Feral Cat

[Quilo]

Hi

I have searched the entire internet for macros or someone who has succesfully used a cat in there team for dps. Anyone that has a good macro setup or been testing this with some good results?

[thefunk]

sort of, and he's a tree now. I originally had the shaman as resto and druid as balance but couldn't handle the procs well enough so switched to cat. DPS dropped substantially (could be macro wasn't effective). So made him a tree and the shaman elemental and saw a HUGE increase. I think part of the problem is DPS behind the mob which is inconsistent when boxing 5 char.

[Ualaa]

I've got two DPS macros on my all feral team:
- /cast [stealth] Ravage; Shred
- /cast [stealth] Pounce; Mangle

So far I am spamming IWT and one of the two.
I have had a bit of success with a chain of -- Macro 1, IWT, Macro 2, IWT.
Need to build a mapped key, to basically do that rotation, and then spam the crap out of it.

I do have the stunning finishing move and the dot finishing move as hotkeys.
But so far (still leveling up), nothing survives more then 2-3 combo points.

I'm sure a heroic boss, will last more then 2-3 seconds... but during the Lunar Festival, a 5600 GS Demo Warlock did not last 1 second. In fairness to the lock, it was the equivalent of 5x Ambush.

[Quilo]

Are you using a mixed team or only druids with this sollusion?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

In my 5 druid team, 5x feral was only about 70% effective in terms of sustained DPS potential, largely because of their bread and butter attack being positional (shred). On anything short of bosses, though, they positively owned.

I had basically 2 macros:

Finisher/Ambush:
/cast [stealth] ravage
/cast [nostealth] ferocious bite

and variants of the normal DPS rotation.

PVP or non-boss PVE mobs:
/cast [stealth] pounce
/castsequence [nostealth] reset=5 mangle, savage roar, mangle, mangle

Boss PVE/sustained DPS:
/cast [stealth] pounce
/castsequence [nostealth] reset=5 rake, savage roar, mangle, mangle, rake, rip, mangle, mangle


I never got real happy with the sustained DPS rotation what with the crit=combo points mechanic and that using shred effectively was inconsistent due to positional/range issues.

[Maxion]

The top dps cat in my mains guild posted a pic on the guild forums showing a diagram of the logic in his dps rotation.
Due to some checks needed in it, and the combo point functionality, I believe it would be nearly impossible to make effective one or two button macros for it.
But I'll post the pic here anyway so you see.

I guess it could be turned into a relatively good /click macro, but it would still never get as effective as playing it manually.

[Fizz]

That chart is actually simplified. I play a cat in a moderately high end guild.

There is no way you can macro up a cat and get numbers anywhere near what you'd see playing it solo. High crit causing two CP well over half the time would make it a nightmare. You wouldn't be able to pool. Berserk's effectiveness would essentially be cut in half.

With the Mangle changes bringing a new Glyph of Mangle, EJ has said that the DPS loss with a mangle-spam build isn't nearly as bad as it was. (Now around -10%.) Mangle still has lower DPE, especially when you lose the Glyph of Rip, but it has faster guaranteed CP generation.

All that said, this is how I'd do it with /click (for boss):
Glyph mangle.

Mangle Mangle Roar,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (I'd play around assuming three or four CP, either way you'll clip)
FFF,NULL (I've never used null myself, I assume it will end the castsequence until it reaches the reset condition)
Tiger's Fury,,,,,,,,,,,,,
[Manually use berserk here. This is "bad form" but you can't exactly pool and in this setup its the best time to use it.]
Rake,,,,,,,,,,,, (you can easily prevent clipping on this which is actually a big boost)
Mangle Mangle Rip,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (you'll clip left and right but you don't have much choice)
Mangle

I might play around with my druid just to see what I get with something like this vs. by hand.

[Fizz]

Heroic dummy
4.24% tooltip hit (not being hit capped hurts /click dps immensely), 21/5.25% exp
No Berserk, completely unbuffed

Shred/"manual": 7100 dps (this is 12-13k saurfang/fester/rot, for raid buff reference)
/click+mangle glyph: 6100 dps (~85% "efficiency")

Its no where near the efficiency you can get as an ele or ret but its not nearly as terrible as I was expecting.

[Ualaa]

85% efficiency, is pretty good when boxed.
Especially considering: a) Mangle does not require facing; and b) Mangle is getting a DPS boost in Cataclysm such that it won't lag as far behind Shred as it does not.



Are you using this for your click:
/castsequence Mangle, Mangle, Savage Roar,,,, (commas)
/castsequence FFF, Null
/castsequence Tiger's Fury,,, (commas)
/castsequence Rake,,, (commas)
/castsequence Mangle, Mangle, Rip,,, (commas)
Mangle as fall-through.


1. Two Mangles, Savage Roar and commas to recast Savage Roar when it falls.
2. FFF once.
3. Tiger's Fury, and recast on refresh.
4. Rake, and recast on expiration.
5. Mangle, Mangle, Rip and commas to recast when Rip falls.... but in priority, and only higher priority then a Mangle fall-through.

[Fizz]

One mangle on SR. If you can "preload" one other mangle before you start your sequence then you get a smoother start.
No mangles on the Rip, just appropriate ,,, delay. Your first rip will be 1cp but otherwise it should be decent.

Around the 20 second mark (second Roar cast) everything is in surprisingly good shape. Mangle is much higher CP/S CP/E than Shred, with the /click setup every roar and rip (after the first) were in pretty good shape. Extra explicit mangles before finishers were largely wasted. Thats why I dropped one Mangle from SR. If you didn't mind manually starting things with 2 mangles, early dps would start higher and you'd have more overall dps.