Definitely; Major Agi is just too good for a bear to give up.

Regarding agility, according to a quick & dirty DPS spreadsheet that I've made, 10 Agi is worth about 11 Str (at 2250 AP, 34.21% Crit, 7.42% Hit, and 5.58% Feral Skill). I'm taking into account a DPS 'cycle' of sorts that has you mangling every 12 seconds, shredding to 5 CP, and ripping while taking the extra combo point generation from crits into account (so it removes shreds in favor of addl. rips, while keeping track of your energy usage, if you hit 5 CP early due to crits). I think the cycle is some 80+ seconds long (<90 though) but it's a perfect cycle--it starts with 0 energy, 0 CP, and mangle up and ends with 0 energy, 0 CP, and mangle up--so I went with it.

I'd put the sheet out for public consumption/use but it's a total mess and I'm not quite sure whether it gives valid DPS values or not either; all I know for certain is that the model is correct enough to provide the correct relative value of all of the stats that could affect one's damage output.

Are you sure that it gets worse as you gain more crit? Does that take into account Primal Fury & Savage Instincts?

After taking into account nothing aside from damage (or, really, simple raw AP), it looks like str is still better point for point at my basic stats (see above) by 0.4574 AP when you only consider Savage Instincts; however, taking Primal Fury into account could very well make Agi more valuable.

Yes, and no. You can't stack rips from one person - but in energy regen terms you'll almost never hit the point where you'll end up with "too many" combo points.

Over a 12 second period you gain 120 energy directly from energy ticks.

You're likely to get a clearcast, and very unlikely to get 2.

Malorne proc could happen too (bonus 20 energy).

From this you get:

Mangle (40 energy)

Shred (free)

Shred (42 energy)

Rip (30 energy)

for a total of 112 energy cost, leaving 28 over for the next 12 seconds (or 8 without a malorne proc). This is assuming everything hits, and two of the normal specials crit if you want to get a 5 point rip off. While a miss isn't the end of the world, it can be the equivalent of 42 energy down the drain (missing on a clearcast).


Basically, the upshot of this is that you're unlikely to do more than 3 specials in a 12 second period, so you need around 66% crit rate to end up with 5 point rips back-to-back. I think we're still quite a long way off this - the "ceiling" as it were for a fully potted druid right now is somewhere around 45%, just looking at it with best possible gear. Post-patch I think that'll stay pretty similar - less pots (mastery disappears) but gear gets a slight re-tuning instead.

I know I've ignored power-shifting, but it's more likely you'll use powershifting to get more energy in the case of less crits, and it's a very subjective thing.

Re-reading that, it's a horrible bit of theorycrafting. I hate Druid cat theorycrafting tbh, way too many procs and things to take into account.

No, you get "A more powerful spell" error if you try to apply another 5 cp rip to an already ticking 5 cp mangled rip.

Shred it again is what I do. The wait time to reapply the rip isn't really long anyway but yes you do essentially have to wait round for the first rip to finish.

[edit] re: Dukes post. I haven't done the math, but I was in a situation last night during a boss fight that I did have a 5 point rip waiting to be applied that I had to delay while the previous one finished. It doesn't happen often though. From memory the sequence was built 5 cp's, waitied for energy to tick high enough to rip then immediately mangle, mangle crit, shred crit, OOC proc, shred crit.

The only way you'll ever be waiting for a rip to die off and be risking wasted energy is with OOC or Malorne 2 piece procs and 2 crits. It happens, but it's not likely, when it does I just shred again .. oh no, free damage. There's no diminishing returns.

Previous links may be duff

Try - Google: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pJt...gxRcD0exjiGsLEw

Rapidshare: http://rapidshare.com/files/32189799/DruGearT21a.xls

I need to revist the DPS item sheet too - whats our key DPS cycle these days?

Mangle, Shred (till 5cp), Rip - repeat?

Basically. Just don't Rip until you have 50 energy, so you can re-Mangle before the first tic of Rip occurs.

If you have already 5 CPs and Mangle is applied and you got the energy to Shred, is it better to wait til you are near 80 to Rip+Mangle instantly or do you keep Shredding until the Mangle debuff falls off (effectively wasting CPs)?

Druid cat dps- Powershifting

Cat is not relevant to bear thread.

Just noticed this belt popping up on WoWhead, and at first glance it looks pretty interesting, what with coming with a reasonable amount of stamina and 2 sockets to boot:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32769

Went back a few pages and didn't see it, sorry if I've missed it.

That's a nice hybrid belt, better than Dunewind, not quite as good as Treachery.

Do we know where the recipe for Necklace of the Deep drops yet or is it trainer learnt? If so, does it require any reputation to be able to purchase it?