Consumables for the feral druid
There are 4 types of consumables you can have active buffs from. You can have 1 food buff, multiple scroll buffs (as long as the buffs do not overlap with player spell casting), and 2 buffs from Potions, 1 Guardian effect and 1 Battle effect.
This post is going to list the different types of consumables that most benefit feral druids, and what my personal preferences are for each category.
Consumables for Bear Tanking
Tanking priorities are; Agility, Damage Reduction, Stamina.
Flasks (counts as both Guardian and Battle Elixir)
Flask of Fortification - +500 max health and +10 defense rating for 120 minutes. Effects persist through death.
I do not personally consider the Flask a better choice over having both an Earthen Elixir and an Elixir of Major Agility active. However, if you are taking on a boss encounter or raid encounter for the first time, and expect multiple wipes, one Flask that persists through death is far more cost effective than 20 Elixirs.
Elixir (Guardian)
Earthen Elixir (1st choice) – Prevents up to 20 damage done by a physical or magical attack for 60 minutes. This is per attack. This is a very nice Tanking buff, especially for bear tanks that do not have special defenses against magical attacks.
Elixir of Major Fortitude (2nd choice) - +250 Max Health and +10 Health per 5 seconds for 60 minutes.
(Edit: As many of you have noted, choice of which potion or flask to use is situational, and in most high level raids the extra health will be of more benefit that a meager -20 damage per hit. I would suggest, however, that in many cases for instance tanking early on the number of encounters with magical AOE or attacks make the Earthen Elixir quite attractive. You can’t go too far wrong by choosing Elixir of Major Fortitude as your pot of choice, though.)
Elixir of Major Defense (Last resort) - +550 Armor for 60 minutes.
This does not multiply in Dire Bear form, so it remains a flat +550. (See below)
Elixir (Battle)
Elixir of Major Agility (1st Choice) - +35 Agility for 60 minutes.
Elixir of Mastery (2nd Choice) - +15 All Stats for 60 minutes.
I’m sure there can be a great deal of debate over which of these is better. On the one hand, you get +35 Agility. On the other, you get +15 Agility, +15 Stamina and +15 Strength. For myself, I consider the boost to Dodge from +35 Agility to override the other benefits.
Scrolls
Scroll of Agility V – Agility +20 for 30 minutes.
Scroll of Stamina V – Stamina +20 for 30 minutes. (Cannot stack with Power Word: Fortitude or Prayer of Fortitude. Scroll of Stamina is therefore very useful when you do not have a Priest in your party, but otherwise unnecessary.)
Scroll of Protection V – Armor +300 for 30 minutes.
This does not multiply in Dire Bear form, so it remains a flat +300. (See below)
Food
Warp Burger - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Grilled Mudfish - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Spicy Crawdad - +30 Stamina and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Fisherman’s Feast - +30 Stamina and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Consumables for Cat form DPS
Flasks (counts as both Guardian and Battle Elixir)
Flask of Relentless Assault – +120 AP for 2 hours, effects last through death.
Elixir (Guardian)
Earthen Elixir – Prevents up to 20 damage done by a physical or magical attack for 60 minutes.
Elixir of Major Fortitude - +250 Max Health and +10 Health per 5 seconds for 60 minutes.
Elixir (Battle)
Elixir of Major Agility (1st Choice) - +35 Agility for 60 minutes.
Elixir of Major Strength - +35 Strength for 60 minutes.
Onslaught Elixir - +60 AP for 60 minutes.
Scroll
Scroll of Agility V – Agility +20 for 30 minutes.
Scroll of Strength V – Strength +20 for 30 minutes.
Food
Warp Burger - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Grilled Mudfish - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Roasted Clefthoof - +20 Strength and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Ravager Dog - +40 AP and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
________________
Consumables in my opinion pretty much covers anything you can carry around in your bags that you can use to provide a temporary buff to your abilities or stats. The buff should last at least 15 minutes, and you should be able to reapply it after a wipe.
I am not listing buffs such as the Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer that you get when in Stormwind City or Ogrimmar when the Head of Onyxia or Nefarion is turned in, or the Fire Resist buff you can get in Blackrock Spire by Mind Controlling a Scarshield Spellbinder. Special circumstances buffs such as this have a decent duration, but disappear upon player death, and so are useless in a raid/instance after the first wipe.
Also, since we do not get any benefit to our combat abilities from weapon enchants, I did not list items such as Wizard Oil, Mana Oil, or Sharpening Stones. However, if you (like me) run alts, keep in mind that Wizard Oils and Mana Oils are awesome Enchanting created potions that you apply to your weapon, that stack WITH existing weapon enchants. For some reason, many casters forget they are available, and they are fairly inexpensive in materials cost to make.
On the topic of “How many buffs can I have active at one time”, according to a Blue post by Pavonum, you are allowed to have 32 active buffs, although only 16 icons are displayed on screen at any one time. So the more consumables you bring to the party, the better.
In all cases, remember that with Heart of the Wild, in Cat form Strength is increased by 20% and in Bear form Stamina is increased by 20%. So if you are DPSing in Cat form, a +20 Strength Roasted Clefthoof is actually giving you the effects of +24 Strength. Since in Cat 1 point of Strength equals 2 Attack power, this means that Roasted Clefthoof gives you +48 AP, while a Ravager Dog is only +40 AP.
When considering bear tanking consumables, Agility scores higher than Stamina because Agility applies directly to both Dodge and Armor. 14.7 points of Agility equals 1% Dodge bonus. 2 Points of Agility equals 1 Armor. Dodge is far more effective at damage mitigation at higher levels of armor than Stamina is at soaking the damage that gets through.
Elixirs and Scrolls of Protection are considered the bottom of the list for bear tanks because the effects of +armor are considered enchants, and are unaffected by the dire bear multiplier.
For the Elixir of Major Defense, the +550 Armor is a flat effect.
Assuming 25000 Armor in Dire Bear;
25k base armor equals
25000/(25000+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7030 (70.3%) damage reduction.
Add 550 armor and;
25550/(25550+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7076 (70.76%) damage reduction.
In long endurance fights this can help, but not enough IMO when compared to an Earthen Elixir or Elixir of Major Fortitude.
For the Scroll of Protection V, the +300 armor is also a flat effect.
Assuming 25000 Armor in Dire Bear;
25k armor base equals
25000/(25000+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7030 (70.3%) damage reduction.
Add 300 armor and;
25300/(25300+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7055 (70.55%) damage reduction.
In conclusion, IMO .25% damage reduction is not worth the bother of the bag space.
For cat form DPS, Agility and Strength are considered equally valuable, with a slightly greater value to Agility due to the combo point gains from Crits.
In Cat form with all feral abilities, according to mathematical modeling, your DPS benefits equally from Agility and Strength. 1 point of Agility contributes to both Crit and AP, and Strength contributes double to AP.
When you factor in the extra Combo points you get from more frequent Crits, then Agility actually seems preferable to Strength. Personally, I think that shooting for a balance between high AP and Crit Chance is best, but please take a look at the results yourself before taking my word as gospel. I set my goal for a target of 2200 AP, before switching my focus to increasing Crit. Your results may vary.
If you are interested in the math behind this, I can’t take credit for the awesome work. Check out http://web.mac.com/sven_schmidt/AnuBear/Welcome.html
And in conclusion…. Wear more sunscreen.
Entries (RSS)
September 4th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Nice…. thanks for this. I’d been using defense pots (easy to brew), but I’ll try switching to Earthen elixirs.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Great Blog….You can also give your valuable answer in Health Questions.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Mitigation from the 550 armor elixir is misleading at first glance. It’s actually marginally better than the elixir of fortitude, even though it’s not multiplied by bear form.
Using your example of 25k armor with a druid who has 18k health, that minor mitigation bonus increases your effective health by 828. Adding 250 straight health instead would net you 773 effective health, a difference of 55.
(Source: Effective Life per Stamina Calculator based on math found on Satrina’s The Mathematics of Armour and Diminishing Returns)
September 11th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I use Elemental Sharpening Stones. Rather than direct damage, they add 28 crit rating for that extra 1% crit. At 40% crit raid buffed you could call it gilding the lily, but I like knowing I’m really all-out when I DPS.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Against kazzak I’ll use the potion that gives +250AP against demons .. getting the gromsblood is easy , the ghost mushroom I have to buy though , finding any takes too long.
September 29th, 2007 at 6:55 am
An update for patch 2.2:
Flask of Chromatic Wonder
+35 resist all
+18 stats
For those who are playing in SSC and TK, this has become one of my favorites for Void Reaver (Pound = 100% arcane damage) and Hydross (Frost/Nature). I was using Flasks of Chromatic Resistance (+25 resist all) for these fights, but this one obsoleted that old flask.
- Alannon, GM Order of Azeroth, Zul’jin
October 8th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
/agree with kadaan.
The “survivability” time granted by armor is linear until you reach the mitigation cap (~32K vs lvl70 mobs, ~36K vs Raid Bosses).
Still, it behooves you to be smart and take a good look at the encounter when choosing your pots.
Math helps, but every encounter is different, and there are certain times where some pots are better than others.
Who cares about mitigation when you’re taking hurtfuls from Gruul? Dodging one or two more hurtfuls is SO much better than having each one do 20 less damage.
By the same token, you’re not going to dodge the arcane pounding from Void Reaver, but the earthen elixir will take 20 damage off each hit.
October 8th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Very nice post! Thanks for breaking down the consumable options.
I agree with Frange that there’s no one formula for which consumables are best, and that it’s situational. For most tanking encounters I’ve chosen to go with Elixir of Fortitude over Earthen, under the theory that when you’re taking hits for potentially thousands of damage, minus 20 isn’t going to make a big difference. As far as Elixir of Defense goes, make sure you’re not at the mitigation cap already (which most druids in SSC/TK level gear will be).
October 8th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Hi Big Bear Butt,
I wrote about warlock consumables here:
http://yawown.blogspot.com/2007/10/warlock-raid-consumables.html
Hope you like it,
Cheers
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Responding to kadaan, etc. on the topic of Elixir of Major Defense vs. Elixir of Major Fortitude.
Having worked through the math on this, there’s a simple way to determine the point at which Defense stops giving more “effective health” than Fortitude. Basically, adding health is always better if your armor is above a threshold given by:
A = (H * dA / dH) - K
where H is your health, dA is the effective increase in armor you’re considering (here, 550 for the Defense elixir), dH is the increase in health you’re considering (here, 250), and K is the same “K” in the mitigation formulae–a value dependent on the level of mob you’re fighting:
- vs lvl 70, K=10557.5
- vs lvl 72, K=11492.5
- vs lvl 73, K=11960.0
For our hypothetical 18Khp druid tank, going up against a lv 73 boss, the Defense elixir is a winning proposition (VS. PHYSICAL ATTACKS!) if his armor is below
A = (H * dA / dH) - K
= (25000*550 / 250) - 11960
= 27640
which, at 25K armor, it is. The tipping point is even higher (29042) vs. lv70 opponents. For druids with high health, the choice of which to use is situational, since Defense will give more mitigation than Fortitude for physical attacks but does nothing for magic attacks.
Above the armor rating where Defense no longer helps, or above the 75% mitigation cap, Fortitude is always the better answer for both physical and magical attacks.
Since the threshold armor rating is based linearly on health, druids with lesser health will be considerably more likely to have an armor rating above the cutoff. A few samples, vs. lv 70 opponents:
If you have… use Fort above armor…
10k health . . . . 11442
12k health . . . . 15842
14k health . . . . 20242
16k health . . . . 24642
18k health . . . . 29042
Against lv 73 raid bosses the cutoff is about 1500 armor lower.
beyond 18k health, watch out for the mitigation cap.
Hopefully this helps make the decision on what to use a little clearer.
February 2nd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Actually, the same holds true for Earthen Elixer versus Major Defense. It depends on how hard you are being hit. As you move through and past Kara the bosses start hitting harder and harder, and then -20 starts to pale in comparison to the armor bonus. The higher your armor the more benefit you get from the fixed -20, but. I currently have about 28.3k armor in bear form.
I would take 11960/(11960+28300) = 29.71% of base damage. With Defense on I take 11960/(11960+28300+550) = 29.31% damage. Or approx 0.4% less.
20 / 0.4% = 5k raw damage, or 1485 damage post mitigation without the elixir.
Prince hits for about 2.3k, crushes for 3.4k (7.6k/11.5k raw damage). So on a crush, the extra armor reduces the damage by 11.5k*0.4% = 46. Which is more than 2x the Earthen Elixir.
Now, I was tanking normal BM and Aeonus hits me for around 600-800, and the Earthen is better there.
As a Gruul OT, the Major Defense is obviously better (on growth 10 his Hurtful Strike is something like 34k unmitigated = 136 damage reduced from Major Defense). However, you are likely to be using Unstable Flask of the Beast anyway, since it is practically free, stays past death, and gives you some nice stats. With BoK, the +30 stam is worth approx 510 health.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Unstable Flask of the Beast is great for farming the Blades Edge area. Save those shards!
February 25th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
[…] entirely self-reliant when it comes to potions and food on raids, I like it. After reading BBB’s excellent post on consumables for Feral Druids, I decided upon [Elixir of Major Agility] and [Elixir of Major Fortitude] for Qz, with [Warp […]
September 10th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I have a request BBB. Could you find it in your big fluffy bear heart to sticky this post on the right under ‘Helpful Information’?
I’m always finding myself needing to reference this and needing to spend 5-10 minutes searching for it is frustrating. (I often visit from different machines, so bookmarks can get clunky too)
Thanks ^^
September 10th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
[…] Comments Tigerfeet on Consumables for the Feral Druidtkc on A look at our Bear Tanking future in WrathRelmstein on Living in the past!Aegoth on […]