First, I'd like to start off with a thanks to all who've complied this information and taken their time to answer people's question. I started out playing Moonkin, and just last night took a wild hair and built myself a cat. I jumped on and respecc'd, glyphed, gemmed, and geared WHILE a raid was forming, and did Naxx10 by the seat of my pants... I still pulled 2nd place on the DPS meter, and i'm smitten.

It is now my goal to make my cat as good as i can, and i'm hoping you guys can help. The major problems i ran into last night was 1) monitoring buffs\debuffs 2) rotation. I've read the "preference list" and this all makes sense and i'm trying to adhere to this. I will be installing FBN tonight and setting it up to try to help me monitor my effects better. My main point of struggling is trying to parse all of this information at once while trying to learn a whole new playstyle from where i started.

Can someone help me with a "generic" rotation to use. What i'm trying to do is this: It seems like monitoring buffs\debuffs and movement are my 2 problems at this time (as refreshing my debuffs early, and failing to reapply SR probably hurt my DPS more than a missed shred), so if i can get a "follow this rotation" i can get myself into that habit\flow quickly, and focus on monitoring my buffs\movement. Once i've gotten better at monitoring these things, i can then work on polishing my rotation to maximize DPS.

Currently on a single target i open up with mangle -> rake -> SR. After i get the SR up i try to get a shred in before refreshing rake, then continue shreding until i have enough CP to drop 5\RIP. I really get lost on what i should be doing after this point (and i'm not even sure if this is really optimal) on how to procede with my rotation at this point.

My strat for AOE situations (like spider wing in Naxx) is generally to just give the tank a moment to build some threat then try to get off 3 swipes follow by TF and more swipe spam. This looked good on the meter, but if it could be tweaked to be better i'd appreciate any suggestions.

Now i'm afraid that my asking for "a dummies rotation" will get misconstrued as begging for some hand holding, and it's not my intention. After diving into Naxx10 last night with a little knowledge gleaned from EJ, i see that i have a lot of things to adjust to. I think that using a generic rotation will ensure that i'm "pulling my weight" DPS wise, while i learn\adjust to buff monitoring and movement. Once i've gotten more comfortable "being a cat" i can then focus on polishing\maximizing my DPS rotation.

I'm using the "max single target DPS" spec listed in the OP, and slapped together gear, which i'm looking to quickly start upgrading. Any assistance you guys can provide during my transition will be greatly appreciated.

I also have a question about Beserk\TF... I saw a post which indicated TF could NOT be used during Beserk. I wanted to confirm if this is correct? Last night i was trying to save TF to use during beserk (as this would in theory maximize DPS going heroism -> Beserk -> stack all ticking abilites -> TF -> get in as many FB's as i could) and with my learning curve at the moment i have no idea if it was going off or not as i was to busy trying to watch my debuffs to make sure they stayed up and avoid raid damage.

If you're going to be lasting longer than 3 swipes on the trash, usually the best thing to do is rake/mangle, SR, swipe->TF->swipe (etc). You want SR up on trash; it makes a huge difference. The only reason you'd not want to is if the trash will die within 4.5-7.5 seconds.

If you basically want to own the meters, you can do the above except throw in berserk after the TF. Then swipe until everything is on you.

As to the other questions: you cannot use tiger's fury with berserk. You can use it right before berserk though.

A simple rotation is savage roar to 2 - 3 CP, rip at 5 CP. With shred, mangle and rakes getting your CPs. That's not going to be the best ever, but it will work okay.

Thanks, I'll deffinetly give this a try. While i (and probably all of us) do enjoy topping the meter, i'd rather play my class the right way . This sounds like a perfect combination of both.

I'd also be interested in what type of rotation you use one "small" pulls that don't warrent AOE, but also don't let us utilize a full rotation. Such as 3 80-120k mobs. Would it be best to use to first mob to get up a good SR (3+ CPs) and then work on getting FB's on the other 2?

EDIT:: Apparently i caught you mid-edit. Thanks for the info on TF and on a "simple" rotation. So based on what you're saying i would rotate something like: Mangle -> Rake -> SR -> Rake\shred to 5 CP -> Rip -> build 2-3 CP -> SR -> build 5 CP to rip again.

That seems fairly manageable as i work on timing\watching my debuffs, and taking FB out of the rotation entires (except during beserk) should help me avoid wasted energy and clipping my debuffs\downtime. Thanks.

Ok Hatesfury, I try to answer all of your questions.

Well, this doesn't change your DPS much, but it's not the optimal beginning either. The priority list I posted in the guide says

That means SR is more important than Rake.
Your start should nearly always look like "Mangle -> SR -> Rake".
Even if another feral or a warrior applies Mangle/Trauma I would suggest Mangle -> SR -> Rake and NOT Rake -> SR -> Shred, because the damage of your rake is calculated when you "cast" it. If you don't have SR active, your rake will do 33% less dmg for the whole 9 second duration.

If you have SR already active and start off on a new target, then the opener would look like (mangle, if no other feral/arms-warrior) -> rake -> follow the priority list.


The problem with a "general" rotation is, that we can't predict how fast you are building up combo points.
If the whole Cat DPS Cycle is too complex for you, try to follow only the first 6-7 points I mentioned.
This would mean, don't try to squeeze FB in.

You can do fairly good DPS if you just do 5CP SR / 5CP rip always.
I always suggest to beginners, that you shouldn't spend your energy as soon as you have enough for an attack. Try to pool your energy, if you have the time.
If mangle and rake are both up and you get to ~45 energy, you don't need to shred immediately (except rip is about to expire and you could lengthen the duration with shred). You will not lose any DPS if you wait with your shred for 3-4 seconds. This way you have ~85 energy and you can react to buffs/debuffs expiring. Sometimes it's quite hard to pay attention to our 2 dots, the debuff AND SR at the same time. If you pool your energy and try to play on a high energy level in general, you always have some kind of "backup energy" to refresh anything when you didn't notice that it's nearly expiring.

Ok now, what to do on multiple adds that cannot be AoE'd? For example Freya trash, where there are some sheeps that mustn't be opened?
Of course you still have to make sure mangle is active. God bless you, if your raid provides you with an arms warrior. Then immediately SR on the first add and just follow the priority list, with just some tweaks.
It all depends on how long the mob is about to live. Will it live for 9 more seconds? Then make sure rake is active. Rip is generally not very effective on most trash, since this would require the mob to live for 16 more seconds. But still remember, that ~5 Rip ticks are still better than FB. On the first add, I often don't use rip, but build up my 5 CP and do a 5 CP SR so that I can use Rip and even FB afterwards on the second add.
If an add is about to die and you have 4-5 CP's on it, SR might be more effective than FB because then you can do more damage on the NEXT add (because you don't have to worry about SR here).



@Caniki: I don't think anything will change for us. Our priority list won't be affected and the nerfs to our attacks are just flat amounts. Since the ArP cap isn't changed either, we don't have to tweak any numbers. Of course you are right, that we probably will use more Agi gems, because reaching our ArP Soft-cap might be easier with the new gear.

Thank you so very much. This is exactly the kind of post i'm looking for... Moving from caster DPS into CAT really requires a lot of learning. With moonkin being hit capped is a #1 priority... it took reading about 5 pages worth of arguments about this to make peace with not gemming for hit on my CAT and just running with the 7% natural my gear is carrying... Also the part about pooling energy will take some adjustment... Since you start a fight with X mana on caster DPS, anytime you're not casting your're wasting DPS, since spells are your DPS. If i'm to understand correctly, the majority of cat DPS is going to come from DOT's, and from melee swings? This is the impression i get since keep SR up is so highly stressed...

I skipped FBN after checking around curse. FBN was really more than i wanted. I don't want to be told what to do, and i dont want all the info it had to offer. I went with droodfocus instead, since i can use it purely to watch CP\energy\DOT's... "slowrolling" my attacks is going to take adjustment since most classes that i have played should be doing "something" at all times to keep their DPS up. From what you've said it appears CAT dps is more centered around making smart decisions, as opposed to executing your rotation as quickly\accurately as possible.

My strategy tonight will be Mangle -> SR -> Rake. If i'm following you correctly at this point (i'll be energy starved anyway) i should sit on autoattack until im back to around 70E, at which point i'll probably refresh rake, possibly shred, and be looking to get RIP up. Then i'll pool again till mangle needs refreshed, and SR following? Do you know of any good videos (even a CLEAR youtube would be fine) of a good cat DPS player with a good UI (like droodfocus) that i could watch to try to get a better feel for timing? It's really hard to break the "do as much as you can, as often as you can" mindset.

Another problem i'm running into is using swipe in AOE situations, and staying behind my target on pulls. I understand that tanks generally have to move a mob quite a bit to make sure none get behind them, agro other mobs, etc, but this is really making my life hard (especially since this was a non-issue with caster DPS). Trying to use swipe on AOE pulls i almost always run into "out of range" because the mob i have targeted has moved around. Is there a good macro i could use to "1) clear current target 2) use swipe" to stop this? Also, are any of you using addons to help "see" your target better. On pulls of 3+ mobs, i often have a hard time keeping track of which mob i'm actually target on (since it's impossible to see the red ring at their feet) so i'm either out of range, or the mob is spun and i'm no longer no it's back. Something that would put an arrow over my targets head, or highlight them would help with this alot.

Also.... any good Alliance CAT players on Suramar??? I'd be eternally greatful to get in vent with someone and spend 30 mins at the practice dummy putting all of this info into perspective and getting some C&C... Currently i don't know any good DPS cats (very rare on suramar).

Why exactly did you quote my post? These things will bring you infractions on these forums...

Well 7% is already quite a lot since our cap is 8%.

It seems to me that you didn't understand how SR works. SR increases ALL your damage done by 30% (without glyph). No matter how much of our dmg comes from autoattack, dots or mangle/shred - SR is always the most important.


Yes, cat DPS Cycle is not about hammering on our keys to not lose "casting" time. While casters try to avoid even losing fragments of seconds casting, cat dps works differently. To understand this, you have to look at our resources

Caster have two ressources: Mana and time. They have to optimize DPM and DPS both. If mana is a non-issue, then DPS is all that counts. Because time is the second ressource, they have to use the time they have as effectively as possible.
Cats have two other ressources: Energyregeneration and our finishers also need CP. Since our energy regeneration doesn't change and we can't do anything when out of energy, it doesnt matter WHEN we do direct attacks like mangle/shred as long as we always regenerate. That means as long as we never reach 100 energy, we actively use our ressource.
Cat DPS is about planning ahead. It's about estimating how long we need to get 5 CP and checking how our timers will look like when 5 CP's are reached. And sometimes we have to make extremely fast decisions. This mostly applies to FB usage - using FB a second later because we don't react fast enough could even lead to DPS loss.

Well, just use elementary math and you will see that you are not completely correct. We gain 1 energy every 0.1 seconds. Your opener should look like this:
At the start you have 100 energy. You use Mangle (34 energy) and have 1second GCD. That means you have 76 energy before using SR (25 energy), triggering another second GCD. You have 61 energy before rake (35 energy), after the GCD you have 36 energy. Just wait for 0.6 seconds so you have 42 energy and you can use shred. Since TF is not on GCD, you could immediately use TF and have 60 energy. But your shred triggered GCD, so you can't do anything before 70 energy. Now you have 2-4 CP. You could pool your energy now without losing DPS. But on the other hand you KNOW that when reaching 100 energy, SR/Rake/Mangle still don't need to be refreshed. (You would reach 100 energy 6.6 seconds after your first mangle). Additionaly your aim is to get Rip up as fast as possible Therefore you can shred now, dropping to 28 energy, after the GCD you have 38 energy. You have 3-5 CP now. Mangle is up for another 7.4 seconds, rake for 6.4 seconds.
Now, if you have 5 CP already you can rip now (or if rip is bad, because your enemy won't live long enough, just push in a high SR for the next target, alternatively use FB). Now you can wait for 6.4 seconds and do nothing. When rake expires, you will have around 70 energy. After you refresh rake, mangle will expire and you still will have enough energy to refresh mangle as well. If you wouldn't have waited, you wouldn't have enough energy leading to mangle or rake downtime.

This is what I mean with waiting and pooling. Just make sure to maximize rip, rake, mangle and SR uptime, while not clipping Rip and rake. Delaying a shred or mangle will never lead to DPS loss, as long as you stay under 100 energy.

The "problems" or better to call them "challenges" emerge, when you have clearcasting proccs. Your clearcasts should be used AS FAST AS POSSIBLE (because another procc could overwrite the first one) and in most (but not every) cases with shred. Clearcasts are the reason that you should avoid pooling your energy higher than 80-85 (remeber the 1second GCD!).
In my last Ignis fight I had 4 Clearcast Proccs in the row, the first one at 67 energy. 4 GCD's = 40 energy, this would have meant I lose energyregeneration. My solution was to refresh SR early, since clearcast doesn't affect SR.


Concerning your swipe problem: Personally I play with enemy tabs (display these by pressing v) on the battlefield. The one I target is highlighted. There is not much help I could provide you other than "try to position yourself so all your enemys are in a cone in front of you". This of course means alot of moving around, especially strafing (moving sidewards instead of turning and then moving forwards).

Which crit requirements are you talking about?

Yes, after about 60% crit, the value of crit VERY slightly drops, because the chance of a wasted CP increases higher than before. But a CP is not that much damage and you still do considerable more damage when critting.

When does Rip damage get calculated- on the initial application of does it check for Mangle/Trauma on the target every tick?

Every buff and personal stats you have are calculated on application. Meaning, if you have a trinket that gives 1000 AP on use, your whole rip will be stronger.

Mangle is a debuff and on every rip tick the game checks, if mangle is active.

Which potion is better for cat druids? I currently have a haste rating of 232 (9.2% haste) which takes my attack speed from 1.0 to .92 - a whole .08 of a second. This makes me doubt the effectiveness of haste even more than I used to. Looking at recount on an OS10 3d from earlier, I had 56 melee attacks in 46 seconds of damage (lol kiting tenebron). Counting in Lust, and at about 1,200 damage per attack roughly, let's say thats 6 extra attacks from my own haste and not from lust. That makes about 7,200 damage. Out of 196,000 overall.

The conventional wisdom is the best potion for melee dps to take is Potion of Speed - 200 haste. However this seems like a giant poopstain for me. Would Potion of Wild Magic (200 crit) or Insane Strength (120 str) be better?

The easy way to answer this is to use an accurate stat weighting and look at each one of the potion's buffs. For example, using Nightcrowler's stat weighting from his addon (higher numbers are better):

Insane Strength (120 str) * 1.31 = 157.2
Wild Magic (200 crit rating) * 1.18 = 236
Potion of Speed (500 haste rating) * 1.08 = 540

Using these weightings, Speed pots are better by about double. The difference may actually be smaller than that, due to timing use, since Insane Strength and Wild Magic scale better with other buffs you might use at the same time, but I doubt it makes those potions twice as good and therefore equal to Speed pots.

Toskk, RAWR and FBN are 3 different models. Toskk and RAWR are calculators, FBN is a simulator.
All three of them are really good, but will present different results. It's up to you which of them you will follow.

Personally I never used Toskk. I was following RAWR very precisely during BC, but now I'm trusting FBN a little more, which most of the druid community seemingly does. And the information provided in my Guide here are backed up by FBN.

I am having some trouble with the ArP part of the guide.

I'm not sure if I'm doing it correctly, but I am gemming ArP when I finally got enough, but my agi dropped of course.

Are these numbers a good balance? I'm not in full Ulduar gear, but it's getting there... sortof.
I'm at 1215 agi with 490 ArP. Just by those numbers, I feel like I lost a lot of damage, but I haven't really done practically raiding tests (I did test on a dummy). Any suggestions? Am I doing it right?

I think a lot of the FBN calculations assume you have a certain set of raid buffs available to attain the dps it's predicting/simulating/theorycrafting. I'm guessing you're just self buffed when hitting the practice dummy? Relative stat values fluctuate a great deal depending on which buffs you have available.

I re-gemmed for ArP and I noticed my DPS in heroics went down because I often find myself just spamming swipe. My ArP is currently at 322 (26.14%), 1316 Agility and 49.44% crit un-buffed. It does seem to be higher on boss fights where I have time to work my full optimal single-target rotation and pop Berserk + Incisor Fragment (still need Mjolnir Runestone), keep Berserking and DMC:Greatness buffs up though. I don't seem to have gained any dps over other cats that have gemmed for agility but maybe this is because I am still well below the ArP cap and this will change as I get closer.

Swiping itself is not the cause of your DPS loss. A lower percentage of bleeds versus a regular cycle should never produce less damage-- the armor penetration is applying to all your damage instead of 65-75%. In those AOE situations, there aren't a lot of sunders going out on every mob, and that also tips the favor towards ArPen.

Not using an ArPen trinket and judging against a heroic when most statements are for raid contexts are the two bigger factors-- not the swipe attack itself.

The dummy unfortunately is a bad indicator of your raid dps. In my experience, auto-attacks make a very significant part of your damage. Raid buffs will really help your ar pen to shine. If you look at the main attacks affected by ar pen, you note auto attacks, shreds, mangles (if you have to), and Ferocious bites. 20% haste from Improved Windfury totem or Improved Icy Talons will add quite a bit of damage to the auto attacks as well as proc more omen of clarity. More omen of clarity procs means more shreds, and more shreds means more damage as well as better combo point generation. More combo points from the increased crit also means more ferocious bites. And since, again, these abilities are all affected by ar pen, it means that you need raid buffs in order to really see the benefits.

Being gemmed agi on the dummy means you're going to already have higher crit than being gemmed ar pen, so the increase in dps may not be so apparent.

Murna, are you switching (or already have switched) to the Idol of Mutilation vs the Shred Idol? Or is there another item that can be bought with the emblems of triumph that is a better dps upgrade (35+ badges)?

I know this is poorly associated with dps mechanics but I think this week many ferals will have the 25 emblems of triumph and wondering whether its worth it to pick up the new idol or wait a few weeks and pick up something else.

Just loosely based on napkin math, the idol is a reasonable increase in DPS over what you can hope to get until badges become more plentiful -- certainly better than getting 1 piece of T9 (and most ferals in reasonable u-25 guilds have 4pc t8.5 + thorim chest/freya legs). The other option is picking up the ring which is slightly more expensive, especially if you don't have access to Brann's ring(s)/Band of Lights/Cindershard etc.

Cat DPS Dummy here. A quick question. Is there a point at which hit rating is too low and hampers your DPS cycle? I ask because I recently upgraded a couple of pieces of gear, lost some hit rating, and I'm now at 104 hit rating. I haven't noticed too many misses, but my DPS seems to have taken a dip, although the gear I upgraded were all improvements to ArP. Is it generally a good idea to get close to hit cap? I have read the entire threat, and realize that we don't need to be at hit cap, but I have a general sense that 104 hit rating is a bit low.

You can't think of haste in terms of the actual reduction in speed because, the very reason you are, it's tiny time segments. Haste is a direct percentage increase in white damage for cat. 1% faster swing timer means that you will have 1% more attacks in the same amount of time. If you think of it in terms of .08 faster attacks it seems like nothing, but if you think of it in terms of 8% more white damage it reveals its value more. If white attacks are 50% of your overall damage then an 8% haste increase is a 4% damage increase since it only increases white damage.

You did the math, but you contradicted yourself by using your own false anecdotal evidence.

You want to be as close to hit capped (230 with draenai, 263 without) as you can. The reason for that is its hard enough to maintain our cycles with all our hits going through, it is going to be even harder to maintain the cycles if attacks are missing. So yes ideally you want to keep yourself hit capped and if at all possible at least the dodge exp cap (64 exp rating with primal precision).