With the release of 3.0.2 soon upon us. Blizzard has nerfed our armor and in exchange removed our need for Defense or Resilience, but left it on all our gear... Does anyone understand the logic behind that?

For Example,

Heavy Clefthoof Set:
They removed the "green" armor value and replaced it with +Dodge (to keep the item level the same as before)

However, they left the bonus +Def on the gear? Wasn't the point of the re-itemization to eliminate the ability of Rogues to get Def/armor capped? They did that by crushing our armor stats, and compensated us with the SotF talent, but seemingly forgot to swap the useless +def Stat off and replace it with +agi or somthing like that.

Isn't +Def on bear gear about as useful as +Str on hunter? Seems like a pretty significant oversight to me.

Yes Defense is usesless, but if you look at it from another perspective we can stack rogue gear now and probably can stack a TON of dodge. I wouldn't be surprised to see druids with near 50% dodge if they swap some of their DPS and tanking gear around. I'm just waiting till Tuesday and then I'm going to go through my gear and have to redesign my tanking set. Just need to aim heavy on stamina and agility in a lot of ways. In fact we almost NEED our hit rating now that we can't count on Blessing of Salvation to help slow down the DPS.

50%? I have 60% now (unbuffed), and know of guys in Sunwell with even more.
Fully buffed it is possible to go beyond 80%

So the stats and attributes I've been trying to collect for my 70 gear are going to be completely different?

I'll no longer need the +415 Def to be uncrittable?
:confused:

Can you link the article or site you saw this information on Solar? I'm curious and would like to read more. Maybe I can quickly devise another plan and switch my gear priorities for 70 if need be.

its the new druid talents Dest....

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/wrath/druid/talents.html

Survival of the Fittest in the feral tree can now reduce our chance to be critically hit by 6% which as i understand it is more than enough to be uncrittable without needing DEF or RES.

It does sort of leave us with crappy gear until we replace it with LK stuff. I'm way over the crit cap now, but I don't mind it. On Tuesday, it will all be completely worthless. I'd be better off having +spr on my gear.

They should have re-itemized +def leather pieces to have more +sta, +dodge, +agi, etc. rather than leaving the +def on them. They re-itemized the +armor (to more +dodge), but leave us with +def? WTF? I know +def gives us some +dodge, but it would have been nice to shift those item points to some other stat than +def.

So, this is potentially a good thing, as we won't need to scavenge for +Def gear and can focus more on Dodge/Agi?

You had mentioned them nerfing the gear and taking away the green armor value of the Heavy Clefthoof...will it actually lose armor, or remain at 500 armor (for the vest) and that 500 armor is just no longer green?

from what i understand our current armour is going to be reduced.

ie the heavy clefthoof set is going to have less armour next week......

Believe it or not, I understand what you're saying TLBJ. (Finally, the newbiness begins to fade from Destinae.)

With our bear form adds though, won't we still be close to on par with the other tanking classes?

And wouldn't the decrease in Armor go nearly hand in hand with the alleged nerfing of current high end raids?

Yeah, we are on par (and even a little above) other tanking classes armor-wise.

Also, TBC bosses have been nerfed considerably and Crushing Blows have been removed from the game completely.

I understand the armor nerf and its conversion to other stats on the items, but I don't understand why they didn't do the same with +def on leather pieces.

Other tanks still need +def, we don't. What other tank uses leather? None. So, why not convert +def to +agi or +dodge?

Only the T5+ bosses have been nerfed. Not sure about the T4 and ZA bosses.

I think they didn't care much about level 70 gear... same as you don't care about level 60 gear anymore. It is just transitory stuff now that you wear for a short time on your way to 80, if at all.

Would it have been nice to change it so that we have it for the next month? Yes, definitely. But I think their time is better spent developing stuff for level 80 and Northrend.

Agreed TLBJ. I was just scouring the internet looking for opinions on this, and yes, most druids agree. If +Def becomes useless...why keep it?

Unless, by chance, you don't pick up SotF. Which...believe it or not I've seen a feral druid do.

Abies - To clarify - Even after the nerfed armor, we'll still be on par armor-wise with other tanking classes in the Expansion, even as we approach End-Game? I just wanted to clarify to ease my own little mind.

As far as people from beta have stated, yes we will be.

Also Blizzard has made it clear that they will fix things on a continuing basis - much more than in the past. So, in a few months time, if we suddenly don't have enough armor, they will fix it.

I think they didn't care much about level 70 gear...They cared enough to change the +armor to +dodge. Why not do the same for +def?

The change of +armor to +dodge was probably done to make sure the level 70 gear has lower armor values than the level 80 gear... because otherwise people might feel they need to wear the old items because of their higher armor. That would be my guess, at least.

Edit: also, I think they completely removed the "special armor" mechanic altogether - meaning that items can no longer carry more armor than appropriate for their item level.

TLBJ you sound like you could use a hug. :heart:

It's possible that it's just an oversight. Maybe we'll get a patch in a month or so that will resolve all of our druid woes.

/target tlbj6142
/hug

Hehe Abies :) So sweet!

u never know with Blizz.

never been sure they really liked us as a class ! or knew where we should fit it to the bigger picture.

All you can do is outskill the other tanking classes and tweak what we're given to make us formidable foes. Looks like I'm in trouble! hehe

I think there may be potential to save a few talent points in SotF because of the defense on gear. I doubt we'd be able to get uncrittable w/o anything in SotF, but a point here or there is valuable given our new talent trees.

Also, they've implemented dimishing returns on dodge now, to guarantee we don't achieve the same levels end game druids did. We are no longer avoidance tanks; our tanking mechanics are very similar to pallies and warriors now.

We are very different tanks than we used to be.

You had mentioned them nerfing the gear and taking away the green armor value of the Heavy Clefthoof...will it actually lose armor, or remain at 500 armor (for the vest) and that 500 armor is just no longer green?

The nerf appears to be 40%-60% reduction in armor values. So if you the gear had 500 armor before is will now be 300ish with +15 dodge rating or so.

WowInsider had an article on it recently.
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/07/shifting-perspectives-dude-wheres-my-armor/

Sorry, took me all morning to get back and finish my post, I am sure someone probably linked this alredy...if not, here you go!

I think there may be potential to save a few talent points in SotF because of the defense on gear

This is what I was thinking. Get a 2% reduction in chance to be crit, and you can move a point elsewhere. Still, I'd rather have

Kinda bummed personally with the homogenezation of everything - tanks are all essentially becoming the same (instead of some excelling at certain things), multiple classes have the same buffs / debuffs, healers all having very similar type mechanics. One of the cool things about WoW was making groups that were optimized for the specific instance / encounter. But I guess that caused some people to be 'left out' qq.

I applaud the death of required classes. I am a sub with a large raiding guild, and it's not really that fun. I do it so I can see content I otherwise would not get to see, but I've never app'd that guild because I'm not interested in committing myself to 5 night per week required raiding, being subject to being told how to spec, screaming and cursing and insults in vent, and all the other bs that goes along with a military-style guild.

Now that there is no such thing as required classes, I don't have to deal with all that, I can raid with who I like, when I like, and still see all the content in the game.

Now that there is no such thing as required classes, I don't have to deal with all that, I can raid with who I like, when I like, and still see all the content in the game.

I dont know about your server, but there are a lot of progressive guilds that DONT 'scream and yell and insult and force specs'.

Thats a misconception that scares a lot of people who may be thinking about getting into raiding. Go find a non-military style raiding guild or transfer servers.

Anything can be done currently with any class in the game (as long as you have enough healers and enough tanks). Sure certain classes are better suited, but player skill > class. Making everyone the same just lowers the skill cap in the game and dumbs wow down more.

Making everyone the same just lowers the skill cap in the game and dumbs wow down more.

Interesting, I think exactly the opposite. I've seen so many bad players get spots in groups and raids just because they had the magic button that was necessary to overcome an encounter. In LK, the largest factor and almost the only factor to decide who goes and who doesn't will be skill, not the fact that only pallies can efficiently aoe tank or that the only class with meaningful mana battery utility is a shadow priest.

I'm sure you are right about there being progression guilds that are different than what I've experienced. It would be great to experience that. Maybe now that we're getting a gear and experience reset with LK, I can distinguish myself enough to earn a chance to raid with one.

Of course, had I chosen to stay resto or had rerolled a warrior I would have had many more opportunities. I passed up shots with three other guilds where I had contacts because I wanted to tank instead of heal with my druid.

okay, i've read "aoe tank" i don't know how many dozens of times and i thought i had a good idea of what that meant. now i'm not so sure.

when you say aoe tank, do you mean something like pulling the non-elites at the top of the stairs in kara? or do you mean tanking multiple elites?

the non elite pull we can tank pretty damn effectively by using barksin and hurricane, that generates some pretty decent threat...

multiple elite mobs, i think we can tank just as effictively as pally's by tabbing and using swipe... yea, it's probably more effort, but in the end, we hold our own...

i ran hUB the other day with a tankadin and she couldnt hold aggro to save her (or my, or the healer's) life... it was horrible

AoE tank means both.

A halfway decent prot pally can tank Shattered Halls Heroic without any form of CC needed and without losing aggro - even on groups with 5 or 6 elites. On top of that he can do it without breaking a sweat (if he has a good healer). As a druid or warrior this is just not doable.

thanks for setting me straight, abies... sounds like i need to run a few heroics with a decent prot pally...

tank hSH with no CC? what level of gear?

tank hSH with no CC? what level of gear?


T4+...no sweat. 45 min run max.

I tend to lean toward the famous line from the "Incredicbles". When everyone is special, no-one is.

I think blizzard is dumbing down raid, no doubt. There are millions of users (paying users) who can't/won't have the skill or time commitment it takes to see end game as it is. {looks around sheepishly...I am one of them. The difference is I was happy to never set foot in SWP because not having easy access to those things made me work harder to strive for it.}

I agree that any tank could tank any situation with enough gear/skill, but very few tanks had that skill/gear combo. I hate that they are making everyone equal to everyone else, because there is just no point in roling a specialized toon anymore. All hail the druid/shammy/pally/DK erra. No need for silly pure classes anymore.

tank hSH with no CC? what level of gear?

Ran a hSH last night on my lock to help some guildies. We finished it in 42 minutes.

Group was Me (sac destro lock), Frost Mage, Elemental Shaman, Holy Priest, Prot Pally.

The pally was pulling non stop, would throw down a consecrate and we would all immediatley open up with our trinketed aoe (seed, blizzard, chain lightning) and just burn groups down.... the stupid part was that the pally, in 4pc t4 and some ZA gear never lost aggro (mage and I were all t5+ going all out). Pally tanking in that place is really out of control. But I'm not complaining, easy 5 badges.

Nerf pallies.

And solar - your incredibles quote pretty much nails what I was trying to get to by saying that making all classes do the same thing dumbs down wow.

All in all, I don't think it's a bad thing to make the game a little more "casual player friendly".

I decided to erase most of my original posting until after the patch and after hitting 70 or even 80.

I did some more reading on Warrior and Pally forums and it seems like their plight is the same as ours. DPS groups all seem to have similar concerns as well. I think we're all worried that we're going to be nerfed into uselessness.

See I've never taken it that way. I love druid tanking. Its very unique. What I hated was that mobs and other tanks were perferred because we couldn't effectively do certain things. Now, that's changing. I see this as an opportunity. If you work hard and show your skill, you are going to rise above. The excuse that warriors are superior for X, Y, Z or pally's isn't valid anymore. It means that the superior skill of some druid tanks is really going to shine. That is why I'm excited to see it. For us, tanking is going to only get better.

Its not about dumbing down the game. Its about removing the barriers that kept us from succeeding.

Ooh, and I have a question regarding Def on our gear...

Will our 6% SotF scale according to level? Meaning, when we hit 80, will that 6% leave us uncrittable?

It seems like it would, but I'm really not good at math or general game mechanics, so I thought I'd poke around here for thoughts on that.

Yes it does. 6% anti-crit is all we need (well, we really only need 5.6%, but that extra .4 is really nice).

Ah! I had assumed it scaled with level, since it's a percentage type thing. I thought I'd ask the professional druids to confirm though.

Thank you TLBJ.

/target tlbj6142
/cheer

I want to know what effect 6% anti-crit has on PvP. At lvl 80, how much resilience rating do I need to get 6% anti-crit? I have a feeling that might be were the QQ might come from. Not from other PvE tanks.

To ask a newbie question:

Could the crit chance of a given player be substantially higher than the "computer controlled bosses" those of us in PvE face?

Or is there a general max crit % in PvP?

I never PvP. :( Too stressful for me.

Crit chance of a player in PvP is whatever shows up on their character sheet. Most warriors and rogues are running with between 30% and 40% crit right now in PvP.

Next to impossible to be imune to crit in PvP. THough with resil reducing the chance to be crit by ~10%, the overall value of stacking crit has dropped.

<< Riverwish's Boyfriend.

Sorry i havent made my own account but only wanted to post once :p

I am a feral Tank currently and i have tanked everything up to illidan without any problems (My guild usually prefer that i tank as i can put out far more threat than the other tanks in guild and therefore all the DPS can pretty much go all out)
The only real problem i see about the upcomming changes to feral druids is the armour nerf (i do love having 75% dmg reduction :P ). The need to not have any defence rating now is amazing, i am forever changing gems around to make sure i have the magic 415 def so without that i can completly focus on HP/Dodge/+hit etc. I am just hoping that with the armour nerf, i can still get to have the same type level of damage mitigation as before using dodge and some of the new abilities that are comming. Barkskin now available while in bearform is nice as its a 20% dmg reduction every 1 minute (warriors shieldwall is better but has a longer reuse). We get a mini last stand now which is nice also. Before we only had trinkets as our panic buttons, but now there will be many we mash when its all going a bit 'pete tong'. With all these new abilities i hope we (as feral tanks) can keep on tanking as well as any warrior / paladin. It looks like we will also have to be more mindful of tanking, with us taking more dmg we will have to start hitting more than the 3 buttons we are used to (mangle maul and lacerate) to be good tanks.

The fact we could become better AOE tanks is also a nice bonus. We prety much would not do MH without a paladin tank and to be able to hold agro on more than 3 targets will be v nice.


Well enough of my waffle...
Here's to the furry tanks :)

Oberon
Knight of The Temple
Skullcrusher EU

I am not that afraid of the armor nerf... they have removed Crushing Blows from the game, so the bosses deal less damage.

But I am excited about a more interesting gameplay as well - all our new situational abilities will be great.

Have they removed Crushing Blows from just the new instances, or the old ones as well? i.e. will kara / ssc / hyjal / bt / sw bosses no longer crush?

Yes, all crushing blows are removed. Also, all boss specials that made warriors madatory for the fight (Illidan's Shear, for example) are also being removed.

Bad news Oiysters. Only Illidan's shear got removed. Druids still can't MT Kealthas. (The 25 man version :P)

Also a druid in Full T4 had no issues hitting the cap and I myself have been over the armor cap for a while now. I do not see a reason to get distraught at the fact that we need more armor now. This move I think is refreshing and all my +Def gems and enchants are being converted to +Hit. Then again, I have been a Boomkin druid for a while now and don't plan on tanking on anything other than my paladin.

Ok.... I did it just for fun yesterday. An old Pally tank trick used to be gathering up all of the demonhunter supplicants and killing them all at once. I thought for giggles I'd see how easy it is to do with a bear.

Sitting in bear form with about 43% dodge. I didn't even pop Gift of the Wild just to see how it would go.

I ran recount just to get a picture of how things went. Just using swipe (because I wanted to see how powerful it was). I cleared 2k DPS at the height of the battle. Base hit was close to 210 and the crits were hitting around 400. Wow... it was probably harder than a pally would be, but god was it fun. I got to see the arc of death. Nothing but a pure arc of dead guys in front of me.

so, we need or dont Def points with the brand new 3/3 in SotF?

Do not need any defense. Welcome to our humble home.

@Abies
Can u post your Armory plz
Would like to take a look at your gear, cause im sitting around 40% dodge (left out 1 point in natural reaction) and i wonder how u achive around 60%. Do you sacrifice STAM for it?

Would be very interessted in it.

At the moment I am 2/3 in SotF and probably only one or two gear upgrades from dropping to 1/3 in SotF because I have so much Def/Res that is just a base stat on my gear or set bonus. I can't re-gem or re-enchant out of it.

I am kind of wondering if SotF is going to be a "starter tank" talent or if the gear going forward just won't have Def on it. PvP stuff will always have resilience but I seem to be moving away from most of that now. (Still have shoulders, bracers and gloves that are PvP only because I can't find a pre-T5 PvE that is better)

seeing the new wrath gear with regard to our 'need' for SoTF is going to be interesting......

not needing to max it or indeed even use it would be surprising given its overhaul in patch 3......

The only Wrath items with +def are rings, trinks, and necks. We share armor with rogues in Wrath, so as you replace your BC gear you will need more points in SotF.

Well I am 2/3 now so maybe my first point in WotLK will go into capping it off! Thanks for the info.

yes, with ur 415 in Def (old def cap for druid) u can save 1 point in the new SotF, but for my own gear i set 3/3 and no more use def points in my gear, using just dodge points

i'm from brzil, sorry about my english!!!

yes, with ur 415 in Def (old def cap for druid) u can save 1 point in the new SotF, but for my own gear i set 3/3 and no more use def points in my gear, using just dodge points

i'm from brzil, sorry about my english!!!

first, welcome to the druids grove! :)

second, no worries! your english is better than my portugese by far!

my wife is from Colombia, and i wish we were in south america right now... (it's getting Chilly here in DC)

i'm from brzil, sorry about my english!!!

I dated a woman from Argentina for a couple years...heavenly. ;-)

I dated a woman from Argentina for a couple years...heavenly. ;-)
cue rendition of....

Dont Cry for me Argentina




i'll leave myself with 3/3 for now esp given your comment Oiy.

Welcome Nai

cue rendition of....

Dont Cry for me Argentina

LOL. Lucky for me she was much closer to Giselle (who I think is Brazillian?) than Evita!

I have been busy being resto the past few weeks ... my question is should I spend removing all my +def gems and enchants and replace with stam or agil stats? Will it be worth the gold and mats?

I have been busy being resto the past few weeks ... my question is should I spend removing all my +def gems and enchants and replace with stam or agil stats? Will it be worth the gold and mats?


That really depends on the content you plan to see in teh next two weeks. Thankfully because of expansion gems / enchants are dirt cheap, but they still cost somthing, and if you are just going to heal, I would say don't bother.

However, if you plan to go bear for a raid or two or plan on doing alot of instances leveling as a tank, it may be a decent investment. I would assume you will replace all your gems within the first few weeks of WotLK because the greens = todays epics. So <15g for an epic level gem will be the norm. As for enchants, the new enchanting patterns etc have been very hush hush... who knows what will be available and how available mats will be.

I say regem/enchant with DPS in mind so that you can tank well and have a good starter set to level with.