We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

A long time ago, I rerolled a Horde Druid on Mal’ganis so that I could potentially try and play with some of the fantastic people over there. Eventually, I missed all the perks that came with my Night Elf (you know, armor, achievements, ten million pets) and went back to the Alliance. But if I could simply wave a magic wand, pay a “nominal” fee and transform Runy into a Tauren…would I?

Obviously there are a million implications here. What would the faction transfer entail? Would you be able to pick your appearance? Would it reset your server transfer timer? What about your faction-based reputations? Would those transfer or reset? Will the best Horde guilds now get slammed by 6 million giddy Alliance players?

What will you do?

Me: What?

Mortality: Exodus killed Yogg without any of the Watchers. That’s an RNG nightmare. 

Me: Oh yeah? 

Mortality: Yeah, apparently that gets you Mimiron’s Head. 

Me: Let me see. 

Mortality: I don’t know why you’d just ride that thing to go do Hodir dailies, though.

Me: Well if you already killed Yogg with 0 watchers, what else is there to do?

Mortality: Good point.

I’m still waiting for my character to copy to the PTR, as it’s been four days so far. More information when I get on there and get my tests running.

Didn’t find an answer you liked? Leave a comment!

• Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer make the bear stand upright
• Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.

Pretty across the board, without any regard for rotation difficulty. Doesn’t this still penalize the “less-skilled” players? More on this later.

Slightly more information from Kalon here. 

I’d like to see other classes able to get great dps when handled as masterfully as a cat putting out consistently astounding numbers.

Exactly! Part of the fun in Feral DPS is the challenge the rotation affords—and I’d hate to see it go. While it’s possible to tune down our damage while simultaneously simplifying our cycles, why not step up everyone’s game and put them to the test? Sorry, I’m dreaming again. Blizzard’s reality is that a happy player-base keeps them in business, and the vast majority of their player base wants the game to be simple, accessible, and enjoyable. Is that so bad? We can discuss that debate another day.

Regardless, it’s important to critically dissect both sides of any argument to reach the most logical conclusion. Yesterday I highlighted a few key elements that I believe “justify” our top-end DPS, but today I’d like to constructively address what “adjustments” could be made to tone down damage without leaving less-skilled players in the dust. First, we need to identify the biggest difficulties in our rotation and the abilities that produce the most damage. By creating a sort of mental Venn Diagram, one can figure out where “difficult” overlaps with “damage” and start tweaking from there.

During a “normal” encounter, Shred occupies the largest piece of my damage pie-graph. There’s nothing particularly difficult about hitting a Shred button, but as I outlined yesterday, the positional requirement of that ability can render it slightly difficult to execute in a busy, mobile encounter. To make it easier for the less-skilled individuals, Blizzard could remove the positional requirement on Shred, and simultaneously balance damage by adjusting Shred’s damage multiplier—let’s say from 225% to 200%. By doing that, Shred is still superior to the now-obsolete Backstab and gains the same hit-it-where-you-want benefit of Mutilate.* Not enough? Shred damage is also multiplied by Bleed enhancers such as Mangle or Trauma. Remove that component from the spell, and you’ve knocked it down again.

What about our actual rotation? To sustain considerable damage, the following buffs and DoTs need to remain active:

• Mangle (applied by you, another Druid, or a DPS Warrior)
• Rip
• Rake
• Savage Roar

Beyond maintaining those abilities, Shred functions as your main combo point generator. Whenever you have five combo points and don’t need to refresh Rip or Roar, you weave in Ferocious Bite. If you’re really trying to go balls-out, you’re monitoring your Clearcast procs and utilizing your highest Energy consuming ability, Shred, when it pops. Man, what a pain. The answer to simplifying while tuning down, then, is not achieved by shortening durations. If you recall, we already have various set bonuses (two-piece T7 and four-piece T8) and glyphs (Glyph of Rip, Glyph of Shred, Glyph of Mangle) that extend the duration of many of these abilities—but we still need combo points to keep them active. If you’re gemming for AGI or you have some higher-end gear, you should have no problem reaching 50% crit unbuffed, which is essential for generating enough combo points to keep a rotation alive. If, however, you don’t have access to the gear (or the Crit while raid buffed), you’ll find yourself CP starved and your buffs and debuffs will gradually fall-off.

Why not take the Mutilate approach? If you’re not in the know, Mutilate generates two combo points (largely because it’s using two weapons at once).** By building in two-combo points to the already muted Shred (i.e. <225% multiplier damage with zero Mangle bonuses), confused and/or harried individuals only need to refresh their buffs and debuffs once in awhile—and don’t need to worry about scrambling for points to do it.

Unfortunately, this presents another problem. While an excess of combo points makes life a lot easier for those straining under the DoT rotation, it provides a field-day of opportunities for someone (like me) gleefully looking for extras. As I mentioned earlier, when you have five combo points and nothing to do with them, you Bite. Addressing this potential damage influx can be addressed in one of two ways:

1. Through Rend and Tear (reduce critical strike chance of FB on bleeding targets to 15%, down from 25%).
2. Through Feral Aggression (reducing FB damage done to 10%, down from 15%).
3. Both.

So I suppose there are three. In an ideal world, Blizzard would fiddle around with Feral Aggression, drop the FB damage boost on it to something highly undesirable, and then there wouldn’t ever be a question of whether or not you pick up Feral Instinct. Feral Instinct, in turn, boosts Swipe damage. I end up using Ferocious Bite far more than Swipe, and I chose to invest my points into strictly single target boss-damaging talents. Extra Swipe damage, however, remains incredibly useful for trash and during certain encounters—like Thorim’s arena. Although my rotation currently demands that I pick up that extra 15% damage for FB, losing Feral Instinct wasn’t a choice I made lightly.

Modifying Rend and Tear, however, makes the talent even more of a groaner. It’s suddenly non-useful from an FB perspective, and you still need to waste five points in it to pick up the extra Shred damage. Making changes to Feral Aggression allow us to invest those points somewhere else—such as in Feral Instinct or Survival Instincts (both of which I don’t have in my current build).

But why not make this whole thing easy and nerf Savage Roar? It’d be a straight-up damage loss across the boards, no matter how you play. That’s just it: “no matter how you play.” Ghostcrawler wants to approach this from a perspective that low-skill individuals deserve a chance to do decent damage while still blowing their (admitted complex) rotation. Nerfing Savage Roar does nothing to uncomplicated the rotation, and really only makes those players suffer more.

What are your ideas?

*Please note that if you’re regularly standing in front of a boss (or any mob) to DPS, you’re doing it wrong and you’re destroying your damage with Parries anyway. Removing the positional requirement on Shred only allows you to keep up your rotation and do some damage when a mob is moving around a lot.

**Mortality also insists that I mention that Mutilate actually can generate three combo points thanks to Seal Fate.

A recent blue post addressed the topic of Feral DPS, suggesting that it is, perhaps, a little “too high.” While that immediately elicited a response from me that probably sounded a little like “Go fuck yourself,” Mr. Ghostcrawler quickly followed that statement with:

“It’s tricky though because it is a very demanding spec to play well and if (sic) nerf it for the best players, the less-skilled ones might really see their DPS plummet.”

I may be mistaken, but this seems to be the first time that someone involved with Blizzard recognized the inherent complexity of a successful kitty DPS rotation. Are we talking Ikaruga hard? No, but as compared to a few other classes that focus mostly on pushing buttons as they come up and/or rely on only one or two primary spells (rather than monitoring buffs, debuffs, Clearcast procs, etc.), we’re up there. This is fantastic. While our rotation has always been something of a pain, it’s incredibly satisfying to finally see that the effort we put into maintaining said rotation (while being mobile and, you know, not dying) entering a directly proportional relationship with our damage output. Remember powershifting? This is how it should be: you play well, you see ridiculous numbers.

Despite the fantastic numbers we’re seeing from some of the best players out there, we still have limitations that other melee DPS classes don’t have (that, perhaps, work to keep our DPS in check). Like what?

• Multiple DoTs. Death Knights aside, Feral Druids arguably suffer the largest overall DPS loss when we’re placed on targets that die quickly. Yogg-Saron’s Immortal Guardians are a prime example. Depending on your rate of combo point generation (read: how much Crit Rating you have), a full-fledged damage rotation generally cannot be accomplished in the time it takes for one of these Guardians to die. The damage loss from Rake and Rip downtime can be mitigated slightly by adopting a different playstyle—if you’ve gone the way of heavy AGI and the Idol of Worship, that is. Equip the Idol of the Ravenous Beast, throw on your ArP gear (if you’re not already stacking it), and make sure Savage Roar never drops. At that point, you can simply Shred and Ferocious Bite to your heart’s content. It is pertinent to mention, however, that even by gemming for ArP and using a cycle that prioritizes Shred and FB, Rip and Rake generally constitute ~20% and ~10% of my total damage, respectively.
• Combo points. Rogues are included in this category as well. If a situation (or a poor raid assignment) requires we switch targets, each switch wipes our combo points and necessitates a rotation restart. The four-piece T8/8.5 bonus helps mitigate the stack of buffs and debuffs we need to reapply (by considerably extending Savage Roar uptime), but if you’re unable to plan how you’ll wipe your points before starting over, you’re wasting your energy. Literally.
• Positional requirements. Unless you’re using Backstab as a Rogue (and if you are, you’re an idiot), no other melee DPS suffer from positional requirements. Shred, our largest damage dealing attack, can only be executed behind a target. Encounters with mobile mobs (or overexcited tanks) make it difficult to score a direct hit from behind. If you’re dancing around the mob just trying to pull off a Shred, your rotation is essentially hiccupping. Other bosses, such as Kologarn, don’t even let you behind the boss (or his arms) at all, resulting in huge DPS losses. Blizzard has already removed the positional requirement from Mutilate, and I’m wondering if Shred won’t be far behind. Despite the frustration the positional requirement causes, I do believe that it functions as a DPS equalizer. If Feral Druids had the ability to run around like a moron and do the exact same DPS as when they stood still, it would be wildly unfair.

Beyond that, we’re still melee. While certain fights are geared toward showcasing our awesome, other encounters are still tuned to keep us running in and out, sidestepping chain lightning, and dodging explosions. Many people cite XT-002 as the example of why Feral Druids are overpowered—and if every fight were designed to mimic that encounter, we certainly would be. XT-002 represents an ideal scenario in which we (melee) don’t need to move very much, if at all, and if you blow your cooldown load during each heart phase (where damage is doubled), you can destroy your guildmates’ minds.

XT-002 is insanely enjoyable, but it is the exception to the rule. While my damage remains consistently high, it fluctuates based on what each encounter requires of me and generally hovers between 5k-7k DPS. Please see the DPS limitations listed above. I succeed, Mr. Ghostcrawler, because I am intensely situationally aware, I don’t die to silly things, I equip the right pieces of gear, and I spend an inordinate amount of time monitoring my rotation. I may be a little biased, but let us cats have our day.

With the 3.1 patch and Ulduar there are a number of new gear choices and options to maximize your effectiveness as a cat. The biggest stat change is to Armor Penetration, which used to be the ugly redheaded stepchild of DPS and has recently turned into the girl next door (re: catches your eye but remains fairly unobtainable). Theorycrafters agree on a couple of key points about Armor Penetration. First, the ArP stat was made a great deal more effective in 3.1, to the tune of around a 25% increase in effectiveness. Second, there is now a great deal more gear to be had from Ulduar that has significant ArP, typically at the cost of Haste or Crit Rating. Third, while effective, ArP has to be stacked fairly high in order to see real results. The general consensus is that with Faerie Fire and 5x Sunder Armor active on a boss target, an ArP trinket proc, and an ArP value above 400, ArP becomes our greatest stat to stack for DPS increase.

Currently, testing illustrates that you can reduce a target’s armor below zero, at which point ArP becomes the best stat by a fair margin. I know what you’re thinking: that’s too much ArP to reach, and even if you did hit it, you would have to give up so many better choices to obtain it. This is in actuality false. Using Rawr, I configured a gear set up that has the following sexy attributes. Two piece bonus for tier 8.5, two piece tier bonus for tier 7.5, 266 hit rating, 137 expertise rating, and 667 armor penetration rating before trinket procs. All told this gives you an unbuffed crit rating of 43.5%, and nearly 7400 attack power before raid buffs.

Here is a table of the gear pieces used and the pertinent values for each piece:

For the sockets, one yellow socket is 16 Hit, 3 yellows are 8 Hit/8 Exp, and the last yellow socket is 8 Hit/8 AGI. All three red sockets are 16 ArP, all three of the blues as 8 ArP/12 STA, the extra socket in the belt is 16 ArP, and the Meta is a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond. The enchants are assumed to be Ebonhold helm, Hodir exalted shoulders, 22 AGI to cloak, 10 stats to chest, 50 AP to bracers, 44 AP to gloves, Crit/AP on pants, 16 AGI to boots, and Massacre on weapon. This may be further enhanced by your choice in professions.

Why is 667 ArP significant? The reason being, is that if either Grim Toll or the Runestone proc, the target suddenly has zero armor towards the penetration cap against your attacks. On the table you will note that the Runestone is listed as 655 proc when the tool tip has it listed as only 612. Several players have reported the proc rate as giving 655. It remains to be seen if they change the tool tip or the item proc to match the current tool tip. Either way, you now are doing true maximum damage. You get the benefit of both of your 2 piece set bonuses, have no misses, and are at the soft 6.5 Expertise cap assuming you took the talent Primal Precision. The current model of Rawr supports this, as at this point ArP now becomes the best choice for gem sockets over any other option. In addition, with 600+ ArP and at least one trinket proc checked, Toskk’s model supports ArP as only being beaten out by Critical Strike. Fully buffed, you will be around 50% crit anyway, which is where most experts agree is the sweet spot for cats.

Now understandably you are going to say, “But wait, that’s a dream set up! There is no conceivable way I can possibly get all that gear in this lifetime—why would I care about a theoretical model?” To this I can only assure you that 400+ ArP will result in a significant gain when paired with a Grim Toll/Mjolnir Runestone proc. The best news is that with Valorous Helm and Shoulders and an Aged Winter Cloak, you are already around 100 ArP. My advice is to pick up the ArP pieces when you can cheaply, and save up for the Mjolnir Runestone. I also would not bother gemming for ArP until you hit at least 300+ penetration and have one of the two trinkets. The Moljner Stone and Grim Toll will likely outstrip any conceivable trinket pairing, even the godly Darkmoon Card: Greatness. While not nearly as noticeable on non-bosses, significant ArP will benefit you for all sorts of DPS.

Now that you know the facts, go out and give your pussy the penetration it deserves!

For more of BushidoX’s reference notes, please click here!

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]]> http://www.unbearably.net/2009/05/31/soulbound/feed/ http://www.unbearably.net/2009/05/26/bonus-wickit-examines-t7-and-t8-armor-sets/ http://www.unbearably.net/2009/05/26/bonus-wickit-examines-t7-and-t8-armor-sets/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 16:00:20 +0000 Runycat http://www.unbearably.net/?p=159 Wickit, of Ysera, was one of the winners of the Guest Yogger contest and offers up his two-copper about set bonuses for feral DPS.

Like everyone else, when I got my first two pieces of tier 7 armor I was thrilled by the +4 seconds it added to Rip uptime. Who didn’t love the idea of two extra free ticks of Rip? Then along came 3.1 and it became even better with Primal Gore. With the average 50% crit chance the bonus basically guaranteed a free Rip crit, but it couldn’t last forever, right?

Patch 3.1 also brought us our Feral Tier 8 set and two new set bonuses. The first of these two bonuses allows our bleeds to proc a Clearcasting state. This is fantastic for Feral DPS. Clearcasting from Omen of Clarity is a huge boon to Shreds, so increasing the chance we have to enter this “state” is great. The four-piece bonus, however, is heavily debated. The second bonus adds eight seconds to Savage Roar, but to get it you have to break your tier 7 bonus.

It’s an interesting dilemma, because it’s essentially doubling the tier 7 two-piece bonus. We aren’t increasing the DPS of Rip anymore and will have to reapply it four seconds sooner, but we’re now able to reapply Savage Roar eight seconds later. The problem is that most of us clip Savage Roar anyway, so just how helpful is this?

For every combo point after one point we spend putting up Savage Roar, we gain five seconds (on top of the initial 14 seconds from one combo point). This means we can equate T8’s four-piece bonus to 1.6 combo points, but let’s call it two for argument’s sake. What is the cost of two combo points? At the high end, a Shred crits for two combo points and costs us 42 energy. At the low end of the spectrum, a Mangle or Rake can crit for two combo points at a cost of 34 energy. Double those values if the ability doesn’t crit. We’re going to use those abilities anyway, but now those combo points can be put towards Rip or a Ferocious Bite.

The set bonus thus has a few benefits for Feral DPS:

1. Generally, it’s best to get Savage Roar up as soon as possible in a fight. This means that it often applies with one-three combo points depending on your preference and luck with crits. With the four-piece T8 bonus, a one or two combo point Roar will be pretty close to a three or four combo point Roar.
2. On trash your Roar will last a bit longer while you’re moving from mob to mob or Swipe spamming. This is nice since less time spent refreshing SR means more Shreds/Rakes/Swipes.
3. I mentioned Ferocious Bite earlier and I meant it. By decreasing the number of combo points needed to keep SR up for a decent period of time, we open the window for weaving more Bites into our rotation.
4. There are fights out there where an extra long Rip will be wasted. For example, XT-002’s phases might clip your Rip if applied late before a switch to a heart phase or applied too late during the heart phase.
5. The bonus really lends itself to a Feral DPS who loves Armor Penetration. If you’re stacking ArP, Rip begins to devalue (even if only slightly), but SR increases in value.

However, there are drawbacks:

1. There are fights where Rip uptime is very nice (i.e. Hodir and Razorscale). Applying a Rip and getting a couple of Shreds in to increase its duration (Glyph of Shred) just before a Flash Freeze or before Razorscale lifts off into the air can really help your DPS while you aren’t touching the boss.
2. Much like #1, there are fights that might incapacitate you (i.e. Ignis Slag Pot) and an extra four seconds on Rip can help you maintain a close to 100% uptime.
3. Of course, the most obvious is it’s free damage and statistically at least one free Rip crit.

Personally, I’ve made the move towards Armor Penetration, but currently maintain my tier 7 bonus (head and shoulders). I have been debating if I should pick up the Conqueror’s Helm and Valorous shoulders for tier 8 (I wear Winter’s Icy Embrace for my chest and we haven’t downed Yogg yet for Conqueror’s shoulders). The conclusion I’ve come to for myself is that I will pick up the T8.

With my ArP I want to get in there and start Shredding as soon as possible. I want that extended Savage Roar to help weave in more Ferocious Bites. I maintain a near 100% Rip and Rake uptime, of course, but Shred crits for 13-14,000 and Bite crits for the same or even more with an extra 25% chance to do so (5/5 Rend and Tear). With a focus on ArP you want to maximize SR, and the T7 bonus becomes less important. With a focus on critical strike (AGI) Rip is probably still the way to go with Primal Gore.

You have to take into account the T8 stats, too. The shoulders will really help reach the Expertise soft cap (especially if you choose Footpads of Silence or Flamestalker Boots over the Runed Ironhide Boots) and the pieces have pretty high AGI for Blessing of Kings and talents to increase. I think for a Druid like me I’ll take the 4-piece bonus from T8, but not until I can replace both my T7 pieces at the same time.

No sense in breaking the bonus too early.

But what if there was a different option that didn’t rely on the supposed know-all of a loot council, RNG, endless grinding for consumables, an absurd amount of seniority or DKP hoarding? What if there was a system that rewarded your raiders for time spent in raid and content downed? What if that system also helped to level the playing field between older and newer players—and still gave partial preference to folks who’ve been around for awhile? What if it also allowed raiders to really differentiate between the most highly coveted items and those that might only be a slight upgrade? That system exists, and it’s called “Shroud.”

I’ll save you some potentially boring history, but the loot system is (predictably) named after the guild that created it, and it’s what we currently use to distribute loot in ECR. It goes a little like this:

Are there drawbacks? Sure. The Shroud system rewards people for simply showing up and sticking it out—not necessarily their performance. You also occasionally risk ill-will when an individual unexpectedly Shrouds on an item that is generally bid “standard” (ex. tier gear)—sometimes folks just prefer (and anticipate) a roll-off on more common items. This is called “Shroud Bombing.”

As Mortality says,

“LIKE AN ATOMIC BOMB TO THE FACE, THE SHROUD BOMB IS GREAT FOR CRUSHING THE HOPES AND DREAMS OF YOUR FELLOW RAIDERS.”

Overall, however, the key to making this system succeed is to drive home the importance of Shrouding whenever you desperately want a piece of gear. Hunter pissed because he bid standard and a Druid shrouded? Tough fucking luck. By bidding standard, that Hunter acknowledged he wouldn’t be heartbroken if he lost the loot. While I would always encourage you to discuss potential upgrades with your fellow DPS (or healers, or tanks, or losers—whatever) so that you’re ensuring your raid gears up appropriately, the “Shroud” exists to discourage collusion. Maybe that’s mercenary. On the other hand, if you’re content to let RNG decide the win every time, there’s no point in having a DKP system anyway.

Although I haven’t participated in a guild that used Suicide Kings or full-fledged EPGP, the Shroud system is about as close to “perfect” as it can get—in my opinion, of course. You encourage your raiders to show up, stick around until the end, and do their gear research so that they don’t waste their points Shrouding on worthless items. It’s like you’re back in high school sitting next to that super hot chick in algebra class. You can gaze longingly at her and hope that maybe she’ll notice you, you can pass her a note and hope she’ll read it before crumpling it into the garbage bin, or you can go balls out and ask her to the prom. If you want her—I mean, it, you go for it.

WIN BIG OR LOSE BIG—THERE IS NO TRY.