It's not silly. Whereas some people have been spending DKP, or been awarded gear from Loot Council, or spending Badges, or what have you, on gear that is now significantly worse, Feorius has been using his resources wisely, anticipating the change so that now that the patch is here, he doesn't have to go and entirely re-gear himself. This is exactly why GC let us know this was happening early on. Now, if he happens to have tons of excess badges, or DKP, or something was going to get sharded and he didn't speak up and take it solely because of this change, then yeah that's a mistake. But as it is, he saves his guild a lot of grief by preparing early for a known nerf to the value of certain items by not intentionally taking them over someone else who might, now, get more use from them.

Assuming no buffs (not even MotW). I go from 39.0k armor to 35.4k (neck,rings,trinkets,weapons have +armor). It's also not the best gear available (I lack 25-man neck,back,head,legs,wrists,weapon).
This was tested on the PTR (took me 4 hours to log on to Dalaran - why oh why didn't I copy my character while in Thunder Bluff).

So the nerf isn't as big as I originally thought.

@Adoriele:
Not picking up the blue armor cloaks, necks and trinkets (buy on AH or do a quick heroic)... With the benefits they would have for your raid now, it's just silly.

Depends. If you're barely scraping enough gold together to have the consumables for your raid nights (though that's unlikely) and have no time for Heroics (also unlikely for most people here), it's very possible to be doing the best you can and still see this patch as an upgrade. Again, just pointing out that his is the more sensible course for someone with limited time and resources, especially when dealing with drops in a raid scenario that others might need more after the patch. Once you get into the surplus resources area, well, anything you don't spend to be better is a mistake. But take care of the necessary stuff first.

[Torta's Oversized Choker] - 25 gold on AH

[Blackened Dragonfin] - 10 gold each on AH (or spending time fishing+daily cooking)
[Chained Military Gorget] - Best pre-25 non-armor neck

The stat-boost of using food+neck is small. If you're strapped for money, you would buy the neck and skip food (or use 30 stamina TBC foods)... Not to mention the blue neck is better than all of the (non-armor) 25-man drops so he can spend his DKP or whatever on what matters more (high item-level leather pieces). Spending a lot of effort getting the best armor drops may be wasted, but you should still get the easy ones.

I don't think I am gimping myself by trading off 5k armor in exchange for 5k HP and 4-5% dodge, and yes I understand the importance of armor as a druid to mitigate damage. Your tanking ability is relative to the healers healing you. Yes gear certainly helps, but I deal with what I have. My current guild does not have enough to fill a 25 man raid at the moment. Therefore I really don't have the luxury for gear selection. I am also not the MT in my guild so my main focus is DPS first, tank second. With my current gear (mostly heroic blues/badge/10 man) and raid buffs I was able to tank Hateful strike on Patchwerk in a Naxx25 PuG just fine. I'd rather to put myself in a better position when the new patch comes out than to redo my tanking gear all over again.

Again, I posted the info to share some hard numbers on druid changes in the coming patch with my current gear, never to boast about my (crappy) gear.

Funny enough I barely use WG on Loatheb. When the Debuff (can't remember the name off hand" is at 10secs I'll single LB the lowest % hp target. I'll then proceed to single LB ppl up the "% Deficit" list looking at grid. Keep applying single LB's until the debuff comes off. At that point I'll either LB more ppl in a 25 after tossing a single WG or in a 10man toss a WG and maybe double stack ppl who won't get the "Bloom Effect" from LB while the Debuff is off.

You'll have to change that strat depending on how long your LB's last (talents/glyph) but you'll be very surprised to see how much effective healing you get out of that strat especially if you have the crit buff. Sadly WTB Tranquility not being useless and make it "comparable" to a channeled PoH.

As far as Maly they said they are changing the dmg done in the air. Could very well be Rejuving as he takes off anybody whom you know has a low HP pull (never yourself at this point). Get in the Air, WG, Rejuv yourself, and maybe single LB or Rejuv depending (won't know till I try it).

They have to because sticking a CD on WG simply makes our two classes weak at doing the required job, it does not make it any easier for Paladins or Shamans.

The previous point was that they couldn't leave it too low before (in the range where it was managable for Paladins & Shamans) because then Druids or Priests would cakewalk it far too easily.

Forgive me as I've only done Malygos on normal, but is healing during the cyclone much more difficult on heroic? I don't even use WG much in the 10 man, while healing with a shaman partner who focuses on the tank. Once the air sequence is pending, I make sure each person has a fresh Rejuvenation; I might also hit a person with a lifebloom if they have a low hp total. A couple ticks from rejuv in the air is more than enough to keep everybody alive. Once we all land, then I use WG once to top off those who are low and continue as normal.

Everyone takes about 2k a tick from the cyclone on heroic. It does, IIRC, 20k total + another 10% damage from the fall.

Getting a rejuv on 25 people is, to say the least, problematic.

I would assume that more than one person would be responsible for keeping the raid up in a 25 man. I believe on normal it does 18k damage. Again, I'm not speaking from direct experience, but would it really be necessary to lower the damage on heroic after the cooldown to WG and CoH? Are those spells really the only practical way to keep the raid alive with the current damage?

Although not directly a druid change - can someone check their shoulder graphics on the PTR? See attached screenshot if you want to know what mine look like at the moment, for comparisons sake (left shoulder is half size). It's definitely not a UI issue, and I get it with both the T6 shoulders and sunwell shoulders as well as Dreamwalker (just what I have in the bank for an easy check).

I've put in a report through the normal help UI (there's no alt-click UI active for some reason for me). If someone else could confirm this before I post something on the official forums it'd be much appreciated, and I can't see anything about it on the US or european test forums.

I've done a search of the forums and didn't see a mention of the change to the [Idol of the Raven Goddess]. It has been changed to three equips that indicate you receive the bonus instead of your auras.



Unfortunately, my quick tests show that it still doesn't affect healing done. I was in Tree of Life during all of my tests. With it equipped, I saw 329 and 330 ticks of Lifebloom and a bloom of 2876. With the [Ivory Idol of the Moongoddess] equipped, I saw the same thing. I used my second account to check the affect in Moonkin, Dire Bear and Cat forms and I saw my own crit rate go up with it equipped but not the crit rate of my other character.

It might be a moot point and all, but I figured it was worth noting in passing.

I don't understand why so many ppl complain about the armor change. It's a buff for the majority of the druid population, for the ones for wich it's a nerf, it's a right nerf because they are already taking with best tanking gear far less damage than any other tanking class. This "nerf" free us for more loot. Actually I think they have overdone it (I still think that a 200% multiplier on bonus armor and a lower multiplier on lether would have been better) because actually armor trinket are horrible and stam blu trinkets are the best one, putting us were we was before with the switch from armor to stam.

Im pretty sure most ppl that knows all the druid math understand why theres such a great hazzle on Druid Forums about the change in armor, and use words like "nerf". Reason to this is the following:
- Today the Dire Bear Shapeshift tooltip reads: "........increases armor with 370 percent on all items"
- Weve read from the Patchnotes that this armor increase will be removed totally, and replaced by a talent that gives 22, 44, 66
on Leather(and cloth) armor only.
- Given that 370 Percent armor increase today gives a FOUR point SEVENTY mutliplier on all equipped items, while the future
situation will be ONE point SIXTYSIX multiplier on Leathers only, it is NO WONDER that ppl shout nerf.
- Now, ofc when too many ppl on test realms says "dont worry" one isnt so afraid about this change. Becasue apparently theres
other stuff to this armor change than most commonly is explained on forums.

Even though this absolutely has to do with gathering data/learning the druid and upon that actually understanding the (druid)-math, a statement saying they dont understand other players can only be seen as: "Hey, Look at me ! Im (a) Smart(wannabe)".

My 2 cents......

No, no, no, no and finally, no.

The bear form multiplier is still there, and it's still 370%. Thick hide is still there, and it's still 10%. Survival of the fittest is having an additional 66% added.

The nerf is that bonus armour items (i.e. trinkets, rings, necks and additional armour on cloaks) will not get any multiplier any more, it's just the base armour on leather items that gets multiplied. This nerf only affects you if you're using bonus armour items, and then the impact isn't game-breaking, merely to (try to) bring druids in line with other tanks.

edit: The last line makes it sound like druids are overpowered with end game gear, which wasn't my intention. What I actually meant was that the current system means particular items are valued over others by far more than they should be (see [Defender's Code] for an example) and this should help to level the field a bit more. Sure, stam trinkets will be popular because of all the multipliers, but it's "just" stam, which doesn't actually help in mitigation terms, and the changes should provide a choice of items for slots instead of something being so much better it's no contest.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.0.8

General

* Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.

2 things A) Blizz adding new armor talent to Bears and still says in Patchnotes: " will no longer be multiplied by any talents..." ???
B) ..."or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form.." what does this mean ?????

Bonus armor on gear is

[Flowing Cloak of Command]

[Shroud of Resurrection]

At ilvl 187 a cloak has 140 base armor. This value gets the bear form multiple, the additional 364 ac on Flowing Cloak will no longer be multiplied by bear form.

No where do they say that the bear form multiplier is being replaced by the new 1.66 multiplier, that is in addition to bear for most of your gear.

Has anyone checked to see if the T7 4 piece bonus is working on the PTR? It's supposed to increase the duration of Barkskin by 3 seconds but right now at least the 10man version doesn't do anything.

It doesn't surprise me to see level 70 gear being reduced in power, but still, is 44 spell power better than Lush Moss's LB bonus?

My last Naxx 25 run showed me around 35% RG, 30% LB, 15% RJ, 15% WG so with LB reduced to 30% usage from the glory days of BC raiding where it was around 70% I'm thinking an idol that benefits all my spells to be a better proposition.

Of course, the idol has to actually work.

[Idol of the Raven Goddess] does not "work" anymore. The tooltip says that it increases Healing SP of the ToL aura. The problem is that the ToL aura is no longer a SP increase, but it now is a flat 6% to healing increase. As a result of the change to the flat percentage, increasing it by Healing SP no longer does anything.

Well, at least with one 25-item (gloves) the setbonus already works on live - it even changes the tooltip, that's why you might want to double-check if you're already used to 15second-barskins.

Another thing about PTR... The new catswipe does not only get no benefit of berserker, but does not consume clearcasting, too. Though it might be quite intentional, since savage-roar doesn't use clearcasting neither, there could just be a forgotten flag in the spell.

"The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next damage, healing spell or offensive ability by 100%."
So clearcasting doesn't get consumed by buffs (like SR and GotW). My guess is the same as yours, however (they forgot to flag the ability).