Patch 4.1 is bringing with it a ridiculous amount of changes. In addition to two more heroic dungeons (with epic loots!), the Development Team has been super busy giving Bears multiple tweaks and quality of life changes. It’s a lot to handle at once, so I’d like to take the time and break everything down.
Interrupts
All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.
>> Now we have an even bigger reason to ignore Hit. Yay never missing!
Threat Modifier Removals and Damage Increases
Lacerate, Thrash, Swipe and Faerie Fire (Feral) bonus threat have been removed and replaced with increased initial damage done.
>> This is not something to freak out about. At all. Arielle explains it here, but I’ll do a quick and dirty version for this post. The threat modifier numbers were turned into damage. 1234(x) = (1234 * x). All they’re doing is moving the multiplier to a different spot in the equation, in this case, our damage. If you remember anything from math class at all, you know that moving a multiplied number around in a linear equation does nothing to change the outcome.
In the cases of FFF and Lacerate, the threat from Crits will be increased, due to their previous bonus threat not benefiting from the crit(additive bonuses are not affected by crits), whereas bonus damage will be doubled from crits.
From a threat standpoint, this does nothing to our single target rotation or priorities. It remains the same priority as always. Things just visually hit harder. Our DPS will go up, but our threat should remain the same. Although that’s a little weird, considering we were being told we did too much damage with 4.0.6…
Swipe and Thrash
Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6, and is now on trainable at level 18 (training cost has been reduced).
>> Huge boon for low level Bears. Now you only have to endure two levels of no AoE abilities (oh c’mon, it’s not THAT bad).
Equally huge boon for AoE threat. Rough estimates from Arielle is giving this change an approximate 30% increase in our AoE threat generation, assuming use on cooldown. Whatever your stance is on our AoE threat capabilities, this will make it easier and better.
Thrash’s bleed is now calculating correctly and is no longer being mitigated by armor.
>> Another boost for AoE threat and damage. The 30% estimated increase did not include this, so this should bump it up even more.
Savage Defense
Savage Defense has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a single charge absorption, it now places an absorption effect on the druid absorbing up to 35% of the druid’s attack power (modified by mastery, if applicable) in damage and lasting 10 seconds. There are no longer any charges on the effect.
>> This is a very lovely change for AoE tanking. Now, let’s see if I can remember all the questions being asked about this and address them all.
Does Savage Defense absorb all damage now?
>> No. Although the tooltip has been changed to this phrase: “absorbing damage equal to 35% of your attack power” it is inaccurate. Savage Defense will always absorb only physical damage.
Wow, Savage Defense will be up 100% now, with it lasting 10 seconds!
>> Again, no. This new mechanic acts exactly like Power Word: Shield does. Once the damage threshold of the absorb has been met, it will drop.
How does Savage Defense refresh?
>> With the full absorb. If you partially absorb a Savage Defense and refresh it, it will be refreshed in full. It does not add like Blood Shield, nor does it refresh at half strength.
Does this change make Mastery better?
>> It does not. Against bosses that are capable of removing SD in one hit, there will be no change. The change is with multi-mob tanking. In a situation where mobs hit incredibly soft (outgeared content and few raid adds), mastery will become stronger, but having a mastery set and a dodge set isn’t necessary. The usual setup of gear(x/mastery with dodge reforging) is just as good.
Does this make Crit better to get our shields up more?
>> Again, it does not. Crit’s value remains the same (behind Dodge and behind Mastery).
Enrage!
Enrage no longer increases physical damage taken.
>> Omigodit’slikechristmasinapril. Not only is this a huge quality of life improvement, it also opens up the option of having a hybrid spec as a Main Tanking spec by adding in King of the Jungle. If that’s not your cup of tea, then you can now have 15% more damage during Berserk’d Mangle spam. What is not to love about that?
And of course that raises the question, since we only have 1 “free” talent point to move around in a straight up tanking build, where do we get those 3 points from?
>> First point to go is the one from Stampede. Stampede is incredibly useless for Bears, as it will only provide, at most, 1 more auto attack during the 6 seconds it’s up after a charge. The other two are the options and will depend on your raid composition. (I’ll probably be running with two different ones, just because I do nothing but Tank)
The talent options for the other two points are Infected Wounds, Feral Aggression, and Brutal Impact. I don’t recommend taking out Endless Carnage. Pulverize can be difficult as it is to keep active. Taking off 6 seconds of the buff only makes the rotation far more restrictive and will potentially result in a loss of uptime due to the priority system and ill luck with missed abilities. In addition, if you intend to DPS in cat, the loss in Rake uptime is a loss of DPS because you’d be sacrificing shreds to upkeep it.
You mentioned that “H” word again. How does that fit into tanking?
>> Hybrid! I enjoy playing a hybrid build. We have two hybrid posts written right now. Mine that addresses utility, and Tangedyn’s that addresses the how-to and technical aspects. I will also be adding a section to my Tanking Guide to do a quick version of it.
Stampeding Roar
Stampeding Roar’s duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40% and is no longer canceled by canceling shapeshift form.
>> I know a lot of people hate this ability, and I’m mostly mentioning this out of principal. This is a nice side-buff, regardless of how you feel about it. 10y range is still “meh”, but the increase in duration and speed is nice to have. Though, I may be biased because I use it all the time. So much so that it has earned a place on my main keybindings.
Berserk
Berserk is no longer on the global cooldown.
>> Another quality of life change. I’m quite happy about this because I have always hated the fact that it was still on the GCD. Minor DPS/TPS increase. And it means I won’t have to hit Growl when I use the damn thing on Al’Akir (though, TotT is getting a 100yard range buff). Still! Good change.
Root Breaks
Feral Swiftness now also causes Dash and Stampeding Roar to have a 50/100% chance to instantly remove all movement impairing effects from the affected targets when used.
>> This doesn’t particularly have any affect on our tanking. But hey, now you have something to use on Asaad when you/your group fails at jumping, right?
Zul’Aman and Zul’Gurub
Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman are now level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeons. To provide a new tier above the current Cataclysm dungeons, players can expect to find epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter these Heroic dungeons is 346.
>> Why am I mentioning this? Why, loot tables, of course. There’s a few pieces that every bear should be trying to get if it’s an upgrade.
The “must haves”:
Fasc’s Preserved Boots - These are practically equal in value with the Storm Rider’s boots. Storm Rider’s are very, marginally, in an insignificant way, better than Fasc’s. However, because of the threat connotations associated with the expertise, you may want those instead.
Amulet of the Watcher – Both the ring and the neck are very close in value to their 359 mastery counterparts.
Jin’do’s Verdict – Obviously not better than Malevolence since it has the same stats, but get it if you don’t have Malevolence.
Belt of Slithering Serpents – This is not better than the crafted belt. However, if you lack funds or you’re a cheap-ass, definitely bag this as it’s about as good as the 359 off Ascendant Council(slightly worse).
And there you have it. 4.1 in all its glory. This is a very good patch for Bears, so enjoy it! I know I will.
Fantastic summary, thanks!
I’m thinking about this as my new build – http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGcoubzrckMcu
Initially I think FA is the best place to take it, but…is Fury Swipes REALLY worth having?
…yes. :-)
I say Fury Swipes is still personal taste. http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMMfkubzrckMcu:q0rwz0Mm0 is the spec that I’ve used since 4.0.1.
Been called up from Triple-A to tank a few times for a guild that’s 10/12 this tier in mostly/all purples, compared to me with mixed heroic blues/raep/badge purples. No problems with threat at all.
Being able to apply 3 stacks of FFF in one go is a MAJOR QoL improvement, particularly if you’re the the MT, or the other tank isn’t able to apply the armor debuff, i.e., Paladins, DKs. (I never get Warriors as my co-tanks. =T) But you know what they say, every raid is different. Every raid is great~ If a raid is wast-erm.
Hm. That doesn’t work quite as well as I’d like. <..> <.<
And yet you kept the completely useless point in Stampede, instead of tossing Fury Swipes a bone (it hits harder than Mangle… btw) and putting at least 1 point into a threat and DPS talent that’s worth a damn.
I’m confused. You say there is no change to our single target rotation or priorities, but in Arielle’s post that you linked to she says the priorities do change. Or am I misreading Arielle’s article somehow?
The priorities don’t change. FFF was only used in the priority list with at least 24k AP and the spell damage debuff. FFF is more threat than Lacerate. However, pulverize is more important than FFF. Because of that, the priority list is still
Mangle
Thrash
Lac if 0
Lac if not to 3
Pulverize if not on target, or falling off
FFF
Lacerate
Because of Pulverize’s importance to both mitigation and threat, it’s more important to have that ready to go than it is to forsake getting a 3stack of Lacerate for FFF.
These are some great QoL changes for Bears, but I’d still like to see a change to our Interrupt.
Druids are the only class that needs to spec into a 10 sec interrupt. It really pigeon holes 10m teams that dont have the luxury of 6 interrupt classes available. I know I’m ranting, but its the one thing I wish they would have added as well with this patch.
unfortunately, that’s pvp for you. At least I think that’s pvp for you.
Pray tell, what talent would you take in its place?
Well, since we’re gaining much more hybrid viability, I would take Primal Madness or Blood in the Water. For pure cats, it’s not a huge deal to gain those points back since we’d be left with 1 extra point anyways; but gaining the extra hybrid dps is a huge deal now that we’re gaining all of tools.
Primal Madness is complete shit.
And your Hybrid DPS is fine without either of those. You lacking the utility of an interrupt is a bigger deal than execute range DPS.
Reesi, I’m not saying that either of those talents are going to be a 300 DPS boost, but they -are- going to be a DPS boost over a 10s interrupt. In a 25m environment, Bears (and to a lesser extent Cats) can get away with not speccing into Brutal Impact.
And I have no problem picking up utility talents for a 10m environment; thats just the nature for a 10m. What I have a problem with, is that the utility I’m picking up, is something every other tank gets for free.
Yes it’s an obvious talent point sink, but you could say the same thing of Thick Hide.
Its only purpose is to prevent you from being able to Tank/DPS/PvP with the same spec in one talent tree.
I’m gonna be starting hardmodes soon and was curious. Would you place the neck dropped from the new 5-mans higher or lower then the Val neck drop. Going by the mastery/crit priority I assume the za/zg neck is better, aye?
“Both the ring and the neck are very close in value to their 359 mastery counterparts.”
Aka, it doesn’t matter. The 359 neck is very slightly better, but the difference is slim.
Heya reesi, love your work and the wafflecast. How do you think SD uptime will be on multiple add taking like halfus whelps and maloriak? Does swipe and thrash count as a direct hit, i’be tried on dummies but haven’t got a good answer.
Kind regards from Sweden
/peace
Ps! if you’re coming here ill be glad to show you around.
If you’re asking if Swipe and Thrash can proc SD, I’m 99% sure the answer is yes.
If you’re asking if you can get multiple procs from one Swipe or Thrash, I don’t think so.
This might be a dumb question, and I apologize, but the wording on the Feral Swiftness thing confuses me. Will Stampeding Roar remove movement impairing effects from just me, or my party as well?
I believe its just you. It’s a PvP oriented change to make up for the crippling loss of shapeshifting out of roots.
That would make more sense, but the wording and Reesi’s comment made me think it might be the group.
I’m basing it off the wording in the patch notes. It’s possible it’s a group root break, since Stampeding Roar does affect multiple people. :P
If that’s the case, I’d guess it gets nerfed because of PVP. I can see that being seriously OP in a PVP setting. We can enjoy it while it lasts, though!
Pretty sure it’s an AOE break. It’s balanced by its small range. Excellent for things like frost nova, though, or some dungeon bosses.
Is it just me or is swipe triggering the GCD? Has it always been this way?
Has always been this way
I am of he opinion that the new staff is much better than manevolance because it is slower. Ferals ignore weapon speed right? So slow weapons hit harder. Comparing my two bears who have nearly identical gear the one with the Lost City weapon has been doing noticeably more dps than the one with malevolence. I look forward to getting the Jindos Verdict on both of them.
Weapon speed is ignored. Weapon Top- and low-end damage is ignored. The only thing that matters to ferals is weapon DPS, which is the number in the parenthesis.
Malevolence is certainly better.
Well crud. Then I am back to square one. Now I will have to do more extensive research because something is making my lesser heard bear do more damage.
Hmm, just a hypothetical thought.
This is totally encounter specific (and even comp/player specific), but I was thinking about Reesi’s future Bear DPS post, and thought, “Self, you might have survived X phase if you had done just a little more damage and pushed through it.” Then I went around to the bear utility post, thinking “Self, although counter-intuitive, Reesi’s right. DPS is utility because it lowers the amount of time a boss is alive. Killing him faster means less work for everyone involved.” Then I decided to ask a stupid question. Would it be worth exploring the concept that by giving up a certain amount of mitigation for DPS, you would ultimately be gaining more mitigation by killing the boss faster than trying to mitigate more damage taken. Just like dodge, killing a boss faster means that’s 85k damage that did not hit you.
Unfortunately that’s entirely encounter/group makeup/ RNG dependent, but so is our gearing strategy now. It goes against my tanking gene, but do you think it might be worth it on fights where a phase should be burned through as quickly as possible?
upon further reflection, it would seem to me that you’d have to burn down a boss fast enough that the damage you get out of ending the phase quickly would make up for the amount of extra damage you took by not gearing for mitigation. That would be a pretty hard threshold to reach.
I got a bomb dropped on me and now my wheels are turning… Agility is king for us, yet I had someone arguing with me that sites such as elitistjerks and for better example: http://manaflask.com/Aryu/blog/5995/ are pointing toward stacking pure stamina gems in all slots (except the two to activate meta). Of everything I’ve seen here and wow forums this is wrong…. but seeing as both those sites are reputable (so to speak) should I stick with Agility or swap everything to stamina? And why would other such top raiding guilds point toward stamina when everyone else says agility?
Hope that made sense, it’s late.
I’m not fully awake, so I’ll make this as clear as possible. Ensidia is reputable… for having really, really stupid tanks that think they know what they’re talking about. EJ actually sided with Agility. Downed content != full knowledge of one’s class. People see hardmodes, they instantly think nothing but Stamina. It happens. Everywhere. You don’t need stamina in every slot available to be able to progress through hard content. They did it (the top tier of guilds) because their raids and they were undergeared while trying to push through as fast as possible. In that situation, a tank needs the most Time to Live. Now, and even though a higher threshold of health (which does not equal stam stacking) is needed for hardmodes, guilds are going through at a much slower rate. They are getting their raiders geared before attempting.
As an Agi stacker, whenever I died, I asked myself: Would that extra 10-20k health have saved me(depending on what trinkets I was using)? A vast majority of the time, no, it would not have. The overkill was too great, or a healer was occupied (or dead) or some mechanic was forgotten, or a cooldown was forgotten. There simply wasn’t a need for that HP.
What you choose will be what works for you. I can’t stop you from going Stamina, just like I can’t stop people like Aryu from advocating it. I can only say that stacking it is far from mandatory when progressing.
Naw, that makes total sense, thank you. I just wanted to make sure I was legitimate and correct in my argument with this person. And that clears it up even more. You guys do awesome work, thanks.
Since stam stuff came up.. :P
Which would be best combo if I need a bit more stam? Tia’s/Fluid Death/Essence(372) to pair with the Vial of Stolen(359)/Alch Stone(stam)
No needing stam its Fluid Death + Essence, right?
ty, and sorry for another Trink question
Fluid Death + Vial if you intend to use the dodge proc often, else Alch stone with reforging to dodge. There’s also stam flasks, as well (which I like more because trinkets provide more of a bonus through effects).
Yes, FD + Essence for not needing stam.