[Feral] The art of a Kitten: PvE guide

[aggixx]

But come the 5.1, and we go down in the ranking of dps.

Not sure where you're coming from here. SimulationCraft has nothing to do with class balance if that's what you're referencing.

[Deleted]

I want a change to HotW that makes it a passive effect that does something from those roles. There is a thread on this forum somewhere about it: Non restro = you gain 10% of the damage you take back as health over 15 seconds. (Max 15% of hp).
Something like that I would love to see. Because as of now the only reason to take HotW is to do a strong tranq and the passive... I dont want the benefit of my last tier of talents to be a random agi increase.

Disagree, I have found many uses for it.

1) Used it while tanking to do an absurd amount of burst damage on gara'jal HC. Would apply to any DPS check fights that need 2 tanks.
2) Used it last night to spam wrath on Will when not risking to jump into boss's arcs, again HC.
3) As you said, tranq has been useful on several fights (Blade lord, Wind lord, Any emergency situations)

As i've said in my previous posts, using HotW during a progression kill, to me is an absolute must. Since I run 10m, and it seems a lot of fights are 2 healer based, we lack raid cooldowns, and having that insanely strong tranq is raid saver. I normally use DoC when the boss is on farm though, but as the developers intended, I am switching talents based on fights, for this I really don't think it needs changing.

[Paloro]

Disagree, I have found many uses for it.

As i've said in my previous posts, using HotW during a progression kill, to me is an absolute must. Since I run 10m, and it seems a lot of fights are 2 healer based, we lack raid cooldowns, and having that insanely strong tranq is raid saver. I normally use DoC when the boss is on farm though, but as the developers intended, I am switching talents based on fights, for this I really don't think it needs changing.

Glad things are developing through 10m.........

The only time I have switched from DoC this tier was 25hc windlord. Other then that, the only talent I've have to change out was wild charge for feline swiftness on 25hc wote for an easier time dancing.

It would be nice to see some developer thoughts on how our talents are looking and if we can expect to see some sort of changes anytime soon.

[Deleted]

The only time I have switched from DoC this tier was 25hc windlord. Other then that, the only talent I've have to change out was wild charge for feline swiftness on 25hc wote for an easier time dancing.

I didn't get this luxury, I was the only viable tank for the Strengths, so i was on duty to tank and adsorb their sparks. Picked HotW for the extra stamina and the wrath spam during add downtime.

[Paloro]

I didn't get this luxury, I was the only viable tank for the Strengths, so i was on duty to tank and adsorb their sparks. Picked HotW for the extra stamina and the wrath spam during add downtime.

The luxory is really in how you look at it. I could perform those roles in raid if needed, but my damage is way to high compared to others that are generally better suited for doing those things.

Our talents choices just feel extremely lackluster (obviously to me). If you look at the mage talents, they have 3 tiers that are essentially dps increase talents that can be changed around on every single fight to match a playstyle. Now obviously a mage is a pure dps class and it is much easier to make a different talents for only dps when druid talents have to match up with 4 different raid roles.
Ferals are in a good place right now (with DoC played correctly) so I would hate to see DoC nerfed to bring Incarnation or Force of Nature more on par.

[Sunfyre]

I didn't get this luxury, I was the only viable tank for the Strengths, so i was on duty to tank and adsorb their sparks. Picked HotW for the extra stamina and the wrath spam during add downtime.

I'm confused, you're talking about Emperor strengths, right? Their damage is 100% avoidable, even if you're the tank.

[Deleted]

I'm confused, you're talking about Emperor strengths, right? Their damage is 100% avoidable, even if you're the tank.

You need someone to tank them off to the side so that the smash doesn't start hitting everyone, so i taunted them and took them off to the side, that's how we dealt with them, when rages and courage's were all gone, the DPS focused it down. I was able to absorb the spark while it was away also. Just how our raid comp worked out.

[Sunfyre]

You need someone to tank them off to the side so that the smash doesn't start hitting everyone, so i taunted them and took them off to the side, that's how we dealt with them, when rages and courage's were all gone, the DPS focused it down. I was able to absorb the spark while it was away also. Just how our raid comp worked out.

You can see where the smash is going to land and move away before it actually lands, even if it's focusing you.

[Deleted]

You can see where the smash is going to land and move away before it actually lands, even if it's focusing you.

What if its on-top of a healer that is casting a heal? not only does it do 150k damage, which isn't needed, but it stuns, which also isn't needed, by just having someone take the add off to the side.

[Sunfyre]

What if its on-top of a healer that is casting a heal? not only does it do 150k damage, which isn't needed, but it stuns, which also isn't needed, by just having someone take the add off to the side.

You're missing the point -- you can take the add and tank it off to the side, and then proceed to dodge every attack. Strengths do not have melee. Only a completely avoidable aoe attack.

[Deleted]

You're missing the point -- you can take the add and tank it off to the side, and then proceed to dodge every attack. Strengths do not have melee. Only a completely avoidable aoe attack.

Yes I know that, and you need someone with a taunt to be able to keep them off the DPS, so they don't over aggro, that or a boost in TPS. We had a rogue which I could have given a taunt too, but it was better he run around and take the courage sparks and some of the sparks from rages, since he could potentially reduce the damage from every spark by 50%, providing he was fully healed, he would be alive. Everyone else was needed to rather CC the adds, or AoE them down asap when needed, for this, i was chosen to be the Str tank.

[monikasun88]

I think he means you can tank the the strength and have ti aggroed to you on the side as well as avoid his attacks because he takes around 1 second or something to do it on the ground and doesn't change direction if you move after he starts doing it.

[kaiadam]

One of the main benefits of being tank specced for the strengths is that you get to lure courages off of your main tanks and dps on them don't have to weave through the dance while damaging the courage.

DoC is a dps loss vs HoTW for 8/16 fights this tier. If that isn't good design, I'm not sure what is.

Ferals are easily one of the strongest dps class this tier as well, if not the absolute strongest, with the rip bug. Simcraft is not very useful for spec comparisons - I know I outdamage what the sim says I should be doing by almost 15%.

[moveth]

One of the main benefits of being tank specced for the strengths is that you get to lure courages off of your main tanks and dps on them don't have to weave through the dance while damaging the courage.

DoC is a dps loss vs HoTW for 8/16 fights this tier. If that isn't good design, I'm not sure what is.

Ferals are easily one of the strongest dps class this tier as well, if not the absolute strongest, with the rip bug. Simcraft is not very useful for spec comparisons - I know I outdamage what the sim says I should be doing by almost 15%.

As a newer feral, I would be interested to know what fights you are referring to.

[kaiadam]

As a newer feral, I would be interested to know what fights you are referring to.

Feng
Garajal (possible to self heal to full with 2 gcds downstairs?)
Will

Garalon
Windlord
Ambershaper
Empress

Tsulong
Sha of Fear

From my experiences in 25H. They either have lots of target swapping (Garalon), aoe-heavy adds (Feng, Emps, Sha, etc.), or you can "dps" by healing (Tsulong).

Then there's the added question of "can you really dodge two heroic attenuations while optimizing DoC?" but that's another topic.

[moveth]

Feng
Garajal (possible to self heal to full with 2 gcds downstairs?)
Will

Garalon
Windlord
Ambershaper
Empress

Tsulong
Sha of Fear

From my experiences in 25H. They either have lots of target swapping (Garalon), aoe-heavy adds (Feng, Emps, Sha, etc.), or you can "dps" by healing (Tsulong).

Then there's the added question of "can you really dodge two heroic attenuations while optimizing DoC?" but that's another topic.

Alright. Thats really helpful. Thanks :]

[Deleted]

Don't know if it's just me but as of 1am 04/01/2013 the Rip bug doesn't work anymore

[aggixx]

Yep, hotfixed.

[nijuu]

Feng
Garajal (possible to self heal to full with 2 gcds downstairs?)
Will

Garalon
Windlord
Ambershaper
Empress

Tsulong
Sha of Fear

From my experiences in 25H. They either have lots of target swapping (Garalon), aoe-heavy adds (Feng, Emps, Sha, etc.), or you can "dps" by healing (Tsulong).

Then there's the added question of "can you really dodge two heroic attenuations while optimizing DoC?" but that's another topic.

While I agree that HotW and even NV (its actually pretty good on Garalon and Empress) has its place on some bosses and could potentially help your raid doing progress on bosses where raid cooldowns are needed it's still a matter of how your raid is playing the encounter on farm. I am 100% sure that Feng, Garajal, Will and some other bosses prefer a "well played" DoC rotation more than the one with HotW from a dps perspective only. Even on Windlord its completly viable to play DoC but its easier and more reliant to spam Hurricane for 45 seconds, switching to cat after that and popping cooldowns to burn the boss. For myself I'm using Incarnation and HotW for this fight, ravage with berserk and a pot will give you a bigger dps increase in the one recklessness-phase than SotF will do in 3 in my opinion.

If I would still progress some bosses I would eventually switch to HotW even when its not the best choice, but for pure dps DoC is almost always the better option. Especially when using the vortex-rip you had no choice but to go DoC.

Got bored and compared our logs on Garajal, singletarget only and not going down. My RIP ticked for 82654.8 on average and critted for 170004.9 on average (total amount: 11405393 damage in 3:32) while your RIP was hitting for 58213.8 on average and critted for 124695.3 on average (total amount: 10659015 damage in 4:25). Average shred hits and crits are really close to each other though
I only casted 1 RIP the entire time while you casted 3 RIPs and my fight was shorter which influated the numbers a bit because of the better pot and bloodlust uptime. So these values are not really 1:1 comparable and are done with the vortex bug, those numbers will look different when vortex got fixxed but for now DoC wins just because of the huge uptime with a 25% buffed RIP with every proc up. The 6% agility couldn't bypass DoC under any circumstances.

The more gear we get (think of T15 and T16) the better HotW could become with the increase in agility (right now I'm sitting a bit under 20k agility with food and flask), but DoC will just gain more and more value simply because our secondary stats scale better with that talent. More crit means more combopoints and finisher which equals to more charges. Haste will let us attack faster and produce more OoC procs which results in more combopoints and has the same effect as crit but that should be pretty obvious and those are just some wild assumptions!

[Paloro]

Feng
Garajal (possible to self heal to full with 2 gcds downstairs?)
Will

Garalon
Windlord
Ambershaper
Empress

Tsulong
Sha of Fear

From my experiences in 25H. They either have lots of target swapping (Garalon), aoe-heavy adds (Feng, Emps, Sha, etc.), or you can "dps" by healing (Tsulong).

Then there's the added question of "can you really dodge two heroic attenuations while optimizing DoC?" but that's another topic.

Feng is basically straight up single target where DoC wins. If you time it out correctly, you can get thrash+3 DoC buffed swipes for the adds which is incredible burst.
You go down for Garajal? That stinks that you have to pick up the slack for other people in your raid.
Are you not dancing for Will?

Garalon is solved with getting redirect. There is a lot of switching, but I was able to do 160k
Absolutely correct on windlord. I wish my guilds strat let me get the full potenial out of switching.
Again a redirect is your best friend! High parses from this fight are scewed b/c of being reshaped though.
I'm guessing your guild groups up all the adds for you to hurricane? We haven't gotten there on heroic yet, but i'm usually ~120k with DoC

Tsulong is debatable, i'm needed for interrupting

I'm just not seeing where HotW would really be a dps increase if your role allows you to choose DoC!