Ok, so we have all probably seen someone with Fandral's Flamescythe by now. A flaming cat hanging out in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, showing off their new look. But is it really worth it? Is this weapon more then just a gimmicky weapon put in by Blizzard? Lets examine the facts shall we...
Here is Fandral's Flamescythe:
Fandral's Flamescythe
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
1428 - 2143 Damage Speed 2.40
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 276 (1.54% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 265 (1.48 @ L85).
We also know that the unlisted trick to this weapon is that druids using it get a new fiery cat form. Now, the stats are nice, very high and in the right spots. The mastery on it is nice and the critical strike always helps. But is this really worth going crazy to go after?
Well, if you like your fair share of PvP, another weapon in your grasp can be:
Ruthless Gladiator's Staff
Season 10
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
1190 - 1786 Damage Speed 2.00
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 272 (1.52% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 272 (3.44% @ L85).
or
Ruthless Gladiator's Pike
Season 10
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Polearm
2142 - 3215 Damage Speed 3.60
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 272 (1.52% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 272 (3.44% @ L85).
Now, you do lose out on the mastery on these 2 choices, but although mastery is a nice stat to have, it's not the top stat in most builds at the moment. You can always reforge to get some mastery back, but ultimately, the 265 mastery that the Fandral's Flamescythe gives you does not actually translate in to that much of an improvement. You have to remember that 265 does not translate in to actually 265 more mastery. It gets tossed in to the conversion tables like all other stats and then the correct amount is added to your stats.
Now, if you do not have access to or do not like to PvP, there is always "
Witch-Hunter's Harvester
Binds when equipped
Two-Hand Polearm
1614 - 3000 Damage Speed 3.50
(659.2 damage per second)
+361 Agility
+541 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 365
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 241 (1.34% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 241 (1.34 @ L85).
Ok, I know what you are going to say. And yes, the ilvl and stats are lower. But look at the big picture here and not the numbers on the polearm. You are only losing out on 47 agility, 70 stamina, 35 critical strike and 24 mastery. If you were to add these missing amounts to your stats you would see almost no change in your over all stats. For example, 70 stamina is only going to give you about 700 more health over all. In today's WoW, 700 health doesn't make a ton of difference, or really any at all.
If you sit back and do that over all math and run that numbers in your stats, you can see that, unless the staff drops while you are in there anyways, it does not seem that Fandral's Flamescythe is the end all/be all of weapons in the game for druids at this point. Sure the higher stats and ilvl numbers all make it the "best" weapon in game for druids. But if you stand back and look at it for what it really is, the shine on it seems to die down and it's not really that awesome of a weapon. Now if you want a weapon that will change you form, then this is simple the best for you. I feel that this just isn't worth farming for.
If you have any questions or comments you'd like to make on this topic, please feel free to comment. I will respond to any and all questions posted here. If you like this or any of my other topics, please follow me. You can also find me on twitter @neosroar.
Seeing WoW though the eyes of a tank.
Showing posts with label stamina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stamina. Show all posts
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
A few things that will make you a better tank. Part 3
Ok, when we last left off I was talking about playing the role of caster dps. Some people think I'm completely off my rocker for saying that to be a better tank, you need to do everything BUT tank. I have found that the best way to become a better tank is the ability to empathize with the other members of your group. If you understand what they are having to deal with, it will always help you to be able to make a pull better, get a boss down faster and make the run go smoother.
On that note, Melee is next!
No, some tanks out there have done this. Some have a melee spec and they go to town killing stuff. HOWEVER.....they usually do it in their tanking gear and have no fear of pull off the tank. This does nothing to make you a better player. All this does is give you a bigger epeen and make you the group pain in the @ss.
So, as stated in the last couple of blogs, start up a new toon, I recommend a warrior as this class is perfect for this. With a warrior, you can't step back and cast a heal on yourself to pull your butt out of the proverbial fire (or real fire if you were standing in it, lol). You will have to rely on paying attention and your healer to keep you alive. Level to 10 and then jump on BGs. This will give you the perfect place to learn to watch what is going on. If you can develop eyes in the back of your head, you will have learned a skill that will make you a good dps and a great tank, extreme situational awareness. This is a skill that you will find a great number of people are lacking. Even dps should know what is going on at all times with stuff in the room.
Once you hit 15, jump in to dungeons with both feet and learn new fun features such as "The tank keeps him moving when he doesn't need to....I CAN'T HIT HIM!!!!" or my favorite "Why does the tank keep turning him? I keep getting him by the mob since the tank faces him to me! AHHHH!!!" Watch closely at what your tank is doing and remember or even write down the things he/she does that drive you nuts. Don't yell at them in chat, it won't do any good. Just make a note of it and remember it.
So, now that you have played the roll of healer, caster and melee dps, you have a firm grasp on what the other members of your group go through on a daily basis. You know what they have to deal with trying to keep you alive and how the strive to keep themselves alive. Remember, you are the tank. It if your job to not just grab mobs and make fast pulls to show off your epeen. It is your job to keep the group alive. It is the healers job to keep you alive so that you can do your job. This means do not be afraid to CC something or to make a LoS pull or to kill that extra group of trash so that it does not get accidentally pulled. It's your job to keep them alive by setting up the run. You are the first one in there and it is your job to set up pulls so that no one gets killed (there are some exceptions such as people standing in fire. Cause you just can't fix stupid, lol.). You will find that once you try this technique of playing all the different rolls until about lvl20 or 30, you will have much better understanding of the real group dynamic and you will become a much better tank for it.
I hope this has helped out. I have done this and I can say that it gave me a lot of insight and makes my runs much smoother and with less repair bills. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment below and I will respond quickly. If you enjoy this blog,. please become a follower and spread the word about Neo's Challenging Roar!
On that note, Melee is next!
No, some tanks out there have done this. Some have a melee spec and they go to town killing stuff. HOWEVER.....they usually do it in their tanking gear and have no fear of pull off the tank. This does nothing to make you a better player. All this does is give you a bigger epeen and make you the group pain in the @ss.
So, as stated in the last couple of blogs, start up a new toon, I recommend a warrior as this class is perfect for this. With a warrior, you can't step back and cast a heal on yourself to pull your butt out of the proverbial fire (or real fire if you were standing in it, lol). You will have to rely on paying attention and your healer to keep you alive. Level to 10 and then jump on BGs. This will give you the perfect place to learn to watch what is going on. If you can develop eyes in the back of your head, you will have learned a skill that will make you a good dps and a great tank, extreme situational awareness. This is a skill that you will find a great number of people are lacking. Even dps should know what is going on at all times with stuff in the room.
Once you hit 15, jump in to dungeons with both feet and learn new fun features such as "The tank keeps him moving when he doesn't need to....I CAN'T HIT HIM!!!!" or my favorite "Why does the tank keep turning him? I keep getting him by the mob since the tank faces him to me! AHHHH!!!" Watch closely at what your tank is doing and remember or even write down the things he/she does that drive you nuts. Don't yell at them in chat, it won't do any good. Just make a note of it and remember it.
So, now that you have played the roll of healer, caster and melee dps, you have a firm grasp on what the other members of your group go through on a daily basis. You know what they have to deal with trying to keep you alive and how the strive to keep themselves alive. Remember, you are the tank. It if your job to not just grab mobs and make fast pulls to show off your epeen. It is your job to keep the group alive. It is the healers job to keep you alive so that you can do your job. This means do not be afraid to CC something or to make a LoS pull or to kill that extra group of trash so that it does not get accidentally pulled. It's your job to keep them alive by setting up the run. You are the first one in there and it is your job to set up pulls so that no one gets killed (there are some exceptions such as people standing in fire. Cause you just can't fix stupid, lol.). You will find that once you try this technique of playing all the different rolls until about lvl20 or 30, you will have much better understanding of the real group dynamic and you will become a much better tank for it.
I hope this has helped out. I have done this and I can say that it gave me a lot of insight and makes my runs much smoother and with less repair bills. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment below and I will respond quickly. If you enjoy this blog,. please become a follower and spread the word about Neo's Challenging Roar!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Healing is part of your job too.
Now I know that people think, "You're the healer. it's your job to heal, not mine!", or "I'm here to dps, not heal.". Well, for a feral tank, this is just not true. Healing yourself is part of your job and makes the healing easier for the healer and will keep you alive longer. Now, this is not something you have to go out of your way to do. Part of it comes totally natural from talent points alone:
Leader of the Pack
While in Cat Form or Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%. In addition, your melee critical strikes in Cat Form and Bear Form cause you to heal for 4% of your total health and gain 8% of your maximum mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.
This alone is a big heal in the long run. Any healing you do to yourself here is mana not being used by the healer and mana that can be utilized in a "crunch time" situation. I share this here as some people take a tank build that they see from a blog (I've posted mine here in an earlier post) or off the wow armory or from other places, which is fine. Problem, some people don't take the time to read the talents and why they should be chosen. This is one that should be.
Another thing you can do it use a glyph for your Frenzied Regeneration:
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Major Glyph
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 52
Item Level 52
Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph.
While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 30% more powerful but causes your Frenzied Regeneration to no longer convert rage into health.
Now this is a big step for some tanks as this makes you put full trust and faith in your healer and takes some of your self healing abilities away from your. To me, this is a great glyph to have since it infact boosts the healing done to you by the healer AND by your Leader of the Pack talents. At the point you hit Frenzied Regeneration, you will want to do something very important. Keep your eye out for a Lightwell or any kind of AoE healing effect on the ground. If you see these, get in them. Some would argue that a Lightwell is really only for the dps so that the healer can focus more on the tank and not so much on dps. This could not be farther from the truth. Any and all healing you can do to yourself will help save the healer mana for use when it is truly needed to keep your bear butt up, lol.
Remember, tanking is part of the team effort. If you want to succeed, you need to think like part of the team and not as just the tank. Any and all thing you can do to help the healer must be high priority. The healer and dps will thank you for this. If the healer goes out of mana (oom) or dies, you will not be standing for very long after.
Keep up the good work tanks. Remember we all want to get through a run alive, working together will make that happen.
Leader of the Pack
While in Cat Form or Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%. In addition, your melee critical strikes in Cat Form and Bear Form cause you to heal for 4% of your total health and gain 8% of your maximum mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.
This alone is a big heal in the long run. Any healing you do to yourself here is mana not being used by the healer and mana that can be utilized in a "crunch time" situation. I share this here as some people take a tank build that they see from a blog (I've posted mine here in an earlier post) or off the wow armory or from other places, which is fine. Problem, some people don't take the time to read the talents and why they should be chosen. This is one that should be.
Another thing you can do it use a glyph for your Frenzied Regeneration:
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Major Glyph
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 52
Item Level 52
Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph.
While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 30% more powerful but causes your Frenzied Regeneration to no longer convert rage into health.
Now this is a big step for some tanks as this makes you put full trust and faith in your healer and takes some of your self healing abilities away from your. To me, this is a great glyph to have since it infact boosts the healing done to you by the healer AND by your Leader of the Pack talents. At the point you hit Frenzied Regeneration, you will want to do something very important. Keep your eye out for a Lightwell or any kind of AoE healing effect on the ground. If you see these, get in them. Some would argue that a Lightwell is really only for the dps so that the healer can focus more on the tank and not so much on dps. This could not be farther from the truth. Any and all healing you can do to yourself will help save the healer mana for use when it is truly needed to keep your bear butt up, lol.
Remember, tanking is part of the team effort. If you want to succeed, you need to think like part of the team and not as just the tank. Any and all thing you can do to help the healer must be high priority. The healer and dps will thank you for this. If the healer goes out of mana (oom) or dies, you will not be standing for very long after.
Keep up the good work tanks. Remember we all want to get through a run alive, working together will make that happen.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
A little about the blogger...
After handing out all this information about tanking and everything else I have covered in my blog, I though I should take a moment to give you a look in to where this wealth of knowledge (pffft) comes from. A little background on me, the blogger so you can maybe understand a little bit more about why I have the opinions I do and why I have taken it so seriously to gather up all the information I have obtained over the years and feel the need to share it with everyone out there that is looking for some help or maybe just a confirmation of what they were thinking.
I stated playing World of Warcraft back in early/mid 2006. My first toon was......a mage. I know, but I soon learned the ways of the tank side, lol. After a lot of thinking about it, I grabbed myself a free trial of WoW. I always loved the Warcraft games and thought, why not. Man, I was not prepared for what I saw. I started out as a human not having a clue as to what was going on. didn't know what quests were, didn't know anything. I wondered around in awe of the landscape of the game. To me, the Elywnn Forest was amazing looking. I Stumbled on Stormwind and didn't have a clue a I got lost (didn't know about hitting "M" for a map yet, lol). I found what I thought was a underground train that would take me around the city....WRONG! I get off the tram and wonder around some more. I finally find what looks like an entrance and.....I find myself in a high mountain peak, surrounded by snow. I was shocked and in awe....and had to have this game! I told my wife that she had to try this game out. After all, she is the one that got me in to the warcraft games in the first place. After she roamed around a bit, it was settled, we got a WoW account.
After about 6 months, I got a second account. Since I knew nothing about character transfers, I started a new toon..my druid Neotaeo. My original reason for this was I liked the description of being able to cast spells AND heal myself. Little did I know that in my leveling, I would learn how to change forms. This was a big thing for me, I loved it. The survivability of the bear form really kept my attention. Of course, I still had no idea what a tank was. I wouldn't learn what a tank was until I got to about level 50ish. By this time, My wife and I had seen the demon attacks on cities and discovered the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion. So with the coming of BC, I became a full on tank...kind of. It was a steep learning curve and bears were looked down on even harder then ever in times after.
By the time I hit lvl70, I was the GM of my guild, tanking anything I could get in to and building up a guild group for dungeons. I began to tank everything in sight, it didn't matter what it was or how hard it was, I tanked it ( or at least tried to). I began to read up about feral tanking. Back then, we still needed defense, although, we didn't not need as much as other classes. This is when I found myself becoming all too familiar with 2 major things in BC. 1, everyone would rather take a pally in a group then a bear, and if there was no pally, they just would not go some times. 2, bears were stacking stamina (NOOOOOO!!!!!!). It was at that point that I decided 2 things. I was going to make a name for myself as one of the very few bear tanks on the server people would have no trouble running with. And 2, I was going to do bear tanking against what most people were doing. Almost everyone was stam-stacking and that did not make sense to me. If you can get your dodge rating up high, you will take less damage and therefore need less heals. By the end of BC, I was getting requests from some of the bigger raiding guilds on my server to tank raids like SSC, and Gruuls ( I made a lot of friends tanking heroic dungeons with people) and I was proving that stam-stacking was NOT the way to go, even if people didn't listen.
With the coming of Wrath of the Lich King, bears had changed. We got rid of defense and got some nice AoE attacks. This was like music to my ears, if we don't have to have defense, we can add more agility to our gear where we can. Wrath however, caused problems that we would not understand until Cataclysm would hit. Tanks, bears included became lazy and impatient. We would run in to a group, round them up and begin to hold everything, and it was not hard for us. Even I fell in to the trap that was Wrath. When Cataclysm hit us, we were in a world of hurt. Tanks that were so use to running in and grabbing everything were dying very quick because Blizzard had brought back the need for crowd control (CC). I know I found myself in a fix. They had done major changes to bear that left us all but broken, but they also changed the rules of the game back to BC style mob pulls. I'll be honest, I hung up my bear suit for awhile after trying very hard to relearn how to bear tank. But this gave me a good opportunity as I rolled a Death Knight for the sole reason of tanking. I could learn form scratch how to tank in Cataclysm. Although I was now a DK tank, I still kept up on druid tanking and gave Blizzard my two cents worth of information and feeling on how they could change bears and make them more playable again. After all, it was at that point that bear tanks all but disappeared ingame. We all felt the same way, and I'm glad that Blizzard listened. With the big changes they did to bear tanks again, they brought us back out and in the main stream of tanking again.
So, I have seen and been through so many different incarnations of feral tanking and have done so much person trial and error for what works with bears that I feel that I need to share it with those that are either just starting out in feral tanking or might be thinking about it. I share this with those that might be looking for some piece of information that confirms what they think. I even happily share my info with those that would argue against my points as I know that I don't know everything and there might be a different way of doing things that are better or easier at the time. For over 4 years now I have been the GM and main tank of <DunderMifflin> and I intend on continuing tanking until they shutdown the servers.
I stated playing World of Warcraft back in early/mid 2006. My first toon was......a mage. I know, but I soon learned the ways of the tank side, lol. After a lot of thinking about it, I grabbed myself a free trial of WoW. I always loved the Warcraft games and thought, why not. Man, I was not prepared for what I saw. I started out as a human not having a clue as to what was going on. didn't know what quests were, didn't know anything. I wondered around in awe of the landscape of the game. To me, the Elywnn Forest was amazing looking. I Stumbled on Stormwind and didn't have a clue a I got lost (didn't know about hitting "M" for a map yet, lol). I found what I thought was a underground train that would take me around the city....WRONG! I get off the tram and wonder around some more. I finally find what looks like an entrance and.....I find myself in a high mountain peak, surrounded by snow. I was shocked and in awe....and had to have this game! I told my wife that she had to try this game out. After all, she is the one that got me in to the warcraft games in the first place. After she roamed around a bit, it was settled, we got a WoW account.
After about 6 months, I got a second account. Since I knew nothing about character transfers, I started a new toon..my druid Neotaeo. My original reason for this was I liked the description of being able to cast spells AND heal myself. Little did I know that in my leveling, I would learn how to change forms. This was a big thing for me, I loved it. The survivability of the bear form really kept my attention. Of course, I still had no idea what a tank was. I wouldn't learn what a tank was until I got to about level 50ish. By this time, My wife and I had seen the demon attacks on cities and discovered the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion. So with the coming of BC, I became a full on tank...kind of. It was a steep learning curve and bears were looked down on even harder then ever in times after.
By the time I hit lvl70, I was the GM of my guild, tanking anything I could get in to and building up a guild group for dungeons. I began to tank everything in sight, it didn't matter what it was or how hard it was, I tanked it ( or at least tried to). I began to read up about feral tanking. Back then, we still needed defense, although, we didn't not need as much as other classes. This is when I found myself becoming all too familiar with 2 major things in BC. 1, everyone would rather take a pally in a group then a bear, and if there was no pally, they just would not go some times. 2, bears were stacking stamina (NOOOOOO!!!!!!). It was at that point that I decided 2 things. I was going to make a name for myself as one of the very few bear tanks on the server people would have no trouble running with. And 2, I was going to do bear tanking against what most people were doing. Almost everyone was stam-stacking and that did not make sense to me. If you can get your dodge rating up high, you will take less damage and therefore need less heals. By the end of BC, I was getting requests from some of the bigger raiding guilds on my server to tank raids like SSC, and Gruuls ( I made a lot of friends tanking heroic dungeons with people) and I was proving that stam-stacking was NOT the way to go, even if people didn't listen.
With the coming of Wrath of the Lich King, bears had changed. We got rid of defense and got some nice AoE attacks. This was like music to my ears, if we don't have to have defense, we can add more agility to our gear where we can. Wrath however, caused problems that we would not understand until Cataclysm would hit. Tanks, bears included became lazy and impatient. We would run in to a group, round them up and begin to hold everything, and it was not hard for us. Even I fell in to the trap that was Wrath. When Cataclysm hit us, we were in a world of hurt. Tanks that were so use to running in and grabbing everything were dying very quick because Blizzard had brought back the need for crowd control (CC). I know I found myself in a fix. They had done major changes to bear that left us all but broken, but they also changed the rules of the game back to BC style mob pulls. I'll be honest, I hung up my bear suit for awhile after trying very hard to relearn how to bear tank. But this gave me a good opportunity as I rolled a Death Knight for the sole reason of tanking. I could learn form scratch how to tank in Cataclysm. Although I was now a DK tank, I still kept up on druid tanking and gave Blizzard my two cents worth of information and feeling on how they could change bears and make them more playable again. After all, it was at that point that bear tanks all but disappeared ingame. We all felt the same way, and I'm glad that Blizzard listened. With the big changes they did to bear tanks again, they brought us back out and in the main stream of tanking again.
So, I have seen and been through so many different incarnations of feral tanking and have done so much person trial and error for what works with bears that I feel that I need to share it with those that are either just starting out in feral tanking or might be thinking about it. I share this with those that might be looking for some piece of information that confirms what they think. I even happily share my info with those that would argue against my points as I know that I don't know everything and there might be a different way of doing things that are better or easier at the time. For over 4 years now I have been the GM and main tank of <DunderMifflin> and I intend on continuing tanking until they shutdown the servers.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Gemming and reforging feral tanks
One of the best things introduced in to WoW is being able to reforge your gear. Although a great tool, reforging is a bit of a tricky thing. It fine tunes your gear, but the second that your gear changes, it becomes the first thing to change to rebalance everything. I have found through my time as a feral tank that reforging should go in the following order:
Expertise Soft-Cap > Hit > Dodge > Mastery > Crit > Haste
Now, lets make a couple of things more clear, this is the base diagram if you need EVERYTHING. Now, if you are at the expertise soft-cap and are hit capped, then you would start looking at dodge next. Some will tell you that you need to only reforge in to dodge or some will say mastery. My experience has shown me that you will always get the best results by getting that expertise and hit up to where they should be. Remember, if you can't hit them, you can't hold them and all the other stats seem to become meaningless. If you are not where you should be with hit or expertise, always reforge haste or crit in to the needed stat as these are the last stats you will ever need to worry about.
Gems are also a wonderful tool that Blizzard has given us. It really can make all the difference if you add the correct gems to your gear. Gemming should be done in the following priority:
Expertise Soft-Cap, Agility, Stamina, Mastery, Crit, Haste.
You might notice that hit is missing. You should, as a general rule, avoid gemming for hit. You can get this through gear, enchants or reforging. People will argue with me on this order, and I'm ok with that. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion. However, this order is what I have found works the best as a priority list. Remember, if you can't hit them, you can't hold them. Secondly, you will have good amounts of stam on your gear as is, getting your dodge rating up should be the highest next priority next to hit and expertise. You won't need huge amounts of health if the mobs can't hit you.
Now the biggest discussion is always "should I got for the socket bonus?". The answer is yes.....and no. Let me explain, deciding on if you should go for the socket bonus is entirely based on your stats and what you really need. For example, if you are wearing:
Cuirass of Calamitous Fate
Binds when picked up
Chest Leather
1282 Armor
+120 Agility
+180 Stamina
O Yellow Socket
O Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +12 Attack Power
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 80
Item Level 245
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 90 (1.96% @ L80).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 90 (2.74% @ L80).
As a tank, you will most likely be able to make better use of this chest by tossing in agility and stamina gems. You could toss in some multi stat gems to get the bonus, but to be honest the +12 attack power is just very much to make it very useful to a tank as opposed to the stats you'd get some solid color gems and forgetting about the bonus.
However, if you had:
Assassin's Chestplate
Binds when equipped
Chest Leather
1669 Armor
+321 Agility
+512 Stamina
O Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +10 Agility
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 85
Item Level 359
Equip: Increases your hit rating by 173 (1.44% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 243 (1.36% @ L85).
You will every definitely want to put in an agility gem or expertise gem to get this bonus. The bonus is a sizable plus in a a key tanking stat that it is worth getting.
I hope this helps out and answers some question. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment on here and I will asnwer them very quickly.
Remember bears, keep up the good work! We have to show these other tanking classes how it's done!
Expertise Soft-Cap > Hit > Dodge > Mastery > Crit > Haste
Now, lets make a couple of things more clear, this is the base diagram if you need EVERYTHING. Now, if you are at the expertise soft-cap and are hit capped, then you would start looking at dodge next. Some will tell you that you need to only reforge in to dodge or some will say mastery. My experience has shown me that you will always get the best results by getting that expertise and hit up to where they should be. Remember, if you can't hit them, you can't hold them and all the other stats seem to become meaningless. If you are not where you should be with hit or expertise, always reforge haste or crit in to the needed stat as these are the last stats you will ever need to worry about.
Gems are also a wonderful tool that Blizzard has given us. It really can make all the difference if you add the correct gems to your gear. Gemming should be done in the following priority:
Expertise Soft-Cap, Agility, Stamina, Mastery, Crit, Haste.
You might notice that hit is missing. You should, as a general rule, avoid gemming for hit. You can get this through gear, enchants or reforging. People will argue with me on this order, and I'm ok with that. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion. However, this order is what I have found works the best as a priority list. Remember, if you can't hit them, you can't hold them. Secondly, you will have good amounts of stam on your gear as is, getting your dodge rating up should be the highest next priority next to hit and expertise. You won't need huge amounts of health if the mobs can't hit you.
Now the biggest discussion is always "should I got for the socket bonus?". The answer is yes.....and no. Let me explain, deciding on if you should go for the socket bonus is entirely based on your stats and what you really need. For example, if you are wearing:
Cuirass of Calamitous Fate
Binds when picked up
Chest Leather
1282 Armor
+120 Agility
+180 Stamina
O Yellow Socket
O Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +12 Attack Power
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 80
Item Level 245
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 90 (1.96% @ L80).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 90 (2.74% @ L80).
As a tank, you will most likely be able to make better use of this chest by tossing in agility and stamina gems. You could toss in some multi stat gems to get the bonus, but to be honest the +12 attack power is just very much to make it very useful to a tank as opposed to the stats you'd get some solid color gems and forgetting about the bonus.
However, if you had:
Assassin's Chestplate
Binds when equipped
Chest Leather
1669 Armor
+321 Agility
+512 Stamina
O Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +10 Agility
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 85
Item Level 359
Equip: Increases your hit rating by 173 (1.44% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 243 (1.36% @ L85).
You will every definitely want to put in an agility gem or expertise gem to get this bonus. The bonus is a sizable plus in a a key tanking stat that it is worth getting.
I hope this helps out and answers some question. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment on here and I will asnwer them very quickly.
Remember bears, keep up the good work! We have to show these other tanking classes how it's done!
Monday, May 23, 2011
What we can expect at this point for feral druids in patch 4.2.
Well, it would seem that so far on the PTR, Blizzard likes us. There are not to many changes for feral druids. In fact, it seems that most of the feral changes are going to affect cats more then bears. The official patch notes for the PTR 4.2 state:
- Ferocious Bite damage has been increased by 15%. In addition, its base cost has been reduced to 25 energy and it can use up to 25 energy, for up to a 100% damage increase.
- Mangle (Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 530% weapon damage, up from 460%.
- Ravage damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 975% weapon damage, up from 850%.
- Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 520% weapon damage, up from 450%.
- Frenzied Regeneration's health bonus is now reduced by 50%.
- Swipe (Cat) now deals 600% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 670%.
- Glyph of Berserk duration increase is now 10 seconds, up from 5.
- Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
Look at these notes, the changes to Glyph of Berserk and Omen of Clarity are the only ones that really affect bears at all, and both of these are changes for the good.
- First, I know that I'm not the only one that feels that getting an extra 5 seconds to really pound on mobs with Mangle is a good thing. Mangle does large amounts of damage and when you use Berserk, you hit 3 targets instead of 1. How can this be a bad thing? No way I can see, lol.
- Second, the change to Omen of Clarity is a great one. Omen of Clarity reads:
Your damage spells and attacks have a small chance to cause you to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next cast-time damaging or healing spell or offensive feral ability by 100%.
If specialized as a Feral Druid, Omen of Clarity will also have a chance to occur from your auto-attacks.
To add on to this timer is nothing short of awesome. You now get more time to use this buff that makes your next attack cost no rage....ZERO! I know that through my own experiences, it will in fact proc often from your auto attacks. Heck, I've had it proc just from changing in to bear form. Come on, I get a free attack from the word go? Thank you Blizzard, you must really like us, lol
The only changes that I am aware of that will be a change for some tanks is Blizzard making strength an undesired stat for us. At the moment, 1 strength gives us 2 attack power. This obviously has an advantage in threat since as you hit harder, you build more threat. Blizzard wants us to focus more on stats like agility and get away form rolling on rings and other items that other tanking classes would use that have strength on them. This is not a horrible thing they are doing. Yes, some of us will be forced to make some changes in our gear, gems or enchants. But with all the gear available in the game, and with the heads up you are getting now, you should b able to make yourself ready for the patch to hit. The other is the changes to Frenzied Regeneration. Although this might seem like a large hit, but between glyphing in to it and the fact that it will still be a very viable resource in a pinch, I think that this will go almost completely unnoticed.
I'll keep you updated here on any ad all feral changes that come up on the PTR, until then...
Keep up the good work bears! We gotta show those other tank classes how it's really done!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
We all like glowing things, the trick is to find just the right glow....
Enchants...
The very concept of enchants escapes some people. You know you have seen them, running Bastion of Twilight or some other raid or instance. You look them over just out of curiosity and.....not a single enchant to be seen. The very idea of not having enchants is bazaar to me. I never understood it, you are literally cheating yourself and your group. With out them, you are simply lacking and you could be doing so much more. Some say, "But was it 80 attack power really going to do? Probably not much.". And sure, just 1 enchants won't do much. But if you enchant everything, you will see huge changes for the good. Try it, you will see and become a believer.
Since this my blog and I like to cover tanks, we will just focus on tanking enchants. I'll cover all classes of tanks with some basic enchanting lists. Since I wanna keep this a bit shorter them my last few blogs, I'll link the enchants instead of listing what they do. Lets begin with....
Helm
The very concept of enchants escapes some people. You know you have seen them, running Bastion of Twilight or some other raid or instance. You look them over just out of curiosity and.....not a single enchant to be seen. The very idea of not having enchants is bazaar to me. I never understood it, you are literally cheating yourself and your group. With out them, you are simply lacking and you could be doing so much more. Some say, "But was it 80 attack power really going to do? Probably not much.". And sure, just 1 enchants won't do much. But if you enchant everything, you will see huge changes for the good. Try it, you will see and become a believer.
Since this my blog and I like to cover tanks, we will just focus on tanking enchants. I'll cover all classes of tanks with some basic enchanting lists. Since I wanna keep this a bit shorter them my last few blogs, I'll link the enchants instead of listing what they do. Lets begin with....
Helm
- Druid = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation
- Warrior = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation
- Paladin = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation
- Death Knight = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation
Shoulders
- Druid = Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation
- Warrior = Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation
- Paladin = Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation
- Death Knight = Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation
Cloak
- Druid = Peerless Stats
- Warrior = Greater Stamina
- Paladin = Greater Stamina
- Death Knight = Peerless Stats
Gloves
- Druid = Greater Expertise
- Warrior = Heavy Savage Armor Kit
- Paladin = Greater Mastery
- Death Knight = Greater Mastery
Wrists
Waist
- Druid = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
- Warrior = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
- Paladin = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
- Death Knight = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs
- Druid = Charscale Leg Armor
- Warrior = Charscale Leg Armor
- Paladin = Charscale Leg Armor
- Death Knight = Charscale Leg Armor
Feet
- Druid = Major Agility
- Warrior = Earthen Vitality
- Paladin = Mastery
- Death Knight = Earthen Vitality
Rings (if you're an enchanter)
- Druid = Agility
- Warrior = Greater Stamina
- Paladin = Greater Stamina
- Death Knight = Greater Stamina
Shield
- Druid = Mighty Agility
- Warrior = Windwalker
- Paladin = Windwalker
- Death Knight = Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle
As you can see, there are some differences and similarities as far as what the tanking classes need. However, they all in fact NEED them. To not have your gear enchanted, in my personal opinion, is wasting your time and the time of the others in your group. If you can not afford to get the enchants listed, there are less expensive enchants that will work in their place until you can get the best for your gear. The stats of all these enchants put together will make a very large difference in how well you can do your job.
Think of it this way, as you are charging in to grab a boss, you see the healer struggling to keep you and the group alive. Now, you think back as you and the group are wiping that you noticed earlier that the healer had no enchants on his/her gear. Could that healer have had an easier time keeping the group alive had he/she taken the time to enchant their gear to get the best possible results? You don't wanna be the one that causes a situation like that because you just didn't feel like it or never took the time. Chances are, there is an enchanter in your guild that will be more them happy to help you out to get the enchants you need. I know I help out my guildies all the time as well as a few other guild members. If you wanna win, you gotta put your best foot forward, which includes......enchants.
Keep up the good work bears! We gotta show those other tanking classes how it's really done!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment below. Follow me here at the Challenging Roar for all the latest post full of helpful tips, tricks and experiences
Keep up the good work bears! We gotta show those other tanking classes how it's really done!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment below. Follow me here at the Challenging Roar for all the latest post full of helpful tips, tricks and experiences
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)