Well the entire point of the exercise is that you need to spend your energy because you're at 100. If you're at <80 energy and Rip is still ticking and you're at 5 combo points, obviously you can afford to wait another tick.

There is, but you'll never hit it.
Using T4-level gear, the break even point is ~55% crit. This point will get higher as your AP gets higher, since AGI scales with AP but STR doesn't. Since AGI has AP, stacking AGI to gain 20% crit will give you more AP which will push the limit higher still. So unless you start putting critrating gems in your gear (a bad idea in any case), AGI > STR until like 60, 65% crit.

Well, that's a matter of perspective[1] You're going to have OOC no matter what, so it's not particularly useful to say "crit's just as good, it's OOC that's getting worse" - we care about the rate of change of DPS with respect to critrate, and this decreases as crits line up more frequently.
It's a more interesting argument with malorne bonus - assuming you've got high crit, the malorne bonus is less valuable and might be swapped out. Equally, assuming you've got malorne bonus, high crit is less valuable and might be swapped out.

And yeah, when you're actually playing, it's not terrible to sit at 5CP and shred again, nothing wrong with a free shred - it increases your DPS. It's at the gear evaluation level that you want to avoid this situation, because it means you're not getting as much mileage out of your crit chance as normal. First derivative positive, second derivative negative.

[1] Strictly, they're both true: DPS = f(x,y) where x = crit, y = ooc.
d^2f/dx^2 < 0, and d^2f/(dy dx) < 0, at the points we care about.

Hello everyone. I am new to these forums as you can tell, but have been following this topic for some time now as it has some great information pertaining to Cat DPS. While I understood much of the math that has been laid out I am still not sure about one thing.

A few pages back it was said that keeping 2 pieces of the Malorne Harness set was a fantastic idea... yet a few pages later it was mentioned that 4+ pieces of the Nordrassil Harness was better as the raw stats mixed with the predictability of Energy gain was more beneficial. (I might have read that wrong)

If losing the first bonus in the Malorn set is not a big deal would it be safe to assume that the Thunderheart Harness as a complete set is better for DPS than that of Nordrassil? Forgive me if I come off as a novice, but when you read things like the quotes below... it makes me wonder.

Without concerning the 2 pieces Malorne bonus, Thunderheart is better than Nordrassil. Right now, the main difference we see between two spreadsheet is that tunas makes the Malorne set bonus much more important than the other one (i haven't actually used the other sheet so i don't know the author's name, sorry about that). So i guess it really comes down to making sure that we considered everything about the Malorne bonus to reconcile that difference

The two set bonus, not including haste effects, results in approximately 1 extra energy per second. Energy is generated at 10 energy per sec normally so this is a 10% increase in your energy generation. Since your yellow attacks are energy limited (not cooldown limited) this 10% increase in energy generation is worth almost a 10% increase in your overall yellow damage. Im not sure the exact way to model it, but Tunah's spreadsheet shows it as extremely good (better than 4 piece T6). Similarly looking at Lolaan's spreadsheet and modifying something things in it to get this ability working, shows pretty similar results.

My own simulator puts it at exactly 49dps. So even if you put on 4p T6, you would lose about 2dps overall.

If the difference is so low, doesn't T6 win in two ways? 1) Having the better survivability in cat with higher STA and AC and 2) Higher DPS because I don't think there is anyone here that can say of himself that he never wasted a +20 Energy proc because it just happened to proc 1 second before he powershifted/was at 80+ Energy thus wasting it.

You just proved that Str scales with Crit, not that it scales with AP.

No matter how much AP you get, Str will always be worth the same amount of AP.
1 str on gear = 2.7192 AP

T6-setbonus DPS-rotation question:

Mangle - 35 energy
Rip/FB +15% damage (fb +30% with talent)

don't skill imp. shred but instead +15% FB.
if you wear 4 pieces of t6 you should have around 45-50%++ crit raidbuffed. (i have 47% raidbuffed with agi totem right now only with 2 t5).
dps cycle: mangle to 4/5cp, rip, mangle to 5cp, fb, mangle to 4/5 cp, rip, mangle to 5 cp, fb....

it should be possible to have a constant rip on the target and still be able to FB in between. remember we have +15% rip damage, +30% FB damage and 35 energy mangle.
if so, is this more dps than the good old, mangle, shred, shred, rip ?

Shred is:
(225% + 405) * 1.3 (assume mangle)

Mangle is:
(160% + 264) * 1.2 (assume savage fury)

Assuming 400 white damage in char screen, the difference is:
1697 - 1085 = ~36% damage difference.

DpE wise:
Shred -> 40.4
Mangle -> 31

Energy generation:
20 per 2 seconds
Every 12 seconds you gain 120 energy
Rip is 30 energy, leaving 90 energy for other things. There's no way in hell you'd be able to get 9-10 combo points in a 12 second window, even with an OoC proc (at most you'd have 6 with a proc). Theres no way you would have time to get that many combo points and keep rip running. It's more efficient to just "waste" 1-2 combo points with shred and keep the combo points for rip than it is to use them on fero bite when you have 2-3 points and start building again as crits are random.

The other flaw is that shredding attacks is 2 points while the ferocious bite/demo roar is 5 points.

I think it's fairly safe to say that for now, we'll never use a finisher other than 5cp Rip when raiding (unless the mob isn't going to live for another 10 seconds)

Exactly. But as an aside...

This doesn't actually prove that STR doesn't scale with AP, since by 'scale' we mean DPS per STR at varying levels of AP, not AP per STR at varying levels of AP.

Applying the same argument to critrating and crit% would say: No matter how much crit% you get, critrating will always be worth the same amount of crit%. Therefore critrating doesn't scale with crit%. But as shown above, it does scale, negatively (i.e. diminishing returns).

There's nothing special about AP - just because we talk about DPS stats in terms of their AP equivalence, doesn't mean AP has a direct linear correspondence to DPS.

But a cursory examination of the mechanics shows that AP gives simple linear bonuses to the various components of our DPS, and thus won't scale with itself.
Crit on the other hand affects DPS in multiple complex ways.
For example it increases the damage done by your crittable attacks, while simultaneously reducing cycle length - decreasing the proportion of your attacks that can crit. (A cycle always has one rip, and the more your shreds/mangles crit, the less of them there will be).
This self-defeating behaviour is probably the major reason for the diminishing returns.

The "standard" rotation is Mangle, shred to 5 cp, wait for 80+ energy, rip->mangle, shred to 5 cp, wait for 80+ energy, etc.


Rip gains the bonus if the mob has mangle when it ticks. If mangle runs out half way through the rip, you get 3 ticks of +30%, 3 ticks of default. As soon as the mob gains the mangle debuff again, you get the +30% back. There some strange stuff that can happen though, like seeing double benefit of mangle, no benefit even though mangle is on, and other weird things.

I do have a theory as to why we sometimes see double benefit on mangle, but I need to take some time to test it as it could be completely wrong.

That's very true, and something people tend to ignore when looking at gear, we've fallen into the same "AEP" trap that most rogues and hunters do, when it's just as subjective to scaling (and less relevant) as simply looking at "How much DPS is 1 stat worth"

Daenerys, as mentioned in this and the powershifting threads, the best cycle is rip-mangle-shred to 5cp and wait for energy to tic up to at least 76 (or more depending on your crit/malorne) and start the cycle again with a rip right before the next energy tic.

Rip damage only gets the benefit of Mangle if the Mangle debuff is up during each tic. Rip doesn't actually do damage until 2 seconds after you use it, so Mangling right after (as soon as the global cooldown is up) Rip means all 6 tics of rip will get the +30% damage from Mangle. This is why people say to wait til you have at least 76 energy before starting the cycle, barring a dodge.

The other reason is that you'll have that tic right after the rip, plus a full 12 seconds (140 energy total) to Shred up to 5 cps while the Mangle is in effect.

Is that 49 DPS in your current gear or in T6 quality gear, minus the two slots for T4?

Technically it should increase with an increase in your overall DPS, so the more DPS your energy-dependent abilities do the more DPS the set bonus would provide.

Yes I am aware of that which is why I asked the question. If it was 49 DPS in current gear it would be larger in T6 further widening the gap between the two.

nickhexum: [Druid] Why is +hit good for DPS?

In a less flawed world druids would get a self buff finisher like that other energy using class that shall not be named. Failing that, my goal is to have enough crit that I am ready and waiting with 5 cp's for Rip to drop so that I can have continuous, rolling rips (while never wasting energy).

Unfortunately I am currently unable to find the gear in the game to give me 100% crit while eliminating dodges and misses. Nor is there enough haste gear available to rort OOC, Living Root and 2pcT4 for more than they're worth. (Speaking of which, how much of a letdown is the Living Root. WTB a druid class trinket that is more than a gimmick)

So in the mean time I steadily increase my AP and crit ratings, and take solace that my raid spot is not justified by my raw dps numbers.

Now, Bloodlust Brooch and Crusade Card: Both give 120ish AP on average. Head to head, I'd like to garner people's thoughts. I love how my Rip is macro'd to use the Brooch whenever it is up, almost ensuring that I get two Rips with the Broochs' buff. On trash pulls there is usually very little chance to use Rip, instead I find myself FB'ing and powershifting immediately afterwards. My gut is telling me that on trash mobs and the like where I can not get one Rip up, let alone two, but where I can keep the full buff stacked on myself for all my FB's the Card might be the winner.

Using the Card is safer. Ravage Mangle Shred all critting have seen me die at the start of trash pulls on numerous occassions, and popping the Brooch between the Ravage and the Mangle does not help matters.

Bloodlust Brooch can cooldown between packs, meaning that you have less dps downtime than the cooldown would lead you to believe, meaning that I could be barking up trees anyways.

Others thoughts and experiences?

The extra rip damage that many of us will see occasionally is caused by having two different completely individual mangles affect one rip before the rip ticks once.

This is easiest to reproduce using a cast bar mod such as NECB -

Do your usual 5cp, wait for 80 energy, Rip then Mangle immediately.

As the Rip ticks off, you will need enough energy for another Rip + Mangle(usually requiring 2p tier 4 procs, an OOC proc or a lucky string of crits), as the Mangle buff timer counts down to about 1.2 seconds(accounting for my ping) put up a new Rip and Mangle immediately. The later you did the previous mangle before the first rip tick the better. You cannot allow the mangles to overlap and this will be extremely hard to do with other ferals on the same target.

With this method you can get about a 25% repro on a bonus 30% rip damage. All in all it is a very small dps increase but it is nice seeing the rare 800+ Rip ticks.


On a side note I wonder about the possibilities of coordinating Rips with a designated Mangle Bitch to allow for the bonus damage Rips.


Also this works in reverse, often if you are too quick or too slow you may experience a 400~ damage Rip that will not be affected by a fresh mangle. This happens all too often in raids with multiple Feral Druids. With another Feral in the group I have need a double stack of an inverted mangle once or twice before, 290~ ticks of a 5cp Rip make baby Jesus cry.

Bloodlust is generally better I believe since you can time the use to get the most out of it (this was mentionned in a thread on the previous page I believe). Also of note the Crystalforged Trinket is better than either of the other two you mentionned by a very slight amount.

I could use some serious upgrades in my trinket slots...how does the Crystalforged rate compared to other, (relatively) easily-attainable trinkets?

7 weapon damage and 216 AP for 10 sec every min

216/6 = 36 AP

7 weapon damage at roughly 12.5 AP per weapon damage = 87.5 AP

total =123.5 AP equivalent.

Bloodlust is 118 AP equivalent
Blessings card is very slightly below 120 AP equivalent (due to build up time).
Depending on your gear, hourglass is pretty close if not better as well despite having an approximately 45 sec internal cooldown.