Comments on: Achilles What?

By: SuraBear

SuraBear — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:40:23 +0000

Which is actually about the same as my unbuffed health. But yeah, I still expect my gear to have a good pile of stamina on it to support my gemming and enchanting habits. If tanking gear didnt’ have any stamina, I would have a very, VERY different gear enhancement priority.

By: Matford, Nagrand

Matford, Nagrand — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:48:50 +0000

Surabear over at The Rambling Bear reckons Stamina is for Warlocks http://ramblingbear.blogspot.com/2008/02/stamina-is-for-warlocks.html

And Karthis from Of Teeth and Claws is tanking T5 content with an unbuffed healt pool of 14K.

By: Nighthoof

Nighthoof — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:00:52 +0000

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/february/t6v3_druid.jpg

stamina returns to the Druids…
YES – we do have a huge Stamina modifier in Bearform and in our skilltree –
yet if you look at our set items we tend to get less stamina per item anyway than the average Plate Item – so we have something to make up there – and items without stamina are generally not the right choice –
BUT – Right now we do have it back, hopefully til this goes live ^^

By: Sorayn

Sorayn — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:00:51 +0000

While personally I see no issue with less stamina for other pieces due to the huge modifier bears already get, this does highlight one of the bigger mechanic issues that the designers must face when it comes to feral druid itemization.

You can’t design a feral piece that only affects bears because the cat druids would complain and vice versa. That leaves either a complete tree redesign (more outcry), mechanics change (big programming nightmare) or having 4 seperate sets for druids to play with. While I would personally prefer a overhaul on class mechanics to create better synergy on stat usage (Melee mana is.. well.. silly, in my opinion) between 3-4 stats (agil/stam/str and maybe int), I forsee more of the status quo OR perhaps a 4th tier set for druids.

By: Nighthoof

Nighthoof — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:06:44 +0000

The Problem i see with the “redesign” of the three new T6 parts is that they are just misdesigned…
When the Version 1 appeared i was really looking forward to Boots that finally carry Expertise – a much neglected stat as a Druid – for there are far too few Items with this.
Yet now we have misdesigned Items that have Haste on them… i generally like Haste, but as a cat druid with somewhat of 40% white dmg i dont see it to be a valuable increase – e.g. Rogues tend to be somewhere above 60%…
the second problem i see with the new setitems is the wasted item-budget on increased armor – i dont really need increased armor on cat-designed items – i cant tank in these anyway – crit immunity an the likes…
In general i hope those changes will be reversed.

By: Currant

Currant — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:57:42 +0000

Woops! Sorry Mcm, I was a little careless in my referent. I’ll be more diligent about making sure I’m clearer in the future.

And as for the gear specific to form, you’re right, my dps and tank sets only have 4 items in common, but should only share 2 right now, I’m just not to the point of replacing them yet.

The two forms value different itemization making a universal set impractical at best, and detrimental at worst.

By: mcm

mcm — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:43:28 +0000

Ah, ok – I strongly suspected I was reading something wrong. Yikes, you gave me a scare!

So it’s just the 3 *new* pieces of T6 which will be utterly useless for bear form – not the entire ensemble. And if they waste a fair bit of their item budget on bear-oriented stats, they’ll be useless for cat form too. Hopefully they’ll have badge rewards that are purely tank-oriented for those slots. I see a lot of YAKR in my future (Yet Another Kara Run).

By: Phaelia

Phaelia — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:31:25 +0000

@Psyanide: Perhaps it is OP to have 2 4-piece bonuses in Arena, but it certainly wouldn’t be for Feral Druids (who fare worst among Druids in Arenas). It’s unfair to arbitrarily cut off PvE progression for Druid tanks for fear of the Arena consequences. They already have enough issues finding gear that’s appropriate to them. Ironically, several items that are favored come from PvP. It seems contradictory to provide such a limited avenue of gear progression for Ferals that they are forced to PvP but then exacerbate the problem by further limiting new PvE additions so they can’t be used in PvP. >.<

@MCM: It’s only the new additions to T6 (Belt, Bracers, Boots) who have had all their Stamina removed. The other five pieces remain the same.

By: mcm

mcm — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:22:59 +0000

Am I reading this correctly? Zero stam on the druid’s T6 set? None? No stam on any of the pieces? As a druid off-tank for my guild’s SSC/TK runs, I gotta pray that’s an error. I currently do not pvp on my druid, so I can’t speak to the pvp balance/imba of stam on these pieces. But for pve purposes, I say again: NO STAM? On TANKING gear? That’s incomprehensible.

And I gotta call BS on the argument “but these pieces are multi-purpose, for bear-tanking and kitty-dps”. No such thing. My tanking set and cat set share 2 or 3 items in common (gotta keep that sweet, sweet T4 2-pc bonus at all costs). And even the common pieces, I try to get 2 of, for different gems and enchants. For pve content beyond Kara, any gear that tries to be middle-ground (useful for both cat and bear forms), becomes nigh-useless for either.

Since the T4 set bonus is so good, T5 gear is already “meh” for ferals. If I’m reading this right and the T6 stuff actually has no stam, well I guess I better learn to love the look of T4… since I’ll be wearing it until WotLK. :-/

By: Psyanide

Psyanide — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:55:44 +0000

It is, in my mind at least, based on pvp reasoning. The idea of having two four piece bonuses is overpowered in some cases, depending on the actual bonus for whatever class/spec is in question. By removing stamina from the new pieces, and the fact that there is no resilience at all, makes this highly undesired for pvp.

As far as prot pally and warriors having stamina? They may get a slight advantage with their tanking 4 piece and pvp 4 piece, but they are protection so who cares.~