Bear armor and FAP changes coming in 3.0.4
by Eliah Hecht 
Nov 20th 2008 at 9:00AM
Hi, Feral fans! When last we met to talk about a big Ghostcrawler post, he previewed that they were working on changing the bear armor bonus so it didn't work on jewelry, cloaks, and weapons any more, and on doing something about feral attack power (as seen on feral staves). He didn't have details at the time, but said he'd get back to us. As GC is a crab of his word, he's now come back to let us know exactly what's going to happen, and when.
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Only cloth and leather armor (excluding capes) will benefit from the armor multiplier on bear forms. This means armor from trinkets, rings, necks, and weapons will not be multiplied. However, Survival of the Fittest is gaining the additional effect of adding an additional 22/33/66% to your armor from cloth/leather. Net armor should stay the same.
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Feral attack power will be removed. Instead, attack power in feral forms will scale based on weapon DPS. As with the armor change, this should make no actual difference to your performance - the conversion will be such that your DPS remains the same. What it does do is make it so some staves might be useful to both hunters and druids (for instance), or some two-handed maces might be useful to feral druids. In Ghostcrawler's words: "This does not mean we are no longer going to create bear and cat weapons, just that those weapons will be slightly less niche than they are now."
These changes will be coming sometime before 3.1 (Ulduar), which I've been referring to as 3.0.4 (though perhaps 3.0.x would be more accurate).
Both great changes in my opinion; the armor change should give us more viable options for tanking jewelry and weapons, instead of being forced to hold on to whatever has armor. And the FAP change will just mean we don't always have to DE a feral piece if the one or two ferals in the raid already have it; and conversely, there won't necessarily be only one weapon in a given raid that's of use to ferals (I'm looking at you, Stranglestaff).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
resonance Nov 20th 2008 9:11AM
The problem is net armor DOES go down with this formula. Quoting someone from the official boards:
"before the change, we would sit at a total armor of 7306 before going into bear. in bearform, a druid with only naxx 25 would have 37772 armor, or 69% total mitigation. however, we now know the exactness of the nerf, and find out the following:
pre nerf
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 "
Ekimus Nov 20th 2008 9:19AM
I've seen many posts regarding the math, and I hope they are wrong. You'd think that the Devs would have done the same math...
Blah Nov 20th 2008 9:51AM
fap changes? Like in, fap fap fap? What is wrong with me fappin'?
Mike Nov 20th 2008 10:29AM
Actually your math is wrong. Post "Nerf" that 3326 is actually going to go up by (3326 * 1.66) * 4.7
Robert Nov 20th 2008 12:34PM
pre nerf
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 "
Protector of the pack +12% damage mitigation with 4 people in your party.
Pre Nerf 82% are you crazy can you say OP
Post Nerf 70% So it balances out to be the same thing. Actually just slightly better and feral tanks can focus on dps gear for those times when you only need one tank on a boss and a little extra dps would be nice.
John Nov 20th 2008 12:53PM
Robert said:
Protector of the pack +12% damage mitigation with 4 people in your party.
Pre Nerf 82% are you crazy can you say OP
You obviously know nothing about druid mechanics. The 12% is not an addition, it's a multiplication, it's 12% of the remaining physical damage and which equates to about 3 to 4%.
Which makes it pre nerf - 72% and post nerf about 62%.
That's a 10% mitigation nerf.
raugturi Nov 20th 2008 5:32PM
Something isn't right with those numbers, but it's still a nerf if those amounts really do represent realistic itemization.
My question though is, why do you have "other armor" at 3980 in the first set and 3266 in the second? They aren't taking armor off the gear are they? I thought it was just no longer benefiting from the form change.
So the old way would be:
AllArmor * 4.7 * 1.1 = TotalArmor
So, (3326+3980) * 4.7 * 1.1 = 37772
New way:
[(LeatherArmor * 1.66 * 4.7) + OtherArmor] * 1.1 = TotalArmor
[(3326*1.66*4.7)+3980]*1.1 = 32922
Still a loss though with those numbers. The question is, are those amounts (for leather armor vs other armor) really accurate?
If you set the two equations equal the new model matches the old at Other Armor = 0.8384... * Leather Armor, which means you should aim for ~54.4% or more of your armor on your leather gear rather than the trinkets, rings, etc.
Example:
Leather Armor: 3808
Other Armor: 3192
Total Before Modifiers: 7000
Old Model: 7500*4.7*1.1 = 36190
New Model: [(3808*1.66*4.7)+3192]*1.1 = 36192
raugturi Nov 20th 2008 5:39PM
Forgot to add, if the 3980 is wrong and it should have been 3266 instead the results are:
Old way: 34081
New way: 32137
So a loss even still, but not nearly so bad.
raugturi Nov 20th 2008 6:08PM
more math...
Apparently the top gear available right now is 3326 armor from leather and 3892 from other. Using those numbers it is a pretty big nerf. If they made the SotF bonus 75% instead of 66% and applied it to everything they'd get what they were going for, based on the gear they've made available.
9.0475 * leather + 1.925 * other would be the new formula. So, 37584. That same gear under the current formula is 37317.
mike Nov 22nd 2008 11:38PM
booo! I've always enjoyed showing off to my rogue friends my 3k AP. Maybe I'm just being hesitant and maybe this will work, I don't know. I'll just have to trust GC.
Axolotl Nov 20th 2008 9:25AM
It's probably only correct for those in level 80 epic-last-raid-instance gear, everybody else will be 'nerfed to the ground, baby'
Alderkin Nov 20th 2008 9:30AM
"What it does do is make it so some staves might be useful to both hunters and druids (for instance),"
More..... hunter.... weapons?
Keep the popcorn handy. You'll definitely want it if you've got a ringside seat for those arguments.
Kylenne Nov 20th 2008 10:50AM
I'm glad I'm not the only one who strapped on the lollerskates at that.
"You know what we need? More huntards rolling on crap they have no business rolling on!"
William Nov 20th 2008 10:55AM
Since when do hunters use staffs?
Sorano Nov 20th 2008 11:37AM
Hello Dolly!
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18715
king0lag Nov 20th 2008 9:37AM
Another great day...
...for Balance and Resto Druids.
Alazasthas Nov 20th 2008 9:39AM
I don't like this new post about FAP weapons. I know it's a pain that an epic gets de each time it drops as none of the druids wants a weapon anymore, but it's the only thing that separate us from all the rest of clases.
I have standed having the same paper doll for almost 3 years, as long as I have some of the best models available, like the Feral Staff of Lashing or the Stranglestaff.
Aside from those weapons the only truly memorables I have seen are he priest-on-a-stick and the fell-puppy-on-a-stick :D
jtrain Nov 20th 2008 9:43AM
So are they going to go back and remove the "Equip: Increase attack power by X in Bear, Dire Bear...etc" from all the existing gear? Will weapon DPS be modified to compensate? Guess I'm still not 100% sure how this works...
Acceptable Risk Nov 20th 2008 11:20AM
Weapon DPS doesn't do anything for Feral Druids right now. All of the damage increases come from Attack Power. Feral Attack power is a "free" stat. It's not actually figured into the iLevel since it's only good for Druids and Druids don't use the built-in DPS.
The way Feral Attack Power is calculated is by taking the appropriate DPS for the iLevel of the weapon and multiplying it by 14. That's the amount of AP that it takes to increase your damage by 1 DPS.
So in essence, the the FAP on a weapon is already a reflection of its intended DPS. All this change is doing is rolling the calculation into our forms instead of putting it on the weapon. If they do it right, it should make no difference at all for existing Feral weapons and have the benefit of allowing us options when it comes to choosing a weapon.
I've been saying they needed to do this since Burning Crusade. Hopefully, it means they'll itemize in some nice big two-handed maces for us to share with Paladins and TG Warriors. I miss having a big hammer.
Mr. Luhg Nov 20th 2008 9:45AM
Scaled based on weapon DPS? Shoot, my 55 Druid has been using the Ironshod Bludgeon since 37. Sounds like that is going to change soon. No more looking purely at the +stats on the weapon I guess. Might be nice to have a reason to upgrade of course, as things are now most new stuff I'd have to go out of my way to get only gives me a couple more stats. Yawn.