Panzerkin finally D-E-D

I found out reading Restokin:

Moonkin Form now grants 15% damage reduction instead of increased armor.

See, what the armor bonus did was allow you to put together mitigation gear, just like any other tank or off-tank. Now, the benefit is flat. I'll have to double check the mathes, since I really am mostly a non-mathes player, but I don't think 15% is going to be as good as max leather armor with the proper enchantments, etc.

This is really another watering down of the game, "Dungeons are hard" aside. Not only does the quest reward gear look exactly the same with small changes during upgrades, saying that you're essentially marching your way through a pre-defined route of gearing when questing, now, just as with the switch from +healing gear to just generic spellpower and the elimination of spell type specific bonuses, every Boomkin is marching along, playing just like every other.

The character of the game is taking a hit. Playstyles are becoming more standardized by the standardization of gear and gear bonuses.

Welcome, Windhawk Bracers

Welp, I finally leveled my leatherworking, farmed even more mats, caved and auction housed the last three Primal Airs, and created Windhawk Bracers, the only item of the Windhawk set that doesn't require a Primal Nether and, therefore, a little instancing to craft.

So let the mathes comparison begin. Rather than trying to go theoretical, let's just slap up a screenshot comparison of Jal's stats with the Windhawk Bracers versus Murkblood Bracers of Nature's Wrath, the latter worth 115 armor and +42 nature damage.



So here are the changes with the Windhawk with a vendored +4 spell critical yellow gem, all stats listed while in moonkin form:

Nature damage: -10
Health: +220
Mana: +285
Non-nature spell dmg: +32
Healing: +52
Crit %: +1.14
Mana Regen: +10
Armor: +220

I'm not too worried about the base stat changes not listed above, as their practical usefulness should be reflected in the stats.

So here, it's a nobrainer. I lose 10 dmg per Wrath, but gain pretty seriously everywhere else, including +1.14% crit, which is another (381 to 429 + 745) * 1.14% = 13.11 damage already for my wraths, on average. The Murkbloods aren't better even with wrath damage, their speciality area. So out go the Murkblood Bracers to the vendor. Sad to see 'em go.

Other nature's wrath items aren't so obvious, I don't think. I've upgraded a few slots since I last took stock. My helm gives +81 nature damage, iirc. That's going to take a disproportionate increase in stats to beat (realizing there's no Windhawk headpiece). Chest is currently giving +75 nature damage, and the Dragonhawk version gives +81; will the Windhawk Hauberk beat that? Its intellect bonus is just 12 more than the bracers, and spell dmg just 19 more. Can that beat a +39 nature damage increase on the chest relative to bracers? It'll be closer, I think. We'll see.

Again, for general use, the Windhawk armor has it all over "of Nature's Wrath" gear. I'm here looking specifically at burst damage, as that's the most important thing when doing PvE outdoors, when you can root most anything, and when filling the DPS slot in a 5-spot instance. Your drinks are going to outweigh mana regen bonuses for PvE and 5-spots, and armor shouldn't matter too much if you root melee mobs and have good tanks.

And you can't come close to beating the price of the Nature's Wrath gear at 8-15g a slot. That's less than many daily quest rewards!

Here's what a full set of Windhawk needs, according to gajackson at thottbot.com:

18 Heavy Knothide Leathers
48 Wind Scales
34 Primal Airs
6 Primal Mights
3 Primal Nethers

+ 3 Yellow gems (or compatible) total
+ 3 Blue gems (or compatible) total

+ whatever you are going to choose in the way of endgame-ish AKs, enchants, etc.

What's the better causal gamer buy again? All of the above for 3 pieces of armor, or less than 100g for 400+ DPS?

The Windhawk bracers beat out Dragonhawk Bands even for adding damage to wrath, so, farming already done, they're in for all of my outfits, panzer, boomkin, and hybrid. It's my first purple armor since I made Lava Belts for the Old World. I just wonder if completing the set is going to be worth it, or I should save the time and effort to run instances until the WotLK shows up.

Druid Forum, DPS, and Mana Efficiency

I've been taking more knocks on the head for using my "of Nature's Wrath" gear, this time over on the Blizzard forums. The general gist (from here and elsewhere) is that many balance druids go Insect Swarm + Starfire for their rotation to save mana and sustain their DPS. That makes sense, but it's also not what I'm trying to do.

Here's a quote from the above link.

The most common casting rotation is this: IS/SFx4
The highest DPS casting rotation is this: IS/MF/Wx6

Well, exactly. For DPS, you Wrath, and that's where Nature's Wrath gear comes in.

Here's what the question reduces down to for me:

Why all the bias for mana efficiency when you'll often, depending on instance, bring down trash mobs before that's an issue? IS + SF might be good boss material, but it makes you inefficient against trash.

My guess is that the only way +nature dmg gear hurts you is if you...

1. Run into nature resistant mobs.
2. Are forced to back-up heal mid-fight.
3. Have a fight that lasts longer than you have mana.

The first would stink, but I haven't seen much of this outside of Nagraand. The second happens. You can swap idol and weapon to help, but yes, if your party starts to go down around trash mobs, you're in trouble in more ways than just gear. The third happens, but usually the fight's under control by then.

For bosses, you *change gear* if you've got it, but I'd like to see the pre-instance reward gear that'll beat what we've got here.

I mean, seriously, I haven't quite put in the time to have Tiered gear like the examples from the forum post I linked in the first paragraph: Madrox, Caliane, Skeldi, and Horao. Of course I'd rather have that stuff!

Jal's Current Gear

I've started up my fairly methodical blog post comparing "of Nature's Wrath" gear to Nodrassil Regalia with respect to their ability to dish out burst damage. One thing I've learned that, of the flavors of armor that I have currently (Expedition, Clefthoof, Murkblood), the Expedition set pieces have the best "of Nature's Wrath" bonuses. Too bad I can't go in and buy the whole set.

In any event, though I'll be comparing Expedition pieces in the mathes-off, I did first compile what Jal is wearing now, with its bonuses, etc. Here's what he's got.

Slot	Item	Armor	+DMG	+crit	+hit	+md5
Head	Clefthoof Cover of Nature's Wrath	203	71 nat
Neck	Brooch of Heightened Potential		22	14	9
Shoulder	Clefthoof Shoulderguards of Nature's Wrath	188	54 nat
Back	Ogre Slayer's Cover (+18 Int, +11 Spr)	68	20	16
Chest	Windroc Shroud (squishie cloth)	130	26	21
Arm	Murkblood Bracers of Nature's Wrath	115	42 nat
Hands	Expedition Gloves of Nature's Wrath	169	58 nat
Waist	Murkblood Belt of Nature's Wrath	148	57 nat
Legs	Murkblood Pants of Nature's Wrath	231	75 nat
Feet	Dreghood Boots of Nature's Wrath	147	44 nat
Ring 1	Sedai's Ring (+12 int)		15			5
Ring 2	Wildlord's Band		25	11
Trinket 1	Glowing Crystal Insignia		26/104
Trinket 2	Vengeance of the Illidari		0/120	26
Weapon	Talbuk Sticker (+15 sta, +11 int)		58	10
Off-hand	Slavehandler Rod of Nature's Wrath		34 nat
Idol	Idol of Ferocity (worthless for balance)
	Nordrassil Comparision Totals:	921	284 nat
	Grand Totals:	1399 (without kits)	192 627 nat 747 temp	98	9	5

Naturally there's not much past pure Nature damage. I can see why this would make Mera cry, but I can also see why, with roots or a good tank, this is some great stuff. It's a free crit every time I throw Wrath, and Wrath is powerful enough now that I lead with it instead of Starfire. Interesting to think there's still some room in the Nature's Wrath for improvement, as I could upgrade it all to Expedition, if those ever hit the AH.

Only real downside? Well, I do run out of mana occasionally, the armor isn't great (better than a Clothkin's, but not great), and it's not very flexible. If I need to emergency heal, I swap in my healing staff, but it's still pretty shoddy if I don't have time to change clothes. If I bump into the ever more common nature resistant mob, the DPS goes waaaaay down as I Starfire and Moonfire them to death (though I did just pick up an "of Arcane Wrath" cape questing last night *sigh*).

We'll see how the numbers cut out later, but thought this might be interesting, and following Jal's gear is something I'd been meaning to do more often.

Ding! 69, dude (and of Nature's Wrath)

Well, after running though the Nesingwary quests (and a few battles at Halaa), I took my level 68 self back to Zangarmarsh to finish up a few quests still on the list. Talk about easy experience points -- I got about 780 per kill in the good ole Kill X of Y quests without losing more than half my mana, and could panzer through the mobs for about 1/3 a health bar. It was easily sustainable, and I racked up 80-90k in what must be record time for me.

In Outland, so far I've been most impressed with the landscape in Nagrand (and enjoyable enough Kill X of Y quests building up to "boss battle" style climaxes) and the fairly compelling ogre and Wyrmcultist storylines. Zangarmarsh's Sporeggar are probably the most memorable from that zone, but overall I haven't enjoyed the marsh nearly as much as those other two. Regardless, it's given me the 69, putting me that much closer to hitting the Shadow Labyrinth for my first fragment of the Master's Key as I start up attunement again.

Fwiw, I did solo into the Shadowlabs a bit, but was only able to look around before getting tagged by that giant eye. I think the screengrabs are on the iBook, which I might post later. Definitely a group thing, though I'll try again at 70. Also, in a woefully belated post, I'll finally dig into the powers of "of Nature's Wrath" equipment, which I've been using like mad. When I've got my balance set on, I've got +617 nature spell damage, which has been awfully nice. The bottom line on the Nature's Wrath gear is that I get such a boost to damage that the lack of critical hit bonuses seems a very easy tradeoff. +617, folk. With my Vengeance of the Illidari proc'ing, which adds another 120, I'm wiping up. When Rank 9 Wrath causes 278 to 312 points (and Rank 10 only a bit more, 381 to 429), I'm rolling in the damage. Since I'm usually doing PvE when I've got the balance gear on, I'm also usually outside using roots, so the damage mitigation losses from Nature's Wrathing are all but meaningless.

1800 crits for 210 mana points and 2 seconds of casting ain't bad, folk.