FB has a higher chance to crit than rip, relentless will affect their weightings.

@Savior: soon^^. The next release of the addon will be pushed to Curse client but I have little time by now, hopefully I will have that ready soon enough.

@ Ramenchef: Deathwing already answered your question about meta gems, as for SR combopoints I've not found yet an algoritm for that. As a rule of thumb you want to do SR in a way that:

CPs for SR + SR + 5 CPs + RIP = RIP duration so for istance if rip last 26 seconds, you'll want 5*(x+1/2)+9 = 26 (+1/2 is for the chance to crit and then generate an extra cps) so X = 3, the same way with 4T8 5*(x+1/2)+9+8 = 22 so X=1

Realistically with good enough gear usually 2 CPs are good enough (instead of 3) because you will have some rip downtime and you'll not worry about it while with very bad gear (blue) it's better to use 4 point of SR because usually your crit/hit is not high enough to let you generate enough CPs to substain the cycle. Remember also that in FBN approach I clip SR so realistically you can use SR at any range, what change is how much you clip it. Higher "X" the more you clip. Usually changing SR from 2 to 3 or from 1 to 2 and so on doesn't change dps a lot (less than 1%).

Will you also be releasing the addon to WoW Interface and WoWMatrix?

I've been trying to tinker with the code of this myself, but as of this point I have been unsuccessful.

What I am trying to do is include the 4 pc t6 bonus along with the 4 pc t8 set to test the dps numbers.

I am also looking to try different rotations and glyph setups.

Would it be worthwhile to avoid shred altogether, to just mangle/rake your way to all FB's, SR's, and rips, or would you still want to only mangle if a debuff was necessary. The other thing I would like to test, would be to keep mangle/rake up, keep rip up, with each rip you would shred just 3 times for the increased duration, then back to mangles for faster combo point building for FB's.

You end up with 29 energy mangles after set bonus and spec, so versus a 42 energy shred you get to 5 combo points much faster.

There are a lot of different variables that could be tested here, as well as idol swapping in certain situations. If anyone can give me some insight on how to incorporate this into the coding, or if nightcrowler has any interest in incorporating these, I would be extremely interested in seeing the results.

I currently have the gear on live server to use T6 boots/belt/bracers/chest with t7 shoulders/gloves and t8 helm/legs. I can do real world testing with it, but I think it needs to be in a fully buffed raid environment to truly understand how fast you would build combo points with all the increased bonuses to crit


For those unaware of the bonuses for t6: 2 pc reduces cat mangle cost by 5 energy; 4 pc increases damage of rip, swipe, and ferocious bite by 15%

I think T6 set bonuses don't work since the last patch. It's relativly easy to put them into the simulation, but before test if they still work after the last patch.

Theres one Problem i have in 10 men so i could use some help, even with FBN i have issues keeping up the mangle debuff, sometimes its down for like 1-2 seconds and ill reply it instant.

The question, is the bonus of mangle lost on rip when it falls off when rip is ticking or is it like with TF or AP proccs is it only important that when aplied it ticks with the extra ap/tfdmg.

What if i reaply mangle mangle with a little downtime during rip/rake do they gain the extra dmg again?

Is there a way to see how often u used shred with ooc procc, because sometimes i see the ooc procc and then i just noticed i apllied rake oder other things for the clearcast, because i just got the energy to apply rake etc.


I did a little math with my reports and switching Idols when i rip, would be a dps improve by 10-20dps, also my rip uptime is not the best. With high rip uptimes (85%+) it would be an easy way to improve dps

From what I've read greater minds than you and I have tested out "idol swapping" extensively, and the verdict was that it's not worth it...stick with rip when undergeared (you haven't reached a certain cap for ArPen) and switch to shred when you have reached the said cap.

@Anubisck:
If you follow FBN addon without user error you should have mangle downtime only when you need to refresh SR otherwise FBN doesn't suggest you to use an ability 1GCD before mangle expire and always keep energy to use it. So basically the maximum mangle downtime should be 1 second every now and then.
As for RIP vs. Shred idol it depends on your raid buff and your gear as I used to say (for istance with low arpen and expecially without sunder rip idol should be better, I never said the opposite) the difference is indeed minimal (as you said 10-20 dps is what I expect, no more, and it's not easy to see it using a combat log parsing, you should see wich temporary buff are up for each shred/rip and so on).

@cyndonia: Idol swapping is not efficient. Actually you can argue about 3 different idols: mangle, shred, rip. The difference using one of them and not the others is really minimal 10-40 dps max, swapping idols gives you a 1.5 sec GCD and reset swing timer, also in the best situation (and they are not that much, 3-4 times in a 5 minute fights) the swing reset is worst than the dps increase and expecially that small dps increase (and it's not a dps increase either) should not be worth the effort.

Yes. Every rip tick independently checks for mangle/trauma. For this reason the standard rotation pre-wotlk was "Shred to 4-5 CP, pool 80ish energy, Rip, Mangle" so Mangle would be applied before the first Rip tick and be up for its whole duration. Bugged super-Rips with double mangle aside, where the damage would be further amplified by the odd "Mangle" (not Mangle - Cat or Mangle - Bear) buff present before Rip was cast, but that's a different story.

Don't do it. Swapping weapons or idols in combat will reset your swing timer, so you would lose an white attack every time. It's a dps loss.

What kind of rip uptime does your sim get?

I'm probably not FBing aggressively enough, I usually have a high rip uptime. Looking at my old parses, even with a mangle bot, idol of worship seems superior by my napkin math. Rawr agrees but has 100% uptime so I'm wondering where the turning point is.

I have personally tested the 4 pc t6 with just real time tests on raid dummy. With self buffs, it increased my dps by 140 over my current raid gear.

I was using t8 helm/legs, t7 shoulders/gloves, wristwraps of the cutthroat, relic hunter's cord, winter's icy embrace, footpads of silence, grim toll, mirror of truth, band of draconic guile, ring of invincibility, drape of the drakerider, and twisted visage

The bolded items were replace with t6 helm/boots/bracers/belt all gemmed with 16 arpen.

Statwise, I went from 258 hit 20 expertise 511 arpen to 188 hit 17 expertise 396 arpen.

I was also idol swapping for ravenous beast and worship for the duration of my testing.

I did a 15 minute test per grouping on the boss training dummy.

For my current raid gear I came out with 4285 dps.

For t6 gear using my normal rotations I had 4395 dps.

For t6 gear using only 3 shreds per rip and then building combo points with mangle I had 4065 dps.

The data in recount definitely reflected that the t6 set bonuses are still working. If you could possibly incorporate the t6 stuff into your testing, I'm not sure that chest is the best piece to use, it's just what I have. The ideal in my belief would be 4 pc t8 with 4 pc t6 for optimum dps.

I'm also very curious about idol swapping and people saying it's a dps loss. If you have a mangle bot, I don't see how it would ever cause you to mess up a rotation. I very closely monitor my dps logs with wowmeteronline for every fight I do, I consitently maintain a 90% or higher rip time and 95% or higher rake uptime with 95% or greater savage roar uptime. I think it's largely dependent on knowing your rotation and when to put in the switch. Also having a great connection helps, I would never think about idol swapping with over a 100 ms connection, I consistently raid at 40 ms.

For anyone wanting to verify, I am currently in top 10 in the world on Assembly of iron and top 20 in the world on yogg saron according to wow meter online (this is for druids only) and I have held positions in the world top 10's in kologarn, ignus, xt-002 and thorim. All of these were with item swapping, I would really love to see some data backing up the statement of idol swapping not being worth it.

Hopefully someone can throw some numbers up for that t6 though, would love to see the results.

Neonjoe, I'm curious - when do you switch and when do you not switch? Obviously when you switch is easy - on rip application vs not. But when do you not? When you're going to need to do berserk or something? On weird SR/Rip clips?

I'm also really interested in figuring out the optimal 2pT7/2pT8/4pT6 combo. I'd imagine that the chest for T6 would be a good candidate thanks to the gems. I'd think that the other good candidate would be the shoulders given that they tend to be low-itemization and they have an extra socket compared to the other tier gear. How did you arise at what you were going to use?

Thanks to all.

My uptime is 75-85% on bosses, i didnt have the time to check it on boss dummy yet.
I wonder how its even possible to not use FB in a rotation. In a 5 min fight i usually Fb 7-10 times, depends on crit/ooc.

usually FB has a high chance to crit 75-80% fullbuffed, using shred instead of FB is a waste of energie in my opinion.
if u have to wait 5 seconds longer to reaply rip the first tick would be around 7 seconds after your rip expired, thats 3 ticks with my average ticks it would be around 7-8k dmg loss, but FB crits for 15-19k. if it doesnt crit the difference is +-0.
No proof for that, just somethink i thought of while reading the posts about not FBing during a fight a couple of days ago

I went with the t6 chest because of the 3 gem slots. Getting in 48 arpen on that chest piece makes it pretty good. The only thing I'm seeing an issue with atm in using that gear, is the hit rating/expertise. I had an unlucky streak in one of my dps runs and had a 4.2% mitt and 2.4% dodge on my shreds. Must say that threw off a couple rotations. It definitely is not for someone with little experience on the cat dps rotations. Basically, I have my idol switching bound into my rip and shred keys so it auto-switches any time I need to use it. I have very rarely run in to any situation where it causes an issue with energy. The thing that allows if I am high energy and have just switched to a rip idol, is I can refresh rake and mangle to put energy down a level while I wait on the GCD for shred idol. The one thing that I do monitor, when I am about to berserk, I put up a normal 5 pt rip with a savage roar that is under 10 seconds. I then burn all my energy and tiger's fury/berserk and the first thing I do is refresh savage roar. My entire berserk duration is then used with shred/mangle/rake and ferocious bites so I don't lose any GCD time to idol switching during berserk.

I just honestly can't see how idol switching would ever be a dps loss if you are smooth and experienced with the rotations. I am on the fence about replacing my 2 pc t7 with the 4 pc t8. Savage roar already tends to be longer duration than rip, and that would just mean I would have even more rip refreshing to do. It's something I will definitely have to test further. I do know that using 4 pc t6 is definitely going to make me rethink items in other slots. I may actually end up using grim toll and blood of the old god in conjunction, as it would still leave me under hit cap by about 20 points if all my calculations are correct.

I am going to be trying it out in a raid situation as soon as possible, because with all the buffs helping to up my crit I can only believe that it will make the disparity between t6 and non-t6 larger, because of the faster combo point builds. With that being said, I am still not ruling out using mangle as your main combo point gen and only using shred 3x for the increased rip duration on each application.

I will say that I have tested using triple idols, and I did run in to issues there just with keybinding. On fights like kologarn I put the mangle idol in for switching instead of rip, and my mangle macro also functions as my rake key based on a key modifier. Having the mangle idol force switch on needed rake applications has hindered me at times. I would be forced to put the mangle idol switch onto it's own keybind, and in that circumstance with all the other things you're thinking about and latency issues, I could see it being a problem remembering to get the idol on every time. It is something I believe is worth trying, I just have to convince myself it is worth working even harder on my dps rotation to accomplish.

Nightcrowler: forgive me for dredging up the topic, but we're sorta debating the same topic over at FoH now. I was looking at your simplified explanation of your "To FB or not" algorithm. I noticed that you only need a minimum of 4s left on SR to OK using FB(along with a few other checks relating to Rip). How is that enough time to establish another combo point and then use SR since that would require a minimum of 60 energy?

@neon Find it quite interesting using 4t6 pieces never thought of that.

I only own the pre2.4 t6 pieces so i cant run any test on a dummy. But i do think that you are right about 4t8 beeing not as usefull as 2t7 2t8, SR uptime should not be a problem due to fast CP gain. Are u switching idols with the 4t6 i didn´t get that or with ulduar gear.
Would be interesting to see numbers on that, swapping idol with 4t6 seems logical because you have more yellow dps than Druids not using 4t6, and it would be a nice buff to those. Could you send me a PM with Recount/WOM like chart, would like to compare it with mine.

Do u have the ulduar idol, how high is its uptime?

@Deathwing: As you said 4s left on SR is minimum, when i look at the Simulation on the first page from Nightcrowler he has SR uptime 98,2%, that is 5,4 seconds in a 5 min fight when SR is not up.
Assuming you FB three times at minimum condition, u could lose ca. 2s on SR uptime like in the simulation.

@Deathwing: "average" energy regeneration is far higher than 40 energy in 4 seconds. 25 for sr + let's say an average of 40 for the cps = 65 easly averaged with ooc procs, 2t8 procs and king of the jungle. 4 second was only an example, the simulator want's a 0 average SR downtime so sometimes it can happen that you have 1-2 seconds downtime with white attack, not more, but very often you have 0 downtime because it clips before.

You can easly see the different timers if you have some confidency with LUA changing the code in my addon and letting the different variable shows in the display, you'll see them changing during the fight.

I've got 2 more gear questions:

1) If I'm reading the BiS gear lists right, then it looks like the current BiS for chest/legs looks like:
chest: Embrace of the Gladiator, legs: T8.5

Why isn't the offset piece legs instead of chest?
chest: T8.5, legs: Legguards of Cunning Deception

Based on the item score from your weights, it seems like that would be an overall higher score for those 2 slots. Plus, the legs have a ton of ArP on them.

2) Do you have a similar list for cat weapons as you do for cat armor? I could only find a bear weapons list in the first post. Thanks!


Edit: sorry, one more. Why is Footpads of Silence BiS when Runed Ironhide Boots has a higher score?

Question 1, his list was based off of wowhead items before they added the latest hard mode loot. Wowhead is up to date right now with everything but algalon loot, such as the ring from the quest item and the bracers which edge out the flux coil bracers off xt 10 man hard mode.

Question 2, just click, near the top on the left, armor and select weapon instead.

Slot	Item
Back	Drape of Faceless General
Chest	Conqueror's Nightsong Rainments
Feet	Footpads of Silence(icewalker enchant)
Ring 1	Brann’s Signet Ring
Head	Conqueror's Nightsong Headguard
Legs	Leggards of Cunning Deception
Hands	Conqueror's Nightsong Handgrips
Neck	Pendulum of Infinity
Shoulders	Conqueror's Nightsong Shoulderpads
Trinket 1	Blood of the Old god
Trinket 2	Mjolnir Runestone
Weapon	Dreambinder
Waist	Soul-Devouring Cinch
Ring 2	Band of Lights
Wrist	Solar Bindings

This is what I calculated to be the BiS gearset with what is available.

So the runed ironhide boots would fall under footpads of silence due to already being expertise capped, making its relative value drop.

@Cal, Individual score does not mean that you can pick the top rated piece for every slot.
If you pick [Runed Ironhide Boots] over [Footpads of Silence] or [Legguards of Cunning Deception] over [Embrace of the Gladiator], you need to be aware of hit, expertise and Armor Penetration Caps.

Ramenchef, you sure about that? NONE of the 3 239 items in chest, leg, or shoulder slot instead of a set item?

My mistake. I was going to wowwiki to get the names of the items not yet on any item database and totally forgot to edit in the legs. It's fixed now.