Guild changes abound!

So, my guild has had some tough decisions lately.  We had some issues with a couple of folks concerning gear and had to let them go. We don't run with DKP so we expect people to only roll on stuff for their spec/class and not guilt folks into giving them gear.  It has been a royal pain and we have been dealing with it for several weeks now, but at least we can move on as a guild now.

And after we got all of that taken care of, our guild leader decides to step down and quit playing due to stress of game and stress of RL.  I will truly miss him! I think his replacement will do a fine job and we should still be a damn fine guild.  

On a positive note, we won't be raiding 5 - 6 nights a week anymore which will make my home life much better.  This bear needs more tree time!!

Rage against the Machine...I mean Shield

So after reading the 3.1 class changes that have been posted.  One of them has me wondering what is up with bear rage generation.  In the warrior changes it stated

You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.

So my question becomes, will bear druids get the same change?  It was not stated in our class changes that we will, but I would really love to see this change occur for Bear.  There are many times that I end up rage starved when I get shielded.  

During a 10 man run in Naxx, I was tanking Loatheb and the priest shielded me 6 times during the fight and I got rage starved very quickly and had to quit using my special attacks for several seconds.  And since Loatheb is a DPS race, I really wanted to be giving it all I had DPS-wise, but I only did 1270.  This is just an example I had WWS numbers on back before I got some decent gear.

I know that I generate a great deal of rage via Primal Fury and from Natural Reaction, however, we also still generate rage by taking damage.  

The equation is

Rage = [2.5*(Damage Taken)] / (Rage Conversion at Your Level) 

which at level 80 the conversion factor is 320.6 according to WoW Wiki

So the equation is Rage = [2.5*(Damage Taken)] / 320.6

Now the combat log I was looking at doesn't say how much damage was absorbed, but an average hit was between 1700 and 2300, so looking at those two values

Minimum rage generated = [2.5*(1700)]/320.6 = 13.2564

Maximum rage generated = [2.5*(2300)]/320.6 = 17.9351

So if the PW:S is buffed, it can absorb over 5000 damage.  So, since I was shielded 6 times, that would be 30000 damage absorbed or 233.9364 rage that I missed out on.  Just for reference, my Primal Fury generated 450 rage and my Natural Reaction generated 261 rage during the Loatheb fight.  So that 234 rage during the fight is almost the same amount as was generated by a Tier 6, 3 point talent (Natural Reaction) and we are missing out on it!

Therefore, I would love to see Bears get something similar to what the warriors are getting.  This would make Disc Priests a lot more viable when your tank is a druid.  And I love Disc Priests, I think there should be more of them.  Mine is 67!

Growl Update

Okay, so like a bad bear, I didn't actually look up Growl to see it was a spell and so subject to the spell hit cap.  Therefore, go get your Glyph of Growl and then still get melee hit capped and you should be fine!

I also forgot to mention that Signet of the Impregnable Fortress is a great bear ring! So add that to my list!

  

And I am on my way back to training for work on software I already know how to use.  

/sigh

What to wear?

Here you go!

Bear

So I updated my bear list given that I need more +hit than other things.  My growl has missed several times in the last couple of nights and my hit rating wasn't that low I didn't think.  It was right around 180 which I know isn't capped, but since I had not gotten the drops with +hit, I wasn't that stressed about it.  Then I missed my growl twice in a row on Gluth.  It ended up being okay, but it could have been very bad and I wipe the raid.

So I am now going to make it a priority to run heroics so I can get exalted with the Argent Crusade so I can get those feet.  

One thing that I have noticed is that two stats are quite useful for tanking/dps for a feral are expertise (131 cap with PP) and hit rating (263 cap).  However our T7 or T7.5 only has 82 expertise and no hit on all 5 pieces.  This means that we need to gather these stats on other pieces such as our feet, waist, wrists, cloak and jewerly/trinkets.  

Now for tanking, we have a pretty good idea of what should be our trinkets. Darkmoon Card Greatness, Essence of the Gossamer, Indestructible Alchemists stone, and a few others are good.  But the point is we won't have hit or expertise on any of these.

So there are only 4 sets of boots that have either of those stats.  And none that have both of those stats.  Hmmm, that doesn't seem quite right.  I guess that would be why Footwraps of Vile Deceit came out on top.  You can at least gem them for hit.

So, on to the waist.   So here we have 5 choices that have either expertise or hit on them.  And considering them I think I would choose the Belt of the Tortured so that I could get that +hit.  

Wrists have one lovely, lovely piece that has both hit and expertise on it.  The Thrusting Bands.  Get them if at all possible!

Cloaks don't have a lot of choices on this topic.  I personally recommend the Platinum Mesh Cloak that you buy with 25 Emblems of Valor since you have the same stamina as the Cloak of the Shattered Sun and you gain 32 hit and only lose some strength and 1 dodge.  Seems like a really nice trade off to me.

For your neck, I recommend getting Heritage since it had hit on it as well as defense and dodge.  You can get quite a few that have dodge rating on them, and that is nice, but if you are having problems hitting or being dodged/parried, Heritage has both hit and the defensive stats.

So that leaves us with rings.  I think a must have is the Gatekeeper.  It has armor which is still nice but not have to have like it used to be, but it also has dodge and hit rating!  Next up I would recommend the Strong-Handed Ring since it has 28 hit on it and the other stats on the ring would help your threat generation.  (plus when 3.1 comes out, you will want that crit)

Which actually gives you at the end, 150 resilience and 202 hit rating.  Which means, you might want to keep those Boots of Neverending Path for those fights you really need to make sure you don't miss on.  You can always also use Extreme Snapper and Elixir of Accuracy but  you have other foods and elixirs you should be using!

Bad Kitty

So I came across a wonderful new mod called Bad Kitty (BK) that is totally set up for feral forms, both of them.  However, it also works with other druids.  

So last night during Naxx, one of my feathered kin put Faerie Fire up and it automatically acknowledged it on BK.  Worked the same for mangle when another druid put it up so I am really impressed.  I had been trying to find a mod that would do this for both forms and I tried Need to Know and while it was nice, it wouldn't work for other druids' spells.  You can also customize the spells you want shown and the size of the rows.  I also like that it shows a cooldown for Berserk, Savage Roar, and Tiger's Fury in terms of when the cooldown is over so you know when you can use them again without missing a beat.  Go download it and play with it!  

So I just wanted to say

Bad Kitty is the cat's meow!!!!