Sure, cat swipe is good but trash dies so fast and its not like all trash is in large swipable packs anyways. One pull you might get 20 and the next you might get 2. Sometimes huge packs die literally before I can get SR and swipe up. The bonus is better than nothing but I'd rather have items that are better in all situations.
Have any Ferals Managed to break the 6k barrier yet or is it just not possible with our current gear stats.
I have only a few items left to get now and am approaching 5k dps on most 25 man Naxx encounters ( not including Thaddius and loatheb of course) But I feel that every new item I'm now adding is propping me up less and less.
I see the developers talking about propping up our sustained damage, but i was wondering how others are getting along.
I have WWS from last night in 10 man with very few buffs, its not great as i'm not optimally specced right now but may show a few things that I could be doing wrong.
And before you pick on my Hit, I know Its low and i know I missed, but RAWR told me to do it, so I thought what the hell and tried with a slightly lower rating. I will be putting hit gems back in tonight
I did NOT have the Darkmoon card at the time of this raid, I bought it after,
Also My current spec is a Utility spec as we have a Tank on holiday.
Two things to notice here: First, the only Ferals to break 5500 were on fights where Swipe was their main damage (Grand Widow, Maexxna, Anub, Gluth) or Loatheb/Thaddius. Second, Moonkin consistently out DPS Cats except in the couple Swipe fights, not a single Feral in the top 20 on 4 different fights, with 2 more fights only have 1.
I keep looking at the Moonkin switch, but i have invested so much time and had so much help from my guild that i would feel really bad for switching at this point - Lets just hope the developers notice it.
As for the web stats, I'll get registered and have a play with that tonight, looks much better, thanks for the tip.
The hit is a lot better than crit and if you use 4T7 you'll find that you're quite low on hit.
The thing is that ArPen isn't a great stat, but it is quite ok (at higher gear level, you'll find it matches or is better than crit).
Use the Grim Toll if you're so low on hit you benefit from all (or almost all) of it. Don't regen hit to use an inferior trinket.
Grim Toll is the 2nd best trinket in the game for a non-hitcapped feral. Going by Rawr best in slot comes down to either grim toll + heigan belt or fury of five nights plus Belt of the Tortured (+/-2 dps by my raid buffed calcs). Going by Toskk Grim Toll + Heigan wins out by a bit.
Either way you aren't sacrificing much.
I have to log in a second so I can't do the research but didn't blizz also say they are perhaps going to buff ArP or did that already go through or am I imagining things?
Two things to notice here: First, the only Ferals to break 5500 were on fights where Swipe was their main damage (Grand Widow, Maexxna, Anub, Gluth) or Loatheb/Thaddius. Second, Moonkin consistently out DPS Cats except in the couple Swipe fights, not a single Feral in the top 20 on 4 different fights, with 2 more fights only have 1.
How big of pool is this pulling from? As feral I've seen over 4600 dps on Sarth and my gear at the time was fairly poor. I was at at 4900 on Patch and I only had 2/7.5, no Journey's End, no Greatness, etc so I expect to be pretty damn close to those boomkin numbers as feral once I get a little more.
There are just a couple of things here though. Boomkins seem to be a lot like mages where procs and crits can really change your dps. I imagine some of those boomkins at 5500+ on patch don't see that every fight. I see far more consistent dps as feral. So it seems like these numbers can be pretty deceiving. I could be wrong though.
It just seems to me that feral dps is pretty on point with other dps right now. Maybe it's just my guild but I'm not consistently being out dps'd by any class except for maybe mages (And I imagine if we had a dps DK that was worth anything I would be out dps'd by him too.)
WMO seems to calculate a little different somehow and the pool of results isn't as big (yet). I believe WWS is still broken for DKs as it doesn't take into account a few of their abilities.
Feral has been analyzed quite thoroughly by some more statistically oriented players (results on blizzard forums) and we are indeed falling further and further behind the other hybrid dps'rs. Don't take your guild results as reality because I also frequently am near the top of the meters. However, looking over end-game combat logs I'm not super far from optimal dps while the other dps class/specs in the guild aren't really all that close (with similar gear).
I'd tend to agree with you about boomkins potentially looking better than they are because of the RNG nature of their damage.
I have not DPS-ed since the first naxx raid that we've done, and even then I was able to pull close to 4k dps. I think a lot of guilds are still using their feral as tanks or at least offtanks, making it much harder to do a DPS spec.
With that said, the scaling of feral dps is going to be in the department of Rake and Rip, the fact that they don't scale directly with crit, haste, and ArP. This means ~40-50% of our damage does not scale with 3 attributes out of 5 (other two being hit and AP of some variant, although it might scale really well with the other two to offset some of the lack of scaling.) On the other hand, Ferocious bite does not scale with crit once you passed the 50% crit buff mark after raid buffs, but I highly doubt they will want to scale FB since it does considerable amount of burst in pvp.
Maybe allowing Rake and Rip to crit will solve our problem (this is what they did with shadow priests)
Edit: Relative number is pointless, especially if you're only looking into one guild. Right now Ferals are falling a bit behind as everyone started getting their best in slots. However, your other players can be mediocre or bad that their dps is far from their potential. When talking about class balance, we need to look at the average theoretical dps with maybe adjusted factors for mistakes (for example, TBC BM hunters are less likely to make them since they can just spam a macro for almost max potential, while a Rogue will be more prone to mistakes, comparatively), which pretty much limits the skill factors in the game.
I would expect in the future to see our Bleeds affected by Crit in the same way Spriests DoT's are; Shadowform. Of course this would shift Agi ahead of Str for any increase in damage that we'd be looking at, so they may just leave that for a "Dire Catform" talent later and simply tweak current mechanics (like removing the extra energy consumed by FB for starters) or make Armor Pen affect Bleeds in a similar fashion.
And yes, the lack of Ferals on the WMO meters is in part due to a lack in guilds currently uploading there, and in part to most ferals being used as Tanks, but Moonkin currently have gear that is designed for them, while we have gear that is designed for Rogues. I imagine our DPS would be very different if gear was "of the Beast" instead of "of the Bandit"
Two things to notice here: First, the only Ferals to break 5500 were on fights where Swipe was their main damage (Grand Widow, Maexxna, Anub, Gluth) or Loatheb/Thaddius. Second, Moonkin consistently out DPS Cats except in the couple Swipe fights, not a single Feral in the top 20 on 4 different fights, with 2 more fights only have 1.
So you're 'screwing up' your rotation in a 75s fight, with over 50% bloodlust-uptime + super-berserk? And you where even lucky with shred-crits.
The fight is simply too short to be a measure of possible dps.
Granted the fight is short, but I was pointing out an example were a kitty broke the 5.5k barrier that Boevis indicated without swipe. Also worth mentioning, while I agree kitty DPS could use more love, I was in the top 4, beaten out by a very OP mage and warrior.
I have not DPS-ed since the first naxx raid that we've done, and even then I was able to pull close to 4k dps. I think a lot of guilds are still using their feral as tanks or at least offtanks, making it much harder to do a DPS spec.
The thing about full DPS spec is the last 5-10 or so points are almost useless and do so little for your DPS. The only thing you really miss out on is 4% crit and that takes five talent points. I really wish they would do something with feral aggression and master shape shifter to truly put the full on DPS specs way above the pure bear and hybrid ones.
The thing about full DPS spec is the last 5-10 or so points are almost useless and do so little for your DPS. The only thing you really miss out on is 4% crit and that takes five talent points. I really wish they would do something with feral aggression and master shape shifter to truly put the full on DPS specs way above the pure bear and hybrid ones.
10% damage on crit, -12 energy cost on shred, and 4% crit all come a long way in boosting dps
in my current dps set just by taking those talents alone will give me 15% damage boost, not to mention that is still with 2 piece T6 included, the actual boost is probably higher than that
Sure, feral aggression might be situational, but in end-game (lol) gear right now you should be able to fit in a FB in most cycles
10% damage on crit, -12 energy cost on shred, and 4% crit all come a long way in boosting dps
Those aren't the last 5-10 points that a cat spends on DPS. Shredding attacks and PI are not optional cat DPS talents. Master Shapeshifter certainly is.
10% damage on crit, -12 energy cost on shred, and 4% crit all come a long way in boosting dps
in my current dps set just by taking those talents alone will give me 15% damage boost, not to mention that is still with 2 piece T6 included, the actual boost is probably higher than that
Sure, feral aggression might be situational, but in end-game (lol) gear right now you should be able to fit in a FB in most cycles
Feral aggression is too situational at the moment and does almost nothing for increasing your overall DPS, just your burst damage. 5 talent points for 4% crit is also rather expensive and below their line for for a 1% increase per point (granted that is more of just a rule of thumb than something set in stone).
As for the rest of those talents, a tanking build can have most of as well. Especially if you do the leap of faith that a DK will be there for frost fever; and either just forget improve leader of the pack (useless over-heal most of the time anyways) or have some other feral along for it.
Granted the fight is short, but I was pointing out an example were a kitty broke the 5.5k barrier that Boevis indicated without swipe. Also worth mentioning, while I agree kitty DPS could use more love, I was in the top 4, beaten out by a very OP mage and warrior.
Honestly we are capable of huge numbers with fights around a minute. Full energy start, TF, Berserk, TF (with heroism/BL covering most of that time period). We fall off pretty quickly after that. Kinda makes us awesome at Heroic bosses heh.
Those aren't the last 5-10 points that a cat spends on DPS. Shredding attacks and PI are not optional cat DPS talents. Master Shapeshifter certainly is.
I'd say MS is mandatory. We need crit to be able to fit FB into rotations more reliably. With cats gemming for strenght, i dont think you can skip 4% increase (that reminds me that i have my doubts about str > agi, i'm trying to make some simulations on my own but no results yet).
Feral Instinct would be an optional cat damage talent for me.
Blizzard's talent calculator says Feral Instinct only affects swipe (bear). Is this an undocumented change in 3.0.9, or a tooltip error that has been there all along? I know it affected swipe (cat) yesterday...
I'd say MS is mandatory. We need crit to be able to fit FB into rotations more reliably. With cats gemming for strenght, i dont think you can skip 4% increase (that reminds me that i have my doubts about str > agi, i'm trying to make some simulations on my own but no results yet).
Feral Instinct would be an optional cat damage talent for me.
I'm specced pure dps, with max FA, MS and FI.
Last night partway through our first attempt at heroic Patchwerk the RL said, "Grim go bear." I'm in full dps gear, no tanking talents and I'm taking Hatefuls. I died at 1%, we got him down, and I got a new belt.
If I respecced to add a touch of bear for survivability, what do I take and what do I drop? I'm thinking 3/3 PotP. I could drop FI but kitty swipe does obscene damage. If I dropped FA entirely, I could put a point into Survival Instincts and a point into either feral charge or to max iMangle.
Inaiwae, I think that once you get enough crit you don't need a ton more to smooth out anything. It may change your gearing choices (going for agi over strength and favoring crit rating) but it's not a make-or-break rotation changer like shredding attacks or KotJ is.
Grimcat, I'd drop feral aggression in a second. I wouldn't take imp mangle at all (as cat or anything else). Take natural reaction instead.
Honestly we are capable of huge numbers with fights around a minute. Full energy start, TF, Berserk, TF (with heroism/BL covering most of that time period). We fall off pretty quickly after that. Kinda makes us awesome at Heroic bosses heh.
Yeah, what really gets me is a lack of any sort of "execute". I can't tell you how many times I'm right there with the mages and warriors on the meters, and then starting at 35-20% to dead, they suddenly sky rocket, completely leaving me in the dust.
Grimcat, I'd drop feral aggression in a second. I wouldn't take imp mangle at all (as cat or anything else). Take natural reaction instead.
Dropping improved mangle won't make any difference for fights like Patchwerk or Maexxna. But when you can't risk a swipe and don't have the time to position yourself properly behind the mob, 3 levels of improved mangle means your manglespam should be significantly more effective.
If I dropped FA and the 2 levels of improved Mangle, I could get 3/3 PotP, 3/3 Natural Reaction and the last point for either SI or FC. Thick Hide would be nice but I've already got 32k armor in bear form. The goal is to maximize dps while taking enough tanking talents to increase survivability versus raid mobs.
@Kalbear: why do you think that crit will be less important if you get "enough"? To me it seems that crit will always have the same value, since FB allows you to burn any number of extra combo points.
I guess the question is whether its better to go for crit and increase the damage portion coming from FB's, or to get enough crit to have smooth SR/Rip rotation and then focus on attack power (since APen, Haste and Crit do not affect bleeds). Bad thing is that crit and haste rating do not affect FB as well.
02/08/09, 6:28 AM
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