Anyone using a feral druid (cat) to DPS?

[Redbeard]

Howdy,

If you look at my sig you'll see my melee group has the potential of 4 tanks (if i respeced one of them or geared them diffrently). My initial plan was to use bear to tank (thats my original character, my main) and then set up the others as DPS. I wanted to get your guys' opinions on potentially setting up the druid in cat form instead and tanking (probably) with the DK.

My initial thought is that cat DPS is too demanding these days with all the bleeds and such you need to keep up, but thought id throw it out there to see if you guys had any thoughts. As far as the group buff situation is concerned, bear and cat are identical so thats not a consideration.

ANyways, just curious if you had any thoughts.

[Bigfish]

I'm not quite sure how Cat DPS works, but if its a matter of keeping debuffs up, you can do it with some creative macros.

[Redbeard]

Cat DPS pretty much uses a priority system and is NOT really very spammy, which is what, in my mind, might make it difficult to jive with my boxing team.

Basically its like


1. Keep savage roar up
2.Keep rake up
3.Keep rip up
4.Is it your job to mangle? If so, keep the debuff up.
5. Shred for CP.
6.use feral faerie fire when low on energy to refresh it.



So 1 is keeping a buff on yourself, 2 and 3 is keeping a dot on the mob, 4 is keeping a debuff on the mob, 5 is pure dmg, 6 is keeping a debuff on the mob.

So its not something I can really make a spam button for I dont think lol.

[elsegundo]

feral dps is tough with your team. if you're dpsing bosses, this is what i do solo and would probably work best for you.

FFF, mangle, shred shred shred, rip.
bezerk when needed, pop trinks, etc.

this is probably the highest dps you will get.
your highest dps attack is rip. but you need mangle to keep it up. shred is next followed by mangle.
you can also switch to bear and hit demo-roar.
rake when you get bored of shreds.

problem with this is twofold. energy and combo points.
with a castsequence of simply mangle/shred/shred/shred/rip, you're guaranteed 4 combo points and 5 if mangle or shred crits.
FFF and mangle is a mob debuff so you can see it on the mob. refresh when necessary. you dont need any timers for this.
i would also suggest keeping mangle on a separate key just in case you need to refresh it or if the mob is facing the druid, maybe couple it with FFF. remember shreds can only be done from the rear.
also, use cower if you find yourself gaining too much aggro.

dps with a cat takes constant supervision. if its a slave then it might not be the wisest thing to have. though i'd love it for the 5% physical crit.

[Redbeard]

Yeah after thinking about it all day im just going to stick wtih mah bear as tank. He still gives the 5% crit to my other guys and fits very well with their attacks.

Appreciate your guys' thoughts.

[Redbeard]

Lol with the 3.1 patch notes and some nice changes blood DKs I am seriously considering giving this a shot and making my blood DK tank.



hmmmmm