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Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

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Re: The 5.0.4 / MoP / Druid

Wish I could contribute more to the kitteh side of things, but have been playing balance so far this expac. Though I did re-configure my offspec to feral last night for my LFR's this week since I can't really upgrade my main spec any further in raid finder.
Eumaeus

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Looks like a chain of bad / quitting is going to land me converting from balance to guardian for my guild. Has anyone here been tanking normal/heroic content as a guardian this expac?

Seems things have changed quite a ton from before, with rage generation stats being even more important than straight mitigation stats (dodge/mastery). Icy-veins is even calling crit/expertise > agility for gemming and enchants.

Anyone able to share their experiences?

Feralmordius
join:2011-01-18

Feralmordius

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When Blizz moved to the active mitigation for tanks, tanking really became build resource pool, then choose defense, heal or damage to spend it on.

I have been running Crit/Expertise build and it seems good. However I am also fairly new to the Guardian and still have to think about which defense to use.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

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Tanked 6/6 MSV-10 with the guild last night. I found the mitigation in guardian spec to be very good. I didn't feel too spikey and felt like there was almost always sufficient rage generation to burn through 3 charges of savage defense. I'm also currently stacking crit/exp.

I was ilvl 478 for the run. On a side note, dropping from 488 ilvl Balance to ilvl 467 Guardian made me a sad bear. Had to wave goodbye to a sizeable pile of gold/conquest/valor to get that caught back up before raid.

Krisnatharok
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said by Feralmordius:

and still have to think about which defense to use.

If at full HP, OR if the fight is primarily physical damage, use Savage Defense as damage avoided is better than overhealing.

If below ~60% hp, use Frenzied Regen, OR if the fight is primarily magic damage.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

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The frenzied regen heal is surprisingly large, too. I saw some last night in the 120-150k range. With crit as high as it is (think I am somewhere in the 43% range atm), I feel like rage gen is high enough to always use savage defense charges and still have enough rage to either frenzied regen or use tooth and claw mauls.

It's also been a huge help when not actively tanking a boss to use empowered mauls as frequently as they're available. Dropping the boss' autoattacks by 23k time after time helps the other tank a ton.

Guardian glyph options are sadface. I think right now I'm using rebirth, savage roar (or whichever the 30yd range granting one is) and... umm... I forget the other. Might've slotted 10 yd faerie fire as a placeholder in a rush before raid.

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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I was assuming you were using the Frenzied Regen glyph, which increases all healing you receive by 40%, which is way more healing than you could give yourself. Get Renewal or or the HT talent if you need an emergency heal to prevent death--the FR glyph should be mandatory for tanks.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

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I considered (am still considering) the FR glyph, though my raid does not have strong HoT healing and we also use a disc priest, whose bubbles I assume wouldn't be covered by the 40% bonus. Because our other heals are more direct than HoT, my thoughts were that much of the 6s healing bonus might be lost to awkward cast timing and that a timed use of my personal heal may come out ahead. That said, last night was the first raid since having to swap to Guardian, so I anticipate some experimentation would be in order.

I'd put a lot more weight on the FR glyph on fight's like Blade Lord (2nd boss HoF - my brain is working this morning, right?) where there's far more expected spam healing on the tank due to steady massive incoming damage.

I'm liking nature's swiftness more than renewal atm due to it's versatility (bear form brez mostly). What're your thoughts on lvl 90 talent?

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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IIRC disc priests place a bubble on someone for the percentage of what the heal hits for (Spirit Shield notwithstanding as that is a 100% conversion of heal to absorb), so any mechanic that increases healing received (from FH/heal/GH) should also increase the subsequent shield as well.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

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Ahh right right! I'll be honest I'm way out of touch with disc atm. Until Monday I hadn't raided with one for ages. (Side note: Disc / spirit shell is absolutely amazing for Force & Verve on Zor'lok in HoF).

I think there are times when both glyphed and non-glyphed would be strong. For example, after phase 2 on Elegon I always go back in first since our other tank has an AoE taunt. The healers are really focusing him since the adds hit like a truck, so I can't rely on them casting as many heals on me for the first little bit while the adds die. The 120k+ self heal from FR was very useful there since I couldn't be sure I'd get enough heals to benefit from the 6s 40% buff.

Another example that comes to mind is Gara'jal. Having one healer in the spirit world would mean I'd only receive heals from one person and they'll also be casting on the other 2 people with the voodoo mask, so I might only get 1 heal during the 6 secs. I think the self heal would outscale the buff in that case also.

I think you're totally right that overall the FR glyph will be better in more fights. I'm just thinking aloud (err, in text) of times that it might be worth swapping the glyph off.

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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Try this as an experiment (I have not yet done so), run a raid WITHOUT the glyph, and look at total self healing done vs. total raid healing done to you.

If your self-healing is greater than 40% of total healing (minus your own) to you, then run without the glyph. If your self-healing is less (and I think it should be far less) than 40% of total healing done to you, then run with the glyph--varying of course due to fight mechanics.

Immer
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Immer

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One thing I'd like to mention, sort of a psychology of LFR healers, regardless of what your test shows I'd run without the glyph for LFR. The reason is that I see a lot of healers going for meter padding in LFR, so everyone tends to assume that someone else is keeping an eye on the tanks. I've been working on maximizing my effective use of Disc spec via LFR. Almost every time I start my SS building cycle (SS, 6xPoH) I have to cut it short to PW:S/penance/flash heal the tanks before they go splat. Now... if you have a pocket healer, then you are golden no matter which way you glyph...

Eumaeus
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Seattle, WA

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I'm pretty sure that you're correct that the overall healing received will be higher with the glyph. The area that I'm wondering if it's worth swapping on/off the glyph are moreso for fights were there will be a time when burst healing is beneficial during a time where enough healers are otherwise occupied to where you aren't getting enough out of the 40% at a time where you need it most.

The best example I can think of atm is probably gara'jal where 2 others are taking large damage with you due to voodoo masks but there will only be 1 healer casting on you & them due to the spirit world needing the 2nd healer.

The other issue with that experiment is that comparing your self healing to 40% of the total healing done to you assumes 100% uptime of FR. I don't know that there's a way to isolate 40% of only the healing received during FR buff uptime. It's this amount of healing that you'd have to compare to unglyphed self-healing to get the total healing received impact value. Does that sound correct, or am I thinking incorrectly?

Krisnatharok
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said by Immer:

I see a lot of healers going for meter padding in LFR

What? Noooooooooooooo neeeeeeeeeever.

I hit 78k HPS on the priest last night on the tornado boss in HoF, died, was brez'd, and still ended as top heals. I was on the verge of getting Arch to shelve his monk for the rest of the expac.

Spirit shield just on the tank is hacks.

Although I have run into instances (both as the disc healer and the bear tank) where the bear does not gain rage when asborbing hits with a certain type of shield, not sure if it's the regular shield from FH/heal/GH or just the spirit shield.

Have you seen anything like that?

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

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We don't gain rage from being hit anymore. It's all self generated via auto attacks and mangle. That's what's caused the huge shift to crit/hit/expertise stat priority (even > agility in gemming by many accounts I've read).

Krisnatharok
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Like I said, the ability to control the healing via vanilla FR may outweigh the total increased healing glyphed FR, and on some fights you might need to decide.

I would rather use a combo of Survival Instincts or Might of Ursoc (+50% max hp) + Renewal (~30% hp restored instantly) as an oh-shit button, then rotate SD, Barkskin, and the DMC trinket as needed to avoid damage, all on top of keeping the glyphed FR up.

But YMMV with your playstyle. The hit-capped/crit build is all about controlling the pace of incoming damage, whereas the avoidance mitigation build is about reducing all damage received, but it gives less control of when you take the big hits.
Krisnatharok

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said by Eumaeus:

We don't gain rage from being hit anymore. It's all self generated via auto attacks and mangle. That's what's caused the huge shift to crit/hit/expertise stat priority (even > agility in gemming by many accounts I've read).

Weird, then how come I've sat there and thrashed/swiped multiple targets and gained no rage? Does it have to crit to count? The whole change is blegh anyways, but I do it anyways (hit/exp/crit) because IMHO it's the better way to tank. Stam/mastery/dodge just isn't as viable right now.

Immer
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I haven't worried about it much in MoP because I haven't had to heal many bears. Now that tiermordius is bear tanking more often, I'll pay closer attention to his rage generation. Hopefully its just the PW:S that is gimping rage generation so I have some control over when I use it. Aegis and SS... ugh.

edit: cool... so I can heal away, then. =)

Eumaeus
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I'm not positive (stuck at work with the 'sense), but it could be that only the crits on autoattack and mangle provide the 15 rage for critting. You definitely shouldn't be gaining rage from non-crit thrash and swipe. I'm just not positive about crits on those abilities.

I've definitely been eyeballing the SI glyph. Despite losing 6 secs for only a 1m cooldown reduction I can see times when that would be really perfect for mitigating 1-2 huge attacks more often.

I worry about the 5m cooldown on glyphed ursoc, but combined with renewal it would be an enormous heal. Kinda turns it into a once per fight instead of 2-3 times per fight ability but that may be perfectly fine.
Eumaeus

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Regarding the crit/hit/exp build it's also noteworthy that with crit high enough your rage gen (that +15 from the crits is so massive over time) is occasionally high enough to keep up SD/FR and still burn 30 rage on empowered mauls to reduce the boss's next attack by 23-24k damage (dunno if its a static # or scales with anything).

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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^ That's eventually where you want to be. Chain your FR/SD then use the Tooth empowered maul as you can.

JB9
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said by Eumaeus:

(Side note: Disc / spirit shell is absolutely amazing for Force & Verve on Zor'lok in HoF).

Yes, because it is glitched right now. (SS+Inner focus = 100% crit). They nerfed the shit out of F&V 3 weeks ago. Are you relying on a glitched disc priest for that fight?
said by Eumaeus:

I think you're totally right that overall the FR glyph will be better in more fights. I'm just thinking aloud (err, in text) of times that it might be worth swapping the glyph off.

FR Glyph is and will always be a situational glyph. As of now, I see most guardians not using it.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

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Nah we had a disc priest join this week to fill an opening and we were just amused at how silly it made the fight. Previously we were 2 healing it with mistweaver and hpally. I was balance then and would contribute tranquility during one of the final phase F&V (pre-nerf) to help out as needed.

Feralmordius
join:2011-01-18

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Here is the Rage gen numbers.

Rage

Rage is no longer generated from taking damage. Instead Guardians now generate Rage from landing attacks on our enemies. Once 5.0.4 hits, Rage will come from two different kinds of actions. I like to call these Direct and Indirect Rage Generation. You’ll see why in a minute. You will gain Rage from performing one of the following actions (Direct Generation):

[Mangle] generates 5 Rage when used (or 7 if you have the talent [Soul of the Forest]). Mangle has a 6 second cooldown.

Auto-Attacks generate ~10.8 Rage per attack that deals damage. Your base auto-attack speed is 2.5 seconds.

[Enrage] generates 20 Rage when used, and an additional 10 Rage over the next 10 seconds. Enrage has a 60 second cooldown.

Critical Strikes of either Mangle or Auto-Attack will generate 15 Rage.

Shifting into [Bear Form] will set your Rage to 10.

Before going any further you should already be able to tell that the overwhelming bulk of our Rage Generation comes from Critical Strikes. Therefore our goal should be trying to maximize the number of those we get. The easiest way to do this is to simply stack Critical Strike Rating. Not only is that an awesome stat by itself, but while in Bear form we get an extra 50% Critical Strike Rating. This makes Critical Strike the single best Rage Generation statistic to stack early on.

Using one of the following abilities will allow you to use something that generates Rage (Indirect Generation):

[Incarnation] removes the cooldown on any offensive Bear ability for 30 seconds. This includes Mangle, meaning you can press Mangle every global cooldown to generate the maximum amount of Rage. Incarnation has a 3 minute cooldown.

[Berserk] removes the cooldown on Mangle and causes it to strike up to 2 extra targets for 10 seconds. Berserk has a 3 minute cooldown. It should be noted that at the time of this writing the extra targets struck are not causing any Rage to be generated. Whether this is intended or not is unknown.

Landing a hit with [Lacerate], [Thrash], or [Faerie Fire] has a 25% chance to reset the cooldown on Mangle.

Temporary buffs such as Heroism/Bloodlust or Trinket Procs can also indirectly increase Rage Generation by increasing Haste, Critical Strike, Agility, Hit, or Expertise. Although I don’t recall the last time I saw a temporary Hit or Expertise proc/buff.

You can probably tell that the most common of these either reset or completely remove the cooldown on Mangle. While this also increases our DPS, both Incarnation and Berserk should be held in reserve as Rage cooldowns.

»theincbear.com/forums/vi ··· e6ca2305
cymraeg
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»fallingleavesandwings.wo ··· erlords/

interesting post about current healer scores

Immer
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Evans, GA

Immer

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wow... I really felt for the author at this point:
said by FallingLeavesAndWings :
ince this is the fourth time weve taken a look at this, with no indication that our life is going to improve, I feel I dont have much left to say on the topic.

Our Monk overlords have been summarily replaced with disc priests. The monk nerfs were steep (maybe too steep), and the bubble lords swooped in and have mitigated their way into the position formally held by monks. Mushrooms still suck. Our healing model still does not work well in the world of MoP healing. Our fixed mana pools still do not support the toolkit we have to work with. And well, thats about all I have to say on the matter.

If I hadnt devoted the past eight years to the Druid class, I would seriously be considering a reroll at this point (and have, in fact, given it consideration). But I dont feel that I should have to give up a class Ive put so much energy into, and enjoyed for so long. I pretty strongly feel it should be Blizzards responsibility to make sure that classes are fun to play. That they are equally competitive, that they have tools suitable to meet that goal, and that players can continue to feel like viable assets of their raid team and enjoy the game based on skill rather than be frustrated because of artificial limitations set by the game.

But maybe thats just me.

Please feel free to review the prior three posts in the series for more in depth looks at the problem and potential solutions.
My druid reached 87 on my sick day... hard to grind out quests on your third toon while feeling like garbage, though. Good news is... my druid isn't missing much at this point.

Feralmordius
join:2011-01-18

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Feralmordius to saillaw

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Interesting stat priority in 10 man vs 25 man. Also includes a spread sheet for the math type people.

»theincbear.com/rps-stats-and-you

Now you can play around with this yourself and move the Haste value up and down, but in any case the RPS requirement for T&C is only about half of the RPS gained per point of Haste. That means Haste is not only a mitigation increase by generating more T&C procs, but it also still increases Rage generation more than Crit even after factoring in T&C.

Now none of this is really “news” per se. But it’s nice to know the specifics about it. But the question everyone is really asking is “What does this mean for me?”

Well for 25m it primarily means you’re going to want Haste instead of Crit. There are far more people to make up the tank DPS difference between the two, and you gain increased mitigation by going Haste – which is the big difference for tanks in 25m. For 10m it’s a bit more of a tough sell. Tank DPS is significantly more important in 10m than 25m, so it’s possible that the DPS you lose by going Haste over Crit could make or break a kill. Furthermore bosses don’t hit as hard in 10m as they do in 25m, thus meaning you can definitely afford to sacrifice that little bit of mitigation to do more DPS.

Once we get into the next tier of content I expect Haste stacking to become significantly more common in both raid sizes.

Krisnatharok
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Wow, that sucks for your neighborhood tree. Right now I am seeing nothing but resto shammies and disc priests in LFR.

Immer
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Immer

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me, too. I had one lfr that had 3 resto shamans and 2 priests. Since the other priest was disc, I switched to holy... when every healer is OP... no healer goes above 50k hps... unless you look at overhealing, lol.

Antonica
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Antonica

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Start LFR:
4 Resto Shamans
Arch's Monk
I believe a Priest.

After 1st Boss:
Priest Leaves
Get 5th Shaman

Sometime between boss 2 and 3:
Shaman leaves
Get another Shaman

So it stayed arch with 5 shamans for rest of lfr.