The move is complete! (Well, kinda.)

After long hours of tweaking, I’m happy to announce that the new website is ready for your viewing pleasure. Please visit http://fluiddruid.net for continued shapeshifty goodness!

If you subscribe to this blog via RSS, the new feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/fluiddruid (or click the large orange button on the new website!) Please update your feedreaders, as I will not be posting to the old feed from now on.

New Features:

• Forums! This is the part I’m most excited about. Blogs are great for one-way conversations, but they tend to be lacking for in-depth discussion. I hope to build a good-sized community of fellow WoW players here who are interested in developing their skills. (Of course, if you just want to post lolcats, that’s totally cool too.) Please let me know what you think, either via comments or on the forum. I’m still working on the forum themes…it took me 3 hours tonight to figure out why my theme wasn’t displaying any buttons. Finally realized that the board language was set to American English (enUS) but the theme images were set up for British English (en). Bah.
• Wowhead tooltips! All those kitty gear guides that I posted previously? Now Powered by Wowhead (TM).
• Kickin’ styles! Well, sort of. This will be my first site, so I’ve taught myself bits of CSS, PHP, and phpBB over the past few days. I now know enough to be overconfident. 🙂

About the Ads:

You will quickly notice a small Google Adsense box on the new website, so I’ll address that now. This is up here primarily to appease my significant other, who wants to know why I waste so much time on some silly blog. 🙂 I get a lot of traffic from search engines from people who come here for one of my guides and disappear–this is who I am targeting these ads at. Most of my regular visitors have some sort of adblock tool installed anyway, from what I understand, so hopefully this is not an issue. The forums and RSS feed will remain ad-free. (Unless someone offers me like three figures. Yeah, I’m cheap.)

To Come:

Now that the site coding/design work is at a lull (for now), I’ve got several topics that I hope to knock out posts on soon.

• Cat Gearing Guide, Part 4 (ICC-25): Let’s get to the good stuff.
• Kitty Trinket Analysis: Should I use the Deathbringer’s Needle-Encrusted War Token, or the Whispering Verdict of Victory? We’ll figure it out!
• PanzerKitty: What to Do When the Boss Likes You
• Advanced Feline Concepts: A few tips on how to eke out extra bits of DPS on each encounter.
• Auto John F’ing Madden: How to use Ovale to maximize your DPS
• Why Hunters Must Die for Stealing our Weapons…err, okay, that’s enough for one day.

I’ll be adding many more sites to the blogroll…please post if I’d already talked to you, as I’ve got a lot going on right now. Enjoy the new site!

Site upgrade coming soon

I haven’t put pen to paper fingers to keyboard recently on this blog, since I’ve actually buckled down and started working on a new self-hosted site for it. It’s actually up and running now, but I still have a bit more work to do on it before going public (should be sometime this week). I’ve got several topics that I’m excited to be covering.

Screamin Mimi

We were pretty stretched for people last night, due to some unexpected cancellations/issues, so  we decided to go do some Ulduar, after zerging Naxx for the weekly. (It’s a bit sad when you can down Anub’Rekhan in under a minute.) Apparently, CD had tried to get to Algalon-25, but never made it through Mimiron HM, and had set it aside when TOC came out. After a breezy clear, we get to Mimi, and our RL asks for those with healing off-specs to go heals for some learning attempts.

Now, I hadn’t healed in a while, but I still had a decent T9 set in my bags, so I threw that on, quickly set up my spell bindings in Vuhdo (lost all my settings in the move, haven’t healed since) and was ready to rock…I thought. (Note: I’ve never done 25M Ulduar past Auriaya, period.) Phase 1 wasn’t too bad, once we worked out spacing issues. Phase 2?

HOLY S***. HOW did people do this in Ulduar-level gear? My stream of consciousness was something like this:

rejuvrejuvgetoutoffirerejuvdodgerocketrejuvgroupdyingWGSMcraponfiremoverejuv
crapmeleeoutofrangemoveWGrejuvabouttodiebarkskinrejuvNSHT
dodgelasersmovecrapcleararcisburningrejuvWGwtf20%manainnervahhburnin….kindling.

Okay, our full-time resto druid can take over, I’m done now. Seriously. I looked at WoL, and the P2 raid damage is roughly equal to BQL raid damage, and burstier. Thank GOD our RL marked group leaders; it was all I could do to follow that triangle (and I failed a lot…I’m pretty sure I took the most flame damage for the whole raid)

We actually almost beat him; we lost half the melee to a frost bomb in P4 and couldn’t make the enrage timer. Bah.

(Hopefully, there’s a couple old cannon-cockers out there who get the title reference.)

Ferals and Mastery (Cataclysm)

I’ve been waiting to comment on the new mastery system until we got a little more info, but I feel compelled to note Eyonix’s clarification today, as it directly affects feral druids.

First, the original Mastery summary:

…Here’s how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you’ll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree — meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear.

Several examples were given in the original post, such as a holy priest which received +%healing, +mana regen, and small HoTs on direct heals. You will only get this bonus from the tree in which you have the most points, and there will be a cap to discourage 0/0/76 type builds. Now, while this is a good system, I (among others) were unsure on how it would handle ferals (and DKs) who have two separate roles within the same tree. Hence, today’s clarification:

2) Ferals will have passive bonuses that say Cat: melee damage done, Bear: damage reduction. For death knights we have a different plan in mind that we’re not quite ready to discuss. DKs are undergoing some slight changes so they aren’t so GCD constrained and are less limited by rune cooldowns.

So, presumably, bonus 1 will be Bear +damage reduction / Cat +damage increase, bonus 2 will be +agility, and bonus 3? Dunno. Maybe Cat +bleed damage, Bear +%HP? That sounds pretty good, and it also sounds like we’ll be able to continue with a limited hybrid spec for early content.

PP down

Well, that wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. Got him on our ninth pull and had an hour left in our raid time to wipe on Sindragosa trash. 🙂 We effectively 24-manned, since we had a healer auto-release (oops), so I think we would have still gotten him without the buff.

Fight tips:

• Pick a strategy for experiment management and stick with it. We kept PP permanently on the green side; this let our melee stay stacked up to take a hit, or move with the slime and then jump in front for ranged. Gas clouds were easier; the target kites it past PP so the melee can break off and kill it quickly without having to run halfway across the room. It sounds complicated, but it’s not too difficult after a few attempts.
• Managing phase transitions are a pain, but it’s important, especially going into P3 (you lose the abom, so no slows on the add). We were stopping DPS on PP at 36%, which worked most of the time. If you’re having problems with this, try splitting DPS with PP at 36-37% while a slime’s up. An add at 20% health isn’t a big deal, but an add at 100% health will probably wipe your raid.
• Tanks really have to be on the ball for this one, kiting wise. The slime’s easy to stay out of; the choking gas bombs, not so much, but make the effort. Melee DPS will be target switching so much that they’ll have trouble tracking the gas bomb timers (I know I did). Our tank did an amazing job of kiting PP, and our other

Feral tips:

• Bears make for a great OT here, since they can go cat and dps P1/P2.
• Use your speed! You should be in on every slime stack (unless your strategy dictates otherwise). Pop Barkskin to help mitigate the damage. Also try to position yourself so that the explosion sends you back towards PP; if your DPS is reasonable (and it should be if you’ve made it here), the slime should be mostly dead at the first explosion, so you can just switch back to PP; this will save you some time.
• Save FC/Dash for getting back to PP. Dash is also great for kiting the Gas Cloud (If it’s up, pop BS to help with the damage)
• Berserk in P1 and on CD in P2; save the third for P3.
• Do NOT get hit by Choking Gas in P3. The tank should be kiting away from them, but he’ll be constrained by slime. They’re almost impossible to spot (IMHO) if you don’t see them spawn, so keep your eyes open when the timer goes off.
• I didn’t on the kill, but in retrospect, one of our previous wipes might have been a kill if I’d used Tranquility. With NI, you’ll be kicking out 10K hps for 8 sec. Great for keeping the tanks propped up for the final 5%. It’s especially good to do this if you get hit by the Choking Gas, as you’re pretty useless dps-wise until that wears off.

This and that

Not a lot to say tonight; just a few random thoughts floating through my brain that don’t really deserve their own post. We’ll call them postettes. (postellas?)

• Personally, I’m pretty happy with the DPS I’ve been doing. I don’t have a good measurement for this week, but I did pull top DPS for my “segment” on BQL. (As in, I was one of the last 8 to get bitten, and I was ninth on overall DPS, just over 10k.) As much as I enjoyed shepherding my previous guild, it’s a welcome change to be nearer to the bottom of the DPS charts than the bottom. I should come up a little bit as well next week, now that my desktop has finally arrived from Korea…DPSing at 4-5 FPS is a challenge. I’m okay with the standard rotation, but as soon as I start having to move, things get ugly.
• It’s a bit unfortunate that we chose BQL as our first end-wing boss to work on, as the 5% buff makes the gear check much, much easier. We had the mechanics down two weeks ago, but never the raw DPS/HPS (we’d always lose at least one person coming out of the 2nd air phase). We probably put in 30+ attempts over those two weeks (and there was more before I joined the guild) and the closest we came was 3% before our first kill last Sunday (pre-buff, FWIW). After the buff, we rolled in there with one less DPS than normal (went 7 heals instead of 6), with a few key people out, and 4-shot her. We also downed VDW for the first time…not a terribly difficult fight, it just takes a few attempts for the healers to get used to the portals/buffs. (And apparently, they’re hotfixing that to make it easier as well.) We’re taking our first shots at PP tomorrow night. I’m still amazed at the amount of progress we’re making though…we raid 8.5 hours per week, and we’re a top 5ish guild on our server. (Or maybe we’re just a backwater server…who cares.)
• Speaking of the ICC buff, I don’t really have a problem with it; however, they really should have found a way to prevent it from being applied in heroic before they rolled it out. (At this rate, once the buff hits 30%, we’ll have people pugging the heroic version and skipping normal, just like heroics.) At the very least, have achievements that differentiate. Since it’s impossible to tell if a kill was done with it off, I predict that 99.5% of guilds will leave it on (and many of those will lie about it).

3 extra talent points…what to do?

Aissi brought up a good point in the comments to my last post, noting that the 3 points previously used to take Imp. Mangle were now freed up to take Feral Aggression. Technically, that’s correct, but really, all I can say is “meh.” Imp. Mangle currently is worth about .5% DPS per talent point (so it was okay but never that good to begin with) and Feral Aggression is worth about .2% (blech). After the Mangle changes, Imp. Mangle will be worth about .1% DPS per talent point (double blech). Sure, you can move 3 points into FA if you want, but we’re talking a TINY increase. As in, my projected DPS goes from 10579 to 10621, a .4% increase. Remember, this is assuming perfect fight conditions with no movement, where you have surplus energy and CP’s to burn on bites. (FA gets a bit better if you’re ArPen capped…but I’m not talking to you. Shoo, vastly OP kitty…but give me your DBW before you go.)

Seriously. Look again at your utility, and remember you’re a hybrid class. I’m still going 0/5 FA, and maxing Nurturing Instinct (+20% healing received, plus a halfway decent Tranquility) and going for Imp. LOTP (extra passive healing is never bad) or Protector of the Pack for vastly improved emergency tanking. It even works out mathematically; in the case of Nurturing Instinct, I’m trading .4% personal DPS (from FA) for 20% personal heals, or a .8% increase in raid heals (even more in 10-man). Think about it.

3.3.3 Mangle changes

It’s been a few days since my last post, due to a few factors (Yay for my $100 cable modem not lasting a month…thank god for tethering). CD successfully took down 25M BQL pre-nerf (pre-buff?), and should be rolling through the rest of ICC soon. I’ve finished my 4pT10 and have reclaimed my place near the top of the DPS charts…or so I think. 🙂

I’m motivated to write today though because of the new feral changes recently announced. (Unlike all the other bloggers, I don’t see the point of commenting on the Cataclysm stats changes. Let’s wait for the details, IMO.) From MMO-Champion:

• Mangle now increases the damage of bleed effects for 1 min. (Up from 12 sec)
• Mangle (Bear) now increases the damage of bleed effects for 1 min. (Up from 12 sec)
• Mangle (Cat) now increases the damage of bleed effects for 1 min. (Up from 12 sec)
• Glyph of Mangle: This glyph now provides 10% increased damage done by Mangle instead of increasing the duration of the debuff.

Cats:

This is a decent buff for most of us. Most DPS warriors are specced Fury these days, so typically we’ve been required to keep Mangle up as part of our rotation unless there’s a bear druid tanking (also rare). We’ll still have to Mangle, but much less frequently, which frees up more energy for Shreds. This has three benefits: first, Shred has about a 20% higher DPE than Mangle, so that’s more base damage. Second, it’ll be much easier to ensure we get the three Shreds in needed to fully utilize the Glyph of Shred. Third, it’ll make the rotation easier. Yawning (the new Toskk) has already updated the calculator at Toskk’s site, so feel free to run your stats there, but my estimate is a 2% projected DPS increase, with an actual DPS increase of ~4-5% from being better able to follow priorities. (The simulator assumes you always get your 3 shreds in, for example, but this isn’t always the case currently, if you have to refresh Mangle twice, Rake twice, Savage Roar and TF/Berserk is on CD.) Of course, if you already have someone running Mangle, then no increase for you. 🙂 The glyph is certainly improved, but it won’t replace your usual three. It will be good for PvP or leveling, which is nice.

Bears:

Well, the Mangle change doesn’t affect you (since you were Mangling on CD anyway), but the Glyph is now a viable third option for a bit more threat. If you’re running a full bear spec (without Shredding Attacks) and are forced to do some cat DPS, you’ll be mangling instead of shredding, so this will help with that as well.

Valithria Dreamwalker strategy tips

After doing a few pulls on the Dreamwalker encounter last night, I was intrigued enough by the encounter to write up some tips…and yes, my “tips” always turn into walls o’ text. (Don’t tell my RL, but I did some feral healing and snuck into a portal on a pull last night to check out the dreamworld.)

Composition

10M: 2 portal/Val healers, 1/2 tank/raid healers, 1/2 tanks, rest DPS. (10M is very flexible, composition wise.)

25M: 4 portal/Val healers, 3 raid healers, 2 tanks, rest DPS. Assign one ranged DPS per side as zombie kiters. Assign one melee per side as archmage interrupter. Rest follow DPS order (below).

Portal healers should be people who are comfortable moving in 3D space. Remember Malygos/Oculus? If you HATED the flying parts there, you may not be the best choice for portal healing. Otherwise, the priority is roughly shaman>druid>paladin>hpriest>dpriest. (Shammies can probably pump out the most HPS (or close to it) due to AA and don’t raid heal overly well here. Druids’ HPS is lower than shaman or paladin, but their extra mobility is quite helpful to get to portals. Paladins work well either in-portal or out, and are probably the best overall healer to have for this fight, due to Beacon (they can dump quite a good bit of healing on Val even unbuffed).  Holy Priests are at a HPS disadvantage, though they have a key role in this fight with glyphed Guardian Spirit. Disc priests are advised to switch to Holy for this one. :))

Overview

Dreamwalker starts at 50% health and must be healed to full. (12M health in 10M, 36M in 25M, of which you’re healing half.) The healers assigned to this will be alternately healing her and going through portals she spawns to collect a stacking buff which increases their healing done and mana regen. The remainder of the raid will be defending her against a flow of adds that gradually increases in speed, with two tank/dps teams on either side.

Strategy, by role

Tank(s): Tank the Abominations facing away from the raid as much as possible to reduce Gut Spray damage on other raid members. Watch for Abom’s to die and be prepared to pick up the  Be prepared to pick up and get threat on Archmages quickly, as they’ll be a kill priority for melee.

Melee DPS: Priority is Blazing Skeletons/Suppressors/Archmages/Abominations. One melee DPS per side should be assigned to keep Archmages as highest priority to interrupt their Frostbolt Volley (make sure you let the tanks pick up threat first though). Watch Abomination facing to keep out of Gut Spray, and watch for the Archmage’s frost columns. You can help DPS zombies if the kiter has a comfortable threat lead (I frequently dropped a Rake on one while heading to something else), just stay away from them if they’re at low HP; they go boom. Kitties: Don’t use a normal DPS rotation, except for the Aboms, as most stuff is going to die too fast for Rip to be viable. Rake/SR/Mangle/Shred to 5 CP’s/Bite.

Ranged DPS: Priority is Blazing Skeletons (on either side)/Suppressors/Zombies/Abominations/Archmages. Position yourself near the middle and feel free to help on targets on the other side.  One ranged kiter per side (generally a Hunter) should kite the Zombies; try not to drag them through the tanks/melee, especially at low HP. (They go boom.) On 10M, it’s a good strategy to have one DPS enter portals to get the stacking buff, preferably an Arcane mage (good burst dps) or Elemental shammy (can do some off-healing)

Raid Healers: Same as normal, though you’ll be healing the tank more than you’re used to. You’ll probably have some mana issues, so ask for Innervates/Mana Tides early; the Valithria healers won’t need them. Almost all of the (non-tank) damage is avoidable until the late phases, so if people are dying early, that’s their fault. If you have spare GCD’s, heal Valithria.

Valithria Healers: Ah, the key to this fight. Here’s how it works. Starting 30s in and every 45s thereafter, Valithria will spawn 6 portals (3 in 10M). These portals will drop you into the “Emerald Dream” for 20s, where lots of green balls will be floating around. Every green ball that’s touched by a player will pop, giving everyone within 10yards a 10% buff to healing and damage done and some MP5. This buff lasts 35s, and stacks (to 100, though you won’t get that far). After leaving the Dream, you’ll have 25s to heal Val before the portals reopen and you start over. Here’s the breakdown (I find timelines helpful):

0:30- First portals spawn.
0:50- Out of dream world. (no, you can’t click off the buff to leave early). Hopefully, you’ll have popped a ball right before you exit. Run to where the portals spawn and start healing Val. An orb will appear a few seconds before the portal opens, so go stand on one to mark it as yours.
1:15- Next portals spawn. If you popped a ball right before you left, you’ll have 10s to quickly find another ball to refresh your stacks (though it’ll probably be closer to 5s).
1:35- Out of dream world.
2:00- Next portals spawn.
(etc.)
~7:00- Adds come too quickly; raidwipe.

There’s two strategies for grabbing balls that have been used successfully. The first and most common assigns each healer an area. This is a less risky strategy, but requires that each healer possess good 3D movement and awareness. The second has the healers group (after they grab one ball individually to refresh their stack) and all follow one person, sharing in the 10y splash. Each strategy is viable, so pick whichever best fits your raid. The most important thing, however, is not getting greedy; watch your debuff timer carefully and make sure you grab a ball right before your debuff wears off, to give yourself maximum time during the next portal phase.

Once you exit the realm, you’ll be dropped back into the raid. Immediately run back to your portal spot while popping any instants you have, then push max HPS into Valithria. Hopefully, one of your holy priests has glyphed Guardian Spirit (10s of +40% healing every minute is AWESOME) and will have that up on the pull and every other portal phase. (Sadly, she has a hidden debuff that prevents chaining GS with multiple priests. One per minute is all you get.) Paladins should beacon Val and HL bomb someone in the raid, probably a tank. Shamans will RT and HW spam on Val; Druids will slow-stack LB, roll RG/RJ, pop SM on CD, and spam Nourish. DON”T WORRY ABOUT THE RAID (though a couple instants as you’re moving into position is fine). Your priority is getting into portals quickly to refresh your buff, proper timing in the portal to give yourself max time in the next, and healing Val as much as you can. In that order. You’ll get about 9-10 portals before the enrage; after the 7th portal phase or so (6m in), pop Hero, pop Guardian Spirit, pop all healer cooldowns, have all hybrids heal as well, and get her the rest of the way. Prot pally LoH is great. 🙂

Random Tips (that I haven’t confirmed)

– Fire and Frost Res auras are great, but I’m not sure if raiders retain the benefit if the providing paladin is in the Dream.

– Totems despawn when a shammy enters the Dream (so drop that Mana Tide when you come OUT).

– Supposedly you’re both “mounted” and “swimming” in the dream realm, so swim speed or mount speed buffs might help.

– Amplify Magic on Val is probably a good idea.

– Mark the portal healers so they don’t try to take the same portals.

The 3.3 Cat Gearing Guide, Part 3 (10M ICC)

For Part 3 of the guide, we’ll be looking at a build using the gear available from 10M ICC (normal) and Frost Emblems. You do miss out on a few fun toys from 25M ICC (Deathbringer’s Will, for instance), but your gearing will be much simpler. Much depends on the buffs/debuffs you have available. For the purposes of this post, I’ll assume you have Imp. MOTW/Faerie Fire (duh), Might, Kings, Horn of Winter, Trueshot Aura, Sunder Armor, and an Endless Rage flask. I also won’t take any profession bonuses into account.

Note: Most of these calculations were derived using Rawr, so go download it and follow along if you haven’t already.

TLDR Version:

1. You NEED 4pT10. Rake being able to crit, with our absurdly high crit rates, will be a very powerful addition. You’re looking at a 6-8% DPS increase just from that set bonus. It’ll take a while to get there though, so it’s probably best to keep 4pT9 until you get 2 pieces of T10. You can break it early if you’re upgrading from 232’s, but I’d keep ilvl 245 2pT9 as long as you can.

2. Don’t believe the ArPen hype. Agility remains the best stat. Why? Well, as I mentioned earlier, the 4pT10 bonus feeds off agi/crit. ArPen only helps your direct attacks, mainly your white damage and your Shreds. Now, if you have lots of haste or lots of ArPen (from 25-man buffs, 25m ICC gear, or both) than this might change, but in general, things look like this (10m buffs):
Gearing up (4pT9): Agi > Str > Crit > ArPen
Somewhat geared (2pT10ish): ArPen > Agi > Str
4pT10(251): Agi > ArPen > Str

I’ll cover how the picture changes with 25m gear in a later post. It’s up to you if you want to regem for ArPen then back to Agi…that can get pretty expensive, however, and the DPS difference is fairly minimal (-50ish DPS for going full ArPen vs agi/crit, or a -.5% drop).

Gear List

Head: Lasherweave Headguard, 95 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Discarded Bag of Entrails (My, what a lovely name), Prof. Putricide; Hood of Lethal Intent, 75 EoT’s.
Notes: The Bag is an okay piece, but PP is one of the harder bosses, so you may not get it early (and the T10 is superior anyway). The 245 piece is much better than it was in T9, since you’re less likely to be hitcapped.

Neck: Rimetooth Pendant, Sindragosa.
Alternatives: Precious’s Putrid Collar, Festergut; Wodin’s Lucky Necklace, ICC BoE world drop.
Notes: Whichever one you get…you’re likely to get the Collar first, but the hit on it may go to waste. If you’re lucky enough (or rich enough), you might get Wodin’s, which is a 264 and superior to both. (It can drop in 10 or 25.)

Shoulders: Lasherweave Shoulderpads, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Skinned Whelp Shoulders, Valithria; Duskstalker Shoulderpads, 45 EoT’s.
Notes: All of these are pretty close in stats. The Whelp Shoulders are slightly superior, but not enough to make this the preferred off-set.

Back: Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape, 50 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Shawl of Nerubian Silk, Marrowgar; Saronite Gargoyle Cloak, Gunship
Notes: The EoF cape is a VERY good piece (arguably BiS until heroic), but it still doesn’t take precedence over your 4pT10. It’s about an 80 dps upgrade over the Shawl, which shouldn’t be hard to come by. The Saronite cloak is meant for plate DPS’ers (str instead of agi), but we do okay with strength, so it’s a good third option.

Chest: Lasherweave Raiment, 95 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Chestguard of the Frigid Noose, Deathwhisper; Ikfirus’s Sack of Wonder, Gunship(25M) BoE.
Notes: The Chestguard and the T10 piece are almost identical, except for an extra gem slot in the Chestguard. It’s pretty easy to get, so I’d use that and hold off from upgrading to the T10 until you need to. The Sack BoE isn’t really all that great for DPS…it’s more of a bear tanky piece.

Wrist: Vambraces of the Frost Wyrm Queen, Sindragosa.
Alternatives: Bracers of Swift Death, crafted.
Notes: The crafted bracers are great (it’s only about a 20 dps upgrade to the Vambraces) so this slot is not a high priority. If you don’t have the crafted bracers, get them. 😛

Hands: Cat Burglar’s Grips, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Scourge Stranglers, Saurfang; Lasherweave Handgrips, 60 EoF’s.
Notes: The tier piece here is the weakest of the five, so this is where I’d recommend you use your off-set (Grips are +80 dps, Stranglers are +40 dps) However, this will mean your 4pT10 will take slightly longer to get, since you’ll have to use the three expensive pieces (chest/head/legs). I’d hold off unless you manage to snag a 264 in another slot, in which case use that as your off-set and pick up the T10. (Legs are an excellent choice to get a 264, so see below.) These also have a chance to drop off Toravon, so try to hold off if possible.

Waist: Vengeful Noose, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Soulthief’s Braided Belt, Deathwhisper.
Notes: The Braided belt is fairly easy to get, so stick with that until you have the EoF’s to burn to upgrade to the Noose (70 dps upgrade, probably your second purchase after the cloak).

Legs: Lasherweave Legguards, 95 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Bladeborn Leggings, crafted; Plague-Soaked Leather Leggings, Festergut.
Notes: The Bladeborn Leggings are VERY good if you only run 10’s…however, you’re missing out on the expertise from the tier piece, which will become a big problem later for 25’s gear. If you don’t mind shelling out the cash and you don’t mind replacing it later, this is the best off-set. Also, as with the hands, this has a chance to drop off Toravon.

Feet: Footpads of Impending Death, crafted.
Alternatives: Taldaram’s Soft Slippers, Princes.
Notes: The crafted Footpads are good, but they’re only mildly better then the drop from Taldaram, so they’re probably not worth the investment. (I have them because I picked a non-optimal way to get under the server-transfer gold cap.) 🙂

Rings: Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance, repring; Saurfang’s Cold-Forged Band, Saurfang (naturally).
Alternatives: Seal of the Twilight Queen, BQL; Runed Band of the Kirin Tor, ~12000g.
Notes: The rep ring is great, so just grab it and go. If you can’t get any of the others, the Dexterous ring is still very good.

Trinkets:Whispering Fanged Skull, Deathwhisper; Herkuml War Token, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Needle-Encrusted Scorpion, H FoS.
Notes:The Skull is just like the good old Mirror of Truth, except BETTER. Can’t go wrong with that. The 2nd slot is debatable, as the value of the Scorpion fluctuates greatly with the amount of ArPen you have. It’s meh with less than 400 ArPen, becomes good in the 400-722 range (ArPen softcap), then starts getting worse. If you managed to snag a Death’s Verdict (Choice) from TOC25, that beats out both; use that instead. Try to get into an ICC25 pug to land Deathbringer’s Will from Saurfang…it’s almost perfectly itemized for ferals.

Weapon: Hersir’s Greatspear, Princes.
Alternatives: Shaft of Glacial Ice, Rotface; Lightborn Spire, quest reward from Battered Hilt questline.
Notes: Not much to say on weapons, as generally you want the item with the highest ilvl. I haven’t listed the weapon from LK…if you’re one of the lucky few who even have a chance at killing him now, then snap that up. Otherwise, Hersir’s is better itemized, but take either of the two if you still have a non-251 weapon. If you raid with a hunter, discuss this with them; you get more of an upgrade from it then they will, as the DPS on the weapon factors into your stats, whereas the hunter simply uses them as stat sticks.

Idol: Idol of the Crying Moon, 30 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Idol of Mutilation, 25 EoT’s.
Notes: This is probably the last place you want to spend EoF’s, as the Moon idol grants about a 30 dps upgrade.

Stats:

Again, I’ll be analyzing this gear set from three different buff perspectives.

First, we’ll look at the numbers when selfbuffed, with only Imp. MOTW. Next, we’ll look at the set from a 10-man buff perspective, with my arbitrary list of buffs including Horn of Winter, Blessing of Might/Kings, Trueshot Aura, Sunder Armor, Agility food, and an Endless Rage flask. Finally, we’ll look at a 25-man buff perspective, adding in Imp. BOM, Ret buffs (Sanc. Ret, Swift. Ret, HotC), Savage Combat, Imp. Windfury, Enhancing Totems, Heroism, Trauma from an arms war, and a speed pot. These numbers are assuming full enchants (see part 1 for enchant list), and are optimized with Rawr for the best gems. See below for the relative stat values. (Note: I decided to not go with ungemmed gear this time…it’s really kind of a hassle to do. Also, remember that Rawr’s stats are slightly higher than paperdoll since they add in averaged-out procs over the fight length. I’ve used the default 5min duration.)

Character:	Self-Buff	10M-Buff	25M-Buff
Race:	NightElf	NightElf	NightElf
DPS Points:	6918	9003	10984
Attack Power:	10455	13429	13322
Agility:	2129	2562	2251
Strength:	169	371	398
Crit Rating:	958	923	898
Hit Rating:	225	225	225
Expertise Rating:	144	144	80
Haste Rating:	294	286	311
Armor Penetration Rating:	544	597	928
Avoided Attacks:	1.14%	1.14%	2.69%
Crit Chance:	67.41%	72.17%	70.96%
Attack Speed:	0.890s	0.893s	0.715s

10M bumps up DPS considerably by boosting AP, Agi, and Str.  25M goes back to ArP. These numbers will mean more in context: let’s look at the calculated relative stat values.

Relative Stat Values:

Optimized Gemming (9 red/7 yellow/3 blue/1 colorless):

Self/10m buffs: +20 agi in red/colorless slots, +10 agi/+10 crit in yellow slots, one +10 stats then +20 agi in blue slots.
25m buffs: +20 ArP in red/colorless slots, +10 agi/+10 crit or +20 ArP in yellow slots, depending on socket bonus, one +10 stats then +20 ArP in blue slots.

Character:	Self-Buff	10M-Buff	25M-Buff
Agi:	1.14	1.55	2.00
Str:	1.05	1.39	1.8
ArPen:	1.01	1.43	2.11
Crit:	1.08	1.36	1.68
Haste:	0.79	1.12	1.58
Exp:	0.51	0.00(cap)	1.35
Hit:	0.71	0.95	1.35
AP:	0.49	0.60	0.76

As you can see, agi remains your top stat for 10M content, but the added buffs in 25M push ArPen over the top. Why? See below.

Damage Table:

Character:	Self-Buff	10M-Buff	25M-Buff
Melee:	337x (23.7%)	336x (26.1%)	419x (30.8%)
Mangle:	145 DPE (6.1%)	197 DPE (6.4%)	228 DPE (0.0%)
Shred:	174 DPE (17.3%)	236 DPE (17.9%)	273 DPE (25.6%)
Rake:	390 DPE (21.3%)	473 DPE (19.8%)	499 DPE (17.3%)
Rip:	1980 DPE (25.4%)	2342 DPE (23.1%)	2469 DPE (20.0%)
Bite (5cp):	331 DPE (6.2%)	449 DPE (6.7%)	521.4 DPE (6.4%)

Once again, I’ve included a DPE table. What I want to point out specifically here is the increase in % of damage done by direct attacks as you receive more buffs. The extra haste means a lot more melee attacks are landing, which drastically increases the effectiveness of ArPen. This may lead to rotation priority adjustments, especially as you approach the ArPen cap (1400). It remains to be seen if the 4pT10 set bonus will continue to be strong enough for Rake. Looking at the 25m buff example, if the effect of the 4pT10 set bonus is removed, Rake’s DPE drops to 280, which is almost equal to Shred…and that’s only at 928 ArPen.

That’s it for this section; in part 4, I’ll be analyzing the same numbers using a 25M ICC BiS gearset. The wait shouldn’t be as long this time, though. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

10455
2129
169
958
225
144
294
544