Help our feral druid

[Ajjen]

We have a nice group of raiders and everyone seems do be doing right. Lately our feral druid complained about his dps, which is not on par with his gear and itemlevel.

I'm linking the log from our 3 hc kills last time (and some normals), so please look and see if we can help him increase his dps.

http://www.worldoflo...co5zdx8anih7hv/

[Regalbeast]

bad link...

[Ajjen]

Hmm, try this one:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/172162/

[BombeNissen]

Just breifly looked over the logs, and his Savage Roar uptime is lacking.. the goal is 100% uptime on it.

[Deleted]

Just breifly looked over the logs, and his Savage Roar uptime is lacking.. the goal is 100% uptime on it.

The sole goal of 100% uptime is detrimental (ie. while low uptime is bad, 100% will not guarantee optimal dps).

Neome's cooldown usage was decent, trinket procs were correctly taken advantage of (indicating good bleed clipping knowledge).

The easily fixed issues
1) Macro TF with berserk and berserking (troll racial), this should be synced as much as possible
2) Try squeezing in more mangles (ie. raffy's shrangle approach) where you dynamically decide which generator to use based on procs/positioning/berserk uptime
3) He did not use Thrash for single-target dps. This is a serious issue. OoC procs should be used at his item level to cover basic uptime and use a couple hardcasts whenever rotational downtime permits.
4) Drop Herbalism. Seriously.
5) While not a big issue, I'm not a fan of running HotW on all fights, especially on "patchwerky" single-target fights like Sha, Iron Jugg, Malkorok, etc. A hardcore feral should have all T6 talents at his disposal (even NV for Paragons/Siegecrafter).
5a) Didn't use a 2nd pot on Iron juggernaut
6. It's worth investing time to learn FoN for the aforementioned patchwerky fights (however, SotF is still great for minor aoe periods on Sha & Malkorok). I don't know about you but I find running SotF+HotW extremely boring.
7. Gemming in some sockets is sub-optimal. Without rune you do not need to pick up secondary-stat socket bonuses (blue crit, red crit).
7a. Hit/exp are slightly below cap.

The hard issues
1. Lack of Rune (ToT Lei Shen) - while not a major bummer, rune may still be considered a very high-end trinket and until you're running heroic shamans & siege consistently it's a very easy drop to pick up if time constraints permit
2. 4set, get it.
3. Optimize professions as mentioned previously (see point 4 in easy batch)

[Ajjen]

Thanks for taking the time! I'm going to show him this and see if things improve!

[Urden]

Tremnen from Eredar-Us here.

Alpheus has a lot of good points but I want to point out some counter points and give some additional tips.

Currently Fixable Stuff:

1. Her Hit / Exp rates while not at cap are above the 92 lvl cap and thus are acceptable. Technically it is a dps gain to only be at the 92 cap but it is "risky" so I don't know any one who would advise being at it.
2. Her Glyphs! Tell her she should seriously consider glyphing Savage Roar. Also while a 100% uptime is not needed for optimal dps (I myself tend to run between 90-95%) 61% is pretty much unacceptable unless you die. She needs to track to her buffs either with Tell me When/ Weak Auras / Drood Focus or another such addon. Drood focus or Stenhaldi's Weak Aura script are much preferred as you can also track bleed strength and know when to override a low damaging bleed with a stronger one.
3. Unless you are running Ticking Ebon Detonator as a trinket I would not reccomend the ravage opener because you lose too much time off your pre pot usually.
4. Thrash should be used when at high energy and all three of your other abilities are up (Rip,Rake,Savage Roar). Preferably this should be used on Clear Casting Procs.
5. In general (especially with low haste builds because she does not have a Rune of Re-Origination Trinket) Mangle > Shred as a combo point builder unless you are using Berserking or in bloodlust because you just don't have the extra energy to afford to shred. Using shred over Mangle is a net 5 energy loss per cast and it is what is leading to her low Savage roar uptimes (less Combo points to cast it and less energy to cast it).

Long term problems:

Assurance of Consequence is a meh trinket for ferals. It doesnt really shine until you get the Feral 4 piece to maximize the synergy (this will also help with her energy problems as the extra combo points will her her maintain Savage Roar easier).

Herbalsim is basically not even a profession bonus for ferals. It can be nice in PvP as a stealth off heal so unless you are pushing super hardcore progression I won't say drop it 100% but honestly it is pretty bad.

Rune of Re-Origination is a pain in the ass to get but well worth its weight in gold. If you and she is willing try running Heroic ToT on an off night (say its for valor/mounts/pet/xmog/Ra-den Feat of Strength/Achievements whatever) and try and give her a shot at her BIS trinket. Rune is so good btw even the LFR or normal one will out perform her WF AoC or Haromm's (without 4 piece definitely drop the AoC trinket though).

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and another point. from a world of logs perspective the first three bosses are kind of hard ot judge a feral.

Immerseus is a joke on heroic and DPS is more a measure of a groups ability to let someone scumbag on adds longer.

Protectors are easily in out top 3 for worst fight of this tier so hard to judge a feral on it

Norushen has phasing issues so you don't get to accurately see what they are pulling because you they lose time in the logs when the logger goes down or when they go down.

Sha of Pride should be a good test of the feral's abilities as its pretty much patchwerk and a great fight for feral druids. Galakras is dependent on whether the kitty stays down or goes into a tower group (no preference can do both well but dps is higher on the ground team because they have more adds to go through). Iron Juggernaut is also patchwerk and a good place to test the druid.

[mmokri]

noxxic.com first read
askmrrobot.com second read
icy-veins.com third read
stickied topic above forth read

[teddabear]

Love the guild name, a nod to Buffy I assume.

I agree 100% uptime on SR is overstating it, there are points in almost all fights where you are not attacking so why burn combo points to keep SR up. That said 62% uptime on Malkorak is ridiculous. I have to question whether he is tracking anything. If Droodfocus is too difficult get Badkitty.

I'm not an expert at reading logs but avg Rip and Rake ticks seem low, which makes me wonder if trinkets are being tracked, if not get Weakauras.

Frankly I am surprised he did as much damage as he did with that SR uptime. I also agree that FoN is a better choice at current ilvls, but again he has to track procs.

[Ajjen]

Thanks and indeed it is