Kazanir

I'm assuming the following talent build, which should maximize DPS in a raid setting. I'm assuming that an arms warrior or bear tank is not available, and thus that Mangle is necessary and by extension, Improved Mangle worthwhile.

Build: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Obviously this isn't a hybrid build viable for tanking. A typical tank build would drop Feral Aggression and probably Master Shapeshifter in exchange for Feral Instinct, Thick Hide, and Protector of the Pack at a minimum.

As I understand it, the best DPS rotation for a cat with this spec is determined by a priority chain of ability use that works like this:

1. Keep up Rake
2. Keep up Mangle
3. If both are up, Shred for combo points
4. Use Tiger's Fury at 25 energy or less
5. Use OoC procs to Shred over a Rip/FB
6. Use only 5-CP finishers
7. Keep up Savage Roar
8. Keep up Rip
9. If Rip and SR are up and Rip has more than 4-5 seconds left, FB
10. Berserk on cooldown, ideally when at 80-90 energy with TF up

Is this approximately accurate? Is Mangle worth using over Shred with Imp. Mangle? With Imp. Mangle and 2pc Tier 6 (for a 29-energy Mangle)? Where do we go from here?

The cycle I've been settling into is basically to keep Mangle and Rake up and rotate 5-CP SR, Rip, and FB finishers. This is putting me in the top 5 of the DPS charts when I'm in full DPS gear and don't have to offtank anything during the fight. The cycle is a little tight and seems like it would be much smoother if I had somewhat more crit for extra CP generation. Any thoughts?

I figure we can use this thread for discussion and analysis of the cycle and optimization on the current models and simulators. Go nuts!

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

Mowen

What I have been doing is opening with mangle then rake for 2 combo points and busting savage roar.
Then I can usually shred once and then TF for 60 energy and shred 2 or 3 times depending on procs. If I have been lucky I usually have mangle and rake still up with Savage roar and have 5 combo points. I don't know the exact figures but I have been using ferocious bite more and more (since it will almost always crit with nice gear and bleeding target) maybe because I like to see a big 10k+ number pop up.
My own *basic* tests have show me that a FB crit is worth about the same level of DPS as a rip, but Im sure someone will tell me otherwise with evidence to back them up. :P
After that using mangle, rake to refresh them and then shredding every opertunity, TF when it is up to keep the shreds coming.
I have found that 2 point SR is more than enough to have the buff up long enough, so the mangle, rake, SR combo has been working well with me.

 

DWeidman

Are you talking about the non-glyphed rip or the glyphed rip?

I assume (can someone verify?) that nothing scales as well as the glyphed rip assuming the mob lives long enough to see the two extra ticks...

 

Starlight

The rotation I have been doing on fights like Patchwerk where there's not alot of movement are as follows:

Mangle
Rake
Shred to 5cp
Savage Roar
Mangle
Rake(if down)
Shred to 5cp
Rip
Mangle
Rake(if down)
Shred to 5cp
Ferocious Bite
/repeat

Remember to use the Tigers Fury cooldown every time its up and when under 40 energy so none is wasted. Berserk is something I personally save for bosses and pop usually after I do the 5p Savage Roar. On trash I find its wasted half the time because it dies so fast.

Now this rotation is EXTREMELY hard to get off if there's alot of moving and if you have low crit percentage Which if your still sporting alot of lvl 70 gear you'll find its hard. Also with the low amount of hit on everything you'll have a miss percentage which takes a little toll. With this rotation I do about 3800dps usually top of the meters next to hunters. If there's alot of moving you'll find a 2p Savage Roar 5p Rip rotation alot easier.

The Glyphs I use at the moment are Rip, Frenzied Regeneration, and Rebirth. Mangle hasn't been found on my server yet so I make do with those at the moment.

 

Melange

I have not tested it out yet, but I am planning a mangle build allows for enough points to be moved around for very good tanking. Rawr gives me good numbers for it, and even when I give myself full talents for a normal cat build it still gives me more DPS using mangle instead of shred. And more DPS using 2T6 than any other items. As I recall the bracers were very good and would be worn with the belt or boots, depending on which you found better of. (Rawr 2.1.2 is giving me 5277 DPS with the mangle rotation and 2T6 with everything else maxed out. It gives me 5256 with a shred rotation if I remove my T6 for the best alternative gear. Since that is with the best gear in the game)

This will be my build: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

My rotation will likely be something very similar to what everyone else is doing, but using only mangle and rake for CP. I'm not sure how people are able to get a 5pt FB in before Rip drops, particularly with a Shred build. Obviously I'll be doing it when I pop Berserk, but I don't see it as being worth it for a normal rotation. I think it will mean too much downtime on rip. The way the timing works on rip and FB, I'm hoping for my energy to be fast enough to do this:

Mangle and Rake (when down) to 5cp
Savage Roar (34s)
Tiger's Fury
Mangle and Rake (when down) to 5cp
Rip (15s)
Mangle and Rake (when down) to 5cp
Wait a bit.
Rip (15s)
Repeat

I'm expecting not to have the energy to do that, and to use more of a flexible rotation; sometimes getting 2 rips between FB and sometimes not.
Basically I'm expecting to be doing something like this:

The rotation:
Mangle and Rake (when down) to 5cp
Savage Roar (34s)
Mangle and Rake (when down) to 5cp
Rip (15s)
Mangle and Rake (when down) to 5cp
Rip (15s)
Mangle and Rake (when down) to 2cp (or as many as possible)
Savage Roar (19)
Mangle and Rake (when down) to 5cp
Wait a bit
Rip (15s)
Repeat

The big problem with this is that Tigers fury is being used every other rip, which puts it in a different spot in the rotation every time, since there are 3 rips in the rotation. I'd really prefer for it to be before or after the main Savage Roar rotation.

 

Nospamas

I don't feel I have a great deal to add on the subject bar my experience however I also don't believe this thread needs to start again on first principles as very little has changed since a great deal of calculation was done by nightcrowler, tangedyn, Mijae and others in the Feral talent WOTLK preview thread. So I'll bring forth some of their conclusions:

This post by tangedyn outlined the two possible cycles to use at 80. First is a mangle only rotation which is made competetive by the 2t6 bonus (mangle energy cost reduction). Second is a standard Shred build priority. I've made a slight modification from my own experience to include FB in the rotation. Combo point generation is such that rip uptime is much longer than the time it takes (generally) to get 5 CP.

Roar/Rip/Rake/MangleSpam strategy
1. If Savage Roar is down and CP > 0, perform Savage Roar
2. If CP = 5 and Rip time > ~7 seconds, perform Ferocious Bite
3. If CP = 5, perform Rip
4. If Rake is down, perform Rake
5. Mangle

Roar/Rip/Rake/Mangle/Shred
1. If Savage Roar is down and CP > 0, perform Savage Roar
2. If CP = 5 and Rip time > ~7 seconds, perform Ferocious Bite
3. If CP = 5, perform Rip
4. If Rake is down, perform Rake
5. If Mangle is down, perform Mangle
6. Shred

7 seconds seem to be a decent general rule for rip uptime, I believe it was also discussed in the thread, but I cannot find it at the current time. To give reason to these priorities; SR is such a massive boost and gains little from extra combo points that it should be used as a priority whenever it drops off, Rip is the finisher of choice for early game but doesn't scale quite as well as FB so this may change, FB should be used when rip has several ticks remaining as you either waste ticks on rip or energy waiting for it to time out, Rake is the highest DPE move we have at the current time and shred/mangle are standard CP generators. The random nature of CP generation and OOC procs make feral cycles almost impossible to plan in advance to this end no *set* rotation can qualify as the highest possible DPS.

Following the page linked above much more discussion of calculation was given (which I'm sure you can read through ) along with simulators built by nightcrowler and tangedyn. From these simulators a simple flash visualisation was created along with automation for cycles outlined in those posts. It can be found here. All credit for this goes to summlan who first put it forward in this post. (Underlined to draw attention to this really handy tool)

Finally, to add my own experiences. Firstly it is almost impossible to reach peak dps due to the complexity of the (de)buffs we have to maintain and control. On fights where any movement is involved this can be reduced considerably and I don't think set cycles would help that, particularly with regard to SR uptime. I have found the mangle spam strategy to be highly competetive with other classes as a hybrid tank build which includes king of the jungle but not predatory instincts. The mangle spam strategy also reduces the level of complexity which helps a great deal on fights with movement.

Thankyou to those who contributed in both this and the preview thread, I'm amazed they haven't chipped in yet - but I'm sure they will .

 

Rachеlew

Guys as a newb cat who previously only played casters, I am completely lost here. In case someone bothers to answer:

1) Is "Claw" obsolete? (just don't recall obsolete spells as a caster)
2) Mangle vs Shred, which one to spam
3) Scaling of our abilities in general, what scales with what, where can I find the forumlas?

I am not looking for simple "use Mangle" answers, but rather "use Mangle because..." kind of answers.
I am suprise so many players trust "simulators", maybe I missed something, but how does one ensure, that results of a sim are correct?

Thank you in advance

 

Celeras

You got it mostly right(though #1 would be keeping savage roar up imo), but I disagree with this, especially during berserk. Sure, there are times when you're going to hit 5CP with under 35 energy and a good timer on Rip/SR... but in most cases its going to be due to Berserk/Tigers Fury/OOC. In these situations, where your energy is most likely at 50+, I find it best to just waste the CP and shred/rake/mangle(depending on whats needed) at 5.

This could just be my pre-LK habits talking, but I can't stand dropping to zero energy. I'll only FB with good timers on both rip/SR, when I can watch my energy regen to exactly 35 and mash it so I don't feel like I'm losing so much.

 

Druïd

1) As far as I'm concerned, Claw is definitely obsolete. It's damage just isn't high enough compared to it's energy cost to make it worthwile.

2) Use Mangle whenever it's down. Basically as long as you have Mangle up you should use Shred for further CP generation and just as important, dealing damage. Shred should also be used on every OoC proc.

3) The scaling of our cat skills seems to be fairly good at the moment, as nearly all skills we use are percentage-based or have an AP modifier. I can't give any useful information about the formulas really, of course certain skills scale extremely well with eachother, SR with Rip, etc.

 

Rachеlew

2Druid
2) So debuff from mangle works on bosses I guess? (do you use addon's to help you spot OoC etc?) But why Shred and not Mangle? Is "improved mangle" only for tanks then?
3) Fair enough. it's kind of depressing, that I have to dig forums around the world to get rather basic questions answered.

 

Rannasha

2) When fully specced for it, Shred is better damage-per-energy, hence a better spam-ability. The Mangle-debuff is essential though (except when an Arms Warrior is around to apply Trauma).

3) WoWhead has the information you seek. For example, Rip - Spell - World of Warcraft

You check the math that the sim works with. Most sims/modelling tools are open-source, so you can see if you agree with them. Additionally, some napkin-math can be used to see if the sim gives results that are at least somewhat similar.

 

Druïd

2) Yes Mangle works on basically all mobs including bosses, but as Rannasha mentioned already you should be spamming Shred since it has a higher Damage per Energy than Mangle. Especially since Shred's damage is also increased by the Mangle debuff. And Improved Mangle definitely is not for Feral tanks only. Since it reduces the energy cost quite a lot it's a huge increase regarding Damage per Energy, and especially since you won't always have an arms warrior around you will have to apply the Mangle debuff yourself all the time.

As for OoC I'm not using an AddOn to keep track of it's procs. At this moment I'm using the standard Blizzard Combat Text and it's working perfectly fine. It shows when OoC procs so I don't have to watch it myself. I used to have MSCT and I used Parrot as well but it was filling my screen up with too much information I didn't have a need for.

3) Already answered by Rannasha

 

Rachеlew

So Shred - Spell - World of Warcraft doesn't scale with AP at all?

P.S.
WH has it for some, thanks for the tip, but not for all abilities, for example:
Swipe - Spell - World of Warcraft

 

Druïd

Shred indirectly does scale with AP, since Shred does a percentage-based amount of damage based on your normal white damage, and white damage increases when your AP get's higher, thus increasing Shred damage as well.

 

• Polynices

Even without 2T6, if you have full Improved Mangle (because you tend to tank) Rawr shows all-mangle/no-shred attack priority beating one using shred -- because Mangle is so cheap with this sort of build. So use Rawr and look at the recommended attacks.

We also need to stop using the word rotation -- there is no feral cat rotation now, it's simply a priority list of buffs/debuffs to keep up and attacks to use in between to build combo points.

 

Nospamas

I'd just like to clarify this for those who haven't been around in a while that this wasn't the case in the past but mangle was buffed in the beta, changes which came live, from around 150% weapon damage to 200% weapon damage. This puts it very close to shreds 225% weapon damage but does not include the mangle debuff which increases shred damage by 30%.

As for a little bit of "napkin" maths on the subject:

Shred 225% weapon damage + 742 bonus for 60 energy base (42 Shredding attacks) with a possible 30% bonus from mangle and an additional 20% on bleeding targets with rend and tear.

Mangle 200% weapon damage + 634 bonus for 45 energy base (40 with ferocity, 34 with imp mangle and 29 with 2t6) with an addition all 20% bonus damage with savage fury.

Taking a base cat weapon hit of 500 (easily obtainable at level 80, even before savage roar is up): (DPE = damage per energy)

42 Energy shred with full bonuses hits for ((500 * 2.25) + 742) * 1.3 * 1.2 = 2912 giving 69.3 DPE
60 Energy shred with full bonuses hits for ((500 * 2.25) + 742) * 1.3 * 1.2 = 2912 giving 48.5 DPE

29 Energy mangle with full bonuses hits for ((500 * 2) + 634) * 1.2 = 1960 giving 67.6 DPE
35 Energy mangle (no 2t6) hits for ((500 * 2) + 634) * 1.2 = 1960 giving 56 DPE
40 Energy mangle (no imp mangle) hits for ((500 * 2 ) + 634) * 1.2 = 1960 giving 49 DPE

DPE varies alot on what bonuses are available for each attack, one could go further and take away all talent bonuses but just manipulating the energy cost reductions one can see that mangle is highly competetive given its low energy cost. This low energy costs also means more attacks per energy resulting in more combo points and more finishers - this is generally beyond napkin math and where the simulators come in!. Shred having the highest damage with the bonuses should probably still be used while clearcasting is up for real optimization. At the end of the day it comes down to talent choices, which bonuses are available to each attack, determining which one should be used as a CP generator.

My current "hybrid" build can be found here. I use mangle spam with 2t6 when dpsing in cat form. I also realise that it isn't optimized, there are a couple of changes that could be made for extra dps (predatory strikes > rend and tear)

Finally feel free to poke me if my maths are wrong, its easy to make mistakes .

 

Nospamas

edit: Accidental double post

 

sigurr0s

What is the optimal use of energy during Berserk? When I find myself sitting with 5cp rip and 5cp SR, what should I do with the excess energy? FB seems like a waste during berserk. Should I just keep shredding until I need to use combo points? If I use 2T6 and imp mangle for combo points, should I shred or mangle while berserked?

 

Kazanir

As pointed out, as long as you have Shredding Attacks, the DPE of Shred is better than even 2T6/Imp Mangle and you should use Shred in all cases -- Berserk doesn't change the relative DPE values, only doubles them.

I think the correct answer is that you'll be able to Shred several extra times, and then reapply Rake and Mangle somewhere in there and hit FB if you can get your energy down to 18, probably right as Berserk ends, setting you up to TF again soon and start a fresh rotation.

I obviously agree that using extra energy on FB is bad and should be avoided through good timing or (under Berserk) extra Shreds.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

ErrantSpark

TL;DR Version: If you have 2pt6 use mangle to generate combo points, use Rawr to figure out when to replace it and start using Shred.

Shred vs. Mangle is largely dependent on your gear. It's really hard to come up with concrete numbers regarding combo point generation, but I would definitely use Mangle until you have a decent amount of crit at 80, especially if you have the 2pt6 bonus as the better combo point generation (42/29= ~1.44 times better) will allow you to keep up a much more steady cycle. Shred however scales better with AP.

If you gain 12.727 (14 / 1.1) attack power you gain one point of damage and since kitty swings at 1.00/second that would result in a gain of one point for our base damage.

Shred = ((501 * 2.25) + 742) * 1.3 * 1.2 = 2916.03 Damage
Mangle = ((501 * 2) + 634) * 1.2 = 1963.2 Damage

So as you can see 12.727 AP increases Shred damage by 3.51 (2916.03 - 2912.52 = 3.51) and Mangle damage by 2.4 (1963.2 - 1960.8 = 2.4) so one would assume that there is going to be a point at which it becomes better to use Shred in your DPS rotation as your main CP generation ability.

The issue is that the rate at which the DPE per AP increases assuming talented shred and 2pt6 is fairly similar for both skills. Shred = 3.51/42 = 0.08357 DPE/(1dps or 12.727 AP) while Mangle = 2.4/29 = 0.08276 DPE/(1dps or 12.727 AP) so the amount of AP needed to get Shred to be an additional 1 DPE better than Mangle is A LOT. Specifically (1 / (0.08357 - 0.08276)) * 12.72700 = 15712 AP. So basically, as long as you don't have gear that's better than 2pt6 you wanna use mangle to generate combo points.

P.S. If you have 5/5 Rend and Tear always use shred on OoC procs.

EDIT:
While the DPE of Shred is always greater the combo point generation is always worse (excluding not taking any talents that decrease the energy cost at mangle and taking 2/2 shredding attacks) thus making the decision between Shred and Mangle much more complex. However, while berserking I would definitely use Shred over Mangle provided that you have 2/2 shredding attacks.

 

Nospamas

Thanks for your numbers ErrantSpark. Took me a while to follow but they do seem to be correct.

We must be careful how we talk about AP due to the amount of bonuses we get to it. I assume the 1.1 you quoted in your initial conversion comes from the naturalist talent.

Seems reasonable, and your assertion seems to be correct as long as you have all the relevant mangle talents including imp mangle. It is worth noting also that these values do use a full kitty spec with all the relevant talents. If you are missing shredding attacks (as I am), mangle is always better.

To clarify something to make sure no mistakes are made about this, the bonus damage values used in my calculations are taken from the base spells on wowhead. There is no change to the ingame tooltip for shred because it relies on debuffs for its multipliers. Mangles tooltip shows different values (240% + 761) because the savage fury talent is always active and the UI updates the tooltip to reflect the bonus damage, this is the same as the base spell multiplied by 1.2.

One final thing to say having had a bit of fun in naxx tonight doing a bit of dps. I do not have shredding attacks so I was beserking and spamming mangle, a fun experience because our one second global cooldown results in 10 energy after a move that only costs 15 at a time! Huge combo point generation to say the least .

 

fr0d0b0ls0n

If the 1.2 is from Rend and Tear, why is Mangle also multiplied by 1.2?

If not, where is RnT?

 

Kruthal

From this post, around 4 posts up from the one you quoted (emphasis mine):

 

ErrantSpark

Fun stuff for sure. Although if you just spam mangle you end berserk with like 25 energy left over. : (

Yup, I was talking about how the AP displayed in your character sheet affected your DPS, therefore I didn't have to consider any of the multipliers AP from items/stats has to go through. Sorry my post was so hard to follow, first time posting here. : )

 

Celeras

You don't want to FB in the middle of a berserk and leave yourself with no energy.
You don't want to do nothing in the middle of a berserk and waste the cooldown.

Therefore, it would seem fairly obvious that you keep all the required things in your rotation active, and shred until you either: need to use the combo points for your rotation, or FB at the end of your berserk.