Pawkets' Feral DPS Guide & FAQ -- Updated for 6.0!

[Sibylle]

Oh go on, spill the beans. Who is it? #notcuriousatall

[Dysheki]

What a tease. lol

[Steakbomb]

LOL I forgot about Tinder. When I raided with him I tried to pry out that info so GL if you can get him to admit ANYTHING seeing how we raided together for months and I couldn't get him to say anything.

He either works as a dev for Blizz OR he is good friends with one as he is always in the Friends & Family Beta's.

He probably works for them but I doubt any Blizz employees would just come out and say it to guild members or any public forum as it would completely change their experience.

[Tinderhoof]

I am not currently nor have I ever been a Blizzard employee or worked at Blizzard in any capacity. I know that every single spec is played by someone on the design team. I only bring it up because EVERY class complains from time to time that no one plays their class. I just happen to know that isn't true. Just because we don't get a million changes doesn't mean we aren't loved. We made out pretty darn good this expac.

[Steakbomb]

I don't deny that someone at Blizz plays Feral but I just don't know of any devs that play Feral. I know of Devs that play other classes and specs, I just haven't heard of any Feral devs. We did make out pretty good this expac. I don't think that a million changes mean that a bunch of devs play the spec, I just look at some of the changes they try to make, make 0 sense.

[Jimbizzle]

I've noticed that Fragnance' rank 1 on Iron Juggernaught is miles ahead of the pack, or was until recently. On the encounter itself and on his record kill, he used thrash only 3 times, and had a total uptime of only 2.9%

Said log.

From what I've taken from this, could it be that it in fact isn't worth using thrash all that much?

[raffy]

That's not the right way to look at it -- if he would of thrashed more, his damage could of been even higher.

If you sim that fight in Catus (he's in PvP gear currently so I used [574] 4pc + offset) w/ fixed duration 3:40, 2x Lashes, 2x Skull Banners, 1x Shattering, 2x Potion, full raid buffs, Hit/Exp cap, SotF/DoC:

Code: Select all

w/o Thrash
[DPS] = 482.7K
    Mean:   485362 +/- 236.64 (33466)
  Median:   482715
 25%/75%:   461.9K - 506.4K
 10%/90%:   444.4K - 529.6K
 Min/Max:   378.0K - 644.0K

w/ Thrash (avg number of Thrashes: 13)
[DPS] = 488.7K
    Mean:   490856 +/- 235.59 (33318)
  Median:   488675
 25%/75%:   467.5K - 511.3K
 10%/90%:   450.3K - 534.6K
 Min/Max:   389.3K - 639.9K

That said, his parse is very good (upper 99%.) He definitely capitalized on his procs. The percentage of damage as Rip (44%) is far above the simulator average (31%) which implies very good alignment and strong BitW execution. Everything else looks normal.

If you generate a large distribution (100K) and use [x] CVS File, the compute the number of simulated parses above 600K DPS:

Code: Select all

# of parses = 272 / 100000
InverseCDF[NormalDistribution[], (100000 - 272) / 100000] => 2.78 sigma

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=In ... 0.99728%5D

[teddabear]

I am not currently nor have I ever been a Blizzard employee or worked at Blizzard in any capacity. I know that every single spec is played by someone on the design team. I only bring it up because EVERY class complains from time to time that no one plays their class. I just happen to know that isn't true. Just because we don't get a million changes doesn't mean we aren't loved. We made out pretty darn good this expac.

I'm sure there is a Feral somewhere, it's reasonable to assume management would insist upon it. However Blizzard consistently makes blunders that make it appear this Feral is either somebody's alt or someone that doesn't have much input. The latest example was the original 4pc bonus for T16 which any serious Feral would instantly realize was terrible.

I also encourage any Blizzard employee reading this to check out the Feral WoD Wishlist thread.

[Alpheus]

I am not currently nor have I ever been a Blizzard employee or worked at Blizzard in any capacity. I know that every single spec is played by someone on the design team. I only bring it up because EVERY class complains from time to time that no one plays their class. I just happen to know that isn't true. Just because we don't get a million changes doesn't mean we aren't loved. We made out pretty darn good this expac.

I'm sure there is a Feral somewhere, it's reasonable to assume management would insist upon it. However Blizzard consistently makes blunders that make it appear this Feral is either somebody's alt or someone that doesn't have much input. The latest example was the original 4pc bonus for T16 which any serious Feral would instantly realize was terrible.

I also encourage any Blizzard employee reading this to check out the Feral WoD Wishlist thread.

Would it be naïve to claim blizzard employees probably don't read this forum or MMO-C?

[aggixx]

MMO-C is probably read in at least some capacity (maybe not every post of every topic, but a good chunk of them). This forum however I don't think that would be an unreasonable thing to say at all. Surely if there is a class designer that mains feral they read this forum, but if not then who knows.

[Felucia]

First off: wow, this post has saved me a lot of time and makes me a little happy on the inside.

Now on to my question

Why is this: http://wowhead.com/item=105634

staff not on your bis list? wouldnt it be better than malkoroks polearm? it has a red socket after all

[Azarri]

When using Rune of Re-Origination (which is BiS) once you reach an item level around 568ish secondary stats will pull ahead of Agility which is why you'll see geared/high end Ferals gemming all secondaries (Yellow gems) to take advantage of the trinket's proc, thus giving your answer as to why the Malk polearm is better.

[Tinderhoof]

Actually the socket color isn't the reason, it's the amount of secondary stats on the weapon. The Garrosh weapon has 1641 Crit, and 1347 Mastery for a total of 2988 . The Malkorok weapon has 1501 Haste and 1549 Mastery for a total of 3050. The more secondary stats you have overall the bigger you can make your Rune procs.

[aggixx]

What Tinder said; the Malk polearm is better even if you prefer red sockets.

The way item budgeting works is that the less balanced the stats are on the item, the less of stats there are. If you look through the list you'll find that for most slots the BiS option is selected as such because the two stats on the item are very close together.

[Grondmaster]

Taken from MMO-champ:

Tauren's Endurance becomes +X Stamina. Brawn is a new passive which increases Crit Damage/Healing by 2%.

If that stays, as it is, would Tauren become strongest class for Pve? Or will Troll berserking with 15% haste will still be on top?

[Jimbizzle]

In lower gear levels I think troll would be superior, but in a SoO HC gear situation, tauren would be the better I think

[aggixx]

Back when the racials got leaked I was about to make that comparison and find out, but then I decided against it. We'll be going from super-inflated stats to beginning of expansion blues & purples, on top of the very considerable systems changes (stat squish, new secondaries, gear changes), and the ever-present revision of rating to percent conversion as we change levels.

Once Warlords beta is going, or we otherwise are able to create some reasonably accurate simulation environment for 6.0, I would be happy to do a comparison and find out, but until then doing so would basically assume that apples are oranges.

Jimbizzle is right though, the tauren bonus is (relative to itself) more favorable as you get more gear. I'm skeptical that the troll bonus will be as good even early-mid Warlords since it's been nerfed to 15%, but it does also depend how much our direct damage changes.

[Tinderhoof]

Way to early to answer that question until we see if Haste is going to be more useful to us. As it is now, the troll bonus isn't that good anyway. It's just better then nothing.

[Grondmaster]

Taken again from MMO-champ:

Are you still planning to give everyone a Pandemic mechanic?
Yes, but 130% duration max, not 150%.

So I wonder does that apply to casters only or to all dot users? Cause if Ferals get it also, it would make bleed uptime at least at the start of the expansion much easier.

[Tinderhoof]

To be fair Mangle's Rip extension does do that right now. I doubt we are going to get an additional ability that will further extend our bleeds. I have a feeling the context was caster only, and we are considered a bleed class not a DoT class to the designers.

[Tinderhoof]

I asked Celestalon to confirm this. Seems we get it too:
https://twitter.com/Tinderhoof/status/4 ... 0662102016

[aggixx]

So I guess that means we'll be refreshing rake at < 4.5 seconds and rip at < 4.8 seconds. Sounds pretty awkward, but alrighty then.

[xahn]

Any1 got the new list of BiS since after the change on 4/4, Alot of slots has changed I presume? and how about trinkets, is thoks trinket viable now?

[Steakbomb]

I don't think it changes the BiS list as the stat gain is the same on all pieces. Could be wrong as I pretty much follow the BiS lists that are posted.

[raffy]

The only change is that if your raid is competitive and can pump out some serious DPS, AoC is amazing down near 2-3 minute combat times. I did some BiS analysis a few weeks ago http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/12675229909#5 however you can replicate this yourself and do more extensive research in Catus pretty easily.