Druid DPS

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I was getting my ass handed to me in Violet Hold Herioc the other day (thanks the gods of gaming for the awesome tank we had) and I was told by the guys Cat DPS isn't the best anymore but Boomkin is.

Confirm/Deny?
 
Cat DPS is quite hard to perfect. It is considered to be one of, if not the lowest DPS classes in the game. HOWEVER, it can pull decent DPS if done right.
They'll do roughly the same amount of dmg but cat is harder so most cats are bad where boomkin isn't as complex a rotation.
It all comes down to your timing and gear. And of course your rotation.
All write a bit about your rotation that might help you out now.

Mangle, rake, SR, shred, tigers fury, shred to make 5 points rip, refresh mangle if needed you can also throw ferocious bites in there as filler if your dots are good and your energy is right.and dont forget make sure FFF is up to. and you keep this cycle going through the fight. for trash mangle spam or swipe spam.
 
I've seen a kitty dps on top of the meters in a 25 man VoA run before. He was doing around ~6k dps.
 
Cat DPS is quite hard to perfect. It is considered to be one of, if not the lowest DPS classes in the game. HOWEVER, it can pull decent DPS if done right.
They'll do roughly the same amount of dmg but cat is harder so most cats are bad where boomkin isn't as complex a rotation.
It all comes down to your timing and gear. And of course your rotation.
All write a bit about your rotation that might help you out now.

Mangle, rake, SR, shred, tigers fury, shred to make 5 points rip, refresh mangle if needed you can also throw ferocious bites in there as filler if your dots are good and your energy is right.and dont forget make sure FFF is up to. and you keep this cycle going through the fight. for trash mangle spam or swipe spam.

My rotation usually includes quite a few mangles because that does a bit of damage in one shot (tigers fury) then mangle again, crits for something like 1.5k

Do you reckon I should lay off that and go with others and just refresh it whenever?
 
Mangle does to a fair bit of damage indeed. But the main purpose of it is to increase bleed effects by 30% for 12s.
And since bleed DoTs make up the majority of cat DPS thats basically its only use as shred does a lot more damage. Assuming you are able to stand behind the boss ofcourse.
 
Mangle does to a fair bit of damage indeed. But the main purpose of it is to increase bleed effects by 30% for 12s.
And since bleed DoTs make up the majority of cat DPS thats basically its only use as shred does a lot more damage. Assuming you are able to stand behind the boss ofcourse.

We have some awesome (jawdropping) tanks that knows their ****. Thanks for the tip
 
Another thing about Mangle is that it increases Shred's damage as well. All effects that increase bleed damage also increases Shred's damage (as well as Maul in Bear form).

I like to practice my attack sequences on the dummies inside the cities

Balance also relies a bit on keeping DoT's on the enemy, but it doesn't have the overwhelming amount that Ferals do. It's basically Faerie Fire, Insect Swarm and Moonfire that you have to keep up. I think that most of the damage from Moonkin's come from Eclipse procs, but I might be wrong about that.
 
Kitty DPS is handled in the same way that rogues (esp. mutilate) play ... building combo points & using combo finishers ... always keeping DoT's up etc. A metric bumload of timers to watch to make sure none run out as it's a schlep to restart them (rather than refreshing) them.
 
There any good ways to get to 5 combo points fast?

I usually do 5 combo points "okay" ish, usually 4, hit rip then mangle. Do i wait for the timers to go down before restarting or do i restart my sequence?
 
If you don't have the Primal Fury talent, then spec it. Also have the Shredding Attacks talent, as that decreases the amount of energy for Shred. You have to get up to 5 CP for Rip. Previously, 4 CP was okay, due to the time/energy versus damage rate for the 5th CP, but afaik, that was fixed in WotLK.

As for waiting for the timers to drop or not, I'm not sure. Waiting for it to drop usually means that you get the most out of the energy/cp spent on the attack. But dropping them means you have 1/2 seconds when you don't have the DoT on. I think the common idea is waiting for it to drop and then refresh that one.

I thought about refreshing it on the last second, but I think that would cause the tic timer to reset and you won't get the last damage tick.

Also, don't wait for all of the timers to go down. Refresh one as soon as it is down. The idea is to have all of the DoT's on for most of the time.
 
Hey AcidRazor i had a look at your gear just now. A few thing that might help you out.
First of all i can see you arent a serious raider, but a lot of gear desperately needs improvement. You seem to have a mix-match of DPS gear and tanking gear.
You are geared a lot towards stam, and at this point it might be easier for you to just respec to a tank :)
But either way i think you may want to start doing a bit of VoA in Wintergrasp. Its extremly easy on 10 and 25 man settings and pugs are always available.
Naxx 10 would get you loads of gear upgrades aswell, although that will take a bit more time and a decent group.
Obsidium Sanctum would get you a few pieces of gear aswell and its not too difficult after a few tries.
Other than that i can see you have done a few heroics, but its just about keeping on with it until you get better gear.
You biggest problem with your dps is that you have to much tanking stuff (+stam +def rating) and not enough +agi +hit.
I dont know if you have heard of Atlas Loot or not, but its extreemly useful for checking out possible drops from bosses. Start with replacing your greens one by one.
Also Leatherworkers make a decent DPS shoulder item, i forget its name, but its purple!! :D
That can be made cheaply if you have a skinning friend or a few extra bucks lying around.
I see you are leveling enchanting, major money sink there..
But try get it up to at least Wolk side, then you can start disenchanting and enchanting your own stuff, and could possibly make a killing if ur clever.
A few cheap enchants would do wonders for your gear. I have a tip for gathering BC enchanting mats if you are a bit short, it really helped me out.
Also like Endev8003 said. Practice on the dummies, thats what they are there for... Perfect your rotation!! Get the Recount mod. IF you dont already have it. It will help you track ur DPS.
Badkitty Mod will help you out aswell with ur rotations (once again, if you dont have it already)

And also remeber this: Most people go on about DPS this and DPS that. DPS stand for Damage Per Second. And in a boss fight that is not always the most important thing. Damage Done is.
On my warlock there is no way i can beat a mages DPS but on damage done i kill them.
So its not how fast you do the damage, its how much you do as well.. :D

oh and http://www.wow.com/gallery/adams-wow-gallery/2038788/full/

Enough from me...
 
leather workers can make epic shoulders, cloak and belt that whit the right enchants and a +16 agi gem in the belt helps alot
 
Also Leatherworkers make a decent DPS shoulder item, i forget its name, but its purple!! :D

I think what you are referring to is the Trollwover Spaulders and there is also the Trollwoven Girdle. Requires about 12 heavy borean leather each 5 eternal fire and shadow and a frozen orb.

Sells for about 500G on the AH, but costs about 300G to make.

Is also a nice cape that LW can make.
 
Kitty can own with the right rotation, but it's the hardest to keep up of all classes.

The op rotation is about 8 abilities u use, always keeping up allot of them and then there is also combo points involved. Oc's that is going to be hectic.

Anyway, if u find it hard, then try this little neat addon.

Face Mauler
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/facemauler.aspx

Pretty sure it will help you.
 
I routinely clock around 4k on my kitty in 10 and 25, and its been as high as 5.5k in Naxx25, and I still have a blue helm, most of my gear is 10man gear (3 pcs 25man now). Gemming is also not the best but everything is enchanted.

At the end of the day it comes down to understanding the rotation. For instance, if you have a bear tank and he is on the same target as you, mangling is a waste of energy for you as the debuff doesnt stack. Shred ftw for max damage but if you have a rip and a mangle debuff on the target when you shred, it increases the damage loads. SR is great too, try to keep it up all the time, and FFF altho again if you have a bear tank he or the boomkin usually does that so its one less thing for you to do.

Remember tho that its also ok to land pure white hits... as they proc yr clearcasting state, so its not just abt spamming mangle for doing dmg. Kitties facemaul with the best, right up there with hunters and rogues at the top of the list.
 
I just mangle spam and put up some dots and extra ap buff depends on how much I has to run around I do around 2.5k - 4.5k fight and boss depending but would rather tank a fight than dps RawR RawR
 
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