Here comes the next content patch (3.2)

[Sjofn]

They've been saying for awhile they want the Feral Art to be on par with the Epic Flight Form art.


What they have presented, is not.

I disagree, personally, I rather like what they've shown so far. And I WOULD say they were on par with the epic flight form.

[Kail]

The big thing I'm looking for is if Tauren can have an animal form without those damned horns on it.  A panther with pointy ears looks a bit elfy, okay, fine.  A lion with horns looks fucking stupid.

But it looks like not.  Ah, well.

[Sjofn]

I hate the tauren cat form sooooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuch. For some reason the horns on the bear don't bother me TOO much, but that damn mouth breathing lion with horns drives me crazy.

[Lantyssa]

Me, too.  It's entirely why I won't consider making a Tauren Druid.  Not that I need more alts...

[Sjofn]

I have a tauren druid, but she is leveling as balance. Being oom every three seconds IS WORTH IT.

[Vash]

Guess it's just a matter of taste because I don't mind the horns on my Tauren druid in cat form at all.  They've grown on me over time I guess.  I like them in a totally over the top sharks with laser beams on their heads kind of way.

What's more dangerous than a giant feral cat?  A giant feral cat with giant horns to impale you with!     Definitely adds to the rawr factor.

[Nevermore]

Incoming Frost Presence nerf!

[Merusk]

Yeah, saw that coming.  In Naxx DPS gear I can get a 67% DR in frost presence. Hell, I've offtanked stuff in my DPS gear when the OT went down and was getting a BR thanks to FP.  I can only imagine the mitigation Uldar tanking gear gives.

[Nevermore]

Wouldn't the armor values on DPS and Tank plate be the same regardless?

I'm sure Ulduar geared DKs will be fine.  Where it sucks is for us poor schlubs trying to gear up for tanking pre-Nax.

[Sjofn]

Defense is really the annoying part of gearing a DK, even with the frost presence nerf, so that hasn't really changed. :P I'm expecting more nerfs to come anyway because of stupid PvP. 

[Sheepherder]

The entire stat scheme for WoW is a little on the side, seeing as most of the stats with hard caps you are basically forced to cap else you gimp yourself.  It begs the question of why having the stat if they intend everyone to be at an equal value early in the content.

[Ingmar]

The entire stat scheme for WoW is a little on the side, seeing as most of the stats with hard caps you are basically forced to cap else you gimp yourself.  It begs the question of why having the stat if they intend everyone to be at an equal value early in the content.

Yeah, hit for dps and defense for non-druid tanks are stats that really need another look. Everything else there's some choice involved with: do I want to stack a little more crit, or a little more haste, or whatever - but hit and uncritability are basically non-negotiable.

[Nevermore]

Wouldn't a DK tank need hit as well as defense?  Expertise you might be able to let slide a little since Frost Strike (currently, but maybe not for long) can't be dodged or parried.  Holding threat as a DK seems harder than as a Druid bear.  I'd imagine would want to ensure the Frost Strikes and Rune Strikes miss as little as possible.  And that's not even getting into having Howling Blast use the spell hit table, which I believe has a higher cap than melee hit.

[Ingmar]

For tanks, hit is negotiable. You can't reasonably cap it (as a warrior at least) and still have really good defensive stats, so it kind of goes into the bucket of things you're picking from on any given piece of gear. Threat isn't a razor's edge thing for the most part anymore.

For DPS, though, who have the #1 priority of "do more damage" hit up to the cap simply outperforms every other possible stat they could use. That's why it is considered mandatory. Nothing will raise your damage more than hit, until you cap (and then it becomes useless completely, at least defense retains some usefulness past the 'no crit' cap.)

[Gobbeldygook]

The entire stat scheme for WoW is a little on the side, seeing as most of the stats with hard caps you are basically forced to cap else you gimp yourself.  It begs the question of why having the stat if they intend everyone to be at an equal value early in the content.

The caps (hit/expertise/etc) are just there to make you think a little more the stats on your gear instead of just "need moar numbars".  Juggling gear, enchants, and gems to get to the caps without wasting itemization is one of blizzard's many minigames.
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DK tanks prioritize hit more than other tanks because of the consequences to their cycle if one of their early attacks miss.

[Merusk]

Wouldn't the armor values on DPS and Tank plate be the same regardless?

I'd never checked, and assumed it was different. Apparently it's not. Hum, how odd.

[Sheepherder]

The caps (hit/expertise/etc) are just there to make you think a little more the stats on your gear instead of just "need moar numbars".  Juggling gear, enchants, and gems to get to the caps without wasting itemization is one of blizzard's many minigames.

It's not a challenge, it breaks any market for rare gems amongst casuals who fear that they will need to regem over their 40g investments, scrap it.

[Rasix]

Hit is just a stupid stat that makes it so you can't completely gem/enchant for MOAR numbers when you first get into raiding. I haven't seen a Ulduar capable DPSer gemming/enchanting for hit unless they get icewalker on their boots. Both my DK and shaman (provided a SP or boomkin is around) are over the hit cap easily and it was only an issue when doing Naxx.  I actually need to regem my shaman to bring him down some (already had to do this with the DK and he's wearing a lot of blues)  but I'm lazy and cheap.

I'd rather see misses and resists so DPSing becomes less of a memorized rotation or priority system and a bit more reactive.  Replace all of that dumb hit gear with bigger numbers and cool procs. I miss cool procs.

[Ingmar]

Wouldn't the armor values on DPS and Tank plate be the same regardless?

I'd never checked, and assumed it was different. Apparently it's not. Hum, how odd.

Tank armor sometimes used to have bonus green armor on it, but that is very rare these days. Most of the armor difference between dps and tank specs is now made up by form modifiers (dire bear, frost presence) or carrying a shield. There are also some accessories with bonus armor on them as well that extend the gap a bit, but those I think are no longer affected by any modifiers. I have extra armor on a ring and a necklace on my warrior, for example.

[Musashi]

They need to give DK's better threat generation.  My OP cat demands it.

[Ingmar]

They'll nerf cats first.

[SurfD]

Hit is just a stupid stat that makes it so you can't completely gem/enchant for MOAR numbers when you first get into raiding. I haven't seen a Ulduar capable DPSer gemming/enchanting for hit unless they get icewalker on their boots. Both my DK and shaman (provided a SP or boomkin is around) are over the hit cap easily and it was only an issue when doing Naxx.  I actually need to regem my shaman to bring him down some (already had to do this with the DK and he's wearing a lot of blues)  but I'm lazy and cheap.

I thought DK's used mele hit for their "spell" damage effects?  Wouldnt that make Boomkin / SP buffs useless to them since those only affect spell hit?

[Hindenburg]

They'll nerf cats first.

They'll nerf DK TPS first.

[Rasix]

I thought DK's used mele hit for their "spell" damage effects?  Wouldnt that make Boomkin / SP buffs useless to them since those only affect spell hit?

DK "spells" (death coil, icy touch, howling blast) use spell hit for their chances to land.  Otherwise, Virulence would be a completely nonsensical talent.

[Ingmar]

Night Elf bear forms:

http://www.wow.com/2009/05/27/night-elf-druid-bear-forms-revealed/

Don't much care for the colors, myself, but they match night elf colors pretty well.

[Sjofn]

Really these bear previews are useless to me, they should've just shown screenshots of their asses, since that's all I ever see on my druid.

[Merusk]

I thought DK's used mele hit for their "spell" damage effects?  Wouldnt that make Boomkin / SP buffs useless to them since those only affect spell hit?

DK "spells" (death coil, icy touch, howling blast) use spell hit for their chances to land.  Otherwise, Virulence would be a completely nonsensical talent.

Not only that but DK spell hit is the same as any other caster, so you have two hit caps to attain if you really want to min-max.  Except that you don't worry about spell hit capping unless you've maxed Def, hit, expertise and have a minimum amount of stam that I can't recall ATM.

[Lantyssa]

Hmmm.  So which of those is the purple haired elf?

[proudft]

Hrm, the only one that looks substantially different to me is the lower right one.  Oh well, at least I like that one!

I concur that they need to show the butts, though.

[Nevermore]

Night Elf bear forms:

http://www.wow.com/2009/05/27/night-elf-druid-bear-forms-revealed/

Don't much care for the colors, myself, but they match night elf colors pretty well.

The lower right one is the one that would match my character the most (dark body with white 'head' and highlights to go with purple skin, white hair) but the one they matched to white hair will probably end up being that top middle one.  Which is unfortunate.

[Hindenburg]

God damn, and I thought the horned bears looked ridiculous...
Y'know what would be awesome? If they scratched the bear form completely and went for thongless furbolg form.

[K9]

They should replace cat form with some wolvar-esque model.

[Sjofn]

I just noticed the new bears have FOUR claws instead of THREE. This changes everything!

I'm trying not to pick a favorite of the NE bears because I am NOT changing my druid's hair color. Evar. Luckily my feelings on 'em ranges from "it's fine" to "it's fine."

[SurfD]

Bears With Sideburns. 

That is all.

[Vash]

They should replace cat form with some wolvar-esque model.

Lots of veteran Druid players use model changing for their forms.  This practice really took off right before the launch of TBC when a very skilled WoW China druid player made a popular pvp video where all of his feral forms were model changed into other creatures.  If I remember right his cat form was a Wolvar model and his bear form was a werewolf/Son of Arugal model, can't remember what he changed his travel form to.

I'm surprised druids didn't get werewolf form instead of cat form to pay homage to Diablo II when the game was created because honestly it borrows a ton from DII when it comes to class abilities/skills.