OH man... the QQ just won't stop
10:16 AM
I have a couple of gripes myself... not being able to zone into an instance, for instance, is irking me (nothing killing some zombies didn't fix). Having to put talents into my two trees... every time I log in (which may have been fixed this morning with rolling restarts) is irking me. However, that's basically it.
I think that Guntir and I need to step into a few skirmishes and see just how bad bearform survivability has been hit... the QQrs seem to think that there's no point in leaving cat form anymore, but I have my doubts. The math they post all seem to assume that we're taking HotW for PvP at a 10% loss of hp... whilst I NEVER took HotW and thus never had 20% hp, let alone the additional 10%. The only place my bear form is getting hit in terms of survivability is in the armor and damage while stunned. I really only lost 5% physical damage mitigation from armor, I went from 65% to 60%. That's not terrible, but I am also losing a flat 30% reduced damage taken while stunned while in bear form... that hurts a bit. In reality, it turns out to be about 16% physical damage reduction LOST while in bear form and stunned, and ~5% physical damage reduction lost all the time (the 16% includes this 5% number).
Looking back, however, the Primal Tenacity change really doesn't mean ALL that much. For instance, I basically never got stunned by a rogue in bear form... the good rogues always saved Kidney Shot for when I was out of bear form to get the extra damage from the loss of armor. Let's get some stuff clear right now. Armor, for druids, is a really relative term. One never really "loses" armor or "gains" armor; rather, one's armor simply changes depending on the situation. Prior to 3.1, I would be taking about 5% less damage against good rogues based on the armor nerfs alone. That's all that really matters. On the other hand, I will be able to effectively "block" some damage now with the addition of Savage Defense, the trick will be getting it up and setting up for burst-cycles.
Another thing that is apparently worth complaining about is the change to Maim. Sure, it shares DR with Bash and Warstomp now. Sure, it lasts 2 seconds less now. Sure, mages can blink out of it now, pallies can HoF remove it, and DKs can IBF out of it. Sure, there are a slew of classes who pick up talents to reduce its duration. HOWEVER, it won't break on damage anymore and I really don't think that I will be using Maim as much as Rip. To be specific, Rip does an overpowered amount of damage. Here are some facts that add up to Rip being overpowered:
1) Rip only has to land once to get full benefit.
2) Rip ticks can critically strike
3) Rip ticks that DON'T critical strike do more damage than mutilate noncrits.
4) I can collect combo points, turtle, then bash and apply Rip, then turtle some more and Rip will STILL put out one of my best sources of damage for me while I'm taking reduced damage.
5) Rip ignores armor.
6) Rip cannot be removed by ANYTHING in the game.
The ONLY thing keeping Rip from being RIDICULOUSLY overpowered is the fact that to get the best "bang for your buck", one needs to have Savage Roar up at the time that Rip gets applied... this is why I'm not really concerned with Maim. I now have 2 finishers that I NEED to keep up to keep pressure on my opponents, and Maim ain't one of them. So, a lot of my matches have me opening up on my opponent, busting a 2-3 point Savage Roar, then using Tiger's Fury to get up a 5 point Rip. Against almost ANY team, this strategy is going to produce TONS of damage... and when they get into turtle mode, I am even MORE effective... as everyone's turtle mode involves armor, for the most part.
Anyway... everyone's complaining... and I think Guntir and I need to hit up some skirmishes to test out how effective we are with all the changes in 3.1. I am expecting greatness; I just don't see that many nerfs in the patch notes... but every other feral (especially some of the higher-ranked ones: Datah, Deep, etc) seem to think that we're done (though they always take HotW... so maybe I'm on the cutting edge here). I think that we'll hit 2k this season... maybe more. The hope is that all the feral QQ going on will keep the fact that Rip is obviously the most overpowered ability in the game off the blues' radar.
April 17, 2009 at 1:43 AM
Hi,
reading your blog a few weeks now and really like it.
Tried Ulduar yesterday and Rip is just to awesome :D
Hopefully the Rip buff is not something done hastily by the devs.
br,
Mark
April 17, 2009 at 8:37 AM
Thanks for the support Mark. You are lucky, my guild basically only runs on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, and of course Tuesday was a no-go for most people because of server instability problems, and Wednesday we just couldn't get into the instance.
Rip really is the most unbelievable ability in the game. If you get a chance to check your parses, see how much damage 1 Rip does on average; I was completely shocked when I first noticed it.
"30 energy does HOW MUCH damage!?"
I'm worried that the devs will end up seeing Rip as overpowered for just one ability, but on the other hand, their actions seem to imply that feral dps is around where they want it, so if they end up lowering the damage done by Rip, they may end up increasing the damage of other abilities in the rotation to compensate (i.e. Rake).
April 20, 2009 at 2:56 AM
April 20, 2009 at 2:56 AM
Yesterday was the first "real" heroic Raid.
Even with pre 3.1 equip/gems/enchants
i was rocking the stats.
Sadly the Sissys are going zerk over the new dps the druids can achiev with the new Rip.
Could it be the high dps might just be the end-product of the training in dps rotation the druids had since wotlk release?
Or is it just the fact that druid got to much love for this patch?
I don't know if we deserve a nerf or this is just because of the beginning of Ulduar and Itemscaling.
It hurts me that i cannot have a look in my WWS report because my combat log was kind of messed up but seeing the Rip tick fully buffed made me think about what you posted earlier:
"30 energy does HOW MUCH damage!?"
Oh and i think i need to redo my rotations / priority list...
April 20, 2009 at 8:24 AM
I think that the damage output that ferals are seeing at the moment will be short-lived, as Rip really does do more a lot more damage than any other single ability in the game. Admittedly, there is a really steep ramp-up time to get it to do its maximum damage: one has to have SR up, Mangle up, 5 combo points, and 30 energy, and then manage three Shreds over the next 20 seconds. The only saving grace to Rip is that all those factors are very difficult to get off in a PvP setting (though it isn't impossible).
As for the rotation, I look at the school of "keep up Rip" to maximize my damage. For instance, my rotation usually looks like this:
Priority:
SR, Rip, Mangle, Rake, Shred
Opener:
Mangle+Shred (2-4 combo points), Savage Roar.
Rotation:
Rake, Shred, Shred, Shred, Rip
Mangle, Shred, SR/Shred, SR/Shred (depending on your combo points, energy, and time remaining on SR, if SR is falling off, use it)
Basically, I just follow the opener and first rotation order, then the priority list comes out really clean. In fact, once you use Berserk, you end up with a 5SR, 5Rip, Rake, and Mangle all up for almost max durations, so once Berserk is spent, you will have a clean rotation starting from the max, which will make it easier to fit in damage.
Personally, I don't use Ferocious Bite (though I'm spec'd for it) because I find it a little too hard to manage the priorities in most cases, and the damage difference from a 35 energy FB and a 42 energy Shred is negligible even with crits.
With this rotation, it follows pretty easily to keep up SR and Rip basically 100% of the fight (something like 98% on some of my parses), which REALLY improves one's overall damage. I also suggest that once you're at 9+ seconds of SR, 9+ seconds of Rip, and 5 combo points, just use Shred until it's time to use Rip/SR again.