• Zyla

Being called upon to DPS on Patchwerk last week(Not my idea. My raid leader suggested it after I posted a respectable 6th on a Twin Emps kill), I came to the realization that I really don't know all that much about the optimal attack cycles for a feral druid in cat form for dps. (For those of you that wanted to know - I came in 12th, after shifting to heal when tank 3 died at 20%, with 170k damage done, 2123 AP, 36.25% crit, beating all the warlocks, 3 hunters, and 2 frost mages)

The primary cycle that I kept going to was essentially just spamming improved Shred and using rake as filler to get more combo points for my big hitting Ferocious Bite. After the fight, the cycle seemed, well, rather inelegant, and more of a brute force system of attacking then an optimal dps cycle. I used Bite under the premise that it would crit at least a third of the time for 2700+, which far outweighs the damage from Rip, and I also assumed that Rip would be quickly pushed off. Maybe this isn't the case, which might change the analysis.

My question to the ferals out there is simple: Is there a better way? I feel like I'm missing something drastic that would up my dps more. I've heard a lot about powershifting, and after many of my bites, I would immediately shift out to regain the 40-60 from furor which lead to a marked improvement.

There's gotta be more then this, or maybe Blizzard didn't give this much thought and this is the best a feral can manage. Heres to the wish there is something more efficient out there.

We don't use words like that...St. Louise is listening!

 

Deathwing

I'm not a feral, so take my opinion for what it's worth. First off, mandatory "LOLFERAL" comment. While 6th on twin emps definitely is respectable, perhaps you should show that damage meter to the mages and warlocks you beat, light a fire under their asses. That said, feral dps isn't something to sneeze at.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I would say if you can maintain a position behind the mob, you should always use shred. At your AP level, I don't think it's worth it to use Tiger's Fury, since that skill doesn't scale. Rip has better efficiency than ferocious bite, but as you said, it will probably get pushed off. Unfortunately, I would say the boring cycle of 5x shred -> ferocious bite is probably your best bet.

Disclaimer: no idea what powershifting is, first time I've heard of it.

 

• Zyla

yeah, i expect quite a few lolferal comments. It was pretty much pinch dpsing and hopefully it lights a fire under the asses of those I crushed. I just was wondering if there was more I could do.

Powershifting is abusing furor, which means you constantly shift in and out to regain 40 energy quicker then sitting there waiting two energy ticks. Its essentially a ghetto adren rush. The issues it brings up are its mana intensiveness and its lack of synergy with shred (48 energy)

We don't use words like that...St. Louise is listening!

 

◊ Oggie

Disclaimer: My feral's a lowbie, but I've heard about this.

basicly you force a shift in/out of catform, paying the hefty mana cost to use the Furor talent in tier 1 Resto to bounce back energy much faster than standard energy regen. Often combined with the BWL druid trinket (use: for the next 20 seconds, all shapeshift mana cost is reduced to zero, 5 min CD).

Think 'ghetto adren rush' (what my druid guildies call it).

 

GamingManiac

I've never heard of powershifting but if I had to venture a guess, it's using the Furor talent to its maximum potential by shifting out when you are at 0 energy from Ferocious Bite, then shifting back in at 40 energy to start off, 60 if you wear wolfshead, and getting your first energy tick fairly rapidly.

Sounds like a real pain to do with feral mana, and I can't remember if there was a global cooldown associated with shifting back in cat. If there is, it means the pitiful gain of a 20 (or 40, which sounds better, although that means lolgimping with wolfshead) energy tick for shifting in and out because assuming near perfect human reaction time, you lose 2 seconds of energy regeneration (20 energy), resulting in furor's effectiveness being reduced by half.

Not to mention the time you spent shifted out could had been used for autoattacking. Sounds like an unnecessary headache. Then again, I might be completely wrong on what powershifting is. Edit: Boo Oggie and Zyla beat me. Long posts ftl

 

alfredo

Great site that includes a list of the best cat form feral gear in the game, and a cat form DPS simulator:

http://tangedyn.pbwiki.com/

The max theoretical cat form DPS uses a Shred x 5 -> Rip -> Shift -> Repeat cycle. With the best gear in the game and every conceivable buff, the calculator reports ~600 DPS.

You're right, though, the Rip debuff would have very little chance of surviving for the full duration. As long as you have mana to support shifting after each Ferocious Bite, it would come out ahead in a real boss fight.

 

darthgrimm

Lolferaldps !11

Now to more serious things. Maybe you can add a moonfire while shifting out to further icrease your dps.

One more thing...shifting out dosent cancel your auto-atack ? I dont think is that much of a huge increase in dps if you losing white hits.

Did you run a recap or something .. to see the percentages of your dmg ( white / yellow dps ). If so you can have some data and compare.


And also..the main question about patchwerk : Is a feral druid viable as a HS tank ?

 

• Falk

[Rune of Metamorphosis] and power shifting is fun for some burst. Other than that, I'm still waiting for the pre-TBC talent revamp before I want to even consider feral dps >_>

 

Kruthal

Apart from losing even more auto-attack time and energy regen time by extending your time in caster-form, moonfire from a druid in feral-gear is most certainly not worth a debuff-slot. And to the OP, the link posted to Tangedyns calculator is probably your best source.

There's been a thread on this already, the search button is quite handy.

 

Kazanir

1) Shifting does not turn off auto-attack, nor does shifting out of forms activate the global cooldown. You also get one attack with your melee weapon on the previous 1.0s cat form swing timer.

2) Powershifting is most effective if you are using a Wolfshead Helm instead of an Eyepatch/Guise/Southwind. With a Wolfshead on, the cycle could look like this, even assuming you don't get an energy tick until a full 2s after the initial shift.

0.0s Shift in - 60 energy
1.5s Shred - 12 energy
2.0s 32 energy
4.0s 52 energy - Shred - 4 energy
4.2s Shift out
5.5s Shift in - 60 energy
6.0s 80 energy
7.0s Shred - 32 energy
8.0s 52 energy
8.5s Shred - 12 energy
8.7s Shift out
9.0s Shift in - 60 energy
10.0s 80 energy
10.5s Shred - 32 energy
12.0s 52 energy - Shred - 4 energy
12.2s Shift out
13.5s Shift in - 60 energy
14.0s 80 energy
15.0s Shred - 32 energy

And the cycle stablilizes under 2 repeating iterations. As soon as you have 5 combo points you just replace the next Shred with an FB and immediately shift out/in to gain another 60 energy after FB drains your bar. If you have natural shapeshifter or use Rune of Metamorphosis this kind of shifting output is obviously much easier to maintain. In any case, you'll probably be popping mana pots and dark runes like crazy to keep it up. Rune of Metamorphosis is best to use after you are stone cold OOM and Innervate yourself, giving a longer time under the unbroken cycle while Innervate brings you back up to full.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

snape

Imp Shred is good for PvE DPS. I don't have it currently as I'm levelling, and shredding opportunities are few and far between.

Shifting to Cat does initiate the GCD IIRC (is trying to recall how fast it happens when I do shift->tracking).

And yes, 5 Shreds -> FB is about the maximum DPS when debuff slots are hard to come by.


A more interesting question in this thread would be:

What is the optimal Feral Cat DPS Cycle in TBC? (with all the debuff slots you need?)

 

Shmanel

Take this with a grain of salt as I am mostly resto (til the expansion), but that power shifting cycle that Kazanir posted seems to be a horrible waste of mana/effort. Using just that 1 15-sec cycle you posted would drain pretty much your entire mana pool, not to mention Innervating yourself with the ~90 spirit you are likely to have in all feral gear would make priests cry =(.

As far as cycles, this is how it breaks down the way im looking at it (which Im sure is wrong)

Shredx5 -> Bite = 280 total used Energy, or 28 sec, for (Shredx5 + Bite dmg / 28 sec)DPS

Shredx4 + Rake -> Bite = 280 total used Energy (192 from Shreds, 35 from Rake = 227 Energy, which would put you in the 240 total regen tick, but youd need 35 more energy to Bite, which would take another tick +2 Energy) for less dps.

Shredx3 + Rakex2 -> Bite = 260 total used Energy (144 Shreds, 70 Rakes = 214 Energy, +35 for Bite puts it in the 240-260 tick) for even less dps.

etc...



Sure, you get more energy for your Bites using the 1x and 2x Rake cycles, but that is not going to make up for the dps loss from dropping a Rake instead of Shred. This also doesnt take into account things like Dodge/Parry/Block/Miss rates, lag, or Blood Frenzy, but it just seems to me that the most efficient way to do it is just what you did: spam Shred as much as possible, use Rake to fill in when it can (cheapest combo point gainer), Bite as a finisher, and powershift after a Bite to gain back some of the energy. Sure its boring, but remember we are just ghetto rogues, its not like we have lots of abilities to choose from for doing dps.


In the expansion however, Im sure this will change as some form of Mangle/Shred cycle with Rip as a finisher will probably be the win, but thats another time and place.

 

Feorthas

Based on my experience, you can go two different routes with a cat DPS Cycle: close with Bite or a combination of the two (if you have Blood Frenzy; if you don't, there's no reason to use a combo instead of just Rip).

---

Couple of notes before continuing:
-If you don't have improved shred and don't have a lot of attack power, but have the cat idol and Ferocity + Savage fury, use Claw and shred only on OOC procs (if applicable).
-If you have improved shred, use shred unless you have a really really low AP.
-Always close with Bite on trash; there's just no reason to waste 5 CPs on two rip ticks.
-All of the damage 'cycles' are in psuedocode; sorry if that makes them hard to read, they just make the most sense in my head that way.
-To my knowledge, my rips haven't been knocked off. They're a short duration, high damage, DoT and so Blizz gave them a relatively high priority, as far as I can tell.

---

Option 1a: Close with Bite, you have 2/2 Blood Frenzy

if(numberCP < 4) Shred;
else FerociousBite;

Yes, it's really tempting to shred for one more CP at 4/5 but you have Blood Frenzy; if you crit at 4/5, you LOSE a combo point in the long run since you can't get 6/5. It's better if you Bite at 4 CP now and THEN crit to start off with two points than it is to lose the one and get a slightly bigger bite, especially considering that it takes 3 ticks of energy no matter what order you do it in. This is probably the best cycle for high crit, high AP cats.

---

Option 1b: Close with bite, no Blood Frenzy

if(numberCP < 5) shred;
else FerociousBite;

Since you dont have BF, there's no reason to worry about wasted CPs and energy. Always bite at 5 unless the mob is about to die and make you waste CPs.

-----

Option 2a: Close with both, 2/2 Blood Frenzy

if(numberCP < 4) shred;
else if(number CP == 4) FerociousBite;
else if(number CP == 5) Rip;

This is the best cycle for me right now because my Bite crits are only starting to hit 2700 when all of the planets align; a 2200-2500 average crit is much more commonplace and that only happens ~30% of the time. That gives my bite a 1527.5 average hit which is right around what rip nets me as well; another few hundred AP, or more crit, will make bite more worthwhile. Unfortunately, I believe that I'm going to actually lose crit on my next few gear upgrades in favor of high AP gear (my ~1250 AP with mark is kinda low) so rip will probably keep up with bite.

---

Option 2b: Close with Rip (0/2 Blood Frenzy)

if(numberCP < 5) shred;
else Rip;

It's simple and gives you an acceptable DPS cycle if you're low on AP and crit--barely enough to make shred worthwhile over claw, for example. Definitely gets overshadowed by the other options if you have Blood Frenzy and/or more AP.

I am not your personal Frost Deathknight knowledge base. If you have a simple question, ask in the simple questions thread; if you have a more esoteric, specific, or complicated question, ask in the spec-appropriate thread.

My PM, WoWmail, and, especially, chat boxes are NOT the appropriate places for these questions.

 

Deathwing

Don't forget Rake in the expansion! Based on thottbot, it looks like they are adding some sort of AP scaling to Rake:

http://www.thottbot.com/beta?sp=27003

A lot of the static damage affects are going away. Rend is getting 5% weapon damage + 26.

 

• Zyla

You can very much tank patches. I did it last week when we were down a tank. When he enraged at 5%, he slaughtered all the other tanks, and I managed to tank him through enrage with all the heals splashing in on me.

Anyways, a moonfire would not be optimal - 1.5 global cooldown. Theres a 1 sec GC on shifting. Whats fun is that if you can swap in a 2h, you can make it obey your 1 sec attack speed if you time it correctly when you shift out. As soon as you shift out you could swing a 3.80 instantly. I almost wonder if you could macro in a gear swap so i could swing, say a tuf when i shift out after the bite.

The majority of my damage was yellow. I would venture a guess that it was no less then 60% looking at all the glancing blows in my log. In a sense, glancings seem to be less of an issue in cat form because the damage reduction is not as big as other classes which rely on their white damage for a majority of their damage.

Also, we can't forget our good friends omen of clarity and kitty seal fate. I found that my bites were worth 2-3 shreds. If that is the case, would it be better to get to 5 as soon as possible?

We don't use words like that...St. Louise is listening!

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Mangle to 5 combo points, rip, repeat.

While rake scales it's still not quite worth using. I'm suggesting it be buffed just enough so that it's part of an optimal cycle if you have the mangle debuff up.

Check out my friend's bitchin' Lord of the Rings Art

 

Deathwing

Probaby right on rake, I was just pointing it out that it had changed.

Isn't shred better than mangle if you have the talent that improves shred? Why not shred -> rip cycle with enough mangles mixed in so that rip gets the bonus for its whole duration.

Oh, and I assume none of the bear or cat attacks are normalized?

 

◊ Kalman

Kind of a meaningless question in light of the fact that all bear/cat weapons have the same attack speeds (1.0 and 2.4, IIRC). They're normalized to those speeds, effectively.

 

Solanu

Can you post your profile 2123 AP with raid buffs seems easily obtainable but how did you get 36.25% crit ?

 

• Zyla

http://ctprofiles.net/3465093

22.2% + 9% for talents = 31.2%
+2% from mongoose potion = 33.2%
+2% from elemental Sharpening Stone = 35.2%
41 from mongoose/Mark of the Wild = 37.25%
387 + 10% from kings = 38.7 added agi = 1.935% crit = 39.2% crit.

I forgot to bring my sharpening stones, so i only had 37.2% crit :/

We don't use words like that...St. Louise is listening!

 

Meddler

Last time I ran a few numbers/checked other people's assumptions Mangle is ever so slightly better DPE than shred at reasonable AP levels assuming both are fully talented and have the best currently known idols. That's not accounting for the debuff or the difference in combo point generation. Both of these are also unfortunately well ahead of rake unless the target has an extremely high amount of armour.

Nothing normalised at present, no surprise given the pre set weapon speed which can be designed around.

Edit: Sharpening stones still work in feral forms? I was under the impression that was changed a while back when they removed hunters ranged attacks benefiting from sharpening stones on melee weapons - take it this is not the case?

 

• Zyla

to be honest, I haven't used one since the swap, so I can't speak to its retention of usefulness.

We don't use words like that...St. Louise is listening!

 

snape

Rake is still very good for me - the fixed damage is still well above the damage I get out of a 5 pt FB (this is my alt druid mind you - although I do have about 800 AP and I turned 60 yesterday). This is assuming that you get the full duration of Rake in, of course. As your crit improves though, 5 pt FB should be better than Rake I <think>.

 

Torel

With your profile, I would suggest the following:

1. Make sure you have a 3/3 natural shifter spec, 5/5 in the tier 1 +15% FB talent, and the FB book from UBRS.
2. Have lots of greater mana pots on you.
3. Use the rune of metamorphisis unless you have both DFT and KotS
4. Practice powershifting after combos so that you reliably see your energy going from 0 to 60 after a FB or shred.
5. Make sure you have at least 5% hit to avoid frustration in using power-shift/shred.

As far as sequence, given your crit, I would go for 4 or 5 CP from shreds based on if you get a crit on the 4th point. FB immedeatelly upon the required energy gain, dont bother letting energy build: the conversion ratio is poor. Don't use tiger's fury - at your atp levels it is a definate DPS decrease. Some suggest wolfshead helm as superior for this, but based on number crunching on a long fight you are probably slightly better off with SW, genesis, guise, or furors depending on what is available.

The 4 CP versus 5 cp option you may want to experiment with. I have gone to using 4 given similar gear as yours, due to missed opportunity when you get a crit with 4 cp up.

Use the rune fairly early in the fight so that it will be up agian. When the rune is activated, begin a shred/shift/shred sequence and do FB's when your combo points are at 4 or 5. After that, do shifts at much longer intervals, mainly after a FB. Use druid bar to watch your mana. Use a pot after every single cooldown. Obviously, innervate the healers or a mage - you won't get much out of it.

The group composition and buffs are critical. You obviously want BS up at all times. If alliance, make sure that might stays on the entire fight - it makes an obvious difference. You need to make sure wisdom and such are up also. I have not actually tested this directly to make sure it applies (it just occured to me), but if mageblood affects feral then obviously use that also.

As a target to shoot for, I suggest about 550 DPS given your gear level. As a warning, high latency will kill this method dead as a doornail. If that is the case, don't bother trying to powershift and just go all-out AP/crit/hit for maximum shred damage.

edit: Shred versus rip. At very high crit/ap values the sustained damage is very similar. FB can actually do slightly more damage and dosen't take up a critical debuff slot. The fully buffed FB is a better option for sustained raid DPS on a armour-debuffed mob given the options.

edit: I meant major mana pots obviously. I use greater for almost everything actually, but I am poor.

 

Meddler

Think you mean Rip there - which along with FB does now scale with AP and if debuff slots were not an issue will for most gear sets be more efficient than FB. Rake's the combo point generating direct damage/small DoT that alas no one bothers using much for good reason since it doesn't take very high AP levels for it to become inefficient.