Pimp My Bear! The Saga Continues!

[stoneybalogna]

Hey everyone! So less than a week ago I posted a topic called "Pimp My Boomkin", and thanks to all of your wonderful input I went from being nubsauce to pwnsauce in 2 days. Thank you all for that, and since your all so informed Im going to be a patron of this website and see if I can request your help once more! (I might even come back for cat / tree specs as well ^_^) Once again, feel free to be harsh and rude on my speccing or arguments so I can learn!

BEAR EDITION

Alright, I have noticed there isn't much variation in the speccing of feral tanks. From what I understand pretty much you either spend your points on wasteful talents like master/natural shapeshifter, King of the Jungle, Primal Tenacity, or Feral Aggression, or not so wasteful talents like Improved Mangle, rend and tear, and infected wounds. These wasteful talents all require a pretty big investment for a not so great effect as far as tanking is concerned. Master/Natural shifter seems a dps talent to me as well as king of the jungle. Feral aggression seems like it would be worth your time as demoralizing roar is quite useful, but in fact for 5 talent points (and im sure no ones gonna argue with me here) this crap is wack status. Primal Tenacity I can see applications in raiding, obviously if they decide to put any bosses in T8 or T9 with heavy fear abilities this will probably come into play alot. It is not to mention it reduces damage while stunned up to 10% per talent point which i can see also being useful if they put any raid bosses in with stun abilities. I always had a hard time getting rid of this because it seemed so feasable, but I have come to realize our current content really does not challenge us that much! LOL Soooo, with the talent spec being (from my understanding) clear as day, I have found the complications not to be in talent speccing, but choosing gear correctley for avoidance.

Heres my spec incase I get owned, wowarmory is slow as balls as usual so it might show my boomkin spec right now (My Feral Spec is 60/11):

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...27zhul&n=Wansa

What I know:
Dodge rating gems add less dodge than the agility gems that could go in the same slot.
Dodge rating is subject to diminishing returns at some point.
Defense Rating, all though feral tanks do not need it, does help with dodge and may need to be stacked if all other avoidance stats have reached their max. (Im not sure about this.)
Expertise and Hit are both needed in some balance, but what that balance is I have no friggin clue.

So here are my questions:

A: At what point does dodge rating become effected by diminishing returns? and even after that point, at what point does the dodge rating return become low enough to not care about dodge anymore?

B: At what point, if any, does having defense rating become important?

C: Whats the cap on expertise?

D: How do I balance my mix of expertise and hit rating?

E: Is Stam > Agility > Dodge > Expertise > Hit > Def Correct?

[Spiritus]

Hey Stoney, I posted on your "Pimp my boomkin" post and I think you have similiar intentions as I do. When dual specs come out I will moste likely be headed for Boomkin and Feral Tank.

First off, I'll tell you what I know/think. I am not nearly as knowledgeable about feral tanks as I am at boomkins. In fact, I suck at tanking heroics. I am however good at tanking 10/25 man and solo boss' (I fail at fights requiring me to maintain AoE threat behind me).

Here's the spec I generally go by: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

The point in King of the Jungle can be switched to Feral Charge depending on preferance.

A. To the best of my knowledge, and this answer is not based on fact but out of referance, I was told that you should not push your % chance to dodge over 60. You should never itemize for anything but agility in relation to your chance to dodge.

B. Defense rating is not important. My stance on this is a tad novice. I trust the guides that I have read that tell me I do not require any defense thanks to SotF ... however I will tell you I have combat log SS that prove I have been crit'ed on multiple occasions.

C. I believe 6% is the cap. However the expertise you require is minimal after talents.

D. Exptertise > Hit for a tank always. There are a few boss' out there that if you get parried/dodged/blocked you will get instantly and unavoidable struck.

E. Pretty sure you switch the Stam and Agil. Looks more like Agility > Stam > Expertise > Hit ... as for Dodge and Def. You can't really compare a sub-stat to a primary stat. Dodge is necessary but itemize for agility to recieve it. Same with defense. The posts I read, by the time Defense and Dodge rating become higher to itemize, you should not need anymore damage mitigation.

[elapadrinar]

C. 6.5% for dodge ~26expertise, 13% for parry ~ 52expertise
E. Agility>>stam>expertise>hit>dodge
after 3.1 it will be more like this:
agility>>>stam>expertise>ap>hit>crit>dodge

[arel00]

A: At what point does dodge rating become effected by diminishing returns? and even after that point, at what point does the dodge rating return become low enough to not care about dodge anymore?

Diminishing returns immediately affect you avoidance. Thing is, it's a scaling curve, like armor. If you're at 30% dodge, you'll need more agility to go up to 31%, than at 10% dodge to go up to 11%.
Said this, here's the facts: the best stat to get dodge from it's agility. It beats not only defense (obviously) but also dodge rating, due to SotF and Kings modifiers. Thus, getting agility is the way to go to improve your avoidance. Until when? Well, there is a turning point, what we usually call the "dodge cap". Mind you, it doesn't mean dodge stop increasing, just that it takes shitloads of stats to improve it. Currently, this is at 51-52% dodge *after* the DR. It takes around 2-2,1k agility to get there, so it's way beyond the current gear. Until that point, stacking agility is a good idea.

B: At what point, if any, does having defense rating become important?

Defense rating always helps. It becomes important aftet the mentioned "dodge cap". At that point, defense will overcome agility, *not* because of its addition to dodge, but because it adds to your chance to be missed, which is on a different DR curve than dodge. This said, don't gem for defense, but know that you'll still make use of the rating you find on tank jewelry - even a 1% miss is an extra 1% avoidance, it always helps.

C: Whats the cap on expertise?

Dodge cap is 6,5%, parry cap is 13% (elapadrinar is correct here)

D: How do I balance my mix of expertise and hit rating?

You generally don't. Expertise is far better than hit rating for a tank. Until the dodge cap, it's worth twice as much when it comes to landing a strike. After that, even if they're worth equally on such a chance, expertise reduces parries, not misses. And parries mean more boss attacks, due to consequent increased speed. Down to it, tank gear usually comes with experitse more easiliy than hit. If you find hit con some items, then good. But don't go looking for +hit on purpose, it can be tricky because many times it's on a dps items, with low stamina / haste or less useful stats. Don't gem for any of the two. Gem for agility (or stamina if you need it *very* badly).

E: Is Stam > Agility > Dodge > Expertise > Hit > Def Correct?

At the present time: Agility > Stamina > Experitse > Hit > Dodge > Defense.

[Alski]

/agrees with arel00

[Hosebee]

In regards to the spec - There are very few times in a raid that you are stunned or feared and you shouldn't be shifting enough to run out of mana as a bear thus Primal Tenacity is rather useless. King of the Jungle is essentially a cat talent, if you are enraging and attacking mobs you are running a rather scary slope (after 3.1 this should be even more evident) thus that point is rather unnecessary also. Personally my guild always runs with a warrior to keep up thunderclap so I don't need to spec into Infected wounds and with those extra points I pick up Master Shapeshifter for the extra DPS/TPS and feral charge in those cases where I do happen to lose a mob or must get someplace fast (ie KT).


Other points - the point where defense becomes better than dodge is ~52%. With the new Savage Defense coming crit will become more important that it once was. That would mean that Imp LotP will become more important also.