I'm thinking about taking imp mangle out of my cat spec now.
Yeah it's a consideration. What will you put the extra 3 points in though?
Yeah, not sure on that one. I could max out Nurturing Instinct, which isn't maxed since I actually went with 1 point in Survival Instinct in my current spec. Not sure about the other two.
Could maybe go Infected Wounds to make the spec serviceable in PvP or for a little extra raid utility depending on which class is tanking and its ease of applying the attack speed debuff. Another thought is going Protector of the Pack so I could be a serviceable emergency tank (or to tank heroics in an otherwise full cat spec/gear set).
Really those 3 points are going to be pretty situational no matter what. There are still those frequent target switching fights where I'm going to be mangling a lot more than once per minute, so I might not even bother to respec.
Glad I'm not the only one with occasional cat swipe issues. Why is it so much worse than every other DPS AoE? I guess we don't have any threat reduction, and it is op...
Unholy DKs also hit ridiculous AoE numbers if the pile of mobs is big enough, but they cause like 30% less threat per damage than cats do, which is pretty retarded. Well, DnD causes extra threat, but it's not enough to make up the difference.
The other issue is probably that cat AoE is ridiculously more frontloaded than most other classes.
I want to know why Blizzard is content to leave Cower as a useless ability in this era of fixing useless abilities.
forty on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
So Paragon took three Ferals to their heroic Lich King kill - 1 bear and 2 cats.
That raid comp is one of the most unusual stacked raids I've seen in this expansion - especially since it doesn't look like they were stacking a particular type of DPS so much as classes that were likely to survive a lot of raid damage.
The dps in my guild likes to compete on AoE trash dps. That being said there are a few of my guild healers that look out for my poor kitty when we are trying to break the meters.
The best place ever for AoE kitty spam is on the huge packs of whelps right before Sindrogosa. Just bribe your tanks to pull both sides at once.
Last wed I hit 68000 dps with swipe spam and managed to live thanks to our healers.
So, my guild has like 60 percent plate wearers and I'm tired of competing for drops so much when there is one rogue and 3 druids vs the 4 dks, 4 pallies, and 2 warriors in the 25 man last night. Oh, and 7 of those plate wearers want tank/dps gear.
So I think I'm gonna switch my main to my druid, but I'm concerned about what I can handle right now at his gear level. Could someone take a look?
Link in the sig, Radaster.
GS is like 4766 or some such, not really sure what that means.
So, my guild has like 60 percent plate wearers and I'm tired of competing for drops so much when there is one rogue and 3 druids vs the 4 dks, 4 pallies, and 2 warriors in the 25 man last night. Oh, and 7 of those plate wearers want tank/dps gear.
So I think I'm gonna switch my main to my druid, but I'm concerned about what I can handle right now at his gear level. Could someone take a look?
Link in the sig, Radaster.
GS is like 4766 or some such, not really sure what that means.
As a tank, or dps? For tanking, your first priority should be to get a tanking cloak/ring/neck. Do a rep run of icc to get the friendly tanking ring, turn some triumph badges into conquest badges for the tanking neck, and make yourself a durable nerubhide cape. Also try to get the footpads of impending death crafted, and buy a corroded skeleton key. At that point you'll probably be ready for icc10 and toc25, and be sure to run ony until you get a thunderstrike. When you upgrade your shoulders, put the 30 stam/15 resil enchant on them from the pvp vendor, its better than defense/dodge, and use mongoose.
Yea obviously I'm still working on upgrades. I'm concerned about what I can realistically handle. I tanked the ice watcher 10 man yesterday, so I know I'm good there. I was hoping to get the neck from H-PoS, RAWR shows it best I can get outside of raids, even over the emblem tank-stat necks.
I want the key too but I'm soooo tempted to get t10 first cause I bought the belt/cloak/trinket on my DK first and he still doesn't have any t10 pieces. I guess those items are probably bigger upgrades though.
T10 doesn't become better than 4p T9 until you have all 4 pieces. The taunt reduction and barkskin cooldown reduction are so much better than not having any tier bonuses.
Also, gemming for agility is bad. All +30 STA except for one 10 AGI/15 STA gem for your meta is the way to go.
So, over the past two days on my Feral Druid to catch up to my friends' characters, I've gone from 51-57 and 57-63, my damage has exploded nicely, partly because my heirloom gear mace is finally giving me feral attack power now.
And I just tanked a pretty fast Ramparts run with no issues. Things are going nicely. Seriously though, *Maim* was the level 62 ability? Fuck that. I want Lacerate. Maim is the most retarded spell interrupt in the entire god damn game.
Edit: Oh yes, I'm also considering dropping Skinning (and keeping Herbalism) and picking up Enchanting. Main reason being, I've wanted a disenchanting tank... of course, I already have a 450 enchanter, but I guess it means I can at least skip any of the enchants I don't need to level the skill. It's still going to be ridiculously expensive...
It does actually interrupt NPCs (see the tooltip!), so you could, say, use it on an interruptible boss that's immune to stuns, much like hammer of justice or similar.
Just be aware (not that it should matter to a good dps), but using Maim is going to be alot more DPS loss for a druid than Mind Freeze/Kick/Hammer are going to be for those classes. It would be like a rogue using KS to stop a spell, energy and combo points.
But, it beats a wipe, which is what alot of DPS don't seem to remember anymore. Especially DKs that don't Mind Freeze. It irritates me to vote kicking sometimes. I mean, don't MF everything, but stopping hellfire and Phantom Blast is helpful.
I admit, when my kitty's in HoR, I don't maim the priests/mages...I just burn them down. My DK does give them the Ice Cream Headache though. I really only use maim as a PVP stun or to interrupt Moorabi...which means I usually claim first interrupt. This past weekend, I did get the first interrupt, but the next one missed...still no Achievement...but the groups I'm in are consistently downing him in under 25s now.
What is the current state of Druid healing? I am kind of considering coming back in the next few weeks and am trying to decide if I want to go back to my Druid or Shaman.
You know, I wasn't aware that they'd changed HoJ into an NPC interrupt, which is why when I saw that Maim *could* interrupt, I didn't compare it directly with Kidney Shot. Hmm... saves me a button though, as I can add it to my Bash in Bear, Pounce in Stealth macro for Cat form but not in stealth. I also started binding Maul to my two other attack macros now.
I'm due for reorganizing my buttons pretty soon anyway. It's been awkward because I was trying to layout my cat stuff similar to my Rogue's bars, but then, I don't even really use the same abilities with the same priority between solo and grouping (Shred being the main attack when I'm not being targeted and Mangle being the main when I'm solo). So my bear buttons have been suffering placement because of that... ideally I'd like to get them a bit closer to my Prot Pally. Which will probably mean Swipe is going on R (same as Hammer of the Righteous), maybe Mangle on W (same as Shield of Righteousness, short cooldown ability). Though that would put Feral Faerie Fire on 2 (same as my pulling Macro, Hand of Reckoning/Avenger's Shield), which would be a bit awkward for bear since I guess FFF is actually used as part of the rotation... hmm. And I have no idea where Lacerate is eventually going to go, not sure how it compares to Rogue abilities for the cat form. Ugh.
I *did* have to modify my Cat/Prowl and power shift Bear macros though, to include /cancelform in Bird form. Such a pain in the ass that I can't switch out of bird unless I'm on the ground, and even then, it's iffy.
On that note, oh my god I love Flight form. So awesome.
So, over the past two days on my Feral Druid to catch up to my friends' characters, I've gone from 51-57 and 57-63, my damage has exploded nicely, partly because my heirloom gear mace is finally giving me feral attack power now.
And I just tanked a pretty fast Ramparts run with no issues. Things are going nicely. Seriously though, *Maim* was the level 62 ability? Fuck that. I want Lacerate. Maim is the most retarded spell interrupt in the entire god damn game.
Yes, Maim is fucking terrible outside of PvP. I hate when I'm in a group/raid as my cat and the rogues, warriors, DKs, shamans, etc. aren't interrupting well since I feel so powerless.
Maim isn't a spell interrupt, it's a stun. That's like calling kidney shot a spell interrupt.
Except it does interrupt, and it's the only interrupt cats even have, and it's fucking terrible. It's actually nothing like calling KS a spell interrupt since a) KS doesn't interrupt spells, and b) rogues have Kick which is a very good interrupt.
That all said, I have twice interrupted the final (read: insanely fast) Moorabi transformation cast on my druid. As the healer. By switching into bear, enraging, and bashing at the perfect time. God I rule.
What is the current state of Druid healing? I am kind of considering coming back in the next few weeks and am trying to decide if I want to go back to my Druid or Shaman.
Well for me, I pretty much just spam Rejuv and Wild Growth, with Regrowth thrown on the tank, and Swiftmend and Nourish for when things get bad. If I'm feeling bored, I'll throw out some Lifeblooms too. I don't even think I know what buttons will cast Healing Touch. :P
If the group is really good, I sometimes shift out of tree on bosses to add some offense. 8-)
Rage changes look ... interesting. Actually, mostly it looks like they're doing what they tried before and this time not doing it poorly. If they can make maul an ability that I care about as opposed to one I just hit every swing because I need something to do, I think I'd be happy with just that. I wonder how they're going to balance everything on the global cooldown when we used to have one moderate damage ability that didn't have to fit into it.
Well, they're probably going to have to boost the relative damage/threat of the other abilities since single-target scenarios will no longer be assumed to be unlimited threat with mauls coming in every 2.5 seconds.
The dispel changes are up. Doesn't change things for us all that much.
-Abolish Poison is gone.
-We can spec Resto to dispel magic on allies.
-They may combine Remove Curse/Poison into one spell. Magic would be added to it if you spec Resto.
-Mana costs will go up.
-Once again we will be able to dispel players even if they have nothing to remove.
I don't get the last thing. It will let you spam a spell on a target you can't remove anything from? Kind of annoying...is that to break some kind of decurse macro or something?
Bigity on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
Currently, you can hammer the dispel key and if there's nothing on your target, no mana/GCD is used, so you can just keep on hammering. The idea is to make it so that you actually have to dispel/purge when there is something on the target, and if you do it when there isn't anything you waste mana for nothing.
You know, a little bit of that "game play" thing that is mostly absent from WoW as it is.
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Could maybe go Infected Wounds to make the spec serviceable in PvP or for a little extra raid utility depending on which class is tanking and its ease of applying the attack speed debuff. Another thought is going Protector of the Pack so I could be a serviceable emergency tank (or to tank heroics in an otherwise full cat spec/gear set).
Really those 3 points are going to be pretty situational no matter what. There are still those frequent target switching fights where I'm going to be mangling a lot more than once per minute, so I might not even bother to respec.
You will pull aggro, you will die.
But you will look do damn good doing it.
The other issue is probably that cat AoE is ridiculously more frontloaded than most other classes.
I want to know why Blizzard is content to leave Cower as a useless ability in this era of fixing useless abilities.
That raid comp is one of the most unusual stacked raids I've seen in this expansion - especially since it doesn't look like they were stacking a particular type of DPS so much as classes that were likely to survive a lot of raid damage.
A feral druid in my previous guild always said kitties needed an aggro dump. He suggested calling it "Hide Behind the Couch."
More like 'Make those sad kitty eyes like Puss in Shrek 2.'
The dps in my guild likes to compete on AoE trash dps. That being said there are a few of my guild healers that look out for my poor kitty when we are trying to break the meters.
The best place ever for AoE kitty spam is on the huge packs of whelps right before Sindrogosa. Just bribe your tanks to pull both sides at once.
Last wed I hit 68000 dps with swipe spam and managed to live thanks to our healers.
So I think I'm gonna switch my main to my druid, but I'm concerned about what I can handle right now at his gear level. Could someone take a look?
Link in the sig, Radaster.
GS is like 4766 or some such, not really sure what that means.
As a tank, or dps? For tanking, your first priority should be to get a tanking cloak/ring/neck. Do a rep run of icc to get the friendly tanking ring, turn some triumph badges into conquest badges for the tanking neck, and make yourself a durable nerubhide cape. Also try to get the footpads of impending death crafted, and buy a corroded skeleton key. At that point you'll probably be ready for icc10 and toc25, and be sure to run ony until you get a thunderstrike. When you upgrade your shoulders, put the 30 stam/15 resil enchant on them from the pvp vendor, its better than defense/dodge, and use mongoose.
Yea obviously I'm still working on upgrades. I'm concerned about what I can realistically handle. I tanked the ice watcher 10 man yesterday, so I know I'm good there. I was hoping to get the neck from H-PoS, RAWR shows it best I can get outside of raids, even over the emblem tank-stat necks.
I want the key too but I'm soooo tempted to get t10 first cause I bought the belt/cloak/trinket on my DK first and he still doesn't have any t10 pieces. I guess those items are probably bigger upgrades though.
Also, gemming for agility is bad. All +30 STA except for one 10 AGI/15 STA gem for your meta is the way to go.
And I just tanked a pretty fast Ramparts run with no issues. Things are going nicely. Seriously though, *Maim* was the level 62 ability? Fuck that. I want Lacerate. Maim is the most retarded spell interrupt in the entire god damn game.
Edit: Oh yes, I'm also considering dropping Skinning (and keeping Herbalism) and picking up Enchanting. Main reason being, I've wanted a disenchanting tank... of course, I already have a 450 enchanter, but I guess it means I can at least skip any of the enchants I don't need to level the skill. It's still going to be ridiculously expensive...
Just be aware (not that it should matter to a good dps), but using Maim is going to be alot more DPS loss for a druid than Mind Freeze/Kick/Hammer are going to be for those classes. It would be like a rogue using KS to stop a spell, energy and combo points.
But, it beats a wipe, which is what alot of DPS don't seem to remember anymore. Especially DKs that don't Mind Freeze. It irritates me to vote kicking sometimes. I mean, don't MF everything, but stopping hellfire and Phantom Blast is helpful.
I'm due for reorganizing my buttons pretty soon anyway. It's been awkward because I was trying to layout my cat stuff similar to my Rogue's bars, but then, I don't even really use the same abilities with the same priority between solo and grouping (Shred being the main attack when I'm not being targeted and Mangle being the main when I'm solo). So my bear buttons have been suffering placement because of that... ideally I'd like to get them a bit closer to my Prot Pally. Which will probably mean Swipe is going on R (same as Hammer of the Righteous), maybe Mangle on W (same as Shield of Righteousness, short cooldown ability). Though that would put Feral Faerie Fire on 2 (same as my pulling Macro, Hand of Reckoning/Avenger's Shield), which would be a bit awkward for bear since I guess FFF is actually used as part of the rotation... hmm. And I have no idea where Lacerate is eventually going to go, not sure how it compares to Rogue abilities for the cat form. Ugh.
I *did* have to modify my Cat/Prowl and power shift Bear macros though, to include /cancelform in Bird form. Such a pain in the ass that I can't switch out of bird unless I'm on the ground, and even then, it's iffy.
On that note, oh my god I love Flight form. So awesome.
Not a huge deal in PvP, as it only affects tanking really, but in PvP an instant Maul would make us a lot more dangerous after landing Mangle.
Except it does interrupt, and it's the only interrupt cats even have, and it's fucking terrible. It's actually nothing like calling KS a spell interrupt since a) KS doesn't interrupt spells, and b) rogues have Kick which is a very good interrupt.
That all said, I have twice interrupted the final (read: insanely fast) Moorabi transformation cast on my druid. As the healer. By switching into bear, enraging, and bashing at the perfect time. God I rule.
Well for me, I pretty much just spam Rejuv and Wild Growth, with Regrowth thrown on the tank, and Swiftmend and Nourish for when things get bad. If I'm feeling bored, I'll throw out some Lifeblooms too. I don't even think I know what buttons will cast Healing Touch. :P
If the group is really good, I sometimes shift out of tree on bosses to add some offense. 8-)
-Abolish Poison is gone.
-We can spec Resto to dispel magic on allies.
-They may combine Remove Curse/Poison into one spell. Magic would be added to it if you spec Resto.
-Mana costs will go up.
-Once again we will be able to dispel players even if they have nothing to remove.
You know, a little bit of that "game play" thing that is mostly absent from WoW as it is.