrior in your guild and put him in RAWR. Check his overall damage taken %. Now do the same for you. You'll be surprised what you see.

I'm still so surprised so many druids are QQ'ing about tanking.

lawl · 12/27/08, 3:05 PM

PTR seems screwed up right now.

At one point it will look like a severe nerf compared to my live stats and if I log out/back in it will look like a slight buff.

Edited for confusion.

Grock · 12/27/08, 4:08 PM

Originally Posted by Crytz

Yes and no. Take 10-man Sapph for example. As it is right now we can cast WG on the ranged group then use the next gcd on the melee. That's two wild growth casts healing about 8 players and 1 hunter pet. In the 25-man version we can easily get it up on 15+ targets. Same goes for Loatheb, Malgyos, Gluth, Noth, periods in Kel'Thuzad...

With that said it's hardly an insurmountable change. Good old preemptive Lifeblooms and Rejuvs will allow a semi-competent player to make up the difference. Honestly, the most negative aspect is that I have yet to see Bliz making a distinction between WG and CoH. To me this indicates a great deal of naivete about how healing actually works in strong raiding guilds, as though they think while we're spamming WG onto every member of the raid, our other healers are just regenning until our last tick.

It's a preemptive nerf. With CoH getting a cooldown the WG spammer will have a much larger return on WG healing if it didn't also get a nerf. Imagine how much healing a WG spammer can do when his heals aren't getting sniped by CoH and have time to finish...