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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsItemization and the plight of the bear tank in Wrath of the Lich King
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 5th 2008 at 4:00PM
One of the biggest concepts coming with Wrath of the Lich King is gear consolidation. Stat are being folded into each other and classes are being changed even on very basic levels so that fewer gear types can work for more classes and specs. Feral Druids have seen this happen as well, with talents such as Survival of the Fittest and Heart of the Wild tweaked so that they can get more benefits from Rogue gear.
Unfortunately, this hasn't worked out that well for bear tanks.
Specifically, the biggest problem is armor. Bear Tanks found their niche in BC through massive amounts of AC, as gear with lots of extra armor allowed them to weather massive physical blows handily. However, since most non-tier gear will now be shared with Rogues, we won't be seeing that extra armor, since no Rogue would want gear that wasted too many points on extra AC. Thus, If this itemization trend stays, bear armor will drop drastically.
Similarly, since bears don't get the same AP and agility bonuses that cats do, nor the same strength bonuses (to block and parry) that other tank classes get, there's some concern that they'll fall behind in threat generation and mitigation in other areas as well. Quite simply, Bears either need their own unique itemization, or they need talents or baseline abilities that make up for the weaknesses of Rogue gear for bear tanking.
If there is one bright spot, it is that Ghostcrawler has specifically said that they want bears to viable end-game tanks and cats to be viable end-game DPS, and that they aren't quite there yet. So at this point, it might be best to wait and see what knobs they turn (turning knobs seems to be the new term for class balancing) to put bears where they need to be.
On the more optimistic side, we can drink potions (now that you can only drink one potion per battle) and use Windfury (now that Windfury Totem's mechanic has been completely changed) in feral forms now, so that's something.
Filed under: Druid, Rogue, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Classes, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Mattlistener Aug 6th 2008 6:31PM
Velutina, your bear hit the armor cap *against L70 mobs* in T4 gear.
I really hope WotLK buffs the character sheet armor tooltip so that folks will see what % mitigation they get against level+3 mobs.
Azunel Aug 5th 2008 5:35PM
Just let us bear tanks wear mail with a deep feral talent or an unlockable achievement.
Robert M Aug 5th 2008 5:57PM
Mail? Ugh, that would violate the druadic connection with nature. Druids should be wearing hemp (with high armor values due to its durability) and transitional cotton
Hell, they should provide cooking recipes that are vegan friendly and gluten free as well in honor of the earth mother!
Robert M Aug 5th 2008 5:49PM
I think blizzard knows something is up with the bear form and the armor. Did anyone see the original alpha trees? Ferals had another talent deeper in the tree that gave them more armor. They removed that in the beta, and it leads you to wonder if they thought the armor values for a bear were too high. The removal of crushing blows means a bear wont have to worry about absorbing those, but there does seem to be a disconnect with bear tanks and absorbing damage since the adujusted block value for the shield carriers will mitigate more damage and bears, the kings of absorbtion, seem to be missing some love. I will say these things...
1. We know DHETA will be in Northrend. We can hope that they offer a great tanking (craftable BoE???) set like their Cenarion Expedition brothers did in OL.
2. Yes, bear tanks and holy paladins seems to be left off the list of consolidated gear. Bears for armor and healidans for intel, but they were always using a unique set of gear anyway. At least all the squishies seem to be consolidated, the tree and boomkin druids will share a set, cats and rogues, hunters and enhancement shammy's will share, the elemental and resto shammys will share, plate tanks will share with each other, and so will plate dps. Thats a total of 7 gear types. Blizz may actually have to leave bear druids and the holy pallys with their own sets. That still is ONLY 9 total types of gear. 9 may seem like alot, but it used to be at least 13 (2 cloths, 4 leathers, 3 (or 4 if you were stacking as much strength on ur enhancement shammy as i have seen some people do) mails, and 4 (maybe more) plates). That may not seem like a lot, but its just over a 30% decrease in gear types. I will be very surprised if Blizz is able to roll the bears into a leather type with rogues and cats and holy pallys into one of the other plate types.
Also remember that if raid bosses stay at 3 over the lvl cap and survival of the fittest is doubled, bears are not going to need any defense gear. It seems to be a lesson blizz has already learned with the increase in teh talent and if you look at the tanking violet eye rings. there is defense and high armor values, but none of the other avoidance the plate wearing tanks look for. If those rings are a clue of whats to come, it would lead one to believe that the trinkets/rings/neck pieces/capes are going to be consolidated for all tanks.
I do have a question for everyone though. When blizzard talks about gear consolidation, am I the only one who thinks that only applies to quest rewards and drops? At the end of the day, the tier sets are going to be very class and tree specific, or at least I am of the opinion they will be. I have a resto druid, and one of the things I love about druids is their armor sets. Few people can argue with the overall "coolness" that the druid sets ahve over the other classes, or maybe they can and I dont see it cause im a big tree hugger. I have always thought the gear consolidation was to prevent someone from running an instance 50 times for one specific drop. Drops can now happen with more frequency because the overall number of drops that a boss has to have to accomodate every class and talent spec is reduced.
komamura Aug 5th 2008 6:31PM
Azunel, Then what would be the point of Rouges if a kitty druid with that talent could do about the same damage and have the armor to take a hit better.
HankD Aug 5th 2008 6:48PM
Guys, just look at wotlk.wowhead.com if you're wondering about gear. There are, for instance, 3 kinds of plate... spell power plate (which has int, sta, and SP)... tanking plate (which has str, sta, and def) and DPS plate (which has str and crit)...
The consolidation is a HUGE win for this game, they'll get druids balanced out, no worries.
yaba Aug 5th 2008 7:37PM
I like the idea that gear isnt just for one class but blizz is going too far with the gear homogenization.
All these deal trying to make gear suit all classes sounds nice but is just silly and useles.
At 80 we are still gonna be using the same specific class sets of tiers and seasons(and hopefully lake pvp ranks).
Leveling is not that hardcore that we need great gear utility and in endgame we are back at sets so all these changes are just annoyances.The SP change,all the talents modifications etc.
Brad Aug 5th 2008 9:06PM
Why not improve the game, even if it doesn't affect the Raiding game greatly? Is that the only game?
theRaptor Aug 5th 2008 11:46PM
@22
How is stat and gear condensation an improvement to the game? This was done to make it easier for Blizzard (eg not have to make as much gear, basing classes around certain core stats), that is all.
Classes competing all for the same gear has benefits (less trash gear that no one in the party can use) and drawbacks (less enchanting mats on the market, the annoyance of losing /needs against the bigger pool of competition) that make that a neutral change.
And the potential for it to get to the point where the difference between a Lock, Spriest and Mage, is trivial is a very real threat.
Shinken Aug 5th 2008 10:17PM
I remember getting the blue feral chest pc in hellfire,
and I thought "wow". Now I have to get crappy itemized
gear until I get Tier gear?
Why does blizzard make you feel like outcast if you are a hybrid? so fury warriors with perfect itemization will out tank ferals until T7?
thebitterfig Aug 6th 2008 8:26AM
seems like a simple soultion would be a talent which adds XX% of strength or AP or agility or such as base armor (thus increased by bear form). Kind of like how stamina now gives spell power to prot paladins.
Gronyon Aug 6th 2008 7:51AM
Currently, while bear can only dodge, they dodge nearly as twice better as Warriors (i.e. to covers up for Parry).
Armor should compensate for Crush (no longer an issue) but for the Blocks and the -10% damage talent.
I would remove +crit from Rogue gear, and increase rogue Agi -> Crit conversion. This way, bear still gets high dodge (and most important don't stack that low use +crit on tank gear).
For armor, a talent that give armor based on AP seems a good solution. We would still take increased damage from spells, but we would continue to be a strong hitting, low avoide, high absorb type of tank.
I don't mean we would have more threat, because most probably a higher AP with haste hit and expertise coming from Rogue's Gear would lead to lower +threat bonus on our attacks for exemple.
Dean Aug 6th 2008 11:41AM
There was all of one tanking piece for bears in TBC (the Hellfire Chest) before Blade's Edge. WOTLK beta is capped at a level just before Blade's Edge, comparitevly. I'm not too worried. It's not like we need specialised bear tanking gear to tank levelling 5-mans.
Rowscas Oct 15th 2008 9:04AM
Please dont let my Tank druid die... I love tanking and i was damn good at it.. Lich King dont look very promising for us. There was almost no gear except Tier gear for us druids for end game.