Just half assing some math:

I use mangle every 12 seconds at most, unless for some reason positioning is screwed up, while dpsing for the most part. We generally run 2 feral druids for dps/offtanking, and I'm usually the mangle-bitch.

So, assuming I use it every 12 seconds, it will proc 4 out of 10 uses, or an uptime of 32 seconds out of 120 (since I would pretty much never use mangle while the debuff is still up).

32 comes from it being 8 seconds duration, and it would be up 4 out of 10 mangles. So, on average, it gives a total of (32/120) * 140 str, or about 37.3 str, which is 98.56 attack power with Kings+HOTW. Bloodlust brooch, when used on every cooldown, is 118.3 attack power. (72 + 278/6).

Now, for Crystalforged. Since +weapon damage doesn't effect rip (I've tested it), its not quite worth 14 attack power per point of damage, the earlier estimates of 11.5 sound very reasonable (since Rip is usually somewhere around 30% of my damage, last I checked). So, 7*11.5 = 80.5 atk power. Additionally, the use ability has a one minute CD, so its attack power bonus is worth about (216/6) or 36, bringing the total to 116.5.

Summary: In my opinion, that trinket is crap for raiding, where Mangle isn't used very often if you are attemping to maintain an efficient DPS cycle.

You need to take into account that you can get 2 rips at most off with Bloodlust Brooch, 2 off at most with the Crystalforged, but 4 off on average with the Ashtongue. 37.3 str equates to 101.4 AP from my calcs (*1.2*1.1*1.03 (hotw/bok/sotf)). Assuming the info on the druid wiki is right (4% of AP per tick on rip) then you end up with 140*1.2(hotw)*1.03(sotf)*1.1(bok)*2(ap)*1.3(mangle)*1.1(naturalist)*.24(contribution) = 130.65 extra damage per rip. The total AP bonus is somewhere around that with bloodlust brooch active, so its equivalent to ~230 damage extra, or ~2dps extra from rip because of this. I think bloodlust brooch still works out better tbh.

If you're looking at it as a threat trinket for Bear form, it works out as:
.4*20 * 8 = 64 seconds average, although sometimes it will refresh and you'll lose out on 2 seconds worth per proc (which will happen ~40% of the time I would assume). 8*.4 = 3.2 times it will do this out of the 8 procs, so you end up with losing ~6 seconds of uptime (58 seconds total time left).
48.3% is the uptime, so 140*1.1*1.03*2*.483 = ~153 AP total.

Hopefully I haven't horribly screwed up the maths.

hi
well ive read most of the posts in this thread and i got a noob question for yall

just from lookin at my armory profile right now im sittin at 371str, 368 agi with 1016 ap, 107 hit rating, and 18.81% crit but something that doesnt seem right is my damage which is 280-372 which is like super low compared to most of the druids that posted here

any idea why my damage is so low considerin the fact that my stats are decent and so is my gear

thanks in advance for your help

you mean character sheet damage? character sheet damage is not dps. dps is the damage you actually do per second

Thanks for the math kiroyo and dukes. Going a bit OT here, but the main benifit of that trinket (aswell as living root) is that you actually gain a bonus for all forms. I found myself switching out to help healing heavy phases more often than it wouldve been ever necessary in vanilla wow.
Having multiuse trinkets to use is so unique even amongst hybrids that its benefits can way heavy in alot of encounters.

Indeed, I'd probably use it on some encounters regardless of if it's less dps overall if you micro Bloodlust Brooch perfectly. The benefits of having passive trinkets over active ones when you're watching the rest of the raid and not concentrating purely on DPS are great. Having it also have benefits in other forms is also a very nice bonus.

Can't answer the Malorne question but I can do this one:

Do you have any +Feral skill? If so, you're almost perfectly at the 8.6 +hit cap (based on the few items that give it); otherwise, you need a bit more. With my current DPS set, I end up with some +8.5X% hit and need between 5 and 8 more hit rating to cap out; even with a fraction of a percent of hit missing from my gear, it continually reports as being the most valuable stat to me when I play with my spreadsheet.

In short:

Yes, the set bonus is better than 50 AP in a raid setting (probably for solo as well but that is mostly irrelevant I think).

Here is how I calculated it, it's not as theoretical as it can be but it's nice and practical:

4% chance on hit to gain 20 Energy = Nearly half a shred. Assuming your Shred hits for 1.2k on average (that is probably even a low number) and a proc every 25 hits on average means 600 damage every 20 seconds from the proc. That is 30 DPS.

55 AP (might as well include Unleashed Rage in a raid setting) is giving you 55/14*1.1 (Naturalist)*1.40 (assumed 40% crit rate) = 6 DPS on your auto attack.

55 AP also adds (6 DPS*2.25 (Shred Bonus)*1.3 (Mangle Debuff)*1.4 (assumed 40% Crit rate))/2 = 12.3 DPS

To be honest, I am not 100% confident in my math but it looks logical enough to me. I am all ears for corrections though.

The common consensus is that you need 8.6% Hit to never miss against a level 73 mob. But truth to be told, I never raided with that much. I only have 5.6% Hit myself but also +10 Feral Skill which is quite a huge buff to your Hit in itself. But unless you have +Feral Skill, you should try to get up to 8.6% Hit.

I intend on getting my 4pc t5 for tanking anyway, but is the t4 2pc bonus better dps-wise than the 4pc t5?

In reply to the Ashtongue trinket, I don't Rejuv so much when I'm spot healing out of form with 2pc t5. Usuaully I'll just lean on my free Regrowth and max-rank HT. From that point of view, I'd lean towards using a strict DPS trinket in that spot.

This point is purely speculative on my part, but I've noticed that as my gear quality has increased, my white damage has been slowly approaching 35% of my DPS. Forgive my ignorance on Rogues, but I hear one of their specs (maybe it was swords?) does around 40% white damage and they love Dragonspine. So my theory is that as our own gear quality improves, the benefits from haste scales at a non-linear rate. Again, that is pure theory and I have no data to support it, but I think its interesting enough to try to analyze.

Rogues (well, combat rogues, which are probably the build you're thinking of) get a scaling extra benefit from haste-- haste gives more offhand strikes, which gives more Combat Potency procs, which gives more energy, which gives more yellow damage.

Druids, unlike warriors and rogues, don't really have anything that gives extra benefit from haste. I can't really think of a reason that haste would scale non-linearly for druids. Take your white DPS, multiply it by the percent haste. That's your haste benefit.

The dagger/sword rogues in my guild seem to range from 50-55% white damage. They are some combat variation.

Even this hemo rogue from the WWS thread still has 45% white damage.

Tier gear is for tanking; rogue gear is for dps.

The best/only way you can use our Tier sets for damage is if your Belt/Boots/Bracers/Neck/Rings/Trinkets can net you 5.6 or more +Hit so that your specials will no longer miss. This is doable but requires some sacrifices, requiring an average of +0.7% Hit on each slot (5.6 +Hit / 8 Slots = 0.7 Hit/Slot), which is a hefty amount. If you drop a 5th piece of tier gear, seeing that the bonuses are at 2/4 pc, the hit requirement goes down to 0.62 Hit/Slot, which is still rather high.

So how does the feral weapon skill compare to hit rating? Is shapeshifter's worthy of a ring slot over something with much higher strength/agility?

In short, only if you're going to be facing the mob and thus affected by Parry/Block.

Anyone knows a good Cat DPS spreadsheet that will show you how much a specific stat is worth for your AP/Crit/etc? Sorry if I missed it if was linked before already.

Sine we're on the subject of DPS, +Feral Skill is worthwhile in that it eats dodge while contributing to hit and crit as well. I still use my Shattrath Leggings because of the +Skill (~5.58) making them worth using them for the metric crapton of AP on them; however, with that said, I'm only really using them anymore because:

a) I haven't gotten a set of rogue legs from Karazhan yet
b) I'm basically hitcapped and don't NEED a pair of rogue legs; 0.19% miss chance with +Hit & +Skill contributions considered, making the +Skill a worthwhile way to cap off since it eats a bit of dodge as well. I would NOT be willing to swap either of my current--relatively medeocre--rings for Shapeshifter's though.

---

I can put mine up this evening if somebody doesn't beat me to it; it's pretty nasty but I think it can do what you want (show you the relative value of +X vs +Y).

They're worse -- I disenchanted mine ^^;;

Caveat: They're worse at my level of +Hit/+Crit/AP, they may be better at lower hit levels (but even then it's going to be marginal, most likely).

Would be great

3x Stars of Elune and the tanking leg enchant and you have yourself a very good alternative to the Arena set legs for PVP- more stam, less resil.

Or I could just use my Forest-Walker Kilt, socketed for agi/stam/stam since I tank in it anyway, and have something way more balanced for way less gold than socketing a second set of pants would cost .

The Hit on the Midnight Legguards is just a complete waste for PvP since you only need 5.6% really (and then, only if you really, really, dont want to miss).

I'm sorry if this is a tad off-topic from the current discussion, but I just wanted to ask a quick question.

Has anyone ever confirmed if Elemental Sharpening stones benefit Druids?

It just adds a flat +28 to crit rating (to current weapon). It updates in the character pane in Cat / Bear form but I'm not sure whether or not it's actually taking effect in fights.

Been evaluating my catform gear and going from strength heavy to more on the agility side but keeping my 8.6% hit

Now I ran across a disturbing two words I cannot get out of my head "crit cap", is there such a thing, and if so how does it work ?