As it happens I actually do have Bartender3 installed but had not thought of using it for my shape shifting. I will check into a way to work up keys using Bartender3. Sadly I am rapidly running out keys and fingers to push them all. It is sure worth a try though. I may have to hook up my G15 keyboard.

Thanks for the suggestion.

There is no rule that says you need 2 sets of gear to switch between the two roles. In fact, I carry 2-3 20 slot bags full of equipment with me that I switch out a few pieces here or there tailoring the set to the current role. You can already choose to gear a "hybrid" feral that uses high armor DPS equipment. Our tier sets fall into this category, as well as pieces like [Belt of Natural Power] and [Treads of the Den Mother]. The fact that many maximum DPS pieces (ie. rogue leather) available do not have high armor is done on purpose. We need to choose to maximize damage, tanking, or hybridize between the two. You can already do what you're asking by wearing a hybrid set.

As an off-tank, many times I don't bother reaching the anti-crit cap. An example would be Hex Lord Malacrass. We often kill 3 or even all 4 of the adds before engaging the boss. I off-tank this in nearly full DPS gear, but I choose high armor dps pieces including some with extra int to allow more shifting and emergency healing.

You are asking to be the equivalent of a DPS warrior putting a shield on to tank an add. We have done this often from Mag's Lair through Hyjal, but we generally need to kill their add first. Personally, I want the ability to compete with the prot warrior, not the dps warrior. Otherwise, they will just take the warrior instead of us (like pre-BC). Being able to do this with a simple gear switch is why warriors hate us. If we could do it without a gear switch, why bring warriors?

In Item Rack, I have many sets pre-made including max armor, max stam, max dodge, default MT, default OT, max DPS, stam DPS, armor DPS, and more. The ability to change gear and change our focus is a GOOD thing.

Maybe it is latency problem, but maybe they changed something with the patch. It happened to me several times today that my mangle / lacerate macro got "stuck" somehow. I was tanking a mob, autoattacking / mauling without problems, and when i pressed the macro i got "out of range" message several times while standing right in front of the mob. I play with macro for longer than a year and i never had such problems. Anyone else noticed something like that?

The macro:
/castsequence reset=6/alt/combat Mangle (Bear)(Rank 3), Lacerate, Lacerate, Lacerate

If you've got a multi-button mouse (ie, more than the standard 2), try binding the forms to your extra buttons.
You can even do it with purely the scroll button by using scroll up/down or simply using ctrl/alt/shift modifiers.

I was having the same problem. Shapeshift keys were the last buttons that I transfered over form clicking to pressing so it was a pain to find an appropriate place for them. I settled on shift+1 --> shift+5 and it has really worked rather well for me. Also, a huge suggestion would be to make a simple keybinding for /nostance and throw it on a hidden bar. I have mine bound to the tilde (`) key. Simply returns you to caster form, but is a life saver for throwing off spot heals and all that other druid jazz.

Consider writing a macro for travel / flight / aquatic form, e.g. Useful macros for druids - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

The logic is almost certainly the same. Cat's Swiftness is the superior enchant.

Haste increases your total swing count, which increases your frequency of 2-piece Malorne bonus procs, which in turn increases your energy regeneration rate.

If you go into configure you can choose which attacks are showing. I'm sure you'll notice that the difference between "Landed" and "Normal" can be found in the "Crushing" column (although if your gear is such, you might also find some landed attacks went to the crit column). This is further supported by the max damage you observed for a normal attack was 4826, but the max for a landed was 6689 which fits fairly close to a crushing blow's damage.

I can see someone make the argument that when they run from mob to mob, they shift bear, feral charge, then shift back to cat, essentially making the running time only the distance between you and within charge range. I won't take that any further, though, because you get into a "what's your energy when you've just finished killing something" argument that doesn't have a "right" answer.

Also, I believe that the Feral Swiftness talent, which is pretty standard for most specs, doesn't stack with run speed to boots, so it's a pure loss in Hyjal in catform.

This, for a class with a Charge ability plus run speed in cat form it is a waste in Hyjal.

However in most other instances, you lose the run speed, so it is still a fair enchant, but I would just use charge (don't need a macro for it nowadays) and have the extra agility.

Hmm I was unaware the run speed from boots didn't stack with Feral Swiftness. One of the good reasons for the Cat's Swiftness enchant was also to make grinding faster, but if it doesn't stack its not nearly as useful in that regard.

If I used the same boots for tanking and DPSing I would want Cat's Swiftness on them even more. Take Hyjal for instance- I spend most of my time tanking on trash, when Minor Speed is actually quite nice to move around in addition to using Charge. On Archimonde I find myself in caster form decursing a lot as I move back from an Air Burst or a bad Doomfire, when Minor Speed is again helping me return to the fight more quickly and thus raising my DPS. Using Feral Charge to get back to Archimonde after you've been driven away is usually a great way to get Doomfired.

Allev: It's not necessarily a question of how much energy you have when the mob dies as how much energy you would have as you get back to the mob/reach the next mob, which is almost always 100 if you didn't switch forms along the way. This means you lose ~40-60 energy by Feral Charging. I don't know how long a cat with/without speed on boots takes outdoors/indoors to close the same gap that Feral Charge closes, but it's worth investigating.

That said, valid points.

Seeing as I had a bit of free time, I've just read back through the main post and updated some stuff, sorted out the formatting to make it easier on the eye and added a couple of bits. Hopefully it's actually getting somewhere close to finished as a guide to the PvE side of Feral Druiding.

If theres anything specific that people would like included/changed in the main thread, just post or PM me and I'll get around to sorting it at some point, generally sooner rather than later. If you spot any errors point them out and I'll correct them asap!

Unless it has been changed and I've missed it, then minor speed on boots stack with FS and the pvp set bonus.
Minor speed does not however stack with things like the AB boots. (which isnt important now a days )

Would love a dps comparison of the zul'aman staff and Terestian's Stranglestaff, as there is no such thing currently.

Well I personally would be happy if i just saw how much dps increase is the armor ignoral on zul'aman staff.

From what I remember from the top of my head:
Zul'Aman = S2 mace

Depends a bit on hit rating cap and personal preference, but that's about it.

Since S2 Mace > Terestian's (except in looks, clearleh), ZA > Terestian's.

A guild mate told me a few days ago, he had just hit the crit cap. He said, crit gets capped at 50% when attacking a mob from behind and at 35% when attacking from the front. I never read about such a cap before, so can anybody tell me whether it exists or not? As i got the Staff of Primal fury yesterday, I just hit the 50% crit mark raidbuffed. If that cap exists, this would render any additional agility or crit rating useless for me.

He's talking out of his arse.

The "crit cap" is at about 75% from behind (25% glancing which you can never remove) and the same from the front (although getting enough expertise to remove all parrys is pretty insane, and you'd never DPS from the front anyway).

For all intents and purposes, there's no crit cap at the current time because gear and buffs just won't let you get that much %crit.

There is some kind of Critcap for Whitehits. Lets assume that you are hitcapped and have no expertise.
Therefore you would have around 25% glancing blows and 5.6% dodge. So the Critcap would be around 69.7% Crit

Let's just be specific about it. Against a boss, the white hit crit cap is:
100% - (glances + misses + dodges + parries)
For a druid attacking a boss from behind, this is:
100% - (25% + (9% - mitigation from hitrating) + (6% or so - mitigation from expertise) + 0%)

So the crit cap is anywhere from 60% to 75%, depending on gear.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if you purposely avoided hit rating and stacked crit/agi, you could hit the cap. But it's like being hit-immune: theoretically possible, but not not going to happen in any realistic scenario.

As far as I know, my spreadsheet should be fairly well up to date.

Feral Druid DPS 2.3.2

It rates the S2 mace and the ZA Staff roughly equal, although that varies depending on how much armor pen you have already, and how much +hit you're short.