CagedShogun

After a few weeks of reading post and comments I've been tinkering with my build. I am straight cat dps set for PVE due to my guild having a large number of tanks already. I'm still in the process of changing out my 16 agility gems for 16 strength gems. They sell for around 175g so its costly to replace the 150g agility ones already socketed. My guild is extremely strict about having proper enchants and the best rep enchants(hodir rep). No matter how good the gear is you must have it enchanted. With the GM of the guild being a druid, I am running into a lot of conflict with him as I disreguard his advice and do what I've read on here. Even though my dps has climbed from around 10th in a 25man raid all the way to the top 3. With certain fights taking the number 1 spot(5700+ on thadius). So this lead me to a few questions:

1) My gm refers to rawr all the time but for some reason I cant get it to work. Are most of these stats,advice based upon rawr's calculations? If so, why would he still be telling me to stack agility over strength?

2) AS far as my enchants go, should I be replacing my +20agility on gloves for straight AP? Should I go back to +35agility on my staff over the 85ap from greater savagery(massacre is way out of my price range especially since my staff is more geared towards tanking).

3) I need names. I need names of other feral cat dps'ers who have stuff properly enchanted,gemmed etc. (not really a question but more of a request)

This is my first post on this forum and I've noticed that there are links to the armory for each poster. Not sure if mine will show up since it has asked me for this information about a dozen times now? My name is CAGEDSHOGUN on uther if it doesn't show. Thanks.

 

Mysticum

1) Strength is better, hands off. Rawr will tell you this as well, since I can't imagine any gear benefit from agility more than strength.

2) You can check Rawr for the correct answer here as well. Crusher is better than 20 agility, and 85 AP is better than 35 agility.

3) Mysticum is his name. PvP gear on armory atm though.

 

Valerian

Agi does help keep your cycle more constant in regards to critting more. While Str is slightly better overall, the difference between all Agi gems and all Str gems is going to be fairly small compared to the human errors/RNG you make in your cycle. Agi can help shore this up a bit. Once you're fairly comfortable you're probably better off using Strength though as most of the calculators say.

 

Mysticum

I'm not a big fan of stacking agility over strength, even though I do like crit like a madness. The AP loss is simply too big, especially for a JC (81 str compared to 81 agility only on the three JC gems). But sure, it does help in the cycle, but even too lesser geared people, I think str would be the better outcome in the end. Human errors is a big factor of course, but get used to your own numbers a bit. Train a lot on the boss dummies, it really helps!

And CagedShogun, I really recommend Feral Swiftness in your build. Movement speed is important on a various numbers of bosses, and it's a huge benefit to be able to move swiftly between boss elements.

 

Boevis

With my gear (10880 ap, 54% crit, 149 hit, 108 expertise, 413 haste, 62 arp)
Rawr rates the following for DPS (parenthesis are AP equivalence)
Str: 1.17 (2.39)
Agi: 1.03 (2.10)
Hit: 1.24 (2.53)
Exp: 1.24 (2.53)
Haste: .77 (1.57)
ArP: .69 (1.41)
Crit: .66 (1.35)
AP: .49 (1)

ToskksDPSGearMethod Rates them the following
Str: 2.332
Agi: 1.9885
Hit: 1.8402
Exp: 1.8402
Haste: 1.4176
ArP: 1.71
Crit: 1.2803
AP: 1

Now, because you get double AP per item value, anything with a value under 2 is worse than gemming for AP. I'm not going to try explaining the massive discrepancies for Hit/Expertise, but what's fairly clear is that Str > Agi in both cases, so regardless of which is more accurate in terms of the Missed Special cost to DPS, gemming for Str is going to be your best, solid bet.

 

Mijae

Again, dps calculators model perfect cycles and tank-and-spank fights. There are plenty of arguments on why to cap hit and expertise even though they are rated lower than strength. Similar arguments can be made to measure an intangible value that agility (crit) has over strength (more fluid cycles). Maybe it's a matter of preference, but agility and strength are close enough in value that I usually socket for agility instead.

This could also depend on encounter as well. It's possible that fights requiring many breaks in cycles where CP cannot be used optimally favor strength much more. I haven't even tried to model this. In general, my gear usually doubles for tanking though so the decision is easy.

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

 

Mysticum

It's very hard to model how a cycle can be affected by misses/dodges, and benefit from crit-rating etc, since it really depends on the player. One thing is for sure though, if you find yourself tanking at all in raids, agility is a great stat to gem for since it benefits bears and cats well. But as said, if you're pure dps, and really looking to max your numbers at the top, and have time to practice some cycles on a target dummy, strength is the way to go (imo).

 

brokentuzk

When should Barskin be aplied. Is it best to be saved for Oh crap, should you use all the time, or right before a boss fight if you are feral tanking?

 

coldbear

The more you raid the more you'll get a feel for when to pop Barkskin. Examples include when pulling a boss that requires initial repositioning of your healers. Add those healers being paladins and yes - definite Barkskin moment. Pulling Sartharion from the far corner while the rest of the raid approaches from the front - yep.

Fight like Gluth where you know when Decimate is coming - save it for right before.
Patchwerk where there's just tons of damage going all the time - hit it every time the cooldown is up imo.

But a fight where you never use it - wasted cooldown probably.

Author of "Every Boss In The Game" (3.0.9), "100 Dead Death Knights", "Fun In Ulduar", "Guide: How To Feral DPS" videos:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/pv.php?t=3&l=parl2001

 

brokentuzk

I was reading that a nice strategy for Feral tank pulling would be to Enrage, wait until the 10 seconds is almost up, then apply FFF. Is this an ok idea? If you were to switch to spell caster to cast a quick moonfire on cross after you FFF the Skull, then switch back to bear would you lose the rage you gained by the Enrage or would you gain an extra 10 rage when you switched back to bear conciduring you have 5 talent points in furor giving you a wopping 30 rage to begin?

 

Boevis

Being specced for KotJ, I time Barkskin with Enrage to partly offset the loss in armor on a few bosses. Malygos and Sartharion I use Barkskin on Breaths (alternating as many cooldowns as possible with my healers for S+3). On KT I save barkskin for possible Iceblocks, Pre-web wrap on Maexxna, Enraged Grand Widow, Loatheb's Dooms, and I can take a 6th Mark if necessary on 4H. Basically, if a fight has a high Burst Damage ability that you can accurately use Barkskin to diminish (be it a cast time ability, or simply known from Bigwigs/DBM timers) you should do so, simply using it every cooldown can result in a wipe if you're ignoring a big burst (I can't stress the use of it on KT's Iceblocks enough if your melee are idiots) and many of these abilities occur close to 1m timer anyway (Doom, Marks, Enrage) , so once you get used to using Barkskin to get through the first one, using it on cooldown after that practically guarantees you'll get the rest of the abilities.

 

brokentuzk

I dont know if I would call 10K over 40K raid buffed gear limited level 80. Has anyone else on this forum seen 5K in a raid? Is this realistic? I havent been playing long enough to know but I would like to read what others say about this because if that is the case I hit 2400 dps for the first time the other night and I thought I was jamming and I must have serious work to do because your over doubling my best. That was with 6200 ap and 36% crit. I know from reading I can get more because I have not been using rake at all but double?????

 

Mijae

5k dps on Thaddius is on the low side imo. If you're timing your energy for when your polarities are stacked you should be able to get over 6k. Loatheb also has the crit bonus which should give much higher than normal dps as well. These fights are not good measures.

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

 

kittelmann

Mitigation is usually used to describe reduction of damage taken, but lacking a better word I'm meaning reduction in total healing taken.

Having a large HP pool makes it easier for healers to heal me, and thus, hopefully they spend less time and mana on overhealing. This is however something that's hard to theorycraft since it involves a lot of psychology. (Do healers accept that I am at 95% HP, or do they heal me anyway? Do many healers start to heal me when I drop to 50% HP?)

Has anyone tried to quantify the gain in how good my gear is if I add X amount of HP compared to Y amount of dodge/agility/defense is regards to actual total healing taken? I have a fair understanding in how it affects the survivability against a streak of missed dodges, but that's outside this question.

 

Boevis

Increasing your HP is of no effect to healing taken, "good" healers respond to the damage being dealt. Theirs is a world of simple addition and subtraction, the boss subtracts health, they decide which ability is the most efficient for adding it back based on a number of other factors like how many people are taking damage, movement, and debuffs.

That is, of course, the ideal. Realistically, when a tank drops low, healers panic (and likely you do too) and use too many instant abilities, NS, Shock, PW:S, and Swiftmend will often get used all the same time, and aren't necessarily all needed. More often than not, this has nothing to do with your HP Pool or Mitigation, but is often a negative effect of high Avoidance and over cautious healers. Some healers, often priests, view their raid healing abilities as a duty and purpose combined with a strange obsession with stopcasting to preserve mana, high avoidance often leads healers to believe they can turn their attention elsewhere to lifetapping warlocks or getting that last little % of AoE damage healed up instead of focusing on the tank leading to long periods of followed by aforementioned excessive overhealing.

Does having more HP prevent this? Not really, only healers regulating themselves, staying calm, and having assigned jobs can really prevent this. Just as we stack Damage Reduction and HP until we beat the max burst, healers need to plan on what to do in that situation as well.

 

Midnight

edit: moved my post to the Druid: Simple Questions/Simple Answers thread because it´s propably more appropriate to the question.

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Omgwtfchris

Hey guys, I dont know if this has been done or already answered. I tried to find an answer or "guide" before posting to no avail. I was just wondering if there has been a complete overview or guide to "Feral Tanking" Such as tanking rotations, gear pre raid and raid, stats breakdown etc.. Just wondering if there was such a guide for feral tanking to indulge myself in since I am taking on tanking rather than healing for this expansions raids. Thanks in advance.

 

charriu

Well, there isn't one guide that covers all of them, but if you look around in the druid subforum, you'll find your questions answered.

 

Pike

This is probably stating the obvious, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Don't forget to use barkskin while in kitty form too. I've been in a couple of pugs where other kitteh's haven't been using it. I particularly love it for the Sapphiron fight. The vortex and barkskin cooldowns seem to coincide fairly well on Malygos 10 too.

 

WeWhoEat

Any tips on when would be the best use of beserk for threat purposes? Is it to simply coincide with bloodlust, etc.?

 

Baggles

There is no real reason to stack berserk with bloodlust while generating threat in bear unless you're having some issue getting the rage to spam your mangles. Since bloodlust/heroism do not reduce your gcd at all, you're better off using it earlier on, once your target has a few -ac debuffs, to establish a good threat lead, then basically on CD. This also applies to catform berserk. In fact, from personal experience, using zerk with heroism actually hurts me since I get a few more clearcasts and energy goes to waste.

 

◊ Abradix

Generally you want to use Berserk as early on as possible, as soon as the mob is fully debuffed and you have your lacerate stack going, use berserk so if the encounter goes wrong in any way you get to use it a second time. Obviously this doesn't hold true for all encounters, if there's a damage increase later on like on Thaddius you'd want to save it for when you have 12 stacks of polarity, or in a fight like Maexxna you could even save it for sub 30% for that extra DPS increase so the "dangerous phase" lasts shorter. But assuming there are no special gimmicks in the fight, your best bet is to just use it as early as possible so you might be able to get two berserks in.

 

Kalitse

After reading this thread, I didn't see any actual numbers or benchmarks. I did see a priority list and am trying to follow it.

What I would like to know is how much is enough, or how much is the minimum hit (% is the format I like to use) required to tank 10-man content? I managed to gear myself hit capped and was able to easily handle most of Naxx-10. After a few upgrades though I find myself at 4.36% hit now which doesn't even guarantee a hit on an equal lvl mob.

Appreciate your time answering.

 

kalbear

The minimum amount of hit to tank 10 or 25 man content is 0.

There is no need to stack hit. Your threat, assuming starter weapons such as [Enraged Feral Staff] will be fine. Hit is a nice to have stat, but it is by no means necessary or even really desirable compared to other stats. If you're going to stack anything, stack expertise first until you get a total of 26 expertise.

 

Kalitse

Well let's assume I'm passed the soft expertise cap (I'm actually at 7.5%, and not optimally speced), I have over 30k armor, ~35% dodge and 29k health unbuffed.

That being said, I can get a heck of a lot more survival if I were to re-enchant and gem without any concern for hit rating, but with 0% hit rating I will essentially be generating 9% less threat on bosses (if my math is right). This also means I will be doing less damage and extending the fight (not much but on KT, sometimes every bit counts).

Have any models been done to see what the optimum amount of hit would be?