how i get teh gearz?

[Phred]

On a side note, Phred fails at quoting.

Bah

[Typhon]

Rise from ye restless grave!

Ok, so I got epic flight, I worked through the druid epic flight form to the last quest... and realized that I didn't read enough/well/at all when I started out because I need to do heroic sekketh halls (spelling may be off, but you get the idea) to get the druid epic flight form.  Dammit!

I dropped out of wow for a long time, now I'm back a couple months with one other person and we both are pretty casual, and pretty much geared the same way (maybe I'm alittle better geared, but not much), no real desire to join a guild (we both get enough politics/drama at work).  Which leaves me with trying to tag along with a pug on a day when the heroic daily is sekketh halls (is the daily ever sekketh halls?).

So my question is - how much off the minimum set of equipment am I from being able to run heroic sekketh halls?  Here is me - Thorn

I'm feral, so theoretically I'd be tanking (or off tanking).  In bear form (with braxxus staff and bogstok cloak, aka "my tanking gear") I have 10.3K HP and 17.2K armor (360 defense, 22% dodge, 112 resilience).

My gut says that this is too anemic to run heroic sekketh halls.  Is my gut right?

[Driakos]

The Halls are not too bad.  The worst thing in there are the Guards, and there's only 2-3 pairs of them.  If you have CC in your group, it's doable.  The Raven Guards can't be CC'd, but the rest of the pulls can.

You wont be able to tank the Anzu fight though.  You'll need to be casting doing your quest thing during your personal epic fight.  You'll need an additional tank and healer in your group.

It is the Heroic daily sometimes.

[Fordel]

The Raven Guards are arguably harder then the bosses in heroic. First time we ran that instance in heroic, got to the first guard pull and wondered why our tank instantly died 

[SurfD]

Thorn

I'm feral, so theoretically I'd be tanking (or off tanking).  In bear form (with braxxus staff and bogstok cloak, aka "my tanking gear") I have 10.3K HP and 17.2K armor (360 defense, 22% dodge, 112 resilience).

My gut says that this is too anemic to run heroic sekketh halls.  Is my gut right?

You might be able to offtank, as a main tank, you would get melted by the Guard Pulls.

As a feral druid Tank, you should be looking at around 12khp with mark of the wild, 20 to 22k armor, 30% dodge, and 415 defense or 103 resilience to be uncritable ( vs level 73 mobs / bosses with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest).  More Defense is preferable to More Resilience, because if you are uncritable, you arent making use of the reduction to crit damage from resilience, where as defense also adds small amounts of passive dodge for druids.

Prob good to look into buying the Heavy Clefthoof Leather set (for the huge amount of Defense on it) or another set of your reputation PvP gear, and socketing them for pure stam + agility.

[Typhon]

Exactly what I was looking for (numbers/gear to aim for), thanks much for helping a slacker who doesn't know where else to research.

[Koyasha]

Another note.  People hate Sethekk Halls, but they like a chance at the raven mount.  You may not have to wait for a day when it's the daily, because you can probably attract enough pug interest on LFG by noting that you're a druid with the thingy to summon the guy that can drop the mount.

[Typhon]

Good to know, thanks!

I probably should post this in a "why I'm a moron" thread, but it fits here as well.

I ran my rogue around like a moron to get his leatherworking high enough to make the heavy clefthide armor so that my alchemist druid could use it... but the heavy clefthide set requires you to be a leather worker - and clearly states as much in the item... that I didn't notice until I had mailed it to my druid (because the notice turns red at that point).

Yeah.  Not a lot of agility on the heavy clefthide armor (although it is a gem set).

/cry

[SurfD]

You dont need Leatherworking to use the Heavy Clefthoof set, only to take advantage of the 3 piece set bonus.

All 3 pieces have at least 1 blue and 1 yellow socket, + a dodge rating socket bonus, so Socket them up for Stam and Agility  (Solid Gems for Blue slots, Glinting (hit and agi) or Enduring (defense and stam) Gems for Yellow depending on your needs), and you have a 3 piece set that will grant you a substantial amount of Health / dodge / defense (your 3 key stats as a feral tank) and could carry you fairly decently into most heriocs / t4 content.

Of course with season 2 pvp gear hitting the Honor vendors in the near future, you might be almost further ahead to just PvP grind the battlegrounds and pick those up :/

[SurfD]

Also, here is a decently accurate list of some nice gear to look for Pre-raid scene for feral tanking.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17794-feral_druid_preraid_tank_gear_guide/

[Typhon]

I see it now, thanks very much (was pretty bummed early this morning when I thought I was screwed for tanking gear).  I'd never seen a set where the set bonus was restricted.  Bright red wording alarms and confuses!

Thanks also for the link.

[SurfD]

there is actually quite a number of crafted sets in BC (and even regular WoW) where the set bonus was only applicable to someone with the Crafting Tradeskill that makes the gear.  If memory serves, nearly all the crafted sets from the Zandalar Faction Zul'gurub stuff was like that.  Same with the

[Typhon]

I used that script calculation to determine whether I'm uncritable, and my crit ranking with the pvp gear is -0.390, meaning I'm uncritable.

So my question now is do I continue to add defense/stamina stuff, or go for attack/hit rating stuff.  My thinking is that if I'm already uncritable I'm not getting any more benefit from defense - is that right?

[Driakos]

If you are uncrit/uncrushable, you want to start adding pieces that upgrade your damage/hit.  The more damage, the more threat.

So yeah.

[SurfD]

A feral druid will never be uncrushable (barring potential full tier 6 and epic gems i think). If you are uncritable, go for +hit / stam / agility / Strength (if you need more threat) where you can.

However, keep in mind that most of your uncritability is currently coming from the large amount of resilience you have (im going by what was in your Armory profile earlier, i don't know if you are now using the Clefthoof gear).

- Resilience provides 3 general benefits (all mainly geared for PvP):
  Reduced chance to be crit (good, you are now uncrittable by mobs)
  Reduced damage from crits (useless, since mobs can not crit you anyway)
  Reduced damage from dots (somewhat useful, but not great, since most PvE Dots are either dispellable, or don't do huge amounts of damage anyway)

- Defense on the other hand provides 3 abilities that are in general more useful to Ferals
  Reduces your chance to be Critically hit (shooting for uncritable)
  Reduces your chance to be hit (meaning the mob misses you more often as well)
  Increases your chance to dodge

Unfortunately, there isn't nearly as much Leather with the Defense stat on it as there is plate (especially, ironicly, on the t4 set), so generally druids will end up falling slightly short of uncritable through pure defense, and pick up the remainder with Resilience.

Regardless, for PvE, it is always better to get as much defense as possible (without needing to go to crappy gear to get it) and then go for resilience.

The end number you are looking for is 2.6% combined anti Crit from whatever combination of Defense and Resilience works for you (assuming 3/3 survival of the fittest)

-------------------------------

Here is a fairly good link (another Elitist Jerks thread) with a load of theory crafing and related stuff for most of your feral needs.
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t16902-feral_druid_megathread/

[Fordel]

Agility is the money stat for ferals is my understanding.

Crit, AP(cat), Dodge.


What's not to love?

[Chimpy]

Agility is the money stat for ferals is my understanding.

Crit, AP(cat), Dodge.


What's not to love?

Agility also affects armor.

[Typhon]

I thought they changed feral so that strength was the primary attribute for AP? (including cat).  Still effects all those other things though, even if I'm right - crit, armor, dodge.

[Chimpy]

I thought they changed feral so that strength was the primary attribute for AP? (including cat).  Still effects all those other things though, even if I'm right - crit, armor, dodge.

Kitty AP is the same as a rogue I believe, 1AP for str, and 1AP per agi.

Stuff with a good amount of each will net you more AP since adding more of a single stat point costs more than adding small amounts of 2 in the item budget.

[Fordel]

Cat DPS is:

2 AP per Str
1 AP per Agi

It used to be with the feral talent Heart of the Wild, Cat's would get 20% bonus on their Str. This caused all kinds of itemization issues since essentially there were two kinds of melee DPS leather, for only two classes. Relatively recently, this talent was changed to give a 10% Bonus to AP instead of the 20% to Str. The net result is a Feral druid doesn't really give a poop where her AP comes from, and can use 'rogue' leather far more liberally then before. Of course raw Str will still net them more AP then anything else.

The focus on agility is that druids get way more out of it per point then other classes. X amount of agility equals more Crit and Dodge for a druid then other classes. So Agility becomes more valuable then flat crit/dodge rating for ferals. Ferals in general favor the base stats more then the 'rating' stats.


The offset to a Ferals often ridiculously high AP, is the fact they receive no weapon scaling nor weapon buffs. No windfury on a melee dps class? That's just cruel 

[Shrike]

STR is still a superior stat for feral over raw ATP because of Blessing of Kings. If you raid. Or hang with a protection paladin.

Also, it's a reason to stick close to that enhancement shaman, since both Grace of Air and the Strength of Earth totems increase your ATP and GoA also helps you a LOT in bear form. Also, your feral crit buff helps them quite a bit. Synergy!

[Chimpy]

STR is still a superior stat for feral over raw ATP because of Blessing of Kings. If you raid. Or hang with a protection paladin.

Also, it's a reason to stick close to that enhancement shaman, since both Grace of Air and the Strength of Earth totems increase your ATP and GoA also helps you a LOT in bear form. Also, your feral crit buff helps them quite a bit. Synergy!

Best synergy for the feralz and the raid through said group is survival hunter+enhance shaman+Feral in whatever form+2 BM hunters. Of course, not a whole lot of guilds run with 2 enhance shaman or 3 hunters anymore, and your hunters need to be willing to chug mana pots on long fights, but the amount of +dmg and +crit stacking in that makeup is pretty insane. Not quite as much as a traditional "whack it with your weaponz" melee class gets from Windfury, but it is pretty staggering.

[Shrike]

You can't dismiss the amusement factor of firing off heroism and watching a bear tank the size of a pickup jetting across the screen when they do their feral charge thing.

Less amusing is yelling at dimbulb combat rogues to take their friggin' poisons off their mainhand if I'm dropping WF totems. I don't do this for my health. I'd much rather have GoA up. So make use of the damned thing already! If it weren't for being stuck in main tank groups...I'd take the bloody thing off my hotbar. Maybe horde is more switched on about this, but a lot of alliance surely isn't.