Feral questions? - Page 5

Cluey · 11/21/08, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Dibsclaw

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.

RoboStac · 11/21/08, 10:55 AM

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.

Skydruid · 11/21/08, 11:09 AM

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.

Moof · 11/21/08, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by Cluey

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.

Spherus · 11/21/08, 12:15 PM

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?

Mysticum · 11/21/08, 12:24 PM

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?

Geshtar · 11/21/08, 1:00 PM

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).

ithecho84 · 11/21/08, 2:23 PM

Originally Posted by Cluey

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

charriu · 11/21/08, 3:45 PM

Originally Posted by Skydruid

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.

kalbear · 11/21/08, 3:48 PM

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.

Scurn · 11/21/08, 4:09 PM

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.

Rangifer · 11/21/08, 4:37 PM

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.

Mysticum · 11/21/08, 6:55 PM

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.

Beace · 11/22/08, 12:10 AM

Originally Posted by Scurn

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.

Astrylian · 11/22/08, 6:48 AM

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'.