And it's a doozy!
"As previously announced, we are changing the way bear armor works so that bonus armor on items does not receive the bear armor multiplier. Specifically this means that weapons, trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks with bonus armor will not be multiplied by the bear bonus. Only cloth and leather will benefit from the Bear and Dire Bear multiplier.
We are compensating Ferals for this armor loss by improving the Survival of the Fittest talent. In addition to its current effects (stats and crit prevention), it will now also increase armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 22/33/66%. That should be very close to your current armor bonus. This makes Survival of the Fittest rather over-budget by talent standards, but we figured it was one talent we can be pretty certain most tank-oriented druids will have (and to be honest nearly all Ferals)."
Survival of the Fittest has always been a mainstay for us furballs. One time I respec'd and forgot to put all three points into this talent. Upon noticing this I quickly double-punched myself in the balls. It was the only sufficient form of punishment.
So, is Ghostcrawler right? Will this additional 66% armor contribution still keep the same mitigation as I currently am?
Turns out, not so much. I'm no theorycrafter (this post is actually a day old, but got held back by my vain attempts at trying to theorycraft all of this), but some very intelligent people in the WoW forums have proved that us bears will still walk away with another compounding nerf (one so strong I think Hasbro might try and make a product out of it).
Courtesy of one Thorbalt of the Operatives guild on Detheroc:
pre nerfI bolded the important stuff.
armor from leather: 3326
other armor: 3980
total armor: 7306
bear armor: 37772
mitigation %: 69.42
after this nerf takes effect we will see the following, with no gear being changed out.
armor from leather: 3326
bear armor: 28544
other armor: 3266
total armor: 31810
mitigation %: 58.46
sweet....there is now no reason to consider bringing a bear to tank any boss when we have less mitigation and no other tools to avoid things like all the other tanking classes have. thanks alot blizz. might as well go back to being a healbot when you decide moonkins doin a bit much damage and drop it down as well. thanks for removing 11% mitigation. go diaf.
I'm going to remain passive about this. Do I like this seemingly unending changes? No. Do I like the mathematically sound proof of our loss? Absolutely not. Can I do anything about Blizzard's plans? No, but maybe we can if united.
I haven't done the number crunching on my own personal set of armor, but I don't like how we are, yet again, losing armor. Why are we even losing more armor? Hasn't Blizzard kicked us bears into submission already? Must they defecate on our battered bodies now?
There may be hope yet, though. Ghostcrawler followed up with a new post:
"On the subject of armor, the intent of the change is to give you more options in which trinkets and other jewelry you use, instead of always having to rely on the (relatively rare) bonus armor pieces. (We don't think the solution of just dropping bonus armor pieces everywhere is a great one either -- no single stat should trump the others by that much.) The change isn't intended to be a nerf at all. A lot of numbers have been thrown around in this thread. Give me some time to review them and see where any discrepancies lie"
I just hope he realized he lied to us.
Until the next Faerie Fire pull...
-Lushious
2 comments:
You need to realize that the "proof" that the proposed change is a nerf assumes a gear set that is perfect given the current T7 content. If you're missing even two of the items (especially Defender's Code), you'll probably break even.... more and you'll receive a mild buff.
The change is a nerf if you receive more than 45% of your armor from non-leather items. Fairly few existing Druids can boast that.
Also, there's the huge caveat that all we know about right now is T7 content, and druids can tank it all just fine. We don't know what is coming in T8 - both in terms of gear and stats necessary to tank the encounters.
Half of me wants to squeal like an excited schoolgirl, seeing your comment, Karthis. The other half is appreciative of your insight and wisdom.
I may not have explicitly stated this, but the theory for all of these bear changes is a good one. Allowing for more itemization gives us bears a luxury other classes have experienced for far too long.
You're still going to have to pry Badge of Tenacity out of my cold, dead hands, though.
You bring up a really valid point that not a lot of the public outcry has focused on, though:
We can tank T7 content just fine.
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