Cat form DPS

I have a question about attack rotations for Cat. I wonder if anyone has done any real stI don't really feel like reading alot about what all those others have found (tends to be too many opinions, flames, outdated posts), so i'll just post what I do and see if we can't start a little bit of conversation. I normally start out with Pounce, Mangle, at this point i don't have much energy, so i throw a Feral Faerie Fire, during the Global cooldown from that I regain just enough energy and right after the GCD and right before the stun from pounce wears off, bout half a second, i try to get in a Shred.
With Omen of Clarity I occasionally can get off a second shred or a rake, with out as soon as I can I'll hit it with a Rake, so pretty quickly there are two bleed effects that are doing a little more with the effects of Mangle.
At this point I usually have a few decisions to make, if I have 5 ability points an the mob is around 30% health, I'll use Ferocious Bite, if above 30% and casting a spell I'll try Maim (cat stun) and then move behind, let my energy build up a bit and then Shred just before Maim wears off, if it is a non caster I'll use Rip. If at 4 I'll throw in an extra Mangle before using my finishing move. The nice thing about Rip is it won't drain all of your energy and means on the next tic you might be-able to use an ability, where as Bite will drain all of your energy and if you haven't killed the mob you're more temporarily left with an in-ability to use any special attacks, and sorta open to attacks and the possibility that the patroller over there will aggro to you before his buddy is dead and you can stealth away at 20% health.

Of course every mob/pull/boss has its own quirks some don't bleed(though far less since 2.4), some don't stun, and some don't get effected by Faerie Fire. I will say if you've spent the points to get Maim you really have no need for claw, claw takes the same amount of energy and does less damage.

yeah so thats me in cat form, cause there's more to feral druids than just tanks, even if I feel awesome at it. Feel free to comment and offer suggestions, or tell me i'm completely crazy and tell me to stick to tanking.

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Hugh - Stalathan
fyi my time zone is +9 GMT so most likely when its night there its day here Smile

dang Stal, I wish I could help or even understand what you wrote. Sorry I am a complete druid noob. The druid I have is lvl 25 so he just learned cat a few levels ago. Embarassed

Hopefully other folks here understand druids that can share opinions.

Cheers

Nice Stal, once I let it all absorb perhaps I can throw in my 2 cents.. who knows. Laughing

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1) Instance bosses: Never use an opening move - pounce etc - the damage per energy is too low (unless omen of clarity is up). Get behind, mangle, shred till 4-5 pts, then rip. Repeat. Really it is about keeping mangle up and using rip at 4-5 points and shredding in the middle. This is hands down the highest dps rotation for your cat.

2) solo mobs (likely can't get behind them). I actually don't stealth - I think it slows me down to much unless I am trying to sneak around a mob.

Then I Mangle, and Rake to 4-5 pts. If the mob is near death (<2k) then I ferocious bite to kill him, otherwise I rip and repeat. Again keep mangle up and keep the bleeds active. I need to do some analysis on this to see if there is a better option. Reapplying bleeds is often not as effective. I'll look into that.

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Charles - Morim (hunter)Lvl 70 - LW 375

Also known as
Vero (Priest)Lvl 70 - enchanter 355/Tailor 375
Afis (Druid)Lvl 70 - alchemist - 375
Ronir (Pally) Lvl 38 - Up and coming!

Ok, so nevermind my single mob strat as it is wrong. That is what I have always done and it is just wrong.

1) not that I said anything about claw, but if you have mangle, then take claw off your tool bar. There is no circumstance that you would ever use claw over mangle unless you wanted to do less damage for some reason.

2)

Rake does (AP/100)+79 damage when applied and 108+(6*(AP/100)) over 9 secs. Total damge from an application is 187+(7*(AP/100)). Lets say that you have 2k AP. That means 99 damage +228/9 secs or 327 damage total. or about 426 if mangle is up

Mangle does 160% of normal damage +264. I believe that white damage for me in cat form is around 150 ( and i am poorly geared). That means that mangle does about 500 damage (seems about right) which is more then teh total damage by Rake.

It looks like your best damage if you cannot get behind the target is to spam mangle and rip when appropriate.

I will try this out this week and let you know. The situation could change I suppose if your AP was significantly higher. It wouldn't take much for it to make sense to keep a Rake bleed running while spamming mangle.

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Charles - Morim (hunter)Lvl 70 - LW 375

Also known as
Vero (Priest)Lvl 70 - enchanter 355/Tailor 375
Afis (Druid)Lvl 70 - alchemist - 375
Ronir (Pally) Lvl 38 - Up and coming!

Morim wrote:

1) Instance bosses: Never use an opening move - pounce etc - the damage per energy is too low (unless omen of clarity is up). Get behind, mangle, shred till 4-5 pts, then rip. Repeat. Really it is about keeping mangle up and using rip at 4-5 points and shredding in the middle. This is hands down the highest dps rotation for your cat.

2) solo mobs (likely can't get behind them). I actually don't stealth - I think it slows me down to much unless I am trying to sneak around a mob.

Then I Mangle, and Rake to 4-5 pts. If the mob is near death (<2k) then I ferocious bite to kill him, otherwise I rip and repeat. Again keep mangle up and keep the bleeds active. I need to do some analysis on this to see if there is a better option. Reapplying bleeds is often not as effective. I'll look into that.

Instance bosses: Never use an opening move - pounce etc - the damage per energy is too low (unless omen of clarity is up). Get behind, mangle, shred till 4-5 pts, then rip. Repeat. Really it is about keeping mangle up and using rip at 4-5 points and shredding in the middle. This is hands down the highest dps rotation for your cat.

well.. there's my BIGGEST mistake..lol

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some of my solo strategy comes from farming and not wanting to have to shift out of form to constantly heal, ie after every 1 or 2 kills. I guess I'm playing a bit like a rogue while in cat form, conserveing my health, and at the same time conserving mana, oh and when i get my 2t4 bonus i don't think energy will be quite as much of an issue anymore Razz

.

, so the opening pounce mangle shred has a chance (with omen of clarity) to have a full 5 points on the mob, and also with most outland mobs if those crit it means their health is about 50%, with out them ever touching me, then they fall shortly after and i move on quickly to the next mob still in form, and still with all my mana. Then if I end up getting in over my head a bit i have mana to shift bear, then afterwards usually hurting i'll stop heal and continue. I haven't tried the straight ahead approach but for farming for me its better not to stop and heal, otherwise I don't really feel like i'm getting the max out of my time.
but yeah for raiding I know mommy has beein using your strategy and has had a HUGE increase in dps, of course I don't raid dps very often, mainly people use me for my large furry butt...*sniff*i feel so used*sniff*j/k.

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Hugh - Stalathan
fyi my time zone is +9 GMT so most likely when its night there its day here Smile

	Morim wrote:
	It looks like your best damage if you cannot get behind the target is to spam mangle and rip when appropriate.

WOOT I was doing something right!!!! Very Happy

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So what part of the boss strat were you doing incorrectly? The opening move is still a favorite of many, but the math suggests that you will be better served by saving the energy for more moves but the difference is relatively small. If that was your mistake then I wouldn't worry about it.

Good intuition on the farming rotation. I was totally convinced that it woudl work out differently.

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Charles - Morim (hunter)Lvl 70 - LW 375

Also known as
Vero (Priest)Lvl 70 - enchanter 355/Tailor 375
Afis (Druid)Lvl 70 - alchemist - 375
Ronir (Pally) Lvl 38 - Up and coming!