[Lucasnut1138]

Awesome post Dark, some great discussion here, thought I'd add a few things I've found to be helpful.

The World of Warcraft Armory
I also use Glyphs of SR, Shred, and Rip. Keep in mind this is a pure raiding dps build.

Source: lucero
If I'm opening with stealth, I open with ravage.
Source: Smoosh
Raid Boss:
1. Pounce.......

I have to disagree with both of you here. The energy investment / damage return does not justify either ability in my testing. After an hour or so on a raid boss dummy testing various opening rotations I've found

Rake - Savage Roar - Mangle - Tigers Fury - Shred

yields the highest initial damage. A couple notes. First, my tests stopped after Shred as I wanted data for just the opening attacks. Second, even with out clearcasting procs, you'll have enough energy to never miss a GCD. Put another way, you will never have to wait to use those first 5 abilites. Pounce and Ravage cost 50 and 60 energy respectively. Pounce is a low damage bleed, and coupled with the fact that you cannot rely on ravage critting they are both inferior opening moves. Third, if you run with an arms warrior or feral tank, replace mangle with a shred and you get even better opening damage.

As far as 5/5/5 goes, the only ability I make it a priority to get 5 combo points on is Rip. Savage Roar is usually 1 point, 2 if I get a crit. 14 seconds ( 22 with T8 4pc) is more than enough for a rotation. Ferocious Bite is another story. Short story is I fit it in as I can. Long story, are rake, rip, mangle/trauma, savage roar up? How much life does the mob have left? Is there another mechanic in the fight I have to pay attention to over doing more damage? Usually, I get 3-4 point FB's in.

I run glyph of rip over mangle any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
a) The one/two extra abilities you can possibly fit in with an extra 6 seconds of mangle can not gaurantee the damage an extra 4 seconds of rip can.
b) the longer the rip is the more time you can spend on keeping savage roar up, and fitting in FB's
c) Lots of bears/arms warriors out there, i almost never use it in a raid.

I take Imp Mangle in my cat spec. Two reasons.
a) On the occasion that I do need to use mangle, it costs less energy.
b) I've found it extremely useful when a boss or mob is at >1%. At 8 energy less than a Shred I can fit it in faster.

Lastly, I find pounce to be invaluable. Getting back into fights 3-5 seconds sooner is an incredible dps boost. I take it for the same reason a lot of raiders take the speed increase to boots. More combat time = dps.

Basically I believe cat dps comes down to a LOT of what if scenarios. Having 2 bleeds, a debuff, and a buff to maintain takes a lot of concentration, and a lot of decision making to maintain high dps. By taking things like Glyph of Rip, ImpM, and Feral Aggresion, you can maximize your damage in most of those what if situations.

Again, some great discussion here people. Keep it up.

[Darksend]

I know next to 0 about cat, i just do what toskk tells me.

I will say 5/5/5/5 is amazing under 2 conditions.

1) you have 4t8
2) you have an arms warrior or a mangle bot

what that is is 5 sr 5 rip 5 FB 5 rip. You can almost pull it off without a mangle bot but that is really crit dependent. Always start the boss with a 1-2 point SR into a berserk then start the 5/5/5/5

[Daywind]

Having read through this entire forum I've seen some discussion about Bear rotation and macro's. At first I found it a little confusing but I think I've got it distilled down enough.

For single target work I'm basically pulling with Faerie Fire (FF) and then Mangle, Lacerate until Mangle is available, Mangle, lacerate to 5 stacks, FF and then basically Mangle every time its up, FF every time its up (mangle getting preference on clash) and maintaining 5 stacks of Lacerate filling in the gaps with swipe. Maul is always queued up.

The only variation to this is if I have a significant threat lead I can sub out FF and replace with a swipe (or lacerate to maintain stacks).

The only area of concern here for me is whether or not swipe is appropriate or if I should just be lacerating all the time instead. My back of the envelope calculations show swipe having a slight lead on threat against the initial Lacerate (based on these threat values http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f200/...at-values.html, and my own recount parses over a night of raiding)

For reference my armory can be found here
The World of Warcraft Armory

While I understand Infected Wounds(IW) gets overwritten by a lot of different things I have been finding myself in enough situations where the other debuffs aren't available (either through raid makeup or the specifics of the encounter) for long enough periods of time that it justifies taking IW.

[lucero]

Source: Lucasnut1138 Lastly, I find pounce to be invaluable. Getting back into fights 3-5 seconds sooner is an incredible dps boost. I take it for the same reason a lot of raiders take the speed increase to boots. More combat time = dps.

Pounce is a stun only available from stealth, you're confusing it with Feral Charge - Cat.

Source: Lucasnut1138 I take Imp Mangle in my cat spec. Two reasons. a) On the occasion that I do need to use mangle, it costs less energy. b) I've found it extremely useful when a boss or mob is at >1%. At 8 energy less than a Shred I can fit it in faster.

I'll have to check your spec to really know whether I feel this is okay or not, but there are ways you could take ImpM and not be missing out on too much, I suppose. However, "on the occasion that I do need to use mangle" is telling. 3 points that you will occasionally get to use is 3 points that could potentially be spent better elsewhere.

Source: Lucasnut1138 After an hour or so on a raid boss dummy testing various opening rotations I've found Rake - Savage Roar - Mangle - Tigers Fury - Shred yields the highest initial damage.

All the theorycrafting I've read and my own personal experiences suggest that you should never put rake up before Savage Roar. Savage Roar does not work retroactively. If you put rake up before it none of those rake ticks will get SR's buff.

Source: Lucasnut1138 ...coupled with the fact that you cannot rely on ravage critting...

My Ravage pretty much always crits. In fact, I'm glad you brought this up. It's been a while since I visited, but my guild has had a small influx of tanks so I haven't been needed to tank as much. Without my bear butt being needed I finally got the long-awaited chance to go full cat spec. I'm currently topping every ten man and nearly every 25 man raid boss fight that I take part in. I'm beating rogues who outgear me even though by Blizzard developers' programming I am designed to do 7% less dps than them. I am still doing this since the 3.2 dps nerf cats saw.

I still open with Feral charge/Ravage. It crits for insane dmg, I have two combo points, I savage roar. If there is an arms warrior I rake, if not I mangle, then rake. I pop tiger's fury, I shred to five and rip. I reapply rake if need be or get S.R. up again, depending on where each is at. Clearcasting procs allow me a few opportunities to FB. Rinse and repeat. I use 2 set bonus from T7.5, but no 2 or 4 set T8. I wish I could see what my numbers would look like if I got my hands on 4 pc T8.

I'm talking boss fights, not cat swipe aoe trash.

Source: Lucasnut1138 Basically I believe cat dps comes down to a LOT of what if scenarios.

This is totally correct. I think part of the reason my dps is so high is that I am better at reacting to various situations than some others. Maximizing cat dps is very situational. When mobs are low on health it's better to FB than rip, etc. The rotations we've gone over here are basically your best case scenario rotation, but you rarely face your best case scenario. Quickly making adjustments is the real key to maximizing your potential.

[Smoosh]

Note: Font size/style may change during this, Had to copy paste from word and it will not resize properly. (sorry).
Link to this build at bottom of page. (I suggest you do read this guide though).
After a long time of trial and error, reading various forums and tests, i am very confident that this is the best (at this time) feral druid dps talent tree/rotation.

- Improved Mangle: Using mangle as a combo point builder is a personal choice, i find using shred with the improved talent is more effective, as shred hits harder if there is a bleed effect already up on the target. (I also find if you have a warrior or feral tank in the raid there is no need for you to use mangle, so shred is a clear combo builder for me).

- Feral Agression: I have seen too many feral dps druids overlook this talent. It is mostly because they do not read the fine print. 5/5 it gives an extra 15% damage to ferocious bite. 5 combo points with savage roar, a bleed effect (for the extra 50% crit on ferocious bite) and maybe a trinket, and this finishing move can hit extremely hard.

- Shredding Attacks: For the rotation i use it is essential to be specced into as i use shred, rather than mangle to build up combo points.

- Feral Charge: This is a great talent for getting in quick at the start of a boss fight, that and it comes in handy at times when a boss flings you back or you get cornered in a tight spot. Eg. Mimiron hard mode, you can jump over his fires on the ground if you get cornered.
-Naturalist: This talent is used in Feral trees more than it is used in the actual Restoration tree. I have seen Balance druids speccing into this. PLEASE READ IT PROPERLY. Increases the damage you deal with PHYSICAL ATTACKS. A huge waste of 5 talent points.
A must if you are a feral dps. 10% extra damage.

That is about all i have to say for the talent tree side of things.

How about some Glyphs to match that shiny new talent tree?
I have found this is about the best combination of glyphs to use for feral dps.

Glyph of Rip: Increases the duration of Rip by 4 seconds.
Keeping rip up is a must for doing decent damage, now that there is a talent to allow it to crit, it can be your main damaging ability.

Glyph of Shred: Each time you use shred, the duration of Rip is increased by 2 sec, up to a max of 6 sec.
This is pretty much win because the main attack to be using to build combo pts should be shred.

Glyph of Savage Roar: Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 3% bonus damage done.

These 3 Major glyphs are best to use, don't bother with the Glyph of berserk. the extra 5 sec isnt too useful for pve. only get about 2 extra attacks in.

Minor glyphs, Nothing really special here. The only useful one is the rebirth one, the other 2 are pretty much up to you.

Now what use is a good talent tree if the rotation you are using is flawed?

- My personal rotation-

Trash: 1x shred/mangle for idol proc, savage roar, swipe spam.
Savage Roar/Trinket, spam Swipe. Use Tiger's Fury soon as you're out of energy, or Berserk if you really wana go crazy. (But who cares about trash).

Heroic Boss: Berserk, 1x Mangle, 1x Rake, Shred until 2 or 3 combo pts, savage roar, spam Ferocious Bite from then on.

Raid Boss: (This consists of 3 rotations)
1. Feral leap, open up with 1 or 2 shreds for idol to proc and 2 combo pts, savage roar, build up combo pts to 5 this time.
2. Same thing again but instead use Rip instead of Savage roar (while keeping rake up)
3 Again same thing but use ferocious bite as finishing move.
Then just keep up bleed effects and savage roar, keep the rotation going.

Using beserk depends on what stage of a fight you are in, if you want to use it with a bloodlust or use it to get your main bleed effects and Savage Roar up.

Also spam Tiger's Fury whenever you can.


Here's a link to the talent tree which i am personally using atm.
The World of Warcraft Armory

Btw if you already have a feral tank in raid, you can spec out of improved leader of the pack if they are already specced into it, also you may see i put 3 points into furor, as this talent isnt exactly useful in the first place. may aswell get the stats from improved motw while having 2 extra points to throw around.

[lucero]

Source: Darksend Someone fails to understand that those specs were made BEFORE imp motw provided the stat bonus and BEFORE primal gore was even a talent. Because of that instead of having a point in berserk and none in primal gore it puts it in the lower talent in the tree because of the way wowhead reads specs. also had you clicked the link above the specs you would see that all your comments are completely void. demo shouts are now handled by a paladin. If your ret paladin does not have it tell him to go respec. I do not have intensity in any of my specs. except this one Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft which again was made long before primal gore was even in the game and before imp mark provided the stat bonus. As for the cat specs aagain THEY WERE MADE BEFORE THOSE TALENTS EXISTED. So my 2 cents to your 2 cents is you need to read before posting and yes I should remove the old builds but I did not think anyone would actually read them seeing as how the new ones are posted right above them Maul is terrible. The only 3 glyphs a bear should use anymore is growl SI and frenzied regen. When you have 699 HP left on algalon because your healer got sucked in and hit last stand and jump to 30K you will understand.

Ahhh. The lulz. I should edit my previous post to include that a druid should use Pounce when some idiot posts without taking any time to look at the details of what he's reading in the slightest. Nice Pounce, Dark.

[lucero]

Source: Lucasnut1138 After an hour or so on a raid boss dummy testing various opening rotations I've found Rake - Savage Roar - Mangle - Tigers Fury - Shred yields the highest initial damage.

You should absolutely never apply rake before Savage Roar. Savage Roar doesn't work retroactively, meaning you just cost your rake 30% increased dmg. Same goes for why I use Ravage instead of Mangle. First, half the time I have a manglebot, and even if I didn't I can either a) get one combo point from ravage without a crit, then mangle and apply a 2 point SR or I b) crit and get to hit my SR right after the ravage, then begin my bleed rotation. It just works for me, and I top most dps charts so I'll stick to it.

[Trondhjem]

AWESOME Work! Great Video, thanks a lot!

[Kylina3]

This is a really awesome guide and I've glanced through all the posts. However! I haven't seen a gear guide anywhere. In the main post it said gear would be listed, which it wasn't. Someone else posted a gear guide which is really good, but the raid gear stops before Naxx. Is there anyone that can post an updated gear guide so I can have a better understanding of how I should lvl my gear as I'm a new 80 bear? I did kitty the whole way leveling so I'm still not 100% sure on bear stuff.

[3up]

First of all i want to say: THIS IS A GREAT GUIDE !! Nice video with the rotations, nicely done.
But i have a question for Darksen. With the dual-spec implemented in the game, what build you use for tanking now a days? for myself im looking for a nice main tank spec, for 10 mans and also to be stable as for example an offtank or something in 25's, any ideas?

Kind regards,

3up

[Predakhan]

Source: lucero You should absolutely never apply rake before Savage Roar. Savage Roar doesn't work retroactively, meaning you just cost your rake 30% increased dmg. Same goes for why I use Ravage instead of Mangle. First, half the time I have a manglebot, and even if I didn't I can either a) get one combo point from ravage without a crit, then mangle and apply a 2 point SR or I b) crit and get to hit my SR right after the ravage, then begin my bleed rotation. It just works for me, and I top most dps charts so I'll stick to it.

A feral kitties opening sequence is such a small percentage of our overall damage I find it not worth arguing about. I personally never use pounce and never will but if it is working for you then go for it.

I have also found that as my gear has changed away from the 4 piece T8 bonus I have had to make adjustments to my rotation and opener.

I would be careful having the attitude that just because you are topping your raids charts you can't do things better/differently.

[Predakhan]

Source: Lucasnut1138 I have to disagree with both of you here. The energy investment / damage return does not justify either ability in my testing. After an hour or so on a raid boss dummy testing various opening rotations I've found Rake - Savage Roar - Mangle - Tigers Fury - Shred

With my old 4 piece T8 bonus I found Mangle - Rake - Savage Roar a good opener. Then shred and refresh mangle and rake as needed till a 5 point rip. I pop Tiger's Fury as needed in there.

Now that I have lost my set bonus I find I am waiting to get to 4 or 5 combo points before using Savage Roar. While I may be losing a small amount of my opening sequence dps I find it helps a lot more for overall uptime once I have everything rolling.

Having the shorter savage roar definitely takes some getting used to.

[Insahnity]

Anybody see any PvE applications for 3.2.2 changes to predatory strikes, or is it purely PvP for instant HT/cyclone/root?

[Terra]

I'm a bit lost. I've read through this thread several times and I can't seem to navigate my way to what I need to do... My background:

I have a level 80 toon of every class and they are all geared at least to 25 man Ulduar standards. My active tanks are my Warrior and my Paladin, so I understand the principles of threat, tanking, situational awareness etc...

My druid, however, is my main toon and has been Balance/Resto for quite a while. However, lately we have been slacking in having enough tanks to support 3 10 man ToC Heroic groups eventually and I have been under a little bit of pressure to play my Pally to tank it rather than get to go on my main. What I am working on doing, instead, is dropping my resto off-spec and putting in a Bear-only tanking spec (if I'm needed to DPS I'll be balance).

I have full expectation that if I am in Bear spec it will be for 10 man content only and I am unlikely to have a warrior or ret pally with me. I've watched your video (great work and thank you) and I like the thought of improved mangle as it seems simpler and as near as I can understand will result in higher threat.

Can you help me translate this into which spec is right for me?


--- Second question ---

Your rotation for improved mangle lead in was:

Demoralizing Roar, Mangle, Faerie Fire, Lacerate, Mangle, Lacerate, Lacerate, Mangle, Lacerate, Lacerate, Mangle, Berserk....

I'd like to understand Berserk better. As I read it, berserk is mostly useful to cats and it's only application I am seeing as a tank are on fights where the boss has a fear effect. Am I missing something?

[Darksend]

Source: Terra I'd like to understand Berserk better. As I read it, berserk is mostly useful to cats and it's only application I am seeing as a tank are on fights where the boss has a fear effect. Am I missing something?

It removes the cooldown from mangle-bear so you can spam mangle for 15 seconds non stop - 1 for a lacerate refresh.

[Terra]

Ah got it. The rotation makes sense now and I think I understand it well enough to know when to vary from the course....

I'm leaning towards this spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

You presented it as being best for TPS. Here's my concerns: My gear is what I've assembled as off-spec gear for quite a while. Most of it is ilvl 226 and I do have Twisted Visage as a decent weapon to be starting to tank with, but a few pieces lean more towards cat than they do Bear (I'm working to fix it). By going with this spec, I am putting trust in my healers to be able to keep me alive while I work on improving the gear, while allowing my DPSers to continue to go full speed ahead. This build does sacrifice feral aggression, however, and I'm not sure if I should work it in considering I am unlikely to have a warrior or a ret pally in my group.

If I have to scale back my threat in order to put in more survivability, I anticipate the first change to make is to drop KotJ in favor of ILotP.

Here's the gear I've assembled to start tanking with in case you have thoughts:

Head: [Conqueror's Nightsong Headguard]
Neck: [Shard of the Crystal Forest]
Shoulders: [Treacherous Shoulderpads]
Chest: [Conqueror's Nightsong Raiments]
Wrist: [Armbands of the Wary Lookout]
Hands: [Gloves of the Stonereaper]
Waist: [Death-Warmed Belt]
Legs: [Proto-hide Leggings]
Feet: [Footpads of Silence]
Finger 1: [Loop of the Agile] < - I am working on getting [Uruka's Band of Zeal] to replace this
Finger 2: [Signet of the Impregnable Fortress]
Back: [Platinum Mesh Cloak]
Idol: [Idol of the Corruptor]
Weapon: [Twisted Visage]
Trinket 1: [Bitter Balebrew Charm] < - Working on getting [The Black Heart] instead
Trinket 2: [Bubbling Brightbrew Charm]

[Draks]

Just my 2 cents...

I'd stay away from KotJ in a bear build. The armor loss from Enrage means you should never use it while you're taking physical damage.

Also, will you reliably have a melee attack speed debuff? You should look at Infected Wounds if the answer is no.

[Terra]

For 10 mans, my other tank will either be a DK with Icy Touch or a Pally w/ Judgement of the Just. In both cases, I would expect the melee speed debuff to be applied. (I say that not understanding DK tanking very well. I would assume a DK tank would apply Icy Touch as a matter of normal course of action?)

Would I be better off with this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I'd still be giving up Feral Aggression w/ no expectation of anyone else able to apply the same benefit.

[leyt]

Hey Darksend
Really awesome video you'va maded, tbh i'm using kinda the same rotation, but you just improved it with alittle by doing the swipe instead of doing lacerate.

I've wondered ALOT what addons you're using when you're raiding. It's and really awesome UI you got and i would like to know if you could tell me what addons you are using, to maybe increase my threat more or increase my tanking at all )..

Thanks on forhand
Regards Leyt (:

[lucero]

Source: Predakhan I personally never use pounce and never will but if it is working for you then go for it. I would be careful having the attitude that just because you are topping your raids charts you can't do things better/differently.

I never said pounce was working for me. I don't use pounce. Nor did I ever say I thought I couldn't "do things better." There is always room for improvement, and not just in video games.

Darksend - Nice bear rotation video.

I'm only getting to play a few times a week now due to an "opportunity of a lifetime" type job I just got so I might not be around as much. I'll keep an eye on the discussions here as time allows. Best regards to all the druids out there!