Dear god yes, I have pretty reasonable gear afik. pulling 12k AP(SR up) in Raid. We run Naxx25 weekly but my DPS is just attrocious. I can't seem to get past 2k DPS. I Don't know if its the insanely complicated rotations combined with having to move around on most fights or im just retarded but im just finding DPSing extraordinarily difficult. Even on Dummies in having trouble passing 2200DPS. The thing is even with perfect execution of a dps rotation my damage is still falling wowfully short of desirable considering my gear level.

I don't even think im asking a question here, jus feeling totaly depressed out how hard it is to generate significant damage. You hear about people doing 4k+ on Patchwerk but I just don't know how they do this.

What are your other stats like hit, crit, etc?

Was just thinking about to make a post about this topic in this thread. I see it is already here.
One remark first: Your dps on target dummies will by far not be as high as in a raid. Wanna get some real values, group with a fury warrior, forget about mangle (let him keep those buffs and debuffs up) and see your dps increase with about 25% or more. On hit you might like a balance druid to join your group.

But indeed. I find it very difficult to do dps.
I don't get to practice much since I am usually tanking.
I need double gear. Lots of items in my dps gear is only 75% of the best item available, simply because it is (or close to) the best tanking item available. Other classes got their best dps gear and it should be no wonder I slack behind on dps.
My current dps gear has only 40 hit and way overcapped expertise (I know I need to improve this). Just to show you dps gear drags behind when you also tank.

More on topic, cat DPS is very complex. Having played a few other classes (not in raid though) it is much more complicated. Which in my case often results in SR running out and not noticing (anyone got a good mod for that with flashing screen or something!?).
There is no real rotation, just priority list. That priority list is really difficult to keep active. Just too many variables.
Energy left, CD on Tigers Fury, CD on Berserking, time left on SR, time left on Rip, time left on Rake (in some cases Mangle), when to do Ferocious bite because you have too much energy, but not loosing energy... Then if you think you know what to do next you get 2 OoC procs and you find yourself with too much energy needing to rethink your whole situation again.
It is all math and though I am good on math, during a bossfight where I have to watch all that + where I stand + how to stand + any other nasty things a boss may do so when to run etc... Kinda Impossible for one person to do unless you get a LOT of practice (oh and totally forget about leading a raid).

2 things.
Is anyone not having these problems and has the best DPS gear out there AND is regularly topping DPS meters? Anyone who has played a lot of other chars in Raids and found it to be much less difficult to dps?
The other: Since the rotation priority for druids can be calculated, does anyone know if there is/will be a addon (or if it is possible) that tells you what is best to do on finishing moves?

On a side note; one more thing I don't like gimping my dps: I have often gotten a message that I could not apply Rip because a stronger debuff was already active (meaning my own Rip). In my recollection that was because the current active Rip was applied with SR on. The same would go for Rake I think.
I know it is better to get SR on, Let current Rip drop off, meanwhile build towards a 5CP Rip, but that is not always an option you have. Example: Malygos goes and flies off in 3 seconds and you have 5CP and no SR up and current Rip (applied with SR up) is active for 4 more seconds there is no way to apply a new Rip. Applying SR is just pure waste. This new Rip would do way more damage then the 2 remaining tics. Anyone read about this somewhere and is blizzard aware of this and do they intend to change it?

I think you should just save your 5 CP und wait until Malygos lands and start with SR and continue your DPS.

A good addon is Classtimer, only problem is, when 2 Ferals are in one raid, it doesnt track mangle correctly drives me crazy.

It was changed to work like this a while back so I can't imagine they'll change it back for a pretty minor "problem" like this. Rarely should you need to overwrite your own rips.

I use debuff filter to track my 4 debuffs (FF, Rake, Mangle, Rip) and SR. I keep them all in a central HUD like location (under my energy/combo point bar) and this helps me keep track of everything. One thing I've noticed that seems to cause me problems is if I see SR and Rip timers coinciding I'll refresh SR earlier so that I can build the proper amount of combo points to get Rip back up. I don't know if this is ideal but I can pull pretty decent DPS in Naxx and thats with a mainly tanking spec (no PI, NS/MS and a mangle/2T6 set rotation). I do rarely use FB I find since whenever I do I find I get significant downtime on Rip and sometimes SR. I guess I should try and figure out if its still mathematically better to use this FB and have some Rip downtime but my gut said it wasn't. It does make the rotation easier to avoid using FB too so if you're having significant trouble DPSing thats one place to start and you shouldn't see too huge a drop away from theoretical "best" dps.

I haven't tried my DPS on the dummies to check how far I get without raid buffs. Seeing 42xx on patchwerk last week was nice. Yes, I do have mistakes in my rotation still, but that I would say is human. I did put a lot of t7.10 in to my tank gear, but I use it rarely. I didn't get any T7.25 token from drops, but I get shoulders next from badges. I still run 4T6 and 2T7.10 (Hands and Chest) in DPS gear. I am at 239 Hit Rating (over cap with dreanei), half of it is coming from Nexus HC trinket and AC exalted Boots. Those two items should be available to everybody.

One thing that helped me with my rotation was to start with the simple version. Without including all the fancy stuff from nightcrawler's complex rules. So basically 5 rules apply for that:

Keep up SR
Keep up Rake
Keep up Mangle
Keep up 5 CP Rip
Shred in between whenever possible

When that rotation works routinely than for example I went in with FBs, when TF was available and a CP surpluss was there. Slowly get more of the Nightcrawler rules in...

I have been using drood focus as a mod for tracking SR, Rake, Rip, Mangle, and Clearcast.. it also shows faeirie fire. I highly recommend it, as I looked for a long time at a bunch of different mods to specifically track SR.

My question is about short-cycle or single-cycle DPS: specifically, how to compress your DPS cycle when you know you don't have time to get up the SR, rake, mangle, and then shred. I ask, because I recently went from a mangle-spam build to a shred DPS build, and I've seen my DPS in heroics go down noticeably since. (Yes, I know, they're heroics; still, achievements and such.)

Hypothetical: You have 3 trash mobs which you need to kill, which take between 6-10 seconds to die (depending on kill order and group DPS). What is your attack strategy?

- Do you forgo SR until you have enough CP to finish killing the rest of the trash mobs, or do you put it up on your first combo point, then refresh it when it falls?
- Should you rake and shred, given rake may not tick all the way, or do you mangle spam? Is rake your first attack if you'd miss 1 tick otherwise? 2 ticks? Does it matter if SR is up yet?
- Do you skip the cycle on the first mob, given it might die faster (your full energy, other classes' openers), and mangles give you more attacks/earlier SR, which compensates for the worse energy efficiency by using less energy for the CP? With 2t6/imp mangle?

I would go: Mangle -> SR -> Rake -> Mangle/shred till 5 (if possible) and finish with FB.

I use that one. Still I manage to fail to see them sometimes. Maybe make em bigger.
With 2 ferals an the raid, just communicate between you 2 who does mangle and who does not. Same thing if you have a fury warrior. In case of a arms warrior, just ignore mangle.

And Carlos, yes I do that and I know all that. Still pretty hard with not much practice.

(changed fury warrior to arms warrior, must have switched em in my head)

Trauma is from arms warriors. With fury warriors you still need to use mangle.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Probably lagging behind a bit in expertise, hit is okayish could be better. Which obviously reflects why i do better in 5mans. Im also tank specced. But that aside I never noticed this much disparity in DPS between a pure tank build and a pure dps build in BC. I know Bliz have tried to differentiate it a bit but its just ridiculous. I dps gear in a 25man raid I will be lucky if I can out DPS one of our Pally tanks.

I can keep up SR, Rip, Rake, Mangle about 90% of the time taking into account overlaps etc. Im using TF whenever its up and my energy is low, im using Berserk with Bloodlust mostly. Sure im making a few technicaly errors with rotations in fight but come on the only fights you can sit on your ass and DPS is Patchwerk, Loetheb and to a certain degree Maexxna. Loeth (crit buff up all the time) being the only one i've DPS'd on as I've OT or MTd the others.

Still shite dps and I feel like flailing because I can't figure it out. Despite lurking these forums for years, Rawr Crafting etcetc. Buut then again maybe Feral is just crap.....I seem to be the only Feral druid on Blackrock hahaha

That's really good Seed, I'm impressed. I wish I could use / gem / enchant my tier gear for dps, but I use it in my tanking set, so have offset stuff for cat.

In cat gear, catform with just motw, I have 7,234 AP, 275 hit, 48.33 crit and 15 expertise and generally pull about 2350 on the dummies. The armory shows you in caster form, so I'm curious how your cat stats compare?

I think the main issue I have when DPSing is having lucky/unlucky streaks on combo points. I sometimes get in a situation where savage roar expires so I refresh it with 4-5 points up, get a crit streak and get rip back up, have another crit streak so spend the points on FB, then have a crit drought with no energy and SR fades. Perhaps I just need to watch my timers better. I also lead some raids, so often I'm watching too many things around me.

How have most people found small CP SR's vs large CP SR's ?

7825 AP, 4,42% haste, 8,90% armor pen, 260 hit, 48,63% crit and 24 (6%) expertise.

As for the low cp SR vs the high cp SR, I don't think much about it. I just make sure it's always up. Sometimes I even refresh SR / Rip at half duration left, because the combo generation spiked and I don't care much for FB.

I just realized this is a "serial killing" question... pardon while I go to try to answer my own question.

If the mob is alive for 10 seconds, the mangle->SR takes the first 2. 7 second rake? If it lives for 8 seconds-- 5 second rake?

Also, mangle->SR->Rake->2 shred crits+shred hit->FB takes 29+25+25+3*42+35 = 240 energy... so you can do a cycle on the first mob, maybe, if you get 2 crits and 8 seconds to DPS, and use TF. You start at 0 energy on the second mob. If you don't get 2 crits (half the time), you can't FB. If the mob dies before 8 seconds after you use your first attack, you can't FB. At what point do you abandon this method?

This is also 7 attacks in 8 seconds, which may challenging/impossible due to lag; 5 different attacks, which is challenging for the execution-impaired.

So let's call that a decent 12 second opening, because at, say, 50% crit chance, you'll get 1 crit in the pre-FB 7 out of 8 times, roughly.

All mangles instead of shreds runs 201 energy, which means you can afford getting only 1 FB crit, you'll have another attack in the 8 second window (if you have 0 lag). All mangles in 8s is as good as all shreds in 12, with 2t6. Otherwise, you need to wait till 10 seconds.

If the mob dies in 6 seconds (more likely if you're getting crits), you waste CP, and you'll be losing SR 4-9 seconds into your next cycle. If you didn't crit your first mob's rake, you get a low CP SR refresh on the second mob and are energy starved... get some CP on that mob, but not enough for a finisher, then it dies... then on the third mob, maybe you have SR up to get CP and a finisher, IF it's not down to half health because of another DPSer (or even tank) AOEing all 3. This seems like it's doomed to low DPS.

So to me, it sounds like my first instinct, to unload all the DPS I can into the first mob, is wrong unless I get lucky with crits or OoC procs.

So here's my proposed plan:

If I crit an opening rake, SR (so, 20 seconds, or the first two mobs). Then mangle. If I crit again, mangle; if I crit again, shred, else mangle to 5 CP. FB. An OoC proc turns a non-crit into a crit in the above sequence.

Noncrit rake: build to enough CP to have SR last for all the mobs (up to 5 CP), or until right before the mob dies. On second mob, you'll have SR up, so you should be able to run a rake->mangle->(mangles or shred, depending on crits)->FB before it dies.

Noncrit 1st mangle: hoard energy for second mob, start over. You want to unload early on #2, as SR is only briefly still up. Judge SR or FB situationally.

TLDR: If you get lucky early, you should unload on that first mob in a serial killing situation; else, hoard for the second mob.


This makes sense to me; any major flaws? The most prominent is getting to 4-5 CP without SR up, but otherwise you're wasting combo points.

Its amazing how a single sentence can make you think.

Seed makes a good point, i've been obsessing over using every CP as efficiently as possible. But using every CP at exactly the right time doesnt matter. The obvious priority is keeping your DoTs up and SR up. So wether you burn 5CP when you Savage Roar or Rip still has half its time left to tick doesnt really matter aslong as they are allways up correct. Your not actualy loosing any damage by throwing away CP points because in themselves they dont really matter, aslong as you are constanty doing the maximum amount of damage you can through your DoTs and Attacks.

I think....

I find it difficult to believe that if you're doing all that correctly, that you cannot get past low 2000's in DPS. That is all I do, and I'm anywhere from 3000-4000dps quite easily. Since you didn't post any WWSes, I'll let you look at some of mine to see what I did.

Let me preface this WWS with a few things.
1) I am not a cat spec... I'm clearly a tank spec, since I've been the Sarth3 MT, meaning that all the DPS done in the follow log is with a tank-style build (I have no shred for example). My talent spec, courtesy of WoWArmory: The World of Warcraft Armory

2) Because of my spec, my DPS "rotation" is Mangle-Spam w/ Rip, Rake, Roar. Mathematically speaking, it's not as good as Shred for combo, but I'm not spec'd for that.

3) I am notoriously bad at using my clearcasting procs on shreds. I have too many crappy things I'm paying attention to as raid leader that I haven't really made an effort to notice when omen goes off.

4) I don't berserk @ lust, I berserk whenever the tank has good aggro, and I happen to have a lot of energy. I do that in case the fight drags on, and I can get a 2nd berserk in. Bloodlust doesn't really affect cat global cooldown or energy production (I could be wrong on this), and if anything, it will simply increase your Omen proc-rate, which doesn't really help during a bloodlust anyways, since it doesn't let you spam any faster than during a non-bloodlust period.

5) Yes, I realize that shred is better dps, my point isn't that I'm min/max'd DPS wise, it's simply that I'm NOT doing an ideal DPS rotation, and I'm easily getting between 3000-4000 DPS with kinda whatever gear. (if you're curious, it's mostly badge gear, as medio raids with like 15 out of 25 people who need vanquisher tokens).

Anyways, enough prefacing here's Wow Web Stats

Hey now... I don't think there is a Horde guild on Blackrock older than the one I'm GM of, and I've been doing feral since Naxx-40 days, and Feral definitely isn't crap... it's still the most versatile spec out there, since we can tank and dps in the same spec, and we get other goodies like combat rez and innervate ^_^


*edit*
As for micromanaging your CPs, honestly, I just follow the rules of thumb, that I believe someone else posted earlier here:

1) Get a Roar up ASAP. I usually mangle once, then Roar immediately, then I go through the motions after.
2) TF whenever you're <25 energy and it's up.
3) Rake, then Shred for CP. If Roar is down, Roar, if not, Rip. If Rip and Roar are both up with at least 8sec on each, I'll FB.
4) If I FB'd, and got unlucky on crits, I'll still make sure I get my Roar back up ASAP. If this means Roaring with 2 combo points, I'll do it.

If you don't have a warrior keeping trauma up for you, then, you gotta juggle your mangle timer as well.


p.s.. these attached files are my Rawr XML files for my DPS gear if you want to see what I used.

to tell if a target has mangle up, regardless of who applied it, I use a mod called PowerAuras. you can customize icons to show on your screen based on certain conditions: how many CP's do i have? does mob have X debuff? etc.

I don't think you can show how much time is remaining, but at least you can see if mangle is on them or not.

True I only thought about the first mob and rake might indeed not be a good option.

If there is a free for all attitude where you just kill the one closest and hope the tank has hit is, unload all on the first mob. However all mobs will live about 5 to 10 seconds longer (assuming DPS is randomly spread). It might be worth to still do Mangle->SR->Rake->shred till 5 and FB.

Otherwise if there is a real priority list, first mob A, then B, then C the following would probably be better:
Hit A with rake. Correct me if I am wrong, but the ticks (not the initial damage) from rake will get the extra damage when an arms warrior is dpssing along side you. You got 1 CP, get a Shred/Mangle in. If you critted, you already got 2 CP. With 2 or 3 CP, use SR. The full rake will go on mob A.
Switch to mob B. Let the rest of the dps that is not a druid focus on mob A. Mob B will live for about 15 to 17 more seconds. Enough time to get some DPS in. Mangle, rake, shred till 5 and FB.
Switch to mob C and see what more dps you can push out.

Warning! Only use when mob A is not dangerous, meaning: Absolute all DPS on mob A. Better to do less DPS then let him live that extra second.

With 3.0.8 there will be swipe in catform. Don't know how that will work on trash (4 x swipe in 4 seconds is possible) Will leave you without CP and energy. Might be best to rake + SR and then swipe 3 times.

And then again.. we are talking about doing DPS on mobs. Affliction warlocks will never get high dps, well they can aoe, but it is better to be destruction then. And single target dps will most likely not outdps aoe classes.
Real DPS should be measured on bosses. If you spec right you spec to survive and do max dps fighting a boss and not max dps on mobs. Also it would be better not to put that much focus on mobs. Just really hard ones, but I can advice you to relax on trash. Nobody is really valuing statistics on trash, and relaxing on trash will give you energy to focus when needed, i.e. fighting a boss.

Hahaha don't get me wrong Killets, I i've been Feral since I stopped healing on Nefarion. I love the spec to bits. I don't play any other class and have been playing WoW on and off since closed Beta.

I just see your example for instance 3-4k DPS and I can't understand how im doing so badly, my gears not shite, im executing the widely accepted dps rotations reasonably efficiently and I like to think I have a pretty good idea of how to play a Druid but consistantly ranking in the bottom of the DPS tables is making me scratch my head in consternation.

Here is the wws report for last nights 25man, I was OT for most of it and only DPS'd on Loetheb, Thaddius and Sapphiron. If anyone can point out something glaringly stupid i've been doing I would greatly appreciate it.

Wow Web Stats

Here is just a cursory glance at say, Loatheb...

1) Your rip uptime looks terrible.

Me: Wow Web Stats
You: Wow Web Stats

My fight is 10sec shorter, but I have 20 more rip ticks than you (I have 33% BETTER Rip uptime!). There's really no excuse for that, esp when your crit rate is going to be so absurdly high that combo points are pretty much free.

2) Your rip damage is just ugly.

Your avg rip tick is a paltry 1300. My average rip tick is 1800. There is something wrong with your raid buffs, or you're simply never ripping with mangle up, or something. Correct me if I'm wrong, but rip should not be avg'ing 1400, unless you're Ripping with like 3 combo points or something.

3) You have a 3:40 min fight, which translates into 7 Tiger's Furys, except you only use it 5 times (I use it 6).

4) Browsing your armory, it looks like you haven't geared as much as you could/should have. I know RNG / luck, etc etc... but there are some key pieces of gear you're missing:

-- Your helm needs a meta. That's some free damage you're missing out on. Try to be running Heroic Oculus and Heroic Violet Hold as much as you can.
-- I'm not 100% sure on this, but I believe that the Rip idol is currently broken, and you should be using something else. In your case, since you're Shredding, the Idol of Ravenous Beasts would help a lot.
-- I haven't theorycrafted it, but honestly, 2pc T6 could help you if you replaced helm+bracers. That would get you a metagem at least.

Makes sense, i'll definitely keep a closer eye on my Mangle. It's probably the debuff im least aware of to my detriment.

I regards to gear, DPS has taken a second place to tanking gear in my allocation and I've had rotten luck on helm drops both for tanking and dps having run Occ and VH mucho mucho times.

I'll go tone down the downie factor tonight and see what kinda DPS i can pull.

I feel stupid for not being updated on bugs that affect my performance. Had no idea Idol of Worship was bugged until just now.




Oh well, atleast it made me break 3k selfbuffed on the boss doll. Some comfort for the fact that I'll never get those DPS back on the fights since I looted IoW.