This is Part 2 of my feral DPS gear list. This list focuses on items available from raids, and bottoms out with heroic blues; see Part 1 for a Pre-Raid list. Overall, this list is rather boring; with the extreme value of agility and the consolidation of 10m/25m gear, pretty much, you get the highest ilvl piece you can.

Methodology: I used Mew to compute relative stat values for a level 85 feral druid (values listed at bottom of post). I then created a custom weighting on wowhead with these numbers, and recorded the results below. Due to reforging, item lists are more stratified then they used to be; as such, I’ve divided the item list into tiers roughly corresponding with ilevel. (Short version: don’t worry significantly about getting the top item in a tier, just look to upgrade tiers. The amount of +agi (or the amount of gem slots for agi gems) on an item is the most important factor, generally.) Also note that the values for blue items may differ somewhat from part 1; I need to go back and redo part 1 with the new stat values, but that’ll probably happen after the next patch.

Slots are sorted by importance. A weapon upgrade is VASTLY more important than a bracer upgrade, for example, so I’ve listed those first. I will not be including PvP gear in the list; for a rough computation, knock 13 points off the item’s ilvl (to account for the useless resil). Reduce this penalty by half if you have the 2pc PvP bonus (+70 agi), and eliminate it if you have the 4pc PvP bonus (+180 agi). Yes, this means that having the 4pc Bloodthirsty PvP set is BETTER than 4pc heroic gear, and the 4pc Vicious set is better than non-tier raid gear. Not by much, but a good 5% or so. (See WoWHead comparison link here and here) The best offset piece is probably Tsanga’s. (Yes, the 4p set bonus is worth it.) Even if you don’t PvP, I recommend all ferals get the PvP gloves if there’s any chance they’ll be on regular interrupt duty. The energy savings on Skull Bash from the gloves outweigh any drop in stats.

Finally, drop location for heroic items are still questionable. I may also be missing some stuff; let me know. The items from Throne of the Four Winds are randomly enchanted, with four possible combinations: Stormblast (crit/hit), Windflurry (crit/haste), Windstorm (crit/mastery), and Zephyr (haste/mastery). Obviously, the latter two are better choices.

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We’ll source wowhead this time. I’ve included the Druid notes and others that will be important. (See my previous post for my thoughts on the original changes. In brief, the bleed nerfs and Shred/Mangle buffs should roughly balance out.)

Druid

• Entangling Roots now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Hibernate now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Moonfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
• Nature’s Grasp now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Prowl is no longer broken by enemies using Demoralizing Roar or Demoralizing Shout.
• Skull Bash‘s lockout time has been reduced to 4 seconds, down from 5.
• Soothe is now instant cast, down from 1.5 seconds.
• Worgen and troll druids now have new art for Swift Flight Form.

• Talent Specializations

  • Balance

    • Sunfire mana cost has been reduced from 18% to 9%.
    • Total Eclipse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 33%.

  • Feral

    • Infected Wounds now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.

  • Restoration

    • Empowered Touch now also affects Regrowth. In addition, after Tree of Life is no longer active, this talent will only refresh the most recently cast or refreshed Lifebloom, and will not refresh other copies of Lifebloom.
    • Natural Shapeshifter has been reduced to a 3/6-second increase to Tree of Life‘s duration, down from 5/10.
    • Symbiosis (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 16%.
    • Tree of Life no longer grants immunity to Polymorph. In addition, its duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.
    • Wild Growth healing has been increased by 30%, and the cooldown has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10.

• Glyphs

  • Glyph of Entangling Roots redesigned. It now reduces the cast time of Glyph of Entangling Roots by 0.2 seconds, rather than making it instant cast.
  • Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.
  • Glyph of Wrath now increases damage done by Wrath by 10% and no longer requires Insect Swarm on the target.

Professions

• A socket has been added to all crafted epic armor pieces that did not already have one.

• Alchemy

  • Alchemist’s Stones for Agility, Strength, and Intellect have been added.

• Engineering

  • Synapse Springs now increase Agility, Strength, or Intellect (whichever is highest for the character).

• Enchanting (from mmo-c since they’re missing from the official patch notes)
  

• Enchant Bracer – Agility – Permanently enchant bracers to increase Agility by 50. Requires a level 300 or higher item.
  Creates Enchant Bracer – Agility. / Reagents: Hypnotic Dust x 12, Maelstrom Crystal x 2, Volatile Air x 15
• Enchant Bracer – Major Strength – Permanently enchant bracers to increase Strength by 50. Requires a level 300 or higher item.
  Creates Enchant Bracer – Major Strength. / Reagents: Hypnotic Dust x 6, Maelstrom Crystal x 2, Volatile Earth x 25
• Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect – Permanently enchant bracers to increase Intellect by 50. Requires a level 300 or higher item.
  Creates Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect. / Reagents: Hypnotic Dust x 4, Greater Celestial Essence x 4, Maelstrom Crystal x 2, Volatile Water x 15
• Enchanting: Enchant Off-Hand – Superior Intellect now increases intellect by 40, down from 100.

• Jewelcrafting

  • Meta gems with the Chaotic and Relentless prefixes now have a requirement of 3 red gems.
  • New meta gems have been added: Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (Agility/3% critical damage), Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond (Strength/3% critical damage), and Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (Intellect/3% critical damage). These new recipes are unbound and can drop from any Cataclysm creature. The new meta gems have a requirement of 3 red gems equipped.

Items

• Left Eye of Rajh: Chance of triggering increased. (30% on crit to 50% on crit.)

For ferals, there’s some PvP nerfs across the board (though the cc duration change is global), but the biggest nerf is global; the Glyph of Entangling Roots no longer making it instant. Oh well. We didn’t root much anyway, but it makes control as a resto/balance druid much more difficult, I’d imagine. Resto gets a significant throughput buff, which is helpful, but I was hoping for a mitigation cooldown of some kind.

Gear-wise, all of the crafted gear is going to sprout a socket, which will significantly improve its value (especially the LW chest, which is pretty underwhelming currently). I’ve already discussed the new metas, which are very nice, and the Left Eye trinket gets a quiet buff which will help solidify it as the second-best heroic 5-man trinket, behind Tia’s. Profession-wise, LW’s dominance is over, and all non-LW’s should grab the bracer enchant as soon as it’s economically viable to do so. Engineering also becomes much less bad now; Synapse Springs is equal to 96 static agility (vs. +50 str, current BiS enchant) which will provide a boost very close to the +80 agi from other professions. (I’ll let someone else work out the actual math.)

On a side note, apparently I got a WoL ranked DPS spot on Halfus last night. #198! Woo! Blink and it’ll be gone! (And I died about 15s before the boss did. Yay for Furious Howl stun in a fireball barrage; Double yay for frantically spamming SI and it not working during Howl.) Who needs epics? :P (Yes, still working on the raid gear list, hopefully I’ll finish it before the patch changes all the valuations.) I’d also like to work up a feral PvP guide (more BG focused then arena focused); if anyone has any good resources that I can “borrow” from, please let me know.

So, I got a ton of questions over the weekend…and you guys are going to have to wait, there’s a TON of snow outside, and I’ve got a 2-year-old who wants to play. :)

Regular post tomorrow.

UPDATE: Yes, I know the official patch notes have the cat changes. Wasn’t available when I wrote this post. Taking a look now, but won’t have time to do any good analysis until this evening or tomorrow. First reaction: Warstomp/Meld in Forms! SFF gets guild mountspeed perk! Woot!

UPDATE 2: Okay, couldn’t help it, did some quick math, and actually looks like a small buff. Someone smarter then me on theorycraft (Yawning?) check my math please? I’ve really got to get some housework done if I want to raid tonight. :P



From MMO-Champion:

Druid (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Balance

• Typhoon now deals nature damage to target in front of the caster within 30 yards.
• Shooting Stars now lasts 12 sec, up from 8 sec.
• Balance of Power now increases spell hit rating by an additional amount equal to 50/100% of any spirit gained from item or effects. (Old – Just 50/100% of your Spirit)

Feral

• (Mangle) Mangle now deals 300% normal damage, down from 360%. Additional damage reduced by 17%, from 1044 to 870.
• Thrash base damage has been reduced by 17%, from 243 to 202. Bleed effect base damage also reduced by 17%, from [ 7.8% of AP + 455 ] to [ 7.8% of AP + 379 ]
• Lacerate damage has been reduced by 17%, from [ 11.5% of AP + 295.99 ] damage + [ 0.038% of AP + 118.4 ] bleed over 15 sec to [ 9.58% of AP + 246.66 ] damage + [ 0.032% of AP + 98.65 ] bleed over 15 sec.
• Frenzied Regeneration now regenerates 0.15% of max health for each point of rage, down from 0.3%.
• Swipe base damage has been reduced by 17%, from 171 to 143.
• Maul now scales from 30% of Attack Power, down from 36%.
• Berserk no longer clears the effect of Fear or makes you immune to Fear for the duration.
• Pulverize now deals 100% weapon damage, down from 120%. Base additional damage reduced by 17%, from 541 to 450.
• Leader of the Pack now causes you to gain 8% of your maximum mana, up from 4%.
• Thick Hide now increases armor while in Bear Form by an additional 26/52/78%, up from 11/22/33%.

Restoration

• Omen of Clarity now procs from damage spells and attacks instead of proc from damage and healing spells.
• Rejuvenation now costs 16% of base mana, down from 26% of base mana.
• Nature’s Bounty proc effect removed and replaced with a new effect – Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 20/40/60%. In addition, when you have Rejuvenation active on three or more targets, the cast time of your Nourish spell is reduced by 10/20/30%.
• Empowered Touch now increases direct healing done by Healing Touch, Regrowth, and Nourish. (Old – Increased healing by Healing Touch and Nourish only)

Interestingly, no significant Cat DPS adjustments to report yet. The only significant change is from yesterday’s hotfixes, which made Skull Bash interrupts affected by hit (and thus can miss). This is somewhat of a big deal, as this may change the subjective weight of Hit for you (especially for 10man content, as typically in 25mans you have other melee classes who are already prioritizing Hit). Don’t stress too much, though. Currently, even reforging away from hit at every opportunity, I’ve still got 2-3% or so, which only gives me a 5% miss chance on an interrupt. Just think of it as adding D&D style critical failures to the game. :P

(Also, because I’m sure someone will ask, expertise does not affect interrupts, since casting mobs cannot dodge or parry.)

Bears took a big damage nerf, which sucks (of course). I don’t really know what bear damage output was looking like compared to other tanks, but this makes my usual quest-mob grinding strategy of “round up 4-5 and Berserk Mangle them to death” less viable, so I’m annoyed. That’s a nice armor increase, though.

Resto…wow. No more OOC procs, but Rejuv blanketing is back in a big way. Interesting fix to druid’s current problem (AOE healing throughput). I’m happy, as it means I don’t have to stress quite so much about making sure Rejuv casts aren’t wasted.

Meta gem changes? Anyone see them yet?

Took down Magmaw on 25m last night, on our guild’s first night back raiding (whee!). I’d say this fight is probably easier on 25, actually; knockback+AOE slow makes the adds pretty much a joke, but NOT having either one of those makes things much more complicated. (Then you’ve got to kite, or play pet tricks, or something.) I was 2nd on the DPS meter despite dying and being out of the fight for 30s. (I don’t know if it’s a bug, or intended, but Magmaw likes to toss off random melee attacks when coming down or getting up). I figure I was running around 17k DPS before I died, and finished around 16k. Not great, considering top ferals are doing 20k+, but I’ll take it. (I have all of 1 epic, so far. Yay for whoever listed Morrie’s on the AH for 15k.)

The fight’s pretty boring, honestly; it’s a lot like XT, with less to do. Timer-wise (assuming chainers are on the ball) the head becomes attackable first about 2 minutes in for about 26-27 seconds, then becomes attackable again a minute after that. Best of all, the head continues to take DoT damage even after it retreats, which makes this fight just about perfect for us. So, assuming you have the Riddle trinket:

0 min: Trinket on pull
2 min: First head phase, trink+berserk
3.5min: Second head phase, standard rotation
5min: Third head phase, trink+berserk (potion if you need)

Etc. You lose a bit of uptime on the trinket, but saving it for the phases where you do double damage is worth it. Try to save TF: you REALLY want to have enough energy to be able to get two 5cp rips off on the head. Also, Primal Madness is actually somewhat useful on this fight, if you can either Shred down your energy before it expires, or at least let it expire after the head phase ends and you don’t need the energy as much.

It only took us about an hour to kill him, so we took a break, went over to Bastion, and got whipped by the trash. Ouch. The Twilight guys must have  must have better benefits or something, I mean seriously:

Trash mobs before Magmaw: 3
Trash mobs before Halfus: 40+ (depending on how many you skip).

I’m going to start working on Part 2 of the gearing guide this week, focusing on raid gear. If you have any requests/comments, let me know!