Another - help me improve post - non-raider

[Darkhoof]

Hi!


profile/talents
wowhead url: http://www.wowhead.com/profile=eu.neptulon.darkhoof

ive browsed the forums quite alot, and in general i think im on top of gear/gem/enchants and so on.

however, when it comes to rotation and target shifting i think im lacking quite a bit.

Regarding gear:
I dont have raid gear available(besides boe and argaloth) since i dont raid. fortunately the guild im on dont have alot of feral kittys so i got a unheeded warning
I already got lucky with tier legs on argaloth, and is hoping for hands aswell(you have to be positive )
Im planning to use vp on: fluid death -> back -> neck -> T11 hands if still not dropped on argaloth

Should i move the hands further up the priority to get the 2Ts bonus? or perhaps get the chest - is it infact better than morries wrap if you dont consider 4Ts bonus(cant get 4pieces since i dont raid)?

Threat management
How the h*** do you manage threat? even though i dont think i deal that much dmg considering mages, locks and dps-warrs i seem to get a lot of aggro, i cower when able but since its single target with cd and a flat 10% decrease in threat - it dont seem to be able to keep up.

heroic encounters
Given the following premises could you help me to optimise rotation or gear/talents for the following type of encounters:

Premise:
I do random hcs and a (very) little bit of world pvp and PVP-Raid(argaloth).
I use ovale with leafkillers script.
I like the "hero bear" - concept where i can save the day once in a while by popping cooldowns and tankin an unwanted add.

Encounters:
multi-mob packs(3+) - this is the one im struggling the most with, mobs seems to go down before i can get any form of buildup on them. so i tend to just mangle/shred spam with a rake here and there.

Bosses with an AoE type add-phase - do i stay on the boss or use berserk here and swipe-spam?

Bosses - do i run out and ravage? or is it better to keep shredding to get points for next rip/savage roar?

so all in all, can you help me improve

[Arctagon]

First of all, why don't you raid? Too hectic? Enjoying heroic dungeons more?

The 2 piece set bonus should have high priority, but if you don't intend to raid anytime soon I guess you could wait and see if they drop from Argaloth. Since you don't raid you won't be able to acquire the 4 piece set bonus, and as such there is no point in obtaining the tier chest, as Morrie's Wrap is better itemised than the tier chest.

Handling threat isn't as difficult as you may like. As long as you have a tank who knows what he's doing. Also, the further into the encounter you are, the more threat is lowered by cover.

If trash goes down very fast there is no point to do anything else than Swipe. Otherwise, apply Mangle and Rake to all targets and keep the bleeds up. If some of them are still far from dying you could proceed to apply Rip to the mobs with the highest amount remaining health.

For fights where adds are important to get down fast (they tend to be), you should definitely switch to the adds.

As long as it doesn't take too long to run out for the FC -> Ravage!, then it is a DPS increase.

Regarding your gear; you should never go for socket bonuses other than +20 agility and better (and this is considering there are a maximum of one socket that is not red on the gear piece). Therefore, you should have a pure agility gem on your chest. Also, the glove enchant should be strength. I also have a question: you seem to stack haste, why is that?

Lastly, we have your spec. Why have you put points into Infected Wounds?

[Darkhoof]

First of all, why don't you raid? Too hectic? Enjoying heroic dungeons more?

The 2 piece set bonus should have high priority, but if you don't intend to raid anytime soon I guess you could wait and see if they drop from Argaloth. Since you don't raid you won't be able to acquire the 4 piece set bonus, and as such there is no point in obtaining the tier chest, as Morrie's Wrap is better itemised than the tier chest.

Handling threat isn't as difficult as you may like. As long as you have a tank who knows what he's doing. Also, the further into the encounter you are, the more threat is lowered by cover.

If trash goes down very fast there is no point to do anything else than Swipe. Otherwise, apply Mangle and Rake to all targets and keep the bleeds up. If some of them are still far from dying you could proceed to apply Rip to the mobs with the highest amount remaining health.

For fights where adds are important to get down fast (they tend to be), you should definitely switch to the adds.

As long as it doesn't take too long to run out for the FC -> Ravage!, then it is a DPS increase.

Regarding your gear; you should never go for socket bonuses other than +20 agility and better (and this is considering there are a maximum of one socket that is not red on the gear piece). Therefore, you should have a pure agility gem on your chest. Also, the glove enchant should be strength. I also have a question: you seem to stack haste, why is that?

Lastly, we have your spec. Why have you put points into Infected Wounds?

thank you for taking the tiime to reply:

i dont raid, simply because it doesnt fit my play-style/time. I cant set aside 3-4 hours of un-interuptable game-time, i tend to walk to and fro once in a while, heroics is perfectly scheduled(when not a wipefest) to last 25-40m max

regarding morries, then it is as i thought.

i usualy wait for cower untill DBM is warning me to maximise the value of the 10%

i have seen the theory crafting regarding socket bonus, but thought that 40 mastery and 20 agi was better than 40 agi. i might be wrong?

i stack haste, because of energy regen and white melee, i seem to run short of energy constantly. and as far as i have read, if there is mastery on an item one should reforge to haste.

infections wounds i originaly applied to use in solo pve(which i do alot) and a little with thougt towards pvp. should i place the 2 points elsewhere?

[felhoof]

i have seen the theory crafting regarding socket bonus, but thought that 40 mastery and 20 agi was better than 40 agi. i might be wrong?

You're wrong. In general, agility is worth at least twice as much as any other stat and often more than that depending. The only thing that's not twice as bad as agility is strength.

All ferals run out of energy. Ferals are entirely energy bound. The best thing you can do to maximize your DPS is learn how to not use energy when you have it. It's important ot conserve energy so that you refresh bleeds at the right time, to deal with issues in timing on fights, to maximize damage from berserk, to time bleeds with TF, etc. Haste isn't the answer to this, and at your gear level the secondary stat other than mastery you should reforge to is crit, not haste.

[Darkhoof]

i have seen the theory crafting regarding socket bonus, but thought that 40 mastery and 20 agi was better than 40 agi. i might be wrong?

You're wrong. In general, agility is worth at least twice as much as any other stat and often more than that depending. The only thing that's not twice as bad as agility is strength.

All ferals run out of energy. Ferals are entirely energy bound. The best thing you can do to maximize your DPS is learn how to not use energy when you have it. It's important ot conserve energy so that you refresh bleeds at the right time, to deal with issues in timing on fights, to maximize damage from berserk, to time bleeds with TF, etc. Haste isn't the answer to this, and at your gear level the secondary stat other than mastery you should reforge to is crit, not haste.

thankyou for this very constructive feedback.

regarding the agi, as stated i thought that, 20agi AND 40 mastery was better than 40 agi. But ill regem, if the consensus is that 1agi > 2 mastery

i reforged to haste simply because that was what i have read in regard to reforgning, but that might be different at my ilvl? wont the extra crits make it even harder to control threat in the beginning of a boss-encounter?

[Arctagon]

40 agility > 20 agility and 40 mastery. Agility is usually worth around thrice as much as any secondary stat, or at least not far from it.

I generated relative stat values for you, and I get crit to be worth 0.632084 DPS per point of crit and haste to be worth 0.603567 DPS per point of haste.

[Darkhoof]

40 agility > 20 agility and 40 mastery. Agility is usually worth around thrice as much as any secondary stat, or at least not far from it.

I generated relative stat values for you, and I get crit to be worth 0.632084 DPS per point of crit and haste to be worth 0.603567 DPS per point of haste.

ok ill regem the chest and reforge to crit where applicable.

on a positive note i hit 20k dps on lord godfrey(last bos in SFK heroic) yesterday, did 40% of total dmg

thank you for the help so far.

[cynrh]

Hi, I've grappled with threat issues all expansion as well. Try Thorn'ing the tank just before he pulls, it helps a bunch to give him that extra threat at the start of a fight, when he has no Vengeance stacks. Installing a simple threat meter helps too - most raiders use Omen, but for non-raiders that's excessive; try TidyThreat. Just displays a simple, small thermometer that shows how close you are to pulling aggro.

[Darkhoof]

Hi, I've grappled with threat issues all expansion as well. Try Thorn'ing the tank just before he pulls, it helps a bunch to give him that extra threat at the start of a fight, when he has no Vengeance stacks. Installing a simple threat meter helps too - most raiders use Omen, but for non-raiders that's excessive; try TidyThreat. Just displays a simple, small thermometer that shows how close you are to pulling aggro.

i can say check to both comments up-front.

ive allways(on large packs) done the thorns thing, and had a lot of questions why i did that - the main issue, is duration on thorns, its way to low imo, or should perhaps be a stackable buff like lightning shield.

also ive always used omen3. - the issue is not so much that i draw aggro and get killed, its more that i have to stop dps... in my opinion its only bad players that actualy get aggro(unless ofc you get "unlucky with a nasty crit), and the rest of us can worry about having to stop dps'ing

As stated ealier this is one of the reasons why im not that big a fan of crit > haste.

in wrath i know there was cats way above 60% crit, and thats just ridiculous, its a bit better in cata, but i still(even though i have reforged away from it) hits 38%+

is it just me that thinks that we need a vanish/fd/iceblock effect? or is our means to aoe getting aggro, barkskin and survival instincts?

after comments above, and having re-read leafkillers posts, ive tried to balance haste/crit a bit more evenly.

again thank you for your time and feedback

[Arctagon]

ok ill regem the chest and reforge to crit where applicable

What I wanted to demonstrate was simply that haste and crit are very close in value in your case, and that a change isn't necessary. It's well within the RNG zone. This is what you should do:

after comments above, and having re-read leafkillers posts, ive tried to balance haste/crit a bit more evenly.

on a positive note i hit 20k dps on lord godfrey(last bos in SFK heroic) yesterday, did 40% of total dmg

Congratulations. :3

[Darkhoof]

Congratulations. :3

yeah, if it wasnt for the 15% luck of the draw it would be bad-ass however, it was still 40% of the dmg regardless

[Fate]

Personally, I'd be very hard-pushed to give up Brutal Impact for heroics. I realise you aren't hitcapped, but the 'luck of the draw' will sometimes make you the player best able to push interrupt buttons when needed (worth getting some PvP gloves, even the honour ones, to swap in for interrupt fights; the energy saving is worth a lot). I'd give up Primal Madness personally. Hate the talent.

Nurturing Instinct... well, probably not essential for heroics, but I'd be unwilling to part with it for either raids or soloing, and it does make tranquility a significantly better saves-the-day in heroics.

Glyph of Rake... does that mechanic even happen any more? Rebirth would be substantially better for saving the day in almost any group content. 100% battleres is just lovely.

[Leafkiller]

Glyph of Rake still works - I used it when I was leveling. However, it is going away in 4.1.

[Darkhoof]

i use the rake for when im soloing dailys and so on, just keeps the mobs tidy.

on another note i just picked up fluid death, reforged hit to mastery.

next i should go for is pve gloves to get 2Ts bonus right?

[Fate]

Sorry, I realise the glyph functions... I just can't recall the last time a fleeing mob caused me enough issue to even notice it.

Mind you, levelled boomkin, mostly, so I'd not have cared so much.