Feral Druid Patch / WOTLK Thread

[Tolwen]

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 

[Oilslick]

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.

[Arcdelad]

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

[Oilslick]

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

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.

[Arcdelad]

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 =)

[Oilslick]

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.

[Arcdelad]

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

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?

[Oilslick]

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.

[Arcdelad]

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