Monday, February 9, 2009

Bite me!

Seems 3.0.9 is in the pipelines without a hint of an warning and perhaps due for a release this week. Unexpected to say the least.

The only change so far is a cap on Ferocious Bite energycost at base(35)+30. Welcome news if perhaps a bit underwhelming from a PvE standpoint. A lower cap would have made the ability very useful in a PvE dps rotation but would also have reduced kitty PvP burstdamage to a point where it would have been rather insignificant. Personally I believe it's a mistake to balance feral PvP around a pure burst ability, rather it should be brought more in line with the bleed-effects which allready dominate the PvE rotation. As it is we feel like some half-hearted mix between a rogue and a warrior, neither side developed properly. All we're good for is farming flags in WsG. Well, hopefully getting rid of the distraction of the once-in-a-while big crit of FB might allow Blizzard to get around to adressing some of the classes real PvP issues. And once they figure out how they want us to work in PvP maybe we'll get a really decent PvE finisher out of FB. One can only hope.

1 comment:

Marino said...

FB is indeed nice. I had a crit on trash of 18k. But FB is sadly enough still not a real PVE skill.

I did some calculations recently. With 100% armor penetration a FB dps rotation is better, if you can keep the extra energy spent at a minimum. Which should not be really hard because a FB rotation is the most simple thing there is! Burn all energy you have if you have it. (Berserking should give you 1 rip and continue FB-ing).

Alas There is no 100% armor penetration, but FB scales better with AP then Rip. When 3.1 hits and Ulduar and t8 comes into the picture I am really hoping for a very good 4-piece set bonus, something increasing Rake or Shred. If it is not one of those we'll see the same thing with 2t4 bonus. People will use 2t7 till t9 comes, which limits us to "crappy" gear. After the 4t8 bonus they then can make a 2t9 bonus that is good to break the 4t8 set, however reintroducing a 2t7/2t9 combination of gear but we are far away from that.

4t8 bonus would mean no more 2t7 rip bonus, and nerfing rip. At that point FB becomes better (also because of the AP increase and hopefully with epic gems becoming common).
Don't know the exact math since it is all theory at this point but I am hoping for it.
However it is likely they will give Rip and Rake the ability to crit. with 50% crit being pretty easy to get these days that would increase rip by 50% damage. Making Rip once again the only choice for dps in pve, but making it a better choice for pvp as well.

PS my pvp tactic if someone tries to gank me: build 5cp and rip him. While that dot ticks go to bear and (vs melee) become virtually indestructable while the dot and your mangle/mauls get the health down steadily.