[Feral] Simple Questions + WoL Feedback - Page 2

Neithî · 05/20/11, 3:46 AM

Sorry if I'm maybe asking some stupid questions, but actually I played only bear as feral and since Monday I’ve got my first cat spec.

My talents may look a little bit weird, but I wanted to do a real damage spec together with being crit immune because of some tasks like collecting adds in the first phase at nefarian until they are at zero energy and drop. (Please feel free to criticize talent mistakes, I’m really new to this and want to learn! Also if crit immunity is not worth it just please tell me.)

First I tried to play the cat without being hit capped because it is mentioned on the first pages of this thread. But at the training ground in stormwind I stood behind the target and I had a lot of hits that just missed, so I wasn’t really able to keep up the bleedings and had big energy problems. After that I reforged to reach the hit cap and finally I was able to test seriously, the damage increased from 10k DPS to 16k DPS what was quite fine for a first try. But anyways I often have serious energy problems but no idea what I could do against.

My starting rotation/priority looks like this:

1. Mangle
2. Savage Roar with 1CP
3. Rake
4. Tiger's Fury & Berserk
5. Shred until 5CP
6. Rip
7. Shred until 5CP
8. Ferocious Bite

After these initial attacks I try to keep all bleedings on the target, use Tiger's Fury and Berserk on cool down and have a 5CP Savage Roar, but I am lacking on energy quite often. Because of that there are always a few seconds where I have to wait for energy only doing white hits.

Is this normal, or am I doing something completely wrong? Additionally my gear is not BIS, but anyways I think 15k DPS might be too less at Magmaul for example. It would be nice if you could make some suggestions.

Petitourson · 05/20/11, 7:28 AM

There seem to be a lot of things that you can change gear-wise and rotation-wise that will yield minor to moderate dps gains. Getting to know what your stat priorities are and how much they are worth relative to each other would be a good place to start. The first page of this very thread has most of the information you need in order to reforge, re-enchant and regem your gear optimally. In essence, you're way too low on mastery and sacrificing agility for secondary stats is strongly advised against. Rotation-wise, you want to postpone Savage Roar and have Rip be your first finisher. You also want to keep away from Ferocious Bite outside the 25% HP execute range and keep Shredding at 5CP instead, while also pooling your energy proactively when several timers run out at the same time, all of that should help resolve the bleed downtime you mentioned. As far as your spec goes, Primal Madness has tested out as showing little to no dps gain and should be the first talent to spec out of when building a hybrid spec, as opposed to Blood in the water unless you're on tanking duty in the execute range.

Danorager · 05/20/11, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by Neithî

My starting rotation/priority looks like this:

1. Mangle
2. Savage Roar with 1CP
3. Rake
4. Tiger's Fury & Berserk
5. Shred until 5CP
6. Rip
7. Shred until 5CP
8. Ferocious Bite

After these initial attacks I try to keep all bleedings on the target, use Tiger's Fury and Berserk on cool down and have a 5CP Savage Roar, but I am lacking on energy quite often. Because of that there are always a few seconds where I have to wait for energy only doing white hits.

This is the opening rotation that I *try* to maintain...although, circumstances can change things:
0. Fairie Fire
1. Feral Charge to Target after pull
2. Rake
3. Mangle
4. Shred
---typically at this point in time, unless I got a OoC proc, I'll be very low on energy ---
5. Tiger's Fury
6. If at 5 CP, Rip, if not, Ravage!, then Rip, then Ravage! (if I didn't use it earlier)
7. Shred if I have energy
8. Beserk
9. Savage Roar, if I had been able to do Shred, otherwise Shred
10 (and on). Shred, Shred, Shred, keep rake up, keep rip up, keep savage roar up, use TF on CD, use Beserk on CD

I have to be very careful with this rotation though, because it is very easy to pull aggro off the tank....

This does not take in to account 4t11...

Naishadriel · 05/20/11, 6:37 PM

a good opener would be,

feral charge cat, mangle, ravage, tigers fury, rake and 5 cp rip, beserk, shred, shred, shred, savage roar,

if your on constant movement fights, remember to feral charge for a free ravage, timing tigers fury and 5 combo pt rips help my meters, but nonetheless, you can try these out

Petitourson · 05/21/11, 7:38 AM

Originally Posted by Naishadriel

a good opener would be,

feral charge cat, mangle, ravage, tigers fury, rake and 5 cp rip, beserk, shred, shred, shred, savage roar,

if your on constant movement fights, remember to feral charge for a free ravage, timing tigers fury and 5 combo pt rips help my meters, but nonetheless, you can try these out

No, Danorager's opener suggestion was dead-on. Yours neither maximizes bleed uptime nor Ravage damage. Also, you don't want to delay Rip and cause downtime in order to sync it with Tiger's Fury. Refreshing your bleeds during Tiger's Fury on the other hand yields higher dps provided you didn't just apply them. The jury is still out on whether Rip at any point of its duration should be clipped during TF but for Rake 9 sec (or less) remaining has been simulated to be the magic number.

a civilian · 05/21/11, 1:03 PM

It's worth delaying rip by up to 2 seconds, possibly 3, to synchronize with TF. At 3 seconds you'll lose 3/22 = 13.6% (or 3/24 = 12.5%, if bug applies) of rip damage, not accounting for the small amount of energy saved, and gain 15%. If you do this you'll also lose at most 1 shred during TF, or 15% shred damage which is approximately 2.5% rip damage.

This means in most cases it will be worth using rip after TF in the opener. The same isn't true of rake; a similar analysis (which also takes into account the saved energy, which is significant for rake) indicates that it's only worth delaying rake by 1-2 seconds to synchronize with TF. Better to open with rake.

Petitourson · 05/22/11, 9:09 AM

Originally Posted by a civilian

It's worth delaying rip by up to 2 seconds, possibly 3, to synchronize with TF. At 3 seconds you'll lose 3/22 = 13.6% (or 3/24 = 12.5%, if bug applies) of rip damage, not accounting for the small amount of energy saved, and gain 15%. If you do this you'll also lose at most 1 shred during TF, or 15% shred damage which is approximately 2.5% rip damage.

Whenever you delay refreshing Rip beyond the last tick, which is carried over to the next Rip cycle if refreshed in time, you generate downtime equal to the time it takes you to re-cast Rip plus your latency and you open up the possibility of getting dodged or missing, adding another GCD (or more if out of luck) worth of downtime. Furthermore if you get an OOC proc right before TF comes off cooldown you may not be able to get your energy low enough so you don't waste any of KotJ's 60 energy. I trust you also have lightning-fast reflexes and can press both your TF key and Rip almost simultaneously as soon as TF is available. All these seconds and fractions add up and that's why this has been tested out as dps-neutral or a slight loss over the course of a fight and not worth the hassle of refreshing Rip outside of the secure post-penultimate tick refresh path. Do not delay the Rip refresh especially if you have high latency. I will not mention other possible priority conflicts like clipping Rake during TF.

silentscream · 05/22/11, 5:03 PM

Greetings all, I have a question regarding gemming for bear tanking. Recently, i have built up my tank set for our progression group (kitty dps being my main spec) and was wondering at when and IF to gem for straight dodge. I.E. would gemming 67 Dodge chimera eyes be more beneficial than gemming the 67 agility chim? Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but i have yet to find the topic. Thank you much.

a civilian · 05/22/11, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by Petitourson

Whenever you delay refreshing Rip beyond the last tick, which is carried over to the next Rip cycle if refreshed in time, you generate downtime equal to the time it takes you to re-cast Rip plus your latency and you open up the possibility of getting dodged or missing, adding another GCD (or more if out of luck) worth of downtime. Furthermore if you get an OOC proc right before TF comes off cooldown you may not be able to get your energy low enough so you don't waste any of KotJ's 60 energy. I trust you also have lightning-fast reflexes and can press both your TF key and Rip almost simultaneously as soon as TF is available. All these seconds and fractions add up and that's why this has been tested out as dps-neutral or a slight loss over the course of a fight and not worth the hassle of refreshing Rip outside of the secure post-penultimate tick refresh path. Do not delay the Rip refresh especially if you have high latency. I will not mention other possible priority conflicts like clipping Rake during TF.

Regarding the claim that it's been tested, I will remark that a simulator result is only as good as the script behind it. For a long time simulator results concluded that it was never a damage gain to refresh rip during TF. This ran directly counter to simple estimates; my position was the same then, and is now pretty much vindicated.

I won't claim to be correct here; I'm not planning to go through this argument again. I only wish to recommend keeping in mind the first sentence when reading simulator results. It's easy to find simulator results that only apply to the particular parameters of the simulation or script.

BOHIC · 05/25/11, 2:19 PM

Originally Posted by Danorager

This is the opening rotation that I *try* to maintain...although, circumstances can change things:
0. Fairie Fire
1. Feral Charge to Target after pull
2. Rake
3. Mangle
4. Shred
---typically at this point in time, unless I got a OoC proc, I'll be very low on energy ---
5. Tiger's Fury
6. If at 5 CP, Rip, if not, Ravage!, then Rip, then Ravage! (if I didn't use it earlier)
7. Shred if I have energy
8. Beserk
9. Savage Roar, if I had been able to do Shred, otherwise Shred
10 (and on). Shred, Shred, Shred, keep rake up, keep rip up, keep savage roar up, use TF on CD, use Beserk on CD

I have to be very careful with this rotation though, because it is very easy to pull aggro off the tank....

With 4t11, I assume you Mangle instead of Shred before the initial Rip. Do you Mangle 3x before the initial Rip or is it better to just Rip with 1x or 2x Mangle if you've already hit 5CP?

edit: More generally, what's the priority for starting (or renewing after it's dropped) the 4t11 bonus? My intuition says that getting the Rip rolling is more important, but I guess it comes down to the value of one tick of Rip vs. 1-3% extra damage across the whole Rip + 1-3% extra damage on a couple of white hits?

Petitourson · 05/27/11, 6:30 AM

And the answer to your question is obviously to have Rip rolling as soon as possible, since a 1-sec delay to refresh Rip with Tiger's Fury is barely worthwhile and we're talking here about a 15% increase, so let alone adding only 1%.
As for re-stacking Strength of the Panther at the expense of more Shreds, it depends on how long the boss has to live.

Ilmatar · 05/27/11, 2:34 PM

I am having a strange issue with Rawr. I am consistently getting results in which the 'Current' result in the optimizer is greater than the 'Optimized' result. For example, I am looking at: "Current: 22024.24 Optimized: 21727.83" and three gear items show up on the list, but none have different gems or reforges.

Since this is only about 1% difference, should I interpret this result as, "This is as good as it gets with the input values given"?

My method:
1) Clear cache.
2) Load from Battle.Net, force-reload
3) Select 'Fully Buffed Cat'
4) Optimize with Ctrl+Click (For 10x thoroughness)

Armory Link: Annunaki - Feathermoon

Ainarsong · 06/14/11, 7:37 PM

This isn't strictly speaking a game mechanics question and I don't want to provoke several replies of "Well, I do it this way", so if it's not an appropriate question for this venue I understand and will not have a problem with it being deleted.

I prefer to set my action bars up in such a way that important abilities are accessible in all situations. For example, on my warrior I like to set it up so that i can quickly and easily switch from berserker stance to defensive, equip a shield, and shield wall with a semi natural setup just through keybinds and without the help of a spammable macro that does this.

However, on my druid I am having a hard time setting my action bars up in such a way that I can have access to all the abilities I might need. I have too many cat form abilities to fit on one main bar, so some spill over onto my secondary bars, but I also need those slots for bear form abilities. And when that bar is full of cat and bear abilities, I start to run out of room for other important things, such as innervate, rebirth and any other things I might need to cast on the fly. Not to mention key binding for these bars so that I can use one bind for multiple abilities in each respective form seems impossible to manage.

With the addon Dominos, I can set up my bars so that when I am in x form, bars can replace each other, but it seems like every time I put abilities onto a seemingly empty bar, those spells show up on some other form's bar.

I am not totally convinced that this is a fixable issue, but I would really like to hear from some top level druid players on whether this is a problem for them, and if so how they address it.

BOHIC · 06/15/11, 1:54 PM

Originally Posted by Ainarsong

This isn't strictly speaking a game mechanics question and I don't want to provoke several replies of "Well, I do it this way", so if it's not an appropriate question for this venue I understand and will not have a problem with it being deleted.

I prefer to set my action bars up in such a way that important abilities are accessible in all situations. For example, on my warrior I like to set it up so that i can quickly and easily switch from berserker stance to defensive, equip a shield, and shield wall with a semi natural setup just through keybinds and without the help of a spammable macro that does this.

However, on my druid I am having a hard time setting my action bars up in such a way that I can have access to all the abilities I might need. I have too many cat form abilities to fit on one main bar, so some spill over onto my secondary bars, but I also need those slots for bear form abilities. And when that bar is full of cat and bear abilities, I start to run out of room for other important things, such as innervate, rebirth and any other things I might need to cast on the fly. Not to mention key binding for these bars so that I can use one bind for multiple abilities in each respective form seems impossible to manage.

With the addon Dominos, I can set up my bars so that when I am in x form, bars can replace each other, but it seems like every time I put abilities onto a seemingly empty bar, those spells show up on some other form's bar.

I am not totally convinced that this is a fixable issue, but I would really like to hear from some top level druid players on whether this is a problem for them, and if so how they address it.

I use three bars for buttons that I'll press in combat. The center bar has bindings for 1 to 9, the top bar has bindings for buttons Alt+1 to Alt+9 and the bottom bar has bindings for Shift+1 to Shift+9. The bottom two bars will page depending on whether I'm in normal, cat, or bear form. The top bar has spells/macros/whatever that I might want in any form.

It sounds like your biggest issue might be that you haven't completely configured Dominos correctly. Get into normal form, unhide all of your bars, and work on redoing your form-paging bars so that they make sense to you. Then just re-hide the bars for bear/cat form and any extraneous bars you might have.

Duilliath · 06/15/11, 1:58 PM

Bear form (and other forms) use specific bars already, same as Warrior stances. If you'd page through the various action bars, you'd find your abilities there already.

What I did to fix myself some space is to simply macro abilities together, e.g. Bear Swipe and Cat Swipe, Bear Charge and Cat Charge etc. These sit on a non-paging bar, the rest of the form abilities have a paging bar.