halmmar

I'm considering the head/shoulder enchants for bear form.

Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle looks rather weak, and Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector marginally better.

Should we just go for Greater Inscription of the Axe and Arcanum of Torment instead?

If only there were some stamina/dodge or stamina/ap enchants, but they had to add items like this instead.

 

Zuult

A rather surprising quote from Blizzcon Class Panel, found on MMO Champion :

It seems rather incoherent with the current bear-or-cat position as it appears we might be able to switch spec as easily as gear, but it looks like we will have to reconsider specs at some point after release, whenever this is done.

 

nightcrowler

Yes to the first answer. If you are rage starved you'll do the same with the only exception of mauling only when you have more than 25-30 energy.

I still need to update my bear simulator, because the new FFF does a lot of aggro so it could be worth to substitute a swipe with a FFF every CD.

 

tangedyn

Rake, Mangle and SR should be up close to 100% of the time.
I wouldn't bother too much about rip uptime. As long as you use Rip at 5CPs when Rip is not up, you've got enough Rip uptime. The real rip uptime will depend on your crits and OoC procs.

I don't believe berserk should be part of an actual rotation, so I've left it out of my simulator for now. You're probably going to get to use it maybe twice a fight, and you do have to setup specially for it. Logically, when you see the berserk cooldown coming up, you should get a 3+ CP savage roar, and a glyphed mangle up just before it starts, then let loose on the shreds and FBs (rip and rake if they are down) until the end of berserk, then go back to the usual priority strategy.

_____
wowcatsim - Cat DPS Simulator

 

tangedyn

Berserk is not in my simulation, because IMO it shouldn't be part of the standard strategy/cycle, but a seperate strategy/cycle on its own, as it can occur only at most once every 3 mins.

My default stats are based on Toskk's calculator. My preference is to use stats that will match those of an average feral druid entering Naxxramas and facing Patchwerk. I don't think we will see many cats in full T7 gear with full raid buffs anytime soon after the LK release. As I mentioned, the purpose of my simulator is to determine the best strategy, not to predict how much DPS we are going to do at the end of Naxxramus.

Note: these are just guestimations, I don't expect them to be near what to expect for the average feral druid in Naxxramas. If any of these are way out, I will change them in the next release.

Attack Power: 5000
Crit: 40%
Hit: +6.1%
Expertise: +2.5% dodge reduction
Haste: +20%
+Damage: 0

All Cat DPS talents at maximum (this is necessary to determine the best strat. we should then remove talents that do not boost the best strat).

Glyph of Rip and Mangle up. No Tier 6/7 bonuses.

30% damage reduction, no manglebot, no bleedbot


At the moment the best strategy we've found (between Dimpled, Nord and myself) goes:

1. If Tiger's Fury cooldown is up, cast Tiger's Fury
2. If Omens of Clarity is up, cast Mangle if Mangle is down, otherwise cast Shred
3. If Savage Roar is down and Combo Points >= 2, cast Savage Roar
4. If Combo Points = 5 and Rip is down, cast Rip
5. If Combo Points = 5 and Rip is up, do nothing and wait for Rip to fade
6. If Rake is down, cast Rake
7. If Mangle is down, cast Mangle
8. If Energy >= 82 or cast Shred
9. If Energy >= 40 and Tiger's Fury cooldown has less than 1 second remaning, cast Shred

It can use a few more tweaks for a bit more DPS, but that's the best so far.
See The Druid Wiki » ToskksDPSGearMethod » discussion » re: THE ultimate dps rotation? for more details


_____
wowcatsim - Cat DPS Simulator

 

Huggme

Thanks for trying, I'll download the source file and see if I can work some magic with my java skills.

 

Mijae

A more accurate estimate for full 80 blues with full raid buffs:

Attack Power: 8500
Crit: 46.5% (before -4.4%)
Hit: +6.5%
Expertise: +6.5%
Haste: +29.1% (w/o bloodlust)
+Damage: 12 (stone)
Damage mod: 116% (226.6% crit)

High armor boss 27% reduction, low armor boss 20%

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

summlan

- Now you can switch stats.
- Made a simulator-mode.

Cleaned up some code and remade the math.
Found some errors.

Forgot to add 55.4 to the paw-damage, so you should see a small increase in white damage.
Ferocious Bite, the extra damage from energy wasnt calculated correctly. It now hits for more.
Also added the damage-range for Ferocious Bite, we all love big crits.

simplifieddps

 

Valerian

This does seem to be getting me more DPS than the 5/5/5 cycle on summlan's simulator (and simulating this strategy gets even higher dps). The only "flaw" I see with it, is that with the base crit rate on the simulator I find I'm "wasting" combo points often. This seems to occur mainly when Rip and SR synch up. Both will still be running and I'll be at 5 combo points shredding/raking/mangling and then BOTH will drop and I'll have significant enough downtime on Rip by needing to build up combo points again to refresh them. Even worse, if Rip falls very slightly before SR you can end up with a fair bit of SR downtime (if say Mangle and Rake are running and you're doing the wait til 82 energy shred part). I think some conditional may be needed when at 5 combo points to check SR and Rip remaining time and determine what to do then (either FB or immediately refresh SR or something).

 

manapaws

I dont think that's a fair amount of AP and Haste for level 80 blues. Unless youre including Savage Roar in that? I posted my stats earlier in this thread and I'm in full naxx gear.

Do you have a gear / item list to support using those numbers in your calculations?

 

Starlight

Anyone come up with a macro that ill cast tigers fury if below 40 energy else mangle/shred/rip ect? I've been trying to develop one and its driving me nuts. If you have one that works please message me or email it to me.

 

Valerian

I'm pretty sure conditionals like that don't work anymore. There was a reason why it worked with powershifting (something about aura cancelling) but this same method does not work with Tiger's Fury.

 

Davaeorn

You can't do a macro like that. There is no way to make it check for a condition such as energy, mana or rage.

 

halmmar

I would be possible if being on cooldown blocked activation of TF (/cast Shred /cast TF). Then again, you wouldn't be able to spam the key anyway.

 

Mijae

This does not include SR. It does include full raid buffs (except bloodlust).

Gear:
[Lightning Giant Staff] (+110 AP) (+14 crit / 12 dmg)
[Mask of the Watcher] (+20 crit / 50 AP)
+[Relentless Earthsiege Diamond]
+[Shifting Twilight Opal]
[Necklace of the Chrono-Lord]
[Spaulders of the Careless Thief] (+10 crit / 30 AP)
+[Glinting Monarch Topaz]
[Embrace of Sorrow] (+22 agi)
[Custodian's Chestpiece] (+8 stats)
[Shackles of Dark Whispers] (+38 AP)
[Handwraps of Preserved History] (+20 agi)
[Batrider's Cord]
[Ravenous Leggings of the Furbolg] (+15 crit / 55 AP)
+[Delicate Scarlet Ruby]
+[Delicate Scarlet Ruby]
[Boots of the Whirling Mist] (+16 agi)
[Mobius Band]
[Ring of Scarlet Shadows]
+[Delicate Scarlet Ruby]
[First Mate's Pocketwatch] (haste averaged)
[Fury of the Encroaching Storm] (AP averaged)

Buffs/Debuffs:
Flask of Endless Rage
Dragonfin Filet
Sunder Armor x5
Faerie Fire
Heart of the Crusader
Blood Frenzy
Blessing of Kings
Mark of the Wild (imp)
Battle Shout (imp)
Windfury Totem (imp)
Strength of Earth Totem (imp)
Unleashed Rage
Swift Retribution
Ferocious Inspiration

I might have some rounding errors from BoK/SotF, so the numbers I posted are slightly under my actual estimates.


It probably would work as expected, but is a dangerous macro to make when using Shred for OoC.

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

Beace

To get off the subject a little bit, are those trinkets really any good for us? Seeing as haste remains one of our weakest stats.

 

mochunk

I really don't know if this is a proper place to bring this up, since this is mostly aimed at theory of talents and abilities...

But has anyone noticed that since they wanted to nerf bear armor, they nerfed a lot of the gears armor? However, not quite all of it, and NOT the pvp gear (as of yet).

My druid is my more recent 'alt' that I was starting to spend a fair amount of time on. Obviously with the s2 gear being easy to get quickly and get going being a viable tank as well as dps'er it was a very short and quick road.

However, I had started swapping in some t4 and such for the extra armor and dodge. But all of this (t4, epic instance gear, crafted) has the armor nerfed, but the pvp doesn't. On the ptr, I can get back almost half the armor I lost by just putting my pvp gear back on, even the rep blue pvp gear.

I wonder how long that is going to last... I hate the idea of pve gear being substandard as far as flat out mitigation goes to pvp gear. Seems kind of backwards.

 

Nitz

It's obviously an oversight.

 

Beace

Dunno really... It's been like this for what, a month now? Hasn't been changed in any patch, and I haven't seen any blue post about it. There's no doubt they're aware of it. There's been suggestions that they'll leave the extra armor on the pvp leather, to keep the synergy with the pvp cloth that also have extra armor. Crappy reason if you ask me.

Sadly I suspect the pvp armor will be left as is, resulting in s4 being stronger than t6 for tanking. It'll be an issue for the month we have till Wotlk, and during the 70-80 leveling and then go away.

 

Mijae

I actually just noticed a bug with a few trinkets I had copy/pasted stats and not updated correctly (including these 2). It makes them slightly less valuable, but still good for us. While haste is a low value for us, total item points can make it worth using.

[Incisor Fragment] and [Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood] are actually slightly better. However, these are BoE and it's hard to say what the availability will be for them. Some BC and the new JC/alchemy trinkets are also better, but not included for similar reasons.

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

Macevaland

What's better for DPS, +16 agility or + 16 strength?

 

Mijae

They are nearly equal in value with strength very slightly ahead by my estimates. However, they are so close that in practice I'd say agility ends up being more valuable for more consistent CP (and bear value). You could also switch the food for agility too.

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

Yilfin

I have a real bad feeling, a premonition, concerning the dual-spec new feature that will be introduced in wotlk. We have already a confirmation that players will be able to switch spec easily in the course of an instance/raid clean, and i think that this bring much implications for us than the feral community may think. I mean, we are in substance "melee hybrid", a fighter that can switch on demand between a tank-warrior-plate style, and a melee dps-leather-rogue one, thanks to talents that improve two forms that are available to all druids, with a lot of passive stats boosts. A very interesting comparison was made in the us beta forum to show how our tanking, even if it's viable, is less entertaining and "active" than the others tanks because they are specialized and have, especially warriors and dk, far more tools to use, far more buttons to push than us while tanking. We were ok with that, because we had a real "second world" open to us, you tank a lot ? ok you are a sort of "wannabe warrior", it's less specialized but it's good, because the fight after you can switch to dps, change completely your role, and be efficient in that until sunwell. The other case was true too.

Now with this dual spec feature, a warrior will be able to spec tank and have a whole tree dedicated to tanking, and respec dps on the fly, arms or fury, and have two trees dedicated to dps and utility. It's the same case for paladins, a whole tree dedicated to tanking, and maybe they will be able to respec on the fly, it they have the gear, retrib or healing, and have two dedicated tree to melee dps and healing. With us, 3/4 of our talents are build with the old hybrid conceptions of feral and boosts our two aspects, just a few of them specialize us on the contrary to their claimed intent since the beginning of the beta to give us the choice between a bear spec, completely different from a cat spec. The feral tree must share the space of one tree, to two role, so it's just a question of logic that the bear oriented feral or dps-oriented, maybe if they will remain viable (viable meaning = the content can be clean with a feral, and a wws report will show that ferals will be on par with the others in terms of performances), will be less specialized because of a lack of talents. Numbers are just here to illustrate what i mean, but with this system, i'm afraid that people will see for tanking, warriors, if they spec to tanking, as 100% tanks/50% dps, bear-oriented ferals as 90% tanks (lacks of tools) and 70% dps, and for dps, the same warrior, if he will have the gear, will be 100% dps (or 100% heal for a paladin) and 50% tanking and the kitty-oriented feral 90% dps/70% tank.

It's not whining, i'm not saying that we are screwed, but i think that it's a real valid concern if the spec-switching feature will be very easy and players will be able, as blizzard said, to change spec on the fly, because this idea is not adapted to feral, our tree is already a fusion between an hypothetic bear tree, and a cat tree. If it's really the case, i think that the best idea to solve all of our problems will be to create a fourth tree, and so make a bear tree and a feline tree, with less passive stats boosts, more feral-specific and cool-looking abilities that bring us on par with the efficience (i'm not talking about viability here) of the specialists.

If people here have some toughts about this concerns, don't hesitate to post them

 

triman

They'll obviously have to be very careful with how they implement dual specs. I'm guessing a very limited number of times a day and probably a long 'cast' time or something. Otherwise you'd end up with stupid stuff like "oh our healers are dead -> NE ferals ghetto vanish (so ooc) -> respec -> swap items -> resto druid in just a matter of seconds.

Anyways, I think that whatever mechanism they implement will limit respeccing on the fly. It would be dumb if all classes can choose what role they want to play on every pull (or as illustrated even within the course of a fight).

 

Zene

Don't confuse BoE with BoE-Unique...These are still BoP and available from Heroic bosses.