If you're talking start-of-fight sequences, just remember that all the player buffs and enemy debuffs aren't on the target at the start of the sequence. Discussing rake/mangle first needs to be discussed with all buffs/debuffs taken into account.

For instance: How much more likely is Unleashed Rage up 3 seconds after you start attacking, as opposed to your first attack? How many sunders are up 3 seconds after you start attacking? Did you put up faerie fire as you ran in?

Which turns it into a very complicated question to know the final answer to, if it's at all close.

Anyone aware of a simplified personal combat recount addon for feral dps (aka "Cat Fight") that tracks things like:

* Rip: uptime %, your damage done %, and overlap (reapplied bleed before it ended)
* Rake: uptime %, your damage done % and overlap
* Mangle: uptime %, your damage done % and overlap
* Savage Roar: uptime % and overlap
* Shred: your damage done%
* Ferocious Bite: damage done%
* What specials OoC procs were used on
* Amount of time target didn't have FFF
* DPS

Graphical component optional. I'd be happy with text output once combat dropped.

It's one thing to practice on a target dummy. I'd like to see the actual results from each fight to see how well (or poorly) I really did so I know how to adjust next time. Recount isn't an option as it causes way too much lag and doesn't centralize the info I want. WWS doesn't centralize the info I want, doesn't offer all the details I want and I'd prefer to not run external programs.

The person you might wish to speak to about all things combat-log and Cat would probably be the developer of DroodFocus.

Q: From reading through this thread, I have yet to understand how most of you deal with OOC procs while dps'ing on a bossfight.

Hitherto I've only really focused on combo pts, TF at low energy, and keeping up SR/Mangle/Rake/Rip - then Berserk during Heroism or during bossfightgimmickextradps X, Y or Z. Thinking about putting the Clearcasting proc icon right smack in the center of my screen where I track SR and my debuffs.

If i'm not mistaken, you want to clear cast shred 99% of the time because it costs the most energy.

You always want to Clearcast a Shred, regardless of talent spec. What you never want to do is Clearcast a Rake or a Rip. Those abilities are massively energy efficient, so it doesn't help much to have them applied free. Even at 5 combo points I'll use a Shred during Clearcasting rather than a finisher.

Would you Clearcast an FB if you had TF available?

Some math on this. By clearcasting a shred instead of a rip at 5 cp, you are exchanging 1.5 combo points for 12 energy (assuming 50% crit chance). For this to be worthwhile, a combo point must be worth less than 8 energy. Using the assumptions from my previous post, one combo point is worth 8.37 energy assuming extra cp can be dumped into rip. However, if extra cp must be dumped into ferocious bite, then the value of a combo point drops down to 3-4 energy. Since realistically some large fraction of excess combo points must be dumped into ferocious bite, the value of a combo point is well below 8 energy so it is indeed correct to clearcast shred over rip.

This assumed best possible gear and buffs. As attack power and critical strike chance go down, the value of combo points relative to energy goes up so this conclusion may not hold at lower gear levels.


edit:
Don't save berserk for heroism/bloodlust unless you're trying to stack the two effects with a third (like a trinket). The only interaction between heroism and berserk is that heroism yields more omen of clarity procs, which could result in being unable to spend all your energy during berserk.

Well, I took this as inspiration to learn Lua for once and for all.

CatFight - Addons - Curse

At the moment, it should do the trick for uptime and overlap %. It'll text output once combat ends. Let me know if you find any problems, but it worked for me on target dummies.

Note: Uptime for a debuff on multiple mobs at once won't be tracked correctly.

If it's on easy stuff like heroics I'll sometimes use FB with clearcasting and 5CP just to see those nice big numbers and make everyone in vent O_O

But for the best damage output, you're way better off with Shred.

Some very rough math:

Let's assume my 5cp, 100enrg FB crits a boss for 10k. Add clearcasting and it's around 12k, so I blow my CC and full cp/enrg for an xtra 2k dmg.

OR

I shred, which crits for around 6k then I do my non-cc, half enrg FB which crits for around 9k. Shred gets me twice the dmg output that FB does in this scenario. Even if Shred doesn't crit, it still breaks even or better.

These numbers are not exact by any means, but the mechanic is pretty clear. FB is fun, but Shred gets more mileage off clearcasting procs.

On behalf of Ferals all over the world, THANK YOU. I'll be evaluating as soon as the servers are back up. Here's to hoping there is or will eventually be an easy way to turn on/off or maybe set it to only spam your chat on bosses or on raid-bosses.

Toskk,
On the DPS Calculator Attack Power box, do we use our Savage Roared AP or our character sheet AP? (basically raid buffed before we pull the boss stats)

Hahah, well like I said, it's my first time working with lua, so I just went with what was easiest to do. I'll probably move to changing it to bars, or perhaps only outputting upon doing a slash command.

Is it anyhow possible to add a localization? or at least to point me what to chang in .lua file?

Wouldn't know about adding localizations, but if you want to change the text of the output, look in lines 106-115. That's pretty much where all the output lies.

Well, im russian, so all my abilities are russian. For example Savage roar is called "Дикий Pев". Tried to change the appropriate buff name to russian, but it did nothing. After fight output showed 0 uptime for all buffs and debuffs.

This is not a fair comparison because you're throwing in a scenario which heavily favors Shred over FB. Even without the Clearcasting proc here, noone in their right mind will use FB at 100 energy anyway. I would personally use shred just because FB is a very situational ability even with a proper rotation (SR and Rip will precede it), however I guess in the perfect world (0 energy left, 5 combo points built, etc) you'll have a case to use FB.

Never mind. No need for localization. Solved a problem with replacing the name of the spell in lines
with the appropriate GetSpellInfo(ID). All GetSpellInfo(ID) got from my beloved ClassTimer addon =P

Just in case you need em - here they are (just feral stuff)

GetSpellInfo(50322), --Survival Instincts
GetSpellInfo(52610), -- Savage Roar
GetSpellInfo(5211), -- Bash
GetSpellInfo(5211), -- Dash
GetSpellInfo(99), -- Demoralizing Roar
GetSpellInfo(5229), -- Enrage
GetSpellInfo(22842), -- Frenzied Regeneration
GetSpellInfo(33745), -- Lacerate
GetSpellInfo(22570), -- Maim
GetSpellInfo(9007), -- Pounce Bleed
GetSpellInfo(1822), -- Rake
GetSpellInfo(1079), -- Rip
GetSpellInfo(58181), -- Infected Wounds
GetSpellInfo(50334), -- Berserk
GetSpellInfo(16857), -- Faerie Fire (Feral)
GetSpellInfo(16979), -- Feral Charge - Bear
GetSpellInfo(33878), -- Mangle (Bear)
GetSpellInfo(33876), -- Mangle (Cat)

So I have 2 questions,

First, what is the best use of Berserk? I'm usually a tank spec so my usual dps is mangle spam and I normally just mangle spam while keeping up rake, rip, and sr. I have started trying to wait for some energy and then using a speed potion with berserk and burn through my energy. Is this a good use here or am I missing something On the other hand, if I'm full cat spec with a shred rotation, what's my move here with berserk? Do I just want to do my normal rotation and use shred? Also, should I be waiting on high energy before I use berserk? With mangle you can't really burn through all your energy.

The next thing is graduating to a Shred rotation. If I'm spec'd cat can I automatically just do the shred rotation once I'm used to the mangle spam or do I need to wait for gear to go into a shred rotation? I'm assuming that it's crit and hit that are important there, at what point should I be doing shred over mangle? It seems like I would want to be able to keep up 5cp rip and sr and rake but what generally is the crit rating required to be able to do that and shred at the same time?

Assuming you're not using T6 gear, there really shouldn't be any point where Mangle spam would be better than using Shred in your rotations.

At low lvl gears shreds seems to be only marginally better with ideal rotation and the rotation itself is much harder to keep up. So if you are lazy and can pass up on miniscule DPS gain you would be happy with mangle spam.

I highly recommend picking up Shredding Attacks even in a tank spec, unless you are the main tank and never ever have to dps. In your case I'd take the points from Predatory Insticts, which is another cat-only talent.

Your gear is more then good enough for a Shred rotation (and you're not using T6), so you should already be using that, even when tank specced (with Shredding Attacks). This assumes you have the Rip and Mangle glyphs, which you should use unless you're the MT, since besides Maul the bear glyphs are underwhleming. With these two glyphs and your gear you should have no trouble manitaining a Shred rotation.

About using Berserk - wait for high energy, then follow the usual Shred rotation (keep mangle up, keep Rake up, keep SR up, keep Rip up, Shred otherwise) and keep shredding unless something needs renewing. Don't worry about wasting combo points. Never ever use Ferocious Bite while Berserk is active.

I tend to get a SR running with my first energy (Rake + Mangle, possibly a Shred on OoC -> SR) and then drop TF + Berserk.

Using it this early will mean it'll likely be up again later in the fight, gets me to a 5point rip and 5point SR and makes it easier to maintain the rotation with a bit of luck. Timing TF + Berserk like this together will mean that they're off cooldown pretty much together again, with a few seconds to spare due to energy delays in the use of TF.