Feral Druids and Mastery in cataclysm

[enigmaran]

So I've been thinking about the idea of feral mastery and how it provides separate bonuses in bear and cat form, which left me with one major concern.

Will it cause bear tanks to get relegated back to the offtank role in progression raids since when they weren't taking in the middle of a fight they could go cat, get cat bonuses from the mastery on their gear and dps far more effectively than the other tanks?

Or...

will the new tank mastery ability allow tanks to keep up enough that the bear's gear would keep his damage on par with other tanks, even in cat form.

Just something to think about, I was wondering if anyone else had considered this.

[gollie]

your dps will still be bad since you will be in tankgear and tankspec. I think the difference will be that big from what it is today.

[Degrador]

In the world of dual specs most tanks have a viable offspec anyway. In theory feral tank gear is similar in stats to feral dps gear, however the gems & enchants are completely different so you still need different gear to do it properly.

I don't think the mastery stuff will have any impact on who you decide to have swap specs.

[enigmaran]

I'm not talking about swapping specs for different fights...

What I'm referring to is a fight where one of the tanks tanks an add for part of the fight, etc.

It seems to me that bear tanks might be forced to be the ones on the adds because they might be more effective dpsing the rest of the fight than other tanks. Just doing some thinking.

[Biznick]

I'm not talking about swapping specs for different fights...

What I'm referring to is a fight where one of the tanks tanks an add for part of the fight, etc.

It seems to me that bear tanks might be forced to be the ones on the adds because they might be more effective dpsing the rest of the fight than other tanks. Just doing some thinking.

They're already are more effective at DPSing than any other tank, aren't they?

I don't think there will be an obvious difference. Currently we have our tanks swap MT/OT depending on whichever will be more effective at doing the job. Whether we need a high stam tank, one with survivability, one that can provide good ranged aggro, it all just depends on the encounter; and I expect that it will stay that way.

[Kzasch]

In regards to your concern, I have a question.

Which is more important?:

A) The progression of the guild
or
B) Your own ego?

If your class is better then another class at performing a switch midfight and doing dps instead of tanking suddenly, how is that a bad thing? It seems to me that you would have a higher chance of getting a spot then some other tankingclass that's unable to do that.

[Degrador]

I'm not talking about swapping specs for different fights...

What I'm referring to is a fight where one of the tanks tanks an add for part of the fight, etc.

It seems to me that bear tanks might be forced to be the ones on the adds because they might be more effective dpsing the rest of the fight than other tanks. Just doing some thinking.

Firstly there are very few of these fights in most raids, and I doubt they'll add a lot more of them in Cataclysm.

Secondly, does it really matter for those few fights? If it actually was significant then it'd be an advantage to bears as they'd be more attractive to bring.

Edit: Just noticed Kzasch basically beat me to it...

[SirLancelittle]

I've been wondering the exact same thing. Currently bears and cats share a tree and, while there is a fair amount of overlap, bears don't do good dps in cat and cats can't tank because:

1) Bears have significantly different talents specs than cat (things like 12% dmg reduction, 10% armor)
2) Bears gear/gem/enchant differently (defense/stamina/agility instead of armor pen)


However, in cataclysm blizzard has repeatedly said they will remove a lot of the boring +% talents. And add more interesting choices. Does that mean a bear could spend all their "interesting" points in cat talents and end up with almost all the tanking/dps talents?

Also, blizzard has said they are removing armor penetration. This will probably make agility a cat's best stat. And blizzard also implied they are going to try to increase the focus on avoidance and decrease the focus on stamina. And guess what, agility is a bears best avoidance stat.

Now I'm not claiming that it will probably work out this way. I bet we will end up with more passive +% talents then blizzard initially implied we would have. And I bet you will still want to stack more stamina/defense in bear than in cat. But I'm also betting that bears tanks will be the best dps among tanks. Which probably means on the fights where one tank tanks some of the fight and dpses some of the fight, bears will be the OT/dps. However, I think that may be fewer fights then you think.

And as a druid, I don't see this as a bad thing. If I can get 2 specs for the price of one (tank/dps) then I am free to use my other spec for healing, or PvP, or whatever. And while some people enjoy being the "MAIN" tank, I think it can be more fun in many fights to be the OT/dps. You end up with more different interesting roles, where on many fights the MT just stands in one spot and gets beat on.

[littlepiggy]

However, in cataclysm blizzard has repeatedly said they will remove a lot of the boring +% talents. And add more interesting choices. Does that mean a bear could spend all their "interesting" points in cat talents and end up with almost all the tanking/dps talents?


Now I'm not claiming that it will probably work out this way. I bet we will end up with more passive +% talents then blizzard initially implied we would have.

I to would love to be able to get a hybrid spec that isn't gimped, but if they do it right it'll stay the same and there will be to many bear only talents to pick up i'm assuming. also with the addition to stampede and the kick (plus anything else they give us, that hasn't been released) we'll have more talents that both roles pick up, but won't help be a hybrid. my 2 cents

[Cortano]

The feral tree is WELL over-crowded. They have to pack DPS, Tanking, and PvP talents into the same tree. Not all talents are equally good, so it is also a great opportunity for cherry picking. If you start from the perspective of "all the important tank talents" + "pick up the highest impact PvE-Cat talents" ... there is a really good hybrid build in there.

Even so... with everyone having access to dual specs, giving up ANY DPS/survivability/threat will always be discouraged in progression raids. The ability to do two things with a feral spec will be of greatest value to trees... who can then do two additional things well, and still be 'best' in their raiding role.

[Deleted]

Firstly there are very few of these fights in most raids, and I doubt they'll add a lot more of them in Cataclysm.

Secondly, does it really matter for those few fights? If it actually was significant then it'd be an advantage to bears as they'd be more attractive to bring.

Edit: Just noticed Kzasch basically beat me to it...

Erm , it was significant when our guild tried festergut for the first few times and tll people had beter gear ^^
2 bears that can go kitty after switch and do 8-9k dps where the other tanks did way less , definitely helped on the enrage timer there ^^

[Degrador]

Erm , it was significant when our guild tried festergut for the first few times and tll people had beter gear ^^
2 bears that can go kitty after switch and do 8-9k dps where the other tanks did way less , definitely helped on the enrage timer there ^^

I'd still argue that there are few fights where off-tanks can spend a lot of time dpsing without their health & armor.

Besides, I even said it's an advantage for feral druids where the OP is arguing the reverse.

[dancm]

there is no special honor being the main tank. everybody in a raid has a role to fulfill. the better everybody is the more successful the raid will be. so it's an advantage if we can fulfill this special and probably rarely needed offtank role.

by the way... among all the tanks bears were and actually are the better dps. this probably won't change.

[Cortano]

by the way... among all the tanks bears were and actually are the better dps. this probably won't change.

Vengeance as a mechanic will raise other tank DPS; but it only works when tanks get hit. Overall, a feral with the ability to change to cat with damage that scales on gear will definitely outperform other tanks.

[Mortimer]

In regards to your concern, I have a question.

Which is more important?:

A) The progression of the guild
or
B) Your own ego?

Well duh... It's B. Silly Kzasch and his team spirit, amirite?

On topic, I'm curious to see what the Fearal tree is going to look like in Cataclysm now that Blizz is taking a runnning start and an axe to talents that say "You are 5/10/15% more awesome", and instead baking those talents into the mastery stat. Most of the pure bear talents have to do with passively increasing your survivability (12% armour, 6% dodge, damage reduction etc.) and that's exactly what will be going away, so it's going to be interesting to see what will define a cat or a bear talent. They've talked about adding utility, or changing spells and abilities through talents.

Edit: Woo! I dinged. Junior Member, bitches.

[rated]

Will it cause bear tanks to get relegated back to the offtank role in progression raids since when they weren't taking in the middle of a fight they could go cat, get cat bonuses from the mastery on their gear and dps far more effectively than the other tanks?

Currently all tanks are suited to be MT or OT. That wont change in cata.

[baconwing]

the feral tank in my guild has the same issue as the OP. did 10man sindragosa last night, and even though he was a champ about going cat form for the first 65% of the fight, being his RL friend, i could tell he was annoyed by it, and wanted to be the one taking breaths in front of her. now it was an obvious choice for us as a raid to get him to sit in cat form using bear gear and dps with us for the first part of the fight, because he could do signifigantly more dps than the paladin tank could trying to dps.

[Cheezee]

because he could do signifigantly more dps than the paladin tank could trying to dps.

Tell your pally to pick up a slow 1 hand dps weapon and he'll be about on par with a cat in stam gear & no cat talents/glyphs.