Cat DPS Rotation
 

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!

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.

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...

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.

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.

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 :).

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

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.

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.

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. :(

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.

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 :)

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

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.

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.