[Bjern Fita]

hopefully the title gives away what I'm asking here.

My guild is a 10 man only/no strats off the web guild which is working on Yogg and just starting in TotC HC.

So far we have phase 1 on Yogg down pat, and phase 2 we have managed to hit 31% on Yogg's brain.

I've been tanking the encounter (The World of Warcraft Armory ) and also dpsing the brain.

What should I be doing to maximise my dps? Movement/sanity isn't an issue for me, but I guess the big thing is I've never learnt to play cat-form (other spec is resto).

For the most part I've been staying bear for everything, although I know in theory cat should be more damage while still providing the same buffs (small heals and FFF).

Any tips on quickly bursting the tentacles? What form? What form on the brain? Should I use a standard cat dps rotation (which I can look up) or should I vary it considering dps time is limited?

Lot's of questions here I know but hoping someone can offer something up.

Appreciate any input.

[geros]

in 10 man if you are the sole tank it's probably best to just tank the crushers so that melee can participate. So bear form there. In all other scenarios you should be going catform. You should really be going catform in any encounter where you aren't tanking for longer than a few seconds.

You want to make sure that you get all your bleed effects up on the brain, so you want a full rotation. 4cp+ savage roar, mangle, rake, and 5cp rip. if it looks like you are running out of time and you have leftover combo points at the end, do a fericious bite and get out.

kitty dps is a pretty complicated priority system, so I suggest spending some time with a training dummy to get the hang of it before applying it to YS. Otherwise you are more likely to tunnelvision.

[Mammoth]

I'm in the same position in my guild runs. I two tank 10-man Yogg with a Pally. We both round up the adds in phase one, I go in the brain room in phase 2, he tanks most of the adds while I collect them and bring them to him in phase 3. Due to our strategy I use my bear spec to be on the safe side but equip a lot of cat gear, particularly if it also has a lot of stam.

Inside the portal I'll go cat form and usually just Rake then Mangle each tentacle once or twice before moving on. The tentacles have low health and will die to the Rake. I'll try to enter the brain room with Savage Roar up (using combo points built off of the tentacles). My rotation is entirely dependent on how much time I have on Savage Roar when I enter. Priority is to put up FFF, keep up Savage Roar (I wear 4 piece T8 so popping it with 1 combo point is plenty), keep up Rake, keep up 5-point Rip, Mangle, and 5-point Bite if I have the time/combo points to do so. I always try to time my abilities to get a fresh Rip and Rake up just before I have to take the portal out. It's essentially your normal cat rotation (with Mangle or Shred depending on your spec) but modified for the window of time you have available, i.e. no sense working to put up a Savage Roar for any longer than you'll be in the brain room.

[Liquidska]

Mammoth hits it pretty head on. The only though I could add is that maybe pop beserk if you don't feel you need it for tanking. The extra shred spam that follows should do pretty good deeps. Although, I wouldn't stress so much your dps in side the brain room, if you are not getting the brian down very fast then that falls on your actualy dps. Anything you can add is great, but you should pretty much be there for mangle, FF and LotP, after that any deeps you may do is just a bonus. It shouldn't be the make or breaking point.

[Bjern Fita]

Thanks for all the advice.

Sunday is our next run on Yogg after Ony so should have a good 2.5 hours at it. Going to make some time before hand to work on the above rotation. I'll perhaps sub in a piece or two or more dps orientated pieces to bump myself up a little.

As you say I think it will turn out to be a minimal contribution from myself. Only really had 3 good evenings on Yogg and people are still getting used to the encounter. Think we're yet to have all 4 melee in our group make it into the portals yet still have got Yogg down to around a third of his health.

Thanks once again and looking forward to making some progress over the weekend.

Cheers

[Bjern Fita]

Got him last night. Mangle plus rake on the tentacles was great and I was much better at actually doing a full rotation of bleeds on the brain.

Although who are we kidding, other melee really got their act together and it was them that really stood up.

Hit phase 3 in two portals, 1st try we were working out what actually happens, then got him the 2nd time we got to phase three.

Loads of fun, now to try and kill Gormok on HC.... hammering us at the moment.

[Lachesis]

Grats on your kill, OP!
I do the same for my guild on 25-man- tank phase one, dps phase two and mostly dps phase three.
What I do is pick a corruptor, mark it with a star, and build five combo points on it. The warriors buid their rage on it, rogues build CP on it, and when that first set of portals comes up, I've got a 5CP savage roar ready to go for when I get in there, the rogues have S&D up, and everything's golden. I use mangle, rake, mangle, maybe another mangle and move on while I'm working on tentacles, and I save both dash and kitty charge for the journey to the brain itself. Kitty charge puts me in a position where I can shred (the brain is weird about that- some places you can, others, you can't.), and I've still got my savage roar up long enough to get another one up on the brain. Then, trinkets, berserk, haste pot, everything, and burn.

I use the shred, rip and savage roar glyphs for this fight- the three essential feral dps glyphs. My full brain rotation is:
Keep mangle up
5-point SR
Keep a 5-point rip up
Keep rake up
Shred for CP
Use 5-point ferocious bites (I usually do two if I have berserk up, one if I don't)
Refresh rip
Run like hell to the portal and gtfo.

This is the talent build I use for the fight- a standard feral dps build with three points in thick hide instead of feral aggression

Druid Talents - World of Warcraft Talent Calculator version 3.2.2 - WoW Tools

Hope this helps to make your next kill even speedier!