I am a long term druid player, having leveled resto since about 20 (aside from a couple of brief stints as Balance, which ended because the spec is boring to play). As a result, come dual-spec, I intend to switch to feral; and to that end have gotten together a set of blue rep-gear and even spent some time as feral spec to get ready.
However, I find in Feral(cat) spec, mobs are forever dying before I can get finishing moves off, and my dps is consistently bottom-of-the-pile. In Feral(bear) spec, I thought I could use my paladin tanking skills to advantage; but after a disastrous heroic Nexus run, I'm now not so sure.
I realise the the feral specs have a radically different play-style from the caster-specs; any advice on switching over?
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What gear does your feral spec have?
What glyphs?
What spec?
What gems?
What add-ons are you using as a cat? They are extremely helpful for managing your priority system (cats don't have rotations, per se).
What was killing you in Nexus? Was it a single boss? Was it packs of trash? I'm guessing it wasn't not knowing the mechanics of the enemies, since it sounds like you've done Nexus before :-P
Finally... any reason you want to go feral? And what feral do you want to go: DPS, tank, or Hybrid. Most of us Feral folken are going to be dual-speccing feral DPS and Feral Tanks, since that'll be the most useful. And there will be a very noticeable difference between the two in terms of DPS, and somewhat in terms of tanking. It would probably be a lot easier for you to dual-spec Boomkin, as some of your gear will most likely carry over to that spec (you'll definitely need more hit, of course).
What glyphs?
What spec?
What gems?
What add-ons are you using as a cat? They are extremely helpful for managing your priority system (cats don't have rotations, per se).
What was killing you in Nexus? Was it a single boss? Was it packs of trash? I'm guessing it wasn't not knowing the mechanics of the enemies, since it sounds like you've done Nexus before :-P
Finally... any reason you want to go feral? And what feral do you want to go: DPS, tank, or Hybrid. Most of us Feral folken are going to be dual-speccing feral DPS and Feral Tanks, since that'll be the most useful. And there will be a very noticeable difference between the two in terms of DPS, and somewhat in terms of tanking. It would probably be a lot easier for you to dual-spec Boomkin, as some of your gear will most likely carry over to that spec (you'll definitely need more hit, of course).
I do know the mechanics of the enemies in Nexus; I've tanked there numerous times on my Pally. It was the mechanics of my class I didn't know - i literately did not know which ability I should be using next. As for speccing boomkin, you are 100% right it would be easier. However, the times I have been boomkin, I have always switched back because I've been bored silly (when mobs typically come down to "Starfire, Moonfire, Dead" then you know you're doing it right, but it's also boring as hell....)
I don't *currently* have any feral add-ons or glyphs; as I though I said my gear at the moment largely consists of what I could buy from the various rep-vendors (Argent Skeleton Crusher, etc). My gear is ok-ish; although my choice between bear or cat really comes down to what I find most enjoyable at the time. What I really need is a primer to get me into it; if you can recommend a particular add-on or straategy I could be using, it might help me out.
At the end of the day, the problem comes down to the fact I know the theories but not how to put them into practise.
I don't *currently* have any feral add-ons or glyphs; as I though I said my gear at the moment largely consists of what I could buy from the various rep-vendors (Argent Skeleton Crusher, etc). My gear is ok-ish; although my choice between bear or cat really comes down to what I find most enjoyable at the time. What I really need is a primer to get me into it; if you can recommend a particular add-on or straategy I could be using, it might help me out.
At the end of the day, the problem comes down to the fact I know the theories but not how to put them into practise.
Are you horde or alliance? There are 2 druids named Sagitarius on EU servers. Which one is you?
Need to know in order to help more.
Tanking primer.
Trash, pull with FFF. Queue Maul, hit mangle when mob gets close. Maul and Swipe till trash is dead. Berserk when feared or mobs start looking like they may run or you need that extra DPS. Barkskin when needed.
Bosses, Pull with FFF, queue maul. Hit mangle. Hit lacerate. Depends on talents from there but generally keep mangle on CD and a 5 stack of lacerate up and maul when you have the rage. Blow CD's as needed. Berserk after the 5 stack is up and you have a chunk of rage.
Check my bored druid thread for a sample of a tanking UI.
As for DPS, if I don't write something up soonish in simple form someone else will.
Again armory link helps.
Good luck.
Need to know in order to help more.
Tanking primer.
Trash, pull with FFF. Queue Maul, hit mangle when mob gets close. Maul and Swipe till trash is dead. Berserk when feared or mobs start looking like they may run or you need that extra DPS. Barkskin when needed.
Bosses, Pull with FFF, queue maul. Hit mangle. Hit lacerate. Depends on talents from there but generally keep mangle on CD and a 5 stack of lacerate up and maul when you have the rage. Blow CD's as needed. Berserk after the 5 stack is up and you have a chunk of rage.
Check my bored druid thread for a sample of a tanking UI.
As for DPS, if I don't write something up soonish in simple form someone else will.
Again armory link helps.
Good luck.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Thanks. An armory link unfortunately WON'T help, as I am back to resto for the time being (having cycled through Balance and 2 feral specs to see what I want to do when 3.1 comes out).
P.S. If you insist on looking, I'm Balnazar.
P.S. If you insist on looking, I'm Balnazar.
Horsemouth wrote:
As for DPS, if I don't write something up soonish in simple form someone else will.
I don't really know if this is possible, but I'll do my best.
Don't worry about finishing movies on anything other than bosses. Trash I just do Mangle, Rake the main target, savage roar, and then spam Swipe. If there's less than about 4 mobs, I usually just focus on the main target with my "high HP mob" strategy.
For any high HP trash mobs (basically anything longer than 30 seconds, which is your Tiger's Fury CD), do as much as possible of the boss mob rotation.
The rotation itself is difficult. You need to do several things, some priorities may change depending on how you feel its best to get everything going:
1. Keep Mangle up
2. Keep Savage Roar up
3. Shred to 5 combo points
4. Keep Rip up
5. Use Beserk when your energy gets low
6. Use Tiger's Fury if your energy is below ~20 and Berserk is on cooldown.
7. Keep Faerie Fire up
8. Continue shredding when energy is available and all other times are up
9. If you have extra combo points and all your timers are in good order, use Fercious Bite
10. If Clearcasting procs, use Shred. No matter what, use Shred. No matter what timers are off, use Shred.
You have multiple timers which, in an ideal situation, should always be active. There's several helpful mods for this - I personally love BadKitty.
The order for me on boss fights usually ends up being something like this:
1. Faerie Fire (with 3.1 you'll probably only have to apply this once)
2. Mangle
3. Rip
4. Savage Roar (by now I have 2-4 combo points, usually ends up being 3).
5. Shred
6. Beserk (several people may use Tiger's Fury here, the general idea is at this time you're pretty close to 0 energy. I use Beserk because it helps you get Rip up a lot faster, and that is a huge chunk of your DPS).
7. Shred to 5 combo points (usually reapply Rake somewhere in there), Rip
8. I can usually get in one more Shred before I have to Mangle again, also at some point I've hit Tiger's Fury because I'm out of energy again.
This seems, and really is, rather intensely complicated. The one thing I really recommend is going to a training dummy and just practicing it until you start to get a hand of it. There's a lot of habits that are hard to break from soloing your way to 80 (you'll no longer be spamming Mangle) and it's very easy to slip up.
There is an add-on out there that I recommend only as a tool to get you started called Face Mauler. It also looks at what timers and CDs are up to tell you what skill to use, but it cannot replace the human ability to watch the timers, see that Savage Roar AND Rip are about to drop, and make a decision on what to do next based on CDs available. It's excellent for you to get used to where you've placed your hotkeys (you have to quickly associate them with the picture that pops up), and for that it's great to ease you into the rotation.
I'm sure there's a simpler way of saying this that I can't really think of at 2 AM, but I really hope that this doesn't scare you away from Feral DPS or anything. It's a very rewarding experience once you get it down, and it's definitely not as hard once you get some practice.
Edited, Apr 6th 2009 1:53am by CBD
Thanks. it's almost a relief that it IS difficult, and it's not just me being slow. As I said previously, I levelled resto, so feral really IS a massive change for me...
CBD's post had a typo in it I think.
Otherwise good stuff. Haven't been reading up as much as normal but if I recall Berserk is better used at higher energy as you get more use out of it than as you can really go ********
Quote:
The order for me on boss fights usually ends up being something like this:
1. Faerie Fire (with 3.1 you'll probably only have to apply this once)
2. Mangle
3. Rip 3. Rake // I think that was a sleepy error
4. Savage Roar (by now I have 2-4 combo points, usually ends up being 3).
5. Shred
1. Faerie Fire (with 3.1 you'll probably only have to apply this once)
2. Mangle
4. Savage Roar (by now I have 2-4 combo points, usually ends up being 3).
5. Shred
Otherwise good stuff. Haven't been reading up as much as normal but if I recall Berserk is better used at higher energy as you get more use out of it than as you can really go ********
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Ok, I did the boomkin thing a lil myself just before the x-pac when it was OP. It does get a lil boring IMO, but then it's all about what makes you happy.
As far as going feral, I leveled feral and have been both dps and tank at 80 as well as having a resto offset which is almost as good as my feral gear.
Feral dps is pretty much as stated. On some trash it is worth it to pop a rake+mangle, then savage roar before you start swiping, sometimes you might as well just start swiping because by the time you get in the first swipe and wait for your energy to regen, they'll be about dead.
For boss fights my cycle looks like this.
FFF(if no boomkin)
Mangle
Rip
Savage Roar
Tiger's Fury
Berserk
Shred till 5CP
Rip
Refresh Rake and Mangle
Shred to 5CP
Savage Roar
Refresh everything as needed.
I've found that using berserk to start your rotation will get it up quicker, meaning more uptime for Rip and an easier time maintaining the rotation. It's always easier once it's up. It also means you can use it twice on a lot of fights, which is a huge dps gain. Some fights make it difficult to keep the rotation going, such as on Grob, you get injected and have only 3CP, but your rip is coming up. Might as well rip him to keep the DoT going while you run away to drop your cloud.
It's a lot of maintaining.
As far as tanking, pretty much what Horse said. Remember to shift out/into bear form for the 10 rage from furor, then pop enrage so you get the extra rage there before pulling. A lot of times in heroics you'll have leftover rage if you pull fast enough. Only use Maul if you are at 30+ rage as it could cause you to be rage starved, but swipe like no tomorrow the whole time as normally you end up building rage with all the crits.
My build is a little off right now as I'm testing a few different things. Looking to drop OOC and pick up the +4% damage from Master Shapeshifter, as I'm never rage starved really anymore. Also I know I have my dps idol on. I was checking Wow-heroes.com to see what my score would actually be if Blizz deemed us worthy of a ilevel 200 one.
EDIT: I can haz spelling
Edited, Apr 7th 2009 10:10am by Galenmoon
As far as going feral, I leveled feral and have been both dps and tank at 80 as well as having a resto offset which is almost as good as my feral gear.
Feral dps is pretty much as stated. On some trash it is worth it to pop a rake+mangle, then savage roar before you start swiping, sometimes you might as well just start swiping because by the time you get in the first swipe and wait for your energy to regen, they'll be about dead.
For boss fights my cycle looks like this.
FFF(if no boomkin)
Mangle
Rip
Savage Roar
Tiger's Fury
Berserk
Shred till 5CP
Rip
Refresh Rake and Mangle
Shred to 5CP
Savage Roar
Refresh everything as needed.
I've found that using berserk to start your rotation will get it up quicker, meaning more uptime for Rip and an easier time maintaining the rotation. It's always easier once it's up. It also means you can use it twice on a lot of fights, which is a huge dps gain. Some fights make it difficult to keep the rotation going, such as on Grob, you get injected and have only 3CP, but your rip is coming up. Might as well rip him to keep the DoT going while you run away to drop your cloud.
It's a lot of maintaining.
As far as tanking, pretty much what Horse said. Remember to shift out/into bear form for the 10 rage from furor, then pop enrage so you get the extra rage there before pulling. A lot of times in heroics you'll have leftover rage if you pull fast enough. Only use Maul if you are at 30+ rage as it could cause you to be rage starved, but swipe like no tomorrow the whole time as normally you end up building rage with all the crits.
My build is a little off right now as I'm testing a few different things. Looking to drop OOC and pick up the +4% damage from Master Shapeshifter, as I'm never rage starved really anymore. Also I know I have my dps idol on. I was checking Wow-heroes.com to see what my score would actually be if Blizz deemed us worthy of a ilevel 200 one.
EDIT: I can haz spelling
Edited, Apr 7th 2009 10:10am by Galenmoon
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