Feral Megathread - Page 211

spartakos · 04/16/08, 6:27 AM

I am still looking for a second blue gem to make your meta work.
P.S. If your guild prefers warriors in an encounter where,
there is a heavy melee hitting boss, the sunwell aura that makes survival tanks kings,
and you can give about 300dps more than a prot warr (cat form pew pew when not tanking),
I think you should start questioning their decision.

Yaelle · 04/16/08, 6:31 AM

As long as raids are new to the encounter, I would say they are right in general.
If not for tanking, a Feral Druid is not the best choice, although your gear is superb.

2 Comments on your gear though:

1. Your Meta seems to be inactive.
2. +4 Stats on rings is superior to +2 weapon damage in a raid environment.

Sahrokh · 04/16/08, 7:03 AM

How many hunters do you bring?

1, max 2.

If you are doing 1350-1400dps on for ex Teron with that gear there must be something you are doing wrong? Some wws's would be nice.

I do that DPS in the MT group, basically the "buff" I see is that I basically get to 4005 AP (some more crit with pala blessings) and that's it.

edit: You mention not using rip when having bad crit streaks, does that mean you don't use 4cp rips?

No, when I have bad crit streaks I can't keep up the rip DoT running for the whole DPS rotation. Other times I crit so much I am at 5 points and 100 energy with 6 rip seconds left on the previous application.

1. Your Meta seems to be inactive.

Possible, I am in the middle of regemming

2. +4 Stats on rings is superior to +2 weapon damage in a raid environment.

I'll check with Rawr later considering the buffs I really get. Still what I was asking in the first post was to know how much "help" I'd bring to a melee group, if it was worth it.

I think you should start questioning their decision.

They loathe people that complain or "question" and being the "last arrived" won't make you popular.

Yaelle · 04/16/08, 7:15 AM

Originally Posted by Sahrokh

Still what I was asking in the first post was to know how much "help" I'd bring to a melee group, if it was worth it.

OK, sorry. I found the older discussion here to be helpful, maybe you'll find something there, that can support your position as melee-dps-class on Brutallus.

Daboran · 04/16/08, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by Sahrokh

Stuff....

Assuming your tank gear is up to par for Brutallus and your guild is really interested in progression, they would ditch the 2nd Prot Warrior and use a Prot/Feral combo. If we didn't have our second T6 Feral get smitten by a severe case of "real-life" recently we'd likely be using 2 Ferals on this fight.

"Why bring a Cat Feral doing less dps than a Ret or another "pure" dps class on a dps-race encounter?" is not the question they should be asking. Faerie Fire, LotP and Mangle? All those come "free" if you use a Bear to tank - the mind boggles to be honest.
Makes me wonder why they recruited you in the first place and more importantly why their previous Feral left

Anyway, more pertinent to your enquiry, Whether the Ret buff is better for overall raid dps than your probable better psersonal dps plus LotP crit buff/Faerie Fire/Mangle - it would depend a lot on the raid composition and your group composition.

Allev · 04/16/08, 10:21 AM

If you don't bring a moonkin, you don't get faerie fire up on the target (restos can't cast FF in tree form, so it's a huge mana drain on them, or you lose tree buffs). That's like giving 600 armor penetration to every physical DPS in the raid. For yourself, that's 50 DPS; for other melee classes it is more (70 DPS for an 1800 DPS rogue).

Keeping mangle up increases bleed damage by all bleeds, notably rogue rupture. This may add 20-30 DPS for each rogue (24 DPS on a spreadsheet that puts one of my guild's rogues at 1800 DPS).

You get one innervate, this may or may not be useful depending on your raid makeup. If someone will be able to do higher DPS with more mana and they have spirit on gear, innervate can claim a decent chunk of DPS.

You probably don't add more than a ret pally, but by not using you as a tank they're out 50 DPS times at least 6 (hunters + melee) plus the added mangle DPS (25 DPS per rogue, or 50-75) plus the damage you'd be doing in catform when the other tank has the mob (a good 300 DPS over a prot tank in prot gear, at a minimum). So, a good 650-700 DPS if you don't have a moonkin in the raid for one feral to be tanking (and none DPSing). Not counting LoTP.

LoTP is nice in adding its crits/healing, but even in the melee group, it at most provides similar raid DPS returns as FF. Mangle isn't worthless to the raid.

Merple · 04/16/08, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Sahrokh

No, when I have bad crit streaks I can't keep up the rip DoT running for the whole DPS rotation. Other times I crit so much I am at 5 points and 100 energy with 6 rip seconds left on the previous application.

I know I'm nowhere near you guys in progression, but this particular point I think I can help with.

The answer, from what I understand, is to keep shredding. If you get to 5CP really fast and your Rip isn't done yet, keep shredding until your Rip runs out, then reapply. Don't FB, and obviously don't just sit there.

david0925 · 04/16/08, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by Merple

I know I'm nowhere near you guys in progression, but this particular point I think I can help with.

The answer, from what I understand, is to keep shredding. If you get to 5CP really fast and your Rip isn't done yet, keep shredding until your Rip runs out, then reapply. Don't FB, and obviously don't just sit there.

There is a balance point between whether you shred, or just reapply a rip before it finishes ticking. The timing of that depends on your personal stats as well as the leftover ticks on rip.

6 second rule can apply for most: if >6 seconds left on your rip, shred. If < 6 seconds left on your rip, reapply it.

Astrylian · 04/16/08, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by david0925

There is a balance point between whether you shred, or just reapply a rip before it finishes ticking. The timing of that depends on your personal stats as well as the leftover ticks on rip.

6 second rule can apply for most: if >6 seconds left on your rip, shred. If < 6 seconds left on your rip, reapply it.

Uhhh... No. A) You can't usually. B) You'd be wasting a ton of damage if you did.

Don't clip your rips.

Carlos · 04/16/08, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by david0925

There is a balance point between whether you shred, or just reapply a rip before it finishes ticking. The timing of that depends on your personal stats as well as the leftover ticks on rip.

6 second rule can apply for most: if >6 seconds left on your rip, shred. If < 6 seconds left on your rip, reapply it.

Most of the time re-application is not possible due to trinkets or other effects.

Sahrokh · 04/16/08, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

Uhhh... No. A) You can't usually. B) You'd be wasting a ton of damage if you did.

Don't clip your rips.

I just keep shredding.

By the way, GREAT program Rawr, /clap

I just have an issue, probably due to noobness: why when I click "optimize" the software says "300,486" in a progress bar (I suppose it's the permutations found) but when it ends I get just a totally white paper doll?

Astrylian · 04/16/08, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by Sahrokh

I just keep shredding.

By the way, GREAT program Rawr, /clap

I just have an issue, probably due to noobness: why when I click "optimize" the software says "300,486" in a progress bar (I suppose it's the permutations found) but when it ends I get just a totally white paper doll?

You didn't mark any items/gems/enchants as available.

Kioga · 04/16/08, 1:14 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

A new "easy to obtain" (ie no high raid level gear) list would look something like:

Helm: T4
Neck: Shattered Sun Pendent of Might
Shoulders: T4
Back: Drape of the Dark Reavers or Razorscale Battlecloak
Chest: S3
Wrist: Vindicators Dragonhide
Gloves: Handwraps of the Aggressor
Waist: Belt of Silent Path (Belt of One Hundred Deaths is better but thats from Vashj)
Legs: Trousers of the Scryer' Retainer
Feet: Nyn'ja Tabi boots
Ring 1: Angelista's Revenge
Ring 2: Ancestral Ring of Conquest (the ZA timed ring is better but harder to obtain)
Trinkets: DST, Shard of Contempt, Bloodlust brooch, Darkmoon: Card Crusade etc. Lotsa options here
Weapon: Staff of the Forest Lord
Idol: Everbloom (Idol of the Raven Goddess if in a high dps group)

The T4 shoulders is almost guarenteed to be better to use than anything in that slot. The helm could be replaced by S3 helm and the T4 gloves could be used and it would be almost exactly the same DPS. The engineering helms (Tier 1 and 2) are both better than T4 as well, assuming you can use either the chest or gloves for the set bonus.

Sunwell gear is also an option if you farm trash or buy it off the AH. The gloves are insanely good, as is the LW chest.

Something to keep in mind when using any type of DPS calculator is raid composition, not just buffs. If you only have 2t6 then Rawr will probably tell you to equip those for the 2 piece set bonus over other individual items that may be higher stat wise in terms of DPS. But if you have a 2nd feral in the raid that is already keeping up mangle, this renders the 2t6 obsolete since you can remove mangle from a majority of your DPS cycle. Unless i have completely missed something

• Vykromond · 04/16/08, 1:29 PM

Originally Posted by david0925

There is a balance point between whether you shred, or just reapply a rip before it finishes ticking. The timing of that depends on your personal stats as well as the leftover ticks on rip.

6 second rule can apply for most: if >6 seconds left on your rip, shred. If < 6 seconds left on your rip, reapply it.

Chiming in to agree that this is not at all the case. Reapplying Rip is 0 extra damage, Shred is >0 extra damage. Clipping Rips is bad.

roquer · 04/16/08, 2:43 PM

you can't cut a rip short. you have to wait for it to expire before you reapply it.

You can however start your next rotation with 82 energy instead of only 40 energy.