Thread of Ultimate Stupidity - Page 831

Executation · 01/20/10, 10:30 AM

I have actually stopped using the spreadsheet as much as I used to. I used to set up boss profiles and attempt different gear setups for each boss. But I came to the conclusion that block rating and block value were greatly overvalued, and dodge rating as well. So now I use a simple WotLK boss profile, .95 for burst, .05 for mitigation, .01 for threat. I then set block value and rating to zero on the overrides and cut dodge rating weight to always be half of parry rating. I have decided to gather hit/exp pieces outside of the values placed on them by the spreadsheet so I can keep my hit at 100 and my expertise at 26.

Illundai · 01/20/10, 10:38 AM

I can't seem to find that Blood Infusion buff, mind linking it? And yeah I suppose considering you only die a few seconds after she dies you might still get credit even if you get MCd. Guess I'll find out tonight!

Kirbie44 · 01/20/10, 10:50 AM

For feral tanking, you should mention to keep up demo roar. A big part of tanking is cooldowns. You should mention how they all work (ish). How Frenzied Regen and Survival Instincts together buff each other, and barkskin isn't on the global, good for damage sources you know is coming.

It is a great post, you guys are doing good work! Also, you should think about taking out the "I don't like this FAQ" part, and just leave it to "Where can I find more information?"

And... I keep referring back to the Feral posts... as I scroll up and I realized there was two. I wrote some stuff about one that was covered in the other. What I edited above applies to both (I think).

slvtov · 01/20/10, 11:21 AM

I'm attempting to always find the latest version of Landsouls spreadsheet in a central location. I was wondering if there was one place to always go to look for updates. Google searches always pull up various versions which most are out of date. If anyone knows where I can always find the latest version so i can bookmark it, please post.

WinterWind · 01/20/10, 12:06 PM

I've noticed since switching over to holy for some fights recently that Int only gives me ~90 mana. What's up with that?

Allev · 01/20/10, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Odas

Feral Cat

Q: What is the cat rotation?
A: Cats use a priority list. Simplistically: Savage Roar>Mangle>Rake>Rip>Shred. Optimally you should be looking towards 95%+ uptime on savage roar and 85%+ uptime on both rake and rip on non-movement fights.

Q: When should I use swipe?
A: If you are fighting at least three mobs and it doesn't matter which dies first.

Q: Why are feral druids the best recipients of Hysteria?
A: Feral druids do 100% physical damage and Hysteria can be lined up with Berserk while other classes either do elemental damage or do not have as strong of a cooldown that stacks with Hysteria.

Q: When should I use Tiger's Fury and Berserk?
A: Tiger's fury should only be used when you are below 40 energy and Berserk should be used when you have closer to 80 energy. Do not use Berserk over 90 energy as you will overflow on energy before the global cooldown is finished. Other than that they should be used as soon as possible unless a fight has a burn phase. Try to coordinate with your DK to get Hysteria right before you use Berserk.

Q: What stats should I use?
A: At low gear levels and without a trinket that procs armor pen (ArP), agility (Agi) is highest. With an ArP trinket it is usually best to get soft ArP capped (when the trinket procs you should be as close to 1400 ArP as possible). With enough ArP and no ArP trinket, it becomes best to aim for the hard ArP cap (1400 ArP passively). Hit and expertise are usually not needed to be capped, although they do help make the rotation easier. At high levels of gear (ilevel 264+) it is important to be hit and expertise capped due to the crit cap.

Q: How good are the tier set bonuses?
A: 4t10>>2t8~2t9>2t10>2t7~4t8~4t9>4t7.

Comments and suggestions are always of course welcome.

Comments on specific points:

- Rip > Rake in the rotation.
- Swipe is also useful in situations where you have two mobs which won't endure a full-duration Rip. Example: Northrend Beasts, if you switch to the adds on Gormok but won't get Rip up.
- It's debateable if ferals are the best targets of Hysteria-- a DK's damage can be stacked pretty effectively, while we don't get as much damage escalation because we can't stack more Rip/Rake than we already do. I need to research this more, but at equal gear/skill, I'm not sure the feral is the better target (despite popular opinion). A Blood DK's own ERW ability is pretty strong. I'm not sure the evidence is clear enough to put it in a FAQ-- probably mostly because a feral reading a FAQ will be at a lower gear level than the Blood DK he's playing with.
- This also applies to the "when to use Berserk" discussion-- not a FAQ, and not really relevant overall.
- Specifying set bonuses as better/worse is kind of confusing, given the stat differences. We don't want people to read this and say "I'm going to wear my 2T8 over 2T10!" Instead, it's better to specify bonuses in terms of relative DPS bonus-- 4T10 = ~600dps, or whatever baseline you're using.

palanicuzz · 01/20/10, 12:41 PM

Hey, im just wondering if i should use Rupture or Evis after ive stacked 5combo SnD on a boss.. havent been able to find a updated post @ rotation.. hope some1 have a link .. tnx

Tiffara · 01/20/10, 12:56 PM

It doesn't make sense to have a suggested feral dps spec that includes feral aggression when advising the same people who would grab that spec to not use ferocious bite. I'd suggest this as a more generic spec for people who aren't sure about specs. (That's almost the same as the one listed in the second faq, but with the last point of feral aggression shifted to furor, where it provides at least a marginal benefit for people who don't use ferocious bite.)

If you're going to plug FFF for bears (which I definitely agree with, as leaving it out seems to be a common mistake), you might mention its odd gcd (1s vs 1.5s for everything else a bear has) and how that helps with mangle cooldowns.

Naididae · 01/20/10, 12:57 PM

Hello!
So, I got the boots from Lady Deathwhisper 25 man (blood soaked saronite stompers) and was previously using greaves of the saronite citadel. On rawr the change does give me a considerable dps increase, I also gain a lot of stats, including almost 100 AP, but I go to 20 expertise while using seal of corruption. The dps increase is almost 100 right now, but I feel uncomfortable about losing the expertise cap, since I read everywhere it should always be capped.
So, should I replace greaves or wait until I get another expertise piece?
Thank you.

Odas · 01/20/10, 1:16 PM

I added some changes to the spec and rotation sections and made various other changes.

@Allev

What kind of gear levels do you think would be good to make a baseline for the values of sets? Presently its rather easy to get full 232 gear.

Cinchil · 01/20/10, 1:45 PM

I have been testing a few things in game and I've come up with few questions. As far as weapon enchants I find a minimal difference between the 63sp enchant and the newly improved "Black Magic". Is there a clear leader here or is it a toss up.

teneran · 01/20/10, 1:56 PM

I think the restoration part is good, it's concise and easy to understand. I would suggest mentioning that the information presented is in the context of 25 man raid healing and that some details and our general healing role may differ for a 10 man raid depending on raid makeup. Haste soft cap is a prime example because you may not have all the applicable haste buffs.

Allev · 01/20/10, 2:22 PM

Originally Posted by Melthu

I'll take a stab at the feral FAQ, feedback is welcome.

Feral DPS

Q: How do I dps?
A: In order, you want to keep up Savage Roar, Mangle, Rake, and a 5 combo point Rip. Use Shred whenever Savage Roar, Mangle, and Rake are up in order to build combo points. You can either perform your rotation as normal when you get an Omen of Clarity proc or always use it to Shred - the difference in dps is minimal.

Q: What cooldowns do I need to keep track of?
A: You want to use Tiger's Fury as soon as possible after it's cooldown is up as long as it doesn't take you over 100 energy. You want to use Berserk as many times in the fight as possible, but you also want to line it up with any burn phases in a fight. Note that there is no particular reason to line it up with Heroism/Bloodlust as they do not benefit each other.

Q: Holy crap, that's a lot of information to keep track of. I have to look at my buffs for Savage Roar, my target's debuffs for Mangle, Rake, and Rip, my action bars for cooldowns...
A: The stock UI sucks. Find some addons to help organize your screen. In particular, look for a buff/debuff tracker like ClassTimers, DoTimer, Elkano's Buff Bars, or my favorite, RoguePowerBars.

Q: What's my best stat?
A: You can never go wrong with Agility.

Q: I've heard great things about Armor Penetration, what about that?
A: Armor Penetration is very good under the right circumstances. If you have a trinket that procs Armor Pen (meaning [Grim Toll], [Mjolnir Runestone], or [Needle-Encrusted Scorpion]) you want enough Armor Pen to reach 1400 rating when your trinket proc is up. If you don't have one of these trinkets it won't really be worth gearing for until you can reach about 1100 rating. Again, your goal will be 1400 rating.

Q: How about stats after those?
A: The ordering of Hit, Expertise, Haste, and Crit will vary depending on what the rest of your gear is. Use Rawr (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t21713-r...leased_1_18_a/) to help you make your decisions. Straight Attack Power is never competitive with these. Note that the hit cap is 263 rating and the expertise cap is 131 rating (assuming you have Primal Precision).

Specific comments:
- Like I commented on the other FAQ, Rip > Rake. There simply isn't a large DPE difference between Rake and Shred; there is between Rip and FB. If you have 5 CP and Rip/Rake expire at the same time, you want to Rip.
- Bloodlust/Heroism is also the trigger for other classes to use abilities, like a warrior's Shattering Throw. While stacking Berserk/BL isn't a benefit, it's a benefit to stack Berserk/Shattering Throw. Or Berserk/Hysteria/BL.
- I personally use Power Auras for my buff/debuff tracking, and encourage others to use it as well. You can specify many things to great detail.
- On stats: I think people confuse "what should I gem for" and "what should I gear for". Obviously the Agi/ArP(/Str) discussion exists as for our best stat, but it's important for most characters to know that Crit Rating starts being really bad over crit cap. Crit rating is more "bad" (worth purposely avoiding) than any stat is ever "good" when you're over crit cap. Conversely, ArP is worth choosing on random pieces of gear before 1100, it just isn't worth gemming for. You have more choices. AP is better than crit rating over the white crit cap.

Allev · 01/20/10, 2:39 PM

Originally Posted by Odas

What kind of gear levels do you think would be good to make a baseline for the values of sets? Presently its rather easy to get full 232 gear.

I would put it around the 232-245 gear mark, since everyone has access to Triumph badges and ToC is puggable. I wouldn't include rare items like a DC/DV though-- probably an NES and DMC:G in the trinket slots.

takari · 01/20/10, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by allev

- It's debateable if ferals are the best targets of Hysteria-- a DK's damage can be stacked pretty effectively, while we don't get as much damage escalation because we can't stack more Rip/Rake than we already do. I need to research this more, but at equal gear/skill, I'm not sure the feral is the better target (despite popular opinion). A Blood DK's own ERW ability is pretty strong. I'm not sure the evidence is clear enough to put it in a FAQ-- probably mostly because a feral reading a FAQ will be at a lower gear level than the Blood DK he's playing with.

I think on paper, ferals are the best choice. Every single attack we have benefits from Hysteria, where DKs have mostly physical with some magic components built in. I have never won the argument of "give the feral the Hysteria" in any guild I have ever been in, so I treat it as a purely theoretical idea. I am not sure what you mean by stacking, but we can make sure both rip and rake are up and then berserk and stack how much damage we do via Shred during a Hysteria. Additionally we can choose to Ferocious Bite during Hysteria, which is how I interpret stacking.

I think it is equally likely that the Blood DKs in this imaginary feral's guild are equally inexperienced and I don't think we can make the assumption that they are better based on the imaginary feral's lack of experience.

As far as Rake versus Rip goes, I agree with one exception. The only time Rake before Rip is during combo point generation. If you want/need 5cp Rip and Rake is about to fall off (or in the case of the beginning of the encounter hasn't been applied yet) Rake obviously wins over Rip. But any other time, I would apply Rip first.