[WoW] Feral Druids, all your staves are belong to me now!!!

Come 3.0.8, you better warm up those dice kitty druids...hunters are on the prowl. All kidding aside, I found the staff changes interesting (with the "only in Cat, Bear, Dire, etc. forms" requirement disappearing from a few) and MMO Champ had a nice jpeg up:

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/december/feralstaffcomparison.jpg

One Undeath Carrier from Heigan and/or Gluth (Naxx) for this BM Hunter please. I'd love Kel'Thuzad's "Journey's End" too.

Are hunters and druids the only classes that would benefit from this change? I'm not sure, but I think a staff like that in the hands of a warrior would be pretty insane too (I know pallies can't use staves, not sure about DKs...)

Zablocki19 wrote:

Are hunters and druids the only classes that would benefit from this change? I'm not sure, but I think a staff like that in the hands of a warrior would be pretty insane too (I know pallies can't use staves, not sure about DKs...)

Warriors don't want staves. As Arms you miss out on a weapon spec and they can't be dual wielded as Fury.

Zablocki19 wrote:

Are hunters and druids the only classes that would benefit from this change? I'm not sure, but I think a staff like that in the hands of a warrior would be pretty insane too (I know pallies can't use staves, not sure about DKs...)

I'm pretty sure DKs can't use staves. Warriors might find a couple of 'em sexy for sure, although I don't know how they compare to available alternatives or how they gel with your talents/what-have-you.

For Hunters, these things are flat out SICK in comparison to any other two-handed axes/swords out there.

nossid wrote:

Warriors don't want staves. As Arms you miss out on a weapon spec and they can't be dual wielded as Fury.

Okay good to know

ScurvyDog wrote:

I'm pretty sure DKs can't use staves. Warriors might find a couple of 'em sexy for sure, although I don't know how they compare to available alternatives or how they gel with your talents/what-have-you.

For Hunters, these things are flat out SICK in comparison to any other two-handed axes/swords out there.

Also good to know, this way I know when I see an AP Staff drop, feral druids OR hunters would use them. Glad to see more loot being shared amoungst classes & specs (Healing Plate, I'm looking at YOU!)

Yeah this is a huge, huge itemization flaw that Blizzard finally corrected. In general, Feral AP was a stupic backward way to fix ferals. I'm glad they fixed it.

Not SUPER happy they removed all the +str and changed it to flat AP, but the overal nerf is like 1 dps, tops. I just prefer true stats to AP.

And remember, this road runs both ways -- druids are getting access to polearms in the next patch, so Naxx polearm, here I come! =)

Seth wrote:

And remember, this road runs both ways -- druids are getting access to polearms in the next patch, so Naxx polearm, here I come! =)

Touche! Looking into it a little more, this 2H Axe from Kel comes close, but Journey's End still beats it.

Zablocki19 wrote:

Healing Plate, I'm looking at YOU!

Hey, you leave my healing gear alone!

That does beg a question though: paladins are the only healers in plate. Are they going to switch this and itemize it to for healadins to wear mail instead so that shammies & pallies share healing itemization? I can't think of any other way to really itemize healing plate so that it's useful for other plate wearers short of switching Ret back to be focused on magic damage rather than physical.

ScurvyDog wrote:
Seth wrote:

And remember, this road runs both ways -- druids are getting access to polearms in the next patch, so Naxx polearm, here I come! =)

Touche! Looking into it a little more, this 2H Axe from Kel comes close, but Journey's End still beats it.

Hey that is my axe do not touch it!!

Look at the model it screams DK.

I forgot what shoulder's I saw that gave me an instant roller coaster of emotion the other day.

Plate i200 blues ( i was wearing i170sih greens at the time)

+STR YES!
+STA YES!
+HIT YES!!
+CRIT YES!!
+A little SP YES! wait.. does that say Spell power or Attack power... damn /pout

Farscry wrote:

That does beg a question though: paladins are the only healers in plate. Are they going to switch this and itemize it to for healadins to wear mail instead so that shammies & pallies share healing itemization? I can't think of any other way to really itemize healing plate so that it's useful for other plate wearers short of switching Ret back to be focused on magic damage rather than physical.

I've discussed it at length with our paladin. barring an enormous overhaul of the entire paladin class, there's no "simple" way of getting rid of spellpower plate. the problem is you'd need a triple stat conversion:

str --> int (no int on normal plate)
AP --> spellpower
stamina --> mp/5

(the items in column A can be switched around, but some sort of conversion using those stats would be needed)

In the end you'd have a holy paladin with enough offensive firepower to keep up with ret dps in his holy gear -- unless instead of AP you used defense, parry, or dodge, at which point your healer is now also your MT or OT.

It'd be easier to include a talent deep in both the elemental and resto shaman trees to let them wear plate, OR risk the largest QQ of all time by making holy paladins wear mail.

Why would they put STR and Spellpower on plate? Healadins don't need STR, and retadins don't need Spellpower anymore, do they? Do DK's need Spellpower?

Farscry wrote:
Zablocki19 wrote:

Healing Plate, I'm looking at YOU!

Hey, you leave my healing gear alone!

That does beg a question though: paladins are the only healers in plate. Are they going to switch this and itemize it to for healadins to wear mail instead so that shammies & pallies share healing itemization? I can't think of any other way to really itemize healing plate so that it's useful for other plate wearers short of switching Ret back to be focused on magic damage rather than physical.

GhostCrawler did a post telling people that they were looking into a way where Pally healing would scale off of AP instead of SP. Then he said that the problem here would be a real lack of mana pools and having there be that separation so that Prot and Ret wouldn't be able to abuse the system. Currently when a Prot or Ret heals, it's still a pretty impressive amount (I crit a HL cast a couple days ago for 12k). Luckily heals cost a huge portion of Prot or Ret mana, making it very anti-useful, which is the point.

The idea of having armor reduction for Holy has been tossed around, but it would likely be through a talent point where you gain additional mana, mp5, crit or spellpower from mail equipment. There's also been other conversion ideas tossed around like scaling off of Armor, large reductions in spell costs (so that a 4k mana pool would be acceptable), and the like. Overall, it's a really messed up situation, and I don't think they'll have a true working system for it for quite some time.

Warriors with a Staff remind me of Daffy Hood - around the 1:45 mark.

THRUST!

Farscry wrote:

Why would they put STR and Spellpower on plate? Healadins don't need STR, and retadins don't need Spellpower anymore, do they? Do DK's need Spellpower?

Nope

Seth wrote:

It'd be easier to include a talent deep in both the elemental and resto shaman trees to let them wear plate, OR risk the largest QQ of all time by making holy paladins wear mail.

Heck, when I hit 70 and first started into raiding/heroics, I was wearing a mixture of cloth/mail/plate anyway. I had mail shoulders and bracers and a cloth belt that I wore for ages. And the bracers were replaced by another set of healing mail bracers from SSC. So this is one healadin who prefers plate for several reasons, but would be just fine with healing in mail.

I'm already used to switching around some of my gear for questing/grinding anyway. What's a few more offset pieces to keep myself in survivable plate?

That's right, prep my effigy on the official forums, I'm saying that putting healadins in mail armor would be just fine.

WiredAsylum wrote:

I forgot what shoulder's I saw that gave me an instant roller coaster of emotion the other day.

Plate i200 blues ( i was wearing i170sih greens at the time)

+STR YES!
+STA YES!
+HIT YES!!
+CRIT YES!!
+A little SP YES! wait.. does that say Spell power or Attack power... damn /pout

Something's a little messed up with that item, as I can't think of any plate class that would use that. Holy would want the Spellpower yes, but +hit and +str do NOTHING for them. It's not a Ret item either since they really don't need any spellpower and aren't supposed to use any gear like that. I'd like to see said item if you can because right now I'm thinking one of those stats just doesn't belong

Seth wrote:

It'd be easier to include a talent deep in both the elemental and resto shaman trees to let them wear plate, OR risk the largest QQ of all time by making holy paladins wear mail.

Even that won't do, since now you have Ele shammans left all alone using their lone gear, no different than currently the Holy Pally. Atleast spellpower mail is usable by both Ele and Resto, even though one prefer to have +hit too (as the real only difference). IMO, moving Holy Pallies down to Mail would be more effective and giving them a +armor bonus from mail.

Personally I think the idea of the Holy Pally they have right now is wrong (it's good, but the concept IMO is flawed). In my eyes, a Holy Pally would do more passive group healing and powerful single target heals. Basically ramp up their use of JoL/JoW to be like 5x the effect of Ret or Prot, or give them an aura (like Conc) that provides a noticable amount of +hp5 that scales off of their str, ap or the like.

To me, make the okay against undead for damage, but kinda meh for damage against anything else, but the main tradeoff is that you're actually gaining like a .5 dpser for not having a full healer present. Overall, give them very good group utility, but not sucky when they are alone (so they'd have 0 downtime soloing, but may take a little longer to kill stuff). I figure it they did this, they could do away with HoL altogether.

Just my idea, I suspect alot of criticism against that

Something's a little messed up with that item, as I can't think of any plate class that would use that. Holy would want the Spellpower yes, but +hit and +str do NOTHING for them. It's not a Ret item either since they really don't need any spellpower and aren't supposed to use any gear like that. I'd like to see said item if you can because right now I'm thinking one of those stats just doesn't belong

I am going to dig it up tonight. It continues to taunt me in wow head when looking for i200 shoulders to replace my crafted ones.

PVP-oriented healadins would probably disagree pretty strongly, Farscry.

Zablocki19 wrote:

Personally I think the idea of the Holy Pally they have right now is wrong (it's good, but the concept IMO is flawed). In my eyes, a Holy Pally would do more passive group healing and powerful single target heals. Basically ramp up their use of JoL/JoW to be like 5x the effect of Ret or Prot, or give them an aura (like Conc) that provides a noticable amount of +hp5 that scales off of their str, ap or the like.

I still think of the Holy Pally as the D&D Cleric type, so I think we have similar views. Great DPS against undead (and maybe demons), "meh" dps on everything else. Very survivable both solo and in a group. Heavy armor (that's why I like them in plate; it's as much concept/aesthetic as it is practical) and wielding a mace and shield. Strong healers not so much from raw healing numbers like a priest or druid, but rather through a combination of focused heals and beefing up the party's defenses & regeneration.

Malor wrote:

PVP-oriented healadins would probably disagree pretty strongly, Farscry.

Heh, I'm already wet tissue paper in PvP as it is anyway.

Even that won't do, since now you have Ele shammans left all alone using their lone gear, no different than currently the Holy Pally.

They'd use plate -- resto and ele shaman would use plate spellpower gear, thus letting blizzard retire mail spellpower gear. Of course, that unleashes the new problem of unkillable resto shaman in pvp and the fact that +hit would be a wasted stat for spellpower plate except for ele shaman.

Actually I dig Krindle's mp/5 aura idea. One of the signature abilities in warcraft 3 that hasn't been recycled yet is the archmage's brilliance aura. Giving it to mages doesn't really fit WoW that well (says me..I'm sure mages would disagree), but it'd fit pretty well on a holy paladin. Theproblem then becomes the fact that most players hate abilities that don't scale with gear. You'd have an aura that does X mp/5 and never increases beyond that (and this is why replenishment is so popular, as it scales from intellect).

You'd still need to find a way to give holy paladins larger mana pools, though.

scaling int off stamina would work.

scaling illumination back up to 100% of crit and letting paladins just stack +crit out the wazoo would work -- you'd increase their dps slightly but maybe that's not a terrible thing, since resto druids have a pretty nasty moonfire and resto shamans a pretty nasty lightning bolt.

Seth wrote:

They'd use plate -- resto and ele shaman would use plate spellpower gear, thus letting blizzard retire mail spellpower gear. Of course, that unleashes the new problem of unkillable resto shaman in pvp and the fact that +hit would be a wasted stat for spellpower plate except for ele shaman.

Actually I dig Krindle's mp/5 aura idea. One of the signature abilities in warcraft 3 that hasn't been recycled yet is the archmage's brilliance aura. Giving it to mages doesn't really fit WoW that well (says me..I'm sure mages would disagree), but it'd fit pretty well on a holy paladin. Theproblem then becomes the fact that most players hate abilities that don't scale with gear. You'd have an aura that does X mp/5 and never increases beyond that (and this is why replenishment is so popular, as it scales from intellect).

You'd still need to find a way to give holy paladins larger mana pools, though.

scaling int off stamina would work.

scaling illumination back up to 100% of crit and letting paladins just stack +crit out the wazoo would work -- you'd increase their dps slightly but maybe that's not a terrible thing, since resto druids have a pretty nasty moonfire and resto shamans a pretty nasty lightning bolt.

See, we all know they wouldn't move shamans up to plate because why bring 2/3 of a class up a armor version when you could move 1 down. Meanwhile, alot of mail already has int on it, even for hunters and enh shamans, so there's more reason there too

As for the mp5 idea, mine was actually for hp5, like a passive HoT. I still think of paladins like the DAoC version, where they had "chants" similar to auras, but the only one currently missing is an mp5 chant and hp5 chant. Either I'm sure Holy would be happy to receive, and I think would fit nicely with something like Conc Aura, or instead of Conc to prevent negating pushback from damage (kinda like negating the "uncrushable" on tanks). Right now, talents and Imp Conc Aura means you only have a 7% pushback, and that's negligable with decent haste rating.

I'd absolutely love to see something like this for utility. It's original, and unexplored. Hell, give it to two different class specs for all I care, so it's not "ZOMG we need HOLY PALLYZ".

It's not like Bliz hasn't talented a class to fit the gear either. That's pretty much pallies in a nutshell as it is, and all hybrids to an extent (meaning shamans and druids too). Bliz could easily group this together for a "class must" talent, that states:

Holy Fortitude 3/3
The paladin's maximum mana is increased by an amount equal to their health gained from stamina equal to 33/66/100%. In addition to this affect, running aura X provides the Divine Rejuvenation affect which heals the damage done to the group or raid every 5 seconds equal 10/20/30% of the paladin's spellpower. This affect causes low (25%) threat. While this affect occurs, the paladin loses mana equal to 1/2/3% every pulse.

So roughly every 5 seconds, a heal to the raid is done for roughly 600 points every 5 seconds, if in a 30/40 yard radius. Not really game breaking considering the strength of other heals, and does provide threat, so you'd have to control when you use it (so can't leave it on all the time. Meanwhile, leaving it on all the time means you'll run out of mana in less than 2 minutes. They'd have to melee with SoW, JoW to keep it running, but would still be able to toss out Holy Light or Flash Heals during combat.

To me, this is the best way to get the "Cleric" the way they should. Of course, Bliz would never do it.