[Feral] The art of a Kitten: PvE guide

[nijuu]

Barely hits for more than a shred? It hits almost 3 times harder than shred does for less energy. It already plays a very very prominent role in the rotation at the moment, if they buffed it any more it would simply become "can I refresh rip or SR now? No, well then fuck timer collision I'm just going to Ferocious Bite".

Not sure how you would come to the conclusion that it hits for so much more, because it doesn't. Look at the logs, compare it with Shred! and Shred and tell me that it hits for so much harder. It crits for like 230k~ and hits for 70k~ on average (taken from a random rank1 log, those numbers could vary) which is about nothing compared to a shred in my opinion. Its basically just a filler to get more DoC procs or refresh RIP below 25% and I think it should feel more rewarding for executing your priority list good enough to throw in some FB's and get a good result. Alternative give it the same threatment as Kill Shot / Execute and give it a damage modifier when the target is below 25% but with it, it could cause some serious issues in PvP that need to be addressed by letting it hit for 50% on player or something else. Still not sure how it plays a very prominent role in our rotation, lol.

[Deleted]

Not sure how you would come to the conclusion that it hits for so much more, because it doesn't. Look at the logs, compare it with Shred! and Shred and tell me that it hits for so much harder. It crits for like 230k~ and hits for 70k~ on average (taken from a random rank1 log, those numbers could vary) which is about nothing compared to a shred in my opinion. Its basically just a filler to get more DoC procs or refresh RIP below 25% and I think it should feel more rewarding for executing your priority list good enough to throw in some FB's and get a good result. Alternative give it the same threatment as Kill Shot / Execute and give it a damage modifier when the target is below 25% but with it, it could cause some serious issues in PvP that need to be addressed by letting it hit for 50% on player or something else. Still not sure how it plays a very prominent role in our rotation, lol.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/i.../?s=886&e=1224

This is my log for Zor'lok, a none gimmicky fight.

Shred : Average Normal Hit : 50799
Bite: Average Normal Hit : 96639

Shred : Average Crit Hit : 109340
Bite : Average Crit Hit : 145682

Just for reference, I wasn't using DoC on FBs at the time, and I did find myself wasting a tick or two of DoC on shreds. I'm struggling to see where you are getting your data from, FB can be used at 25 energy, and correct me if i'm wrong, will do 100% more damage if you use it with 50 energy, which is only slightly more then shred, for double the damage? Granted it drops 5 CPs, but i've found, during berserk phases and even my normal rotation, I can sometimes, rarely, but sometimes get a bite off anyway. The bite average crit would have been a little higher if i had of pooled the 50 energy.

I don't think there is anything wrong with bite, I think people are still atuned to the T13 set bonus that bite refreshed rip at 60% boss HP which was really overpowered. I use to argue that if bite only really comes into play at 25% HP, then it should be limited to 25% HP, but now I have played feral for a bit in 5.0, I would take that back. Bite is a nice thing to use, it's a good feeling to know you can burn 5 CPs and only loose minor downtime on rip, resulting in a DPS increase, what else would you do, refresh a 20 second SR?

[nijuu]

Maybe I should rephrase: I'm not saying that its bad and using it will result in higher dps, even if you have to sacrifice abit of your RIP uptime, its still worth it and will do more dps (I know all that shit). But still I just don't feel good or rewarded about using it because the numbers seem so low for such a huge finisher and that was different in the past, atleast from my experience. Nothing wrong with the spell and usage of it, i would just be more satisfied with a small damage increase in PVE.

[Deleted]

Why it isn't a "fun" or "exiting" ability to use is because it isn't suppose to be a fun badass spell we rely on Rake and Rip mostly squeezing in an FB is a "bonus" However i'd like a proc sorta thingy that made it cost no CPs and 100% crit just for the sake of adding something "fun" and "exiting"

[aggixx]

Why it isn't a "fun" or "exiting" ability to use is because it isn't suppose to be a fun badass spell we rely on Rake and Rip mostly squeezing in an FB is a "bonus" However i'd like a proc sorta thingy that made it cost no CPs and 100% crit just for the sake of adding something "fun" and "exiting"

Exactly, Rip and Rake are supposed to be our key skills that really pack a punch. If you want your Ferocious Bite to hit as hard as Eviscerate then you misunderstand how the spec is supposed to work.

And the numbers were from a SimC report using SotF DoC and UV bug. Average damage of a single shred is 78923, average damage of a Ferocious Bite is 201660.

[Deleted]

I do not like the idea of a FB proc. Something I very much like about feral atm is that I am not very reliant on rng at all. Secondly a 100% crit chance would just be horrible for pvp balance (think chaos bolt).

And aggixx, the simC is trying to pool energy before every single FB is it not? That would mean it costs 10 energy more than shred, AND most of them will be empowered by DoC. That really inflates the numbers.

[monikasun88]

I am a bit new to the kitty dps. I saw in a previous post that the new Dominance Offensive trinket is really bad. Could someone explain the reasoning behind this?

Edit: Think I see now, forgot the trinket had a crit proc...

[Aseyhe]

And aggixx, the simC is trying to pool energy before every single FB is it not? That would mean it costs 10 energy more than shred, AND most of them will be empowered by DoC. That really inflates the numbers.

10 energy less (with soul of the forest).

[aggixx]

It pools as much as it can within the conditions it is provided with, but it doesn't only cast Ferocious Bite at 50 energy. Looking at the RPE (resources per execute) of each spell in the report Shred costs an average of 31.8 where Ferocious Bite costs an average of 42.1. That's before SotF of course.

It was a bit of an assumption to say that it costs less on average (of course if you don't force pools like that it probably would) since I didn't know such information was available in the report.

I am a bit new to the kitty dps. I saw in a previous post that the new Dominance Offensive trinket is really bad. Could someone explain the reasoning behind this?

Edit: Think I see now, forgot the trinket had a crit proc...

A trinket with passive secondary stats and an agility proc tends to be a lot more preferable for Feral than the other way around because of how valuable agility is to us. In addition to that, the uptime of the use effect portion is poor compared to other alternatives that are available.

[Booniehat]

Regarding the youtube video demonstrating the weakauras,

can some explain how that bunch of addons are setup.
-As far as I can tell, the 4 "moving" bleed timers on the right are the droodfocus timers.
-The combo point tracker on top is Droodfocus.
-The more accurate combo point tracker BELOW is weakauras. A
-The big frame recommending the next action is Ovale + Leafkiller's feral script.
- The cooldown timers on the bottom (with the yellow numbers) are weakaura?

Seems like a pretty complex thing to setup. Can anyone verify if I am right? For a new feral, this seems immensely confusing.

[Deleted]

-As far as I can tell, the 4 "moving" bleed timers on the right are the droodfocus timers.
-The combo point tracker on top is Droodfocus.
-The more accurate combo point tracker BELOW is weakauras. A
-The big frame recommending the next action is Ovale + Leafkiller's feral script.
- The cooldown timers on the bottom (with the yellow numbers) are weakaura?

Yeah that sounds like it!, There is an update on Droodfocus now so now you have yellow blue red and i beilive Red/Green/Gray marks on your DoTs that will idicate if they are worth Refreshing and you easily can see "-Damn that Rip wasn't buffed by SR" for example.

[kaiadam]

There! Damn it i knew there is something wrong with stenhaldi's logs.. But honestly even with this bug abusing we are not touching other melee classes' top damage -_- THIS is what makes me sick, we need a bug to be competitive. And blizzard doesn't even care. I was ranking high myself a few times, been #1 on garalon and the dogs, and people in my raid that can't even get into #200 on their class are slowly creeping ahead of me on DPS. This is just frustrating..

Ferals are in a pretty good place atm. Not the top general all-around dps, but great for a goodly number of fights. Anecdotal evidence and all, but it's pretty satisfying when you look at the damage spread of the end boss on heroic and you're over 10% higher than the next highest person

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/vircq...?s=6649&e=7440 (just phase 2.)

[aggixx]

Regarding the youtube video demonstrating the weakauras,

can some explain how that bunch of addons are setup.
-As far as I can tell, the 4 "moving" bleed timers on the right are the droodfocus timers.
-The combo point tracker on top is Droodfocus.
-The more accurate combo point tracker BELOW is weakauras. A
-The big frame recommending the next action is Ovale + Leafkiller's feral script.
- The cooldown timers on the bottom (with the yellow numbers) are weakaura?

Seems like a pretty complex thing to setup. Can anyone verify if I am right? For a new feral, this seems immensely confusing.

Pretty much, yes. The bottom "cooldown timers" aren't cooldowns but rather they show me what procs I have up.

[Drakkmur]

Aggixx,

I am guessing the change to NV going from a 3 min CD to 1.5 and reducing the damage buff from 20% to 10% is a nerf to that talent overall as we will only get 10% buff during berserk instead of 20%. Is that what you are seeing in Sims?

[Deleted]

I am guessing the change to NV going from a 3 min CD to 1.5 and reducing the damage buff from 20% to 10% is a nerf to that talent overall as we will only get 10% buff during berserk instead of 20%. Is that what you are seeing in Sims?

Not sure what you mean by "is that what you are seeing in Sims", it changes very little, apart from maybe lining it up with a rip/rake/TF every 1.5min. If you half the cooldown, and half it's effect, it doesn't make it a more viable talent, nothing really changed, instead of the damage coming every 3 mins, you get half the damage, every 1.5 mins. Maybe there it would be a slight nerf during berserk but if you care that much about DPS you probably shouldn't be using this talent anyway. It seems to me like a half ass attempt to stop people just macro'in it to berserk and forgetting about it.

On a side note, nice to see nothing really changed. I was expecting a nerf, but there is still time to go before patch hits live. A few weird changes which made me go...why did they do that, like adding a 6 second cool down to Symbiosis, odd.

[nijuu]

5.2 nerfs are all about PVP, that cyclone and NV nerf really hurt.

[FeralSynapse]

5.2 nerfs are all about PVP, that cyclone and NV nerf really hurt.

Have to agree, now that NV has a kind of wonky set up time with out CD's I doubt it's even worth using. You could easily sync it with 1 TF every 1.5 min. and then 1 with berserk. I just don't think 10% is enough damage for a level 90 talent, regardless of its CD.

The change to DB is interesting, blink + speed increase, might make it a tad more useful in PVE. I wish it did that when my raid first cleared Elegon.

Anther change I am not fond of:
Shattering Blow now has a 1.5 second cast time to align correctly with the Warrior version of this ability.

It being instant was the whole reason I even bothered casting it on one of the warriors in my 25 man, can't be bothered with that now.

[Williee]

the speed boost added to displacer beast gona make resto druids more of a pain then ever...

[nijuu]

I just realized how ridiculous that cyclone nerf is, holy... A DR on nearly every CC and 30seconds cooldown.. what the fuck

[Deleted]

I just realized how ridiculous that cyclone nerf is, holy... A DR on nearly every CC and 30seconds cooldown.. what the fuck

I am more surprised that you didn't see this coming.