Feral Druid DPS
 

So far, I've dpsed in Karazhan and Gruul. My DPS gear is pretty good I think (2/5 T4, end-game blues, etc.) and here are my statistics:

In Gruul fight, I once came 5th and the other time 4th (when I managed to survive through all the fight). 2 Hunters and 2 rogues were ahead of me.
In karazhan, I'm 3rd, after a rogue and hunter, in my karazhan group.
I don't even come last on magtheridon, where I tank one of the adds and continue through the rest of the fight in tanking gear.


Now, how does this compare with other druids that dps out there? I'm afraid I haven't got any numbers but I'd like to see where other people with good gear come on dps meters in the TBC raid instances.

Personally I tend to end up somewhere in the bottom, a lot depending on the encounter. I often tank though, so it's kinda hard to say exactly, but either ways, some indication of what your DPS is, rather than your position on the meter would be much better for discussion purposes.

I normally place anywhere from 2nd to 7th in 25 man raids, when strictly dpsing. Right now im at the point where im looking for how to optimize my dps/gear

What i would really like is to get a discussion going on gear/gem/enchanting choices.

things that i am curious about:

+ hit vs + crit vs AP

Valuation of Str VS Agi as attack power gets higher

the effect the 2 piece malorne bonus has and whether it is worth sacrificing a bit in stats for.

feel free to look up my armory on wow.com toon name is boh on anetheron in <infamous> I'm most likely logged out in my dps gear.

I've been playing around with different gear sets as i have accumulated most of the gear from the 5 mans/karazhan/gruuls.

anyhow, much appreciation for any insights that can be offered.

Where you place is completely relative to the performance of other people in your raid.

We should probably put that in context by posting actual damage per second and mentioning whether any pots were used if we want to discuss actual druid damage potential.

My own DPS is rather meh but I'm working on it. I'll post actual numbers from this week later.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....sid=1&pageNo=1
I think Emmerald and others have covered this topic extensively with the exception of the value of t4(5/6~) set bonus's. His base values make his AP Equivalency a bit off as you get further away from the base, but they serve their purpose well enough. Except for his values of +skill which he got completely wrong.

Personal Bias: I run with Clefthoof Hide Leggings and Shapeshifters Signet (+9 Feral Skill) and I'm working on reducing my +hit from it's previous 8.6+ values to the 4.7% I actually need (9 Feral Skill adds .9% for a total 5.6% hit, which is what we need for bosses) I hate missing, but it's very easy for me to never miss.

Malorne 2/5 is listed as a 4% proc rate on Thottbot. Being rather conservative and simply counting it as "half a mangle" puts it at a 4% chance to do another 500-700 damage depending on armor. Or simply, 25-40 DPS scaling with gear quite nicely. Off hand, I'd say it's worth at least 150 AP.

Procwatch gives me a roughly 5% proc rate (1 in 20) but might be slightly inflated due to not counting Maul as a hit. Not sure it's enough to account for a full %, but I'd be confident saying that the proc rate is in the 4-5% range. I'll split out the cat and bear procs this week and see if there's any difference.

I've also had it chain proc, so it doesn't seem to have the hidden cooldown a lot of the new proc trinkets do.

5.6 to hit? i was under the impression on boss mobs (lev 73) that we needed 8.6%.

also i have read in various places that the value of straight ap diminishies as you reach higer levels of ap where as the valuation of agi rises. Like for example im currently sitting at 2600 ap only self buffed with 8.31 to hit and 33% crit. I can easilty add in about another 100 ap sacrificing some hit, or would it be worthwhile to add in more agility to buff my crit since crit scales better with raid buffs.

i think my main question is about socketing. I know in the dps gear lists on the forums and also on the druid wiki it lists the 8str gem as the best (non meta non pvp etc etc) gem fors sustained dps.

for example i am using terrorweave tunic. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30730 currently socketed with 1 8 str gem and 2 4 agi 6 hit rating (see my comment above on what i thought we needed to get for + hit) if i accept tha tyou only really need 5.6 to hit then would i be better off socketing str into those and foregoing the socket bonus?

Malorne 2/5 is a flat 4% chance on hit. http://www.thottbot.com/s37311

I am very confident that our base miss is no more than 5%
http://elitistjerks.com/showthread.p...616#post321616
And elsewhere on the page is some of my testing on druid Hit % and the effects of +skill. As always, I'm adding to it.

Only dealing with white damage, consider this:
3500 AP 35% Crit
NW/PI full feral this gives us ~335 damage on our attacks, critting for 737
Out of 1000 attacks (with base 5.6% dodge on the boss)
56 attacks miss
350 attacks crit (350 * 737 = 257,950)
594 attacks hit (594 * 335 = 198,990) = 456,940

25 more Agi gives you 25 AP and 1% crit 25 AP raises damage to 337/741
360 attacks crit (360 * 741 = 266,760)
584 attacks hit (584 * 337 = 196,808) = 463,568 a 1.45% increase

25 more Str gives you 60 AP raising damage to 340/748
350 attacks crit (350 * 748 = 261,800)
594 attacks hit (594 * 340 = 201,960) = 463,760 a 1.49% increase

Not much of a difference.

I've been reading a lot of your posts and playing with +hit myself when I am dpsing, and I'm not sure. Anecdotally, last night dpsing on Nightbane, I had >6% to hit as well as the feral weapon skill from Clefthoof Hide Leggings. White hits did not miss. Yellow hits did, in fact a number of times over the course of the fight.

I'm not completely confident in my understanding of the mechanics of hit and wpn skill, so if there's something I'm missing please let me know. It seems to me that the 5.6%/8.6% white/yellow requirements could still hold true, though.

in which case + hit is pretty important (up to 8.6) for a druid seeing as my damage breakdown is normally something like

~33% white
~33% shred
~18% rip
~15% mangle


then random 3% when the occasional rake is thrown in or whatnot.

To clarify, 8.6% is a number I've heard thrown around, and not something I've tested.

thats pretty much the number i had heard originally too.

Then it's something that only occurs on "Boss" level mobs, possibly higher than normal defense. I just spent the past 3 hours killing 71-73 mobs with 4.9% + level difference * .1% hit gear (as close as I could get anyway, and yes I changed gear depending on mob level) I never missed. Dodged and Parried? yes, but never missed.

Well boss level mobs are denoted with a skull where as a player can actually see a mob that is level 73. Seems to me there is a distinct difference there.

I hope this fits into the topic of the thread: Can anyone tell me which trinket I should use in my 2nd trinket slot to optimize DPS (Assuming the stats mentioned above by Boevis)?

I recently got myself a Bloodlust Brooch which I think is a no brainer to keep equipped all the time.

But I also got Core of Ar'kelos, Bladefist's Breadth which I currently keep as my second trinket, Ababus of Violent Odds and an Hourglass of the Unraveller.

I basically picked them up to save them from being disenchanted and hoped I'd figure it out after a while which one to use when but apparently I couldn't. Anyone care to help? :)