It's not a stretch to focus on Cat Form when discussing DPS; it is the (feral) DPS form. Also I believe you were the one to talk about spending "an entire raid in Cat-Form" or druids being a "pure" dps class. Boevis and others have been talking about maintaining relative dps power, why you refute this I'm not sure.

Instead of yelling what hasn't been proved, go check out what has.

To point 1: I agree, as was touched on in the excellent (Boevis) post #66 in this thread, which (unless misunderstood) concludes that the scaling is less than the 80-90% of a rogue which you proscribe.

2: By the same token, surely it is not intended to fall behind over time?

3: Perhaps this is a problem beyond the flavour difference, perhaps not. #66 suggests it might be but I haven't seen any comparisons of classes in full sets of gear so don't have a real opinion.

Purely from a DPS perspective

Using the example above shows:

If a rogue gains 1000 DPS ever tier of gear, and druids gain 800, the ratio of effectiveness may stay the same, but eventually the druid will be so far behind as to be worthless in a DPS role.

Rogue = 1000 + 1000 + 1000 + 1000 =4000
Druid = 800 + 800 + 800 + 800 = 3200

3200:4000 is still the 8:10 ratio you talked about, but now the druid is a solid 600DPS behind a similarly geared rogue. The longer it continues, the worse the problem gets until cat druids will be doing far less DPS than other pure DPS classes and at that point we may as well throw on our healing gear again as that will be the most effective use of the raid slot.

However... From a DRUIDS point of view...
Bear form is the balancer. It is simply not feasible to look at one form, compare it to its "parent" class and then point out why it is, or will soon be not a feasible raid slot.

Pre-TBC 99% of the druids out there were one trick ponies. We healed! thats IT. Now we are the most effective offtanks as well as very respectable DPS. As well as being able to heal at a pinch (obviously talking ferals here).

Also, don't forget the above example is a MASSIVE oversimplification. I also do not expect the differences to be so drastic. In my DPS gear I kept up with my guilds rogues no problems (on bleeding mobs =). Often I even surpassed them. Now maybe my rogues were crap, but even so, that shows a druid does decent DPS. Now what else can a rogue do for the raid? well.. sweet FA.


People need to stop comparing individual forms because we are the one true hybrid class out there and as a feral you need to consider all the forms you bring to a raid in ANY argument.


Also a valid point. A lot of rerollers find this hard to swallow. I used to play a rogue, I enjoyed him for 2 years. Now I find that my weapon upgrades have nothing like the impact they used to on my rogue. It is definately harder to get used to gradual increases in DPs instead of jumps from weapons. Of course old habits die hard, so I am currently saving for the arena 2 maul =).


*editted due to comments below. Crack is bad kids! Stay off it!* Although maybe the people complaining so much about cat DPS believe the laws of math will be broken!

At that scaling, the druid will never drop below 80% of an equally geared rogue's damage.


Did you mean, that at some point, the 20% DPS drop compared to a rogue makes it not worth using a druid in a DPS slot?

Oops! lol indeed! May we never speak of this incident again!

Yes, basically I was just trying to point out that eventually the gap will be significant as that 20% difference will represent a larger and larger DPS gap. And that the difference of that 20% will be enough that there would be no point to use a druid as a purely DPS role. Which even now I think is a pretty poor idea, but hey...

Bascially.. don't complain about cat DPS unless you get stuck in cat form and are totally unable to ever use any other form!

At no point did I ever say this, nor will I ever say it. The lack of base paw DPS exists for bear as well, but no one cares if bear DPS is low as its primary intent is tanking.

Actually, from a PvP perspective I would say the 1h scaling of our 2h weapon is of major impact. When bursts of 6k damage from a single opponent are common, druids have trouble finding the middle ground where they can survive versus being able to do enough damage to be useful. I'm very close to following in Zyla's footsteps for this very reason, bearform doing too much damage my ass.

at least with the data i have accumulated DPSing in heroics -> kara, feral druids are easily as viable in pure DPS roles as enh shaman, shadow priest, given equal gear, and easily outDPS non-PVE specced pure DPS classes - subtely rogue, frost mage, full demo lock.

As soon as my baby warrior hits 70, I'll be testing a 0/31/30 warrior spec for tanking/dps vs. my feral druid. I expect the warrior will be superior tanking, even with only 30 points in prot, and better dps, even with only 31 fury.

Just as an aside: unless you have a shortage of full prot Warriors (e.g. less than 2-3 active) and intend to go 50+ prot, you are not more useful to a guild as a 0/31/30 Warrior than a Feral Druid. Period.

(Also, as a note, a Warrior without Shield Slam is generally useless for tanking in raids. And without Shield Slam, Imp. Defensive Stance, Vitality, or Shield Mastery, you certainly won't be rivaling any high-end tanking Druids for viability.)

Take that Kara example, this is where druids were actually decent -

In Kara you could REALLY see where they wanted druids, as a decent MT if not a complete replacement for a Prot Warrior, and also a solid dps if not a complete replacement for a rogue.

At one point I was able perform at 95% to 100% of the rogues running kara, yes there were unfair advantages, Mark of the Champion to name one, but the point was we were right there with rogues in terms of dps.

Fast forward to Serpentshrine, quickly druids are outpaced in terms of dps gear, no real upgrades in terms of dps weapon and shoddy equipment meant that we dropped from this 90% range.

Again advance forward, take a look at Kael for example, in what world does a 318 top end dagger with loads of AP and crit rating, a 461 top end 1hand sword with loads of AP and crit rating, or a 744 top end 2hand axe with a metric fuckton of AP and Crit rating equal to a staff with 1125 FAP and no other Melee stats. This fight is the embodiment of all the bad itemization druids have had to endure in BC and prior. They get 2, 2 friggen legendary billion damage, incredible proc weapons and I get a modest 15 DPS increase at the cost of 35 agi in crit. Staff of Devastation could have twice that feral AP and rogues would still beat druids while having to kick fireballs.

Move ahead to Tier 6, druids struggle to cap 1000dps on most fights where we are able to dps, rogues are capping 1500 with ease on the same fights. Doesn't feel much like the 95% kara days does it. Most guilds capable will bring druids only for the "token tanking then scrubbing out 600dps" roles that having two prots is kinda a liability for. Any real raid group will just sub out the druid for anything with a dps check.

Starting to feel like shit only being able to pull 60% of a rogues damage, but hey, at least another expansion is probably 6 months or less away and we will be balanced again for 10 leveling levels.