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Q u o t e:


Hi. Where you around for BC? It wasn't very fun times. Badge of Tenacity. Ring of the Violet Protector. Manimal's Cinch. Earthwarden.

Do these ring a bell?

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items you had to work towards to progress onwards. seems fair, fun and logical.

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Q u o t e:


items you had to work towards to progress onwards. seems fair, fun and logical.

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Seriously, I do not understand how some people think choosing between crappy items is worse than striving for good ones.

I leveled Enchanting solely for SHotM way back - and I was ecstatic to be able to get an item that good.

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Q u o t e:


items you had to work towards to progress onwards. seems fair, fun and logical.

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The point is progression mostly stops with those items which are found in T4 or earlier. There were two upgrades to the Earthwarden. But both made bad use of their item budgets, the higher level one botched so badly that the T5 staff was better. There was NO upgrade to the Kara ring. There were only sidegrades to the Badge of Tenacity, a blue AH trinket.

Nobody is all that bothered by having one stat because it's not fun. If that were true, ferals would have been up in arms about agility being the exclusive king of dps in TBC. What sucks about having one stat is gear upgrades don't really happen, or when they do, they're so ridiculously linear that it's no fun. A tank will see a new plate chest, get really excited and roll on it, then regem/enchant/tweak his gear in every which way to stay defense capped/high shield block rating/whatever else. That much change for a different piece. And it seems fun to actually get excited about a piece of gear for tanking--"man, that's a LOT of block on that neck. But I need to mess around with my gear if I'm going to replace this neck I JUST GOT from this other boss."

We're not really going to have sidegrades like other tanks do from tier to tier. We'll have one piece that is the obvious king of gear in that raid for each slot, no theorycrafting about it versus other pieces. And that sucks.

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Q u o t e:



The goal was not to make you ignore +armor trinkets. The goal was that a bear lacking those trinkets wouldn't be at such a disadvantage. We would rather you use a new level 80 trinket with a little bit of wasted block on it than a blue trinket from level 62 or something with silly amounts of armor.

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I challenge someone to show me a trinket that I'd tank with as a bear besides Offering of Sacrifice, Defender's Code, Valor Medal of the Third War, or Essence of Gossamar. Not counting the 75 Alchemist's stone. I didn't find any in the beta, and I really doubt there is anything that's useful for us outside of those. Even doubt there's any other trinkets that top what we're wearing from TBC, honestly. The mindset of wasted block is kinda okay for deathknights, 'cause everything they roll on with block has other great stats for them, too. But when we roll on something with block, there's a 100% chance that it's also got either defense or parry on it, and I don't give half a weasel's toe about either of those.

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Q u o t e:


The point is progression mostly stops with those items which are found in T4 or earlier. There were two upgrades to the Earthwarden. But both made bad use of their item budgets, the higher level one botched so badly that the T5 staff was better. There was NO upgrade to the Kara ring. There were only sidegrades to the Badge of Tenacity, a blue AH trinket.

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That is an issue with them not itemizing properly - not the old system of gearing being flawed. The CHOSE not to put those items in, period.

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Q u o t e:


That is an issue with them not itemizing properly - not the old system of gearing being flawed. The CHOSE not to put those items in, period.

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Just like they're not choosing to put in items that would be beneficial to us.

What's the difference?

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Q u o t e:

Not sure what you're trying to prove here. As a prot warrior some of the pally healing gear hasn't looked too terrible, due to the huge amounts of stam on everything :). That doesn't mean it isn't a terrible idea to deck yourself out in healing gear.

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Here let's test that theory. This time we'll compare the pally Naxx 10 healing helm (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39628) to a tanking blue (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37633). The pally helm has 26 less stamina, 96 less block value (from the Str), and about 2% less avoidance (spread evenly to minimize the DR) from defense. You'd rightfully be an idiot to try to tank in healing plate.

But because druid gear already wastes so many stats on offense, the mistake of tanking in healing leather yields less than half as severe a penalty. Most of the value comes from the armor value which is predetermined by item level, and stamina that everything has regardless of intended role. So there's still no intelligent choices to gearing a druid. The armor change brings the value of armor down to where everything else is, but everything else wasn't that good to begin with.

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Q u o t e:

Just like they're not choosing to put in items that would be beneficial to us.

What's the difference?

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The fact that we had good items at some point. If we didnt upgrade, at least we had well itemized gear SOMEWHERE.

This is how it feels to me:

I love feral druid, I will always be a feral druid. I wont stoop to the level of saying such stupid things as "if you dont do this or that, I will quit/not play feral/switch to another class", because I wont - I like feral. It epitomizes druid for me.

The problem is that the model you work with says to me that you cant be bothered working out a system to make feral more interesting, nor can you be bothered doing the work to itemize properly for feral. We say we "need" other stats to factor in feral tanking because currently it is far too simple and one track, and you throw it back in our faces by saying that it is not a need but a desire. Ok fine, it is a desire, but it is a desire to have fun in a computer game. Nobody technically NEEDS _anything_ in WoW, you could have all 10 classes running around naked and balance the game around that, but we say we need the system to be different because currently you are dumbing our experience down.

Are there any other classes in the game that you intend to make choose between gear sets that are far less than optimal for their class because they have no other options? Then dont do it to us. We aren't dps, and we aren't warriors. We are feral druids, and we need items to strive for that don't make us feel like we are taking someone else's gear out of their hands because we dont have any of our own. We either NEED (ie. desire in the context of a video game) gear that represents our class, or we NEED mechanics that make said dps/warrior gear desirable for us as well.

My favorite is even though those items were within the item budget they wre going to nerf them. Yah thanks blizzard make a class so dependent on one stat make the item for that one stat and then nerf it because its too good.

thumbs up to you!

I would say edited for first but that would be counter productive. Do you honestly think its fun to be using rogue gear to tank when that gear does almost nothing for tanking? The only way this would be any fun is if you redesigned threat to be completely damage based and made it so all tanks had to use dps gear to maintain threat. Do you see what i did there. Why even have tank gear at all? Just make warriors, pallys, and death knights use dps plate.

Can you please explain why you want druids to scale with only two stats?
I feel I could be in a good enough state to tank 25 mans wearing full green "of the monkey" because my talents give me everything I need to tank. Druids don't have anything to look forward to in gearing.

of course you would have to give them all a strenght to mitigation talent. Oh wait dont they all have that, so why is it so hard to give us a strenght to mitigation talent.


btw dont think we dont appreciate that you are posting on theese forums on a saturday at avery early time for your area.

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Q u o t e:
I agree there is too much QQ, [...]

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I would have hoped for a little better. The tactic of trying to paint something as "QQ" is a kindergarten-level attempt to dismiss disagreement without having to bother with reasoned discussion or logic. It's used far too often in these environs, and that anyone takes it seriously is boggling.

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Q u o t e:
[...] and too much "you're doing it wrong."

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Might have something to do with people thinking you're doing it wrong...

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Q u o t e:
We are concerned about the numbers not working out or you not having fun. Those are totally legit responses and the kinds of things we are interested in.

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This would seem to be contradicted by your previous statements. Unless you're suggesting that people aren't saying why they feel you're doing it wrong, in which case I have to assume we're reading different threads and never the twain shall meet.

In any event, thanks for the clarification on how exactly the change will work.

Ghostcrawler,

Before you get drowned in this flood of negativity, I'd like to add some perspective here.

Thank you for trying to address the concerns of our class, we do appreciate your work. You've done wonderful things for balance druids in the expansion making them finally viable in raids (and close to viable in arenas). Resto tree is in great shape, it's 100% raid-viable and really fun too (and we all know about resto druids in arenas).

You've also done very good things for kitty dps, the raw damage is very good now and maybe, just maybe we'll finally scale in this expansion with Savage Roar (please don't forget to "give it the Dash treatment" so SR doesn't get lost when we shift out to innervate a healer or shift out of a snare).

Regarding bears: we appreciate what you're trying to do. The changes you're making will be good for the casual player tanking heroics and occasionally running Naxx. That's probably 90% of players out there, you're doing very good things for them -- but by their very nature, casuals won't be posting much here. The outcry is coming from your most dedicated bears, the progression raiding types, and they have a very legitimate problem with these changes.

The problem you are trying to solve is lack of itemization and that is a very valid issue. Gearing up one's character is a big part of the fun factor of the game. That fun was missing when the main upgrade in all of T5 was a trash-drop in SSC (and for kitties 2pT4 bonus was so good we kept it all the way through T6). That fun was missing in ZA which had zero gear for bears. That fun was missing when the one feral staff in Hyjal turned out to be worse than the T5 trash-drop for tanking boss fights. Showing up in Sunwell with a blue trinket bought on the AH ages ago and wearing a Kara ring wasn't great, no.

But now you're taking away the last few items of upgrades we actually had to look forward to. What we now can look forward to is a lots of "meh" items with wasted stats that warriors/pallies/DKs/rogues/etc. can make better use of. Rolling on items with Block? Warrior and pallies will have a legitimate argument that they should get priority because they get more benefit. Items with parry? Warrior and DKs will get priority. Rogue items with lots of +hit and +haste? Rogues should get them first because they benefit from haste and hit far more than druids. Finally an item with lots of dodge drops? Guess what, all those warriors, pallies, and DKs will *still* roll on it where as previously they would give us items with +armor.

The future we see is a world of endless sidegrades except for changes in base armor when going to next iLvl, with druids being the last in line to roll on anything. How is that more fun than scrounging the one *really* good item for us? The old system wasn't great but the new system isn't great either.

If you want us to use rogue leather, please give us scaling stats that benefit from rogue stats so we can look forward to upgrades (no CD on iLotP, for instance, is a very creative way to make us benefit from haste; AP or crit converting into mitigation is another). If you want us to look forward to using warrior/pally/DK jewelry, give us something that benefits from it, like bear parry or *something*.

This is a game we play for fun and people posting on these forums obviously care deeply about their characters and their class. We are asking for our gear choices to be fun, not just "viable", and feel like we're progressing, not getting hand-me-downs from warriors/pallies/rogues.

We're asking for feral gearing to be *fun*.

Basically, if this change goes through, you need to design rings, necklaces, and trinkets actually designed for druids.

The accessories with:
+armor/stam/STR/Defense are not designed for druids. They are designed for warriors and deathknights.

the accessories with:
+agi/stam/AP is not designed for druid tanking, because the stam on those damage-dealer rings is not high enough to give us the stamina we need to survive getting hit harder without the +armor rings.

Lets take Gatekeeper:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40370
Armor, stam, str, dodge, hit. Actually not too bad of a combination of stats for druids, but not ideal stats either. This has 84 stamina.

Compared to: Strong-handed ring
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40074
Agi, stam, hit, haste, AP. This has an equal item level, both drop out of Naxx. This has 48 stamina. We're going to trade armor, stam, and dodge rating for... a small amount of agility, and smaller amounts of stam, and a bunch of DPS stats? NOT even an option.

Signet of the Impregnable Fortress:
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40718
Str, Stam, defense, hit, expertise. This would be one of the tanking rings available. It has the same item level, and the same 84 stamina as the Gatekeeper. However, pretty much every other stat is wasted. NOT AN OPTION.

None of these "options" are necessarily even really upgrades over the "Ring of the stalwart protector" that is a level 70 badge of justice vendor reward. We could just keep the level 70 vendor ring, that just has armor, stamina, and dodge until we can get the keystone ring and/or Gatekeeper.

Where are our options? It's pretty much "pick up the +armor items, or go home"

Not having stats that are designed for tanking means that we'll take more damage. Not having enough options for accessories to pick up is STILL a problem, and becomes a WORSE problem once we benefit less from the +armor. We didn't get more options, we got less options, because now we actually have to care about what other stats are on those +armor items.

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Q u o t e:
Also note this is a reasonable buff for PvP, since you typically don't wear a bunch of +armor trinkets in those situations.

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This might be true for ferals, but several moonkins used items like Seal of Danzalar (I myself also used a tank 390 armor cloak and the tanking violet signet pretty frequently, I also switched to the Wildfury greatstaff when focused to try to mitigate some damage and melee some mana back) to try and mitigate the ridiculous damage melee was doing during the final seasons.
We used to sit at about 60% mitigation (usually more with all the items I listed above), now we have gotten several nerfs to our armor in PvP.
1- No more bonus armor in PvP gear
2- Moonkin armor modifier nerf
3- This one

I know you are ignoring my question, but this is seriously an honest concern (about this particular change, so it is not offtopic) that has been bothering me since the very first PvP armor anouncement, especially knowing that melee scales so insanely well that you had to buff the armor on PvE bosses.
Having the option to get several items that would be "wierd" on a caster and get effective results really made the game so much more fun for me.

Deliverance at the EJ forums says we don't have enough info to see how druids will perform past Tier-7, so they can't crunch those numbers... and the maintankadin post on one of the other threads still looks like he may not be using quite the right info (doesn't even have base stats, etc).


And running those numbers is the only counter argument the devs want to hear.... So, unless you can crunch the numbers, I guess it's time to give up for now.

So, you may as well just pack up and wait until the long winter is over, because the devs are set and have already made up their minds, and there's nothing we can say to un-make them up. The "fun" factor doesn't work. Lack of scaling problems (without numbers) won't work. They don't seem to care if we're actually itemized or not (because we're still not). I know they care, but caring and doing something about it are two different things. If you don't like it, try to figure out the math or go reroll death knight while you still can.

Doesn't matter if the change hurts moonkin PvP. Doesn't matter if it hurts all druids for high-end raid content, because we're not there yet, and we're not supposed to look into the future of the class. The only thing that matters is that it's a buff to people wearing level 80 blues and level 70 gear for tanking Naxx-level content. What matters is how it helps druids in level 70 items before they've actually tried to gear up. So, we can now just stay in those level 70 items longer because there's no point in grabbing a 50 to 100 armor difference ring that still has defense on it, and nothing else is that much better than the level 70 items we already have, until we get those "hard to reach" items. So, you can sit back, relax, and stay under geared while you work towards your defender's code. Sounds like fun to me... Whatever.

We might be fine after this change, and if we are, then there's no point of arguing - and we can't prove otherwise, so why bother? Doesn't matter if we actually have upgrades or not. What matters is numbers.

I give up.

This is so theme appropriate.
http://www.thenoobcomic.com/headquarters/comics/00329.jpg
Just that druids are seeing the opposite.

All flaming aside, GC, the community has many times over given you our opinion and the numbers we can given the limited information that Blizz is giving us. How can we refute or discuss your information if we have to guess at it the entire time. Give us all of the numbers you are seeing in your testing so that we can verity and extrapolate from what we are seeing. We don't have anywhere near the tools you have at your disposal and yet the community is making better arguments with more real numbers than Blizz.

I really think druids just need a redesign from the ground up so that we all use 1 or 2 sets of gear effectively. Not the point where we are now where there is only 2 sets available and we have to deal with it even though ROUGE gear sucks for TANKS.

Dear GC,

I would like to remain constructive, because I am sure you just skim over all the QQ Hate Mail as you are sick to death of it.

However, as many of the Feral tanks have already said, this is very troubling, because we feel like we STILL HAVE NO GEAR OPTIONS. In other words, we still have very little choice of how to gear to be the best feral tank we can.

For example, take the trinket slot. The argument was, armor is too important, so all feral tanks MUST have Defender's Code because it is so powerful. Well, that was true, but... guess what: unless I missed something, there are only TWO other trinkets in the game that I really want now:

Darkmoon Card: Greatness (90 agility plus agility proc): http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44253
Essence of Gossamer (111 Stam plus mitigation proc): http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37220

One of these is a BLUE (RARE) item. Looks like I will be wearing a blue trinket for a long time.. again. Now maybe there are better items yet to come, fine. Maybe i missed an item, or perhaps my analysis of the optimal feral tanking trinket is 100% spot on, I am sure Toskk (if he hasnt given up his feral tank lol) or someone else can point us in the right direction. I am sure if Defender's Code drops I will still roll on it, its still a very nice item.

But the point is... this whole change only makes an AWESOME item much less awesome, and we STILL have few other viable gear choices.

GC, you said you ARE concerned if your players (customers) are not having fun. Well, like many others have said, this complete lack of itemization and gear choices for my favorite toon does NOT feel fun.

Please help us :)

Sincerely,
A Furry Stam Stacking Mana Sponge