• Bares mostly like the taste of fase!

Tag: set bonus

Catactlysm Patch 4.3 – Bear Survival Guide

4
November 28, 2011
by

Well another patch cycle is upon us.  I left it pretty late this time (shame on me!) mostly because I was hoping for some sort of better idea of what the EH requirements will be like in Dragon Soul.  I made a fairly reliable estimate based on previous patches, and we’ll see how accurate it is.  Remember that I don’t raid until Thursdays, so I don’t want to hear any complaining if I suddenly change something between now and then.

And lets be honest, one lost raid week isn’t the end of the world and you’re probably better off anyway since Mists is a longggggggg way away.

Bear Changes

120% Armor Bonus for Bear form is now available at all levels, not just after level 40. 

This was done to help out low level Bear tanks and their inherent squishiness.  It’ll have a side effect of making Feral even more broken and overpowered in low level BGs, but nobody claimed the brackets before max level were balanced.  Good change overall though.

Bear Form Bonus Stamina increased to 20% from 10%. 

The stated reason for doing this is to help keep us in line with block-capping shield tanks.  I’d go on a diatribe about how we predicted this back before Cataclysm even launched, but I think that’s old news at this point.  At any rate it’s not so much a good change as a bandaid.  However the hope is that “Mists will fix it.”

Bears and LFR

I had previously stated on twitter that LFR was largely going to be a waste of time for Bears outside of tokens, since we pretty much couldn’t roll on anything.  Thankfully after an empassioned plea to Bashiok the developers added some “special Bear rules” to prevent us from being completely screwed.  Which means now going to LFR to get gear as a Bear is a good idea, especially for Normal Mode raiders.

Notes for Normal Mode Raiding

These notes are entirely based on simulations of 215k unmitigated damage.  There are some things I still want to look at (such as weapon and trinket comparisons), but I can’t do that without more raw data.

  • Get Kiril, Wrath of Unchaining, Resolve of Undying and 2pc T13 bonus ASAP.  Even the LFR versions.
  • You’ll have to farm a lot of VP in order to get all of your offset items :(
  • You’re going to be over the Exp softcap on normal mode unless you use offset pieces.
  • I’d honestly probably use the offset pants instead of the tier pants unless your raid needs the cooldown.  They’re a lot better.
  • The 403 PvP sets are perfectly viable until you get normal mode or higher PvE gear.  2pc is Gloves+Hat.  4pc is Gloves+Hat+Shoulders+Legs.
  • If you’re the first tank for your guild, you should be reforging to Dodge.  If you’re going to be using Cat form often (say as the 2nd tank), then you can use Exp/Crit/Mastery.

You can expect more information in the future as we get more and more accurate results from live servers.

: Cataclysm, Feral - Bear, Raiding
: , ,

4T10 Set Bonus

6
October 20, 2010
by

The set bonus is not broken.

While 4T10 is equipped, you will not take an extra 10% physical damage when Enrage is active, despite what that pesky buff tooltip says.  Guess what?  The old one said Enrage reduced armor.  4T10′s bonus text was not updated to reflect the change of Enrage.  Enraged Defense will always give you 12% damage reduction from all sources of damage, including physical.

There is a simple, very effective, test for this:  Have someone duel you and punch you with no weapons, trinkets, or AP increasing items(AV Rep ring) equipped.  Just let him keep punching you.  Take note of the amount of damage you were taking.  Take that amount and subtract 12% from it (or multiply the damaging amount by .12 and subtract that value from the original).  Use Enrage while getting punched.  The amount of damage you’re taking while under Enraged Defense should reflect the answer you received above, which is exactly 12% damage reduction.

I used a Hunter for this experiment.  I used his pet afterwards to confirm.  I was getting hit for 206, meaning a 12% damage reduction would be ~181.  I used Enrage, and I was getting hit for 180-182.

Again, the set bonus is not broken.  All it is is a case of un-updated tooltip, which Blizzard is notorious for.  You can relax, I promise.

: Feral Changes, Raiding
: , ,
Albizia Theme designed by itx