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Old 11/21/08, 6:42 AM   2 links from elsewhere to this Post. Click to view. #51
Taudark
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Shattered Hand (EU)
Originally Posted by Artemas View Post
1) I still see some druids using 2t4 at level 80. Isn't the proc rate of the bonus at lvl 80 0% now? Can anyone confirm that the bonus does NOT work anymore at max level?

2) Besides +35 agil and Mongoose, are there better enchants avaliable at the moment for tanking? How about cat DPS?

3) I was in SW/t6 gear. I hit 80 2 days ago, and my dodge in bear is only around 35% raid buffed. Should I stack Stam > Agility, then move towards Agil > Stam after I have plenty of stam (just like early vs. late TBC raiding)?

4) I apologize if I missed this, but has anyone made a good, comprehensive "must-get" list of epic-only iLvl 200+ from heroics/raid for tanking and cat druid?

Thanks ahead of time!
1) It hasn't procced once for me at level 80. (12 hours played)
3) Not sure, but honestly I believe you will have enough stamina from just gear. With 2 lvl 80 blue items (& t6 quality items)I have 26000 health unbuffed.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 7:00 AM   #52
Stigmata
Don Flamenco
 
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Tauren Druid
 
Al'Akir (EU)
Originally Posted by Artemas View Post
3) I was in SW/t6 gear. I hit 80 2 days ago, and my dodge in bear is only around 35% raid buffed. Should I stack Stam > Agility, then move towards Agil > Stam after I have plenty of stam (just like early vs. late TBC raiding)?
I have similar concerns, my dodge last night was only at 31% in a 5 man group, I had about 35k HP though. I've not enchanted my gear with the best enchants yet, as I am constantly replacing it and trying to find a good balance.

My biggest concern is lack of dodge, as it is our only avoidance stat and witht he upcoming armor change I feel that HP has a lesser value with my current stats.

I intend to go for around 35-40k HP with 40+% dodge in the short term, I think this should be possible having had a quick glace at the available gear.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 7:19 AM   #53
 Abradix
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Abradix
Tauren Druid
 
No WoW Account (EU)
If you're talking 25man raiding, you're pretty much set once you reach 40k health buffed, which is fairly easy since buffs amount to about 10k health. The reason for this is that most breaths (Well, Malygos and Sarth with dragon(s) up) hit for around 25k, you want to survive that plus a possible hit + Parry hit, so around 40k health. You can argue that there's less chance of that happening if you stack dodge, but really, you're not going to avoid two hits in a row.

After that it's pretty much armor and dodge, and of course the armor part of that is falling away.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 7:30 AM   #54
Shrea
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Tichondrius
Okay so after the tireless grind to level 80 my guild has decided to run 25 man Naxx. I went in after just hitting 80, hadnt even trained my level 80 skills yet. I pulled 11 on the dps meters. This greatly disappooints me, but it does want to make me work harder. Currently I am in BT/Sunwell epics, with a few pieces that I picked up out of the Naxx tonight.

One of the things I was very unclear of is what the dps rotation is. From what Ive read here SR is something that should remain up at all times. And I did my best to keep it up. Weather it be a 4CP SR or a 1CP SR. Basicallly on the bosses what I was doing was:

mangle+SR+Shrea to 5CP+FB+Shrea tp 3CP+SR+Shread to 5CP+FB

Now on Thaddius I was getting 20K+ FB's. I was going off the word of another druid how had gotten number 2 on the dps meters the night before in Naxx 10. Another one of my questions is should I really be using FB as much as I am or should I still be using rip. With SR up does Rip out shine FB?

Like I stated earlier I been reading though these pages. Not that many but I took the time to try and read through most of them hoping I would catch an answer to some of my questions. And although some of the post here are very interesting, none really answered the question I was looking for. But if its here I do apologize for asking twice. I recently downloaded the undated version of RAWR, and to my surprise alot of the gem choices where upgraded to Strength instead of Agil. After reading a few post I found that because strength increase your AP it makes it over powered when using SR. However what I am curious about is, ferals have a talent that gives an extra combo point ber crit, wouldn't it be wise to stack agility gems for the added crit? Or are we going for the massive hits?

I was a kind of unclear on the the Tsokk's(sp?) calculation wiki. (Ive never been the one for numbers) But from what I can gather haste is still very bad for driuds (kitty druids that is.) Strength now outweighs agilty, and its alot easier to become hit capped. What I dont understand is what exactly are we going for? Are for going for the massive special attacks? Or are we going for the massive bleed damage attacks?

So to summarize for those that hate reading, here are the questions I was hoping to get answered. And if possible any advice would be welcome. Please don't spare my feelings because as it stands now I feel like a bad player. And that is the last thing in the world I would like. So here are the questions:

1) What is the DPS rotation for a feral kitty in my gear?
2) Another one of my questions is should I really be using FB as much as I am or should I still be using rip. With SR up does Rip out shine FB?
3) Wouldn't it be wise to stack agility gems for the added crit? Or are we going for the massive hits?
4) Are for going for the massive special attacks? Or are we going for the massive bleed damage attacks?

(On a side note this is mainly about cat specs. Tanking Im fine. I kick butt like I believe every feral druid does. Im just curious about the dps side of things)
 
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Old 11/21/08, 8:00 AM   #55
david0925
Don Flamenco
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Thaurissan
There is NO rotation involved with cat DPS, priority is as follows
1.Keep Savage Roar up
2.Keep Mangle Up
3.Keep Rake up
4.Keep rip up

Otherwise just shred.

2.With the glyph of Rip, rip does more damage per energy than FB even with FB at 100% crite rate. However, FB can be used if you generate combo points too quickly via Primal Fury.
3.Expertise> Hit > Strength > Agility, I am not sure about haste and armor pen
4.Bleed IS special damage, and yes, feral druid's damage is still going to be a lot of yellow.

Maniq is my hero
 
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Old 11/21/08, 8:21 AM   #56
Shrea
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Tichondrius
edit...nevermind question was answered.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 10:20 AM   #57
Mysticum
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Twilight's Hammer (EU)
As previously stated, forgetting both Rake and Rip is going to hurt your dps a lot, even more so when you get the 2-piece bonus from T7.


From one thing to another, does anyone have a working shapeshifting macro? I always use shapeshifting macros, like the following:

#showtooltip
#show Cat Form
/cancelform [stance:5]
/cast !Cat Form

This allows me to reshapeshift on the same button, which really is more of a PvP habit. However, I want to switch weapons with stance dancing. Armor/dodge weapon for bear form, dps weapon for cat, and for caster form (also have a macro for caster form) a spell power weapon for off-heal situations.

The macro I used to have is:

#showtooltip
#show Cat Form
/cancelform [stance:5]
/cast !Cat Form
/equip [nostance] Staff of Trickery

This has always been working for me, but not anymore. It sure does shapeshift into cat with the equiped weapon, but my feral AP isn't right. Instead of 6065 AP which is the correct value, it shows 5659, which is much lower. Reshapeshifting one more time shows the right AP again. Quite a huge benefit as you can see. Why is that?

The problem seems to be that I change weapon after shapeshifting, which really is the key to the problem, since I can't switch weapon before shapeshifting if I want it during the same GCD while in combat. My guess is that it's a bug, since switching weapon during cat form doesn't show the correct AP at any time.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 10:40 AM   #58
 Cluey
Danger: Genius at work
 
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Night Elf Druid
 
Dragonblight
Originally Posted by Shrea View Post
mangle+SR+Shrea to 5CP+FB+Shrea tp 3CP+SR+Shread to 5CP+FB
You need to read more, both the information here and tooltips too, Shred. Shred damage isn't increased by Mangle anymore but by bleeds.
Edit. As was pointed out below I should have linked the Mangle tooltip as it no longer mentions Shred on it.
In a 25 man raid chances are there was a bleed up but if there wasn't you were missing out on bonus Shred damage.
You need to know if there is an Arms warrior in the raid with Trauma, if there is you shouldn't need to worry about Mangle otherwise you need to keep it up.
Given that around 60% of a cats damage comes from attacks using Energy missing a point in Ferocity seems a pretty bad choice to me.

Many of the questions you and others have asked recently have already been answered.
Every time someone can't be bothered searching and just asks the answered questions, because it is easier for them, it makes the threads longer leading to more people not looking for the answers.
The problem becomes worse every time this happens.

So could everyone asking dumb questions please put some effort in to finding their answers and not perpetuating the problem?

Originally Posted by Mysticum View Post
The problem seems to be that I change weapon after shapeshifting, which really is the key to the problem, since I can't switch weapon before shapeshifting if I want it during the same GCD while in combat. My guess is that it's a bug, since switching weapon during cat form doesn't show the correct AP at any time.
This has been a bug in the past so I am guessing it has come back again.

As for weapon switching I have been using a mod to do that for a long time, so long I feel lost without it.
StanceSets V3.1 Fan Update - Addons - Curse
Having linked that up I am using a slightly older version as the latest doesn't quite do what I am used to.

In the normal key bindings menu there will be bindings for this, I have a button set to "equip next set" and then setup the weapons and idols for the set I want in that form.
There is a tick box called "Equip first on activate", if you have that checked when you shift to that form it will equip that set.
Default is caster form, I don't have it set for that otherwise you will always end up in a GCD when you shift out in combat.

There are more bindings available but I haven't found the need for them, the original version of the mod I got used to didn't have them.
With this setup the same button will always equip the weapons you have configured for that form, you can set up to three different weapon sets per form/stance and it will rotate through them. I currently only have one for each but I did use multiple sets for things like tanking Brutallus and Twins, one would be a threat weapon and the other an AC one, just press the next set binding and it will swap between them.

The aspect of this I like is that it is always the same button, you don't have to think "which button equips the weapon I want for cat/bear/healer?"
I just looked and I am using Version 2.2 which is a few versions out of date, I did try 3.0.2 but something has changed and it doesn't do what I expect it to, the comments indicate others have noticed this too.

For shapeshifting I use Druid Bar - Addons - Curse
I could write macro's to do what Easy Shifting does but this saves macro space, it will also show you your mana in forms if you don't have a unit frame which does this already.
Having said that I don't use macro's to change form like you describe, if I want to go from cat to cat I press my button twice. There is the option of modifying the macro the mod is using though so you might be able to take advantage of the other features offered.
There is a fancy binding to chose the best form for moving quickly based of your current circumstances.
If you are in combat it will put you in Travel Form.
Not in combat and in the old world? The mount you specify.
Not in combat but moving in the old world? Travel form again.
In Outland or Northrend*? Flight Form.

* Until you have got to level 77 and trained cold weather flying it currently gets confused.

Last edited by Cluey : 11/21/08 at 11:12 AM. Reason: Replied to Mysticum, added Mangle tooltip.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 10:44 AM   #59
Dibsclaw
Glass Joe
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Turalyon (EU)
Originally Posted by Cluey View Post
You need to read more, both the information here and tooltips too, Shred. Shred damage isn't increased by Mangle anymore but by bleeds.
I think you may need to re-read those tooltips yourself:
"Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Shred damage."
E.g. Mangle and Trauma.

Edit: You may be mixing it up with Rend & Tear, which inscreses the damage of Maul and Shred on bleeding targets, and the crit chance of FB on bleeding targets.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 10:50 AM   #60
Wednesday
Tweedy Impertinence
 
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Draenei Shaman
 
Draka
Originally Posted by Mysticum View Post
#showtooltip
#show Cat Form
/cancelform [stance:5]
/cast !Cat Form
/equip [nostance] Staff of Trickery
Maybe I'm missing something, but why do you have shapeshifting on the same macro you use to switch weapons?
 
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Old 11/21/08, 11:10 AM   #61
 Cluey
Danger: Genius at work
 
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Night Elf Druid
 
Dragonblight
Originally Posted by Dibsclaw View Post
I think you may need to re-read those tooltips yourself:
"Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Shred damage."
E.g. Mangle and Trauma.

Edit: You may be mixing it up with Rend & Tear, which inscreses the damage of Maul and Shred on bleeding targets, and the crit chance of FB on bleeding targets.
Fair point, I should have linked Mangle as it no longer mentions Shred damage.
Either way the point still stands, don't Mangle > Shred anymore, Rake > Shred for the old effect although to increase the damage from Rake's bleed you will need a Mangle in there too.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 11:55 AM   #62
 RoboStac
Don Flamenco
 
Tauren Druid
 
<XW>
Neptulon (EU)
Your still missing the point. Shred damage is increased by effects that increase bleed damage, not by bleeds themselves. This means only mangle and trauma increase the shred damage.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 12:09 PM   #63
Skydruid
Glass Joe
 
Tauren Druid
 
Turalyon (EU)
I really like the post post that has been done on feral tank gear: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t36963-f...aid_tank_gear/

Any chance any1 has come across a similar one for feral cat or mind posting what you found out.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 12:43 PM   #64
Moof
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Chamber of Aspects (EU)
Originally Posted by Cluey View Post
Fair point, I should have linked Mangle as it no longer mentions Shred damage.
Either way the point still stands, don't Mangle > Shred anymore, Rake > Shred for the old effect although to increase the damage from Rake's bleed you will need a Mangle in there too.
This is completely wrong. If you actually read the tooltip for Shred properly, you will see mangle (and Trauma) will increase its damage.

Assuming 5/5 Rend and Tear, any bleed effect will also increase shred's damage.

So if you want to maximise Shred damage, you will still want both Mangle AND Rake on the target.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 1:15 PM   #65
Spherus
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Gorefiend
Austere Earthsiege Diamond

I remember this being brought up before, but searching around I don't see anyone posting a definitive answer.

How is the bonus from [Austere Earthsiege Diamond] applied to feral (bear) armor? Additively to the Thick Hide (and upcoming SotF) and then multiplied into the 370% bear form?
 
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Old 11/21/08, 1:24 PM   #66
Mysticum
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Twilight's Hammer (EU)
Cluey; Thanks for your add-on tips, but I am happy with my macros as they are, knowing it's a bug reducing the AP, and not my macro. Very annoying, and it disturbs my raiding flow a great deal.

Shred damage IS increased by Mangle, as stated of many. My opening rotation on bosses, which I think is close to optimal, is Rake + Mangle + Shred -> SR. Initial damage for Rake is not increased by Mangle, why it's the opener. Mangle then apply and increases the first Rake bleed dot, and the next Shred damage is increased as well. On bosses you might want to have 5 combo points before SR. Then keep Rake/Mangle/SR up and use Rip. If Rip has a long duration left when you have 5 combo points, make sure Rake is up, and FB. Otherwise, wait for Rip to expire and reapply.

Wednesday: I want it in the same macro so I equip my dps weapon when in cat form. When I shapeshift out of cat I equip my spell power weapon so I always have the best weapon for the situation. Got it?
 
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Old 11/21/08, 2:00 PM   #67
Geshtar
Glass Joe
 
Tauren Druid
 
Area 52
My guild has cleared all of the 25 man and 10 man content now and as a feral cat druid I have been either top dps or within the top 3 dps on every fight. And that includes having to innervate the healers and brez and offtank occaisionally.

There is no rotation per-se, but as others have suggested keeping sr, mangle, and rake up at all times is a priority. Also, you want to be using tiger's fury every time it refreshes and berzerk as well. We've had a trauma warrior for some of the content, that makes our lives much easier, but is not hugely necessary.

My opening in any fight is without trauma warrior: mangle, rake, sr, tigers fury, berzerk, spam shred to 5 cps, rip, spam shred to 5 cps, SR, spam shred/keep up rake/mangle until berzerk is out. Then just proceed to keep up SR, rake, mangle and rip, shred when i have energy and tiger's fury whenever the cooldown is up.

With trauma warrior just remove mangle from the rotation.

As far as glyphs go for DPS I am using rip and maul, and will be using mangle once someone on the server can craft it. Maul is great, since for trash going bear form, mauling and swiping will do more dps than single target cat if there are a lot of targets (which there almost always are in Naxx).
 
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Old 11/21/08, 3:23 PM   #68
ithecho84
10bux
 
Tauren Druid
 
Maelstrom
Originally Posted by Cluey View Post
Fair point, I should have linked Mangle as it no longer mentions Shred damage.
Either way the point still stands, don't Mangle > Shred anymore, Rake > Shred for the old effect although to increase the damage from Rake's bleed you will need a Mangle in there too.
You've got it all wrong.
You need Mangle or Trauma to increase shred damage. So, Mangle > Shred if you're without an arms warrior.

Edit-I like to repeat things many people have said
 
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Old 11/21/08, 4:45 PM   2 links from elsewhere to this Post. Click to view. #69
charriu
Piston Honda
 
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Night Elf Druid
 
Die Todeskrallen (EU)
Originally Posted by Skydruid View Post
Any chance any1 has come across a similar one for feral cat or mind posting what you found out.
There are some nice items...

[Staff of Trickery] (Violet Hold HC)
[Sharp-Barbed Leather Belt] (Utgarde Keep HC)
[Hemorrhaging Circle] (Gundrak HC)
[Gilt-Edged Leather Gauntlets] (Utgarde Pinnacle HC)

And, after running heroics for the above, you should have enough [Emblem of Heroism] to buy [Mirror of Truth] (40).

There are some blues as well, but I don't have enough time to list them all right now.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 4:48 PM   #70
kalbear
Great Tiger
 
Tauren Druid
 
Balnazzar
I really like the post post that has been done on feral tank gear: Feral pre-raid tank gear

Any chance any1 has come across a similar one for feral cat or mind posting what you found out.
I did a list of various drops, quest items and rep items for cat along with rankings for them. It's not necessarily perfect and it values hit/expertise quite a bit, but it should be a good starting point. It can be found here:

Cat item list for 3.02 pre-naxx.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 5:09 PM   #71
Scurn
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Darkspear
I was running Halls of Lightning on heroic and I was crit repeatedly by some of the trash. It was only a specific mob Unbound Firestorm but I was so surprised that I stopped the group for a second to double check. SCT, Demon and the combat log all agreed that he had melee crit me several times. It also happened across several different pulls. I was wondering if anyone else has seen this happen. I have 3/3 SotF and was wearing about 150 resilience so should have had ~7.5% crit reduction. The only thing I can think of is some sort of weird bug with them also casting the new shaman spell Lava Burst.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 5:37 PM   #72
Rangifer
Glass Joe
 
Tauren Druid
 
Sen'jin
Scurn:
If you look at the Wowhead page for Unbound Firestorm, you'll see they have an ability called Afterburn, that gives them +50% melee crit.
 
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Old 11/21/08, 7:55 PM   #73
Mysticum
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Twilight's Hammer (EU)
Geshtar: Interesting reading, thanks a lot. One question though. We have the very same spec now, even though I'm gonna skip Primal Precision once I'm capped with hit/expertise. But my concerns are about 0 points in Feral Instincts. Is it worth going bear form to Maul/Swipe on trash mobs in hc/Naxx even without any points in Feral Instincts?

Your rotation seems much better than mine since it makes sense to have the first SR expiring about the time you have built up the 5 combo points after Rip.
 
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Old 11/22/08, 1:10 AM   #74
Beace
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Vek'nilash (EU)
Originally Posted by Scurn View Post
I was running Halls of Lightning on heroic and I was crit repeatedly by some of the trash. It was only a specific mob Unbound Firestorm but I was so surprised that I stopped the group for a second to double check. SCT, Demon and the combat log all agreed that he had melee crit me several times. It also happened across several different pulls. I was wondering if anyone else has seen this happen. I have 3/3 SotF and was wearing about 150 resilience so should have had ~7.5% crit reduction. The only thing I can think of is some sort of weird bug with them also casting the new shaman spell Lava Burst.
Ahh... so this is why these packs hurt so bad sometimes. I've noticed that at start when I charge in, the damage is nothing special. But then suddenly I take sick burst dmg, which indeed would be explained by crists.
 
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Old 11/22/08, 7:48 AM   #75
 Astrylian
Rawr
 
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Night Elf Druid
 
Suramar
So is this the new thread where I should post about updates to Rawr? Or perhaps we need a thread here for Rawr.Cat and Rawr.Bear? Or even one for each?

Download - Rawr - Release: Rawr 2.1.1

Recent Changes:
v2.1.1: Improved calculations for level 80 combat for several models (Cat, Bear, HolyPriest, ShadowPriest, Mage, Moonkin, Tree, Healadin). Added Leatherworking and Inscription self-enchants. Fixed some bugs with mass gem replacement and the optimizer.
v2.1: Updated for level 80 content. Removed models which haven't yet been updated for WoW 3.0. Added two brand new models: Enhance and DPSDK! Welcome to Rawr, Enhancement Shamans and DPS Death Knights!



P.S. Regarding those Unbound Firestorms in Halls of Lightning: pay attention to their buffs. They cast a buff on themselves that increases their melee crit chance by 50%. It's a dispellable Magic effect, 'Afterburn'.

Rawr - A theorycrafting tool for Bears, Cats, Moonkin, Trees, Healadins, DPSWarrs, Retadins, Mages, ProtWarrs, Tankadins, HealingPriests, ShadowPriests, Warlocks, Rogues, EnhShams, Hunters, Elementals, RestoShams, Tank DKs, and DPS DKs!
Download Rawr v2.2.27 <--NEW Nov9th!

Are you an active Rogue / Hunter / Warlock theorycrafter and an experienced C# dev, with some spare time and a desire to help build something great for the WoW community? Send me a PM!
 
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