Shred some more.

To clarify: Shred will be your highest damage per energy other than rip, so assuming your rip and mangle debuffs are both up, shred is the best option. There's a nice chart of the DPE of various abilities versus AP on Toskk's calculator. (Technically a 35 energy Ferocious Bite is more DPE, but what are the chances of having exactly 35 energy and being able to get the combo points back up before rip runs out?)

There's nothing stopping you from using more combo point-generating abilities when you're already at 5. I actually find myself so energy- and CP-rich with the powershift macros (2pT4/2pT6/etc.) that I scarcely pay attention to my CP anymore--there are always five of them waiting for me because I shred (or powershift) on a majority of GCDs (and have over 50% crit with raid buffs). I just watch the rip timer, and stop mashing shred briefly for energy to refresh it just before it wears off.

Also: those seconds before the next rip are a good time to renew your Faerie Fire, use Drums of Battle, pop a haste pot, etc.

To reiterate, shred more. I usually evaluate it like this - if I have 40 energy and there are more than 3 seconds remaining on rip, I shred. If not, I don't.

The cat post has the following:

Since the change to Adamantite Weightstones in 2.4, ferals aren't missing out as much without Windfury, because we now have a weapon buff that's pretty good. (The various calculators indicate Adamantite Weightstones give me even more of a DPS buff than Elixirs of Major Agility or Relentless Assault.) Assuming the shaman is twisting, the "Feral Disadvantage" is less than it used to be. It might be worthwhile to compare the WF estimate to the weightstones' buff.

Edit: Also, maybe add weightstones to the consumables list?

Of course it's null and void with the totem changes coming in 3.0, but (hopefully) we've still a month or two before that comes to pass.

Also (somewhat related): Several months back I remember a discussion in this thread about melee group composition and when the feral can keep a spot there, but I cannot seem to locate it. In particular, I am trying to determine the threshold at which putting the feral in the enhancement shaman's group is more raid dps than putting the ret paladin there. (I might end up DPSing on Brutallus due to our guild's current roster...) My personal DPS is higher than the ret paladin's when we are both in the melee group (rogue/warr/enh/ret/feral). LoTP (with Raven Goddess) is a bigger party DPS buff than Sanctity Aura, and the ret paladin's judgement works for the raid regardless of what group he's in. However, the ret paladin theoretically benefits more from the enhancement shaman's buffs.

The other four people in the melee group would be two rogues, the DPS warrior, and the enhancement shaman. The options probably include putting the ret paladin somewhere with a resto shaman (tank group maybe) who gives him WF, or putting me with the hunters (with the hunters actually in the same group, for once) and a resto shaman. I'm curious as to how much better than the ret paladin my DPS would have to be in order to justify a spot for me in the melee group.

If anyone has a link for earlier posts on this topic (or thoughts to add) I'd appreciate the help. (It's not just about me getting UR, I swear!)

I'll try and dig it up, but IIRC it's better to put the ret pally in the melee group for the following reasons:

-The hunters improve as much, if not more with your crit bonus as the melee do
-You don't get that much worse without the melee buffs
-The ret paladin might as well not come if they're not in the melee group

Personally I increase my damage by about 200-300 dps when in the melee group depending on the number of drums there are at the time. The ret paladin increases theirs by close to 500 dps. The big question is whether LotP is boosting 2, 3 or 4 people in your party. My suspicion is that as long as you have 3 or more, LotP evens out.

Thank you, I think those numbers are about the same as mine. I suspect you're right for the situation where the ret paladin's personal DPS is equivalent to the feral's and there are, say, 3 BM hunters, but on fights longer than a minute I have significantly more DPS than our ret paladin.

Also, one of our hunters is non-negotiatably Marksman... and I can't recall ever having more than two hunters available for the same raid. Maybe once. So, I'd probably be buffing two people.

One other salient point: I'm a drummer. The ret paladin is not.

Oh, the group comp I am thinking of that would have the ret paladin outside the melee group might be this:
Group 4:
Tank 1
Tank 2
Resto Shaman (dropping WF, SOE?)
BM hunter
Ret paladin

Group 5:
Rogue
Rogue
Warrior
Enhancement
Feral

When I look at that, it seems like actually the biggest factor might be the number of hunters in our raid.

I've removed that part of the Cat post (due to it being out of date and in 3.0 completely unnecessary) and added Adamantite Weightstones to the consumables list. Thanks for flagging it up.

Is there an optimal way to AE tank? For static spawns like Karazhan Phantom Guests or Magister's Terrace Brightscale Wyrms I pull the pack with Wrath then Barkskin+Hurricane. Shift to bear, Demoralizing Roar, Swipe+Maul+TAB to next target. For staggered spawns like Karazhan Nightbane skeletons or Zul'Aman Jan'alai dragonhawks, Hurricane isn't useful as an opener. I realize it will be easier when swipe hits 4 targets (5 with glyph), but right now trying to keep aggro on more than 3 mobs is a losing battle.

Does Feral Aggression significantly increase the threat generated by Demoralizing Roar? It's a paltry 42 threat (base). It doesn't take much for a healer to pull aggro.

Tab-swipe, tab-swipe, tab-swipe. Have thorns up. Four mobs should be doable with 3-target swipe; five becomes challenging. FA is not worthwhile as an AOE threat talent; IIRC the threat is divided between mobs it hits so the more mobs you have, the worse it gets. Your groups should accommodate that a feral is tanking--frost nova, ice block, heal the casters, etc. If you are tanking multiples of anything hard-hitting, make sure your group focuses fire. Hatch the dragonlings in batches you can handle (5-6 at most) and make sure to hit all of them; be ready to charge, taunt, and maul/mangle one if it gets away. Get help from an offtank when feasible and remember you have an AOE taunt in emergencies.

You're best off dealing with things with the idea that casters can tank some mobs, if you can keep a couple off them. I generally go for keeping threat on one or two, and using taunt off-cooldown on another to keep the damage down. You're better off keeping two or three mobs locked to you and letting the casters deal with the rest (and if you have two tanks, if they do the same this should deal with most of them if it's a controllable AoE pack) than trying to tank all of them and not actually tanking any - if you combine this with putting single target people on the ones not being tanked, using stuns on them/others, and using things like Frost Nova, you can avoid the casters taking much damage at all.

In general, the idea is that you're going to Hold 3/4 adds and have the CC to handle the others if they're untankable by casters. There's very few large groups of mobs that can pound casters into the ground, without the ability to have enough tanks to handle it.

Specifically for the Dragonhawks, assuming warrior MT. If you have a paladin of any sort with you this is a DPS fight, otherwise you need to outlast or risk many deaths. Without a paladin, kill 1 hatcher and let the other hatcher spawn 4 waves before killing him, burn them down single target so you can hold aggro and keep light DPS on the boss so you don't hit the 35% mass hatching too early. Do this 2 more times and then bring him below 35% to hatch the rest, burn your AoE taunt and let the casters AoE.

With Paladin, kill 1 hatcher and let the other hatch his entire side, stay in bear for the first 4 waves then shift out and hurricane, between hurricane and consecrate, the mobs will both die faster and do less damage to whoever they aggro onto than would be done if you tried tanking and held 3 of them. If you have the DPS to burn him down to 35% after the first wave, do it. When they come, open with hurricane and shift to bear as soon as you get any aggro to build rage, the Pally BoPs the Mage as soon as frost nova fades and you AoE Taunt. If you had the DPS to bring him to 35% they should be dead by the time your taunt fades. The key to the hatchlings is that they have low health (7k), and the stacking debuff makes them more dangerous with time, so high DPS works better than trying to control them.

In either case, dispells are essential, as 10 stacks of the buffet brings many casters close to being 1shot by the flame breath.

You probably haven't ticked "Sunwell Radiance mob" in the buff tab if you see avoidance being preferred.
Taunt resist is 1% nomatter what +hit you have on brut. Rest of the questions have been answered previously.

No, I have clicked sunwell avoidance. With a dual-wielding mob and scorpid sting/insect swarm, I'm up to anywhere from 60 to 75% avoidance, depending on the gear and debuff setup. That actually makes sense; 75% avoidance and 17k health is stronger than 22k health and 60% avoidance assuming that the mob won't gib you. That's not the case with Brutallus.

Good to know about the 1% hit issue. I thought that there was some kind of nerf on that, but wasn't sure; I see a lot of bears stacking +hit doing Brutallus.

Also, the reason I brought up elixir of major defense vs. fortitude was that I had not seen that mentioned anywhere in the thread. There are comparisons to agility/ironskin vs flask vs. agility/fortitude, but major defense does not seem to be a major consideration.

Brutallus does not have a DW miss penalty.

Thanks. That's good to know. The amount of dual-wielding mobs out there seems to be very, very small. Sorry for the ignorance otherwise. I'll keep tweaking in rawr.

Just make sure when you are using the optimiser that you put some conditions in, such as health > 21k or whatever you want your minimum health to be and it will generate a set that is more appropriate for that fight.

I use 3 conditions as a rule for my tanking gear on the optimiser :-

1) Chance to be crit < 0
2) Health > 20000 (good enough so far for BT & Hyjal)
3) Mitigation from AR > 73% (otherwise it generates lower armor sets which just don't seem "right")

I wasn't aware of this 1% resist mechanic... is that specific to brut? I'd be interested in seeing the source on that. In our own experiences, our warrior in capped hit gear (with moonkin) has yet to miss a taunt, whereas it often happens to our druids. As far as other sunwell bosses, I know we've seen far more than 1% taunt resists on Kalecgos and Sathrovar.

Taunt counts as a spell but is in addition to that affected by melee hit (was changed in 2.3). As a spell, it has a 1% chance to miss you cannot overcome, your warrior has just been lucky not experiencing any resists on Brutallus.

Rawr already supports what you want, directly. You guys are forgetting that there's more than just Overall Rating. By definition, Survivability Rating means how much burst you can take. It includes mitigation from armor already.

You're looking for an optimization of Overall, with the additional requirements of 'Chance to be crit <= 0' and 'Survivability Rating >= 74000' (74k is equivalent to your 20k hp and 73% mitigation example. For Brut, I go with Survivability Rating >= 82000)

Yes, the reduced resist chance on Taunt is unique to Brutallus and a few other bosses where taunting is an intended mechanic of the fight (I believe Nalorakk is another example). There is nothing you can do to either increase or decrease your chance to successfully taunt Brutallus, it's merely luck that your druids get resists while your warrior has not.

At least, that's the case for druid taunt as I understand it. It's possible that warrior taunt works differently, but I really doubt it.

For me [Bloodberry Elixir] which is cheap on my server and a [Elixir of Major Fortitude] works best for Brutallus. If you are dieing very quickly you can use [Flask of Chromatic Wonder], I avoid using [Flask of Fortification] because of the dodge loss.

How do boss damage and survivability rating interact? I mean, how do you know/calculate by Brutallus' attack speed and damage per hit(s), that 82k will make a good number to go for? For me, seeing a number x of mitigation / surv rating, it is very difficult to adept in what numbers it will "effectively" turn out (ie opposed to cat dps rating in an earlier version).