While no major class changes have been reported yet for the new expansion, some things are inevitable. There will be more levels and talent points, so I will be keeping an eye on any specific changes. There are some changes that will directly impact things, such as the changes to player stats. Armor penetration and attack power are being removed from gear. This has implication for how they will go forward with feral attack power for weapons, as they will have to either retain it or make some other change to allow druids to benefit from weapon damage. Also under question, as things are adjusted from current stats on items to new stats, how will class balance be affected. For agility based classes, agility will offer more attack power. 2 AP per point instead of 1. The real kicker is their offer of ‘more stamina on gear’ to counteract the changes to stats. I foresee this as being armor penetration = stamina, AP = agility conversions. Currently they are trying to balance damage with druids benefiting well compared to other classes from armor penetration. If they aren’t careful I could easily see this being a considerable blow to druid dps compared with other classes. However, this should also in theory benefit tanking in terms of bigger health pools and greater SD amounts if Agi is also going to give bears more AP. Bear with me here, all of this is just speculation, and there’s a lot of details still being left out. Also look out for haste becoming an important DPS stat. Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.

The most interesting parts are going to be the new race options for druids and the plans for crafters. Worgen druids will be possible, and quite powerful with the currently announced racials.

Worgens have a racial ability called Darkflight, which allows the worgen to temporarily increase their movement speed by 70%, and can be used every three minutes. This activated ability, like entering combat, will also force the worgen into its true form. Other worgen racials include a passive 1% increase to all damage, reduced duration from the effects of curses and disease, and a bonus to skinning, as well as the ability to skin faster. Worgen will have access to all classes except paladin and shaman.

Worgen druids will flat out have DPS and tanking advantages over Night Elves. I fully expect Blizzard to offer same-faction race transfers inevitably, as people will complain A LOT about needing to pay .. twice.. for something already over charged, especially as the mass exodus to Worgen mains ensues. These racials have some pretty tempting abilities for both PvE and PvP players.. a little something for everyone. Ultimately it will surprise me if NEs and some of the other races aren’t given something extra to keep things balanced.

Also on the table are some crafting changes for Leatherworkers, Tailors, and Blacksmiths. Mmmm.

Reforging affords tailors, blacksmiths, leatherworkers, engineers, and jewelcrafters the opportunity to customize any player’s gear, including their own. Specifically, they can reduce a single statistic on applicable items and convert the lost points into another stat not already on the item.

I think adding more customization to items is interesting, and yet this one confuses me. Does this mean I’ll see more rogues rolling on leather with high stam and/or expertise because, of all things.. after reforging it turns out that it’s BiS for everything? However, I believe in a way this will prevent the stat changes from over-simplifying too. It adds a new angle to item upgrades that will separate the noob and the advanced players. While I want everyone to perform well, I also like to see how smart people are with their gear before I find out during a raid that they like to stand in bad stuff and otherwise cannot follow simple directions.
Lastly I will leave you thinking on the new zones currently under works. More details on MMO-Champion.

* Uldum will feature two new dungeons, the Lost City of Tol’vir and the Halls of Origination (a titan city)
* Skywall (Air Elemental Plane) will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.
* The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep will be back in a brand new level 85 heroic version.
* Blackrock Caverns will be a new level-up dungeon located in Blackrock Spire.
* Sunken City of Vashj’ir will be an underwater zone and was the home city of Lady Vashj before the original sundering.
* Deepholm will be the new hub of the expansion, you will have portals here to let you teleport to Hyjal, Uldum, etc.
*Plane of Fire.  Ragnaros used the cataclysm to come back from the Plane of Fire where we sent him and is now sieging the World Tree in Mount Hyjal to burn it down. (Hyjal) will make extensive use of phasing.
* The Twilight Highlands will feature Grim Batol, Deathwing literally broke open Grim Batol as he emerged from the ground.

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This may be a surprise, but you know what? I could be wrong once in awhile. Very wrong.. Here’s the thing. I was in Ulduar again, working on hard modes and we decided to take a break for cooldowns and finish off Kologarn. Up until Kolo I was using my shred Idol, with the impression from other sites that this was better. I had a mangle bot, so it seemed like a good idea. On Kologarn though, even without the ability to shred, my DPS went up. Not an amazing up, and yet you might imagine my surprise. There’s a first! I continued the rest of the night with the Corruptor idol, I used my FeralbyNight addon to track the buff and keep it refreshed, and it worked out well. Possibly because I haven’t been able to get enough arpen in my gear, it’s terribly lacking aside from the Grim Toll and gems. I’m not saying anyone is wrong that the Shred Idol can be better, just that it’s quite clearly not better for me in my current gear. I’m really not sure when it might be. Iron Council hard mode is actually easier and less movement intensive for DPSers than normal mode, so it’s definitely not for lack of Shred time.

What is everyone’s experience with the Idols right now anyway? Do you love Corruptor or hate it? Are you getting the Mutilation Idol right away, or waiting for something else?

update: fyi, looking over the stat differences, my preference right now is for the ring. It’s slightly more emblems, but it’s a much better upgrade than for my gloves or my Idol. Because the Idol can proc on Shred as well as Mangle, that’s likely my next buy.

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I’ve noticed a lot more druids lately, particularly myself, dusting off tanking gear as the plethora of Death Knight tanks has drastically fallen. I had a discussion with a friend of mine who typically tanks.. and is now avoiding it. I try to keep things focused here on the DPS aspect, however the line blurs for me at this point. In some cases, if things get rough I can and will switch into bear form. This is especially true if I get a ‘tank’ that doesn’t generate enough threat. Warriors are still out there, particularly evident in raids but not so much in 5 mans. I’m finding my experience lately has been for tanking that the order of desirability goes Paladin > Bear > DeathKnight > Warrior for AoE or Paladin > Warrior > Bear > DeathKnight for survivability. And I am not just talking about random tanks with varying gear. I run regularly with capable and well geared tanks of every class, they are similarly or more geared than I am. More only because tanking is my offset still. That sort of seems funny to say, since I’ve thus far spent more Conquest emblems on my ‘offset’. Oh well!

And speaking of tanking.. the changes. Well, nerfing dodge really sucks. Conqueror’s gear is bloody amazing though, and being able to outright buy the Corruptor Idol is well, priceless. Overall what I’m most happy with is the new Enrage. And I am thrilled to pieces that I can bounce through Heroics and multi-pull with ease. This alone has me finally enjoying Bear form. So let me leave you all with this screenshot in a Halls of Stone run I did today. Now I do realize these guys aren’t really hard hitters.. but if you look closely, we got a tally of 20 mobs in there, from I’m not even sure how many packs – and everyone still standing. Amazingly fun, and enjoyable.

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Here it is, a more thorough reply to the recent question concerning armor penetration and agility. I know this has been on a lot of people’s minds lately – everyone appears to be asking the same thing. How do I gem? When do I switch?

Short answer: Fractured Cardinal Ruby and Nightmare Tear for your meta requirement.

My experience has been that, especially with the gear that is available in 3.2, armor penetration is the way to gem.

I would never recommend gemming strength, with everything else it’s not because attack power isn’t a good thing, it all has to do with relative values, and in any circumstance you’ll either have agility or armor penetration surpass strength on a point-for-point basis. Speaking of relative values, they’re not concrete. The value of one stat changes depending on what gear you have, what set bonuses you have, your idol, your buffs, and even your style and/or the type of boss fight. Sound complicated? It is. I haven’t gone through a good agility vs. armor penetration post yet because it requires a surprising amount of theorycraft (math) to explain, and right now because it’s so easy to get Conquest gear, the lazy part of me is saying.. there’s just no reason to any more. If your stats are low you might want to use cheep agility gems and stack armor penetration as you acquire pieces in the new instance and from emblems.

So let’s go over what stats affect for us ferals a moment.

Agility increases attack power and critical chance, instead of simply the attack power increase from strength. You really need both, but critical strikes are amazing for druids because of 2 things, one being the change to Rip now being able to crit, and the other is because when we do crit, we get more combo points. In a very short amount of time, with over 50% crit chance, I’ll have enough combo points to get my Savage Roar and Rip going and have some to spare for a Ferocious Bite before reapplying my Rip. FB crits for around 12k, and is more likely to result in a crit than not. Being able to FB in your cycle is going to benefit your DPS generously. Avoiding downtime on Rip is likewise needed.

If you’re over 50% crit chance you need agility slightly less because of lost combo points. This is where we get into armor penetration. Armor penetration is like TBC hit rating on crack. You’re taking a a boss with 2 tonnes of platemail and turning them into a squishy clothy. Nomming their butt after removing their legplates is so much more effective. But in all seriousness, even with good stats the relative value is at most ~ .05% in favor of armor penetration. This is why you’ll see me with agility gems in certain slots, until I finish collecting my tank and dps gear. I’m not going to use agility any more, I’m just not going to bother regemming until I upgrade, either.

If you want to see a sample of stat weighting, check here. This applies to pre-ToC Best-in-slot, and is according to Nightcrowler, the FeralbyNight author. He’s a really good source of info, you can read up at elitist jerks Here.

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I’ve been doing the new 5 man, a lot. Even the normal version drops decent loot, and heck my druid really wants the shiny new tanking trinket. Oh, yes.. you heard me right. Tanking trinket. Since the nerfbat hit Death Knights, and Warriors still MIA, I’ve been asked to tank. The irony is, quite simply, now that everyone wants me to, I don’t want to anymore. I’m not too sure why not .. I can’t quite pin down when I stopped wanting to do it, or why.

Something funny happened in fact, before the patch I wasn’t used to tanking, I never had to. My first time taking my druid in the new instance though, I was with my usual group but all on their alts. Only this time around, my druid was the only tank. Sure sure.. I’ll tank, no problem. After waiting for everyone to be ready we entered the instance, and I hopped on a horsie to begin the jousting. As usual, we went through the motions no sweat. After a few times in there it gets easier – you learn tricks like jumping onto a new mount before you’re dismounted – yes you can do that. So, practiced and ready we charged ahead. Then phase 2 began, and we were all blindsided as the mobs plowed through the group. We regularly chat on Ventrilo, and it wasn’t until the group was nearly dead that I heard someone call out “Go bearform! Bearform!!”

/duck

/facepalm

I couldn’t believe it. In the hurry to start up the event, I’d forgotten I was the tank. Really, it’s so confusing when the two voices you’re used to being the tanks are playing clothie classes. I sat there, helpless as the mobs rushed me. I didn’t even have time to switch form. I couldn’t have tanked in cat spec and without a healer even if I had wanted to.

Well we didn’t have time to finish before the raid so we reformed into a 10 man, and everyone unanimously agreed we wanted to see the new raid too.

/duck

/facepalm

The new 10 man, NORMAL version, is tweaked for a geared T8 team. We’re a T7.5 and Ulduar 10 team. Heck it’s close. If not for the addon issues we were having in addition to the difficulty level, we might have seen the first boss! So, we left many deaths later, all full of the sad humiliation of defeat. Complete and total failure. Something I can honestly say the raid is not used to. /sadface

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As you may know, my encouragement to blog is to get back into writing. Before I played WoW, I had started brainstorming a storyline, with the character Ilaria playing a strong role. The inspiration behind my druid’s name then, lies in the fact that she is, in fact, part of a race of shapeshifters in this other world. This here, is part of her story, not as a night elf, but as a Sedyhe.

Ilaria is the current Watcher for the Sedyhe, she looks over the edge of a vast wasteland called by some the Nyxantian Desert. Though normally an unlivable environment, Ilaria is an immortal and not affected as are other beings in this world. Her people, though not subject to typical aging or illness, are in certain manners capable of being destroyed, and they may not leave the Abyss beyond the desert for too long, thus their greatest weakness is in their need to replenish energy from that Source. However, while restricted in how long they may travel, they are the most adept in magic of the races, able to transform themselves into any creature, able to mimick any they see. They occasionally enjoy taking the shape of dragons for their strength and speed, although the last of the real dragons have since perished from the world. Because of this predilection, the other races are unaware of the extinction and merely consider Dragons to be a rare sighting. Many consider a sighting a sign of ill omen, and Dragons are greatly feared, even while the Sedyhe are exalted in many cultures to deification. Godlike in many ways, they do not consider themselves upon the same level as the deities worshipped.. instead they imagine that it is these gods that are the source of their, and every other race’s, magical power. And magical indeed they are not only in their ability to mimick any living being and adjust their forms at will, but also to make their forms invisible to the untrained eyes, able to conjure and manipulate elements, thoughts, and even able to form entirely new races. If the gods are the source of the power, neutral and afar, the Sedyhe are the strongest keepers of that power, watching over the world with it close up. But while they all watch over the doings of other races, it is Ilaria the Watcher, who protects and searches for a relic long lost to her people, that which can replenish their race, capable of bringing a new era, without which they will surely falter to their enemies, one by one. The power to create new Sedhye children is something that must be closely guarded, but while protecting this secret, it was inadvertently misplaced. Magical as they may be, the Seydhe do not possess the omniscience of the gods, thus are they desperate to reclaim what they lost. And they are nearly out of time.

Ilaria is gifted, she the last of her race with the ability of foretelling. The last hope to restore the lost Seydhe realm is resting with her and a foretelling of many years ago, a vestige of hope they had almost lost. She knows the relic is out there, passing unrecognized within another culture, that their greatest enemy has not yet discovered its presence. And it is up to them all to find the bearer, before the Legion does.

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A small continuation of my Feral by Night review: I realized that my review lacked some screenshots to show what’s included with the addon. I made a few screenshots, then, with everything shown, including all the customizable menu options. It’s important to note that all the displays there can, in fact, be hidden. Also note that I’m using Event Alert, not the included Omen of Clarify proc display. You can also see these add-ons: Bartender4, Autobar, Fubar, Xperl, Quartz, Recount, and EventHorizon. FeralbyNight includes all the semi-transparent displays, including the health and target health box, stat calculation box, cooldown monitor, and trinket internal cooldowns. To name a few. The bar with counters is FeralbyNight’s answer to tracking timers. The square with timelines is EventHorizon’s answer. And the third display tracking timers, is Quartz, though I’m using that for other abilities, particularly other group members, and not primarily for druid DPS timers.

Posted in General Gameplay

I like discussing class changes. It’s just as important to understand the current standings of a class, as it is to know the future plans for it.

Currently on the test realm, we have:

~Enrage: This Bear Form ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The armor penalty is unchanged.
~Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.
~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.
~Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
King of the Jungle: This talent now reduces the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 20/40/60%.
~Primal Tenacity: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear

Just in case you’ve been a hole and haven’t heard, feral is getting nerfed again. Bears and Cats, while enjoying the sleek new looks, will also be doing less DPS and taking more hits. The DPS nerf, looked at one way the nerf is a flat amount of damage per special attack. All the primary DPS talents are being reduced in base damage: Mangle, Rake, Shred, and Rip. Mangle by 11%, Shred by 10%, Rake by 7%, and Rip by 6%. Clearly the emphasis can already be seen on the direct damage, as opposed to bleed damage, though both are being reduced. Swipe is also being reduced from 260% weapon damage, down to 250% weapon damage. My word! That’s a lot to cover. First though, let me give you some things to be happy for. One, because this is a base reduction to damage, calculated before applying Attack Power bonuses, it’s a lot less than it sounds. The better your gear, the less you will notice this. Secondly, because of the changes to Emblems, most of us soon will be in the category of having enough pure stats not to notice. Finally, only the last 2 ranks are affected by this, meaning that most levelling druids won’t be affected.

But there is some slightly bad news, at least if you are stacking armor penetration. See here’s why, if Shred damage is being reduced by 10% that is a base reduction of 96.525 per shred. That doesn’t mean it’s a straight 96 damage reduction, however, that would only be the case if the enemy had 0 armor. The amount of damage reduction the boss has before any armor penetration (but after faerie fire) would be roughly 29%, and with BiS Ulduar gear this will become roughly 16%. This means that a druid with the armor pen soft cap will lose about 13 points of damage more each Shred than a druid with no armor pen. OK, so not much of a loss. 68 damage per Shred, or 81 if you have 566 Armor Pen. Give or take a couple, since my numbers were rounded due to laziness. It’s going to be a few hundred DPS. We’re not worried about it. I did the numbers here just as a demonstration to see for myself how much it might affect armor penetration scaling. The answer was as I expected, the difference was negligible. A lot more of my damage is coming from Attack Power than from the base damage. In Perspective, my Shreds average 4053 each when they don’t crit, reduced by 81 it will still be pretty powerful.

Now that I’ve bored everyone with some numbers. Bottom line: don’t worry about your DPS. If it’s good, it will stay pretty good. If it’s bad, it will be worse but excellent gear will be just around the corner, so to speak.

Next up, feral tanking: I’m not going to dole out numbers on this, mostly because I’m lazy, but also because I have the legitimate excuse that, even though I am a tank, this is not primarily a tanking blog. Suffice to say that I am unhappy with the changes. I feel like bears are being forced into being mana sponges with their sub-par damage reduction and avoidance, and forced to go with their only tanking advantage: HP stacking. I don’t know what to say to that. It’s not and never has been my preferred style of tanking. I’m beginning to feel, in very nearly every practical encounter, less effective than my counterparts. That’s why, though people are largely agreeing that this reduction is smallish, “only” ~5% dodge.. I am bitter over getting yet another nerf. Druid tanks aren’t far from their counterparts, however they are enough less viable in encounters for prejudices against them to stick. I feel it.. and I think this was the last thing we need. Proof positive that I chose wisely in focusing on DPS when I came out of TBC, even though during TBC I was frequently tanking and enjoyed it immensely.

Posted in General Gameplay

So maybe you’ve been playing your druid for while, and been overwhelmed like many by the amount of timers to keep track of. Perhaps you’ve even experimented with addons that help watch these for you. You might have heard of an addon called Feralbynight and maybe you’re wondering if being suggested moves is a good way to go. It could be that you’ve heard it’s pretty good, but you’re still unsure about relying on code to make decisions for you. And rightly so, as you may guess sometimes there are situations that an addon can’t predict. Not so fast! Just because it can’t tell you everything, doesn’t mean it won’t be useful for you. And after hearing what other people have to say about these types of addons, it got me to thinking about what FeralByNight does, and doesn’t do, for me. I had a genuine realization that, the best part isn’t even that the addon makes the DPS cycle simple. The truth is, I have less to distract me. I’ve heard people argue that, with practice, you can keep make decisions for yourself that will increase DPS depending on circumstances the add-on isn’t aware of. And I won’t argue that there are times I might use a move suggested to me, then realize I shouldn’t have. This happens rarely enough that I don’t really worry about the DPS difference, quite honestly the reminders to use Tiger’s Fury and Berserk help me more than I could be hindered, as does reminders to refresh Rake. I also react more quickly with the add-on to reapply everything than I otherwise would. I view it as an overall DPS increase. But even this isn’t the most important thing to me. What makes the biggest difference, in my personal experience, is the sheer time I’m not spending watching timers go off and the focus I’m not using on fancy timer addons. I can shift my focus away from an otherwise complicated DPS cycle, and back to the fight mechanics. Ever died in a void zone because you were looking somewhere else? That’s what I’m talking about here. My reaction time to circumstances in the raid that require my attention is so much greater for using FeralByNight. So long as the DPS is similar to what it would be if I were engrossed in my timers, I view it as an excellent tool for raids, most especially those with elaborate raid mechanics. When I’m the bomb, I move immediately. I have time, I daresay, to notice the healers are struggling and throw out an innervate, or to barkskin/pot/heal. I just plain notice more as I am DPSing, enabling me to react better to every circumstance.

I also notice what FeralByNight misses, though I see fight specific modules in the works and I can only approve. FBN, first of all, often suggests Tiger’s Fury and Berserk. I rarely follow the Berserk suggestions because timing is so important on most bosses. On XT I wait for the heart to lay into it. And even if FBN started heeding this, if your raid is weak on heals, it’s better to use Berserk before the first heart phase. FBN can’t decide everything for you. I can tell it certainly tries to! What it can decide for you is when to Ferocious Bite, when to refresh DoTs and SR. My own experiments have found these suggestions to be very reliable, and an increase in DPS even if you know the rotations pretty well. Incorrect suggestions are frustrating, granted. And sometimes, FBN fails to suggest anything for a few seconds, listing no move or current move even with enough energy for one, meaning players must be able to react and decide on their own what to use. It doesn’t remove the need for the player to use their own judgement on things, and that’s an important distinction. Making the cycle easier, in no way removes the need for every feral to understand what their cycle is.

FeralByNight also comes with many optional and often unnecessary displays. It has a far too large OoC proc display. I watch this proc with EventAlert, so I have this disabled. Luckily, if desired, the options allow you to remove and resize everything. A good thing too, because right now these extras are not all that attractively displayed. Nightcrowler seems to have the start of some good ideas with many of the displays, but lacking in appearance and intuitiveness. I had to read the options menu to discover what quite a few did, at all.

Despite a couple of down sides, I believe the net worth is there, and is enough for any feral to give this Addon a serious try.

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Continuing my screenshots display, here’s a compilation of bearform screenies off the PTR. These are the all new models. As you’ll see, the old gaping jaw has been replaced by a toothy grin. It’s an improvement and I think quite funny. The variety of styles is disappointing here. I managed to get a comparison shot of the NE and Tauren white bear forms, they’re standing next to eachother. One thing you won’t notice easily is the size difference. The Tauren bear form is much bigger than NE! I also felt it was more attractive, not just for white but for every other type, too. Personally, I believe the NE cat model wins but the horde bear model hands down beat out the alliance one. So, without further ado, I give you the new bear form:

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