The possible exception being fights where you cannot always Shred. Examples include Lady Deathwhisper where adds are often facing you and Sindragosa where you may not be able to get behind an ice block you are working on. A different way to ask the question is what do you plan to use those points for and why? For example I was thinking that having Infected Wounds in a cat spec might be useful for LK phase 2 depending on raid comp.

Master Shapeshifter is better than imp mangle and kotj for overall threat even with 4T10 (using enrage without the bonus against bosses is just stupid). The reason you'd possibly take kotj with the bonus is for some burst threat in the beginning of the fight.

What is the base damage of Dire Bear Form melee swings? As in: swing damage = AP/14 * swingspeed + base damage?

Base bear attack damage:
BASE: 137+(AP/14)*2.5

I'm at the point where gear choices become complicated. We're 11/12 heroic ICC, which means I have access to everything except Heroic Lich King Weapons. Unfortunately, without 281 Oathbinder, that leaves a lot of confusion on my part. I've narrowed down my choices to the following:

1. Use 277 Distant Land. While it's the 2nd best weapon in terms of standalone weapon DPS, it makes simutaneously capping ArP while keeping a decent amount of hit/expertise impossible. For this option, I'd cap ArP. However, this leaves my hit rating and expertise at painfully low levels. 91 Hit, and 92 Expertise.

2. Use 277 Distant Land. However, forsake the hard ArP cap and throw in a few hit gems to get to a respectable level. Drop down to about 1150-1200 ArP and try to get to around 180-200 Hit, and ~100 Expertise.

3. Use 271 Oathbinder. Due to the natural ArP on it, I am able to cap ArP sooner, thus freeing up more slots to fill up with hit gems. However, I lose the benefit of a higher quality weapon.


I've run this through in Rawr several times, and it insists that Option 1 is the best. It seems to place very, very little value on Hit/Expertise as stats. However, I have severe doubts. While hit/expertise is partially up to personal preference, having my Rake miss/be dodged for about 6 seconds while I watch helplessly as SR and Rip simultaneously fall off ties for first in the list of things that can induce me into a psychotic rage, right next to listening to Justin Bieber.

I'm just looking for some extra input on this subject pretty much. I'm leaning primarily towards option 2, but I'm unsure of the exact difference between say, 1200 ArP and 1400.

Have you considered using Cryptmaker? The heroic version comes with a mountain of hit, and solves a lot of problems. Furthermore, it comes with 3 sockets and a ton of ArP. In addition, with heroic gear, you should be approaching crit cap, and thus agility becoming a lot less useful-- so, the strength is not a wasted stat at all. In fact, strength is still an excellent stat for cats. I'm not sure why more cats don't pick this up. Unless, its guild policy that they go to DPS warriors/DKs first.

Yes, you can macro it just like you'd macro Rune Strike. However, you will lose the option to manage your rage in low-rage situations (they don't happen often, I grant you that). Where it doesn't matter if you burn all your RP on Rune Strike (correct me if I'm wrong, my knowledge of DK mechanics isn't that wonderful), there can be situations where you want to ensure you have rage for other abilities than Maul.

For this reason, I personally prefer not macroing Maul to my instant attacks. The Druid tanking rotation is not very complex, so adding another button to push every ~2 seconds isn't a big concern.

This is going to be a problem no matter what; if your SR and rip are about to fall off you're going to be hosed anyway, even if that rake hit.

I'd honestly recommend just trying it. If you're not that comfortable going below the cap, fix it yourself. But try it first; if you're 11/12 it's not like it's going to be costly to regem/gear for you. That's what I did, and I found myself pleasantly surprised by the results; Rawr and other simulators were right on the money.

Do you ever clip rip? Like under a certain timer after full extension etc. Thanks.

You should never clip rip; the only reasonable time to do so is when you could refresh a rip on a boss that you're not going to be hitting in the next 20 seconds and want as many DoTs to tick on them while you're not attacking.

Back in T8, Nightcrowler said that clipping rip did improve DPS in some simulations, but that since rip will usually not let you overwrite it, he set up his model using SR clipping only. Post here: FeralbyNight (Cat & Bear simulation tool)

I don't believe there's been much work on the DPS impact of clipping rip.

Varies by encounter. BPC it is very valuable because the ret will not always be on your target, DBS not very valuable since the ret will always be on him. The main opportunity costs are you give up rage/energy saving talents, which if you are raid tanking rage is never an issue, but could be an issue if you are spending a significant amount of time in cat form while in your tanking spec.

To put a more numeric value on it from some testing done by others early in WotLK link

Test on Mexxena

Normal Value 19,547 - 26,828 Damage
Base Reduction of -411: 17169-24450
Talented Reduction 1/5: 16978-24259
Talented Reduction 2/5: 16787-24068
Talented Reduction 3/5: 16596-23877
Talented Reduction 4/5: 16405-23686
Talented Reduction 5/5: 16220-23501

Hi.
Just one simple question. I paly boomkin and with gear from icc 10/25 I got a lot of crit and haste. But when I am using Bonespike (more often then with Nibelung) sometimes happened to my SF that it doesn´t show dmg it dealed, not even show me that sf missed (I have 275 hit) .

Can be this problem with interface? I have friend, he si palying boomkin too. He said to me that this sometimes heppened to him too.

Thank you

This problem is often because you have so many numbers ticking that the crit damage is actually stacked well above the targets head. I find the if i zoom in and aim the camera facing directly above the mob i can see all my crits.

My question is - @lvl 80 - while under the effect of bloodlust and potion of speed - how much haste do you need to make a nature graced Starfire only 1 second cast?

Don't have a spreadsheet handy, but should be:

(3/(1.3*1.2*1.03*1.03*1.05) - 1)*3279 = 2381 haste, so 1881 before the potion, or 1541 before potion+Hyperspeeds. I wouldn't worry about it.

Is it always advisable to use a trinket with Berserk and then let it sit on cooldown for a minute until Berserk is off cooldown (assuming a 2 min cooldown trinket)? I assume this is going to be dependent on the fight length and the trinket in question, so is there any tool that can model this type of thing? If not, does anyone know the most accurate way to calculate which option is optimal?

With regards to resto, what is the value of T10 2pc and 4pc set bonuses? More specifically, what is the value if it means I'll be missing the haste cap? Since so many T10 are sitting with crit instead of haste, I'll take a huge hit to my haste that will keep me from being capped if I push for getting 4T10. This problem is further compounded by the fact that I only do 10man raiding, and 25m pugs generally can't get past Saurfang. I wouldn't be breaking any T9 set bonuses regardless.

Anyone have any tips, or maybe an "effective healing value" of 4t10?

If the retribution paladin is always on the same target that you are tanking, no.

I am interested in this as well, and also interested in the value of 4T9. I currently am still using 4T9 (232) for the setbonus, instead of using my T10 (264) gloves and ICC10 legs.

Rawr says 4T9 is really good, according to it the best upgrades are going full 245 T9 for me. Unless I'd go full T10 ofc. Should I value 4T9 really that high? I only have 19% crit anyway.

I think it has been mentioned in other threads that you should generally not break your 4t9 before you have 4t10.

What about the case where I have no T9? And I suppose we focus on 25mans here but is there any "general consensus" on the value of 4T10 on a 10man/10man hardmodes level? Since I can (and in an AoE situation, probably will) keep rejuv up on all 10 raid members, I'm thinking of grabbing the T10 and just not using it until I have haste gear to keep myself capped.

Do you run Rapid Rejuv? If so then 4T10 is nice for 'catching up' to get 10 rejuvs back up when you spend a GCD on something other than WG/Rejuv. It's definitely more valuable on 25 man, but it's not wasted on 10 man as long as you are running RR.

If you don't run with RR, then it's pretty much useless, as you should almost always have full raid coverage with rejuvs.

Either way, there's not much point in not wearing the gloves and legs (since you aren't breaking 4T9) since they are nicely itemized pieces and while 2T10 isn't amazing, you basically get it for free.

Eventually you'll find yourself with so much haste on your gear anyway that you can drop in 2-3 crit pieces and still be capped, and at that point you might as well grab the 4 piece bonus (usually helm/shoulders since the badge chest is a really nice offpiece if you don't have access to 277 gear)