Kitty = Red-headed step child?Follow

Pardon the expression for those red-headed step children out there.

Anyway, my question pertains to kitty dps. Does it just suck? Or, do I just suck?

I'm sure it's actually a pretty complicated question. And, I'm not sure I can provide enough details to answer the question for my specific situation. It may be more of an "in general" type of question. But, the basis of the question is that in raids, I'm consistently barely passing the tanks in dps. In raids, I'm pretty consistently around 1.1k or less when in kitty role. My guild has a number of tanks, so sometimes I'm relegated to dps. I read others saying they're at the top of the charts (not sure if they're being honest) and wonder what I'm doing wrong.

First off, my spec is for tanking. So, I don't know if the problem might be tanking spec vs. kitty spec. I somehow doubt it could double my dps up to be competitive with the 2k dps crowd. Does tank vs. dps spec effect dps significantly?

Second, while my gear is mainly tanking gear, I do have 5-6 pieces I switch out for dps, which definitely makes a huge difference between bear and cat. I don't think linking my armory will help much, but here it is anyway. I believe I'm in tank gear though. I really haven't had time to optimize tank and dps sets with the new patch and the server issues last night. (I know I'm missing a couple enchants, btw.) I do know that my AP in kitty is around 5.5-6k, with roughly 35% crit (off the top of my head). I'm sure my hit is low by a couple percent. It is higher than shown in armory...my dps gear has a lot more hit on it. But again, I doubt a couple percent hit is enough to drop my dps a huge amount. I know hit effects dps (formerly hunter main), but not enough to drop my numbers to what I think is too low.

Third, I think I'm doing a decent rotation when dps'ing. I keep up the bleed effects and SR. One problem I seem to notice is being out of energy a lot and waiting for it to tick back up. I admit I'm not the strongest melee dps in the world, but I'm pretty sure I'm doing a decent rotation.

So anyway, I'm looking for input.

Does kitty dps (with or without tank spec) really suck these days, or is it me?

Most druids I see are balance or resto...perhaps that's a sign.

What is everyone else experiencing?

Thanks.

Kitty DPS is fine - on the rare occassions that I fill the DPS slot in a party (I'm usually tank) I either top the chart or come in a close second (if the instance is AOE heavy and we've got an AOE class).

I think the real problem is that druids shine so much more brightly as bears, trees or moonies - as a cat we're just another melee dps in a raid and melee dps are a copper a dozen (just look at the sign in sheet for your raids - under 5 healers, under 5 tanks/OTs and over 50 dps) and as such, don't tend to stand out as well as the burst or aoe crowd (remember, we're single target endurance DPS - we put out a lot of damage over time and never pull agro).

So don't sweat it - I've never been brought on a raid as a true DPS even when I wasn't a tank/OT as there are better DPS classes out there - I get brought as 'in case of emergency need of tank break glass.'

Actually that's precisely WHY I compare Patch most of the time. There are no X variables. There is no "Well, Raidtard B got himself killed doing the Heigan dance so I had to stop and run over the platform to b-rezz him" or any other factors that could vary from raid to raid. But yes, the nature of many fights does drop our DPS in many cases. Below are some common sense tips to avoid losses. I'm sure most people do this but it might help a new player sometime:

1.) Scavenge your CP. If you have to switch to an add or run away from the boss with 3+ cp, either apply Rip, refresh Savage Roar, or Bite. Of course, for periods of standing around doing nothing Rip/Bite are preferable.

2.) Know how fast you move. It should be pretty easy to get a feel for how far it is out of Anub's carrion swarm and how long it takes you to get there. You don't need to leave 15s beforehand just because DBM warned you.

3.) Hit-n-Run. A lot of movement fights don't require you to stop DPS just because you're moving. While you move on 4 Horsemen, continue to DPS! Roar to scavenge CP just before you switch from Thane to Baron or vice-versa, then continue to DPS as you run back to the corner with your new friend. Since the tanks switch aggro via taunt, they should have a large enough lead for threat to be a non-issue (note: does not work if your raid uses the "everyone stand here and wait for us to bring them to you" tactic).

To be honest, most Naxx fights aren't horrible for movement or adds. Most of the fights let you keep DPS up while moving, or at least give you semi-DURABLE adds to beat on. Nothing is nearly as bad as the old Prince "Marathon Jog". Honestly Grobbulus is worse for ranged than us - they have to run from the middle to the edge, all it takes for us is a quick move backward to the wall and a feral charge back.

Edit: Spelling > me.

Edited, Jan 21st 2009 4:32pm by Riftaru

Added link to armory in my sig. Just testing to see if it works :)

Logged out in dps gear, so feel free to take a look and /point /laugh. a few items are quite new, so they are not enchanted or gemmed as they should be.

EDIT: spelling

Edited, Jan 22nd 2009 10:29am by DKDruid

Thanks for the replies everyone.

It sounds like a big part of my problem is being a tank spec trying to kitty dps. I didn't realize the spec would make that much of a difference. I'll be holding my breath waiting for dual spec, I guess. In the meantime, I'll keep trying to upgrade my dps set.

Great tips from Rfitaru, too. I find myself trying to scavange CP a lot as it is, but good to see the tips in writing.

I've got a question for those Feral DPS'er out there that are able to consistantly break the 2k mark. How are you getting hit capped. It seems every time I get a upgrade piece I lose hit. For example yesterday in The Vault I got the T7.5 chest http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40471 replacing this http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37165 (which had 51 hit) now I'm no long hit capped and I have no idea how I'm going to get that 51 points back. Any suggestion on how I can stay hit capped with epic gear would be appreciated. My guild wants me as a Cat because we have plentey of tanks. I logged out in my DPS gear so if you want to check my gear out. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormscale&n=Hakana

anonymosity makes a good point. Alot of what holds kitties back is the rather cumbersome nature of our "rotations", which aren't even being described as rotations anymore, but rather a serious of buffs or debuffs that we must maintain with varying priority. Makes for a good time, imo, rather than, say, a BM hunter facerolling to top 3 dps on patchwerk. Literally. I know you've all see the video. Anyways what was I saying...

Ah yes, considering making your "rotation" simpler. There's the absolute perfect balance of keeping SR, rake, rip, FF, etc up (did I mention mangle?) while still performing the traditional "shred to five" which uses energy and CPs in the most efficient manner and eeks out every ounce of dps. On the other hand there's attempting this delicate balance that fails so easily and eats up your dmg. In the middle somewhere is a slightly non-optimal "rotation" that doesn't max dps but makes it pretty darn good and isn't so nearly impossible to maintain. Suggestions along those lines, some of which I've learned from this very site:

- Forget shred, just mangle. No positional requirement, significantly less energy, bleed debuff guaranteed 99.99% uptime.

- SR with more than 1 or 2 CPs (as suggested above).

- Macro Tiger's Fury with Rake. If you're specced into TF, you may waste a little energy, but as long as Rake isn't your "opener", probably not much.

- I'm sure there are others, but I'm still learning as I go here with kitty dps.

Also, to someone else's point here, enchants and spec (not to mention mixing non-optimal dps gear; i.e., gear with dodge, DR, too much stam) have a pretty significant effect on dps. In the 100s ya know? Missing one enchant isn't going to make a huge difference, but committing all three sins (spec, chants, pure dps gear) most assuredly is.

Im a kittie-tank-hybrid-spec. (mostly kittie)
I gave up my MT-position for a deff-warri, cause my DPS is a big boost to the raid.
So i tank only on bosses where 2 or more tanks are needed. (thats why i dont need infected wounds, warries thunderclap is always up)
i do around 3.5-4k DPS over the night.

how i do it:
- get the Rip-Glyph
- get the Mangle-Glyph
- no Glyphes needed for tanking except the Maul-Glyph
- shred(8-9k) > mangle(5k) (cause it does soooo much more damage)
- Savage Roar always with 5 CP (before it runs out, use it with 4 CP)
- always keep Mangle,Rake,Rip, SavageRoar up
- only use FB if Rip-Countdown > 6 secs (if Rip lasts under 6 sec u will loose damage, better to wait)
- use Berserk at beginn of a bossfight
(it's crucial for your DPS to get your rotation rolling fast; on longer fights u can berserk twice)


Trash-Mob:
- Mangle->SR->Swipe->Swipe->TF->Swipe etc....

for those who are interested:
my built