You'll want to add a few Shreds in that opener unless you want a 1-2 combo pt Rip.

So something like: FC > Mangle > SR > TF > Rake > Shred(s) > Rip > Ravage > (pool energy if needed) > Berserk

My experience was that I didn't replace my first piece of gear until lvl83, and it was only the weapon. Gems in existing gear was a large part of that. Many early items in Cata have higher base stats, but the gems in my 277 gear kept it slightly better until like I said lvl83ish.

Also, 4.0 will be out for almost 2 months, so it's worth redeeming to get rid of excess crit and lack of experise.

Ooops yeah I was defenitely too tired. You are right except that your ravage could come after the end of TF, plus we could actually save some energy by extra shreds, depending if it is needed or not (ie : will we miss energy before the second TF?). Also, the good thing in Shreds before TF is to make sure you will have 5CP for rip before TF goes down, even if you are completely unlucky on crits.

So I would finaly say :
FC (+ FFF while jumping) > Mangle > SR > Shred to 2CP > TF > Rake > Ravage > Shred if you are at 4CP > Rip > (pool energy if needed) > Berserk

I'm not full BiS but with Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder and T10 pants I'm sure I'll be close to exp cap. I only have 185 Hit, so I should gem hit till cap, then Agi?

Is there a logic to matching gem slots now, will it overall help more to get a bonus 6 agi, and use a hybrid gem?

Has anyone found a ratio on how much faster we regen energy per haste point?

Is the energy regen taken into consideration when stating Agi will be better then Haste?

On PTR, with the tremendous lose of AP, I gemmed Haste, and reforged Mastery (just playing around) and still had 60% crit. But only had 6k AP since i was not gemming Agi.

I guess my real question would be, has anyone written a simulator for 4.0 yet?

Seconding Kalon. Based on my limited testing, Hit/Exp to cap > Agi >>> Mastery > anything else.

Rotationally, not much has changed, other than the extra FB'ing below 25%. (Using Ravage appears to not boost dps significantly on a sustained fight...less than ~1%, I'd estimate. Helpful, but not critical.)

The Feral Charge + Ravage combination feels more like an upside to what is generally a negative situation: moving out of melee range. Incorporating it into the standard rotation would be annoying much in the way powershifting was during TBC. Now I'm not saying I won't take advantage of the ability if it is indeed a substantial DPS increase, but it feels rather inelegant to be constantly dodging out of melee only to charge back onto the same target.

The higher emphasis on bleed damage, which by nature discourages target switching and hampers mobility, necessitates new tools to increase our damage and utility while transitioning between targets. I feel the new utilization of Ravage coupled with new abilities such as Stampeding Roar are steps in the right direction.

Didn't they remove that whole Haste makes bleeds better thing thus making haste only affect white attacks and energy regen?

Or did I miss something?

It feels like Cat rotation (or priority) and, to a point, spec is getting hammered out in this thread rather solidly. Bear rotation (or, again, priority) is also coming together. I'm still a little uncertain on bear speccing at present.

Most of the talent choices are obvious (i.e. Thick Hide, Survival Instincts, etc.). I think we have also reached a point where Pulverize is worth using and is a must-have for bears.

Some talents are situational, and are likely dependent upon group comp and the particular encounter: Infected Wounds, Brutal Impact and Perseverance are among these.

Finally, some talents, and this is where I believe we need more math as well as experiences from beta, to really flesh out our options. Specific talents that I feel need some examination are: Fury Swipes, Stampede, and King of the Jungle -> Primal Madness.

For now, I'll assume best-case scenarios for each of these talents as my brain-napkin can only tackle so much math, but hopefully it's a good baseline for comparison.

Fury Swipes: No rage cost, no rage generated (counts as yellow), 4 x melee dmg as threat (200% dmg from the attack, 200% threat from Bear form). Unhasted, I would expect it to look something like 4.5 PPM, or 9 x melee dmg/min or 18 x melee dmg/min as threat. If I'm not mistaken, this is an increase of about 15% of white damage, but it will be treated as yellow damage.

Stampede: Requires target changes 8-25 yds away to have sustained benefit. With an unhasted swing speed of 2 sec, 30% haste over 8 sec is worth ~1.7 additional swings. A reasonable amount of haste could bring this to 2 extra swings.
This buff would result in a theoretical avg. rage gain = 16*X + 5*Crit%*X, where X is the number of extra white swings.
Extra avg. threat would be represented by 2*X*Dmg + (25/# of Targets)*Crit%*X
Bear in mind that any of these effects are only seen after charging, so fights with little to no mobility requirement will not see benefits to this talent past the pull. Hard to average out the rage/threat gains without fight specifics. Also, this talent may make running out and charging in immediately prior to a tank switch worth exploring.

KotJ: Using Enrage on CD means a 16.67% uptime of the 15% dmg and threat buff. On CD, this averages to 2.5% more dmg and threat per minute. No extra rage generated. Normal pros and cons to Enrage still apply.

Primal Madness: Requires KotJ, for better or worse. Assuming a 6 min, with Enrage and Berserk used on CD, this talent would grant 96 rage (16 rage/min) and on a single target 480 threat (80 threat/min). Additionally, the extra rage during Berserk would be worth 4/5 the cost of an extra mangle.

My initial impression is that Fury Swipes is the best, most consistent single-target threat talent of these. After that, KotJ appears to be the best threat talent, but only when the temporary mitigation reduction can be healed through or offset some other way. It would, however, be very powerful for a tank-switch fight, if used when you weren't being targeted. Stampede seems underwhelming, unless the situation demands a lot of charging. Primal madness also seems underwhelming; less situational, but not a lot gained there unless rage is really tight.

I'm looking at something like THIS for 85, with Infected Wounds and Brutal Impact trading places if group comp and fight mechanics allow/require. If anyone has anything to add or fix with my numbers or assessments, please feel free to do so, because I've likely bollocksed something up somewhere.

[EDIT] 1% dmg = 1% threat (not 2%).Percentages are relative values. Math fixed.

King of the Jungle is simply not worth it in terms of what you trade off for it; taking 10% more damage of any sort is way too high for the gain of threat. Especially when healing is so hard as it is; taking any excess damage is really not desired.

Stampede works as well for gaining threat at the start of the fight due to more melee attacks and more rage. Brutal impact also does another nice thing - it gives a small amount of utility in being able to move around some. Stampede also excels in fights where mobility and picking up adds is king.

Kalbear,
Not having any experience on the beta, I can't really speak to the viability of using Enrage with any regularity, but I did have some reservations, even after I began to see its strengths, when making my last post. I suppose that KotJ should probably be considered another situational talent. However, much depends on how rage feels. If it turns out that we need to pop Enrage during fights anyway, then KotJ will gain some value, provided you don't kill yourself or OOM your heals to get there.

I certainly won't dispute the value of Stampede on a situational level. Any time that there is a significant amount of target switching for adds, I intend to pick this talent up. It certainly has value for snap aggro on adds that come from somewhere that you are not. Good for a Deathwhisper, nigh useless for a Patchwerk. Even so though, given its 8 sec duration, and the plans to limit combat ratings from inflating too high this expansion, I have a hard time picturing bears with enough haste to get more than 3 extra attacks out of Stampede. Again, this is hard to put a relative value on when its utility can range from one to dozens of uses depending on the fight.

Brutal Impact is in a similar boat. Its extra mobility is useful for adds, and the interrupt is invaluable for 5 or 10 man groups that might be interrupt-light, but again, group comp and encounter specific. If you run with 2 rogues and there are no adds, this talent's relative worth drops to near 0.

[EDIT] Removed statement about % threat because it came from my above faulty math.

Bear spec is common knowledge, deleted.