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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsMore Druid changes on the 3.1 PTR
by Allison Robert 
Feb 28th 2009 at 8:00PM
The above headline is a polite, succinct means of saying "I went AFK for a few hours yesterday and returned to 2/3 of the Druid class wanting to throw itself in front of an oncoming train."Additions to the latest PTR build aren't extensive for Druids but include a 10% nerf to stamina returns from Heart of the Wild in the feral tree, and a doubling of Lifebloom's mana cost (and reworking of its bloom mechanics) in the Restoration tree.
Well, no point checking our watches waiting for the next harbinger of welcome death by way of light commuter rail. Let's take a look.
HEART OF THE WILD: Stamina bonus changed to 2/4/6/8/10%.
Ouch, baby.
Before I write anything else, a quick note to the people spamming the Tanking and Druid forums with End-of-the-World proclamations; it's the frigging public test realm. None of this is set in stone. Calmez-vous.
I can finally stay on the PTR without disconnecting every 5-10 minutes, so I hopped on and started comparing the character sheet to my main's live version. The biggest problem right now is that the HotW change (in addition to the Survival of the Fittest armor nerf) has gone live on the PTR without Savage Defense going live alongside it. If you get any toons copied to the PTR or can just finally log on successfully, you'll find yourself down several thousand armor and several thousand HP without Savage Defense active to compensate.
How big is the nerf? In the comparison below I'm running the exact same gear set and the exact same talent build with the exception of Primal Gore's substitution for Omen of Clarity for testing purposes (neither talent has any effect on the numbers below). I am not rocking full best-in-slot gear due to abysmal luck with drops and giving the initial drops of Noth's bracers and Loatheb's boots to our Rogue (having to compete with Rogues for tanking gear is one of the most irritating facets of our collective Wrath experience). I'm also running a fairly stam-heavy set as much of it has to be used in my Sarth 3D tanking kit. While I'm not particularly pleased about that, I'm also not a Jewelcrafter or Leatherworker, and we don't have a Death Knight tank for Sarth 3D, so...yeah.
As an additional note, the small "buffs" you're seeing on the PTR version to dodge, attack power, and crit are the result of the new 2% stat increase from Improved Mark of the Wild. So, yes, unbuffed I have an additonal 13 AP, 0.29% dodge, and 0.20% crit as a result of IMotW. If you run a spec with 5/5 Furor instead of 2/2 IMotW and 3/5 Furor, then your attack power, crit, and dodge will not change between the live realms and the PTR.
UNBUFFED LIVE BEAR
33,853 armor (68.97% physical damage reduction before Protector of the Pack)
36.45% dodge
4854 attack power
35.06% crit
35,237 HP
UNBUFFED PTR BEAR
27,910 armor (64.69% physical damage reduction before Protector of the Pack)
36.74% dodge
4867 attack power
35.26% crit
33,427 HP
To Toskk's we go. Toskk's TTL calculator has been updated to reflect the contribution of Savage Defense (but not the HotW nerf, so I'm using 2/5 HotW at 12% stamina contribution here -- the difference between the 12% and 10% contributions doesn't have a statistically significant effect on TTL for the vast majority of current Wrath bosses), so it's safe to start running Theory Bear through her paces.
Her TTL calculation now clocks in at 10.842 seconds, with a Savage Defense shield proc of 1216.75 damage. That's pretty respectable, but if the HotW change never goes live, the TTL calculation clocks in at 11.429 seconds on an average raid boss. Essentially, the difference between a pre-nerf HotW bear and a post-nerf HotW bear is a little more than half a second to live in the same gear.
The problem isn't so much that we were nerfed; Savage Defense is going to be pretty damn good, especially if we find more +crit itemization on Ulduar gear. It's that we were nerfed without the intended compensatory mechanic going live. SD doesn't quite make up for HotW's stamina reduction, but half a second either way seems to fall pretty squarely into what Blizzard's willing to work with for tank TTL % differences. What I don't understand is why the armor nerf would go live without it, and then the HP nerf piled on top of it. The cumulative effect on bears is significantly nerfed mitigation on top of a lower HP pool, with Druids unable to make up the difference on the current PTR build in the absence of additional cooldowns or improved talents.
One reasonable explanation might be Blizzard's desire to see how much damage Druids actually take from progression raid bosses on the PTR before SD is actually implemented. Then again, bears aren't a particularly attractive choice for competitive raiding guilds on the PTR with both nerfs now live, and that may negatively affect just how much data emerges from this. So far I haven't seen a PTR kill with a Druid main tank, although it's possible I've just missed it.
What honestly worries me more than anything else is that we're being nerfed at the same time that healer mana regen mechanics are being changed so dramatically, to what ultimate effect concerning the ease of tank healing I'm not sure. Our avoidance is going to stay the lowest of all four tanks no matter what, and that necessarily bleeds into the total mana consumption of our heal teams. Our armor is going to be comparable to a decently-geared Death Knight in Frost Presence without their avoidance or cooldowns: our health is going to be comparable to a Blood-specced Death Knight without their avoidance or cooldowns: our physical damage mitigation is going to be comparable to a decently-geared Warrior or Paladin without their avoidance or, in the Warrior's case, their cooldowns: and our magic damage mitigation will continue to be worse than a Death Knight or Warrior's. On top of that, there's no buff or nerf (outside of the new Glyph of Berserk) that's aimed at addressing Bears' relatively weak capacity for burst or AoE threat.
Without additional cooldowns or tweaked talents, Bears are in kind of an iffy spot entering Tier 8 as things stand right now. Healers can afford to spam you with whatever they've got on current content, but when mana management becomes an issue, I'm somewhat concerned that the tank who is still designed to gobble most of it is going to be a significantly less attractive choice on top of providing less margin for healer error with a reduced health pool.
We'll see. I'm still interested to see if the new weighting or itemization toward +crit for Savage Defense assists with the threat issue, and we're still not far enough into Ulduar content or achievements to figure out whether bears are at a disadvantage (or advantage) in relation to other tanks.
Filed under: Druid, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Features, Guides, Classes, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Draelan Mar 1st 2009 3:34AM
These changes make me a sad panda. I've finally gotten back into leveling my druid (lvl 67 feral at the moment) and they smack my poor druid upside the head with the nerf bat. Seems I'm just picking all the fail classes lately. I love my hunter main, and enjoyed my stint at the top until we got nerfed to the ground. I have an 80 warlock who I admittedly just fail at. (Not a raiding toon. Mostly just for fun and for engineering me some nice ammo) And now my druid... *sigh* Hopefully Savage Defense does make up for the nerfs. And it looks like my second spec will be Boomkin.
Yada Blah Mar 1st 2009 6:28PM
To Draelan:
Try playing a BM Hunter, a Feral Druid, and Enhancement Shammy as your main classes.
Every day I have to ask myself "how much longer do I put up with this?". Then I remember I play on a Mac and there aren't any alternative MMOs for Macs that are tolerable.
Anaughtybear Mar 1st 2009 3:58AM
Today I chose to express my displeasure in haiku form:
Buffs and nerfs come and go.
Bull cats and bears are gross.
Where are my new forms?
woofter Mar 1st 2009 6:27AM
time to farm heirloom items and level a new main!!
supersaint Mar 1st 2009 7:41AM
To the ground, baby!!!!!
GoldenGoat Mar 1st 2009 11:19AM
Blizz's balancing priorities are just mind-boggling.
They're throwing around nerfs so casually now that I'd like to find comfort in a "well, it's not a nerf if they're nerfing EVERYBODY" attitude. But I say that while pally tanks sit there, whistling like nothing happened.
Where were the bear tanks and fury warriors that were so setting the world on fire, prior to this patch, that either one of those classes deserved to be so neutered? Are they just putting class/specs up on a dartboard, tossing blindly and nerfing whatever they hit...?
Octa Mar 1st 2009 9:47AM
" Nocturnal said... the double cost of Lifebloom it looks a bit dark at the moment for restoration druids " ....
Does it not say that half the cost is refunded when it blooms ? ... Healing obviously is not your strong point if that disturbs you that bad.
clax Mar 1st 2009 7:58PM
The Reason this is bad is in a good resto rotation u don't let lifebloom "bloom" u keep it up as another HOT.
Nocturnal Mar 2nd 2009 12:39AM
"Does it not say that half the cost is refunded when it blooms ? ... Healing obviously is not your strong point if that disturbs you that bad."
- Sure, sure it says that, and that's the only good thing. But... you can't keep up throwing numerous Lifeblooms at your healers without going oom fairly fast - which might be a good thing for some, less good for others. Don't have the numbers in my head, but casting 3 stacks of LB on a target and not letting it bloom will be terrible expensive.
Other than that, there are some other "undocumented" changes that I feel a bit bad about.
"Improved Regrowth (Tier 6) renamed Nature's Bounty. Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 5/10/15/20/25%. (Previously increased just regrowth crit by 10/20/30/40/50%)"
Crit haven't been something us druids needed to think much about. Seems like we need to now.
And, you're right when you said that healing aint my strong point... or rather, strongest point. Respecced recently and I'll have to blame that. Though, still I find some of the numbers disturbing and I don't want to see all those changes come live in 3.1 - because, as I said in the other post: we'll be paladins and priests in tree form.
Colin Mar 4th 2009 6:55PM
OK first of all, you don't understand the healing style of druids either.. I have healed every instance as a resto druid.. and that includes Mount Hyjal and Black Temple and even the newer easier instances.. like WotLK naxx10/25 and whatever... What hes talking about out the play style will change is.. lots of druids like me HATE NOURISH because Blizz is trying to force druids into it.. We are NOT like other classes.. Druids main heals have been HoTs for a long time.. adding nourish puts in an easy button into the healing style.. Also, lots of druids like myself put lifebloom on stack however much you want, and if the person being healed doesnt need the bloom of health then you restack it. but when they make it so you gain mana back once it blooms that will screw us all over on mana, if we keep that playstyle.. this results in resto druids using nourish.
I've talked with many other Resto druids and What they say will go the same for me. If this change stays We're gone.
KaonNemesis Mar 1st 2009 10:00AM
I'm a prot warrior and a raid leader, and you may think I'm saying this out of "jealousy", but this is a good balancing change to bring the 4 tanking classes closer to parity.
For example, compare your numbers to my warrior's (who has all of the best gear currently available):
22,016 armor (59.11%)
23.54% dodge
20.25% parry
28.47% block (1134 block value)
29,411 health
2,924 attack power
8.05% crit (+15% through talents for some abilities)
That's with Lavanthor's Talisman and Valor Medal of the First War equipped. I don't have the Toughness talent, which is another 10% armor, but I'm spec'd for threat gen which is something else we HAVE to do atm to main tank. I'm a Enchanter so my rings have +24 sta each as well.
However, we all know that boss tanking atm (in terms of survivability) is more about the size of your health pool, and the *highest* I can get my health brings my other stats to the following:
21,845 armor (58.92%)
22.42% dodge
20.66% parry
22.06% block (1114 block value)
31,601 health
2,880 attack power
8.05% crit (+15% through talents for some abilities)
That's with Essence of Gossamer and Indestructable Alchemist's Stone (I'm also an alchemist obviously).
You can argue that Bears don't have a shield, but you're getting something that pretty much simulates it (Savage Defense), putting Bears faaaar above where Prot Warriors (and Pallies) are currently. Diminishing Returns in Lich King are KILLING evasion tanking atm, and that kind of leaves us at the bottom of the heap. Even with these changes Bears are still some of the best main tanks you can have, so relax.
Etaiu Mar 24th 2009 5:32PM
I play a warrior and a druid. Clearly I'm interested in them each being as good as possible, and keenly interested in the differences between them. That said:
21,845 armor (58.92%)
22.42% dodge
20.66% parry
22.06% block (1114 block value)
31,601 health
2,880 attack power
8.05% crit (+15% through talents for some abilities)
These stats, for a warrior, need to be viewed through a completely different lens than those of a bear. Alone they're orthogonal to actual TTL and threat generation comparison. I mean, the first and obvious difference is that bears have no block. But they also have no parry. Having no parry means that they don't get the haste buff for successful parries, which cuts into their DPS and threat generation. Warrior blocks also proc Revenge, another big damage dealer. The mechanics are just completely different and can't be compared with simple side-by-side comparisons like this. I hope you can see that. It seems that the only truly useful comparisons need to be made in the field, on raids, and in the test environment.
In theory, theory should work in practice. In practice, it often doesn't.
Kara Mar 1st 2009 11:11AM
Omg, i just read the comments to this, you people don't know anything about druids, druids can't be ANYTHING! for starters, you have to choose between 3 things, mega dps, healing, tank/dps, if you try to do all three you better have a lot of money and some very good gear for each one,
and anothe thing, feral druids have always got the short end of the stick till wrath. in wrath feral druids finaly were able to compete with other classes to get into raids and heroics, and they could finally hold their on in pvp,
people think druids can do anything but that really just isn't the case, as you can guess i'm feral, i'm lucky to heal my self back to full life let alone a entire raid or something, so i find it funny when people are mad at me for not healing them when its all i can do to just keep me alive,
For what i see people get made at restro something in a arena group or a druid that runs away from them by shifting forms to get out of their traps, so then these people go complain on the forms about how op druids are,
now i'm not saying we should get a mega buff that makes us actually op like the paliden buffs (even though it would be so nice to actually be op for once) but i am saying up till wrath we just plain down sucked, it was almost impossible to get into a raid or heroic unless you were a healer or a moonkin, couse why would they take a feral off tank or dps if they could have a warrior or a rouge? well now that our dps has improved and its easier to tank multi mops and etc, we can now get into things easyer then before,
as for this debuff, if you have a offset of tanking gear it won't be that mutch of a problem becouse all you need to do is but the tanking with some stanima buffs,
Akeber Mar 1st 2009 11:24AM
@F.Denoms
Bears ARE MTing progression content.
They have the biggest health pools AND the best physical damage mitigation. The larger the physical hits, the better a druid looks.
Although they may not have the magic damage mitigation of a DK, their large health pools still make them a better choice than warriors or pallies for magic damage fights.
As a druid, if you're being told you can't mt a progression boss because a warrior or pally can do it better, it's REALLY not because of your class. It's either your skill (you're just not as "good" and don't have the heart to tell you) or some social/political reason (the pallies/warriors are the raid leaders/officers or friends of the raid leaders/officers.
I am a prot pally and an officer in my guild, so is our bear. He has tanked almost every progresssion encounter in wotlk, because he was always the best choice over myself or a warrior. Admittedly, we didn't have a DK for a lot of wotlk.
From Patchwerk's hatefuls to sarth 3D, warriors and paladins have generally been the LAST choices for tanking when the going gets tough.
Myria Mar 1st 2009 12:37PM
The real question is, who will prot warriors whine into nerfdom next?
Seriously, four straight patches with major druid nerfs, and still warriors are whining. Please, just show us where the mean bear touched you and be done with it.
polar Mar 2nd 2009 5:31PM
What if, when Blizzard makes a significant negative change to a class, they gave an option for toons of that class a one-time, one-way class change? Then if someone truly believed their class was being nerfed beyond fairness they could just change instead of going to forums to complain about nerfs and plead for buffs. I have a bear. She is a former raid leader for a large guild, the current guild master of a small guild, and has a lot of friends on the server. I shouldn't have to start over on a new toon because the rules are being changed so far into the game.
And I truly wish I were a warrior or paladin. I'm reading that these changes will bring the bear in line with the other 3 tanks as far as being the MT in a raid. That may or may not be true. But what is absolutely clear is the massive disadvantage bears have picking up adds. While the discussion is always about who "gets" to be MT in a raid, I've often felt like I "have" to main tank in a raid, both because I had more health/armor, but also because I can't pick up the adds. So that seems like a fair trade-off. So while we're balancing bears from an end-game raiding perspective, could we balance things from a 5-man and small guild perspective? How about removing the requirement of swipe to have a MOB in a frontal cone targeted? I do raid, but I would also like to be able to be able to tank 5-mans for my friends and guildies, and seen as a viable choice for pugs. Even with a bear main, when I go into a 5 man lfg on my mage or rogue, if I see prot pally, you bet i'm inviting him without a single question about gear or experience. I might go with a bear if it's the only choice, and it's not for AN, UP, HoS, HoL or other instances with similar MOB management difficulties.
It was a hurtful compliment when my real life friend said I'm the most "aware" tank he knows :), and that we'd make a great team if I would level my warrior or paladin :(. Just yesterday a PUG ret pally said I was the best bear tank she'd seen. I think she meant it in a nice way, but the 'bear' qualification...what does that mean? I assume she was referring to my aoe tanking, which bears can do in UK...with patient dps (that don't have to be patient with the other 3 tanks) and a healer that has learned not to HoT you too early. But with the delayed dps and healing we need the extra health and armor... Anyway, the point is to avoid this minutia - if people had the option to change class during these major nerfs then we could simply look make a change that seems fair to us (and seems fair to Blizzard since they are doing it in the name of balance) rather than argue over numbers and worry about our viability.
Colin Mar 4th 2009 7:36PM
I don't think warriors will ever stop crying.....
Jed Mar 8th 2009 8:45AM
Its not like you've lost a god awful amount of life... you lost 2k big frikin deal