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Yawning quit and in his goodbai post managed to get banned on MMO-Champ. Reposting his feral dps guide from the googledoc:
Contents
1. Stats
2. Gear
- 2.1 Gems
- 2.2 Enchants
- 2.3 Set Bonuses
- 2.4 Reforging and Optimization
3. Talents
4. Glyphs
5. Abilities
6. Strategy
- 6.1 Single Target
- 6.2 Few Targets
- 6.3 Many Targets
7. Consumables
8. Professions
9. Advanced Topics
Appendices
A: Frequently Asked Questions
B: Changelogs
C: Stats Conversion
D: Third Party Resources
1. Stats
These stats are arranged in rough (but not absolute) order of priority
Weapon DPS - Directly scales white damage, Fury Swipes, Swipe, Ravage, Mangle and Shred. Weapon damage is normalized to 1.0 second atttack speed, so weapon speed and damage range are irrelevant. Only Weapon DPS matters. Weapon upgrades generally provide you with your largest DPS increase.
Agility - Our best DPS stat that we can actually control (weapon DPS is linked to item level). It is also the stat you will find most on gear, and the stat you will want to gem and enchant for in most cases.
Strength - Grants flat attack power. Strength is no longer available on leather. While this is a good stat, Agility is still far better. Generally, we should not use items with Strength on it unless it is replacing an item of significantly lower ItemLevel.
Mastery Rating - Increases the damage of our bleeds. This is our strongest secondary stat, and the stat that we will be reforging towards.
Critical Strike Rating - Crit Rating provides a little more chance to crit per point than agility.
Haste Rating - Increases white damage and energy regeneration rate. Indirectly increases the proc rates of procable effects like Omen of Clarity and trinket / weapon enchant procs.
Hit Rating - Reduces your chance to miss. Misses (and dodges) do not hurt us very much because we get an 80% energy refund on the energy spent when those happen. Generally, we would prefer to have our secondary stats in one of the above 3 stats, but in some cases we may need to have enough Hit when placed on interrupt duty.
Expertise rating - Expertise has exactly the same DPS value as Hit, and does the same thing except it reduces Dodges instead of Miss. Hit is generally preferred over Expertise because Hit helps with interrupts while Expertise doesn’t, as Interrupts cannot be dodged.
Attack Power - A stat that does not appear on gear anymore for the most part. If there is no other choice, it can be picked up.
For more advanced details about the effects of each stat, please refer to Appendix C.
2. Gear
Generally, we should only use gear that has Agility on it, and is not mail armor. When appraising gear for Cat DPS, there are a few things to look out for though:
Secondary Stats - Mastery is our best Secondary Stat, followed by Critical Strike and Haste. The preference for secondary stats on an item goes by this order:
1. Mastery and Crit/Haste
2. Mastery and Hit/Expertise
3. Crit and Haste
4. Crit/Haste and Hit/Expertise
5. Others
Items with Strength - If the item with Strength is a full tier (13 iLevels) better than the item with Agility, they will be of roughly equivalent value, so you should look at the secondary stats on the item. Note that this does not apply to weapons - the Strength weapon will always be better than an Agility weapon that is 13 iLevels worse.
Gem Slots - Generally, items with more gem slots are slightly better than items with less. Red gem slots are preferred, while yellow slots are slightly better than blue slots. You should generally not use a helm that does not have a metagem slot unless you do not have an alternative of the same iLevel.
Trinkets - Generally, trinkets that give straight Agility are better than trinkets that give other stats. However, some trinkets either proc Agility bonuses (e.g. [item="56394" /], [item="58181" /], [item="56328" /]) or Weapon Damage bonus (e.g. [item="59520" /]) which make them significantly better than other Agility trinkets of the same iLevel.
2.1 Gems
Meta Gem Slot: [item="68778" /]
Prismatic Gem Slot: [item="52212" /]
Red Gem Slot: [item="52212" /]
Yellow Gem Slot: [item="52204" /] or [item="52212" /]
Blue Gem Slot: [item="52220" /] or [item="52212" /]
[item="52212" /] is the best gem for all slots. In some cases it may be better to use [item="52204" /] or [item="52220" /]. The rule of thumb is the socket bonus has to be at least 14 Agility or 40 Rating Points in a Secondary Stat per non-Red Gem Slot to make it worthwhile using non-Delicate gems on an item.
2.2 Enchants
These are the best enchants for each slot
Helm: [item="68766" /]
Shoulders: [item="62346" /]
Cloak: [item="52777" /] or [item="44457" /]
Chest: [item="52779" /]
Bracers: [item="68784" /] or Draconic Embossment - (+130) Agility (for Leatherworkers Only)
Gloves: [item="52783" /]
Legs: [item="56550" /]
Boots: [item="52757" /]
Rings: Enchant Ring - (+40) Agility (for Enchanters only)
Weapon: [item="68134" /]
2.3 Set Bonuses
Dragonhide Gloves (PvP) - Decreases the energy cost of Skull Bash by 10. Worth using if you need to interrupt, though any other class will lose less DPS than a Feral Druid.
Stormrider (Tier 11) 2-peice - Increases the periodic damage done by your Rake and Lacerate abilities by 10%.
Stormrider (Tier 11) 4-peice - Each time you use Mangle (Cat) you gain a 1% increase to attack power for 30 sec stacking up to 3 times, and the duration of your Survival Instinct ability is increased by 50%. This is strong but you end up having to Mangle twice as often as you would otherwise to keep the buff up. Once you have 4T11, it's not important to get to 3 stacks within the opener, but once it's stacked to three, keeping it that way is the single most important thing you should be focusing on (Restacking it costs *a lot* of damage).
2.4 Reforging and Optimization
Mastery is our best stat, followed by Haste and Critical Strike which are very close. Haste vs Critical Strike is gear dependant, and you will need a Theorycrafting Tool (see Appendix D) to find out which is better for you. You will need to keep a good balance between Haste and Critical Strike. Preferring the one you have less rating of should be a decent strategy, although it may not be optimal.
Hit and Expertise come up last and are of equal DPS value, but between the two Hit Rating should be preferred because it helps with Interrupts while Expertise Rating does not.
So from the above, we can derive the following reforge strategy:
1. If the item does not have mastery, always reforge towards Mastery. If the Item has Hit+Expertise or Haste+Crit, reforge the stat with more points. Otherwise reforge away from Hit or Expertise.
2. If the item has Mastery, together with Crit or Haste, you can leave it as it is
3. If the item has Mastery, together with Hit or Expertise, reforge the Hit or Expertise to Haste or Critical Strike Rating, whichever you have less of, or preferably whichever the Theorycrafting Tool determines is better for you.
3. Talents
This is the current most popular and most highly recommended talent spec.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZrbGfRzrdbfzMcz:MzqiwVm
Generally, there is very little reason to deviate from the above spec unless you are looking into PVP or a Hybrid Feral spec. Just about all the talents in the above spec are considered compulsory to maximize your DPS, while the following ones are considered optional yet highly recommended:
Primal Madness - This talent is included because it does provides a DPS increase. However, it is difficult to get the most out of it and the DPS gains are very small, so this will probably be the first talent to go if you need more talent point.
Brutal Impact - Several raid encounters are now designed with all melee classes bringing a 10s interrupt, so there is a good chance your raid would require you to have this.
Nurturing Instinct - Significantly improves your survivability.
Survival Instinct - Significantly improves your survivability.
4. Glyphs
Prime Glyphs
[item="40902" /] and [item="40901" /] are by far the best Glyphs. [item="67487" /], [item="45604" /] and [item="45601" /] are pretty close together and the best one for you may depend on your gear level. You can’t go wrong picking one of the three, but if you want to maximize your potential, you should consult with a Theorycrafting tool (see Appendix D) to find out which is best for yourself. From testing with various profile, [item="45601" /] does look like it has the best chance of coming out ahead.
[item="40902" /] - This is by far the most powerful of the Prime Glyphs, as Rip does ~22% of our total damage, second only behind Shred.
[item="40901" /] - This is our second most powerful Prime Glyph. Shred and Rip together make up for ~50% of our total damage.
[item="45601" /] - Also a solid DPS boost, assuming you maximize the use of your Berserks.
[item="67487" /] - A solid DPS boost at level 85 assuming perfect play. The actual DPS gained from this glyph is highly dependant on using Tiger’s Fury as often as possible and the actual length of the fight.
[item="45604" /] - Increase Savage Roar’s buff on white autoattack damage from 50% to 55%. This is a simple DPS increase as long as you keep the Savage Roar buff up.
[item="40900" /] - Mangle is an ability that you will only use once every 60 (26 with 4T11) seconds, therefore it is the weakest of the Prime Glyphs listed here. It may situationally be useful though, for the few encounters where you are unable to get behind the target.
Major Glyphs
Most Major Glyphs do not directly affect your DPS, but increase Quality of Life. The first three glyphs listed here are the recommended ones.
[item="67486" /] - Gives you slightly more time on target, and increased mobility is always welcomed. Also gives a slight DPS increase by allowing you to take advantage of the Stampede talent more often.
[item="67485" /] - Minor quality of life increase. Being able to apply the Major Armor debuff from 40 yards away is rather nice.
[item="40909" /] - A strong contender due to in-combat resurrection abilities being far more precious in Cataclysm than previously.
[item="48720" /] - This glyph is a DPS loss. DO NOT use this glyph.
Minor Glyphs
Minor glyphs do not really matter, but often increases Quality of Life outside of raids or dungeons. One glyph does help mobility though:
[item="43674" /] - Reduces the cooldown of your Dash ability by 20%. More time on target, assuming a long encounter with a high mobility component.
5. Abilities
5.1 Openers
Ravage - When talented appropriately, Ravage will have a near 100% crit rate and 0 cost.
Pounce - Generally should not be used as it has low damage, high cost and many mobs are stun-immune.
5.2 Combo Point Generators
Claw - This should be removed from your Action Bar after you hit Level 10 and choose the Feral spec
Mangle - Mangle is now generally used only to keep the Mangle debuff up. You may not have to use this skill at all if someone else in your raid group already provides the debuff (Bear tank, Arms Warrior, Subtlety Rogue or certain Hunter pets)
Rake - Does a lot of damage for its low energy cost, and the DoT will increase Shred damage by 20% through Rend and Tear. Rake should be kept up as much as possible on everything you kill. When refreshing Rake on a target, ensure that there is less than 3 seconds remaining on the existing Rake or you will be wasting energy.
Shred - Your primary combo-point builder. You should use this as long as Mangle or Rake are already up on the target (otherwise they take precedence). It is generally better to wait until an Omen of Clarity proc or when you have over 80 energy before using Shred instead of casting it immediately when you have the energy for it - unless Berserk is up.
5.3 Finishers
Rip - Your primary finishing move, it does significantly more damage over its duration than Ferocious Bite, and should be kept up on the target at all times. Base Duration of 16 seconds talented, it can be extended to 22 seconds with Glyph of Shred. Do not refresh Rip unless there is less than 2 seconds remaining on the existing Rip. You should only use this ability at full 5 combo points.
Savage Roar - Increases your white auto-attack damage by 50%. This buff does more bonus damage over its duration than Ferocious Bite. You can use this ability on mobs that are dead if you still have combo points on it. You should use this ability immediately when the existing Savage Roar buff fades, at any amount of Combo Points that you have (it is not necessary to be at 5).
Ferocious Bite - This ability should now only be used when the target is below 25% health (when Blood in the Water is active).
Maim - This ability should only be used if you need to stun the target.
5.4 Area of Effect abilities
Swipe - Hits everything in front of you within a short range. Doesn’t hit very hard and should be used only when there are 4 or more targets.
5.5 Cooldowns and Utility
Tiger's Fury - Increases all of your damage, and restores 60 energy through King of the Jungle. This ability has a 30 seconds cooldown and is free - essentially you want to hit it every time it's up. Make sure you have less than 25 energy (spend the excess first) before using Tiger’s Fury to maximize the free energy. The Tiger's Fury effect does not retroactively apply to existing bleeds, and any new bleeds applied during the period will persist for the entire duration of the bleed.
Berserk - Decreases the energy cost of all your abilities by 50% for 15 seconds. You cannot use Tiger's Fury while under the effects of Berserk, so it is best used when Tiger's Fury is on cooldown or immediately after using Tiger’s Fury. This is our big DPS cooldown.
Skull Bash - Our interrupt skill, we are likely to be called upon by the raid to use this as the encounter require. If so, ensure that you always have the 25 energy reserved to use it.
Cower - Provide a 10% threat reduction. Use it if you are in danger of pulling aggro, but try to delay it for as long as possible since it is percentage based and you will shed more raw threat the longer you can delay it. Keep in mind that it can miss or be dodged.
Feral Charge - Sends you flying to the rear of the target. Talented, it allows the use of Ravage immediately after.
Dash - Increases your movement speed significantly for a short time. Very useful when you need it.
Stampeding Roar - Increase the movement speed of your nearby friends and yourself for a very short time. Very situational uses.
Prowl - Enter Stealth. It allows you to use Pounce and Ravage without Stampede, but in PvE you should never be doing either of those things anyway.
6. Strategy
6.1 Single Target
It is not feasible to perform the optimal strategy for the priority list, because it involves making split second decision based on several factors.
If you are interested, Mew has a highly optimized priority list in its default script:
http://code.google.com/p/mew-wow-druid-model/source/browse/trunk/Mew/src/yawning/mew/cat/CatModelSimulator.script
And this is a flowchart version of the default script
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B2-D6gXVjLJ-MjUxMzVjNDAtNjJkYi00NTZjLWJjNDQtYWUxMjIxMTg1NzI2&sort=name&layout=list&num=50
This is the simplified priority list which should get you near optimal DPS.
1. Use Tiger's Fury if it is available, and you have less than 25 energy
2. Use Mangle if Strength of the Panther (4T11) is about to fall off.
3. Use Ravage if Stampede buff is about to fade.
4. Use Feral Faerie Fire if it (or equivalent buff) is not already on the target
5. Use Mangle if it (or equivalent buff) is not already on the target
6. Use Berserk if it is available, and there is more than 15 seconds remaining on Tiger’s Fury cooldown
7. Use Ferocious Bite if Blood in the Water is active, and you have 5 Combo Points or Rip is about to fade
8. Use Rip if you have 5 Combo Points and Rip is not up or has less than 2 seconds remaining
9. Use Rake if Tiger’s Fury is up and existing Rake has less than 8.5 seconds remaining
10. Use Rake if Rake is not up or the existing Rake has less than 3 seconds remaining
11. Use Shred if Omen of Clarity is up
12. Use Savage Roar if it is about to fade
13. Use Shred if it will extend Rip
14. Use Ravage if Stampede is up
15. Use Mangle if Strength of the Panther (4T11) is under 3 stacks.
16. Use Shred if Tiger’s Fury is almost ready, or you have more than 80 energy, or Berserk is active
17. Conserve energy
Use Potions as appropriate (once immediately before entering combat and once during Bloodlust/Heroism). Feral Charge when the opportunity presents itself.
This may not appear to be all that simplified, but it essentially boils down to 4T11 > Raid Debuffs (FF/Mangle) > Bleeds (Rake/Rip) > Savage Roar > Direct Damage, with Shred being used as a combo point generator, avoiding energy capping, and using cooldowns as soon as possible. There are a few addons that will assist you by displaying recommendations if it seems too intimidating at first, though it does get easier with practice.
6.2 Multi Target
For less than ~5 mobs, Swipe is probably not optimal. Instead, use Mangle followed by Rake and optionally with Rip, before switching target to repeat the procedure. With more than ~5 mobs, Swipe may become worth using, but do not expect to top the damage meters.
6.3 Swapping Targets
Feral Druids have traditionally been sub-optimal when swapping targets. With the addition of Stampede and the option to use Savage Roar off combo points from corpses, this is somewhat better; however with the bulk of damage coming from Rake and Rip, low health mobs or extremely frequent target swapping will gut your DPS. Follow the basic single target priority list (optionally using Feral Charge to get to the new mob), and use your judgement. If the mob will die right after you end up getting Rip up, consider using Ferocious Bite instead (or pooling energy for the next mob).
7. Consumables
Flask - Use [item="58087" /] or [item="65455" /] (do not drink it while in bear form!)
Potion - Use [item="58145" /]
Food - Use [item="62669" /]
8. Professions
You should preferably have 2 of the Recommended Professions, which all give the equivalent of 80 Agility (or 81 for Jewelcrafting).
Recommended Professions
Alchemy - Mixology (or Flask of Enhancement) +80 Agility
Enchanting - Enchant Ring - Agility = +80 Agility
Engineering - Synapse Springs (On Use: 480 Agi/10 sec, 60 sec cd) = +80 Agility
Leatherworking - Draconic Embossment - Agility = +130 Agility - 50 Agility = +80 Agility
Blacksmithing - Extra socket on Bracers/Gloves = +80 Agility
Jewelcrafting - Chimera's Eye Gems (+67 vs +40) (x3) = +81 Agility
Inscription - Swiftsteel Inscription (+130 Agi/25 Mastery Rating) = +130 Agility - 50 Agility = +80 Agility
Suboptimal Professions
Tailoring - Swordguard Embroidery Rank 2 (Proc: 800 AP/15 sec 55 sec icd) = +218 AP - 22 Agility = +~56 Agility (NB: Depends on stat scaling. Uptime figures used are optimistic.)
Skinning - Master of Anatomy (+80 Crit Rating)
Herbalism - Lifeblood (+480 Haste Rating/20 sec, 120 sec CD) = +80 Haste Rating
Mining - Toughness (+120 Stamina)
9. Advanced Topics
9.1 Tiger's Fury
Tiger's Fury now increases all physical damage done for the duration of the buff. This is a considerable improvement over the previous incarnation where it merely boosted weapon damage. Also unlike in WotlK, Berserk no longer clips the Tiger's Fury buff, so you are now free to Tiger's Fury directly into a Berserk without losing DPS.
When considering the damage tradeoff to Tiger's Fury-ing bleeds, the thing to keep in mind is that the moment you lose over 15% of the bleeds duration worth of uptime, you are losing DPS.
Rip with Glyph of Shred breaks even at 3.3 seconds worth of downtime.
Rake with 2/2 Endless Carnage breaks even at 2.25 seconds worth of downtime.
In theory it is possible to Tiger's Fury a fair number of Rips but combo point management gets considerably more complex. Currently I view it as "Yes, you should Tiger's Fury every Rip, but don't stress over it if you can't", especially because trying to maximize this requires using Rip/Tiger's Fury with sub 100 msec precision and monitoring the TF cooldown and Rip tick timer, and your efforts will inevitably come crashing down around you when you run into broken Rip refresh mechanics or miss/dodge strings anyway.
As far as Rake goes, it's a DPS gain not only to TF Rake when possible, but to clip Rake under certain situations. If the Rake that is presently up does not have Tiger's Fury, and has less than 9 seconds remaining, go ahead and hit Rake again. I would only recommend doing this once you are comfortable with the basic rotation.
9.2 Ravage and Stampede
Stampede is a new talent added in Cataclysm that reduces the cost and removes the stealth requirement of Ravage following Feral Charge. Unlike Vanilla through WotlK, Ravage actually can hit fairly hard, so this is a good thing especially when combined with the crit chance boost on high health mobs from specing into Predatory Strikes.
With 2/2 Stampede, Ravage costs zero energy, and the buff lasts a reasonable amount of time. With this in mind, you should *never* open with Ravage. Get Feral FF up first, since your free crit Ravage will hit harder. If Tiger's Fury will come off cooldown while your Stampede buff is up, burn energy off so you do not overcap if you Tiger's Fury, and then TF->Ravage to boost its damage even higher.
As far as Ravage use past the opener in a single target situation goes, I personally do not recommend the practice, although it can be a single target gain if done correctly. Most encounters will present you with a better thing to use Feral Charge on in the form of adds or interesting encounter mechanics. Note that certain bosses (most Dragons, Chimeron, Chogall) allow you to Feral Charge from melee range without using DPS time. For those encounters, you should use Feral Charge and Ravage on cooldown.
If you feel like experimenting with doing this, make sure that under no circumstances do you spend more than 2-3 seconds away from the target (which can be difficult due to hit box issues and minimum range), sacrifice buff/bleed uptime, or overcap energy. Assuming T11 normal gear, extremely rough back of the envelope math suggests that this practice is worth approximately +381 DPS at 1.0 seconds, 235 DPS at 2 seconds, 90 DPS at 3 seconds, and -54 DPS at 4 seconds. Keep in mind that my rough back of the envelope math assumes perfect execution and ignores the fact that you can lose Fury Swipes/OoC procs or overcap energy. Most people who attempt this will not get this right, and Rake or Rip falling off will cause you to lose more damage than you gain.
9.3 Dark Intent
Dark Intent - 6% of base mana 30 yd range - Instant cast. You link yourself with the targeted friendly target, increasing both of your haste by 3%. When you or the linked target gains a critical periodic damage or healing effect, the other gains an increased 3% increased periodic damage and healing lasting for 7 sec. Stacks up to 3 times. Dark Intent lasts for 30 min.
Dark Intent is a Warlock buff that they learn from the trainer at level 83. It works like thus:
a) A warlock casts it on you. For the duration of the buff, both of you have +3% haste.
b) Whenever you crit with Rake/Rip, the Warlock's Dark Intent buff gets refreshed/stacks. (+3/6/9% DoT damage for the Warlock)
c) Whenever the Warlock crits with a DoT, your Dark Intent buff gets refreshed/stacks. (+3/6/9% DoT damage for you)
Testing shows that Rip/Rake is sufficient to maintain a 3x stack on the Warlock, and with raid gear, the Warlock generally is able to keep a 3 stack on the recipient. Dark Intent gets special mention because Rake/Rip are approximately 50% of a Feral Druid's DPS.
Get it whenever possible, the periodic damage boost is approximately a ~5.9% DPS gain. The buff as a whole is worth ~1.5k DPS in 372 T11 gear. No, the periodic damage increase does not stack if warlocks swap it. The haste does, but 3% haste to a warlock is not worth anything near 1.5k DPS, so players that prioritize raid damage should do the right thing and buff a non-warlock DPS.
9.4 How DoTs Work
AP, Tiger's Fury, Mastery, and Combo Points are snapshotted when a DoT is cast. This means that If you put Rake up, and then your SuperAwesomeAgiTrinket procs, the existing Rake will not gain a benefit from it. In the case of Rip, when you refresh it with Ferocious Bite via Blood in the Water, it will resnapshot everything except for the number of Combo Points. This means that if you put a 5 point Rip up, and as long as you keep on using Ferocious Bite with any number of combo points, you will keep a 5 point Rip going. It is also a good idea to try to get the 5 point Bite off when Tiger's Fury is up.
When you cast a DoT when the same effect is already present on a mob, it will put a new DoT up that lasts for the base duration plus the amount of time till the previous effect would have ticked next, and the next tick will occur when it would have if you had not "refreshed" the Dot. For example, if you hit Rake when Rake has 2 seconds left, the new Rake will have a 17 second (2 + 15) duration and the next tick will occur in 2 seconds. This makes it ideal to refresh DoTs when there is less than one tick remaining (2 seconds in the case of Rip, 3 seconds in the case of Rake).
Keep in mind that Rip refresh still checks Combo Points and AP and will sometimes fail with "A more powerful spell is already in effect.". While this is annoying, this does not actually cost you much DPS as long as you are good about hitting Rip exactly when the old one drops off when this happens.
9.5 Weapon Normalization
Weapon Tooltip Top End / Weapon Speed (Unhasted) + AP / 14 = Cat Top End
Weapon Tooltip Bottom End / Weapon Speed (Unhasted) + AP / 14 = Cat Bottom End
For example:
Distant Land (Heroic): 625 - 939 Damage Speed 2.40
Cat Top End = 939 / 2.4 + AP / 14 = 391.25 + AP / 14
Cat Bottom End = 625 / 2.4 + AP / 14 = 260.41 + AP / 14
Bloodfall (Heroic): 886 - 1330 Damage Speed 3.40
Cat Top End = 1330 / 3.4 + AP / 14 = 391.17 + AP / 14
Cat Bottom End = 886 / 3.4 + AP / 14 = 260.58 + AP / 14
Top end damage does not matter. Speed does not matter. Look at Weapon DPS. Assuming they are equal, look at the stats.
9.6 The Crit Cap
Because white damage uses a one-roll system, with "hit" as the default result for an attack that doesn't fall into any other category, it is possible to push hit completely off the attack table for white attacks. This happens when your chance to miss, chance to be dodged, chance to get a glancing blow, and your chance to crit all add up to 100%, leaving no room for regular hits. With no hit or expertise, this is at 100 - 8 - 6.5 - 24 = 61.5% crit.
The hard white crit cap, when you have pushed dodge and miss off the table through hit and expertise, is 76% - at this point, all attacks will either crit or glance. Beyond this point, nothing you do can increase the number of white crits you get.
When you reach your crit cap, but are not yet hit/expertise capped, the value of hit and expertise increases by 50-80%. This is because, under the crit cap, adding hit essentially converts misses into regular hits. Over the crit cap, however, you are converting misses straight into crits, which will do more than double damage. Therefore, once you reach the crit cap in raid buffs with just your idol procced, hit and expertise become your best stats until you are once again under the cap, or until you reach their respective caps.
There is a further 4.8% difference between your character sheet crit rate and your actual chance to crit the boss, due to the three level differential between youself and your target. If your character sheet says 50% crit, you will actually crit 45.2% of the time. This is why the actual crit cap of 76% is different from the number you will see in section 3 of this FAQ, since my goal in this guide is to write primarily for non-theorycrafters, and it is easier for them to work with their character sheets.
Appendix A - Frequently asked Questions
Are Cats competitive DPS?
Cats are in a fair position. We are average and should neither expect to consistently top the charts nor be consistently at the bottom. We do suffer in melee-unfriendly fights and fights that require frequent target switching.
Does Weapon Speed/Top End Damage matter?
No. The only things that matter are the DPS and the stats on the weapon. However, weapon DPS matters a lot and going to a higher item level weapon is most likely your biggest upgrade each raiding tier.
What should I do when leveling?
This guide was written with PvE at the level cap in mind. However, Lissanna maintains an excellent leveling guide at http://www.restokin.com/druid-leveling-guide/ which should give you all the information that you need
How much hit do I need?
You do not need hit unless you are required to interrupt without missing by capping your hit, as hit is inferior to the other secondary stats available.
The Hit Rating cap for raid boss is 961. You may need less for lower leveled mob - most commonly the Proto-drakes at Nefarian Phase 2 are level 85 and only require 601 Hit Rating to reliably interrupt.
How much expertise do I need?
Like Hit, Expertise is inferior to all the other secondary stats available. Furthermore you do not need Expertise to reliably interrupt as interrupts cannot be dodged.
If you really must, 781 Expertise Rating will cancel out the 6.5% Dodge Chance raid bosses have against you.
Hit and Expertise are the most important stat for most other classes. Why are feral druids different?
Feral druids do not suffer a huge penalty from misses or dodged attacks in PVE DPS. Our white damage is a modest portion of our DPS compared to most classes, and we do not have significant damaging procs like rogues' poisons or DK's Blood-Caked Blade. Our missed specials only cost 20% energy. We are not GCD-limited or on a fixed rotation, so we do not lose much time. Mathematically, hit and expertise rating do increase our DPS, but they are simply not as good, point-for-point, as all the other secondary stats.
Can you give me a stat equivalency scale / EP values?
I did by writing Mew. The exact stat weights are highly dependent on your current gear point, and end up being more inaccurate than not most of the time. You will be much better off if you use Mew, Rawr, or SimulationCraft to calculate exact values for your own character.
Appendix B - Changelog
2011/02/16 - Taking over maintenance of this guide from Yawning. Made guide more concise and organized, add in item links
2011/02/06 - Updated for 4.0.6.
2011/01/12 - Updated for 4.0.6 PTR.
2010/12/06 - Added formula for energy regeneration and a description for Stampeding Roar.
2010/12/02 - Updated for 4.0.3a. Deprecated most mentions of level 80 mechanics.
2010/11/18 - Updated glyph choices for level 85 based on modeling with T11 gear.
2010/10/05 - Migrated to new Forums.
2010/10/17 - Clarified rotational priorities a bit.
2010/10/15 - Updated to reflect recent hotfixes.
2010/10/13 - Updated the raiding at 80 section.
2010/10/07 - Updated for 4.0.1
2010/09/27 - Updated Cataclysm Beta changes.
2010/09/19 - Updated Cataclysm Beta changes.
2010/07/09 - Updated Cataclysm Beta changes.
2010/06/22 - 3.3.5 is live. Nothing new of note, Sharpened Twilight Scale is sexy.
2010/06/09 - Added Cataclysm Talent changes.
2010/06/05 - Taking over maintaining this from Demoneater. Updated section on enchants. Posted notes regarding 3.3.5.
Appendix C - Stat Conversions
1 Strength = 2 AP (3.17625 AP with talents and full raid buffs)
1 Agility = 2 AP + 0.00307831% crit (3.335063 AP + 0.003393836% crit with talents and full raid buffs. 324.8536 Agility will give 1% crit.)
120.109 Hit Rating = 1% Hit. The cap starts at 961.
120.1088 Expertise Rating = -1% Dodge. The cap starts at 781.
179.2801 Crit Rating = 1% Crit. White cap is 80.8% character sheet crit.
128.0572 Haste Rating = 1% Haste.
179.2801 Mastery Rating = 1 Mastery (+3.125% bleed damage)
Appendix D - Third Party Resources
Addons
Ovale - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ovale.aspx - Generic move recommendation mod. It will display an icon suggesting which button you should push. Keep in mind it requires a class specific script to give good suggestions. (Note: I do not use this, so I cannot assist on how to set it up.)
Leafkiller's Ovale script - http://fluiddruid.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=64 - Feral Druid specific script for Ovale. Also handles tanking.
Badkitty - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/badkitty.aspx - Feral Druid timer mod.
Droodfocus - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/droodfocus.aspx - Feral Druid timer mod.
Theorycrafting Tools
Mew - http://code.google.com/p/mew-wow-druid-model/ (Formerly know as Toskk's calculator: http://druid.wikispaces.com/ToskksDPSGearMethod)
Rawr - http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr
SimulationCraft - http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/
Discussion
Elitist Jerks - http://elitistjerks.com/f73/
Druid Wiki - http://druid.wikispaces.com/message/list/ToskksDPSGearMethod
The Fluid Druid Forums - http://fluiddruid.net/forum/
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