• Daboran

I find Brutal Impact surprisingly useful in PvE. Many trash mobs have been stunnable recently - Bladefuries in BT being the most notable examples of a trash mob that can get seriously out of hand if it gets loose but is harmless if stunned. Not to mention that for tanking the Rogue on Illidari Council it is seriously good especially if you have a Paladin healer using HoJ on him too.
Yes, it's more useful in 5-mans and PvP, but overall a nice talent imo.

With the huge amounts of raid-wide damage in Sunwell on both trash and bosses, Imp LotP is most definitely a non-trivial amount of healing for the group. Look at any WWS parses and LotP contributes heavily to Feral group healing. I would never consider dropping it.

Imp Demo Roar - not really any good as the vast majority of PvE raids would use the better debuff available from the Warrior.

Natural Shapeshifter I used a lot in SSC where virtually every encounter was designed with the "OT/DPS" role in mind. BT is less well-designed in this respect and Sunwell even less.

I've picked up Primal Tenacity again - mainly I have to admit due to lack of alternatives that are more useful in Sunwell.

 

Kaeleb

The usefulness of Imp LotP largely depends where you fit with your feral. I'm quite often in a MeleeSetup where all MeleeDDs benefit of the selfheal Imp LotP provides. Yesterday we did our 2nd Twins Kill and went for a Reverse Kill and our Melee stated that without LotP healing they would need addional CoH or Chainheal due to Flame Sears and Shadow Images.
Of course it will not be the only thing needed to keep your melee alive, but it helps to fight the massive raid damage.
If you are stuck in a MT Group with Warrior Tank, Resto Shamy, Holy Paladin and Resto Druid then it is virtually useless but then again so are you (if not MTing something) since you get like zero support, wich hurts Ferals usually more than others.
I would like to check and link our WWS but there seems to be some problem with the server (upload) so that will have to wait until we can upload again.

Sidenote to Imp Demoshout:
I used it because we tanked Sacrolash on the ramp and our MT (standard 8/5/48 spec) and me were the only people near her. Picked it up at first because our Warrior MT was late that day because of some RL thingy and we actually tried to tank her with ProtPala / Feral and the ProtPala got regularly eaten by Sacrolash.
Our usual setup includes an OffWarrior with 5/5 Demoshout, with him on the Boss our Feral Aggression becomes nothing else but 5 Talentpoints spent to get a high FB crit that no one cares about.

 

Sierin

I would really appreciate some feedback on my tanking gear. I've recently gotten some new pieces and my threat generation has dropped significantly. I MT Supremus and Archimonde for my guild, so I have redone my gear for more health. I just didn't have enough before. I recently switched to my druid as my main, so I have struggled to get gear in a short amount of time. I don't have a lot of choices for gear at this point. The only T5 I have is the pants and the gloves (which I've never used since I have the S3 gloves). I've been trying out the [Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve] (I'm Scryer) and I'm not sure I've noticed any difference with it. I've lost some +hit lately, so I was thinking of switching to Surefooted on my boots. I also have 100 badges to spend and I'm not sure if I should go for [Embrace of Everlasting Prowess], or something else. It will be a while yet before I see Illidan down. My guild is just starting on Bloodboil this week.

Here is the link to my armory profile:

The World of Warcraft Armory

Any suggestions or comments would be great. This thread is always such a great source of information, and I don't have anyone else to ask

 

Deltronzero

Sierin- Your gear seems fine, especially if you’re just catching up. How long has your guild been farming BT/Hyjal? I suppose you could have a tough time if they’re all decked out in T6, but otherwise you shouldn’t be having too much trouble gear wise. Instead I’d double check that you’re using your moves correctly, as has been covered multiple times (including recently) in this thread, as well as in the first post.
Quick version for a boss (infinite rage): Spam maul in between all of your moves, Mangle every 6 seconds each time its up, and 3 lacerate/swipes in between mangles. For those 3 moves- can’t go wrong spamming swipe, but keeping a 5 stack of lacerate up can’t hurt.

Example: Mangle – Lacerate – Swipe – Swipe – next Mangle, with Mauls constantly going off in between.
(wasn't thinking, thanks Ast.)
Also, make sure you're clicking off salv? It's easy to forget. I was in a position of playing catch up to my guild when they were progressing through BT, and tanked Bloodboil in 4 piece tier 4 without threat or survival issues, so I don't think your gear alone is holding you back. You're already uncrittable without consumables so use Major Agility and Agility food.

Edit: just reread your post and noticed you're on Bloodboil. Personally, I'd save the badges so you can gem your heart out with spinels in the future, you won't likely be getting them from your guild. Or the dps staff if you won't be getting on of the arena ones. I don't think there's anything you can't tank in BT... you obviously won't be tanking Illidan and may need to buy fire resist pieces (another reason to save the badges). Oh, and get those T6 gloves from Hyjal ASAP, the 2pc bonus should help a lot.


Kaeleb- That's along the lines of what I was looking for. I guess it all adds up, just when you think about it a heal for X-hundred every 6 seconds max just doesn't seem great in a vacuum. I rarely get the pleasure of being in a melee group because it consists of 3 rogues/enh/war, and our main tanks are a prot and another feral. This is all absentee speculation, but as the dps benchmarks become more and more doable I suppose there's a chance of getting the ol hunter group as dps every now and then. In either case (ditching NI as back-up tank, or keeping it as occasional cat) I'll probably end up taking 2 out of Primal Tenacity since its so situational and not useful on boss fights.

 

• Astrylian

There's only room for 3 swipes/lacerates in between Mangles, and until you get 4T6, swipe isn't nearly as much threat as lacerate, single-target.

 

• Caniki

Your gear looks fine for where you are. My guild has been gearing up two feral druids in BT and Hyjal for the last few weeks. We started in full tier 4, and have been replacing it with T6 as it drops. Fortunately the Feral shopping list for BT and Hyjal is quite small. It's really just full T6, trash boots, and Pendant of Titans. The Bloodboil trinket and Pillar of Ferocity are nice options.

We've been able to tank trash in both Hyjal and BT without a problem, and many of the boss fights are single-tank affairs, so we either handle adds, or DPS, depending on the boss. We've both got reasonable healing sets, so we'll switch to those too, if it's more effective to us toss some HOTs during the fight.

Quick note: If it looks like youre getting to Illidan anytime soon, save up your badges for the Hardened Inferno gear. Let someone else MT Illidan, and you can tank a flame.

 

Sierin

Thanks for the replies. I am using the right rotation. As Astrylian said, I don't have the gear to make swipe better than lacerate yet, so I'm doing Mangle then 3 Lacerates, rinse and repeat. I also use Maul as often as I can. I guess I'll stop worrying about it unless someone starts actually pulling off me. It's just that I was able to maintain around 1200 TPS, and now I feel like I'm struggling to stay around 1k TPS. (My only other thought is the numbers in Omen have changed, but the dps does seem to be catching up to me quicker than usual.) I've been using elixirs of mastery for the added stam, and spicy crawdads, but I think I'll go back to the agility elixirs and agility food and see if that helps.

I did get the badge dps staff already. I'm completely addicted to Rawr, and tend to obsess over my dps gear. I broke 1500 dps on Gorefiend this week for the first time and I'm usually in the top 5 on the dps meters. So, I feel like I've got the kitty thing down pretty well now. Tanking gear just doesn't seem as clear cut, since you're constantly trying to balance threat with survivability. I think I just needed to hear that I'm not doing anything obviously wrong, so thanks!

 

purewood

Hey guys.

I am new to the page but over the year I have been playing have gotten much good data from the site. I am not attempting to be lazy by replying but #1 it wouldnt let me start my own thread, and #2 when i did a key word search " bear tank hit" it gave me the phone book. Still learning how to navigate the site, but I will get to the point. My character is Purewood - Feral Druid - Proudmoore (US) relm. I enjoy the versatility of the class and is why I am one.

The World of Warcraft Armory

(p.s. the gloves of immoral dusk i just got last night, havent put them into practice yet.... so that is only new gear unrelated to my post)

My average dps doesnt seem to go above 900 dps. Currently we are doing 25 man stuff SSC / TK and I cant seem to break 900 dps overal damage done average (the end of an ssc run 3 bosses down night). The reason for my post is I see other druids with simply put lesser gear / gems / chants than me that claim to break 1k dps frequently. What am I doing wrong? What is the proper time to powershift? Is there a UI that will benefit me in pressing my buttons? I have the basic mangle, shred to 4, then rip and if i get a double point to 5 points wait till 70 then rip. I guess Im reaching out for wisdom. I hope Im not putting this in the wrong forum/group of posts. Currently I have the standard toolbar at bottom and I do have the feral/rogue energy ticker but I find it hard to pay attention to as it is small and with 24 other players on the screen I cant see it well.

Part II Bear Hit Rating. Where should this be at? I tried MT leo and missed at a couple crucial times when his agg is reset after spinning and missed terribly boom 3-4 guildies dead. I upped my hit and expertise and now seem to miss less but my stam is lesser than i hear it shoudl be for a feral tank. Unfortunately if you armory me you will only see my dps gear currently, but for expertise i have 3 pcs: earthwarden, expertise necklace, and shard of contempt and have 71 hit rating. I welcome any criticism / comments / feedback bad or good!!!!! I hope to learn and be better!

BTW if there is a link or the info i am asking about is posted already if someone could link me the post would be most excellent as i hope not to re- repeat info already posted.... thanks guys!!!!

thx

 

BeldDD

Doesn't swipe pass lacerate when you are at about 250 avg swipe dmg?

 

BeldDD

Do you have a wws log? What are you referring to for avg dps (is this including you tanking)? Do you mean over an entire instance or on bosses? Looking at your gear you should easily be able to get into the 1200 range on bosses that don't interfere with your dps (e.g. if you are graved every time on morogrim your dps will suffer). That being said if you are including trash and are still doing the rip-based dps cycle then you are likely losing a lot of dps to your rips not cycling all the way through.

Powershifting is a bit of personal preference. I generally go for it when I am under 15 energy. Btw 15 and 20 it depends on where my energy tick is in the cycle. Over 20 = no shift.

 

kalbear

Primal Tenacity absolutely seems to work against conflag, at least Kael's version (or Capernian). Unless I'm getting exceptionally lucky, I'm resisting it quite often.

NI is useful in odd places, but it is not all that useful in raids.

I am typically the highest healing of non-healers in every raid, thanks to imp LotP. I don't think it's essential but it is a nontrivial amount of healing for whatever group I'm in, and seems fairly nice.

 

Wysp

I've had a side project the past couple weeks to answer for myself when to swipe and lacerate. Some druids I know never swipe, and others swipe when they shouldn't be. With the AP changes to lacerate I wanted to know analytically what is the best threat cycle for myself and the other feral druids in the guild. For myself (5/8 T6), I will continue to stack lacerate and then have one lacerate and two swipes between mangles. The conclusions I reached aren't too surprising, though lacerate scaled better than I originally expected.

I started with Tieglin/Loythr's post on page 129 with the goal of building a spreadsheet where I could plug in AP, crit %, and the boss's armor values and armor debuffs to see what kind of damage I should expect for swipe and lacerate. I could not find equations for AP to damage for lacerate or swipe, so I took my own data and built my own equations.

For lacerate I played with the mobs in Blasted Lands at various AP levels. For swipe I cast faerie fire on rats in the tram to reduce their armor to 0. Testing was done with and without the 4 piece T6 bonus active, with 10-15 data points for each spell. More data would have been nice, but the curves turned out fairly well as is. Incidentally, the 4 piece T6 bonus does add exactly 15% to swipe damage. Using the boss armor thread linked below I can calculate the armor reduction of the boss and factor that into an expected swipe damage. I will be verifying this over the next couple of weeks, but it looks to be fairly close from the initial WWS logs I've looked through.

Approximate damage equations:
Swipe damage = % Armor Reduction*(0.077*AP+92)
Initial Lacerate damage = 0.01*AP+35
Lacerate dot tick damage = N*(0.14*AP+45), where N = the number of stacks

Quick generalizations for an "average" boss with 7700 base armor, Faerie Fire, and 5x sunders:
Below approximately 2000 AP and 28% crit swipe isn't practical, especially without 4 pieces of T6, as it will be hitting for ~180. You'll want to be seeing swipes of about 220 before you start working them into your cycle. Once you start seeing swipes over ~270 white damage you should never lacerate, as its no longer worth the GCD. The latter case would take approximately 3000 AP and 36% crit to achieve, which should be possible with Sunwell loot and a melee group.

My OpenOffice spreadsheet is a little messy, but I will gladly post it if someone wants to pour over it and answer any questions about it or my tests. Its by no means a perfect model, but I hope it helps clear up the rather fuzzy issue of swipe vs lacerate.

My Test Assumptions:
Infinite rage conditions.
Mangle is always up.
Rats have 0 armor with faerie fire applied.
Lacerate threat values are as stated in previous posts (285 +0.2*damage done).
Swipe threat is damage only.
No RED Meta gem.
Boss mitigation % = x/(x+10557.5), x = armor after debuffs. (SRC)

 

• Astrylian

Err... Did the initial damage of Lacerate get changed? It was a bleed (ignoring armor) before, don't think that's changed, but I could be wrong...

 

Wysp

Yea, you're right Astrylian. I spaced that off during my write up. I swear I knew that when I made my spreadsheet... I've changed my original post.

 

Spookeh

Bear Hit Rating. Where should this be at? I tried MT leo and missed at a couple crucial times when his agg is reset after spinning and missed

Bleed dots will make him stick to you.

When he's elf form and you're bear tanking, prioritise lacerate. don't let it dip below 10 sec remaining without refreshing it. when he's spinning, chase after him if you need to refresh it, and be aggressive about this, he seems to avoid attacks more when spinning- you must keep your lacerate stack up even if that means he hits you a lot.

When he's demon and you're kitty, build 4-5 combo points, and rip 2-3 sec before the transition- then shift bear and lacerate as much as you can- hopefully you'll have both dot's running on transition.

If you get an inner demon, you must kill it fast so you can rebuild combo points on him. if it looks like you'll not have time to rip, throw moonfire on him then go bear.

(if you're a LWer, save drums of battle for the demon time, it'll help all in your party to kill demons. if they / you didn't get a demon, they can dps harder on leo for 30 sec)

 

Edenfall

A bit of a question here. I have to choose between 2/3 Intensity and 2/3 Natural Shapeshifter. I will be DPSing.

2/3 Intensity will give me 21 mp5
2/3 Natural Shapeshifter will save me 165.8 mana each shift

2/3 Intensity will spend 41.45sec replenishing my mana after one shift.

Do anybody have any experience that can guide to what might be favored? We're working on Illidari Council, so it's end BT for a while to consider, regarding the encounters.

 

mhr_78

Take natural shapeshifter.

Because quite obviously intensity affects you while casting spells which you hardly do when dpsing in cat.

 

Zeln

Have a Shaman drop Searing totem right in the middle of where you want to tank him.

 

Edenfall

Haha, thanks for reminding me I have 100% mana regen while in cat (NOT casting).
Boy, do I feel silly.

 

zimmeyeah

hey im a new member here(been reading here for a month or so tho) and this is my first post and i hope this is the right place to post, im raiding as a hunter(4/5 3/9) we usually just bring 1 feral druid to our raids, he usually get into the tank group with a warrior, prot paladin, tree druid for the spirit buff and sometimes a 4th tank if we raid MH, so i very rarely get him in my group and lotp is pretty wasted, so my question is, would putting him into a group with 2 or 3 hunters and a shaman for goa and str of earth be better then having him in the tank group, he's tps will obviusly get alot higher but will the survivablity with the GoA totem out weight commanding shout and the tree of life buff(i think they r armor capped so devotion aura wont help) we usually have the warrior main tanking and feral on either adds or just building threat on the boss incase the tank dies

so which group would be better, tank group for commanding shout or shaman group for GoA

 

Spookeh

If he's tanking, he goes in the tank group. ideally he probably wants commanding shout, imp, tree, (shaman/3rd tank)

Have a Shaman drop Searing totem right in the middle of where you want to tank him.
That as well.

 

Edenfall

@zimmeyeah

If he needs intensive healing - Tank group
but it's favorable to put him in the 3 Hunter 1 Shaman group, since the group's DPS will be buffed hard, and his DPS or TPS will be buffed aswell.

 

Ghoselle

We've actually taken to putting the feral tank in the tank group only when she is boss tanking a glasschewing boss. The rest of the time she is in the hunter/6th-melee-dps group (with a shaman if we have two+). Bear survival on trash is sufficient that they don't really need the tank group. Giving the rogue and hunters 5% crit is worthwhile. More DPS is always good. We are 4/5 MH and 4/9 BT.

Ghoselle.
Feral Druid.

 

Allev

It sounds like you keep your warrior MTing until he dies, in which case you hope to switch to the feral backup. In this case, you want to keep your feral with the hunters, then if/when the warrior dies, switch the 5th person in the group with the resto druid.

Your feral druid tank will almost never need a commanding shout/tree buff simply for tanking adds, and shouldn't on trash, either.

 

Scurn

If you powershift then the shift itself is considered a spell and you won't start your regen until 5seconds after the shift. One other thing that I don't know if most people are aware of is feral forms regen at a slower rate than caster forms. You can verify this by looking at your regen in the character sheet while in caster form. Now shift into flight form and look at the regen numbers again. Depending on how much int/spi you have it can be significant. Feral forms use the old druid regen formula which accounts for the difference.