Feral DPS Attack Cycles - Page 7

Nitz · 01/01/07, 3:20 PM

Originally Posted by ildon

Is power shifting still viable in 2.0/at 70? It seems really clunky and the result of an oversight, and if I were a designer, while I'd recognize that it was a clever and skillful usage of game mechanics, I'd honestly want to either break it or make something else more attractive to dissuade people from using it.

Well, I'm still using it quite frequently, so I guess it's not totally broken. :)

Tyvi · 01/01/07, 4:05 PM

Originally Posted by ildon

Is power shifting still viable in 2.0/at 70? It seems really clunky and the result of an oversight, and if I were a designer, while I'd recognize that it was a clever and skillful usage of game mechanics, I'd honestly want to either break it or make something else more attractive to dissuade people from using it. Through new abilities and talents, does it appear Blizzard is going this route at all? Or are they just sort of ignoring it?

I do not see a reason to "nerf" Powershifting at all. Shifting costs get higher as you level and in a full feral kit without Natural Shapeshifter you can't pull off Powershifting for a long time before going OOM. Rune of Metamorphosis has been normalized to reduce shifting costs by a flat 500 mana instead of removing the mana cost as well. Also, Ferals that Powershift have to adjust their gear accordingly and spec Natural Shapeshifter for maximum efficiency.
Oddly enough Feral T4 and T5 is actually providing more Int, so instead of nerfing it Blizzard seems to be actually encouraging this behaviour (or they are completely oblivious to the side effects of giving Feral T4/T5 the utility to emergency heal better with itemized Int but I really doubt this).

Originally Posted by ildon

The feral druid in my guild does not power shift, and he is still comptetitive with our lower-end rogues. When you consider power shifting, do you consider losing imp LotP on your party mates at all? Or do you think it's insignificant?

Said Feral Druid will probably not see a big DPS increase with the gear he uses to be competetive with your lower-end Rogues. My guess is that he could probably fit in 5-6 shifts a 40 energy per mana bar whic h is nice but not game breaking.

EDIT: Lavode, you forgot to include your talent build in your CTProfiles so your Cat AP ingame and on the profile differ quite a bit. And eh, anyone else noticed CTProfiles going totally bollocks? I got no clue why it is giving (Night Elf?) Druids a 10ish MP5 in their Feral profile with zero caster gear equipped.

ildon · 01/01/07, 5:29 PM

Ctprofiles stats got very broken when they switched it to 2.0. It's slowly getting better.

Like I said, from a design standpoint, power shifting just seems "clunky". It's not intuitive/logical at all, really, that switching out of and back into cat form would *increase* your DPS. It just seems like the type of thing Blizzard would adjust other aspects until it was no longer optimal. I guess if the mana is really that limiting, that's the "fix".

It's not a big deal. Just sort of an odd musing I had on my lunch break.

Btw, your feral gear is almost identical to my guildmate's, heh.

Anias · 01/01/07, 5:34 PM

Power shifting is still very much usable, and in fact with the limitted consumable nonsense from blizzard it is likely required to keep up with the joneses (since it lets you use mana potions instead of teas et al)

You can macro it to be, somewhat, less painful with /cancelaura

Boevis · 01/01/07, 7:35 PM

Assuming optimal situation with Pots and Group members, I see no reason why an optimal geared druid can't break 700 DPS on Patchwerk, especially on Horde (Unleashed Rage)

Lavode · 01/01/07, 7:39 PM

Of course it is. Those are the only choices worth using, near enough. There are upgrades possible, but.. not very many.and I am mostly focused on bear. I am incidentially not a fan of poweshifting. My group looses the aura and I loose the option of throwing heals / resses and even innervates (shifting out and leaving myself with no mana to shift back is the first tabu of the feral druid) around if I push it. (It is possible to do some emergency healing, even in that gear, if you have your pot and rune cooldowns unused.)

I could have sworn I did include talents last time I updated that.. Going to have to redo them, I suppose.

Vosk · 01/01/07, 7:47 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

Someone posted that they got 3700 AP 31% crit in Kharazan with raid buffs but not potions. If not bullcrap that's pretty incredible.

That seems a little high for no potions, but I think it'll be possible.

I ended up at 3200 with the best gear I could find. A few karazhan epics, mostly blues from level 70ish instances/quests. ~30% crit as well. Was slightly amusing to see how much my damage jumped when I went from bleed immune trash to bleed vulnerable boss. Spamming mangle sure does get pretty boring on those endless ghost packs though.

Exewut · 01/01/07, 9:59 PM

Originally Posted by FinishHer

I was searching Feral dps threads and this is the closest I managed to find for what I was looking for..

Basically I'm curious about raid DPS in feral, we can assume optimal gear or not. What kind of cycle produces the best dps in a raid situation? Also curious about how much difference there is between current gear available and BC gear for ferals, because currently I can only get about 1050-1100 AP self buffed and frankly a 0/41/10 build feels awfully weak to me as I tried to run around and grind to see what leveling would be like. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. :o

http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewt...250222#p250222
(pre-idol changes)

A bear-threat one is coming, I promise! (one day :))

[e] how do I make a link to 1 post in a topic somewhere? Instead of only linking to the page number?
[e2] Thanks shalas!

Melthar · 01/01/07, 10:13 PM

Originally Posted by FinishHer

I was searching Feral dps threads and this is the closest I managed to find for what I was looking for..

Basically I'm curious about raid DPS in feral, we can assume optimal gear or not. What kind of cycle produces the best dps in a raid situation? Also curious about how much difference there is between current gear available and BC gear for ferals, because currently I can only get about 1050-1100 AP self buffed and frankly a 0/41/10 build feels awfully weak to me as I tried to run around and grind to see what leveling would be like. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. :o

Currently the optimum cycle is basically mangle to 5, then rip.
At 70 however it's hard to come up with an optimal cycle when you throw blood frenzy and OoC into the mix. These will make your combo point generation within a given time period vary wildly, but the main rule is to make sure your shreds are getting the mangle buff. Losing the mangle debuff for 1 shred will hurt far more than losing it for a tick or two of rip.. If you can get another druid to keep mangle up however (either a bear or cat) then you're set.

• Shalas · 01/01/07, 11:09 PM

Originally Posted by Exewut

[e] how do I make a link to 1 post in a topic somewhere? Instead of only linking to the page number?

The posted time/date is a link to the post.