An elegant solution would be an Idol that made FFF (or all kinds of FF) do a miniscule amount of damage, enabling it to break cc or tag mobs when needed.

While a welcome addition, that doesn't make haste any more useful. It's starting to seem like we'll be sharing gear with rogues, but the stats on that gear will be optimal for rogues and not so much for cats.

I'm almost hoping that they introduce dual paw wielding in some other way now that Dire Cat is confirmed not to happen.

Hi all.
This is the first time i wrote here, but I want to share with you my theorycraft.

I've made a direct simulation with all the theorycraft knowledge we have at the moment about scaling, ability, procs, etc.. for cat druid dps.

Disclaimer: This is a direct simulation, not a spreasheet, I really made a "virtual cat" attacking a boss.

I've put in all the talents and all the possible cycles, I've also tryied many different value for stats, but in a wide range the best cycle is always the same!

Those are my result:

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Base Stats and buff:

10k ap, 30% crit, all the relevant buffs except feral aggression (we will see it later) and no special bonuses or trinkets, 9% hit, 0 expertise, Wind fury buff.
The boss has after sunder & co, 30% damage reduction from armor.

You also have to Powershift every time is needed (basically about 1-2 time x cycle).


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BEST cycle:

2 SR / 4 RIP (where 2 means 2 or 3 depending on crit and for means 4-5 depending on crit).

also: mangle always up, use shred for other attacks, don't use rip.

DPS: 2821 (if you have trauma and it stacks with mangle, will be about 2922).

now let's see what we loose removing talents (all talents up except the one removed):

Ability, DPS, Loss, Loss x Talent Point

NO Rend&Tea, 2776, 1,6%, 0.3%
NO NSS, 2724, 3.4%, 1.7%
NO Predatory Instinct, 2696, 4.4%, 0.9%
No ImpMangle, 2648, 6.1%, 2.0%
No Fury, 2781, 1.4%, 0.7%
No Precision, 2739, 2.9% 1.5%


Now with all talents up, try other cycles.

using 2SR/4RIP + rake: 2740
using 2SR/4FB + rake: 2771
using 2SR/4FB or RIP: 2772
using 4RIP/4FB: 2414
using 4RIP/4FB +rake: 2428
using 4RIP: 2584

using value different from 2 cp for SR is always a loss.
using value differnet from 4 cp for FB and RIP is always a loss.

On a side note with the "perfect cycle" you will have 35% white, 65% yellow damage.
WF only increase by 3% the relative value of our white damage because it also increase ooc proc and it increase yellow damage.
I've used Tiger Fury with KoJ every time I could.
I've Never used Berserk.


EDIT:
Having 5/5 Ferocity, the best cycle that use FB is 2SR / 4RIP or 4FB (if RIP is going on) but it gives (with the previous stats) only 4 dps increase (LOL)! With 50% crit and hit and expertise capped the situation is, strangely, not better but worse. The 2SR/4RIP cycle will give 3242 dps, the 2SR / 4RIP or 4FB (if RIP is going on) will give only 3149 dps.

On a side note, I've tested the cycles in a range of 7k-12k ap, 25%-50% crit, 6%-9% hit, 0-20 expertise. 2SR/4RIP is the best cycle in all ranges.

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I've runned very different simulation and in a large range, effectivelly I've prolly exagerated the ap and put a too low crit %.

x-SR/4RIP is the better cycle if u powershift and if you don't. It's also the best cycle indipendently from crit % and ap. What changes is the value of "x"
increasing ap and increasing crit % decrease the value of x.
Where the minimum is about 2 for high crit and/or high ap.
For low crit/ap (for example 6000 ap and 38% crit, the value I personally expect to have the day of expansion) 3SR/4RIP is more suitable but not by a big margin (20dps difference).

If you want to give me some value of hit, expertise, damage reduction, ap and crit % I can run some simulation for you

As for the code is simple.

I used the combat table (2 roll system for yellow) and an If..then method for the attack with the standard c++ RNG generator for the attack.

I will test it tonight if I can get my hands on some combination of bloodlust, windfury totem, haste pot and any of the many green haste trinkets around in borean tundra/howling fjord. (don't have DST)

Where'd this capped number come from? I've never heard that mentioned before except for random spoutings on the Blizzard forums and if I recall, the number touted there was like 0.75 sec.

Again, retracted because i was mistaken about an attack speed cap.

In that case the BC high-armor leather items (especially the sunwell ones) might last very long into WotLK, since green armor is a much more effective way of increasing survivability than stamina is.

I noticed on MMO that Improved Mangle is back at 7% cooldown reduction for bear. If 3/3 gives 21%, that is 4.74 seconds cooldown (i am not sure however what the 3/3 value is). What do you think is the reason for this change?

I'd say that while it wont mess any our "rotations" that much (0.24 seconds wasted when waiting for Mangle), it simply seems irrational.

There have always been very few in game, both Vanilla and Burning Crusade. There were nine quest rewards with bonus armor, of which only one was in an early quest zone. There are a few more scattered in as dungeon drops and six crafted items. We have never been showered with options for high armor gear.

Unless they change the way bear form applies to bonus armor or re-work the stats of every piece of druid leather in the game right now, armor will still be more valuable than any other stat. Just like in BC, people will be wearing gear that's 10 levels outdated like [Mark of Tyranny], and those of us in T6/Sunwell gear will not be upgrading until we get new gear with bonus armor from raid tiers. Something similar happened initially in BC -- greens with good armor were superior to crafted blues and a tier of raiding gear -- and an early patch revised the armor values of a lot of gear as a result. Before the patch, bears were wearing [Manimal's Cinch] if they had done the quest, [Lava Belt] if they had not.

They could modify the armor formula to force us to change, but remember: making armor better will not make us desire it less. To force us to stop valuing bonus armor, reduce the armor bears get from items in some way or you won't see good tanks stop wearing it.

I also talked to a Feral in beta who said that Infected Wounds does work on bosses. Although, it seems IW will be the same as Improved Thunderclap or the Judgement boost pallies got so if you have those in the raid you wouldn't need IW in your build at 80.

Any people in this forum who can relate some first-hand experience with IW and bosses?

So in Blades Edge arena we can or can not jump from the ground up to the pillar where the eye's spawn? According to the pathing we should be able to since there is a ramp up there... But I am doubtful since its such a far path and may have LOS issues if feral charge (Cat) has a sphere of LOS for lack of a better term.

Armor will still be very valuable, but they probably won't allow us to stack insane amount anymore. The main reason being that, with the removal of crushing blows and shield block being on a 20 sec. cooldown, warriors won't be able to compete with our spike damage survavibility.
Let's suppose that lvl80 warrior will start raiding with about 50% armor mitigation. Defensive stance put hem at 55%. My guess is that we won't be far from 55% armor mitigation, versus about 65% in TBC.