Post by InfernoMan
Another good option to go for if you are really so inclined to get your 2h mace skill up is Dreadtusk's Fury (
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25986), assuming you haven't already done the quest and sold the reward. Slightly slower attack speed from the crowd pummeler, but a heck of alot easier to obtain (been in gnomer several times trying to get that mace for a friend and never seen it drop)
Post by InfernoMan
Even before patch 2.3 weapon skill didn't increase chance to hit in feral forms. Feral combat skill was used while shape-shifted, which was maxed out for the level you were. The only change that 2.3 did was replace the items that granted +feral combat skill, such as
Earthwarden with the new expertise rating. Here is the expertise rating explanation, taken from the patch notes:
From the 2.3 PTR patch notes:
We have added a new stat and associated rating called expertise and expertise rating. Expertise rating converts to expertise at the same rate that weapon skill rating formerly converted at. Each point of expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by 0.25%.
So now as druids, instead of items increasing our Feral combat skill, which I believe was to get above the higher armor of the end game bosses, these items reduces the chance our hits will be parried or dodged by any mob. The jury is still out whether this is better than the increase to feral combat skill was.
Post by RogueLdr
Even before patch 2.3 weapon skill didn't increase chance to hit in feral forms. Feral combat skill was used while shape-shifted, which was maxed out for the level you were. The only change that 2.3 did was replace the items that granted +feral combat skill, such as
Earthwarden with the new expertise rating. Here is the expertise rating explanation, taken from the patch notes:
From the 2.3 PTR patch notes:
We have added a new stat and associated rating called expertise and expertise rating. Expertise rating converts to expertise at the same rate that weapon skill rating formerly converted at. Each point of expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by 0.25%.
So now as druids, instead of items increasing our Feral combat skill, which I believe was to get above the higher armor of the end game bosses, these items reduces the chance our hits will be parried or dodged by any mob. The jury is still out whether this is better than the increase to feral combat skill was.
Your opinion is assumption on your part and is not backed up by current theory craft or by actual numbers. Since I play a druid and use theory craft and recap to verify the theory craft I will show you the difference between Feral Combat Skill pre 2.3 and Expertise post 2.3
Feral Attack Skill increased your weapon skill at the same rate that weapon skill did to calculate base miss chance. The Earthwarden had 24 Feral Combat Skill which divided by 3.9 = 6.1 weapon skill.
Expertise DOES NOT increase your weapon skill. It does convert the expertise rating to expertise at the same ratio as weapon skill (3.9 expertise rating = 1 expertise) but unlike Feral Combat Skill, 1 Expertise reduces the chance that the target will dodge and parry your attack by .25%. Earthwarden has 24 Expertise Rating which divided by 3.9 = 1.5% less chance that your target will dodge or parry your attack.
How this affects your chance to miss is this. This is based on the assumption that a Druid has 350 weapon skill. When a Druid dings to level 70 he/she is only at 345 and must level the rest of the way to 350. There are two formula's used to calculate base miss chance. It all revolves around the difference between the targets defense ((5 per level) * Level)) and your weapon skill.
If the difference is 10 or less then the formula is:
5% + ((Targets Defense - Players Weapon Skill) * 0.1%)
If the difference is more then 10 then the formula is:
7% + ((Targets Defense - Players Weapon Skill - 10) * 0.4%)
Pre 2.3 patch a Feral Druid tanking with Earthwarden always used the first formula to calculate base miss rate when attacking a target because the 6.1 to weapon skill kept the difference between level 73 mobs defense (365) and the Druids weapon skill (356) below 10. This gave the Druid a 6% base chance to miss.
Post 2.3 patch a Feral Druid tanking with Earthwarden uses the second formula to calculate base miss rate. This changes the Druid base miss chance from 6% to 9%. But we do get a 1.5% reduction in the chance that level 73 mob will dodge or parry our attack.
Conclusion:
A Druid with Earthwarden equiped with the change from Feral Combat Skill to Expertise Druids now calculate base miss rate differently. While we lose the 6.1 to weapon skill, we gain 1.5% that the level 73 mob can dodge and parry our attack so we are making up the 3% elsewhere in the attack table. With the same exact gear on for tanking my recap which for months had reported 2.4% to 3.2% misses depending on the attack with 4% to hit gear recorded between 5.4% to 6.2% misses depending on the attack after the patch but my dodge and parry percentages were both down on average 1.5%. So Expertise is good for Tanking in bear because 20 Feral Combat Skill was the end of it's usefulness. So anything over 20 Feral Combat Skill was wasted. With Expertise you can negate all the 5.6% of the base dodge and parry that a level 73 boss has with 88 Expertise Rating. (5.6 / .25 = 22.4 x 3.9 = 87.36). So you can say the jury is still out, but my mind is made up. Expertise helps out feral druid tanks a lot. Expertise is not as helpful for feral druid dps or say Rogue's but that's a whole new story.