[Feral] Cataclysm Simple Q & A

♦ Carebare · 12/06/10, 9:16 PM

This is the thread for simple questions that don't fit anywhere else. If your question applies to one of the existing thread topics, please post it there instead; if you expect to generate significant additional discussion, create a new thread. If, however, you have a simple question that only requires a simple answer and don't see a better place to post it, this is your thread.

Note, however, that all forum rules still apply. You should still verify that the answer isn't already easily available before posting. Asking people to make specific gear or spec decisions for you is still against the rules. Proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling are important even in short posts. And so on.

If your question isn't related to Feral (bear or cat is fine), you are in the wrong thread and will most certainly receive an infraction.

Haures · 12/07/10, 10:42 PM

What's the best profession for bear and kitty?

Hast · 12/08/10, 8:15 AM

stat priority for Kitty dps?

I know it's listed in a thread but as of this point it only lists the top 2 stats. it would be nice to know stat priority from top to bottom.

Ex. Agility vs. crit vs. haste vs. mastery vs hit vs expertise vs strength.

Where do they all sit? ...from best to worst.

Alarron · 12/08/10, 9:36 AM

@Haures:

Leatherworking is BiS for both currently, mainly because the current wrist enchants suck pretty bad: +130 agi or +195 stam vs +65 crit or +50 dodge. I haven't seen a clear second favorite; engineering looks pretty good for bears but pretty bad for cats. Any non-gathering profession should be pretty good, except Tailoring.
See my profession guide for a bit more detail.
@Hast:
As always, use a simulator to get results tuned for your gear and raid, but roughly:
Agility>>>strength>>>>>AP/mastery>>crit>haste>hit/exp.

Destru · 12/08/10, 11:24 PM

"stat priority for Kitty dps? "

Relative Stat Values at 85 (25M raid):

DPS: 3.88

Agi: 2.57

Str: 2.00

AP: .96

Mastery: .91

Haste: .82

Crit: .75

Exp: .71

Hit: .71

(via fluiddruid)

metagem WTF?

lamrith · 12/09/10, 8:54 AM

Well I have spent 30min skimming thru the updated Cata threads and I see much discussion on gear and even some rotation, I just can't find what I have been looking for.

I have yet to see anyone mention or link at least a baseline bear tanking spec. Can anyone help? I do not want know to know the best spec for "me", but it would be nice if in the start of the bear thread we could be given the baseline recommended tank spec. Spec is a significant part of the balance, best gear and rotation in the world will mean zero if your spec is garbage.

This is something I used to always find here, if there has been a policy change I missed, and that is not done anymore, my appologies.

Fizwick · 12/09/10, 4:31 PM

To me, our options for a bear-tank spec at 85 seem rather limited. As far as "baseline" goes:

31 Feral/9 Resto + 1

This includes all survivability talents:
Feral Swiftness (T1): 4% dodge
Infected Wounds (T2): 20% attack speed slow
Thick Hide (T3): Armor bonus and crit immunity
Survival Instincts (T5): cooldown
Natural Reaction (T5): passive mitigation
Perseverance (Resto T2): passive spell mitigation

(Leader of the Pack (T4) has some small survivability gains, both from the heal and crit bonus to Savage Defense. But they seem to be secondary to those above. Then again, it's only one point; you should be taking this regardless.)

Now there is probably a bit more debate about threat talents. But, since you have to take so many anyway to get all the way down the tree, you're really more choosing which talents to not take. In my case, I've passed on two cat-only talents (Predatory strikes (T1) and Blood in the Water (T6)), and King of the Jungle (T3), which would be excellent for threat if Enrage didn't have that pesky 10% damage increase.

I would, of course, be interested to hear other takes what talents to skip.

And, finally, note that if you're looking for some sort of "offtank" or "hybrid cat/bear" build, that would look a bit different.

warmblanket · 12/10/10, 11:14 PM

Some questions

First, what's everyones opinion on the frenzied regen glyph? I find the heals exteremely valuble in heroics atm, but im pugging alot.

Second, I was looking at the gear list in the feral cata thread, are those definite? Like is that hit/agi proc trinket really btter than Za'brok's Lucky Tooth - Item - World of Warcraft ? If so, why?

Shikz · 12/11/10, 1:39 PM

I have checked all cata. up to-date feral(bear) threads, and can not find a rotation/priority system for bear AoE tanking, and single-target tanking. If someone can post a baseline rotation/priority system that I can go off from would be appreciated.

Edit - If you can please include if you switch targets to do specific abilties like stacking lacerate on multiple targets or if you go largely off AoE-capable abilities such as thrash, and swipe for AoE threat.

auroch · 12/11/10, 2:09 PM

@warmblanket yes i agree i love the FR glyph with the healers running oom so quickly atm it helps em a good deal while no longer converting rage to health turns out to be a blessing in disguise as it makes sure i still have enough rage to do what attack i want when it would normally eat through my rage for a small amount of health restored. The only downside to it would be if you are soloing and need that self heal, but for instances it rocks.

Anyway I have a Question about Fury Swipes. What do other bear tanks think about it? is it worth the 3 points? cause im not so sure, i never seem to get that many white damage hits in and while i can see it would be useful if you were rage starved tbh i havent really found myself in that position very often even in cata dungeons. If anyone had some numbers they could share with us it would be appreciated.

Talanik · 12/11/10, 2:17 PM

Originally Posted by Shikz

I have checked all cata. up to-date feral(bear) threads, and can not find a rotation/priority system for bear AoE tanking, and single-target tanking. If someone can post a baseline rotation/priority system that I can go off from would be appreciated.

Edit - If you can please include if you switch targets to do specific abilties like stacking lacerate on multiple targets or if you go largely off AoE-capable abilities such as thrash, and swipe for AoE threat.

The rotations I've had the most success with are as follows

AoE:
Swipe
Thrash
Lacerate/Mangle x2 (Tab targeting)
Maul when above 60 rage
Repeat

Single Target:
Mangle
Lacerate x3
Pulverize
Mangle on every proc/CD
Maul when above 60 rage
Repeat

Don't forget to keep up Demoralizing Roar when dealing with mobs that deal physical damage, and be sure that you have all 3 stacks of Faerie fire up at all times on single-targets if you're the only one that can deal out those two debuffs.

First, what's everyones opinion on the frenzied regen glyph? I find the heals exteremely valuble in heroics atm, but im pugging alot.

I find it invaluable for those times when you know you're going to be taking a lot of damage in rapid succession, and need a cooldown to help the healers out. Besides, it's not like we have any other major glyphs worth using.

biefking · 12/12/10, 11:12 AM

Two questions:

What is the relative stat priority for bear tanks?
What are the best glyphs to use as a bear tank?

Talanik · 12/12/10, 10:33 PM

Does anyone have any data related to how druid tanks are faring in raids compared to Paladins and Warriors? How much damage do we take, etc. ?

I ask because for some reason, the entire officer core of my guild seems to have come up with the conception that druid tanks are drastically inferior and much squisher than warriors and paladins. I cannot find any evidence either proving or disproving this, but I'm fairly positive it's wrong - and I hope so, as I have no desire to ever play feral DPS again.

Vaccine · 12/13/10, 7:02 AM

Fury Swipes: It's a decent boost for Bears, although I've yet to run into threat issues so far, with Vengeance my threat lead in raids is pretty huge. That is besides the point though, there is nothing else to put the points in in a bear spec anyway unless you're trying to build a hybrid spec.

Bear Glyphs: There isn't really any choice in feral glyphs:
Prime - Berserk, Mangle, Lacerate
Major - Maul, Feral Charge, Frenzied Regen

If you really didn't want to lose the self heal by taking FR you could take the Farie Fire, Rebirth or Roots glyphs but all have very small and situational uses. For Minors I'd strongly recommend Dash and the other 2 go nuts on what you want.

Bear vs Other Tanks: I've not got our logs from last nights raid yet so haven't been able to analyze them. We killed two bosses and I talked to the healers after. The Prot Warrior came out slightly ahead in respect to taking less damage on Omnitron Council and Magmaw. It wasn't really that significant on either though. He does have a slight gear edge though. More of concern is they felt I was harder to heal and that the damage I was taking was a lot more spikey than the warrior, I would guess this would be due to how Block and Savage Defence differ and my gear preventing decent uptime of it.

Magmaw is actually a bad fight for us due to the tank swaps meaning our Vengeance disappears. As we tank every 2 minutes each time we started I found the damage a bit spikey till Vengeance/SD stacked up to a reasonable level. Luckily the tank damage is pretty laughable on that fight so it wasn't a big issue to just burn Barkskin at the start of each tanking phase. I'll post some more info when I get the logs.

charriu · 12/13/10, 4:24 PM

I noticed that, as a cat, my energy regularly seems to drop by about 10 without me doing anything. Also, fury swipes seems to proc at those times, but I'm not terribly sure.

Is that just me being paranoid or is there something going on?