I'm not sure what this is actually trying to simulate. 5000 AP is way too low at lvl 80, 30% crit is way too low at any level, 2.5% expertise is pretty low no matter what (either with lvl 70 using primal precision and shard of contempt), no haste is a bit wrong given what raid buffs exist (like 10% from windfury), and no tiger's fury is insane - that's missing 60 energy every 30 seconds.
The primary purpose of writing the simulator was to try to determine the best cat attack strategy, and from there to determine the preferred talents to take. It is not to guesstimate how much DPS exactly I will be doing in raid.
I don't have any level 80 raiding experiences, so I don't know exactly what are good stats to use by default. I'll be happy to change the default stats to something that resembles more of what to expect in Naxx raids, if someone with the experience can tell me what those stats are.
Or alternatively if you are not happy with the stats chosen, since the simulator allows you to configure such stats yourself, you can download the simulator and use whatever stats you like.
I don't think nerfing the armor modifier is a good idea because it hurts non feral/(who will probably not using an array of armor accessories) when they need to use bear/moonkin form for whatever reason. I think it is better to nerf thick hide by rolling it to some other talent, or to eliminate/nerf armored stave.
Why do a lot of bear builds have king of the jungle in them? I can see it benefitting cats more and since bears right now dont have too much trouble with rage wouldnt the points be best spent elsewhere in a pure bear build?
Why do a lot of bear builds have king of the jungle in them? I can see it benefitting cats more and since bears right now dont have too much trouble with rage wouldnt the points be best spent elsewhere in a pure bear build?
Pure bear build is 0/71/0 so you have enough points for all, hybrid builds like a 0/60/11 or 0/55/16 are made to make viable dps without giving up tanking. KoJ is the second best dps talent so is a must have, not for bear but for cat side.
I don't think nerfing the armor modifier is a good idea because it hurts non feral/(who will probably not using an array of armor accessories) when they need to use bear/moonkin form for whatever reason. I think it is better to nerf thick hide by rolling it to some other talent, or to eliminate/nerf armored stave.
It not only hurts non-ferals but also cats switching to emergency tank in the middle of a fight. Can't switch to your +armor trinkets, rings and neck while in combat so now they are losing more armor than if the nerf had been done elsewhere. Personally, I was thinking perhaps it would have been better to get rid of +armor completely off of all but feral staves. Comparitively, +armor isn't anywhere near as beneficial for other classes as it is for bears and I would think the item budget could be spent on health and/or avoidance stats instead.
I will be a little concerned if PI's crit damage doesn't work in bear form since Prot warrior's threat/dmg is comparable to ours partially due to Impale.
Actually, Impale has most likely nothing to do with that. It's a really small TPS gain for Prot Warriors in tanking gear (read: they will spec something else if all they want is better TPS, Impale is more of a DPS talent).
Sorry if I missed it, but is the general consensus that pve bears will be 0/71/0 ? I find it really easy to spec pve cats and pvp ferals, but I'm having a hard time getting all the pve bear talents, even skipping IW
Actually, Impale has most likely nothing to do with that. It's a really small TPS gain for Prot Warriors in tanking gear (read: they will spec something else if all they want is better TPS, Impale is more of a DPS talent).
I should have worded that a bit differently. What I mean is that Prot warrior has access to impale as well (or rather, more readily available). With the 15% crit modifiers you get from talents for prot oriented abilities, impale became a lot better of a threat talent (not saying it's as good as PI for us, but a lot better than, say, now)
Feral Threat scales very well with PI, so unless we're also ahead in therat. This change will put us behind, and if that's unintended, can be fixed easily.
I'm not very concerned at the moment but rather was just merely interested.
I find the whole focus on armour trinkets a bit silly anyway (from Blizzard's point of view, not ours). It would've solved quite a few problems to simply ditch them all (yes, including Mark of Tyranny and Smoking Heart of the Mountain) and adjust the Death Knight modifier up to 200% or thereabouts.
Ignorance can be solved with a book. Stupidity requires a shotgun and a shovel.
Well with the changes to PI becomming cat only and KotJ being a cat talent would it be feasible if you plan on going full out bear to drop the two and pick up Furor for the times you have to powershift to break CC?
edit: This is assuming of course that all of PI becomes a cat only talent.
I find the whole focus on armour trinkets a bit silly anyway (from Blizzard's point of view, not ours). It would've solved quite a few problems to simply ditch them all (yes, including Mark of Tyranny and Smoking Heart of the Mountain) and adjust the Death Knight modifier up to 200% or thereabouts.
I actually put a post in the beta forums saying to give us a higher multiplier and remove armor trinkets primarily, but also rings, necks and cloaks with additional armor. Then, the itemisation budget can be respent on stamina or dodge rating or expertise. This would keep all tanking classes happy, and allow for druids to not be as overpowered as blizzard developers think we are. It seems unfair to me that our class is adjusted based on what gear is available to it rather than the other way around. I'd rather the scaling not be tinkered with, lest our long term viability reduces.
Not knowing alot about DK's at this point in time, but I assume the above change can result in them having a higher multiplier as well. I highly doubt warriors / paladins would care / notice if armor jewelry/trinkets go missing.
My post got quite a few agreeing respondants. None of which had blue avatars unfortunately.
Well with the changes to PI becomming cat only and KotJ being a cat talent would it be feasible if you plan on going full out bear to drop the two and pick up Furor for the times you have to powershift to break CC?
edit: This is assuming of course that all of PI becomes a cat only talent.
You don't even need to shift now to break CC. FFF got a nice change a while back.
I actually put a post in the beta forums saying to give us a higher multiplier and remove armor trinkets primarily, but also rings, necks and cloaks with additional armor.
I'm not sure, but won't that make feral all too strong in pvp? It also makes us very good at switching roles mid-combat (you can tank in full dps gear).
Originally Posted by foxglove
How does that allow you to escape from CC?
He's talking about breaking CC (poke a sheep from range, etc)
I'm not sure, but won't that make feral all too strong in pvp? It also makes us very good at switching roles mid-combat (you can tank in full dps gear).
That's the problem - it means that non-feral druids will still have as much armour as feral druids (thick hide is pretty easy to get if they want it), which could break PvP. I know they won't get PotP, but it's still an issue in overall balance. Resto / Restokin druids are already amazingly good in PvP, although the changes in Wrath may fix that.
Pure bear build is 0/71/0 so you have enough points for all, hybrid builds like a 0/60/11 or 0/55/16 are made to make viable dps without giving up tanking. KoJ is the second best dps talent so is a must have, not for bear but for cat side.
Why would you put 71 points in feral? I only see 49 points in feral that I'd consider basically "necessary" since FI is becoming a cat talent (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft has 2 in imp mangle as semi-filler). That means, even with naturalist and OOC, you still have 11 points to put between imp mangle, FI, shredding attacks, KotJ, FA, infected wounds, brutal impact, primal tenacity, nurturing instinct, and NS/MS. Most of those are either purely cat or have fight-specific utility, though of course if you need to be providing 5/5 demo and thunder clap, you're gonna be pretty tight on points. While some are all-purpose threat, I don't think any of them provides more threat per point than naturalist+OoC even counting those as 11 points (and you can still get the ones that apply to all fights).
For DPSing is it only the Rip glyph thats available at 70? The mangle one seems to require Northrend herbs to make.
Has anyone really looked at the DPS cycle at 70 much? Between lag and lack of mods trying to get meaningful testing done on the PTR wasn't doing terribly well. The general "cycle" would need to be something like:
1) If at 5 combo points Rip, unless Rip is up*
2) Mangle if Mangle is not up
3) Rake if Rake is not up
4) Shred if both Rake and Mangle are up and Combo points < 5
I don't know WHAT to do if I'm at 5 combo points and Rip hasn't run out. Waiting on energy seems to make sense, BUT this can lead to mangle and rake downtime (as well as some rip ticks not getting mangle, since Mangle and Rip are no longer in synch anymore due to the glyph). FB could be used but this will likely lead to Rip downtime since getting 10 combo points an enough energy to use Rip and FB in 16 seconds seems near impossible. Is losing Rake/Mangle uptime worse than "wasting" combo points?
I don't see why you would put 71 into feral unless you absolutely never cat dps'd. I don't know any raiding ferals who spend 100% of their time in bear form. You're giving up a lot of dps skipping omen and naturalist for some pretty questionable tanking talents.
a) You can get a pure dps build that skips all of the bear talents and is probably 100% dps, 70% survivable?
b) You can get a pure tank build that picks up all the marginal tanking talents like impact and FA and ends up maybe 100% survivable and 70% dps?
c) You can get a hybrid build that skips only the bad tanking and bad dps talents and ends up about 90% dps and 90% survivable? That seems like the ideal situation to me, something like:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
with plenty of reasonable debate about PI, ILotP, Feral Instincts and 5/5 furor vs 2/2 IMotW depending on how you play.
(Do we know for sure PI's crit doesn't apply to bear anymore?)
What are you giving up with that build?
Tank:
FA: attack debuff when someone without a similar talent isn't around.
Impact: More frequent stuns / interrupts (interrupts are generally more than covered on 10 and 25 mans, but stuns can decrease damage against non-bosses)
Tenacity: Less duration on stuns (rare in pve) and fears (you should have FW if it's important)
Imp Mangle - replaces 1 (lacerate or swipe) with 1 mangle every 18 seconds
Cat
FA: 15% more damage on a finisher that you might use every 2-3 rotations
Imp Mangle: In a group saves 6 energy per 12 or 18 seconds or sometimes never (bear or trauma bot). (Ignoring how useful it is for soloing/pvp though)
MSS: 4% more crit.
I'd invite a build like that to a raid for either a MT or dps role (assuming a 100% cat specced druid's dps stays competitive to other dps'rs).
@Valerian
That dps cycle looks about right at 70 to me. The only thing I can think of is adding a wait before you rip for nearly full energy, especially if you're mangling.
I'm thinking something like mangle, rake, shred to 5, wait for 70ish energy, rip, mangle, repeat using rake whenever it's not ticking. It also helps make sure you have bleeds for RnT for shreds (in case rake falls off in there). If rip's still ticking and you're near 100 energy, maybe an extra shred while you wait for rip to wear out?
Do we know that they're buffing rank 5 of rake? Or is it just the new ranks that get buffed?
a) You can get a pure dps build that skips all of the bear talents and is probably 100% dps, 70% survivable?
b) You can get a pure tank build that picks up all the marginal tanking talents like impact and FA and ends up maybe 100% survivable and 70% dps?
c) You can get a hybrid build that skips only the bad tanking and bad dps talents and ends up about 90% dps and 90% survivable? That seems like the ideal situation to me, something like:
Choice (c) is not ideal for people in top-end raiding guilds. While it's great to have flexibility, in 25man raids you will not need to maximize your flexibility and you will need to maximize your value at your primary role, be it tanking or dps.
I'd still argue that you can do a lot better for tanking than 71 feral, because being a tank doesn't mean your tps/dps is unimportant.
For DPSing is it only the Rip glyph thats available at 70? The mangle one seems to require Northrend herbs to make.
Has anyone really looked at the DPS cycle at 70 much? Between lag and lack of mods trying to get meaningful testing done on the PTR wasn't doing terribly well. The general "cycle" would need to be something like:
1) If at 5 combo points Rip, unless Rip is up*
2) Mangle if Mangle is not up
3) Rake if Rake is not up
4) Shred if both Rake and Mangle are up and Combo points < 5
I don't know WHAT to do if I'm at 5 combo points and Rip hasn't run out. Waiting on energy seems to make sense, BUT this can lead to mangle and rake downtime (as well as some rip ticks not getting mangle, since Mangle and Rip are no longer in synch anymore due to the glyph). FB could be used but this will likely lead to Rip downtime since getting 10 combo points an enough energy to use Rip and FB in 16 seconds seems near impossible. Is losing Rake/Mangle uptime worse than "wasting" combo points?
If you have 2t6 (even moreso if you have 4t6) you might want to spec 3/3 imp mangle and only 3/5 RnT and do 29 energy mangles instead of shred. Use the additional CP for 3+ CP FBs.
Why would you put 71 points in feral? I only see 49 points in feral that I'd consider basically "necessary" since FI is becoming a cat talent (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft has 2 in imp mangle as semi-filler). That means, even with naturalist and OOC, you still have 11 points to put between imp mangle, FI, shredding attacks, KotJ, FA, infected wounds, brutal impact, primal tenacity, nurturing instinct, and NS/MS. Most of those are either purely cat or have fight-specific utility, though of course if you need to be providing 5/5 demo and thunder clap, you're gonna be pretty tight on points. While some are all-purpose threat, I don't think any of them provides more threat per point than naturalist+OoC even counting those as 11 points (and you can still get the ones that apply to all fights).
Who said that I'll go for a 0/71/0 build? I'll probably go for a 0/60/11 build basically taking all needed tanking talents and skipping only imp-mangle and MS as dps talent going for a good HYBRID build. But a 0/60/11 build is what I call an hybrid build not a full bear build. I can dps at 92% of the efficency and tank 98% of the efficiency, I don't call it a "Bear Build".
Last edited by nightcrowler : 10/04/08 at 3:13 PM.
Do post here if you have problems writing your own strategy (or using the Simulator) I will try to help you as much as I can.
Good luck finding the optimal strategy for maximum DPS!
Quite impressive! I find it interesting, however, that http://elitistjerks.com/918674-post2556.html varies so differently (2800dps). Although, 5000dps in cat form did seem over the top.
Could you please add support for +dmg (sharpening stone, etc)?
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10/04/08, 1:11 AM
