guide and questionaire Feral Pvp/arenas after patch - Advice and suggestions?

[druidonroids]

I will be touching on the following topics throughout this post, Skills, Talents, Glyphs, Gear - reforging, gemming, and enchanting. After i have talked about these certain things the rest will be strategy talk. If you wish to fast forward at all i will have written it in this Order for you to skip through, but please any responses that are made and clearly are address already in my guide/ questionaire youll just make a fool of yourself, or look like a troll.
A.) Talents - Dropped talents, picked up talents, reasoning.
B.) Glyphs - Prime, major and minor
C.) Stats - Agility, Mastery, Crit, Haste, Resilience, Stam.
D.) Gear - Reforging, Gemming, and enchanting.
E.) Questions - My questions for my fellow knowledgable feral lovers.


A.)
---------------------------------------------- Talents being dropped recently------------------------------------------------------------
Talents - I have noticed recently that a lot of druids have been dropping Fury swipes for 2v2 and 3v3 arenas. I am quite curious as to why they have been dropping it. On my target dummy lvl 85 aswell as my 3k+ warrior friend i tested how often fury swipes really happened. I came out with the numbers of it happening as often as every 6 secs and as long as every 25 seconds with the average being about every 15 secs it seems.

Now when fury strike hits every time i literally do atleast a 3k up to a 7k normal attack hit (even on my warrior friend who is full vicious).
Why are these druids dropping this skill? (i will address it further down the road)

Talents- i have also noticed a lot of druids dropping primal madness. This i find very interesting aswell because when ever i pop it having 2 points into it i always get 1-2 MORE mangles off to quickly get my rip, maim, or ferocious bite off then when i do not have this talent. I also highly appreciate this skill as when i pop bear form upon entering i can pop enrage and insta charge, bash. For Defensive reasons i can instantly press enrage and frenzied rejuv. to get my health literally from 1/3rd back to nearly full while dps is still on me in arenas.

Talents- Lastly i have seen druids drop is blood in the water talent. This is also quite confusing to me because when i am in 2s and 3s and keeping pressure on my target this seems crucial to me so that once my target is low in health im ferocious biting his ass off and if he doesnt drop due to a failed CC attemtp on healer or for what ever reason, my rip is refreshed and my pressure still exists and i can keep goin. Losing this seems utterly stupid to me but again this is why i am asking my feral friends out there for any decent explanation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------Talents picked up-------------------------------------------------------------

Now that i have gone over the talents ive seen druids drop i want to go over the ones ive seen picked up.

talent- i have now seen more druids puting points into rest talents such as master shapeshifter (resto tree). This talent i see that is very good an extra 4% inc damage to bear after nerf? awsome, an extra 4% crit in kitty ? sweeeeet, and also much looked past....an extra 4% increased healing in caster form? niceeeee. i can def see why anyone would pick this talent up.

talent- I have also seen alotttttt of druids atleast point 1 to 2 points into persverance (resto tree) or 2-4% spell damage taken reduced. Now seeing the above talents dropped to pick up this talent there are a few reasons why, especially after patch, i can see us picking this up. Those anoying lil root mechanics we now have to get used too? well now we have a decent way of just takin it up our ass while we sit in root (if you dont have a dispeller) so yes i guess i can see this being quite useful for survivability reasons seeing how we dont have many CD's to rely on. The ups of this talent like i said is less spell damage being taken in so if this now is the truth then we can almost just take the dps while rooted for 8 secs ( plus dimishing returns ). This also helps counter us taking mass ammounts of damage from our lil annoying lock and priest friends while feared.

Talent- Natural Reaction (feral tree) It seems alot of feral druids have now also been spending 1-2 points into this talent to reduce damage taken by 6-12% while in bear. This seems like another great defense again poping into bear when your rooted by a mage, hunter, etc. This ontop of having Perseverance seems like a decent ammount of metigation against our now being stuck in roots.

Considering all these talents being dropped and taken how many of you agree its worth to get these talents and now lack on offense it seems. With the nerf bat hitting us hard especially on bleeds (kinda deserving), Beserk not helping us with fear mechanics anymore, and us having to twidle our thumbs in roots.....Has feral really now completely switched that much into becoming a Defensive dps class?

B.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------Glyphs- prinme, major, and minor.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will first address the top 3 currently uses prime glyphs,
Glyph of Beserk - Inc the duration of beserk by 5 secs. This is a great glyph to have and stack extremely fast combo points and also dps the target at the same time. This is also nice because now being able to be CC'd while this is active we now have a 25 second usage in which at most cc's are on a 8 sec start and then suffer diminishing returns thus giving us the chance to still be able to use it if we happened to get cc'd unfortunatly.

Glyph of shred - This is a very nice glyph to keep your rip up while still hiting hard and beign able to afford such a costly energy move and not have to worry as much about keeping your rip up. This is also a very good glyph to go with if you drop the talent blood in the water.

Glyph of rip - Inc rip damage by 15% ? thats just a no brainer to have.

Some other prime glyphs to have are Glyph of Mangle- inc mangle dmg by 10%, and glyph of tigers fury - reduces the cd on tigers fury by 3 seconds.

Major glyphs -
Glyph of Feral charge - Reduces the cd of your kitty charge by 2 secs, and bear 1 sec. This essentiall means you now have a free ravage every 2 seconds sooner which is very ncie for added dps and pressure in arenas, and espeically imporant after the fact we rely on charge alotttt more for staying on fear and root targets after us being nerfed.

Glyph of Barkskin - reduces the critical strike chance of melee by 25%, this is very nice for those warriors, dks, rogues, enhance shamans and pallys that pop their dps burst cd and able to gimp their dps noticablly to keep yourself alive.

Glyph of Entangling roots - yea this glyph got nerfed a shit ton and .2 sec cst reducation is kind of a joke but its still usefull tool agaisnt all targets. This is still a helpful way to keep casters in range upon being rooted and not being able to shift out (aswell as cyclone).

Some other helpful major glyphs are Maul - your maul hits an additonal target for 50% damage, i have run into plenty of teams that all focus on me first and i get hit so hard i have no choice but to go bear but this glyph is especially nice for kitty cleave team where i can pop bear and beserk , enrage, and then go to town on them with mangle hitting all 3 targets, maul hitting 2 off the targets and then spamming the shit out of thrash and an occasional laccerate inbetween. I have caught plenty of healers on melee teams astonished at the dps in which i can do (even after patch) between me doing that and then my warrior poping lawl storm its just rediculous.

Another very useful glyph is glyph of rake - prevents your targets from fleeing, what more can u ask for? lol ( some people like dropping infected wounds talent and just picking this glyph up)

Minor glyphs, most common are dash,unburdened rebirth, and aquatic form......I Highly recommend dash and aquatic form. Dash is extremely useful for staying on casters in pvp and in arenas and aquatic form is just awsome for the battle of gilanaes and twin peaks bg, i just love gettin the flag and usin the water ways for half the map, or traveling to waterworks.

C.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Stats--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As of right now that i know of it seems Weapon damage, Agility, mastery, crit, haste is the order in which improving upon your dps as a kitty.

When i say weapon damage i mean as of right now the pvp weapon does more damage then any of the herioc weapons.

Agility- will always pretty much be our primary stat to increase attack power. crit, dodge and even armor still i believe. This is also even nice due to the fact if spec'd into nuturing instinct our heals increase alot more.

Mastery- tho some say its gimped its still our best way to get back our now nerfed blled damage, and also take more damage in bearform.

Crit - is always a nice stat to have to increase our overall damage ranging from our normal attacks to our mangle, shred, rake, rip, ferocious bite, ravage, and even maim.
Another thing people dont realize about crit differing from agility, crit Effects even our SPELL POWERS meaning our heals tick for more when crit espeically life bloom. I will even say its almost double critting if you have the talent nuturing instinct.

Haste- the way it currently effects us is the least important and the most reliable thing to downgrade and reforge into something else. I believe blizzard is on the right path in which what it should do for us and all melee classes in the fact of energy regeneration, but i just think at this point in time its mechanics are to low to be a viable thing to stack and work with.

Resilience - HUGE. let me say it again HUGE stat for us as feral druids now more than ever after this last patch. We need to keep our resilence possibly higher then any other class out there (maybe not as high as healers) but now having to pretty much just take dps up the ass when feared and/or rooted resilience along with stamina , our few cd's, and our few talents for damage mitigation we need to rely on this to keep us up to be able to put out on damage and pressure and not have to keep goign bear every min of the damn fight.

Stamina - Definatly a nice stat to have as to have a larger health pool wil certaintly help your healer provided your not gimping your dps to much, and your mitigation because a feral druid with 180k hp and 2k resi will be nothing to a feral druid with 130k and 3.5k resi + .

Spell penetration - Wait what? spell pen on a a melee? yep we still sadly need this buff guys because we need to ensure our biggest form of cc atm (cyclone) doesnt get resisted int its most needed time, same with roots.

D.)
------------------------------------------------------------Changing your gear to suit you-------------------------------------------

First i will go over reforging, pretty much you want to be pvp hit capped which is 5% , and expetise cap i believe is 20....this will ensure you will never miss, be dodged, or parried when you are applying your dps to a target.

once hit and exp capped its best to keep mastery and crit relatively even, if one is higher i would recommend crit if anything. So out of all the things you could reforge your gear into i would stick with hit rating, expertise, crit, and mastery.

Now as far as enchants,
Helm - i myself use the 18 stam and 20 resilience enchant from , you got it, burning crusade lol. I use this atm because im in the proccess of gearing my druid fast in pvp. Once you reach the higher levels of gear i highly recommend using the Uldum reputation enchant which is 60 agility and 35 haste, or using the Pvp one which is 60 agi and 35 resi.

Shoulders - i would definatly hit up the Therazane rep vendor for the 50 agility and 25 mastery shoulder enchant, if you feel you are ok on dps buffs and seek defensive enchants id use baradins hold 60 agility and 35 resilience.

Cloak - I highly recommend putting the 70 spell pen enchant on this piece of gear and freeing up a gem slot to being used for something else other than a spell pen gem.

Chest - I currently use the 40 resilence atm but i may possibly switch over to the +20 to all stats, just because we get extra modifiers when we shift forms and also due to talents increasing certain stats by percentage.

Bracers - This possibly has the most capabilities, If your leatherworker you can do 130 agility or 195 stamina, or you can go with the following enchants 65 crit rating, 65 haste, 50 agility, 50 expertise, 50 hit rating, 50 crit rating, 40 stam.

Gloves - 65 mastery, 50 expertise,50 mastery, 50 strength....are the only ones that seem worthwhile

Legs - The best one and most commonly used seems to be the 145 stam / 55 agi leatherworker enchant....the only other option for melee is 190 ap and 55 crit which i wouldnt recommend due to the fact our multiple that effects agility in cat form and stamina in bear form definatly makes the other patch more worthwhile in my opion.

Boots - the best 2 seem to be 25 agility/ minor movement speed inc , and 35 master/ minor movement speed inc. These 2 enchants are important because if you pop out of animal form to lets say cast a instant cyclone or to continue running and casting hots on yourself, you are going to still be running slightly faster than whom ever is chasing you or whom ever you are chasing >=) so i highly recommend one of those two, but for those who seek high stat enchants there is 35 agility, 50 mastery, 50 hit rating, and 50 haste rating.

Weapon - I personnally will always continue to use 130 agility on my pvp weaon due to the fact i like Steady damage than chance on hit damage enchants due to the fact i cant count on that chance to hit to pop when i pop beserk or tigers fury or before ravage, etc....id rather have a slight damage increase overall rather than a burst every so often that most likely a healer will heal through anyways.

Now as far as gemming go most of the ferals i have seen as myself included will always gem mass ammounts of agility. It is recommend you put 2 of the highest grade spell penn gems in your sockets that match. Ontop of agility ive noticed alot of druids either going for higher ammounts of Mastery, or higher ammounts of resilience (especially with the yellow sockets)

The biggest controversial gem seems to be the meta gem for your helm, as their are many of them to choose from. I personnel use the 54 agility and 3% increase crit strike damage, because i love dpsing as fast and as hard as i can before getting cc'd. I am all about keeping pressure on my target wether it be a arena team, bgs, or just plain ole dueling.
Some other great gems include -81stam and 2% spell damg reduction
-54 crit rating and 10% reduction to snare/root
-54 crit rating and 10% reduction to fear mechanics
-54 mastery and minor run speed inc (this is especially good if you seek to not use the boots enchant which does the same)

Here is a list of some helpful gems
Blue- 40 hit rating, 50 spell pen, 60 stam.
Red- 40 agi, 40 expertise
Yellow- 40 mastery, 40 resilience,40 crit, and 40 haste
Green- 20haste/30stam, 20crit/30stam, 20haste/20Hit, 20crit/20hit, 20mas/20 hr, 20resi/30stam, 20resi/20spell pen
Orange- 20agi/20mas, 20agi/20crit, 20agi/20haste, 20exp/20mas
purple- 20exp/20hit, 20agi/20hit, 20exp/30stam, 20agi/30stam
METACOLOR (will work in any socket and match its color) - +10 all stats, this is a very nice gem to have especially if you find yourself needing to get a socket you dont rly find a gem to your liking, you can only use one of these gems though.

The most common gems ive been seeing are, the orange 20agi/20mastery, yellow 40mastery, 40 resilience, blue 50 spell pen, green 20resi/30 stam, 20resi/20spell pen, purple 20agi/20hit and lastely red 40 agi<---very important.

This guide does not include Jewelcrafting which you may have the capability of using 3 gems with higher than normal stats.

It seems the easiest thing to do is reforge to get yourself hit and expertise capped, once this has occured use your enchants ot up your agility, resilience, mastery, and stam.
Once youve done this it also seems the best thing to go after with gems at this time is agility, and you can choose between mastery and resilience, i still highly recommending getting at least 2 blue 50 spell pen gems.

E.)
---------------------------------------------------------------Questions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. So how hard has this patch hit you guys with the new nerf to shapeshifting out of roots? Ive noticed quite a difference in killing mages (especially frost) , hunters, other druids, shamans and hell even warriors with imp. hamstring.

2. How hard has this patch hit you with the new nerf to no fear mechanic removal? Ive noticed warlocks are especially harder to kill along with shadow and even healing priests, and also hunters whom spam scare beast.

3. How much damage have yall noticed in dps? im doing about 3k less dps then i was before.

4. how many of you have respec'd into more survability talents rather than dps? I myself find myself switching into a more defensive playstyle now which i hate because the biggest thing i loved aboutmy druid was beign able to stick to your target in their face.

5. What are you guys doing to counter the nerfs?

As far as the nerf to our bleeds im finding most of it can be made up by getting more mastery for our bleeds.

As far as the nerf for being feared im finding myself now spec'd into spell damage reduction i can afford to save my skull bash for when locks try to fear, rather than reducing their high damage spells, same with hunters.

As far as the rooted mechanics im finding myself go bear form instantly if i notice the class is decent and using their mouse to turn...if not and i notice they are a keyboard turner (fail) i usually can get a cyclone off on them without being smart enough to silience me =D , or if its a melee i usually root them inplace.
The one thing i have been relying on is poping roots on my target then loading them up with a insect swarm, moonfire once, and then popping 3 lifeblooms on myself and one rejuv and go cat (increase the heals ammount) and then charging as soon as im out.
Ive also found going bear form and popping barkskin does help and you can lead yourself into a charge as soon as your out followed by a bash and then go kitty and dps as quick as possible

Any advice on play styles on how to counter our nerfs please feel free to post, or corrections that make sense. Also any more advice on gear, stats, or talents feel free i just wanna see what everyone else has done since the patch came thanks for reading!