Kitty Raiding: Major Glyphs Updated

Patch 3.1 brought a plethora of new things to the game, including several Feral Druid Glyph additions and changes. With the new options available to us, the choice of which glyphs are right for you can be a bit harder than before. Since Patch 3.1 also brought us the long awaited addition of Dual-Specs to World of Warcraft, there is no longer a need to put Cat and Bear Glyphs into the same Feral Druid build.

Just as I plan to do, I’m sure that many kitties are talenting bear as their secondary specs, so I have decided to ask an expert for his input on the matter of Feral Druid Glyphs for Bears. Expert Main Tank, fellow Blogger, WoW Twitterati member, and my very own Guild Leader, Kreeoni has graciously teamed up with me for this post, ensuring that we bring you the best knowledge and know-how that there is on the Feral Druid Glyphs out there for the picking.

Onto the Major Glyphs now, shall we?

• Glyph of Berserk – “Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 seconds.” (Level 60) Cat & Bear.

Added in Patch 3.1. Increases the duration of Berserk from 15 seconds to 20 seconds total.

Kathoid: While this glyph is certainly more for cats than it is for bears, it is still not one that I include in my glyph selections. An extra 5 seconds of Berserk every 3 minutes is not enough extra DPS to make me select this glyph over another.

Kreeoni: This is of course more of a cat glyph, but it has its uses in bear form as well since we also use Berserk. If you are finding that threat is your biggest problem, this glyph may help you solve that issue. I wouldn’t really suggest using it otherwise though.

• Glyph of Growl – “Increases the chance for your growl ability to work successfully by 8%”. (Level 15) Bear.

While this glyph wasn’t altered at all in Patch 3.1, since my last post on Feral Druid major glyphs there has been a change to Growl itself. Growl previously was considered a spell, requiring 17% hit in order to never miss. Growl is now considered a physical attack, requiring only 8% hit to never miss, so this glyph ensures that you will never miss a growl even with no hit rating.

Kreeoni: You should definitely have this. It makes it so that your growl will never miss regardless of your current stats. A poorly timed miss on a growl could spell a wipe. Making sure you never miss is important. I think the reason that this glyph isn’t one of the most popular is the fact that people have a lot of hit rating now and getting 8% hit isn’t hard. But it never hurts to make sure you are fully prepared in case you get a dumb debuff or broken armor (in which case you have other issues).

• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration – “While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful.” (Level 36) Bear.

No changes in Patch 3.1. Solid tanking glyph.

Kreeoni: This one is pretty good. It increases healing effects on you when Frenzied Regeneration is active. Since Frenzied Regeneration is one of your “oh crap” buttons this can really help you stay alive just that much longer.

• Glyph of Mangle – “Increases the duration of Mangle by 6 seconds.” (Level 50) Cat & Bear.

No change in Patch 3.1. Increases the duration of Mangle from 12 seconds to 18 seconds total.

Kathoid: Mangle is a cat’s best friend. It does damage and it increases damage by 30% from bleed effects for its duration. I love this glyph and highly recommend it in most situations. I personally do not use this glyph, because I seldom use Mangle as Kreeoni is my guild’s main tank and he is using Mangle constantly. Mangle (Cat) and Mangle (Bear) do not stack with each other but override each other, so there is no need to be spending my energy on Mangle. If your guild frequently uses a Bear for a MT, a better glyph may be better suited for you. Also, if your guild has two Feral DPS Druids, you may want to have one kitty get this glyph and be in charge of Mangling, and have the other select a different glyph instead.

Kreeoni: I personally think this glyph is pointless for bears. It increases the length that your mangle is up on the target. Having the Mangle debuff up on the target all the time is very important for bear tanking as well as cat dps, but as a bear you should be hitting mangle every time it is off of cooldown, especially if you didn’t spec into Improved Mangle. The only time this would be useful is if you were in a fight where you weren’t able to use your mangle before the debuff wore off frequently, or if you are finding that you are missing often and so therefore the debuff isn’t refreshing itself most of the time.

• Glyph of Maul – “Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target.” (Level 15) Bear.

No change in Patch 3.1. Helps build threat when tanking groups.

Kreeoni: This is still the most popular choice for most bears, however it may not be as useful as before. It hits an extra target which is great news for people who multi-tank often. However, Ulduar has a reportedly lower amount of AoE trash so your multi-tanking opportunities are a little bit less. I personally have kept with this one for now because I still find myself tanking multiple mobs a decent amount of time. It also helps you better use your rage when offtanking. If you are going to spend that rage you might as well have it hit multiple targets. CC could be a consideration as it will break CC but common sense is a better solution to that problem.

• Glyph of Rake – “Your Rake ability prevents targets from fleeing.” (Level 24) Cat.

No change in Patch 3.1. Leveling glyph.

Kathoid: This is purely a leveling glyph and I would not recommend it to any Feral Druid at level 80, whether or not you plan on raiding. While Rake is a very important attack maneuver, the ability to stun a target has no use at all to a level 80, for several reasons. Feral Swiftness will let you run faster to catch up if ever a mob runs from you. Infected Wounds will also slow the target, if you choose to spend your talent points there. And even if the mob does get far enough away from you, you have Feral Charge (Cat) to catch up to them in a split-second. This glyph also has no effect on PvP targets. Fleeing mobs have no chance against a Feral Cat Druid, even without this glyph.

• Glyph of Rip – “Increases the duration of your Rip ability by 4 seconds.” (Level 20) Cat.

No change in Patch 3.1. Increases the duration of Rip from 12 seconds to 16 seconds total. Stacks with T7 2 set bonus, to a total of 20 seconds.

Kathoid: This is a must have glyph if you are raiding. Rip is the finishing move you should be using, so long as you have Savage Roar active. The extra time added by this glyph gives you plenty of time to work through your rotations and not have to worry if you will have enough energy to re-up Rip once it is time to do so. If you have this glyph, Glyph of Shred, and the T7 2 set bonus, then you have a little more time to work a small Ferocious Bite into your rotation, depending on the situation. The other reason I love this glyph is in fights such as Malygos where the boss in temporarily unable to be melee hit, a properly timed Rip will last throughout the entire time the boss is out of reach.

• Glyph of Savage Roar – “Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 3% bonus damage done.” (Level 75) Cat.

Added in Patch 3.1. Increases Savage Roar’s bonus damage from 30% to a total of 33%.

Kathoid: This is also a must have for any Feral Cat Druids. As Savage Roar should constantly be up when on a boss fight, this will give you 3% more damage done overall. It is a no brainer to have this glyph if you are a Cat Druid.

• Glyph of Shred – “Each time you Shred, the duration of your Rip on the target is extended 2 seconds, up to a maximum of 6 seconds.” (Level 22) Cat.

Changed in Patch 3.1. Previously, this glyph increased damage against stunned or incapacitated targets by 20%.

Kathoid: Previous to Patch 3.1, this glyph was very lackluster, so this change was a very welcome one. Because Shred is the main combo point builders, and Rip is what you should be using your combo points on, this change to have Shred affect Rip made a lot of sense. With the Glyph of Rip and the T7 2 set bonus bringing the duration of Rip up to 20 seconds, this glyph gives the potential for a full 26 seconds of Rip.

• Glyph of Survival Instincts – “Your Survival Instincts ability grants an additional 15% of your maximum health.” (Level 20) Cat & Bear.

Added in Patch 3.1. Increases Survival Instincts to grant you a total of 45% of your maximum health for 20 seconds.

Kathoid: While Survival Instincts is usable in Cat Form, this is not a glyph for kitties. We should never be taking so much damage that this would be useful.

Kreeoni: This gives you extra health on your large emergency button. Since they decreased the cooldown on Survival Instincts to 3 minutes this glyph is really nice. A better working emergency button helps you just that much more through enrages or other events of that nature. There have been none up on our server yet so I haven’t been able to get this one but it’s definitely the glyph I will be using soon.

Kathoid’s Major Glyphs for Cats: Glyph of Rip, Glyph of Savage Roar, Glyph of Shred.

Kreeoni’s Major Glyphs for Bears: Glyph of Growl, Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration, Glyph of Maul.

We hope this guide to Feral Druid major glyphs has been helpful to you in your own selection of choosing which glyphs are best for your own needs.

If you would like to read more from Kreeoni, you can check out his blog here.

http://druidkitty.wordpress.com/?p=852

Patch 3.1 is here!

Highly anticipated Patch 3.1 finally hit us this week, bringing with it Ulduar, Dual-Specs, the Argent Tournament, and much server crashing and downtime. I haven’t dabbled into Dual-Specs yet, and I am just begining the Argent Tournament quests, but I have set foot into Ulduar despite all the Server and Instance downtime and seen a couple of the bosses – which I will elaborate more on soon in another post.

3.1 also brought a lot of Druid changes our way, and I’d like to go over specifically the Feral DPS changes, and how I think they will affect us. But first, let me highlight the changes to refresh our memory.

3.1 Patch Notes Feral DPS Druid Digest

Class Changes – Druid

• Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral): Now decreases armor of your target by 5%. Has a 5-minute duration, and a 40-second PvP duration.
• Maim: This ability is now considered a stun, and shares a diminish category with all other stuns. It no longer has a chance to break from the target taking damage. Duration lowered to 1 second per combo point.
• Pounce: No longer affected by diminishing returns with other stuns, however, it now shares a diminishing return with Cheap Shot (Rogue).
• New Talent: Primal Gore: Grants the periodic damage from your Lacerate and Rip abilities the chance to critically hit.
• Primal Tenacity: The damage reduction while stunned effect now only works in Cat Form.
• Rend and Tear: The critical strike bonus for Ferocious Bite reduced to 5/10/15/20/25%, down from 10/20/30/40/50%.
• Savage Roar is now considered an Enrage effect and now increases physical damage done by 30% instead of increasing attack power.
• (Resto) Improved Mark of the Wild: Now also increases all of your total attributes by 1/2%.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Berserk: Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 seconds.
• Glyph of Savage Roar: Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 3% bonus damage done.
• Glyph of Shred: Now increases remaining duration on Rip by 2 seconds each time it is used, up to a maximum of 6 seconds.
• Glyph of Survival Instincts: Increases the percentage of your maximum health received from Survival Instincts to 40%.

Bug Fixes

• Swipe: Now properly affected by area-of-effect damage caps.

My thoughts?:

The changes to Fairie Fire are minor, and all it really breaks down to is saving you a GCD by having it last 5 minutes now. The change to 5% armor is just so it scales better – it shouldn’t make much of a difference at all.

Maim, Pounce, and Primal Tenacity changes aren’t that important to a Raiding Kitty, but will be much more important to a PvP Kitty. I don’t spec any points into Primal Tenacity, so no change here for me.

Our newly added talent Primal Gore makes me a happy Kitty, and should make Bears happy as welll. In cat form, it gives each tick of Rip the chance to crit, and now that Rip can last upwards of 26 seconds (with T7 2-set, Glyph of Shred, and Glyph of Rip) this can add up to quite a bit more damage over time. The chance to crit is based off your own Crit Chance, not some seperate number, so with my Crit Chance at 47.13% unbuffed, I can expect to see a nice bit of extra damage compared to pre-3.1 numbers. As for Bears, it gives each tick of Lacerate the chance to crit, which will add up to more threat.

The change to Rend and Tear only applies to Ferocious Bite, which I very seldom use in my Raiding rotations. I’m not sure if it is used more in PvP or not, but I don’t see this change so much as a nerf as it is just balancing out the classes.

Savage Roar has been changed from an extra 40% Attack Power to an extra 30% Damage Done (33% with Glyph of Savage Roar). I’m really not good with numbers, and am not even sure how to do math to see what the change would be here. Reading a bit on forums and the like seem to work it out to be a buff rather than a nerf, but how much of a buff I am not sure yet. I really haven’t spent too much time in Ulduar or any raid since 3.1, so I’m not sure how much more DPS I am doing post-patch. If anyone has any more mathematical insight into the SR change, please let me know and I will update as needed.

While Improved Mark of the Wild is not a Feral Talent, I am recommending that all Druids, whether Feral, Boomkin, or Resto, put two points into this talent. Some Ferals, myself included, have had points into IMotW for quite sometime due to the lack of other Druids in Raids in order to provide the best possible Raid buff. This talent now goes beyond the buffs and now gives 1/2% to all attributes. It may not seem like a lot, but being a baseline Talent, it is definetly worth putting points into.

The Swipe change is one I have been expecting for a while. Seeing as it is a “Bug Fix” I can see that Blizz never intended for any of us to be doing 21K DPS or the like. Don’t look at this as a nerf, look at this as just a bug fix. We weren’t supposed to be getting such insanely high DPS, however limited the time is, and they are just restoring the balance. I don’t know what the actually AoE damage cap is, but I can still do quite a bit of DPS while swiping. Don’t think it Swipe is going to suck now; it doesn’t.

Onto the Glyphs!:

• Glyph of Berserk and Glyph of Survival Instincts aren’t impressing me that much. I am guessing that these two new Glyphs are made for our Bear friends. (Any Bears wanna confirm this?) I haven’t paid for my Dual-Spec yet and haven’t really looked into what Glyphs I will want for Bear Tanking, but I will consider these when I begin to look.
• The change to Glyph of Shred makes me very happy. Previously this would “Increases the damage dealt by Shred to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.”. For raiding, this really didn’t do much for me, but as one of the few Cat specific Glyphs, I had it. However, now it is a must have for a raiding Kitty. I will get into my “Cat Rotation” in a future post, but the main goal is to keep both Savage Roar and Rip up at all times. With the T7 2 set bonus and the already existing Glyph of Rip, Rip will last 20 seconds. If you Shred three times during that 20 seconds, the Rip will last a total of 26 seconds. Very nice indeed.
• The newly added Glyph of Savage Roar also is a must have for all Raiding Kitties. It gives us an extra 3% damage done when Savage Roar is up, to a total of 33%. As I said, one of the goals of a Cat Rotation is to keep Savage Roar up constantly, so an extra 3% damage done overall is nothing to laugh at.

I plan to update my previous Glyph posts soon to reflect these changes and additions.

I hope everyone else is enjoying Patch 3.1 as much as I have been. I love the Argent Tournament quests, the new Fishing Dailies, and am really looking forward to seeing all that Ulduar has to offer!

Don’t forget that The Feast of Noblegarden is fast approaching us now! It begins on Sunday, April 26th and runs for a full week until Saturday, May 2nd! I will, of course, have guides up for all the newly added achievements once the event starts!

Kitty Swipe: An Updated Review

Now that it has been many months since “Swipe (Cat)” has been added, I would like to take some time to talk about it again.

Yes, I still think that Swipe is a little OP – in the numbers. However, Swipe is still in no way sustained DPS and there is no way to make it sustained DPS, therefor it is really not all that over powered at all. I like to think of it as a fun thing to play around with, not something that is going to make me the best DPS overall for the raid.

When I say “fun”, this is what I mean:

No, I did not photoshop my Recount meter. Yes, that is 21,380 damage per second. I wish I could say that this is from a Level 80 instance, but this is from Ahn’Qiraj: the “gauntlet” you have to run down that has dozens of little bugs in it. We pulled the whole hallway and AoE-ed them down at the end. I just had to bash Swipe a few times to get them all down, but there were so many of them that it added up to a whole lot of damage. (For reference, the druid below me on the chart is a Boomkin, also AoEing.)

I don’t think Blizzard ever intended for any class to do 21K damage per second; hence this small, unnoticed “Bug Fix” from the patch 3.1 notes: “Swipe: Now properly affected by area-of-effect damage caps.” I don’t know the specifics on what this will cap the Swipe DPS at, but I am pretty sure that we won’t be seeing any 21K DPS for a while.

Even though this “Bug Fix” seems like a nerf, I am hopeful that this small change will help fix my biggest problem with Swipe: Dying. Because “Swipe (Cat)” does so much damage, it also pulls a ton aggro, which results in me dying. A lot.

I finally got down to doing my own testing with the Idol of Perspicacious Attacks to see if it would effect Swipe (Cat) at all. While I’m not the best at running scientific experiments, my results seem to show that in Cat form the Idol doesn’t have much affect, if any at all. In Bear form it does noticeably, albeit slightly, increase DPS. In my testing though, I did notice that the thing that increases damage most with “Swipe (Cat)” is when Omen of Clarity procs. So if you haven’t included Omen of Clarity in your Feral Build and you want to maximize your Swipe damage, you might want to include it when you get your free respec tomorrow when Patch 3.1 hits.

Looking For Guild

UPDATE: I have found my new guild: “No Vacancy” on the Drenden-PvE US Server!

Alliance Night Elf Feral DPS Druid “Kathoid” seeks an established, serious, professional, highly ranked Raiding Guild for an immediate raiding position.

My Armory

According to WoW Heroes, for Dalvengyr-US, ranked by gear score :

• #1 Alliance Feral Druid
• #2 Feral Druid Overall
• #3 Druid Overall
• #23 Character on Dalvengyr Overall

I do approx 3.5K DPS in raids, but it fluctuates depending on the boss. I also tend to be a little bit lower if I am Raid Leading. I have raided all current WotLK content on Normal and Heroic Modes, and Hard Mode Sarth 1D and 2D. I have lead raids in Naxx 10, and have been Loot Master on many occasions in all raids. I have also raided much of the Old World and BC raids. I am on the PTR but I have not raided Ulduar, but am more than willing to.

I have Off Tanked in Naxx 10 and in some instances. While I plan to make tanking my other spec when Dual-Specs arrive, I have absolutely no intentions of tanking in raids, so please do not ask me to join your guild to be a tank. I tank in a pinch, and like to keep it that way.

Ideally I would like to join a guild that has room for advancement. I have been a Guild Master of a small leveling guild and an Officer in every guild I have raided with and I feel confident in my abilities to be a honest and fair Officer. I have also created and maintained several guild websites.

I would prefer a guild that has other female Raiders and has a more mature age range (20s+). I am respectful to all other guild members and expect the same of them. I would prefer a guild that uses Loot Council to one that uses DKP or similar points system for loot. Yes, I am a female gamer – and if you have a problem with that I do not want to join your guild.

I work until 8pm EST three nights a week, so raid times must be approximately 8:30 PM EST. I don’t mind raiding several nights a week, but do not want to raid more than 5 nights a week. 3 nights is ideal, but I understand that it is to be more likely to raid 4-5 nights once Ulduar is released.

Please note that I am on a US Realm. I am also currently on a PvP realm, and prefer staying on a PvP realm, but would also be interested in moving to a PvE realm if the right opportunity came up. I do not care what time zone the Realm is in, so long as I can meet your raid times.

If you are interested in me, or know a guild that is looking for a Feral DPS Druid, please send me an email at: druidkitty AT gmail DOT com.

PTR Patch 3.1 – Feral Glyph Changes

Well, as they say it does, March has certainly come “in like a Lion“. My hopes for an early Spring were some what squashed today as Old Man Winter decided to dump another pile of his crappy white crap all over the North East yet again, causing much mayhem in its wake. While we in Upstate NY weren’t hit quite as hard as a lot of other parts of the country, the snow was enough to make the roads horrible locally, and so I stayed home from work to spend way too much time staring at the TV and grinding mostly-pointless WoW Reputations, like Wintersaber Trainers and Timbermaw hold.

I did, however, decide to make something productive out of my day, and so here I am with newly formed thoughts on these ever changing PTR Patch 3.1 notes. As it seems that some of the overall class changes and abilities haven’t made their way to the PTR quite yet, I am sure there more changes in store for us that just haven’t been announced yet. And so with that thought, I have decided to first go over all the Glyph changes and put in my two cents on the changes.

Glyph Changes

• Glyph of Shred

New: Each time you Shred, the duration of your Rip on the target is extended by 2 seconds, to a maximum of 6 seconds.
Old: Increases the damage dealt by Shred to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.

This is a very welcome change. This Glyph was really only useful for soloing previously. Anything that increases damage or duration of Rip will make a big change for overall damage done while raiding. And I haven’t tested this out yet, but I am sure that this will stack both with the Tier 7/7.5 set bonus and the Glyph of Rip bonuses to Rip, as those two stack with each other.

New Glyphs

• Glyph of Berserk -

Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 seconds.

This will up the durations to a total of 20 seconds. Nice glyph, but I think that there are other glyphs I would rather have for a Kitty DPS build. I’m not sure if it is one I would include in a Tanking build. I will have to play around with it to see.

• Glyph of Savage Roar -

Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.

With the overall change to Savage Roar, changing its effect to an extra 30% Physical Damage from and increases 40% Attack Power, I am not sure exactly how much this will buff Savage Roar compared to how it is now, but this is definitely a glyph I want to have in my Kitty DPS build.

• Glyph of Barkskin -

Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 1 to 0% while Barkskin is active.

Barkskin isn’t something I think about much as far as Cat form, but I found it very useful last night while I temporarily respeced Bear to OT for Naxx 10. Using Barkskin in Bear form is still very new to me, as when used in BC it would shapeshift you out of form. Now it can be used while tanking to lessen damage taken while tanking by 20% for 12 seconds, every 60 seconds. If you are defense capped already, this will make no difference to you, but if you are still working on your tanking gear and are a few points under, this Glyph will help you stay alive just a little bit longer. Eek! Sorry to all Bears! I am so used to Bear Tanking in BC still that I forgot that “defense cap” doesn’t apply to Bears anymore. So this Glyph is really not for us ferals. ><

I will need to look for these new glyphs on the Auction House on the PTR to see if these are Major or Minor glyphs. I am thinking they are all Major, with a chance that the Barkskin may be a Minor. I will update once I figure it out!

- – - – -

Please see my Patch 3.1 Post here to see what all the changes were once the patch went live.

Patch 3.0.9

We can expect to see patch 3.0.9 this week; a minor patch to tweak a few things here and fix a few bugs there. A few things interest me in the notes for this patch.

DRUID

• Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

THE OBSIDIAN SANCTUM

• Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.

As for the FB change, I don’t see this as having a huge effect in PvE/Raids since I don’t use FB in my rotations, unless I have extra energy to burn before I need to re-up Savage Roar or Rip, and when I do use it I don’t wait to fill up to 100 energy before using it. However, I can see this having a big affect in PvP as it will reduce the amount of burst damage that we can do. Blizzard has mentioned in the past that they don’t like how bursty FB can be in PvP, so this is one way they are going to fix that. I don’t see this so much as a nerf, but more of a way to try to balance PvP a little more. I really can’t say I PvP much though, so if I should be QQing, let me know.

I welcome the change to OS fissures with open arms (paws?) as I can see this being very helpful while attempting OS with any drakes up. My guild recently downed our first OS+1, and one of the things I was having a hard time was seeing the fissures, since they tend to blend in with everything going on around us. Changing it to a more obvious color will mean I will have to spend less precious nano-seconds frantically searching for them. If you haven’t tried OS+drakes, it is probably the most hectic, insane thing out there.

The other thing I find exciting about this patch is the number: 3.0.9. Sure they could throw us a 3.0.9A or a 3.0.95, but numerically speaking the next patch we should get should be 3.1. Let’s just hope they don’t mess up something huge like Wintergrasp and crash our servers on raid night.

Upcoming Patch 3.1 Changes

Now that Patch 3.0.8 is here, and has been fixed from all the bugs it brought along with it, it is time to start all the speculation that comes along with the next incoming patch. With last week’s fake patch note release a lot of people have begun to dream of what could be headed their way, along with Ulduar, once the patch hits us. Ghostcrawler, over on the WoW Forums, has stepped up to the plate and released some of the planned class changes. Yesterday Priests, Rogues, and Shamans got their fix, today Warlocks, Warriors, and Druids get theirs. Keep in mind that this is probably not all the changes we will see, and chances are that some of these will be tweaked from how they are written now.

Ghostcrawler writes:

DRUID

• Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.
• Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.
• Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details.
• Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.
• Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form.
• Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth.
• We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

So let’s break down all these changes, shall we? And yes, I would like to look at all the changes, including our cousins the Bear, Moonkin, and Tree. Remember that 3.1 brings the promise of Dual-Specs, and now is as good a time as any to think about what your alternate spec will be, if you haven’t already decided. I personally am leaning strongly towards Bear; not that my guild is lacking tanks, just that all I did in BC Raids was Tank, and I miss it at times.

• Savage Defense – This one is for our Bear buddies. Of course they don’t specify if this is an ability that you will have to put points into, or just purchase from the Druid Trainer. As I haven’t tanked in what feels like eons, I’m not really sure how needed this ability is. I’m not sure what most Bear’s crit is, but the Bear Tank in my guild is sitting at 21% to crit with a mix of Epics from Heroics, Naxx 10 and Naxx 25. That means that he would get that shield 21% of the time, or 1 out of every 5 melee attacks. I know this is good, but not sure how big the effect will be in the long run.
• Survival of the Fittest – Again, for our Bears. Because of the above change they will be reworking this ability and reducing its bonus armor. “Reducing” isn’t a word we like to hear, but remember that there isn’t an amount or percentage mentioned here, so save the QQs until we know if it is going to be a big reduction or not.
• Faerie Fire – Currently, FF decreases armor by 1260. Changing it to 5% will mean that it scales based on your target. Improved FF should not be affected by this, as Imp has nothing to do with Armor. The “see warrior update below…” says this:
  • Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
• Thorns and Nature’s Grasp – I see these as being more useful in PvP, but may also see some use in PvE. As these are both defensive spells, I don’t see this really affecting the balance in PvP at all, since it does minimal damage, and gives Trees a little bit extra time to escape an oncoming attack.
• Survival Instincts – One for our Boomkins! I think this is a nice little addition for them, although I know they would like to hear more than just one minor change. SI gives them 30% if their maximum health for 20 seconds. I use this ability if I am ever OTing and get a bit low, or if I pull aggro accidentally, so I see that Boomkins would be using this in the same manner.
• Replenish – Replenish is a talent in the Resto tree that causes people being healed by Rejuvenation to have a chance to gain back their energy, rage, mana, or runic power. Renaming it “Revitalize” with clear up any confusion between it and Replenishment. Having it work with Wild Growth now will mean that when being healed by Wild Growth, the people being healed will get a chance to regain energy, etc. from that healing spell as well.
• Sustained Damage of Feral Druids in Cat Form – While I do not see a huge need for this for me personally, I will welcome the change as it means I will probably be able to out DPS a mage or a DPS warrior. And I am sure that many Feral DPS Druids who are new to the class/spec will welcome this change. Note this will not affect Burst damage, so Swipes won’t be getting any extra damage.

Overall, way more changes for Ferals, both Cat and Bear alike. I am sure our fine feathered and barked friends will see changes more than just this teaser when 3.1 goes live. To me it makes sense that Cats and Bears would get a bunch of changes, because there have been so many changes since 3.0 and the introduction of Wrath to the Feral talent tree and how we play. I hope that the Feral DPS changes bring more people into the class and spec, as it still seems that Kitties are still few and far between.

Still no set date for 3.1 yet, but this sure gives me a lot to look forward to!

Kitty Swipe: A Week in Review

I have written an updated review of “Swipe (Cat)” which can be found here.

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Well it has been a little over a week now with my new best friend, Kitty Swipe, aka “The Easy Button”. While I had been anxiously awaiting the addition of Swipe (Cat) since I heard rumors of its incoming existence back in December, I didn’t really expect it to be as awesome as it actually is.

Let us review what it does again, shall we? Swipe (Cat): Swipe nearby enemies, inflicting 260% weapon damage. Pretty sweet, huh? Well if you, like many a Feral, picked up “Feral Instinct” in your Talent Tree, then you are in for quite an extra boost. Feral Instinct not only reduces the chance that enemies will see you while Prowling, but with all 3 points put into this talent it will increase the damage done by your Swipe ability by 30%! WoW wee!! So if you do the math there, that will put your Swipe damage at 338% weapon damage to all your nearby enemies (which also happens to be what the tooltip says if you have Feral Instinct). Now add in “Naturalist” which increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%, “Tiger’s Fury” a move that increases damage done by 80 for 6 seconds, and “Savage Roar” which will increase your attack power by 40%, and you are really starting to add up  the damage. There is also an Idol worth mentioning that will increase your Swipe damage as well. I will write more about this Idol of Perspicacious Attacks, and other Idols, in a future post.

Of course, if you could exclusively spam Swipe without a care that would be ridiculously OP, so there are some limitations on the ability. Swipe normally costs 50 energy, which is half of our precious 100 energy that we have. There are, however, things that can be done to make this awesome ability a little more friendly to our energy wallets. “Ferocity” will bring down the cost of Swipe by 5 points to a total of 45 energy. Berserk will reduce the cost of all Cat Form abilities by 50%, leaving Swipe to cost only a mere 22 or 23 energy (I am not sure if it gets rounded up or down, as it is 22.5) for a full 15 seconds. With points put into the Restoration Tree, you can pick up “Omen of Clarity” (which every druid should have, feral or not) which gives a chance for any damage, healing spells, and auto attacks to cause the caster to enter a “Clearcasting” state, which essentially gives you a free move.

So what does this all mean? I could sit here and do math all night, but really the results speak for themselves. In Naxxramas, with Savage Roar, Tiger’s Fury, and Berserk active while attacking a group of mobs I can hit 12K DPS. Yes, that is 12,000 Damage Per Second. And I have hit that 12K DPS on both trash pulls and Boss Fights, like Grand Widow Faerlina 25 with all adds up. This is rather on the high side of things, but on groups of mobs when I have extra energy through Berserk or Tiger’s Fury I am usually on par with Mage AoE DPS. For the record, the only time I have seen anyone else get near my insane 12K DPS in a similar situation is a Rogue using Fan of Knives. Its so much DPS that people make funny faces in Raid chat, and say all sorts of “Huh?”s in vent. Which really just makes me giggle about my love affair with my newest of abilities. I am in no way saying that this is 12k DPS sustained, it is merely just very high burst DPS (oxymoron?).

Saying all this, you would expect me to say that I am having a litter of Swipe-Kittens after we get married and head off on our honeymoon. While we are clearly in love, and I do not regret my addition of Swipe at all in the least, I feel a bit of sadness. This ability can just be mashed throughout just about all of instances and raids on trash mobs and bosses with adds. Yes, my DPS is through the roof with it on trash, but Swipe makes it too easy. Before there was thought and strategy put towards how to optimize DPS on trash pulls or bosses with adds. Now I can just lazily drift my eyes to my other monitor and read twitter while raiding.

I both love and loathe Swipe.

But knowing Blizzard and how they deal with all things OP, I’m sure we can expect some sort of nerf to this in the future. I know that the other 24 people in my raid group would be thrilled that the silly Girl who plays a cat wouldn’t be kicking their bums in DPS (temporarily) anymore.

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I have written an updated review of “Swipe (Cat)” which can be found here.

Kitty Raiding: Minor Glyphs

In my last post I talked about all the Major Glyphs available to feral druids. In this post, I will talk about all of the Minor Glyphs available to all us druids, feral or not.

Unlike Major Glyphs, which can make-or-break your overall character build, Minor Glyphs are about as important and interchangeable in raids as your current hairstyle. There are certainly ones that are more or less useful, dependent on your spec, but they really are pick and choose to which ever flavor you are feeling at the moment.

Druid Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Aquatic Form – Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form.

This glyph will certainly not add to your raid performance in any way, shape or form, but swimming is just downright annoyingly slow. We druids have it better that most, but why not be OP in everything you do, including swimming! Recommended for: Fast Lane Drivers Swimmers.

• Glyph of Challenging Roar – Reduces the cooldown of your Challenging Roar ability by 30 seconds.

I highly recommend this Glyph to any Bear tank out there, since it is for bear tanks. Hopefully you aren’t in groups where you need to be spamming your challenging roar, but this glyph will give you a whole 30 seconds less to worry about it. Recommended for: Bear Tanks.

• Glyph of Dash – Reduces the cooldown of your Dash ability by 20%.

If you PvP, I recommend this Glyph because it will make you a pro flag carrier. Or, if like me, you have a Mage who likes to try to race you somewhere with his blinks, this will put you at the head of the pack. This will change the cooldown from 3 minutes to 2.4 minutes. Recommended for: Race Runners and PvPers.

• Glyph of the Wild – Mana cost of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells reduced by 50%.
  

If you have “Improved Mark of the Wild”, this will improve it even further. And for any raider who finds themselves to be the default druid buffer, this will let you hang on to more of your precious mana. Recommended for: MotW/GotW Raid Buffers or the Mana Conservers.

• Glyph of Thorns – Increases the durations of your Thorns ability by 50 minutes when cast on yourself.

I have always hated buffs that do not last very long. This fixes that with our “Thorns” spell; typically a 10 minute buff, this becomes a 60 minute buff when cast upon yourself with this Glyph. Recommended for: People that hate short buffs.

• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth – Your Rebirth spell no longer requires a reagent.

Save yourself from the curse of having to frequently buy reagents! Not only will it save you some Gold, but it will also free up some extra bag space. “Rebirth” is our Battle Rez, and any and all raiding druids should be using their Rebirth spell. Recommended for: All druid raiders.

I am currently using Minor Glyphs Dash, Thorns, and Unburdened Rebirth. I hope this little guide will help you decide which Minor Glyphs you are going to pick!

Kitty Raiding: Major Glyphs

Glyphs don’t really get the attention they deserve. We all talk about specs, and gear, and rotations, but not a whole lot about glyphs. This is probably for a few reasons, but I think it is mainly because we just aren’t used to talking about them yet. They only came into existence a few short months ago with the release of Wrath of the Lich King. You can’t even look up someone’s glyphs on the armory, as far as I can tell.

While I am sure that Blizz has many plans for the future of glyphs, there are only a few ones worth getting if you are pure feral dps. I also included the bear major glyphs. If you do a fair amount of tanking, which several of us kitties do, it may be helpful for you to pick one of these up. In this post I am just going to cover Major Glyphs, since they are more important to actual raid performance, whereas the Minor Glyphs are more for “fun”.

Cat Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Rip – Increases the duration of your rip ability by 4 seconds.

“Rip” is a finishing move that is essential in raiding rotations, because it does a high amount of damage over time. It also does a higher amount of damage than “Ferocious Bite” does with the same amount of combo points used. The standard duration of “Rip” is 12 seconds. This glyph will raise the duration to 16 seconds. The 2 set bonus on Dreamwalker Battlegear (T7 or 7.5) will cause Rip to last an additional 3 seconds as well. These two do stack! With both, you will have a whopping 19 second Rip.

• Glyph of Mangle – Increases the duration of Mangle by 6 seconds.

“Mangle” is every cat’s best friend. Unlike “Shred” you can use this move whether you are behind or in front of your foe, and it does 240% of normal damage plus 761 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects, like Shred, over time. Mangle usually lasts for 12 seconds, but with this glyph will last for a full 18 seconds. Anyone else in your raiding party that does bleed effects will also be happy that your Mangle lasts longer, as it will affect them, too.

• Glyph of Shred – Increases the damage dealt by Shred to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.

This glyph is not very useful in raids, but is what I consider a must have for soloing and for anyone still questing and leveling. When I am not raiding, I usually “Pounce” -> “Mangle” -> “Shred”x2 -> “Ferocious Bite”. Often I can get a non-elite downed before they are even un-stunned. This glyph certainly adds up the damage.

• Glyph of Rake - Your rake ability prevents targets from fleeing.

I don’t really see a need for this glyph in raids, but could be a big help while leveling. “Infected Wounds” alone makes this pretty much useless at a higher level, since at Rank 3 it makes “Shred”, “Maul”, and “Mangle” reduce the movement speed of the target by 25% and attack speed by 10%, stacking up to two times and lasting 12 seconds. This glyph also does not work in PvP, so don’t think about it for that, either.

Bear Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Maul - Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target.

This is a great tanking Glyph, and will help you hold aggro much better on a group of mobs, as Maul causes a high amount of threat.

• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration – While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful.

“Frenzied Regeneration” is one of the last stands that a druid tank has before they bite the dust, along with “Survival Instincts”. When I tanked, I tended to only use Frenzied Regen in groups for instances or raids, so if I was going to use this move it would probably be while I was about to die and already getting a ton of heals to keep me up. So,  this glyph would definitely mean more healing at a critical time and hopefully an avoided death.

• Glyph of Growl – Increases the chance for your Growl ability to work successfully by 8%.

Another great tanking glyph. The numbers in this glyph can be a little confusing, but there is a reason that it is set at 8%. “Growl” is technically a spell, which means that its chance to be avoided is 17%. This glyph reduces that to 9%, which is the same as the “hit cap” for melee DPS. If you are at that “hit cap” of 9% and you have this Glyph, then it is impossible for your “Growl” to miss. And for anyone that has ever tanked and had a taunt be missed, you know how horrible that can end up.

I am currently using Major Glyphs of Rip, Mangle, and Shred, as I find these to be the most useful to me since I spend the majority of my time raiding as DPS and very little time tanking. If I were to spend more time tanking, I think I would drop the Glyph of Shred and pick up Glyph of Maul.

I hope you found this little guide helpful when picking out your Glyphs! In my next post I will cover all the Minor Glyphs that are out there for druids.