Druid Nerfs and Tanking.

[Valon]

So.... who thinks these nerfs will dramatically change their ability to tank if specd and geared for it.

We use a druid as our MT for Kara, and although the only change he forsees is us having to wait a little longer than one mangle before DPS, I'd like to see some other opinions.

[Kaliera]

The biggest advantage a druid had over a warrior as far as tanking went was the ability to have DPS go all out faster, due to their higher threat generation. Druid mitigation was already abysmal compared to a decently geared prot warrior, and with the armor nerf, that gap only widens further. Now with a kick in the nuts to threat generation, there is no sane reason to keep a druid as the main tank, unless you really rely on increased bleed damage. :/

[Karkarov]

As I posted somewhere they nerfed the wrong things. I disagree in that thier mitigation was weaker. They had much much higher raw armor melee reduction, extremely high dodge rates, and alot more hp. However.... Nerfing thier threat generation wasnt the way to go. Thier damage should have been tweaked to be more in line with other forms of tank specs but they should have been allowed to maintain solid threat gen. The testing isnt over so there may be some adjustments before it is done still.

[Valon]

The biggest advantage a druid had over a warrior as far as tanking went was the ability to have DPS go all out faster, due to their higher threat generation. Druid mitigation was already abysmal compared to a decently geared prot warrior, and with the armor nerf, that gap only widens further. Now with a kick in the nuts to threat generation, there is no sane reason to keep a druid as the main tank, unless you really rely on increased bleed damage. :/

Our other tank, our prot warr, recently had a death in the family, so I think we'll be chillin with a druid MT for a little bit regardless.

From what I've heard though, currently, our healers prefer healing the druid to the prot warr, because hes easier to keep up. I mean, I know I prefer the druid currently, because one mangle and he can keep enough agro that I wont pull it if I dont go all out, and if I give him 10 seconds, I can go all out with everything I have and not even come close to pulling it, but apparently he is the easier to keep up as well.

Our prot warrior isn't badly geared (best tanking gear he can get from normal 70 5mans) and hes a good tank, but yeah..... interesting.

I actually got bored and decided to level a draenei priest, mainly because I don't approve of where the mage class is going PvP wise (it's starting to become who ever can twitch faster wins.) so, I guess I'll have a more informed opinion in a couple of weeks. (25 in 2 nights playtime.)

[Fhenrir]

From what I've heard though, currently, our healers prefer healing the druid to the prot warr, because hes easier to keep up. I mean, I know I prefer the druid currently, because one mangle and he can keep enough agro that I wont pull it if I dont go all out, and if I give him 10 seconds, I can go all out with everything I have and not even come close to pulling it, but apparently he is the easier to keep up as well.

I've always been told (usually by druids, but some warriors as well) that warrior mitigation is better, but recently I've been hearing a LOT of things like the above-quoted. It seems recently healers prefer healing druids because they take less damage.

It's possible (probable? beats me) that's gonna change, but as-is now it seems taking less damage is better mitigation... *shrugs*

[Cedes]

I personally wouldnt mind who tanks, but if i had to choose, it'd be a warrior. For one, Ive always seen healers having to keep an eye on the druids because they may have the armor boost and take less damage, but they dont dodge and parry like warriors can (or from my experiences). My horde guild has a warrior for MT and a druid as well ( i was the OT with Lyzoria).

I compare druid tanks to a brick wall and warrior tanks to a armored vehicle. Brick walls can take the punch, but thats about it and armored vehicles can dodge, parry and block. Ive seen our druid go in and tank a mob and then more aggro. Before we knew it it was 8 vs 1 care bear ( i call him that because he is from Brooklyn, NY and he sounds all big and bad) which lead to healers having to heal the brick wall that was taking too many hits. Now when our other MT tanks (warrior), same situation, its not as bad. Does a few blocks, hits the shield wall maybe and all you see is a hit there, a hit here, block, parry, and a bonk on the shield every once in a while.....and then heals.

...and then there are the other factor's like good ol' Jin'do where a druid is best. WArriors are on the loosing side when it comes to magic and curses.

[Karkarov]

Curses maybe, not magic. Last I checked I have 6% flat reduction to all magic damage, more interupts, and I can reflect spells sometimes.

[Kaliera]

The reason some healers prefer druids as far as healing goes is that they're more predictable. Druids do not take "spike" damage, as they're almost always eating the crushing blows that warriors tend to avoid. You can time large heals, knowing they won't be wasted completely with a parry completely mitigating the next attack.

Shield block and dodge absolutely destroy any advantage a druid has via high armor, and a prot warrior will only have at most 5-10% less dodge than a feral tank. With my prot warrior, I had nearly 15-20% parry, dodge, and block. My druid had (and still has) only around 20-25%, and that's if I sacrifice armor to pump it out. Druid dodge doesn't even come close to making up for their lack of parry and block.

[Jemmalass]

Warrior SHOULD be the best tanks in the game for this reason alone:

Prot spec completely nullifys PvP for a warrior.

Feral spec does not.

----

Giving up the ability to PvP should allow them to be the best tank in the game, imo

[Kaliera]

Speccing restoration completely nullifies my ability to do anything outside of healbot in PvE. I should therefor be the undisputed best healer. That logic is flawed out the ass. There's no best DPSer, and no one turns down a druid healing, but when someone approaches tanking, a job that warriors have had a monopoly on for years, in comes the bitching. No.

[Syreena]

As hard as it is to find groups sometimes, and given that most of the good questlines seem to have at least one step where you need a tank and a healer, no one class should have a monopoly on any role.

[Karkarov]

Well other druids must be lieing to me as I have heard numbers as high as 30% for 70 druids in bear with dodge. My dodge is actually the weakest of my mitigation lines because as some may know agility and dodge rating dont exactly come standard on tanking gear these days. Where warriors get the advantage is they can eliminate the spikes. Once you get defence over 490 and start getting to the 500+ mark crits and crushing blows become few and far between. This all goes back to the points I made about gear in other threads.

To make a point though.... Prot paly's are awesome utility and group buffing, they also have not great but passable back up healing and dps. Feral druids can dps extremely well and do ok back up healing and group buffs. I can do nothing outside 1 whole group buff and tank, the only person I out dps is the group healer, and I certainly am not passable back up healing. No one else is in the same boat, no one else can only "tank". Resto druids, resto shaman, and holy priests all are good at just healing so they should all be equal at it in different ways. But no other spec of any other class is pidgeon holed exclusively into this one role other than mine. So yes prot warriors should be the best at it.

PS: No player asked it to be this way, Blizzard did it not me. IS the design flawed? Maybe, but I dont see any class being willing to accept a total overhaul to make it so someone other than prot warriors can only tank, nor would it be a smart business move to make that kind of change this far into the games life.

Addedum etc: Prot warriors give up everything, we suck at solo grinding especially on pvp servers, we arent useful in pvp, and other than the occaisional quest mob that is elite and requires a group there is no real reason to ever group a prot warrior outside a raid or instance. Warlocks have even told me grouping me for grinding almost made no noticeable difference other than that they didnt have to take the hits.

[Vilmah]

I'm gonna go with Kark, here.. we're DPS and we'ere tanks. Our DPS isn't as good as any other class', so we're most useful as tanks. If we're not tanking.. what good are we? Having other classes who can ALSO buff and heal makes us useless. What sort of niche would we fill if we couldn't tank? Makes no sense.

[Karkarov]

Thats my point Vilmah, prot warriors only have 1 niche. Keep in mind I hear alot of people tell me thier "prot warrior" did awesome dps and what have you. One for example is a warrior in my guild and I talk to him see what he is doing that maybe I am not? His build is 35/5/23. That IS NOT a prot warrior, even the armory calls that Arms spec. Any warrior can "tank" or put 15 in prot, that doesnt make them prot spec.

[Chikt]

I'm going to side with Kark here. Nobody is saying that Warriors should be the only class capable of tanking, but they should be best at it. Why?

Druids already do brilliant healing. Excellent DPS. Buffs. And are excellent at tanking. They fill a whole lot of niche's depending on how they spec. However, Warriors as a class do not fill so many. Average DPS and excellent tanking. But only one or the other. And druids can do everything Warriors do just by speccing into Feral. Is that at all fair on Warriors as a whole when another class speccing into one talent tree can negate any or all requirement of Warriors? If Warriors were removed from the game before the druid nerfs this patch, would it matter much? THAT is when there is a problem.

Druids are currently at the state that Shaman were in back when the game was first released. They are good at too much. I was in a group running Shadow Labs with a Feral Druid. And despite the fact that he was not specced into healing and I was to some extent, he was doing better, more efficient healing than me. He goes back into his tanking form and can do more damage and take as much damage as a Prot Warrior. That as a whole completely negates any need for me to do healing or a Prot Warrior to do tanking.

When other classes started getting put out by single specs of other classes, there's a problem. I'm specced into Elemental, but I still can't do everything that a Mage can. And that's fine with me-because I can heal as well and am damn good at it. Karkarov is specced into Protection, and yet he can be outdone by Druids in nearly every way-tanking, DPS, healing, buffs...

It would be like Shaman suddenly getting a massive buff and making them so powerful that no matter what tree they specced into, they could heal amazingly well, tank on the level of a Protection warrior, and do damage like a mage. Currently, Druids can out-heal Resto Shaman, out-protect Protection Warriors, and do around the same average damage as a Rogue. And all that by speccing into one Talent tree. They are good at too much and have more utility.

Basically? I pose this question to you.

Should a Restoration Shaman be able to out-heal a Holy Priest?

[Valon]

Kal, your stats are low as hell.

Our MT has like 20k+ armor, 30%+ dodge, and 14k+ health in bear. He also has enough defense (can't remember the druid value, only warrior) that he can't be crit by a mob in melee. I mean, hes spent a few weeks sourcing and getting the best feral gear he can get his hands on, but yeah.

Jemmalass, your logic is badly flawed. Not only do prot warriors -not- suck in PvP anymore (they just give up some burst damage and MS) but why in hell should that make them the best tanks? A moonkin druid is a fairly useless healer, a useless tank, but are they the best DPS in the game? No. The best caster DPS? No. A resto druid is useless for anything other than healing, but are they the unparelled best healers in the game? Hell no. Feral druids sacrifice healing and caster DPS to tank and melee DPS, just like warriors sacrifice to tank well. And if you think a bear has prot warrior stats in PvP gear, your imagining things.

Karkarov, I agree with you to a point. You should be equally good tanks as a druid, yes, but to say that you should be far and beyond the best tank is not so true in my opinion. Tanking druids gear and spec themselves to tank just as much as you do, and if they are in their tanking gear, are just as useless in PvP (even more so now that mangle got hit hard with the nerf bat.)

And I think we established with the whole druid nerf thing that druids could tank equally well if not better to warriors, yet Blizzard nerfed them. This is stupid.

Warriors are the -only- class that has a defined role, a certain slot.

DPS slots are filled with innumerable classes. Mages, Warlocks, Hunters and rogues of all specs, and off specd classes such as fury warriors, or elemental shammys, or whatever.

Healers have a few there too. Theres pallys, druids, priests, shammys..... even those of DPS specs still have a heal button.

For tanks, there is a warrior. Paladins still are nowhere near as good, and druids were until they got nerfed. Will this change their ability to tank.... possibly.

Is this biased and horribly favouring those warriors who tank? Hell yes it is.

[Sanrin]

Paladin tank is quite good, but a warrior will always be better single target against a boss.

[Karkarov]

There is no way in hell your bear tank is immune to crits. At this point I would say give his name and lets see what the armory says. I also totally disagree. Warriors are better tanks than bears. This patch or any other I dont care. It DOES take more skill and more gear. And if I am so against non warrior tanks why have I never posted a word against the "tankadin"? Druids did ridiculous levels of DPS in thier "tank" form, they were the pvp flavor of the month, and feral was the best source of DPS as a druid. That is TOTALLY CONTRADICTORY to every other tanking spec. That is the ONLY reason I have a problem with feral druids.

I give up solo, pvp, and dps viability. Paladins were giving up the same just not as much. But Ferals were actually made stronger in all those catagories from thier tank spec. I dont expect a mage to get it, but trust me bear druids were OP all to hell. Not just at tanking either. EVERYONE knew a nerf was coming, even the druids, this tells me it was probably needed.

PS: I have never said I want to be far and away go home little girl you got nothing better than every other tank. I said prot should be the best. The difference between best and second best can be little more than paper thin. I dont want.... "Hey guys I wanna run Arcatraz but all I can find is a feral druid screw that!". I also do not want "Sorry kark we dont need you on this raid all you can do is tank and we have enough ferals, since you cant dps buff or heal we are giving your slot to someone else."

[Kaliera]

Kal, your stats are low as hell.

Our MT has like 20k+ armor, 30%+ dodge, and 14k+ health in bear. He also has enough defense (can't remember the druid value, only warrior) that he can't be crit by a mob in melee. I mean, hes spent a few weeks sourcing and getting the best feral gear he can get his hands on, but yeah.

I also gave stats that would suppliment the people whining that bear tanks can do zomguber dps while tanking at once. Tist in that gear would be lucky to surpass a healer on DPS charts, and wouldn't ya know it, he'd likely be on par with a prot warrior, as it should be. Also, if he really has all that defense, then the stats he's given you are skewed. The items needed to attain armor that high have NO defense, and to become uncrittable would require a shitton of resiliance and defense, of which very little leather with those stats has high armor. His dodge I can understand, and even with 30% dodge, his mitagation is lower than a prot warrior's.

[Karkarov]

That isnt true Kaliera in that bears tanked through dps, thats why people could unload immediately. They were getting warrior level "bonus threat" but also doing a ton of dps. But blah blah all that aside. I concur the stat line quoted is not possible with any gear make up I have ever heard of. But 30% dodge is only slightly lower than my parry and dodge combined. But my shield block damage does cover that, never really dissagreed about the mitigation.

Anyway we will see as the patch goes. So far the warrior changes arent that big from what I experianced in my mechanar run. Thunderclap was nice, but I think it will need talents to really shine.

[Jemmalass]

Jemmalass, your logic is badly flawed. Not only do prot warriors -not- suck in PvP anymore (they just give up some burst damage and MS) but why in hell should that make them the best tanks? A moonkin druid is a fairly useless healer, a useless tank, but are they the best DPS in the game? No. The best caster DPS? No. A resto druid is useless for anything other than healing, but are they the unparelled best healers in the game? Hell no. Feral druids sacrifice healing and caster DPS to tank and melee DPS, just like warriors sacrifice to tank well. And if you think a bear has prot warrior stats in PvP gear, your imagining things.

1.) Protection Warriors can not Mortal Strike, that is a 30 point Arms Talent.

2.) Have you even looked at the protection talent tree? All my abilities require shields so right now I am stuck with a One-Hander. With a DPS of 81.1

Even if I pull on my DPS gear I have no burst damage talents with my two-hander. Sure I can Heroic Strike but, that burns rage that I'm not generating and I probably will die.

I am a Protection Warrior and I have difficulty kiling level 58 alliance. My best chance is to just try to out live them.

3.) Have you looked at the Druid Talents compared to the warrior talents? They have slapped a melee DPS class and a Tank class in the same tree. Meaning that a Bear tank just has to get two sets of gear and they can basically be a tank & rogue by just changing gear.

Doesn't work that way for protection warriors. Even if we change gear we're just useless in PvP except for being an annoyance by being hard to kill and running flags.

- - -

On a side not, you seem to know little about either class or even tanking in general. I suggest you roll a druid or warrior and level him and get some experience under your belt before you start bitching at Blizzard about second-hand knowledge. ^^

[Thurgo]

Jemmalass, your logic is badly flawed. Not only do prot warriors -not- suck in PvP anymore (they just give up some burst damage and MS) but why in hell should that make them the best tanks? A moonkin druid is a fairly useless healer, a useless tank, but are they the best DPS in the game? No. The best caster DPS? No. A resto druid is useless for anything other than healing, but are they the unparelled best healers in the game? Hell no. Feral druids sacrifice healing and caster DPS to tank and melee DPS, just like warriors sacrifice to tank well. And if you think a bear has prot warrior stats in PvP gear, your imagining things.

1.) Protection Warriors can not Mortal Strike, that is a 30 point Arms Talent.

2.) Have you even looked at the protection talent tree? All my abilities require shields so right now I am stuck with a One-Hander. With a DPS of 81.1

Even if I pull on my DPS gear I have no burst damage talents with my two-hander. Sure I can Heroic Strike but, that burns rage that I'm not generating and I probably will die.

I am a Protection Warrior and I have difficulty kiling level 58 alliance. My best chance is to just try to out live them.

3.) Have you looked at the Druid Talents compared to the warrior talents? They have slapped a melee DPS class and a Tank class in the same tree. Meaning that a Bear tank just has to get two sets of gear and they can basically be a tank & rogue by just changing gear.

Doesn't work that way for protection warriors. Even if we change gear we're just useless in PvP except for being an annoyance by being hard to kill and running flags.

- - -

On a side not, you seem to know little about either class or even tanking in general. I suggest you roll a druid or warrior and level him and get some experience under your belt before you start bitching at Blizzard about second-hand knowledge. ^^

Well...to be fair...he said you are -giving up- MS, he didn't ever say that was a protection talent or even a normal ability :P

You can still use whirlwind and overpower with your 2 hander for burst dps, though overpower just isn't that great without imp overpower and whirlwind costs a lot of rage with a long-ish cooldown

Leave your tanking gear on for PvP, you can always spell reflect and hope you get something good (Unless they are an ice mage, *shiver* ice lance) or have yourself parry/dodge/block every other melee hit XD, all that really can kill ya is a healing class, and you have shield bash, more effective than pummel.

[Jemmalass]

Ah, I misread then. I apologize for that.

The point is What can a prot warrior do in PvP? Our armor is useless against casters and we don't have the resistance that druids get from paws. We can hope for a 1k shiled Slam crit while we're shield bashing them but, in Defensive stance (Which most of our prot abilites rely on) we have no way of slowing our opponent and we just get kited and die.

[Shadowspeak]

Thats no differant than Healing druids. it's considered the PvE tree and they suck at doing pvp while having a pve tree spec. it's no differant with warriors and protection.

[Karkarov]

Anyone who thinks a talent that only reflects one spell, has to be individually targeted on the warrior, only has a 5 second timer to reflect in, and has a 10 second cooldown costing 25 rage is a serious pvp threat obviously has no clue about what they are saying. Spell reflect is "nice" in pvp, but it is not that thing you see in that video from the beta that had no cooldown, could reflect any number of spells, and cost only 10 rage. And overpower? Are you joking? My overpower is nothing but a free swing, it does pretty much my white dps damage hardly anything to be scared of. WW? Just my white dps damage to 5 guys at once.

However you are right prot warriors should pvp in thier prot gear. It makes shield slam hit harder and makes you harder to kill. Not to mention all your really "good" pvp skills require a shield. Shield slam and devestate/heroic strike are prot warriors dps.

[Thurgo]

Anyone who thinks a talent that only reflects one spell, has to be individually targeted on the warrior, only has a 5 second timer to reflect in, and has a 10 second cooldown costing 25 rage is a serious pvp threat obviously has no clue about what they are saying. Spell reflect is "nice" in pvp, but it is not that thing you see in that video from the beta that had no cooldown, could reflect any number of spells, and cost only 10 rage. And overpower? Are you joking? My overpower is nothing but a free swing, it does pretty much my white dps damage hardly anything to be scared of. WW? Just my white dps damage to 5 guys at once.

However you are right prot warriors should pvp in thier prot gear. It makes shield slam hit harder and makes you harder to kill. Not to mention all your really "good" pvp skills require a shield. Shield slam and devestate/heroic strike are prot warriors dps.

Woah, no reason to go all out on me.

Spell reflect from what I've seen is -great- against certain shamans (I'm not big on shaman specs), fire mages, and PoM -> Pyroblast mages. It could be better yes, but it -is- a big help in these fights. It makes a good contribution to your heroic strike/shield slam spamming.

I was simply giving him a few examples of whats left of your burst damage attacks for a 2-hander on a prot warrior, and listed down sides as well. Didn't say they were great, didn't say we're able to PvP with them, but just listing examples of burst (what I consider burst as a warrior: instant attacks) damage that remain.

[Valon]

Suffice to say, I was wrong with his gear. To get the defense to be 'uncrittable', he sacrificed a fair bit of armor and health. He still can get those armor and health values though, he just would have to drop some defense.

Apparently, this is the more accurate values atm (after the nerf): 11-12k health, 14-16k armor, and 366 defense (which, when combined with survival of the fittest, is apparently equal to 493 defense, which is the universally regarded defense number for warriors to not be crittable (at least, on the warrior boards.))

I'm man enough to admit when I've made a few mistakes in my arguments, which I have made some rather glaring ones, and I can't be bothered correcting them.

But, however, I think those prot warriors who seem to be sitting there whining about druids need to think about something. Next time your guild says 'We are taking a druid because he can heal as well as tank for us.' ask them how they plan on having him heal while he's tanking.

You guys have the better mitigation, and alot better rage generation now. Druid tanking got nerfed hard. So, if you are still being dropped for a druid, you need to look at your tanking gear/strat, and think about why a druid is out-tanking you, and work to fix it. It is no longer the 'imba' druids fault.

Edit: Oh Dio dude, if you think warrior DPS is average when specd for it, you play with some damn bad DPS warriors. I have to constantly push myself to keep ahead of a fury warr we have in our guild...... he's just insane.

[Kallindra]

DPS warriors can put out crazy damage. They just have to have exact pieces of gear, weapons, min max stats, consumables, and a very specific spec. A very egotistical outlook typically comes with these kinds of warriors - as if they feel you should be blessed by being in their mere presence.

[Vilmah]

A very egotistical outlook typically comes with these kinds of warriors - as if they feel you should be blessed by being in their mere presence.

What? You mean you shouldn't bow down before me? Well gosh DAMMIT, what was the POINT of this spec?!

[Kallindra]

A very egotistical outlook typically comes with these kinds of warriors - as if they feel you should be blessed by being in their mere presence.

What? You mean you shouldn't bow down before me? Well gosh DAMMIT, what was the POINT of this spec?!

I'm sorry.. I just don't feel the same way... :twisted:

[Rasta]

Yeah, there's a reason our main DPS warrior, Kender, was called "the blender". Most rogues couldn't keep up on the DPS charts.

[NorthFace]

As someone who prided themselves on their tanking gear, my stats were as follows (rough estimates... I don't have my character in front of me):

Self Buffed:

13500 HP
22000 armor
25% dodge
+160 defense (w/3% chance to avoid crit talent, I was un-crittable by bosses)
900 AP

I have not bothered logging in northface since the nerfs (disgusted with the class after testing the PTR)... but in all of my experiences tanking, I was NEVER #1 on the DPS charts wearing this gear. The only explanation I can come up with when people say their bear druid was #1 DPS was if they were running a low level instance and the druid had his DPS gear on. Even then, 4k bear mangle crits simply DID NOT HAPPEN unless MAYBE on a 5x sundered low level target with the druid in DPS gear and trinkets popped.

Blizzard screwed the pooch with this nerf. See, I personally have no problem whatsoever with Prot warriors being better than druids at tanking. None. What I DO have a problem with is Blizzard making us incapable of tanking, which is what has happened. Make no mistake, the drastic lowering of bear DPS has killed the druid tank. We simply cannot hold aggro. If blizzard would have left our survivability alone, nerfed our bear damage, and consequently increased our threat generation, that would have been a perfectly acceptable solution for bear tanks, while still placating the people claiming bear form was OP in PVP.

One of the major downfalls of druids, honestly, was the combination of our talent trees. Previously in order to spec hard bear tank, we had to give up many of our DPS abilities, because bear and cat talents were separate. With 2.0.1 they combined a lot of our talents, making it so Feral could be more easily accessible. This was necessary because Druid tanks were so rare, and so untrusted, NO one trusted a druid to tank. If we did, it was merely a novelty. Anyone specced hard tank, was basically gimping themselves for anything else. It'd be like being a prot warrior, but never grouped as a tank.

The bottom line is previously druids were useful as healers, Melee DPS, Magic DPS, and as a Tank if specced for these roles, and wearing the right gear. Our tank role has now been removed, and bear form has been turned into a sanctuary for Resto druids healing in PVP, making it so they can live a few more seconds when the pain train comes calling.

[Vilmah]

Heeeee!! It's NorthFace! Hiya!

[Mortica]

(rough estimates... I don't have my character in front of me)

Well, if you didn't log out naked, ya silly elf ;)

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Twisting+Nether&n=Northface

[Darkblade]

(rough estimates... I don't have my character in front of me)

Well, if you didn't log out naked, ya silly elf ;)

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Twisting+Nether&n=Northface

dancing on the mailbox again?

[NorthFace]

lol I'd forgotten I'd gone into redridge to get even for someone ganking my shaman alt, and while there decided to get nekkid to drown myself in a effort to get a "How could this happen to meeeee" emo screenshot. = P

O and hi Vilmah & everyone = ). I still check by every so often, but for some reason TNG is really very very slow for me when I'm at work. I dunno why.

[Valon]

As someone who prided themselves on their tanking gear, my stats were as follows (rough estimates... I don't have my character in front of me):

Self Buffed:

13500 HP
22000 armor
25% dodge
+160 defense (w/3% chance to avoid crit talent, I was un-crittable by bosses)
900 AP

I have not bothered logging in northface since the nerfs (disgusted with the class after testing the PTR)... but in all of my experiences tanking, I was NEVER #1 on the DPS charts wearing this gear. The only explanation I can come up with when people say their bear druid was #1 DPS was if they were running a low level instance and the druid had his DPS gear on. Even then, 4k bear mangle crits simply DID NOT HAPPEN unless MAYBE on a 5x sundered low level target with the druid in DPS gear and trinkets popped.

Blizzard screwed the pooch with this nerf. See, I personally have no problem whatsoever with Prot warriors being better than druids at tanking. None. What I DO have a problem with is Blizzard making us incapable of tanking, which is what has happened. Make no mistake, the drastic lowering of bear DPS has killed the druid tank. We simply cannot hold aggro. If blizzard would have left our survivability alone, nerfed our bear damage, and consequently increased our threat generation, that would have been a perfectly acceptable solution for bear tanks, while still placating the people claiming bear form was OP in PVP.

One of the major downfalls of druids, honestly, was the combination of our talent trees. Previously in order to spec hard bear tank, we had to give up many of our DPS abilities, because bear and cat talents were separate. With 2.0.1 they combined a lot of our talents, making it so Feral could be more easily accessible. This was necessary because Druid tanks were so rare, and so untrusted, NO one trusted a druid to tank. If we did, it was merely a novelty. Anyone specced hard tank, was basically gimping themselves for anything else. It'd be like being a prot warrior, but never grouped as a tank.

The bottom line is previously druids were useful as healers, Melee DPS, Magic DPS, and as a Tank if specced for these roles, and wearing the right gear. Our tank role has now been removed, and bear form has been turned into a sanctuary for Resto druids healing in PVP, making it so they can live a few more seconds when the pain train comes calling.

I disagree with bear tanking being -completely- broken, just because our MT was able to tank fine in Kara last night, we just had to give him slightly more time to generate aggro.

Afterwards in Black Morass though, I had to really watch myself or I would pull agro.

[Kaliera]

lol I'd forgotten I'd gone into redridge to get even for someone ganking my shaman alt, and while there decided to get nekkid to drown myself in a effort to get a "How could this happen to meeeee" emo screenshot. = P

O and hi Vilmah & everyone = ). I still check by every so often, but for some reason TNG is really very very slow for me when I'm at work. I dunno why.

You still owe me a staff duel. *fistshake*

[NorthFace]

I disagree with bear tanking being -completely- broken, just because our MT was able to tank fine in Kara last night, we just had to give him slightly more time to generate aggro.

Afterwards in Black Morass though, I had to really watch myself or I would pull agro.

Perhaps I should clarify my remarks. When it comes to high efficiency, high speed runs, where the DPS runs high and heals flow like water, bear tanking is broken.... and maybe that's what is intended. My personality style lends me to min/max effectiveness... I know that about myself, but I like having versatility, so I chose the druid. The druid's bane at this point is how many roles they are capable of filling... ranged dps, melee dps, heals, and tank, all dependant on spec and gear. The problem with this, though, is there are only 3 talent trees.

Maybe add a 4th talent tree? Re-split the bear tanking talents from the DPS talents? I don't know. I'm OK with being DPS & heals I suppose, but I really latched on to the tanking role we were suddenly presented with simply because the Tank is a center, core element to every group, oftentimes setting the pace and taking a leadership role. Also, finding a competent tank is oftentimes VERY tough.

As far as druids go, I would say we are:

Decent raid tanks
Poor 5-man tanks

Excellent raid dps (Moonkin or feral)
Good 5-man dps (no CC)

Excellent supplemental raid healer
Good 5-man raid healer.

Prior to 2.0.10 we were excellent 5-man tanks.

The raid is really where the druid shines. We make a great supplemental class when all the core pieces are there, but that's not very comforting when we're turned down for 5-mans heroics.

[Jobolg]

Just so you know, they DID buff threat generation a bit to counteract the nerf. Mangle causes 50% additional threat, and Lacerate (that's the bleed one, right?) causes a small amount of damage and inflicts its threat even on bleed immune mobs. They did it in a hotfix, I believe.

[NorthFace]

Lacerate is useless in more than 50% of situations. Bleed immune mobs make baby jesus cry.

[razev]

Just so you know, they DID buff threat generation a bit to counteract the nerf. Mangle causes 50% additional threat, and Lacerate (that's the bleed one, right?) causes a small amount of damage and inflicts its threat even on bleed immune mobs. They did it in a hotfix, I believe.

[Fhenrir]

Lacerate is useless in more than 50% of situations. Bleed immune mobs make baby jesus cry.

To expand upon the other points, so you know it's official;


The Druid ability Mangle (Bear) now generates 50% bonus threat.

The Druid ability Lacerate now deals a small amount of instant damage, generating threat, against bleed immune creatures.

Source (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=82238244&sid=1)

P.S: Hiya Northface!

[Karkarov]

Things are begining to sound alot more in line and accurate now.

[NorthFace]

Hihi Fhenny! BTW there's an alliance character with a name similar to yours... he said he knew you, so I told him to say hi to you for me. Give him a beatdown if he didn't. = P

& Yeah... sorry bout that... I guess I kinda saw the word "Lacerate" and I flashed back to the druid forums with all the classes rubbing the nerfs in our faces, saying "lawl lrn2lacerate" not realizing it was basically useless in it's current form. After reading through many many of those posts, eventually you just see red and want to beat people's ignorant faces in with a large blunt object. That could just be me, though. Seems this time it was my ignorant face. Reading comprehension ftw I guess.

Anyway those fixes would go a long way toward fixing the problems they created with the nerfs. Overall I still think bears are still going to be creating insufficient threat (50% extra threat doesn't compensate for mangle damage being reduced 65-70% overall, as well as losing 20% damage from all other bear abilities due to the Savage Fury nerf) but that's just me.

No big deal... I've been having fun with the shaman. Expect an intro post for him soon. :)

[Sulajin]

As far as it goes for beginning to see red...

If you want a gods damned free teleport someplace, I suggest you roll a fucking mage. Only time you're getting a portal somewhere without paying from this mage is after an instance.

Okay, done hijacking.

[Karkarov]

Damage is a big factor in threat, but honestly it sounds alot more in line now with what warriors and paladins have to bring to the table. We will see I guess.

[NorthFace]

Double post much? = P

Personally I still don't understand why people have such a big issue with feral bear druids having equal, if not better, overall physical mitigation and hit points than a prot warrior.

We still suffer more magic damage, more crushing blows, don't increase raid dps via sunder, have no last stand, have no shield wall, have no spell reflection, have no intervene, and have no mocking blow. There still isn't any resist tanking gear for druids, and we reach our tanking peak with quested greens.

Oh well. The changes are in, warriors have won their tanking role back, and most druids are now... BOOOMKIN! OMGLAZERSPEWPEW

[Karkarov]

Yeah didnt notice that before, oh well. Can only speak for myself but I never lost my tanking role to begin with. Note.... you still DO have more hp and physical mitigation. Just not by 7k armor and 5k health now.

[Jobolg]

My druid is still low level, but for the record, I was planning to go Boomkin BEFORE it became cool.