Get the S3 head if you're planning long term - it has the benefit of working with the epic FR set.

Edit: Wow, I think I'm completely on crack; I was replying to the post before my previous post re: resistance fights.

I got it last night while in bear form.

For RoS, I have a high stam set for taking a ph 1 enrage but if I don't need to do that then I use my dps set. S3 gloves and sign up to be one of the interrupters in ph 2 can free up a rogue or dps warrior to go all out dps.

A druid interrupting on P2 sounds like an awfully bad way to use your resources. 35 energy + at least one combo point for a 3-second lockout on a 10-second cooldown (and due to energy and CP issues you probably won't be able to use many other finishers either)? Why not just use two rogues? I suspect the RDPS lost by interrupting as feral is greater than that lost by kicking as a rogue.

Thanks Falk, I am planning on getting the S3 helm long term, to go with S3 chest. Really want to get that 35 resil from S3 instead of the Dragonhide set. The compatibility with the FR badge gear is just a bonus.

And I know I'm obsessing more than I should, but I raid in a large alliance that runs charters, so we don't have tightly rigid rosters, so the obsession helps me be prepared and continue to get slotted.

Ok, since I've beaten that to death, for normal tanking purposes like MT or even OT, 4t4 or 2t4 plus 2S3? Been number crunching some but won't know until I have the second piece.

I was wondering about ferocious bite...because my rip has an average tick of 571 according to recount which winds up being 2284, which ain't bad...if it finishes. I've had ferocious bites that get to 5200, given, on average the crits are 4500 to 4800. If it doesn't, ferocious bite lands at 1800 to 2100. So if I land one non-crit and one crit, it would end up being more than two rips.

However since it drains all extra energy, I'd be losing additional shreds. So, is it always better to just use rip and continue to spam shred?

I tested FB for fun back in TK on Solarian. I got nowhere near the damage with a *40* energy Ferocious Bite that I would need to do for it to break even, let alone be better. And your '1 crit, 1 non-crit' means you're banking on a 50% crit rate. One look at your gear tells me you're not sitting on 50% crit.

All of the people talking about using full cat gear for RoS, are you tanking stage 2 and 3? The original question about gear was accompanied by him asking if its possible to do the fight with 0 warriors, so I'd imagine he's tanking all of 2 and 3 which you guys don't seem to be based on your discussions of maiming and how much damage you do in the other phases.

Rip ticks every 2 seconds, giving a total of 6 ticks before expiring and 3426 total damage with your average tick value.

While not usually part of the discussion in this thread, the S4 arena set + feral weapon has 89 hit rating on it before enchants/gems. Why would Blizzard purposefully put ~8 wasted hit rating on the set? The only time it would be useful is when fighting a frost mage with the arctic winds talent.

S4 Set:
Brutal Gladiator's Sanctuary

S4 Weapon:
Brutal Gladiator's Staff

Because the primary use of arena feral gear is so druids that pvp resto can farm, do dailys, and dps karazhan or ZA more efficiently. Rocking that 89 hit rating and the expertise from [Shard of Contempt] and [Shapeshifter's Signet] will make missing a mangle while farming a distant memory even against lvl 71 mobs. I would virtually promise you there are more resto druids using full s3 feral gear for when they spec feral for farming / playing around than druids that are normally feral and pvp feral.

Would also be useful vs a moonkin using insect swarm or hunter using scorpid, but both of those are fairly uncommon.

This is interesting because we're the only class with hit rating on our hand piece. We also have more hit rating on our staff than any other weapon (except spell hit on staff).

The hit rating makes it more appealing for PvE DPS of course, but giving a PvP set stats to make it more useful in PvE while they are essentially useless in PvP is a bit silly.

Toskk's simulator regularly gives me a more efficient 5CP FB than a shred. According to your spreadsheet with my gear and a "wet" buff list (testing DPS on Brutallus), I get 71 DPE for a 5CP FB and 53 DPE for a shred.

However, I think something there is busted-- the energy cost of a hit should be somewhere between 35 and 45 and a miss should be 35, but when I set the miss to 35 instead of its original 40 (thus not costing as much energy on average), the DPE actually goes down! Not sure exactly how that's supposed to be working, but I don't think it's quite correct.

Edit: Got beat to it, nevermind.

Back when I was upgrading from T4 to T5 for tanking, I selected 3T5 as an appropriate inflection point for ditching 4T4. With S3 gear in mind, I think 2S3 is perfect. Not only will both pieces have a lot of resilience on their own, you also get the meaty 35 resilience set bonus .. which all adds up to a crapton of crit reduction. Pretty much that, plus enchants, rings and possibly neck should easily see you crit immune, which will allow you to be far more aggressive in item selection in other slots for tailored situations (e.g. high threat sets or resist sets).

Also, you can use rawr (linked in the OP) to do the number crunching for you, while waiting for arena points or drops.

53 DPE shred is most likely without mangle. I was comparing a shred without mangle against 4 CP FB. The actual DPE value will vary depending on energy used. A 35 energy, 5 CP FB will be more DPE than a mangled Shred, but a 42 energy one will not be.

However, yes the FB numbers on my current spreadsheet are a bit backwards. I wasn't really using FB for anything at the time. The reason you see the reported DPE go up is because I was comparing it directly to Shred (to compare on bleed immune mobs). It is dividing the damage done by the cost of Shred, not the actual value used. "Hit" and "Miss" should be reversed, and the DPE should be divided by an actual hit used. I've already changed it in my new version.

I suppose I should modify my previous statement ... if you only have time for one more attack and at least 3 CP, FB will do more damage than Mangle since at that point you don't really care about DPE anymore. Well, unless you'll be attacking your next target before you get full energy again. I did over-simplify it, but the point stands that FB's usefulness is extremely limited and specific to a few circumstance.

Please read the introduction post - there are many tipps, what gear strategy would work best. Also use Rawr for a clue.
Anyways, I would recommend you to an even build of Sta and Avoidance in BT. In Sunwell it is more favourable to go for sta (in spite of the aura of the bosses/mobs there).

I'd like to move the discussion [Shattered Sun Pendant of Might] (Sycer) again. I am really astonished that it has such a high ranking in Tokk's list. I know that it goes for your melee stats such as hit and crit rating. But has anyone data about the proc rate? I think 300-600 dmg/minute (assuming 1ppm) is not worth it at all. I would rather take the BT or the Kael neck. What do you think?

It's around 1.2 ppm, ~350 average hit * 2.2 * 1.03 = 793 average crit. 793+350*.5 = 571.5 damage with 50% crit (no miss) * 1.2 ppm/60sec = 11.43 dps. I believe it's also effected by things like Sanctity Aura, Ferocious Inspiration, Curse of Shadows, and Misery

Telonicus is 9 Agi 6 AP higher. Agi is ~3.3 ap so call it 36 ap higher total. 4.3 AP = 1 DPS. That's about 8.4 DPS increase from stats. SSPoM wins by 3 DPS.

As for [Choker of Endless Nightmares] Try turning on Ignore Hit/Expertise cap and/or reducing the hit you have. Choker should go up slightly above the SSPoM, it's 9 dps higher for me according to Toskks if I am not hit capped.

Once I was at Morogrim in SSC I started to go for more avoidance, but not at the total expense of stamina.

For every blue slot I used an agi/stam gem instead of pure stamina. Moroes/tenacity trinkets, Juggernaut neck etc. With the badge gear available now (which wasn't when I was starting MH/BT) such as Slikk's cloak etc, you should actually be able to have much more mitigation/avoidance along with stamina than I ever had.

Of course, once you get into Sunwell this will shift back to stamina everywhere

I know, didn't try for effiency, but had this discussion on another forum as well and someone claimed FB numbers I couldn't remotely see happening. Solarian is easy mode anyway and low armour, so it looked like a good place to see some proper numbers come up to get a ballpark idea.

[Brutal Gladiator's Staff] marks the first time the new PVP weapon has not been the best choice for PVE DPS since TBC started.

edit: Item linking not quite functional. Should be [Brutal Gladiator's Staff] : 50 str, 26 hit, 50 crit, 1197 ap.

In terms of the armour, for PVE DPS only the Chest is particularly impressive, although everything is pretty good (legs and gloves are the weakest items).

I've been wondering about a similar topic as was stated a few posts ago (i R nub n couldnt figure out how to quote it right the first time).
2 piece t4 is heavily recommended for feral dps, but how about for tanking tps?
i'm currently using t4 shoulders/gloves and s3 chest/helm (with glad enchant : makes me crit immune from just those 2 pieces; ideal for making resist sets)
I am usually at armor cap, so using 4 piece t4 would be a waste, but I have the option of upgrading to t5 or badge gear. I very rarely ever have threat issue and i'm just wondering if I should be upgrading my tanking set stats-wise, or if i'd run into threat production issues without the extra rage proc.

(i've been reading this thread on and off for a month or so now and i have greatly enjoyed the discussion of these mechanics, thank you to all regular posters)