Feral PvE DPS guide (Now updated with BiS list)

[Crown]

No, Hit doesn't work fine on TrueWoW, and it's not just dummies, like I already explained here

This is my 30 minutes long fight with a Heroic Dummy:



5.22% Hit, 2033 attacks, 0 misses.

To make sure this is not an issue with dummies, I landed few yellow attacks to see if they miss:



5.22% Hit, 59 attacks, 2 misses.

More proof? With the exact same gear:



This is a Rotface fight.



This is a Marrow fight.



This is some half Halion fight.
0 misses everywhere. I can get you more if you want.

And, I don't get my BiS items for granted, thank you Crown. I run simulations and do calculations just like you. Simulators will not consider our Expertise and Hit bugs and the BiS list I have posted is UNARGUABLY, the best BiS list you can get for a Feral Cat that CARES ABOUT CAPS. Again, if you're like me, and you don't care about the Hit cap due to the bug, PM me for a different list.

Regarding the food.

For those already questioning the usage of Strength food instead of ArP food: I've taken in consideration cases where you die in mid-fight. Upon a battle resurrection, losing the 40 Str buff is not an issue, but going below the ArP cap can drop your DPS considerably. Remember that the last points of ArP are the most valuable. <<< Credits to Andruid, aka Merkava.

And to correct you, eating ArP food will provide you with 2 RED sockets, that you will fill with Bold Cardinal Ruby, so it's exactly the same as eating Str food and using ArP gems, but you lose significant DPS if you die and get ressed, even if you get all your buffs back.

It feels like people here are desperately trying to prove me wrong with false claims that make them look correct, silly. You should work harder on that. *points at Longi and Crown*
I said "if you have any questions regarding Feral Cat, ask me". I NEVER said "if you think you know more than I do, the show me what you got."
You are IN NO PLACE to correct me. I worked my ass off and accumulated 5 years of knowledge with this spec in PvE. The only 4 people I'd listen to are Discarnate, Relina, Merkava, and Yehuda, which is no longer here.
This will be my last post here. I don't want to fill this guide with argues. PM me if you have questions, I promise I won't be harsh answering them

Every claim I've posted was a reflection of my own personal experience as a death knight, and I thought it could be applied to a feral druid also. (Since I fully understand ArP concept and its' theorycrafting)

Alright, so firstly I when said Hit works perfectly fine on truewow, I meant it works for me (as a frost/unholy/blood death knight) and I thought it worked for feral druid also (they share the same hit cap as unholy or blood death knight, and I used to have very few misses with ~262 rating), so why wouldn't it work for a feral? Unless it's a specific bug for druids.

Secondly, eating ArP food will indeed give you yellow (activated) sockets, since red sockets are already activated with +20 ArP gems, and this was an indeed increase in Frost/Blood dps, so why wouldn't it be an increase in feral dps? Unless +20 strength has higher value than yellow gem (Rigid Ametrine/Etched Ametrine/etcetera) + yellow socket bonus

You are IN NO PLACE to correct me. I worked my ass off and accumulated 5 years of knowledge with this spec in PvE. The only 4 people I'd listen to are Discarnate, Relina, Merkava, and Yehuda, which is no longer here.

Surely you wouldn't listen someone who has never played a feral druid, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't run a simulator and try eating ArP food and activating yellow sockets to see if it's a dps increase.
And I wasn't correcting anyone, I was just giving an insight how some things from certain specs can be applied on another specs. (Thought I may sounded harsh, it wasn't my intention at all.)

[Myaoming]

All yellows sockets are already activated with Hit gems with the build I suggested.

[Crown]

It's also an exception that I forgot to mention, but in other cases (while gearing up, where you can't activate all yellow sockets) would it be an increase in DPS?

[Myaoming]

While gearing you don't use Str gems, you will need ArP food and a lot of ArP gems to cap ArP. Some of the yellow sockets will be filled with Hit gems but not all.

You start using Str food when your gear let's you cap ArP without ArP food and without ArP gems on yellow sockets.

[Myaoming]

I have to apologize for my reaction earlier. It was due to the bad approach. This is not a knowledge competition, I'm not boasting or showing off my knowledge here, I'm just sharing it with people, backing it up with proof, because it's useful to this guide.
You can ask, you can suggest, exactly like Errorista and Vaen did, you can state your opinion like Relina did, but you can't pop and tell me "this sucks, this is better" or "this works like this and this works like that" especially without bringing proof. By acting like that you're just making people question what I wrote, and I don't want that.

Anyway, I have upgraded the list again:
- Signet of Twilight was added.
- A small comparision between a build with Signet of the Twilight and a build with Frostbrood Sapphire Ring was added.
- In-depth info on gemming was added.

[Nyeriah]

Cleaned up as requested

[Naljs]

I've never been much of a PvE guy but I've just started to pick up feral dps. Now, when I'm at the dummies testing rotations I come into a minor bump. After a few rounds of refreshing everything I find myself at a point where Rip and Rake both has about 4 seconds left on duration, Savage Roar has approx 7 sec left and Mangle is say 7 sec as well. I have all 5 CP's on my target and my energy bar is full.
What is the best way to go about this situation?

[Longi]

I've never been much of a PvE guy but I've just started to pick up feral dps. Now, when I'm at the dummies testing rotations I come into a minor bump. After a few rounds of refreshing everything I find myself at a point where Rip and Rake both has about 4 seconds left on duration, Savage Roar has approx 7 sec left and Mangle is say 7 sec as well. I have all 5 CP's on my target and my energy bar is full.
What is the best way to go about this situation?

mangle - rip (full duration) - rake (2cp) - shred (2cp, grows rip) - rake (2cp, it costs less energy) - sr ( full duration ) - shred ... and so on

[Myaoming]

mangle - rip (full duration) - rake (2cp) - shred (2cp, grows rip) - rake (2cp, it costs less energy) - sr ( full duration ) - shred ... and so on

There's no need to use Rake if it hasn't dropped. And since 7 seconds isn't much to refresh Rip and get another 5 CP for Savage Roar, I suggest this, Naljs:
Mangle > let the energy pool or use Shred if Omen of Clarity proc'd > Rip > Rake. If this Rake crits, use Savage Roar after it. If Rake doesn't crit, use Shred then Savage Roar, and proceed. 2-4 CPs Savage Roar is the most optimal.

Also, just to make Savage Roar usage a bit more clear, you shouldn't use it with 5 CP, unless its 1-5 seconds away from fading while Rip has a high uptime. Because in other cases, you will need the 1-3 CPs to actually refresh Rip on time, rather than increasing Savage Roar's duration. In some other cases, if Tiger's Fury is ready, Rip has high uptime, and you have like 6+ uptime on Savage Roar, you can use a Ferocious Bite (@35-40 energy max) followed by Tiger's Fury + Rake/Shred to refresh it with 2-4 CPs again.
Another thing about Savage Roar, it is carried by your bleeds. In other words, if you use Rake/Rip before Savage Roar drops, it will get carried, but that also means you should never Rip if Savage Roar isn't up. Then refreshing Savage Roar afterwards won't affect it. Savage Roar'in is top priority

[Longi]

There's no need to use Rake if it hasn't dropped. And since 7 seconds isn't much to refresh Rip and get another 5 CP for Savage Roar, I suggest this, Naljs:
Mangle > let the energy pool or use Shred if Omen of Clarity proc'd > Rip > Rake. If this Rake crits, use Savage Roar after it. If Rake doesn't crit, use Shred then Savage Roar, and proceed. 2-4 CPs Savage Roar is the most optimal.

he didnt say nothing about tiger fury, but sure, same with clearcasting

7 seconds for Rip or SR means :
mangle : cca -1 second
rip : cca -1 second

so after your mangle / Rrip you have still cca 5 seconds on Rip and SR and 2 seconds for your Rake, with healers talents for restore energy, clearcasting or TF you will get " free " abilities.. so next

Rake : cca -1 sec ... 2 cp with enough crit
Shred : cca -1 sec .... 2 cp with enough crit

so after this 2 abilities you have still cca 2 seconds active SR and 4 CP

so again clear casting, healers talents for restore energy or TF if you didnt use it

Shred costs more energy than Rake so it depends on your energy bar and which part of boss fight you re, its true 4 CP or 5 CP doesnt matter much ( sr 4 cp = 29 sec , sr 5cp - 34, these 5 more seconds can save you in future, so you will have a bit " less" dmg, but 5 more seconds you can work with later ),

but if you have to run away or do something like inervate, bress, insta heal or so, its better to refresh rake faster. because feral isnt only dps class, its support class and you want to have active " rotation " all time with all jobs you have

[Naljs]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the responses!
Yeah I wasn't sure what I'm supposed to do when I have to wait out bleeds to reapply them, when I have 5 CP's on target and full energy bar. Feels wasted to not use any ability and thanks to my mindset being Assassination PvP rogue I've a forced habit to not waste energy on combo moves while at 5 CP's. Didn't think about refreshing Mangle, as I've only thought about using it after Rip for the Combo points.
Usually it does happen like you say, that Omen procs and I do another Shred and.. Rip gets extended 2 seconds and further messes up my planned rotation. Still being at 5 CP's with Rake expiring in a sec and SR about to expire as well, now closer to Rip expiration.

Indeed I leave Tiger's Fury out of the equation here, as this problem really only occurs for me when I don't have it available or I prefer to try and find a rotation that doesn't *require* TF to work out.

[Longi]

Slar , what do you think, what can i do better or change? this SS is from PP, before fight start, " full " buffed with our raid setup, No ap flask or any other consume items, only fish feast


I want to improve my dmg a bit, but have problems with agro, most of time im at 85%+ agroo
If all proc at once, i do overagro ( happens mainly at bosses where you dont need to move much) and it kills my " rotation " because I have to use bear form to save my ass

I was using smeld to reset my agro to zero, but after they fixed it, it doesnt reset agro anymore.

[aveseer]

http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=8998 ?

[Myaoming]

Unfortunately, Cower is a waste of energy in WotLK. Maybe the reason why they redesigned it in Cata <:

The threat reduction is utter crap. And its not like tott or misdirection. Not to mention it costs 20 energy.

Cower sux here, not because of wasted energy, but because it doesn't decrease our threat at all.

Oh and cower is worthless because it reduces threat by a flat 2k.

I have tried it myself long ago and it was of no use. I'll try posting before/after SSes with a threat meter whenever I can.

I got 3 tips in mind to reduce threat generation as a Cat:
- Give your tank 10-15 seconds to properly build aggro before using your first Berserk. Most of the time, very early Berserks will build you about 90% threat that you will carry with you for at least a minute or so. Waiting 10-15 seconds on it should be fine.
- Use less Ferocious Bites. Ferocious Bite generates a lot of aggro. If you're already high on the threat meter, Ferocious Bite might end up being deadly. Let's face it, 90% of overaggros are because of Ferocious Bite
- Wait for your energy to pool. If you're high on the meter, just calm down kitty, don't do anything until your threat becomes reasonable again. Pool your energy but don't let it reach 100. You should keep refreshing Mangle, Rake, Rip and Savage Roar if needed, this won't do harm.

Now of course, these tips will result in a DPS loss, but keep in mind it's still much better than a dead DPS

[Errorista]

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Cower
with those values, this is actually useless ability