The Cat Guide - 4.3

[Xenerix]

simulationcraft.org/406-8/Raid_T11_372.html

Acording to this, we are as usual last in DPS (except frost mages). But tell me, how could it be accurate when the template char is made just wrong. Can be found here:

chardev.org/?profile=35492

Few examples:

1. Bad cloak ench
2. Bad gloves ench
3. Bad feet ench
4. Bad gloves reforge (haste -> mastery instead of hit -> mastery)
5. Bad legs gemming (2x 40 agi is better)
6. Glyph of Berserk is a little bit better than Glyph of Tiger's Fury in this gear (Mew)
7. Bad trinket (I believe Unheeded Warning is better than one of hc's trinket)
8. Reforging priority is mastery, then crit but in this gear, haste is better.

So, who is actually doing templates for this simcraft? It is unlikely that other classes are 100% correct and even if yes, then somebody should probably fix ferals as well. The difference in DPS between classes is very small so this "fix" could probably change the ranks a lot.

[tangedyn]

I notice the original post states that Mew is the more stable of all the sim's and analysis tools. Is this still the case? This question comes from someone fairly new to feral druids.

Most of the critical issues in Simcraft.FeralCat model that were found and fixed in the past couple of months were actually found by Yawning (main developer of the Mew Cat model) and reported to Simcraft. It's really not our responsibility or obligation to fix other developer's work, but what can we do if users report to us that Mew is getting different results against Simcraft? I would recommend Mew myself over Rawr.Cat and Simcraft's cat model, but of course I'm biased as a Mew developer myself. Although I don't work directly on the cat model (Yawning does most of the work there), I do peer-reviews on Yawning's code and maths. I don't believe there is any peer-review of Rawr.Cat and/or Simcraft's cat model (apart from the occasions where Yawning goes to the code to check on strange behaviors), so I cannot recommend those.

[anni23]

1. Haste vs crit reforging neglible difference on dps in mew?
when i plug in my stats in mew, it suggests haste is better than crit. I tried reforging my crit to haste and then plugged in new stats and boom my dps improves by a whopping 2-7dps on toskk in mew.I ran couple long simulations on simulator method too and my new dps is within the margin of error.

So my question is why is that haste is better than crit when relative stat value suggests so but your actual dps is no different in mew from both methods.
Can someone who has reforged crit to haste at around 359 ilevel comment on real world dps increase from it?

2.Heroic maloriak advice
I tried to read up on this from a feral perspective but could use some help from somone whos downed maloriak

3 Berserks timing- I should be using my first zerk on first black phase and next two zerks in green phase?

Vile swills-Should i just tab target rake+mangle or try and build enough combo points for 5 point rip (there was a post on ej forum which suggested rip is not worth keeping up but i found a usefull video from feral prespective (search deeprun pest control vs maloriak) where the creator tries to keep a 5 point rip going)
Should i even bother swiping here? hitbox on ooze is kind of small and you need to keep moving from dark sludge so i am not sure if swipe hits all
My guild single targets vile swill/sludge adds till tanks have enough aoe threat and then full aoe is called out.

[Williee]

1. Haste vs crit reforging neglible difference on dps in mew?
when i plug in my stats in mew, it suggests haste is better than crit. I tried reforging my crit to haste and then plugged in new stats and boom my dps improves by a whopping 2-7dps on toskk in mew.I ran couple long simulations on simulator method too and my new dps is within the margin of error.

So my question is why is that haste is better than crit when relative stat value suggests so but your actual dps is no different in mew from both methods.
Can someone who has reforged crit to haste at around 359 ilevel comment on real world dps increase from it?

2.Heroic maloriak advice
I tried to read up on this from a feral perspective but could use some help from somone whos downed maloriak

3 Berserks timing- I should be using my first zerk on first black phase and next two zerks in green phase?

Vile swills-Should i just tab target rake+mangle or try and build enough combo points for 5 point rip (there was a post on ej forum which suggested rip is not worth keeping up but i found a usefull video from feral prespective (search deeprun pest control vs maloriak) where the creator tries to keep a 5 point rip going)
Should i even bother swiping here? hitbox on ooze is kind of small and you need to keep moving from dark sludge so i am not sure if swipe hits all
My guild single targets vile swill/sludge adds till tanks have enough aoe threat and then full aoe is called out.

For heroic mal, if it is possible, a boomkin set with even blues can outdps decently geared feral for that fight. But if you intend to stay feral, I would probably try bleeding up as many swills, mangle rake 4-5 pt rip over swipe unless the tank does a good job of stackin em closely.

[Shaazaam]

1. Haste vs crit reforging neglible difference on dps in mew?
when i plug in my stats in mew, it suggests haste is better than crit. I tried reforging my crit to haste and then plugged in new stats and boom my dps improves by a whopping 2-7dps on toskk in mew.I ran couple long simulations on simulator method too and my new dps is within the margin of error.

So my question is why is that haste is better than crit when relative stat value suggests so but your actual dps is no different in mew from both methods.
Can someone who has reforged crit to haste at around 359 ilevel comment on real world dps increase from it?

2.Heroic maloriak advice
I tried to read up on this from a feral perspective but could use some help from somone whos downed maloriak

3 Berserks timing- I should be using my first zerk on first black phase and next two zerks in green phase?

Vile swills-Should i just tab target rake+mangle or try and build enough combo points for 5 point rip (there was a post on ej forum which suggested rip is not worth keeping up but i found a usefull video from feral prespective (search deeprun pest control vs maloriak) where the creator tries to keep a 5 point rip going)
Should i even bother swiping here? hitbox on ooze is kind of small and you need to keep moving from dark sludge so i am not sure if swipe hits all
My guild single targets vile swill/sludge adds till tanks have enough aoe threat and then full aoe is called out.

My guild has been working on that fight. What I did was explain to them the poor AoE situation, and how for melee it is rather difficult to DPS the oozes without standing in sludge. I suggested to be put on the boss full time to make better use of my DPS and assist in interrupts. So far on my end it was working until we had some tank issues and I had to be reassigned to tank the oozes.

I'd say talk to whoever your guild master/raid leader is and bring that up if you're intent on staying feral for that fight and see what they have to say.

[njorde]

2.Heroic maloriak advice
I tried to read up on this from a feral perspective but could use some help from somone whos downed maloriak

3 Berserks timing- I should be using my first zerk on first black phase and next two zerks in green phase?

2. Really easy fight as a feral. Blue phase: just stay with melee behind boss if you get debuff run out and when it goes away FC back in 4 free ravage, Green: do what your raid leader tells you, Red: just stay behind boss if your healers aren't having much trouble keeping up raid

3. You will probably only get two berserks off if you raid's dps is decent. Use the first one right away and save the second for green phase if your raid really needs abbreviations to go down quick, otherwise use the second one whenever something procs or you use your pot

---------- Post added 2011-02-27 at 12:58 AM ----------

1. In aoe fights, as maloriak, I just go Berserk/swipe and am leading the damage meter with 22k. I dont know how you can say that our aoe is "poor", its at least average.

It's really not that bad, most people just say its so awful because of our old swipe

[Mithfin]

3. You will probably only get two berserks off if you raid's dps is decent. Use the first one right away and save the second for green phase if your raid really needs abbreviations to go down quick, otherwise use the second one whenever something procs or you use your pot[COLOR="red"]

No, he will not. ALL guilds kill the boss with two black and two green phases. This is just how encounter designed by Blizzard - you can't go without second green phase. If your overall dps is good, you just stop at 30% and wait. Therefore, Black-green-green berserk timing is available for any feral.

[tangedyn]

1. Haste vs crit reforging neglible difference on dps in mew?
when i plug in my stats in mew, it suggests haste is better than crit. I tried reforging my crit to haste and then plugged in new stats and boom my dps improves by a whopping 2-7dps on toskk in mew.I ran couple long simulations on simulator method too and my new dps is within the margin of error.
So my question is why is that haste is better than crit when relative stat value suggests so but your actual dps is no different in mew from both methods.
Can someone who has reforged crit to haste at around 359 ilevel comment on real world dps increase from it?

The ToskkFormulation method has not been updated with our new rotation for 4.0.6, so will probably not give you the most accurate results.
The values of Crit and Haste Rating are so very close now, I wouldn't worry too much about finding the perfect balance between the two stats - it's not going to make much of a difference. Whatever difference you see is probably under the Std Error for the Simulations.

Trying to favour one of the stat over the other is also not likely to work out very well, because increasing one stat tend to make the other stat better. Optimally, you'd want to balance it so that the values of both stats are exactly the same. But that point is very hard to find accurately without running an unfeasibly large amount of simulation iterations.

[leofric]

2. Really easy fight as a feral. Blue phase: just stay with melee behind boss if you get debuff run out and when it goes away FC back in 4 free ravage, Green: do what your raid leader tells you, Red: just stay behind boss if your healers aren't having much trouble keeping up raid

3. You will probably only get two berserks off if you raid's dps is decent. Use the first one right away and save the second for green phase if your raid really needs abbreviations to go down quick, otherwise use the second one whenever something procs or you use your pot

2. The question was about Heroic Maloriak, not normal. Since you didn't even mention the dark phase, and you even said ignore the red phase, I can tell you don't know Heroic Maloriak.
3. There is a 12 minute enrage, so that's 4 berserks assuming you can use them soon after it comes off CD. So you can easily count on 3 since this fight is going to last more than 9 min. The suggestion is using the first during dark phase, then the next 2 during each green phase (since 3 dark phases usually = wipe).

[Deleted]

2.Heroic maloriak advice
I tried to read up on this from a feral perspective but could use some help from somone whos downed maloriak

3 Berserks timing- I should be using my first zerk on first black phase and next two zerks in green phase?

Vile swills-Should i just tab target rake+mangle or try and build enough combo points for 5 point rip (there was a post on ej forum which suggested rip is not worth keeping up but i found a usefull video from feral prespective (search deeprun pest control vs maloriak) where the creator tries to keep a 5 point rip going)
Should i even bother swiping here? hitbox on ooze is kind of small and you need to keep moving from dark sludge so i am not sure if swipe hits all
My guild single targets vile swill/sludge adds till tanks have enough aoe threat and then full aoe is called out.

On the oozes I usually try to stay on the ooze that's highest on hp, bleed it up with rake & 4/5cp rip, then tab to the next. If i tab to one that already has mangle debuff, i only put up rake and tab again. Once they get pretty low and are all about equal, i just spam swipe.

If you use berserk right at the start (when you're still on Malo), it will be back up right at the first green phase. The third one will be up way before the 2nd green phase, but it's probably better to save it for the 2nd green phase.

[Arctagon]

So far the only clear cat buff in 4.1 :P

Really? Did you notice this?

Class Design
To start, we want to do a better job of balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs.

[gollie]

That text is far from:"Cats are a bit underpowered at the moment and we will look into buffing them up to where they are supposed to be", which is a line I'd much prefer to read.

[Epoch]

Really? Did you notice this?

Class Design
To start, we want to do a better job of balancing the AoE power of the different damage-dealing specs.

He/she noticed that, others did as well. However being that feral druids' aoe was long ago changed in the form of swipe (wotlk swipe nerf), and that what you mentioned has nothing specifically to do with feral cat druids at all or the single target dps of feral cat druids for that matter - Nathanyel was correct.

Edit: Exactly what gollie said above, bah I just saw it after I posted.

[Deleted]

Hopefully they'll change something about our best secondary stat for single target (mastery) having zero effect on our aoe dps (I don't consider tab-bleeding aoe dps).

[Nathanyel]

Patch Notes update:

•Stampeding Roar's duration has been increased to 8 seconds, up from 6. The movement speed effect has been increased to 60%, up from 40%.
•Swipe (Bear) cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds, down from 6.

The duration and effect increase are nice, but I'd kinda rather see a buff to the effect range...

[Arctagon]

That text is far from:"Cats are a bit underpowered at the moment and we will look into buffing them up to where they are supposed to be"

Of course it is far away when that line is referring to AoE and not DPS performance in general.

------------------------

It is not directly stated that the change will affect a feral cat's AoE in any way, but one should definitely not just throw it away and take for granted that it won't.

[Smartie]

I agree, with that. Gief bleeding AoE ^^

[Epoch]

Hope all you want, until blizzard as a company realizes what is going on it wont change. I've hoped these unnecessary changes would stop years ago, but after repeatedly being let down & being treated horribly by the head dev whenever i attempted a logical rational conversation with him, I've lost all hope.

[Blackfoo]

Sadly feral aoe just wont be viable to they A give us aoe bleed thrash does not for matter B reduce the cost of swipe down to 20 energy while under the effect of TF leave a bleed= to damage done by swipe

[Arctagon]

Perhaps. However, it should not be up to players / theorycrafters to decipher what the devs who have no clue how to fix feral cats are trying to be mysterious about. A certain head devs' incompetence should never get to the point of players having to do his job for him. Talking to devs / reading the upcoming changes put out is comparable to conversing with a politician - you never get a straight answer but are told to deal with it, when it's found that said person was full of bullshit they either try to pass it off like they had no idea what was going on or they promise to fix it later with buffs; which in turn is shortly lived before another un-needed nerf comes.

I'd much rather have Kalgan back in control - he was biased towards warriors during Vanilla but at least he knew pve/pvp and was upfront with people about being biased.
The current illiterate tool has no clue about anything related to any classes other then frost mages, constantly makes changes to benefit the character he plays as, repeatedly screws up classes he sees as competition to the class he plays as in arena, & tries to sound subjective when he really has no clue what's going on. He should be fired and go back to staging server wide protests in EQ when the class he plays as isn't op, while fapping to his marine science degree which has nothing whatsoever to do with MMO's or WoW.

Stop blowing things out of proportion and interpret it in another way. I have never asserted the balancing of AoE affecting Feral DPS is fact. When Blizzard say they will be balancing AoE capability of various damage-dealing specs, I am going to hope it will affect Feral DPS, considering their horrible situation regarding the exact matter.