Feral Druid DPS 4.0 to Cataclysm My Thoughts

Kushington

Legend
Hello everyone and thank you for taking interest in my thread.



So I have recently been leveling a new Druid to get ready for Cataclysm and to have a new twink in general after taking a leave of absence for about a year and a half, and I am extremely excited to see that Feral Druids will exist in the new 4.0 patch and onto Cataclysm. I feel like Feral Druid will be one of if not THE most powerful melee damage deals on the field of WSG come 4.0, below I will state my reasons and look forward to hearing others thoughts on the subject.



So I have been playing around on the PTR just a little bit with just my three pieces on BoA Feral gear, when I noticed how hard he was actually hitting. I have not yet formally tested this out yet so if anyone would like to volunteer to let me whack them around a little bit on the US PTR I would greatly appreciate it. Here are my numbers so far, remember this is only level 14 with 3 pieces of actual gear so my abilities have not fully scaled yet and neither has my gear.



A screen shot of my current stats is here. That is with BoA Leather DPS Shoulders, Chest and the 2h Mace with +25 Agility enchant and NO other gear.



Pros​



  • Feral Druids will be able to move all over the field with ease.

  • Completely immune to Polymorph and Slows/Roots.

  • They are capable of HUGE burst from Mangle and Ferocious Bite and amazing Damge over Time from Rake and Moonfire.

  • Instant heals when in a pinch or to offheal the FC, Roots and Wraths to finish off runners.

  • Travel Form and Bear Form for FCing almost unstopable when you think about it, no poly/roots plus a trinket if you get stunned and AGM for tight moments (all stuff already well known just felt the need to reiterate).

I could go on and on about their pros.​





Cons​



  • Can be quite squishy in Cat Form if cought off guard by stuns.

  • Very low mana pool when geared for Feral Damage (around 500-600) making healing a less than fun task when you need to.

  • Easily CC'd by hunters if you get cought by them (Scare Beast ... lame).

  • May not be everyone's personal play style, even though Feral suits all of your needs in WSG, you may like to play something such as a Hunter and go *PEWPEWPEW* all night long.







Now where I need people to chime in is gear selection, since there is such a big choice as far as this goes seeing as you will want and possibly NEED multiple gear sets. Including healing sets or spell power pieces when you need to off heal the FC.



Here is my current setup for basic Feral DPS.



Please let me know your thoughts on my gear choices, and if I have missed anything.



Thank you for reading, I will most likely post more once I reach 19 on the PTR and have someone to help me test and crunch numbers.
 
Druids are no longer immune to polymorph so you can remove that from the pros list.

As for gear I think you will have to look at the rogue gear except for the weapon. Both rogue and feral druid will want agi, hit till cap, expertise if possible, crit and maybe haste for energy regen but still need to look into that.
 
Haste is indeed needed. As far as i can tell, putting haste on weapons and gloves instead of agility is a white damage increase of 10dps. This is huge. Sure, yellows wont hit as hard, however with increased energy regeneration they will hit more often.



This is how my 19 druid will be geared in cataclysm (might change it slightly, i made this chardev a while ago), though its stats will be slightly different. It will have 8 more haste rating, due to Lava Dredger and Tumultuous Cloak gaining Haste. It will gain 3 hit rating on bracers, since i will be using a pair from a quest with 2stam 2agi 3hit. It will lose 5 stam from LFH and gain 6 agility, 4 crit and 4 hit due to BoA hat. It will lose 44 attack power from strength (gloves&leggings of fang lose some str as well as scaling less well), it will lose 8 attack power from Tumultuous Cloak, and it will gain 101 attack power from agility. It will also gain 25% extra ap due to primary talents.



Overall, in cat form it will have:

- Nelf hitcap.

- 304*1.25 = 380 AP

- 24.32% haste, 0.8 swing speed. Hopefully this will scale to 24.32% more energy, meaning 24.32% more mangles. It also means 24.32% harder hitting moonfire and rakes. Huzzah.

- 19% crit (possibly less if agility scales less well)

- 90.55 white dps. White swings will hit about 73.

- 1.3k hp, 1.6k in bear.

- Aquarius belt's "Oh shit!" button.



Now look me in the eye and tell me you're not scared! I cba changing it to smelting pants, even though theyre technically better, ive done my calcs now and proved my point. Also, i havent bothered with the new BoA legs for the same reason.



Edit: Im aware that the values of hit rating are changing, but afaik i will only exceed the cap rather than become uncapped.



Edit2:



- Easily CC'd by hunters if you get cought by them (Scare Beast ... lame).
Click to expand...



You'd be surprised how few hunter's know where their scare beast button is. Its been months since i was last feared by a hunter.



Edit3: my kitty would also have a mana pool of 850, rather than the 600 that you predict (769 in chardev + 5 int from set bonus). Just sayin'.
 
@Kore

Do you want to see some actual stats? I'm on my feral druid in feral gear atm (Just missing cloak from instance :<).
 
Trespasser said:
Druids are no longer immune to polymorph so you can remove that from the pros list.
Click to expand...

IF this is true you just made my day! I know we've been talking about this alot. Just for my own satisfaction can anyone else confirm this?
 
[video=youtube;oSMZeBKHx_g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSMZeBKHx_g[/video]



In your honor Kore :) (You might wanna go to the actual youtube page and watch the movie, instead of the movie here :p)
 
Grabco said:
IF this is true you just made my day! I know we've been talking about this alot. Just for my own satisfaction can anyone else confirm this?
Click to expand...



I would like a source for this too. Cat Form - Spell - World of Warcraft shows that it still protects. Seems like you might be able to sheep a caster formed druid... but it might just be a tooltip error.



Cat Form - Spell - World of Warcraft

Bear Form - Spell - World of Warcraft

Travel Form - Spell - World of Warcraft



db.mmo also agrees with this. Sorry Grab.
 
lindenkron said:
[video=youtube;oSMZeBKHx_g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSMZeBKHx_g[/video]



In your honor Kore :) (You might wanna go to the actual youtube page and watch the movie, instead of the movie here :p)
Click to expand...



Hmm, white dps isnt as high as i'd thought, you still used agi instead of haste, urgh ^^ Maybe i should get empirical data before i go deciding one chant is better than anyother though... anywho, cheers.
 
Haha :p.



Wish I had like one of those imba PCs. I'd be making vids like a mad-man constantly. Just cba waiting 30 min to render something that should take 5 tops... also lag in-game, even though it's not that visible on the movie itself (thank god! :) )
 
In a game / role where sustained DPS, mobility, and utility is important, I think feral kitty is the class of choice. Hunters are probably as good if not better for sustained DPS and mobility. If you want burst DPS to take down a healer or FC, I think rogue is probably the way to go.
 
Drøød said:
Source: MMO-Champion - Patch 4.0.1 PTR - Build 13033



There you go, Immune to Polymorph days are over I guess.



Drøød
Click to expand...



It is a little more nuanced than what MMO-Champion says. They say "according to the tooltip" no longer immune to polymorph, but some of the tooltips still say "protects" from polymorph. Druids will be sheepable in caster form and be unable to shift out. If they are in kitty or bear they will still be immune. Arcane mages will be able to blanket silence someone for 6 seconds (4 sec improved counterspell + 2 second torrent) I suppose druids could be immobilized and then silenced to prevent shifting, or silenced as a caster and then sheeped.
 
Thanks Kore for your thoughts. I feel like white damage though important is still just a bonus, I might build up a Haste set and give it a try once I'm able, but with the haste from Lifeblood and gear I feel I will have plenty of it for energy regeneration purposes while still maintaining huge numbers with yellows. Also quick thing to consider about your chardev is Footpads of the Fang will be nerfed and Feet of the Lynx will be buffed in Cata, other than that looks solid.



Also thank you lindenkron for your video.



Now onto the Polymorph discussion, still protects us against Polymorph effects as long as we are in Cat, Bear or Travel forms. You can be Polymorphed in caster form however you will need to be quick (maybe when the Druid shifts to pop a quick off heal etc) or silence them in order to get it off, now that all CC mechanics will be 2 second cast minimum and NOT effected by Haste it will be rather difficult to to Polymorph a decent Druid ie. Heal to shift macros for instant cast heals/roots etc.



Thanks everyone for your input please feel free to post any more findings and data.
 
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