Why iMotW.
There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to why I picked up Improved Mark of the Wild in my straight-up DPS build. Before I get another comment or query sent to my inbox, I thought I’d explain in greater detail.
Check out the tooltip. Traditionally, when iMotW required 5 points, the resident raid Boomkin or Tree would pick this up to make sure that the buff was optimized. When it was dropped to 2 points, many feral Druids opted to take 2/2 iMotW and 3/5 Furor to maximize their raid viability (without sacrificing the ability to shift and have the chance Energy/Rage gain). Now, there’s really no excuse to let this go, no matter what spec you are. That 2% total attribute boost is a passive ability for the character who picks up the talent. Think of it like a mini Kings buff, minus the hot Paladin. It may not be a huge damage increase, but if you’re seriously considering the kind of damage you’ll be able to do in Ulduar, taking iMotW will serve you better in a single-target DPS race than taking 2/3 Feral Instinct (which will increase your AOE Swipe damage).Â
Hope this clears things up for everyone.
Smirkfang
I grabbed this one too, it’s pretty. My only disappointment: I was all excited that I’d get to help our poor overworked trees rebuff the raid, but my MotW keeps disappearing! Turned out that even though I had it in both talent specs, it feels the need to vanish whenever I swap… which I do quite often as an OT. Ah well.
That’s interesting. I hadn’t noticed that happening (which doesn’t mean it isn’t happening), but I suppose I’m still not buffing all that much anyway. Do what I do: bring three stacks of reagents and hand them out to your trees.
FWIW, furor is nearly useless in group PvE for cats and bears and 3/5 is good enough for cat questing. So, there is no reason not to spend those points in 2/2 imotw. In fact, I think all 4 druid PvE build can easily include those points. Which makes me thing Blizzard sort of expects it….
I agree.
Let me first say I almost called you out on it until I myself noticed the 2%.
I will say that it makes sense now but I HATE not having 5/5 in furor and definitely screws up my tanking when I shift and have 0 rage, especially if I am cat spec and need to go sudden bear to save a healer.
I honestly haven’t noticed much of an issue with that, especially since I can just go Bear halfway across the room and Growl from there.
If you’re quick enough, you can actually shift back and forth twice and get the Rage you need (although it’s still not a guarantee). If you’re really desperate, I bet you could set up a macro to Feral Charge in as a Cat and shift into Bear and lead off with a Bash or a Growl. I’ll see what I can come up with later.
Ok, so this makes so much more sense now. Not because I was like “WTF are you doing picking that up with your meow meow pew pew dps?!?!?!?!” but because of the passive buffage part. As a tree/boomkin I was picking it up anyway, but had it in my head that it was allowing MotW to buff an extra 2% to stats for everyone. But, taking into account comma placement in the tooltip, I suppose it makes WAY more sense that it’s for the individual player. In which case, all druids, be they bear butt, kitty, furry chicken, or a big woody should pick this up =D
Hey, he lives! How are you doing, man?
It’s basically a totally sweet talent now, unless we’ve got it all wrong. I’ve got it in both my Cat AND Bear builds, currently.