Sorry in advance for this. I've been reading all of the threads for hints/advice and i'm sure its all there but im so confused atm. I'm currently a lvl 27 Tauren druid on Frostmourne. My playstyle is mainly solo with some grouping for quests. Most of the info i've read thus far relates to end game and raiding. Ultimately, thats where i'd like to end up but as for getting there..........

Mainly play as dps cat. Should i be building up Agi and Stam as my major concern with ArP as a secondary for these levels? When do I switch over to ArP as a major concern. Depending on that info, whatever stats I major in am i looking to gem for the other.

Ive written heaps of notes on different talent builds and pretty much have that sorted, i think....

Any info is greatly appreciated or a link to a thread already answering this either that i've missed or nead to re-read.

Wraythelord:
Forget about armor penetration, at least until you have some Ulduar gear, which will take you a while :-)
As for the other stats - if you really have to decide between those two, I would go for agi for leveling. You gain dodge, a bit of armor, more crit ( = more CPs for FB) along with AP. Though str is not bad either.

Simply put, use whatever you have, leveling really isn't about minmaxing

At level 27, Armor Penetration doesn't even exist. In fact, you probably won't see *anything* with ArP until level 80. And even then, the majority of it comes in raid gear. Your primary stat is agility. Secondary stats are stamina and strength. The switchover point to ArP will come only after you have a significant amount of raid gear.

Until you hit level 60, your primary gear pieces will be "of the Monkey" (agility/stamina), mixed with a little bit of "of the Bear" (strength/stamina) and "of the Tiger" (strength/agility). Once you get access to BC gear, you'll be looking primarily for "of the Bandit" stuff.

Do almost everything in kitty form, switching to bear only as a survival tactic. Take a mix of survival and dps talents as you level. At level 50, respec and pick up Mangle. Once you get that, everything gets *much* easier.

Hate to dredge this up, but I feel still unclear about how best to approach the hit cap. I know it's not critical to reach the cap as feral, and understand the reasons. What is the ideal target though, and how low is acceptable?

Is 1% off ideal? Is 2% off okay? Does it optimize around ArPen and/or other stats? I re-read through most of the FBN thread and didn't see it broken down in quite this way.

Personally, and this is just me, but I don't think I could stand not being hit capped. I know hit is not as valuable as other stats, but lately I have been Maiming on General, and I just couldn't afford to miss one. Same with Yoggs guardians and Dark Volley. I would say 5% would be great if you could hit it, more is better if you don't sacrifice other stats for it.

Of course it comes to personal preference, I see plenty of high ranked druids gemming for hit and expertise, and while it is not necessarily wrong it works for them. If you are raiding and miss 3 shreds in a row then go on to miss the finisher and it falls into the 20%, you'll probably say "F this" and go more into hit. Until that time just use what is on gear until it is not enough for you.

I'm multiple points off the hit cap at this point. My DPS has increased by about 500 since I stopped worrying about it.

Yes, the rotation occasionally is annoying. Yes, you'll miss a couple opportunities for a quick FB->CP->SR type of thing if you miss that first FB, and you'll just have to do SR. But having more armor pen and having better gear (like 2pT7/2pT8 or 4pT8) is worth the loss, at least for me.

I think we can break the hit/expertise question down into 4 different categories:

1. The "warm and fuzzy" issue. The tranquility and peace of mind that comes with knowing that every attack will hit and that you'll never feel the pain of missing (or being dodged).

2. The "must hit now" issue. For the situations where you absolutely must count on your next blow landing. This generally happens more with tanks than with dps, but if you are responsible for interrupts (for example), that would fall into this category.

3. The "average damage scaling" issue. How much do missed attacks affect your dps in general when averaged over a sufficiently long period of time?

4. The "second-order effects" issue. Does (for example) a missed attack screw up your standard dps sequence and cause situations where you (by not noticing the miss) let SR or Mangle or Rip or Rake fall off for an extended period of time?

My take is that #1 may have some value, but the value is not quantifiable. Generally speaking, if you are having a discussion about dps, arguments that fall into category #1 are irrelevant.

#2 is not about dps. It is about utility. Personally, I think Maim is a lousy option for interrupts. It requires combo points, requires a significant amount of energy, and severely screws up a standard dps cycle. So I don't count it as a valid concern when talking about whether or not to hit cap.

This leaves #3 and #4.

#3 is both answerable and answered. Hit/expertise are valuable. All the way up to the cap (there is no magic cliff at 1% or 2%). It's just that they are *less* valuable (point for point) than agility. How much less will depend a bit on how much of everything you have, and any sort of accurate answer to that will require a fairly complicated calculation or simulation that takes into account your current gear.

#4 is the grey area, because it differs from person to person. How good are you at both staying out of the fire and simultaneously adjusting your dps cycle to accommodate misses? Personally, I'm pretty good at it once I've done a fight successfully a number of times and my situational awareness is fully ramped up. But before I get to that point, I believe that misses hurt me more than the models say they should. For this reason, I choose to knowingly overvalue hit and expertise (and maintain them at the cap). I certainly wouldn't advocate that others do the same because they may not be as retarded as I am when learning new fights.

When I posted I was only considering this question, so thanks for helping isolate it.

I agree this optimization question is answerable, but I haven't seen it answered clearly. What I'm looking for is a diagram or equation that allows you to see the trade-offs in the variable space with respect to DPS. I'd expect an additional trade-off in reliability when undercapped.

I recently picked up an Idol of the Corruptor, and given that it has a pretty high chance to proc (85%, according to wowhead, but this has not been confirmed) I was wondering if anyone had done some work modeling it in a DPS set.

My inclination would be that it's BiS for kitties who don't have a mangle/trauma bot. 153 agility that is essentially static is a significant buff, and with no internal cool down on the trinket, you can keep it up most, if not all of the time.

Thoughts?

Idol of the corruptor has a 100% chance to proc and has no cooldown. It probably is the best idol if you're keeping up mangle. There was some discussion here.

Been reading EJ for quite a while now, was just wondering one thing about gear.
If you'd check my armory you'll see im using [Winter's Icy Embrace], what I was wondering is it worth dropping this item for the t8.5 chest. Cause that way i will lose over 80 arp, which should downgrade my dps? Also if i would do it, my unbuffed arp would be 199, then i should regem to agility again?
Or i could get the 4set bonus by gettin the gloves and shoulders, and leave the chest.

Thanks in advance

Is the 4set bonus worth dropping 80 arp? Is it that big of an upgrade?

Yes the 4T8 bonus should bring you more DPS than 80 ArP could do.

This isn't an easy thing to search for, so excuse me if it's been explained by anyone.

I may be crazy, but I'm consistently seeing an extra 3% damage on all of my Rip crits these days. Is Sanc Ret doubling up? Or perhaps not applying to non-crits? As far as I know, Rip crits should only be modified by the base Crit Multiplier, and then an additional 10% from catform. (XXX * 2 * 1.10) 3% is too low for 'Oops, I was using the Rip Idol', and the fact that it's only present on Crits is the reason I bring it up.

Some of the numbers:

2117->4796 (Should be 4657)
2619->5937 (Should be 5764)

I'm sure I'm going to feel dumb when it's answered, or if it results in a nerf as the result of a bug-fix.

You are wearing the meta gem, which increases crit-dmg by 3%.

2117 * 2 * 1,03 * 1,1 = 4797,12 (which is very close to your 4796)
2619 * 2 * 1,03 * 1,1 = 5934,65 (which is very close to your 5937)

Bah, I knew it was something dumb, disregard. Didn't WoWHead have a filter that allowed you to search the spell effects? That would've saved me some posting time.

It's kinda strange, rawr keeps saying gem'ing agility is better. But everything i read here is, after u get 200arp unbuffed its worth gem'ing arp. So should i just ignore rawr and keep geming for agility?

xpertise Cap vs lvl 80 targets: 5% (Dodge) / 5% (Parry) = 20 Expertise = 163.9 Expertise Rating
Expertise Cap vs lvl 83 targets: 6.5% (Dodge) / 14% (Parry) = 26 / 56 Expertise = 213.13 / 459.1 Expertise Rating

Armorpenetration Rating
12.316 ArP = 1% of the target's armor are ignored
Hard Cap 1231.6 ArP = 100% of the target's armor are ignored

Hit Cap vs lvl 80 targets: 5% Hit = 163.95 HitRating
Hit Cap vs lvl 83 targets: 8% Hit = 262.32 HitRating


So basically, hit cap: 8%, expertise cap: 213.3, and what about the ArP cap ?

I proposed to my guild of changing my main from a prot warr to a feral druid and now I'm searching all kinds of information.

Ignore Rawr and Gem Armor Penetration. Your gem'ing looks fine as is given your current gear levels.

Concerning Expertise Cap I will quote myself from the "The Cat DPS Guide for Dummies":


Concerning ArP, what is your question? You just wrote the ArP Cap yourself...

Have you set up a gemming template in Rawr that includes ArP gems?

Well I found the ArP cap rather high, if you want to reach the expertise cap and the hit cap and the ArP cap to maximise your dps, is it even possible?