• nachrichter

Oh, and I didn't really finish the quoted example. 18 shifts in 202 seconds of fighting. That's 10440 mana to shift with 90 seconds lost to FSR. 56 ticks at 63mana is 3528 mana. Total cost is 6912 mana. ~2050 mana per minute. SMPs would drop that to ~850.

 

aurae

I think Tiger's Fury desperatly does need revision, perhaps something more along the lines of a passive effect that procs on cat crits, thereby providing an innate scaling mechanism through the acquisition of higher crit gear.

 

Dalamar

Tiger's Fury is fine, once we get like 2500 haste rating it will get nerfed!

But seriously, its was a worthless ability at 60 even before FAP, but now 10 levels later, 3 years later, it is the exact same and still completely useless. This ability tops the list of shitty feral abilities that is for sure.

 

seminarca

Well I'd been mulling over our lack of a scaling finisher, and as I got closer and closer to the end of this thread, an idea started forming. Fuck me if it isn't surprisingly (somewhat) similar to yours. I propose the following new rank of Tiger's Fury:

Tiger's Fury Rank 5
30 Energy 100 yd range
Instant
Finishing move that increases auto attack damage by 30%. Lasts longer per combo point:
1 point : 9 seconds
2 points: 12 seconds
3 points: 15 seconds
4 points: 18 seconds
5 points: 21 seconds

Our pseudo SnD if you will, available at level 70. The reasons I think this might be good whilst simultaneously not stepping on people's toes:

SnD increases Rogue white damage by haste, which in turn has a cascading effect on all the cool things they get, more procs (WF, Mongoose etc) and the big one: Combat Potency. TF increases Druid white damage directly by the same percentage, scales decently with gear but doesn't "overpower" us according to the ludicrous "Druids should only do x% of Rogue damage" viewpoints.

SnD costs 25 energy, TF costs 30 .. thereby making it more expensive to maintain.

SnD has a talent that increases its length, TF doesn't. If the skill appears underpowered, we can tie it to an existing talent in our already bloated tree (Improved Hide and Tiger's Thick Fury ?? Increases your Armor contribution from items by 10% and increases the duration of your Tiger's Fury ability by 45%.)

This will make our cycles a bit more complex and perhaps more exciting than just Rip, Mangle, Shred to 5cp and repeat. Mangle uptime becomes an issue though, because you can't do the Rip > Mangle thing. In any case, I'm sure we'd theorycraft an optimal cycle like Rogues do with their different builds (or whether the skill actually results in a dps increase or not).

Numbers can be tweaked, but I like the concept =x

 

Boevis

If druids are going to scale at the same rate as Rogues, we need either procs (which would likely overpower bear), better itemization and fixing FAP, or an equivalent haste to Flurry or more powerful version of SnD (Flurry has a slightly lower uptime, but at no cost compared to a SnD which would replace about half our rips).

Your suggestion, while interesting, wouldn't actually be worth using as a 30% damage buff to white hits, if you recall my post giving dukes SnD had the 30% increase to white damage barely beating the lost Rip damage, and it was looking at a fight where dukes had to cower, thus his rip damage was lower than average. We'd need a 30%-40% flurry based haste, 40%-50% haste as finisher, or 50%-60% increased white damage finisher to be anywhere worthwhile.

 

seminarca

Fair enough, but I do think haste is not the right direction to be taking for us while procs are not an option. Whenever I've seen this discussed, it really does just boil down to how ridiculously good Windfury is for traditional melee classes.

edit: The Rogue/Druid comparison is so prevalent, I didn't think to model something on Flurry >< but I like the idea. Going with that, since the bulk of our damage output is yellow, how about something like:

"Increases the damage of your next special attack by 30% after dealing a critical strike."

Being highly conservative here as the "next 3 special attacks" would probably keep us in a permanent state of 30% extra yellow damage, given how much we crit. Tie it to one of the 3 rank talents deeper in the tree (or to Thick Hide!)

Wonder how much longer pots/procs are going to be under consideration before they decide either way for sure 0o

 

dukes

Actually that's not true, what you considered was 30% haste, while seminarca is considering 30% increase in white damage - in turn this would make shred/etc scale better (which is quite sickening when you look at how much damage shred would do with another multiplier).

Unless you make it so it affects white damage purely and the effect doesn't scale with yellow hits - in which case it's the same as you looked at - then it's not so useful. I think an effect like Tigers Fury which affects not only the base damage but the skill damage too would be good - something like a self-AP buff or similar. Then again I really like the haste ideas as it's just another mechanic that's more "interesting" than straight up damage.


Overall, I would still just prefer to get proper itemisation than anything else. If we ever do get really good itemisation that fully scales with every other class then we can see where we actually stand in terms of straight up DPS. I wouldn't be surprised if we're actually surprisingly close to other classes with perfect itemisation - look at the log Chosimu posted from Deus Vox - that's where we should be imo, right up next to the rest of the melee group. I'm planning on resocketing/enchanting my tier 6 towards a more hybrid set (5agi/7stam gems) once I get a 4th piece (could be a while) to try the bonus (which I think will provide more reliable DPS than 2t4 due to the nature of "wasting" procs and such).

 

Daenerys

I've got a belt conunrum that I can't sort out. [Belt of Natural Power] versus [Belt of Deep Shadow], both with 2x 8Agi for DPS. I'm at 127 Hit Rating, so some of the goodness of Deep Shadows goes to waste...given that, am I just better off grabbing another BoNF and gemming it for DPS?

 

dukes

79 AP, 20 agility, 16 agility
vs
66 AP, 32 agility, 16 agility and some hit

or

120 AP, ~1.6% crit
vs
120 AP, ~1.9% crit, and possibly some hit left over even if you're close to cap.

Simple question, simple answer!

 

Daenerys

Thanks! Now to decide if 0.3% crit and some hit is worth dropping 24 Stam...being melee (used to raiding as a Hunter) has given me a new appreciation to this stat that I have ignored for so long!

 

• sordee

minor correction: 28 Stam since you would actually hit the socket bonus.

 

• Daboran

In Cat you need 8.6% worth of hit rating, which is equal to 8.6 * 15.8 = 136 hit rating. In a purely dps sense go for the +hit from the belt first.

Having said this, hit is very easy to get in other directions - something like [Cowl of Defiance] with a hit/ap enchant is a huge chunk on its own.

I wear the Belt of Natural Power with 2x8agi. It helps overall utility a lot better with stamina for survivability and intellect for shifting/healing ability. It's also not the worst tanking belt in the world if you don't need it gemmed for stamina.

 

kurujupe

Gemmed mine with 2x10agi and it really is the best tanking belt in game and not too bad for dps :P

 

AesaShark

Can anyone good with math sum up the value of the 4 piece Tier5? I haven't seen it mentioned yet in this thread.

 

Schnigges

75 Damage to Shred = (75/2.25)/14 = 466 AP equivalent to Shred.
Typical cycle implies around 35% of total damage to be done by Shred.

466*35% = 164 AP

I don't know if Mangle affects the +Shred items (Idol and 4pc T5), but I assume that it doesn't. Multiply by 1.3 if it does, I haven't managed to test it really because you need a Mob with lots of life that doesn't turn around, only thing coming in mind are the ghost Ogres in DB North, but even there i'm not sure if they stay still.

Anyway I recommend keeping 2pc T4 over any other T5(or even T6) because that bonus is yet to be beaten by anything else (280 AP worth for me and scaling).

 

dukes

4t6 is better than 2t4 due to stability of cycle, less chance of wasting energy (proc as you powershift, proc at 90 energy just as you're about to rip, etc) and the stat gains from t6 in general. Up to that point it's worth keeping 2t4.

 

Valerian

I'd say its probably worth keeping 2t4 even with 4t6 available, just so you can socket/enchant the T6 for tanking since the dps difference is quite miniscule if not in favor of t4 very slightly.

 

Schnigges

I don't have such problems unless I get 2 proccs one each after the other, I generally don't wait till 90 energy but untill around 70-80. 2t4+2t6 is still ahead by a good 100 AP over 4t6. Best is t4 Helm+Shoulder and rest t6.

 

Cainman

I read some of the information in this thread about trinkets and the comparison of the crystalforge to bloodlust. I was wondering if there was a broader comparison of trinkets for druids. I have in my bags hourglass, abacus, bladefist breadth. I have the badges to get the bloodlust and I have the rep to get crystalforged, but I'm wondering how they all compare. If anyone could point me to some specific analysis that would be great. Thanks.

 

Boevis

Taken from earlier
(I recalculated Str/Agi for 10% kings instead of 5% aka half kings)
Haste = 1.41
STR = 2.72
AGI = 2.94
AP = 1.00
Hit = 1.93 (obviously becomes worthless once you hit 8.6% +hit)
Crit = 1.81

This Makes those trinekts worth the following:

Houglass: (32*1.81)+(300*10/60) = 107.92
Abacus: 64+(260*10/120) = 85.67
Bladefist: (26*1.81)+(200*15/60) = 80.39
Bloodlust: 72+(278*20/120) = 118.33
Crystalforged: (7*12)+(216*10/60) = 120

The advantages of Bloodlust/Crystalforged over Hourglass is the ability to time it with your Cycles, since you spend an average of 6 seconds per cycle not using any specials, your proc from hourglass could be almost completely wasted.

 

Valerian

From what I recall Hourglass has a 45 sec internal cooldown and a 10% chance to proc on crit. With these numbers, decent crit rate and 5 attacks every 4 seconds, you will get slightly more than 1 PPM with it bumping its value to very near if not above Bloodlust and Crystalforged values (I believe I had it at 127 the last time i checked).

Your points about using bloodlust/crystalforged over using it, are of course still quite valid, but its still very close to the same (plus you can on occasion get the Hourglass + other trinket up at the same time for some decent burst)

 

Windchilla

Having had a chance to DPS in quite a few of the end-game encounters, I've found that Cat DPS holds up quite well. Our biggest drawback by far is the inability to benefit from WF totem. It's bad enough that we don't benefit from weapon enchants such as Mongoose, but add Windfury into the picture and our DPS numbers start to slide.

Heres an example of a Tidewalker kill where I was in a group with two hunters and no other enhancements besides Major Agi and +20 Agi food.

Wow Web Stats - Flavour Country - Tidewalker

If you compare my DPS output to the Warriors (one Fury, one MS), the Enhance Shaman and the Rogue (daggers) I was able to stay competitive, despite being outside of the "melee dps" group, which recieved Heroisms (2) and Windfury. Keep in mind we used a Druid tank, so I didn't have to place my own Mangle, but I've put up similar numbers on the same encounter with a Warrior tank. If I were part of the melee dps group, having received Battleshout, Unleashed Rage, Strength of Earth and 2 Heroisms; the numbers would've been quite a bit better.

Another log, this one from Naj'entus and in only partial DPS gear (but also a Bear tank, but no 'melee dps' group buffs)

Wow Web Stats - Flavour Country - Naj'entus

You can see that Feral DPS can be competitive, but what keeps us from really reaching the heights of other Melee DPS classes (depending on raid composition of course) is not being able to utilize WF. The real key to making up for our current poor finishers is utilizing powershifting properly. If you time it right, you'll land the 60 energy return sweet-spot and greatly improve your combo point generation and ratios of Shred:Mangle.

What I'm looking forward to most is the 2-piece t6 set Bonus combined with the Ashtongue Exalted trinket and the Idol of the White Stag; I'd really like to see what kind of numbers we can generate with 35 energy Mangles.

As for the Trinket discussion, I currently use Bloodlust Brooch and Darkmoon: Crusader. The trinkets I'm most looking foward to are Madness of the Betrayer and Tsunami Talisman.

 

AesaShark

Thanks! Can't believe I didn't think of that myself, but appreciate the input <3

 

osirisunnefer

Is anyone else expecting Zul'Aman to contain a dps weapon equivilent to the season 2 or 3 maul?

Also interesting will be the impact of season 3 weapons requiring a certain rating to get in response to raiders just saving for weapons and not armour. I know I don't have the ping/skill to get to the reported 1900 rating as a feral.

 

• sadris