I'm by no means a genius at macros like some of the pvp kids, but I tried to make some macros for idol swapping and it just does not seem viable. If you had a macro for each idol mangle/shred/rip, and swapped them out you lose way to much time between attacks. From what I have experienced, and tell me if i am doing it wrong please, but I don't see it being viable. My macros are:
#showtooltip Mangle (cat)
/equip Idol of the Corrupter
/cast mangle (cat)
#showtooltip Shred
/equip Idol of the Ravenous Beast
/cast Shred
#showtooltip Rip
/equip Idol of Worship
/cast Rip
While doing this you have to spam your attacks. Say you open with Mangle, so the idol is equipped the first mangle goes off no problem, you get the buff then savage roar. Then you rake, no problem there. You hit the Shred macro, it first equips the Shred idol, then tries to shred, however it cannot because of the GCD, so its a second or so until you actually get to shred once, then twice, lets say you have the 5 CP. You hit the Rip macro, once, a second later for the gcd and actually Rip. Then you have to requip the mangle idol because primal wrath is falling off. From my testing of this, with the missing swing timers and wasted GCD, I lost over 500dps from the delays of actually equipping the idols then performing the attacks, it seems ridiculously sluggish and unresponsive.
I could see this being possible *if* you had a 100% perfect rotation, and were able to macro the equips to the ends of your macros, after the attack, you equip the idol for your next attack, and it should use that GCD it is already on. Someone with more experience with macros let me know if I am wrong, but I don't think equipping them before the attack is a viable dps increase, and the rotation is not predictive enough to equip them after the previous attack.
Doesn't it just reset the swing timer? So, it doesn't matter how much haste you have. In actuality, you aren't even losing a full swing time. You could have just attacked in which case resetting the timer doesn't matter. With simple logic, it's probably slightly over 1/2 of a swing on average. It's basically a reverse parry-haste mechanic.
It's not slightly over but exactly 1/2 of a swing on average (unless you deliberately try to sync your idol switch with you swing timer - which i very much doubt is practical). Remember you have to switch back and forth so it's another half swing lost when you switch back.
If you're spamming the buttons, you'll only do the swap during the prior GCD. It only 'costs' a GCD if you've got one to spend; otherwise it's free, I believe. This is how something like a cat/bear swap of weapons works as well; I have a macro that when I change form to bear it equips a bear weapon and idol, and same for cat. Doesn't cost any extra GCDs.
It might cost a lot, as Phoa indicates. I suspect that you could only reasonably do it with two swaps, not three. You need some kind of downtime to get it working perfectly; ideally you'll be spamming that button while the GCD is active (so the swap happens for free), and you can't do that if you have to go directly from one idol to the next to the next. But two idols should be fine if you don't have to swap immediately and if you don't have to swap all the time.
Quick Question, on Gen Vesx, and My mangle keeps disappearing off the boss, just curious if it is someone else in my raid with an ability overwriting me, or does the boss have an ability clearing it?.. I am the only feral Druid, so it's not another Drood. TYVM ahead of time
Quick Question, on Gen Vesx, and My mangle keeps disappearing off the boss, just curious if it is someone else in my raid with an ability overwriting me, or does the boss have an ability clearing it?.. I am the only feral Druid, so it's not another Drood. TYVM ahead of time
Most likely a Arms warrior with the talent Trauma.
Kitty dps is probably a little too high. It's tricky though because it is a very demanding spec to play well and if nerf it for the best players, the less-skilled ones might really see their dps plummet.
I'll say again that we purposely designed Ulduar to have a great diversity among the bosses. Depending on which bosses you look at, the list of whose dps is too low or too high changes. If Ulduar had 3 additional or 5 fewer bosses, the answer would probably be different.
Keep your eyes peeled for possible changes. I'm hoping the nerfs (if they come) are something that don't drastically change our priority on gear selection and gem choices. Having passed on several pieces and focused rather heavily into the world of ArP, I'd rather not find out some odd change lowers us overall by 5-10% if we're assumed stacking Agility or (ick) Strength and even worse of a drop if we're stacking ArP.
If they're going to tweak our dps downwards, they should really fix our cycle complexity. Replace the FB crit bonus talent with a SR refresh talent(yeah, it would invalidate 4T8), there, two problems solved. Reduced PvP burst as cherry on top.
Kitty dps is probably a little too high. It's tricky though because it is a very demanding spec to play well and if nerf it for the best players, the less-skilled ones might really see their dps plummet.
I'll say again that we purposely designed Ulduar to have a great diversity among the bosses. Depending on which bosses you look at, the list of whose dps is too low or too high changes. If Ulduar had 3 additional or 5 fewer bosses, the answer would probably be different. - end of Ghostcrawler's quote
Keep your eyes peeled for possible changes. I'm hoping the nerfs (if they come) are something that don't drastically change our priority on gear selection and gem choices. Having passed on several pieces and focused rather heavily into the world of ArP, I'd rather not find out some odd change lowers us overall by 5-10% if we're assumed stacking Agility or (ick) Strength and even worse of a drop if we're stacking ArP.
I can't really see the base on which Ghostcrawler's statement is true. I'm not going to bring in the complexity of the cycle, just that on the current design of the bosses in Ulduar the facts are these:
I can't really see the base on which Ghostcrawler's statement is true. I'm not going to bring in the complexity of the cycle, just that on the current design of the bosses in Ulduar the facts are these:
Maybe I'm wrong, but I can accept someone showing me the right way.
P.S.: I'd like to print this and send blizz a fax, maybe they can explain even better.
P.P.S: I know the fact that they write "Engrish" doesn't make a very good impression of wmo, but still
You have to take historical context into consideration. Before 3.1, the only ferals playing as cat mainly were playing for reasons other than dps. Cat dps was too low for most serious raiders to consider it. So, the people that played ferals(and thus picked up feral gear) were tanks. Guild rosters don't change quickly. 3.1 comes along and cats are cool again! But most of the people who would really know how play the class to its fullest(and it's not just FBN) are "stuck" tanking for their guild.
Dual spec and set sharing helps some, but if you're a raid tank, you gem and gear for that first. The ArP change ensures you can't share gear between bear and cat(this made me quite sad).
Back to the guild roster thing. Is any guild going to sit/kick members that have been with them through at least 1 tier of content just because cats are 10% better dps? Largely, the roster stays the same from Naxx, and as I said above, ferals tanked in naxx for the most part.
Cats are still quite new. Even DKs are much more established than them. As Ulduar ages and people get off spec gear, I wouldn't be surprised if more cats appear on WMO(or maybe not if it turns out we scale poorly in comparison to other classes). You need a large amount of really good players with really good raid setups to get a top 20 overall score on WMO. Lots of top 20 scores are largely based on lucky crits streaks and such(see fury warrior on the hard mode mimiron scores). My only proof of this is XT and Vezax, the sustained fights in Ulduar. Surprise surprise, XT hard mode is littered with ferals. Vezax would be too if not for the heavy caster mechanics in the fight(anecdote: I'll still beat some of the casters on our Vezax fights).
Actually I remember seeing those listings around the beginning of 3.1 and it was populated fairly well by cats, but as more and more time passed rogues and dks and such started taking them over.
Things like Tun topping the meters of all other players in Ensidia for virtually any fight that doesn't have silly mechanics is likely the reason that Blizzard is concerned. It's easy to say that at any given time, a feral is better than most of their raid's dps, but when a very high-quality guild that doesn't have a lot of bad players all state unequivocably that feral is top dps, I suspect that holds more weight.
Things like Tun topping the meters of all other players in Ensidia for virtually any fight that doesn't have silly mechanics is likely the reason that Blizzard is concerned. It's easy to say that at any given time, a feral is better than most of their raid's dps, but when a very high-quality guild that doesn't have a lot of bad players all state unequivocably that feral is top dps, I suspect that holds more weight.
Got any links to that discussion and/or meters? Tun's gear(that you can see) isn't BiS, and some of it is questionably gemmed. Lastly, I've heard they throw all sorts of cooldowns at him.
Got any links to that discussion and/or meters? Tun's gear(that you can see) isn't BiS, and some of it is questionably gemmed. Lastly, I've heard they throw all sorts of cooldowns at him.
The 25-man Algalon video had Tun beating everyone by about 500 DPS. In a later interview they talk about how you want you ferals DPSing instead of tanking.
In the Mimiron 25 Tun was also top damage, if not top DPS, before horribly dying to fire.
That he's not BiS isn't surprising; that he's so completely dominating the other rogues, hunters and locks on a fairly static fight like Algalon is.
Got any links to that discussion and/or meters? Tun's gear(that you can see) isn't BiS, and some of it is questionably gemmed. Lastly, I've heard they throw all sorts of cooldowns at him.
I wouldn't be surprised if he did receive a lot of cooldowns. Ferals are one of two classes that reap maximum benefits from a Hysteria and warriors aren't exactly putting up impressive numbers. TotT chain as well as salvs would do wonders. Mostly a side effect of being purely physical and having ArP being our primary stat. Curse of Elements would have to stack 5 times over for casters to benefit to the point that ferals and warriors do from ArP, and that's probably why rogues, enh shammies, and rets don't stack ArP and also see extraordinary numbers on Hodir (singed debuff).
Edit-In that interview they said they brought a Blood DK and one rogue. Pretty much sounds like he received Hysteria and TotT's in the fight. Explains the 7.4k dps for sure. Can you link a WWS report or something similar to their attempts. I'd like to see how many times he gained said buffs. Also, the way they specifically state that feral single target DPS is "sooooo good" seems to imply that they may just relieve him of any encounter/add duties and stick him squarely on the boss.
Edit-In that interview they said they brought a Blood DK and one rogue. Pretty much sounds like he received Hysteria and TotT's in the fight. Explains the 7.4k dps for sure. Can you link a WWS report or something similar to their attempts. I'd like to see how many times he gained said buffs.
I don't believe Ensidia has made their logs public at this time.
With that rotation, or priority of skills if you will, you can go give bosses the good news. But before going so DPS horny that you'd bang the crack of dawn, you must remember that getting buffed with Hysteria and Tricks of the Trade is awesome. If you can get away with it, make sure you get as much of it as you can. Pay the DK's and Rogues if you have to. WE WANT MORE DPS! WE WANTS IT!
That guide has some pretty egregious errors. Suggesting hit and expertise cap and 50% crit without showing any sort of math or explanation is "huh?". Linking Rawr pictures(aside that we've already determined a few pages earlier that the Rawr model is unrealistic) that have the "DON'T USE THIS TO COMPARE GEAR" warning right in the damn picture is
It suffices to say, if some of his statements were made in this forum they would probably receive an infraction. I'm sure there are many of us here that, with the gear and cooldowns that this fellow has, would put up similar or higher numbers.
Considering that if I remember right one of the crit breakpoints for kitties is about 60% him saying 50% is aiming a bit low. I really hope blizzard looks around for other opinions and doesn't take his word as gospel. Frankly if he is using rawr to calculate his stuff which his stat values would imply then even when the runestone is procced the rip idol still slightly edges out the shred idol with the gear he listed.
Also that reminds me, given the fact that the proc rate of the Idol of the Corruptor is 100% with kitty mangle wouldnt the constant 153 agi make that idol BiS for dps?
Considering that if I remember right one of the crit breakpoints for kitties is about 60% him saying 50% is aiming a bit low. I really hope blizzard looks around for other opinions and doesn't take his word as gospel. Frankly if he is using rawr to calculate his stuff which his stat values would imply then even when the runestone is procced the rip idol still slightly edges out the shred idol with the gear he listed.
Also that reminds me, given the fact that the proc rate of the Idol of the Corruptor is 100% with kitty mangle wouldnt the constant 153 agi make that idol BiS for dps?
Where do you get 60% crit as the break point?
And yes, idol of the corruptor is BiS if you're using mangle every 12s.
60% is around the change of slope in the crit vs. combo points generation curve. As already stated at around 60% crit, the value of crit start decreasing more than before but "more" is not that much, cps generation is only a small component of crit-derived dps.
If they're going to tweak our dps downwards, they should really fix our cycle complexity. Replace the FB crit bonus talent with a SR refresh talent(yeah, it would invalidate 4T8), there, two problems solved. Reduced PvP burst as cherry on top.
Maybe people including myself like the complexity of our cycle. This discussion has been raging in the BB for the last few days but I wouldn't be interested in playing the class really if they reduced it to the simplicity of a Ret pally, Enh shaman or mage.
I like the fact I'm always thinking ahead and planning for the next minute is really fun.
But I really don't think it is too high anyway. Rogues beat us on the majority of fights that don't have a gimmick and they are our nearest comparison for pure vs hybrid. Wasn't this pretty much how they wanted it, Ferals being slightly behind the pure class?
What maybe should be nerfed is the interaction between Berserk and Hysteria which is in my opinion the real reason we're seeing those Ferals on the meters there.
Edit:
I just saw that blog! Wow, there is a LOT of misinformation in there. The tanking guide is slightly better but the whole thing reads like its been written by a 12 year old. Kind of disappointed. Also his gear and gemming setup is really quite questionable.
Careful if you use an avoidance set, you might get labelled a "Feral badboy and a radical thinker".
Last edited by Vaccine : 06/17/09 at 6:14 AM.
Originally Posted by Shadowed
The best part is, not only were you late in linking it, that's an April fools topic from 6 months ago.
Vaccine, I totally agree in every single word you just posted.
I desperately hope they will just change the interaction with Berserk and Hysteria. For gods sake, even the removal of Savage Roar stacking with Hysteria would be acceptable.
You have to take historical context into consideration....
My only proof of this is XT and Vezax, the sustained fights in Ulduar. Surprise surprise, XT hard mode is littered with ferals. Vezax would be too if not for the heavy caster mechanics in the fight(anecdote: I'll still beat some of the casters on our Vezax fights).
I can understand your "historical" point of view but I really don't agree. In my opinion this should have no relevance in their decision.
As fost the XT and Vezax fights, yes at XT ferals do very well do to the nature of the encounter(heart) as well as casters do very well on Hodir, Council and Vezax. Putting the "if not for the heavy caster mechanics" is not fair...because this is the encounter and by the same logic you could put an "if not for the heart popping from time to time, XT's dmgmeter would look different".
My opinion is that they should focus on diversifiying the fights like they did in Ulduar, and cat dps should not be a problem(like it's not in Ulduar)
Also I totally agree with Vaccine. The complexity of the cycle and the fact that the decisional tree is a bit more complexe than on other classes is what makes feral dps the most exciting class I played.
As fost the XT and Vezax fights, yes at XT ferals do very well do to the nature of the encounter(heart) as well as casters do very well on Hodir, Council and Vezax. Putting the "if not for the heavy caster mechanics" is not fair...because this is the encounter and by the same logic you could put an "if not for the heart popping from time to time, XT's dmgmeter would look different".
He said XT's hard mode, which only gives you a single heart phase and 9 - 9.5 minutes of Patchwerk style dps (i.e. no damage modifiers, single target with no movement), minus any light/gravity bombs you receive. It's a pretty decent measure of sustained single target dps, particularly if you factor out damage done to the heart. Probably the best such measure in all of Ulduar really, with Ignis being too short and thus prone to RNG streaks.
06/15/09, 7:15 PM
