Bear Tank Changes - Good? Bad? Indifferent?

[Katarn]

The most annoying part is I have no idea what it's supposed to actually be. The datamined info seems to match the tooltip, but doesn't match pre 4.0.6 values.

Which means either they intended to buff the DoT of Lacerate (which would make sense with the 2pct10 bonus) and never mentioned it anywhere in the patch notes, or all available information regarding what Lacerate should be doing is wrong.

I honestly don't know what's worse.

[Kojiyama]

I see a number of Druids also commenting about lower Rage generation. Given that http://www.wowhead.com/spell=59072 is still in the database (like Protector of the Pack was, unlike many removed talents) I wonder if older Druids had a ghosted version of that talent active as well as Protector of the Pack?

[Perrian]

For those interested.... my bear form armor jumped up almost 10k... 33k to 43k with the new patch....

[Reev]

Yeah my guild's druid used to be about 7k armor below me. Now he's almost 4k armor above me.

[Katarn]

I see a number of Druids also commenting about lower Rage generation. Given that http://www.wowhead.com/spell=59072 is still in the database (like Protector of the Pack was, unlike many removed talents) I wonder if older Druids had a ghosted version of that talent active as well as Protector of the Pack?

Outgoing (ie. normalized rage gen from melee attacks) hasn't been changed. I haven't really had the opportunity to test incoming rage gen yet since I spent most of last night trying to figure out Lacerate.

I'm pretty sure I'm doing Bastion tonight so I'll be able to compare pre and post 4.0.6 logs.

[Kojiyama]

For those wondering about the Armor 'buff', it's worth checking this out:
http://theincbear.com/thick-hide-theorycraft/

For those who are newer, non-bugged Druids it is a buff. For those who had the Protector of the Pack bug (older Druids who were Bear spec prior to the Cataclysm patch) it is roughly a wash for physical damage.

Basically for the last 3 months or so there have been two tiers of Druids--the ones that took 12%-15% more damage and did 6-10% less damage and the ones that did not.

[Katarn]

Turns out that I was just completely misreading the tooltip that describes how Lacerate's damage works. There's nothing inherenly "wrong" about it, but it's still disheartening.

[Katarn]

Mangle and Maul have been buffed by "about 10%".

That will pretty much solve any existing single target threat issues.

[Kojiyama]

So basically they compensated for those with the bugged PotP talent.

Although, one has to ask: what about Lacerate?

[Katarn]

So basically they compensated for those with the bugged PotP talent.

Although, one has to ask: what about Lacerate?

Not really. The bugged PotP talent didn't really do anything of consequence in terms of Threat. Depending on what the Maul/Mangle buffs actually turn out to be, it could be enough, or it could not be.

Lacerate it turns out, isn't actually broken. It was just unjustly targetted for nerfs.

[Kojiyama]

Protector of the Pack added a 6% Attack Power multiplier as well...which combined with Vengeance was a rather significant scaler on DPS.

And my question about Lacerate was more to do with the fact that it was nerfed along with Maul and Mangle, but not boosted in the hotfix. Therefore it is even weaker relative to Maul and Mangle than it was prior to the patch--almost laughably so, really.

[Katarn]

Protector of the Pack added a 6% Attack Power multiplier as well...which combined with Vengeance was a rather significant scaler on DPS.

And my question about Lacerate was more to do with the fact that it was nerfed along with Maul and Mangle, but not boosted in the hotfix. Therefore it is even weaker relative to Maul and Mangle than it was prior to the patch--almost laughably so, really.

It still starts out better than Maul, even though Maul outscales it, thanks to Lacerate's threat modifier.

Maul is now up to 0.264 AP. I'm having trouble figuring out Mangle. I'm getting variances of about 100-200 on my calculations vs actual damage and I have no idea why.

[Timberton]

Mangle and Maul have been buffed by "about 10%".

That will pretty much solve any existing single target threat issues.

I fail to see how this fixes stuffs. If my wow-math skill not fail, this is how the nerf went through:

Say we had a usual mangle of 12000 dmg

nerf that by 20%: 12000 * (1-0.2) = 9600 dmg

Buff that by 10%: 9600 * 0.1 + 9600 = 10560 dmg

compare the 2: 10560/12000 = 0.88 -> 12% nerf still on. Factor in the loss of 6% AP and now maul & mangle are nerfed roughly 20%, everything else more like 30%.

To revert, the buff should have been 25%: 9600*0.25 + 9600 = 12000


After the nerf (and accounting for the 10% increased damage hotfix) I can report (anecdotal evidence..etc):
* loss of about 1.5-2k dps single target
* harder to generate threat in the start of the fight
* overall loss of about 6-10k TPS in the first 30 secs or so of the fight, giving some heart-attacks for when the dps start popping their cd's.

[Katarn]

Factor in the loss of 6% AP and now maul & mangle are nerfed roughly 20%, everything else more like 30%.

This is not accurate. The 6% AP loss is inconsequential at best, and barely even noticeable at worst.

To revert, the buff should have been 25%: 9600*0.25 + 9600 = 12000

You're ignoring the fact that Mangle was nerfed for a reason. It did too much damage.

* loss of about 1.5-2k dps single target

That was pretty much the goal.

* harder to generate threat in the start of the fight

A "missed" mangle will have a slightly larger impact than before, yes.

* overall loss of about 6-10k TPS in the first 30 secs or so of the fight, giving some heart-attacks for when the dps start popping their cd's.

This has more to do with retarded DPS not understanding how threat works.

[klausi]

This has more to do with retarded DPS not understanding how threat works.

# They simply don't have to push that hard in a 8 minute fight, their 5 minute cd won't come up twice whatever they do..

[Kojiyama]

A few points for both Katarn and Timberton:

The 6% AP loss is non-trivial. However, many Druids didn't have it. I never had it. The Druids that had it shouldn't have.

As you say, factoring in the loss of the 6% AP the net result is roughly a 20% decrease for those with PotP, which was the goal from the initial patch notes. The second adjustment was made to not over-nerf those who didn't have PotP, because they were primarily aiming at taking the top-end damage down by 20%, which would have been those with PotP as a general rule.

Either way, they did still set out to nerf Druids by 20%, but ended up overnerfing those without the bugged PotP due to the skew in data. The hotfix was to revert that.

[Perrian]

They were nice and gave us a hot fix to up the damage of Managle and Maul (+10%) but personally from an in game stand point the differences from 4.0.6 and the hotfixes did almost nothing to affect my ability to tank in raids. I still hold aggro easily and I'm still the easiest tank in the guild to heal...

[Berune]

Just a semi-random thought about the rage gen. from damage taken. I see some bears reporting that their armor went up by as much as 10k. Would the additional damage-reduction from that armor increase also reduce rage gain from the inc. damage?

Perrian reported gaining roughly 10k armor, and consider Katarn's note that rage from outgoing attacks hasn't changed. If overall rage generation "feels" lower...could that be a result of the armor increase?

[Perrian]

Just a semi-random thought about the rage gen. from damage taken. I see some bears reporting that their armor went up by as much as 10k. Would the additional damage-reduction from that armor increase also reduce rage gain from the inc. damage?

Perrian reported gaining roughly 10k armor, and consider Katarn's note that rage from outgoing attacks hasn't changed. If overall rage generation "feels" lower...could that be a result of the armor increase?

The only place I've had rage issues is in Heroics.... Raids I've never found issues with having enough rage to maintain my attacks. So regardless of the feeling lower I'm not going to worry about it until lowers to a point that I can't maintain aggro.

[Kojiyama]

Heroics are becoming annoying for me in guild groups simply because Vengeance does not scale past what it provided initially, even though the DPS of your group is quite a lot higher. (If anything, it scales negatively due to avoidance and higher Stamina pools causing the decay rate to increase even though the incoming damage is not enough to keep up with the decay.)