Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Stats for Tanking
A reader asked about stats for druid tanks, so here is my answer.
Back in the day, your main focus was to make sure your tank was uncrittable in melee. This was achieved through either a high defense rating or a high resilience rating. With Wrath, you get the 6% crit reduction by putting 3 points in the Survival of the Fittest talent. So of course, this talent would be your first requirement.
Armor
You want to try and get gear with high armor values as this probably provides the most mitigation for a druid tank. Once again, things have changed. As of Tuesday, the armor multiplier for bear form (this is what makes tanking possible) only affects leather or cloth armor. So high armor value rings and trinkets are no longer all that important. So focus on getting the basics, a good chest, leg, shoulder, and helm. When starting out at 80, there are two good options. Check out the Eviscerator items made through leatherworking. They are usually reasonably priced and are good blue starter items if you have been unable to find anything better at 80. The other good options for tanks is the Savage Gladiator's Sactuary PVP set. This can be obtained through arena or battlegrounds only. Very good armor, agility, and stamina values on all this gear.
Back in the day, your main focus was to make sure your tank was uncrittable in melee. This was achieved through either a high defense rating or a high resilience rating. With Wrath, you get the 6% crit reduction by putting 3 points in the Survival of the Fittest talent. So of course, this talent would be your first requirement.
Armor
You want to try and get gear with high armor values as this probably provides the most mitigation for a druid tank. Once again, things have changed. As of Tuesday, the armor multiplier for bear form (this is what makes tanking possible) only affects leather or cloth armor. So high armor value rings and trinkets are no longer all that important. So focus on getting the basics, a good chest, leg, shoulder, and helm. When starting out at 80, there are two good options. Check out the Eviscerator items made through leatherworking. They are usually reasonably priced and are good blue starter items if you have been unable to find anything better at 80. The other good options for tanks is the Savage Gladiator's Sactuary PVP set. This can be obtained through arena or battlegrounds only. Very good armor, agility, and stamina values on all this gear.
Before patch 3.0.8 my armor value was coming in around 22k to 25k depending on the gear I had on. After the patch, my armor is value in bear form is 30k.
Stamina
Stamina
This stat goes hand in hand with armor. Usually high stamina gear has high armor and vice versa. High stamina protects you against bosses that use a lot of magic. Basically it gives your healers a buffer against those high damage attacks. In Wrath I'm guessing a well geared druid tank will have around 30k health with just Mark of the Wild in bear form. Right now my health is at 27k in bear form with just Mark.
Agility
This is the next most important stat. It increases your dodge rating which of course increases your mitigation as any damage not taken is mitigated 100%. It also increases your chance to crit which increases your DPS. The more damage you can do, the better you can hold aggro against mobs. On most feral druid gear, you are gonna see high stamina and high agility values.
Dodge Rating
Sometimes instead of agility you will see dodge on gear. Since druids can't block or parry, dodging is the only way for us to avoid damage. I wouldn't say it is better than agility gear. But if an item has no agility but does have dodge, it may be very useful for a druid tank.
Attack Power (AP)
Attack power is one of the main determining factors in DPS. Generally, if gear has the other stats mentioned, it will also have attack power. When considering an item, AP should be secondary to damage mitigation.
Haste
Still looking into this. Probably more useful for cat druids. Will post on this as I learn more about it for druids.
Gear in General
The best gear for non hard core raiders can be attained by running heroics. Do your homework on what drops where and run those instances. Remember the PVP set is another option to get you started if you like PVP. Either method should get you ready for 10 man runs and the tiered raid gear.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Bear Tanking in Wrath
Wow Insider has this great post on Bear Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King. If you are a Bear tank you must read it. Lots of good information.
I had kind of guessed that the buff to Survival of the Fittest would make us uncrittable. So there is no need to get Defense or Resilience gear any more. That will be nice.
The big change will be to leather armor. No more leather items with extra armor. When patch 3.0 comes out, this will be a retroactive change. Yep, that's right retroactive. So all the gear you have now, it get its armor value reduced. This means that rings, staffs, trinkets, necklaces, anything with extra armor on it is gonna be much more important.
So if you don't have those items get em now. You have been warned. lol.
I had kind of guessed that the buff to Survival of the Fittest would make us uncrittable. So there is no need to get Defense or Resilience gear any more. That will be nice.
The big change will be to leather armor. No more leather items with extra armor. When patch 3.0 comes out, this will be a retroactive change. Yep, that's right retroactive. So all the gear you have now, it get its armor value reduced. This means that rings, staffs, trinkets, necklaces, anything with extra armor on it is gonna be much more important.
So if you don't have those items get em now. You have been warned. lol.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Real Reason Alliance Loses So Much in PVP
After much thought and play, I think I have finally figured out why the Alliance generally loses in battlegrounds other than Alerac Valley. It's the healing.
The last few days on my mage, I've noticed how rarely the alliance has any healers in a battleground while horde teams generally have 2 or 3 good ones. The combo of burst healing and burst damage is unstoppable in Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm. Over the last week playing against the horde, I've encountered numerous talented resto druids, priests, shamans, and holy paladins. While my alliance teams may have the occasional priest or paladin. Usually no healers at all.
As to why this is the situation? I don't have answer to that.
The last few days on my mage, I've noticed how rarely the alliance has any healers in a battleground while horde teams generally have 2 or 3 good ones. The combo of burst healing and burst damage is unstoppable in Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm. Over the last week playing against the horde, I've encountered numerous talented resto druids, priests, shamans, and holy paladins. While my alliance teams may have the occasional priest or paladin. Usually no healers at all.
As to why this is the situation? I don't have answer to that.
Feature Overload
Just another quick thought after my last post. I'm beginning to think that World or Warcraft is getting way too complicated. The developers keep adding more and more spells and abilities and I think it is ruining the game. On some classes there are hardly enough button bars to hold all the spells available. Does this really help the game? Does every class need a ranged attack? Every class a root? A stun?
Why not pally bubbles for all? I joke, but we are definitely headed that way. Mages can now frost block. Rogues have cloak of shadows. Will druids get a petrified tree spell?
I think a lot of this stuff came out of the fact that Warlock dots were overpowered in PVP. It would have been easier just to nerf the the dots.
Why not pally bubbles for all? I joke, but we are definitely headed that way. Mages can now frost block. Rogues have cloak of shadows. Will druids get a petrified tree spell?
I think a lot of this stuff came out of the fact that Warlock dots were overpowered in PVP. It would have been easier just to nerf the the dots.
Rogues are melee right?
I should explain. I just got my Mage to level 70 and I have been PVPing to get him some gear upgrades. Now I originally did a lot of twinking on this toon at level 29 and level 39. At that level, rogue and mage fights tend to be pretty even. Even if you were to beat a rogue, usually you would have to spend all your mana and would not have a lot of health left. But it would be a straight ranged vs melee fight. They are trying to close on you. You are trying to stay away from them.
But one abilitiy added to rogues really annoys me: Deadly Throw
As a mage, to win in a duel with melee, keeping distance on them is key. Deadly throw is a ranged ability that does 2 to 3k damage (at least that typically what I get hit for) and reduces my movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds. Plus it has a freaking 30 yard range! I'm sorry this is just ridiculous. I thought rogues are supposed to be a "melee" class? What does this have to do with melee? I understand melee clases need a way to pull mobs. But should warriors be able to use a bow like a hunter?
To add balance back to the game I think mages need an ability I would like to call, "ferocious blow". This ability will be an instant cast available every minute that does the damage of all your +dmg and the damage from your most powerful damage spell.
That way we can close in for the kill!!! ;-)
Between the stuns, poisons, blinds, and sprints, rogues should have no problem closing on clothies. Why do they need some sort of completely overpowered ranged ability? Please leave the melee classes melee and the ranged classes ranged.
As soon as I get Attilla geared up, I'm gonna get on my bear tank and go do some rogue hunting. That way they can feel my pain. :)
But one abilitiy added to rogues really annoys me: Deadly Throw
As a mage, to win in a duel with melee, keeping distance on them is key. Deadly throw is a ranged ability that does 2 to 3k damage (at least that typically what I get hit for) and reduces my movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds. Plus it has a freaking 30 yard range! I'm sorry this is just ridiculous. I thought rogues are supposed to be a "melee" class? What does this have to do with melee? I understand melee clases need a way to pull mobs. But should warriors be able to use a bow like a hunter?
To add balance back to the game I think mages need an ability I would like to call, "ferocious blow". This ability will be an instant cast available every minute that does the damage of all your +dmg and the damage from your most powerful damage spell.
That way we can close in for the kill!!! ;-)
Between the stuns, poisons, blinds, and sprints, rogues should have no problem closing on clothies. Why do they need some sort of completely overpowered ranged ability? Please leave the melee classes melee and the ranged classes ranged.
As soon as I get Attilla geared up, I'm gonna get on my bear tank and go do some rogue hunting. That way they can feel my pain. :)
Friday, March 28, 2008
Itemization for 20-58 Needs Updating
This is an open post to Blizzard, in case anyone out there is listening. A month or two ago I finished leveling a Mage to 70 and right now I am working on getting a Priest to 70 (he's at 52). Here is the problem, since there are so few players between 20-58 now, it is VERY difficult to get equipment. I'm talking trash greens here, not blue or purple gear.
Back in the day, if you were at 45 and you still had level 25 gloves, you could always buy something. Not anymore. I have been trying to find a green dagger for my priest for 2 weeks. Other than level 40 blue items going for 50G each, there is nothing on the AH. Nothing!!!! I'm having to use a rogue dagger that dropped for me off a mob.
The old world quests need to be more in line with the BC quests. You should always be getting a steady stream of reasonably good green items, with the occasion blue. Since you can't buy gear, this would go a long way to solving the problem.
Back in the day, if you were at 45 and you still had level 25 gloves, you could always buy something. Not anymore. I have been trying to find a green dagger for my priest for 2 weeks. Other than level 40 blue items going for 50G each, there is nothing on the AH. Nothing!!!! I'm having to use a rogue dagger that dropped for me off a mob.
The old world quests need to be more in line with the BC quests. You should always be getting a steady stream of reasonably good green items, with the occasion blue. Since you can't buy gear, this would go a long way to solving the problem.
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