[Taur]

Source: Qaletaqa This guide is written from the perspective of tanking 5-mans, progressing into Heroics/Karazhan, and then onward into 25-mans and Zul'Aman.

Based on the discussions to date on feral aggression, and that this guide is meant to cater to not just 25-man raiding but 10 man and 5 mans, i think feral aggression should be changed from a "blue" rating to a "yellow".

The discussion so far indicates that feral aggression is not "unimportant/just don't", but in fact is quite important in the right situations, such as 5 mans (which the guide is catering for too) and 10 mans where a warrior isn't in the tanking equation (two druid tanks or druid/pally tanks.. believe it or not but this does happen!).

Taking also into account that a lot of druids running these sort of instances will not be armour capped (situational - they wont have 25-man raid gear will they?), reducing mob/boss AP in these situations becomes even more important. So this talent would be on par, if not more important, than primal tenacity or intensity... which are more 'nice to haves' than really making a difference to a tanks survivability or aggro creation. Sure, it takes 5 talent points... but the other two take 6 combined. Based on that druids situation, we should be guiding them to make an informed decision regarding which talents to use rather than writing-off one option that may actually be more beneficial.

Anyway, I really can't believe how underrated it is as an ability, and it annoys me when i see other tanking druids just not using it at all (even not using untalented demo roar with no warriors around for demo shout). Its like not buffing with fortitude when you've got a priest in your group... its stupid and/or lazy. And this is largely due to the broader community writing it off as useless (its even rated as optional in bear attack rotations in this guide??).

My two coppers.

[Norrath]

Source: Pim Are threat multipliers additive or multiplicative? Is it 1.45 or 1.495?

Quite frankly... I don't know, at least when it comes to druids.

I know that it's 1.495 for warriors, but for druids? I just don't know.

[Sandmann]

any threat multipler is multiplicative since patch whatetheheckidontrememberbutitslongago so its 1.495 for a bear (with talent) as well.

btw Mangle in you're skill overview is not colored Yellow even if its an very important talent

[Norrath]

Source: Sandmann any threat multipler is multiplicative since patch whatetheheckidontrememberbutitslongago so its 1.495 for a bear (with talent) as well.

That's just it. Dire Bear Form and Feral Instinct was not changed at that time.

[Melange]

Feral Aggression is blue and should be. It is the second best blue talent and is worse than all yellow talents. It's not horrible, but it is not good enough to justify taking in any build. (I could see it if you have no warriors in a 25-man, but I dont see that happening. It is likely overkill to get it for a 10-man, and definatly for a 5-man.)

NG should be added as a blue talent. I have it in my tanking build, but obviously it is only any good once you are in Hyjal. It's great for kiting.

As far as the threat multiplier goes, I do not know either. I have heard 1.45 more than 1.495, but I have heard both. The Druid wiki is very clear in saying 1.45. Someone check what omen says.

[Taur]

The thing is Melange the argument to date has shown that it isn't worse than the other yellow talents. FA DOES provide a clear damage reduction benefit while the other yellows clearly don't.

A perfect example is another post in this forum (Druid vs War vs Prince)... you are looking at 2 druid tanks running Kara, with a warrior who is fury spec'd. They are up to Prince. Now are you telling me in this situation FA is more useless than PT and Intensity (two talents which do NOTHING in this boss fight)?

Being up to Hyjal, you've probably forgotten that guilds progressing through Kara content actually find this fight reasonably tough. You can't write off a talent just because YOU have personally progressed beyond needing it because you are running 25 mans.

[Norrath]

Source: Melange Feral Aggression is blue and should be. It is the second best blue talent and is worse than all yellow talents. It's not horrible, but it is not good enough to justify taking in any build.

You cannot seriously claim that Brutal Impact is better than Feral Aggression. FA provides a solid debuff. You're right, as soon as you have a warrior casting Demoralizing Shout, it's worthless -- but when you don't, it is a far better choice than Savage Fury and Primal Tenacity. I cannot remember a single fight off-hand where the fear you have to face is single-target. Predatory Instincts provides the same benefit that Primal Tenacity does versus AoE fears, and they do not stack.

[Melange]

Source: Taur A perfect example is another post in this forum (Druid vs War vs Prince)... you are looking at 2 druid tanks running Kara, with a warrior who is fury spec'd.

That is precisely the point. You will be losing more by putting 5 points into Feral Aggression than he will by putting 2 points into Imp Demo Shout. That is a perfect example of why you do not want this talent. Even if the warrior QQs about his DPS and won't spend the two points, you are talking about taking 5 talent points for -36 AP on the boss. You won't see that large of a difference and the first three points are wasted.

Brutal Impact should probably be blue as well. For Primal Tenacity, I mostly consider the stun resist portion, since mobs chase you when you are feared now. Stun resist is not as good on bears as it is on warriors or paladins, but it still helps. It's a crap talent, but it is still undoubtedly better than Feral Aggression. (with the obvious exception of fights without stun/fear. I just don't plan on respecing for individual fights.)

I have had Primal Tenacity as my last three points since I hit 70. I respeced out of it after they switched fear mechanics. If I had not gone with Brutal Impact/NG, I would have gone with Natural Shapeshifter over Primal Tenacity. There are some cases where NatShift helps you tank. I have actually gone OOM quite a few times recently, but only on trash. (Hyjal trash, and the guys on the way to Gorefiend, who chain root you.) Only boss I have faced with a root was Vashj, but she doesn't root you very often, and usually you are stunned anyways. Obviously NS gives you a much larger benefit to DPS than to tanking and that is what makes it worth it.

[Norrath]

Source: Melange That is precisely the point. You will be losing more by putting 5 points into Feral Aggression than he will by putting 2 points into Imp Demo Shout.

No, you won't lose more than he will. A Fury warrior's build is practically air-tight already due to the need to sink 10 points into a 5 point talent.

I can count on one hand the fights where I have been stunned as a main tank so far... and I still have fingers to spare. The stun resistance is not worth talent points.

[Melange]

Stun resist is not all you lose. You gain nothing with those first three points. You still have 2 more points to find. That is likely Intensity, which means less initial threat on trash.

Fury warriors do not need to fill UW. It is only adding more Heroic Strikes, and, in most BC fights, melee is taking damage. Our Fury warrior tends to be threat limited in most fights anyways. (he is always the top threat by far.)

That said, it's just not neccesary. We are still only talking about -36 AP. Assuming a boss only melees, with no magic damage (Gruul), that is around 3% decreased damage for 5 points. Meanwhile, getting stunned or feared, is a 100% increase in damage, for the duration, assuming 50% dodge+miss. (actually, can they still miss you? I dunno.) Vashj probably has the meanest stun in the game, assuming she keeps hitting you, which she is not supposed to, but sometimes does, next is probably the Abom trash in Hyjal. If you are tanking 3 Aboms, the stun can kill, even an overpowered Druid. Obviously the talent used to be better, when fear was strong, but I still think it is viable, for damage spike prevention.

[Taur]

Source: Melange That said, it's just not neccesary. We are still only talking about -36 AP. Assuming a boss only melees, with no magic damage (Gruul), that is around 3% decreased damage for 5 points

What does 3% damage reduction equate to in armour? With there being diminished returns per point of armour the higher you get, damage reduction becomes even more valuable. Looking at the notes in front of me, going from 28,923 armour (~73.26% damage reduction) to 31,673 armour (75% damage reduction) for a level 70 mob, thats 2750 armour for a damage decrease of 1.74%.

And for a level 73 boss, 5% damage reduction from armour (from 70% to 75%) is close to 8000 armour points?? Sorry, i don't class 3% damage reduction as nothing.

And as mentioned earlier, bosses physical damage is their AP multiplied by a modifier. So reduce their base AP, you reduce their physical damage substantially more.

PS Enjoying the discussion! I can understand your argument, and at the end of the day with improved demo shout FA is pointless having. However i did a quick check of some of the prot warriors in our guild online last night, and only one out of three had points in imp demo shout. A pretty sad inditement on my guilds warriors! But that can be the reality us druids have to tank in.

PPS I don't have any issue with FA being classed as blue as long as it is rated consistently with the other talents.

[Norrath]

Source: Melange Stun resist is not all you lose. You gain nothing with those first three points. You still have 2 more points to find. That is likely Intensity, which means less initial threat on trash.

Actually, it's Savage Fury. The DPS increase is marginal at best and it offers no benefit for tanking whatsoever.

Source: Melange Fury warriors do not need to fill UW. It is only adding more Heroic Strikes, and, in most BC fights, melee is taking damage. Our Fury warrior tends to be threat limited in most fights anyways. (he is always the top threat by far.)

It's not just Heroic Strikes, though UW is admittedly lackluster. Considering the loss in DPS compared to the loss for a druid, I maintain you lose less than the Fury warrior would.

Source: Melange That said, it's just not neccesary. We are still only talking about -36 AP. Assuming a boss only melees, with no magic damage (Gruul), that is around 3% decreased damage for 5 points. Meanwhile, getting stunned or feared, is a 100% increase in damage, for the duration, assuming 50% dodge+miss. (actually, can they still miss you? I dunno.) Vashj probably has the meanest stun in the game, assuming she keeps hitting you, which she is not supposed to, but sometimes does, next is probably the Abom trash in Hyjal. If you are tanking 3 Aboms, the stun can kill, even an overpowered Druid. Obviously the talent used to be better, when fear was strong, but I still think it is viable, for damage spike prevention.

The guide isn't for people on Vashj or in Hyjal trash -- it was supposed to be for 5-mans and entry-level raiding.

In any case, the point is moot as soon as you have someone with any points whatsoever in Improved Demoralizing Shout. If that is not the case, however, it is still a significant amount of damage reduction, and preferable to the minor DPS increase from Savage Fury and the lackluster Stun and Fear resistance from Primal Tenacity.

[Melange]

Source: Norrath Actually, it's Savage Fury. The DPS increase is marginal at best and it offers no benefit for tanking whatsoever.

I had not considered Savage Fury, simply because it would make me worthless for soloing and PVP. (LOLPVP) That probably is a better tanking build, for 5 and 10 mans in particular. I guess I was wrong. As far as your DPS loss, it would be less than 2%, since the most damage my mangle ever does on WWS reports is around 10%. A 2% loss for DPS is definatly worth a 3% increase in tanking, if you do both about equally. I will now agree that this talent could be upgraded. If you are willing to sacrifice the two talent points it takes to be good at soloing, to be a better tank, then by all means go for it. The only place you may be really annoyed with not having that talent while raiding is Leotheras. Although I am usually FR tank anyways, so it would not affect me.

Taur: Going from 70 to 75% armor reduction is a 16.666~% reduction in damage. As far as tanking builds go, having it only on one person is perfect. You are not going to be able to take it with Imp Defensive stance, if you still want a low rage cost build, which IMO is most important. I think if I were prot, and I wanted those points, I would spec like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
If someone had them already, I would fill in Sheild Mastery and Imp Defensive stance, taking two from cruelty as well. As far as getting all five points goes, I think if you want that, you have to drop Imp TC to get it. Not too big a deal for a main tank to get, but bad for situations where you are tanking something off to a side, since that is just a huge debuff for a warrior to not have up.

When you have a fight with people split up everywhere, so that the person with the Imp Demo is not near all the mobs, you can just curse weakness, if you want the debuff up.

[Taur]

Source: Melange Taur: Going from 70 to 75% armor reduction is a 16.666~% reduction in damage

I wasn't aware of that... I just assumed it was 5%. So why is this the case?

[Darkrawr]

I've got the feeling I'm missing something here...

Why is resilience NOT the preferred method of gaining most of your anti-crit for a bear tank? We only need 2.6% anti-crit from our gear (assuming 5/5 in SOTF). That's 156 Defense, or 103 Resilience.

To my knowledge, Defense gives +Dodge, Block, and Parry, in equal amounts, as well anti-crit. This means, to a druid, it gives only +Dodge and +Anti-crit. However, we can gain anti-crit much quicker, via resilience. The loss of dodge is negligible, as the total amount of dodge added by your +defense at uncrittable is around what, 2.5-2.6%, I think. Given our high agility -> dodge conversion, this is easily made up by replacing the defense item in question with a high agility item.

Most specifically, I'm thinking of druids still wearing Heavy Clefthoof, including myself. I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of these Clefthoof pieces, which are really light on stats, have no Agility at all, and their real saving grace is the +defense that I can't get to as easily on my rings and neck and such yet. Looking at it, I'm thinking, "well hell, why can't I replace the Clefthoof Chest with the Season 3 Arena chest?".

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Heavy Clefthoof Vest
Heavy Clefthoof Vest: 500 Armor, 45 STA, YYB (+4 Dodge), +24 Defense Rating (about 0.4% anti-crit, about 0.4% dodge as well)

Thottbot World of Warcraft: Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic
Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic: 529 Armor, 54 Stamina, 34 Agility (1.28% crit, 2.17% dodge), 30 Strength (60 AP), 22 Intellect, RRY (+4 Crit), 12 Hit Rating (0.76%), 19 Crit Rating (0.86%), 26 Resilience (0.66% anti-crit), Attacks ignore 84 armor.

In this case, the Vengeful Gladiator's chest provides 0.26% more anti-crit, over 150 more armor, 9 more Stamina, 2.14% more crit, 60 more AP, 22 Int, 0.76% more hit (which means less wasted rage, and it helps Growl to land successfully), ignores 84 armor, and it provides 1.77% more dodge. Those numbers are ignoring the socket bonuses (which aren't big enough to change the point, if you even socket correctly for them), and the sockets themselves, because each has 3 sockets that you can put identical gems in, considering their intended use. Quite frankly, I don't see in what way the Season 3 Chest is not superior. The same thing happens with other PvP items for your legs and boots too, over the Heavy Clefthoof pieces. I can see no possible reason why I shouldn't replace all three of my Heavy Clefthoof pieces with appropriate PvP pieces, use the resilience to make up my anti-crit (or at least the vast majority of it), and call the whole thing good.

[Norrath]

You get 5.2% avoidance through Defense (2.6% miss, 2.6% dodge). To reach 2.6% crit avoidance, you need, as you said, either 156 Defense or 103 Resilience. However, those 156 Defense provides 5.2% avoidance as well. Agility provides 1% dodge per 14.7 Agility. That's 77 extra item points to reach the same avoidance, for a total of 180 compared to 156 from Defense.

That's why.

[Melange]

While what Norrath said is obviously the reason defense is preferred, the reason many Druids go with more resil than totally necessary is that it tends to be grouped with more and better stats on the items we can get, whereas defense tends to be grouped with stamina and dodge. If someone at blizzard thought to maybe put defense on an actual feral druid item, then defense would be better.

Consider this, if these are two individual items, say legs, giving you the same benefit:
156 Defense = Item level: 204 Epic.
103 Resil + 77 Agil = Item level: 188 Epic

(You also gain some crit, which is nice, but not really important.)

The other thing to remember is that defense dramatically reduces chance to be dazed. In a fight where you need to run around a lot, it tends to be nice to be wearing as much defense as you can without gimping yourself. In a fight where you are eating a fear, it is nice to have as little as possible, to keep the boss in place. Whatever you do, try not to gimp your armor.

After HC set, it becomes largely impossible to use defense only to become uncrittable, so some S3 or Vindicators will be required. I am currently using S3 chest, since we hardly did Mag and KT. It is undoubtedly better than HC. We actually killed KT again just the other day, since the holidays are straining our numbers. He didn't drop the right tokens, and I would not have won anyways, but I got a cloth healing head, lol.

As far as what you should do: Yes, replace the whole set. The chest is a really nice piece. All three PVP pieces will be upgrades for you, but the chest is the largest.

Feral druid is one of the classes that most requires arena gear, while also being one of the worst in arena. Most will tell you to respec. I don't have that kind of time or gold. I get my matches in from 6:30-7:30, and that's all the time I have. If you have the gold to do it, go ahead and get good at resto arena. It will take a long time to get your first feral upgrade, for PVE, but you will be churning them out, thereafter.

I dunno if it is like this on every server, but it seems like every team this season in 2v2 is one of those powerful combos. I play with a warrior. I am around 1500 and only do 10 matches per week, but the only teams I have seen so far are {warrior, druid}, {warrior, paladin}, {warlock, SP}, {warlock, druid}, {SP, rogue}, {hunter, SP}, {hunter, druid}. Those are not all the good teams possible, but I have not seen any bad teams yet. It seems like anyone like me, who plays a bad spec in arena has stopped playing arena, or maybe they are farther down, I dunno. Last week one of my losses was to a {warrior, druid} with S3 shoulders on the druid, and S3 weapon on the warrior; I lost 15 points to that at about 1500. I'm not a fan.

BTW, {hunter, anything} is OP right about now.

[Norrath]

Yeah, I should've mentioned that as well. While Defense is preferred, the epic PvP pieces are much better than Heavy Clefthoof.

[Qaletaqa]

Know it's been awhile since I stuck my paws in here, but yes I will be updating once 2.4 hits the PTR and I can get over there to find out what the new damage formula is going to be for Lacerate scaling with AP, and be able to determine it's new TPS. Depending on how well it is going to scale, Swipe may no longer be preferable to Lacerate on single target fights once you cross 2300 AP. It may still surpass it at a much higher AP, but it's certainly going to be a more viable skill.

Bornakk's post in the Druid Forum today

[Qaletaqa]

Source: Norrath Yeah, I should've mentioned that as well. While Defense is preferred, the epic PvP pieces are much better than Heavy Clefthoof.

Just to clarify, S2 chest and legs are what surpasses heavy clefthoof, though S1 is certainly usable and I consider them to be "on par" with, more of a sidegrade than anything. Boots though were surpassed back with Veteran's gear I believe (S2 non-set epics)

Yes, resilience is a grand substitute for defense, to a degree. But as mentioned above, the daze component is a factor and given how little defense druids can actually achieve (or even need to achieve for crit immunity for that matter), the more +def that can be achieved instead of resilience, the better. Gear trends so far, it doesn't look like Druids are going to be short on agility for dodge any time soon, and as some of us approach and break the 50% dodge mark when fully buffed, you may find yourselves wishing you didn't dodge so much when the hits you do take are being mitigated at armor cap vs 73lvl mobs.

Also as of 2.3 with the addition of the ZA loot and associated badge rewards, the new boots, belt, and bracers available floor even the Vindicator's non-set epics in terms of mitigation and health. Given Blizzard's track record with producing good feral tanking loot though, I'm expecting these to be surpassed by the S4 non-set epics, and would be suprised to see anything better for those slots coming out of Sunwell Plateau or Magister's Terrace.