I%26#39;ve been skating through WotLK so far on my T6 gear, ignoring all the quest rewards. But then yesterday I got my first upgrade and decided to revisit the question of gear rankings. Theorycrafting for level 80 feral druids is better now, what can we learn?
Cat gear
First, for cat DPS, I believe Toskk is still the best model out there. I took the default settings in the calculator (5000 attack power, 40% crit) and turned on all the feral DPS talents, Blessings of Kings, etc. The result is 1989 DPS and the following ranking:
1 Str = 2.3 AP1 Agi = 1.7 AP
1 Hit = 1.0 AP
1 Expertise = 1.0 AP
1 Crit = 0.8 AP
1 Haste = 0.7 AP
1 Armor penetration = 1.0 AP
These level 80 results are quite a bit different from the level 70 3.0 rankings I looked at before. Agility in particular is way down compared to its old position. Maybe because so much of our damage is now based on Rake and Rip DoTs? Here%26#39;s my Pawn scale for the above rankings. Assumes rare quality gems.
( Pawn: v1: %26quot;Cat (Toskk)%26quot;: ArmorPenetration=1.0161, RedSocket=37.312, FeralAp=1, ColorlessSocket=37.312, Strength=2.332, MetaSocket=103.21, HasteRating=0.7236, Agility=1.6992, ExpertiseRating=1.0362, BlueSocket=18.66, YellowSocket=26.92, CritRating=0.83, HitRating=1.0334, Ap=1 )Bear gear
I%26#39;ve also cooked up a Pawn scale for bear gear. You have a lot of theorycrafting models to choose from for bears - Karthis has a nice writeup. In the past I%26#39;ve gone with Emmerald%26#39;s numbers for bear gear, but he%26#39;s still not officially updated for 3.0 or Wrath yet. So I looked at Toskk%26#39;s new bear TTL model mostly because it%26#39;s easy for me to play with it. (Rawr may also be a good choice.) Here%26#39;s what I get for default stats on Toskk, with Blessing of Kings, an armor metagem, and all tanking talents. The result is a total time to live of 8216 milliseconds and the following ranking:
1 Stamina = 7.2ms1 Agility = 3.4ms
1 Dodge = 2.7ms
1 Defense = 1.9ms
1 Expertise = 1.3ms
1 Armor = 1.1ms
1 Health = 0.4ms
Do I believe this ranking? I%26#39;m not sure. The main thing that leaps out is that stamina is twice as good as agility. Is that true? It really depends on what you%26#39;re optimizing: mitigation or avoidance. The reality is you want a good mix of the both and it may be that the Toskk TTL model doesn%26#39;t really capture that since it%26#39;s assuming you%26#39;re getting no healing. Then again the new diminishing returns system means Agility gets less useful the more you have, so maybe these rankings are right. We%26#39;ll have to see. In the meantime, I%26#39;ll use the following Pawn scale to help me eyeball gear upgrades, at least until the bear armor nerf comes.
( Pawn: v1: %26quot;Bear (Toskk)%26quot;: RedSocket=113.7, ExpertiseRating=1.306, DodgeRating=2.685, ColorlessSocket=172.4, MetaSocket=329, Agility=3.429, Health=0.411, BlueSocket=172.4, YellowSocket=101.3, DefenseRating=1.885, Armor=1.066, Stamina=7.185 )