Without disagreeing with any of Selverein's points, I have a different take on your question.
PriestValon wrote:
I have heard that Dire Bear is a huge boost to bear DPS.
Absolutely not. Not only is it not a "huge" boost, but as Selverein said it's not a boost at all.
PriestValon wrote:
I am currently level 39 feral druid, will Dire Bear DPS allow me to take on more multi-mob situations?
Absolutely positively! Your armor gets multipled by a factor of FIVE when you pop into dire bear form instead of just doubling as with regular bear form. Like Selv said that's like the armor upgrades other classes get at 40. Hunters and shammies get mail, warriors and pallies get plate, we get "dire" bear fur -- which doesn't require the replacement of gear. : )
PriestValon wrote:
Anyways, i'm just hoping my Dire Bear provides a noticeable amount of survivability and damage over normal bear?
Survivability and damage are two different issues, so the answer is, quite literally, "yes and no."
Selverein wrote:
Cat form is what you should use to deal damage, and you should try to take on a single mob at a time. Bear form is for those situations where you pull too many and need to take the hits while wearing them down.
At OP's level he probably still has one set of gear for casting/healing and one set for melee, but eventually that'll break out into a cat/dps set heavy on strength and agility, and a bear/tanking set focused on armor and stamina. Bear form with DPS gear gives you 5x armor but with all that strength and agility boosting your attack power and crit.
This lets you take a 'different' approach to 1:1ing them in cat form. Pull or run through three mobs to engage them, and spam Swipe with the infinite rage all their hits generate. Especially when you get the self-healing of survival of the fittest, you can do this all day. I haven't timed this 3-at-once approach vs. cat form and usually only do it for fun, but it's refreshing every once in a while to switch from A) sneaking up behind mobs and killing them before they know what hit them to B) Walking up to a gang of three and saying "bring it ******** you're goin down!"
Edited, Nov 8th 2007 5:11pm by JeeBar