How does everyone like the armor nerf?

For me this sucks, I worked so hard to get armor rings, trinkets, necklaces.... and to see all my hard work go down really sucks.

To me armor is what makes Druids wanted in end game raids and it is hard enough to get high armor with the the "new rogue/druid gear" then to have a nerf on top of this, wow

To Blizzard I hope you change this and I hope other tank druids will reply the same way.

I'm not one to cry about things but I worked hard to get my armor up and to see a 4k to 5k loss sucks!

Thanks

I gained 8k armor on patch day, I'm cool with

The details about the armor nerf have been known for months, I was given ample time to make sure I was selecting gear correctly.

No armor bonus on rings and trinkets, I don't see how it is so problematic.

How does everyone like the armor nerf?The previous game mechanic was broken. Either they nerf the trinkets, necks, etc. or they "nerf" the multiplier. The new system is far better. If you lost 5K armor, you were probably at, or very near, the current XPac's gear armor cap (max armor you could get using "the best" gear) which is nearly 40K. That, is very close to the game's current armor cap. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for players to reach the armor cap 1 month after the Xpac is released.

I, like most druids, applaud the change.

So:

* The only people to take a nerf were those with the top-end raid trinkets
* Those items were obviously far overpowered compared to the other available items
* Blizzard told us before the release of Wrath that those items would be effectively due to a change along the lines of what we got, so you shouldn't put effort into getting them.

And you're complaining that they effectively nerfed the overpowered trinkets because you put too much effort into getting them?

99%+ of druids gained from this change, and it increased our pool of viable options. I can stop using a bunch of level 70 and even a level 60 item to tank now simply because they had armor.

Windsaber,

The changes will not be reverted. Adapt and continue to enjoy the game or move on. It was a smart change.

I, like most druids, applaud the change.

I agree.

Quite frankly, I love the versatility the change brought us. Now rings like the Titanium Earthguard Ring become much more appealing. We have more choices. That's a good thing.

I am still on the fence. I hate that those of us in end game gear, paid the price for others to be competitive. I agree that those who lost armor probably don't really "need" that much anyway at this point in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that they earned it.

As for those who are concerned that someone reached gear cap so soon...step back and look at what happened! Those folks are still gear capped, the gear is just less useful. Also, there are 2 raids available, of course hardcore raiders are going to be gear capped already.

Blizz was in such a rush to get WotLK on shelves that they forgot to include enough end game content. Their goal is to make end game content available to everyone! But by doing so, they inevitably have to dumb it down.

In the end, I don't like the armor nerf, but I can still tank end game raids with little concern about my mitigation. We are slightly less desirable in mitigation than Warriors, but our sickly health pools make up the difference.

We arguably have the best DPS in game atm, and one of, if not the best healing builds in game. If our tanking suffers a bit, I think that is only fair. A bear can still easily tank Naxx / Eye, but not as well as a Warrior.

I am still on the fence. I hate that those of us in end game gear, paid the price for others to be competitive. I agree that those who lost armor probably don't really "need" that much anyway at this point in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that they earned it.

As for those who are concerned that someone reached gear cap so soon...step back and look at what happened! Those folks are still gear capped, the gear is just less useful. Also, there are 2 raids available, of course hardcore raiders are going to be gear capped already.


To have reached armor cap in the first tier or armor in an xpac is ridiculous. To have 75% mitigation, ungodly health pools and dodge like we've not see before did make druids the end all be all for tanks. This change brings us in line with other tanks. Yes, due to there being only 2 raids the "hardcore raiders" should be "gear capped", that's no question, but what they should not be is stat capped. Capping out on stats this early on? Ridiculous, and something that Blizzard said during the beta something that had to be addressed, but wouldn't be until after WotLK went live.


Blizz was in such a rush to get WotLK on shelves that they forgot to include enough end game content. Their goal is to make end game content available to everyone! But by doing so, they inevitably have to dumb it down.


LOL, sorry...but more LOL. Is Nax, Sartharion and Malygos easy? Sure, for the most part. Is the 4 Horsemen anything like it was back Pre-BC? No.

Nax, Malygos and Sartharion were raiding 101. WotLK brought a lot of new players, brought a lot of people back that hadn't played BC and had a lot of people continue from BC.

Do you remember when Kara raiding first started? It was difficult, overly so. 360 cleaves, Nightbane skellies immune to magic, trash respawns in 30 min, guilds were forced to swap classes in and out on fights. It was slowly tuned to where a group in all blues could go through there and clear it. That's what Blizz was going for with this first round of raids. A group in blues that worked moderately well as a team could go in there, learn the content and clear it. It's Raiding 101: Intro to Raiding.

Don't worry, coming content will be considerably more difficult, not b/c zomgz Nax was too easy, but "ok, you've got the fundamentals down...here's some advanced more everyone has to be spot on" kind of content.

I agree with Solarflash, for those of us that worked our big bear butts off getting the armor trinkets, rings.. it sucks.
Yes I can still tank naxx... but I don't believe we were OP by far.

But thanks for the feed back, I had hoped others would have thought the same way but oh well.

Thanks Again

My biggest grip about the whole issue is that Blizzard knew well before LK this was going to be an issue and they still shipped it that way.

I have to say from a casual point of view, (ie not raiding just running heroics at this stage while getting geared for naxx) that the patch was good to most Druids. We are a hybrid class, and as such, we should not be the BEST tanks in game, or healer, or dps, but a good performing class with many options and huge playability.

I must say the other nice thing in the change (apart from kitty swipe of course) is the weapon revamp. It makes a heap of other maces and staffs suddenly appealing. case in point the argent dawn revered rep weapon which ends up giving around 1600 ferel AP Plus high amounts of strength and stam. while previously only used by warriors and paladins, this is now a viable weapon for a ferel druid as well!

I agree that Blizz have dumbed down the current raiding content and mechanics to make end game more accessible to the masses, but as someone who can not play 20-40 hours a week, I appreciate the change in many respects, as a casual player like me would never get to see end content otherwise.

:deadhorse

I must say the other nice thing in the change (apart from kitty swipe of course) is the weapon revamp.
lol i forgot about this ! better go train it !

hmm yeah i reckon i gained 3k ish armour.

whilst it made the BoT i bought last year for 1500g totally redundant (along with my hard worked for Earthwarden!) it does mean that the nerubhide cloak i had sitting in the bank ready now rocks :)

as does the Titanium Earthguard Ring i got made last week using 1000k worth ish of Dragon's Eyes.

so the extra choices of gear is nice.

and no it seemed silly to see people hitting cap's almost as soon as Wrath came out ?

My biggest grip about the whole issue is that Blizzard knew well before LK this was going to be an issue and they still shipped it that way.

And they said they were addressing it after shipping. Why? B/c it would take a while before people were hitting the cap. They told people the change was coming and people relied on that gear anyways.

You can't fix and change EVERYTHING you want before you ship a product, or it will NEVER ship. You have to eval the changes and how critical they are and prioritize them. There were bigger fish to fry before this change. It's a delicate balance.

This is coming from a software engineer though. I know the pain these developers face day in and day out :banghead:

I agree that Blizz have dumbed down the current raiding content and mechanics to make end game more accessible to the masses, but as someone who can not play 20-40 hours a week, I appreciate the change in many respects, as a casual player like me would never get to see end content otherwise.

:deadhorse


Well, I think the idea that anyone who raids end game must play 40 hours a week is ill-informed at best. You can raid end game and play ~10-15 hours a week. Its just a matter of prioritizing your time in game.

Regardless, Blizz knows that a HUGE percentage of their customer base are those who can and do commit significant time to raiding etc. My gripe is in order to make end game available to the more casual player, they took away the successes of the more "hardcore" raiders.

But this isn't hardcore content. This is the first raid tier of the expansion -- it's equivalent to conquering Karazhan in BC or Molten Core and Onyxia in vanilla WoW. Lots of people did that who weren't "hardcore," and a lot of the people who are now waltzing through Naxx-10, say, won't make it through Ulduar, and even fewer will get through Icecrown or whatever they call the big T9 dungeon where you finally take on the Lich King.

Blizz want the most people possible to remain playing Wow and for more people to join an 'accessible' game.

With that in mind making content 'easier' and more 'accessible' to the majority of players is in their best interests.

If you are really raiding endgame and trying to progress, I would say you are likely to have to commit to 15-20 hrs at a minimum. We're talking a minimum of 3 raids of 4hrs each plus other time farming mats for enchants or gems or another raid !

If you are really raiding endgame and trying to progress, I would say you are likely to have to commit to 15-20 hrs at a minimum. We're talking a minimum of 3 raids of 4hrs each plus other time farming mats for enchants or gems or another raid !

Hmm....I think you are misinformed on raid timing. There is, at the moment, only 1 lvl 80 raid that takes more than 45 mins to complete (pull to loot). That one raid is Naxx. An experienced group can clear naxx in 3 hours. Our group takes ~4-4.5 hours over two nights. (2.5 first night, usually 1.5-2 on the second).

*We take every guildy and their brother to our Naxx raids, so we have to explain almost every boss fight*

VoA = 15 mins tops. OS = 35-40 mins tops. Malygos = 15-20 mins.

So, 2-5 hours farming mats (doesn't take anywhere near that long to pick some flowers/hit some nodes)

i was reflecting on the larger raids of the past and making an assumption that this will return again as Blizz roll out the 'proper' Wrath raids ?

Nax is easy. It's intro to raiding 101. Ulduar will be more difficult.

BTW, MC wasn't hard, it was just long ( too much trash ). Ony was kinda easy. A better analogy to old content is Zul'Grub and AQ20 ;)

I was but a wee lil' mage in those days. But my understanding is that Blizzard intends to make all raids much much shorter than those of the past. Yes more difficult than Naxx, but not longer.

We haven't done Naxx yet (suppose to this Saturday, but I don't think I can go), but 10-man VoA and OS (no drakes) are really fast, even for our slow lame-o guild. We haven't been able to clear 25-man VoA yet (DPS is too weak) and haven't bothered with 25-man OS.

That said for a Feral tank with 2 Polar pieces (chest, feet), 2 trollwoven (shoulders/belt) pieces and eviscerate/blues pieces to fill in the gaps you can easily tank those raids. IOW, there is no real reason why a noob lvl 80 Feral tank can't have raid ready gear the moment he dings 80. As none of those items cost all that much. 600-800g for the purples and maybe 500g for the blues assuming you buy all mats off the AH.

In fact, I think the same is true for most classes. It seems blizzard has allowed crafting items to fill in the gaps such that you can almost skip heroics for all but a slot or two. And many of those can be purchased with 15-40 emblems each.

We can get a nice neck, ring and trinket with emblems. Crafted for most other slots. But we need a drop for hUK or hVH for a weapon and a drop (or PvP) from hO, hVH for a nice head piece with metagem slot.

So, buy/grind the 5-6 crafted items and you are heroic ready. Run hUK and hVH as much as possible to gather emblems and the drops. Use the emblems to purchase the neck, ring, trinket. Or have JC craft a piece or two.

Rep for head and shoulder enchants and you are more than ready for anything in the current content.

tlbj, is there yet a list of these crafted items to be heroic ready? I'm just beginning my level grind, and I'd like to start working on getting ahold of mats and begging our Guild LW/etc in advance to be ready at 80 for Heroics until I can get the gear needed for raiding.

I think I like the changes, at least, so far.

tlbj, is there yet a list of these crafted items to be heroic ready?BBB has a great list, over here.

I would get the polar chest (gem +agi), polar boots, trollwoven belt and trollwoven shoulders and eviscerate for legs, head, wrist and hands (though there is an easy quest reward for running normal CoS that gives better hands). Get the Quest staff in ZD (kill that walrus in the lake). That should put you well above what you need to tank hUK, hNexus, hVH, etc.

Then get a staff from hVH (preferred) or hUK (just about as good). hVH and hUK have a nice wrist and a great head piece as well. So, run them early and often.

Save your badges for neck, rings and trinkets. Or even the T7 gloves/chest. The are some nice pants from Kirin Tor rep (Revered) that are an upgrade to the Eviscerate pants.

FWIW, here's a non-raid, non-pvp loot rank gear list I use. Note that there are a few inexpensive (50-200g) world drops that are nice for a few slots. And JC can make a nice ring and neck piece if you are rolling in the gold.

hehe! Lucky for me, my husband is a JC :)

Yes, that makes me one SPOILED little druid I'm sure. Normally we find ways to trade so that we come out even in the end though (for all of you who thought I was just using him for his JC and gold lol).

BTW, MC wasn't hard, it was just long ( too much trash ). Ony was kinda easy. A better analogy to old content is Zul'Grub and AQ20 ;)
it felt hard at the time as my intro to proper endgame raiding with 40 people...in itself sometimes difficult to arrange without waiting for stragglers!

I was meaning the old school 40 man raids rather than ZG/AQ20 (i loved AQ20 to bits, the Ossi fight was awesome).

Probably we were just very average but we used to raid MC/BWL and AQ40 for 4 hrs a time as many days per week as possible, with AQ20/ZG on 'off' days !! That coupled with it being more difficult to make money in the old days for repairs and pots made endgame raiding a time sink imho.

I was but a wee lil' mage in those days. But my understanding is that Blizzard intends to make all raids much much shorter than those of the past. Yes more difficult than Naxx, but not longer.
that would have been good even back then...4 hrs seemed the accepted norm for Raid length.

We can get a nice neck, ring and trinket with emblems. Crafted for most other slots. But we need a drop for hUK or hVH for a weapon and a drop (or PvP) from hO, hVH for a nice head piece with metagem slot.

So, buy/grind the 5-6 crafted items and you are heroic ready. Run hUK and hVH as much as possible to gather emblems and the drops. Use the emblems to purchase the neck, ring, trinket. Or have JC craft a piece or two.

Rep for head and shoulder enchants and you are more than ready for anything in the current content.
yeah to date mine is all crafted tbh. combination of blues and purples.

just getting more stupidly expensive dragon eyes together for the Titanium Chain.

which Rep are needed for the Head and Shoulder chants ?


hehe! Lucky for me, my husband is a JC :)

Yes, that makes me one SPOILED little druid I'm sure. Normally we find ways to trade so that we come out even in the end though (for all of you who thought I was just using him for his JC and gold lol).
as if any of us thought that Dest ! :p

Head-Bear-Enchant = Argent Crusade
Head-Cat-Enchant = Knights of the Ebbon-Blade

Shoulder for all things: Sons of Hodir (only obtainable via quests to honored and dailys to revered/exalted in icecrown)

the revered shoulder enchants are the same as the epic in BC.

@Kheldar:
I beg u to spend (when u have time) your time to run the 20-30 min Violet Hold Heroic for the staff. It kicks ass and when i look at yours i could cry :cry:

Thanks s3R.

From memory I am revered with both AC and Ebon Blade, so will take a look at what is on offer....although i expect that atm I need a decent head item on which to put a top of the range enchant!

Dont think i've got any rep at all with Sons ? Certainly not seen any dailies yet that give rep with them ? (I've yet to do much in Storm Peaks however - doing daily's mainly in Ice Crown and other places still atm gathering AC/Ebon/Wyrmrest Rep).

LOL s3R - i cry to looking at my staff (both kitty and bear!) If you've looked at my armoury you'll be seeing the old epic PVP one i still use in kitty for dailys. You talking about the Trickery one ?

I will get some time soon to do some heroics. esp if we can run em in 45 mins max which i should be able to do ok once the little un has gone to bed....

Yep. I mean the Staff of Trickery.
If u have time for dailies you should find the time to go into VH too. Skip dailies on some days for this heroic.
You wont regret it!!!

Yep. I mean the Staff of Trickery.
If u have time for dailies you should find the time to go into VH too. Skip dailies on some days for this heroic.
You wont regret it!!!

I ran VH every day for two weeks to get that staff. Love it. The only upgrades used to be deep in Naxx, but I think now there's a weapon off regular Maexxna that is a bit of an upgrade.

the issue i am still faced with s3R is that i can run anything upto 15 dailys or so in a day i have 'more' time, and maybe 3 on a day i have 'less time.

but the time i spend to do them is not necessarily at the same time...ie i can do 1 then go away or be busy for 20 mins then come back again and do 3-4 more etc.

hence if i do 15 dailys it does not necessarily compute that I could have found the time to run a single 30-45 min heroic. esp bearing in mind i am inexperienced in all wrath 5 mans and that i'd have to find a PUG ready to go at a moments notice.

i am sure that with a guild of good people online at the same time you can organise a nice quick and easy heroic to many places that finishes in 30 mins ish. its a little harder for me.

is the Trickery thing that good then as a 'mere' reward from a heroic compared to raiding ?

Trickery is best DPS before raiding.
Next items would be in Naxx 10 and then in Naxx 25.

But im not sure about polearms. didnt really took a look at them cause i have the best ingame for druids.
But i will see into it.

Sons of Hodir are a faction of giants out in Storm Peaks. Just head out to K3 and start doing quests, and eventually you'll get some quest line that brings you up to neutral/friendly with them. After a couple intro quests, you can start doing dailies. IIRC, you start with 3 dailies, then get a fourth at honored, and 2 more at revered. The two most irritating ones are 2 of the first three, honestly, once I got to revered, I just dropped those and did the other 4 most days.

Anyway, they're all pretty close together, right around the giant town, you can knock out all 6 in 30-40 minutes.

as if any of us thought that Dest ! :p

One never can tell...but we take care of each other.

Sounds good Rorrg...someone said worth getting rep with Sons for a nice item or 2 so maybe i'll take a break from Icecrown dailys and quest some in Storm Peaks.


btw : whats the view on the Titansteel Destroyer. did a bit of looking at it and its stats seem pretty good ! although i forgot to compare to Trickery and firewall stops me checking now....

the mats i know are not cheap but spoke to a few people i know for some 'deals' on titanium bars / saronite ore and i can grind some eternals or buy when cheap...

Titansteel Destroyers is pretty nice too,
but Trickery is better.
On the Destroyer u miss the AGI (AP, Crit etc.)

yeah s3R i did notice it had zero Agi :(

i may change my mind and not aim for the mats given the cost is a lot.