• Astrylian

It's funny how some people say Rawr values Sta too high or def too high... It doesn't. It values it based on your current character. Equip a bunch of agi-heavy gear and add your buffs, and you'll see the value of agi go up accordingly. For me, a delicate crimson spinel is almost 2x the value of a solid empyrean sapphire. That's valuing sta more than anything else?

 

Nevir

In line with the above comment: I always check my gear in Rawr with minimal buffs (non-improved motw, fort, kings) and maximal buffs for my raiding environment

stam is definitely favored when you have only a few buffs - but once you start getting buffed out (grace of air, scrolls, elixirs, scorpid/swarm, etc) agility comes out far ahead - and that's for main tanking. I'm a sucker for agi+sta gems as a result; gives a good mix!

 

Karmen

For my tank gear I have basically +8 agi in every slot sans the gems I need for my meta and I use a relentless earthstorm for my meta. In going through upgrades from what I have on RAWR every upgrade sans the T6 I don't have revolves around my current gear but with +15STA gems. I would agree with that if I was consistently main tanking but since I'm not and I have no way adjusting what I value in RAWR then I find it to be basically worthless.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

• Astrylian

Just pulled your character up in Rawr, and you're absolutely right... until you buff yourself. You don't raid unbuffed, do you?

And if you care mostly about OTing, drop the Target Level to 71 or 72.

 

Karmen

I have the buff's checked off. There may be gear listed above mine in which AGI is listed as the gems, but the preponderance is still for +STA.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

Brachamul

Little question to all of you.

My raid generally brings along one enhancement shaman, one fury warrior, three rogues, one hunter (survival) and one or two feral Druids. Now you have to know that in my guild, the Druid class leader is Moonkin. So he doesn't really know anything about feral (he's never played it). And well, the rogue leader tends to argue that group 5 (our main melee group) makeup shoud be as such:

Fury Warrior
Enhancement Shaman
Rogue
Rogue
Rogue

And then in a random group one feral druid is left with the hunter. Well first of all I can't help but feeling this is unfair (snivles). People tend to think my DPS is crap because I tank half the time, and when I'm here to DPS i'm always out of the Shaman group. But that's just the sentimental part of things. There's also the fact that I truly believe that switching a rogue with one of the Druids (me or the other feral) would boost raid DPS. Basically one one side we have:

3 rogues, one shaman, one warrior - buffed WF, BS, Str and Rage
one druid, one hunter - buffed ILotP (and generally BS because a tank warrior is around)

the alternative would be:
2 rogues, one shaman, one warrior, one druid - buffed WF, BS, Str, Rage ILotP
one hunter, one rogue - buffed BS

In my alternative, one rogue loses almost all of his buffs, and the hunter loses ILotP, but the Druid gains all the buffs that the Rogue loses, and he provides ILotP to the two other rogues, the shaman and the warrior.

------------------

Reasons for why I think the druid should be in the DPS group:
- Unleashed Rage is about as powerful for a Druid (+500ap approx.) as Windfury is for a Rogue.
- ILotP is not only a great DPS increase for all melee classes, it's also an anti-death tool.

Do you have any idea how I could convince my raid leader (who is actually the enhancement shammy) and the rogue leader to put a Druid in that group and leave a rogue out (they could change which rogue is out each raid too, so that one rogue doesn't always have to raid unbuffed).

We're at the start of Hyjal-BT, for information, and the DPS of all our melee classes is comparable (though the warrio is somewhat slightly lower).

PS: Oh, and to make the equation slightly more complex, one of the rogues who could potentially be put out of the melee group is my girlfriend and is probably going to hate me for this.

 

mesh7

What do people think about toskk's data stating that our crit is actually 4.2% lower than expected? A thread suggested that it might be due to an inherent unaccounted resilience in bosses. Any other thoughts?

 

• Cluey

Your RL is doing the right thing, the above group will be better for the raid.
Stop worrying about your personal DPS and do what is best for the raid, this has been brought up many times on this forum and I am fairly sure it has come up once or twice in this thread.

I generally do the groups in the raids I go on and while I would like the pampered group I normally end up in with the hunters which isn't a bad deal anyway.
It all comes down who turns up for the raid, sometimes there is room in the melee group and sometimes there isn't, last raid I put the other feral in it and I was in a group with one hunter and three casters.

If the people you raid with are too immature to look at what factors are affecting your DPS potential you will need to explain that, if you can't it won't be fun.
Do you use WWS?
You can use that to look at individual fights or even specific sections of trash so you can filter out the parts you were tanking for and show them what your DPS while only DPS is.

Best group you can really hope for in a raid while helping raid DPS instead of personal DPS, if your melee group is has 100% attendance, would be:
Shaman (most likely a resto one)
Hunter (BM)
Hunter (BM)
Hunter (Survival)
Feral druid (You)

 

Murwen

So what are your thoughts about the Lacerate change? Personally I'm curious how useful it will be with the 20% modifier on Lacerates threat per damage, unless they change the 0,2 coefficient or make it scale insanely good Swipe will probably still be better (albeit the point of when Swipe>Lacerate will be somewhat higher than 235)

 

Marwel

It doesn't have to scale that well to always be better to atleast keep the lacerate stack alive, since swipe scaling is very bad.

 

Brachamul

Well they'd never put a resto Shaman in a hunter group, they'd rather have the tide for other casters. And we've only got one hunter. That would be a good group though.

 

Brachamul

Well they'd never put a resto Shaman in a hunter group, they'd rather have the tide for other casters. And we've only got one hunter. That would be a good group though.

One lacerate, the fact that you can stack it to 5 times and that it is affected by mangle means that it will surely become better for DPS and than Swipe. Threatwise we won't be able to tell till we get it...

But at least there will be a point in tab-lacerating again for multitanking.

 

Boevis

I disagree completely Cluey, assuming you don't have a 'Hunter Group', a Feral Druid does belong in the melee group.

Going off the Rogue Spreadsheet, gaining UR, imp BS, Imp SoE and GoA/WF Twisting is ~125 DPS for me, LotP is +75 DPS for each rogue at my tier. That's 275 DPS gain.

Losing the imp BS, imp Totems, and UR is -140 DPS for the rogue booted from melee group to MT group (warrior and shaman assumed in MT group)

I don't even need to look at the LotP benefits for the Warrior or the Enh Shaman to see that ideal Melee Group is Warrior, Druid, Shaman, Roguex2.

Looking at the 3x Hunter Shaman Druid group, it's actually pretty bad for your personal DPS (and arguably not that great for RDPS since hunters often outrange LotP) I personally prefer the MT group with GoA/WF twisting shaman to maximize tank threat. I'm fairly certain all this has been covered before at some point and time.

The big deal for rogues having an Enh Shaman is the UR, around 100 DPS itself, the differences between Talented WF/SoE/BS is very minor in comparison. The same can be said of druids, though we get more from SoE and GoA totems than the rogue does. Interestingly, UW adds about 100 DPS to a druid as well because of our insane AP pool (around 4.75 AP: 1 DPS with UW adding 450 AP).

People often underestimate Feral DPS because we're assumed to be "Tanks first, DPS second, just like Warriors." and thus rarely get first (or 2nd or 5th) choice on DPS gear, get thrown in the MT group "for his threat" because crits are so prot necessary for warrior threat (sarcasm there, and it's just as often that we don't get 1st choice on tanking gear either) So in general, we're using worse gear, in a worse group, and thus do over 200 less DPS than we could be perpetuating the "druids suck at DPS"

 

dukes

125 DPS is probably less than 10% gain for you.
2x Ferocious Inspiration = 6% direct gain, and you still have SoE and GoA in Cluey's example. I'm pretty sure that that evens out personal DPS. If hunters are outranging LotP it's their own fault, not yours (you're limited to melee range, after all, and there's very very few situations where it's required for hunters to be at max range).

I think the main point that should be made is that the RDPS gain of switching between the two group setups is minimal (maybe 200 dps tops, which should be less than 1% total RDPS). Sure, it can make a difference sometimes, but most of the time it won't, and not using the absolutely optimal group setup won't make you wipe over and over on something - if you're wiping that often there's something inherently wrong in what you're doing. Setting up groups correctly in general gives a very big gain, but arguing over who gets the most benefit within a particular group setup when the argument has been going on for so long and nothing conclusive has come of it is an exercise in futility.

It's better to make the majority of people happy and sacrifice a tiny bit of RDPS than it is to force people to do particular things because it's "better for the raid" yet actually piss off more people than you make happy.

I'm also pretty sure the lacerate change is nothing to get excited about, unless they do something ridiculous or change the way the 20% threat modifier works.

 

Draugdae

I'm actually very fortunate in this regard. A few months ago I joined a guild that was working on Kael (we just killed Archimonde). At the time, the raid leader had the mentality that he would never bring a feral druid simply for their dps. I have been in a 2xrogue, warrior, enh shaman group for most of this time since the guild only has 2 raiding rogues. Over that time, when made to full dps, myself and the other feral druid have been giving near-top dps numbers and have caused the raid leader to completely reverse his previous mindset.

While we still are classified as OT's for slots and receive our invites from the tanking role leader, if one of the physical dps is missing, the extra slot goes to a feral for dps.

 

• Cluey

Remember that the BM hunters won't have Hawk Eye so it is only the Survival hunter who might out range it, seeing as they are in a group with you to get 5% crit to help keep Expose Weakness up they should be paying attention to where they stand.
A shaman twisting totems in the MT group means they will be enhance as they are the only ones with the free cool downs to do it, raiding with two enhance shaman would be great and would solve a lot of the "which group" problems but isn't a reality for many.
Additionally how long will twisting still be an option?
After they stop it there will be no Grace of Air in the melee group or even the tank group if windfury is being used for threat.

We only have one regular rogue but we have an enhance shaman, two DPS warriors (fury and arms) and sometimes a ret paladin or a second rogue. One of the feral druids would probably do better in the group than the paladin but a paladin without windfury is much worse than a feral in the hunter group.
I have been tanking trash from the hunter or melee group for a while now and even Void Reaver, being in the melee group for Void Reaver is actually really good as the buffs do silly stuff for threat.

It will always come down to a compromise somewhere though and depends on each raids class balance.
If you have enough shaman for multiple groups that rocks but isn't all that common for alliance, if you do then being in the tank group isn't to bad for either the displaced rogue or feral druid.

Brachamul the resto shaman can be swapped into a caster group for the duration of Mana Tide but I haven't heard too many casters complaining about mana problems recently.
Buffing DPS helps to kill the mobs faster and save the healers mana at the same time, the quicker you kill it the less time they are healing and the less potion cool downs they can use.

 

Drasil

I've determined the exact mechanism behind double-mangled rips.

There are two kinds of mangles:

1: Regular mangle. Rips gain 30% damage while active.
2: Weird mangle: Rips that began during this debuff gain 30% damage throughout their duration.
Both types of mangles affect shred the same.

Only one type of mangle can be active at once. But rip can gain the benefit of both at the same time.

Example:

- Apply Mangle #2
- Rip
- Wait until Mangle #2 expires.
- Apply Mangle #1
- Now rip is doing 1.3*1.3 damage.

To apply a "weird" mangle, apply a normal mangle, then mangle again exactly as it expires. You'll know it works if there is some lag before the debuff shows up on the mob.

It's important to understand this, not only to take advantage of it, but to avoid bugged rips that aren't affected by mangle. This will happen if you do the reverse of my example above, and it's very easy to accidentally do.

 

Boevis

Except the argument hasn't been "going on for so long" I really haven't seen anything other than blanked "3x Rogue is the best" from people that aren't even willing to consider a Feral Druid as essential for DPS. According to the spreadsheets, even if I'm doing DPS in Bearform, RDPS goes up with me in the Melee group instead of a 3rd rogue when considering MT group vs Melee group. If you think a 350 RDPS increase is minimal that's fine, for people like me, getting an extra 10 is worth it.

I won't argue that hunter group is better than MT group, as LOTP increases the proc rate of the already high FI.

As for paladins, looking at Ret Pallies in various top DPS guilds (Abananax for instance) I see Windfury as 5% of a pally's DPS, UR is pretty close to 5% as well, so a Druid is getting more from Melee group than he is.

 

Lambach

The pally also gets UR, contributing to a significant raise in dps. The main reason that the 3rd weapon using class is favorable is because the shaman does have to drop WF, and its better for more players that can use it to be able to, instead of sticking them in ridiculously subpar groups.

 

dukes

I would like the see where you got that figure from, just for interests sake, as I've always heard paladins talk about windfury how warriors talk about windfury; that it's of so much benefit it's almost not worth having a paladin DPSing if they aren't getting it.

 

Sarasper

Drasil, I'm not sure what you mean by "reverse", could you please explain the situation where the mangle debuff does not affect rip?

 

• Astrylian

Drasil's explination of double-rips is spot-on. Very cool. Now we need to determine the ideal rotation to best make use of it. I'm guessing we can only get a double-rip every other time with this. Here's the reverse that would give you a mangleless rip:

1) Apply Mangle #1
2) When the mangle is almost gone, apply rip.
3) Mangle as soon as Mangle #1 ends, applying Mangle #2

The rip was applied while under the affects of Mangle #1 (which wore off before the first tick), and Mangle #2 was applied after the rip.

Also of note: They have different names, so are clearly distinguishable. Mangle #1 (the mangle you normally see) is called 'Mangle (Cat)'. Mangle #2 (the mangle you only see if you mangle exactly as Mangle #1 ends) is called 'Mangle'. No (Cat) on Mangle #2.

 

• Astrylian

Also, Mangle will get applied if you Mangle at the exact time that either Mangle (Cat) or Mangle ends.

So lets see... The ideal DPS Rotation would be....

1) Apply Mangle (Cat).
2) Shred to 4+cp.
2b) On 2nd+ loops through the rotation, previous Rip wears off here
3) Mangle the instant Mangle (Cat) will wear off, to apply Mangle.
4) Rip
5) Shred to 4+cp.
6) Rip right before Mangle wears off. (??? Is this right? You clip a Rip tick doing this, and I don't even know if you can always overwrite it like this anyway)
7) Start over, applying Mangle (Cat).


That's the best rotation I could come up with. You lose half a single-mangle rip tick per rotation, plus half a rip tick goes unmangled, in exchange for double-mangling every other rip.

A typical rip tick, fully buffed, with no mangle, for me, would do about 550, conservatively. Using our typical rotation, that would produce, per 2 rotations:
715+715+715+715+715+715+715+715+715+715+715+715 = 8580dmg

Using the above rotation, you would get...
929.5+929.5+929.5+929.5+929.5+929.5+715+715+715+715+715 = 9152dmg

That's a 6.66% increase in dps from rip. Worth it?

 

Sarasper

So would an appropriate interpretation be to not rip if mangle is under 2 sec (maybe 4 sec to be safe)? It would seem that the standard rip>mangle>shred>shred>rip>mangle... rotation would put you in that situation fairly often.

I've tried using 5cp rips to overwrite an existing rip but still get a "more powerful spell already in affect" error. Trying to rip early at 5cp doesn't seem to always work. A 5cp rip should be able to overwrite an existing 4cp rip though.

 

Drasil

If you can overwrite rips, that rotation might work. Here is the rotation I'll try:

1. Mangle (Cat)
2. Shreds
3. Mangle
4. Shreds
5. Rip right before Mangle wears off
Repeat

Cons:
Only one rip every two cycles.

Pros:
12 second cycles, no matter your crit rate.
Constant uptime of mangle, for rogue's rupture. (note: the double-mangle won't affect them unless they time rupture right)
5 CP rips every time
Frees up a debuff slot (rip) half the time.