Sept 26:
[blizzard]Feral Q&A
Please pass us some further details as to what other tanking talents/abilities we will be given to help cover the differences between feral tanking and humanoid tanking.
We have to be careful here. Our goal is to make sure all the tanks can do the job, so we want to make sure we don't give druids an ability that will push them over the edge. Druids were really good tanks in BC, especially near the end of the content. I don't feel that we are having to make up a huge deficit. I understand you want to have more buttons to push, but compared to BC you now have new cooldowns like Berserk and Barkskin, and some old groaners like Tiger's Fury and Frenzied Regeneration actually do something cool now.
Please point out how our dps will be tuned to match rogue dps.
We'll eventually figure out how much lower cat dps is than rogue dps, and then we will change some druid abilities to use bigger numbers. It's possible we will buff a couple of talents, especially ones that we suspect you're likely to already be getting. But mostly we do it through tweaking core abilities like Shred and Mangle.
Please explain how shifting cost and mana consumption will work with rogue gear (in pvp/pve/soloing).
Feral mana seems to have taken a big hit. We have some thoughts on how to adjust it.
Please explain what will occur with older content fights where druids could not tank due to a missing ability.
Maybe Illidan will forget how to Shear. Is that what you're talking about?
Please explain if our tanking and dps will scale as we go to harder 25 man content.
Yes, they will. By definition, percentages scale and flat numbers do not. You have a lot of percentages in your talents. There has been a lot of discussion about whether Mother Bear is a scaling talent or not, and I'm not sure I'm eager to enter into that debate again. But we have designed the talents to scale. One of the problems to your mitigation scaling was just hitting the upper limit of armor. Armor and avoidance will be much harder to cap out now.[/blizzard]
[blizzard]Tanking classes in WotLK
1) You should only face instagib problems when you can be crit since bosses no longer crush targets 3 levels lower than them. The fact that 3 of the tank classes are having trouble being uncrittable by Naxx is something we're look into. Druids can be uncrittable through talents.
2) DKs will probably have lower armor than warriors and possibly health as well. Their avoidance will almost certainly be higher to compensate for the lack of block. DK situational abilities are better than warrior ones. We want to keep these differences as much as possible without gimping anyone. Everyone realizes that a 95% avoidance tank with 10K health is not going to be an effective tank, nor is one that is so dependent on cooldowns that he dies when the cooldowns aren't up.
3) If you are having threat issues, that is concerning. We are trying to get away from +threat modifiers on abilities because they don't scale well with with gear. For those we're keeping (like Sunder Armor) the threat scales with AP. The ideal design is something closer to the paladin, where threat scales off of damage really well. If the DK dps is too low, that would certainly account for lower threat as well. We don't want to have a lot of variance in threat on tanks. It's hard to balance (and not really much fun) to have low threat tanking classes.
Bottom line: the design is that the 4 tank classes are roughly equal in their ability to survive and maintain threat, while preserving whatever differences among them that we can manage. (Source)
Tanking classes in WotLK
There is no reason to bring a druid over a warrior. Not if we do our jobs right. There is no reason to bring a warrior over a druid either. We want you to get a tank. We don't want you sidelining your X tank while you are trying hard to recruit a Y tank.
Bring the tank with the best gear or the most skill. Bring the guy that always shares consumables or can make every raid. Bring the dude who doesn't complain or researches boss strategies or finds great new people to join your group. Don't bring a player because his class has the magic button for a boss fight; if we do our jobs right, there won't be any. (Source)
[/blizzard]
[blizzard]
Bring the tank with the best gear or the most skill. Bring the guy that always shares consumables or can make every raid. Bring the dude who doesn't complain or researches boss strategies or finds great new people to join your group. Don't bring a player because his class has the magic button for a boss fight; if we do our jobs right, there won't be any.
[/blizzard]
So... I guess they haven't been doing their job right. ]:D
[blizzard]Current issues with Druid
The problem we were trying to solve with Feral was that they could only be 75% of a rogue and 75% of a Prot warrior (to be fair, the warrior part sometimes got to be 102%, but the rogue part never did). We wanted to let people who liked the melee hybrid playstyle keep doing that, while also having true dps and tanking Ferals.
The problem we were trying to solve with Balance was in some ways easier and harder. Balance just needed to get a spot in the group. Balance needed reasonable CC in 5-player instances and good dps, AE, buff capacity and mana-efficiency to be a credible caster. Making sure raids didn't need all 10 or 25 spots devoted to stacking buffs helps open up space as well.
Resto druids are pretty amazing on Live and have a pretty good healer niche. What we wanted to do with them is expand on their healing a little so they had more group-heal capacity and more spells to cast besides rolling Lifebloom.
With regard to PvP, we want to try and get some of the under-represented classes and specs in there more, but that's a much, much harder problem. PvP balance is enormously sensitive to certain small changes and to the presence and absence of certain abilities. We try to avoid just handing out the mandatory abilities to everyone (hello Mortal Strike) for fear that we end up with 10 classes that are just art differences. It's a non-trivial problem to solve, complicated by the fact that testing it is hard and requires not only skilled participants, but also for the rest of the game to be in a really stable state. We've changed the game so much, that I can almost promise that PvP is going to be very different. How, exactly, I'm not sure anyone could say yet. I gaurantee that we've broken something for good or ill for at least a couple of classes, because that's the reality of the situation. Hopefully we can be more proactive about fixing problems when they arise. (Source)
Feral Concerns
I understand you want your gear designed to specifically support those stats that are most important to you. I'm telling you that you are dangerously close to being the best tank from a mitigation-standpoint even without it. I suppose it's possible your threat generation will be very low, but I kind of doubt it.
If your concern is you'll have to wear PvP gear or BC gear because it's better than LK gear, don't worry about that. In fact, that also answers the question of why we can't put strength on some leather without doing it to all leather -- because then those few sacred pieces become the only ones that can / will be used.
If your concern is that your gear won't scale, don't worry about that either. The only reason it became a problem in BC was because you hit the armor cap, which led to you not wanting more mitigation and us not making more tanking bear armor. It wasn't that we hit the max stat budgets in BC, if I am understanding that concern correctly, or you wouldn't see 200 ilevels now.
If you want armor on your leather because you like hitting the armor cap, sorry. This is one of the few times you'll hear me say no, but no. It does bad things to the game.
If your concern is that you just like having leather with strength, armor, stamina, dodge and agility on it, and don't want to see AP or defense because partialy-wasted stats just creep you out, *and* you would rather have druid talents and bear form nerfed to compensate for that, well I guess that is a different way to design the game. It would probably work okay, but it would mean going back to a model where bosses dropped rogue loot or feral loot. We just think the current design works better.
On an entirely different topic, I also understand that you want to have more interesting abilities to use on a regular basis. That's a fair request, and one that is made by several other classes as well. It's something we will keep talking about and keeping a close eye on. It wasn't our priority for the Feral this time around, but I can understand how you wish it was.
My hope is that this giant wall of text helps you understand our thought process, and helps you feel that yes we do listen to you, and yes we do understand how the class works. If it doesn't convince you, well there's always tomorrow. (Source)[/blizzard]
[blizzard] Druid (Skills List / Talent Calc. (8962))
Balance
Skills
Barkskin is now usable in all forms.
Talents
Earth and Moon (Tier 10) changed so your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon effect. It now also increases your spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%. (Previously had a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon Effect)
Eclipse (Tier 9) changed so when you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 33/66/100% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. (Previously 20/40/60% chance)
Improved moonkin Aura (Tier 7) gives 3% spell haste for all ranks and now you gain 5/10/15% of your spirit as additional spell damage.
Improved Faerie Fire (Tier 7) increases your critical strike chance against targets afflicted with Faerie Fire by 1/2/3%.
Nature's Splendor (Tier 3) changed to - When you cast Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Rejuvenation, Regrowth or Lifebloom you have a 33/66/100% chance to increase it's duration by 3 sec.
Feral Combat
Skills
Shred - Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Shred damage.
Maul - Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Maul damage.
Bash now interrupts spell casts for 3 sec.
Talents
Berserk (Tier 11) no longer causes your Mangle (Bear) and Maul attacks to hit up to 3 targets
Predatory Instincts (Tier 8 ) reduces the damage taken by area of effect attacks by 3/6/9/12/15%. (Previously increased your chance to avoid them)
Protector of the Pack (Tier 8 ) damage reduction is now at 3% for each party member across all ranks.
Improved Leader of the Pack (Tier 7) - In addition, you gain 4% of your maximum mana when you benefit from Improved Leader of the Pack heal.
Feral Charge (Cat) (Tier 5) - Causes you to leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 sec. 30 second cooldown.
Faerie Fire (Feral) (Tier 3) now deals damage and causes extra threat while in bear form.
Brutal Impact (Tier 2) now reduces the cooldown of bash by 15/30 sec in addition to its previous effect.
Restoration
Skills
Gift of the Wild now affects the whole raid.
Lifebloom healing reduced. Mana cost increased. (Check Skill list for details)
Talents
Flourish renamed Wild Growth.
Wild Growth (Tier 11) - Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 350 over 7 sec. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Wild Growth reaches its full duration.\
Gift of the Earthmother (Tier 10) changed to reduce the base global cooldown of your Rejuvenation and Lifebloom spells by 4/8/12/16/20%.
Tree of Life (Tier 9) increases healing received by 6%. (Previously 3%).
Improved Tree of Life (Tier 9) now increases your healing spell power by 5/10/15% of your spirit while in Tree of Life Form. (Previously reduced the mana cost by 5/10/15%)
Glyphs
Glyph of Swipe has been removed.
Glyph of Maul has been added - Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target. [/blizzard]
LOTP now returns 4% mana?!? LOL....so...will the casters be fighting to have us in their group as well? :P
have you not been paying attention lately?
*cough* raid wide auras *cough*
Or do they not like druids and made their stuff party only?
Sounds like it benefits the druid only, and no one else. Blizz has been adding various self buffs to the group buff talents to make them useful when there's someone else in the group that has a similiar group buff.
duh....sorry nas LOL....old habits die hard I guess :P
That doesnt make any sense though Air...on a good day I am using zero mana...its only when I am asked to pop out a lot to do cleanse duty or something do I really have mana as a need / concern...
did they just nerf berserk?:(
I dunno, but Ret pallies and Enh Shammies will love it :)
man, with raid-wide buffs and bew druid/hunter mana batteries, I may not have to life tap much at all XD
[blizzard]Okay, I guess Koraa didn't get a chance to post it today.
1) Feral Faerie Fire becomes a core ability.
2) Brutal Impact increases duration and lowers cooldown of Bash. It swaps with Savage Fury, mostly to keep it out of the paws of anyone but Ferals.
3) Feral Faerie Fire replaced with the old Last Stand component of Berserk. But it's usable in both cat and bear forms.
4) Cat Berserk does not change. Bear Berserk goes back to Mangle hitting 3 targets, and since that isn't so useful on single targets, it also removes the 6 sec (untalented) cooldown of Mangle during the 15 sec duraton for some nice bear burst or threat generation. The Fear immunity is still intact.
Awesome big tweaks?
[ Post edited by Ghostcrawler ][/blizzard]
I love that blizzard pays so much attention to us ferals LOL
I honestly feel like weve been getting uber-tweaked now for the last two years...woot for more!
lol, then check this out:D
[blizzard]Skills
Feral
Dash cooldown reduced from 5 to 3 minutes.
Faerie Fire (Feral) isn't a talent anymore and is now a baseline skill
Talents
Balance
Earth and Moon Rank 1 damage increase changed from "1 to 6%" to 3%.
Improved Moonkin Form now causes affected targets to gain 1/2% haste (down from 3/3%)
Improved Faerie Fire now only increases the critical strike chance of your damage spells on targets afflicted by Faerie Fire. (Old - Increased critical chance of all attacks)
Nature's Grace changed from 1 to 3 points and now has a 33/66/100% proc rate. (Old - 100%)
Nature's Splendor changed from 3 to 1 point. Now Increases the duration of your Moonfire, Insect Swarm, and Rejuvenation spells by 3 sec, your Regrowth spell by 6 sec, and your Lifebloom spell by 3 sec.
Feral
Berserk doesn't heal you anymore in bear form but causes your Mangle (Bear) ability to hit up to 3 targets and have no cooldown instead.
Rend and Tear now increases damage done by Maul and Shred on bleeding targets by 4/8/12/16/20%. (up from 2/4/6/8/10%)
Mangle doesn't increase the damage of Maul and Shred anymore
Protector of the Pack now increases your attack power in Bear and Dire Bear form by 2/4/6%. (Old - increased the bonus attack power by 20/40/60%)
Predatory Instincts changed from 5 to 3 points, now While in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form, increases your damage from melee critical strikes by 3/7/10% (Old - 2/4/6/8/10%) and reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 5/10/15%. (Old - 3/6/9/12/15%)
Savage Fury has been moved from Tier 5 to Tier 2
Brutal Impact moved from Tier 2 to Tier 5
*New Talent* Survival Instincts (Tier 3) - When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 sec while in Bear Form, Cat Form, or Dire Bear Form. After the effect expires, the health is lost. Instant, 5 min cooldown
Restoration
Gift of the Earthmother now also affects Wild Growth[/blizzard]
[blizzard]New druid form arts
It's not going to be in for Lich King. Sorry. Doing an entire animal texture takes a lot more art than a hair change. But we all agree it's high time for new druid form art. It's a high priority after Lich King. You absolutely deserve new skins and we want to do it right, and we want to do it soon. I don't want to promise any more specifics than that until we see what problems arise when LK ships and what we need to fix. In our opinions, Raven Lord and epic flight form set the bar. (Source)
Mangle (Cat)
Are you going to use cat Mangle a little less now? Probably. But it's hardly the only talent with situational use. I'm not sure that warrants a redesign of the talent. I'm not even sure you can assume someone with Trauma will be around all the time. I do think changing Mutilate has opened a door that is difficult to close on positional requirements. But I'm not sure we have enough evidence yet that cat PvP damage is low at all, or is low because of Shred's requirements. Mutilate was a slightly different situation since it was competing against other rogue builds. Mangle and Shred are abilities every cat is going to have. Now if it makes you much worse than rogues in PvE or PvP, that is something we'll look at. (Source)
Balance Tree
While I'm sure every class would say this, it's probably no surprise to you that Balance damage was low. Way too low.
We are addressing most of it through base spell damage changes to Wrath, Insect Swarm and especially Starfire. Hopefully that will give you some more talent choices because some of the damage talents will feel more optional (or as optional as more damage ever feels), instead of the bare minimum you need to be close to other casters.
We also fixed a few bugs with Star Fall and Typhoon. Not sure those changes will boost dps much, but playing your class should be less annoying. (Source)
Swipe target limit
We are still working on Thunder Clap and Swipe. We think paladins can AE tank fine and DKs are probably close. Warriors and druids are still limited by the target limit of their abilities. Removing the target limit may be the answer, but we want to explore the issue first. (Source)
Restoration Tree
We don't want to hurt Regrowth, because it is nice to finally see it being used a lot. My fear is that the glyph is making it a lot better than Nourish.
Ideally, and I don't know if we can get them all to this stage, glyphs should be an option that changes the way you play your character, not just free talent points. In some cases, they are going to feel like buffs. It would be cool, for example, if the Regrowth glyphs let some Resto druids focus more on Regrowth while others used different spells. The Regrowth glyph is just so good, on top of the Regrowth talent, that it may be a non-decision to use which also ends up making Nourish useless.
Ideally you should want to use Regrowth and Nourish on some occasions. Flourish, Rejuv, Swiftmen and Lifebloom already have pretty decent niches. If glyphing for Regrowth makes you lean towards that spell, awesome. I just think the case at the moment is every druid will have that glyph and use Regrowth as a generic heal-all spell.
We're not going to touch the Regrowth talent or other synergistic talents, at least not to solve this problem.
Will a Resto Druid be able to handle all aspects of healing like a Holy Priest such as Prot Warrior is going to be able to handle all aspects of tanking like a Prot Pallie?
No, that isn't the goal. The reason is largely because encounters are designed such that you already want to take more healers on a raid than you have available specs. What I mean is that almost every 25 player will have Holy paladins, Holy priests, Resto shamans and Resto druids. And maybe a Disc priest too. Even a 10 man will have 2-3 healers, and most likely they will be different classes. That's a different situation than the tank is in. There are very many raid encounters that require one tank while almost none that require one healer. By and large, I think we've done a decent job in giving healers niches, but that strategy hasn't worked for tanks (and won't really work for dps either).
Now, where we have needed to give healers more tools is in the 5-player case, and possibly PvP. The same tools are useful in unusual encounters, say a Loatheb where you can't heal often, or a Void Reaver, where the paladin has to run around. A Holy paladin who is great at flashing heals on a MT can't do that in heroic Nexus and expect to keep everyone alive. A druid can't just keep rolling Lifeblooms up and keep everyone alive. Wild Growth is great in those situations. It's probably not going to compete with Chain Heal, but it doesn't really have to. It just gives you another tool in your box. (Source)
[/blizzard]
It is about GD time I didnt look exactly like the level 20 feral druid with 200 AP total................
[blizzard]We are going to remove the target limit on Swipe.[/blizzard]
Quote from: Tolwen on September 28, 2008, 05:32:12 PM
[blizzard]We are going to remove the target limit on Swipe.[/blizzard]
Whoa.
Inc nerf.
I think its a bit OP'ed but still fair if you want to make druids an AOE tank...
So...now we essentially have a consecrate of our own - except its front loaded like khader said, meaning we have to face the target to hit it, while consecrate is just an AOE spell...
BUT - swipe is a great rage builder, and you can swipe TONS more then the tick on a consecrate spell....not only that, its EASY to move around to hit all the targets, plus there are new damage multipliers to swipe in the druid talents now...I would argue that if this goes in as it is now druids and warriors could be better aoe tanks then pallies...
Difference is... Consecrate ticks for 300, swipe hits for... i don't know how much but a lot more than 300
my swipe right now hits for 600-700 normal and crits for about 1400-1500 PER mob...and i can spam the bejeesus out of it, while consecrate only lasts so long...
..AND they have new damage multipliers for swipe in our new talents....
Pallies can chain cast consecrate (8 second effect, 8 second CD... convenient eh) but tanks need a lot more threat now that Salv as we know it is gone. For those who haven't seen the pally patch notes: it is now Hand of Salvation and is cast on a single target with a 3 minute CD and greatly reduces that one person's threat. BTW, ret pally reserves his hand of salv for himself!
Quote from: JohnnieRat on September 29, 2008, 07:27:44 AM
Pallies can chain cast consecrate (8 second effect, 8 second CD... convenient eh) but tanks need a lot more threat now that Salv as we know it is gone. For those who haven't seen the pally patch notes: it is now Hand of Salvation and is cast on a single target with a 3 minute CD and greatly reduces that one person's threat. BTW, ret pally reserves his hand of salv for himself!
Salv wasn't so much removed as the effect was moved into all tanks abilities - where it should have been in the first place. This is one of the biggest reasons pallies were better AoE tanks than warriors or druids. Yes they AoE tank well but combine it with Blessing of Salvation and pallies are many times better than a warrior or druid.
IMO this change levels the playing field for tanks more than any other change. Changes to allow druids and warriors to more easily AoE tank are nice but multi-mob tanking is/was still possible maybe just a bit harder.
Target limit on Thunderclap was also removed. Now warriors have a 360
o AoE which leaves druids without one. :(
meh...its not hard to move around to hit all the mobs with no mob limit anymore LOL...to me its not a big deal hehehe...i think the fact that we can spam it so often plus the high damage it does compensates well...
I feel great about tanking come the patch...bring it on!
Shouldn't be tanking with mobs behind you anyways (unnavoidable sometimes but letting Illidan put you on his knee and spank you is a bad idea). Honestly, I think the change is making this more World of everyone is the same craft. Pallies excelled at AoE tanking. Druids have retarded amounts of armor, and warrs are the "all-around" folks and have the most tools/gimmicks. Now druids and Warr's can AoE, pallies use physical abilities, druids have a last stand style ability... point is, nothing is really unique anymore. Hell pally healers even have HoT's (if specced/glyphed into it)
Even with Death Knights coming, I still think Pally's will be the better aoe tank's. Consecration is still really good. It scales with attack power now, so it should hit alot harder.
The way consecration works makes it better than most aoe's. It can be used before a group of mobs gets to a pally which lets them get an initial amount of threat. And then the pally can consecrate again.
Then theres holy shield, retribution aura, and blessing of sanctuary. All abilities that generate threat just by hitting the pally tank. There's also avenger's shield which is now instant cast, but has a long cool down. And also holy wrath if there's any undead mob's.
I have over 2500 AP self buffed in the PTR and consecrate ticks for 199 so the AP ration for it can't be very large at all so it won't help tanks who aren't big on AP stacking all too much.
The other AOE(ish) ability we have is Demo Roar - yeah it doesn't do any damage, but it does help to keep initial aggro if you have a buttload of mobs on you. And like Arc said - tab-targetting/spinning and swiping ain't that hard =P
won't even have to tab target if it hits everyone
My name is Arc, and I approve this message:
[blizzard]Upcoming balance and feral changes
For now, all I've got is that Starfall can't be dispelled.
We are also discussing Mangle (Cat) or Rake buffs so cats don't feel so penalized by positional requirements, particularly in PvP.
Bear tanks in Wrath of the Lich King
Druid threat is on par or greater than other tanks, and with the Swipe change, that includes group threat as well. Druid dps while tanking is very high. Druid dps while not tanking may still be the highest of the tank classes.
Druid mitigation is so high in Naxxramas that we're worried they may overshadow the other tanks, in which case we might have to change it.
So if you want to make an argument about Feral shortcomings, you'd either have to argue that they won't continue to be great in several raid tiers (which is a valid concern, but one that all the tanks have) or that you don't like their abilities. On that front, we have attempted to juice up several of the Feral's existing abilities, including changes to Frenzied Regeneration, Bash, Barkskin and Faerie Fire, as well as offering a new survival ability and a new burst threat ability, and finally letting you benefit from both consumables and weapon enchants.
You might still argue that the druid abilities are different enough from warrior abilities that it may present a problem, though we'd like to avoid pushing them any closer together if we can help it.
As it stands right now though, we have a lot of confidence that bears are going to be excellent tanks. (Source)
Feral Q&A
I have confidence too, what about Cat DPS? Are you balancing the "tank capable" classes in a category by themselves, or will they have equal DPS to everyone else as per other posts and such?
Cat dps is looking good at the moment. If you get +dps gear and focus on the +dps talents, your dps should be very competitive.
Feral and balance PvP is much more problematic than PvE at this point...
I'm not trying to duck PvP issues, but it has so many different issues and is very sensitive to the numbers on a few specific abilities and to player skill. It is much harder to do PvP tests and determine if things are okay. I will say on the Feral front, we are looking at buffing Rake and Mangle for cats to make up for the positional requirement of Shred.
It seems as though the Druid forums are the only one of the forums in which "HIGH THREAT AOE ABILITY" isn't touted as part of their multi-target ability. Is Swipe going to have the same additional threat modifier as Death and Decay, Thunder Clap and Consecrate?
Making an ability "causes high threat" is a last resort. It's wonky and tends not to scale as well as damage. Sometimes it's the only option we have to keep a tanking ability useful without turning it into the best damage ability available. In our last tests, Swipe's threat per second was very competitive with what paladins could dish out. We don't think at the moment that it needs more +threat to do its job.
Also, please consider the effect on creating Armor pieces in so many slots. Like you said, there's going to be an issue with Mitigation, but also consider that Avoidance is going to be lower because we can't benefit from Parry or split our avoidance between Parry and Dodge to stave off diminishing returns.
Yes, that is the risk. I will say that in Naxx, the bears are just taking less damage overall, which means even with lower avoidance, the huge amount of armor makes up for it, ignoring the fact that druid health also gives them a huge cushion for when they do take a lot of damage at once.
We have done tests at higher tier levels, but if things start to fall apart, we hope to be able to right them in a timely fashion. Remember, it wasn't a stated goal for druids to be able to tank Sunwell. It is now. (Source)
[/blizzard]
Well when on my druid in ptr yesterday, I noticed my health did increase (21k with the last stand type ability), but my armor dropped from 15k to 10k. I assume they're going to be making leather gear specificly for druid tanking (high armor/hp rates) then?
your armor shouldnt drop...they arent changing the bear form bonuses....maybe you specced funny? forgot thick hide? survival of the fittest?
WTB rogue love...
nope, got both of those maxed I think. I'll have to check again once home from work.
weird...i mean...they didnt change a damn thing with anything involving armor contribution...
Theoretically they WOULD make some bear specific leather gear since now druids are kind of forced to go cat or bear focused.....but who knows =) everyplace i am reading PLUS what blizz is saying themselves is indicating that right now druids are the tank class to beat...
I wouldn't say that they THE class to beat in tanking. As much as blizz tried, it seems that each class is still best suited for it's old niche it's just that every QQ'd so much about AoE tanking that druids and warrs were thrown a bone and made not incapable at it.
Having tanked as both a warr and a druid (a long time ago back in Molten Core), I have to say I enjoy a warr more. Theres more abilities at my disposal for mitigation and for holding aggro I think. Druid tanking to me, and I even tried it again recently was basically Swipe, Demo Roar, Lacerate Stack, Stun if possible. Kinda boring to me, perhaps I was doing it wrong, but for me, as a Warr, I feel more of an ability to unload on abilities to mitigate the mobs damage to me, Demo Shout, TC, Disarm, Spell Reflect. As a druid im basically stuck there and have no disarm, no spell reflect so I take the full brunt of spells, no Thunder Clap like ability, just the Demo Roar to decrease atk power.
I think in the end once all these changes are done it will come down to some unique abilities such as Thunder Clap, Spell Reflect, Holy Shield, Lacerate, etc that determines what kind of tank people play. I for one am glad that Pallys wont be preferred for specific heroics or encounters anymore because its honestly not fair to the 2 other tank classes (soon to be 3) with the whole AOE tanking. Multi-mob tanking is doable, albeit harder atm for Druids and Warriors, but it will finally be nice to have abilities that generate enough threat where in places like Magisters Terrace in the room with boss 2 and all those Mana Wyrmlings where I can feel more useful without having to use Challenging Shout to grab aggro for 8 seconds on all mobs then go back to being only useful for 4 mobs.
Armor mitigation druid will probably always be on top with that, but HP wise, its not that hard for a Warrior to get up there with a druid, my Warr's gear is so-so, basically beginner 25 raid level and I was at 20k buffed up while Arc was at 22k. Its all a matter of where you focus your stats. Druids have to have something to make up for the lack of block and parry which the other 2 classes will have which is where the high armor lvl comes in. It will be interesting to see how they make up for the lack of block on Death Knights.
Heh. I saw a warrior from Arcanum outside za a couple days ago and he had 26.5k hp unbuffed. He was pvp flagged and it took the npc a hell of a long time to kill him. Its definately doable for a warrior
edit
Then again, i checked there warriors out and the highest i saw as 17k hp so i dunno. I know i saw it but maybe the mod i use was screwed up.
They are going to be good tanks indeed but in beta seems that the dodge rating now has diminishing returns, so the rogues tanking Illidian are becoming just a legend and maybe the bears are going to be less effective in high end tiers against fast melee bosses, so every tanking class is going to take a slice of the pie :Werewolf:
I remember that Arcanum warr Geos dueled outside BT that was taking groups of about 20 Scryer NPCs and killing them off to powerlevel that 58 Pally with him or whatever he was doing. Prob the same guy, had a ton of hp and was an Orc, not even a Tauren with the +sta racial.
If a warrior hits last stand with a 1750 trinket up he can hit 26.5k easily. Hell, I have hit 25k on raids before, and I suck :p
-Tris
[blizzard]Feral
Mangle - Cat damage increased from 160% normal damage to 200% normal damage. Additional damage increased as well. (507 to 634 for Rank 5)
Rake damage has been increased. (from [ 6% of AP + 387 ] to [ 18% of AP + 1161 ] for Rank 7)
Swipe now affects an unlimited amount of targets
Talents
Balance
Nature's Splendor now increases the duration of Lifebloom by 2 seconds. (Down from 3)
Feral
Protector of the Pack now reduces the damage you take by 1/2%. (Down from 3%)
Glyphs
Glyph of Regrowth - Increases the healing of your Regrowth spell by 20% if your Regrowth effect is still active on the target. (Old - Increases the amount of your initial Regrowth heal by 50% if your Regrowth effect is still active on the target.)
Glyph of Aquatic Form - Increases your swim speed by 50% (up from 20%) while in Aquatic Form.
[/blizzard]
havent seen any verbage about dodge rating having diminishing returns kay...where did you see that? One of the cooler things they did for druid tanks now is put in a talent that gives us rage when we dodge - and since we dodge-dodge-dodge this is going to help out rage and threat generation a ton...
the knock on warriors playing druid tanks has been that we dont have as many tools as warriors do to make it intersting - defintiely a matter of personal taste, but the fact that we can shift to cat form and gain a whole different set of abilities, or try healing, or have things like innervate, barkskin, FF, etc etc to me easily bridge the gap...we are also getting a ton of new abilities - enrage is now useful (sorry fiere and tol...I always see you two use it before a pull and laugh my ass off lol), tiger's fury, our last stand thing, the "red rocket" as some peple call it - we have enough different tools from warriors to be pretty distinct...
I don't think that any feral can make the math for it :Pumpkin: And usually the tankadins are the only that do some math and check the numbers about how badly the devs screw our mitigation and avoidance hehe :Skull:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-combat_ratings_level_80_a/ (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-combat_ratings_level_80_a/)
But as i said in my previous post, a lot of changes are in progress
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10043278278&postId=100420554346&sid=2000#0 (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10043278278&postId=100420554346&sid=2000#0)
this isnt saying that DODGE is diminishing, just the effect on your TOTAL DODGE from stats like +DODGE, +DEF, and such...dodge itself is NOT getting nerfed....this just says as you get more and more +DEF and +DODGE it doesnt scale as well as +AGI and such...
....and I took calculus in college....even though my english degree only required college algebra...so there!
Figured out why my armor rating was lower on PTR. Dunno if it was intentional or not, but theres no more extra armor rating on clefthoof items or belt of natural power ??? >:( :(
+ARMOR as a stat is getting removed....you might be in posession of the ONLY armor pieces that actually have that stat hehehehe
our armor is fine...we will still be hitting the cap with end game gear...
Quote from: Arcdelad on October 01, 2008, 05:10:48 AM
...but the fact that we can shift to cat form and gain a whole different set of abilities, or try healing, or have things like innervate, barkskin, FF, etc etc to me easily bridge the gap...we are also getting a ton of new abilities...
That little bonus is somewhat getting nerfed too tho. Since they are making you go more towards either cat or bear it wont be as easily viable for you to shift into cat form and bump out high DPS numbers anymore Im guessing. Sucks in a way but balances the playing field more since prot cant do it and Pally's definitely cant do it. Again, not sure on DKs though as that whole 2h tanking thing with them is still a bit of a mystery to me and beta is too congested for me to even want to try DK tanking right now.
Plus you cant even use that healing thing with me mr "im OOM" after 5 decurses in ZA =)
Itemizing for druid tanking is going to be a kindergarten level task now... it haz stamz and doge?! OKZ!
Ask Ty and Kay about itemizing for tanking ;)
LOL...shadow...I would love to see you tank adds, then pop out for decurses and stuff when you are wearing all rogue gear with zero INT on it hehehehe...I have, though, in a kara setting MT'ed for most of it, dpsed for a lot, then put on healing gear and healed for boss fights - all within the span of the same run....
we are definitely not going to be able to be a 25 man raid MT, then change gear and be top 3 dps anymore....but I think thats a fair change...still though, in a raid setting the build difference between a bear and a cat build means we will still be WAY higher dps than a prot warrior (even with 8k shield slams) or a prot pally, and quite likely a prot DK...honestly in the build I have for my bear form i am looking at not getting the new attack speed, movement debuff stacker onto mangle, and then not putting points into 15% extra damage on ferocious bite.....this means I use rip instead of FB /shrug....
i love bear tanking...its a lot of fun - and i think is only more fun now with swipeathon, watching my health jump up to 30k for 30 seconds, gaining rage when I dodge (meaning I COULD tank normal mode instances and such now lol), and hitting my red rocket ability for more mmmph....good times ahead!
some people like bear tanks, some people like pally's, some people like warriors , etc - if blizz is doing anything right, its that now we can pick the style we like best and not be penalized becuase that fits who we are the best...
as per itemizing...its not QUITE that simple JR LOL
you have to balance out:
AGI (for ap, dodge and crit)
armor (for bear form multiplier)
STA (for bear form multiplier)
+DODGE
+DEF / +RES (have to remain crit immune)
+EXPERTISE (have to hit things to get aggro)
..and other stats....ALL while only getting offered rogue gear and poorly designed druid gear...
I cant find the post now, but I think I saw a blue post saying druids were not intended to hit the armor cap, or some such.
And yeah arc, our itemization is pretty bad now...without intel we'll do pretty bad in pvp yet again (imp lotp will help a lot though). A quote from Toskk-
QuoteAgility - Our level 70 conversions for Agility-to-Crit and Agility-to-Dodge have both been nerfed, although we have been given ~5% more base Dodge and Crit as consolation. We currently have exact numbers for the Agility-to-Crit change.. we are even with Rogues there. We don't currently have numbers for our new Agility-to-Dodge ratio, but it may or may not be reduced to the level of the other tanking classes. For PvE dps, the change is meaning that Strength will take the front spot as our best dps stat, up until somewhere around 9000 AP (it depends on a whole lot of factors). Agility and the item-budget equivalent 2 AP are very nearly equal in relative value.
Thought druids were crit immune come patch time just from talents alone?
Ah well...fair is fair...
[blizzard]Upcoming Feral nerf
However, we are probably going to have to nerf bears. If we don't, they will be the only MT choice for serious guilds. At the moment, bears in decent gear take less damage, have more health and generate more threat than the other 3 classes by a wide enough margin that we think it's a problem. This is even true on bosses that do a lot of magic damage (like Malygos).
I use the word "nerf" because players use it, and I don't want to hind behind euphamisms. But changing the numbers doesn't have to mean nerfing you into the ground. We just don't want you to dominate. I'm sure you'd feel the same way if Protection paladins were just head and shoulders above the other tanks.
We understand that some Ferals felt they were nerfed in BC either prematurely or in such a way that kept them steadily behind other tanks. (Though Sunwell Radiance was largely for bears.) We will try to make intelligent changes so that you're still out there tanking the Lich King himself. We want you to be about as good as warriors, paladins and death knights, not way above or below them. (Source)[/blizzard]
[blizzard]Feral abilities
With regard to abilities, we have been torn between giving bears (and cats) more unique abilities versus giving them tanking abilities that many players considered "core." We could have certainly come up with something more original than Last Stand for bears, but at the time, a lot of bears were comparing laundry lists of buttons and said bears wouln't be invited to raids because they didn't have an oh snap button like Last Stand. We put that functionality in Berserk, then later backed off of that so that we could make Berserk a more fun button to push as bear. (Source)
Typhoon
I'm not aware of any changes to Typhoon's damage. If you're just talking about Rank 5, we had to just temporarily yank it to make sure it was becoming untrained -- despite the last hotfix, druids were still ending up with it when we added the rank back in. We should be able to add it back next patch.
Also understand that if it hadn't been abused so much that we wouldn't have had to yank it. It's not terribly fair or helpful to complain about not having access to the ability when it was being used to overpower bosses and other players to such extremes. While the bug was ours (mine in all likelihood), we're not going to be able to get back all of those busted battles, yanno? (Source)
Predatory Instincts reducing AoE Damage by 30% instead of 15%
Predatory Instincts is a huge nerf. You just haven't seen it yet. It only works in cat form.
I hinted that this might happen before, but as it was, a druid was going to be the only tank people took for dragons like Malygos. That would have been particularly true for any encounter that was supposed to be a resist fight, because the druid could skip a lot of the resist gear. Your health pool should still make sure you handle those fights sufficiently. (Source)
Treants
The Treant health appears to be too low. They aren't updating correctly from your Stamina or level or something. We'll get it fixed. (Source)
[/blizzard]
[blizzard]Customization options
New art for forms, customization per form, and even the possibility of showing some gear in a form is all stuff we are talking about. When we have a firm plan we're ready to unveil, I'm sure you'll hear about it. (Source)
Feral Q&A (Source)
1. Feral Mana Pools are very limited, is there a planned fix for this?
en you're in a form feels like it's enough to let you occasionally use that mana for something. We think you will probably still go dry quickly if you're healing a lot (which ultimately isn't something we want Feral to do a lot) or if you're chain shapeshifting (which is also something we don't want you ideally doing a lot, but recognize sometimes you need to -- dealing with a Frost mage perhaps.)
2. Protector of the Pack limitation mechanic - not very fun, what was the thinking behind this and can the limitation be removed?
I've avoided this debate for a long time because it seems to really, really upset people that they can't do something they really, really want to do in a very niche case. Bear isn't designed to be something you run around solo to kill things in, and even if you want to do so anyway, your damage reduction shouldn't be a big deal. It's designed as a tanking talent and "solo tanking" is sort of nonsensical. Bear itself works fine without it, and in fact you can even tank just fine without it as long as you aren't doing progression raiding. (If it affected your dps or something, I'd be a lot more convinced.)
3. Feral talent point usage in resto tree, means we have to focus too many points on a non-feral tree, also very difficult to get all the "tanking" talents offered, no room for pvp choices in a tanking build - is this intended?
We designed the new Feral tree with Omen as a trade-off. If we ever moved Omen around, we would also juggle Feral talents. We don't want you to be able to get all Feral talents and OoC. You can be a good bear, good cat, get good PvP talents or get Omen. But you can't do it all with one build.
4. Swipe / Thorns combo (360') Aoe. Is it possible to get a 360' upgrade to our bear form aoe ability?
We don't think too many druids are having trouble using Swipe in its new form. A little difference among class abilities that are otherwise very similar is probably good for the game.
5. Feral Itemization issue 1: Too much Armor on some earlier tanking weapons compared to 25 man naxx gear is this intended?
Do you mean you're going to keep using the older weapon instead of the Naxx bear staff?
6. Feral Itemization issue 2: Not enough "Armor" trinkets in game making them invaluable to druids, basically once you have these trinkets you will not grab anything else unless you reach armor cap. - Can more armor trinkets be added, with different usage stats?
My suspicion is you are still over-valuing armor compared to other defensive stats. I realize you don't want block or parry but that doesn't mean it's armor or nothing.
7. Feral Itemization issue 3: Tanking gear - PVP gear seems to be better for tanking, more stam, why is this the case?
PvP gear pays a lot more of its item budget on resilience than it did in BC so you're going to be giving up something else (like Agi) to use it. Also make sure you are comparing PvP gear to PvE gear of the same item level.
8. Kitty AOE - Kitty form basically has no aoe ability, which limits damage output in multiple mob situations - we would have to switch to bear / caster which would mean taking a chance on pulling aggro or doing minimal damage with hurricane. Are there plans to add kitty form aoe?
Hurricane and Swipe do pretty good AE, certainly better than rogues have (on which cat was modeled).
9. Cat charge being linked to Bear charge. - Why is this the intended mechanic for these two attacks?
We think this would encourage quickly shifting from one form to another, which is something we have actually taken pains to discourage (RIP powershifting).
10. Berserk - The current version of Berserk feels weak now that the immunity to all snares has been removed, and its cooldown is too long. - Is there any way the snares functionality of berserk can be restored?
We thought it was too good if it broke all snares and granted such a great dps increase.
11. Savage Roar - Is it possible to have it persist through shifting?
Same answer. We don't want to add anything else to the class that encourages you to say go cat, use an ability, then go back to bear. Changing forms is cool. Changing forms to buff yourself in one form then going to another isn't what we're going for. If you're a cat and shift to humanoid to heal or decurse or bear to survive when being attacked -- that's cool and what the Feral design is all about. It's when you start to chain several shifts together that we get uncomfortable.
I use cat in short bursts when I feel like the opportunity to survive is there, but this seems to indicate you want people staying in cat OR bear for extended periods.
No, that's not exactly it. Using cat in short bursts is awesome. Shifting out of feral to Innervate or Rebirth is cool, even if you immediately go feral again. Where it starts to cross the line is being a bear, going cat to hit a button, then going back to bear to benefit from the cat button. Doing feral charge bear, shifting and doing feral charge cat is not what we want. Anything that starts to feel like the old powershifting (changing just to generate mana) is what we're trying to avoid.
If it helps, think about it this way: shifting once in a small window is cool. Shifting several times in a small window is less cool. (Source)
Infected Wound
Infected Wounds is a disease, so it can fail, which shows up as a miss in combat logs. Stacking hit should fix the problem if it seems to happen a lot. Poisons have the same issue. (Source)
[/blizzard]
I agree with the gist of this post...although, again, blizzard is delusional about their trees...they think they have made it so you MUST go bear or cat at the expense of the other, but i am bear specced and still putting up very competitive dps....they think ooc in the resto tree is a deterrent...they are wrong there too =) you can still get both...
i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see druid graphic customization...it is so crappy that I am sitting with 4700 AP in epixxxxxxx, yet there is zero difference graphically between me and a level 20 druid with 46 AP lol they have stated they want to do something and that the druid epic flight form is the start of how the "looks" are going to be, but also that its not the very top priority they have (ret pallies still need about 5 shades of nerf)
The druid crying nerf... thats just lol
Druids are the officially blizzard sanctioned OP class.
Well someone had to remove that title from locks
although, Arcane mages have been giving me the most frustration as of late. They insta steal Freedom when I get out of slow and Cleansing it still gives that half second of being slowed and then just arcane barrage spam us to death. God help them if I get to melee range though.
[blizzard]ARMOR
We are changing the way bear armor works so that bonus armor on items does not receive the bear armor multiplier. Specifically this means that trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks with bonus armor will not be multiplied by the bear bonus. The normal armor on leather will still be multiplied by this bonus. We are also going to remove bonus armor from Feral staves. You’ll get your bonus armor from the leather you acquire.
Examples:
1) A ring that grants 100 bonus armor will now grant a bear 100 armor (not ~470 armor).
2) Leather legs with 253 armor will still grant a bear ~1190 armor (not 253 armor).
3) A feral staff will now grant 0 armor.
We are making this change because armor is such a good stat for bears that it makes taking pieces with bonus armor a non-decision and we don’t want acquiring these pieces, which tend to not be common, to be so much of a barrier to a druid who wants to tank a raid.
This change will NOT be in effect when Lich King ships. We are letting you know this now so that you don’t go through heroic efforts to acquire items like the Badge of Tenacity, or Defender’s Code. Defender’s Code, with 850 armor, will still be a good trinket. But it won’t be an insanely good trinket for a bear.
We will adjust the bear armor modifiers so that your net mitigation does NOT go down with these changes. Let me repeat: this is not a nerf to Feral armor. It is a change to the amount of armor you get from gear with bonus armor.
MANA
We are adding an effect to a deep Feral talent (something like Primal Tenacity) to further reduce the cost of shapeshifting into cat or bear by 50%. This talent will stack with Natural Shapeshifter for a total cost reduction of 80%. PvP-focused druids can get both talents to shift easily and often despite, no longer having Int on gear at level 80.
PROTECTOR OF THE PACK
We are removing the group requirements from this talent. The new tooltip will say: “Increases your attack power by X and reduces the damage you take in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by Y.†The values of X and Y themselves are not changing.
Again, these changes will NOT be in Nov 13 for Lich King’s launch. We will add them in a patch that will come out sometime before the major Ulduar content patch. We're letting you know now so that you can choose quest rewards and loot drops accordingly. [/blizzard]
From GC
I don't 100% understand this, didn't we always get bonus armor from leather we got? if that's the case then why isn't this a nerf?
Its not a nerf because of the other changes they made to feral tanking with dodge and whatnot. Its to keep you on par with other tank classes so that you dont become a preferred class with stacking +armor items once you hit your def and other stat caps. Because of how armor scaling works for tanking druids now, it makes it a slight advantage over other tank classes because you can easily hit and surpass 30k armor while other tanks cant unless they are in full Sunwell gear and even then they likely come up short. The armor bonus allows the hits you take to be less impacting and so to avoid druids becoming the preferred tank class like Pallys were when BC hit, thats likely why they changed this. You'll still get the armor bonus % off your leather gear but rings, staffs, trinkets, will all grant the finite amount the same as it does for other tanks.
ah I see, thank you for clearing that :)
My armor almost dropped 10k after the patch, think it's gonna at least go down another 4k..guess the new wotlk gear will make up for it :Mummy:
It's simply b/c as tanks we now get that lovely little buff for dmg reduction...which pretty much no matter how much armor you may have lost is easily made up when partied.
yeah...i have seen an overall reduction in damage taken despite losing 8k armor with the patch...it can be a little shocking to see 23k armor when youve been seeing 30-32k for a year now, but it balances out...
armor is not the end all stat for a druid tank...its a factor, but it shouldnt be sought after at the expense of AGI or STA
and soon it will all change again:
[blizzard]ARMOR
We are changing the way bear armor works so that bonus armor on items does not receive the bear armor multiplier. Specifically this means that trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks with bonus armor will not be multiplied by the bear bonus. The normal armor on leather will still be multiplied by this bonus. We are also going to remove bonus armor from Feral staves. You’ll get your bonus armor from the leather you acquire.
Examples:
1) A ring that grants 100 bonus armor will now grant a bear 100 armor (not ~470 armor).
2) Leather legs with 253 armor will still grant a bear ~1190 armor (not 253 armor).
3) A feral staff will now grant 0 armor.
We are making this change because armor is such a good stat for bears that it makes taking pieces with bonus armor a non-decision and we don’t want acquiring these pieces, which tend to not be common, to be so much of a barrier to a druid who wants to tank a raid.
This change will NOT be in effect when Lich King ships. We are letting you know this now so that you don’t go through heroic efforts to acquire items like the Badge of Tenacity, or Defender’s Code. Defender’s Code, with 850 armor, will still be a good trinket. But it won’t be an insanely good trinket for a bear.
We will adjust the bear armor modifiers so that your net mitigation does NOT go down with these changes. Let me repeat: this is not a nerf to Feral armor. It is a change to the amount of armor you get from gear with bonus armor.
MANA
We are adding an effect to a deep Feral talent (something like Primal Tenacity) to further reduce the cost of shapeshifting into cat or bear by 50%. This talent will stack with Natural Shapeshifter for a total cost reduction of 80%. PvP-focused druids can get both talents to shift easily and often despite, no longer having Int on gear at level 80.
PROTECTOR OF THE PACK
We are removing the group requirements from this talent. The new tooltip will say: “Increases your attack power by X and reduces the damage you take in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by Y.†The values of X and Y themselves are not changing.
Again, these changes will NOT be in Nov 13 for Lich King’s launch. We will add them in a patch that will come out sometime before the major Ulduar content patch. We're letting you know now so that you can choose quest rewards and loot drops accordingly. [/blizzard]
Original post:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065155975&sid=2000 (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065155975&sid=2000)
I don't really see the talent changes being a big deal at 80...but it will more or less force tanking bears to go cap feral before going for resto talents...unless of course ya level your cute little waggly bear tail off before this patch hits.
its not a huge issue, just a fundemental change in mentality for us long time ferals...were used to hounding after rings, necks, enchants, etc etc that have +DEF and armor on them...
NOW...we are defense capped naked with talents, so while +DEF is still a good tank stat to have, it isnt required at the expense of others like we used to have to do...
With removing armor from all of our peripheral items, it just means we can focus more on items that build threat or help with avoidance...armor is important, but it still needs to be balanced with STA, AGI, and +DODGE, even with the 'diminished returns' on dodge....bears are mitigating realy well now, and these changes only let us be more flexible...i like em =)
I agree, the armor change doesn't really bug me much. All that means is something with boosted armor is now on equal footing or so with an item with boosted dodge, or stam - at least in the trinket/ring slots.
I kinda liked the protector of the pack as a number of party members buff. I find that for the time being, one point there does the trick for me as i feel the two additional talent points are better spent elsewhere in my build as far as generating aggro/dishing out damage goes (let's face it...while most druids don't have aggro issues, it can be a pain in nothing but clefthoof to hold aggro against guildies in t5/t6 equiv gear - which means for a new druid like me, i need the help with aggro when playing with my guildmates). Eventually we'll be forced to max the talent to get the same mitigation we get from just one point at present. It states that our mitigation modifiers will be reworked so that it's equal in the end...i see this as coming from either another reworking of dodge for us, or from changes to talents like the mentioned change to protector of the pack which for many mean only equal at ~80. There are far more bears out there in reg dungeon blues, zero badge gear, whose only epics have come from rep grinds and the like than there are with ssc weps, t5/t6 level gear, etc. I can't tell you how many in game and real life friends I started this game among that have yet to fully clear kara. For these druids, builds will be set in stone (and more importantly, builds while leveling will be as well), where the better geared few will have some flexibility in choice to put out more damage or keep a pool of rage from quickshifting to make grabbing targets easier, etc. For the "average"...they're potentially stuck - it's mitigation, or utility, can't have both till 80 or until better geared.
I do like the fact that they posted this so early. Telling us what's gonna happen so far before it goes into effect should prove helpful while questing to 80, allowing smelly bears everywhere to be a little smarter when choosing the new quest rewards, etc.
Look for emerald to lead the way in redoing his site for gear ratings...cant post enough how great that site is when its current...
im thinking they will rework some mitigation things, but also re-up our armor multiplier to let rogue gear be viable tanking gear...the armor mulitplier USED to be 450%, now its 370% hehehe...for me, armor always is the easiest thing to get, and I generally like to stack AGI, DODGE, and STA (i had 23k health last night in BT...30k health with the last stand button)...
I see a BUNCH of druids in nice raid gear...maybe we arent hanging around the same shatt :P
not sure about your point about mitigation or utility...at 70 now I have a build that has every single mitigation talent except 'infected wounds', and thats for two reasons: 1) people still dont know if it works on raid bosses (the weapon slowing, not the movement speed), and 2) i can use those points to dump into a kitty dps ability and still multi-task well...
so...i have basically every threat generating talent, PLUS every mitigation talent (minus infected wounds)...why is there an issue?
hmm...appears the druid talent calculator on the wow website...or the talent in game...have the wrong tooltip for pro of the pack. One has 1/2/3% mitigation w/ talents, the other has 3/3/3 with only ap getting boosted.
:-\
use the mmo-champ one...
my build is:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid=50323213232101035312033031351000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
only thing i miss for cat form dps is the imp FB damage....but having said that, i still had an 7-8k crit last night lol