| abstract | - My in game tooltip is showing 370% armor instead of the previous and correct 450%. I didn't see that in any patch notes, did I miss it? --Azaram (talk) 12:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC) More Blizzard craziness. Wowinsider has a good article looking at the changes, so you can read to see their take on it. --Image:Gengar orange 22x22.png Fandyllic (talk · contr) 11:53 AM PST 21 Nov 2008 Lovely. Not only did they take away a ton of armor (nearly a third of mine), there won't be any good armor to replace it. And they're taking away the good armor I do have. --Azaram (talk) 03:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC) It wasn't changed from 450%. The 2.4->3.0 change was 400%->370% (450% is long gone in history, back in the 1.12->2.0 patch, if memory serves), and the new talent trees combined with significantly increased output from dps and healers should more than compensate for it at 70, especially with the 30% reduction in raid boss health. They are not taking away your effective armor, although the +armor bonus on non-armor items is going to simplify loot tables, and the number will be smaller. The Blizz devs have clearly stated that it's both been carefully considered and will be monitored to ensure that bears are just as viable for tanking in the 71-80 instances and 80 raids as the other 3 tanking classes. So, no craziness, no nerf, no changes to get upset about, just a modification to the mechanics that should come out about the same at the end of the day. Sure, it's a relatively significant change from 2.x, but it shouldn't take much to learn how to be an effective bear tank in 3.0. If you have encountered situations where it's come out as a real nerf to you, there's either something wrong with your gear, technique, or group/raid, or you need to post precise details of the problem on the Blizz forums for the devs to see. -- 20:44, 24 November 2008 (UTC) I went from over 30k armor to 21k. (~73% damage mitigation to less than 68%...don't have it handy to look at). I'd call a third of my armor a pretty significant loss. 'There won't be any good armor to replace it' is based on "Second, leather gear in the Expansion has been designed to have standard point values for armor based on item level. There will be no more items with 'green' armor values. " from the Wowinsider article Fandyllic posted. And 'They're taking away the good armor I do have' is based on "In fact, in Patch 3.0, even the existing items are getting changed to have their armor values dropped." from the same place. So, without changing any gear at all, I log in and I've lost a third of my armor. Not exactly 'something wrong with my gear, technique, or group/raid'. I hadn't been tanking in a while, as I was playing my hunter, so I guess it happened at the 3.0 patch and I just hadn't noticed until I actually needed it, and I misremembered the 450%, but it's not exactly not a nerf. --Azaram (talk) 02:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC) Yes the numbers will have changed, but what you are seeing as a 30%-ish reduction in armor is actually a much smaller reduction in mitigation, thanks to the diminishing returns mechanic. When you combine this with the removal of crushing blows, new talent trees, reduction in health by 30% of level 70 raid bosses, increased output from dps and healers, and all the other changes from 2.4 to 3.0, it's not really a nerf to how bears were performing at level 70 in 2.4. From what I've seen, bears still make very viable tanks at level 70, the instances on the way to 80, and at 80 itself. Every single boss fight I have seen so far in 3.0.3, with a well geared bear as the tank has gone well, even when we were on level 80 content with a level 75 healer. I stand by what I said before, if a bear can't tank roughly equivalently to a warrior, paladin, or death knight in any given situation, there's something wrong with gear, group, talents, or technique. If such situations become apparent (and it's not down to one of the above), you need to post precise details on the Blizz forums to bring the situation to the attention of the developers. Sure, some fights may still favour one class of tank over others, but that should be a minority of cases. Some classes of tank may have to work harder in certain situations, or may require a bit more healing, but all should be viable. If they hadn't changed the numbers on bear equipment, they would have been vastly overpowered with the 3.0 changes. If you read the whole of the Wowinsider article in detail, there's lots to explain the change, and it pretty much clarifies that bears are intended to be perfectly viable and approximately equal main tanks for WotLK content. There are very few parts of 3.0 that can be viewed on their own - you have to consider the combined package of changes and how they are working. E.g. I lost about 10% of my moonkin spell damage number in the conversion to spell power, but my damage output went up, possibly by as much as 10%. -- 06:53, 27 November 2008 (UTC) Realize full well this thread is a good 6 months old now, but felt I should put this in. Don't recall exactly when the armor value changed, but part of the reason is because the armor difference between leather, mail and plate is smaller in WotLK than it was previously. Not sure if they raised armor on leather, or lowered mail/plate, but I notice it on my level 80 bear (green items mostly) that the armor I have isn't that much lower than what I have on my DK (level 166-200 blues). Instead of the armor to not get killed, and strength to increase threat gain, now instead all you have to do is sneeze in the general direction of a mob to gain threat, and there's tons of agility on leather which gives you a high dodge-rate instead. The diminished armor value is compensated for by dodge, it seems. It's still not viable to be a DPS cat though. I tried it, and it's just not possible to keep up with other classes at the same gear level. But despite the loss of specific bear-gear (even the tier pieces are better suited for cat then bear, but with gems and enchants it works anyway, from what I've seen), there's still bears in Naxx, VoA, and OS. --Metalbunny (talk) 18:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
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