How long did it take you to become "good"?

[Sibylle]

Hello!

I'm mostly talking to the experienced ferals here My question is simple: How long did it take you to become really good? I know we're always learning and improving, but how long until you started to feel confident in your abilities?

I'm asking because I feel a little "hmph" just now. You might have read my never-shuts-up thread about how I've finally joined a raiding guild with my kitty. Look, I *knew* it was going to be a steep learning curve. I knew I'd be more concerned with learning the fights as a kitty (I've only ever seriously raided on my healing priest) than optmising my dps. I also knew that it's easy to feel good in raid finder where there's almost no mechanics to watch out for in comparison.

And yet... Being at the bottom of the dps meters sucks. It dents my confidence, and that's not a good thing if I want to improve. I LOVE this spec so much. I read like a maniac, and I know I'll just need practice, practice, practice. I'm an intelligent person and I will get there. I'd just like to know when!

I know a fair bit about my spec, but in the middle of a fight it all goes haywire. We were practising Yor'sahj heroic today and I was relieved when I finally cracked the 30k dps-barrier. Yes, really. Ok, so they need me to kill the oozes, I can't stay on the boss. But when anything happens... doesn't go as it should, I fumble and make stupid mistakes. Or if I'm called to battle res someone - it takes me forever to get back up and running again after that.

So, long story short: how long did it take YOU?

[Tinderhoof]

I guess this really depends on what your definition of good is? I know being bottom of the barrel on DPS can be very frustrating, but it doesn't always tell the whole story. Something really important I learned while wiping for endless months on the HLK fight is that doing your job well is way more important than topping meters.

As you are beginning to learn your new role as a Feral DPS and your specific job in your raid team there are going to be bumps. As you get more used to your mechanics and how your raid deals with fight mechanics you will become more comfortable. Some tips for getting to the place is all about how you learn from mistakes.

- Ignore overall meters. You are learning your class, and undergeared compared to the rest of the raid. Instead focus on your individual performance. If on a farm boss when the fight is over take a look at your logs (even if its recount/skada). Ask yourself how was my bleed up time? Did I keep FF up 100% of the fight? Was I using my cooldowns properly? If the answer is no to any of these pick one you want to improve on. Next time you are on that boss focus on making that one thing better.
- When learning a new encounter always learn the mechanics of the fight before you try and maximize dps. If there is something that can one shot you, do what you need to do early. As soon as you can do that without a second thought you can start adjusting your play to make your dps better.
- If you have a job to do focus on doing it over maximizing DPS. This tier I have had a lot of jobs that had me sitting a the bottom of the DPS barrel because I had a job that would enable us to beat the fight. Soaking the stomp on Morchock in bear form. Tanking a claw on Zon'Ozz. DPS full time on Yor'Sahj (no aoe on the adds). Swapping to bear form for the cooldown on Hagara. All of these jobs are critical to the raid downing the boss. Screwing up will wipe the raid. However when I do the job well I am often very low on DPS. While this does hurt my ego a bit, I still take pride knowing that I am making sure we win.
- Don't get down on yourself if you aren’t tearing it up every pull. Just keep at it and keep learning.

To answer your exact question: When I switched back to feral dps from boomkin in ICC it took me until I recovered from my derp moment to really feel like I was getting into the groove.

[Sibylle]

Thank you so much for your reply. It's good to hear that what I'm doing right now is actually the "normal" way of learning the class within a raid environment.

- Ignore overall meters. You are learning your class, and undergeared compared to the rest of the raid. Instead focus on your individual performance. If on a farm boss when the fight is over take a look at your logs (even if its recount/skada). Ask yourself how was my bleed up time? Did I keep FF up 100% of the fight? Was I using my cooldowns properly? If the answer is no to any of these pick one you want to improve on. Next time you are on that boss focus on making that one thing better.

I'll try and do that. I just signed up for World of Logs and got my first full analysis last night. It's very telling that the Yor'sahj try I did most dps on, is also the one with the highest DoT uptimes - something I of course "knew" before, but seeing it like that in cold numbers is a huge eye-opener.

- When learning a new encounter always learn the mechanics of the fight before you try and maximize dps. If there is something that can one shot you, do what you need to do early. As soon as you can do that without a second thought you can start adjusting your play to make your dps better.

I'm glad I got that right! I figure a dead dps does zero dps and so my main focus is the fight mechanics. It's infuriating when I get so distracted that my bleeds or SR fall off, but I guess that's still better than me going splat.

- If you have a job to do focus on doing it over maximizing DPS. This tier I have had a lot of jobs that had me sitting a the bottom of the DPS barrel because I had a job that would enable us to beat the fight. Soaking the stomp on Morchock in bear form. Tanking a claw on Zon'Ozz. DPS full time on Yor'Sahj (no aoe on the adds). Swapping to bear form for the cooldown on Hagara. All of these jobs are critical to the raid downing the boss. Screwing up will wipe the raid. However when I do the job well I am often very low on DPS. While this does hurt my ego a bit, I still take pride knowing that I am making sure we win.

I just thought about that the other day. There seem to be a lot of "utility" fights this tier, or maybe it's always that way and I just didn't notice when I was healing? For example, on Morchok hc last night I was asked to help soaking on one of the twins. It took me a while to figure out the switch to bear form - it takes longer than I anticipated, first switching and then getting up a survival cooldown - but by the end I had the hang of it. It put my dps in the toilet but the boss died!

- Don't get down on yourself if you aren’t tearing it up every pull. Just keep at it and keep learning.

To answer your exact question: When I switched back to feral dps from boomkin in ICC it took me until I recovered from my derp moment to really feel like I was getting into the groove.

Thank you In fact, this is exactly what my new guild keep telling me. They are great, they encourage me, say that my dps isn't so bad for my gear (truth be told, it *is* bad but I appreciate them being nice), that I learn fast etc, and they give me more drops than is reasonable. Then again, that's exactly why I want to do well. I want to pull my weight and not be carried.

I guess I'll just have to be a little more patient with myself!

[Plunge]

Hey, not quite the experienced feral you were looking for but thought I'd chip in and try to give some contribution after lurking for an age.

I was a main spec bear for 2-3 years with varying offspecs but two months ago I got into a guild as Feral DPS. There's not really anything to comment on as you say you love the spec (which for me plays such a huge role on maximising your potential) but you just need to keep practicing. After being disappointed with my first raids performance I spent a long time sitting at the dummy, did LFR a few times a week just to get some practice in and it soon improved.

To give you an idea I went from pretty much just above the tanks when I first started playing it to pretty much always being in the top 5 (I've even been getting a few rankings on WoL, nothing impressive but between 50 and 200 on varying fights) so you just need to keep at it. The biggest thing I could say would be to practice a lot and focus on your own game. Remember that druids might need to innervate, rebirth, tranq so comparing your DPS to others might not be ideal.

Best of luck mate and most importantly be sure to enjoy it!

[Sibylle]

Thanks, Plunge. Fortunately practising is no problem, right now I've got to drag myself away from the computer to get anything constructive done in that "real" life!

P.S. Any ranking is impressive, imo. It means you did vastly better than about 99% of your class, so gratz!

[Paramount]

TL;DR - The best advice I can give about how to become great at Feral Cat is to steadily repeat a cycle of 1) read/study all you can, 2) play and attempt to implement what you've learned, 3) review performance and evaluate execution, 4) make a plan to prevent any mistakes you notice from happening again, 5) actualize said plan.

Below I estimate when I reached different milestones as it relates to learning to play Feral DD, then define my approximation of what each milestone consisted of.
_________________________________________________________________

I would estimate that my personal Feral progression happened something along the lines of:

Skill Level : Total Time Played
Rank Novice < Beginner : 2 weeks
Beginner < Semi-Competent : 4 weeks
Semi-Competent < Fully Competent : 2 months
Fully Competent < Impressively Good: 4 months
Impressively Good < Jaw-Dropping : 6 months
Jaw-Dropping < Complete Spec Mastery : ???? (about 2 1/2 years...)

As a rank novice I knew nothing. As a beginner I vaguely understood concepts and gearing. When I considered myself semi-competent was the point that I could pull my weight on the damage meters consistently while handling fight mechanics and not taking unnecessary damage. Although at that point if anything unexpected happened, such as needing to battle rez, or if anything went wrong, such as pushing a phase too early, my performance suffered noticeably.

Becoming fully competent is the point which I could stay in the top 5 on damage most fights while being the first person to pop a rez without being asked. I could also toss out innervates or tranquility when called and adjust fight strategy on the fly, generally without issue.

I didn't consider my Feral skills impressive until I was top damage on 80% of encounters while calling most boss mechanics in vent. At that point I also knew all fight strats thoroughly enough that I could cover for almost any mechanic someone else was handling if they died or DC'd. Also it wasn't uncommon if I was the person adjusting the strat on the fly and directing the rest of the team.

The "jaw dropping" level of performance happened when I began not only topping damage, but doing so in decisive fashion (consistent top 50 ranks) while raid leading. I say jaw dropping only half jokingly. Of course many of the active posters on this forum wouldn't be overwhelmed as they themselves are of elite levels of skill, but many are baffled by what they suddenly find out that Feral is capable of in the right hands.

As for mastery of Feral I don't know if any of us will ever get there. The potential to do... just... that... much... more.... on any given fight is forever present. I can honestly say that as long as I've been playing the spec I have never finished a boss and thought there was nothing I could've done to improve my performance, even after world first feral ranking pulls! It's precisely why I never tire of kitty DPS and why I'm so fond of the spec.

[Sibylle]

Wow. Thanks for all the detail! This really gives me some measure to build my expectations around. It also shows me that I'm not really behind, with a total play time of 45 days on my character, a year break in between and only 2 weeks of raiding so far.

Of course many of the active posters on this forum wouldn't be overwhelmed as they themselves are of elite levels of skill, but many are baffled by what they suddenly find out that Feral is capable of in the right hands.

Everything you write is super useful, but this really strikes a chord with me. When I was still only doing raid finder and more often than not topping at least those meters, it often happened that I got remarks like "and I thought feral dps was dead" from others. I really WANT to make my spec look good and that's at least part of my motivation to get as good as I possibly can.

Thanks for the advice also, I'm going to try and follow it as closely as I can manage!

[Sorcerer]

Well it really boils down to a player and things like ovale. Eventually a certain class, I'd say it takes ages to play feral very well without things like ovale compared to a muti rogue for example.
I think people would even agree with me, it is impossible to play as good without it on patchwerk style fights, regardless of time spent playing this class, which is a kind of broken to me this way.

Honestly, you shall need 2-3 weeks to play really well with ovale, anything better comes to personal skills how to adjust for certain encounter.

Another thing is how certain guilds deal with encounters and how good are other players.
Back to anything before DS and personal experience, in current guild I have issues to rank high, mostly due to the way other people play.
Neat example, Yorsahj HC, guildies and especially mages own black phase so bad, it's not even funny. I can barely get few swipes before it's over so I am in lost position here beside being behind on gear. I can say similar to madness HC, you can tease meters badly or the way guild handles spellweave.
Yet I had a top 3 score on beth HC 25man since early FL untill 4.3 release (Previous guild), becouse I had so long uptime on all the aoe, regardless of taunting spinners.

[Chetoh]

Hello all! I'm a first poster but an old follower on TFD forums. Druid is my current main class (since mid Cata) after been rogue and hunter for years, and while you always can find very skillfull players for any given class, it isnt common to find so dedicated community and skillfull players which not only master their class but share their knowledge with everyone too.

This been said, I cant let this thread goes without take the opportunity to express my most sincere thankful to all those contributors, skillfull and seasoned druid players who share their knowledge in TFD forums and build tools to spread this knowledge!

Thank you all!


PD: Sorry for my english in advanced.

[Stenhaldi]

Well it really boils down to a player and things like ovale. Eventually a certain class, I'd say it takes ages to play feral very well without things like ovale compared to a muti rogue for example.
I think people would even agree with me, it is impossible to play as good without it on patchwerk style fights, regardless of time spent playing this class, which is a kind of broken to me this way.

I don't agree with that.

I've never used a move-suggesting script and I've never seen reason to do so. The thing to understand is that these move-suggesting scripts are not perfect or anywhere close. They are written by people who pick a particular set of parameters related to the rotation and then attempt to maximize simulated damage with respect to these parameters. Examples of typical parameters are "minimum durations left on rip and SR for which FB should be used" and "maximum duration left on rake for which rake should be refreshed with TF".

The problem with this method is that in order to actually find the optimal rotation, you need to study an enormous parameter space. You would also need to see how the optimal parameters change as external parameters like encounter duration and player stats change. In practice this would take far too long, so instead you settle for a vastly reduced parameter space at fixed external parameters (or only a few values) and hope to get somewhat close to the optimal rotation.

This produces a decent starting point for inexperienced players, but for an experienced player it's extremely easy to find ways to outperform such a script. As a couple of quick examples,

• The commonly used parameter "minimum durations left on rip and SR for which FB should be used" is a bad parameter. The remaining TF cooldown and current energy pool are both extremely important to this consideration, with TF being worth about 9 seconds of energy regeneration. Also, the optimal value of this parameter depends on player stats in that it decreases at higher haste and/or lower mastery.
• "Maximum duration left on rake for which rake should be refreshed with TF" is also not a good parameter. Once you synchronize rake and TF, they remain synchronized in principle for the rest of the fight. Therefore it is also important to take into account the remaining duration of the encounter.

Such parameters can still provide rough guidelines to experienced players, but there's no advantage in using an addon script to keep track of them.

For my own part, I've always relied on some combination of my intuition and my own napkinmath to perform my rotation (and if you're curious, it's worked out about this well over the tiers). I usually don't even keep track of the results of these parameter optimization exercises (even though they seem to comprise the bulk of feral rotational theorycraft these days) because in most cases I don't consider them useful at all to me.

[Sibylle]

This been said, I cant let this thread goes without take the opportunity to express my most sincere thankful to all those contributors, skillfull and seasoned druid players who share their knowledge in TFD forums and build tools to spread this knowledge!

Thank you all!

I very much second that! And your English is fine

Thanks all for sharing, this gives me so much insight and more realistic expectations. We raided again yesterday and while I'm still last or second-to-last on most fights, I am sometimes third or forth in dps too and my mistakes are fewer. So there *is* improvement.

As for the Ovale-discussion, I think that's really a matter of preference. I think what we can agree on is that we need a way to track our DoTs and cooldowns to perform optimally, as this is not something that can be "learned" or internalised. Details are a matter of personal preference and playstyle. Which doesn't mean that I don't enjoy reading about your reasons for using, or not using, Ovale!

Thank you all, and keep 'em replies coming

[Samskeyti]

When I first started raiding as feral, it was in WOTLK and Naxxramas and honestly, I was so bad... I didn't want to raid on my hunter anymore, so I tried to convince my then raidleader that I could swap to feral dps instead, and I didn't impress her But a couple of months later, the raiding community fell apart and I did my first raids with Samskeyti again in a ten man group in Ulduar. I can't remember much, but I had progressed a lot since. I was using Ovale and to be honest, it was a (life?) dps saver. Because when before I'd get stuck on the rotation and sit there thinking frantically what to do and losing valuable dps uptime, I now glanced at Ovale and it quickly got me back in.

I still use Ovale, but more as something that quickly tells me that FF isn't up, and kinda a global thing to advise me what to do, but I do use the spells I think are needed for how the bossfight is currently working.
I don't think I'm a jaw-dropping feral, but back before my six months of casual raiding, I was pretty good, topping fights and chasing rogues on the meters, and I knew the fights so well. I remember when I first joined my community I raid with again now, my first couple of fights on Sindragosa 25, my dps was abysmal and I got even called out about it from our druid classleade. But in the end, months later and Sindragosa 25 hc on farm a lot of the times I was top dps. Now, I'm still a bit behind on gear and still learning fights, but hey Hagara 25hc is a fight I love and can really compete with other classes. But fights with lots of AoE like Yor'sah 25 hc... I don't even really bother with swipe. Should I maybe?

So, I think, among other things, once you know the fights inside out, then you can become really good, but it takes time to get there. Knowing when to use cooldowns etc...
But one thing that really really helped me get the hang of the rotation, was to do old raids, such as BT, Battle for Hyjal etc, and I tell this people when they ask me how to become better players. The bosses still live longer than a boss in an instance, there's no pressure on you, you can experiment and it's simply great to learn a class or spec.

[Sibylle]

You know, that's all very true. I joined some Ulduar achievement runs this past week for transmog gear, and it's really great practice to be able to focus on my rotation. I, too, know those moments of hesitation, "shit, here's 5 combo points, what do I need most now?" but they are getting fewer and fewer - and accordingly, my dps in DS raids is slowly climbing a little.

I guess there's still hope for me

Thanks so much for the reply!

[Paramount]

I, too, know those moments of hesitation, "shit, here's 5 combo points, what do I need most now?"

Just wanted to toss this out there.... there isn't some kind of rule or reason that when you're playing feral, you build 5 cp and then use them. It's entirely ok to build 5 cp and then to just keep shredding while you wait for rip or SR timers to tick off. Not that you were playing that way but I still wanted to clear it up in case anyone happened to get the wrong idea.

[Plunge]

When I first started raiding as feral, it was in WOTLK and Naxxramas and honestly, I was so bad... I didn't want to raid on my hunter anymore, so I tried to convince my then raidleader that I could swap to feral dps instead, and I didn't impress her But a couple of months later, the raiding community fell apart and I did my first raids with Samskeyti again in a ten man group in Ulduar. I can't remember much, but I had progressed a lot since. I was using Ovale and to be honest, it was a (life?) dps saver. Because when before I'd get stuck on the rotation and sit there thinking frantically what to do and losing valuable dps uptime, I now glanced at Ovale and it quickly got me back in.

I still use Ovale, but more as something that quickly tells me that FF isn't up, and kinda a global thing to advise me what to do, but I do use the spells I think are needed for how the bossfight is currently working.
I don't think I'm a jaw-dropping feral, but back before my six months of casual raiding, I was pretty good, topping fights and chasing rogues on the meters, and I knew the fights so well. I remember when I first joined my community I raid with again now, my first couple of fights on Sindragosa 25, my dps was abysmal and I got even called out about it from our druid classleade. But in the end, months later and Sindragosa 25 hc on farm a lot of the times I was top dps. Now, I'm still a bit behind on gear and still learning fights, but hey Hagara 25hc is a fight I love and can really compete with other classes. But fights with lots of AoE like Yor'sah 25 hc... I don't even really bother with swipe. Should I maybe?

So, I think, among other things, once you know the fights inside out, then you can become really good, but it takes time to get there. Knowing when to use cooldowns etc...
But one thing that really really helped me get the hang of the rotation, was to do old raids, such as BT, Battle for Hyjal etc, and I tell this people when they ask me how to become better players. The bosses still live longer than a boss in an instance, there's no pressure on you, you can experiment and it's simply great to learn a class or spec.

On Yor'sahj 25 HC Swipe will make up a big chunk of your DPS. With T13 it's easy to not let Rip and Rake fall off sub 60%. I personally get a rip up before the adds spawn, start swiping when they bunch up, pop TF when rip is about to drop, rake, FB then continue to swipe spam (can also weave 4 set Ravage! in there to). This is just what I do and might not be optimal so take with a pinch of salt

[Samskeyti]

On Yor'sahj 25 HC Swipe will make up a big chunk of your DPS. With T13 it's easy to not let Rip and Rake fall off sub 60%. I personally get a rip up before the adds spawn, start swiping when they bunch up, pop TF when rip is about to drop, rake, FB then continue to swipe spam (can also weave 4 set Ravage! in there to). This is just what I do and might not be optimal so take with a pinch of salt

Thanks Plunge I did some swipage at our last raid, we're still not getting him down but any suggestions are always most appreciated.

[Alemenara]

Personally i started raiding as Feral back in August 2010, to get my head around what was the current "rotation" (i use the term loosly) took me a fair bit, i had a basic idea of how the class should be played but was really only half informed as i was lazy at the time and also had trouble executing everything as i wasn't 100% keybound at the time, since i started WoW in July 2010 i don't really think i found my feet until Cataclysm or at best VERY late WoTLK. As Cataclysm came about i got a little more serious and began to theorycraft on a regular basis, constantly simming any new piece of gear and making rough calculations around what stat caps will net the highest damage output on each fight, During T11 i cleared 11/13H as Feral in 25 ranking ~180 on 6-7 of those fights. During T12 i would have called myself Competent with feral and was quite confident coming into T12 and finished quite strong having Multiple top 10 Ranks in both 25H and 10H Brackets, one of the most notable was a Rank 2 on 10H Baleroc @ 36.4 which i never managed to beat (i was about 386 Equipped at the time and almost fell out of my chair when the boss died and i looked at the meter). Coming into Dragon Soul i haven't been quite as serious but i still maintain quite a few ranks.

As far as becoming comfortable with the spec it took me 6-8 months of raiding, by comfortable i mean mapping my binds and re-mapping them to the point where they feel perfect and im not accidentally hitting the wrong thing or freezing up in the middle of the fight forgetting where all of my abilities are located or something like that. You mentioned having trouble getting back into it after battle rezzing? I would recommend keeping your bind for Rebirth on a key where you wont accidentally hit it but you can still get to it quickly (mine is F1) and having both Cat and Bear forms on a similar kind of bind (mine are Z for Cat and X for Bear) so you can quickly get back into it without having to find your mouse cursor since thats the biggest thing that i found whilst learning the spec.

Being at the bottom of the meter should be something that you get comfortable with as Feral has never quite been able to keep up with other melee classes let alone caster DPS, its a utility spec and should be played as such, Ferals offer alot of utility and flexibility to a raid, infact if i were to main change to my arms warrior i could almost garauntee that there are mechanics in some fights which we'd have to review and build a new strat for since we would no longer have a Feral (like P1 Adds on HM Nefarian if you remember that fight). I'm not saying by any means that Feral is bad because in actual fact its quite good when played correctly, im always either 1st or 2nd on the meter in my guild, but since i Raid Lead i make sure theres a little give in our strat to allow for a Feral, but the point that i was getting at is that Ferals still have quite a few restrictions that have been removed from other classes (having your main damage dealing ability require you to be behind your target being the big one) and the fact that they aren't exactly tuned to be competitive as a DPS Spec, you won't ever get the same results from it as if you were playing a DK or a Warrior or something like that.

In terms of how long it will take you to get there, nobody can answer that for sure but as you said you LOVE the spec and you will get there eventually, it may take several months or even years to completely master it, all i can recommend is take a look over your binds and your ui and make sure your binds don't feel clumsy (aka you are never hitting the wrong ability or CD accidentally and you can hit them quickly and easily without much issue), make sure your ui isn't giving you too much information to look at as it can be confusing when you are watching Boss Timers, Class Timers, listening to the RL aswell as attempting to juggle DoT Timers and all this whilst you are learning a fight, its overwhelming for a novice feral and you should attempt to take as much out of the equation as possible so you can focus on 2 basic things, the RL and your damage. So take a look over your ui and make sure you have a clear view of whats going on around you, make sure your timers aren't all over the place and make sure that you have a set of class timers that you find easiest to read (some people like timer bars, others like icons with timers), find whats easiest for you to process and do it. Everything else just comes down to practice and experience, you will find that you will be able to recover from Brezzing, rebuffing, and carrying out special tasks alot quicker as time goes on, i'd suggest using LFR as a tool to accomplish that.

Anyways i hope this helps and i didn't rant on too much.

Regards,
Alemenara

[Sibylle]

It does help - a lot Once again I'm floored at how incredibly helpful and generous of their time the people in this forum are.

Keybinds are a biggie. I've got all the main ones in places I like them now, but the rest is still a work in progress. I do have cat/bear form handy, and the only one I sometimes hit accidentally is Stampeding Roar. That's not a huge problem but it can be inconvenient not to have it ready for Yor'sahj's ooze phase for example, so I'm going to find a better place for it.

By the way. I did some veeeery casual raiding in ICC, doing about 10k dps with a 4k gearscore. At the time I was.... ....
....
- are you ready for this? -
...
- clicking. Yes, really Gods, I was such a noob! I've obviously wisened up in the meantime, I think it was around the start of Cataclysm, and configured my UI in a way that suits me. My druid was parked at the time, but I learned those basics on other characters and it was easy to transfer it all to my kitty when I dusted her off around Christmas.

So this bit works fairly well. The rest, as you said, is practice, and you are also very right on fight mechanics. A lot of the fights are not very forgiving to ferals, unless we're allowed to do something specific, or not kill a certain add, or whatever. But that's not my main concern as yet - I *know* why my dps isn't better, and that's not my lack of gear or the fights, but the glaring mistakes I make in combat. The good thing is that I usually notice those mistakes the moment I make them.

Excuse me while I'm off to the dummies...

[Plunge]

Out of curiosity could I see your UI? I like to see Feral's UIs who are pretty new to it like myself

[Sibylle]

Out of curiosity could I see your UI? I like to see Feral's UIs who are pretty new to it like myself

I'll snap a screen during our raid tonight and post it

[Sibylle]

So, here's my UI out of combat:
http://www.keepandshare.com/userpics/w/ ... 1330038358

And this is about the most crowded my UI ever gets in combat, when all hell breaks loose
http://www.keepandshare.com/userpics/w/ ... 1330038359

Explanations for those who are interested:
I am a firm believer in "whatever works for YOU". So please don't think I mean any of you (I would never presume!) when I say I'm not a friend of the "BBOD" (Big Bar Of Doom) on the bottom of the screen that so many players have. I figure, since I have a widescreen I might as well leave the middle free and pile up stuff on the sides instead.

Kitty stuff:

• My timers are above and to the left of my head. Under me Power Auras for Tiger's Fury and Berserk, the latter has a timer and is visible in the screenshot. Also visible is a brown-ish Aura around me, which indicates that my Savage Roar is going to fall off in less than 10 seconds.
• Under the Power Auras is my energy bar.
• Skada on the bottom right is set to show threat during combat, and damage afterwards.

[Puna]

Out of Combat UI: http://i.imgur.com/pYHKl.jpg
-minimally modified elvUi
-Sexycooldown Bar
-Power Auras
-Ovale (hidden)
-DBM

In combat Auras: http://i.imgur.com/B5ZDC.jpg
-horizontal auras track defensive cds
-first vertical column is offence cds/procs/buffs
-2nd vertical column is outside cds, shattering throw, on use trinkets/potions etc.
-All other auras are boss specific, debuff timers, buff timers etc.
-They're obviously not all up at one time so its generally very open in the center of my screen (just how I like it)

-Dbm timers are to the left of my power auras
-I have a bunch of Noise auras to, like my kirils stacking is the kitty meow, most debuffs use the sonar noise.
-I have a lot of hidden key binds. I play with a razor naga and a Belkin n52te game-pad, so lots of stuff I just have memorized and keep hidden.

[Floofles]

Honestly? After 2 raids in Naxx 25.

This is one of the easiest classes to play, and while i'm past my peak now and haven't played for 2 months, fairly confident once i'm on an equal footing with gear again I will rape as much face as a cat can, which is about 66% of a proper class, currently.

The people who suggest move suggesters etc are probably over reliant on them and really i've never seen a player who uses them do as much dps as the people who just understand the class.

You probably spend more time arsing about looking at the damned thing and following it blindly without actually truly understanding how to maximise yourself on the fight.

My advice is to remember you're playing a horrible class and you're not equipped with the same things the other melee are - use this to your advantage and know your weaknesses. If you are being told to switch to a target for a really small amount of time, you're probably the worst class to do it, so just don't. Know what you can and can't do.

[Stenhaldi]

Tangential but in response to the last post:

If you can time your swaps with the TF cooldown then feral is actually very good for short-lived targets. I'm able to pretty much top damage on corrupting parasites, elementium bolts, and (almost) blistering tentacles (all short-lived single target) every week on heroic madness because the timing works out. In some cases you can even refresh rip on the corruption/limb right before swapping and then refresh it again with a quick BitW ferocious bite when you swap back.

All of this is made possible only by the 2- and 4-piece tier 13 set bonuses, however.

[Paramount]

All of this is made possible only by the 2- and 4-piece tier 13 set bonuses, however.

Thank god for that. In an expansion that was largely uneventful aside from a couple changes to our swipe damage, the playstyle changes that resulted from our tier sets were and are a welcome change of pace. I actually somewhat like the idea of leaving the basic priorities and abilities of the spec in tact while designing tier bonuses which can potentially alter playstyle. It's certainly better than the countless "Ability X is increased by Y%" that has been used much too liberally and for far too long.