Lorimath wrote:
Ferocious Bite = 35 energy (usually 40 because of the way energy ticks)
Just want to examine this for a second.
Let's say that you've got someone else keeping mangle up. Your first shred takes your energy to 58, then you shred again, taking you to 16 energy. Next tick puts you at 36, enough to Ferocious Bite, but with only 2 (maybe 3 if you crit once) combo points. Not worth the energy. So you tick back up to 56, shred, takes you down to 14. Next tick puts you at 34, not enough to FB, so wait another tick to put you at 54. Shred again, putting you at 4-5 combo points, and 12 energy. You're not going to be able to Ferocious Bite until your energy ticks up to 52 (which is a waste of energy, as has been discussed previously). So, shred again, and go to 10 energy. Again, have to wait 2 ticks, and you're at 50. Then 48/46/44/42/40. So, the first time you're going to be able to Ferocious Bite with 40 or less energy is after 10 shreds (I think I counted those right).
Now, assuming you're keeping mangle up yourself, the numbers are going to be a bit worse, since mangle only costs fourty energy, raising all those numbers by 2 each time you mangle. Admittedly, I'm too lazy to do the math to see where exactly in the sequence you'd need to mangle, but the only spot that jumps out as a spot to ferocious bite is after a mangle and two shreds (you would be at 36 energy), but unless you've gotten at least one crit, you're only going to be at 3 combo points, which makes the ferocious bite somewhat worthless.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at is that it's going to be very rare for you to be able to get a ferocious bite in that's going to be 40 energy or less.