[Feral-Cat] 4.2 Fire Cat funtimes (OLD) - Page 2

Chemii · 06/24/11, 6:59 AM

Sorry if its been talked about in another thread but I have only started playing feral recently with firelands coming up and the lack of need for two rogues in a 10 man comp.

In the 4.1 thread the FB glyph was discouraged because it was considered a DPS loss. What has changed to make this PvE viable and more importantly for my own sake, how much energy can FB convert to extra damage? I would guess its never a good idea to pool energy, even when the Blood In The Water talent kicks in...or is it? The rotation guide neglects to mention FB in any context.

Thanks!

Sharilar · 06/24/11, 11:14 AM

Also, a reminder on the weapon issue: There is a trash drop BoE polearm, so if the raid drops don't cooperate, you can still farm the AH for a weapon until you get to Fandral. If you don't want to spend quite that much, and don't already have heroic Malevolence, there's also a crafted one that'll be available within a month once some blacksmiths unlock the recipes.

Robosaurus · 06/25/11, 9:53 PM

Originally Posted by Chemii

In the 4.1 thread the FB glyph was discouraged because it was considered a DPS loss.

Glyph is getting changed in 4.2, don't worry about it. Most people will take the new glyph since there is not much else that can be filled by that slot and it is +healing. Options are Rebirth/Barkskin/Feral Charge/Ferocious Bite/Faerie Fire/Thorns. With bosses being patched so you cannot feral charge inside a boss' hit box, glyph of FC might see diminished usage.

Originally Posted by Sharilar

Also, a reminder on the weapon issue: There is a trash drop BoE polearm

You can upgrade from 378 to 391 on vendor + trash drops with a heroic token from ANY HEROIC Firelands boss.
Since the Fire Cat staff is from the 2nd last boss, the 391 trash weapon will be desirable for a long time, assuming of course that the bosses increase in difficulty as you go through the instance. Source
Another notable item is a trash waist (crit/expertise)

Robosaurus · 06/25/11, 10:34 PM

Originally Posted by byjiang

5. Due to higher direct damage and the inevitable removal of 2T11 (which increases rake damage), we should now renew non-TFed rake with TFed rake at less than 6 seconds left. Renewing at 6+~9- seconds is not a dps increase or a slight decrease.

While you may get a short-term dps loss from renewing at >6second, you get a long term gain if all of your future rakes line up with Tiger's Fury (which is the case with a simulator).

I would evaluate it differently. The initial hit of rake would count as a tick (it has been changed so that it is bleed damage), so you have a tick at 15-12-9-6-3-0 = 6 ticks. I have included a diagram that explains this perfectly, since people keep focusing on short term DPS loss.

<CLICK> Diagram that explains Rake and Tiger's Fury

Excluding oppurtunity cost:
TF rake <3s => DPS gain now
TF rake <6s => DPS gain in 18 seconds from end of TF'ed Rake
TF rake <9s => DPS gain in 51 seconds from end of TF'ed Rake
When you use any TF rake, the future sets become "TF rake <3s" sets. If you never choose to TF rake, then you will stay in the Normal Rake set. I have assumed the last "tick" is a normal one since the future rake will override the bonus. Hence you will always get 6 TF ticks unless you want to be very precise and wait for that last tick to fall off, therefore giving you 7 TF ticks.

Oppurtunity cost of shred
It should be clear from a theoretical perspective that the opportunity cost of the shred we could have used instead will eventually be overwritten by the growing difference between normal and TF-aligned Rakes. There is a dependency of gear to determine this breakpoint.

← Click Here

To compensate for these opportunity costs, in this scenario, for <6s, the breakpoint is 24 seconds from the end of the TF'ed rake, and for <9s the breakpoint is 57seconds from the end of the TF'ed rake. Considering the high DPE of rake vs shred, this principle is unlikely to change in raid scenarios.

In conclusion, continue to refresh rake using TF to have it lineup for the a long-term dps gain (the rest of the encounter). Note the <9s rule was crafted simply because 6s (duration of TF) + 9s = 15s (duration of rake). From a perfect simulator's perspective, if your current rake is not TF-buffed, and you popped TF right now, then the latest you can refresh it is just under 9s, and it will have the buff.

Farronski · 06/26/11, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by Robosaurus

I would evaluate it differently. The initial hit of rake would count as a tick (it has been changed so that it is bleed damage), so you have a tick at 15-12-9-6-3-0 = 6 ticks. I have included a diagram that explains this perfectly, since people keep focusing on short term DPS loss.

<CLICK> Diagram that explains Rake and Tiger's Fury

Your diagram is wrong. According to your diagram the last tick of a refreshed rake with TF get no benefits from the TF, but that's false. The correct "TF@t<3" "formula" is 5+(7*1,15) and for "TF@t<6" it's 4+(7*1,15)
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4980/rakeg.jpg

byjiang · 06/26/11, 10:54 AM

Originally Posted by Robosaurus

In conclusion, continue to refresh rake using TF to have it lineup for the a long-term dps gain (the rest of the encounter). Note the <9s rule was crafted simply because 6s (duration of TF) + 9s = 15s (duration of rake). From a perfect simulator's perspective, if your current rake is not TF-buffed, and you popped TF right now, then the latest you can refresh it is just under 9s, and it will have the buff.

I did not take into account the direct damage of rake, thanks for correcting that.

If I understand you correctly, you are using the TF glyph? Then what you're saying should be true.

In the case that the berserk glyph is used instead, rake and TF line up automatically and there is no need to pre-refresh rake. The only situation where you'll get the chance to refresh non-TF rake with TFed rake is when you are running around/disabled/have to do something else. In that case only the "short term" damage is considered, as the following rakes should line up with TF again.

Calculating the "short term" damage with 5ticks+direct damage, with updated shred/rake damage figures:
premade ilvl378, MotW only, non-crit damage
rake:5750 damage, 5750 per tick, 35 energy
shred:~12500, 40 energy
damage gained:5750+5750*5*0.15=10062.5
equivalent to 32.2 energy if spent to shred
The first tick of rake is preserved even if rake is pressed twice, thus it would be a dps gain to clip non-TF rake with TFed rake anytime.

Hopefully I did not forget something again.

Originally Posted by Farronski

According to your diagram the last tick of a refreshed rake with TF get no benefits from the TF, but that's false.

From my testings, the damage of the direct hit and the following ticks all depend on the stats at the moment you rake. Therefore I believe Robosaurus is correct.

Farronski · 06/26/11, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by byjiang

From my testings, the damage of the direct hit and the following ticks all depend on the stats at the moment you rake. Therefore I believe Robosaurus is correct.

Robosaurus sheet says if you refresh rake with TF aktiv only the first to sixth tick gain the damage bonus from TF, but the seventh tick also gain the dmg bonus.

Edit: So actually I agree whit you (we both say multiplier is fixed for the whole Rake), and we both disagree with Robosaurus...

byjiang · 06/26/11, 2:02 PM

Originally Posted by Farronski

Robosaurus sheet says if you refresh rake with TF aktiv only the first to sixth tick gain the damage bonus from TF, but the seventh tick also gain the dmg bonus.

Edit: So actually I agree whit you (we both say multiplier is fixed for the whole Rake), and we both disagree with Robosaurus...

The last tick is again overwritten by the next rake (non-TF). Unless you let rake drop off and then reapply it, which at best is a very minor dps increase, and you risk letting rake fall off. Hope you and I are talking about the same thing.

Farronski · 06/26/11, 3:44 PM

You have 450ms per rake application to get a DPS increase. If you are able to refresh rake after 225ms, which isn't really a problem (with ~25ms latency), you increase your Rake damage by 7.5%.

Felics · 06/27/11, 8:11 AM

You have 450ms per rake application to get a DPS increase. If you are able to refresh rake after 225ms, which isn't really a problem (with ~25ms latency), you increase your Rake damage by 7.5%.

So your saying its when you have refreshed a rake with TF that you should let it fall off and instantly reapply so that the last tick is still affected by the 15% inc damage?

and can someone clarify if it is worth using FB above 25% so long as you keep SR and Rip up pls?

Vaccine · 06/28/11, 3:23 AM

Originally Posted by Melthu

4T12 is more interesting, particularly now that Glyph of Berserk gives us a base 25 second Berserk. This is the one situation above 25% boss health where it's a definite advantage to use Ferocious Bite, though of course Rip and Savage Roar are still more important if they are about to fall off. There is currently discussion on whether or not it's better to cancel Berserk after 30 seconds so that Tiger's Fury isn't delayed. Updated information here would be appreciated.

Leafkiller passed on Yawning's testing on this point on TFD, and said it was a 300-400 DPS loss to cancel Berserk to TF.

MessiQ · 06/28/11, 6:35 AM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

I'm still not convinced on the logic and math behind the Hit/Exp capping being as good as stack Mastery or stack Haste. I assume when you brought it up (someone a few posts up) you're referring to to Konungr's math? Some of his conclusions seem a bit flawed, theres a thread on TFD with some good analysis of it but the sims I'm running still seem to like Mastery more. The buff to Rake really did a number for it. It might start to fade out more once 4xT12 comes into play but that seems to favour Haste still and not really Exp/Hit capping. You should also consider Leafkillers Atramedes script when considering Mastery or no, as hit/exp/haste will not have any impact when time is spent away from the boss, wheras Mastery and Crit will, so the fights must be taken into account as well.

We're not talking vast differences mind but I still don't think its time to throw out all your mastery and go cap hit and exp just yet, and I don't think "to put bleeds up easier" is a good gearing method, you get a decent grace period on reapplication already.

By that logic though any fight could have a tweaked set of gear that is optimal for it. Since most info is coming from simmed results which assume ideal circumstances, this is why hit/exp is showing just as good as Haste and mastery. Remove the need to hit (as you say in a fight like Atramedes whenever you are off direct dmg to the boss then hit/exp are useless and mastery/crit will always win out as this improves your bleed dmg while you are running around. However the converse is also true, take a fight where you can't be behind the boss and then hit/Exp become so much better to have capped (or close to) making it easier to keep bleeds up but also benefitting from the direct dmg increase too. Other fights will fal in between these two options and so a compromise is most likely better (or just ignoring it and going with what you feel more comfortable with). Don't forget theoretical dps doesn't mean it's possible in a real fight, so you do have to adapt things to the current situation.

I just think this is Blizz's way of trying to make mastery stacking at the expense of everything else a thing of the past. I have noticed a few other classes are seeing their DoT's reduced at the gain of more direct damage....so i'm guessing this is a game-wide decision to not allow maximal dps while running away and avoiding fight mechanics.

Robosaurus · 06/28/11, 8:01 AM

Originally Posted by Farronski

You have 450ms per rake application to get a DPS increase. If you are able to refresh rake after 225ms, which isn't really a problem (with ~25ms latency), you increase your Rake damage by 7.5%.

I agree with this, but would like to mention that if you let rake fall off you no longer have 3 GCD luxury to refresh rake (could affect your execution if you are on low hit/expertise). The point of the post was to show that even with direct damage / bleed damage rebalancing you should still be using TF line ups.

Robosaurus · 06/30/11, 2:39 PM

UPDATED 20/8/11

Alysrazor 25 Caster Interrupts Heroic

← Click Here

Stats and Glyphs
Haste is extremely important for the Alysrazor Burn Phase. Most, if not all, of your DPS time on the boss will be spent with Berserk and Bloodlust/Heroism. Expertise is useful on this fight if you have trouble getting behind the casters, or if you consistently cannot get rid of your energy due to miss/dodge strings. I would recommend expertise cap because you will have energy overflows during bloodlust and you will want to maximise your damage on the boss.

In addition, you will get NOWHERE near full bleed uptime on the adds. You should get 1 rip max on each add, and two rakes. Because of this your rip uptime will be <80%. On the other hand you can put bleeds on the boss while she flys past in the 1st phase as well as during the tornado phase, however haste will be of much greater benefit when she is on the ground with +damage taken.

4t12 is specifically amazing for this fight, and you should end the burn phase just after you use your TF after berserk. (Approx berserk time raid buffed with 4t12 is 38-39 seconds).
Trinket choice: Take Ancient Petrified Seed. It will have the best effective uptime as you will not use it behind meteors, and you can easily time it for the burn, increasing your damage by ~20% for 15 seconds.

I would recommend Glyph of Feral Charge (Lines up with Add Spawns) and Ferocious Bite (Help out healers).

Talents
Brutal Impact (Interrupts)

Useless Talents
Infected Wounds. You can cut points out of Furor.
Depending on fight duration (if she dies in the air and spends a lot of time <25% in the air), then Blood in the Water will have diminished value, but you should still take it.

Recommended
Nurturing Instinct > Survival Instincts > Perseverance
Feral Charge is a MUST. Stampede + Predatory Strikes

Opening
Use a pre-pot. Open with FFF+Mangle+Rake. Use TF+Berserk at the same time (overcap energy). Chase the boss and use Stampeding Roar when needed to catch her. Use shred and FB liberally. Refresh Rip and Rake as she goes up. Move to the first add.

Main Phase
Memorise your four add spawn locations.
Right side, it will be ~1 o'clock, 5 o'clock, METEOR 2'oclock BREAK 4 o'clock METEOR
Left side is ~7 o'clock, 11o'clock METEOR 8 o'clock METEOR 10'oclock.

Use barkskin if you have to stand near a worm or in front of a caster for any reason. Use Faerie Fire on the tanks' targets in spare GCDs, since they will be doing 100k DPS and require debuffs. Use thorns if applicable.

If you have one feather, you can channel Tranquility while moving between adds if you screw up or need to assist raid heals.

Cyclone Phase
No tips here. Your berserk will come off cooldown just before this phase. End this phase in FC range of the boss. Re-apply FFF here or you will need to do it during the burn phase.

Burn Phase
Feral charge Alysrazor and then backpedal out. I recommend the raid put a marker on you so you can be the stack point. Use your standard opening on Alysrazor, since your Berserk/TF will be off CD. When Alysrazor is doing her AoE (~80% energy), use Survival Instincts and Barkskin.

Watch her energy bar and be prepared to re-dot and reapply mangle. Cut Savage Roar at the end, as its uptime will be wasted while you wait for the add spawns. When she is out of melee range, reapply Faerie Fire.

Repeat until dead.

Beth'tilak 25H Upstairs

← Click Here

Median: 451 seconds, average: 451 seconds = 7.5166minutes => 3 Berserks
Current average kill time is <7mins
Stats and Glyphs
Mastery/Haste. Haste has diminished value since you will regenerate whilst climbing, however I would say that the energy component of haste has double value during berserk. There are three phases where you go up to engage Beth'tilak - the first and the third you will spend a majority of the time in berserk.
When doing this encounter I found I could prevent energy capping issues.
Mastery has increased value since you can re-dot before jumping down.

Take Ancient Petrified Seed. It will have the best effective uptime as you will not use it when downstairs swiping, you can easily time it for the burn, increasing your damage by ~20% for 15 seconds, and you can utilize its full uptime in all of your berserks. Other on use trinkets may be of benefit however APS has a 1minute on use which is very handy.

Glyph of Ferocious Bite (helps strong healing requirement in execute)
Glyph of Feral Charge (you will be using it as you jump down to engage drones, and as you go up to engage Beth'tilak)

Talents to get
Furor 3/3 - You should be shifting to taunt spinners down. Get this talent.
Nurturing Instinct 2/2 + Perseverance 3/3 - You will take heavy damage in the burn phase, many guilds have multiple 5% wipes.
Survival Instincts - Damage reduction, same as above.

Talents to remove
Brutal Impact - You will not be interrupting in this encounter.
Primal Madness - Minor DPS gain.

Opening
Open the fight with Moonfire as your range pulls, shift to bear form as you stack.
You do not need to pre-pot or use Stampeding Roar as this encounter has a lenient set-up phase.
Begin the phase by stacking in the raid for bubbles and healing. You will have pre-hots and bubbles.
Taunt down spinners on cooldown.
To transition to the top phase, use growl on an add, then use your cat form energy. You will regen while going up the web. If you have time, shift back to bearform and growl another spinner on your way up, it will cause it to descend to the floor.
When you get up, open with your standard opening. Use Dash if required to get into position.

Up Phase
Reasonably standard. Use Feral Charge and Dash to close distance. Watch Beth's energy and refresh Rip/Rake/Mangle just before dropping down - Cut your last Savage Roar if required. Reapply FFF while jumping down. You should have 100% uptime on the boss. Use your first and second berserk on the first and third up phase.

Down Phase
Depending on your downstairs dps, assist with aoe or Drones. When Beth'tilak starts her AoE, stack up and use Barkskin. You should opt to use Survival Instincts as well since you should not be taking damage anywhere else until the last phase (assuming you do not stand in bad things.) Do not forget to taunt spinners. Spread FFF onto drones if there are spare GCDs on your way up, and when you need to stack for healing.

Burn Phase
Finish off your assigned adds. Use Barkskin liberally, and Survival Instincts for the last portion of the fight (sub 10%). Depending on your raid DPS you will have 2 or 3 berserks (probably four). You should get a third berserk and potion for execute (May be after bloodlust depending on how your guild uses it).

Lord Rhyolith 25H

← Click Here

Shannox 25H

← Click Here

Baleroc 25

← Click Here

Majordomo Staghelm 25N

← Click Here

Normal Median: 511 seconds, average: 510 seconds =>8.5minutes 3 berserks
Heroic Median: 606 seconds, average: 600 seconds => 10 minutes 4 Berserks
Current kill times suggest <9minutes.

I would recommend 2t11.372+2t12 for this fight because Berserks will be devalued. You will not get full usage of the berserks, and bleeds in general are quite strong when you need to move during cat phase.
Pay attention to your kill timing, if you kill it in the 9-10minute region then 4t12 2might be worth it.

Useless Talents
Brutal Impact, Infected Wounds
Recommended Talents
Survival Instincts > Nurturing Instincts > Perseverance

Pre-pot for this fight. Use Stampeding Roar for the scorpion phase split. His aggro radius is not particularly huge.

During Scorpion Phase it is possible to stand in the center of Majordomo to both shred AND soak flamescythe. [Thanks Mihir]
"On Majordomo, it's also possible to stand at the claw, and shred, and still be hit by the cleave. It's a bit easier to get to than fiddling around in the middle."
In addition to gaining energy, Majordomo has a slight delay when casting the flamescythe as he hits 100 energy. You should use Barkskin and survival instincts to soak the last 2 or 3 flamescythes, depending on how high you go, and if you are even soaking flamescythes.

Barkskin should be used at least once every scorpion phase if you are soaking them, otherwise most of the raid damage is completely avoidable, save seeds.

Use Stampeding Roar to transition to Cat Phase, if required.

During Cat Phase you should use swipe to dps adds when Majordomo is in range. (Swipe does approximately the same damage as mangle, and hits multiple targets). Cleave+AoE should be enough to handle the adds in normal mode, and you should have combat rogues in heroic.

You need to wait approximately 20seconds to reach 100 concentration, so I recommend using TF+Berserk at 30seconds. This delay effectively makes the fight <8.5mins in duration, meaning 4t12 is at its weakest.

Ragnaros 25N

← Click Here

<---Feral Cat can solo adds during transition and is excellent for AoE in P2
Median: 613 seconds, average: 614 seconds => 10minutes => 4 Berserks

Recommended Talents:
3/3 Furor + 2/2 Brutal Impact if you are using Bear Stun for Son of Flame
2/2 Infected Wounds - Slows the Son of Flame when it is below 50% [needs confirmation]
It is unlikely that you will need 2/2 Predatory Strikes since you will be Ravaging targets below 80%

Much like other end bosses, Ragnaros is more about control, good mechanics usage rather than having a tight dps requirement.
Some level of Expertise will assist you here, particularly when Ragnaros turns around to slam his hammer, and also when you stack up to Swipe the adds.

I found that mastery had diminished value since 15%+ of my total output was swipe damage. Also if you are doing Sons of Flame in a strict fashion, you should not apply Rip to them. Nevertheless you have a significant amount of "tunnel into the boss" time.

Sons of Flame can no longer dodge/avoid bear stuns and maim. Hotkey or macro enrage to a bear ability, then use it when Ragnaros submerges so that you have sufficient energy for Bash. Bash as soon as the add becomes active then switch back to Cat Form. You should be able to get 4-5 CP Maim if you wish to continue to stun the Sons of Flame. Because of this double-stun ability, your Son of Flame target could be chosen as the add that is left up during the 40% transition to allow more Lava Scion damage.

When Lava Seeds are about to pop, pool energy and cut Savage Roar out of your priority list. Use Barkskin when the timer hits, you will have limited heals while the raid moves to stack up. You should be able to get 4-5 swipes out to kill the Molten Elementals that spawn. Refresh Rake/Rip appropriately.

Berserk usage
I used my first one off the bat, 2nd one straight after the 70% transition, 3rd one during the 40% transition to burst down the Sons of Flame + Lava Scion. Your mileage will vary dependent on your raid's DPS, and you may want to consider saving Berserk for appropriate timing windows.

Ragnaros 25H

← Click Here

Mihir · 06/30/11, 7:40 PM

On Majordomo it's possible to stand right in the middle of the scorpion, so you can both Shred and still get hit by the Flame Scythe.