BC Druid talents: aka Death From Above

[Ghules]

Druid goodies for the expansion are finally out and now we must fear the free-fall moon fire spam!

Spells

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classe...id/talents.html

Flight Form (Shapeshift)

Requires Level 68

498 Mana

3 sec cast

Transforms the Druid into a flight form, increasing movement speed by 60% and allowing you to fly. Can only use this form in Outland.

The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects.

I must remember to stock up on lightfeathers for those aerial duels...

Oh! Healers start sucking up to your favorite druid now. "Tree of Life Form"....nuff said.

--Ghules

[Waldonnis]

Tree schmee....Hoofie likes:

Lacerate - Rank 1

Requires Level 66

15 Rage

Next melee

Requires Bear Form, Dire Bear Form

Lacerates the enemy target, making them bleed for 155 damage over 15 sec and causing a high amount of threat. This effect stacks up to 5 times on the same target.

I just hope they alter the bear-form relic to reduce the rage cost on this one too! More threat is a very good thing for a furry tank

Also, on the talent side, ferals get some sexeh stuff....Improved Leader of the Pack (party healing when they melee crit...woot!), Nuturing Instinct (for that inevitable "shift out and heal" moment), Primal Tenacity (yay fear/stun resist), and Survival of the Fittest (+stats and less chance of being critted against).

...and I'm sure Oriah will like some of the new Balance talents

Flight form looks fun...and a money-saver in Outland (can only be used there).

[Scryll]

Also, on the talent side, ferals get some sexeh stuff....Improved Leader of the Pack (party healing when they melee crit...woot!),

Another reason to go backstab-dagger spec. I wonder how bad the additional threat will be?

[Houli]

finishing move that incapacitates....NICE... makes cat form much more viable, if you low on health you can pop off a heal perhaps.

threat via lacerate is also nice for the bearform as waldy was say'n fo' sho.

I think perhaps feral got the most love here! the other two trees look' koo too tho...I want to be a treeeeee and HoT you to life!

and on the subject of "death from above" .... the flying form should be able to cast one spell "moonfire from the beak" yay Lazers.

-Harne/Haq-

Edited September 26, 2006 by Houli

[Rhoach]

Fah'queue Ah'sole.

[Oriahtundra]

At first I was impressed with ILotP but now think its pretty shoddy, 2% of health every 6 seconds isnt worth 3 points. 20hp for every 1k of hp?

SO our 6khp wars get 120hp every 6 seconds IF they crit? Its really a drop in the bucket comparitively IMO. Maybe if it was raidwide it would be worth the points spent

Really needs to be tweaked before I waste points there.

Stormcrow is gonna be great though, root or warstomp fly away to live another day. Then taunt Alliance from the air lmao....though caster AA fire may kinda suck....

Edited September 28, 2006 by Oriahtundra

[Scryll]

At first I was impressed with ILotP but now think its pretty shoddy, 2% of health every 6 seconds isnt worth 3 points. 20hp for every 1k of hp?

SO our 6khp wars get 120hp every 6 seconds IF they crit? Its really a drop in the bucket comparitively IMO. Maybe if it was raidwide it would be worth the points spent

Really needs to be tweaked before I waste points there.

Stormcrow is gonna be great though, root or warstomp fly away to live another day. Then taunt Alliance from the air lmao....though caster AA fire may kinda suck....

It's better than the healing I get off my Crusader 'chant, Oriah. Even in shorter fights, like Molten Giants or Lava Packs, it'll be at least an extra 300 regained health per rogue *since we're going to easily manage at least one crit every six seconds even if we're not dagger-specced* and that helps. It'll be even more important against bosses like Golemagg, or Drakkisath *stupid conflag* Against them, and other bosses who tend to make us run out and bandage, I'd give it a rough estimate of providing rogues an additional 20-30 DPS in a fight. That might not seem like much compared to something like Windfury but hey, things like Windfury are the exception. Most improvements in the game are incremental.

[Oriahtundra]

I dunno maybe if it ws a 1 point talent or raidwide, though still subject to change *crosses fingers*

[Oriahtundra]

Everyone is saying that Improved Leader of the Pack will be providing the druid's group with 2% hp heal every 6 seconds. In truth, the number is far from that. You get the 2% hp heal every 6 seconds only if you ALWAYS crit immediately after the 6 seconds is over from the previous effect, and this cannot be guaranteed unless you have 100% crits. So with less than 100% crits, what is the average time you will have to wait between ILOTP procs? Fortunately the math is pretty simple.

Ave Time Between Procs = Attack_Speed * Ave_Attacks_To_Crit + 6

Ave_Attacks_To_Crit is basically 1/Crit_Chance, using the mean of an exponential distribution with Lambda = Crit_Chance, where Crit_Chance = Crit_Percent/100%

** Ave Time Between Procs = Attack_Speed / Crit_Chance + 6

Therefore, a cat with 25% crit rate and attack speed of 1.0 will proc ILOTP once every 10 seconds.

Attack Speed can also be calculated for Dual Wielding and energy based special attacks. For multiple attack sources:

Attack_Speed = 1 / (1/Attack_Speed_1 + 1/Attack_Speed_2 + 1/...)

A feral druid (1.0) using shred (4.8) will have an attack speed of 1 / (1/1.0 + 1/4.8) = .8276

With a 25% crit rate, this druid will be procing ILOTP once every 9.3 seconds.

A rogue DWing AQR (2.8) and Iblis (1.6) with sinister strikes (4.0) will have an attack speed of 1 / (1/1.6 + 1/2.8 + 1/4) = 0.8116

With a 30% crit rate, this rogue will be procing ILOTP once every 8.7 seconds.

An arms warrior swinging Ashkandi (3.5) and mortal striking every 6 seconds (6.0), with a crit% of 25% will be procing ILOTP once every 14.8 seconds.

A hunter with Ashje'thul using the 10 second cycle (3 auto-shots, 1 multishot, 1 aimed shot in 10 seconds, average attack speed 2.0) with a crit% of 30% will be procing ILOTP once every 12.7 seconds.

It's rather more complex for a dagger rogue because the chances for crits increases when backstab is used, but we can estimate by doubling the attack speed of the backstabs. A rogue with Perdition Dagger (1.8) and Core Hound Tooth (1,6) Backstabbing (3.0) with a crit% of 30% will be procing ILOTP once every 8.2 seconds.

Let's assume the best case scenario, someone with 100% crit chance and 10k hp. We can expect him to be healed for 0.02 * 10000 / 6 = 33.3 hp per second

Now let's compare against Shadow Priests providing Improved Vampiric Embrace, which is heals for 30% of shadow damage dealt to each party member. In order to beat a Feral Druid providing 33.3hp of healing per second, the Shadow Priest needs to do 111.1 Shadow DPS. Mind Flay (Rank 5) available at level 52 is able to provide 110 Shadow DPS. A level 44 priest combining Mind Flay (Rank 4) Shadow Word: Pain (Rank 6) can provide 115 Shadow DPS.

At the same time, with Improved Shadow Weaving, Shadow Priests will also be providing 5% magic damage increase to the raid (much better than 3% crit to one party), and 20% shadow damage increase to the raid (better than 25% bleed damage increase).

It should be obvious that Improved Leader of the Pack and Mangle's debuff are seriously underpowered in providing Feral Raid viability, compared to what a Shadow Priest can give.

[Scryll]

It should be obvious that Improved Leader of the Pack and Mangle's debuff are seriously underpowered in providing Feral Raid viability, compared to what a Shadow Priest can give.

If you're trying to judge a talent based on what raid slots it lets you replace, then yes, ILotP doesn't measure up. Personally, I think that's a really bad standard. ALL that I am interested in is to what degree will it supplement what I'm getting in my raids. For me and for other rogues, that is the best new talent druids received. We're grouped with a feral druid more often than we are with a shadow-priest. Shadow-priests don't buff our damage, ferals do. And now ferals can give us healing. Not all that much, no, but we're often left with nothing but pots, bandages and enchants anyway.

Edited October 1, 2006 by Scryll

[Oriahtundra]

That was just posted on the Druid forms, Im not quite that good with math

[Scryll]

That was just posted on the Druid forms, Im not quite that good with math

The class forums? Bah. They're good for that sort of quantitative analysis, no question, but I wouldn't pay any attention to their editorializing or conclusions. Almost without exception, the demands and conclusions on the class forums are archtypically munchkin.

[Oriahtundra]

Hehe, Druids i think will never be totally happy, till they make every tier set that will let you be almost as good as the trees parent class. Regardless of spec, andhaving to change suits.

To think after pally i was originally gonna roll a Shammy but didnt like the limited range on the totems O-o lil did i knwo how far that was in the beginning.

[Relikk]

A big concern for players who primarily play the warrior class is that they won't be replaced. Right now, warriors have only a very slight edge over feral druids with tanking gear...and that edge is merely stop-gap measures to prevent death, i.e. shield block, last stand, shield wall and also consumables.

Guilds that exclusively aim to do end-game dungeons and be the first are quick to determine what gives them the greatest advantages at competing and completing their objectives.

I experienced this first hand when I had a Shadowknight in EQ. While they had abilities that enabled them to dominate pvp, they lacked damage output over time in pve and really didn't have abilities that helped a raid. If another class could take that slot, a shadowknight would be the first to be removed.

Don't get me wrong, I want druids to have the ability to tank in a pinch. Nothing worse than not having a warrior available due to linkdead or no-shows, we don't want raids to have to absolutely require a warrior thereby allowing them to dominate that role. They should know that it's a privledge to be permitted into a group or raid.

Druids have a niche however; They are the jack of all trades, but masters of none.

Rel