This seems like the only legitimate place to ask this question without being called an idiot or anything so...
I was wondering if socketing a Smooth Kings Amber (20 critical strike rating or, 0.44% crit) instead of an agility? I read somewhere that a feral druid should have no less than 60% crit if your planning on doing anything above Trial of the crusader 10. Currently I have 37% dodge (I've never found any articles about cat dodge that you need to maintain, so I am not sure if I am low. And I've never really thought of dodge as being a stat to look at seeing as I am always behind my target ripping its guts out.), 55.41% crit in cat form, and a bit over 100% armor penetration (I believe I am at 107.31% with my trinket and faerie fire both up, and 53.87 without).
I would be replacing 8 armor penetration gems (-11.44%).
Using the Smooth Kings Amber, my crit would go up to 58.93% (+3.52).
Using a Delicate Cardinal Ruby, my crit would be 57.49% crit (+2.08) with a dodge boost at 29.24% (+2.24).
I guess bottom line I want to know if the 1.46% crit loss is worth the 2.24% dodge gain?
I have Idol of Mutilation (+2.59 crit and 2.60% dodge), I didn't include this in my calculations, because I am in the process of figuring out if the Idol of the Crying Moon (3.16% crit and 3.22% dodge) is worth the 30 frost badges when other items may be better upgrades.
P.S. I know loosing the 11.44% armor pen would drop me below 100% arp, but in a raid I would be benefiting from a warriors sunder armor ability (still over arp cap, but cant really do much about that seeing as all my remaining arp is from gear).
Now..looking at the Herkuml War Token (6.07% haste), I was also wondering how big of a stat haste is for a feral druid, other than our auto attack, what does it effect?
Never ever gem for crit. You get way more out of agility. You never should worry about your dodge rating as dps.Originally Posted by poomonkey
A feral should be getting his 4 piece t10 asap. It is a large boost to dps.
Sunder Armor and Faerie Fire work differently than you are thinking. They reduce the bosses base armor. Your armor pen simply reduces the leftover by the same % as if there was no faerie fire or sunder.
Haste is good but not great. It only affects autoattack directly (so about 30% of the total damage) but it also gives a side benefit of more OoC procs. And anecdotally it may be the case that OoC works really stupidly well with a ton of haste.
So it's good. But it's not insanely so.
Remember some things about agi that aren't mentioned here. Agi adds not only crit - it adds AP. And it gets increased by passive talents like motw and buffs like BoK. It is much better than crit.
And no, you don't care about dodge.
I seem to recall something about haste getting screwy at weapon speeds less than 1.0. Is that just the graphics?
Since cats have a weapon speed of 1.0 as their base, any haste would make them screwy. since it doesn't, seems like it's fine. Probably just a graphical bug.
Thanks. It would be interesting to see a kitteh stack haste and go at it on a dummy.
I have tried gemming and gearing for haste in the past, indeed your DPS from white attacks goes up to around 37 or even 40% the closer you come to .6 seconds but on the other hand you're gimping your Crit and other stats so much that in the long run your DPS will go down.
about having less then 60% crit in ICC 25, that is indeed a fact if you're lower then that your dps will drop like a brick, i'm carrying two gear sets along, one haste orrientated and one crit orrientated. After the last couple of runs i've decided to DE my haste gear and stick with my crit gear.
a piece of advice, only stack haste when you're above the crit cap (78%) otherwise, plix don't
78% isnt' the crit cap. The crit cap for white attacks is 72%. And it's very easy to hit that with procs from things like death's choice or whispering fanged skull.
And even before that, haste is better than crit. Really, once you get to the point where you statistically get 1.5 CP per yellow attack reliably (ie, around 60% raid-buffed crit) crit isn't as good as haste is. Given the choice haste will beat crit. When you get to the point where with procs you're over the white crit cap, haste becomes much much better.
Remember to not look at your paper doll/character sheet for the crit rate; it won't include things like procs or raid bufs or raid debuffs. Use something like simulation craft or rawr.
Interesting thread. I will watch it and if I see any reason to help or correct information I shall include myself in the discussion.
The point of a guide is to get the ball moving in the direction of allowing new people to the class to understand the lesser mechanics of the spec, and for those who just wish to be accepted as a melee druid - to be able to compete even at the low end.
I have found in ICC that our DPS is verycompetitive. Most fights are very good for Ferals so if you are worried you are not near the top of a meter, in similar gear to your friends - read the guide again.
Some more advanced tips that I could not see in the OP:
#SR and Rip falling off together = very bad. De-synchronize.
#Rip falling off for 8 sec really is as long as it can be, get it back up.. ASAP. Don't think "ahh I have 8 seconds, a little more won't hurt". I aim for getting it back up 2-3 seconds after. If I cannot, I do not, unless it's a werk/saurfang style fight.
#SR 3cp, then 2cp, then 3cp tends to work as a good rotation for keeping Rip up, and weaving in 5 cp FB's. Use a dummy and learn why low cp SR's are better than high CP SR's.
#Our DPS is maximised based on knowledge of the fight as well as the rotation. Learn how your complicated rotation is required to be adapted on a per-encounter basis and become the top feral dps. This is not an exclusive feral tip but it goes moreso for ferals due to it's complicatedness.
Any suggestions on this topic would be appreciated. I occasionally find myself with 4-5 CP's with SR/Rip duration at 8-10 seconds or so and both are going to fall off within 1-2 seconds of each other. It's not enough time to squeeze in a FB unless I get some lucky crits or OoC procs but if I pool energy waiting for them to tick down I am in danger of capping out. My general rule for refreshing SR is to do it with 1-3 seconds left, anything more I view as a dps loss. However when this situation occurs my instinct is to refresh SR right away and start building more CP's to get Rip back up ASAP. If I wait until SR is within 1-3 seconds sometimes I get some bad RNG and go without a crit or OoC proc for a while and Rip ends up staying off for a lot longer than it should. While you should never clip Rip, I'm wondering if it would be more of a dps loss to refresh SR at 5-8 seconds than it would be to refresh Rip (provided you could and didn't have a more powerful one already up) and then get SR back up with only 1-2 CP's.
I can't help but feel that the above situation is mostly due to poor planning on my part than it is to bad RNG. I haven't taken the time to memorize the duration of SR per combo point (is this realistic anyway?) so that I can glance at my Rip duration and figure out how many CP's to use to refresh SR so they aren't in sync. Even if I could do this there are other factors to consider such as how many times you've extended your current Rip via Shred Glyph and possibly other situations. How do other people intentionally de-synchronize their SR/Rip and what are some things to watch for?
Last edited by bling581; 02-10-2010 at 07:11 AM.
It is unrealistic to do so unless you are a good number juggler. I try to rotate SR through 2 cp and 3 cp (4cp when double crits). This normally keeps rip and sr de sync'ed and allows to me use FB quite often.
Hey, Im feeling like im doing something wrong with Feral Dps trying several nights to up my dps but its stuck at 4.5/5k i saw ppl with almost same gear doing 8k,
tryed several rotations but its the same
here's my armory link
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...ng&cn=Jarkarta
Got any tips?
I'm not sure this is the correct place to be posting for dps help/armory links and is more for discussion about Feral dps in general, improving play styles, theorycrafting, etc. Try posting your own thread in the dps section or the help section.
A tip, plix read the first post carefully. you are over ARP capped (to high for the soft, to low for the hard.)
Yeah, this isn't really the place to ask this stuff. Hopefully someone else helped you in a different location. That being said, here are some tips:
In regards to all the de-synching discussion, it's really hard to give advice to you because the priority chart varies strongly based on what your gearing strategy is. If you are in 4pc T10, rake is important to maintain, if you are chasing ArP hardcap/softcap and not a crit cap, your rotation has less 2 CP attacks, so it's harder to guage when to FB. The recent mangle change has made things a lot simpler for 10m cats at least.
- Replace Mark of Supremecy with Needle Encrusted Scorpion. You are over hit cap, under ArP hardcap, and under the crit cap for melee swings. Hit isn't as valuable as crit right now for you. If you were hardcapped on ArP and approaching the white swing crit cap, the suggestion might be different.
- Once step one is complete, drop your ArP down to 722, socket the rest with agility. You don't have enough ArP to hardcap. You might need to revist this once you can get 1400 ArP without trinket procs.
- Replace that silly PvP shoulder enchant with the PvE one.
- Replace Executioner with Berserker/Mongoose.
- Buying the back/belt were poor choices. 4pc T10 is your top priority. It is a ridiculous DPS increase. It was about 800 DPS for me.
I haven't played in months and months because I kind of quit, however I feel my knowledge still has relevance.
I second the advice from Geros. He is completely correct in what he says with the de-syncing discussion, it is important to understand what to aim for with your gear involved in the equation. Try to aim for keeping crit high, as while it doesn't always provide the best benefit - if you are still getting advice from the forum it is likely it will benefit you in that it makes your rotation easier.
First off thanx for the guide. it's helping a lot. At the time of this writing i'm at lvl 77. I have one question right now. Should I go all out on dps/ button smashing at the start of the pull ( giving tank enough time to cement aggro of course) or should I slow down my "button smashing" so that i have less time waiting for energy to pool back up? I ask because slowing my roll on button smashing seems counter intuitive given that the other dps classes i've played you "smash as fast as you can" to maximize dps (lock especially). Speedy button smashing seems to work well in reg WotLK 5 mans considering mobs are going down really fast and i tend to top the charts minus the AOE times. swipe just seems like a complete waste of energy when i can be tab targetting each mob and applying my bleeds.
On a small side note. i've looked for a bear tank guide here on tankspot but have yet to find one. Is it buried someone?
i didn't read other people's posts so it may have been answered but here's my rotation(s) in cat:
for one, i never go stealth for an opener. IMO its just a waste. i just open with mangle. only time i ever even use stealth on my toon is when i'm trying to get from one place to another without engaging mobs (ie, wipe w/ respawns, soloing quests, etc etc blah blah blah) or during pvp.
trash with 3 or more mobs:
mangle or rake something to get a CP, pop savage roar, spam swipe until energy goes out, immediately hit tiger's fury, keep spamming swipe until shit is dead, when it's getting down to one mob do the single mob rotation
single mob and/or boss:
apply FFF if that's your job (after the tank gets aggro, dummy), then:
mangle, savage roar, rake, shred until you get 5 cp, (use tiger's fury right away when you first run out of energy to get to that first rip in as soon as possible, so it can start ticking ASAP, and plus you'll be doing more on white hits with the tiger's fury buff too) then do whichever of these needs to be done, in priority:
- refresh/apply savage roar
- refresh/apply rip
- ferocious bite if above two are good
then just keep shredding their ass for CP's and continue to follow that three-priority rule each time you get 5 cp. repeat. any time mangle or rake is going down refresh that during your combo point farming. pop berserking right at the beginning of the fight on bosses so if it's a long fight you can use it again. make sure to let the tank get aggro though because you will lay a shit ton of damage down really quickly using this rotation combined with berserking and then followed by tiger's fury after lol. keep FFF up if it's your job.
with the proper glyphs/spec and stuff even if you pop savage roar with only 1 or 2 combo points you will still have plenty of time to apply the first rip before you need to refresh savage roar.
IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER DRUID KEEPING UP MANGLE THEN IGNORE THAT PART OF THE ROTATION COMPLETELY AND JUST DO THE REST OF WHAT I SAID.
That's how I play and I ran H Pit of Saron the other day and even in my garbage ass like 4.5k gearscore gear (i've been deployed overseas and couldn't play for new gear, don't hate) I was doing like 4-4.5k DPS overall and hitting 5k+ on the bosses. And this is just with a Titansteel Destroyer with Berserking enchant on it, lmao. Think if I had a worth a shit weapon. I do have a couple of the higher end LW crafted pieces though. I will point out though that the tank was a druid and he was keeping up mangle so I got to really lay into the mobs with my shreds which helped boost my DPS because not only was shred hitting harder than mangle, but it was also keeping my rip up (glyph) so i got to ferocious bite more often. But even with those factors, it's still not shabby for my GS and I was outdpsing the other cat druid in the group by almost 1K and he had way better gear. AND I WAS STILL IN AFGHANISTAN PLAYING W/ 1K-1.5K LATS, lagging out, having the mobs move on me and me be out of melee range and it taking a few seconds before the delay told me that, etc.
I kind of have a diff spec though, I picked up all the main talents but I didn't bother speccing Feral Charge for my cat spec bc imo I didn't really need it, I mean there are plenty other melee dps'ers that don't have a talent like that and they do just fine, plus i have feral swiftness so i'm not dragging ass. I maxed out the talent with the swipe bonus because so many pulls are multiple mobs. Here's the spec of my cat form:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZEGMc...AkbAczb:VmpVzm
This spec is all about my DPS alone and that's it. Completely selfish and not helping anyone else in the group out in any way, shape, or form, lol. Except for some crit chance. No imp leader of the pack, none of the fluffy crap. Just raw DPS.
For the gear basically just get the agi/crit meta, one +10 stats blue gem, then gem everything else +agility. The meta will activate with that setup. Berserking is the best weapon chant when playing as cat only, but if you plan to use the same weapon in your bear spec as your cat spec then Mongoose or w/e is acceptable. Ebon blade chant on headpiece, Hodir Axe inscription on shoulders, +22 agi to cloak, +10 stats to chest, I have the LW AP fur lining on the wrist, etc etc blah blah blah. All the generic DPS AP/Agi chants.
I originally posted all of what you see above in response to the Druid DPS in Tank Spec (being a kitty in bear's clothing) thread, but I think it's better served in this one, lol.
also gonna repost this image cause i find it to be hilarious:
http://www.tankspot.com/attachment.p...7&d=1280093801
Last edited by kungfugrip; 07-25-2010 at 02:38 PM.
http://www.tankspot.com/article.php?id=113807
http://www.wow.com/2010/04/27/shifti...ew-bear-at-80/
as for the cat, read my above post for answers to your button mashing questions. on aoe yeah i just go apeshit. for bosses you have to wait a little in the beginning (i mean not forever, like 3-5 or so seconds after the tank initiates) especially if you hit berserk or else you will lay out way too much damage too fast and rip aggro if you're not careful, seeing as how we don't have anything like misdirect or tricks of the trade. if you do have a huntard or rogue in the group and they've misdirected the tank then feel free to unload right when they do because the threat won't be a prob. if they aren't in the group then usually i casually meander up to the boss after the tank pulls and toss a FFF on it en route and then when i get there i pop berserk and go ballistic on his ass. make sure to time your berserk for when the boss isn't about to go into some phase or form that makes it so you can't attack, lol.
Last edited by kungfugrip; 07-25-2010 at 10:38 AM.
as far as threat issue's I havent really had many issue's but we usually run with 3 to 5 hunters so md city wich also means I NEVER get hysteria and am a sad kitty. they prefer to give it to a dps class that is allready top dps IE hunters who If I am not mistaken do not get full benefit of hysteria like a dps warrior or kitty druid correct me If I am wrong.
to the op great guide all in all. as many others have pointed out kitty dps is not an accurate press X to get Y class to dps with it takes an amazing amount of situational awareness and also very deep understanding of the class mechanics to be really good at dps but for a base to start with this is a great guide.
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