[Feral] Help with DPS

[Khayelynn1121]

Hello all, long time reader, first time poster here. I recently switched to DoC from HotW (after a lot of "practice" in LFRs) and I feel my dps isn't where it should be.

First off, my toon: us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormrage/Khayelynn/advanced

And here are a couple of recent logs I did in LFR (I know there will be a difference in DPS from a real raid, but I'm more concerned with uptimes and whatnot)

worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-qn5sa74wztff4i5f/

worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-mjkecgmx3v0viz01/ (2 logs got merged on this one, the first kill of each boss is as HotW, second kills are DoC)

Granted, this is a small sample size, but over the past 2 weeks running LFR and my normal 25man raids, I can't tell a difference between HotW and DoC. Do I need to do a better job with uptimes? I almost exclusively use the DoC buff on rake/rip. Is it a gear issue? Or is everything normal?

In my current gear, Simcraft has DoC about 5k dps ahead of HotW. Now, I realize in most situations the difference won't be that big, but I figured it would at least be notable. Thanks for the help!

---------- Post added 2013-03-27 at 03:13 PM ----------

I guess I can't post links yet, edited out the "www" parts.

---------- Post added 2013-03-28 at 12:42 AM ----------

No one has an opinion? Are my up times where they should be? Anyone with experience with DoC able to give me pointers?

[Fuzzyh]

without using too much time looking at the logs your uptimes seems fine (only looked at the first one (part1) and it is not the best fights to compare damage)

However your rip damage seems kinda low so it seems like you dont get alot of DoC buffed rips off but mainly rake. This might be because you FB less than i tend to do.
In general for me when a rip is like 8-10 seconds left i try to FB with 4 or 5 combo point at 95 energy (depends if TF is coming off cd or not) to get a DOC rip with 5 combo points when the current rip falls off. I must admit it takes a bit of practice making the best out of DOC. But pooling energy before you do a FB for instant heal makes getting the 5 combo points for the rip alot easier.

I tend to play pretty agressiv with FB compared to other ferals, but it sometimes yields great results, and sometimes (with no crits damit) it fails!

on jin'rokh its always a good idea to have 5 combo points and doc up for when puddle comes then you can get a nice buffed rip out with the 40% ekstra dmg and ofc rake 2. and then do it before you leave the puddle aswell.
mainly on heroic that tactic is really nice for having good dmg during avoidance phases!
you are welcome to look through some of my logs to compare uptimes and FB usage
worldoflogs.com/guilds/149630/
i am tanking sometimes tho which sux!

[Khayelynn1121]

Thanks for the pointers. I think I find myself using DoC more often on thrash than I should. Is this a bad idea? I just got 2pc t15 so I'm finding it a bit easier getting to 4cps before I have to use the predatory swiftness buff. I was getting a little discouraged, but I'll keep trucking at it and try to get better!

[Fuzzyh]

Thanks for the pointers. I think I find myself using DoC more often on thrash than I should. Is this a bad idea? I just got 2pc t15 so I'm finding it a bit easier getting to 4cps before I have to use the predatory swiftness buff. I was getting a little discouraged, but I'll keep trucking at it and try to get better!

If your Rip is about to fall off and you can get DOC buffed rip up then dont use your Clearcast on trash (atleast i dont). In general tho trash is better dps if used with clearcast than shred is. But use the clearcasts for combo points with shred if you got a predators instinct running for a nice high DoC rip.

And the 2ps and 4 ps gonna help alot to get more out of DoC, i cant wait for aoe fights with 40% increased critchance on swipe after TF :P gonna be sweet

[Nishida]

DoC thrash is only beneficial if there's multiple mobs... otherwise it's just a mediocre dot being buffed

[Khayelynn1121]

DoC thrash is only beneficial if there's multiple mobs... otherwise it's just a mediocre dot being buffed

More specifically, I think I find myself in situations where I have one second left on PS but only 3 CPs so I rake/thrash, but that seems to be happening less now that I have the 2pc. Should I just rake/shred instead in that situation? Again thanks for all the pointers.

[Nishida]

Depending on your gear, I'm finding myself using Rake more than Shred (its sad to say, but rake tends to hit anywhere from 5-20k harder)

[Khayelynn1121]

Huh...after re-looking at a few of my logs again I'm noticing that with my gear (currently ilvl 509 with 7900 mastery unbuffed) rake is right up there with shred and a good margin ahead of mangle in terms of direct damage. From looking at several other druids, my mastery seems quite a bit lower than others, so are we back to a point where rake will become the best CP generator, especially with 2pc?

[Blackflag421]

Mastery is your best stat as DoC+SotF feral. You'd need the mathcrafters to tell you when rake spam beats mangle/shred but as DoC it would have to be way higher on direct damage since you would be losing out on DoC buffed rake. 

[Nishida]

Rake surpasses Shred in CP generation when trinkets proc / potion / damage+ modifiers. With this change, it makes tracking when to rake and when not to (while DoC+sotf spec) rather irritating

[aggixx]

Mastery is your best stat as DoC+SotF feral. You'd need the mathcrafters to tell you when rake spam beats mangle/shred but as DoC it would have to be way higher on direct damage since you would be losing out on DoC buffed rake. 

You can't just look at a log's average Rake tick damage and compare it to it's average Shred damage. If the feral is playing effectively they should be "gaming" their procs and cooldowns to keep the strongest rake going whenever they can. If you were to just spam Rake instead of Shred you would greatly gimp your periodic damage, and therefore your average Rake damage, because you lose the ability do the aforementioned cooldown gaming.

This is especially true if you're playing DoC, you might have your Rake empowered with DoC 90% of the time (pulling this number out of my ass here) but if you spammed it, the percentage of those rakes that were affected by DoC would be drastically less.

[Khayelynn1121]

You can't just look at a log's average Rake tick damage and compare it to it's average Shred damage. If the feral is playing effectively they should be "gaming" their procs and cooldowns to keep the strongest rake going whenever they can. If you were to just spam Rake instead of Shred you would greatly gimp your periodic damage, and therefore your average Rake damage, because you lose the ability do the aforementioned cooldown gaming.

This is especially true if you're playing DoC, you might have your Rake empowered with DoC 90% of the time (pulling this number out of my ass here) but if you spammed it, the percentage of those rakes that were affected by DoC would be drastically less.

Ya, I pretty much realized as soon as I posted that, using rake for your CP generator doesn't make much since with DoC. Maybe it might work a bit better with HotW, /shrug.

I feel like I'm performing pretty well with DoC. Comparing my logs with other Druids running DoC, my uptime, usage of PS/NS, and damage spread looks similar (within an equivalent ilvl), I just thought the dps increase would be more noticeable.

Or, maybe I'm not doing as well as I think lol! I will keep reviewing my logs and try to tighten up my gameplay a bit more, but any additional help would be appreciated!

[Blackflag421]

Aggixx it sounds like you're arguing against my post, but then you post basically agrees with what I said 90% Of rake DoC buffed actually doesn't sound too far off if you're aggressive with FB use.

[aggixx]

Aggixx it sounds like you're arguing against my post, but then you post basically agrees with what I said 90% Of rake DoC buffed actually doesn't sound too far off if you're aggressive with FB use.

Right, I meant to reply to everyone who had suggested the idea and just happened to reply to your post.