[MoP Bear] Guardian Druid MoP Discussion Thread

[Elunedra]

1. yes the haste and crit buffs are still active

2. read 3 posts higher.....

3. dunno but asfar as i readed up i gues it will be Dodge = Mastery > Crit > Hit /Exp > Haste

[Hinalover]

Based on my testing in Rawr, Hit/Exp may at the start of the expansion be top spot but will decrease in value as the expansion goes on. The reasoning is that from a pure mitigation standpoint, you want to keep SD up as much as possible. To do that you need the rage to generate SD as often as possible. Just to proc SD every 9 seconds, you need 6.667 RPS. However in Heroic Dungeon gear, there is just not enough stats, particularly in the Crit department, to generate enough Rage on it's own. So in most likelyhood, in full 463, you will be hit/exp capped > Crit > Dodge > Mastery

In 483 PvP gear, however you have enough crit to work with getting to that 6.667 RPS threshold sooner, so Hit > exp go down in value (more exp then hit). In this case I have Dodge > Mastery > Crit > Exp > Hit > Haste. The reasoning behind Exp over hit is that in this gear set, I'm currently sitting at 6.9% Hit and 6.4% Exp, so Hit is almost at cap and not as needed.

One change of note. At least in the 483 pvp gear set, straight Dodge gemming maybe the thing to go with at this early stage of the expansion. Maybe a few Dodge/Exp gems thrown in so that you can reach that 6.667 RPS threshold but that is currently about it. I think the reasoning behind this is that Agility gems only provide 160 Agility while Dodge gems provides 320 Dodge Rating (Dodge/Exp = 160 Dodge Rating / 160 Exp rating; Exp gems = red gems). Considering you need 885 Dodge Rating = 1% Pre-DR Dodge, while you currently need 951.158596 Agility = 1% Pre-DR Dodge. Meaning for 1 Dodge gem = 0.36% Pre-DR Dodge while 1 Agility gem = 0.168% Pre-DR Dodge. Thus in this case Dodge gems provide more overall dodge than Agility gems do.

Now you maybe saying "Hasn't this been always the case?" Well, yea it has. Main difference is that they are increasing the value of secondary stats on gems. In Cata, A crit gem provided 40 crit rating, while agi gems provided 40 Agi. In MoP an Agi gem provides 160 Agi while a Crit gem provides 320 Crit rating.

I'm in the process of adding in Tier 14 gear right now so that I can test with LFR, normal, and Heroic gear sets.

One last point before I head out to work, Tier gear will not be available at the start of the expansion. Tier tokens only drop the last three bosses from Heart of Fear and last two bosses in Terrance of Endless Spring. This means Tier tokens will not be available until a month after the expansion hits.

[aggixx]

@hina oke thanks for the information but 2 build from now? isnt that like at the release of MoP

If you're wondering, two builds should probably be about a week.

[Elunedra]

but how will this new exp mechenic work? does it mean we need to hardcap it to boost our RPS?
and how far is dodge above mastery?
from a pure damage taken point of vieuw dodge might beter, but if we already have like > 66% dodge whit SD so we only take about 1 hit every 3 hits wont it better to reduce the damage of that hit rather then dodgeing even more, as it will be more stable for healers to heal to heal i gues?

[aggixx]

That's what some people have been thinking yeah. Dodge is clear ahead of Mastery in damage reduction, but it's a small enough difference that some people are leaning towards mastery stacking for the Effective HP gain.

[Hinalover]

Hit and Expertise work the same it does on live. You generate rage from non-dodge, non-parried, non-missed mangles and white attacks. Less dodged, parried, or missed mangles means more Rage that gets generated. However you also have to factor in Crit which adds 15 additional Rage every time you crit, and haste for increased number of white attacks generated.

Besides Heroic Dungeon gear, it's not NEEDED to cap hit and exp, but having more of it does help in that it allows you to FR and/or Maul (not as likely) more.

[Elunedra]

Yeh oke ill have to see during mop what todo

[Arielle]

The reasoning behind Exp over hit is that in this gear set, I'm currently sitting at 6.9% Hit and 6.4% Exp, so Hit is almost at cap and not as needed.

This doesn't make sense. They should have identical values unless one or the other is capped (7.5% for Hit, 15% for Exp). They perform exactly the same function.

[Elunedra]

This doesn't make sense. They should have identical values unless one or the other is capped (7.5% for Hit, 15% for Exp). They perform exactly the same function.

hmm yeh this is tru

[exochaft]

Well, this new Vengeance change coming down the pipeline should be interesting. For those that haven't read it yet (since it's not on the front of MMO-C yet):
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...?page=186#3701
Of course, I'm expecting damage output to be a huge mess once it's implement, hopefully no knee-jerk damage adjustments.

Although, after reading through the post, it was still unclear: is damage based off of the completely unmitigated hit? I know they said before block/absorb/etc, but they said nothing about armor. Just thinking ahead in case it has adverse affects on druids and our armor Mastery. There would be irony that our passive mitigation actually hurts us in terms of Vengeance.

[Elunedra]

but they said nothing about armor. Just thinking ahead in case it has adverse affects on druids and our armor Mastery. There would be irony that our passive mitigation actually hurts us in terms of Vengeance.

lol nicely spotted, this can indeed turn out bad.

i dont realy see how this new vegence is beer or wurse tbh, i see is sclaes over 20 secodns but what that woud mean? i dont get it, and doesnt vegence drop whn you attack with say mangle ?

[Arielle]

I'm betting it's after a mitigated hit, but before extra mechanics like absorbs, block, etc.

Otherwise we'd be gaining 15k AP per hit on normal T14 bosses.

[Jitters]

lol nicely spotted, this can indeed turn out bad.

i dont realy see how this new vegence is beer or wurse tbh, i see is sclaes over 20 secodns but what that woud mean? i dont get it, and doesnt vegence drop whn you attack with say mangle ?

It means there is no cap on it like there is now(10% of hp before buffs). The harder you are being hit the higher it can go which means it will scale better than just being our HP. If a boss is hitting you for 120k per hit you will have twice as much than if you were being hit for 60k. This means higher Vengeance the stronger the boss, especially in 25 man. The higher your Vengeance goes the more appealing Frenzied Regen becomes. And the only time vengeance falls is if you switch to cat form or stop being attacked.

[exochaft]

I'm betting it's after a mitigated hit, but before extra mechanics like absorbs, block, etc.

Otherwise we'd be gaining 15k AP per hit on normal T14 bosses.

I was betting the same thing, I'm just hoping it doesn't adversely affect class tanking balance to the point where our armor is a "hindrance". I don't think Blizz could tell the difference between pre- and post-mastery armor reduction for druids in order to put Vengeance on an even ground for everyone. I just get one of those sneaking suspicions when the same formula is used for FR for druids and Shield Barrier for warriors, when our Vengeance totals are likely going to be much different due to higher passive mitigation of druid tanks.

As Jitters was saying, this will likely make FR scale better to the situation we're in. If you want to take an extreme case as on the beta currently, FR feels very underwhelming even if you're getting pummeled to death... but with the new model, FR should always scale at an appropriate level to the damage we take. We just have to be on the ball in case Blizz forgets to factor in druid passive mitigation.

[Hinalover]

This doesn't make sense. They should have identical values unless one or the other is capped (7.5% for Hit, 15% for Exp). They perform exactly the same function.

After making the change to Vengence, and doing a quick model on how it works, it did fix this. So the extra exp issue was part of the original modeling of vengence.

[Arielle]

As Jitters was saying, this will likely make FR scale better to the situation we're in. If you want to take an extreme case as on the beta currently, FR feels very underwhelming even if you're getting pummeled to death... but with the new model, FR should always scale at an appropriate level to the damage we take. We just have to be on the ball in case Blizz forgets to factor in druid passive mitigation.

It should be more appropriate for dealing with damage we can't Dodge anyway, you're right.

[exochaft]

And yet another Vengeance change... well, it's in line with my original concern with Guardians and our armor Mastery: Vengeance will now be calculated using unmitigated attack damage, aka pre-armor and passive damage reductions. Of course, they need to reduce the amount of Vengeance gained since the number will be much larger, so the amount is reduced from 5% to 2%.

[Deleted]

The new vengence is SO op for tanks atm, got 125k on a normal 25man boss, and FR heal for 310k. but ofc there was no aoe in the fight and when there was tankswap i lost it after 20sec :[. wonder how high it can get 25man hc lateron?

[Elunedra]

i am not sure if the build whit the SD fix is live yet?

i did notice a chance in behavoir but its still broken and now its even harder to tell what is going wrong
i did managhe to get it up to 14 secs once so the hard limit of 12 secs is gone

however useing 2x fast after each toher seems to make the 2nd one only add 2 seconds rather then 6 or sometimes it does not seem to add or remove any seconds, just use up a charce

[Kelimbror]

Reading the updates to this thread gives me no hope for being a Bear tank in Mists. I understand the reasoning for wanting active tanking, but I don't want to be doing math and watching 100 extra timer bars while trying to tank. I want to go back to tanking in TBC where you stack stam, focus on specific threat generation/trading threat with tanks on non tauntable bosses, and moving/positioning like you are supposed to.

Fire add tanking on Illidan was challenging where I had to look at the game to know what to do, not stare at bars to make sure I was maximizing my damage reduction uptimes. This is a terribly sad day for bears everywhere.