A 30-something gamer adrift in an ocean of video games
Due to popular demand I have updated both my Feral Faction Guide and Feral Gear Worksheet with all of the new weapons that were opened up to Druids when patch 3.0.8 landed. Yes, I'm that slow.
In the past I haven't blogged about PTR patches until they were almost ready to go live - things can change so quickly on the test servers as the developers tune and balance the classes. Obviously I've started early this time, so here is how I'll be handling information about patch 3.1.0 on this blog:
The following article first appeared as a guest post on Resto4Life. It is being reproduced here in case Phaelia's archives ever go offline - she's leaving the WoW blogging scene, and we'll miss her dearly.
I distinctly remember the great power that seemed to be granted to me upon reaching that magical level twenty milestone all those years ago – no longer was I stuck as a frail caster or a curiously weak bear, instead suddenly I could shift into the form of a graceful killer and deal some real damage. The joy that I felt when I first sunk my claws into a foe and then proceeded to tear its face off remains unsurpassed by anything since. Bliss.
Surely, gentle trees, you too sometimes wish to leave your stiff limbs behind and slink into the shadows? Surely you too wish to taste something more fulfilling – far richer - than just simple water and sunshine? Surely you too wish to feel bones snap between your jaws, watch flesh part beneath your razor claws, and hear howls of helpless pain fill your ears as you destroy those who dare to stand in your way?
If so – and I know that in your heart of hearts you all do – then read on.
Druids are nearly alone in being able to utterly change their play style from healing to DPS (two flavors) to tanking with a single respec. It is because of this innate versatility that many Druids collect multiple sets of gear for when they want to step outside of their traditional role, and do something different for a while. It can be a great change of pace to heal a battleground after off-tanking a heroic raid, and I’m sure that the reverse is also true.
If you are to truly unleash your inner kitty, it pays to understand what makes a cat tick, and to ensure that your off-spec gear collection is as potent as it can be without passing up usable main spec items. Gear-wise, Cat Form benefits from the following stats: Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Crit Rating, Expertise Rating, Haste Rating, Armor Penetration, and (Feral) Attack Power. If that seems like a lot of trade-offs to juggle, then you’re not far off the mark.
Attack Power (and for now, Feral Attack Power) increases the damage that all of your attacks deal. Both white and yellow attacks scale directly with attack power, and thus the more of it you have the harder you will hit. Although the bonus attack power that you see on gear often looks enormous, it pays to calculate the equivalent Strength or Agility this converts to (or vice versa) so that you can compare apples to apples when making a loot choice.
Strength is a strong stat on Druid gear in WotLK, which is a change from the later stages of TBC. Each point of Strength is worth roughly 2.2 Attack Power, which as discussed is the underlying stat that all kitty dps abilities scale with. Picking up leather gear with lots of strength is never a bad idea, and often times strength gems and enchantments are your best choices.
Agility used to be the key stat for all feral Druids, however it has fallen behind strength in terms of DPS utility. Offensively, agility increases both your Attack Power (1 Agility = 1.67 AP) and your chance to score a critical hit on a foe (1 agility = 0.013% chance to crit). Despite losing some prominence in WotLK, Agility is still an excellent stat to stack, and the ideal piece of cat gear will have a healthy dollop of Agility AND Strength on it.
Hit rating decreases the chance that you will miss with your attacks, and thus indirectly boosts your overall damage. While it is not as flashy a stat as Attack Power, Strength, or Agility, it is probably the most important stat to pay attention to when building a Feral DPS gear set, since missed attacks deal zero damage no matter how much attack power that you have stacked. Against raid bosses the best current theorycrafting suggests that you need enough hit rating to overcome an 8.0% miss chance – this translates to +263 hit rating. If you are sticking to level 80 mobs you will only need to overcome a 5% miss chance, which requires +164 hit rating. Please keep in mind that stack hit rating beyond the cap is wasting stats, so some critical thought is required to maintain a good balance.
Expertise is a stat that feral Druids love to hate; it reduces the chance that enemies will dodge or parry our attacks (which is great) but seems to either appear in huge doses or else not at all (which makes stacking it a pain). Similarly to hit rating, capping your expertise is advisable if you intend on aiming to maximize your DPS. Against raid bosses you need to counteract their 6.5% chance to dodge which requires +214 expertise rating (parry is of lesser importance since you will be attacking from behind most of the time). Level 80 mobs only have a 5% chance to dodge, which +163 expertise rating will take care of. (Note: The Primal Precision talent – a core of any serious feral build – grants 10 expertise, or 82 expertise rating, so subtract this from the above numbers if you have specced into it).
Crit rating increases the chances that you inflict double damage on your foe with either a white or a yellow attack. It is difficult to exactly quantify the DPS increase that crit rating grants you since a properly talented Feral Druid will have their Primal Fury talent maxed out, and thus receive an extra combo point in addition to double damage when they score a critical hit. More combo points leads to easier management of the complex Feral DPS cycle, which indirectly leads to higher sustained damage. Still, the consensus seems to be that crit rating is less important than raw attack power. Number junkies will want to know that every 46 crit rating that you acquire will bestow a 1% increase to your chance of scoring a critical hit.
Armor Penetration Rating decreases the effective amount of armor that an enemy has to protect itself with against your attacks. While an increase in armor penetration leads to higher DPS, this is not a stat that feral Druids should go out of their way to acquire – if the gear has great other stats and some armor penetration thrown in then it’s not a bad thing, but armor penetration should rarely make or break a gear decision. Every 15.4 armor penetration reduces enemy armor by 1% (and keep in mind that enemy armor values are far lower than most players).
Haste speeds up the time between white damage melee attacks. Since Druids in cat form have an attack speed of 1, this stat is of minimal impact to our bottom line DPS. Like armor penetration, having gear with haste on it cannot hurt, however it is not nearly as beneficial as the other stats that could be found in its place. Every 32.8 haste rating will increase attack speed by 1%.
If your head is spinning a little bit right now, I don’t blame you – Feral Druids have a lot to consider when selecting their gear. As a rule of thumb, however, here is a guideline to follow:
hit > expertise > strength > agility > attack power > crit > armor penetration > haste
If you reach the cap for hit rating or expertise, then they drop to the back of the flow chart.
For an in-game numerical comparison of gear, I highly recommend that you use an addon like Pawn. Pawn allows you to assign weights to stats and that calculates a composite "score" for an item and displays it within the item tooltip. For reference, here is the Pawn scale that I use for evaluating cat gear:
Ap = 1, FeralAp = 1, Strength = 2.2, Agility = 1.565, CritRating = 1.025, ExpertiseRating = 1.033, HasteRating = 0.786, ArmorPenetration = 0.922, HitRating = 1.133, RedSocket = 25.04, BlueSocket = 16, YellowSocket = 24.264, ColorlessSocket = 25.04, MetaSocket = 32.865
Toskk and Rawr are also good sources for alternate gear scales for those who are interested in different points of view.
Always remember to keep the Hit Rating and Expertise caps in mind when making gear decisions, as their value cannot be modelled with a simple number in a scale like this. A composite stat-based gear score is no substitute for a little bit of critical thought.
If you want to plan your cat gear in advance, I have prepared a Loot Rank template that can be used to get a listing of kitty gear ranked by slot: Karthis’ Kitty Loot Rank. If you do not expect to be raiding then you can uncheck some of the boxes on the Loot Rank form, and click the "View Loot Ranking" button to regenerate the list to get a bigger list of gear that is relevant to your situation.
It can be a wonderful change of pace to play a different style than you are used to for a while, and the Druid class offers the ability to do this without having to roll an alt and level it up. It only furthers your enjoyment if you have a functional set of gear that makes your transition even smoother. In the end the Feral path may not be for everyone, but all Druids owe it to themselves to surrender to their inner beast for at least a little while, and get up close and personal with their foes.
When they released Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard crowed about how their latest expansion was heralding in a new golden age of more accessible raiding. Well.... they go the "new" part right, but that golden sheen is starting to look extremely tarnished only a few months into this release cycle. Sure, an unprecedented number of players have entered raid dungeons (and to a large extent, conquered them), but with a couple of months remaining between now and the next content release, this is anything but a good thing.
In today’s WotLK there is no such variety [as there was in TBC] as of yet. Naxxramas is the only real raid instance in existence at the moment (with exception of course to the two one boss wonder instances that seem to take longer to summon your entire raid to than it does to collect your loot). Even more depressing is that there is little challenge; it can be effectively farmed in a single night by PuGs in crafted PvP blues without any class synergies.
[...]
A few of our raiders are starting to become bored with the games current content. They already have most of the best in slot upgrades they wanted and are waiting for Ulduar to come out. Our main death knight dps let his account expire without even running it by us and expects us to still have a raiding slot for him when he comes back. Our main rogue since mid way through TBC doesn’t log in for days at a time and doesn’t even bother to sign up on our raid calendar as not attending.
We don’t by any means need these two players present to clear Naxx. Their absence won’t be the difference between wiping on Kel’Thuzad all night and failing to get the kill in before reset.
[...]
Whats worse is the situation that it puts me in. I am now in an awkward position where I need to make the choice between the lesser of two evils. I can recruit new raiders to fill these roles so we aren’t forced to clear Naxx without a full raid or cancel our Sartharion progression attempts. But then when Ulduar comes out and those players taking a break return, I have the unfortunate task of deciding who to bench. Those that took a break from the game or those that have been helping us raid for the last few months.
Either way, the guild loses.
I think the easy approach to raiding is totally backfiring, especially for casual guilds like mine. In TBC when we first started doing 10-man raids, none of us had been in Karazhan, other than maybe one or two people. It was this big thing that we did together. Same with Zul’Aman. I still remember the overwhelming feeling of triumph when we first got down Hex-Lord Malacrass together. I loved it. But that’s not how raiding is panning out in WotLK. Right now, we have people who are struggling to get geared but are finally getting there, and then we have people who PUG raids. Stuff like Naxx and OS, but even Eye of Eternity. When we will now finally start Naxx this weekend, it will be with people in the raid who approach raids as something that you PUG for loot, as if they were just bigger versions of heroics, not something that you want to conquer with 9 friends. I am casual for a reason, with a hardcore mentality to raiding, but above all, I just want to encounter new challenges and see content, together with friends. I have spoken to friends from other casual guilds that raid (as opposed to casual raiding guilds), and they have similar feelings. It’s very disheartening.
Tonight's raid is dysfunctional.... our two South American raiders are having wicked disconnect issues, and the replacement healer we've had to bring in is having sound card issues, which is rather lethal when attempting Sartharion with three drakes up. So here's an image live from the raid.....
One of the more engaging aspects of gearing a character in World of Warcraft is all of the little customizations and personalizations that you can do if you manage to get your paws on something with sockets. Gems can be used to pump up your primary stats, meet certain critical gearing goals (e.g. the hit cap), or compensate for a stat that you are otherwise lacking.
As if storming an ancient necropolis to assassinate one of the Lich King's most powerful servants, saving the world from the mad Blue Dragon Aspect, or taking on four dragons at once while surrounded by churning lava is not enough, I have another much more difficult raid that I take part in at least once a week - and often more frequently:
Just a quick note to inform you that I have updated my article on talent specs: Level 80 Feral Raiding Spec. After humming and hawing over a variety of talents, I believe that I have finally settled on a good balance of DPS potential and tanking ability that will see me through the current tier of PvE content.
This is the second article in a three part series about DPSing as a feral Druid in Wrath of the Lich King. Part one, "The Basics", covers the skills that make up a feral Druid's arsenal and how they fit together in a coherent DPS cycle. Part two, "Preparation", examines the talents and stats that boost a feral Druid's damage and how they can be optimized to get the most from your character. Part three, "Practical DPS", explores the various types of encounters that a feral Druid will come across, and suggests methods to maximize the damage that is dealt in each.
This is the first article in a three part series about DPSing as a feral Druid in Wrath of the Lich King. Part one, "The Basics", covers the skills that make up a feral Druid's arsenal and how they fit together in a coherent DPS cycle. Part two, "Preparation", examines the talents and stats that boost a feral Druid's damage and how they can be optimized to get the most from your character. Part three, "Practical DPS", explores the various types of encounters that a feral Druid will come across, and suggests methods to maximize the damage that is dealt in each.
One of the stated goals for Wrath of the Lich King was that all four tanking classes (Druids, Death Knights, Warriors, and Paladins) should be able to tank all of available content, thus eliminating the need to choose a tank based on class. It did not make sense that a guild should choose one player to tank an encounter over another simply because game mechanics prevented the later player from doing the job. The Burning Crusade was rife with these sorts of encounters, and they are the primary reason that feral Druids rarely main-tanked after the Tier 4 raid dungeons.
A couple of quick blog notes:
- Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.
- Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.
A number of other bloggers have posted pictures of their gaming set-up over the past few weeks, so I figured I'd throw mine out there. It's nothing fancy, but it's home:
Thaddius is one of Naxxramas' more interesting encounters - it starts with two mini-bosses that must be killed within seconds of each other, and then proceeds to the main event: a "don't screw up" encounter that features "positive" and "negative" debuffs that get randomly applied to members of the raid. If you are standing too close to someone who has the opposite debuff, then you do a pile of damage to them - if you don't react quickly, then many people will die. Since the entire encounter is a DPS race, even a few people dying can be fatal to the success of the raid.
Or.... perhaps.... lunch time nibbles. Procrastinating bear has been procrastinating.
"Hot" is not the weather. That might be all that a particular day brings, but it also might be windy or cloudy. That is weather. The thermometer only tells you temperature. If you watch the thermometer enough and correlate its behavior with other things you experience then you might notice, for example, that the temperature tends to drop before a storm. But its predictive value is still limited. It won’t tell you what the weather will do in 6 hours or a week. Satellite imagery is a very powerful tool for predicting the weather. A thermometer is not (though it is far from useless).
Of Teeth and Claws - Created and maintained by Andrew Anderson
Unless otherwise expressly stated, all original material of whatever nature created by Andrew Anderson and included in this weblog and all related pages are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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