And So We Were Delivered Unto The Promised LandFollow

Post 3.1 and a slight retool of my feral DPS spec I hit up the heroic target dummy in Stormwind.

And topped out at 5700 DPS with just Mark of the Wild.

Rip repeatedly topped Recount with 30%+ of the damage, regular tics for 2.5k and crits for up to 6k.

I am amazed at how much of a different has been made. With only an increase in haste, armor penetration and critical hits of our primary bleed effect. Sort of a shame Ulduar has been so badly broken that I can't actually see what sort of DPS I would do in a 25 man raid with full buffs from the group.

I'm a happy kitty.

Woot for you CBD!

My new build had to sacrifice 2% crit, only 1 of 2 in Master Shapeshifter instead of 2 of 2 (I tried so hard to figure out a good spec to have 2 of 2 but it wasn't possible). Re-gemmed a little and I'm about 1% less crit than before. It's a tradeoff I'll take.

Thank you for the suggestions. Though, two small things I'd like to reply with.

First, wasn't agility nerfed to the point that straight strength was better for AP? I don't recall precisely but straight crit gems also give more crit than agi gems if I remember correctly.

As for Infected Wounds, yea it is pretty pointless for raiding. Feral charge isn't entirely needed either. However, my DPS spec doubles as my PvP spec so I had to make some small sacrifices in the effort of saving gold :) Otherwise I'd be respeccing every time I want to PvP.

If these assumptions are entirely incorrect things can be changed quickly.

And thank God for that. It was cooler as an AP buff, but if Blizz is going to refuse to mix agi and str on leather, fairly untentable.

In light of that then I'll go and swap out all my +16 str gems for +16 agi :)

Edit: So I lost something on the order of 70 AP in exchange for 1.02% crit. Works for me :)

But I kept the straight crit gems for the socket bonuses.

Edited, Apr 17th 2009 3:01am by Tavarde

I totally wish I could have at least one more alternate spec. I have 4 naxx 25 sets of gear for the most part and it is hard choosing what my second spec is gonna be.

God I hope they don't nerf us. I like finally being a legitimate DPS these last few months instead of being laughed at in BC.

You know it's funny, that 5700 DPS on a dummy must have been a fluke because I have not been able to recreate it since. I end up in the low 4000s each time.

Lucky crits me thinks?

i remember that thread. it was funny lol.

4k dps is much better, much more manageable, and makes much more sense on a staionary target w/o raid buffs and debuffs. given that no fight nowadays is really what youd considered "stationary" (save patchwerk) its much less of a big deal.

im guessing the same; you probably had a crazy crit streak.

I decided our best class makeup for our first true "progression" run into Ulduar tonight. It ends up with me being feral DPS, and being available to switch out to my Healing spec when we need a 3rd healer.

Although DPS has always been an offset for me, I picked up some pretty decent gear along the way. Please feel free to check my gear, link is in sig.

Yesterday I started looking at ways to actually increase my dps, because I'd never really put a whole lot of effort into my kitty gear.

Here's my list of things to do in the 30 minutes between when I get online and when our raid starts tonight >.<

Switch out my Meta Gem to the crit one and make sure I have the correct gems to activate it.
Buy the DPS head glyph from WG if we have it. (I KotEB is my last faction I'm wearing a tabard to get to exalt)
Re-enchant to get hit rating wherever I can.
Go back to my Boots of the Neverending Path for the 66 hit rating they give.

Cry gently in the corner because my hit rating right now is.....16.
Anything else you guys see that I should/can adjust quickly tonight, lemme know :P

Anyway, last night I hit up the heroic target dummy, only self buffed.

I stood behind it, took a breath and started my rotation. I went for 5 minutes and 47 seconds straight.
I had a few hiccups in my rotation when I'd miss due to my horrible hit rating, but overall it went decent.

Ended up with 3,417 dps (dropped mebe 25-30dps when I stopped my rotation to end the combat)

It's good, but those 3 mangles, 2 shreds, 2 rips and 3 rakes that I missed (not to mention melee miss % I forgot to check) made me take a loot at how I can increase my hit rating. Unfortunately, as good as the gear I managed to pick up was, none of it has hit rating on the piece itself. That means I have to gem/enchant for hit rating, which makes me a sad kitty.

EDIT: I'm a ******....I forgot to put up FFF at the beginning of my dummy test... /facepalm


Edited, Apr 22nd 2009 8:00am by Galenmoon

Yeah, since my druid is my enchanter, those two are the first two I would switch. I need to put AP onto my bracers, since I was using them in my tank set, they had +40 stam on them at the time I did the tests.

I'm tentative about switching Mongoose for Accuracy though. The gain in Hit rating doesn't seem worth the almost constant uptime of Mongoose.

Switching back to The Boots of the Neverending Path and throwing those two enchants on will give me...114 hit rating.

The issue is that since DPS was always my offset and dps items with hit rating were normally snagged up quickly, I ended up with decent gear, but none with hit.

While we will still be running Naxx 25, we have two groups running weekly Ulduar runs. I will most likely still take my druid to the Naxx 25 run as since I have switched to DPS spec, I still have several items from there for which I can upgrade my gear. The hard part is that my shammy needs Naxx 25 gear too, and will most likely be switched out for my druid on Melee unfriendly fights >.<.

Lack of hit rating across all my gear makes me sad.

EDIT: I also need the Rip Idol from Naxx 25. The only time I saw it drop (first time in there. I didn't realize how good it was and passed to one of our other druids because I was tank spec at the time and didn't envision me going to dps >.<)

Edited, Apr 22nd 2009 8:31am by Galenmoon

Yeah, the reason I tend to switch out my druid for my shaman is because I have the availability to do so. We try and keep everyone who doesn't have a second toon at that gear level in there. Usually it's only on a couple fights, but since I was always gearing my shaman I didn't mind. Also since I'm the raid leader typically I end up making the sacrifice. I will however keep my druid in on bosses I know drop an upgrade to my DPS set now that it has become more of a main spec.

Hopefully either the Idol drops this weekend, or the combined emblems I get from Ulduar tonight and Naxx 25 this weekend will give me 25. I think I only have 8 right now as I've missed a couple weekends with being out of town.

Yea, I'd have to say it's nice to finally be so competitive with the pure DPS classes. Last night my guild ran a 25 man naxx to get some of our lesser geared people up to par with the rest and I was #1 on damage done through the first two wings until some errant AFK issues coupled with me being Lootmaster (and the MT pulling instantly after each boss while I hung back to distribute) caused me to slip to 8th overall. But I remained #1 on the DPS list of Recount for the entire run, finishing overall at about 4700 or so. On the Thaddius fight I broke 7000! Other stand-still fights like Patchwerk, Gluth, Loatheb, I was able to get from 5900-6000.

While hunters, rogues and warlocks may complain about this, nobody in my guild does. They all know I earned after being uber suckage for so very long.