Eating Hit Rating Food is as useless as gemming for hit. Where is the difference?

Eating the food, you would exchange 40 ArPen (or with "bad" gear 40 Agility) for 40 Hit.
Gemming, you would exchange 16 ArPen (or with "bad" gear 16 Agility) for 16 Hit per gem.

As Gurrshael already said - Hit and Expertise (if you play correctly, these two are essentially of the same value) are good, but not as good as some other stats, no matter how much Hit/Expertise you have.

On the other hand - some misses/dodges in terrible moments will confuse you. When I wasn't that experienced with Cat DPS, as I am now, I missed a mangle once and didn't notice immediately. Unfortunately my plan was to hit TF+Berserk right after that, and that's what I did. I continued to shred, rake and rip for about 10 seconds in berserk, before I realised my terrible mistake.

I try to avoid to have more than 5% missed attacks (misses + dodges), since this can screw up the dps cycle very much, especially when you are unexperienced. But, as already mentioned, there's a lot of Hit on gear floating around so that shouldn't be a problem.

I had a question that I hadn't managed to actually find much discussion for in regards to Feral DPS.

I currently use 2pc Dreamwalker and 2pc Nightsong set pieces, yet I have access to (and also have the pieces for) 4pc Nightsong. The problem is, that no matter how I try to swing it, I cannot see a dps upgrade from switching to 4pc Nightsong, it often results in anywhere from a 200-600dps loss for me. Some qualifying data:

No Manglebot (I usually have to provide my own)
Glyphs: Savage Roar, Shred, Mangle

I largely realize that Ferocious Bite is supposed to make up the damage difference, however the 12-18 second Rip duration really leaves me in a bad spot, and I seem to witness Roar and Rip expiring about the same time when using 1-2 point Roars.

I know that the set bonuses are supposed to be roughly equal dps, so I'm assuming that I'm simply doing something wrong, but I just can't quite put my finger on what.

Armory link is here, in case you wanted to peruse it.

For starters, get the Glyph of Rip - Spell - World of Warcraft

There's 4 seconds more duration on your rip. Mangle has proven in every way imaginable to be the worst of the 5 dps glyphs (savage roar, shred, rip, berserk, mangle). Also, read the feralbynight post. I'm sure any question you may have is answered there.


You may also think about taking a point out of furor, 2 points out of Imp LOTP, point out of survival instincts, and point out of feral swiftness to get 5/5 feral aggression. 15% more damage on your ferocious bite is noticable

For the first paragraph, I agree with everything he says.

However, with his second one...I can't honestly recommend doing that. A point or two out of Furor, sure. I've personally been meaning to do that myself for a while just haven't gotten down to it. (5/5 Furor is a very, very old habit when speccing)

However, the points out of Imp LotP, Survival Instincts, and Feral Swiftness would be fine...if every fight was patchwerk.

Having 30% more movement speed than other melee is very, very nice on most fights in Ulduar. You get in and out of stuff quicker, and can give yourself a extra second (perhaps to refresh rip, or something) on things like Mimirons Shock blast and Iron Councils overload. I don't know the precise number for how much healing Imp LotP does, but I can imagine its a somewhat significant amount, otherwise you'd see more feral druids running around with it.

And giving up a 30% health CD is just generally a very bad idea - its saved my life more times than I can imagine.

ImpLotP is somewhat useless in my opinion...most of the time (but it might save lives & every serious tanking build should have it & Bovis is "a huge fan of ImpLotp"; I've been perusin some of the latest raid reports and ImpLotp ticked randomly here and there for around 1k hp, but more than 50% of it was overheal (everytime). But it just might be me.

...but then again; that 1k tick of health might prove priceless on ocasion.

It also depends on your raid group, if you have another feral with ILotP then well, its not so useful. I think the first 2pts in it are better than 2 in FA personally.

Night stated in the FBN thread that rake is better DPE than shred until the mob's below zero armor. Since that's impossible now, you should keep rake up regardless of trinket procs.

I don't know the second two, but my suspicion is that keeping bleeds up is always better with 2T8 for a better chance of procs, and that waiting for a trinket proc to berserk is probably worth it up till you lose a whole berserk to your waiting -- in other words, it's probably very important to have a feel for whole fight duration as well as trinket ICD to make that call.

- Depends, i usually tend to squezze one or two shreds in when the proc is about to expire, and reapply rake afterwards so you don't 'lose' a whole rake, just a few ticks. However, at the start of the proc, you should renew rake if it's down.

- I haven't done the math on it but my gut says it's not worth it. One tick of Rip is probably worth two times more than you would gain from the proc.

- If your trinket's IC is about to fall off or already has, you should use berserk - berserk lasts 15s, the proc lasts 10s so you will probably get an overlap no matter what.

I hate FA with a burning passion and I'd like to see if anyone is actually breaking 10% total damage using FB doing a normal rotation on bosses.

Assuming 10% damage done by FB, 5 points into FA gives 1.5% damage increase. Assuming you're pulling 7k dps, 1.5% is 105dps for 5 talent points? That seems to be awful in my opinion and can probably be trade off for some sort of utility.

If someone is breaking 10% on FB while maintaining a legit priority list though please show me, as it'll probably be "more" worth it.

I agree that it doesn't seem useful point-for-point. However, where else are you going to put the points? For single target DPS you are compelled to put 3 points into FA to get to the 3rd row of talents. You could put them into swipe instead, but swipe usage is very encounter-specific.

I think it's mostly that sometimes high burst is really, really handy. FB is never going to be great on sustained, but on (for example) burst on XT's heart or a Freya add or Mimiron's head or on a Maly spark, it can be quite a bit of damage at the right time.

But it's probably not significant enough to argue with, and it really comes down to whether you want the utility of something like ilotp or FI or even thick hide/SI vs. the maximum damage possible. It's a marginal increase in dps, but it's better than none sometimes.

Ok, with my current gear i have 995 ArPen when Grim Toll proc's. Should I start gemming for Agility after I hit that break even mark of 1030, because I do have two Agility gems in my chest. Since I'm missing 35 ArPen, I figure during raids I could just eat the ArPen food and be capped, or is this a wasted food buff? Should I just replace the two gems in my chest with two more ArPen Gems. Input is welcome. Thanks!

Here is a link to my build...

The World of Warcraft Armory

No, 1030 is not some magic cap. It is the break point where Shred is higher DPE than Rake with my specific gear set. It will vary with your gear. The cap is 1232.

Absolubtly true. Actually I never seen that high crit in my simulated data so yes, with that crit there is probably a situation where shred>rake. The main thing is that you'll not stop using rake when rake DPE< shred DPE but you need shred being at least 10% better than rake, otherwise you still lose dps because you should also note that usually a less expensive ability (also with a lesser dpe) is a better choce because let you generate CP faster. Also with 2T8 rake increase your clearcasting chance.

The only situations when I spam shred is hodir with the crit buff, given the crit buff an abiility that can crit like shred is far better than rake.

I will never understand, why some people make difference between gems and food. You are gemming for ArPen and thus trading Agi for ArPen in a 1:1 ratio, but you are afraid of trading Agi Food for ArPen in the same 1:1 ratio?

You've got 995 ArPen with GT procc, the cap is 1232. So yes, replace your two Agi gems AND eat the food, this will bring you 36+40 = 76 more ArPen, you will be at 1071 ArPen, which is still below the cap.

Is that rake calculation including that you 'll get a less OOC procs form Nightsong 2 piece? Also you may have problems in some 10 man comps if you aren't using Rake due to Rend and Tear requiring 100% Rip uptime.

I'm still not entirely sure when I should be using FB. Let's say I'm at 70+ energy, 5 combo points, and I have lots of time left on SR and rip. Am I better off shredding off extra energy until I'm as close to 35 energy as possible, and then using FB, wasting combo points but saving energy? Or should I just FB immediately?

My understanding is that the DPE of the energy to damage conversion on FB is really bad compared to our other abilities, but it's not something I know the exact numbers on.

On a related note, whenever I berserk, I end up wasting ("wasting) a lot of CPs, since I want to get in as many shreds as possible before it's up. Is this a normal thing? I'm assuming using FB while berserk is up isn't a great idea unless you're at really low energy?

One more question: is there a "standard opener"? Generally I do mangle -> SR -> rake, and from there it varies depending on crits and OoC procs and such.

@Allotrope: if you have a lot of time left on SR and RIP it's better to FB indipendently from you energy level.
If you are berserking use FB only with less 23 energy (only 5 energy wasted)
The opener you wrote is OK.

For example with BIS gear an average shred hits for 9800 damage while an average FB with some extra energy wasted (43 energy for example) hits for 16500. Maximum FB energy cost is 65 while shred cost 42. As you can see FB is more efficient also at max energy if you are at 5 cps (so you'll waste shred cps). During berserk the situation is different because you cut in half shred energy cost but you don't cut extra energy wasted from FB. What I usually do is refresh SR earlier during Berserk to avoid cps waste.

An individual shred is less efficient than an individual FB in the situation Allotrope mentioned (70 energy, 5 CPs), but you also have the option of shredding first, then FBing immediately. If a 43 energy FB hits for 16500, a 65 energy FB should hit for around 18600 if my math is right, giving it a DPE of 286.57, and leaving 5 energy. If you use shred first to bleed off some energy, you use 42 energy and a second, leaving you with 38 energy by the time you can FB. A 9800 shred + a 16000 38 energy FB gives you a total of 25800 damage for 80 energy, or 322.5 DPE. You do end up using 15 more energy than if you had used FB right away, which means you probably ended up wasting around half a combo point with that shred (15/42*2*.60+15/42*.40 = .57). It could easily be more complex than this, but if you were to turn that 57% of a combo point into 11.4% of an FB, that'd mean it's worth ~1800 damage. The damage you gained by having 36 more DPE on that 65 energy should be ~2340.

Please correct me if I screwed up somewhere, but it seems to me like it would be better to shred before FBing at certain energy levels.

From my perspective, the intuitive way to handle that situation is the exact opposite.

If there is a long time left on SR and Rip timers, I would be more inclined to shred off extra energy before FB, because I know I will able to build back enough combo points in time to refresh SR/Rip. Conversely, when the timers are getting low I would want to get my FB off asap so further energy regen can be spent on building combo points.

In reality this is a little bit of a moot point, because if my SR/Rip timers are quite low I will generally just forgo FB and just wait to refresh my SR/Rip at an appropriate time, only shredding if I will reach 100 energy.

FB first is only slightly less efficient DPE, but Shred first is wasting (up to 2) CP on top of the additional energy requirement. You want to make sure you'll be generating enough CP for the next finisher in time also. So, the answer will vary greatly depending on exactly how much time is left on debuffs and if TF is about to come off cooldown or not. In general, I'd say FB is the right answer.

You're not actually wasting 1-2 CPs, though. If you FB, you spend 65 energy and end up with 0 CPs. If you shred first, you spend 80 energy and end up with 0 CPs. You're only wasting 15 energy worth of CPs, which by my math works out to around half a CP. The last bit of my last post shows that the damage gained from the higher DPE is ~30% higher than .57 CPs worth of FB (assuming I got the math right, of course). Obviously the balance could tip if you lose buff/debuff uptime due to that lost half a CP, but I don't really have a way to model that.