Patch ThisFollow

Errrr, yeah Selverin 3.1 they can swim and I'm about 100% sure that it won't be at 100%, that pretty much defeats Aquatic form and the glyph.

Think I'll end up with this, I still don't really miss Feral Charge or Brutal Impact when tanking...are there even any encounters where the 30' on Growl doesn't cut teh mustard?

Glyphs, Hard to decide between Mangle and Growl...don't need Mangle glyph for tanking, but would be nice to max dps rotations and not have to refresh it (but then again if you have a Warrior doing Trauma or another bear tank, it means crap-all anyway), and talents, I'm seesawing between ILotP and filling out PI. ILotP is really nice for grinding, I never have to shift and heal it seems, but I *could* just shift out to heal and get the PI bonuses.

Really hard to decide, I enjoy dps and tanking equally (with a slight emphasis on tanking), but want to dualspec a full resto build cause I want to explore the finer points of druid heals. ;;

Edited, Feb 24th 2009 5:09pm by Norellicus

Bleeds crit for 150% damage. (linky )

Reading up on the SR changes now.

Everyone does. Last I knew SD wasn't working on the PTR yet. Also people don't know if mob and boss AoE and bleed effects, etc. remove the shield. Also hidden CDs and how it exactly works is unknown. The numbers on this skill are still up in the air.

So assuming a naxx cat has 10000 ap and 50 % crit (approx-buffed) here are the calculations for the old and the new SR. 
  
                OLD SR                                                                   New SR 
 
White dmg       (14000/14+55)*1.1=1160.5                                     (10000/14+55)*1.1*1.3=1100 
 
Shred        ((2.25*1055)+742.5)*1.1*1.3*1.2=5346                    ((2.25*769+742.5)*1.1*1.3*1.2*1.3=5516.2 
 
Rake              =471+ 5263.8                                                             =539+5504 
 
Rip              (0.3*14000+3204)*1.1*1.3=10587.7                       (0.3*10000+3204)*1.1*1.3*1.3=11533 
 
FB            (0.35*14000+1570)*1.1=7117(8184.5 with FA)             (0.35*10000+1570)*1.1*1.3=7250(8337.6)  
(Source )

Rough math I found on Emmerald's forums. Haven't seen any solid number from the jerks yet but they seem to be all agreeing a DPS boost. They are assuming the SR glyph is +6% additive(36%) and not multiplicative(31.8) which matters.

Also the changes to ArP help out our white attacks and some yellows a good deal. Of course since a large portion of feral DPS is from bleeds this will affect us less then other melee DPS. But ArP is slowing becoming less worthless.

The changes also seem to being swinging Agi > Str again. So hold of on buying DM:G till this settles down.

I need coffee.

I'm trying to figure out how you can say this so definitively that it's certainly a dps buff, but then that you're not sure by how much and that you'd guess 5%. More so I'm wondering how it can be said anything is a dps buff without looking at other details/changes, aka: the whole picture.

Like, by itself, Savage Roar will basically no longer affect bleeds and as near as I can tell SR right now is worth aprox 35% more damage on white/yellows or in that ballpark.

Unless 36% Damage and 40%AP affect white/yellow attacks very differently, I don't see how this is really that big of a change for white/yellow specifically. If it is different, someone's going to have to explain it to me, because a lot of what I've read so far has a lot of people scratching their heads as to whether or not this change specifically is a dps increase or decrease for white/yellow and I'm even seeing things that suggest that if you don't take the glyph to increase it by 6% it's certainly a decrease. So not having the extra 6% is a decrease and having it is a 5% increase according to your guess?

The loss of AP from SR will hurt rip/rake, but the ability of bleeds to crit brings the bleed effects' dps back up and then some because of the expected rate of crit, and then too, personally I think it adds much better scaling with bleed damage being affected by both AP and crit rate.

My personal thoughts, are that the glyph is merely there to further separate a dps spec vs a tank spec when looking at savage roar, that the intent for savage roar once fully specced for dps is that SR will maintain very very close performance as before, but without the glyph you won't perform as well. I'm leaning this way in part because of the Tank specced T6 mangle spammers as that should decrease tank spec/glyphed cats' dps and maybe prevent T6 mangle spamming tank specs/resto specs as dual spec combos from being so close and capable as full dps specced cats. I think the change to SR was done mostly because they had the notion to allow bleeds to crit but they couldn't implement that without decreasing our AP since bleeds are based on AP. 11k+ AP and the ability to crit on bleeds would be too much and probably scale too rapidly.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again now here, I'm not math inclined for this game. I don't know all the behind the scenes math. This is just my view point from reading various forums and the overall conclusion I've come to.

Edited, Feb 25th 2009 6:36pm by Torzak

So, in the end, my moonkin stays the same? Someone has the math on the new starfall glyph compared to the ones we use now?

So you are going from a +2 seconds glyph to reducing the CD in half.

That reeks of buff.

And with Rip being up longer, even if your mangle drops off, your Rip still has the chance to crit, increasing it's DPE even further.

Wish they would extend rake out a few more seconds. >.<

Course I guess like you said, with rip being much longer, it would allow for the rotation to be that much easier to manage. The downside is on bosses where you aren't able to position yourself to use Shred for that extended time on Rip. (Thaddius, etc..)

Yeah, I don't see any reason to have the mangle, at all. If you're stuck in a place where you can't Shred, you're going to be mangling anyway, so the extra time on it isn't going to benefit you at all in the rotation.



and sprinkles and Hershey Syrup?

I would use Savage Roar, Rip and Shred. The math I've been seeing seems to agree as well. Even when there is no mangle-***** present.

The changes to Sunder/FF seem to have given ArP a kick in the **** as well. Which would be sweet since I have been avoiding it like a drunken fat chick that seems to be everywhere.

Still waiting for SD to work on the damn PTR. Haven't heard squat for actual numbers on that yet.

I hear good things about Nourish and expect the bat to start swinging.

Indeed. But I wonder if that is any better than the ones boonkins use nowadays. Maybe for pvp, dunno....I kinda think SR's useless.

It's in line with Savage Defense I'd say, and a logical step in moving bears from being a meatshield to a more sophisticated approach. Didn't expect anything else really.

Upon further investigation over at elitistjerks.com, it appears that the HotW nerf to stamina may be offset by undoing the armor nerf and scrapping savage defense.