The point of the 70+ energy method is that you end up with a timeline that looks like:

0.0 Rip
1.0 Mangle
2.0 Rip first tick
<here be shreds>
12.0 Rip finishes
13.0 Mangle runs off

This means you get maximum uptime on mangle for the period that needs it, without it overrunning. You should just about always be on 5 combo points by the time the mangle runs off (sometimes it's only 4, but thats very very rare with a decent crit rate). By doing rip whenever, you end up mangling more than you need to, which wastes DpE compared to using that on shred.

Oops, apologizes. I didn't notice he posted a link cause the text color was so close and I'm an idiot. And also, thanks for all the responses I will put the info to good use with my kitty pew pewing.

Wrong. The system known as PPM means that your procs are normalized for weapon speed. Granted, since cats all have the same weapon speed it isn't the clearest way to say things. Also, calling something proc per minute when it can be messed with by haste and special attacks isn't the greatest. Extra attacks will increase the proc rate. Haven't you ever been attacked by a mace spec warrior? It's a 1PPM stun, or about 6% chance. If you get caught by a white->hamstring->MS combo its a 17% stun, and 1PPM deep thunder makes it nearly 1/3.

e: Yeah, what Trazhenko said.

Yup. maths is wonderful aye? editting the post to change that.

Re the normalised proc speeds: I was not aware. that is interesting. If that is the case, does anyone have the data for what proc % OOC is normalised to based off cats' 1.0 swing speed? Furthermore, does anyone have parses which show if OOC does or does not proc of yellow damage?

slight topic change:

I finally got my [Terestian's Stranglestaff] now, and I'm wondering if anybody did the math which enchant is the best. Flat out 70AP or 35AGI which adds some crit also.
Sorry if this question was already answered.

Keera: 35 agi is best by far. With kings, you get 39 AP and ~1.6% crit, which is far better than a flat 70 AP (if you want to do it by AEP, agility is worth ~2.8 AP, so it has a value of ~100 in comparison to the 70 of Savagery).

Angral: OoC appears to have approximately 2 proc per minute chance (from extensive testing done previously - if you want to check it go afk attacking a blasted lands servant while combat logging). That makes it a 1/30 proc chance, or ~3.3% chance from base speed.

I'd say it depends on how much energy you have and how much time is left on rip. If you're at 20 energy and 5cp with 4-6 seconds left on rip, then wait for it to drop off, reapply it and mangle. If you're looking at wasting energy ticks waiting for rip to drop then it might be worth it to throw an extra shred in.

Yes someone did the math on it 1-2 pages ago. It's a function of the time left on your rip.

I keep seeing folks, here and elsewhere, say that while the AEP of Bloodlust Brooch and Crystalforged Trinket are close for catform, the Brooch is better (in a way allegedly not accounted for in the AEP calculation) because its longer duration allows it to buff two whole Rips. That's a mistake, isn't it?

BB has a 20 sec duration on a 2m cooldown.
CT has a 10 sec duration on a 1m cooldown.

So over a 2 minute period, CT will buff the same number of Rips as BB.

I can see a benefit for raid trash pulls if trash fights are lasting less than 60 seconds, and trash pulls are coming more than 120 seconds apart. But that seems unlikely.

Im in agreement than the crystalforged is better than bloodlust. The point about timing bloodlust was made (at least by me) in comparison to the Blessings card which was a static 120 AP since you can get the full activated affect on 2 rips whereas with the static trinket you only get 120 on any rips.

The 70+ energy rip, mangle, shred rotation is accepted for personal dps maximizing. It occured to me that mangle uptime for rupture might be a concern, and I don't think I saw people talking about that so I did some really rough math.

If a druid mangles when he wouldn't normally he is essentially losing out on a shred, and losing (shred damage - mangle damage). I think we can say that the lost dps is (shred-mangle)/12. Even though there aren't normally 12 second chunks of time where mangle isn't up, in theory it averages out this way.

So it is worth it to keep mangle up always if:

(average number of ruptures up)*(rupture dps gained from mangle) > (shred-mangle)/12

Rogue with 2k AP and no serrated blades -> 1500 damage rupture over 16 seconds -> 94 dps -> 28 dps extra if mangle is up.

If the damage difference between shred and mangle is say 400 (including crits; I just made this up), then we get

(average # of ruptures) > 1.2


Not sure about my numbers, and how often rupture is up. I guess deep wounds might be a concern too. Any thoughts?

The average difference between Shred and Mangle is something like 700 for me in a raid buffed situation. If theres a rupture up, beacuse of cycle time they will lose, at most, 1 tick of rupture with the buff on. That constitutes at most 150 damage per rupture (which would need a 500 tick rupture which is a ridiculous amount). This means there would need to always be ruptures on from every rogue, and for there to be 7 rogues in the raid for it to be worth using an extra mangle over a shred. Deep wounds max tick from someone with [Cataclysm's Edge] last night was 409, which would be with mangle on. They would lose, at most, around 80 damage per tick.

Overall you would have to have maybe 5 rogues and 5 DPS warriors before it even comes close to evening out, unless the mob has a ridiculous amount of armour.

Not worth it, at all.

On the topic of keeping the mangle debuff on at all times...

My guild generally has 2 feral druids in the raid. In the case where both of us would be in cat, I try to keep the mangle debuff on so that the other druid can stick to shredding. However, I often find myself at 0 energy with the debuff wearing off, or throwing up a 5p rip at random times to still benefit from the next mangle's combo points. Sometimes I'll forget to reapply it altogether (falling back into my old rotation), but I blame that on my ui keeping poor track of debuffs.

I was able to pick up the 81+rip+mangle+shred rotation on my own, but trying to work in the mangle debuff feels very awkward for me. Is there a rotation that includes reapplying the mangle debuff that other people feel comfortable with? Apologies if the answer is obvious :)

A "normal" cycle is ~15 seconds, incorporating a rip->mangle, shred, shred, shred, (shred if you need it) rip->mangle. Replace the second shred you do with a mangle, and your rotation shouldn't change in any serious way but the mangle should be after about 5-6 seconds which will carry you through to the next rip->mangle.

I got a question concerning T4 2 piece set bonus. Currently I wear only 2 pieces of T4 when dpsing (helm+shoulders) and I'm approaching a moment when those items might get changed for something better in pure terms of stats. I wonder what items would you guys be willing to switch in those two slots to lose 2 piece set bonus, which is great in my opinion and I would really hate to lose it. How good is this bonus actually for a dpsing drood?

Or maybe I'm overreacting and this bonus is not really that great

Read the rest of the thread and you'll see that, in basic terms, the set bonus is better than any stats you could gain off any other pieces of gear or set bonuses they provide, until possibly 4t6 which is approximately equal.

Yes, it really is that good.

Last night on Mag, which takes us 10 minutes, I got the 20 energy proc 22 times.

Hmm we are using a different assumption. I think you are assuming an extra mangle in every cycle, so each lost shred is only buffing one tick of rupture. I am assuming some strange (ideal) cycle where you mangle only when the debuff is falling off, so each mangle is on for 12 seconds. Over the course of the fight you would have N extra mangles, and N*12 extra seconds of mangle buffing ruptures.

With my ideal assumption and using your shred damage - mangle damage = 700 and 1500 point ruptures, I get that you need 2.1 ruptures up on average for 100% mangle to be worth it.

To do this a little more seriously, I'll take a couple of WWS's from the last couple of nights raiding and compare the stats properly.

Wow Web Stats

dukes:
Mangle average: 15 hits, 20 crits. Average damage: 1636.
Shred average: 54 hits, 42 crits. Average damage: 2371
Difference for losing a mangle: 735

Emp:
Rupture average: 285
Rupture max: 393
Taking rupture as 300 average without mangle (high end case) which gives mangle contribution as 90 damage/tick.

Cannings (MS warrior with Cataclysm's edge):
Deep wound average: 272
Deep wound max: 409
Taking deep wound as 300 average without mangle (high end case) which gives mangle contribution as 90 damage/tick

Boomkat (DW Fury with Rod of the Sun King MH)
Deep wound average: 199
Deep wound max: 294
Taking deep wound as 230 average without mangle (high end case) which gives mangle contribution as 69 damage/tick


Assuming a normal cycle time of 15 seconds per rip, each rip need 1.25 mangles. Every 4 rips consequently needs 5 mangles. This is a conversion of one shred per 60 seconds into a mangle, or a loss of 700/60 = 11.6 DPS.

Assuming the rupture and 2h deep wound uptimes are constant, a loss of 1 tick of each is likely per cycle without keeping mangle up constantly. Total loss of 90*4 / 60 or 6 dps for each.
Assuming the DW fury deep wound uptime is constant, a loss of 1 tick is likely per cycle without keeping mangle up constantly. Total loss of 69*4 / 60 or 2.6 dps for each.


Note: Mangle crit rate was 55%. I couldn't hope to have had better luck with crit rate and so the dps loss is an underestimate on what would "on average" be experienced.


It can be deduced that you need 2 rogues and/or DPS warriors keeping deep wounds/rupture up continuously to make it more worth keeping mangle up continuously instead of using it sporadically when rip finishes.

Other factors need to be counted in though - warriors deep wound ticks work in a strange fashion. If you crit again before deep wounds ticks, the timer resets to 3 seconds. This can be seen clearly by the comparitive uptime of Rupture and Deep Wounds on the aforementioned characters. Rupture ticks 149 times, a total of 447 seconds worth in a fight which lasted close to 550 seconds, which isn't surprising with the nature of the fight (lots of moving around because of AoE). Deep wounds for Cannings ticked 112 times, 336 seconds worth which means it was only ticking for 60% of the fight, and for Boomkat there were only 56 ticks (168 seconds) of Deep Wounds. This brings down the total contribution from the three players to a lot less than the above DPS values - approximately 1.5x the original figure of 6 dps per player.

It would appear that in any fight where you can manage to do it perfectly, having any more than 2 rogues/2hwarriors will give you more benefit from keeping mangle up. However, purely from a "is this really going to help?" standpoint, you probably need 4 of the above classes (especially if your warriors are all DW), and even in that situation the difference is going to be negligible really.

The problem is that the 2 piece is so damn good and it scales so well with higher quality gear that it is not really justifiable to lose it.

If I were to replace it though, I would use 4 piece tier 6 with Cursed Vision of Sargeras.

Why?

The only non-Thundheart gear which is an upgrade are the gloves off Reliquary.

If the graphic were visible in cat or bear form I would take the Cursed Vision of Sargeras over any item, ever.