Tuesday, December 18, 2007

BBB's 'Judge my Cat Gear Challenge' and Pre-25 man Kitty Gear Choices

BBB has challenged us to post our cat gear and submit our selves to heckling...ummmm...I mean assessment. I'm sure he's hoping for some awesomely tricked out suits all properly assessorized and such. However, as I tank mostly, my poor little kitty outfit is horribly out of date.

Thankfully, as I'm almost done with my badge upgrades on my Bear suit, I'll be focusing on my Cat gear soon. In preperation, I have already looked through pre-25 man raid goodies and picked out items to focus on getting. As I post my current gear, I'll also post my 'to get' items.

Head

Current item - Cowl of Defiance from Netherspite in Kara.
'To Get' item - Grimgrin Faceguard from the last boss in Zul' Aman but, if I get the points for the Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm before the Grimgrin Faceguard drops, I will get it...but, must get the Merciless Gladiator's Maul first! (see notes under weapon below)

Neck

Current item - Mithril Chain of Heroism from the Chess event in Kara.
'To Get' item - No better pre-25 man raid item other than Haramod's Bargain from Consortium rep (exalted) and I prefer the Mithril Chain of Heroism as it has stamina.

Shoulders

Current item - Mantle of Malorne from High King Maulgar in Gruul's Lair.
'To Get' item - I'll be keeping the shoulders and hands of the Malorne set for the 2-set bonus. I'll discuss my reasoning for these two items after I'm done with my gear list. But, if I were to switch this item out, I would pick the Shoulderpads of Dancing Blades from the Lynx boss in Zul' Aman.

Back

Current item - Drape of the Dark Reavers from the Shade of Aran in Kara.
'To Get' item - No better pre-25 man raid item available.

Chest

Current item - Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic, Arena season 3.
'To Get' item - None. But, if you don't do Arenas, I recommend Vestments of Hibernation for 75 Badges of Justice.

Wrists

Current item - Bracers of Maliciousness from The Maiden of Virtue in Kara.
'To Get' item - Master Assassin Wristwraps for 35 Badges of Justice.

Hands

Current item - Guantlets of Malorne from the Curator in Kara.
'To Get' item - I'll be keeping the shoulders and hands of the Malorne set for the 2-set bonus. I'll discuss my reasoning for these two items after I'm done with my gear list. But, if I were to switch this item out, I would pick Trickster's Stickyfingers for 60 Badges of Justice.

Waist

Current item - Socrethar's Girdle (quest item)...I don't know why I still have this on when I have a Girdle of Treachery from the Chess even in Kara. I'll have to fix that today!
'To Get' item - Waistguard of the Great Beast for 60 Badges of Justice (I have one for my Bear suit, I'll have to check and see if it's better than the Girdle of Treachery with Bear gems...otherwise, I'll get another and gem that one for kitty.)

Legs

Current item - Clefthoof Hide Leggings from a quest.
'To Get' item - Shallow-grave Trousers for 75 Badges of Justice.

Feet

Current item - Edgewalker Longboots from Moroes in Kara.
'To Get' item - The Footwraps of Wild Enchroachment are a minor upgrade, but I'm not sure it's worth another 60 badges as it's very minor. I have them for my Bear set, but I believe the bear gems keep them from being better than the Edgewalker Longboots.

Ring 1

Current item - A'dal's Command
'To Get' item - Ring of the Overseer from Shartuul in Blades Edge.

Ring 2

Current item - Garona's Signet Ring
'To Get' item - Garona's and the Ring of the Overseer are the two best pre-25 man rings available.

Trinket 1

Current item - Hourglass of the Unraveller
'To Get' item - Bloodlust Brooch, 41 Badges of Justice

Trinket 2

Current item - Alchemist Stone (Why am I wearing this? LOLWUT?)
'To Get' item - Skyguard Silver Cross for exalted with the Sha'tari Skyguard.

Weapon

Current item - Terestian's Stranglestaff
'To Get' item - Merciless Gladiator's Maul season 2 Areana weapon.

Idol

Current item - Everbloom Idol for raids for the bargain price of 15 Badges of Justice and Idol of the Wild from a quest reward for everything else.
'To Get' item - I think those are the best, but I'd have to do some research.

Malorne 2-Piece Set Bonus

The Malorne 2-Piece set bonus is just too good to give up:

Your melee attacks in Bear form and Dire Bear form have a chance to generate 10 additional rage. Your melee attacks in Cat form have a chance to generate 20 additional energy.

Using Emmerald's 2.3 gear lists draft beta 2, the best Malorne items to keep are the Shoulders and Hands. This was determined by assessing the delta between the Malorne items and the best pre-25 man upgrade item available.


ItemHeadShouldersChestHandsLegs
Upgrade Item*240.04156.84240.80157.54219.55
Malorne Piece198.17148.28189.92119.52157.99
Delta41.878.5650.8838.0261.56
*Upgrade item used is the one referenced in my list above.

As you can see, based on the Sustained DPS points that Emmerald's calculations assign, the shoulders and hands are the items closest to the upgrade items I have listed above. The head item isn't too far behind, so keeping this piece for kitty rather than the hands wouldn't make too much of a DPS difference. However, keeping the chest or legs is not viable as there are other items which will significantly boost your DPS in raids.

11 comments:

TheBigBearButt said...

wow! darn nice list there Mooire!

I be jealous!

Anonymous said...

One good kitty dps idol you may have overlooked is Idol of Terror, the new badge one. Its strong for tanking as well, but i find it gives quite a nice dps increase

Anonymous said...

Why would you want to replace the Hourglass of the unraveller with the Skyguard Cross while soloing. It only activates 50% of the time when you land the killing blow. Useful for soloing, useless for raiding.

Anonymous said...

Ignore the first "while soloing" from the previous comment. That'll teach me not to proof read properly....

Ferocious Bite said...

@ Firstpanda and Dan

Yes, you are correct. Honestly, I hadn't really assessed the trinkets and idols like I did the other gear. Those were quickly added when I did the post as I realized I should be 'complete'. The other gear I had analyzed and assessed previously when I realized I was almost done with my Bear clothes goals.

Anonymous said...

"One good kitty dps idol you may have overlooked is Idol of Terror, the new badge one. Its strong for tanking as well, but i find it gives quite a nice dps increase"

I did a quick comparrison a few days ago between the Idol of Terror and the Idol of the Wild for Cat form DPS. It looks like the Idol of Terror is a good one.

Here's the breakdown:
Idol of Terror (epic, 20 badges) - Equip: Your Mangle ability has a (50%) chance to grant 65 agility for 10 seconds.
Idol of the Wild (uncommon, Quest: Colossal Menace in Hellfire Penninsula) - Equip: Increases the damage dealt by Mangle (Cat) by 24 and the damage dealt by Mangle (Bear) by 51.75.

Idol of the Wild is pretty straightforward. You get an extra 24 damage every time you use Mangle. The Idol of Terror is a little more difficult to figure out. Its proc is about 50%, which I listed in the description for ease. When it procs, you gain 65 agility. In cat form, this equates to 65 attack power, 2.6% to crit, and 4.4% to dodge. The benefit from dodge is a little tough to quantify in cat form, so I'm going to ignore that as just a small side benefit for now.

65 attack power is equivalent to adding 4.6 dps. This means that it will add ~7 damage to each mangle (or other special attack) and ~4.6 damage to each white attack. Adding in the crit % is a little trickier.

For simplicity, let's say a normal attack hits for about 300 and a mangle hits for 600. I'm just going to assume all mangles (no other special attacks) for this since it makes the calculations much easier. You will get double damage whenever you crit. This will now happen 2.6% more than it did before. If you had 100 mangles, then you would get 60000 damage if there were no crits. Add 2.6% of that and you will do 1560 more damage from mangle than you did before. This equates to an extra 15.6 damage per mangle. Using the same method on your normal attacks, you will get exactly half of the additional damage 780 over 100 normal attacks. Since you will have about 4 normal attacks for each mangle (40 energy -> 1 mangle every 4 seconds), this becomes 7.8*4=31.2 extra damage per mangle.

So totalling all of those numbers, you get 7+4.6*4+15.6+7.8*4=72.2 extra damage per mangle. That's a big upgrade over the Idol of the Wild, which only gives 24 extra damage.

The limitations here are that I'm assuming the buff is always up, 100% hit ratio, other benefits from getting a crit, infinite length fight, no other special attacks (ya right).... You get the idea. But the fact remains that the Idol of Terror is a big upgrade for Cat form dps. After seeing these numbers, I'm going to have to start using that (whenever I get enough badges).

Malfean said...

Idol of Terror is also a pretty big upgrade for your bear set. The math on it has been done rather extensively over at Tooth and Claw. Check it. http://teethandclaws.blogspot.com/2007/11/idol-banter.html

Shane said...

The Idol of Terror is better than the Idol of the Wild, but the Everbloom idol, when raiding, is far better than both. If I solo I wear the Idol of Terror.

Idol of Terror is amazing for Bear Tankage though.

@Finwe. Proc rate is meant to be 85%

Ferocious Bite said...

Yes, I have the Idol of Terror and I <3 it. I tend to tank so much, I'd forgotten about using it as Cat as well.

Anonymous said...

I've seen both 85% and 50% listed. I didn't really know which one was correct.

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