Kitties for Dummies: The Common Mistakes of Cat Druids


Welcome to Kitties for Dummies! In WotLK, Blizzard enabled cats to become their own powerful spec, breaking the feral tree into two. As the popularity of feral cats is on the uprise, it's becoming more obvious that there are some common mistakes that any new cat should learn to avoid! In this guide, I'll take you through some of the most common mistakes of PvE cat druids and how to avoid them.

Index
I.Specialization (Spec)
II.Gear and Stats
III.Game-play


edit 1: Added Feral Faerie Fire
edit 2: Added more about Hit
edit 3: Added Berserk and Rip Clipping
edit 4: Added Prowl
edit 5: Updated ArP info for 3.2.2 and included Yawning's Feral ArP and You thread.
edit 6: Added Rake clipping and/or 'bugged' behavior
edit 7: Updated specs for 3.3 (thanks Demoneater. :D)

I. Specialization (Spec)

Speccing correctly is the most vital part of feral DPS. There are plenty of usable specs within the feral tree, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. (I.e., pure dps vs hybrid tanking vs pvp) However, there are still a few things that every cat needs to know.

Mistake Number One: Improved Mark of the Wild

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Q u o t e:
Don't need 2 points in Imp Mark. Our raid healer is a Resto druid so it's wasted talent points for me.

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Let's take a closer look at Improved Mark of the Wild, shall we?

Improved Mark of the Wild 2/2: Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 40%, and increases all of your total attributes by 2%.

The important part of this talent is in the second half of the description: And increases all of your total attributes by 2%. That's where the money is, ladies and gents! Two points for a constant 2% increase to stats! There is no reason to not have this talent!

Mistake Number Two: Genesis

Genesis is a first tier talent of the Balance tree. The tooltip reads as such:

Genesis 5/5: Increases the damage and healing done by your periodic damage and healing effects by 5%.

Whoa! Cat druids are based heavily on bleed (periodic) damage! This talent is a 5% damage increase, right?

Nope, sorry. Genesis is one of two talents I will be mentioning with misleading tooltips. It does not effect bleeds, only spells like Moonfire and Insect Swarm. Additionally, even if it did effect bleeds (which it doesn't!), it wouldn't be worth the five points for the cost! Stay away from Genesis!



Mistake Number Three: Protector of the Pack

This is the other misleading tooltip.

Protector of the Pack: Requires Bear Form, Dire Bear Form. Increases your attack power by 6% and reduces the damage you take by 12%, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form.

Despite the fact that the tooltip states it requires Bear form, an occasional kitty will become confused and think the 6% AP bonus effects all forms. It doesn't, and this talent is purely for tanking.


Mistake Number Four: Furor, Ferocity, and Feral Aggression

I've clumped these three into the same mistake because most cats know that they want these talents, but they don't know how to spend the points. Here's how your priority on these should break down.

Ferocity 5/5: Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, Rake and Mangle abilities by 5 Rage or Energy.

Less energy cost means you get to use them more often, which in turn means your DPS goes up. Ferocity earns all 5 of its points spent and should never be passed up or not maxed out. Top priority!

Furor 5/5: Gives you 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to 100 of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin form by 10%.

Furor is instant, which means the moment you shapeshift, you have that energy. However, Furor does not (and in nearly all respectable builds, IS not) need to be maxed out! Because getting everything cats need in the feral tree doesn't leave much wiggle room for the Restoration tree, it's highly recommended that you only do 3/5 Furor. This allows you to pick up Imp. MotW and still access the lower branches of the Restoration tree. Furor comes in as a second priority.

Feral Aggression 5/5: Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Roar by 40% and the damage caused by your Ferocious Bite by 15%.

FA is a difficult talent. Until you get 2pc T8, you may not have the time to Ferocious Bite that often. (We'll explore that later!) However, when you can get a FB off, you want to make sure it really counts. My recommendation for this talent (which may be controversial) is that if you don't have 2pc T8, you don't spend more then 3 points in this talent. If you have the set bonus, however, then this talent should be maxed out. Because FA works for FB, which is situational, it gets lowest priority.



Alright Wildhoof, you've told us what not to do. So how DO I spec?

Directly from Demoneater of Arygos:

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Q u o t e:

In 3.3, the highest DPS cat spec is probably:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZvGMcfrz0eo0huAkbAczb
It takes only DPS-increasing talents and nothing extraneous. This spec can't tank beyond normal-mode instances and has very little utility, but is the one to have if you're aiming for the top of the meters.

Many druids, however, take utility talents over the low return of Feral Aggression, and have a spec more like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZtGMsfrz0eR0huAkbAczb

If you want a hybrid spec which is capable of both tanking and respectable DPS, say for running as an off-tank or for a heroic instance spec that allows you to fill either role, the following is a reasonable hybrid spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGMsfrzceRcIuVkbA0z
However, it still will take about 5% more damage and do about 4% less threat and 5-6% less damage than having a pure cat and pure bear spec, plus whatever you lose from trying to hybridize glyphs.

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II.Gear and Stats

So now you've got the spec down. Unfortunately, cat mistakes don't end there. There's plenty of mistakes to be made when it comes to gearing and stat priority, and now it's time to go over the most common of the bunch.


Mistake Number One: Hit

Cats do not need to prioritize hit. It should never be gemmed for, and the only acceptable enchant is Icewalker for your boots, since it increases your critical strike rating. Hit is an incredibly unimportant stat to cats, despite what anyone else may try to tell you. Why is that exactly? Again, Demoneater has the answer in the easiest to understand way:

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Q u o t e:

The Hit Cap And You
One of the biggest falsehoods that gets perpetrated on the druid forums is that the first thing you should do is stack hit to the cap. This is not exactly true.

Feral druids do not suffer a huge penalty from misses or dodged attacks in PVE DPS. Our white damage is a modest portion of our DPS compared to most classes, and we don't have damaging procs like rogues' poisons or DK's Blood-Caked Blade. Our missed specials only cost 20% energy. ((Please keep in mind that this only applies if you have Primal Precision.)) We are not GCD-limited or on a fixed rotation, so we don't lose much time. Mathematically, hit and expertise rating are simply not as good, point-for-point, as agility.

This doesn't mean that hit rating is bad. Hitting more often DOES increase DPS reasonably well. Reducing misses smooths your cycle out, allowing you to pay less attention to whether or not your last attack connected, which makes DPS easier. It simply means that if you have a choice between exactly-equal amounts of hit rating and agility, you should probably take the agility.

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Again, keep in mind that hit isn't a priority stat. It will never give you as much benefit as agility, but it does have benefits. While a missed Shred isn't a massive deal, having Hit will smooth out your rotation. That means you're depending less on RNG, and more on a secure platform. Getting gear with static hit rating may be difficult pre-Ulduar, but I've for one have never gone after hit on any gear level and did fine. If you think Hit would aid your rotation, check out Rawr (mentioned below) and see how things work out for you!

Mistake Number Two: Armor Penetration

Armor Penetration, or ArP for short, is an amazingly good stat for feral cats. However, the mistake is trying to move into it too early. That Ulduar geared Druid down the street is socketing ArP gems, and you want to be just like him? Sorry, but ya gotta wait on that a bit! There's a lot you should know before deciding to switch to ArP. There isn't a golden number for ArP - it depends on your gear. From Yawning, of Scarlet Crusade:

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Q u o t e:

(Inflection Point - Static ArPen) Gemmed at 1 Agi > 1 ArP. X DPS lost.
(Remaining Gem Sockets) Gemmed at 1 ArP > 1 Agi. Y DPS gained.

If X > Y when using all of your gem sockets, you are losing too much DPS making ArPen worth gemming to see any DPS gain. If Y > X, then you will see a net gain in DPS with ArPen. To put some concrete numbers behind this, for the 4T9.258 gearing example, you end up gemming 10 ArPen at a DPS loss, and 330 ArPen at a DPS gain vs Agi, so it's clearly worth it.

That's why it's incorrect to just say "once you have X ArPen from gear, switch to ArPen gemming". It should be "At X AP, Y Crit, with Z trinket, switch to ArPen gemming", though the best way to determine such things is to use the calculator.

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I highly recommend reading Yawning's entire Feral ArP and You thread, found here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19820504467&postId=198185723619&sid=1#13



Tip: Use Rawr! It's a free program that allows you to easily change and optimize your gear and spec without effecting your in-game character. It can even build you an upgrade list so you know where you should spend your efforts!

Rawr's website: http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr

III. Game-play

Blizzard has recently admitted that cat DPS is the hardest in the game to play. We work on a complex series of priorities, while maintaining debuffs, buffs, and watching timers. It's extremely easy to mess up the rotation and you can be assured even the best of us will hit the wrong button every now and again. That being said, there are still some common mistakes you should know to avoid doing.

(Source:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17779490502&pageNo=8&sid=1#156 )

Mistake Number One: Ferocious Bite

Ferocious Bite: Finishing move that causes damage per combo point and converts each extra point of energy (up to a maximum of 30 extra energy) into (9.4+AP/410) additional damage. Damage is increased by your attack power.
1 point : (410+0.07*AP)-(410+0.07*AP) damage
2 points: (700+0.14*AP)-(700+0.14*AP) damage
3 points: (990+0.21*AP)-(990+0.21*AP) damage
4 points: (1280+0.28*AP)-(1280+0.28*AP) damage
5 points: (1570+0.35*AP)-(1570+0.35*AP) damage

FB is where you will see some of your largest numbers. Depending on the fight, it can easily reach 30k crits! However, there are very specific times to use FB. It is okay to FB if you have more than 10 seconds left on Rip, have 5 combo points available, and you have more than 10 seconds left on Savage Roar. This may sound easy to accomplish but it really depends on your crit and clearcasting luck. Unless those two requirements are fulfilled, you may actually end up losing DPS by FB-ing.

There are, however, a couple of other things to keep in mind. Where burst is important (ex: XT hardmode), FB is fine and dandy. If you happen to have 2pc T8, you may notice that you have the extra combo points and time to use FB. That's thanks to the rough doubling of your Clearcasting procs, and FB should be used in this case.

Mistake Number Two: Mangle

Druids, Druids, Druids! Mangle is one of the most important moves in our priority system, but that's ONLY if a feral tank or Arms warrior is not present! Why, you ask?

Mangle: Mangle the target for 200% normal damage plus 634 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects for 12 sec. Awards 1 combo point.

The damage from Mangle is not that important. Shred easily out-damages it. The important part is the buff to bleed damage. As we know, a cat's damage comes from Bleed effects. Buffing that by 30% is, well, downright sexy! The Mangle debuff is incredibly important. So why not use it with a Feral tank or Arms warrior?

Well, bear tanks use Mangle because it causes a high amount of threat. They will mangle every time the cooldown is up (rather then when the debuff expires, like cats) in order to continuously build threat. This means Mangle will ALWAYS be up! Since the debuff is present, the cat doesn't need to waste the energy using it. That energy should be used for shred instead.

Arms Warriors bring Trauma to the table.

Trauma: Your normal melee critical strikes increase the effectiveness of Bleed effects on the target by 30% for 15 sec.

Trauma brings the same debuff as Mangle, and the Arms warrior expends no resources to apply it. Once they crit (which should be often on a decently geared warrior) the debuff is applied. I have occasionally ran into cases where the warrior gets an unlucky string of non-crits and the debuff falls off. However, it's still not worth using Mangle. Save the energy for Shred, and watch your DPS go up!

Mistake Number Three: Feral Faerie Fire

My thanks to Ashendar of Bloodscalp for reminding me I forgot about this one!

Feral Faerie Fire: Decrease the armor of the target by 5% for 5 min. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible. Deals [AP * 0.15 + 1] damage and additional threat when used in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.

FFF decreases armor. Less armor means your shreds are hitting harder, which of course means more DPS! FFF stacks with similiar debuffs such Sunder Armor, and also effects ArP. (I.e., a cat with lots of ArP is going to see even larger numbers with FFF active!) Since it only needs to be applied once every 5 minutes, there's no reason to not toss this amazing debuff up on the boss at the beginning of a fight!

Keep in mind though, if you are running with a Feral tank, let them worry about FFF. Bears typically refresh it throughout a fight for the high threat that the Bear version generates.

Mistake Number Four: Clipping

Clipping is usually in regards to Rip, the finishing move and the majority of a cat's DPS. What the term means is overriding the last few seconds of the debuff and reapplying it, rather then waiting until it expires to reapply. For the most part, you do not want to clip. You want to allow Rip to finish its full duration. However, there are times when Clipping isn't only acceptable, it's essential to maintaining DPS.

Ri of Moonrunner sums it up perfectly:

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Q u o t e:
That ((Clipping)) depends on how long you'll be away from the boss. If you're only going to be away for a couple seconds, save your CPs and reapply rip when you go back in. If switching targets, like in Emalon, or if you won't be hitting the boss for a while, like in Razorscale, I would reapply rip before switching (or savage roar) instead of FB, so you still have some energy when starting to tear into the add.

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Keep in mind that once you switch targets, your combo points on the original target are lost.

Mistake Number Five: Berserk

When to use Berserk is something to keep in mind. You always want to use it on a full energy bar, following Tiger's Fury. Typically, you can use the ability right at the beginning of the fight, as long as you're confident in the tank's ability to keep aggro! Remember, a dead kitty does no DPS. (And unfortunately, Druid cats do *not* have nine lives!)

Ri shares some solid advice in regards to Berserk timing:

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Q u o t e:

I use Berserk immediately after a TF so I can have full, or near-full energy. Depending on the fight, I'll use it at the very beginning (Usually a Mangle, Roar, Rake, wait, shred, TF, Berserk), or wait for an opportune time, such as XT's heart phase. After the initial berserk I use it every time it's up, always coupled with a TF. You need to be careful with using Berserk at the beginning of the fight. If you know your tank has threat problems, you may never get to use it to its full extent. If you know your tank has ridiculous threat, then feel free to go crazy.

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Mistake Number Six: Prowl

Prowl has absolutely no advantage in PvE. Ravage and Pounce simply do not earn their energy costs! Even though Pounce applies a bleed, the 50 energy cost is just not worth it. You are best off removing Prowl from your PvE bar setup. The sooner you get to those mobs, the sooner you can start your regular attacking cycle. Those Shreds will be doing plenty more damage then the openers could ever do.

Mistake Number Seven: Rake

Recently, Rake has been acting a little off. As with Rip, you shouldn't be clipping this bleed. Allow it to run its full duration before refreshing it to get the maximum amount of DPS from it as possible. However, varying accounts (I have also experienced this) are stating that Rake is being used, however, it does not apply the bleed although it awards the combo points. The best way to avoid this is to not let the bleeds clip. I've still occasionally ran into a situation where Rake is being used, combo points awarded, but bleed not applied. So far, I haven't found a solid answer to this. Just reapply Rake - remember it has amazing DPE and should be used!

So what IS this priority system, Wildhoof?

Again, Demoneater has the answer!

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Q u o t e:
Feral DPS does not have a solidified rotation like, say, arcane mages or blood death knights. Doing maximum DPS as a feral relies on maximizing the uptimes of your different buffs and debuffs.

As mentioned above in the FAQ section, it boils down to:
- Keep Savage Roar up
- Keep Mangle up, unless you have a bear or arms warrior in the group
- Keep a 5-point Rip up
- Keep Rake up
- Use Shred for combo points
- Use Tiger's Fury on the cooldown

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If you feel as though you are struggling with your DPS, there are addons available to help you along.

BadKitty: BadKitty is a timer watcher. It displays the time remaining of all your buffs/debuffs (customizable) in one bar, and has pop-ups for expiring debuffs/buffs in another bar. (Also customizable.) It does not recommend what move you should use next, just which are expiring.
BadKitty can be found here: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/badkitty.aspx

FaceMauler: FaceMauler is recommended for cats who are brand new to the DPS field. It works by reading your current debuffs and buffs and then popping up an icon on which it recommends you use next. FaceMauler is great for learning how our system works, but once you have a good handle on it, don't bother with FaceMauler anymore.

FaceMauler can be found here: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/facemauler.aspx


For more information on Feral Druids, please check out Demoneater's entire thread:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864788935&sid=1

As well as ElitistJerk's forums: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/



That's all, folks! Thanks for reading and I hope this helped you avoid some of the more common mistakes made by Kitty Druids.

Thanks to Demoneater for providing such solid and easy-to-read information!

Feedback is welcome, of course. :)

Nice guide. How long did it take you to write it?

Hmmm i dont understand why we cant gem for hit, I had to gem alot of my things with it because i kept missing on the bosses and now i dont O_O

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if you armory me, i have lame enchants because im lvling my enchanting and i used my gear to do that.

Oh boy, here comes another sticky. =P

Nice write-up.

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Q u o t e:
Nice guide. How long did it take you to write it?

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About 2 hours.

Waffles for you!

(#)(#)(#)

Nice Write-up Wildhoof.

I was often curious where the over/under for ArP was, so it was nice to see it clearly spelled out.

I Bear 95% of the time in raids, so learning some kitty info is good. I just respec'ed recently to a dual Feral (Bear/Kitty) from (Bear/Tree). I was in Tree form once for a Vault group in the Past 3 months..lol

I may take a peak at ArP on RAWR now and see how it changes things. I love RAWR.

I also have never heard of Badkitty. Thanks for the link, I will look at it. I tried Facemauler, and was not a Fan. I understood the rotations, and was always a step behind on it..lol

Well done, clear, and to the point.

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Q u o t e:
Feedback is welcome, of course. :)

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I concur with your post, therefore it is worthy of a being a sticky :)

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Q u o t e:
Nice guide. How long did it take you to write it?

Hmmm i dont understand why we cant gem for hit, I had to gem alot of my things with it because i kept missing on the bosses and now i dont O_O

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if you armory me, i have lame enchants because im lvling my enchanting and i used my gear to do that.

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As a feral DPS, you have WAY too much +haste. That's a wasted stat for cat druids since our attack speed is already 1.0 Your +hit will come with gear when you upgrade. (armory me, I'm in my DPS set right now.) I am just shy of hit cap with no +hit gems. I'm also expertise capped, so I never get dodged from behind.

http://www.zetbit.com/sig-769395.jpg

*edit for banner pic*

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Q u o t e:


It's funny that you mention RAWR right after ArP, given that RAWR doesn't value ArP very highly.

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*nod*

I figure the people who need to read this guide aren't at the point of needing to worry about ArP anyway, so Rawr should be helpful with their gear choices.

Windj - If you follow the suggestions in this guide with respect to gemming and spec and then get the shred glyph - you will easily see an increase in your dps by im guessing at least 30%. To answer your question when you gem for agility instead of hit - you will make up for your misses with larger damage due to the increased crit and AP.

From EJ - Agility
1 Agi = 1.18932 AP (1.308252 AP)
1 Agi = 0.0129744% Crit (0.01427184%)

I'm not an expert but check elitist jerks in the druid forum and theres a lot of information.

Excellent Guide! *applaud*

this thread is full of common mistakes
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18031100368&sid=1

Thanks for this guide, I'm going to direct a few druids I know here to read this that are having trouble learning to kitty DPS. Saves me having to spend 30 minutes in whisper with them trying to explain what to do/what not to do when I could be out fishing. :D

Reported for sticky <3