[Feral] What am I doing wrong?

[Edoran]

I've mained a druid since I began playing this game in 2007, mostly as a tank, but also often playing kitty DPS. I'd like to think I know how to play the class. But that being said, I'm really struggling since I returned from a year off.

Here's the situation. My guild is doing 14/14 10M normal right now because it is still trying to get its feet on the ground. I'm a newish recruit to them, who are a newly reformed guild from another server. Everyone else is around 560 ilevel, whereas I just reached 545 this lockout.

On Garrosh last night, I was pulling right around 140k. That was BY FAR the lowest in the raid. On Thursday, I was third on Blackfuse, so I know I still can play. Is that because Garrosh is a tough feral fight? It seems to me that ferals have a very tough time in SoO because of the mobile nature of most fights, or do I just suck?

Here's my armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Edoran/simple

Are there any quick and easy changes I can make (reforges/gems)? I've been using AMR to optimize. Unfortunately I do not have any logs to show right now, so I know that's not super helpful.

[Deleted]

Some quick things... (I am no pro feral, just play it for some single tank bosses in our 10m alt run)

Get rid of the cleave trinket. It sucks, the procc is wasted on a single target fight and Garrosh especially is a SINGLE target fight.
Try to get any version on the Lei Shen trinket. Its still BIS for ferals and as a second trinket either Blackfuse or Darkshamans trinket (last is a bit easier to handle).
Your talent choices are rather suboptimal for feral.
- Incarnation is good for bears but sucks for ferals. Force of nature or soul of the forest is much better
- Natures virgil is not very strong. You will get most dps with Dream of Cenarius but it takes a bit to get used to. Heart of the Wild is a good alternative.
Also you are slightly below your hit / exp caps. 2550 for each. Would be awe full to waste a good rip during a strong procc only because you missed.

As you haven't provided logs there is not much else we can do for you.

[Rioo]

Garrosh normal is a very good fight for feral since he goes below execute phase so many times allowing you to extend powerful rips and get some more FBs in. Feral today is all about snapshotting bleeds. If you get a weakaura or addon that tells you how strong rake, rip and even thrash will be this will help you get those big bleed ticks.

Incarnation is a terrible talent. Use SotF or even treants instead. Nature's Vigil isn't terrible, but most ferals choose either HotW or DoC. HotW makes the rotation a bit easier and gives you a powerful tranq for the raid, while DoC brings by far the best DPS, especially on Garrosh.

Also I'm not sure if using the cleave trinket is good. It used to be that people used it purely for DPS padding in the first phase, but if the raid is around 560 ilvl the adds surely most melt too fast for it to be worth it. I can understand though if you don't have any other trinkets yet.

[Exigent]

With all due respect, I have to strongly disagree. Feral doesn't have a particularly difficult time in SoO and Garrosh is an excellent fight for the spec. Melee in particular tends to be very strong on normal Garrosh and back when we were doing that fight I typically topped the DM, only occasionally falling behind our monk tank if he was solo-tanking.

That said, your item level is significantly lower than the rest of the raiders so I'd expect that you would fall behind the other DPS.

I'd recommend that you drop AMR and start using Catus; it's significantly more accurate for all things kitty. Running your armory through the app, it recommended a few reforges, some enchant and gem changes; likely because you're not at 7.5% expertise.

Other than that, I'd recommend dropping Incarnation and Nature's Vigil. Soul of the Forest is better at your gear level and you'll do yourself a favor by figuring out how either DoC work or just sticking with HoTW. Both are better than NV.

I'd also recommend that you replace your second trinket.. it's pretty terrible for everything except Galakras and Spoils. Ideally you'll pick up the trinket off Sha of Pride, Dark Shaman or even better yet, a Rune of Re-origination from Throne of Thunder. If you manage to snag a RoRo trinket then you'll benefit even more from Catus, since it can handle all of the advanced reforging/regemming necessary to utilize the trinket optimally.

[Edoran]

Is the ToT trinket LFR better than the SoO cleave trinket I have?

I liked Incarnation for the Ravages, but apparently I was very wrong about that. I have been popping Incarnation + Berserk together and Ravaging, popping TF when Berserk wore off, and it was good burst, but I will heed this advice.

As for the exp cap, I know I'm not capped, but AMR put me there (it's very close so apparently they think the difference is negligible).

Thanks for the replies.

[Exigent]

Yes, it absolutely is... but keep in mind that RoRo requires a very specific gearing strategy and play style to be used properly. If you aren't regemmed/reforged properly or you aren't watching for procs, then your DPS will suffer.

As for the expertise cap, I'd disagree with the notion that it's negligible, but to each his own. If you're trying to boost your DPS you'd be better off slightly over the cap than slightly below. Again, Catus will do all the heavy lifting for you in this regard.. and if you combine Catus with an addon called Reforgade you won't even have to be bothered with all the reforging manually.

[Edoran]

I will do that. I really wasn't sure how negligible being slightly undercapped was, I just went off AMR's recommendation. I will definitely look into Catus.

Icy Veins thinks Haromm's Talisman paired with Ebon Detonator is a good setup (with HT standing in for RoRo). If I can get normal HT, should I run that over LFR RoRo? I highly doubt I'll be getting a RoRo unless it's the LFR version.

[Exigent]

To give you an idea... outside of heroics, I was running a normal RoRo with TED for a very long time. Either RoRo/TED or RoRo/HT are great options, though TED is a bit more difficult to use.

Eventually I was fortunate enough to snag a Heroic RoRo; there are item level 570+ ferals with double H WF SoO trinkets still hunting a heroic RoRo. It's that powerful of a trinket... and the proc is the same between all versions of the trinket. The only variation is the proc rate, which increases as the item level rises.

Even an LFR RoRo is mostly likely BiS versus LFR/Flex SoO trinkets, however normal/WF trinkets changes the playing field quite a bit.. and once you hit heroics, the LFR RoRo won't be as strong comparatively. Another great thing about Catus is that it has a trinket simulator! So you can actually see all this stuff for yourself. I cannot stress enough how amazing of a tool Catus is

You can actually setup the simulator with your armory, give it a list of trinkets that you have, and then have it tell you which two trinkets are best for your current gear!

- - - Updated - - -

I just ran Catus with your gear and several trinket options, including the normal SoO trinkets and LFR RoRo. Here are the current results!

[Trinket Ranking]
DPS Error Trinket 1 Trinket 2
1. 173.8K 178 [561] Ticking Ebon Detonator [561] Haromm's Talisman
2. 171.3K 147 [561] Ticking Ebon Detonator [561] Assurance of Consequence
3. 169.6K 129 [561] Assurance of Consequence [561] Haromm's Talisman
4. 168.2K 162 [536] Haromm's Talisman [561] Ticking Ebon Detonator
5. 167.7K 172 [510] Rune of Re-Origination [561] Ticking Ebon Detonator
6. 167.6K 155 [536] Ticking Ebon Detonator [561] Haromm's Talisman
7. 167.5K 143 [536] Assurance of Consequence [561] Ticking Ebon Detonator
8. 166.0K 156 [510] Rune of Re-Origination [561] Haromm's Talisman
9. 165.3K 123 [536] Assurance of Consequence [561] Haromm's Talisman
10. 165.0K 124 [536] Ticking Ebon Detonator [561] Assurance of Consequence
11. 164.1K 124 [510] Rune of Re-Origination [561] Assurance of Consequence
12. 164.0K 111 [536] Haromm's Talisman [561] Assurance of Consequence
13. 162.3K 143 [536] Haromm's Talisman [536] Ticking Ebon Detonator
14. 162.1K 143 [536] Sigil of Rampage [561] Ticking Ebon Detonator
15. 161.9K 151 [510] Rune of Re-Origination [536] Ticking Ebon Detonator
16. 161.5K 116 [536] Assurance of Consequence [536] Ticking Ebon Detonator
17. 160.5K 141 [510] Rune of Re-Origination [536] Haromm's Talisman
18. 160.1K 125 [536] Sigil of Rampage [561] Haromm's Talisman
19. 159.8K 104 [536] Assurance of Consequence [536] Haromm's Talisman
20. 159.8K 114 [510] Rune of Re-Origination [536] Assurance of Consequence
21. 158.4K 79 [536] Sigil of Rampage [561] Assurance of Consequence
22. 156.1K 117 [536] Sigil of Rampage [536] Ticking Ebon Detonator
23. 154.7K 103 [536] Sigil of Rampage [536] Haromm's Talisman
24. 154.6K 115 [510] Rune of Re-Origination [536] Sigil of Rampage
25. 154.0K 71 [536] Assurance of Consequence [536] Sigil of Rampage

[Edoran]

Thanks so much!

[Exigent]

Just keep in mind that the above results are for your current gear and talents. They could be different if you switch talents.

[Edoran]

I will make some changes and run Catus when I'm off work.

[Zstr]

I wouldn't been so scared about not capped expertise, it's almost near it anyway,
you are also need to be behind boss most of the time, you won't seen any difference, ignore those, your reforge and gemming is okay
but talents you need to change
also a huge difference in dps could be coz you missing legendary cloak and gem, go for it

[Deleted]

Did a quick search for logs, and it seems you have logs for a garrosh 10 man kill last night, so I took the liberty of going through them. I'll just make a list of things and how to improve.

1) Quick and dirty, you are slightly below expertise cap. Been so close to it, it makes no sense to not get that 0.08% more.
2) Drop cleave trinket (probably already mentioned in this thread)
3) As mentioned above too, drop both incarnation and natures vigil
- Incarnation, replace with Soul of the forest, it's a huge benefit to your rotation especially in lower item level gear, gives you a big boost in energy regen
- Drop NV, it's just bad in general. The passive stats alone from Heart of the wild easier cover the damage benefit from NV, and you have arguably the strongest healing raid CD at your disposal doing this.
4) Your rake uptime is extremely low. On the garrosh kill, it was 52.8 % uptime. When most of our damage comes from both rip and rake, keeping these up is an absolute must.
5) Slightly related to the post above, Savage roar uptime is low too. 76.3 % on Garrosh is a little low imo considering this skill is top priority. Don't be afraid to make use of the glyph to give you a 12 second savage roar if things just don't go your way. No one says you need to refresh it at 5 combo points, you only gain duration per combo point.
6) Make sure you are using your Omen of clarity procs on thrash if it's not up or about to drop off. You only had 6% uptime on it. Keeping this up is a dps gain overall but you should not sacrifice loosing your savage roar/rip or rakes for it.

To sum it up, it's about uptimes, learn the fight a bit more. Know when to use cooldowns, watch times so you know when things are coming, feral has a reliable interrupt so if your raid leader is going to make you swap to Mind controlled targets, make sure you have bleeds on garrosh to cover the time you won't be hitting him. Ontop of that. you rarely hit the adds. This would be somewhat padding, but if your entire raid is cleaving them, and you are focusing the boss, you will just naturally be lower on the meters.

Hope this helps.

Here is his logs btw, hope you don't mind me linking them.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/p...?s=9306&e=9926

[Edoran]

Thanks for linking the log, I didn't know it was being logged.

That was my first time experiencing normal Garrosh, so I'm hoping things will be better next time as far as uptimes.

[Pusekatten]

Some tips I got from a feral/guardian druid in KLR (nr.1 guild on Sylvanas) asuming you get your hands on a RoRe, was to always use shred over mangle, unless you had to be infront off the boss or you are in a hurry to gather combo points for a RoRe proc rip. Don't bother with FB unless your RoRe proc just ended, your rip, rake, roar and thresh are at almost full duration and you have left over combo points, unless you use it to extend rip in a execute phase.
I can mention that when I looked at his logs, the thing that suprised me the most was that thresh had a 80% uptime.
In short it would be shred over mangle, dont give a fuck about FB, look for RoRe procs!!! , and try to keep a high uptime on thresh without it fucking up your rotation.

[Edoran]

Thrash uptime is definitely something I will be working on.

[mmokri]

I was pulling right around 140k

Considering your iLvL I assume its K. First is practice. Use tigers fury per cooldown, use only combo finishers at 5cp,... just general tips.

[Edoran]

Here is the log from last night's flex 4: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...ary&source=200

Looking at just the Garrosh kills from the two nights, some stuff stands out to me.

DPS went up form 147.6k to 184.3k. That is good.

Uptimes were so much better. SR went from from 76.3% to 93.9%. Thrash went from 6% to 46.5%, Rip from 73.7% to 74.6%, and Rake from 52.8% to 78.8%.

Add damage was still low but I think that was because they were dying so much faster in the flex.

All I did was make those two talent changes (Incarnation for SotF and NV for DoC) and ran Catus to better reforge myself to the exp soft cap. Overall very happy with the improvement without even a single gear upgrade.

Do you guys see anything else on this second log?

[Deleted]

Here is the log from last night's flex 4: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/...ary&source=200

Looking at just the Garrosh kills from the two nights, some stuff stands out to me.

DPS went up form 147.6k to 184.3k. That is good.

Uptimes were so much better. SR went from from 76.3% to 93.9%. Thrash went from 6% to 46.5%, Rip from 73.7% to 74.6%, and Rake from 52.8% to 78.8%.

Add damage was still low but I think that was because they were dying so much faster in the flex.

All I did was make those two talent changes (Incarnation for SotF and NV for DoC) and ran Catus to better reforge myself to the exp soft cap. Overall very happy with the improvement without even a single gear upgrade.

Do you guys see anything else on this second log?

Honestly, you should try a fight like Iron Jugg for checking dps. Garrosh is a nice fight for feral, but there is a lot of adds and other classes can cleave them and pad the meters. It's much easier to compare yourself on a fight with 1 boss and 0 adds. That said, a 40k dps increase is good. Keep at it.

[Edoran]

Honestly, you should try a fight like Iron Jugg for checking dps. Garrosh is a nice fight for feral, but there is a lot of adds and other classes can cleave them and pad the meters. It's much easier to compare yourself on a fight with 1 boss and 0 adds. That said, a 40k dps increase is good. Keep at it.

Just 1 small thing to add. I note your rake is doing more damage then rip. The rake uptime was a slight bit higher (4% higher, but 6 million damage infront of rip). This is mostly down to when you are snap shotting your bleeds. Try get an addon, I can pm you a good weakaura I use, or go to fluiddruid forums, there are a few there, which tell you when it's a good time to clip dots, if at all.

That would be great.

I will be able to compare better after tonight's raid. I will be very interested in some of more straightforward, add-less bosses and how much the improvement is there.