[Feral] Simple Questions + WoL Feedback
 

This is the thread for simple questions regarding Feral. 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.

Review the forum rules. Though forum rule 7 is relaxed for this thread, that doesn't mean the rest of the rules are. Familiarize yourself with them prior to posting or you will be infracted.

Additionally, we are now allowing you to post your World of Logs parses if you feel stuck with respect to your DPS. Please note you must follow the criteria listed here:

• The parse must be from a 10 or 25 man raid (non-heroic is fine). 5-mans and target dummies are not welcome.
• In line with this, you must be max level (85). We're not about to look over a log from a level 70 Sunwell run.
• Your profile MUST work. If you tend to change specs/log out in PVP gear please create a character profile through Wowhead or a similar site. That way if your issue is related to your gear, help can be provided. If your post is about an alt druid, you absolutely must provide an armory link/character profile or we simply can't help you.
• You must give a few sentences regarding what you think your problem is. Are you moving a lot due to fight mechanics? Do you perform some vital secondary role that may impact your DPS? (kiting, etc). We can't help you if you don't help us.
• Tanking or DPS parses are welcome. Be sure to specify your spec and role within the raid.

Please note that this thread is no exception to how the rest of our forums work regarding the fact that no one is obligated to help you. Do not bump, repost, or cry about it. You will be heavily infracted if you do.

Feral AOE and Hit question
 

I've recently been able to switch from bear to kitty because I switched guilds. However, I'm getting pwned on the meters and I'm wondering if I'm missing something. I know feral AOE is incredibly weak atm but my question is:

Would I be better off (All of these options include SotP up)
1) Swiping- Just going in there and swiping my lil paws off.
2) Mangle/Rake- Tab target mangle/rake on everything.


I've been able to do these on H.Mal, and tbh I didn't write down what attempt I had tried what, so looking over my logs didn't help me. I mainly went with swipe (and saving Zerking for Black phase). Tab targeting wasn't going very well, and because they are all so closely grouped, clicking was about the same. That means that my mangle/rake attempts were pretty bad b/c I was actually reapplying on some mobs. I did try a full rotation on a single add+swipe (instead of rip upkeep) but those seemed to be my lowest numbers and I was pulling threat.

My next question is about hit-
Now I've read the forums and they all pretty much agree that hit is a bad stat. But ever since I've equipped [Unheeded Warning] my melee damage has been incredibly high (Generally going 1. Rip 2. Rake 3. Melee, with melee and rake switching on some fights).
I get that the DoT is our damage and Hit doesn't effect the dot, but I'm wasting so much energy! It's killing my upkeeps and the 'fill' of my dps. The only Hit that I'm using right now is on +20agi blue gem slots (agi/hit gems) and the hit trinket on Nef attempts b/c they make me kick (plus the hit that's on the tier). But has anyone seen any reason for using hit?

I guess I really just want to make sure I'm doing it right. 4.1 we'll get the bonus to swipe, that might bring me more inline with some of the others on the AOE fights. Once I can pay a pally to salv me on the pulls, I can start using zerking right off the bat which should help for single target ^_^ Thanks for any and all help!

Logs:World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
CharDev:chardev 8 - WoW Cataclysm
Edited-Forgot CharDev

I'm going to preface this by saying that I don't play feral at all, but I am fairly proficient at dotting on Maloriak without missing mobs or doing unnecessary clipping.

What I recommend that you do to properly test your dps with dots is to look into binding both Target Nearest Enemy (by default on TAB) and target previous enemy (default shift+TAB) to two very accessible buttons. Both of those keybinds target the nearest enemy if nothing is targeted BUT they scroll through targets in different directions. Think of it like a list of targets, and you are able to scroll through them in both directions.

What this means is that if you start on Dark Swill #1 you can use either one of those functions to get to Swill #2, and 5 presses will get you back to Swill #1 after cycling through all of them, however, having both functions keybound allows you to "reverse", if you go too far in one direction. Using mousewheel up and down is ideal for this in my opinion since you can carry on doing whatever you normally do with your left hand, and scrolling through targets on the wheel feels very intuitive.

I've tried some options for HC Maloriak fight.
Swiping, berserk bear mangling, mange+rake rotation.
Only option that really works for me is rake rotation on all mobs when someone else applies bleed damage increase debuff. Extra energy/gcd could be spend on swipes and you have time to move out of pools.

Custom nameplates with debuff widget help a lot.

If you want to maximize your dps, you want to berserk right away and then save your next two Berserks for the green phases. You also want to stop using Tiger's Fury 30 seconds prior to the start of the green phase and use Tiger's Fury right before you push Berserk so you buff as many Swipes as possible. It has been found that Unheeded Warning does not buff Swipe. Swipe accounts for upwards of 20% of my dps on this fight in general so I'd be inclined to recommend using a different trinket, such as Fluid Death or Unsolvable Riddle and in the latter case making sure you synchronize Unsolvable Riddle's on-use with Berserk. As for the black phases, unless the Swills are all grouped up in a corner for some reason, I would not Swipe. What I do is Mangle/Rake one add and Mangle/Rake + 4CP Rip another and then switch to a third (Mangle+Rake) and then 4CP Rip the fourth... and then keep rotating.

I went and found out how to make my Tidy Plates show my debuffs, which helped immensely. I switched to a tab+click method which I found to be the best way to get through everything and Rake/Mangle. My DPS went up roughly 1200-1500 just by dotting every thing up (From low 15,000 to 17,200-500).

@Petitourson
You can actually get off a Zerk at the start of the fight (I save it for when all the swills are grouped up) and the Green phase. I might try out the hit trinket, missing on multidotting really sucks.

Next question, do the same rules apply for larger packs such as the abberitions? It seems like I would be able to get more dps out with Swipe because there is a 'timer' for how long I can dps them which would make my dots somewhat useless?

This doesn't really hold true when moving around/through the mobs to get to them unfortunately, as the list will get 'reset' all the time.

In bear form when should you use Swipe/Thrash instead of Mangle/Lacerate? Does Swipe/Trash only do more DPS if you can hit at least four mobs? Five? Is there a magic number?

In bear form, thrash always does more DPS than lacerate for any reasonable amount of AP. This is on single targets. Swipe will likely overtake lacerate as well for single-target DPS and threat around the point where you are geared in normal mode firelands gear and working on some heroic gear.

Mangle is always your #1 priority in terms of doing threat. Lacerate should only be done when you want to keep the stack up or are replacing a pulverize. Thrash should otherwise be used on cooldown. If there are two or more targets it is much better to swipe than lacerate unless you need specifically single target DPS.

bugged Rip?
 

Hi everyone,

I have had a problem on Valiona & Theralion tonight. Gear is a mix of tanking and kitty gear, most ilvl359 with some ilvl372 pieces. My WoL log shows a 90% Rip uptime, but the ticks are incredibly low (resulting in only 8.4% of damage done by Rip overall). I was using Ovale with Leafkillers scripts, afair the 1.3.1 version. All other fights of this night have shown normal Rip ticks. Any clues what could have caused this? I don't recall Ovale telling me to only cast 1cp Rips or anything, it felt like the normal rotation. Testing the newest script 1.3.2 on a dummy afterwards showed normal results.

I'm normally healing and helping out with a bearkitty spec if the signups require it, so gear/dps might not be perfectly fitting.

WoL log: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

For comparison a log from a month ago, the last time I dps'ed on that fight, with near similar gear: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

There is a bug being reported by many cats that has rip not getting any AP and doing only base damage. The cause is unclear; usually restarting wow fixes the issue.

ETA: link to official bug report
[BUG] Druid Rip - Forums - World of Warcraft

Weapon enchant for Bears
 

I wonder why I see that much bears (all of them?) with 130 Agi enchanted on their weapons. I know, agility is a strong stat, but why don't they use windwalk?
First of all, windwalk provides 15% movement speed, 130 agility doesn't. Movement speed is what anybody wants, right?
Second: Windwalk is 600 dodge rating, which is 3,4% dodge (pre-DR). 130 agility is 0,53% dodge (pre-DR), 0,4% crit and 260 AP.
Third: Wndwalk has no internal cooldown, I often see it refresh itself on my warrior, at least on multitarget. I usually have a 20-40% (depending on fight) uptime of it on singletarget fights, so to ease this it has an average uptime of ~1/3, so subtracting the agility-dodge, it is about 0,6% dodge + 5% movement speed vs 0,4% crit and 260 AP.

Is the boost for Savage Defense via 0,4% crit and 260 AP really superior than the 0,6% dodge and 5% movement speed?
I really do have a hard time to believe this...

A choice between a static value and a proc. Additionally, +130 agi is the prime Cat enchant and weapons are 'shared' between the two specs.

Most bears worth their salt have Earthen Vitality on their boots, whose 8% movement speed increase does not stack with Windwalk, so you'd only get half the effect. Besides if need be, bears have an on-demand 60% speed boost in the form of Stampeding Roar. And finally pure dodge procs have limited use against magic-heavy bosses while agility will always help your threat generation regardless of the damage type, not to mention that Windwalk procs off of your melee strikes and not when struck which reduces the likelihood of it proc'ing at the right time, i.e when you take a string of melee hits bunched together.

Hi forum, Erm well I'm new to the forms but I'll introduce myself as Hairybolz feral tank, 6/13 HC in a guild named Immanence on Kazzak alliance.
Now i've been having some trouble with Rawr so I need some real advice from you guys. I pretty much read a few guidelines here and there on what I should focus on. So I stack (mostly) on agility and try to keep stamina over 175k for hc raids as well (trying to get over 180 just waiting for those epic trinkets hehe) I also try to get and keep gear that has mastery on it so I dont wear my set for tanking because of its' low mastery points.
Now my real problem is with my Expertise and Hit rates. They are terribly low and I feel like my dps and aggro is suffering.
I find it very difficult to do timed ZA runs with my guild mates who have sick dps and I just cant keep up. I'm not sure im doing something wrong but I aoe and single target mangle everyone I need. still I find it hard to control the aggro of a big group.
Now my question is, should I reforge a little to hit and expertise? will it help me at all?