how the new armor change effects you, OR why I took calculus in college

[Arcdelad]

As everyone knows, the next major patch is going to take away ALL multipliers in bear form for any item in the neck, back, ring, weapon or trinket slots. ALL other bear form armor that is leather or cloth (but honestly if your tanking in cloth you should delete your charachter), STILL gets the base 370% bear form / dire bear form multiplier added to its value.

Additionally, and to balance out the change, they are implementing:

[blizzard]Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous effects. [/blizzard]

Survival of the Fittest was already a MUST have talent for pretty much any feral of any spec, so you should already have 3/3 in this talent.

So...did we get nerfed? Buffed? Lets run some numbers...shall we?

Currently, the total unbuffed armor value of ALL items, including trinkets, staves, etc = 7,524
With the current bear form multiplier, that gives me 7,524 x 370% = 27,839 armor (unbuffed)

Of THAT base 7,524 armor in elf form, 2,352 of it comes from staves, neck, rings, cloak, and trinkets.

Additionally, all leather and cloth items NOT in the afore mention slots NOW recieve 66% more armor contribution, making the new bear form multiplier 370% + 66% = 436%. (note...it used to be 450% on ALL items hehehe)

So...the new armor formula is:

([Value of all leather and cloth armor NOT in exempted spaces + {(AGI + Multipliers) x 2}] x [370% + 66%]) + [Value of armor on exempted slots]

...for me thats:

(5172 x 4.36) + 2,352 = 24,902 armor, which is a decrease of 2,937 armor. (again, all unbuffed)

Additionally, some gear priorities now shift, which can make our armor count even lower potentially.

For example, [item]Chained Military Gorget[/item] now becomes far better than [item]Amulet of Wills[/item], and [item]Durable Nerubhide Cape[/item] becomes far better than [item]Flowing Cloak of Command[/item].

NOTE: Armor is STILL a good stat for those slots, but you need to balance your own total stats (ie, if you already have a ton of armor, STA or AGI may be better for you).

Also, Blizzard will likely up the armor value on a lot of leather WOTLK items, meaning that theoretical loss in armor wont be too high.

Summary: As it stands now, its an armor nerf.

[un4]

I want to see Arc do an integral.

[Arcdelad]

I did an integral with your mom last night...ha ha........ha....hrm...

....

ahem....

DK's! We ferals also get weapon changes.....well now be need rolling on your [item]Inevitable Defeat[/item] - how u liek dat?

[Air]

DK's! We ferals also get weapon changes.....well now be need rolling on your [item]Inevitable Defeat[/item] - how u liek dat?

Yeah... umm no.  For tanking or dps?, cause that's a really good tank weapon for DK's.  Like really freakin good.

[Tolwen]

As always "thank you Arc" you make our job so easy
That wep is awesome!! imo both for tanking and dpsing---dr00d loot!

[Arcdelad]

sorry air...thats good for us after the change for tanking and dps =) prepare to roll against us =)