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[Cata] Kitties and Bears, oh my! A guide to being a Feral Druid
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Post by
224056
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Post by
224056
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
224056
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
224056
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
224056
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pelf
Woohoo.
Primal Fury is actually a possibility for dropping when in guaranteed high-rage situations for a tank build.
Brutal Impact is, IMO, required for both specs. The other options for points aren't as compelling as having a 10-second interrupt. I fsking love this talent and will never not spec into it now that I've had it for a while.
Primal Madness is useless for bears. I never don't have enough rage. The normal, un-buffed Enrage generates plenty to initiate a pull.
Savage Roar vs. Tiger's Fury for glyphs is ... as far as I know it fell on the side of SR for most reasonable situations that aren't computers running perfect-case-scenario simulations.
I still argue that 1/2 Stampede might be viable for Cat; I'll be getting into raiding again soon, so I'll find out on that.
Bear primes are Mangle, Lacerate, Berserk. (not in your linked spec)
See possible discussion about Bears not needing to cap hit/exp? I don't know about that, yet...
Gem section? Possibilities for hybrids and what socket bonuses to care about at what quantities, maybe.
I didn't find any spelling/grammar errors.
= ilulongtime
Thanks for writing this!
Post by
Cambo
Awesome, I've just respecced my 80 boomkin to kitty and am loving it.
Question: I'm sure I've seen Thick Hide in previous guides as optional for cat spec due to the armor. Maybe the tooltip was changed in the past 6 months?
Increases your Armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 4%, increases armor while in Bear Form by an additional 11%, and reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 2%
Obviously excellent for Bear, but handy for Cat levelling?
Post by
224056
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Post by
Falkor
Brutal Impact is, IMO, required for both specs.
all depends on group make up really. i dont have it as cat yet and havent had any issues with the proper group make up (ex. tank and another dps having silence on 10sec cd...yes it'd be better for me to have it and relieve the tank of said duty, but hasn't been an issue thus far)
Savage Roar vs. Tiger's Fury for glyphs is ... as far as I know it fell on the side of SR for most reasonable situations that aren't computers running perfect-case-scenario simulations.
TF>SR, TF and berserk are close depending on the situation. with TF you can almost perfectly time refreshing rip with a TF every time. and the boost to bleed damage is a lot more beneficial than a 5% increase to about 30-40% of our damage.
See possible discussion about Bears not needing to cap hit/exp? I don't know about that, yet...
EJ doesnt recommend capping either, but exp > hit should you so choose (till exp soft cap). dodge and mastery are both better choices than hit/exp as far as i gather from discussions. reason being threat seems to be a nonissue and hit/exp mainly boost threat (altho they do increase SD uptime by virtue of possible crit instead of miss/dodge/parry iirc)
@cambo: from a pure dps stand point thick hides is worthless. might have a bit of use for lvling/soloing if the armor and -crit does apply when in cat form. the only reason i still have 3/3 in my cat spec is that most pugs fail in the new heroics. i cant even count how many times i have saved a group by shifting to bear and tanking trash or a boss when the tank goes down, or at least hold them till myself or another battle rezzes said tank. but with a solid pug or guild run the tank should stay alive and keep threat, making it not worth the three points.
good guide so far!
Post by
LookOut
Brutal Impact is, IMO, required for both specs.
all depends on group make up really. i dont have it as cat yet and havent had any issues with the proper group make up (ex. tank and another dps having silence on 10sec cd...yes it'd be better for me to have it and relieve the tank of said duty, but hasn't been an issue thus far)
While it may not be mandatory, not getting it is stupid. The more short interrupts, the merrier. Arcanotron is one of those examples, we only had me (as kitty) and 2 retadins for interrupts (not including the tanks). Besides, out of all the other options you have in a cat spec (which isn't much), Brutal Impact is the best one.
Post by
Falkor
I haven't done Arcanotron yet, but if all 3 of you were on the one boss that requires an interrupt a retardin - or two - should be the most viable since their interrupt costs a very insignificant amount of mana (10% base) whereas skull bash costs 25 energy. if you're low on energy after having reapplied bleeds or something you could easily get screwed with that particular boss's 1.5s cast time.
in a pure dps spec there is really nothing better to take other take other than NI, and i'll even have it once i respec for raids. just pointing out it isn't *required*....certainly makes life easier for all though.
Post by
Thror
Do i see a
Burning Crusade
enchant recommended on gloves? Either
+44 stamina
or +
50 dodge rating
.
On boots, we want
Earthen Vitality
.
Since you included the Leatherworking exclusive, and Enchanting exclusive enchants in gaps, you could also mention the Inscription exclusive shoulder enchant).
As for glyphs,
Glyph of Thorns
>>>>>
Glyph of Faerie Fire
. For a bear.
Post by
LookOut
well let's not discuss it, seeing as you do actually see its usefulness now ^_^
Anyways, @ OP: Stampede is in NO way a base bear talent. Perseverance on the other hand is imho (although some *cough*parrazell*cough* seem to disagree).
So removing Stampede and taking Perseverance and Brutal Impact (interrupt and a second charge? Yes please!), you have 1 spare point. I personally took a point out of Endless Carnage and put 2 points into Feral Aggression for convenience. But you could also put one back into Stampede (lol xD)
I also noticed you say NI is an optional talent for cats. I disagree, there is very little wiggle room in a "cookie cutter" kitty spec. You're bound to taking tanking talents if you don't take NI. So ... yeah.
As for glyphs,
Glyph of Thorns
>>>>>
Glyph of Faerie Fire
. For a bear.
Maul / Frenzied Regen / Rebirth, there is no room for either Thorns nor FF (at least in raids, Rebirth is arguable in 5mans).
Post by
Thror
Maul / Frenzied Regen / Rebirth, there is no room for either Thorns nor FF (at least in raids, Rebirth is arguable in 5mans).
That, and the fact that the Thorns glyph is vastly superior to the FF glyph, is why i think that the FF glyph should not even be mentioned in the guide.
Post by
pelf
@Falkor Has the theorycraft changed since I read it last? From what I remember, TF was better mathematically, but the requirements it imposed to get the most out of it relied on as little as 1-second-level timing of bleed application and ability use which was so far from likely in a real-world scenario that, failing that level of perfection, the use of TF in that manner ended up being a DPS loss over something that was just always up or more passive. Point me to stuff that says otherwise, if it's there, please.
@Thror I think armor is just that good.
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110351-feral_bear_cataclysm_release/
@LookOut Agreed that Perseverance is definitely > Stampede for raiding. Murky for 5-mans.
Post by
Shadax
Question regarding major glyphs: What's the basis behind taking the glyph of Ferocious Bite? Pre Cata, I can completely understand it. However, with the Cata patches, Ferocious Bite has been changed to properly scale the extra energy to bonus damage, meaning the damage per energy is the same, whether it uses 35, 46, or 70 energy. I recognize that there isn't much in the major glyph tier of benefit to cats specifically, but there are glyphs with group/raid utility which might be of more benefit. Is there something to this that I'm missing where limiting Ferocious Bite to 35 energy and unscaled damage is a direct benefit? My napkin math (which very well may be wrong) shows that a 5 pt Ferobite is about 3 times more damage per energy than shred, but I've probably forgotten some factor in there.
Post by
224056
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Post by
pelf
Oh, sorry, I didn't see that. Yeah, don't take FB for PvE. You should change that. He's right about the scaling change. Probably FB -> Thorns in your recommendation.
EDIT
: You could probably justify recommending reforging Haste to Mastery for Cat.
You've got the open parenthesis in your link for the inscription shoulder for Cat.
and
for LW legs.
Is Landslide better than Agility for Cats?
Gems?
:)
Post by
224056
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Post by
742060
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