4.1: 3/3 KotJ?

[Deleted]

Hi,
the patch 4.1 will remove the negative side of Enrage, namely the increased damage taken while it's active. But I didn't find a lot informations (one post from Reesi on the us-battle.net forums) if we should get 3/3 KotJ (most likely) and from where we will get the 3 (well 2) talentpoints for it.
The first point for KotJ is pretty simple as the most of us have 1/2 Stampede which has almost no benefit. But we have 3 alternatives to get the remaining 2 points. They have different benefits which is what I want to discuss a little in this thread.


The 3 abilities to rob the points are:
1) Feral Aggression:
The talent increases the stacks of Farie Fire we apply with one Feral Farie Fire. But if I remember correctly it doesn't increase the threat nor the damage per FFF. This talent is also the one Reesi suggested in the post i found.

2) Fury Swipes:
It gives us an additional attack that can proc from white attacks.More points in the talent increase only the the proc chance (5/10/15%). The crits never proc Savage Defense or Primal Fury but I don't know if it gives us normal Rage like white attacks (I doubt it but I don't know how to test it).

3) Brutal Impact:
With this talent Skull Bash's cd is reduced from 60 to 10 sec.



In my opinion, we only really have to discuss the difference between Fury Swipes and Feral Aggression is really important as they both affect the thread. Brutal Impact is different from the other 2 talents as it can become a must have in case you are on interupt duty and having a 10sec interupt can be extremly helpful in dungeons.
Now to the difference of Fury Swipes (FS) and Feral Aggression(FA): Removing 2 points from FS means that you decrease your single target tps over the whole fight. FA on the other hand only increases the tps in the first 12sec on a target which is the time you need to stack FF up to 3( not counting misses).
The question I have is if we need the additional tps from FS after the first 30 sec in the fight? From my experience and from the most posts I read threat is only a problem at the start of the fight and dropping FA would make it slightly worse while FS doesn't help so much (mostly between 1-3 procs depending on your haste and luck).

So is the longterm tps increase of 3/3 FS really better then the better early tps of 2/2FA 1/3FS?



To be honest, I'm just to lazy to use FFF on cd and don't really want to drop FA. So you need to give me a good reason to feel bad.

[Bloodmayj]

Fury Swipes is quite a bit more threat than FA. Keep in mind also that the threat gain from Feral Aggression is VERY minimal, as in possibly less than 300 threat. I'm still of the opinion that FS is better than FA. I'd be really hesitant to drop Brutal Impact, even with dedicated interrupters. Too much can happen during the course of the fight to not have it.

[tangedyn]

It would be Feral Aggression, Brutal Impact or possibly Infected Wounds (depending on your raid composition), making bears starting to approach the spec of a Hybrid Feral: http://theincbear.com/hybrid-feral-guide/

[Elunedra]

IW can be annoying sometimes when you try to kite something. out of some shit :P but thne again there are a LOT of effecs that dpsers put on the target that have a samilier effect on movement speed

however the -20% melee attack speed is a big must have for a lot of bosses

stacking up FF x 3 is just very usefull but can be missed

however i dont see why i want to have the +15% dmg while enraged. however for fights where i only got to tank a short period it will be verry usefull

[Auroro]

It would be Feral Aggression, Brutal Impact or possibly Infected Wounds (depending on your raid composition), making bears starting to approach the spec of a Hybrid Feral: http://theincbear.com/hybrid-feral-guide/

I agree.

I am thinking about updating the guild due to this buff.

However the problem is finding which talent to give up for both Heroic and Raid.

[Deleted]

-Bloodmayj: The increased threat doesn't come from FFF itself. The difference is that FA gives you the full -12%armor debuff right off the start which lets your first 2 Mangle hit harder. And that would be more then 300 threat.

-tangedyn: Dropping Infected Wounds isn't a good idea when you want to use the spec in dungeons (atleast LFG) as you can't asure that someoneelse will bring the debuff.
The blogpost about feral-hybrid is nice. The only things that is wondering me is how Fury Swipes can be so important for cats, it's only 3-4% of the overall damage. Bears profit more from this talent then cats do. And that dungeons and raids may need slightly different priorities.

-Elunedra: The 15% increased damage will make our pulls easier (especially trashpulls) and it should be a overall increase in tps and dps when we use Enrage on cd.
And we can currently use Enrage and Berserk at the same time.

[traen]

1) Feral Aggression:
The talent increases the stacks of Farie Fire we apply with one Feral Farie Fire. But if I remember correctly it doesn't increase the threat nor the damage per FFF.

It actually does increase threat.

But I'm going to drop Feral Aggression anyway. 15% damage increase is just MUCH better. On pulls and in orverall damage/threat done.

Also atm there are 2 different situations on pulls:
1) Pop enrage - click it off - pull. (bosses like magmaw25hc hit for 100k. Dont even think about pulling with +10% damage taken debuf)
2) Pop enrage - someone is afk - you got zero rage and 1min CD.

With KotJ you can shift - charge - fff in charge - enrage+berserk. Perfect pull.

There is only one problem - it takes 12 seconds to stack 3 stacks of fff without talent. In 25man it will cause your raid to lose 500k damage.
But I think i'll just make our feral cats to apply fff on pulls.

[tangedyn]

-tangedyn: Dropping Infected Wounds isn't a good idea when you want to use the spec in dungeons (atleast LFG) as you can't asure that someoneelse will bring the debuff.

That's why I've been saying "depending on the needs of your raid".

The blogpost about feral-hybrid is nice. The only things that is wondering me is how Fury Swipes can be so important for cats, it's only 3-4% of the overall damage. Bears profit more from this talent then cats do. And that dungeons and raids may need slightly different priorities.

1% damage per talent point is quite substantial. There are a lot of talents taken by the standard cat build that give a lot less.

[Stevoman]

I'll be dropping FA and making our other feral apply it.

On this note, there's now barely any talent difference between cats and bears. If the damage difference is small enough, I could see myself picking up a resto offspec again.

[tangedyn]

On this note, there's now barely any talent difference between cats and bears. If the damage difference is small enough, I could see myself picking up a resto offspec again.

Well, there's little difference between the standard bear build and the hybrid build now, but there's still quite some significant differences between the hybrid build and the standard cat build which will have Predatory Strikes, Stampede, Primal Madness and Nurturing Instinct.

[exochaft]

This topic reminds me of a threat back during the pre-Cata/post-talent revision period. I honestly can't remember how the thread ended, but I'm certain it was fairly long in the end. However, it was all under the assumption that Enrage would have us taking extra damage on use.

I'd have to come from this, like the OP, that anything that is a personal survival tool you should keep. Sure, someone else may bring a slowing debuff or whatever, but if you bring it to the table, you know it'll be up as long as you're alive (and if you're dead... well, doesn't matter to you anymore!). The next step is deciding if your raid will benefit or suffer from your talent choices. While FA isn't a very big personal gain, it can be a raid gain in terms of overall initial DPS, especially if it's the armor reduction effect is unique to yourself in the raid... this isn't so much a big deal in a 25man raid, but in 10mans it can be.

Regardless, Blizz isn't designing fights around tank damage/dps, and any adjustment is just to keep a sense of balance between all tanks and prevent stacking a tank to beat enrage timers or what have you. The part I'm still worried about is this balancing game Blizz is playing. Will/Has Blizz designed our tank damage/threat around having 3/3 KotJ? Will the bear going kitty mid-fight cause unrest in terms of "which tank will I bring to help push the raid DPS"? While the Enrage change seems like a quality of life change, Blizz has a history of being short-sighted in terms of making these types of changes that bring backlashes and future adjustments we may not like so well.

*edit* - I should mention what I want this Enrage change to mean: I can spec KotJ to improve my burst threat, nothing more, nothing less.

[Auroro]

The way I see this buff is that it will solve that first few seconds of the fight.

[Raugnaut]

I think they should just removed the CD from FFF. I mean, there isnt any more point, in terms of threat, it provides less then Lacerate. I guess the only possible problem may be kiting melee in PVP, but, hey, its better to bleed, and then toss some hots on oneself while kiting. Either way, removing the CD from FFF will help significantly, on our range capabilities, which is pretty much nil now.

OT, I would remove points from FA. FS is HUGE burst, it hits harder then mangle. BI is useful generally everywhere, it enables better stunning for anything stunnable, as well as providing interupts in case the interupt person messes up for whatever reason. KotJ will be nice huge burst for berserk mangle spam on 3 targets.

[Arielle]

H Wyrmmbreaker is a good example of why you should keep Feral Aggression.

As the only source of Armor debuff, I am SO not putting 3 stacks of FF on every single drake.

How do you make a raid group with no:

1) Other Druids
2) Warriors
3) Rogues
4) Hunters

?

I guess you have really happy Shaman(s).

in terms of threat, it provides less then Lacerate.

The base is actually higher. However the average may or may not be, need to sim it to find out. And we're still building that.

[Cheezee]

I plan to make our fury warrior cry because he has to stack sunders.

[Deleted]

But I'm going to drop Feral Aggression anyway. 15% damage increase is just MUCH better. On pulls and in orverall damage/threat done.

Actual, it'Ss a good point as I didn't really think about the tps increase from Enrage at the pull. Stupid me.
This makes FA really the talent to dismiss.

@tangedyn: Even wit someone else bringing the iw-debuff I wouldn't drop it. May be personal preference.
About the cat-FS: Makes sense as cat has a few talents with a small dps increase.