Class Guide

DRUID

Questions about Druid Mechanics
This section will cover common questions about druid gameplay mechanics. This section is not opinion, it’s fact (or at least as close to fact as the best of the community’s researchers can get us to). If you see any errors, please point me to the research thread where you discovered the error and I will correct it accordingly.

1. What is the hit cap? The hit cap for all physical attacks, in any form, depends on what level mob you’re fighting:
   • If the mob is the same level as you: 5.00% = 79 hit rating
   • If the mob is 1 level higher than you: 5.50% = 86.9 hit rating = 87 hit rating
   • If the mob is 2 levels higher than you (heroic bosses): 6.00% = 94.8 hit rating = 95 hit rating
   • If the mob is 3 levels higher than you (raid bosses): 9.00% = 142.2 hit rating = 143 hit rating
2. What is the spell hit cap? The spell hit cap also depends on the level of your target:
   • If the mob is the same level as you: 3.00% = 37.8 spell hit rating = 38 spell hit rating
   • If the mob is 1 level higher than you: 4.00% = 50.4 spell hit rating = 51 spell hit rating
   • If the mob is 2 levels higher than you (heroic bosses): 5.00% = 63 hit rating
   • If the mob is 3 levels higher than you (raid bosses): 16.00% = 201.6 spell hit rating = 202 spell hit rating
3. How is damage determined in cat form and bear form? The DPS of your weapon is irrelevant and always will be. Each of your feral forms (bear and cat) has its own built-in weapon with a speed of 2.50 and 1.00, respectively. The base damage range of those weapons depends solely upon your level, and caps out at 55 DPS at level 70. Your “feral weapons” are of course affected by attack power, haste rating, armor penetration, etc. just like any other melee weapon.
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4. What effect does my weapon skill have on my damage/crit chance in cat form and bear form? None whatsoever. You have a special weapon skill called "feral combat skill" that doesn't show up on your character sheet and is automatically maxed for your level, so you never have to worry about leveling your weapon skill. That means you can be level 70, have a skill of 1 in 2H maces, and you will still hit just as hard as if you had 350 skill. Of course, weapon skill affects your melee damage in caster form and moonkin form just as you’d expect.
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5. What procs/enchants work in feral forms? Weapon enchants or effects that proc on hit (even if the proc chance is 100%, such as +7 damage to 2H) do not work on weapons in feral forms. Everything else (i.e., stat enchants on weapons such as +35 agility to 2H) does. Enchants or effects that proc on a hit but do not come on a weapon (such as Crystalforged Trinket or Enchant Ring )–  do work in feral forms.
   
   If this is confusing, think of it this way: while shapeshifted you are not swinging your hammer, you’re swinging your paw. A Crystalforged Trinket adds 7 damage to whatever your weapon is, be it hammer, cat paw, or girlie night elf open palm strike. A Dark Iron Pulverizer can only proc when you hit with your Dark Iron Pulverizer, which you never do in feral forms. Mongoose doesn’t work because you enchanted your weapon with Mongoose, which you aren’t swinging in forms. If you could enchant a ring with Mongoose, it would work in forms.
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6. What is the defense cap? The defense cap is defined as the point at which a character can no longer be critically hit, even by a raid boss. Raid bosses have a 5.60% chance to crit a level 70 player, so all level 70 players become uncrittable at 5.60% crit reduction.
   
   For feral druids with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, that means 2.60% crit reduction from defense or resilience. 2.60% crit reduction solely from defense would require 65 defense, for a total of 415 defense. But the real answer is to get to 2.60% crit reduction through any combination of defense and resilience available.
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7. Wait, so do defense and resilience stack for purposes of determining my chance to be critted? Yes.
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8. Isn’t it true you have a 0.000000000000001% chance to be crit no matter what you do? Maybe. The truth is that nobody knows. There are a few documented cases of “uncrittable” tanks being critted. Some of those cases can be explained – the tank accidentally hit the “sit” button at the time (default X), making the next hit a guaranteed crit, or the mob had mind controlled a feral druid, giving it the +5% crit buff from Leader of the Pack, or whatever. A very few cases cannot be explained, which means one of three things:
   • You really do have a 0.00000000000001% chance to be crit no matter what you do (unlikely; this explanation sounds suspiciously like a common misconception about floating point arithmetic)
   • They really can be explained by a more mundane cause like the tank sitting down or MCing a feral druid, but everybody involved has either forgotten or didn’t pay enough attention in the first place
   • Some mobs have a higher-than-average crit chance, but we don’t know precisely which mobs or how much higher their crit chance is

So far, opinion seems to be leaning towards either the second or third possibility.

Continue to Druid Mechanics Page (cont.)

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