Mechanics

I've unfortunately been on a long hiatus from blogging due to work, the holidays, 3.3 being released and that big article series I was working on for this blog I'm seeing quickly disappearing. As a catch-up article, I've been asked by several friends and guildies, and I've seen on the forums as well a frequent question: with Cataclysm coming soon, what changes to mechanics would I make if I were in Ghostcrawler's position, or what mechanics would I like to see?

We already know healing is being nerfed, and health pools are going to scale massively. Spellpower is going the way of the Dodo while Intellect/Spirit grant it instead. Defense is also disappearing with tanks getting their crit-immunity from talents. Can more be done?

Bring crushing blows back.

One of the first changes I'd like to see is for crushing blows to be put back in the game, or more accurately, to be possible from creatures 3 leaves above the player instead of 4. Having only magical "crushing blows" in the game limits Blizzard on their encounters, and not only that, but WotLK has seen many encounter revisions because only one tank (the Death Knight) was any good at dealing with the magical damage, whereas the three classic tanks weren't equipped to deal with it.

There is one caveat to it. I'd like to see crushing blows brought back in the game with an internal cooldown of either 3-5 seconds or three attacks. I personally would prefer 3 attacks, as it allows Blizzard to make faster bosses more dangerous, but if the healers can't catch back up within that amount of time, the fight is likely a wipe anyway.

Crushing blows were removed because Death Knight tanks wouldn't be able to handle them, but with the way things are now, Druid tanks aren't that much farther ahead of the other tanks in armor and health (not like the TBC days), and Druids don't have near the cool down utility Death Knights have. Grant the two classes some additional cool downs, or make them more powerful, and I'd like to see some of the randomness of crushing blows return.

Speaking of randomness...

I'd like to see parry/haste brought back. Life is random. You can't control everything. For anyone that watches boxing, or more importantly UFC, you know that lucky shots happen all the time. Expertise has become mostly a threat stat in WotLK because parry/haste is all but extinct. With Defense being removed from the game in Cataclysm, Blizzard is going to need more stats for tanks to focus on, or tanks will only be looking for Hit, Strength/Agility and Stamina and to fuck with everything else. The randomness of parry/haste is what made bosses fun in TBC, and parry/haste was random without being over-the-top like Prince in Karazhan's Infernal phase.

Removal of crits from bleeds/DoTs.

I personally find this to be one of those flavor changes that was awful. It makes no sense whatsoever for bleeds, DoTs, or HoTs to critically hit. I understand the need for the change, but it leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. Instead, what I'd do, is allow them to still have the critical hit chance, but instead of actually increasing the damage from the critical hit, have a bleed/DoT grant a buff (that maybe even stacks), that increases the damage of the bleed/DoT. For example, if a kitty's Rip critically hits, it grants an additional debuff on the target called Festering Wounds that causes the damage to take an additional 10% damage from all bleeds. Oh, and all bleeds grant this same debuff so it doesn't stack. DoTs would have a similar mechanic.

Since when did robots bleed and spirits have armor?

While it was a buff to Druid tanks, it was still one of those things that left a bad taste in my mouth. Spirits do not bleed, nor do they have armor. Robots don't bleed, and anyone should be hard-pressed to believe that bleeds are okay because you're tearing out tubes of fluid to simulate a bleed effect. Instead, Lacerate and other bleeds should fail on robots/spirits and Devastate, and similar abilities should likewise fail on spirits. If Blizzard wants to keep things balanced, grant a secondary affect on spirits and mechanical creatures through those abilities, or leave them ineffective and now Paladins and DKs have a new niche.

Remove Savage Defense.

This is one of the worst mechanics ever introduced into the game. It certainly helps from the standpoint of allowing Druids to tank in DPS gear, but the big problem with it is that it's mitigation is piss poor, and it's not nearly as effective when tanking raid bosses. Instead, Druid tanks should be given a healing buff - something like Rejuvenation - such that when they critical hit, they heal for 50% of their Attack Power over 5s. Or maybe 25%. Maybe over a longer or shorter duration. Maybe the buff stacks. You get the idea. Druids should have been the original self-healing tanks instead of Blood Death Knight tanks, and the fact that gave Druid tanks this pathetic excuse for a block called Savage Defense is lame. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems pretty logical to me, that if I started out my adventuring life as a Druid, casting spells and shapeshifting with little melee ability, and then progressed into really liking the feral lifestyle, and then becoming a tank, that I'd definitely make use of those healing spells I have to ensure my survivability.

Avoidance.

For the love of all things holy (like Smite Priests), avoidance needs to be watched carefully. I know Ghostcrawler likes to claim that they were in a good position until they boosted the gear dropped in heroics, but he's wrong. By the end of Naxxramas, most tanks were sporting 30% avoidance, which is way too much. By the beginning of the raiding, a tank should have no more than 15% avoidance. Each tier of gear might grant an additional 5% avoidance, while granting more mitigation stats. This allows a boss to hit harder, with the additional mitigation reducing that damage, as opposed to having to boost a boss' attacks to hit really fucking hard because the tank dodges one-third (or more) of the attacks.

Overall, what I'd really like to see come back to the game is a little bit more difficulty and randomness. I thought Blizzard has the perfect balance of difficulty and randomness in TBC, and I've largely been unhappy with what WotLK has brought. While I don't want to see it go back to the days of classic WoW and that insanity, I'd love to see TBC raiding quality return.

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How Feral Arena Teams Work

I've seen a few posts recently on the forums about how 2's and 3's teams with a feral Druid are supposed to work. The reason feral Druid teams often due poorly, or that you rarely see high-rated feral Druids, is because people don't realize that having a feral Druid significantly changes how the team plays, especially if the feral Druid is also the healer.

The feral Druid strategy in 2's and 3's.

As a feral Druid, you should rarely target the same opponent after using a finishing move. This is especially true with Predator's Swiftness. Your job is to stack your bleeds (Rake, 5-point Rip) and get Mangle on your opponent, and then immediately switch to another opponent. As I wrote in a previous post, our direct damage is good, but our bleeds are our strength. Fights with feral Druids work much like affliction Warlocks, in that it's not about burning down your opponents fast, but outlasting the other team and stressing out the healers. Feral Druid teams don't focus on an opponent, but stress out the healers.

If you're doing 3's with a feral Druid and using them as a healer, just stop now, because you're wasting time. Healing classes have a difficult time keeping an ally up with two opponents on them, as a feral Druid, you don't stand a chance.

2's with a feral Druid.

In a 2's team with a feral Druid, the strategy is always to burn down the DPS opponent first. In a healer/DPS team, the feral Druid stands no chance at out-lasting the healer. Always. If you try to burn down the healer - success or fail - you're likely to die or lose your partner, and then have to solo against their DPS (who's almost always full, while you're nearly always wounded). If you burn the DPS down, your ability to recover is better, as the feral Druid can switch to healing, and can always heal for more than the enemy healer can DPS.

In a 2's team with a feral Druid, if your partner isn't a healer, they need to have a Mortal Strike-like debuff: arms Warriors, Rogues, marksman Hunters, or frost Mages. Without a Mortal Strike-like debuff, your chances of burning down the DPS decreases significantly.

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Predator's Swiftness in 3.2.2

With the release of patch 3.2.2, feral Druids gained a new buff that works similar to enhancement Shamans to increase PvP viability: Predator's Swiftness. Per each combo point you gain on an opponent you have a 20% chance of casting a nature spell instantly. I know several feral Druids that thought it was pointless at first glance and didn't understand how it could be useful. It's true that it's not as beneficial as an enhancement Shaman's similar ability because we have to shift out of form, which means we have to waste extra mana and a GCD shifting back into form, and if you recently shifted, you have to wait for the 5-second shifting cool down.

It is however still a buff, and a useful one.

Some people on the forums complained that they didn't care for the "RNG effect" being based on combo points. Those people are idiots. They wanted to see a 100% chance on any combo points, which would have been disgustingly over-powered.

Properly used, Predator's Swiftness allows you to instant-cast Cyclone, Entangling Roots, and any healing spell, such as Healing Touch. Instantly. So how does this effect the original strategies I posted a few months back?

It's just an extra step. When you open with Pounce, depending on how much of a risk taker you are, at 3-5 combo points, you want to Cyclone an opponent other than your current target. Your goal is to constantly switch between opponents, applying maximized bleeds with Mangle to stress out any healers. Don't use Predator's Swiftness right away. It lasts for 15 seconds, so you can save it and time it just right, for example, when a Paladin healer bubbles, you Cyclone the Paladin or the wounded opponent they're healing to stop the healing. You do have to be careful however when saving Predator's Swiftness if Priest or Shaman is around; Predator's Swiftness is typed as magic and can be dispelled, in which case you'll want to use it right away.

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Smite Priests in WotLK

Patch 3.2.2 and some recent life happenings have further derailed my larger PvP project, not to mention work going into this off-topic post. Fear not though, I am still working on it.

During TBC, my girlfriend played a holy Priest. Primarily a healer, until one day she wanted to try DPSing with Smite... and made it work. Her talent build focused on DPS (which as I recall made her a balanced 31 discipline, 30 holy, hybrid) and she ran that way through Karazhan, Gruul, Magtheridon, all the way into Hyjal Summit; only stopping because she got bored and switched to her Shaman. During the early raids, she consistently topped the DPS charts, always placing in one of the top two spots. As we entered higher level raids, she dropped a little, but was never the bottom DPS and usually held very close to those in the top spots. This was all before the big nerfs, so it a case of "your DPS need to L2P" or anything of that sort. She also became the envy on our server of every other Priest.

She's decided to try smiting again and see how viable it was in WotLK. Before really getting into the idea, she asked me to do the theorycrafting before she decided to waste a few days/weeks playing with it. What talent builds could be used, and optional talents that might assist with raid utility. I'm sure lots of other Priests are curious as to whether or not this is still viable, and so I thought I'd post my napkin-math theorycrafting (it was all done at work and I just don't have that much time afterall).

The short answer: yes, it's viable, if you can hit some important numbers. Check out this link so see an example of a smite priest: the non-raid items equipped, the smite talent build, and even for some sample stats. Note that this is not an entirely optimized smite Priest, not all of the items equipped are best-in-slot before raiding. There's a few gems, enchants, and items that can be swapped out to make this more viable, but the Priest in that link is experimental. Further information can be found at that Priest's blog.

For those wanting to know more about how we came up with viability, the first thing we did was compare it to an elemental Shaman. Elemental Shamans using Lightning Bolt as their primary spell, while a smite Priest would use Smite as their primary spell. In their raw form, Lightning Bolt does slightly more damage on average, and is 5% more mana efficient. Elemental Shamans don't just use Lightning Bolt though, they also use Lava Burst, and smite Priests would use Smite, but Holy Fire. Both would also supplement with a few other spells.

Glyphs and talents change things pretty drastically. After glyphs and talents (and totems and weapon enchants!), Lightning Bolt looks like this:

Lightning Bolt (assuming 2000 spell power)
9% base mana (396)
3714 average damage
2.0s cast time
36 yards

+14% crit
200% crit damage
+3% hit
33% chance on crit for a 0-mana, off the GCD, automatic Lightning Bolt that does 50% damage (1857).

While Smite looks like this:

Smite (assuming 2000 spell power)
15% base mana (579)
3327 average damage
1.88s cast time
36 yards

+8% crit
50% chance for 0-mana, instant-cast (but on the GCD) Smite at 3536 damage.

At first glance, some people might cry foul or claim smite Priests as being unviable at those numbers. On a closer look, while Lightning Bolt can crit for 200% damage, the free one can't be a crit and it only does 50% base damage (not 50% of the crit damage); Smite can only crit for 150% damage, and the free one also can't be a crit, but it does 100% damage. So those two balance out. The two big ouchies to smite viability are in the mana efficiency and the fact that the free Smite is also on the GCD and isn't automatically cast. This means each free Smite puts the Priest behind the Shaman in damage by approximately 1.5 seconds. The smite Priest build compensates for this slightly with a little bit of a haste, but that's not really worth mentioning. Consider also that all alliance Shamans gain another 1% hit, and Shamans can in fact gain a bit more still to their spells, and elemental Shamans clearly come ahead on this comparison.

But does that mean smite Priests aren't viable? Absolutely not.

The first thing you stack is hit. Getting hit-capped for a smite Priest is much harder than any other caster class because you get no talents that help your spell hit since all of the talents in every priest build assuming healing or shadow damage, which means your holy spells get no benefit. Get to that 17% hit-cap as fast as possible. Current gear makes that relatively easy to do, but not without sacrificing a lot of valuable itemization points.

After being hit-capped, a smite Priest needs stack crit, crit, and more crit. Stack it until you cry, cough, vomit, and shit crit. In my simulations, a smite Priest isn't viable until at least 25% crit, and the more crit a smite Priest has up until 50% crit, the better. 30% crit seems to be a sweet spot to prepare for raiding, and getting to this number isn't as easy as one might think.

After reaching the hit-cap, and getting to a crit of around 30% (or better if you can manage), a smite Priest needs to stack haste. Based on simulations, a haste of 20% is a good number to reach, as it allows for an additional Smite to Holy Fire is active (which increases the damage of Smite by 20% from the Glyph of Smite).

A smite Priest can continue stacking crit/haste. In my simulations, damage scaled nicely until crit reached 50%, and haste could be safely stacked to around 30%. More crit was near-worthless and more haste caused the Priest to piss through their mana so fast they sat on their asses most of the last minute of a 6 minute fight.

All while trying to reach 30% crit, 20% haste, and get hit-capped, a smite Priest needs to stack lots of Spirit. A smite Priest's biggest issue is how fast they piss through mana with the spells that aren't free.

There is no rotation for smiting. It's a few simple priorities that looks something like this:

1. Holy Fire first, and reapply whenever it fades.
   
2. Smite while Holy Fire is active.
3. For AoE and packs of trash, Holy Nova (the glyph boosts its damage too!), which is almost guaranteed to crit, and then use your free Smite.

Work is still being done to test the benefits of Shadow Word: Pain and Devouring Plague. Both might be worth it, but more testing is necessary.

Don't expect to top the charts as a smite Priest, but from my simulations, a smite Priest can hold respectable numbers. The priest in the profile linked earlier, when plugged into a few simulations, can hit around 3.7k DPS, which is respectable. A similarly geared shadow Priest or elemental Shaman both hit around 4.2k DPS.

A smite Priest does however bring a fair amount of utility, in the form of 3% reduced damage for all raid members and a secondary off-healer for fights with phases that need it or in the event of healer death. Not to mention, using the smite Priest talent build linked above, the Priest also has Power Infusion and Pain Suppression, which grants tanks an additional external cool down for boss fights like Mimiron.

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PvP Strategies

I know that for a while there has been a bit of a disturbance in my posting. Those attentive know that I was starting my work towards PvP, and you'll be happy to know I've been working on a project of sorts for class-based strategies. Then patch 3.2 came out, which forced me to revise some of my work. While these strategies are most useful for duels and less-so for arenas and battlegrounds, the theory and ideas behind them when dealing with classes would still prove useful.

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