I'm not feral, I'm a Bear

My Skyrim Walkthrough: 6 Random Episodes

2011-11-21T14:43:00.002-05:00

First of all, I finally took the time to look this up and found this (scroll down to nabbs's post): http://www.giantbomb.com/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/61-33394/has-anyone-found-an-explanationlegend-of-the-map-symbols/35-524088/

forget which video I lose it in about not being listed anywhere lol but it was one of the ones in this post.

Playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6E14C5C5534B412A

A Blade in the Dark ... I should have just fast traveled /sigh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5773lTmcF64

A Blade in the Dark ... MAJOR STORY SPOILERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DmXHYZ_U4Y

The Liberation of Skyrim - Rescue from Fort Neugrad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWzJofvoBNw

ALWAYS LOOK UP WHILE EXPLORING!!! You never know what you might find.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bnvRf7P-g0

I CAN'T SWIM!!!!! And a new mission from Galmar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YkGhgxxOcw

A moment of silence please, Darksend loses her most loyal companion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qWae_nuR8k

My Skyrim Walkthrough: Continuing the Main Quest and learning new shouts

2011-11-17T15:03:00.002-05:00

My Skyrim Walkthrough: The Next 5 Episodes

2011-11-15T12:00:00.002-05:00

The next 5 videos are now up.

Playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6E14C5C5534B412A

The Civil War begins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4kdJ5m8jjE

Korvanjund and the Jagged Crown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0NXYdrGZ3w

THE BATTLE AND SIEGE OF WHITERUN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kXi4Juj8xM

More Dragon Slaying

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AR4HsmgvCA

The Way of the Voice .... And lots of mountains

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmu06feWI_8

My Skyrim Walkthrough: The First 5 Episodes

2011-11-13T10:52:00.002-05:00

First off, we are still looking for a replacement for spiritus on forum junkies, and hopefully we will be back on the air before 4.3 hits.

Now, on to business. The first 5 episodes of my skyrim walkthrough are now up on youtube. Taking 6 hours per video in rendering time is really hurting but I am chuggin along.

playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/user/DarksendGames#grid/user/6E14C5C5534B412A

Character Creation and Tutorial Dungeon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xganq5kAkQ8

Lore and Backstory (boring episode)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsfGRD_OyFk

Black Falls Barrow and My first real combat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTkprkRdwNg

Black Falls Sanctum, the Dragonstone, My first Dragon Shout, and epic recording fails

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd4tVw1b_Dw

I am ... THE DRAGONBORN!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDTvEzVjMHM

Episode 6 is already recorded and rendering now and should be up on youtube after the football games tonight:

The Civil War begins and My Stormcloak Initiation

Making the move to single player and my new Youtube channel

2011-11-04T18:27:00.004-04:00

Hey guys,

I would like to announce I am moving my youtube home to my new channel DarksendGames. Since my previous channel was dedicated to my wow guild and wow videos, for my new venture I wanted to make a fresh start.

DarksendGames will be dedicated to walkthroughs of all your favorite RPGs, and any other single player games I decide to pick up, complete with commentary by yours truly. I have been looking forward to this for a while, and the timing should make it no surprise what my first game is going to be.

I want to thank you guys for your friendship and support. Looking forward to sharing my adventures with you.

http://youtu.be/LGwj2a-0TSY

DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS!!!!!!!!

2011-10-21T16:56:00.001-04:00

guild chat a minute ago

[16:54:47] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:48] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:48] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:49] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:49] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:49] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:50] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:50] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS
[16:54:50] [G] [85:Darksend]: DRUIDS HAVE 4 SPECS

I was excited. Even if I called this last year.

Forum Junkies: Episode 7 (and woopppsss)

2011-09-15T18:10:00.004-04:00

So, the blog for episode 6, about that. I apparently hit save as draft instead of publishing it, so it has been sitting in my post list as a draft for the past 2 weeks.

We also took a week off because of the holiday last week.

So now, time for your fix. Episode 7 is now up: http://blip.tv/forumjunkies/forum-junkies-episode-7-5557374

On this week's episode, Darksend and Spiritus are joined by FJ Nation member & podcasting veteran, Huck. Topics include: Should WoW be more real? [Torp�d�|O-boards], Lack of content for max level characters in Cataclysm? [Irritated|O-boards], How well would WoW do if launched today? [probert|MMO-C], and the motivation for playing [Treehugger|PlusHeal].

Don't forget to hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

Forum Junkies: Episode 5

2011-08-25T22:49:00.002-04:00

Episode 5 is up on time this week! http://blip.tv/forumjunkies/forum-junkies-episode-5-5498124

On this week's episode, Darksend and Spiritus are joined by TankSpot author & fmr editor of the Wordy Warrior blog, Ariedan. Topics include: Goodbye threat, hello active tanking? [Swelt|TankSpot], 15 player raid sizes [Serule|O-boards], Will Cataclysm be too short? [Hades|O-boards], and what could make WoW great again [Omnirom|MMO-C].

Don't forget to hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

Forum Junkies: Episode 4

2011-08-22T16:45:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the delay this week, had some technical and scheduling problems due to new mics and another guest appearance by the banhammer!

But fear not episode 4 is finally up: http://blip.tv/forumjunkies/forum-junkies-episode-4-5484888

On this week's episode, Darksend and Spiritus are again joined by TankSpot's supermoderator, Kazeyonoma. Topics include: The impact of vengeance on tanking [Sceilence|O-boards], Is wow easy? [Tennesseej|MMO-C], the "holy trinity" of tank, DPS, & healer [Sofar|O-boards], and the debate over legacy servers [Daruur|O-boards].

*We apologize for the quality of Spiritus' track. It will be fixed for next week

Don't forget to hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Forum Junkies: Episode 3

2011-08-12T01:09:00.002-04:00

Episode 3 is up: http://blip.tv/forumjunkies/forum-junkies-episode-3-5461024

On this week's episode, Darksend and Spiritus are joined by TankSpot's supermoderator, Kazeyonoma. Topics include: Should WoW have more compelling solo content? [Libellus|Tankspot], intra-community behavior [Butterland|MMO-C], the fate of low-population severs [Ephineh|O-boards], and the real world value of MMO gaming [Loganisis|TankSpot]. Don't forget to hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Forum Junkies: Episode 2 and THE RAID!

2011-08-05T13:07:00.004-04:00

Episode 2 is now live:

http://blip.tv/forumjunkies/forum-junkies-episode-2-5443671

I would also like to add that this weekend at 6PST on Saturday, the long awaited premier of "THE RAID" documentary is finally here.

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/the-raid-documentary-event/

No, I will not be in this one, I was only in the interview one as promotion for the main project. Having seen an earlier cut of it (no music) I can tell you guys it will not be time wasted. So tune in this Saturday.

And apparently I forgot how to post links on blogspot ...

Forum Junkies: Episode 1

2011-08-03T12:16:00.002-04:00

LONG TIME NO SEE! A year ago next week since my last post ...

Anyway, just a quick update to let you know about a new project I am working on. It is called forum junkies.

Forum Junkies is a WoW related podcast geared towards giving a voice to the community. The content is generated by posters on the official wow forums as well as wow community sites. My co-hosts and I then pick the best of the best to highlight on the show, quality posts that would have otherwise been buried amongst the trolls. We blend hardcore and semi-hardcore raiding perspectives with comedy and no fear of saying where we think blizzard screwed up.

http://blip.tv/forumjunkies/forum-junkies-episode-1-5424203

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and make sure to let us know about any interesting posts you find that you might like highlighted on the show.

We just finished recording episode 2 so look for it soon!

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-08-10T11:56:00.001-04:00

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26435504625&sid=1

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26435504625&pageNo=1&sid=1#7

Furor is 100% chance to proc rage with 3 points.

Off-topic: Achieving a personal goal (almost)

2010-07-25T07:03:00.004-04:00

Many of you have probably seen me from my interview for "The Raid" (here is a link if you have not). That interview was conducted in early February, and at the time I was around 200lbs, just over half way there. Exactly one year ago I was 225 lbs, and today I am just short of my original goal at 185 (my goal was 180). Just before that interview I had actually gained some of the weight back so by cheating and counting that I have lost exactly 50 lbs in the span of a year.

This is a very serious issue for gamers, but it is also a very misinformed stereotype, because it is VERY easy to be a gamer and be healthy. The combination of a poor diet plus a sedentary lifestyle leads to a lot of problems. But there are two types of people, people who are overweight and blame video games and do not care, and the people who know the real problem is that they are making poor choices when it comes to nutrition and lack of exercise. Over the past year, I have been a part of the tankspot team who is helping to raise awareness on the issue. As a tankspot donor, we have a special "Fitness" Forum. I really have to thank all of them for the support and motivation to keep going. When I started gaining weight again it was them who kickstarted me back into my program. I could not have done it without them because let me tell you, it is not easy, not only losing it in the first place but keeping the motivation, to not gain it all back (because believe me I could easily gain back all the weight in a matter of weeks).

My personal journey began when I realized that if I did not do something with my health, I would be at serious risk, especially because in my case, I also have a thyroid condition, which is a major part of my problem and my struggles. The first major change was eating. I was never an unhealthy eater, I would just eat way to much. Cutting back from 6-7 meals a day to 3-5 meals a day, within 2 months I was already down 25 lbs. In combination with that was signing up for a gym and beginning a running plan: the couch to 5K. It was at that point where I platued and backtracked. After not seeing any aditional weight loss for the next month, combined with not being able to move from week 4 to week 5 after 2 months of trying, and I gained 10 lbs back before Christmas. Seemed a lot of people were having this problem because the tankspot fitness forum kind of exploded with activity again at this point and most of us started getting back on track. My mother has been on Weight Watchers for years, so while I had been following the program loosely, I finally decided to sign up and really stick with it. This has been a huge help. By simply righting down and tracking everything you eat, you really begin to notice things and begin to change. I started going running again as well. And since I signed up in the 3 months I have been doing it I have lost an additional 18 lbs.

Pitfalls (and things I need to work on):
- Get back to the doctor and get my thyroid back in check
- When I run, I get out of breath so quickly, I think I might have some kind of exercise induced asthma
- When I do not see a change for 2 weeks I lose a huge amount of my motivation and gain weight that third week
- My gym membership is running out next week and I really do not know how I am going to afford renewing it

Finally, yesterday Aliena announced she is starting a fitness channel for gamers on her youtube channel. So I figured I would help her out a bit and wish her luck as well as for my own continued success as well as my fellow tankspoters and to anyone who wants to change their lifestyle to try and be more healthy, GOOD LUCK!

My thoughts on the new trees:

2010-07-15T05:14:00.001-04:00

In a word UNFINISHED. In another, UNTOUCHED!

Long version:

Honestly seems like they just threw druids away for later because they did not know what they wanted to do. Take ferocity and furor for example, are they increasing the ability cost across the board because right off the bat everything now costs 2 extra rage and energy, and they finally give in and give me a 3 point furor AND IT STILL is 60% chance, my personal record is 10 consecutive shifts without a rage proc (either that or they just removed ranks 4 and 5 and did not update the first 3, for both the ones I mentioned)

I am so upset at how bad these are, and without even having looked at the other classes (besides druid and prot warrior) I doubt there is but 1 maybe 2 trees as bad and unfinished as our feral tree. Everything I am about to right will probably have been for nothing by the time the next patch comes out (read as: 100% overhaul of feral).

Cat: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0ZGcbubRrMMhobh NOW WHAT! there are simply not enough points to use 41 points as a cat.
Bear: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0ZGbrzfR0Rbu -> http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0ZGdrzfR0RbuoMI -> http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0ZGfrzfR0RbuoMI where is out field dressing in either the first or second tier of resto, where is our imp LOTP = Blood craze? So because we have 2 roles in our tree we get nothing but boring non-interactive talents? No, my thoughts are still feral has been completely untouched and anything that had more than 3 ranks just had the last 2 removed and made to look nice so they could release something.

First tier:

See above, but 2 forced points are completely useless to bears (and while great for pvp cats, in pve unless after the first 10 seconds of a boss fight), and the other 3 are only marginally useful for both cat and bear.

Second tier:

Primal fury: Double cp on cat crits removed, This is going to be very detrimental to rotations, although maybe this is what they want, this would turn FB into a true finisher that you would only ever use if you did not have to use rip (see nomnomnom). Depending on rage, we may skip this as bears, but probably not.

Feral Swiftness: 30% is so fast, I am surprised it is still that high (see pursuit of justice). As for the dodge, again I am surprised that is not part of the bear "you get free stuff for picking feral." More on this later (see natural reaction).

Fury swipes: cat white attacks made up suck a small portion of damage compared to other melee, and even with haste effecting energy it was still not a great stat. This will help make haste a competitive stat. Does this swing give rage for bears? Either way with haste effecting rage, more threat is more threat, simply a matter of will we have room for it.

Infected wounds: ravage has been added to applying it.

Third Tier:

(Imp) feral charge: see below

KOTJ: depends on the implementation of enrage. If the armor reduction is not removed, this is worthless for bears, if it is, this is better than imp feral charge.

Fourth Tier:

Imp LOTP: it appears to be missing ...

Skull Bash: Well this is one way to force us to take it, put in in the tier that has even with it a max of 3 points a bear would want.

Fifth Tier:

Natural Reaction: Again, I am surprised this is still there. My suggestion, remove this talent, and role the rage on dodge into feral swiftness, and remove the dodge from both and place it on the mastery

Endless carnage: Picking it because I expect the numbers to be tweaked and pulverize actually worth hitting, because right now there is no reason to.

Primal Madness: see above, although if enrage is no longer a second shield wall, and losses the armor reduction, when we hit it it will be because we want rage, and this would make it more effective in the role it is supposed to play. Unfortunately it is a role that is not needed making the talent lackluster. Cats will only get this because they have nothing else.

Sixth Tier: Again only 4 points a bear would even want.

Rend and Tear: see above about talent ranks and reduced effectiveness. It is nice they reduced maul but I still think this should not effect maul at all but rather give a bonus to mangle.

Pulverize: Wait and See.

Seventh Tier:

Berserk: Only because there is nothing else to get with only 1 point unless I want cat only talents.

Resto: I expected as much, of the 4 tank classes we have by far the weakest sub-secs (frost/unholy, ret, arms/fury). I expect resto to get a field dressing like talent. Only having 3 points to pick as a bear in the first tier of resto is utterly unacceptable.

P.S. I wrote this at 5 in the morning because I could not sleep, please ignore the ramblings and QQ, I know stuff is going to change DRASTICALLY, and I like this post to be a predictions/see how far they came when live comes post.

OoC from blizzard

2010-07-10T13:49:00.002-04:00

Source: Blizzard

If I had to guess, Omen of Clarity will be a trained ability. It's too useful to different kinds of druids. Even if you put it shallow in Resto, Feral wouldn't be able to benefit from it until very high level.

But we'll see....

This is probably one of those "don't quote me on this because things can always change" but if the new 31 point trees are as done as I think they are, OoC will not be a talent in the next beta push.

25-man Heroic Halion

2010-07-07T19:44:00.002-04:00

Complete with tips and tricks.

PHASE 1:

Outside MT: Position Halion so the center of his hitbox is about 1/2 way between the wall and the center of the room. The portal to get into phase 2 always spawns relative to where Halion is, so keeping it dead center leaves people more open to breaths and cleaves when they zone into phase 2. Your back should be to the firewall but this will also block your camera. When the meteor falls, the big add will be MDed to you, they are not tauntable so if you are main tanking you really should be (god I swore I would never say this I hate this glyph) using glyph of maul to keep agro on it as they get burned down once the AOE ends.

Add tank: SWIPESWIPESWIPESWIPESWIPE. Sometimes a pet can actually pull agro on it (felguard cleave being the biggest culprit) or the MT can get proxy agro and they will not come to the raid. Just target them while spamming swipe and taunt. Otherwise just keep Halion targeted while mauling and swiping to get that extra maul damage on the boss.

Inside MT: you can either go cat to help dps but I recommend staying in bear and helping pick up the little adds. This will be especially helpful if the add tank gets the debuff and has to run out to be dispelled.

Phase 2:

Outside MT: Stay outside and jump around doing nothing. This will allow you to not only get him properly positioned for phase 3 but also everyone will get a threat wipe while you will keep your threat from phase 1.

Add tank: go cat and DPS

Inside MT: Make sure you are the first person inside, he will not activate until hit (or after a few seconds if he is not hit) so feral charge him and turn him to your left. This is to make sure the raid does not get breathed on or cleaved, and specifically left because of the rotation of the orbs. Do not run to fast and run into the back of the beam to your left, this is not pleasant.

Phase 3:

Outside MT and Add Tank: same as phase 1

Inside MT: Same as phase 2

Gear:

Outside MT and Inside MT: The breath is probably one of the weakest breathes of any dragon, use armor neck cape rings organ and sindragosa's flawless fang.

Add Tank: The adds are all fire damage so SFF and either Satrina's/Jugs vit or CSK. Double ring of binding if you have them or ring of binding + devium's or twin valk. I use the Princes's cape (royal crimson) with an FR enchant and I have a spare pair of bracers that I put an FR fur lining on. You can also get the FR helm enchant from Kirin Tor rep if you are so inclined.

MAJOR!!!! Talent change announcement

2010-07-07T15:22:00.003-04:00

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626290449&sid=1&pageNo=1#0

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626290470&sid=1

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25626290470/31pt-talent-trees/

When we first announced our design goals for class talent trees back at BlizzCon 2009, one of our major stated focuses was to remove some of the boring and "mandatory" passive talents. We mentioned that we wanted talent choices to feel more flavorful and fun, yet more meaningful at the same time. Recently, we had our fansites release information on work-in-progress talent tree previews for druids, priests, shaman, and rogues. From those previews and via alpha test feedback, a primary response we heard was that these trees didn’t incorporate the original design goals discussed at BlizzCon. This response echoes something we have been feeling internally for some time, namely that the talent tree system has not aged well since we first increased the level cap beyond level 60. In an upcoming beta build, we will unveil bold overhauls of all 30 talent trees.

Talent Tree Vision

One of the basic tenets of Blizzard game design is that of “concentrated coolness.” We’d rather have a simpler design with a lot of depth, than a complicated but shallow design. The goal for Cataclysm remains to remove a lot of the passive (or lame) talents, but we don’t think that’s possible with the current tree size. To resolve this, we're reducing each tree to 31-point talents. With this reduction in tree size we need to make sure they're being purchased along a similar leveling curve, and therefore will also be reducing the number of total talent points and the speed at which they're awarded during the leveling process.

As a result, we can keep the unique talents in each tree, particularly those which provide new spells, abilities or mechanics. We’ll still have room for extra flavorful talents and room for player customization, but we can trim a great deal of fat from each tree. The idea isn’t to give players fewer choices, but to make those choices feel more meaningful. Your rotations won’t change and you won’t lose any cool talents. What will change are all of the filler talents you had to pick up to get to the next fun talent, as well as most talents that required 5 of your hard-earned points.

We are also taking a hard look at many of the mandatory PvP talents, such as spell pushback or mechanic duration reductions. While there will always be PvP vs. PvE builds, we’d like for the difference to be less extreme, so that players don’t feel like they necessarily need to spend their second talent specialization on a PvP build.

The Rise of Specialization

We want to focus the talent trees towards your chosen style of gameplay right away. That first point you spend in a tree should be very meaningful. If you choose Enhancement, we want you to feel like an Enhancement shaman right away, not thirty talent points later. When talent trees are unlocked at level 10, you will be asked to choose your specialization (e.g. whether you want to be an Arms, Fury or Protection warrior) before spending that first point. Making this choice comes with certain benefits, including whatever passive bonuses you need to be effective in that role, and a signature ability that used to be buried deeper in the talent trees. These abilities and bonuses are only available by specializing in a specific tree. Each tree awards its own unique active ability and passives when chosen. The passive bonuses range from flat percentage increases, like a 20% increase to Fire damage for Fire mages or spell range increases for casters, to more interesting passives such as the passive rage regeneration of the former Anger Management talent for Arms warriors, Dual-Wield Specialization for Fury warriors and Combat rogues, or the ability to dual-wield itself for Enhancement shaman.

The initial talent tree selection unlocks active abilities that are core to the chosen role. Our goal is to choose abilities that let the specializations come into their own much earlier than was possible when a specialization-defining talent had to be buried deep enough that other talent trees couldn’t access them. For example, having Lava Lash and Dual-Wield right away lets an Enhancement shaman feel like an Enhancement shaman. Other role-defining examples of abilities players can now get for free at level 10 include Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, Mutilate, Shadow Step, Thunderstorm, Earth Shield, Water Elemental, and Penance.

Getting Down to the Grit

Talent trees will have around 20 unique talents instead of today's (roughly) 30 talents, and aesthetically will look a bit more like the original World of Warcraft talent trees. The 31-point talents will generally be the same as the 51-point talents we already had planned for Cataclysm. A lot of the boring or extremely specialized talents have been removed, but we don't want to remove anything that’s going to affect spell/ability rotations. We want to keep overall damage, healing, and survivability roughly the same while providing a lot of the passive bonuses for free based on your specialization choice.

While leveling, you will get 1 talent point about every 2 levels (41 points total at level 85). Our goal is to alternate between gaining a new class spell or ability and gaining a talent point with each level. As another significant change, you will not be able to put points into a different talent tree until you have dedicated 31 talent points to your primary specialization. While leveling, this will be possible at 70. Picking a talent specialization should feel important. To that end, we want to make sure new players understand the significance of reaching the bottom of their specialization tree before gaining the option of spending points in the other trees. We intend to make sure dual-specialization and re-talenting function exactly as they do today so players do not feel locked into their specialization choice.

A True Mastery

The original passive Mastery bonuses players were to receive according to how they spent points in each tree are being replaced by the automatic passive bonuses earned when a tree specialization is chosen. These passives are flat percentages and we no longer intend for them to scale with the number of talent points spent. The Mastery bonus that was unique to each tree will now be derived from the Mastery stat, found on high-level items, and Mastery will be a passive skill learned from class trainers around level 75. In most cases, the Mastery stats will be the same as the tree-unique bonuses we announced earlier this year. These stats can be improved by stacking Mastery Rating found on high-level items.

To Recap

When players reach level 10, they are presented with basic information on the three specializations within their class and are asked to choose one. Then they spend their talent point. The other trees darken and are unavailable until 31 points are spent in the chosen tree. The character is awarded an active ability, and one or more passive bonuses unique to the tree they've chosen. As they gain levels, they'll alternate between receiving a talent point and gaining new skills. They'll have a 31-point tree to work down, with each talent being more integral and exciting than they have been in the past. Once they spend their 31'st point in the final talent (at level 70), the other trees open up and become available to allocate points into from then on. As characters move into the level 78+ areas in Cataclysm, they'll begin seeing items with a new stat, Mastery. Once they learn the Mastery skill from their class trainer they'll receive bonuses from the stat based on the tree they've specialized in.

We understand that these are significant changes and we still have details to solidify. We feel, however, that these changes better fulfill our original class design goals for Cataclysm, and we're confident that they will make for a better gameplay experience. Your constructive feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

Comments to come shortly (once I finish working on something else)

The ICC buff and you: Getting max TPS

2010-07-03T12:00:00.001-04:00

(I had not planned on releasing this post until the 30% buff came out, but since you asked nicely O.o)

With the buff now at 25%, even in full DPS gear I have more HP than I did the first week of hard modes in full tank gear (with no zone buff yet). And since most of the fights are completely boring as a tank, what better to do than try and set TPS records.

First, the spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZxGGscrzceoc0uAkbAc0b

Next, the rotation: I like to build up a 5 stack of lacerate first, to let my idol stack up, as opposed to berserking straight away, to give my berserk that extra crit, but mileage may vary. Even if I use it right on the pull, on most bosses I will not get a second one so that really does not matter, and since you probably used KOTJ to get rage for the pull, why not wait and line up berserk with your second enrage. Well anyway after that you can pretty much just macro it and go afk. Assuming a 5 stack is already up, Mangle-> Lacerate-> FF->Mangle->Swipe->Swipe->Mangle->FF->Swipe->Repeat. This is why it is important to cap hit and expertise because you are refreshing that lacerate with under a second to go so if it misses/is parried you need to start your stack all over again. Also MAULMAULMAULMAULMAUL!

After that, the gear: http://www.wowhead.com/profile=21510679 (wowhead does not like my leatherworking for some reason but the bracers have the 102 stam leatherworking lining). Is this the ideal setup, far from it, but it is what I have to use, just to give you guys an idea of the direction to go.

Things to keep in mind, at the 20% buff, I still used my 277 tanking helm (with stam meta) and http://www.wowhead.com/item=50682 for the extra armor boost. I also had my tanking belt with 2x30 stam gems and a 51 stam gem until the 25% buff.

The most important thing to do is cap hit and expertise before anything else, although what the parry cap actually is is anywhere between 54-60 depending on who you ask (I think 14% or 56 is the right number but don't quote me). The three pieces I love for this are the trinket, the cape, and the chest. All very easy to obtain (10 man HM trial, 10 man Morrowgar, 25 Gunship) which combined give 5% hit and 30 expertise skill (40 on the character sheet because of talents).

The other important thing is still use 4pc t10. With KotJ, you will be using enrage a lot. If you do not have the bonus, the armor loss from using enrage, combined with already reduced stam and armor from the dps gear, will be very deadly.

Lastly, Fights I use this on (all heroic mode):

LM
LDW (swap the bracers for the identical ones just with a 70 frost resist fur lining, and change the runestone to Sind's flawless fang)
LOLship
Deathbringer
Rotface
Festergut (this may surprise people, and you may think this is because I am the first tank, but I am not. Surviving the 3 stack is about using cooldowns nothing more)
BQL

Putricide is a moderatly difficult attempt boss better safe than sorry, Princes I tank 2 of them and they kinda hurt, stuff dies to fast on Dreamwalker so might as well use tank gear to let the healers heal the boss more, and sind I am the offtank so while my DPS contribution could be better, I have had some bad luck with healer blocks on that fight.

Make that 4 new posts:

2010-07-01T23:51:00.004-04:00

If you would like to give feedback on any of the changes, or would like something posted in the beta forums, please visit the Bear thread in the tankspot beta forums: http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?68580-Bear-Beta-Discussion. Anyone with solid feedback and/or suggestions will be better served writing a well-written post there as opposed to a chicken-scratch blog comment which will most likely never be seen by anyone important.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626046675&sid=2000 the "official" bear beta thread.

GC post that really pissed me off

2010-07-01T22:16:00.002-04:00

Tanks have a lot more cooldowns to use than they used to. Fundamentally though, our difficulty model is dependent on requiring a stable of healers to keep the tank up. If the tank has too much control over whether he or she lives or dies, then your success or failure has a lot more to do with the skill of that one player rather than the coordination of the raid as a whole (which is where we want it).

Right now, it feels exactly like GC is describing, tanks live or die depending on the skill of the healers and the tank does not have enough control over our own lives. Sure, the days of 30 minute shield walls are gone, but only because encounter designs require it. To many bosses in cata have followed the "I have a hard hitting ability that I use exactly once a minute and if you do not CD it you die". Fusion punch, Sarth's breaths, Vezax "kite" phase, Soul Repear, Mimiron's plasma blast, Festurgut's 3 stack. I hate being forced to used a cooldown on a script, and not as an O SHIT SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED.

I guess this is more of a rant about encounter design as opposed to lack of cooldowns or tanks controling their own life, but there is no such thing as a "CLUCH COOLDOWN" that saved the tanks life anymore like there used to be.

The last part: "coordination of the raid as a whole," this can easily be solved by balancing the external cooldowns, in which paladins are still way to strong in that category and new tree form notwithstanding for a tank cooldown, have none. Working with healers so the raid does not use 5 cooldowns at once and as a result have none for the next ability falls into what GC is talking about but again feels to scripted because of the way big boss abilities have worked in LK.

New though thanks to kalon

2010-07-01T22:08:00.002-04:00

Source: Felhoof:

I'd rather have mangle apply the armor debuff automatically and keep FF the way it was. FF fulfilled a lot of needs for a bear, and these changes essentially ruin it.

My reply:

FFF IS our ranged puller, taunt should never be used to pull. I have been against this change from the first time I saw it.

The way FF should work, is that on live it should have a rage cost, and have it be removed in Cata, which is the opposite of the way it is. (since on live it works as a range pull but is also being used every 6 seconds since it does so much threat). Having not really tested bear at all, I am told FF (bear) is doing about 2/3 the damage/threat it does on live. This creates 2 problems. 1) no bear will ever spec into feral aggression because we will only use FF as a range pull and not part of our standard rotation, regardless of FF's CD 2) our only ranged pull HAS A COST.

Armor should be moved to mangle, which would give give us a reason to use berserk at the start of a fight (to get the 3 stack up faster), furthermore a reason to even spec into it at all as bear which at the moment most bears will not. And it will also let you remove the rage cost from from FF, redesign feral aggression, and INCREASE to CD on FF (bear) to really fulfill the role of a ranged pull.
_______________________________

The big thing is, if the damage of FF really has been cut by that much, there is no reason blizzard cannot double or even triple the cooldown to solidify that it is indeed our ranged pull and not supposed to be part of our rotation.

No more NDA! YAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

2010-07-01T13:22:00.002-04:00

Just a couple of notes, because I am on a crusade right now (see here).

Skull bash is terribly implemented, forcing bears to spend 2 points in brutal impact, they might as well not give us an interrupt at all.
We have no dire bear form, I guess the plan is to have bear form scale with level but as of right now it apparently does not.
FF and other similar abilities need to share a slot. Right now, if a balance druid uses FF and a bear uses FF(bear), even those do not stack, let alone sunder. Having to spend 5 talent points to stack up a debuff faster is a bad talent. Feral Aggression needs to be completely reworked and the armor debuffs fixed.
Maul is the elephant in the room, if it stays as is, mangle will be used once a minute for the debuff and FF will be used on the pull and that is it. The rotation is in a bad place right now.
Cooldowns, shield block is on a shorter cooldown than barkskin and provides more mitigation (even if it is melee damage only), IBF can be talented to 60%, we still have no spell exclusive cooldown, and our mastery is probably the worst of the 4.

That's all I got for now, working on the feral write-up for tankspot which I will cross-post here once I finish.

25% HP

2010-06-23T21:20:00.004-04:00

And I could actually get higher than this too if I had changed my cape

25 HLK

2010-06-15T23:32:00.002-04:00

we sucked big time, until we change one thing and we get to phase 3 consistently after months of wiping at the exact same spot.

Cata preview v2

2010-06-10T20:23:00.002-04:00

Feral

Tier 1
- Sharpened Claws (2 points) - Icreases the damage caused by your Claw, Rake, Mangle (Cat), Mangle (Bear), and Maul abilities by 10/20%.
- Ferocity (5 points) - Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, Rake and Mangle abilities by 1/2/3/4/5 Rage or Energy.
- Feral Aggression (5 points) - Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Roar by 8/16/24/32/40% and the damage caused by your Ferocious Bite by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Tier 2
- Shredding Attacks (2 points) - Reduces the energy cost of your Shred ability by 5/10 and the rage cost of your Lacerate ability by 1/2.
- Feral Instinct [TBR] (3 points) - Increases the damage done by your Swipe ability by 10/20/30% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling.
- Thick Hide (3 points) - Increases your Armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 4/7/10%.
Tier 3
- Feral Swiftness (2 points) - Increases your movement speed by 15/30% in Cat Form and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form, Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 2/4%.
- Predatory Instincts (3 points) - Increases the damage done by your melee critical strikes by 3/7/10%.
- Feral Charge (1 point) - Teaches Feral Charge (Bear) and Feral Charge (Cat).
  - Feral Charge (Bear) - Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 seconds. This ability can be used in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form. 15-second cooldown.
  - Feral Charge (Cat) - Causes you to leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds. 30-second cooldown.
- Improved Feral Charge [NNF] (2 points) - Increases your melee haste by 15/30% after you use Feral Charge (Bear) for 8 seconds, and Ravage will temporarly not require stealth for 3/6 seconds after you use Feral Charge (Cat).
Tier 4
- Nurturing Instinct (2 points) - Increases your healing spells by up to 35/70% of your agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% while in Cat Form.
- Fury Swipes (3 points) - When you auto-attack while in Cat Form or Bear Form, you have a 4/8/12% chance to gain an extra auto-attack on the same target. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.
- Primal Fury (2 points) - Gives you a 50/100% chance to gain an additional 5 Rage anytime you get a critical strike while in Bear and Dire Bear Form, and your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 50/100% chance to add an additional combo point.
Tier 5
- Brutal Impact (2 points) - Increases the stun duration of your Bash and Pounce abilities by 0.5/1 seconds, and decreases the cooldown of Bash by 5/10 seconds.
- Heart of the Wild (5 points) - Increases your intellect by 4/8/12/16/20%. In addition, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form your stamina is increased by 2/4/6/8/10%, and while in Cat Form your attack power is increased by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Survival Instincts (1 point) - When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 seconds while in Bear Form, Cat Form, or Dire Bear Form. After the effect expires, the health is lost.
- Predatory Strikes (2 points) - Increases the critical strike chance of your Ravage by 50/25% at or above 90% health, and your finishing moves have a 10/20% chance per combo point to make your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 seconds become an instant cast spell.
Tier 6
- Natural Reaction (3 points) - Increases your dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form by 2/4%, and you regenerate 1/2 rage every time you dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.
- Endless Carnage (2 points) - Increases the duration of your Rake by 3/6 seconds and your Savage Roar and Pulverize by 3/6 seconds.
- Survival of the Fittest (3 points) - Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 2/4/6%, and increases the contribution from cloth and leather items in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 11/22/33%.
Tier 7
- King of the Jungle (3 ranks) - While using your Enrage ability in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form, your damage is increased by 5/10/15%, and your Tiger's Fury ability also instantly restores 20/40/60 energy.
- Leader of the Pack (1 point; Requires 1 point in Heart of the Wild) - While in Cat, Bear, or Dire Bear Form, Leader of the Pack increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%.
- Improved Leader of the Pack (2 points; Requires 1 point in Leader of the Pack) - Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to heal themselves for 2/4% of their total health when they critically hit with melee or ranged attacks. The healing effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds. In addition, you gain 4/8% of your maximum mana when you benefit from this heal.
- Primal Tenacity (3 points) - Reduces the duration of fear effects by 10/20/30% and reduces all damage taken while stunned by 5/10/15% while in Cat Form.
Tier 8
- Protector of the Pack (3 points) - Increases your attack power by 2/4/6% and reduces the damage you take by 4/8/12%, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form.
- Infected Wounds (2 points) - Your Shred, Maul, Ravage and Mangle attacks cause an Infected Wound in the target. The infected Wound reduces the movement speed of the target by 25/50% and the attack speed by 10/20%. Lasts 12 seconds.
Tier 9
- Primal Madness [NNF] (2 points) - Tiger's Fury and Berserk also increases your maximum energy by 6/12 during its duration, and your Enrage and Berserk abilities instantly generates 0/12 Rage.
- Mangle (1 point) - Mangle the target, inflicting damage and causing the target to take additional damage from bleed effects for 1 minute. This ability can be used in Cat Form or Dire Bear form.
- Improved Mangle (3 points) - Reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by 0.5/1.0 seconds and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 2/4.
Tier 10
- Nom Nom Nom [NNF] (2 points) - When you Ferocious Bite a target at or below 25% health, you have a 50/100% chance to instantly refresh the duration of your Rip on the target.
- Rend and Tear (5 points) - Increases damage done by your Maul and Shred attacks on bleeding targets by 4/8/12/16/20%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Ferocious Bite ability on bleeding targets by 5/10%.
- Pulverize (1 point; Requires 5 points in Rend and Tear; Requires Dire Bear Form) - Deals 100% weapon damage plus additional 786 damage for each of your Lacerate applications on the target, and increases your melee critical strike chance by 2% for each Lacerate application consumed for 10seconds.
Tier 11
- Berserk (1 point) - When activated, this ability causes your Mangle (Bear) ability to hit up to 3 targets and have no cooldown, and reduces the energy cost of all your Cat Form abilities by 50%. Lasts 15 seconds. You cannot use Tiger's Fury while Berserk is active. Clears the effect of Fear and makes you immune to Fear for the duration.

Restoration

Tier 1
- Blessing of the Grove (2 points) - Increases the healing done by your Rejuvenation by 2/4%, the direct damage of your Moonfire by 3/6% and the damage done by your Claw and Shred by 2/4%.
- Nature's Focus (3 points) - Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Healing Touch, Wrath, Entangling Roots, Cyclone, Nourish, Regrowth and Tranquility by 23/46/75%.
- Furor (5 points) - Gives you a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to 20/40/60/80/100 of your energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form. In addition, your total intellect is increased while in Moonkin Form by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Tier 2
- Perseverance (5 points) - Reduces all spell damage taken by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Subtlety [TBR] (3 points) - Reduces the threat generated by your Restoration spells by 10/20/30%.
- Natural Shapeshifter (3 points) - Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 10/20/30%.
Tier 3
- Naturalist (5 points) - Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch and Nourish spells by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Omen of Clarity (1 point) - Each of the druid's damage, healing spells and auto-attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana, rage or energy cost of your next damage spell, healing spell or offensive ability by 100%.
- Master Shapeshifter (2 points; Requires 3 points in Natural Shapeshifter) - Grants an effect which lasts while the druid is within the respective shapeshift form.
  - Bear Form - Increases physical damage by 2/4%.
  - Cat Form - Increases critical strike chance by 2/4%.
  - Moonkin Form - Increases spell damage by 2/4%.
  - Tree of Life Form - Increases healing by 2/4%.

Talent calculator: http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0

HALP!

2010-06-07T22:30:00.003-04:00

In before some smart ass says unbind sit, x is bound to frenzied regen.

10 HLK Down

2010-05-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

FINALLY!

I really dislike that the part of the fight you need to learn is 10 minutes into the encounter. Perfect phase 1 and phase 2 only to mess up the first defile in phase 3 for the past 3 weeks, and then not even being able to get back there more than 50% of the time for the rest of the night.

Well even from the first attempt lasts night I knew we were going to get it down. First attempt I died the first reaper of phase 3 and they got it to 19% before they ran out of soaks and wiped to vile spirits. 3 attempts later we had a kill. Flawless too, amazing DPS, and an amazing level of envy at my guild group who killed it with lower stacks of the buff weeks ago (especially you joy for being able to keep mov alive lol)

So what do I do now while waiting to get more tries in on 25 H-LK?

PLAYING GOLF AND RIDING ROLLER COASTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (What I like golf, so sue me)

Just no

2010-05-06T09:31:00.003-04:00

As far as I am concerned, everything posted on MMO this morning is still protected by the NDA and I will not be touching on any of it.

Simply looking at the talent trees you can see how much work blizzard still has to do, especially in removing the "fluff" talents. Hell, the DK trees are still 3 dps and 3 tanking trees. My guess would be they are still not sure what they want to do with tanks yet. So do not come around here and expect me to speculate on them.

But if you want my speculation, ignore MMO champ and let blizzard fix the game because I suspect there are still WAY TO MANY CHANGES that need to go in before even the alpha ends let alone the beta. So let blizzard get all the changes they want in before crying bloody murder.

Dear Blizzard,

2010-05-05T22:30:00.003-04:00

If you want me to keep playing this game in the expansion there is something you must do . . .

. . . ALLOW ME TO TURN OFF ALL FRIENDLY/PC SPELL EFFECTS WHILE KEEPING ENEMY/NPC SPELL EFFECTS AT MAXIMUM SETTINGS

Simply sitting at LK while people port up I can watch my FPS drop, no one up but me, 200 FPS, 2 people port up, 100 FPS, 10 people ported up, 60 FPS, the entire raid up here and buffing, 20 FPS.

I do not care where my ret paladin has his consecrate (except to intentionally move out of it) I do not need to see my warlocks shadowbolts and my mages firebolts flying at the mob and then glowing under the bosses feet for the next 10 seconds. But doing yogg phase 1 or LK heroic phase 1 without enemy spell detail on max, YEA good luck with that.

/end rant

Sorry guys, recently got a job and have not been playing but 3 days a week and even then I hardly have time to do it, pretty much done posting until the official cata notes are released because everything I had slotted for pre-release a day or two before the scheduled release a blue post pops up and says O YEA YOU ARE GETTING THAT DONT WORRY, invalidating my entire post.

Furor is terrible!

2010-04-20T08:00:00.004-04:00

I have a feeling I have written this before (or maybe I just thought I did when lissanna wrote something about it) but

The biggest quality of life issue since ulduar, FUROR! Until Ulduar came out you almost never saw a feral druid with improved mark of the wild and thus would always have 5/5 furor. So what a wake-up call it was when suddenly improved mark became a required talent for feral druids and we have to stand there and shift 5+ times to get the 10 rage proc. Do the math all you want, what the odds of a 60% chance not happening 5 times in a row, and I could care less, I have seen it happen time and time again. Waiting before Anub one I had to shift so many times just to get 10 rage I ran out of mana and had to drink.

Now granted this was a much bigger problem in the past, and since the buff to enrage and bloodrage it is not nearly as big a deal, but it is still a royal pain.

1) Make it a 3 point talent at 33/66/100% chance to grant 10 rage.

2) Leave it at 5 points and make it always a 100% chance for 2/4/6/8/10 rage.

3) Make it 3 points and make it a 100% chance for 2/4/6 rage.

4) and probably the most radical idea because it is my favorite. Just remove furor completely, make natural shapeshifter a 5 point talent and move it to tier 1 where furor is right now, and make it 6/12/18/24/30% mana reduction and a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to get 10 rage.

Nothing pisses me off more than when I am shifting for rage as DKs are using army, and the retards' armies pull the boss when I have shifted 4 times and still have 0 rage. What really upsets me about furor is bosses that you start an event and it starts in x-seconds and you have a limited amount of shifts to get a proc.
______________________
After reading what GC said about removing talents that buff buffs, and kalon for sniping a post I was in the process of writing, improved mark will probably be gone. But what does this mean for the passive stat increase it provided? Will that be made up somewhere else or will everything I just wrote about above be completely pointless because we will need 5/5 furor to advance to the next tier anyway?

Which brings up point 2: Naturalist will probably be gone too, with vengeance making up some of the difference for bears and the cat mastery is just straight up damage. Same with MSS, and as a bear there is really no reason to go that deep in resto just for that.

So I guess what I am trying to get at is, will a bear tank have any reason to not spend every single talent point in the feral tree (or all but the 5/5 for furor). Should furor be made up somewhere else in the feral tree, since that is where it really belongs anyway, and just give moonkin something somewhere else to make up the stat difference?

Bring back fun trinkets in Cata!

2010-04-13T08:00:00.009-04:00

(read more here)

I as a tank no longer feel like a tank, I feel like someone who just DPSes from in front of a boss instead of behind. Here is why (thanks kaz):

Our survival is rarely within our control, outside of standing out of stuff, and blowing our cooldowns on scripted fights, survival is all in the hands of our healers,

THIS needs to go. So in the comments either leave your thoughts on this idea or create your own idea on how to give tanks more "tank" buttons as opposed to "DPS threat only" buttons. While it is agreed this is a problem, where is the balance between having to many situational buttons (see below), avoiding the old shield block "spammy" scenario, and just making the 4 tanks carbon copies of each other (which actually may not be a bad thing, again see below).

Trinkets used to be a key part of tanking, especially during the days of spammed shield block, no barkskin in forms, and no last stand for druids, trinkets were one of the only real cooldowns we had.

I am sure this is something we can all agree on, trinkets with on use effects are being wasted in LK, especially avoidance trinkets. Back in BC, when you hit the use on Moroe's, you felt like a god, a true 15% dodge was so good for locking in kills when healers were on fumes and you were out of everything else. If blizzard wants to go the route of making healers choose between regen/haste/crit, and make tank average damage taken matter for healer mana, than things like trinkets are going to be a big part of that. Choosing an avoidance trinket over a stam trinket in today's game is just unjustifiable right now, and avoidance clickies are completely wasted making things like the 25 TOC trinket use so good. A trinket that is supposed to give me 10% dodge on use is giving me one, MAYBE two percent.

I propose remove rating from "on-use" effects on trinkets and make them straight %, thus giving the user the full effect from it and not the DRed value which is next to nothing right now, to make gearing more interesting. Older trinkets will still be kept in check by passive stats THAT ARE rating still for avoidance or stam or armor. Personally I have a love/hate relationship when I think that a drop from the first instance, a 10 man even, was still the best trinket in the game even on the last boss of the expansion. Love it because it proves that iLvl =/= best which in LK the only thing that matters for tanks is iLVL, but hate it because if it never drops you are left at such a huge disadvantage.

So hopefully blizzard can improve on trinkets in Cata because in LK they are just another armor piece that you pick whichever has the most stam or armor. And hopefully interesting effects can trump the iLvl=better mentality that LK has forced us into.

______________________________

After talking about this on tankspot for a bit I realized there is something I failed to consider, I am a druid, we hardly have anything to push, but some warriors already feel like they have to many situational abilities that another one would just be problematic, things like spell reflect, disarm, intim shout, etc that druids do not have equivalents of. After discussing it a bit I realized he was right, but we both agreed on the fundamental point of my post: tanks, regardless of class, are just people who stand in front of the boss and position it. Tanks are not tanks anymore, we are DPS who DPS from in front and do less damage. Bring some of the fun back to tanking, we as tanks have almost no control over our own survivability anymore and that is not fun. Obviously shield block was way to spammy but tanks want more tank buttons and less DPS buttons. We should be rewarded with increased survivability for pulling off a perfect rotation not simply just helping to kill the boss faster. Earlier I said there is no reward for doing a perfect rotation as a druid because maul is literally so much of our threat we could probably get away with hitting nothing but maul and still never lose agro. Well what if the penalty for not doing a perfect rotation was not a DPS pulling agro but instead we did not gain a bonus to survivability we could have gained by doing a better rotation.

Another thing that was brought up was homogenization. Making 3 than 4 viable tanking classes that operate in such a different manner really was bad for the game. Either go all the way with homogenization or get rid of the other tanking classes. First, it limits the encounter design team by making sure all fights are able to tanked by any of the 4 tanking classes. Things like shield blocking shears or spell reflecting deaden or even shifting stances to break fears are what made warrior tanking fun in the past. Sure it would be unfair to the classes that cannot do those things, but those things made you feel like a tank and not just a person DPSing from in front.

(credit Veneretio for his input on this)

Blue posts:

We do want to make sure that 10 player raids can get all of the major buffs a little easier. You should feel like most reasonable comps (3 warriors and 7 rogues is not what we'd consider reasonable) give you all of the major buffs and several of the more minor ones. There will be a little more consolidation than what we've described so far.

We are scaling back the magnitude of some of the buffs, as we did with Sunder Armor. We want you to feel awesome when you have strong good synergy, but we don't want the buffs to overwhelm say your gear or skill. We're also planning on getting rid of any talent that buffs a buff. Any buff that is earned solely by talent needs to have a selfish component thrown in so that you don't feel like you should respec if someone else with that buff comes along.

Obviously things like Rebirth can't just be handed to out to more classes unless we did something like a second exhaustion mechanic for battle rez or whatever. For now we're going to try the cooldown at 30 min again. In Icecrown's world of limited attempts, a 30 min cooldown likely meant you just cooled your heels until the cooldown was available again. In Cataclysm the hope is sometimes you'll have the benefit available but not every time, which scales back on how much of a game-changer it is.

I really really really what some talent trees are going to look like. At this point it seems like can spend every single point in some trees and not have enough to unlock the 51 point talent. But on a serious note I wonder if this extends to things like Feral Aggression, not having to spend 5 points to buff our debuff to be equal to a paladins would be nice, but at the same time "Any buff that is earned solely by talent needs to have a selfish component thrown" sounds like we are being punished because paladins do not have demo shout as a base ability.

And battle rez at 30 minutes is going to suck, 15 would be the most realistic option.

My thoughts on the druid changes: (full notes in the post below)

2010-04-09T21:25:00.002-04:00

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?65720-Druid-Preview&p=400730#post400730

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Finally, druid-thunderclap w/o the slow. Will suck for things that need to be CCed if they intend to get rid of the AOE game but that is nothing those of us who tanked in BC are not used to already.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

WHAT...THE!!! This is amazing. This probably will not go live as is, hits way to many targets, will probably be reduced to 5 yard range or at the very least party (physical 5 man party) only.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.

This 100% will not go live like this, unless it costs like 5K+ mana. Will be an amazing pulling tool (thinking back to the days when the druid would have to be in caster form in heroics and use a hurricane on the pull to get initial agro).

Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.

We knew this already but good to hear it again.

Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.

DID NOT expect that. Very surprising revelation. Almost as surprising as the lack of a druid healer "cast on person to reduce damage taken" spell. Maybe it will be a new talent.

We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few more tools -- primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-dealing is not so steep.

Good to know, maim was terrible as an interrupt because it needed combo points. Not sure what they mean about the bear thing, difference between tanking and damage dealing as a bear? (see the bottom)

We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.

Not what I wanted to hear, REMOVE THE POSITION FROM SHRED!

We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.

This is good, increases in the duration of even rake would be HUGE for rotations but if they do more than that it will probably be too good.

We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent -- an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.

YES YES YES YES YES !!!!!!!!!

Savage Defense is the current bear mechanic for converting crits into damage absorption and will be improved for bears.

good, it is pretty weak right now.

Negatives: No furor change announced, no new bear tanking cooldown although maybe that is what they meant about "bears needing to be more tanky not just DPSing from in front as a bear"

Listening to a podcast right now so not giving it my 100% focus. Will have better, more complete thoughts on this after that is over.

Druid Preview

2010-04-09T13:30:00.004-04:00

Second or third, who wants to play!

I WIN!!!!!!!!!! SECOND

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the druid. The information you’re about to read is certainly not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview of some of the exciting new things to come. Let’s kick things off by checking out some of the new druid spells and abilities!

New Druid Abilities

Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to the new abilities listed above, we intend to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics with which you’re already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of our goals for each spec.

* All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.

* Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.

* We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few more tools -- primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-dealing is not so steep.

* Barkskin will be innately undispellable.

* We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.

* Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse.

New Talents and Talent Changes

* Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.

* We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.

* Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below). The improved version of Nature’s Torrent also reduces the target's movement speed. 10-second cooldown.

* Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.

* We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent -- an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.

* We want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for an Arena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral druid over an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock. Remember that the PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for Cataclysm with a focus on rated, competitive Battlegrounds.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Balance
Spell Damage
Spell Haste
Eclipse

Feral (Cat)
Melee Damage
Melee Critical Damage
Bleed Damage

Feral (Bear)
Damage Reduction
Vengeance
Savage Defense

Restoration
Healing
Meditation
HoT Scale Healing

Eclipse: We are moving Eclipse from a talent into a core mechanic of the class and making it less random. Balance druids will have a new UI element that shows a sun and a moon. Whenever they cast an Arcane spell, it will move the UI closer to the sun, and buff their Nature damage. Whenever they cast a Nature spell, it will move the UI closer to the moon, and buff their Arcane damage. The gameplay intention is to alternate Arcane and Nature spells (largely Starfire and Wrath) to maintain the balance.

Bleed Damage and Savage Defense: Feral druids will receive two sets of passive bonuses depending on whether the druid is in cat or bear form. Bleed Damage will be improved for cats. Savage Defense is the current bear mechanic for converting crits into damage absorption and will be improved for bears.

HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals. In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their spells so there is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s unbuffed health. For boss encounters we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Feral tree and the druid is in bear form -- these values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Feral tree and are in bear form, so you won’t see Balance, Restoration, or Feral druids in cat form running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today -- there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so the Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is that all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and ask that you provide your initial thoughts and feedback on what was presented here. Please keep in mind, what you’ve just reviewed is a work in progress and as we move closer to the Cataclysm beta, you’ll see these changes as well as others continue to develop in response to testing and feedback.

Cataclysm Stat & System Changes: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23425636414&sid=1

Mastery System Preview: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23710210871&sid=1

Have not read any of it yet, it could say druids are being removed from the game for all I know, gimmie a few minutes to comment

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24262387043&sid=1

Warrior Preview

2010-04-08T13:06:00.005-04:00

Druid implications in the warrior preview:

Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, and possibly Demoralizing Shout will work more like the death knight's Horn of Winter ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be on a short cooldown.

Hopefully they do not put a cooldown on demo shout and demo roar. Paladins already have vindication, which is passive, and with blood DKs getting a demo shout equivilent which will probably be attacked to a strike like melee slow is to icy touch, it seems like druids and warriors are being penalized for being the 2 original classes with demo shout. A resist just would not be fair when you compare it to pallies and DKs. Although druids are lacking the "horn of winter" type rage generator they gave to warrior shouts and demo seems like a place to do it, but not at the expense of having a cooldown on it unless they make it not able to be resisted.

Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.

Block is now a more powerful cooldown than barkskin and on a shorter cooldown. This gives me hope for the druid preview that we as druids may gain an additional, melee-only reducing cooldown, death knights as well (although possibly not since they already have an anti-magic only ability).

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

While not new, something I had actually not seen before was brought back to light yesterday by Kalon: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23710210871&sid=1#8

Ferals will have passive bonuses that say Cat: melee damage done, Bear: damage reduction.

Almost all dots will crit. The exception will be things like Deep Wounds and Ignite because those are already the product of a crit. Rend will crit.

Is primal gore being removed and lacerate, rip, and rake critting becoming a base part of the ability?

Dual-Spec, My take on the future of it.

2010-04-06T08:00:00.008-04:00

How great would it be to have a third spec, for most of us it would be amazing, but it would also take a lot of decision making away. Also, Blizzard has said they are not likely to give us a third spec (for what that is worth WoW is an ever-evolving game so things said 6 months ago cannot be held as law).

My gripe with the dual-spec system since it was put in was that you had to use the glyph set with that talent set. What if the talent and glyph options could be selected independently? This would give you 4 talent options without needing to add the option to purchase additional specs.

One thing that comes to mind is I have been using glyph of growl in every tanking spec this entire expansion, despite the amount of bosses that do not require taunts. In my post last week I mentioned that I would probably be using glyph of mangle soon. Wouldn't it be nice if I could do one glyph spec for SI, maul, and mangle and the other Growl, SI, SR? Consider, 25 man raid with a ret or prot paladin on a fight that needs taunts, but my spec without feral aggression has SI, mangle and maul glyphs. I could run the entire night with my ferocity spec and swap only my glyph specs depending on fight instead of having to run a feral aggression spec on taunt fights even though we already have that debuff provided by someone else.

Blue posts:

This one comes to us from the damage dealing forums: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/24038607788-when-will-hybrid-tax-apply-to-fury-warriors.html

Read the whole thing from a blue-tracker, there is a lot in there about healer mana and how tanks are going to play a much bigger role on tank mana in the expansion, and how healer's having to play with more spells for the sake of mana will make tanks change their mentality.

OT rage from damage will be almost as high as a dps warrior (haste, crit, and any specific talents would be the only differences). Plus you'll have abilities like shouts to tide you over for short periods in which you're not taking enough damage. OTs do often take incidental damage in many fights.

It's definitely something to keep an eye on in the sense that the new mechanic doesn't completely solve the problem, but it should feel better than today.

There will be a little more information when we're ready to share more details on warrior and druid specific changes.

If there are more fights on taunt immune bosses where you are trying to do tank swaps with druid or a warrior offtank, hunters and rogues are going to be very unhappy. WHICH I HOPE THERE ARE BECAUSE LDW IS A LOT OF FUN!!!!!!

Cata Rage Changes

2010-04-05T13:08:00.004-04:00

This is to important to wait till tomorrow (it also means I will have to rewrite part of tomorrow's post)

We are going to take the opportunity in Cataclysm to try and fix some of the problems with the Rage mechanic for both warriors and druids. Some of these problems include:

Warriors/druids in the lowest levels of gear can be Rage-starved.
Warriors/druids in the highest levels of gear no longer have to manage their Rage when it becomes infinite.
Warrior/druid tanks lose Rage income as they improve their gear and take less damage.
The gameplay of warrior and druid tanks loses a lot of depth when massive boss hits means never having to manage Rage.
Heroic Strike and Maul are effective, but tedious abilities for using up extra Rage.
In general, warriors and druids don’t have enough control over their Rage.

To resolve these issues, Rage will be normalized in Cataclysm. This will make the Rage gained by characters more consistent and avoid drastic differences between low-end and high-end gear.

The concept of normalized Rage may leave a negative impression on some veteran players, as we tried it once before in The Burning Crusade and it wasn't successful, resulting in them feeling weakened. However, we think that the concept is still sound -- it was just that the previous implementation didn't balance the values correctly, leading to players being Rage-starved. That is not the goal. As part of the change, we want to give warriors and druids a lot of ways to control their rage, so even in the worst-case scenarios they won’t feel like they lack the resource to do their job.

Here are some of the ways the Rage mechanic will change in Cataclysm:

1) Rage is no longer generated based on damage done by auto-attacks. Instead, each auto-attack provides a set amount of Rage, and off-hand weapons will generate 50% of the Rage main hands do. This amount is based on a constant formula which factors in the base swing speed of the weapon. This means the Rage gained should be averaged out between fast and slow weapons. The constant formula also gives us the ability to easily increase the rage gained if it feels too low (or reduce it if is too high). We are also implementing the following mechanics, which will still allow rage to improve to some extent as you improve gear:

If the attack is a critical strike, it will generate 200% Rage.
Haste will accelerate swing times to generate Rage faster.

2) Rage from damage taken will no longer be based on a standard creature of the character’s level, but instead will based on the health of the warrior or druid. Again, there is a constant that is multiplied by the rage generated in order to allow for fine-tuning. This calculation ignores all damage reduction from armor, absorption, avoidance, block, or similar mechanics, so improving your gear will not reduce Rage gained.

3) We will provide warriors and druids with more instant sources of rage. For example, the warrior shouts are changing to work more like the death knight ability Horn of Winter. Instead of Battle Shout consuming Rage, it will generate Rage but have a short cooldown. Both classes will have additional methods to generate Rage in an emergency or bleed off Rage when they have too much.

4) All “on next swing” attacks in Cataclysm are being removed. Heroic Strike and Maul will be instant swings that cost a variable amount of Rage. For example, imagine Heroic Strike costs between 10 and 30 Rage. You must have at least 10 Rage to use the attack, but it will consume all available Rage up to a maximum of 30. Any Rage consumed above the minimum will cause the ability to hit harder, and in some cases much harder. We will tune the ability so that it’s generally not a good idea to hit it when you have low Rage (unless everything else is somehow on cooldown) but becomes a more attractive button the higher your Rage.

We understand this change may be scary for many players, but keep in mind that the constants in the formulas for gaining Rage will give us the ability to make quick adjustments if we feel Rage generation is too low. Our goal is for each character's Rage to not be always high or always low, but rather a resource that needs to be managed properly by the player.

Thinking about this more lead me to some conclusions, mostly that a druid needs only 10 rage per second to do a full 13.5 second rotation with no mauls. Second, warrior HS threat vs total warrior threat when compared to druid maul threat vs total druid threat is so imbalanced that they are going to have to do some serious tweaking to druid threat so we don't just do mangle-FF-hs over and over and over and ov......... Lastly, WE DO NOT NEED a lot of rage unless we plan on replacing every single mangle and FF with maul as well, we needed extra rage because we ALWAYS had something to spend it on, now we still have something extra to spend it on but it is INSTEAD of something else not in addition to our norm.

read here and here for more of my thoughts as I get them.

How the hell did I miss this? And BLUE posts

2010-03-30T07:12:00.006-04:00

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40900

Sooooo apparently I am a bit slow, but with the new patch and the duration increase on mangle, the glyph was redesigned. (This is a lead in to an article I am writing for next week) Since I have 2 bear specs at the moment, one with 5/5 feral aggression the other with 5/5 ferocity, I am considering reglyphing the ferocity spec. Mangle is by far the best threat glyph we have, o wait, isn't it also the only single target threat glyph we have? ABOUT TIME BLIZZARD!

So here is how I will probably be glyphing tomorrow. My ferocity spec will have mangle, SI, and growl (possibly maul not sure on the third one) while my feral aggression spec will have SI, FR, and growl.

Now, with a development cycle for Cataclysm coming into full swing I will be monitoring Blue Tracker more closely.

I'm going to vote for not interesting gameplay.

At the very least, you should be able to reduce your chance to miss a Taunt to zero if you reduce your chance to miss with a weapon to zero. It's also possible we'll just let them always hit.

This is a nice proposal, but I wonder how this will affect glyphs if it goes in (talking about the first option here). Since spell hit cap is 17% and melee hit cap is only 8%, the way I look at it they gave us the taunt glyph in the first place to even this out. If taunt becomes melee hit cap, than the glyph will allow taunt to never be resisted naked. Are they going to leave the glyph in and leave us the option to be hit capped naked? Are they going to lower the amount given by the glyph? Or are they going to remove the glyph completely? Obviously this means misery and moonkin FF will no longer affect taunt.

It is called "Thunder" and "Clap." That implies some noise. :)

Seriously though, silence isn't a dispel. Dispels are tied to magical effects. Silences are just tied to things that (more or less) logically require an audio component (in the game fiction -- I'm not talking about your sound card) to work. Most caster spells qualify but some other abilities do too.
_______________________________________________________

That response is certainly possible, but I figure part of what I can do out here (in exchange for all the feedback we get) is offer the occasional intent behind a game decision. Sometimes players can get us to question those decisions, but in cases like this it's going to take more than "It doesn't seem to *me* like silence could stop a Thunder Clap." Trying to arbitrate how the physics of magic should work is a pretty futile exercise. :)

Warriors complaining about not being able to use ONE ABILITY while silenced? Really? Not being able to barkskin while silenced is fun on hard mode lich king when tanking ragings, not to mention FFF being locked out. I do not even want to guess what it is like to be a DK or paladin in a situation where there are silences on tanks.

I do think there are some things that need to be taken off silence lock-out for paladins and DKs from a quality of life issue. Those two classes get almost completely locked out while silenced and become almost useless but warriors and druids are still completely capable of doing anything they could while not silenced. On the flip-side I like GC's response, it gives us a nice glimpse into the design process while still providing a comedic and RP-based response.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038449600&postId=240361478955&sid=1#0

Upgrading 264 to 277? Here's how!

2010-02-18T21:55:00.002-05:00

Short and to the point:

277 order:

Legs: http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=51297;51142
Helm: http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=51296;51143
Shoulders: http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=51299;51140
Hands: http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=51295;51144

1 and 2 are a toss up and 3 and 4 are a toss up so all that really matters if you get the legs and helm with your first two and then it really does not matter .

Since this blog is so short I want to talk about wowhead's item comparison tool as well. It is an amazing tool when all the items are loaded properly (which by now I think they all are and only really does not happen on winged instances like this) . It is not simply a means for me to be lazy when putting up posts like this (and confession I do these posts as much for myself so I remember what I said I wanted to get yea yea laugh it up) but it is actually how I figure out which piece I will use for my own token. The best part of it though is by far the ability to use groups like I did in my last post.

The Raid: The Interview!

2010-02-16T19:58:00.006-05:00

Yes, featuring yours truly.

For more info or to help support the project visit the kickstarter page at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/84946011/the-raid-promo.

edit: not sure how to get it to show the HD box as an embed so to view it in hd check it out on youtube.

edit 2: something ttocs brought up, part of the reason this came out so well is because kev did an amazing job conducting the interviews that day we all met up and at least for my part I had a great time that day. Thanks for allowing me to contribute and organizing that.

edit 3: no, that freeze frame is not me, just for the people who don't watch it.

Revisit: 10 man raiders, 251 4pc vs the 264 items

2010-01-22T16:56:00.012-05:00

First, I would like to announce that tankspot has finally switched over to vB4. Visually some work still needs to be done but most of the features are working properly. This includes an RSS feed which one anonymous reader will be happy to hear about.

Preface: while writing this post I came to realize that wowhead is a little slow to update things and as a result certain drops from the second and third wings not showing up on searches because "they have not been seen on live servers yet" so when looking for items try the wowarmory search found here.

So it was brought up on tankspot, how good is 4pc if you are stuck using the 251 items vs buying the 264 badge items and getting the crafted legs.

Well first, STILL DO NOT BUY THE CHEST FROM FROST EMBLEMS! the 264 offset item you use with 264 4pc is the chest, which is BOE. It is worth the price and I highly recommend saving your badges because there is just so much good stuff from the vendor.

Looking at the 10 man drops vs the 251 set pieces, it is very clear the 10 man drops are made for DPS.

Helm:

The set has 8 more agi, 47 more stam, 88 crit instead of 80 haste, 8 less ArP, and 59 less AP.

Set wins.

Shoulders:

The set has 16 more agi, 26 more stam, 16 more crit, but 8 less ArP, 36 less AP, and one less socket.

The socket is still not enough to counter to lack of stam on a clear DPS piece, set up 2-0.

Chest:

The set has 12 more agi, 51 more stam, 96 crit instead of 99 haste, 1 more ArP, but 41 less AP, and one less socket.

Same as above, the socket cannot offset the stam deficit of a DPS piece, set up 3-0.

Gloves:

The set has 31 more stam, 8 more ArP, 63 haste instead of 63 crit, but 8 less AP, and one less socket.

This one is a toss up. If you happen to get the scourge ones to drop you can safely use those and save your badges until if and when you need the set gloves for a set bonus.

Legs(1):

The set has 24 more agi, 18 more stam, 80 expertise instead of 103 crit, 36 more ArP, but 47 less AP and one less socket.

This tier has a severe lack of hit and expertise compared to the past ones giving the set legs the edge.

Legs(2):

The set and offset legs have the same amount of stam and agi, it looks like these legs are the exception to the 10-man for DPS rule. In addition, the set legs have more AP (16 more) for a change, and it trades 96 ArP on the set for 96 haste on the off-set and 80 expertise on the set legs for 72 crit on the off-set. Again though this comes at the cost of a socket which makes the off-set better for pure survivability which includes more savage defense procs because of extra crit (still not sure where the trade off comes in on this because with the less expertise you wont be hitting as much so less change to crit so this last part might be inaccurate).

Conclusion:

Not considering any 264 items, you still want 4pc simply because all the 251 drops are designed for dps. There are 3 different ways I would do this in this order:

4-pc with the second off-set legs gives you the best survivability
5-pc set gives you a significant threat boost over the above option at the cost of a socket which is probably the better option
4-pc set and off-set gloves if you just cannot get the off-set legs to drop (which unfortunately means once they do drop you basically wasted the badges buying the legs)

There is another reason I would use the legs instead of the set legs if you do not run 25 mans (besides the obvious chance of them dropping once the VOA boss is released):

Scanning that list reveals one BOE, the crafted legs. The thing is, this will probably cost about the same to craft (unless you have about 5 alts farming 2 badges a day from the daily and using them to buy the saronite) as it would cost to just buy the Sack of Wonder.

Comparing the Sack of Wonder and the 251 set legs against the crafted legs and the 251 set chest leaves us with this.

Dark, can you please just get to the part of this post we all want?
Ok, ok, fine!

Looking at those same lists, it reveals no helm better than the set helm for a strict 10-man raider, and the same goes with the shoulders. That leaves the badge gloves and the crafted legs.

Gloves:

The badge gloves have 13 more stam and agi, 18 more armor, 3 more AP, 80 more crit, and an extra socket, all for 7 less ArP, and 63 less haste.

Legs:

The crafted legs have 18 more stam and agi, 25 more armor, 9 AP, 4 ArP, 92 crit, and an extra socket all for 80 expertise.

Question 1: I want 4pc no matter what but I can only get 251 set items, which of the 3 is my best choice?

Looking at this, you guys can decide for yourself. My opinion is biased because you know how I feel about hit and expertise, but just so I can see myself writing, chest+4pc.

The three different breakdowns if you were interested:

Badge gloves vs Crafted legs, is 80 expertise worth: 5 stam, 5 agi, 7 armor, 6 AP, 11 ArP, 12 crit, and 63 haste? For me, yes, but for pure survivability, no.
Sack of Wonder vs Badge gloves, this one will probably cause some controversy, but since the badge gloves have already been knocked out, and I love my hit and expertise, I want to see how the chest stacks up vs the legs.
Sack of Wonder vs Crafted legs, that is equal to 20 expertise skill and about 3 and a quarter percent hit, I cannot say no to that unless I am at hard cap without it, which in this gear we will not be.

Question 2: Dark, shut up and listen, I DO NOT CARE ABOUT 4PC I just want the best gear. What do I gain by using the chest, legs, and gloves and only 2 pieces of the set?

Fair enough, considering this is the entire reason I wrote the article and it will be the easiest and shortest to answer makes it kind of anti-climatic.

Chest
Gloves
Legs
Combined: Is the 4pc set bonus, 83 ArP, and 63 haste worth 33 agi, 49 stam, 72 armor, 53 AP, 76 crit, 12 expertise, 100 hit, and 3 sockets.

Going back to my last post:

277: Is the 4pc set bonus, 16 agi, and 82 ARP worth 60 stam (2 yellow sockets) and 66 haste?
264: Is the 4pc set bonus, 16 agi, and 72 ARP worth 60 stam (2 yellow sockets) and 56 haste?

The answer in both those cases was yes because you only lost sockets, but with the different iLvls the passive stam difference makes it over 2K health in bear form if you use 3 stam gems. You also gained agi by using 4pc, in this case again because of the iLvl difference you are losing a significant amount. Also remember, you will still be able to use 1 264 item from the combined comparison so it is more like this.

One final note: hard modes will be out soon giving even 10 man raiders access to the 264 tier items. The hard mode versions of the dps loot ARE STILL dps loot. This combined with the new VOA boss dropping 264 gloves and legs (although in reality we still do not know how this will work) and you already using 251-helm and shoulders.... I think it would be a waste of gold to craft legs and badges buying either the gloves or the saronite for the legs if you have any plan on doing hard mode 10-ICC.

Armor Trinkets: Why is Unidentifiable Organ so good yet no one used Glyph in ToC?

2010-01-21T18:45:00.002-05:00

Because kalon called me out on not posting enough!

So!, what suddenly made armor good again? Simply put, fight mechanics. Let us take a trip down memory lane back to ToGC25 and what killed tanks:

NRB: Bleed ticks+melee+impale+stomp in under a second, once you reach this threshold armor was actually better.
LJ: 10 stack fireballs not being interrupted
FC: Cat gear!
Twins: lots of magic damage
Anub: Enough HP to survive a melee+slash+ leaching swarm tick then armor became better

Now, lets look at ICC:

LM, Healer getting spiked = dead tank
LDW: I actually use double stam trinkets here
Gunship: I use DPS trinkets here actually if I do not go over, double stams if I do go over because of the bleeding throw
DBS: armor
Festergut: 3stack melee swings
Rotface: melee swings during explosion and healers moving
PP: again death to melee while healers are moving
Blood Prince Council: no real tank killer here, roll cooldowns when keleseth is empowered to let the healer get more heals on the warlock tank by having to worry less about you
Blood Queen: Again no real tank killer, if healers are moving when she lands you may need to hit cooldowns while they position

So, even if you do not have the Putricide trinket, glyph is still better than any combination of stam trinkets you can use on most fights. That said Heroic Satrina's/Jug's Vit is better than the badge stam trinket.

As for the organ itself, I have found the uptime to be TERRIBLE! On putricide it likes to drop every time he casts an experiment, on lanathil she turns to do her abilities enough that it does not stay up consistantly, same with slime spray on rotface. Festergut it is actually pretty good though. Any boss with a casted ability (shock vortex on council and bone spikes on morrowgar) will see a terrible uptime as well. The armor is good enough to negate that but I am extremly disapointed by the equip.

Finally I realized this turned into more of a "how to survive the tank killer abilities" post but whatever.

The Raid! The Documentary!

2010-01-20T09:55:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine I met through tankspot (who I have had the pleasure of meeting in real life, him and his wife make an amazing musical couple) Kevin Michael Johnson is finally embarking on a project he has been dreaming about for several years. I for one cannot wait for this to take shape so let me not ruin it by trying to explain it, I will just steal his words.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/84946011/the-raid-promo

http://www.youtube.com/user/jointheraid

Goodbye kal!

2010-01-18T23:48:00.003-05:00

This is to important to just leave a comment buried in what will no doubt be hundreds of comments.

Another feral blog and good friend of mine Kalon, of thinktank, has hung up the keyboard.

So many good feral blogs have fallen this year, some to other games, and others who just stopped posting all together. You were the best feral resource the community had in recent months and I will miss our talks the most. Shame we never did get to do that podcast.

Good luck with whatever you end up doing and hope you enjoy the extra time you are going to have now to spend with the people who really matter, your wife and son. Hope to hear from ya soon even in your absence from wow.

badge update

2010-01-12T17:51:00.002-05:00

If you have done every single daily, and killed putricide in 10 and 25 last week, and did the daily and weekly today, Tuesday, you should have exactly 200 badges before you zone into your raid tonight.

RE: Thinktank

2010-01-04T14:48:00.001-05:00

Well, if you did not believe me before, http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/01/druid-icecrown-gear-list-for-bears.html.

Excellent work as always.

RE: Tankingtips.com

2009-12-25T05:49:00.002-05:00

http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/12/24/the-emblem-of-frost-pick-order/

Fine, I guess I buy that… but the trinket!?

Well… I need more in a Trinket than Stamina. So, this trinket comes off as really, really lackluster to me. Absorbing damage isn’t exciting at all. Compare the bonus offered by this trinket to Satrina’s Impeding Scarab and it’s clear that the emblem trinket got the shaft. And I’m not just saying this when comparing the trinket to high tier items, I wouldn’t use this Stamina beast over The Black Heart either. So between the two I’ve already mentioned that best it, Glyph of Indomitability which is still amazing, there’s also Heart of Iron and Royal Seal of King Llane.

Which really begs the question, why pick it up at all? Because you never know if the absorb mechanic will be useful for some fight. It’s also entirely possible that a fight will have only magic damage and it’d be nice to have this in our toolkit. Okay, who am I kidding… sometimes, you just want to show off how much health you can get!

FINALLY VENE, someone who agrees with me. As I already mentioned I will be getting the stam trinket absolutely last, after my 4 set bonus, the cape, and the idol. While I will always think the black heart is EXTREMELY overrated (I hate procs, even in the expansion I ran 35 agi over mongoose for quite some time) I agree with the rest of it.

3.3 Rings, Necks, Trinkets, Capes, and Emblem of Frost Pick Order

2009-12-14T23:00:00.003-05:00

As promised, the ring, neck, cape, and trinket update for my best-in-slot list.

RINGS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50622

Devium's Eternally Cold Ring
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped
Finger
756 Armor
+102 Strength
+141 Stamina
Red Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 54
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 46

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51913

Abomination's Bloody Ring
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped
Finger
+57 Strength
+124 Stamina
Blue Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 56
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63
Equip: Improves hit rating by 53

Note: I honestly think the heroic 10 man Twin's ring is better than the second ring I have listed and will probably be using it as my second ring for a long long time.

NECKS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50682

Bile-Encrusted Medallion
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Neck
756 Armor
+102 Strength
+141 Stamina
Red Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 54
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 46

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50627

Noose of Malachite
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Neck
+78 Strength
+141 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 68
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60
Equip: Improves hit rating by 52

TRINKETS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50364

Sindragosa's Flawless Fang
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+258 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Use: Increases resistance to Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow spells by 268 for 10 sec.

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50356

Corroded Skeleton Key
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+228 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Use: Absorbs 3200 damage. Lasts 20 sec.

Note: See below regarding the purchase of this.

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50344

Unidentifiable Organ
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
2128 Armor
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Each time you are struck by a melee attack, you have a 60% chance to gain 27 stamina for the next 10 sec, stacking up to 10 times.

CAPES:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50466

Sentinel's Winter Cloak
Binds when picked up
Back
737 Armor
+90 Strength
+124 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 48
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 48

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50718

Royal Crimson Cloak
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Back
185 Armor
+78 Strength
+141 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 68
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 68
Equip: Improves hit rating by 44

EMBLEM OF FROST PICK ORDER:

Which will be slightly out of order to start. First let me say that since all of the set pieces cost badges now, unless it is something that will last you a very long time you are better off saving for your 4pc bonus.

It will take 310 badges to get your 4pc. That is a lot of badges. If you do the 3 new instances, a random daily every day, the weekly every week, and all 4 bosses of 10 and 25 man, you will have 146 badges when the new gate is opened.

If you clear through Putricide in 10 and 25 that is an additional 47 per week. That is 240 by the time the second gate opens if it takes 2 weeks. If the last gate opens 2 weeks after that, you can have a max of 350 badges.

It will probably take 3 weeks for each gate so realistically you can have your full 4 pc set, idol, cape, and trinket by the time you get to Sindragosa, or 452 emblems if the 3 week estimate holds.

3 examples where the upgrade does not justify the cost:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50972 (Shadow Seeker's Tunic)
-The 264 version of the best-in-slot chest is BOE, and it only has 16 less agi and hit instead of crit.
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50995 (Vengeful Noose)
-Again comparing to the 264 version of the best-in-slot belt, you gain 16 agi haste and some extra ARP but worse socket colors and less AP if you use the emblem belt.
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50982 (Cat Burglar's Grips)
-Compared to the, wait, you already have the set gloves because you need them to upgrade to the 277 version for your 4-pc set. You gain a socket with the emblem gloves but lost haste for crit, and lose some ap and arp.

Now to the items you want to get:

As always, this depends GREATLY on what items you already have for these slots.

Because of how valuable I feel the 4pc will be, and because of my current gear level, I will be buying my 4 set pieces in the following order before anything else:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50827 (gloves)
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50825 (legs)
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50824 (shoulders)
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50826 (helm)

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50456 (Idol of the Crying Moon)
-My first purchase once I complete my set. It is 220 agi when fully stacked, 67 more than the Idol of the Corruptor (please do not tell me you were using the dodge one).
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50466 (Sentinel's Winter Cloak)
-This is the best cape in the game until hard mode Prince, and even then I still think this is better than the 277 one listed above. However until we start doing hard modes I prefer the expertise on the LJ cape I currently have so will leave this till second.
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50356 (Corroded Skeleton Key)
-If you have either version of the Satrina's scarab/Jug vit, hold off until you can get the one listed above from Sindragosa. I personally plan on using the heroic Satrina's + heroic Sindragosa's and probably will not ever buy this.

This post made me laugh

2009-12-14T03:17:00.002-05:00

A recent GC post about warlock DPS.

No, you were destroying the other classes, except for Mutilate rogues and Unholy DKs, who were also nerfed. I think the only difference is that for the rogues and DKs it was easier to do so, while only the better locks could really come out with the great numbers. But being hard to do is no excuse for someone's dps to be gratuitously higher than everyone else.

6 months ago didn't he say the reason feral cat DPS was so stupidly op was because the rotation was only doable by the best of players and as such if they can pull off a more difficult rotation they deserve to be rewarded with higher DPS.

NEWS UPDATE: Armory lists all ICC items, including heroic10 and 25, expcet Lich King drops

2009-12-10T23:44:00.005-05:00

For the 277 best-in-slot list just search for "Step 5: The 277 Best-in-Slot list" down at the bottom.

Look for rings, trinkets, capes, and necks next week.

Step 1:

As such, I have put together a little comparison of the 277 set pieces vs the 277 offset pieces. Since you will more or less be forced to wear the 4pc for the enrage set bonus, the first task is to see if any set items are actually better than the offset items.

Helm: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51296 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50713

set gains: 24 agi, and 106 ARP

Offset gains: 48 AP, 8 crit, and 98 hit

Conclusion: Set

Shoulders: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51299 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50646

set: 8 agi, and 82 ARP

offset: 1 yellow socket, and 74 haste

Conclusion: Off-set

Chest: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51298 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50656

set: 16 agi, 122 crit, and 106 ARP

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 114 hit, and 106 exp

Conclusion: Off-set

Legs: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51297 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50697

set: 16 agi, 122 ARP, and 106 Exp

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 98 hit, and 122 crit

Conclusion: Wash

Gloves: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51295 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50675

set: 8 agi, and 8 haste

offset: 1 yellow socket

Conclusion: Off-set

Step 2:

Since the legs are close enough and the helm is clearly better, we need to determine which 2 of the 3 remaining slots to use to finish the set bonus. Considering the lack of hit and expertise getting both on one piece makes this choice easy, keep the off-set chest.

Right now you have equipped:
Set: helm, and legs
Off-set: chest, gloves, and shoulders

Changing the gloves gains you 8 agi and 8 haste while changing the shoulders gains you 8 agi and 82 ARP.

Changing the gloves costs you 1 yellow socket while changing the shoulders costs you another yellow socket and 74 haste.

Now you have equipped:
Set: helm, gloves, shoulders and legs
Off-set: chest

SO,

Is the 4pc set bonus, 16 agi, and 82 ARP worth 60 stam (2 yellow sockets) and 66 haste?

Step 3:

The 264 sets vs 264 off-sets. Unlike TOC where 245 set and offset had the same number of sockets while 258 sets had 1 less socket than the set piece, the normal mode 264 sets in ICC have 1 less socket than the 264 non-set also. That makes this comparison rather redundant but here it is anyway.

Helm: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51143 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50073

set gains: 24 agi, and 92 ARP

Offset gains: 48 AP, 8 crit, and 84 hit

Conclusion: Set

Shoulders: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51140 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=49987

set: 8 agi, and 72 ARP

offset: 1 yellow socket, and 64 haste

Conclusion: Off-set

Chest: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51141 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50001

set: 16 agi, 108 crit, and 92 ARP

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 100 hit, and 92 exp

Conclusion: Off-set

Legs: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51142 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50042

set: 16 agi, 108 ARP, and 92 Exp

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 84 hit, and 108 crit

Conclusion: Wash

Gloves: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51144 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50021

set: 8 agi, and 8 haste

offset: 1 yellow socket

Conclusion: Off-set

Step 4:

Changing the gloves gains you 8 agi and 8 haste while changing the shoulders gains you 8 agi and 72 ARP.

Changing the gloves costs you 1 yellow socket while changing the shoulders costs you another yellow socket and 64 haste.

SO,

Is the 4pc set bonus, 16 agi, and 72 ARP worth 60 stam (2 yellow sockets) and 56 haste?

Step 5: The 277 Best-in-Slot list.

WEAPON:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50727

Bloodfall
Heroic
Binds when picked up
PolearmTwo Hand
886-1329 DmgSpeed 3.40
(325.7 damage per second)
+175 Agility
+183 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 122
Equip: Improves haste rating by 98
Equip: Increases your attack power by 212

HEAD:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51296

Sanctified Lasherweave Headguard
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherHead
564 Armor
+183 Agility
+183 Stamina
Meta Socket
Red Socket
Durability: 70 / 70
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 114
Equip: Increases your attack power by 196
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 106

SHOULDERS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51299

Sanctified Lasherweave Shoulderpads
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherShoulders
521 Armor
+136 Agility
+136 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 70 / 70
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 90
Equip: Increases your attack power by 165
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 82

CHEST:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50656

Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherChest
694 Armor
+167 Agility
+183 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves hit rating by 114
Equip: Increases your attack power by 228
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 106

LEGS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51297

Sanctified Lasherweave Legguards
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherLegs
608 Armor
+183 Agility
+183 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 90 / 90
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases your attack power by 212
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 122
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 106

HANDS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51295

Sanctified Lasherweave Handgrips
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherHand
434 Armor
+136 Agility
+136 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 40 / 40
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves haste rating by 82
Equip: Increases your attack power by 165
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 90

BRACERS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50670

Toskk's Maximized Wristguards
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherWrist
304 Armor
+102 Agility
+102 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Durability: 40 / 40
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 60
Equip: Increases your attack power by 120
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 68

BELT:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50707

Astrylian's Sutured Cinch
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherWaist
391 Armor
+120 Agility
+136 Stamina
Blue Socket
Red Socket
Durability: 40 / 40
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 90
Equip: Increases your attack power by 181
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 74

BOOTS: (going to list two here because they are extremely close and for how easy it is to get the crafted ones I think they are definitely the better choice thus they are listed first)

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=49961 (only the pattern is present on armory)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49895

Footpads of Impending Death
Binds when equipped

Feet	Leather

457 Armor
+120 Agility
+120 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Agility
Durability 60 / 60
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 80 (1.74% @ L80).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 64 (7.81 @ L80).
Equip: Increases attack power by 129.

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50607

Frostbitten Fur Boots
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherFeet
477 Armor
+120 Agility
+136 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 60 / 60
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 90
Equip: Increases your attack power by 181
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 74

3.3: Items and things you need to know

2009-12-08T02:07:00.003-05:00

Lets briefly go over any patch notes relevant to druid tanks:

Taunt Diminishing Returns: We’ve revised the system for diminishing returns on Taunt so that creatures do not become immune to Taunt until after 5 Taunts have landed. The duration of the Taunt effect will be reduced by 35% instead of 50% for each taunt landed. In addition, most creatures in the world will not be affected by Taunt diminishing returns at all. Creatures will only have Taunt diminishing returns if they have been specifically flagged for that behavior based on the design of a given encounter.
Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. (not really tank related but GDI about dam time)
Hunters: Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes. (REALLY? CAME THE FUCK ON BLIZZARD, warriors and druids still need to spend 5 talent points to max it out while paladins get it for 2 and hunters just have to change a pet, bullshit)
Infected Wounds: This ability is no longer considered to be in the magical defense category; therefore spell hit no longer applies to its activation. Tooltip error corrected. (with luck this means it also now only needs 8% hit to never miss instead of the 17? it currently needs)

Housekeeping finished

2009-11-21T01:14:00.004-05:00

For those unaware, tankspot just updated its front page this past week. Check it out at http://www.tankspot.com/. Along with that upgrade comes a new article system.

As part of that upgrade I finally got off my ass and got around to some housekeeping I have been putting off since 3.2 came out. My Feral Druid guide over there can be found at http://www.tankspot.com/article.php?id=113807 for those wishing to view it as an article. Most notably I finally updated all the talent descriptions that have changed in 3.1 and 3.2(.2) and wowhead spec links in preparation for a new project I am working on. Look for its release soon.

The last order of business is to get on the PTR tomorrow and make sure blizzard has not done anything screwy with threat and confirm the numbers I collected from the ulduar PTR for threat co-efficients.
________________________________________

As expected, nothing changed.

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f200/47813-bear-3-0-threat-values.html#post322965

Just had to make a few confirmations/corrections.

Put up or shut up!

2009-11-03T20:23:00.004-05:00

Anonymous said...: no he is retarded, he maybe a beast but he is low on Dodge Rating, stop stacking Stamina buddy!
I have 36% dodge in normal and around 49% dodge in bear form!

from http://mother-bear.blogspot.com/2009/08/unbuffed-lawl.html#comments

Where's your armory mr anon?

No more purple kitty (AND MY WEAPON IS HUGE!)

2009-10-22T01:09:00.004-04:00

Darksend, Death's Demise

FHLevel 80 Tauren Druid

(click for full effect)

What do you want to hear about?

2009-10-02T14:52:00.003-04:00

I am currently writing a script for a podcast, what are some questions you would like answered or topics you would like discussed?

New Ring of Binding

2009-09-22T19:20:00.005-04:00

The new tanking ring of onyxia. So yea, that is actually really good for what I need it for.

Are you using the correct rotation?

2009-09-17T07:05:00.004-04:00

I just finished recording a new video guide look for it in a few days.

What to take away from it while you wait:

If you do not have improved mangle, you use a rotation of mangle->FF->x->y. Well after "y" mangle will still have .5 seconds left on its cooldown. Some mods show that as having a full second remaining, which in turn gets interpreted as an entire 1.5 second global so they use something other than mangle instead of waiting the 1/2 second. Thus using mangle every 6th global instead of 5.

The same goes for imp mangle rotations of mangle->x->y. The difference here is that not every rotation will include a FF due to the difference in mangle and FF cooldowns. So only on rotations where a FF is present between mangles will this .5 second discrepancy occur. Thus you end up using mangle every 5th global instead of every 4th. What is every worse about this than the above situation is that YOU HAVE JUST WASTED 3 TALENT POINTS if you are falling into this trap.

unbuffed... LAWL

2009-08-18T02:49:00.002-04:00

http://img40.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot081309145405.jpg/

busted computer = sad darsksend

will post more once i get it back

2 New Videos: 3.2 PTR Cat and Bear models

2009-07-24T21:59:00.003-04:00

Well everyone said to wait until they were more than SSs and we could actually see them in game.

Having raided as a bear the few times they have put out a boss and had the PTR actually working I can say I truly hate the bear form for alliance.

1) the front legs look broken

2) the thing you cannot see in the video is when zoomed out at a 45 degree angle the mane makes it look like a plastic chew toy I would give to a dog

3) when jumping the back legs go up into the body and almost disappear because the body starts falling before the legs reach the top. Because of this the belly hits the ground before the legs

anyway I copied a premade horde over to the PVE server and on my main druid I took some clips of the new Alliance and Horde models.

Alliance

2009-07-24T19:38:00.001-04:00

(As with all new videos HD takes a few hours)

Horde

2009-07-24T19:37:00.007-04:00

(As with all new videos HD takes a few hours)

Another gem from andrew

2009-07-22T18:33:00.003-04:00

----------------------------------------------------------------->
my blog list

of teeth and claws "a world without tanks"

read it comment on it I agree with him 100%

World 38th, US 17th

2009-07-16T22:50:00.002-04:00

Long overdue, > 10 minutes till he vanished.

back from vacation

2009-07-09T00:30:00.002-04:00

reading over the patch notes now have not read anything wow-related for almost a week so gimmie a day or two to catch up.

one thing I will say is I cried a little when I saw enrage. The fact it did not give instant rage caused me so many headaches. I have a speculation that it has to do with 5/5 furor not being the norm anymore and this is blizzards way of compensating instead of making furor 3 points. I like this one better because my alt gets the buff too on bloodrage.

KOTJ is also very nice

anyway sleep time been a long past 3 days

Where have I been:

2009-06-26T14:35:00.009-04:00

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Black+Dragonflight&n=Boredum

Finally got 80 last night. Been grinding it out pretty hard. That plus raiding 3 ulduars a week left me with very little time. An issue which just got a lot less time consuming because of my other big accomplishment. My guild finally downed firefighter in 25 man. Hopefully I will be able to get out more regular updates now that these two major time constraints have finally been completed. EDIT: Sooooo, the alts strike again. Last patch our alt group (with the help of a voidwalker) completed the 10 man meta before most other guilds got them on mains.

Alt mounts V2: Darkneskilla successfully tanks firefighter 10 (after giving all my healers heart attacks I love you all for putting up with me I still owe some of you steak dinners at some point for something but I forgot what). Thanks to Korsten, jeff, and jordan for coming on their mains ONLY TO GET CARRIED BY ALTS O.o. Also thanks to dab for knowing how do bind FoK to every key on his keyboard and facerolling.

Blizzard at its absolute lowest

2009-06-20T01:09:00.001-04:00

Hello, my concern is about "exploiting" in Flame Leviathan and Heroic Flame Leviathan of Ulduar.

Few days ago (tuesday 16th of June) our small casual friend based guilds raid group for FL got banned for "Intented Exploiting" (a term used by Blizzard employee for our activity).
Since our guild does not consist 10 active members our only pve raid target have been Flame Leviathan.
If you know the fight of Flame Leviathan I want to know your opinion and your explonation if you think the following is exploiting.

---

Tactic posted on MMO-champion website june 14, 2009, 10:44:07 AM. Link: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=64594.0
The tactic pictured by my (bad) paint-skills: http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3274/srslywtf.jpg

Vehicles that was used on fight:
2 demolishers with 2 drivers and 2 anti-air personnel.
1 bike (extra player)

Since vehicles scale with item level, our guild has pretty nice requirements for this - we do lots of pvp, pvp items got high item levels too.

Step to step tactic:
1. Fight begins by kiting Flame Leviathan to one corner, either which demolisher got the aggro first
2. Anti-air personnels begins to shoot flying pyrite boxes from air and gather then during ALL time
3. Leviathan is kited by the path shown in screenshot
3.1 I'm pretty sure everyone here is familiar with The Pythagorean theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) and everone can say c>a and c>b. There is the logic behind this kiting path.
4. Demolishers are constantly spamming pyrite barrel (number 2 keybind) which can be done by good pyrite gathering of anti-air personnels
5. When aggro chances demolisher begins to "packpedall" the tank back to his corner. The other demolisher that doesn't have aggro will follow Flame Leviathan in order to pick up more pyrite that have been dropped.

---

The kill lead to 72hour ban on most of us, but a good friend of mine got permanently banned.
I feel really bad for my friend who got banned, I can assure you than none of us knew that it was exploiting.
Nevertheless all of us got banned becouse of "Intented Exploiting" without any warning.

I really don't see the justice in this. I've done this in full 25man raid before in my old guild and we did it pretty much the same - except playing it really - really stupidly compared to this tactic.

---

After speaking to a gm he also said that Flame Leviathan is 10/25 man boss and when it's done by lesser players its considered as exploiting. Seriously there's even achievement to clear ulduar less than full raid!

Here's the conversation link with a GM. His name is sencored, I think name&shame rights goes for gms too.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/1132/conversationwithagm.jpg

And yes, we've sent a complain about this to the webform gave in email. No reply so far and propably keeps us waiting for another week or something.

"That is not really kiting Crescendoll, making him run between point A and B and never getting near a player was seen as exploiting here." -GM
What the **** are we suppose to do, ram into FL and let our vehicles get destroyed?
Before we got FL down, it actually got really really close (I think it hit my friends demo once or twice).

---

So our guild cannot do 10m or 25m version of Flame Leviathan without having a full raid?
And what was the exploiting, kiting?

Regards, Offensive/Deviant/Crescendoll of Trollbane
Sorry for my grammar, eng is my 3rd language.

EDIT:
We did not attack the turrets above FL and we did not interrupt Flame Vents in any way. Both of our demolisher handlers (me other, you can check gear itemlvl) had over 1million hp (something like 1060k).

[ Post edited by Offensive ]

source

Although it will likely be taken down soon by blizzard

He feeds on your Tears

2009-06-18T00:34:00.003-04:00

After 1shoting him on our first kill, with a death, and not having our regular group for our second kill last week, this week on our 3rd kill we successfully earned "HE FEEDS ON YOUR TEARS" by killing Algalon with 0 deaths for the entire lockout.

Maybe it was a good thing fraps fucked up last week as I now how the he feeds on your tears kill frapsed.

I would also like to congratulate our guild for completing our first legendary mace, GRTZ JOY (we actually got it last week I'm kinda slow).

Failboat

2009-06-16T09:22:00.003-04:00

I was going to put up a fraps of our 10algalon today.

Only when we killed him last night I started my fraps as normal and when the fight was over I checked and it did not record.

My fraps is numpad 5. TO BAD IT ONLY FREAKIN ACTUALLY STARTS FRAPS IF NUMLOCK IS ON FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Opening comments to as much trolling about my stupidity as you like.

Edit: Finally got around to updating my feral druid guide over on tankspot. Wowhead is being slow as it normally is on Tuesdays so the talents are not 100% up-to-date as of this edit but I am working on it now.

A favor for Toskk

2009-06-08T15:02:00.002-04:00

Many of you know toskk for his amazing work in the feral DPS community. Recently he became one of the admins over at the druidwiki. Even more recently than that he has begun to take an interest in the theory behind game design. He started a new page over on druidwiki about it at http://druid.wikispaces.com/game_design.

As part of this project he is conducting a survey http://druid.wikispaces.com/message/view/ToskksDPSGearMethod/12498927

Well, it's totally off-topic for this forum, but I thought I'd describe my latest WoW project here, with the hopes that a few Druids would be willing to give the survey a test-run and provide some feedback on it. :)

As some here probably know, I'm actually even more interested in game design than I am feral druid mechanics. In particular, I'm interested in pushing the boundaries of video games by applying Educational Psychology and theories about how learning happens to 'entertainment' video game design.

I'm hoping to launch a new page/blog/discussion board (probably here on the Druid Wiki for lack of a better place to host it) all about game design and WoW in the next few weeks, and the first project for that is a survey designed to look at just how effective of a learning environment World of Warcraft (and hopefully eventually other mmo's) is.

I'd love to be able to eventually collect several thousand responses to the survey, to give a really good set of data on the strengths and weaknesses of the learning environment present in WoW. I'll be posting it in more visible locations soon, but in the meantime I'd appreciate it if any of the Druids here would give it a try. :) The survey can be found on surveymonkey here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ZEGZG0aVq8lK_2fqKGtF7hPg_3d_3d

Thanks again to all those who have supported this wiki and the feral project.. and just to stem any fears, that's not over. ;) I've got a new version of the model cooking already ;)

Toskk

Please take a look at it and help him out.

Ulduar: The Lifestyle

2009-06-06T20:10:00.004-04:00

[20:09:46] [G] [80:Baddylol]: damn still in ulduar?
[20:10:00] [G] [80:Lazzek:2]: we live in here

On that note: After a DC last week that cost us about 10 minutes out of our hour (what would have been US tied for 3rd), we went back in and 1shot Algalon. 18th 10 man kill in the world 7th in the US . The only hard part of that fight is the 1 hour limit. Even before the video was released by underground cosmonauts (or whatever their name is) we had the fight completely out. Even though last week was a tremendous disapointment 1shoting it this week more than made up for it.

Currently working on 0 watcher yogg. (Man this fight is a son of a bitch)

Ok, not that I have time to write something up properly:

And must say I am slightly disappointed.

This was our 3rd hour on him. Our first week we went in knowing absolutely nothing. In the first 20 minutes of that hour we thought we had figured out a few things.

2 days later the 1st 10 man algalon kill video was released. At that time me and my raid all commented that we were extremely disappointed in it. Those few things we thought we figured out, well it turns out that was the entire fight.

It is one of the most straightforward and easy fights in the entire zone. The only limiting factor is that your entire raid is terrified of being "THAT GUY" who dcs once you start and wastes your hour.

Anyway second hour we wiped sub 25% once then had a DC and never got back to phase 2 because of tank deaths.

This 6 minutes we went in and 1shot it.

For as much as blizzard hyped this encounter, I feel cheated. The most difficult part of the fight is that he hits the tank ala brutallus and if either of the main tank healers has to move from cosmic smash the tank pretty much falls over.

And the comment of the year award goes to.....

2009-06-05T09:00:00.003-04:00

Lissanna (Author of http://restokin.com/):

They look like they walked out of a Hello Kitty store and got hit by a Care Bear Stare on their way to My Little Pony land

and a close second:

After seeing the NE color schemes for cat, I think I’d rather be dead broccoli tree that bright pink cotton candy tree.

WOW............. HOW FUCKING HORRIBLE ARE YOU BLIZZARD

2009-06-04T13:35:00.005-04:00

Sorry, but FUCKING CHRIST.

Can you possibly have a worse model for cat form. Not every night elf druid is a female IRL.

Night elf cats might as well be fucking barbie dolls.

Great so horde cats look evil, and alliance get stuck with fluffy pink kittys from hello kitty island adventure. next can we plz get a bear form that turns into ivan the circus bear?

so they took in the teeth a little and changed the colors of em pretty much and everyone thinks this is great concept art? lmao aint no wonder u guys are stuck in this game youre so easily pleased.

Dont understand what everyone is so excited about with NE cats...3 of them look virtually the same and 2 of them look gender confused.

Highly disappointed, taurens look so much cooler.

meh i could do without the bracelets and necklace.

They look a bit to feminine to me.

Tauren definately appear to have more work done to them. Tauren look fierce and awesome while with the Night-Elf cat forms look like they would faint if they had a splinter under a nail

In my post before i was going to mention this...

They might as well put braids in their hair, a ribbon on their tail and give em make-up.

I personally like the new tauren cat forms better, they look more lion-ish now.

The new night elf ones are [i]cute[/i] as currently presented...I like them, but they look a bit My Little Pony-ish to me, and I suspect some people may not be thrilled with "cute." But at least the colors are changeable via the barber shop so no one is locked into pink & purple pastels.

/Agree 100%, Make them look more badass plz!!! How im i suppose to murder my target looking like i came from Hello Kitty Island Adventure

IMO, NE bear form is good, though what's with the fruity necklace? An acorn?

NE cat form I don't care for, IMO looks cheap compared to the Tauren one, plus I was looking to pick the black cat, and the black one has pink eyes amd a glowey pink necklace? WTF Blizz? I think the Black cat should match the black bear with silver eyes and silver accents (necklace).

Glowey pink necklace... are you kidding me Blizz?!

wow, they REALLY need to make new models separating male/female. Just glad my druid toon is a chick, so I won't get the pain of castration whenever I go cat.

They're so... girly. The far left and right ones are the only ones that don't look as much like a girl's accessory pet. Would it be possible at all to spread around the coloration between the tuaren and ne models? The cows get all the earthy tones and ne's are stuck with a crapton of pastels.

Uhhh...am i missing something here, 5 out of the 6 NE cats are grayish, blackish, purplish or some combination thereof. Not a lot of variation there. Looks like they came off Tween Island with the pink and collars. Guess a lot of people are easily impressed with mediocrity.

I was skeptical, and I have some issues with the other new forms, but I'm actually pretty happy with these. Well done.

I'd prefer they didn't have the bracelets, necklace, and face markings. But they're at least somewhat minimalist, so I'm happy.

(Now if we can just fix the elf bears being bald with sideburns...)

Just give me a "Don't change to the new models" switch and I'll be happy.

It's probably because no matter how you project yourself it's hard to not look feminine in pastels.

Maybe its the bracelets and big dangly necklace. And the appearance of eyeliner from how the eyes glow.

I still fail to understand why you refuse to let us select our colors independently of hair choice when it would enable so many more people to be satisfied with the new forms. Especially when multiple forms may be suited to one hair color/fur color (spotted cow -> black cat or white cat, 4 different purple cats for a purple haired/skinned elf, etc).

Blue responds to the one post out of a hundred praising the new art; ducks the other 99 hating it.

"Since when did male Belfs take over our druid cat form?"

/sigh

2009-06-02T14:01:00.000-04:00

We took a look at The Leviathan's Coil and are happy with its stats.

It is a very nice ring. :)

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16473758064&postId=175618460570&sid=1#85

edit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17367604106&pageNo=5&sid=1#87

On the topic of Leviathan's Coil, we were originally happy with the armor value. However, when we looked at it further, we realized the entire ring was over-budget. Technically, we had spent itemization budget on armor and then split the stats again as if we had not. We decided not to keep the high armor because we didn't want to set the expectation that there would be high armor rings every tier and we didn't want players feeling like they had to go back to old content to get the only high armor ring.

So now, it is budgeted at 219 instead of 226 GOOD FUCKING JOB BLIZZARD. can you ever get it right?

Forgotten Heroes Recruiting

2009-06-02T10:02:00.003-04:00

Sorry readers but something went wrong with the video I had planned on posting today.

In the mean time, my guild Forgotten Heroes of Black Dragonflight is still recruiting for Ulduar hard modes. ATM we are one hard mode away from 25 man algalon with our kill of 3 elder freya last night (a kill which moved us up to 35th in the world and 16th in the US once guild ox updates). Of the hard modes not required for algalon we have all of those on farm as well except for 1 watcher yogg.

1. About us:

Forgotten Heroes has been a raiding guild since the release of World of Warcraft and we currently reside on Black Dragonflight PvP. Our end game goal is PvE oriented and we are always pushing to better ourselves. Most of the guild enjoys PvP as well and we have many top arena teams within the battlegroup. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, please head to our website http://www.fhguild.net/ and apply.

2. Our schedule:

We currently raid Monday - Friday @ 7:00 PM EST generally with weekends off although sometimes we do push Sundays for progression. When content is on farm we usually spend 2 nights a week raiding. The guild bank covers all progression related repair bills so don't worry about spending countless amounts of gold wiping to encounters.

3. What we expect:

- We expect raiders to attend at least 4 days a week.
- We expect raiders to have proper consumables, specs, enchants and gems giving you the biggest advantage within a raid. To this extent certain fights require specific specs/gear/consumables to be able to survive the random burst (3 elder freya) or not run out of mana (hard general vezax) to name some. You will be asked to respec and know how to play that spec, what rotations to use, etc.
- We expect you to have a working microphone and able to speak.
- Most importantly we want someone who enjoys the environment and enjoys interacting with the guild you play with. Obviously if you're obnoxious and never shut up thats a problem, but being comfortable speaking on a regular basis is the goal.

Still Recruiting: 1 Resto Shaman, 1 Warlock (Exceptional players of other classes may be considered)

http://www.fhguild.net

Probably the only feral druid bloger on the planet who has not yet.....

2009-05-28T18:38:00.003-04:00

Commented on the new bear form models. Frankly I have been undecided about them.

I made up my mind last night when I realized I was not alone in feeling disapointed. In a shocking move ME AND KAILEE ACTUALLY AGREE ON SOMETHING (mek I blame you for this!!!).

Also, why does it seem like more non druids than feral druids are like OMG AMAZING LOOKING, they really are not that amazing.

In the news post about it over at tankspot someone posted:

Are the color changes nice? Yes.
Will it be nice to be able to differentiate the furballs in a raid? Yes.

But am I the only one that just sees a palette swap and the addition of an armband and necklace? I don't see a big change here. And nothing that indicates anything about the gear they're wearing, which is what I thought most druids had been requesting. *shrug*

I'm just glad I don't stare at a furry butt everytime I play, no matter what color it is. ;-)

After 5 years this is all they can do. I am extremely disappointed. There is absolutely nothing new they took the old models into an editor and changed the color, probably took all of 30 seconds per form. And it took them 5 years to make that. Where is my armor?

For as long as they made us wait I expected something better than the same models just with new colors.

Also, where are the shots from behind. Sorry but thats what I have been looking at for the last 3 years thats what I really care about them changing not the faces I never see.

Community Spotlight: Sometimes Warriors know what they are talking about

2009-05-26T08:00:00.001-04:00

As many of you know I have a level 80 alt warrior, and as such I read a lot of warrior blogs as well as feral blogs.

My favorite warrior blog is http://www.tankingtips.com/, written by a good friend and my blogging mentor Veneretio (who just happens to be a fellow tankspot author). One nice thing about it is that he also covers a lot of general tanking theory as well, some of which I have been able to apply to my druid.

One example is http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/02/24/the-trash-caps/.

For trash mobs (level 82s), the hit and expertise caps are:

177 Hit Rating (5.4%)
22 Expertise Skill (5.5%)

Thanks to Satrina (tankspot moderator) and Vene for bringing these numbers to light.

Glory of the Ulduar Raider: Firefighter

2009-05-24T15:31:00.005-04:00

Last week I posted complimenting blizzard on their balancing of 10 man hard modes (compared to the atrocity that was the difference between 10 man 3d sarth's difficulty and 25 man 3d sarth's difficulty).

Last night, after about 12 hours of attempts over the 2 days, my 10 man raid completed the Mimiron hard mode Firefighter achievement. This finished off our meta as well, making us only the 26th raid in the world and 7th in the US to earn the Rusted Proto-Drakes.

The amount of time we put in not only on mimiron but the entire 10 man instance since it came out with sub-par raid comps (bad synergy overall due to wanting to take whoever was on to get it done, having to shoot up our best demolisher driver on orbit-uary, no mages on Freya, 4 melee on mimiron, and less than ideal healer compositions specifically for XT pre nerf) was a little less than I had hoped so I am truly looking forward to Algalon and Alone in the Darkness.

(on youtube: "This video is still being processed. Video quality may improve once processing is complete." Also means HD is not available yet.)

This is so getting nerfed

2009-05-21T23:06:00.004-04:00

Hint: you are looking at my HP

Darksend's Weekly Tip: The best macro you probably are not using

2009-05-19T08:00:00.002-04:00

I mentioned this briefly in my last post, "/targetexact". My exact macro that I change depending on the fight is
"/targetexact name
/script SetRaidTarget("target", 8)
/focus"

If you are simply typing /tar then that works, but if you are going to be making a macro anyway why not use this more precise method. It carries with it all the benefits of a standard /target macro with some added benefits.

The most important use of this macro is on bosses that spawn multiple types of adds at once from the same location. Trying to click on the correct one can be a pain. I first started using this macro on M'uru so I would not target the mage as it was running out but continue to find uses for it.

Using M'uru as an example, the adds both have "shadowsword" at the start of their names. Using "/targetexact shadowsword Berserker" instead of simply "/tar shadow", it would garuntee never targeting the mage.

The other use is finding things that spawn in random locations. Spamming that macro while spinning around your camera helps you easily find where the new add spawned and allows you to get to it much quicker than you would have if you had not marked it. The best example that comes to mind is trying to find spores while dpsing on Loatheb or finding the tree on Freya.

Community Spotlight: Kalons reply to GC

2009-05-18T16:03:00.004-04:00

You did not honestly expect me to pat blizzard on the back without a rant shortly after did you?

We want to get out of the business of needing to offer 2 types of weapon for a single tree of one class, given that we already have to itemize Balance and Resto druids somewhat differently. It is just not our design to make two-handed tanking weapons, and we have attempted to design DKs and druids so that they don't need them.

The classes and spec have grown so divergent that even with Ulduar offering something like 800 items (which to be fair, counts 10 vs. 25 and normal vs. hard) some players still feel like we aren't filling their niche. We don't want to have to offer 1000 or more PvE items in one patch, so we need to handle things at the class level so that there is less of a need for those items.

If you want to focus on tanking as a Feral instead of dps, you should do that mostly through talents, gems, enchants and the jewelry and cloak pieces. We have fit two fairly different roles into the Feral tree and you can even hybridize them to a degree, but we want to stop short of having to itemize the druid as four classes.

Kalon (of thinktank) said it best in a reply that echoed my thoughts almost exactly:

And that would have been a fine design decision at the start of WotLK.

But then you came out with the Enraged Feral Staff.
And staff of shrouded mysteries.
And Origin of Nightmares.
And if that weren't enough, you came out with a tanking staff with armor from the Argent Crusade vendors.

I understand that your vision is that you don't want DK and druid tanking weapons. What I don't understand is why you keep undercutting your vision. It's this duplicity that is problematic (though hardly surprising). It's that duplicity that causes the quality of life issue that druids aren't happy about.

Simple fact is blizzard you already opened the door, you thought about putting in 2 DK blacksmithing tanking weapons, AND YOU VERY VERY SWIFTLY removed them before they ever went live. If this was truly your design philosophy than none of the current weapons in game would have armor.

If you do not remove the armor from Origin of Nightmares then it will continue to be the best tanking weapon well into the next instance, you simply cannot compare with 700 armor unless you have the levels of agi that exist on the currently bugged pvp weapons.

Also, @ kalon, have you run the numbers on the pvp weapons with their new agi levels? Is the 1850 one still better than OoN ?

Dear Blizzard, I am truly impressed

2009-05-18T02:28:00.002-04:00

Congratulations Blizzard, I am truly impressed by Ulduar.

But before I get to that I want to address a fellow blogger and if he will allow me to call him so a friend, Andrew formerly Karthis of "of Teeth and Claws". He has decided to quit playing wow and shifting the focus of his blog to other things. In his goodbye post (you can read it here) he noted his reasons for quitting. One think that seriously struck me was:

I simply cannot get excited about those encounters because they present nothing new. In many cases it's just "kill faster", "heal harder", and "screw up less". Unique encounters suck me in.... rehashed encounters push me away.

Having done hodir hard mode I can tell you, there is a lot of strategy beyond simply "kill it faster" and the rest of the hard modes in there do bring back some of that feeling from TBC. "Screw up less" ... there is no less, back in TBC a single screw up caused a wipe, even if it was something small by the person with the least important job in the raid, which is the kind of difficulty you wanted anyway andrew is it not? Flame Levi, XT, IC, Mimiron, hell the only hard mode that is not a completely new and unique encounter on hard mode is hodir (and to some extent thorim).

Instead of truly difficult raid content we have relatively easy fights that can be tough only if you strive for the achievements.

I will agree with you that the achievements are pointless, I hated the glory of the raider achievements as it really did nothing to make the fights unique. However, hard modes are not achievements, you just happen to get an achievement when you complete a hard mode for the very first time. I love all the ulduar hard modes, and with that on to addressing blizzard.

Since the day my guild killed muru for the first time I have never been that happy about wow, until this week. Almost as happy as killing the royal pain in the ass known as Archimonde for the first time or pre-FA nerf Mother Sharaz (having a top 50 world-wide kill of Archimonde and a top 50 US kill of Ilidan). Those types of challenges are the reason I play wow. Ulduar is so far living up to them. While not nearly as difficult in the sense of time invested into it (muru archimonde sharaz and ilidan took weeks of learning) a lot of those hard encounters were nothing more than having a perfect raid composition and the countless hours of wipes missing 1-2 people from that raid comp but going anyway even though you know you only have 2 resto shaman for Eredar Twins, having to play my alt priest on Felmyst because we did not have enough mass dispells, or not enough pally blessings. Raid stacking is without a doubt something every hardcore guild will tell you we are happy to live without.

Now, why am I happy. This week my guild cleared 3 elder Freya, the Saronite Animus, and One light in the Darkness on Yogg. This leaves us with only 4 tower Flame Levi and Firefighter to complete the Ulduar 10 man meta.

I never thought I could have this much fun raiding a 10 man. As far as blizzards goals, it is tuned perfectly for people wearing full ulduar 10 man gear (or in our case the comparable 25 man naxx, maly, and 2d sarth gear). The first week my group got hard mode Iron Council and Thorim (the second day of the patch with little to no 25 man ulduar gear). The second week we smashed 2 minute hodir, 2 elder freya, and 2 tower Flame Levi. The third week we finished 3 towers, and hard mode XT. Due to pushing hard modes in the 25 man we did an easy week in 10man the 4th week just repeating everything we had already killed.

That brings us to this week. We breezed through 3 tower flame levi, hard XT, hard IC, disarmed and crazy cat lady (only because they are for the meta), then hard hodir and finishing with hard thorim. We did all this in just under 3 hours. Granted by now we all have a fair share of 25 man gear, but nothing was stuff we had not done before either. The following day we went to 3 elder Freya. We had been worried about her because she was kicking our asses in 25. But after only two attempts she was dead. We may or may not have tried hard mimiron, i seem to not be able to recall several painful hours of my life during that time. That is possibly the hardest encounter in the game right now on both 10 and 25, and I can see why. Finally we decided to move on and kill it and come back to hard Vezax the next day. After a few stupid wipes, we had two attempts in a row where a different healer died around 80% both attempts. We ended up wiping to tank deaths with the animus at low percents both times because the 2 remaining healers simply did not have the mana to make it through. We then had an attempt where we killed the animus but 2 ranged died, resulting in an insta-gib crash killing all the melee. Next attempt a clutch battle rez by yours truly on a healer after killing the Animus gave that healer just enough mana to keep the tank alive after the two living healers were oom. I love the smell of saronite.... CHECK

One light in the darkness, the moment all of us have been dreading for the past 2 weeks. We knew a while ago that the sanity beams only come from freya, but also that the phase 3 adds cannot die without the assistance of thorim. The two week debate on which to send down has ended very switftly, the response: HOW THE HELL do you kill yogg without being able to refresh sanity? First attempt we did not even need it, very first guardian in phase 1 a dps pulls agro and 2 of them end up getting blown up next to sara at the same time (part my fault as well) and the warrior died instantly because he had the damage increase taken from sara. Well that out of the way we get to phase 2 next attempt, finally getting to test our new strat for the melee inside, well it worked. We had 35+ seconds left to dps the brain each of the 3 brain phases with lich king being our 3rd portal, pushed 55-30 and forced phase 3 with 8 seconds left. I have been a part of the inside group every time I have killed him on my druid and I still contend we have one of the best inside groups in the world, my hats off to all of them in both 10 and 25. We ended the fight with our main tank about to hearth about before being MCed, but he made it and no one else was even close to going insane. Second attempt ever at 1 watcher yogg: US 12th.

We then went on an alt run and fully cleared it on alts (all alts except for 1 main healer since we had no heroism without her) in 7 hours (in all 25 man naxx gear) including IC, hodir, and thorim hard modes (with my warrior picking up the soon to be buffed tanking mace from hodir in exchange for my offtanks stam trinket off yogg which finally dropped). We 2 healed hodir with 30 seconds left. That is the only encounter that I feel is tuned incorectly, for 10 man a 2 minute 30 second timer would be much more appropriate. The three completed on alts are the only 3 I feel alts would be capable of doing, but by god we would be close on most of them. I have accepted that 10 man is tuned for people in 10 man gear, despite being so much easier than 25 man they still require a tremendous amount of concentration and if we had not been wiping for hours on freya and general in 25, I do not think we would have had such an easy time with them in 10.

So blizzard, as far as the 10 man goes, YOU ACHIEVED WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO. And for that I will end by saying good work and thank you.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Lucky Charms make a comeback

2009-05-12T08:00:00.001-04:00

The trash in Ulduar is not the "PULL AND AOE" trash that we have seen so far in this expansion. For this reason marking is becoming a factor again. In most cases when it is not the raid leader marking, it will be the tank.

When marking, try to keep the icons consistent. Most people use skull as the primary kill target, then x, sheeps are always moon and square, saps are always star and circle, etc (or whatever your guild/raid/group has decided on ahead of time). Before the run starts, assign each person to a symbol and state what you are using for your kill order to make things much smoother. This not only increases focus fire but also speeds things up by not having to call over vent or type out who is doing what target on each and every pull.

In your keybinds there is a section "Raid Targeting." This allows you to hotkey all your symbols directly. You can mark in combat, so say a CC cannot be reapplied because that person died, change that symbol to skull so the DPS knows to ignore the kill order and kill the broken CC instead. Manually selecting symbols take several seconds, use hotkeys or a mod.

There are also a lot of mods that help you mark. The one I prefer is called Baud Mark.

The final method is "/script SetRaidTarget("target", #)". This is the macro command to mark a target where 1 is star 2 is circle etc with 8 being skull. Where this comes in handy is on encounters that spawn multiple types of adds. By using this in conjunction with the "/targetexact" command it allows you to quickly target and mark the correct add. Some examples of where this can be useful in Ulduar are Razorscale, to some extent XT during the heart phase for pummlers, Thorim if you are tanking the arena, and Freya.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Emblem of Conquest Item Review

2009-05-05T08:00:00.003-04:00

Emblem of Conquest Items to buy:

The first item depends on if you have Hood of the Exodus. If you do than get the T8 Chest Token first. If not, then the T8 Helm Token is your better choice and the chest should be bought second.

Next I would suggest the neck, but only if you do not have Boundless Ambition or the neck from 10 man Kologarn, both of which are better

The belt is an amazing threat piece, but it is still not as good as the crafted belt overall. It is also the cheapest item besides the necks and much cheaper (18x6 for the orbs) than the crafted belt. Good placeholder until then.

The legs are again a threat item, but overall worse than both the 10 and 25 man t8 legs.

For DPS:

The neck is almost exactly equal to the 25 man saph quest reward neck (worse if you are a JCer and used a prismatic).

The gloves are not even going to get a link because they are pretty bad. They are an upgrade from 25t7 but that is where it ends. Both t8 gloves are better, as well as the 25 man Auriaya gloves. Best in slot for gloves are by far the PVP gloves.

As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

For all you Cats

2009-04-29T21:29:00.002-04:00

Simplified Cat Raid DPS Flowchart

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Yogg-Saron

2009-04-22T07:07:00.004-04:00

There will be no weekly tip next week as I have a special surprise for this week. TWO TIPS.

Enjoy and see you in Ulduar

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Raven Mount Tutorial

2009-04-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

This week, I am launching my youtube channel with my first instructional video.

I recommend watching it on youtube if you are watching it in HD even if the sound is shifted slightly in parts.

This was just to get my feet wet with editing again as I plan to do several more instructional videos. If you like the idea post some feedback about what kind of things you would like to see. If you have specific questions about the video most of them are answered in the voice over but if they are not just drop a comment and I will be glad to answer.

One thing that is not mentioned in the video, you do not have to clear the entire room, but it is very risky. When he banishes himself the birds can agro other pulls, but it was not always the same pull every time. If you want to roll the dice and potentially save time you can but I recommend against it.

As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

(10 man yogg kill will be up by next week, server second AFAIK - my alt got the server first FFS alts)

Ulduar cleared

2009-04-19T02:42:00.010-04:00

Yogg down tonight.

Last night we downed general, FIRST KILL I CANNOT BELIEVE MY LUCK.

Main tanked 90% of the instance (yes as a druid.)

The gear I have on is the gear I wore (the gloves are the s6 gloves with an 18 stam enchant and a 24 stam gem, the idol is the one in the link above). The only fight were threat was even close to an issue was General Vezaxx and that is only because of the kiting mechanic. I never DID NOT HAVE vigilance cast on me (more on this later). On most fights I wore polar gear. There is no difference between 40% avoidance and 45% avoidance. In my polar gear I have ~35% dodge. I dodged 10 attacks in a row on XT adds. THERE IS DEFINITELY A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 40K hp and 50K HP.

This is me getting glyph of Survival Instincts nerfed.

I am sorry but there is no debating this, the EH theory of progression tanking is by far the only way to do it. Yes I am egotistical, but I am also right. As a fellow blogger put it you simply need to compare the extreme cases of EH and avoidance gearing: if you gear for EH you can just throw more healers at the person, if you gear for avoidance if you take even a single hit you die. Yes those are extremes but they are also true.

Armory me, I did not use my dual spec a single time, and I have not changed my spec since I picked those 2 specs. The gear minus the polar gear that I wore on some fights where I just stood in a corner and did nothing (this more applies to 10 man).

The most noteable 25 man fight I used polar gear was Thorim. The main tank died at 50%, we had me alive, 2 DPS, and 5 healers. We took it from 50% till 10% when he finally got to many stacks and 1shot me. Why, because I took a 35K and a 20K crit back to back swings and lived.

TLDR:

Paladins, Druids, and DKs are all amazing tanks. Warriors are severally underpowered in the HP department. Blizzard, please give warriors a buff without nerfing the other 3 tanking classes.

The biggest problem with warriors is that they can cast vigilance on others. When I am main tanking and my warrior is offtanking I have 3% more mitigation than him from a buff. When it is the other way around, and since we do not have a prot paladin, this creates a massive disadvantadge for him. Any warrior tanking without a prot paladin offtank is severally underpowered.

Edit: 3% mitigation can also be gained from a disc priest, but I do not know how many progression guilds use disc priests. Mine does not so it was not an intentional omission just something my guild does not have access to I had forgotten about.

Calling all Druids: My thoughts on Savage Defense

2009-04-16T15:23:00.002-04:00

It does not work

IF YOU DO NOT TRAIN IT!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Just to clear up any confusion, no I did not do this. It was actually the second thing I did when I logged on live (after buying the shifting twilight opal pattern!!!!!!!!!!!). Although a lot of people did, including my protoge who I am very disappointed in. He is the whole reason I made this post. His excuse is very valid though we were so used to having it on the PTR we just forgot to train it.

Community Spotlight: Tentative Feral Raiding Specs for 3.1

2009-04-14T01:01:00.001-04:00

First, I would like to give credit to of Teeth and Claws. Last week, he put up a post about possible specs for 3.1, found here tentative-feral-raiding-specs-for-3.1. A few days before that I posted my own write-up on Tankspot, found here 3-1-bear-specs. While I had already decided to use that post on tankspot for my weekly tip on patch day, I found his post refreshing because it gave me some more things to think about as far as specs, but there are also some things I disagree with (although some of my disagreements are with the comments left by other people not the poster himself).

SPECS

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is the base spec from which all the templates will work off of.

Survivability build: Slightly different in that you drop imp mangle to pick up Feral Aggression. Threat will be touchy with this spec but it has the advantage of never having mangle and faerie fire overlap.

Max TPS: MSS and partial KOTJ provide the highest sustained TPS with an option for burst threat at the trade off of armor.

Main Tank: Swaps 3 in FA for imp mangle from the survival build. The 2 points left over are throwaways that you can put anywhere (including shredding attacks if you wanted: see below).

MSS/Imp LOTP: This is my favorite spec to tank 25 with because we always have a frost DK dpsing so there is no need to grab IW. It is also the max TPS spec with ILOTP instead of those 2 in KOTJ.

MSS/IW: (that 1 lose point should be in PP) you can drop imp mangle to pick up imp LOTP and finish PP if you want. Remember, because of how the GCD works, 1 or 2 points in imp mangle for tanking is worthless, so drop all 3 or none at all. I put this up to show how gimp a build with both IW and MSS would be. It would be an interesting comparision to see which gives more threat, 4% damage or 5 expertise.

Imp Mark of the Wild

Is now a mandatory talent for all feral druids. If you have not yet done so, look at what it does now.

Imp LOTP
Go back in time to LK beta, I wrote this talent off and pretty much said I would never get it. Well I was wrong. I hate not having it especially for progression content, even if it is usually almost all overheal, it can be a lifesaver at the right times (example: getting hit by a spell for 75% of your life then procing the heal giving you just enough to survive the melee hit after the spell).

Shredding Attacks
Dual spec kills ANY REASON for having shredding attacks in a bear build, as I strongly do not believe in the so called "bearcat" spec. Sure, it works, but if I am going to DPS I do not want to gimp myself. If a boss is at 5% and the main tank dies, healers have more problems on their hands than worrying about the new tank not having defensive stance. Ulduar bosses hit way to hard in 25, so while you may get away with it on 10, in 25 you simply will not have the hp to survive 2 hits while wearing dps gear in that situation.

The lone exception is when you have to offtank the first 10-25% then start dpsing, which does not happen in Ulduar that I have seen.

MSS and KOTJ
As for KOTJ vs MSS for tanking, I did a comparison a while back. Since it is a 5 point investment, MSS gives you .8% damage per point. In Ulduar things hit to hard to be spamming enrage on cooldown but if you did, per point it would give you an increase of .833% per point. To extend that a bit, if use it every 61 seconds it becomes a .819% damage increase per point. Every 62 seconds gives .806% and every 63 seconds .793%. Thus, if you have even 3 seconds of downtime on enrage MSS yields more benefit without the armor reduction.

As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

For Tuesday

2009-04-12T14:34:00.004-04:00

I have two weekly tips written up. Which one is published depends on if the patch comes out or not.

If the patch does not come out I will be opening my youtube channel with my first instructional video. If you want a sneak peak, go to the coming soon link and add me as a friend on youtube.

If the patch does come out the youtube video will be published on the 21st and the 14th will be my talent review.

EDIT: Youtube project will begin 4/21 offer still stands to friend me on youtube for a sneak peak just leave a comment on this post saying who you are.

Community Spotlight: jacemora.com

2009-04-10T13:56:00.002-04:00

Formerly of http://jacemora.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-last-post.html, has moved to a new host.

The new site can be found here. Keep up the good work.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: DING! 80, What heroics to run, what gear to buy

2009-04-07T07:59:00.003-04:00

Ok, so you just hit 80 and you need to start gearing up. How should you do it? Simple:

I have some good blues from leveling, which ones are worth saving?
What can I get before stepping foot in an instance?
What heroics should I run first?
So I ran a few Heroics, what should I buy with my emblems?
I finally moved into 25 man raids, are there any valor items I should get?

What items should I have from questing or leveling instances?

There are several quests that give blue quest rewards, and a lot of people do instances while leveling. Are any of those items worth keeping?

Short answer, NONE! Nothing while leveling will be used in anything remotely resembling your final tanking set. Here is a brief list of some that will get you started in heroics thought (both of the instanced quests can be done in heroic as well):
Normal UP quest reward
Normal CoT: Strat quest reward
Icecrown Elite Chain quest reward

What should I spend my gold on?

There are some amazing items you can get before even setting foot into heroics. Most likely if you just hit 80 you will be short on gold, here is a quick spending list to get you started:

Darkmoon Card: Greatness (AGI): This is the single best investment you can make. It is the best trinket for both DPS and tanking.
Durable Nerubhide Cape: Since druids do not need defense, this is an amazing starter item.
Trollwoven Spaulders: replaced only by 25t7 shoulders.
Titanium Frostguard Ring or Titanium Earthguard Ring: Either one is worth it when starting off, but one of the two best rings in the game is from a heroic and easily farmed, so refrain from buying both.

Others that make the list but are easily replaced:

The most painful thing for a tank, out DPSing your group in a pug heroic

It happens, so if you want the most bang for the buck, here are the "must run" heroics and their tanking drops:

Heroic UK x3: The best pre-25 naxx bracers and the best pre-ulduar belt both drop here, farm this place every day. As a bonus, the best non-epic tanking weapon drops here as well.
Heroic Azjol-Nerub: Essence of Gossamer: Second best non-profession tanking trinket in the game (to the above greatness deck).
Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep: Keystone Great-Ring: Second best tanking ring in the game to only 25 Saph.
Heroic Violet Hold x2 (low priority): Staff of Trickery is the best heroic weapon in the game for DPS, and second best (arguably) for tanking to the above UK staff. Cloak of Gushing Wounds is another excellent heroic item that serves a dual tanking/DPS purpose. The reason this is a lower priority is because the instance generates 2 random bosses, so it is entirely possible to not see this boss after several clears.

Emblem of Heroism Items to buy:

Based on my earlier recommendations, things that might possibly appear higher on this list will already have an item of equal level in that slot and have thus been down ranked (noted with a star).

Chestguard of the Lost Vanq: This is the very first thing you should buy with emblems no matter what. The chests available from heroics are very sub-par.
Gloves of the Lost Vanq: Best gloves until 25 man raiding (since the nerf to the gloves from the CoT quest) and also gives you the 2pc (more important for cat than tanking though).
*Chained Military Gorget*: If you crafted the neck above, get the gloves first, otherwise this would normally be my second item to buy. Best neck until 25 naxx.
Valor Medal of the First War: I like having this around to pair with greatness deck for avoidance, but not a very strong trinekt especially if you are a JCer or an Alchemist.
*Mirror of Truth*: If you are a JCer or Alchemist, or already have a greatness deck and essence of gossamer, then this trinket is definatly a must buy before valor medal. Combine it with greatness deck for a threat/trash set (until the 25 maly trinket).
*Jorach's Crocklisk Skin Belt*: Not better than the belt from heroic UK listed above. Only buy if you have spare emblems or bad luck.

The following items are DPS items that should not take priority over tanking items but are good buys that have no comparable item from a heroic:

Emblem of Valor Items to buy:

Finally, you have moved into 25 man raiding. In this list, stars will denote items that are ranked lower because of other drops you have access to in 25 man raiding not other items on this list.

Signet of the Impregnable Fortress: Best threat ring in the game, the def is kind of a turn off but the high stam and multiple threat stats more than make up for it.
Legplates of the Lost Vanq: I was going to list this third because you can get them as a drop from 2 different bosses (and my guild gets 4 pairs a run), but the fact is these legs are way to good to be left up to chance (best tanking legs in the game ATM).
Mantle of the Lost Vanq: As I said above, this is the only thing that replaces those crafted shoulders, but if you have them buy the legs 1st.
*Platinum Mesh Cloak*: For threat, the best choice is the 10-Sarth 1D cape with a 16 hit gem, and for mitigation the best one if the one from 25 naxx off random bosses. This leaves this cape in kind of a bad place.

DPS items:

Ring of Invincibility: Replaced only by 10+2 Sarth and 10 man maly rings. Best DPS purchase.
*Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak*: Better than the cape off of 10 man Raz, but worse than all 3 of the other dps capes from 10 and 25 naxx.
*Boots of Captain Ellis*: Dawnwalkers are better for DPS and Vile Depict are better for tanking, do not buy unless you are very unlucky.

About time, SI and flask changes

2009-04-02T23:01:00.004-04:00

Gone from predicting this, to demanding it, to being absolutly astounded that it had yet to happen.

Well, Blizzard finally got off their asses and made the change to SI that they made to last stand weeks ago:

Survival Instincts cooldown lowered to 3 minutes.

Flasks have also recieved a major update:

Flask of Stoneblood now increases the player's maximum health by 1300.

Most likely, Blizzard will now balance around us having the extra 550 HP, the same way pre 2.1 they balanced around being able to stack every possible consumable. If that does not happen however, (I claim no credit for this) if you look at the progression from BC to LK of all the flasks, the AP, spellpower, and MP5 all recieved 50%+ increases. Going from 500 to 650 is only a 30% increase. The new 1300 flask is a 160% increase. I doubt it will go live but I doubt it will go back to 750 (probably around 850-900 when all is said and done).

Finally, the SI glyph has been increased as well:

Your Survival Instincts ability grants an additional 15% of your maximum health.

I got home much earlier than I expected (earlier flight) and was able to finish up the next tip so it will be published at its normal time 8am on Tuesday.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Are socket bonuses worth matching?

2009-03-31T09:00:00.037-04:00

In a follow-up to the first tip, today's tip will focus on how to determine if a socket bonus is worth matching. (At the end I will include a small note for Jewelcrafters as most of this applies differently or not at all for those with access to prismatic gems).

There are some general rules to follow when gemming an item:

Guild progression.

How many sockets are on the item?

What color is the socket?

Is your meta active?

What are you using the item for - EH, avoidance, or threat?

What is the bonus?

Now, some of you may be asking yourself: How can the actual bonus be last on the priority list? Don't worry, all in due time. Lets go down the list in order.

Rule 1: Guild Progression

Guild progression is first for a single reason, Effective health (or EH). Short version, EH is the total amount of damage you can take without a heal before you die through a combination of stam, armor, and things like the mother bear talent and defensive stance. Avoidance has no effect on EH. The best way to help your guild progress as a tank in new content is by gearing for EH.

What does this mean? When gemming for guild progression you will have 24 stam gems in every slot and (unless there are 12 stam socket bonuses) you will never match a socket that is not blue. (On a personal note Xav and I were discussing how we both felt that avoidance has never been weaker than it will be in 3.1, based on the Ulduar encounters that we have tested on PTR so far.)

Rules 2 and 3: Number and Color

The next two rules are almost interchangeable, except when you consider that the bonus for matching a single socket will be something like 4 agi 8 ap or 6 stam, while the socket bonuses for matching 2 sockets are 1.5x more, 6 agi 12 ap or 9 stam.

My thought process on these two looks something like this:

It is that simple sometimes. Even if the bonus is bad, through a combination of 16 agi gems, 8 agi 12 stam gems, and 24 stam gems, you will almost never lose out by matching any socket that does not require a yellow gem (more on this in the summary).

This leaves 4 possible items, as only one item in LK has 3 sockets. Those 4 items are items which contain:

1 yellow socket
2 yellow sockets
1 red socket 1 yellow socket
1 blue socket 1 yellow socket

Rule 4: Meta

The next rule is one that does not come up very often but is something that must be addressed immeditaly: Is your meta active?

The only meta that one might possibly use as a tank that has a yellow as a requirement is the RED. While I would strongly recommend against using it, if you are and you only have one yellow socket in all your gear, it is a given you will match the bonus no matter what it is.
If you need either a red or blue gem to activate your meta and your gear only has enough sockets to just meet the meta requirements regardless of socket color, chances are your gear is at the point you still need to stack 24 stam gems and this is a null argument.
If you do not have enough blue or red slots to met the meta and you wish to match the bonus that leaves you with an 8 hit/12 stam if you need a blue for your meta, and either an 8 agi/8 hit or an 8 hit/8 expertise if you need a red for your meta.

Rules 5 and 6: Item Purpose and Bonus

Finally, you need to look at what set you are going to put that item into. This is also the first place the socket bonus will actually matter.

1 yellow socket: As we already mentioned, items with only a single socket generally have weaker bonuses. As such, when using the item for pure EH, you will never match this bonus. For threat, you will always match this using either a 16 hit or an 8 hit/8 expertise. Now for avoidance, finally the bonus maters. If the bonus is an agi bonus then match it with an 8 agi/8 hit. Otherwise, use a straight 16 agi gem.

2 yellow sockets: Only one item in the game so far has two yellow sockets, but there will almost definitely be more. Again, no bonus can make up for the amount of EH lost by using 2 yellows gems. For threat, this is an amazing combination and you will match any bonus with any 2 16 hit or 8 hit/8 expertise gems. For avoidance, while a single slot trades 4 agi for 8 hit, here you trade 10 agi for 16 hit. Especially if you have already matched a lot of single yellow slots, it is probably best to avoid this bonus even if it is 6 agi in your avoidance set (and that was definatly not on purpose).

1 yellow 1 red: 3/3, yellow gems for EH just do not work. For threat this is another dream combo, and will match the bonus no matter what it is, only now you can also use a 16 expertise gem. For avoidance, you are trading 2 agi for 8 hit, so an agi bonus would absolutly be worth it.

1 yellow 1 blue: Finally, a yellow socket you will want to match for EH, using an 8 hit/12 stam along with a 24 stam to match a stam bonus, but avoid other bonuses. This is a decent combo for threat if the bonus is hit or expertise, using an 8 (insert more needed stat)/12 stam gem and a 16 hit (or 8 hit/8 expertise if the last insert was expertise). Avoid this for avoidance (/sigh I know I know) even if it is an agi bonus.

As you can see, only in 4 possible configurations of sockets did the bonus even matter, and in even more cases you will pick up extremely sub-par bonuses simply because the color was good. Take the free bonus and move on. Lets be real you would never gem a yellow in a 6 stam blue socket or a 4 agi red would you? So why gem a yellow for an 8 ap blue or 4 crit red socket? Even though I have personally already stated my disgust at that bonus on our t8 shoulders, I am still going to get it simply because it is there, it is red, and it is free. Also, activating your meta is not something that comes up very much, but having a dead meta happens more than you would think (last time I did it I did not notice for 3 weeks because it was my DPS meta) and you do not want to be that guy who gets called out on vent "hey dark, where is your second blue gem for your RED?" And yes for those who may be new to the game, the BC version of the RED took 2 of every color to activate.

Sorry, this is actually a lot longer than I thought it would be so for Jewelcrafters, consider yourself lucky. You not only never have to worry about your meta, but you have extreme versatility. You can pick up those 9 stam and 6 agi yellow bonuses. Number 6 holds much much more importance to you than it does non JCers, but you cannot ignore the others. A double yellow is not the place to put 2 prismatics to pick up a bonus, and if you can avoid it never put 2 prismatics in the same item. You still want to gem 41 stams for progression, and you can use 27 hits or expertise gems in blue slots for your threat pieces.

Like I said this is getting way to long so again I apologize for there being nothing in 2 weeks as I will be without internet till the 6th and I simply did not have enough time to finish my next topic (since I wanted to get the threat write-up done before PTR closed). I may put it up later in the week after I get back we will have to see.

3.1 PTR Threat value tests and help with the layout

2009-03-28T21:47:00.014-04:00

So, I finally finished a project I have been working on since beta, figuring out the threat values of each ability. I am sure other people beat me to it by now, but I have never seen it actually posted and I swore to myself I would finish it the next time the PTR was up. The only thing I was not able to get was cat data, largely because I did not have time before my trip. So here it is.

edit: Did not really work the way I hoped, so the link to my full write up at Tankspot is posted above. Wow, that was easier than it looked, thoughts on the new layout anyone? Also, if anyone knows how to change the color of links on the main page verses the actual single article pages, could you please let me know (compare: main vs single). See you guys on the 7th.

Bear multiplier_____ 207.35
Cat form multiplier_____ .71
Rage gains from Primal Fury and Natural Reaction_____ 1 rage = 5 threat (not modified by stance)
Rage gained from furor_____ 0 threat
Rage gained from enrage_____ 20730 threat for the full 20 rage = 100 threat normalized * stance for all 20 rage
Survival Instincts_____ 4147 threat = 20 threat normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Bash_____ 158 normalized * stance (tested with 0/1/2 out of 2 Brutal impact)
Feral Charge_____ 8294 then 16588 = normalized to 40 then 80 * stance (when feral charging something that is both interrupt and snare immune it gives 0 threat)
Improved Leader of the Pack heals_____ 0 threat
Berserk_____ 12441 = 60 threat normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Clearcasting proc_____ 2073 threat normalized to 10 * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Mangle_____ Damage done * stance
Maul_____ (422 + damage done) * stance
Infected Wounds_____ 0 threat (tested at 0/1/2/3 out of 3)
Barkskin_____ 9123 = 44 normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Nature's Grasp_____ 16173 = 78 normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Thorns_____ Damage done * stance
Demo Roar_____ 12772 threat normalized to 61.59 * stance (constant at 0/1/2/3/4/5 out of 5 Feral Aggression) (confirmed to split among all mobs it hits)
Faerie Fire Feral_____ (36 + 638 + damage done) * stance
Frenzied Regen healing_____ 1 point of healing = .5 threat * stance modifier (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Lacerate (Initial_____ (.5*damage + 515) * stance
Lacerate (Bleed_____ .5*damage done * stance
Swipe_____ (1.5 * damage) * stance (tested at 0/1/2/3 out of 3 Feral Instinct then retested again at 0/1/2/3 out of 3 Feral Instinct with Idol of Perspicacious Attacks - Item - World of Warcraft equipped just to be thorough and as expected nothing changed but the damage)
Savage Defense_____ 0 threat

New tanking glyph, expected cat nerf

2009-03-26T17:06:00.004-04:00

Well, we finally have a third bear glyph (hopefully they will finally make growl 8% just like the other 3 tanks):

Glyph of Survival Instincts - Your Survival Instincts ability grants an additional 10% of your maximum health.

Now, cat DPS on ptr was getting a little out of hand so this is not surprising:

Glyph of Savage Roar - Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 3% bonus damage done. (Down from 6%)
Primal Gore doesn't affect Rake anymore.

My only question now is, WHY THE HELL is it still a 3 minute cooldown, honestly blizzard, SI needs to be lowered already

Finally, I am going to be out of town for 2 weeks starting Sunday (for personal/family reasons), I have the socket writeup already completed ready to publish on Tuesday automatically, but there will not be a tip the following week.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Faerie Fire: Better than Swipe?

2009-03-24T07:20:00.005-04:00

Reposted here and here some additional thoughts, please leave comments there for discussion as I will be disabling comments here.

Now, this was not what I originally had planned for this week (I promise I will post the socket guide next week), but I was asked a question on tankspot that got me thinking. Using FF on live in your rotation is not viable due to the "more powerful spell active" bug that has been in the game since LK beta and is still not fixed. Even with 5 minute FF on PTR, this bug still is around, so visit this post on the wow forums and bump it please.

With the buff to FFF's ap conversion on the PTR, will replacing a swipe with FF in your single target rotation result in higher TPS?

Assumptions:
FFF's crit rate is based off spell crit
10% spell crit (I have 8.75 tooltip, plus raid buffs this is probably a low asumption)
40% melee crit (37% tooltip unbuffed)
FFF hits for 730 (without mark this is what mine was hitting for with 4865 AP, please let me know if that is an unreasonable assumption)

Known:
FFF crits at x1.5
Swipe crits at x2
FFF crits do not proc SD
Innate threat of FFF is 674

-math-

Threat in this example is 1 point of damage gives 100 points of threat (blizzard uses 2 invisible decimals for threat that do not show up in game but do on the mod I use)
Casting FF in caster form gives 3600 threat
Casting FFF in bear gives two separate threat values, the 1st one is 132289, which is the innate threat. It then applies damage and with a 731 FFF, the number jumps to 291327.
Now, (291327-132289)/207.35 (the stance modifier) = 767 - damage done = 36 which as we already discovered is the base threat of FF in caster form.
Finally, take the 132289 threat from before divided by the stance modifier gives 637.99855 or 638, added to 36, gives us 674

SS's of three different values of FFF damage if you want to check the numbers yourself:
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4584/fffthreat.jpg
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2699/fffthreat2.jpg
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2456/fffthreat3.jpg

Now, to find the average value of FFF threat we need to take 730+674 which gives us 1404 threat. A crit is (730*1.5)+674 which gives us 1769 threat.
This gives us (1404*.9)+(1769*.1)=1440.5

In order for swipe to be more threat than FFF we set x to be the damage of swipe. x*1.5 and 2x*1.5 are the values of swipe threat for a non crit and a crit respectively.
This gives us (1.5x*.6)+(3x*.4)=.9x+1.2x=2.1x

1440.5/2.1=685.95=686

(1.5*686*.6)+(3*686*.4)=617.4+823.2=1440.6

-math-

Now, one thing I was not aware of while doing this testing is that on live, the max rank of FF is actually 152 threat in caster (rank 1 on live does 36 threat in caster), as opposed to the only rank on PTR being 36. This worried me because, even thought 10% ap is much more than 116, it might not be as good as I thought it was when embarking on this process. Until I ran the numbers on live and discoved the base bear form threat of FF was only 480. When blizzard removed the ranks on PTR they added that extra 116 threat directly into bear form instead of keeping it on the base ability. This means that one live, the innate threat of FFF in bear is 480+152 for 632 at max rank. That is a net result of a 42 base threat increase in bear on PTR even with the reduction of the caster form threat.

Conclusion:
Live FFF vs PTR FFF: threat increase of 42+ 10% of your ap.
Swipe must do at least 686 non crit to be worth using over a completely unbuffed FFF. While testing swipe at the same time as FF it was hitting for 394 unbuffed with 3/3 Feral Instinct.
Raid buffs that give AP in bear (might/battle shout, HoW/SoE, UR/TSA/AM will add a minimum of 215 damage to FF), underestimating the crit of FF, and possibly overestimating the crit of swipe will all 3 only increase the number at which swipe must hit for to surpass FF.
Realistic but non mathamatically proven guess, swipe will need to be about 800 damage non crit to be more threat than FF when accounting for crit percentages.

Blizzard, you finally gave us an ability to use instead of mangle, swipe, swipe on single targets, PLEASE fix the bug preventing us from using it as it is going to be an integral part of our rotation next patch.

The Breakdown: t7 vs t8

2009-03-20T22:11:00.005-04:00

Now, first I would like to explain why this post is a few days delayed. Two reasons, 1) I did not want to bump down the weekly tip for a few days, 2) I have been waiting for wowhead to add the sets to their PTR site.

At first, I was upset, then I took another look at them. Blizzard has decided to move away from equip bonuses and give us massive amounts of stats. This in turn makes them amazing for bears. The most glaring example (thanks to Felhoof of Thinktank for this, I had made most of your conclusions on my own before reading your article but this is one thing i had not seen before) is the 10t8 and 25t8, seen here . The lone exception to this is haste, which is the one thing about t8 that really upsets me (I wish they could have put those stats in expertise or crit).

Here is the comparison tool for the 4 different sets, done from the focus of 25t7. Note that the jump from 10t7 to 25t7 is 13 ilvls, the same jump as 25t7 to 25t8. Now compare the jumps in stats in this comparison. Double the agi and 10 more stam for the same amount of ilvl gain. The hit is nice, and only one piece having expertise is also nice instead of 0 and 2 like t7, but the pieces that they put them on are my next topic: slot by slot comparisons.

Head - Socket bonus is the same color trading 12 stam for 8 agi, leaving the net increase of 8 stam and 24 agi. Helm is a straight upgrade going from 25t7 to either 10 or 25t8, as trading that much crit for that little ap is defiantly worth it.

Since most people use Hood of the Exodus however, here is that comparison. Exodus's dps socket bonus really hurts its case, and that much crit is hard to ignore, but see the conclusions for my thoughts on expertise, you will see a trend in the next few pieces.

Chest - Do most people match this socket bonus? I don't know about most people but I used an 8 agi 8 hit gem to gain the socket bonus. The change of color from yellow to blue for a tank is very nice. Using a 24 stam, you gain 15 stam for 2 agi and 8 hit on sockets. That puts the next exchange at 10 agi and 32 stam, while gaining 41 hit in exchange for 40 expertise. Again, see my conclusion on losing expertise.

Legs - Again for purposes of socket bonuses lets use an 8 agi 8 hit in both yellows and an 8 agi 12 stam in the red and blue. This results in no change in stats from sockets. This is probably the piece that torments me the most. 3 pieces, 14 expertise rating lost so far.

Here is the comparison on using t7 chest and t8 legs vs t8 chest and t7 legs. Personally I think I am going to go t8 chest t7 legs. When adding in sockets to that comparision, it becomes 8 hit vs 3 stam and 6 agi. Making the net gains 11 less agi no stam change and 41 hit rating gained with my choice.

Shoulders - The first item that truely truely upsets me. Same color but a 6 stam for a 4 crit bonus is bad, Blizzard if you are reading this please reconsider making this 4agi instead of 4crit. Making the net change 17 stam for 17 crit when adding sockets into the comparison. Upgrading from 25t7 to 10t8 is not worth it but the expertise gain is to much to ignore so going from 25t7 to 25t8 is worth it, and makes t8 legs that much more appealing.

Gloves - 50 crit for 43 armor pen in respect to SD is horrible itemization. Accounting for the change in sockets, using an 8 agi 12 stam and an 8 agi 8 hit, the net change is 22 agi and 12 stam. This is the first place I am looking to use a non set item ATM. 50 crit on t7 is just to much to give up.

Conclusion:

Expertise is going to be a problem, we lose 3 major expertise pieces while possibly not even using the one piece of the new set that has expertise, probably going to change necks from the KT 25 neck to the new badge neck, changing rings to the 2 new ones gives a slight expertise refund (unless you were using the badge ring in which case its a 21 expertise upgrade).

I use Belt of the Tortured most times to tank on live, but for those still using the UK one (which is actually what I have been using on PTR because of the extra socket) we gain even more hit for a neutral expertise change.

Until we start seeing more of the off-set items it is hard to predict how stats will be balanced and which will be more valuable hit or expertise.

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Are you gemmed and enchanted properly?

2009-03-17T06:00:00.003-04:00

The goal of this blog is to give advice, insights, and help to the community. The "this is new and looks interesting" posts, such as those of the past few days, will contribute a great deal towards that end. My main focus and purpose behind this blog however has always been this segment, which I will be posting once a week, usually on Tuesday. "Darksend's Weekly Tips" will contain guides on various topics ranging from gear to macros to tricks for tanking specific encounters. They will be the most informative, structured, and thought out topics to be posted on the site. The 1st two weeks are going to cover how to properly gem and enchant your gear. So, are you gemmed and enchanted properly?

Although maybe that question is to broad, perhaps the question you should be asking yourself is, "Is this item gemmed and enchanted properly for the gear set I am trying to fit this piece into?"

	Effective Health	Avoidance	Threat
Head	Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector	Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector	Arcanum of Torment
Shoulder	30 Stamina	20 Dodge/15 Defense	40 AP/15 Crit
Back	225 Armor	22 Agility	22 Agility
Chest	18 Stamina (only with kings and imp MOTW)	10 to All Stats	10 to All Stats
Wrist	40 Stamina	6 to all stats	15 Expertise
Weapon	110 AP (kinda)	Mongoose	Accuracy (before hit cap) / Mongoose
Feet	22 Stam	16 Agility	Icewalker
Legs	Frosthide Leg Armor	Frosthide Leg Armor	Icescale Leg Armor
Hands	18 Stamina	20 Agility	20 Hit / 15 Expertise
Red Socket	8 Agi 12 Stam	16 Agi	16 Expertise / 8 Expertise 8 Hit
Yellow Socket	8 Hit 12 Stam	8 Agi 8 Hit	16 Hit / 8 Expertise 8 Hit
Blue Socket	24 Stam	8 Agi 12 Stam	8 Expertise 12 Stam / 8 Hit 12 Stam

This includes no profession specific enchants, but it also excludes some enchants that could be arguably better. For threat on helm, the old world 34 AP 16 Hit from CE rep could be better until the hit cap. For pure avoidance to chest, 10 stats gives 12 agi with imp mark, SOTF, and kings. 22 Defense gives .07% more avoidance than 12 agi. For gloves, Armsman, despite giving parry, may actually be more threat than either of the enchants listed, especially if without either you are already hit and expertise capped. Finally, Tuskarr's Vitality gives much more utility than Fortitude, but for reasons of pure EH it does not make the list.

Next week in part 2 I will be posting a write up on how to decide if socket bonuses are worth matching.

New tank ring and drop woes

2009-03-15T18:22:00.001-04:00

Now, I know this was discovered a while back, but since it just dropped again today it reminded me i had not posted it yet:

/Drool. Hopefully i can convince my main tank to pass that to me, and let him get the expertise one with slightly more defense and dodge. Ideally you will want both in the end as they are both better than gatekeeper (still have yet to see a single one drop on a main run and my alt has seen 6) and Keystone. Hang on to the badge ring for your threat set, but swap in the above expertise ring instead of deflection band/gatekeeper depending on your hit (at least for me hit is a lot harder to come by).

Now, last night i was quite upset when I saw a ring with parry and dodge on it, I was upset until i saw it was only ilvl 219 so it is a 10 man drop, so its not worth getting too upset over. Although it is just parry and dodge, no defense on it. While I know some warriors can get away with it, maybe with the new gear they can use rings without defense but it is going to be interesting to see how much use that ring actually gets. We can only hope they change the parry to expertise.

Overall I am quiet happy with the itemization on rings, capes, necks, and trinkets, but the actual leather gear is not that good. I don't think we realized how over budget recluse was until I saw this. Again though, most if not all of the leather drops have been 226 so until we see some of the higher ilvl dps/tanking leather I probably won't be impressed enough to post images of it.

Now a challenge for those of you who played feral druids when BC launched:

Since Gatekeeper is my new Squid-stick, in the comments post how many runs it took you to get Zierhut's Lost Treads and Terestrian's Stranglestaff. For me it was 11 runs for the boots and 23 for the staff.