Druid of the Moon

Archive for the ‘Feral Druid Gear’ Category

I followed the instructions for the last post and determined what I already knew.

1. Get Distant Land
2. Get Deathbringer’s Will

I mean thanks for the Toskk’s Maximized Wristguards a month ago Saurpuss but what have you done for me lately.

I think I would prefer Hersir’s Greatspear… I mean I can already hit high Crit % so I would prefer less crit from rating and agility and pick up ArP and Hit to get to the ArP hard cap and to make up for the lack of Hit on our T10…. I dunno, maybe I just don’t feel good about seeing Distant Land fall… /sigh

Lastly, we scored another server first last night and a server 2nd… Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion… (10) and Full House (10). As the only guild to manage both Herald of the Titans and A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity (10) on our server we are kinda bummed of the lack of a similar gear limiting Achievement for Icecrown… being the title whore I am probably bummed more than the rest… it won’t be long before more than 10 people are running around with my Argent Defender title.

I still believe Blizzard has done a great job appealing to all the players out there between 10 and 25 man raids and corresponding achievements with heriocs and hard modes there really does seam to be everything for everyone at the moment.

Visited the Druids Info Center forums over at Emmerald’s this morning and found this Gem of a post from poster RareBeast… thought I would share.

Download Rawr from   http://rawr.codeplex.com

Useful Settings
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(1) Tools => Options => General Settings – I click “buff sources”, “Gem Names” & “Item types”
(2) Tools => Edit Gemming Templates – I set it to only show the top gemming template as it is simpler than seeing multiple versions of each item

Setting up your Character
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(1) File => Load Character from Armory
(2) Make sure the “Enforce Gem Requirements” is checked on the “Stats” tab
(3) On the “Buffs” tab, select all the buffs you want – I select all buffs except the Draenei & potions (I usually save it for a health pot)
(4) Change any settings on the “Options” tab – this is different for each model – I usually set a 5 minute fight, but you may want longer.
(5) In the “Comparisons” pane (right hand side), for each slot, left click on the little diamond next to any other items you have that weren’t equipped when you imported your character from the armory – there should be a green diamond next to each item you own
(6) Similarly, mark any other enchants you have access too that weren’t on your current gear (I normally select the top 1-3 for each slot).
(7) Tools => Edit Gemming Templates – make sure the correct gems are selected – usually it is ok to use the default but for poorly geared alts I often change it to the rare gems. (Doesn’t have to be every possible gemming!! Just the fairly common ones)
(8) In the “Comparisons” pane mark any other gems available that you might need that didn’t appear in any of the templates. For Feral I make sure I mark the Nightmare Tear, 20ArPen & 10Agi/10Haste gems.
(9) File => Save!!!!

Optmising Your Character
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(1) Tools => Optimise
(2) Select what you want to optimise for – For Feral, I optimise for DPS rating (Selecting overall for feral would include survivability)
(3) Add any additional requirements – You might like to select “Avoided Attacks % < 0" if you want to be hit/expertise capped. I DON'T do this as enforcing the caps may(often) give you a result which has a lower DPS score. Also, for tanks you might like to set "Chance to be crit < 0"
(4) Thoroughness - Time take to optimise varies greatly with which model you are using and how good your PC is (and how many items you have marked). Try an optimise at the default setting to see how long it takes and then adjust this slider accordingly. Greater thoroughness will often give you a better result - I use max thoroughness for my feral and it doesn't take too long - make sure you don't have silly items marked ie. don't have T7 or T8 stuff marked if you have T10 gear - trinkets "may" be an exception as things like Darkmoon Card, ArPen trinkets are OP for their ILvl.
(5) I would suggest ignoring most of the check boxes at this stage. It can be useful to let it pick the best food/flask for you, but I usually leave all these unchecked.
(6) Hit "Optimise" and let Rawr do what it does best!!

Using the Build Upgrade List
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Say you are running 10man regular Icecrown Citadel tonight. You can use the "Filters" in the "Comparison" pane of Rawr to select only the 10 man reg Icecrown loot. Then select the "Slot" dropdown and select "Direct Upgrades". You may think that it is then showing all items that are an upgrade for you in 10 man reg Icecrown but this may not be the case. If your current gear is Hit Capped, then +hit items in the lists will be devalued and may not show as an upgrade. But you may be able to fiddle around with gems/enchants or switch in a piece or two that you have sitting in the bank and find that those items which aren't showing as upgrades may actually be significant upgrades. The "Build Upgrade List" allows Rawr to take all these things into account and show every item that will be an upgrade for you. (Often this will fairly closely match what is show in the comparison pane, but you do get a few suprises).

** A warning: This option takes significantly longer to process so it is important that you are fairly strict with your filter settings to reduce the number of items Rawr has to process. Don't just select Icecrown. Select 10 Man regular Icecrown. Or even better (at the moment) select only "The Lower Spire" & "The Plagueworks". **

(1) Tools => Optimise
(2) Your options remain basically the same as what are discussed under “Optimising Your Character” above
(3) Once again, try on a lower “Thoroughness” setting until you see how fast/slow it is with the options/gear you have selected (I use max on my feral)
(4) Hit “Build Upgrade List”
(5) After it has finished you get a new window with a list of the upgrades. If you hover over each one, then the tooltip shows what combination of gear/gems/enchants give you the best results with the potential upgrade.

I have been swamped with work so my posts have been non existent lately. Thought I would get people caught up a little on our ICC progress…

This week we got another 10 man server first…

We downed the Professor on our 3rd try.

Some of the things holding us back on our first 10 attempts (Although in that first week we did get him to 4% one attempt) was the fact that slime kept growing during the stun which it should not have been doing apparently. We found the big key to this fight is you must start on the green side and then transition to the orange after he puts the first slime pools down. This way the person in the Abom is eating slime right where the ooze will spawn. This gives the best chance at not only debuffing the ooze but slowing it as well.

Gratz go out to our 25 man, tonight we downed Festergut (no Distant Land unfortunately) on our 2nd attempt. We are getting real close on Rotface but ran out of time… hopefully Sunday.

My DKP continues to build as I wait for both a new weapon and/or Deathbringer’s Will (which fell but went for over 50% of my DKP). I really need to take the time to figure out what is really important to get in 25’s to balance what falls in 10’s… unfortunately time is a rare thing for me atm.

I hope to post another DPS guide for kitties in ICC for the new wing soon… maybe Friday night.

So we have a new patch… 3.3 to be exact… and there is an overwhelming lack of information for feral kitties.

A conspiracy some say… to keep Blizzard unawares of our new found awesomeness… but I am not buying it.

Unfortunately I just have not only not had the time to do any hard theory crafting but when items are not in wowhead I am apprehensive to make a gear post without the little tooltip popups. Here are some tips before I get something up concrete.

• 10/25 man ICC normal gear > Heroic 10 man ToC gear. One example… Gloves of the Silver Assassin VS Scourge Stranglers
• Grind Heroic ICC 5 man. If you don’t have a ArP trinket as of yet you want one. Right now the top kitty DPSers have an ArP trinket and gem to the soft ArP cap which is max ArP for 100% ignore – the ArP provided by the trinket proc. If you have an ArP trinket you still should want to grind for the Battered Hilt which will score you a weapon on par or maybe even slightly better the Heroic 25 man ToGC weapons. At the end of the quest chain you will get a 2H mace… Lightborn Spire. A great weapon for both Kitty and Bear… at least until we find out about something better… but most likely will only be topped by Heroic 10 or 25 man ICC gear which is still a months away.
• Watch your Crit rating. Mine in full raid 25 buffs is creeping up on 70% which is getting a little high. If you are a fan of Toskk’s you know there is a balance you want to achieve between Agility and Strength. I won’t say gem for strength (even though it is affected by Kings and ArP is not) because supposedly ArP is better. I still feel ArP isn’t that great until you get the trinket for ArP proc but it is getting to the point agility might start be a little bit of a wasted stat. If you have lots of gold and no ArP trinket… ditch a little agility for strength using Toskks graph as a guide… the link is on my homepage… and report back your findings.
• Get Emblems of Frost at all costs. There are some really nice items for sale but they are not cheap in terms of Emblems. Every day do 1 random Heroic using the LFG system… it’s only 2 Emblems but eventually they will add up. Also, the new T10 pieces and associated bonus is going to be favored I think once the sims have been ran and scrutinized. Rake Crits are most likely pure win.
• Take a look at the crafted bracers Bracers of Swift Death. Crusader Orbs are dropping in price and they will stay pretty high up the gear list for a while.

Well hopefully this will help some of you with how to plan in the coming weeks. Any good info I find or figure out I will continue to post and update the masses of lost kitties out there.

So you have been doing the kitty thing and since your focus is DPS you don’t have the DKP to pick up the best tanking gear for the off chance you are needed to fill that role one night. So what is a poor kitty to do to make sure he/she is geared as well as possible to pick up a nights tanking duty. Here is my list of possible gear to get without sacrificing anything on the kitty side. Please note I am paying no attention to Heroic 25 versions, just know they are the same name of what I listed but have better stats. I also make no effort to post both the Alliance and Horde names.

• Head – Stormrage Coverlet from Ony is awesome and if you are lucky and the only feral in the raid you should get it for free. The other option is 50 emblems and using Malfurion’s Headguard of Conquest. Worst case scenario is using Conqueror’s Nightsong Headguard and you should be swimming in Conquest Emblems so shouldn’t be a huge deal to get. This is a slot where you don’t want to share for kitty and bear due to the Meta gem slot and head enchants.
• Neck – Not really much you can do in this slot as the best items come from boss drops and will be bought by your regular duty tanks. Best scenario here is to double duty this slot for cat and bear and use Charge of the Demon Lord
• Shoulder – Duskstalker Shoulderpads or even Malfurion’s Shoulderpads of Conquest are nice or double duty with your best DPS shoulders and use the DPS chant and gems. IMHO the tank chant is just not a huge dealbreaker in this slot.
• Cloak – Same issue as neck, use 1 item for both bear and cat Drape of the Untamed Predator.
• Chest – I want to say double duty this one too. Chant on either would be 10+ stats, go with agility gems again. Just use the best kitty chest you have of course.
• Wrist – Same issue as head really as you would want a stamina enchant and not Greater Assault for tanking. So since we won’t share here go with Titan-Forged Armwraps of Triumph purchased with 15 WG marks… Unless you have already upgraded from Ulduar BiS wrists to ToC level gear, then use your old ones.
• Hands – This slot can also pull double duty. Worst case scenario use T9 for 30 Emblems of Triumph.
• Waist – I would use this item as double duty. This means more agility than stamina since you won’t put stam gems in a DPS belt but hopefully the stam gems in the bear only items will give you enough HP, worst case is you boost stam with trinkets (see below). Belt of the Merciless Killer.
• Legs – No double duty here, Stam gems and tanking enchant IMHO. Either use Titan-Forged Leather Legguards of Triumph bought with WG marks or T8 or Leggings of the Broken Beast or T9 depending on what you are using for your Kitty set and what you have upgraded from in the past.
• Feet – Another double duty item. Whatever you are using for Kitty atm should be fine for bear as well.
• Rings – Clutch of Fortification is a complete no brainer for 35 Emblems of Triumph.  Dexterous Brightstone Ring is the other no brainer and can pull double duty and is also 35 Emblems and you most likely bought it for Kitty DPS anyway.
• Trinkets – Double duty at first Death’s Verdict / Darkmoon Card: Greatness but look into getting The Black Heart from 5 man ToC non heroic so you can grind for it. If you can grind for both Bitter Balebrew Charm and Bubbling Brightbrew Charm during the Brewfest event an absolute gift to ferals if you have both as it becomes easy again to get over 51K health with these.
• Weapon – Pull double duty here with Lupine Longstaff or Archon Glaive but enchant with Mongoose and not Berserker. If you want use an older Ulduar staff that you replaced that should be fine as well, but for threat reasons I don’t recommend it. Maybe you can luck out and make a case for Reclaimed Thunderstrike.
• Idol – Idol of the Corruptor and just 19 Emblems of Conquest. You can double duty Idol of Mutilation if you are terribly lazy.

Keep in mind all my suggestions revolve around the fact that you can’t roll against your regualr tanks for gear and/or don’t want to waste DKP on items that are for tanking only.