3.3 Gear and Stat information for kitties

3.3 Non Tier Gear vs Tier Gear what is best for your kitty?

Another look at 3.3 by Feral Agression changes with gear suggestions / crafted / trinkets / rings and other goodies.

I had found and posted these to my guild forums today and figured I'd spread the feral love. :) 

I must first hang my head in kitty shame.... I have not kept this guide up to date.  I hope you all have availed yourselves of BBB, Elitest Jerks, Daily Druid and Druid forums to name a few of the fantastic resources available.

I find myself unmotivated since before 3.3 came out, I am far behind the core raiders in my guild (rather I feel very far behind, I'm at a fairly healthy 2620 gear) but I find I do not enjoy it that much anymore. I can only realy manage a good two hour sitting at a time and our raid times are incompatible with my work schedule.

Speaking of which I am happy to report that after 9 months of unemployment I am working again.  It has been a long and hard road, but I find myself less willing to play WoW compared to other things I try to pack into a short two day weekend and before sleep during the week. 

I have been working on leveling my alts, and may investigate leveling another druid on my main server as a tank / boomkin dual class (since my MerKat is now Cat / Tree).

There is a storyline I thought I would be abandoning but, I think I may dig that up again and move forward with it since my time is so limited.

I have in reviewing changes for 3.3 came across this lovely resource for kitties.

Cat Resource from the Daily Druid

Particularly I was reviewing this page linked from the above resource for raiding 101.

I have reviewed the information and found that it matches well with my own understanding of the current kittydom of toothy dps. 

I really cannot stop recommending Daily Druid and Big Bear Butt Blogger enough and I commend them both in sustaining their interest in this game amidst their own lives in the mundane world.

I have seen other addon reccomondations for DoTs and Debuff information, but I still faithfully use and recommend Bad Kitty. 

I wish you all a Happy New Year wherever your gaming leads you! :) 

I've been banging my head into a wall for weeks now on this subject. I have always been of the school of HIT GOOD... I was gemmed to hit up to max.

With recent changes however it's not the best way to go about it (evidently).

Now, all signs from wow forums, EJ and Rawr point to agility gemming is the only way to go. However, I noticed when I did that my dps dropped by quite a bit. I got very grumpy due to all the gold spent on regemming to find that it didn't help at all!.

So research continued trying to figure out where it all went wrong. That is I see pointed out because of hit rotation. When your hit rotation isn't all that great, maxing out your TO HIT is kind of a crutch to get you by.

No mangle spam, only Rake on 5 CP, keep savage roar up etc etc.

Well I'm very guilty of mangle spam - problem is that when you have multiple druids... it only is effective from one of the druids. There is an addon that is supposed to notify you when another druid has mangled or FF a target so you know if you should bother wasting your own energy to land you own hit - however, I'm having issues with that addon and have to find it again..... cause evidently I never got around to actually downloading it ::covers eyes with paws::

To help with hit rotation I've been using an addon called BadKitty - which I find more inclusive of all feral oddities than DoTimmer and some other general Dot timers. It takes some practice, but it does seem easier and giving me enough information vs too much or not enough.

So there you go, some itemization of what I've found out in my angst-fest over the last few weeks.

While listening to my fellow fuzzy-kat druids I have learned that some of my information is out of date!

::Gasp::

Last I posted I indicated that the hit cap for Feral Druid cats was 298-ish. Now I know a lot of people in the forums even wondered if we *could* get to that number. With a lot of 70 gear - yes I was sitting pretty at 300+ to hit for a long time.

However, expansions happen and the numbers shift and my poor brain has to try to start making sense of new systems. Luckily for me and others - people smarter than I have figured some things out.

Originally when WoTLK came out 298 was going to be the lvl 83 raid boss to hit cap, with normal lvl 80 being around 263. However, that information was either inaccurate, or incomplete or Blizzard changed it.

With that information comes some good news.

According to this and other sources the raid boss hit cap needed is 262.32 - or to round up 263.  Now a lot more of us can cut back on some to hit gems (anyone else stocked up on Rigid Autumn Glows?).

That is the newest bit of information.  Merell's personal best against Patchwerk is 3400 and change - granted the locs and mages and most other DPS class still out DPS us in numbers I still feel an important member of the raiding process.

I will admit I have finally leveled my priest to 80 and will be taking her on her first Naxx run tonight! Wish me luck!

((I apologize for slacking off in posting, however loss of job, terrible lingering illness has pretty much kept me off WoW and the internet for a while.  I am back on the mend now and ready to go!))

Enjoyed a heroic Violet Hold run the other night with some brand new 80s. Now these folks were no slouches, but rather guildies who have leveled their second toon to 80 with two exceptions.  One, myself and another a brand new to 80 mage. 

We did run into some problems, a couple reses, mobs splitting up and two deaths, one including our tank.  However I did what I always do, Bear out to tank the mob while the tank get's rezed (We had a tree healer!) pop off a couple HoTs while I charge the target since the Tree we have is normally a chicken and new to treeing.  

We however were incredibly awesome and got it all done without having to re-enter VH.  HUZZAH.

That we recovered from so many near fatal oh shit situations did not phase me, after all our guild likes to 'make it work' in whatever we do.  Instance, spec, gear.. we make it work so we can play happily.  What surprised me is our tree thanking me for saving their asses.  Well yes I felt I did a damn fine job that night and thanked her with the disclaimer 'just doing the druid thing'. Any druid would do the same? Right? Right! To my disappointment she indicated that no indeed they do not.

Why not? 

If your tank dies you have the option of going bear take some damage, perhaps the tank can be battle rezed perhaps not or you might have an amazing healer who keeps you up.  Just because you are a cat and specced only for kitty DPS doesn't mean you cannot pull this off.  Get off your fuzzy butts and step up to it.  Other DPS classes do not have the options and versatility that you do.  I know I have said it before but I will say it again, embrace your virsitility!

If you see your healer is struggling, slap a couple HoTs on yourself or your tank.  Yes it may take some time out of your precious DPS rotation but it may save your party.  You can heal, you can battle rez, you can take hits in bear form.  Other DPS classes cannot do this.  If your main concern is DPS numbers than do us all a favor and go roll a mage, loc, rogue or shadow priest.  

Thank you.

/steps off soap box

/burns soap box

In other news I'm starting to level my priest now that Mer is doing quite well (broke 3k DPS on Patchwerk this Sunday!).  I had leveled her from 0-70 as holy.  However, at 73 I grew frustrated and have now gone shadow-spec for the remainder of my leveling... MWHAHAHAH the power is AWESOME.

In the topic of builds and hit rotations.

As I mentioned earlier I had some very bad practices with my hit roation based on old information and not the best build for DPS cat. 

Here is a snapshot of my origional build.

Yeah had some tanking abilities in there didn't I?

Here is my build currently. 

This is the build I'm experimenting with a mind towards DPS and being easier to heal.  As a cat, sometimes I bear-out to go rescue a clothie.  If something has escaped into the raid and I can stay alive a little longer for one of the professional tanks to take it back is well worth points in my book. 

As for hit rotation I have downloaded DoTimer from Curse so I can better keep track of all the different claw attacks.

This is my own variant of the most common suggested hit rotations currently:

1. Faerie Fire (Let the tank get their agro first)
2. Tiger's Fury
3. Mangle
4. Rake
5. Shred to full combo points
6. Savage Roar (this increases your overall Attack Power and is far more useful than it looked from the talent tree)
7. Renew your mangle, rake, shred till Rip if you still have SR up.

I tend to alternate between Rip on full combo points and Savage Roar on full combo points.  The more combo points I have before pressing SR the longer the AP buff lasts and I usually have time to build up full combo points (renewing all DoTs) and a Rip before the AP buff wears off.  Rinse lather repeat.

With this setup I went from as I said earlier from 1600 DPS to 2200.

Now do you see why I have invested in a DoT time? When I'm in a raid with everyone elses DoTs going all over the place it's hard to keep track of your own.  Also sometimes it's easy to forget, but don't forget to keep Fairie Fire up.  If you CANNOT cast it odds are another druid has Improved Fairie Fire on the target.

More on mechanics later, go out there and play!
 

First in my rep grinding in WotLK has been The Sons of Hodir. They hold the new shoulder enchants that previously Scryer or Aldor did in the BC expansion.  Particularly for fuzzy kitty druids is the lovely Greater Inscription of the Axe buyable upon exalted.  However, do not dispair if you are a slow rep grinder such as myself.  There is an Honored version as well.

After these folks is the other main four factions:
Kirin Tor Tailoring, Jewelcrafter, Epic waist DPS leather and another Spell power head gadget.
Knights of the Ebon Blade Tailoring, Jewelcrafter, Leatherworker, Epic dps leather chest and a DPS head gadget.
Argent Crusade  Tailoring, Jewelcrafter, Epic leather DPS boots and a tanking head gadget.
Wyrmrest Accord Tailoring, Jewelcrafter, Red Drake, SpellPower head gadget and Epic wrists for kitties.

This is of course over simplified for ease of picking what to do.  When you carry a tabard of one of these factions (recievable at Friendly) then you can put it on to earn that faction when running an instance. Very nifty revision to the rep grind and hopfully we all get a little LESS sick and tired of running the same instance OVER and OVER and over again.. /digress.

As you can see if you are a tailor or JCer you have a fun rep grind in front of you.  However, depending on what drops for you in running instances and raiding may change what faction you want to grind.  (Another Huzzah for the tabard method!)

For myself the next grind after Sons of Hodir will be the Ebon blade folks for the Arcanum of Torment.  Of course closely following that for pure enjoyment will be Wyrmrest for RP reasons and the DRAGON mount!  You of course prioritize your own goodies, you're a big kitty right? 

I utterly failed to get anywhere on the Netherdrake rep grind so now I really want a dragon mount.

One thing I just learned of note for Knights of the Ebon Blade quartermaster.  You cannot even get to him until you do the quest line in Argent Vanguard (Icecrown) to open some door. In the process of the quest line you will also earn enough Ebon Blade rep to be friendly. 

This concludes the functional rep grind factions.  Of course there are many others granting penguins, rare mounts and other simply FUN things in the game.  Remember to pace yourselves this isn't a race, it's a game. 

Hello my fuzzy friends!

I will go into detail in another post, however with some tightening of my spec and updated hit rotation in addition to a nifty little DoTimer (Not just for warlocks and shadow priests!) I have increased my DPS from 1600 to 2200 without yet having the time to do much in regards to my remaining BC raid gear.

I will share what I was doing, and what I'm doing now in detail in the next day or so. (^..^)~

I apologize, I've been a sick cat. I have however gotten to see Sanctum this weekend along with heroic Halls of Lightning - though I do not recall much of either (Yay for cold meds).

Now it's Tuesday and I actually managed to get up at a decent hour and of course I cannot get into WoW for some pre-work killing of things.  Thank you Murphy's Law.

*crosses fingers for patch*

I am an enchanter / tailor. I know I know, not really what the typical druid goes for but I took the skills for pure RP enjoyment and have since leveled another tailor for need. I'm feeling pretty done with cloth, but am putting enchanting on the back burner till the patch comes out because we have confirmation that the materials for enchanting will be getting nerfed. Thank you Blizz.

Speaking of professions, typically a druid from what I can tell will go with leatherworking so you can make some of your own armor.  This can be VERY handy.  However, if you are part of a guild or group of people with other leather workers I find you can do just as well without the profession.  

Do what makes you happy.

Once hitting 80 I did invest in the materials for these three pieces of crafted bind on equip (BoE) beauties.

Trollwoeven Spaulders

Trollwoven Girdle

Ice Striker's Cloak

Our guild had just gotten started with Serpentshine cavern before everything got nerfed before the expac came out.  So I am using a combination of old 70 raid gear, crafted items and some heroic drops for my 80 heroic / raid gear. This seems to be going quite well and I had my first 13k crit the other night raid buffed. ::Squeeeee:: 

The moral of the story is you do not have to be a leatherworker when you are a druid.  If your guild makes noises like you *HAVE* to, find another guild.  This is a game and is supposed to make you happy, do not let it become a job.

They're not just abusive traps! There is some valid interesting information to be found in the forums.  You will see a new link to the side taking you directly to the Druid forum that World of Warcraft forum site hosts.  Leveling guides, opinions, FAQ about druids.  A lot of great folks have put a lot of work into sharing the information, so take a gander.