Inaiwae

Maybe i am overseeing something, but why do you compare rip/rake ticks to shred?

As i see it, e.g. in case with rip, you either have free rip (30 energy) or free shred (42 energy). The difference you should compare is 12 energy vs wasted rip tick + wasted combo point.

I personally prioritize mangle, SR and Rip over OOC shred.

edit: Now that i am thinking about it, rake is 40 energy, so i guess there's no reason to prioritize OOC shred over rake?
edit2: My bad, rake is 35, so Shred > Rake.

 

Nelkanor

As far as I understand it, this is about efficient energy usage, not just priority. In the scenario you describe, you get to do both the actions you intend to, since one of them is free and you assume an energy state that requires only one GCD to do the next.

Point (a) is a non-issue, I don't see why you mention it since you can only use OoC for Shred anyway. Even if you did get extremely unlucky and got a 2nd OoC before you used the 1st one, it would still even out with 1-2 wasted CP's, which again translate into energy in the end. For me losing one OoC or wasting 1-2 CP's has more or less the same value energy-wise (2 CP's could be even almost double the value with unlucky crits).

Point (b), I am uncertain as to which is more valuable, 1 second of Rake or 7 free energy points (talented Rake is 35 not 40). I Shred if I can see it in time before I hit Rake.

I would agree with Inaiwae on point (c). You are losing 12 'free' energy, but the energy you would spend to regain 1-2 wasted CP's is at least 36, i.e. a Mangle.

On (d) I agree with you, it becomes even more important if you don't assume that you'll do the Mangle 1 second after Shred, e.g. you are at 15 energy and get an OoC, the 2nd action will be a while longer.

 

Boevis

SR Doesn't consume a Clearcast, so if SR needs to be refreshed, you should always do that first, and then use your free Shred. The odds of back to back procs is so low that it's not worth losing a combo point and 33% damage on the Shred. Obviously, if you aren't at 5cp and SR hasn't faded yet, then you should Shred first. The tricky one is if you're at 5cp but SR hasn't faded (Shred probably) or if you're not at 5cp but SR has faded (SR probably).

The math was very old fr the other ones, but wasting a CP and 1 second of Rip uptime was previously shown to be worthwhile (ie. Shred > Rip). Mangle vs Shred comes down to how many bleeders are in the raid. Rake vs Shred is actually quite a bit more difficult, sometimes your cycle is setting up to where you just don't need that 7 energy and that slightly higher uptime on Rake is better.

 

Allev

For kicks, check out SimulationCraft. It's very simple to cut and paste the line of code where you shred on OoC, and removing it produces essentially no DPS change (depending on the profile and gear). The attack cycle is a greedy algorithm that doesn't pool energy, so it's not entirely accurate to ideal play, but it's fairly close.

While the straight-up shred versus X individual comparisons come up giving shred the advantage, you have to look at the entire cycle-- say you'd want to apply mangle, rake, and rip all in the next five seconds, at various points; you have enough energy for two of them. If you get an OoC proc, you're going to be better off refreshing everything than delaying one of them, because you're dealing with even more downtime. Better still-- you need to rip, then gain a CP, then SR, all in the context of 4 seconds. That sequence can lead to downtime on all attacks.

A guiding rule might be to shred only when you see a minor collision coming up. But I doubt shredding every OoC or keeping your cycle will change your DPS more than 50 either way in the long run.

 

Inaiwae

Mangle increases Shred damage, so i guess in case Shred would land on non-mangled target you always prioritize Mangle.

 

Boevis

I suppose you're right. If you assume that 8 energy will always be used for another Shred, you end up with 8/42 (19%) of a shred versus 30% of a shred + variable bleed damage, of which the 30%+ clearly wins

 

LordOfChains

Apologies if this has been dealt with, but I've pored through this thread and can't seem to find a clear cut answer.

In regards to gemming ArP or Agi and the upper and lower limits to decide which way we should go:

When we see X < 400 ArP and such, does that mean gear only, or gear + gems? If we can reach that minimum level or so with gems, should we go with it or stick to agility until our gear actually hits that particular threshold?

 

Mielikinna

Yes, do not gem armor pen until you have at least 400 armor pen from gear alone. The upper limit is 735 with Mjolnir, 788 with Grim Toll (1400 is 100% armor pen). If I got my numbers wrong, someone rip me a new one

 

fálas

Im a bit new at this and am kinda confused. I have about 600 passive ArP and no trinket(offspec is kitty so no luck at gettin the runestone) from what I have been told if I have enough ArP so my shreds should be my top damage done. is this true or false? from a 15 min fight with a dummy my top damage done was rip at 29.2% melee was 25.7% and shred was 20.6%. is this normal for shred damage? I know the ArP nerf in 3.2.2 was little, but I cant get any shred crits over 8.5k

also for chants, I saw that Murna recommended icewalker. I use agi to feet, is that a mistake or is the change minimal. is haste useless for kittys? I have seen posts saying that haste is great if you have a massive amount of it, but what if you only have 100 or so, would that 100 haste be a waste of itemization or if Im at the soft ArP cap(when I get the runestone) would I want to take haste over say crit on my gear?

I have looked through many many posts and I am still confused from what I hear from a feral friend and what you guys say @.@

 

Murna

Melee should always be the biggest chunk of your damage at about 30%, followed by Shred and Rip.
Without raidbuffs, your crit is very low, which means you can't shred as often. That's why your shred damage is low compared to rip.
Just check out RAWR, it will give you an estimation, how many percent each of your damage moves will do. For example for me it's

Melee 31%
Shred 26.1%
Rip 22.9%
Rake 11.8%
FB 7.7%

Remember - these values are a bit off, because RNG and some slight errors in the RAWR code. But they give you an impression.


Haste doesn't scale exponential like ArP, but more linear like crit. That means, it doesn't matter how much haste you have - it always has the same value for you.

But Haste scales with your DPS. More Haste means more OoC proccs and more Autoattack damage. Obviously haste becomes better, the more damage you do.

Concerning the Foot enchant: Yes, Agi is better than Hit. BUT: 12 Crit + 12 Haste > 16 Agi, unless you can't use the whole 12 Hit when near or above the Hit Cap.

 

Jone

If you don't have grim toll or runestone, don't gem arpen till you can hit 1000 arpen from gear, buffs, and gems.

 

Boevis

Murna means 12 Crit + 12 Hit > 16 Agi assuming you aren't above 251 Hit already (the hit cap is 263)

For the average druid, Haste is a terrible stat, however it benefits from the fact that it never caps, ie. you'll never reach a point where more haste isn't a good thing. For the few druids at my gear level (FB softcapped on Crit, ArP softcap with Mjolnir but not enough to go for Hard Cap, Hit Capped) Haste just becomes a better stat by default. 10 Haste only has to be as good as 6 agi to make it worth socketing the [Deft Ametrine] in +4 Agi bonus spots, which are all over the place and [Twin's Pact] is better than [Hellion Glaive]. This is all very conditional on not needing any more Crit, and being soft-capped on ArP, otherwise Pure Agi or ArP gems are likely better.

As usual, always use a [Nightmare Tear] to get a good socket bonus, and activate your Meta.

 

fálas

my guild has thorim hardmode on farm in 10 man so its only a matter of time before I can get it for offspec.


I am hit caped so the agi was the right choice to make. sadly all my gear is what I get from offspec so I cant really be picky about what stats are on my gear

and I would feel dirty if I didnt have a [Nightmare Tear] in my gear

a friend recommended me to use [Insane Strength Potion] over a haste pot. should I start stackin up on them?

 

kalbear

Your friend was wrong; haste potions are much better than insane strength pots.

 

babjengi

What do you define as "FB softcapped on crit?"
I see on your armory that you have about 400 more agility than me, and thus you have 42% crit outside of forms O.o.
Does this mean, you have close to 100% chance to crit with FB when raid buffed?
Also, from what I see, you are not softcapped on ar pen (considering the recent nerf). Would that indicate that my 731 ar pen rating excessive? (in my armory, consider the added 40 from Hearty Rhino for now). To my understanding, ar pen soft cap is gaining 100% ar pen with a trinket proc. This is assuming mjolnir adds 665 ar pen. 100% is 1400 ar pen, and soft cap is 735 (1400-665). Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Rawr has repeatedly told me to simply gem agility, but conflicting information presented in this thread leaves me a bit confused. Please clarify. Thanks

 

Allev

I wouldn't be surprised if soft-cap on FB is actually about 5% lower. There's some research in the class mechanics forum showing 5% white hits right now, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the same with yellow hits.

Also, agility procs (death's choice/verdict trinkets, greatness trinkets, mongoose, idols, etc.) can often push you over that soft cap even when you're under it on average. I'd hate to have to formulate all of those at the same time!

Edit: Also, whether you should trust Rawr or not depends on your playstyle. Do you sacrifice Rip for FB a lot? Do you have to mangle-bot (Rawr's collision models are a little behind.) Typical damage profiles can vary a lot while outputting very good DPS, and ideal gearing in those situations vary. Regardless, the total difference between gemming Agi versus gemming ArP is unlikely to matter unless you fall at one extreme (i.e. no FBs; gem Agi) or the other (i.e. 70% bleed uptimes; gem ArP).

 

babjengi

How would low bleed uptime be indicative of the need for more ar pen?

 

Boevis

babjengi: Because I tank Heroics and DPS Normal mode, my gear was changing so often that I only used ArP gems in the items that I only use for DPS. FB soft-cap is counting idol/DMG agi, so it's actually quite low. If I had Deaths Choice as well, it would be theoretically possible to hit the Rip Crit cap at some point and time, Rawr is putting me at 70% crit with it's version of BiS gear, procs up that to 80%.

Because it means you are using your energy more often for other things (Shred over Rake, FB over holding out for Rip) thus, ArP will be more needed. Allev probably should have said it in reverse: If you are gemming for ArP, Bleed uptime should be lower; if you are gemming for Agi, Bleed uptime should be higher (I can't imagine dropping FBs from your rotation when you gem Agi, since you'll be critting a lot more)

 

Allev

A low-bleed damage profile will simply see more benefit from ArP stacking than a high-bleed damage profile.

Think of it this way: if bleeds are 25% of your damage, then ArP affects 75% of your total damage output. If bleeds are 40% of your damage output, then ArP affects 60% of your damage output. Obviously ArP will be more effective in the first situation than the second. Those numbers are a little extreme, but possible.

Agi is relatively constant, with only a little variance based on Rake uptime-- otherwise, the AP and crit affect all your damage. So in most cases it will remain unchanged (but depending on your damage profile, increases or decreases value relative to ArP as ArP's value changes.)

And all of this is ultimately controlled by playstyle.

 

eXcel905

I've been reading through and im seeing soft cap for crit on FB and on Rip. I was wondering if someone could just explain this a little? What is the soft cap crit for FB, and for Rip, and what does that mean generally. 0_o?

 

Allev

At a certain point, every attack crits. Since you have a talent that increases FB's chance to crit, it caps first-- so you get less value from increasing your crit. 4T9 also creates this issue, marginally, with Rip. White hits reach this cap fairly quickly because of glancing blows.

The white hits assume capped hit/expertise; if you don't have them capped, the numbers get adjusted even further down. (This makes hit/expertise caps fairly important, actually.)

Due to crit depression on bosses, the first 4.8% crit doesn't count; so for FB, the soft cap is at most 74.8% (69.8% with 4T9). Rip is still high at 99.8% with 4T9, so I don't see that being reached. But white crit cap is 104.8% - 24% (glances) = 80.8%, which is very reachable.

The actual numbers may be 4.8% lower than THAT, though-- the 4.8% we lose from crit reduction might turn into hits that we can never get back. This may push the FB cap down to 65%, the Rip cap to 95%, and the white hit cap to 76%.

 

Skratchh

Since 3.2 came out I have struggled to maintain 5k dps on average on a raid mob. I am using the same rotation as i always done. I have regemmed agility to see if that would help me out. It seems to have improved a bit on my dps. For example on normal mode Beasts i can pull 5500 no problem. On heroic I drop to around 4800. So I think maybe my problem is energy management. I seem to be starving for it. I do use the mod face mauler to help with the rotation.


This worries me as I am always been in top 5 in dps now I struggle to be in the top ten on most fights. I know we have taken a hit but I seem to be in a rut of some sorts. So maybe others are having similar issues or maybe it is just gear. So I bring this to the community here for help. Please don't need flames or hey I do 9k and you stink. I have always been a very good player and student of the game. So someone could give me some pointers I really appreciate it. I have read the threads as in how to dps etc... It is something beyond the obvious and was hoping someone had similar problem but corrected it. Thanks for the help.

 

Mielikinna

Do you have a parse we could look at? I'm not seeing obvious issues with your gear, and while you could drop 2 points in furor for improved mark of the wild, that is also not a big enough issue to explain such a deficiency.

 

Skratchh

I will differently post one next week for you guys. Thanks

 

Laupen

Hi guys, I have (another) question about Agi vs. ArP gemming. I've always trusted RAWR on how to upgrade my gear and in which direction to head with for stats, however, at the moment it seems to be largely undervalueing ArP. It continues to tell me that Agility is still my best stat, worth about 50% more than ArP per point. I assumed that as I geared up, ArP would slowly catch up and overtake, but now I sit on 390 ArP (without a trinket) it's still telling me to gem for Agility. What would you guys recommend I gem for from now on? (FYI: if I swapped all gems to +20 ArP, I'd gain 201 ArP)

Another complication is that I often tank to justify my place in a raid/group and a few of my pieces cross over between the two gear sets. Therefore I have the option of gemming ArP everywhere and risking some confusing looks at my tank gear, or mix ArP and Agi where I need to, or start using sub-optimal pieces in my tank set (this is the same reason my staff has Mongoose on it).

Any other advice about my gear/spec would be welcome. I haven't played a feral since mid-TBC and I've only dinged 80 on this one about 4 weeks ago, so pugging like mad to get my gear up to a level I can raid with my guild with! Cheers all.

EDIT: Low hit and exp are from a couple of recent upgrades which I haven't recovered from yet. Again RAWR is fine with me being below the cap, but I'm not tbh. The hit will come back from the Triumph badge hat when I get it, not sure about the exp tho!