- This page is probably outdated and needs updating from someone who is actually currently playing. Sorry bout'cha -Volkyn
Standard Stats and Information
Talents
Standard DPS The remaining 2 points are yours to spend (the 2 points in infected wounds can also be moved to stampede/thick hide, if you want)
Stats
Cats are pretty easy to get started as of 4.0. Generally you want to be hit capped and since Armor Penetration turned into lousy crit, you don't have to worry about it. Agility gives 2 AP, plus crit, making it the undisputed king of kitty stats. Haste is horrible, so reforge all of that into Mastery. Mastery is pretty much the best non-basic stat for a cat, as it increases bleed damage significantly. If you have more than 75% crit in raids, you can reforge your extra crit instead of haste.
Gemming
- Red Slots: Agility, possibly Expertise if not capped
- Yellow Slots: Agi + Crit
- Blue Slots: Agi + Hit, maybe Expertise + Hit (If already hit capped, pick the best socket bonus that requires blue and put Nightmare Tear in it, the rest of your blue sockets should be treated as red sockets)
If you're breaking a socket bonus because of a blue socket, you may as well treat all sockets on that item as if they were red.
How To:
DPS
Need to Knows
When you are DPS'ing a raid boss, there are four key things to keep up with, which happen to be:
- Keeping Savage Roar up 100% of the time
- Keeping Rip up 100% of the time (IT'S KIND OF A BIG DEAL)
- Keeping Mangle up 100% of the time
- Keeping Rake 100% of the time (DO NOT REFRESH RAKE UNTIL THE PREVIOUS ONE EXPIRES)
Shred is your best combo-building attack.
4.0 Changes
- Your bleeds (Rip and Rake) are now your highest damage outputs, it is imperitive that you keep them up at all times. The buff to bleeds and nerf to Savage Roar makes Rip a higher priority, so if you have 5 CP's and both are coming to an end, always choose Rip first.
- Savage Roar" now only increases white damage, so it can take the backseat to Rip'' when you have to make a Combo Point decision.
- Tiger's Fury (20% bonus damage) now affects the damage of Rip/Rake. Rake lasts 15 seconds and Rip lasts 26 seconds (with Glyph of Shred and Rip), and Tiger's Fury has a cooldown of 30 seconds (27 seconds with Glyph of Tiger's Fury) You should always try to fit those bleeds in during Tiger's Fury (every other Rake if Tiger's Fury is unglyphed, every Rip if Tiger's Fury is glyphed).
Note: If you choose to Rip during every Tiger's Fury without the glyph, you would lose 2 ticks of Rip, which is not really a DPS loss but is also not a DPS gain. (Unless you time it perfectly, which is pretty dog-gone hard)
- Ferocious Bite has had its bonus energy conversion massively buffed. Ferocious Biting with 70 energy is equal to double Ferocious Bite damage. If you're not in danger of losing your Rip uptime, pool up energy to Fercious Bite.
- Mangle: as of patch 3.3.3, the Mangle debuff lasts for 60 seconds, making it easier to keep up at all times. (Only use it when necessary, excessive Mangling may cause lack of dps, lack of energy, or in some rare cases, death.
Rotation
On a typical "Tank and Spank" fight such as Patchwerk, your DPS rotation should be as so:
- Start with a Mangle
- Use Savage Roar
- Use Rake
- (The following should not be done on fights like XT Deconstructor, where you need to save your cooldowns) Wait until you have around 80 energy, then pop any trinkets you have, use Berserk and Shred to 5 combo points, then apply Rip, Shred back up to 5 combo points and reapply Savage Roar, now reapply Rake if needed and Shred like crazy until you reach 5 combo points, once you reach 5 combo points, throw in a Ferocious Bite (this may or may not occur during Berserk depending on your luck and crit chance). Now Berserk should be over, pop Tiger's Fury for the free 60 Energy and start Shreding. Remember to keep Rake, Rip and Savage Roar up at all times, and use Ferocious bite when you have 5 Combo Points and Rip and Savage Roar both have more than 8 seconds left.
Clearcasting: Try to always use Clearcasting for Shreds, Never use it for Rip or Ferocious Bite and you shouldn't ever need to use it for Rake. Savage Roar does not use up Clearcasting, so if it procs before you use it, don't stop and shred first as you would before a Rip or a Ferocious Bite