Even guesstimating, 10% damage from FB w/o FA sounds pretty over the top tbh... if it's that high, I doubt you're keeping bleeds up very well or doing as much damage as you could be.

Swipe gets 10% damage per point, FB gets 3%, and if you look at meters for even just the bosses for a night, swipe should be well ahead of FB in terms of your overall damage done. I'm not sure where you're getting the impression that we're so outperformed by other classes in terms of AOE - if you manage your energy and positioning well, any fight with an AOE component ought to be pushing you even farther ahead.

I guess some are saying that for a few of the fights with AOE components the speed at which they die doesn't matter much, someone will kill them if you don't... though similar logic could be applied to the boss itself, and frankly, we're an efficient AOEr with an efficient talent to increase our AOE, far more efficient than a talent which increases an ability that at base makes up about 6% of our damage on a tunnel vision fight. Beyond that... dropping iLotP is just irresponsible imo unless you have another full-time feral... we're the *only* class that can bring it, it's only 2 talent points, and it doesn't matter how often it's overheal... it's actual healing as well, easily comparable to some extra spell power for healers or HP for your tanks... and you give it to everyone with just 2 points.

So basically, if you've got a 100% mangle bot, great, you've got 4 points to spare, 5 if you don't value SI. Personally I think SI is extremely useful and as mentioned above can provide you with DPS opportunities not available to others (especially combined with barkskin), which I think more than makes up for the more realistic <0.2% dps gain per point of FA. Without the luxury of a mangle, however, sadly the points just aren't there.

interesting notes, and interesting spec. I havn't had a manglebot until recently when arms became decent so I may be stubborn with keeping talented mangle but in situations such as hodir (lights optimal placement for TPS/DPS), kologarn, split dps, or your manglebot dies, and solo there's situations where mangle is the most important ability you can use.

Another consideration is imp. swipe for speed purposes over the entire run. I find there is a lot of single-target as a whole throughout ulduar compared to naxx. Increased trash speed means more time on bosses = more progression but... trash talents compared to survival talents compared to boss talents... hmm.

Generally, I'd have to agree with this thought process. The only thing I fear initially is the amount of threat we can actually procur when spam swiping AE packs within areas. Razorscale is a good example of where having an incredibly strong swipe can be some-what more of a burden then it can a bargain. When the adds spawn up from the ground and are quickly gathered by what-ever tank you may have, in my own thoughts, theres only a few options you have to keep yourself alive without pulling threat.

-1) Gather a good amount of time to allow Tank to gather enough AoE threat.
-2) Exxagerate the period of wait time between swipes when edging threat.
-3) Or continously switch targets while also switching in Cower(?Thats obsurd)
-4) Very Solid AoE Threat Tank (If I had an Unholy Tank in my Guild I might be more open to increasing swipe)

With Trash pulls it doesn't necessarily matter much. Of course more AoE can result in more time on bosses and less time on Trash! Considering Ulduar though, there's little AoE to be done withi in certain areas. Over all efficiency is always good to have, but increasing swipe damage might be a sacrafice well worth while?

Wow some good discussions on AoE vs FB vs survivability/healing talents.

I think for now I am going to steer clear of FA, it is a pretty marginal benefit per point invested, where as 10% boost on swipe per point is huge, especially considering that on fights where you do use swipe it is a much larger contribution to your dps than FB ever is. Survival Instincts is really handy for only 1 point invested, not only can it save you when you get some unlucky AoE damage, but it can prevent a wipe if the tank dies and you quickly shift to bear and taunt, SV+Barkskin provides a nice buffer for healers to realise what has happened.

More anecdotal data: FB was 4.6% of my damage on Ignis lastnight, 5/5 FI would have only been ~40dps increase on my 6124 actual dps.

The Bite/Swipe thing was discussed a lot above me, but I see your build only has 1/2 in Feral Swiftness. I was sure you didn't clear Ulduar without looking at the achievements. The place promotes movement so much that being 15% faster is a huge boon, and I'd consider 2/2 there a must.

Yeah, it's a common problem to try to drop incredibly useful "utility" talents in favor of trying to eke out that last 2% of raw single-target DPS. It's a bad idea for most other classes and a bad idea for us.

Imp. Leader of the Pack prevents you from running out of mana and it's a unique raid buff that stacks with Judgment of Light.

Swipe is a major damage source on key progression fights/hard modes -- Yogg, Freya, and Hodir come to mind.

Feral Swiftness is an AMAZING advantage on almost every fight that exists.

Trying to drop any of those for a little bit of extra FB damage seems like a huge mistake.

I currently run 1/3 swipe and 5/5 FA. My thinking is that if I wanted to win the meters I'd go with 3/3 swipe...so many fights in ulduar have opportunities for aoe. However, right now feral is bringing hard-to-beat single target dps so it seems wise to use that to your guilds advantage. So many of the fights with adds, the adds just don't really matter. Evokers (and champions a little) matter on Thorim, Razorscale matters on razorscale, auriaya matters on auriaya, etc.

Auriaya is a good example - The swarm is basically not dangerous or significant at all and yet I can boost my personal dps to extreme degrees by burning energy on it that could otherwise by used on the boss. All those adds are going to die anyways...I just don't see feral as being a good choice to take care of them given the fact that we aren't that efficient at it (yes we can ae burst like crazy but it is not efficient) and that we can bring the hurt to the most relevant single target like few others. Everyone can aoe...are we really the best choice for it? Its something our mut and combat rogues debate constantly while arguing specs :p.

I just see so many aoe targets in ulduar as not being anything more significant than a way to pad dps. Maybe I'm not looking at this right?

Sorry I didn't catch this earlier.

Now, I haven't tested any ICD on it, but [Idol of the Wastes] Seems like it would be the superior choice for the Thorim Arena. Assuming 3/3.

61*1.1*1.06*1.02*2*1.1*1.1 = 175 AP / 14 = 12.5 weapon damage * 3.38 = 42.25 swipe damage

Assuming that it can't refresh (like [Idol of Arcane Terror]) then it's going to have a 90% uptime if you pool properly.

And a question about Kologarn: I've tried several positions to stand, but no matter what I do, I can't get cat swipe to hit all 3 targets, while in Bear (and for every other class) multi-target attacks work. Has anyone gotten swipe to work on that fight outside of rubble?

I've tanked Kologarn on all of my guilds attempts and am yet to have a problem swiping all 3 targets standing directly in front of and targeting the body.

I find it really hard to consider anything like movement speed a "must". Clearly these movement based achievements are attainable by people who dont have feral swiftness. It is helpful... but from my perspective, no more helpful than being aware enough of your surroundings to not need it.

It's more valuable as a DPS skill, even if you're perfectly aware and can avoid 100% of damage. Starting your autoattack ASAP increases total damage in a fight more than many DPS talents. This is even true after Feral Charge because of its cooldown, and fights like Ignis/Vezax where you may have to DPS on the move. Running faster than your tank means you don't get caught behind for long stretches of time.

Fights where it's useful:
- Ignis (tank moves the mob)
- Razorscale (running between trash mobs, tank kites Razorscale)
- XT (minimizing damage from light/gravity bombs)
- Iron Council (running between mobs, in/out of AOE)
- Freya (constant running between mobs)
- Hodir (running between flash freezed NPCs)
- Mimiron (damage avoidance, and running back/forth between the head and trash in P3)
- Vezax (tank kiting phase)
- Yogg (increases DPS time in the brain room, etc)
Fights where it's not:
- Kologarn
- Auriaya (if you don't need more speed to dash in/out of damage)
- Thorim (if you don't need more speed to dash in/out of damage)

There's really one stationary fight in all of Ulduar. Movement speed is a huge advantage. Even if it only buys you 3 autoattacks in a 5-minute fight, that's 80 DPS. And it will very often have better returns than that. Plus, free survivability buff.

Edit: I shouldn't do math in the morning, it's not 80 DPS. 3 800-damage attacks per minute is 40 DPS.