Arielle's Bear Threat Spreadsheet - V2.0

Hey kids,

I finally finished out v2.0 of my threat spreadsheet, which is up-to-date with 4.0.6a. I calc'ed out mangle (within a 0.0005% variance - which is good enough for me) and added it to the sheet.

While doing so, I found another bug.

The base damage of Mangle is not multiplied by MSS. It's nothing game breaking or anything, but I mean, come on. It can't be that hard to miss. That's just fucking pathetic.

/rage

Here's the sheet yo.

Arielle's Threat Spreadsheet - V1.1

I updated my spreadsheet with more accurate Live values, mostly at Reesi's behest. I was slacking >.>

Most of my calculations were accurate within a very, very tiny variance (less than 1%). However Thrash is just completely messed up.

I've tried every way I can think of to use Blizzard's datamined Tooltip information, and I just can't get correct values when I use it. Not even close. It doesn't make any sense.

If anyone has any insight they'd like to share with me I'm all ears.

I've also added Pulverize damage with 3 different weapons (Heroic Seliza's, Malevolence, and Herioc Malevolence). I was going to add Mangle, but I had a small damage variance that I just couldn't account for. Maybe I'll try and figure it out again later, but eh. Part of me feels like it's counting the bonus from MSS twice. Maybe I'll respec later to test that theory.

Anyways, here is the sheet.

Team Waffle Podcast - EP#2

Hey Ya'll,

I forgot to tell you, but Episode #2 of the Team Waffle Podcast is now available.

Check it here:

http://teamwafflecast.com/?p=78

Gearing your pre-raid Bear Pt. 3 - Post-Raid

I've constructed a normal mode raid gear list that has what I am pretty sure are the BiS items/enchants for a Bear. This list was constructed with the following restrictions:

1) No BoP profession specific items. This is not a "is Profession X better than Profession Y" debate.
2) Randomly enchanted BoEs from Temple of Wind were ignored. These cannot be relied on. In some cases they will definitely be better than the static drops, but are incredibly random.
3) No PvP gear was used. I'll be making a post later on regarding PvP vs PvE gear.
4) Avoid Haste if it all possible. It is a terrible, terrible stat for Bears.
5) The least desirable secondary stat was reforged to Dodge Rating, regardless of what it was.
6) This is for maximum MITIGATION, not THREAT. If you are having threat issues when you start raiding (not likely) you can drop some of the Hit / Expertise reforges.

Gemming:

For the most part gem Agility, unless the socket bonus warrants something else. If you are having survivability issues (ie. not enough health), then switch to primarily gemming Stamina unless the socket bonus warrants it. You will still need 2 Yellow (+Dodge) gems to make your Meta work.

Reforging:

As previously mentioned, reforge the least valuable secondary stat to Dodge Rating.

Item List:

Helm: [Tsanga's Helm]
Reforge: 67 Crit Rating -> 67 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Trash Drop in Bastion of Twilight.

Necklace: [Necklace of Strife]
Reforge: 50 Haste Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Valiona in Bastion of Twilight.

Shoulders: [Poison Protocol Pauldrons]
Reforge: 59 Crit Rating -> 59 Dodge Rating
Obtained: The "Tron" encounter in Blackwing Descent.

Back: [Cloak of Biting Chill]
Reforge: 50 Crit Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Maloriak in Blackwing Descent.

Chest: [Sark of the Unwatched]
Reforge: 79 Crit Rating -> 79 Dodge Rating
Obainted: Atramedes in Blackwing Descent.

Wrist: [Parasitic Bands]
Reforge: 50 Crit Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Magmaw in Blackwing Descent.

Hands: [Double Attack Handguards]
Reforge: 59 Expertise Rating -> 59 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Chimaeron in Blackwing Descent.

Waist: [Belt of Nefarious Whispers]
Reforge: 73 Hit Rating -> 73 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Leatherworking.

Legs: [Stormrider's Legguards]
Reforge: 75 Critical Rating -> 75 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Purchasable with 2200 Valor Points.

Feet: [Storm Rider's Boots]
Reforge: 59 Haste Rating -> 59 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight.

Ring: [Hornet Sting Band]
Reforge: 52 Haste Rating -> 52 Dodge Rating
Obtained: 1250 Valor Points.

Ring: [Signet of the Elder Council]
Reforge: 50 Haste Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Exalted Reputation with The Earthen Ring.

Trinket: [Tia's Grace]
Reforge: Nothing
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Siamat in the Lost City of the Tol'Vir.

Trinket: [Fluid Death]
Reforge: 128 Hit Rating -> 128 Dodge Rating.
Obtained: Purchasable with 1650 Valor Points.

Weapon: [Malevolence]
Reforge: 91 Crit Rating -> 91 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight.

Relic: [Relic of Golganneth]
Reforge: 28 Haste Rating -> 28 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Purchasable with 700 Valor Points.

Additional Trinkets that you will want to pick up, should you need them:

Trinket: [Symbiotic Worm]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Magmaw in Blackwing Descent.

Trinket: [Mirror of Broken Images]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Exalted with Baradin's Wardens.

Trinket: [Vial of Stolen Memories]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Valiona in Bastion of Twilight.

Trinket: [Essence of the Cyclone]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight.

Notes:

There is very little choice when it comes to gearing your Bear at T11. Since our stat priorities are very clearly defined, there is only 1 piece of gear that fits those priorities per slot. In some cases, there's only even 1 option (Relic, Weapon). Talk about removing "choice" from gearing. Jeezus.

The two trinkets listed in the main set are what I would use for regular tanking. The additional trinkets fill niches that you may find uses for. Additionally, the BiS Heroic Level raid set will be identical to this one except with Heroic versions with the exception of the helm. The helm will be replaced with the T11 helm.

Team Waffle Podcast - Ep 1

Hey y'all,

I wanted to let you know that I finally finished the post-production Team Waffle's first podcast episode.

Get it here.

Arielle's Spreadsheet V1.0

So I did a spreadsheet. It shows the AP coeffecients for our threat abilities, except Mangle. I chose to ignore Mangle since it is far, far, far and away our best Threat ability, so modelling it is kind of pointless.

So what I've found so far while doing this, after hours of math:

1) Thrash does not currently consume Omen of Clarity procs. This has to be a bug.
2) The bleed portion of Thrash is affected by Armor. This is contrary to the very definition of a bleed. This has to also be a bug.
3) Pulverize scales like crap. Although since its only purpose is to grant 9% Crit, that doesn't really matter.
4) There's a breakpoint around 9500 AP where Thrash becomes better than Lacereate for Threat. However since Lacerate will trump Thrash for mitigation this won't really matter until possibly T13 or T14.
5) There is also a breakpoint around 20,000 AP where FFF becomes better than Lacerate for threat. However again since Lacerate is better for Mitigation, and that this also depends on the Spell Damage debuff existing, it doesn't have any practical application.
6) All of the Bear damage ability tooltips are incorrect, except FFF.

You can find the spreadsheet here. Let me know if you find anything or have any questions.

Gearing your pre-raid Bear Pt 2: Items

I've constructed a pre-raid gear list that has what I am pretty sure are the BiS items/enchants for a Bear. This list was constructed with the following restrictions:

1) No BoP profession specific items. This is not a "is Profession X better than Profession Y" debate.
2) No crafted items that require BoP materials. This means nothing that needs Chaos Orbs.
3) No enchants that need Maelstrom Crystals. I'm pretty sure they are not reliably obtainable outside of raiding, and since this is a pre-raid gearset, well, you see where I'm going with this.
4) Avoid Haste if it all possible. It is a terrible, terrible stat for Bears.
5) The least desirable secondary stat was reforged to Dodge Rating, regardless of what it was.
6) This is for maximum MITIGATION, not THREAT. If you are having threat issues when you start raiding (not likely) you can drop some of the Hit / Expertise reforges.

Gemming:

For the most part gem Agility, unless the socket bonus warrants something else. If you are having survivability issues (ie. not enough health), then switch to primarily gemming Stamina unless the socket bonus warrants it. You will still need 2 Yellow (+Dodge) gems to make your Meta work.

Reforging:

As previously mentioned, reforge the least valuable secondary stat to Dodge Rating.

Item List:

Helm: [Helm of Numberless Shadows]
Reforge: 72 Hit Rating -> 72 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from High Priestess Azil in Stonecore.

Necklace: [Pendant of the Lightless Grotto]
Reforge: 44 Crit Rating -> 44 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Ozruk in Stonecore.

Shoulders: [Embrace of the Night]
Reforge: 52 Hit Rating -> 52 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Purchasable with 1650 Justice Points.

Back: [Cloak of Thredd]
Reforge: 44 Crit Rating -> 44 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Helix Gearbreaker in Deadmines.

Chest: [Vest of Misshapen Hides]
Reforge: 64 Crit Rating -> 64 Dodge Rating
Obainted: Heroic Dungeon drop from Erudax in Grim Batol.

Wrist: [Double Dealing Bracers]
Reforge: 44 Crit Rating -> 44 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Lord Walden in Shadowfang Keep.

Hands: [Stormbolt Gloves]
Reforge: 67 Haste Rating -> 67 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Exalted Reputation with Wildhammer Clan.

Waist: [Sash of Musing]
Reforge: 52 Expertise Rating -> 52 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Purchasable with 1650 Justice Points.

Legs: [Leggings of the Burrowing Mole]
Reforge: 64 Expertise Rating -> 64 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Purchasable with 2200 Justice Points.

Feet: [Boots of the Predator]
Reforge: 52 Hit Rating -> 52 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Baron Ashbury in Shadowfang Keep.

Ring: [Elementium Destroyer's Ring]
Reforge: 35 Crit Rating -> 35 Dodge Rating
Obtained: BoE from Jewelcrafting.

Ring: [Signet of the Elder Council]
Reforge: 50 Haste Rating -> 50 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Exalted Reputation with The Earthen Ring.

Trinket: [Leaden Despair]
Reforge: Nothing.
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from High Priestess Azil in Stonecore.

Trinket: [Tia's Grace]
Reforge: Nothing
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Siamat in the Lost City of the Tol'Vir.

Weapon: [Seliza's Spear]
Reforge: 54 Crit Rating -> 54 Dodge Rating
Obatined: Heroic Dungeon drop from General Husam in the Lost City of the Tol'vir.

Relic: [Sandshift Relic]
Reforge: 25 Hit Rating -> 25 Dodge Rating
Obtained: Heroic Dungeon drop from Ascendant Lord Obsidious in Blackrock Caverns.

Gearing your pre-raid Bear Pt 1: Stats

There are a number of pre-raid gearing guides floating around out there. Some of them (like Ri's) are good. Some of the other ones (like people assuming parry-haste still exists) are not.

I've put together a gear guide for a "pre-raid" bear using Fasc's spreadsheet. You may not choose to believe me, but I've tried pretty much every viable combination including gems. I do not however claim it is perfect, and there may have been something I have overlooked. If you think something doesn't fit please do not hesitate to contact me and let me know (see the right hand side for how).

I've split this into two parts. Part 1 will discuss the various stats, what they do, and their relative values. Part 2 will have the actual gear list. So here weeee goooooooo!

Stats:

Agility:

Agility is the "bread n butter" stat of any Feral Druid, be they Cat or Bear. It increases Attack Power (AP), Critical Strike Chance, and Dodge %. The amount of Agility is mostly tied to the iLvL (Item Level) and quality (Uncommon / Rare / Epic) of the gear. There can be some variation but there usually isn't much. At entry-level raiding Agility is an amazing stat because it has such a huge impact on Savage Defense uptime and effectiveness. You will find yourself mostly gemming Agility in your gear, unless the socket bonus warrants otherwise. Actual stats below:

1 Agi = 2.5 AP (2.625 AP) [2.8875 AP]
1 Agi = 0.0030783% Crit (0.0032323%)
324.85 Agi = 1% Crit
1 Agi = 0.0041054% Dodge (0.0043106%)
243.58 Agi = 1% Dodge

Strength:

Strength is now the bastard step-sibling of Agility for a Feral Druid. It grants Attack Power but nothing else. In the past it actually granted more AP per point than Agility, but no longer. You will only find it on cross-class tanking accessories. However those accessories are generally sub-par when compared to an Agility-based accessory of the same level due to how awesome Agility is. For the most part avoid it like the plague unless the secondary stats on the item warrant it.

1 Str = 2.5 AP (2.625 AP) [2.8875 AP]

Stamina:

Stamina increases your health. It also has a side-effect of increasing the amount of Attack Power granted via Vengeance. So in a roundabout way it is a mitigation stat. However it is not as effective as actual mitigation stats like Mastery. Stamina is directly linked to the iLvL and quality of the item.

1 Sta = 17.1402 Health (17.99721)

Critical Strike Rating:

Critical Strike Rating increases the chance that you will critically hit an enemy. This makes it a valuable threat and mitigation stat for Bears as crits proc Savage Defense. It is generally the second most important secondary mitigation stat behind Mastery.

1 Crit Rating = 0.0055779% Crit
179.28 Crit Rating = 1% Crit

Haste:

Haste is garbage. Avoid it at all costs. It is the crappiest secondary stat for Bears by a factor of 4. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM IT IF IT ALL HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

128.05701 = 1% Haste

Dodge Rating:

Increases your chance to Dodge. At a pre-raid level of gearing this will be the stat you Reforge to. Reforge everything except Mastery to Dodge. Mastery is the second most valuable secondary stat behind Dodge, and since every piece of gear will come with 2 secondary stats, you pick whatever isn't Mastery.

1 Dodge Rating = 0.005687% Dodge
176.71899 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge

Hit Rating:

Increases the chance to hit your target. It also increases your White and Yellow crit caps. However that isn't something you have to worry about in a pre-raid environment. As Hit is only the 2nd least valuable secondary stat, reforge it into Dodge whenever possible. If you find yourself having threat problems, get more Expertise before you get more Hit.

Increases chance to hit.
120.109 Hit Rating = 1% Hit
1 Hit Rating = 0.0083256% Hit
8% Hit = 960.872 Hit Rating

Expertise Rating:

Expertise reduces the chance a mob will Parry or Dodge your attacks. Since Yellow attacks are on a "2-roll" system, it is actually more valuable for mitigation than Crit until you reach the Expertise "softcap" (6.5%). However since Expertise (specifically Expertise+Mastery) pieces are so rare, it isn't a stat you should be actively seeking out, let alone reforging/gemming for.

30.0727 Expertise Rating = 1 Expertise

Level 85 mob = 5.0% (Dodge) / 5.0% (Parry) = 601.454 (20) / 601.454 (20) Expertise Rating
Level 86 mob = 5.2% (Dodge) / 5.2% (Parry) = 631.527 (21) / 631.527 (21) Expertise Rating
Level 87 mob = 5.4% (Dodge) / 5.4% (Parry) = 661.599 (22) / 661.599 (22) Expertise Rating
Level 88 mob = 6.5% (Dodge) / 14% (Parry) = 781.890 (26) / 1684.071 (56) Expertise Rating

Mastery Rating:

Mastery increases the amount your Savage Defense bubbles absorb. This is great. You should be seeking it out on gear, and reforging whatever it comes with to Dodge.

179.28 Mastery Rating = 1 Mastery

Armor:

Armor decreases the amount of physical damage taken from attacks. It is directly tied to iLvL and quality of the item. You may see some items with a "green" value for their armor. If you see one of these, remember that the bonus portion of the armor does not get multiplied by the Bear armor modifier. The "regular" portion (which is directly tied to iLvL/quality) still does.

1 Armor = 3.2186 Armor (Bear + Thick Hide)
1 Armor = 3.282972 Armor (Bear + Thick Hide + Meta Gem)
Armor cap (75% DR) for Lvl88 Boss mobs = 97717.5 Armor

Your secondary stat priorities: Dodge > Mastery > Expertise(until softcap) > Crit > Hit = Expertise(after softcap) >>>>>>>>>> Haste.

This ends part 1.

So I've been really wrapped up with this whole "Swipe is now useless" problem which is currently plaguing Bear tanks. I've done a lot of math on the problem (which has been linked everywhere from Ri to MMO Champion - go me!), and apparently people just don't understand how Base Damage + AP Coeff abilities work. It's very frustrating.

Regardless, I should be updating this more often.

Anyways, latest info in the Bear world.

1) Swipe iz broke.

As previously mentioned, Swipe is broken. It doesn't do what its supposed to do. Worse than that, it does less damage (at least according to current info) than Thrash. This means that once you hit 81, you take Swipe off of your actionbar. Period.

WTF?!?!

Granted I won't know for sure what will be happening until I hit 85 myself, but that just sounds absurdly dumb. More info will follow after Dec 7.

Additionally the tooltip for Swipe doesn't account for the recent 17% nerf. So if you're attacking an unarmored target and wondering why the numbers don't match, multiply your TT damage by 0.83 to get the actual damage. The TT also includes any damage modifiers to Swipe (2pct10), so don't remove things that shouldn't be.

2) Fasc made a spreadsheet!

Link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1083360391

This is Fasc's Bear Mitigation spreadsheet. It breaks down the various stats into different weights to give you an idea of what stats are valuable, and what aren't. As expected Haste has the lowest value of all (by a factor of 4 - lol). So if you find Haste, change it to Dodge ASAP.

In that thread I asked him about the possibility of making a "Bearpoints" mod. If you have (or still do) tank as a Plate tank, you'll know of a mod called "Tankpoints" which breaks down the various stats on an item to tell you how valuable it is with a common value. It'd be pretty cool if Bears finally got something similar.

3) Ri made a levelling guide to 85

Ri (Reesi, @Reesify on Twitter) made a levelling guide from 80-85. I'm a big fan of her work, it's all really good stuff. Go check it out.

Additionally we're trading back and forth on a pre-raid gear guide. I'll hopefully have my selected choices up this weekend. Maybe. We'll see.

If you're interested in following her stuff, go to http://www.theincbear.com - I definitely recommend you check it out.

4) Thick Hide iz broke.

It's granting far more bonus armor than it should be. Don't know why it hasn't been fixed yet, but it sure is amusing.

5) I'm going to be making a Bear damage / coeff spreadsheet from 10-85.

That's right. I'm gonna be doing a spreadsheet.

To be fair I will likely only do this once. I don't fancy re-levelling a Druid every time Blizzard introduces some changes to Bear abilities. That said it is definitely something I'm interested in doing, if only to give myself a better understanding of how the abilities all work. I'm scared I might find out things that I don't really want to know.

That's all for now. Hope to do another post this weekend.

Fail.

So I promised a post last night. However my procrastinating nature got the better of me, and I decided that since nobody actually reads this thing, I can just do it later.

I may or may not end up doing a post tonight. League of Legends and TV tend to take up most of my free time. And trolling the WoW forums.

List of things I need to cover:

Patch 4.0.3a.
Fasc's Amazing Bear Spreadsheet
Lissanna's Levelling Guide
Reesi's Waffle game.

OMG MORE SKY FALLING QQQQ

Seriously guys, this is really getting old.

This week we had two epic batches of "QQQQQQQQQQQQ", and one justified concern from the Feral community. One of them was vaguely justified, however it was based on false and/or incomplete information. The other epic one was completely unjustified and makes me /facepalm. The third is definitely justified and just confuses the hell out of me why it would even happen.

Change #1: Abilities based off of weapon damage (like "% weapon damage") now scale. Everyone thought that the abilities were being uber nerfed. However within 10-15 minutes it was clarified to be scaling (like spells) from 1 - 85. I saw at least 6 Feral rage threads within 15 minutes when this showed up on MMO-Champion. All of them made me /facepalm

Change #2: Leader Of the Pack Self Heal changed from 8% heal to 4% heal. This is in line with other self-healing ability nerfs to DKs and Warriors. At most it hurts soloing. Oh noes. At the root of it it's a scaling issue with huge health pools. Self healing for 12k every 6 seconds is kind of an absurd proposition, even if your max health is 150k.

Change #3: Leader Of the Pack mana return reduced from 8% to 4%. This is ridiculous. This basically kills Feral PvP outright. Unless mana pools somehow double without increasing spell costs (which is impossible) this makes any sort of competitive Feral PvP impossible. I think this was either a typo, or an over zealous coder hitting both numbers without intending to. I fully expect it to be reversed.

That's your Feral changes for this week.

ZOMG THE SKY IS FALLING QQQQQQ

Or at least that's what a lot of the ignorant Feral Druids out there think.

Here's the relevant changes:

• Savage Defense reduced to 35% of Attack Power from 65%. No longer procs from Lacerate tick crits.


• Bear form Stamina bonus lowered to +10% from +20%. Stamina bonus from Heart of the Wild lowered to +6% from +10%.


• Survival Instincts lowered to 50% reduction from 60%. Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes from 5 minutes

The first two are merely balance changes. However they also happen to be the ones people are most upset about. Why? Because people don't know how to lern2math before crying "OMGWORLDISENDINGBBQ!!!!11oneone"

Bears were massively overpowered in Cataclysm before these changes were made. I mean really, how could 20k absorbs triggered on crit not be overpowered? What about health pools 20-30k larger than other tanks? How is that not overpowered? It was actually so bad that tanks other than Bears were getting 2-3 shot by bosses. I mean if what you want is to be overpowered then fine, cry nerf. But if you want a game worth playing you'll know that's a really stupid idea.

The main opposition to the 3rd change comes from people that dislike "homogenization". Homogenization is necesarry for adequate tank balance. You can't design encounters to be equal for all tanks if some of them lack the necesarry abilities to tank the encounter correctly.

Lern2mathb4qq.

Blizzcon: Question Reactions

So I watched the Blizzcon live stream over the weekend. And since I really, really, really haven't been playing for a long time, I thought that I would throw down my reactions to some of the WoW related questions and announcements that are Feral and/or Druid related.

Credit to MMO-Champion for making it convenient for me to see the Q&A so I don't have to re-watch all of the panels.

- I'm really excited about 5mans actually requiring skill. I'm also excited that the CC changes made in Wrath will make it so that most classes will be able to CC effectively.

- In-Game AtlasLoot continues the vein of Blizzard adopting community mods into the stock UI.

- "Cutting out the suck" of Classic Dungeons earned massive approval, mine too. So much of the suck of Classic Dungeons makes me aggro.

"Are we going to see another caster legendary weapon that isn't a mace?"

I think it is actually the caster's turn to see a Legendary, and you can even make it cross-class if you make it a Dagger or Staff. Granted I would rather see a Feral weapon, but I think I can survive without one.

"That said [Vengeance] shouldn't feel mandatory."

This made me very, very, very, very, very, very, very angry. I actually made an absurdly vulgar tweet about it. Vengeance is extremely mandatory for raiding, especially at 80. When you have Mages that can pull 15k dps without even trying too hard, Vengeance is most definitely required.

At best on a spank-n-tank fight Mages end with around 75% of my threat. If I didn't have Vengeance, they would pull every 5 seconds. To be fair I suspect that DPS and TPS are balanced around 85, but still. That's a blatantly false statement with the information I have available right now.

Wild Mushrooms, currently it does a lot of damage if you stack 3 on top of each other. It has a small range though, and the targeting makes it a bit hard to stack on them. Are there any plans to change it at all?

They completely dodged this question. It was asked by a Balance Druid that wanted to know if there were any plans to make the spell easier to use. Granted the answer of "Ferals use it to pull adds" was kinda interesting. However, when a Moonkin asks you directly "This spell is terrible to use for DPS, can we make it easier?" It's generally a good idea to answer it.

[NomNomNom's] an internet meme that will be less funny in a year, and will embarrass us in 3 years.

Ok, now at least I understand. Granted I was in love with the name "NomNomNom" when it was first announced as a talent name. However I understand their reasoning.\

Hunters are the only class in the game with a minimum range. This hurts us a lot in raids. They can stand directly in front of you, they can repeatedly stand in front of you and use a ranged attack, why can't Hunters do the same thing and stack near the boss?


This guy was an idiot. You would've have to have heard his voice to understand why, but he's stupid. You can't shoot a bow at something that's right in front of you. Deal with it. Scrub.

I love what you guys have done with WoW, I love that there's a lot of strong female chars, though I wonder if we can have some that didnt look like they came out of a Victoria's Secrets catalogue?

Which catalogue would you like them step out of then? We feel ya, we want to vary our female chars more in the future. So yeah we'll pick different catalogues.

I had mixed feelings about this. While on one level I agree with the person who posed the question, and I felt the response from the devs was a bit chauvanistic, I then sat down to think about it. The only really "badly" dressed women are the badguys. All of the PCs are basically fully clothed in armor, and Jaina is pretty darn conservatively dressed. Granted characters like Alexstraza are pretty revealing, but they're dragons. They're allowed.

That said, I wouldn't really mind if things changed.

That's all for now. You can expect kill videos and fun stuff once Cata launches and I get to 85.

Onyxia

So I managed to get in to a PUG of Onyxia last night.

Man was I dissapointed.

Sure she hits pretty hard, and it's in your best interest to bring 3 healers, but the fight hasn't changed at all.

Ok, so they added one additional add that spawns. Woo.

Other than that, it's the usual:

Phase 1: Spank and tank.

Phase 2: Kill things and stay out of DB.

Phase 3: Spank and tank.

And for all of that effort you get 232 loot. Like really? I was expecting more. Oh well, guess I'll just collect my Thunderstrike and move on.

IWANTIWANTIWANT

This: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49302

General Died.

And all it took was for our Rogue to log on. Seriously. First try with him in the raid (he was a little late) and we downed him.

And our healers were out of mana for almost the entire last minute of the fight.

I pulled ~3500 dps, including a 20% haste debuff. With crappy trinkets. I was happy :)

We're taking a week off as a couple of our group are taking trips. We're gonna work on 8man Naxx (yay extended lockouts!).

Dead General screen below:

Raiding again...

So, 2 weeks (for a total of just over 8 hours) of raiding, and my team has cleared the following:

Naxx, Sarth 1d, Maly, and up to Mimi.

In 8 hours.

I also forgot to mention that about 30% of our team had not seen Ulduar before. Oh, and we got the Razorscale achievement too.

The raid lockout extension feature is positively amazing. We took our sweet time making it through Ulduar, knowing that we would have as much time as we want/need to actually finish it. It makes raiding a lot less stressful, and you hardly ever get burnt out. Going twice a week for 2 hours a night is really a lot of fun.

Our group consists of:

Prot Paladin MT
Feral Druid OT/DPS (Me)
Resto Shaman Healer
Holy Priest Healer
Moonkin/Shadowpriest Offheal/DPS (they share a spot)
Fury Warrior DPS
Rogue DPS
Warlock DPS
Hunter DPS
Mage DPS

It's a lot more spread out than our last group. A lot less congestion on some of the tokens as well. It's working great.

I'm looking forward to Mimiron tomorrow. Should be a lot of fun.

I'm back now.

I took quite a break from WoW during the summer - and famously told all of my friends that Blizzard had until Blizzcon (yes I did attend) to get me back.

Well they got me. Although you can mostly blame Darwog and Bingo (Suramar-US) for it.

I've also shelved my Death Knight indefinitely. Playing my Feral Druid is just infinitely more fun. Not to mention her gear is equal to or better than my DK's.

I haven't had any experience with the new ToC raid yet. However I have done the new 5 man, and I'm a bit dissapointed.

For 1, there's no way to skip the heinously long dialogue. Sure it's cool the first few times, but after that you just want to go afk for 5 minutes while the opening scene finishes.

Second it's absurdly easy. Seriously. Like so easy it's insulting. Granted my druid is decked in 213 gear or above, but it's still easy. I was hoping for something that provided something that looked like a challenge.

Third - for something so easy the rewards are wayyyyyyy too good. The tanking trinket is amazing, and the gear you can get from Heroic surpasses a lot of the Ulduar 10 gear.

Finally, you don't get badges in heroic mode. That's just dissapointing. Wth kind of use do I have for Champion's seals? Really?

Arg. I want Cataclysm!

Minor Vacation

Been a while but hey, what are you gonna do about it?

A lot of new information to cover, and I'll start with what is probably most dear to my heart - Feral PvP.

This is the build I use.

Note that for starters it's a Mangle build. You don't get *that* much additional benefit by using Shred over Mangle, yet you manage to lose 8 talent points. I don't like that.

I'm currently in 2 Hateful, 2 Deadly, and still holding on to a few Eviscerator pieces (which I will be replacing soon enough).

I stayed out of Season 5 completely after finding out how broken it was. It was nigh impossible to improve to get any better gear to make yourself improve more. On top of that, Pally + DK was pretty much an autowin.

Now I'm doing 2s with a DK, and 3s with a Rogue and DPriest. We didn't actually manage to make any time for 3s this week, but we did get in ~17 games in with our 2s team. Most of it was spent with my partner figuring out how / when to use all his buttons (the same reason I stopped PvPing on my DK). However once we got it down we did fairly well - even against DK/Pally.

In BGs I can pretty much 1v1 anything. The only things I can't reliably kill are DPriests, RShamans, and RDruids. That is mostly because I haven't gotten my rotation down quite well enough against those particuarly opponents. Against any DPS class I can pretty much tear them to shreds, unless a Mage pops every single cooldown in existence to kill me.

Melee DPS are especially yummy to kill. And getting sweet revenge on Warlocks is sweet.

I'll have more on Ulduar in the coming days.

Prmal Joke

I was really excited about the new talent "Primal Gore" that is going to allow Lacerate and Rip the chance to crit. Then I learned it has a pre-requisite of "Rend and Tear". That ended the thrill for me.

From what I can tell Primal Gore is being designed as a PvE only DPS boost. Now the question you will have in response to this is "Why the heck do you think that?" The answer is fairly simple: Shred.

As it currently stands, in order to take Rend and Tear, you have to sacrifice either utility or survivability. On top of that, if you do that 5 points into Rend and Tear you might as well sink an extra 2 into Shred (-18 Energy cost) so you can actually use that ability. So we're essentially talking a whopping 8 talent points for Lacerate and Rip crits in PvP. 8! Here's a summary of what you have to lose in order to get that one talent:

1) Master Shapeshifter (2 Points): -4% Crit in Cat form and -4% Damage in Bear. I like it for the crit and extra combo point generation - allows for easier Savage Roar upkeep (which is infinitely more important than any other finisher).

2) Natural Shapeshifting (3 Points): +30% Shift Cost. This might not be a such a big deal - except with this and Primal Tenacity you will be down to a 224 mana cost Cat or Bear form. 224. That's it. I don't know about you, but I like having mana available to Cyclone, Roots, Heal, etc.

3) Thick Hide (3 Points): -10% Armor. This is probably the first one I would lose if I had a choice - although I would really rather not at all. I like the survivability.

4) Natural Instincts (2 Points): -20% Healing in Cat, -70% Agi as Healing Power. No. This is such a huge survivability talent I would never give it up under any circumstances.

So I'm forced to pick 8 of those 10 points and throw them away for a talent I would never use anyway if I had Rend and Tear (if you have R&T you better be using FB and not Rip)? You have got to be kidding me.

Make the pre-requisite Imp. Mangle like it should be.