Heya,
I broke out the discussion of Cat Talents into a separate web page:
http://altosis.com/druid/FeralDruid_CatDPSTalents.html
I hope to get the same thing done for Bear soon...
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Working on Web Page
No post today. Trying to renovate my page on Feral Druid Talents, which includes incorporating more coherent/concise versions of the discussions in this blog.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Iron Kitty 2 - The Hairball Taunt
OK, work has calmed down a bit..let the blogging resume!
So, I have this fellow guildie that has a very pessimistic view of the ability of a Druid to tank without the explicit tank-specific Talents. It's on an emotional level, so reason and evidence are doing little to assuage it. But for the rest of you, I can say with complete confidence that yes, a Cat spec Druid can still tank. It is trivial? No.
I am tanking everything I come across in Northrend. I am a married career professional, and I seem to get dragged into helping folks out a lot, so I am still only level 76, although 77 is so close I can taste it. I am not spec'd for tanking at the moment. Right now, I have this build, which is following my advice from my post 3.0.3 Raid Cat Rebuild. My next four points will go into Master Shapeshifter and Infected Wounds, in that order, for the reasons laid out in that post.
OK, so full disclosure requires that I point out that my wife is an amazingly skilled healer and we are both in a mix of Tier 5 and Tier 6, which is on par with good quest reward blues from level 75-ish missions, e.g. the Shackles of Dark Whispers that came from "Cleansing Drak'tharon", replaced the Insidious Bands I got from Teron Gorefiend in the Black Temple as well as my Band of the Swift Paw, from Badges of Justice. Granted, it was more of a sideways upgrade, but the point is that a level 75 quest blue reward was on par with Black Temple gear.
Ergo, we are hitting content for which we are no longer overgeared.
I have died perhaps twice. Once because of a lag spike that shut down a healer as four mobs made contact with me, and another when sloppy positioning by a group member pulled a second mob with Stuns or Fears (can't remember which).
That said, I have managed to do some wacky stuff too and live to tell the tale. For example, in the room in Drak'tharon with the spiders, with my wife healing and advance notice of what I was planning, I went ahead and pulled everything in the room. This allowed the runners to escape and bring reinforcements every time, but no one died and we cleared the room in one massive, messy, entertaining pull.
There is definitely less tolerance for unfortunate circumstances. If the healer is stunned or incapacitated, things get twitchy and I use Barkskin and/or Lifeblood to take off the edge.
So, given the above and a number of other random, fuzzy data points, I will say this...
A Druid with a Cat (melee DPS) spec can function as a 5-man instances tank without difficulty, with a dedicated healer. With an off-healer, it might be tougher, but still possible, if both are very skilled at doing their job and *proactively* mitigating problems.
But what about gear? Well, I am finding a very pleasant discovery thus far. With the change in Druid mechanics and the provision of 6% crit reduction with Survival of the Fittest 3/3, the gear for Bear and Cat seems to be very similar. The final result seems to be that we will have hardier Cats and stabbier Bears with one set of gear. I hope that is the case. However, if you did not have a decent tanking set in TBC, you might have more difficulties until you gear up.
Anyway, don't let anyone tell you that you can't tank just because you are Cat-specced, because it's not true. Now, can I tank a raid boss with Cat spec? Well...maybe not. But you can bet I will be willing to try...provided my wife is healing. ;)
ADDENDUM - I have since dubbed my Raid Cat build "Razor Kitty". It make for a noticeably squishy tank. If you want a Tank/Cat hybrid, check out my December 10, 2008 post for an "Tank Kitty" build.
So, I have this fellow guildie that has a very pessimistic view of the ability of a Druid to tank without the explicit tank-specific Talents. It's on an emotional level, so reason and evidence are doing little to assuage it. But for the rest of you, I can say with complete confidence that yes, a Cat spec Druid can still tank. It is trivial? No.
I am tanking everything I come across in Northrend. I am a married career professional, and I seem to get dragged into helping folks out a lot, so I am still only level 76, although 77 is so close I can taste it. I am not spec'd for tanking at the moment. Right now, I have this build, which is following my advice from my post 3.0.3 Raid Cat Rebuild. My next four points will go into Master Shapeshifter and Infected Wounds, in that order, for the reasons laid out in that post.
OK, so full disclosure requires that I point out that my wife is an amazingly skilled healer and we are both in a mix of Tier 5 and Tier 6, which is on par with good quest reward blues from level 75-ish missions, e.g. the Shackles of Dark Whispers that came from "Cleansing Drak'tharon", replaced the Insidious Bands I got from Teron Gorefiend in the Black Temple as well as my Band of the Swift Paw, from Badges of Justice. Granted, it was more of a sideways upgrade, but the point is that a level 75 quest blue reward was on par with Black Temple gear.
Ergo, we are hitting content for which we are no longer overgeared.
I have died perhaps twice. Once because of a lag spike that shut down a healer as four mobs made contact with me, and another when sloppy positioning by a group member pulled a second mob with Stuns or Fears (can't remember which).
That said, I have managed to do some wacky stuff too and live to tell the tale. For example, in the room in Drak'tharon with the spiders, with my wife healing and advance notice of what I was planning, I went ahead and pulled everything in the room. This allowed the runners to escape and bring reinforcements every time, but no one died and we cleared the room in one massive, messy, entertaining pull.
There is definitely less tolerance for unfortunate circumstances. If the healer is stunned or incapacitated, things get twitchy and I use Barkskin and/or Lifeblood to take off the edge.
So, given the above and a number of other random, fuzzy data points, I will say this...
A Druid with a Cat (melee DPS) spec can function as a 5-man instances tank without difficulty, with a dedicated healer. With an off-healer, it might be tougher, but still possible, if both are very skilled at doing their job and *proactively* mitigating problems.
But what about gear? Well, I am finding a very pleasant discovery thus far. With the change in Druid mechanics and the provision of 6% crit reduction with Survival of the Fittest 3/3, the gear for Bear and Cat seems to be very similar. The final result seems to be that we will have hardier Cats and stabbier Bears with one set of gear. I hope that is the case. However, if you did not have a decent tanking set in TBC, you might have more difficulties until you gear up.
Anyway, don't let anyone tell you that you can't tank just because you are Cat-specced, because it's not true. Now, can I tank a raid boss with Cat spec? Well...maybe not. But you can bet I will be willing to try...provided my wife is healing. ;)
ADDENDUM - I have since dubbed my Raid Cat build "Razor Kitty". It make for a noticeably squishy tank. If you want a Tank/Cat hybrid, check out my December 10, 2008 post for an "Tank Kitty" build.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Midnight Release - Why Are You Here?!
Ever realize that "midnight release" sounds kinda naughty? If you really want to have fun, you could let people overhear you say things like "nothing like a midnight release" or "oh man, that was a sweet midnight release", followed by a wink or nudge.
Anyway, I had to bust my hump getting work wrapped up so I could take off a couple days...and now it's time to marshal the troops to assault my local Gamestop!
Anyway, I had to bust my hump getting work wrapped up so I could take off a couple days...and now it's time to marshal the troops to assault my local Gamestop!
Monday, November 10, 2008
Hybrid - Blessing and Curse
Fair warning, this is stream of consciousness, I am not even sure what my point is just yet...read on if you dare.
The raid is about to start. Two dozen of your fellow guildies assemble in eager anticipation of downing the Raid Boss Du Jour.
But you're short on healers, or tanks...and you're a Druid that is a reliable raider, so you have the gear for every spec.
The good news: you can make the raid possible by changing your spec.
The bad news: see the good news.
I love that I can play whatever spec I want. Sure, it may be a challenge to compete with the pure-play classes and specs, but I still manage to perform well.
I like being able to help the guild in a pinch.
However, there comes a point when the time spent swapping out dozens of pieces of gear at your bank gets old. For those that do not yet appreciate it, an active Druid main is probably carrying one or two bags of extra gear. I carry:
I have Trinkets, idols, off-spec gear, gear that I have to hold onto for tweaking as certain pieces are replaced (for example, the never ending hit-capping game). Other than that, it's a lot of BoP, one-off stuff, like quest-related items or tabards. Collecting pets and keeping Tier sets from pre-TBC, these were the stuff of fantasy (thank goodness I could recover the pets I had destroyed from quests).
Why the gory detail?
It's a serious pain in the butt to swap out all of that gear. Any time I am asked to go from caster/healer to Feral or back, it takes time. All too often it feels like many people have the impression that a lack of desire to swap specs is just laziness or stubborness.
What about Talents?
If 3.1 gives us dual Talent specs, then it takes the edge off a bit. The thing is, I want that duality for what *I* want to do. In my view, that was to allow us to have a PvE build and a PvP build. And yet, when I bring up my frustration with the expectation of a Druid to wear a big ol' grin everytime he's asked to respec.
Belly Up to The Bar
So, now you've swapped out your Talents, guess what? You get to rebuild your action bars! Regardless of spec, you have to rebuild bars for at least two forms and, if you switched between Caster/Healer and Feral, you get to rebuild action bars for three forms, bonus!
Did Someone Say Addons?
So, when you switch to Healer because the raid does not have enough, you can pretty much guess that if you do a crappy job, the raid dies. They lost your DPS and/or tanking and now you need to deliver some full strength healing. So, pick you favorite healing addons and re-acquaint yourself fast.
What Do Imcompetent Mean?
So, you've respec'd from Cat to Tree of Life. You have those unfamiliar spells and forms, and you are struggling to perceive the raid's health instead of maintaining Mangle, Rake, and Rip. Try not to suck, m'kay?
But You Said...
And here's the rub. You know that one time, when you said, "Hey, I can respec if we need it." Be wary, for many that seems to translate into "Oh my, do I LOVE to respec, please look for any opportunity to have me respec because I really want to do it as often as possible." At the risk of a bad Druid pun...be careful about letting that Cat out of the bag because managing that expectation is like trying to safely roast marshmallows with a wildfire.
I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
Druids are Hybrids. We can heal, tank, and DPS at range or in melee. But we can't do them all with a single spec and gear set. With the right gear and spec, we can do one role well and a second role at a mediocre level. Those combinations are:
Shamans and Paladins are also called hybrids, they can fill one of any three roles well at a given time. They have limited duality in their roles. Only the Enhancement and Resto Shamans have the ability to achieve a strong dual capability, that of Healer and Caster DPS. Paladins are generally locked in a role, although some might argue that the Shockadin is a good hybrid between Healer and caster DPS.
If you look closely at the mechanics, Warriors, Death Knights, and Priests are actually wonderful hybrids. Their dual roles are prescribed by their class, but they can perform one of two roles very well. But Blizzard calls Warriors and Death Knights "Primary Tanks" and the Priest is distinguished as the only "Primary Healer".
So, the metric to be a hybrid appears to be this - With a change of gear and Talents, you can fill one of three different roles.
However, there is no magic hybrid wand that makes you able to fill any role at any moment.
WotLK Brings You Real Choice
With the 3.0 changes, it really feels like a Druid can be effective in any role. Moonkin really got a boost as DPS with AoE and CC. Trees got a great boost in party healing. Bears gained a lot in their ability to multi-mob tank with Swipe. Cats saw some serious DPS boosts that allow them to perform much better as melee DPS.
So, more than ever, a Druid really can pick any raid role and do a great job of filling it completely. Sure, they are constrained to magical ranged DPS, but that's more than enough. We don't need a Manticore Form to sling tail spikes for physical DPS. No wait, that sounds pretty cool, I want a Manticore Form!
The Luxury of Never Having to Choose?
But is that choice a good thing?
Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks, and Mages have one distinct advantage over the other classes, their limited role. There is no uncertainty what role they will have in the raid. They have one skill set to develop and one primary task to execute well. And it will never change.
Sure, they can play around with different specs and rotations, but no one is likely to ask them to swap out their gear and spec for a raid. Sure, there were a couple of bosses in which a given Warlock spec was more favorable, but not necessary.
Be Careful What You Wish For
I love the lore and aesthetic of Druids. I also like aesthetic harmony of the Tauren culture and concept with that of Druids. I really like having a choice of what I do. However, in offering to switch one, I am now the "go to" guy for spec swapping.
Maybe I should be flattered that people think I can effortlessly swap roles and still perform well. It's nice that people have that confidence in me.
And yet, the next day when I sign on and have to respec and regear, it takes another chunk out of my organizational energy.
A Crutch?
And no matter how much we may not want to think it, I am a crutch. If I can respec and fill the crucial role, we are less likely to seek out a filler that actually wants to fill that role.
Reasonable Resistance...
And so, I am trying to retrain my guildies and provide some reasonable resistance to respecs. While I want to help them out, I don't want to be the easy panacea. We need critical roles filled reliably and if I provide the easy solution, I am retarding that process.
The Future
Another expansion and another 10 levels offers the opportunity to change one's main. And so, I am left wondering if I should shelve my Druid...
The raid is about to start. Two dozen of your fellow guildies assemble in eager anticipation of downing the Raid Boss Du Jour.
But you're short on healers, or tanks...and you're a Druid that is a reliable raider, so you have the gear for every spec.
The good news: you can make the raid possible by changing your spec.
The bad news: see the good news.
I love that I can play whatever spec I want. Sure, it may be a challenge to compete with the pure-play classes and specs, but I still manage to perform well.
I like being able to help the guild in a pinch.
However, there comes a point when the time spent swapping out dozens of pieces of gear at your bank gets old. For those that do not yet appreciate it, an active Druid main is probably carrying one or two bags of extra gear. I carry:
- Every weapon, off-hand, and idol for each spec at all times
- If I am Resto or Balance, I carry all of the gear for both
- If I am Feral, I carry all of the gear for Cat and Bear
- I always carry PvP gear appropriate to my spec (must kill the lowbie griefing bastards!)
I have Trinkets, idols, off-spec gear, gear that I have to hold onto for tweaking as certain pieces are replaced (for example, the never ending hit-capping game). Other than that, it's a lot of BoP, one-off stuff, like quest-related items or tabards. Collecting pets and keeping Tier sets from pre-TBC, these were the stuff of fantasy (thank goodness I could recover the pets I had destroyed from quests).
Why the gory detail?
It's a serious pain in the butt to swap out all of that gear. Any time I am asked to go from caster/healer to Feral or back, it takes time. All too often it feels like many people have the impression that a lack of desire to swap specs is just laziness or stubborness.
What about Talents?
If 3.1 gives us dual Talent specs, then it takes the edge off a bit. The thing is, I want that duality for what *I* want to do. In my view, that was to allow us to have a PvE build and a PvP build. And yet, when I bring up my frustration with the expectation of a Druid to wear a big ol' grin everytime he's asked to respec.
Belly Up to The Bar
So, now you've swapped out your Talents, guess what? You get to rebuild your action bars! Regardless of spec, you have to rebuild bars for at least two forms and, if you switched between Caster/Healer and Feral, you get to rebuild action bars for three forms, bonus!
Did Someone Say Addons?
So, when you switch to Healer because the raid does not have enough, you can pretty much guess that if you do a crappy job, the raid dies. They lost your DPS and/or tanking and now you need to deliver some full strength healing. So, pick you favorite healing addons and re-acquaint yourself fast.
What Do Imcompetent Mean?
So, you've respec'd from Cat to Tree of Life. You have those unfamiliar spells and forms, and you are struggling to perceive the raid's health instead of maintaining Mangle, Rake, and Rip. Try not to suck, m'kay?
But You Said...
And here's the rub. You know that one time, when you said, "Hey, I can respec if we need it." Be wary, for many that seems to translate into "Oh my, do I LOVE to respec, please look for any opportunity to have me respec because I really want to do it as often as possible." At the risk of a bad Druid pun...be careful about letting that Cat out of the bag because managing that expectation is like trying to safely roast marshmallows with a wildfire.
I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
Druids are Hybrids. We can heal, tank, and DPS at range or in melee. But we can't do them all with a single spec and gear set. With the right gear and spec, we can do one role well and a second role at a mediocre level. Those combinations are:
- Melee DPS & Tank*
- Healer and Caster DPS
Shamans and Paladins are also called hybrids, they can fill one of any three roles well at a given time. They have limited duality in their roles. Only the Enhancement and Resto Shamans have the ability to achieve a strong dual capability, that of Healer and Caster DPS. Paladins are generally locked in a role, although some might argue that the Shockadin is a good hybrid between Healer and caster DPS.
If you look closely at the mechanics, Warriors, Death Knights, and Priests are actually wonderful hybrids. Their dual roles are prescribed by their class, but they can perform one of two roles very well. But Blizzard calls Warriors and Death Knights "Primary Tanks" and the Priest is distinguished as the only "Primary Healer".
So, the metric to be a hybrid appears to be this - With a change of gear and Talents, you can fill one of three different roles.
However, there is no magic hybrid wand that makes you able to fill any role at any moment.
WotLK Brings You Real Choice
With the 3.0 changes, it really feels like a Druid can be effective in any role. Moonkin really got a boost as DPS with AoE and CC. Trees got a great boost in party healing. Bears gained a lot in their ability to multi-mob tank with Swipe. Cats saw some serious DPS boosts that allow them to perform much better as melee DPS.
So, more than ever, a Druid really can pick any raid role and do a great job of filling it completely. Sure, they are constrained to magical ranged DPS, but that's more than enough. We don't need a Manticore Form to sling tail spikes for physical DPS. No wait, that sounds pretty cool, I want a Manticore Form!
The Luxury of Never Having to Choose?
But is that choice a good thing?
Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks, and Mages have one distinct advantage over the other classes, their limited role. There is no uncertainty what role they will have in the raid. They have one skill set to develop and one primary task to execute well. And it will never change.
Sure, they can play around with different specs and rotations, but no one is likely to ask them to swap out their gear and spec for a raid. Sure, there were a couple of bosses in which a given Warlock spec was more favorable, but not necessary.
Be Careful What You Wish For
I love the lore and aesthetic of Druids. I also like aesthetic harmony of the Tauren culture and concept with that of Druids. I really like having a choice of what I do. However, in offering to switch one, I am now the "go to" guy for spec swapping.
Maybe I should be flattered that people think I can effortlessly swap roles and still perform well. It's nice that people have that confidence in me.
And yet, the next day when I sign on and have to respec and regear, it takes another chunk out of my organizational energy.
A Crutch?
And no matter how much we may not want to think it, I am a crutch. If I can respec and fill the crucial role, we are less likely to seek out a filler that actually wants to fill that role.
Reasonable Resistance...
And so, I am trying to retrain my guildies and provide some reasonable resistance to respecs. While I want to help them out, I don't want to be the easy panacea. We need critical roles filled reliably and if I provide the easy solution, I am retarding that process.
The Future
Another expansion and another 10 levels offers the opportunity to change one's main. And so, I am left wondering if I should shelve my Druid...
Friday, November 7, 2008
Expectation Management - Tanking & WotLK
Administrative note: Apparently, I published my Wednesday post a day early. Sorry about messing up the altosis dose schedule. :)
With Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) coming and the addition of a fourth tanking class, I worry, as a guild officer and raid leader, about the imminent change in the logistics and morale of raid composition with respect to tanks.
In TBC and pre-TBC WoW, the model was flawed. You needed 20% of your people to be tanks for the sub-25-man PvE content, but the 25-man content often only required 1 or 2 dedicated tanks. It is not reasonable to say that Talent respecs are a solution to this. You should not need to blow 100 G or more a week on respecs.
Feral Druids did a great job of filling this gap, by being able to MT and provide strong melee DPS when they were not an MT. That has gone away in WoW 3.0 with the splitting and bloating of Feral Talents. Fortunately, the TBC content is not as challenging with the 3.0 changes. As a result, in TBC you can get by with a Cat Druid as a backup MT, if he has good gear and healing support.
I would expect that in WotLK, that will change. I would expect that you would actually need the tanking Talents for a given class to be an MT. That means that without respecs, you will no longer have true duality of raid roles that Feral Druids brought.
Side note: For the record, that duality got old, because in practice you became the tank in the little glass box..."break glass in case of emergency". It was taxing and discouraging to maintain the gear and skills to be an MT but being relegated to only melee DPS because the other tanks were crappy at anything but tanking.
If WotLK is matched to our new abilities, mechanics, and power level, then you are squarely stuck with tanks that DPS poorly or DPS that is unlikely to survive the hard tanking jobs.
Enter the two Talent specs. Blizzard has said that they will introduce the ability to have two Talent specs for a character that they can freely change out; this reportedly will occur with "the first content patch". This will be the dawn of a whole new era of opportunity, as every tank can now also shift to a second fully-functional raid role. This means that you can do a much better job of managing morale and sharing the tanking spotlight.
This could be wonderful, as it may pad your guild with a whole host of tank-capable members. With 40% of the classes able to tank, you may never be lacking for tanks again. Sure, every tank will have to contend with the issue of carrying around two sets of gear, but Feral Druids have managed to deal with that for years; it's a nuisance, but you can overcome it.
More importantly, *every* tank will have dual utility, so opportunities to tank will be based more on the ability player and gear and Talents of the character. Specifically, Feral Druids will not be relegated to melee DPS that drags around a big bag of tanking gear.
This should be good news for all tanking-capable classes, although it might be bad news for "I only want to tank!" folks. The simple fact is that it's untenable to have one specific MT. When you have one specific MT, then you create a single point of failure.
Skill and experience will still be vital. If you show up sporadically and do not dedicate yourself to being a good tank, don't have any expectation of getting the MT slot over the tank that does. It would be an injustice to that tank and the rest of the raid.
Tanking in WotLK
How will the tanking landscape of WotLK look?
How many tanks will a raid need in WotLK? Will it be closer to 20%, to match the rest of the content or will we still have to contend with the need to have 20% of the people tank outside of the raid, but only 4% for the majority of raid bosses?
Is the full-on DPS Warrior, Druid, Paladin, or Death Knight still a viable off-tank for raiding?
Hope For The Future
I am hopeful that the dual Talent tree thing will help solve these issues, ushering in a new time for tank-capable classes in which a broader group of tanks can be maintained to support guild needs and tanks have more options when they are not tanking.
Whatever happens in WotLK, I look forward to seeing how it pans out. I look forward to more folks trying out tanking and getting a better understanding of it. You may never fully appreciate the stress to generate Threat and maintain Aggro of pre-3.0 WoW, but that is probably a good thing for everyone.
With Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) coming and the addition of a fourth tanking class, I worry, as a guild officer and raid leader, about the imminent change in the logistics and morale of raid composition with respect to tanks.
In TBC and pre-TBC WoW, the model was flawed. You needed 20% of your people to be tanks for the sub-25-man PvE content, but the 25-man content often only required 1 or 2 dedicated tanks. It is not reasonable to say that Talent respecs are a solution to this. You should not need to blow 100 G or more a week on respecs.
Feral Druids did a great job of filling this gap, by being able to MT and provide strong melee DPS when they were not an MT. That has gone away in WoW 3.0 with the splitting and bloating of Feral Talents. Fortunately, the TBC content is not as challenging with the 3.0 changes. As a result, in TBC you can get by with a Cat Druid as a backup MT, if he has good gear and healing support.
I would expect that in WotLK, that will change. I would expect that you would actually need the tanking Talents for a given class to be an MT. That means that without respecs, you will no longer have true duality of raid roles that Feral Druids brought.
Side note: For the record, that duality got old, because in practice you became the tank in the little glass box..."break glass in case of emergency". It was taxing and discouraging to maintain the gear and skills to be an MT but being relegated to only melee DPS because the other tanks were crappy at anything but tanking.
If WotLK is matched to our new abilities, mechanics, and power level, then you are squarely stuck with tanks that DPS poorly or DPS that is unlikely to survive the hard tanking jobs.
Enter the two Talent specs. Blizzard has said that they will introduce the ability to have two Talent specs for a character that they can freely change out; this reportedly will occur with "the first content patch". This will be the dawn of a whole new era of opportunity, as every tank can now also shift to a second fully-functional raid role. This means that you can do a much better job of managing morale and sharing the tanking spotlight.
This could be wonderful, as it may pad your guild with a whole host of tank-capable members. With 40% of the classes able to tank, you may never be lacking for tanks again. Sure, every tank will have to contend with the issue of carrying around two sets of gear, but Feral Druids have managed to deal with that for years; it's a nuisance, but you can overcome it.
More importantly, *every* tank will have dual utility, so opportunities to tank will be based more on the ability player and gear and Talents of the character. Specifically, Feral Druids will not be relegated to melee DPS that drags around a big bag of tanking gear.
This should be good news for all tanking-capable classes, although it might be bad news for "I only want to tank!" folks. The simple fact is that it's untenable to have one specific MT. When you have one specific MT, then you create a single point of failure.
Skill and experience will still be vital. If you show up sporadically and do not dedicate yourself to being a good tank, don't have any expectation of getting the MT slot over the tank that does. It would be an injustice to that tank and the rest of the raid.
Tanking in WotLK
How will the tanking landscape of WotLK look?
How many tanks will a raid need in WotLK? Will it be closer to 20%, to match the rest of the content or will we still have to contend with the need to have 20% of the people tank outside of the raid, but only 4% for the majority of raid bosses?
Is the full-on DPS Warrior, Druid, Paladin, or Death Knight still a viable off-tank for raiding?
Hope For The Future
I am hopeful that the dual Talent tree thing will help solve these issues, ushering in a new time for tank-capable classes in which a broader group of tanks can be maintained to support guild needs and tanks have more options when they are not tanking.
Whatever happens in WotLK, I look forward to seeing how it pans out. I look forward to more folks trying out tanking and getting a better understanding of it. You may never fully appreciate the stress to generate Threat and maintain Aggro of pre-3.0 WoW, but that is probably a good thing for everyone.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
3.0.3 Raid Cat Rebuild
Some nifty changes for Druids, nothing major, but lots of nice little things. Check out the patch notes for more detail. And our points are refunded!
So, there I am faced with the need to spend my Talent points again, and I have to wonder, should I spend them differently? Level 70 gives us some frustrating choices to make. I am pretty happy with getting Berserk, so I have to spend a certain number of points in Feral. Is there room for Tweaking?
Cage match! Feral vs. Resto!
The ultimate question we will be answering is should we go for more Naturalist and Omen of Clarity at 70?
Well...let's try and wrap our heads around King of the Jungle...
Like most everything in life and the world, it's ultimately all about the Energy.
For each Talent point in King of the Jungle (KotJ), I get +20 Energy every time I pop Tiger's Fury (Cat Form) and +5% damage. I naturally regenerate 1 Energy every 0.1 seconds. That comes out to 10 Energy per second, or 300 Energy per 30 seconds. Without accounting for any bonus Energy, that means that each Talent point in KotJ is giving us 6.7% more Energy at most.
WoW Webstats (WWS) tells me that about 1/3 of my damage is from my regular melee Swing and thus 2/3 of my damage is from my Cat moves.
So, we can safely say that 4.4% is the upper limit of the DPS boost. Why do I say upper limit?
OK, let's stop for a sec and consider other places we could rob for Talent Points.
While Improved Mangle may be a no-brainer for a Bear or PvP Cat, it is not amazing for a Cat in Raid DPS. You are probably going to Mangle, on average, no more than 6 times a minute. Sure, you can Theoretically maintain the debuff with only 5 Mangles per minute, but that requires a perfect world in which lag does not exist. With 6 Mangles per seconds, that is a savings of 6 Energy every 30 seconds per Talent point for Improved Mangle, compared to the +20 Energy every 30 seconds for KotJ. That said, when it's time to solo, PvP, or off tank, you may regret losing those points. That translates into a maximum of about 0.8% DPS impact on raid boss DPS.
What about Rend and Tear? It seemed like something of a no-brainer, but...if I look at WWS, it looks like 20% of my damage is from Shred. So, for every Talent point in Rend and Tear, which gives me +4% to my Shred damage, the net effect on total DPS should be 0.8%. Boo! The bump to Ferocious Bite critical hit chance is nice, but that is more of a soloing, PvP, trash mob move.
Hmm, I really do not care much for Rend and Tear. It seems more like a "nice to have" PvP Talent now.
Let's keep the math train rolling!
Omen of Clarity? Reputedly it triggers twice a minute, or once every 30 seconds on average. That's a free attack. Let's take the worst-case scenario, it triggers just as you cast a fully-improve Mangle. That saves you 36 Energy. For one Talent Point, that is pretty good, almost twice as good as KotJ, giving you as much as an 8% DPS boost. Crikey!
Naturalist is easy, of course, with the +2% DPS per Talent point, it's pretty solid.
Rob Rend and Tear!
OK, so, I am pretty much convinced that robbing Rend and Tear is a very good thing. So I drop it to 3/5 and give myself Naturalist 5/5. That should translate into +4% DPS at a cost of 1.6% DPS. And any time I am not doing lots of Shreds, it's even more of an improvement.
Should I Rob Berserk for Omen of Clarity?
Well, the feral being at my core wants to slap me around for even thinking about it, but I will soldier on...
Berserk halves Energy costs for 15 seconds. That means about 75 more energy...once every THREE minutes. That means about a maximum of a 2.8% boost to Cat DPS on average.
But it does give you the ability to pop out of Fear. That is very sexy. The THREE minute cooldown makes it a lot less sexy, though.
So, to summarize, for each Talent Point spent we have the following DPS boosts, in order from greatest to least:
I would appreciate any constructive criticism and I would especially love it if someone would check my math.
So, there I am faced with the need to spend my Talent points again, and I have to wonder, should I spend them differently? Level 70 gives us some frustrating choices to make. I am pretty happy with getting Berserk, so I have to spend a certain number of points in Feral. Is there room for Tweaking?
Cage match! Feral vs. Resto!
The ultimate question we will be answering is should we go for more Naturalist and Omen of Clarity at 70?
Well...let's try and wrap our heads around King of the Jungle...
Like most everything in life and the world, it's ultimately all about the Energy.
For each Talent point in King of the Jungle (KotJ), I get +20 Energy every time I pop Tiger's Fury (Cat Form) and +5% damage. I naturally regenerate 1 Energy every 0.1 seconds. That comes out to 10 Energy per second, or 300 Energy per 30 seconds. Without accounting for any bonus Energy, that means that each Talent point in KotJ is giving us 6.7% more Energy at most.
WoW Webstats (WWS) tells me that about 1/3 of my damage is from my regular melee Swing and thus 2/3 of my damage is from my Cat moves.
So, we can safely say that 4.4% is the upper limit of the DPS boost. Why do I say upper limit?
- We are not accounting for the bonus Energy and Combo points, which would reduce the overall impact
- Even a lag of 1 second in using Tiger's Fury reduces its impact
- Sometimes that extra Energy is not an effective DPS boost due to unfortunate timing of a Stun or awkard management of a bleed effect
OK, let's stop for a sec and consider other places we could rob for Talent Points.
While Improved Mangle may be a no-brainer for a Bear or PvP Cat, it is not amazing for a Cat in Raid DPS. You are probably going to Mangle, on average, no more than 6 times a minute. Sure, you can Theoretically maintain the debuff with only 5 Mangles per minute, but that requires a perfect world in which lag does not exist. With 6 Mangles per seconds, that is a savings of 6 Energy every 30 seconds per Talent point for Improved Mangle, compared to the +20 Energy every 30 seconds for KotJ. That said, when it's time to solo, PvP, or off tank, you may regret losing those points. That translates into a maximum of about 0.8% DPS impact on raid boss DPS.
What about Rend and Tear? It seemed like something of a no-brainer, but...if I look at WWS, it looks like 20% of my damage is from Shred. So, for every Talent point in Rend and Tear, which gives me +4% to my Shred damage, the net effect on total DPS should be 0.8%. Boo! The bump to Ferocious Bite critical hit chance is nice, but that is more of a soloing, PvP, trash mob move.
Hmm, I really do not care much for Rend and Tear. It seems more like a "nice to have" PvP Talent now.
Let's keep the math train rolling!
Omen of Clarity? Reputedly it triggers twice a minute, or once every 30 seconds on average. That's a free attack. Let's take the worst-case scenario, it triggers just as you cast a fully-improve Mangle. That saves you 36 Energy. For one Talent Point, that is pretty good, almost twice as good as KotJ, giving you as much as an 8% DPS boost. Crikey!
Naturalist is easy, of course, with the +2% DPS per Talent point, it's pretty solid.
Rob Rend and Tear!
OK, so, I am pretty much convinced that robbing Rend and Tear is a very good thing. So I drop it to 3/5 and give myself Naturalist 5/5. That should translate into +4% DPS at a cost of 1.6% DPS. And any time I am not doing lots of Shreds, it's even more of an improvement.
Should I Rob Berserk for Omen of Clarity?
Well, the feral being at my core wants to slap me around for even thinking about it, but I will soldier on...
Berserk halves Energy costs for 15 seconds. That means about 75 more energy...once every THREE minutes. That means about a maximum of a 2.8% boost to Cat DPS on average.
But it does give you the ability to pop out of Fear. That is very sexy. The THREE minute cooldown makes it a lot less sexy, though.
So, to summarize, for each Talent Point spent we have the following DPS boosts, in order from greatest to least:
- Omen of Clarity: <= 8% DPS Boost
- KotJ: <= 4.4% (maybe a little optimistic)
- Berserk: <=2.8%
- Naturalist: 2% (the only solid number here)
- Improved Mangle: <= 0.8% (but *very* nice for Bear)
- Rend and Tear: <= 0.8%
That gives me this: Feral Combat Talents - 50 point(s)
- Ferocity - rank 5/5
- Feral Instinct - rank 3/3
- Savage Fury - rank 2/2
- Feral Swiftness - rank 2/2
- Sharpened Claws - rank 3/3
- Shredding Attacks - rank 2/2
- Predatory Strikes - rank 3/3
- Primal Fury - rank 2/2
- Primal Precision - rank 2/2
- Feral Charge - rank 1/1
- Heart of the Wild - rank 5/5
- Survival of the Fittest - rank 3/3
- Leader of the Pack - rank 1/1
- Improved Leader of the Pack - rank 2/2
- Predatory Instincts - rank 3/3
- Infected Wounds - rank 1/3
- King of the Jungle - rank 3/3
- Mangle - rank 1/1
- Improved Mangle - rank 3/3
- Rend and Tear - rank 3/5
- Furor - rank 5/5
- Naturalist - rank 5/5
- Omen of Clarity - rank 1/1
- Pick up Berserk [1/10]
- Finish out Rend and Tear [3/10]
- Pick up Natural Shapeshifter [6/10]
- Pick up Master Shapeshifter [8/10]
- Finish out Infected Wounds [10/10]*
I would appreciate any constructive criticism and I would especially love it if someone would check my math.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Swipe & Feral Faerie Fire Changes
Work is pretty busy right now, so let's go with a quickie post to further highlight two of the happy Feral changes.
First, for those not in the know, Swipe has gone from hitting a few targets to being a cone attack. That's right, everything in a cone in front of you gets hit. Ergo...
Swipe is bloody amazing. It's a Feral AoE. Even when I am in a DPS role, I can use it to achieve higher DPS on large groups of mobs, e.g., the Mount Hyjal waves. As for tanking? Wow, it's a whole new game. You can tank huge groups very reliably. You can even be sloppy about it. I love it.
Addendum: Clarification - Feral Faerie Fire only does damage in Bear form.
Bear Feral Faerie Fire does damage now! So far, it seems to be enough damage to tag targets, so grinding around annoying people that want to snake your kills could be easier, if you are living la vida ursa!
Hooray!
I told you it would be short...
First, for those not in the know, Swipe has gone from hitting a few targets to being a cone attack. That's right, everything in a cone in front of you gets hit. Ergo...
Swipe is bloody amazing. It's a Feral AoE. Even when I am in a DPS role, I can use it to achieve higher DPS on large groups of mobs, e.g., the Mount Hyjal waves. As for tanking? Wow, it's a whole new game. You can tank huge groups very reliably. You can even be sloppy about it. I love it.
Addendum: Clarification - Feral Faerie Fire only does damage in Bear form.
Bear Feral Faerie Fire does damage now! So far, it seems to be enough damage to tag targets, so grinding around annoying people that want to snake your kills could be easier, if you are living la vida ursa!
Hooray!
I told you it would be short...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
