I don't think the armor bonus from agi gets multiplied by bear form, and it's pretty negligible anyways. I don't know that I'd drop some stam gems, but as you gear up I'd strongly suggest using agi gems instead.
The BEST thing to do is to have juuuust enough life to not die to something unlucky (say, a really bad Prince thrash, to take a Karazhan example). You kind of have to have experienced the content to know that though. What I did (since my Druid was my first 70) was gem for pure Sta once I got 70 and my Heavy Clefthoof and so on, then as I grew from Heroics to Kara I realized I had too goddamn much life, so as I got new gear I used mostly agi gems
The result was my life grew very slowly (even fell sometimes), but my dodge shot through the roof in a great big hurry, which is pretty much what you want. Even in T6, if you have 19k life buffed you're totally good to go, and you WILL have more than that by then
Beyond all that though, pure stupid armor is your greatest weapon as a feral. There is no such thing as too much armor. Look for items with bonus armor (the number will be green), and cherish and hold them as your babies or other loved ones. A really good warrior might rock 18, 19k armor or so. A Feral is fully expected and able to reach the 73 cap of 35k or so once they've been in T6 for a while.
(Look at it this way, with 20k armor before you even do any heroics you're already absorbing more damage than a T6 warrior does assuming avoidance fails. Play to that strength.)
Only the armor listed on the item is multiplied by the armor multiplier, so armor added by enchants or agility is not multiplied.
And yeah, you'll want to swap out some stam gems for some agility ones if you can. Push up that armor and dodge and you'll help your healer that much more. What your current gear will do is give you enough health to tank the high damage mobs will be hitting you with because you have relatively low armor and dodge. I have a hunch that a good chunk of your tanking gear is made of pvp gear which is why your armor and dodge are pretty low.
Actually, my armor and dodge would probably improve somewhat if I took the time to farm some honor :P I'm wearing two pieces of blue rep PvP gear to stay uncrittable, plus 3/3 Heavy Clefthoof and some other, mostly crappier PvE stuff.
The biggest available upgrades for me would be Merciless Helm/Shoulders, some rings that actually have bonus armor, and Verdant Gloves.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Look at it this way: health is only useful as in terms of healer reaction time. Once you have enough stamina not to get killed too quickly, stacking more is useless to you. If healers can't keep up with the damage you're taking, another 3000 health just means you're going to live another few seconds. But more avoidance and mitigation (for druids, armor and dodge) is lowering the amount of healing they have to do.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Actually, my armor and dodge would probably improve somewhat if I took the time to farm some honor :P I'm wearing two pieces of blue rep PvP gear to stay uncrittable, plus 3/3 Heavy Clefthoof and some other, mostly crappier PvE stuff.
The biggest available upgrades for me would be Merciless Helm/Shoulders, some rings that actually have bonus armor, and Verdant Gloves.
If you have any friends who are around 60-65, just run them through ramps a few times until you get a couple of the rings that drop from the boss. Not the best armor rings in the game, but the easiest to get and will tide you over until you can get badge rings.
The other armor rings that are availible to you out of kara/badges are from old hillsbrad, which was a gigantic pain in the butt.
Actually, my armor and dodge would probably improve somewhat if I took the time to farm some honor :P I'm wearing two pieces of blue rep PvP gear to stay uncrittable, plus 3/3 Heavy Clefthoof and some other, mostly crappier PvE stuff.
The biggest available upgrades for me would be Merciless Helm/Shoulders, some rings that actually have bonus armor, and Verdant Gloves.
If you have any friends who are around 60-65, just run them through ramps a few times until you get a couple of the rings that drop from the boss. Not the best armor rings in the game, but the easiest to get and will tide you over until you can get badge rings.
The other armor rings that are availible to you out of kara/badges are from old hillsbrad, which was a gigantic pain in the butt.
There is a very decent armor ring in Magister's Terrace (normal) as well, from Vex.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Soo happy. I now have the option to rock 4-piece, which allows me to dump my Badge of Tenacity at will, and still maintain well over 31k armor. If I can get that damn Heroic Mr. T tanky trinket to drop now, things will be MARVELOUS.
I'm a little confused over their changes to how spell damage and healing works as I try to make a healing set. For instance, take a look at one of the gems you can get for Thrallmar tokens in Hellfire. It says, "+8 Spell Damage". Would this have any effect on healing?
I'm a little confused over their changes to how spell damage and healing works as I try to make a healing set. For instance, take a look at one of the gems you can get for Thrallmar tokens in Hellfire. It says, "+8 Spell Damage". Would this have any effect on healing?
Pure Damage items weren't changed the way Pure Healing items were. You will only see Healing---->Spell dmg conversions on those items that were at one point "Healing only". No other changes were made to "Spell damage" in general, and it will still apply the same amount of healing as spell damage, so long as the item reads "Increases damage and healing by X".
So, the direct answer to your question is: Not sure. Some of the gems are wonky, and that's on Blizzard. It may or may not give you +healing. I don't think it's worth it to check, if you are trying to build a healing set.
Ugh, I desperately want the S4 chestpiece, but after a final bout of frustration with Arena I quit my team and I've sworn never to arena again to maintain my own sanity and so I don't punch my monitor.
I don't know why it pisses me off so much but I always lose and I feel like I'm just holding the team back if I don't spec resto, which I refuse to do. It's just a big heal-off.
Guess it's S2 or the mediocre badge chest for me. Dunno why all the decent feral gear is PVP gear when Resto is now the PVP build.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Find a really really really good Mutilate Rogue, and do some 2v2. Feral Druid/Muti Rogue can normally evaporate a squishy person before the other knows what's going on. Other than that, dunno what to tell you. Arenas are gay. Welcome to the party.
Find a really really really good Mutilate Rogue, and do some 2v2. Feral Druid/Muti Rogue can normally evaporate a squishy person before the other knows what's going on. Other than that, dunno what to tell you. Arenas are gay. Welcome to the party.
I might give it a shot but 2v2 usually pisses me off even more. Honestly as a feral I really don't think my damage output is good enough to justify my shitty or non-existent healing.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Ugh, I desperately want the S4 chestpiece, but after a final bout of frustration with Arena I quit my team and I've sworn never to arena again to maintain my own sanity and so I don't punch my monitor.
I don't know why it pisses me off so much but I always lose and I feel like I'm just holding the team back if I don't spec resto, which I refuse to do. It's just a big heal-off.
Guess it's S2 or the mediocre badge chest for me. Dunno why all the decent feral gear is PVP gear when Resto is now the PVP build.
Don't give up on the arena after doing it the first week after a reset... All of the teams rated 1200 to 2500 are in the 1500's and vying for top spot this week and I can guarantee you that competing at 1500 now is equal to what 1900+ was at the end of last season. Give it a week or two more and it'll really spread itself back out.
I might give it a shot but 2v2 usually pisses me off even more. Honestly as a feral I really don't think my damage output is good enough to justify my shitty or non-existent healing.
If the Rogue is good, and you get a decent "RNG" on your crits/procs for OOC and such, it doesn't matter. The frontload that you + that rogue can do will pretty much insta-gib anything not Wearing Plate/~=400+Resil, which makes it 2v1 in your favor, and is 99% a cakewalk to mop up.
I've seen 1 Druid that made it to 2k as feral. She did it in 2v2, and she did it with a Muti-Rogue.
Feral Druids are severly under-powered in Arenas right now(amoung other things/classes.) So far, the things leaked for WotLK make me really happy for Ferals, and I can already see applications that would make our "Burst DPS" Potential on par with the "3-min Mages" of Vanilla WoW.
Not for tanking, no. IIRC, the Natural Power staff has no passive armor on it, therefore making it inferior to the Braxxis'. If you're at that gear level, the best thing you could possibly shoot for is the Exalted CE Mace. Other than that, the next best tanker tool is hiding in SSC.
Well, it has 330 armor on it, but yeah, I was mainly thinking of it as a pvp/kitty weapon, a level 70 green staff of the beast is a bit sad in a bg.
I could get a Merciless gladiator mace, but I have other needs for the honor while aside from epic training there's not a whole lot I need gold for right now.
It's not a terrible mace for PvP. If you power-shift a lot, that staff + Natural Shapeshifter make for super cheap shifts. Other than that, it's more or less a "gimmick" staff.
I could get a Merciless gladiator mace, but I have other needs for the honor while aside from epic training there's not a whole lot I need gold for right now.
Merc Mace is still one of the best Maces in the game for Feral Druids. Aside from S3/4 and 1-2 Raid Staffs, you'll be hard-pressed to replace that Merc Mace. I'm still working to get mine.
If I win it I can then buy my s2 head and gloves and vindicator bracers and not worry about a weapon for a while.
If not then whatever, I'll grind sv some more.
I'd like to get a bit more decently geared though so I can do heroic slave pens and ub and get some other items which are actually useful while I grind for rep.
What mod do people use to track their HoTs? NECB used to give me a seperate bar/timer for every hot on every person I had hots up for, but no longer does so. It'd be nice to be able to track timers on rolling LBs without clicking through my targets.
What mod do people use to track their HoTs? NECB used to give me a seperate bar/timer for every hot on every person I had hots up for, but no longer does so. It'd be nice to be able to track timers on rolling LBs without clicking through my targets.
there is a grid add on (add-on-on?) that traks lb duration and stack size for raids, and in 5 mans I generally just look.
What mod do people use to track their HoTs? NECB used to give me a seperate bar/timer for every hot on every person I had hots up for, but no longer does so. It'd be nice to be able to track timers on rolling LBs without clicking through my targets.
Get Grid and Clique if you don't have them already, also get GridIndicatorCornerText, GridStatusHots and GridStatusLifebloom.
With these you can set the duration of the HoT to show up on a target's frame, the lifebloom one displays stacks as different colors (1 yellow -> 2 blue -> 3 green).
I have rejuv duration upper left, lifebloom center text and regro lower right but the setup can be tailored in any way you like.
The rejuv and regro durations come with the total amount of hots counter but you can hack the lua file to get rid of those.
Posts
The BEST thing to do is to have juuuust enough life to not die to something unlucky (say, a really bad Prince thrash, to take a Karazhan example). You kind of have to have experienced the content to know that though. What I did (since my Druid was my first 70) was gem for pure Sta once I got 70 and my Heavy Clefthoof and so on, then as I grew from Heroics to Kara I realized I had too goddamn much life, so as I got new gear I used mostly agi gems
The result was my life grew very slowly (even fell sometimes), but my dodge shot through the roof in a great big hurry, which is pretty much what you want. Even in T6, if you have 19k life buffed you're totally good to go, and you WILL have more than that by then
Beyond all that though, pure stupid armor is your greatest weapon as a feral. There is no such thing as too much armor. Look for items with bonus armor (the number will be green), and cherish and hold them as your babies or other loved ones. A really good warrior might rock 18, 19k armor or so. A Feral is fully expected and able to reach the 73 cap of 35k or so once they've been in T6 for a while.
(Look at it this way, with 20k armor before you even do any heroics you're already absorbing more damage than a T6 warrior does assuming avoidance fails. Play to that strength.)
And yeah, you'll want to swap out some stam gems for some agility ones if you can. Push up that armor and dodge and you'll help your healer that much more. What your current gear will do is give you enough health to tank the high damage mobs will be hitting you with because you have relatively low armor and dodge. I have a hunch that a good chunk of your tanking gear is made of pvp gear which is why your armor and dodge are pretty low.
The biggest available upgrades for me would be Merciless Helm/Shoulders, some rings that actually have bonus armor, and Verdant Gloves.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
If you have any friends who are around 60-65, just run them through ramps a few times until you get a couple of the rings that drop from the boss. Not the best armor rings in the game, but the easiest to get and will tide you over until you can get badge rings.
The other armor rings that are availible to you out of kara/badges are from old hillsbrad, which was a gigantic pain in the butt.
There is a very decent armor ring in Magister's Terrace (normal) as well, from Vex.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
About fucking time.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Like, maybe I could wear a hat.
But seriously, Dire Cat!
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
T4 CHESTPIECE GET!!!!
Soo happy. I now have the option to rock 4-piece, which allows me to dump my Badge of Tenacity at will, and still maintain well over 31k armor. If I can get that damn Heroic Mr. T tanky trinket to drop now, things will be MARVELOUS.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
Pure Damage items weren't changed the way Pure Healing items were. You will only see Healing---->Spell dmg conversions on those items that were at one point "Healing only". No other changes were made to "Spell damage" in general, and it will still apply the same amount of healing as spell damage, so long as the item reads "Increases damage and healing by X".
So, the direct answer to your question is: Not sure. Some of the gems are wonky, and that's on Blizzard. It may or may not give you +healing. I don't think it's worth it to check, if you are trying to build a healing set.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
I don't know why it pisses me off so much but I always lose and I feel like I'm just holding the team back if I don't spec resto, which I refuse to do. It's just a big heal-off.
Guess it's S2 or the mediocre badge chest for me. Dunno why all the decent feral gear is PVP gear when Resto is now the PVP build.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
I might give it a shot but 2v2 usually pisses me off even more. Honestly as a feral I really don't think my damage output is good enough to justify my shitty or non-existent healing.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Don't give up on the arena after doing it the first week after a reset... All of the teams rated 1200 to 2500 are in the 1500's and vying for top spot this week and I can guarantee you that competing at 1500 now is equal to what 1900+ was at the end of last season. Give it a week or two more and it'll really spread itself back out.
If the Rogue is good, and you get a decent "RNG" on your crits/procs for OOC and such, it doesn't matter. The frontload that you + that rogue can do will pretty much insta-gib anything not Wearing Plate/~=400+Resil, which makes it 2v1 in your favor, and is 99% a cakewalk to mop up.
I've seen 1 Druid that made it to 2k as feral. She did it in 2v2, and she did it with a Muti-Rogue.
Feral Druids are severly under-powered in Arenas right now(amoung other things/classes.) So far, the things leaked for WotLK make me really happy for Ferals, and I can already see applications that would make our "Burst DPS" Potential on par with the "3-min Mages" of Vanilla WoW.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
I could get a Merciless gladiator mace, but I have other needs for the honor while aside from epic training there's not a whole lot I need gold for right now.
Merc Mace is still one of the best Maces in the game for Feral Druids. Aside from S3/4 and 1-2 Raid Staffs, you'll be hard-pressed to replace that Merc Mace. I'm still working to get mine.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
- Are they good at pvp?
- How about raiding? When I left they were ignored as a hybrid class.
- And most of all, fun to play?
Sorry if these are kind of newb questions, thanks in advance.
If I win it I can then buy my s2 head and gloves and vindicator bracers and not worry about a weapon for a while.
If not then whatever, I'll grind sv some more.
I'd like to get a bit more decently geared though so I can do heroic slave pens and ub and get some other items which are actually useful while I grind for rep.
Yes (resto>balance>feral).
Yes (as any, pretty much, although you're probably more likely to get a spot as feral or resto).
And imho yes, feral at least is really fun, and balance is pretty fun as well.
Sounds cool! I think I'm going to start one now, just need a clever pun for a druid tauren name.
Bonus points if you roll alliance.
Lol, I like that one, but I named him 'Shifting Bull'.
I kind of wish that I'd spelled it Mucao, though.
For tanking, Earthwarden is a better choice than S2 by far. Armor + Expertise = gogo.
This conversation turned out to be about a Feral Kitty PvP weapon. That's why we swapped away from talking about tanker toys.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
there is a grid add on (add-on-on?) that traks lb duration and stack size for raids, and in 5 mans I generally just look.
Get Grid and Clique if you don't have them already, also get GridIndicatorCornerText, GridStatusHots and GridStatusLifebloom.
With these you can set the duration of the HoT to show up on a target's frame, the lifebloom one displays stacks as different colors (1 yellow -> 2 blue -> 3 green).
I have rejuv duration upper left, lifebloom center text and regro lower right but the setup can be tailored in any way you like.
The rejuv and regro durations come with the total amount of hots counter but you can hack the lua file to get rid of those.