Diminishing returns are applied continuously. Formula is in this thread: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-c...gs_level_80_a/.

I have a somewhat dilemma with resto spec. I loved my current spec back when I started playing resto in heroics. But now that I got myself into a solid 25-man raiding guild and I rarely do any heroics, those 2 points into imp. tranq are just a waste.
So I need to pull them out, but I can't decide - where. Natural Perfection vs Replenish. And should I pull out talents from Livind Seed to max out one of those? Or maybe even take out those 3 talents from Living Seed and spec into a Regrowth/HT hybrid?

Any suggestions, thoughts?

Well, you have to decide what playstyle fits best:

- Wanna play with "flash heals" -> reroll priest/pala :P... seriously: get HT glyph and skill for HT.
- Wanna spam RG -> Go for RG Glyph and take points out of Emp. Touch and Imp. Tranq. and put into Tranq Spirit. This is discussable since it does still boost Tranq and HT, but as soon as you habe the 4pc bonus of the set, nourish will do far better.
- Wanna mostly roll rejuv and LB? -> Go for LB Glyph and pick Replenish.

From my point of view: Ich prefer RG, I love it, surely I add RJ and LB, but RG is my main heal spell and w/o WG it tops my meters at >65%. With the 4pc Bonus and Tranq Spirit its the way I love to play.

Living Seed is only cool if you are RG spamming otherwise it is useless. You dont crit enough. On my meters its about 2.5-3% of heal which I find is enough, about Replenish I am not sure but I think I would not take it anymore. Had it and it I dont get something of it. But with 3.1 this is gonna be changed and has to be reviewed.

So this is how I prefer to play, just ask what you would like, and if its not RG Style, perhaps ask so. else. I love the druid for this felxibilty.

Does [Idol of Perspicacious Attacks] affect cat swipe?

Yes, as far as I read it somewhere here, though I cant confirm it now by testing.

As of recently, it did not. The best bet currently for that sort of thing is probably [Idol of the White Stag]: Mangle, SR, Swipe like mad.

Restoration Itemization

Basically the answer depends on your current int and spirit, consider getting "Ratingbuster" for ingame tooltips listing mp5 from spi/int.

I'm wondering why there are no discussions on Dreamstate as a Resto build here on EJ.com?

It looks like a good option with upcoming mana regen nerfs, and it requires sacrificing WG and LS, which, although really useful, might be worth it for the added mana regen. Plus, itemization so far on Naxx-level items means I always have Intel even on the best Spirit gear.

What's the rationale for Resto discussions not to include a Dreamstate build? I don't want to argue, I just want to ask a stupid question and I'm told this is the place.

Because dreamstate sucks and anyone who makes a resto spec with it is an idiot.

You're giving up Wild Growth, 5/5 GotEM (have fun getting the 1269 haste rating needed to reach a 1s gcd), one point in Imp. ToL (which reduces the Lunar Guidance bonus to ~5% if not less due to having more spirit and Living Spirit talent. In addition to that you also loose out on Living Seed and Replenish, neither totally awesome but still good (and Replenish is due for a buff). All that for ~110mp5 and ~60sp at best.

If this upcoming nerf to spirit regen is so harsh that resto druids are willing to give up all that for dreamstate then Blizzard took it one step too far. Innervate should be the only thing hit really hard by this nerf and I'd say rightfully so seeing as it gives so much mana at the moment.

Thank you.

Ignoring the possibility to pop a haste pot before pull, and the second later..
Is it best to use the pot during bloodlust, or before it for personal dps?
Our cooldowns are unaffected by the pot (Treants don't get hasted, starfall would just do its damage faster which only changes things if the fight ends during the starfall)

If popping it during bloodlust is better damage - would it be better to use it before anyway, so the mob gets down to 35% faster? (for the rest of the raid naturally)

Obviously the challenging fights atm (Sarth 3, timed malygos) have specific times when it'd be good to use it, so this is really more for trying to get the best parse for patchwerk than anything else I can think of ATM.

Either way you obviously want to pot during an eclipse period.

Made some ingame tests, results are in image below.



Haste from various sources dont stack up in a sexy way, so in terms of pot effect only you gain the most by using it outside of heroism.

Lets look at the lowest set of numbers to get closer to raidlike stats. Assuming potion proc at the moment you proc eclipse so only discussing SF effect.
If you use the pot outside of heroism every SF becomes 0.27seconds faster.
Inside heroism that number is 0.2seconds pr SF.

In return you cast more SF's during 15seconds inside heroism than you do outside of it.
During heroism 15 / 1,63 = 9,2025 SF
Outside heroism 15 / 2,11 = 7,109 SF

Time gained:
During heroism 9.2025*0,2 = 1.84 seconds.
Outside heroism 7.109*0,27 = 1.91 seconds

So the short answer is outside of heroism, but in reality you wont see or feel any difference so do as you please.

Argument for use before 35% - You increase the "burn" period a tiny tiny bit.
Argument for use during heroism - It might be easier to time a good use of the potion here as you will have downtime waiting for gcd after a wrathcast.

I have few questions for my friend who's currently feral DPS and wondering if he can tank so since I've never been a druid myself, I'll ask some simple questions to you guys. Sorry if those are "noob" questions but the only topics realted to feral tanking here are about gear and complicated maths.

1) Since a druid has no gear with avoidance (except the offset) how can I know if he's able to tank? def cap? armor cap? HP? dodge?

2) what is a normal rotation for a feral tank?


I've searched alot of posts but I don't wanna spend 2 hours looking through hundreds of page to find those simple answers so if you can give me short answers or link me to a post with all the basics, that would be perfect.

1) Assuming your friend has some decent feral gear he's using for dps, he can tank just fine with it long as he gets a spec that includes SotF and all the armor and dodge talents in the feral tree. For further customization Rawr is an excellent way to judge gearsets. Avoidance comes from agility that is present on all leather gear, Defense is not required for druids as of 3.0 and armor comes naturally from the gear as well. Tanking enchants/gems are obviously much better but for starter purposes, basic dps gear can do the job.

2) Mangle whenever it's ready, always maul if you re not rage starved, spam swipe in between. Keeping a 5 stack lacerate up gives a slight edge if dealing with a single boss mob, but even then it's by no means mandatory.




That said, I'd like to ask some stuff of my own towards moonkins since I've recently switched from feral to moonkin for testing purposes mostly and I've been fiddling around with the rotations and eclipse management. My gear although decent enough, does not include the Starfire Idol; so I'm forced to using the Wrath one. According to my own calculations and dummy tests, which are not in a presentable form right now, during Eclipse cooldown, I seem to be getting more DPS by spamming Wrath till the next Eclipse proc, rather than sticking to SF and using Wrath again when the Eclipse CD is up as is commonly suggested. I'm assuming this is because of the missing idol or possibly poor execution on my side. In any case, it seems to be worth it to stick to Wrath during Eclipse CD when the SF idol isn't available, unless someone has data to claim otherwise.

Another point I'd like to discuss, is handling of 5 man trash pulls. In large pulls of 4+ mobs hurricane is a no brainer; rest of the time however, it's still a gray area for me, since I can't seem to figure a proper way to produce decent dps. So my question to more experienced moonkins would be about how you handle 3 or less mob pulls, where they die pretty fast to pull any sort of rotation or try to proc Eclipse. Dot them all up? Straight nukes with Wrath or Starfire? I understand that each pull is different and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter that much but I'd still like to hear some thoughts.

Wrath may be better than SF at low gear levels (particularly low Haste).

If trash will live long enough for each spell to complete (30s for FoN, 15s for MF, 14s for IS, 10s for Hurricane or Starfall), and you don't care about anything but total DPS, and AoE's hit every target possible, my DPSC rankings are

2 targets: FoN > Sfl > MF > IS > Typhoon > Hurricane > Nukes
3-7 targets: FoN > Sfl > Typhoon > Hurricane > single-target spells
8 targets: FoN > Typhoon > Sfl > Hurricane
9-11 targets: Typhoon > FoN > Hurricane > Sfl
12+ targets: Typhoon > Hurricane

These may move around a bit depending on gear and spec.

I'd prefer to save Sfl and FoN for boss fights. For short trash fights I tend to go with

2+ targets: Hurricane, Typhoon for low-health hurricane survivors.

Hurricane is not likely to hit anything you'd really rather not hit. Starfall, typhoon, and tab+DoT can all hit something you don't want.

Hurricane also puts a nice debuff on the targets. Realize that while your current Hurricane is channeling, you can already be placing the ground-targetting circle for your next Hurricane.

Maul damage is increased on bleeding targets (assuming R&T).

Very interesting, my moonkin alt learned another thing

One more question from me, reading and asking around i got told its good to refresh moonfire if it falls off at the start of an eclipse proc, but now im starting to wonder if thats actually correct, or possibly correct at lower gear levels? Secondly, if it is, whats the time left on eclipse where its still a dps gain to spend a GCD on moonfire?

edit: my bad, i should learn to first read the end of the moonkin raiding discussion, instead asking a question in this threat thats answered at the last page of, i'll leave my question here since i imagine i'm not the only one who didnt know this yet.

It depends on a lot of stuff, but probably after the first 5 seconds would be a bad idea. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's not worth the extra bandwidth of trying to fit it in: If you refresh just as Eclipse ends and again just before the ICD finishes, you're going to approach 100% uptime anyway, unless it takes more than 10s to proc Eclipse.

Thanks for another very clear answer Adoriele, my apologies for ninja-editing my post somewhat while you wrote your reply, as im still gearing up i do often have to wait a bit longer for eclipse procs, ill try my next raid with your suggestion and see whether it applies to me yet.

1. Shred for optimal cat dps and the difference is clear. OTOH, it is not giant. I've been alternating tank and dps with a hybrid spec and not respeccing, saving the respec for when I'm needed to heal. With the 3/3 Improved Mangle I carry for tanking threat and without 2/2 shredding attacks, mangle is better than shred even without 4t6. It's also not that far behind what I'd get if I took 2/2 shredding attacks and used shred, a much smaller difference than giving up KotJ or predatory instincts, which is what I'd need to do to accommodate it in my hybrid build without skimping on tank mitigation or threat. I played around with calculators and it doesn't look like better gear will change much (I'm still mostly in pre-raid gear). Shred will continue to be better, and the gap widens a little as my crit% goes up making CP easier to come by, but it never gets enough better to justify taking shredding attacks over any of the non-tanking talents I've already got in my hybrid build.

My decision is that the gain from taking shredding attacks is not worth what I'd lose in tanking threat and mitigation, and I think that's a reasonable decision for a hybrid build.

2. Whether to use 5pt FB or keep spamming shred depends on how much longer you have till rip and SR run out and how much energy is in your bar. Generally BAD to hit FB with more than 40-45 energy, best to tab it right on 35 if you can. Generally bad to hit FB with Rip up in <7 seconds or SR in <4. Rake is less critical, you want it up all the time, but you don't have to build CP to hit it. OTOH, if it is up, better to rake with 5 CP than FB. You would not ever refresh rake early though. Also tiger's fury availability matters. If TF is just up or coming up in 1-2seconds, then FB can be taken a bit closer to rip/SR expire, because you have more energy to build your combo points fast.

3. It is generally better to refresh a 5 pt. rip one tick early than other options (the exception being savage roar down, but if SR is down with only 1 tick left on rip and you have 5 CP you've already erred, SR should have gone off at 2-3 CP). It is better to shred (or mangle) at 5 CP than to refresh rip two ticks early.

It's worth reading through the cat rotations thread, all this stuff is covered in more detail there.

I have a question i've been unable to find as of recent patch(es), I'm currently seeking to respec Feral and was curious as to what the HIT and CRIT cap was for kitty, I need to know this so i can socket / enchant for hit/crit first. If someone could provide those #'s post haste as well as answer this: Do I want to stack Strength before AP whenever possible? or does AP generally outweigh Strength in the long run in terms of DPS

Do

[Darkmoon Card: Greatness] (str version)

And


[Darkmoon Card: Greatness] (agi version)

share the same internal cooldown? I'm assuming they do as other trinkets like these do. If so Rawr would have to be updated as it shows these 2 trinkets as best in slot for me