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[Cata] Kitties and Bears, oh my! A guide to being a Feral Druid
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Post by
Achloryn
I have been seeing a lot of people in the community discussing bears stacking mastery instead of dodge (mostly by reforging, but still gemming for agi/stam/dodge like we do now). Is our mastery really that bad comparatively? The bears i've seen doing this swear by it, as do their healers... whereas I'm reforged all for dodge and feel like I get pounded at times. Any thoughts?
Post by
curlymon
I have been seeing a lot of people in the community discussing bears stacking mastery instead of dodge (mostly by reforging, but still gemming for agi/stam/dodge like we do now). Is our mastery really that bad comparatively? The bears i've seen doing this swear by it, as do their healers... whereas I'm reforged all for dodge and feel like I get pounded at times. Any thoughts?
Dodge streaks are what get you through
heavy damage times
, zerk phases.
Post by
345177
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
109094
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Xiamaru
Since it is still in the first post, I'll point this obvious bugger out:
Gear
Gearing for Feral Druids has remained largely the same. Mastery is very good for both specs. The stats we care about are:
Agility - Gives us AP and crit in both forms, and a good source of dodge for Bears.
Mastery - Boosts Savage Defense for Bears and bleed damage for Cats; more important for Cats than Bears.
Hit - Melee hit cap is 8%. Not terribly necessary for either spec, but can help smooth out Cat DPS and ensure your threat-producing abilities always hit as a Bear.
Expertise - The soft cap is 26 expertise rating. Bears want to stack this to 26, but for Cats, it's still not a huge priority.
Dodge - Bear's second-best stat. Stack it as much as you can.
Bonus Armor - Still useful despite not being affected by Bear Form.
Crit - Not sure where this falls on the priority list.
Haste - Useful for Cats to ensure energy regen, pretty much garbage for Bears until 4.0.6 hits, when Lacerate ticks will benefit from haste (= more free, CD-reset Mangles).
Take a look at the bolded part. I may be way off here, but 26 expertise
rating
is quite an easy cap to hit isn't it? Especially amusing since the same lines says to stack it :P stacking for 26 expertise rating... yay for lowbies :P
Post by
224056
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Post by
LookOut
It's also plain wrong. You do NOT stack expertise until the soft cap as a bear. It wastes way too much avoidance for a threat increase we don't need. And afaik, there aren't
m
any parryhasted bosses around nowadays (but I could be wrong), so it hardly has any mitigation value either ...
Post by
Thror
And afaik, there aren't
any
parryhasted bosses around nowadays
fixt
Post by
pelf
I don't think that's precisely true, Thror. I have this tickling in my mind that says something has the flag turned on.
Post by
Xiamaru
It's also plain wrong. You do NOT stack expertise until the soft cap as a bear. It wastes way too much avoidance for a threat increase we don't need. And afaik, there aren't
m
any parryhasted bosses around nowadays (but I could be wrong), so it hardly has any mitigation value either ...
If this is true, a softcap at 26
rating
might just be sufficient. If it does nothing but reduce dodge/parry/block chances, I can't imagine expertise being worth it, unless you somehow lack tps to keep aggro.
Post by
39134
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Post by
LookOut
People are still nagging on about a damn typo? Double you tee eff guys, the author already confirmed this, stop b*tching about it ffs
In case someone missed it:
Typos shmypos. Fixed.
Also
Useful for cats, but not so much for bears at current gear levels.
Atm both bears and cats have little use for expertise (and hit for that matter). However, this may change for cats with 4.0.6 changes to bleed damage and direct damage.
Post by
pelf
Initial math on that raises the value of hit/exp but they do not move in the stat weights appreciably.
Post by
Shadax
Yeah, until Cats are GCD locked like casters or our normal melee accounts for substantially more of our damage (or we get poisons: YAY POISON CLAWS!), hit and expertise will be 'nice to have, but worth reforging".
Post by
SeaOfHoles
So I'm gonna post this in here cuz I hate making new threads. My guild finally got their tank situation straight (or, we hope they did) so I did a full regem, re-enchant and re-reforge to DPS. My health in bear form dropped something like 15-20k, but my survivability tanking in that gear (with a proper tank spec, of course) actually went UP. My dodge is as high or higher than it was with dodge reforging and my attack power and crit are obviously both higher. I figure it's a combination of the increased avoidance and the greater Savage Defense due to higher AP and higher crit.
What do you guys think? Of course, my healers and co-tanks are kind of iffy about the Stamina change, but (1) I shoudn't be tanking, damnit, and (2) I think it's actually better this was as long as they can respond swiftly to encounter mechanics. I still have like 160k health fully raid buffed and over 200k with FR up.
As a Healer, I have often thought STA is overrated, avoidance/mitigation is underrated.
Avoidance/Mitigation helps a healer out immensely in terms of mana preservation. If the tank takes damage faster than my maximum healing throughput ... they will die. If they take damage approaching my maximum healing throughput, I don't have time to heal anyone else, so DPS or myself will probably die.
Thinking simplistically, I can only heal X every Y seconds regardless of how many hit points the tank has.
Post by
Timecow
hey it would be nice to add that 1 stamina ~ 18 HP while in bear form with mark of the wild active, all leather equipped, and 3 points into heart of the wild
128399 Max health as Tauren Druid in bear form with motw up.
86890 health increase from 6225 Stamina
after a Croc au Gratin(+90 stam) HP+=88514 from 6341 Stamina
88514-86890=1624 / 90 = 18.0444.
Post by
386302
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
224056
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
LookOut
Just gave a link to this guide to an utter noob, and took the time to read it myself as well. Then I noticed an error:
Haste - Useful for Cats to ensure energy regen, pretty much garbage for Bears until 4.0.6 hits, when Lacerate ticks will benefit from haste (= more free, CD-reset Mangles).
Patch notes no longer mention lacerate ticks benefiting from haste ...
Post by
224056
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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