XXL Guide to Feral PvP: Cataclysm Edition

[Balduvian]

interesting. that's really ~35% less damage taken in bear form (originally 49, 35% of 49 is about 16%, 16 + 49 = 65). plus you also have to account for the 10% extra armor affecting you in cat form, meaning you can stay in cat longer while melee beat on you.

sounds better to me than 4% less spell damage taken.

You already take less damage in Bear Form from melee, so it's 16% less damage taken from an already reduced amount, making it even less worth it.

Anyway, that's with 3 talents, so it should be compared to 6% less spell damage taken rather than 4. Also, I never said Perseverance is an awesome talent either. I only said it's another viable option, but personally I've never even used it.

[Neazy]

if your armor (in bear form) is 49% less damage taken, then after the talents it's 65%, that's about a 33% increase (65/49 = 1.326, or 33% rounded up). it would be 16% when find weakness (minus 50% armor) is up.

I didn't realize you were talking about 3/3 tho, thought you meant 2/3. so I guess I would have to find a spare talent point if I wanted to max it out, but still, 2 points would be 22% less damage which isn't bad at all.

[Balduvian]

if your armor (in bear form) is 49% less damage taken, then after the talents it's 65%, that's about a 33% increase (65/49 = 1.326, or 33% rounded up). it would be 16% when find weakness (minus 50% armor) is up.

I didn't realize you were talking about 3/3 tho, thought you meant 2/3. so I guess I would have to find a spare talent point if I wanted to max it out, but still, 2 points would be 22% less damage which isn't bad at all.

Even if you calculate it this way, it's 22% less damage taken from an amount that has already been greatly reduced. (Melee vs. Bear Form). 22% sounds like more than it actually is imo.

[Duilliath]

Neazy, if you insist on Thick Hide, go grab it.

No one is stopping you. We said it's floater points. We said it's a viable option. We just said that personally we prefer a different choice.

I do not care about melees beating on me. And if I have two of them on me, me or my partner are doing something wrong anyway. I care about Wizards shooting spells at me. I care about getting kills. That narrows it down to two choices for me, either of which were mentioned as well.

If you, in your team, find you're constantly fighting TSG or bleed cleaves, by all means grab that Thick Hide if you're being focused. (Not sure why, cos most of them would just tunnel your healer into oblivion.) As stated, it depends on what you're fighting and what your team setup is.

[Gorelaz]

Me I prefer Thick Hide, its really shows off when fighting melee. Ofc its not too much but it lets me sleep in peace at night.

[Balduvian]

Me I prefer Thick Hide, its really shows off when fighting melee. Ofc its not too much but it lets me sleep in peace at night.

I sleep well at night anyways, but not taking it makes me happy for having a better chance against the setups that usually give problems, rather than having a better chance against setups that are basically a free win anyway.

[Balduvian]

Section 4.4 Addons was a little outdated. Updated now!

[apepi]

With the 4.3 glyph changes I am thinking about switching mangle to shred gylph, what you think?

[Balduvian]

There's another topic going on about the new Glyph as well, which can be found here. Furthermore, this is what I personally think about it (directly copied from the other topic):

I'm not sure about this glyph in PvP to be honest. If you're already using this glyph, little is going to change. (You get your extra 6 seconds anyway then). Not to mention, Rip is actually pretty easy to keep up (when needed) anyway. I'm probably sticking to my Mangle-Glyph.

If you "have to" spam Mangle on him in cases like this, it's still really easy to keep Rip up. In fact, it's easier this way than it is when you're chasing someone.

Rip uptime doesn't change when you spam Mangle instead of Shred or the other way around. It stays exactly the same.

So far, it seems to me that this Glyph will have minor to no potential in PvP, compared to what you'll have to drop for it.

The reason why people already prefer Mangle glyph over Shred glyph is because Rip is really easy to keep up anyway. Imagine yourself Ripping a target, Shredding it 3 times making you have 5 CP again. Your Rip will have a long duration left. What are you going to do with those CP?

Sure you got stuff like Maim, Ferocious Bite and Savage Roar, but all of them are highly situational. In a lot of cases in PvP, you re-apply Rip even if it still has, say... 6+ seconds left.

TL;DR: The Glyph is already behind on the Mangle Glyph, and since Shredding isn't hard at all, adding Mangle to this glyph isn't going to change a thing.

But then again, of course we have to wait and see how it works out. Though so far, it looks like it's not going to be used a lot more than it is now. The Glyph is already decent, but Shredding 3 times on a Ripped target is easily possible in basically any situation already. Now you can Mangle 3 times instead, but what will that change? (except that it's easier, but you should try to Shred as much as possible anyway)

[Duilliath]

I don't see the point tbh.

I was using it before the change and this will only make life easier on me. It's a li'l buff I'll gladly take, but nothing that'll make me reconsider my glyph choice.

[Balduvian]

I don't see the point tbh.

I was using it before the change and this will only make life easier on me. It's a li'l buff I'll gladly take, but nothing that'll make me reconsider my glyph choice.

Indeed, if you're already using it, this is an unnoticable buff and nothing will really change. If you didn't use it yet, and prefer Glyph of Mangle over Glyph of Shred (which most people do), there's no reason to re-glyph either. Because, even with Glyph of Mangle, you should Shred as much as you can anyway.

[Seregthor]

Just wanted to post a correction of an item. And I quote "Seems to last 30 seconds with a 105 minute ICD, which makes it comparable to roughly ~494 passive Mastery." This concerns the HC Matrix Restablizer. The ICD is actually 105 seconds, not minutes. Hope this helps

[Balduvian]

Haha thanks, a typo of course. :-)

[dotsteiner]

a) about half the good shamans i see glyph healing stream totem, i'd recommend 70sp cloak + two 50sp gems + one 20resil/25sp gem. conveniently you have 3 blue sockets

b) your chardev has agi/mastery gem and agi/resil enchant, you have both available for both slots so that doesn't really make sense. i personally ignore yellow sockets and use the therazane one

c)

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Dash
/cast [stance:1] Stampeding Roar(Bear Form); [stance:3] Stampeding Roar(Cat Form)

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Stampeding Roar
/cast Dash

you can do the same with rocket belt if you have that too, blizzard doesn't let you overlap dashes for whatever reason

[Balduvian]

a) about half the good shamans i see glyph healing stream totem, i'd recommend 70sp cloak + two 50sp gems + one 20resil/25sp gem. conveniently you have 3 blue sockets

I honestly have never (not even once) had a Cyclone/Root being resisted.

b) your chardev has agi/mastery gem and agi/resil enchant, you have both available for both slots so that doesn't really make sense. i personally ignore yellow sockets and use the therazane one

This is only the case in the Ilvl 371 one, which just hasn't been updated in a while.

Anyway, with full Vicious gear I'd go for Agility/Resi gems in all yellow sockets. However, when you get full Ruthless gear, I'd go for pure Agility in yellow sockets that do not have an Agility bonus, and Agility/Mastery in yellow sockets that DO have an Agility bonus. (30 Agility + 20 Mastery > 40 Agility). I also use the Therazane-shoulder enchant in the second chardev.

c)

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Dash
/cast [stance:1] Stampeding Roar(Bear Form); [stance:3] Stampeding Roar(Cat Form)

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Stampeding Roar
/cast Dash

you can do the same with rocket belt if you have that too, blizzard doesn't let you overlap dashes for whatever reason

The reason why I don't use these is because in 90% of the cases it's a waste to throw away those 8 seconds of Dash for a Stampeding Roar. Rather have your healer dispell you better than waste half of a CD. However, this is a decent macro when your Dash is only on like 1-2 seconds, but honestly I wouldn't use it with 5+ seconds left.

In case you don't do arena, it's decent I suppose, but in arena your healer should next to always be able to dispell it off of you in <2 seconds.

[Neazy]

you don't waste dash unless you hit the button to stampeding roar, which you would have no reason to do unless you have the macro. only reason not to have those macros is if you don't want to accidentally press them and get ready of your dash/roar.

I use em since I have roar bound to shift+A and that's not something I can fat finger.

[Balduvian]

you don't waste dash unless you hit the button to stampeding roar, which you would have no reason to do unless you have the macro. only reason not to have those macros is if you don't want to accidentally press them and get ready of your dash/roar.

I didn't really get that, but what I was trying to say is that I would never give up 5+ seconds of Dash just to break a root with Stampeding Roar if there's a decent healer around.

[Neazy]

agreed. still worth having the macro tho because there could be a situation where you need to break the root and your healer is cc'd/out of range/you can't wait 1 second.

[axxey]

I honestly have never (not even once) had a Cyclone/Root being resisted.

Very unobservant or don't use your abilities nearly enough, grounding totem isn't timed right that often. Spell pen to cloak + gems are vital.

If I'm fighting a mage then 90% of the time both my stampeding roar and dash are for breaking snare and nothing else. I don't give a rats about the speed if I can't get a finisher. If we have a kill oportunity on a mage my healer is usually offense press or busy CCing as well, being able to break yourself immediately when you want is important.

[Balduvian]

Very unobservant or don't use your abilities nearly enough, grounding totem isn't timed right that often. Spell pen to cloak + gems are vital.

I'm obviously not talking about Grounding Totem...and I (and most others) use spellpen cloak + 2 gems (170 spellpen) and it works just fine. It's not "unobservant", I just really never had one resisted. End of it.