I know. ;) This was originally Spammer’s thread, created with the advice of several highly ranked ferals. (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3393350521?page=1) He’s since announced that he’s quitting the game, and therefore would not be able to keep this going.
I am fully aware that I am fairly new to PVP in general, and am not highly rated at all; but if you really feel you must point that out to me, then so be it. I cannot stop you. I might laugh at you a lil' bit, but I can't actually *stop* you. :P
That said, I’m taking over his guide for all of the awesome information in it; to have and to update, for as long as I shall PVP in WoW. I’ve found IRL that writing things down - what worked for me and others, the tips I’ve found along the way from all those that are willing to share, and stuff I’ve stumbled across - helps me to remember all the tricks of the trade. I’m just weirdly wired that way. ;) So the side benefit of this project is also to help me improve my game. Thank you Liss for prodding the moderators to apply glue!
I invite the highly rateds and those more knowledgeable Ferals than I to PLEASE DO correct me if I have any incorrect / missing information here! I welcome constructive criticisms, suggestions for additions, debating tactics, and / or discussing strategies.
Spammer, I hope you don't mind if I mercilessly plagiarized quite a bit of your original guide. :P
That explanation out of the way; vote for sticky if you like it, pull up a ./lawnchair with some ./popcorn, and on with the show!
------------
Changelog:
02-03-12: Updated weapons and Vial.
01-13-12: Added a couple of new Datah strategy posts.
01-11-12: Added a blurb about Kiril / Vial.
01-09-12: Added the PowerAuras import code for showing enrage effects. Thanks, Reygahnci!
12-30-11: Added a couple of SkillCapped vids
12-23-11: Added a part about Soothe + Vengeance and rearranged some stuff... Also added to the To Do list.
12-20-11: Updated enchants, trinkets, gemming ideas.
11-23-11: Added enchants, because I forgot about them like a noob. Also added Datah's second post, as suggested by Ellesime, now that I actually have room for it, added a bit to the gems part, and spread out now that I have more space. :) Also LINKED to Datah's posts, instead of quoting them (Ellesime, please don't go getting yourself banned... they were actually your Quotes of his words. :P), and added a couple of other strat posts vs other classes that I had earmarked from the forum because they were useful reads for me.
To Do List:
A rough HP-> Gear Tier table... ie... if you see someone @ 90k health, they are in quest gear. OR 139k health is Ruthless gear.
FC gearing / gemming / reforging etc.
Go through and add in instructional videos starting with Skill Capped / Miirkat.
Add the new PVP gems from the Conquest vendor.
Major Thanks and Credit To:
In no particular order - Clay, Urth, Ellesime, Datah, Laväche, Reygahnci, Spammer, Demongorgon
Thank you for all of the solid advice throughout the various stages of this guide and my own PVP endeavours, as well as often letting me pirate your words shamelessly. :)
Many, many (#)'s to you all.
Since the front couple pages are often littered with the same questions and more and more people are rerolling to this wonderful spec, a few of the neighboring Feral figures had figured it would be neat to post some pertinent feral PVP information.
Opener/Rotation:
Saving Feral Charge (depending on class you are against, of course) and running out into open (in stealth) is usually a good idea. If they have a Blink, Disengage, etc, chances are that they will use it to get away from you the moment that the Pounce stun duration expires. Saving FC means you’ll have it to get back to your target.
Pounce > Mangle > Rake > Ravage (if you used charge, otherwise shred to 5 cp) > Rip.
After the opener, you have a couple of options. Once pounce is off of Diminishing Returns (it shares DR with Maim) take a look around. You may wish to apply a Rip once you have 5cp on a target, or you may want to Maim, and quickly cyclone a second target. Taking 2 people out of an arena match, even for a few seconds, can be game changing.
Additionally, remember that Tiger's Fury (TF) buffs our bleeds. If you're not planning to line up with your burst, it is a good idea to use it before Rake then Rip, to ensure your bleeds get the 15% damage boost.
Lastly, You can use TF before Berserk, but you *cannot* use it afterwords. For best burst, let them both come up, hit Tiger's Fury, THEN hit Berserk.
Reforging:
While many are still on the fence between crit and mastery at the moment, I'd recommend mastery for all-around bloody goodness. If you're mainly running a double DPS 2s comp (especially with a Subtlety Rogue) crit could be handy, but the sustained DPS is nothing to sneeze at.
Which weapon should I use?
Staff or Polearm?:
They're both exactly the same. Feral damage comes from the DPS of the weapon, not the top end, and the weapon's speed will be normalized by cat form's 1 second swing timer. The .1 dps that shows on the staff is actually just a rounding error.
Ruthless Gladiator's Pike = Ruthless Gladiator's Staff < Kiril, Fury of Beasts < Cataclysmic Gladiator's Pike = Cataclysmic Gladiator's Staff < Kiril, Fury of Beasts
If you don't find you're too squishy without the extra resiliance, use Kiril.
The determining factor is mainly, "Is your healer having to spam heal your fuzzy rear?", "Are you dieing while your healer is in 1 - 2 CCs consistantly?", "does your healer complain?", "Do you kill people within the allotted burst time?". If you answered yes to dieing, you probably need the extra resilience. If you answered yes to the last one, then you probably don't need the extra OP burst, so you can stick with the extra resilience.
What race should I be?:
- Night Elf's Shadowmeld is very strong for relieving pressure, and it also removes you from gladius frames. Best overall race for feral. While in Shadowmeld you can pounce or ravage, works like vanish/CS or vanish/ambush. One can also meld > prowl once out of combat. Don't forget the -2% to be hit either...
- Tauren's War Stomp now works in forms, and shares DR with other stuns. It can also save your life or help you line up a cyclone. Second only to night elves for racials.
- Worgen's strength comes from the racial sprint, Darkflight, which is useable in any form. A distant 3rd as far as relevant feral pvp racials go. 1% crit is meh, we got enough as is.
- Troll is nice for the slight hp/mana regen, less time in roots, and 20% attack speed cooldown, and has pretty amazing forms. Bringing up the rear for feral pvp racials.
What Professions should I choose?:
Assuming you can get all epic gems then:
Blacksmithing is BIS, followed by Engineering.
After that, it goes Leatherworking = Enchanting = Alchemy > Inscription > Jewelcrafting > Skinning > Herbalism > Mining > Tailoring.
Glyphs:
- Prime glyphs
The two must haves are Glyph of Berserk and Glyph of Rip, the former lengthening the time of Berserk, the latter increasing your Rip bleed damage by 15%. For the third glyph, it's a tossup from Glyph of Mangle and Glyph of Bloodletting. Run Mangle if you tend to get focused in arenas, or Bloodletting otherwise, for even longer Rips.
- Major Glyphs
There's really not much choice here. Glyph of Barkskin is too good to pass up. Glyph of Feral Charge and Glyph of Pounce are nobrainers, since there really isn't anything else feral oriented that's decent.
- Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Dash is a must, since Dash is one of our root breaks. The other 2 slots are quality of life; Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth and Glyph of Aquatic Form are probably the best two, but this is up to personal preference.
Trinket choices:
Since Unheeded Warning was finally nerfed, there are five major choices:
- Matrix Restabilizer
- Ancient Petrified Seed
- Vial of Shadows
- Cataclysmic Gladiator's Badge of Conquest
- Cataclysmic Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity
The extra root / fear / anything-breaker trinket is basically a requirement, and the extra Resilience on it is very nice. Since the Vial nerf, it's no longer a "if you have it, use it". It's more of a sustained damage than a burst, as it procs 3x more often, for 1/3 the damage each time. Depending on the comp / situation and whether you are generally the focus target, the burst or the resil from the PVP trinkets vs the sustained damage from Vial have their places. Though, from what I understand, really only the Heroic version of Vial is worth using.
On-use trinkets are preferable to on-chance trinkets like Cataclysmic Gladiator's Insignia of Conquest in PVP, otherwise, you may not be able to line up a proc with that perfect moment where your burst would have won the match, because your trinket was on ICD.
Gemming and Reforging:
The meta gem should be the Agile Shadowspirit Diamond, always! Unless you enjoy the random spell reflect portion of Destructive Shadowspirit Diamond, that is. :)
As far as regular gems go, stack agility. As much as you can get. Resilience is right behind though, don't be afraid to stack up Lucent (agi/resil) gems, at least in the yellow slots.
Delicate Inferno Ruby. This should be in every red slot. Agility is over every other stat, dps wise (PVP).
Adept Ember Topaz
Deadly Ember Topaz
Lucent Ember Topaz
Vivid Dream Emerald (If you need a little help with reaching a spell pen cap, but not enough to require a Stormy Ocean Sapphire.)
If you feel you're being focused and are too squishy, feel free to load up on the resilience or agi / resil gems. Again, most ferals will only go crit if they're regularly running with a Sub Rogue.
Stormy Ocean Sapphire Put these in all blue sockets but one. Save the last socket for a Vivid Dream Emerald so you don't go over the spell pent cap. You need spell penetration so your most important abilities don't miss. Cyclone, hibernate, Roots. Cap is 240. But 195 is okay.
Caps (Spell Pen then Melee Hit):
85 - takes care of NE / Tauren Racial only
97 - takes care of MoTW / Kings only
145 - for teams with MoTW / Kings + Mage Armor
195 - for Glyphed Healing Stream Resistance
240 - for the Totem + Mage Armor
- Many ferals use the 2 blue sockets for Stormy (50 Spell Penetration (SP)) gems and the cloak SP enchant (70) for a total of 170 Spell Pen. This will take care of MOST player buffs, but the right comp still has a chance to resist your clones. Adding in a Vivid gem (+20 resil / +25 SP) or other SP hybrid gem will bring you to 195. Additionally (if you have the dough for it, or happen to find two), the new epic gems can be crafted to Stormy gems (63 spell pen each) and negates the need for the Vivid gem to reach 196 SP.
Once you've reached your preferred SP cap, you can move on to reforging. First thing to do there, is make sure you're at the 5% melee Hit cap. Ideally, you want 600 hit, but not more. After that, mastery; all day every day. Other viable options are crit or expertise. The one exception I've seen to this rule is if you're regularly running with a Subtlety Rogue. Many ferals will stack crit instead for the rogue's passive aura bonus, Honor Among Theives (HAT).
Enchants:
Helm: Arcanum of Vicious Agility (Sold by PvP Vendors for 1000 Honor.)
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Vicious Agility (Sold by PvP Vendors for 2000 Honor.)
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Greater Spell Piercing (You NEED this to get spell pen cap.)
Bracers: Enchant Bracer - Agility (It's pricey if you're not a LW'er, if you can't afford it go with Enchant Bracer - Greater Critical Strike.)
Hands: Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery
Robe: Enchant Chest - Mighty Resilience (For surviving; however, if survival is not an issue, then Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats is also an option.)
Pants: Charscale Leg Armor (LW'ers can make a cheap version of this for themselves, everyone else needs a lot more mats to get it.)
Shoes: Enchant Boots - Assassin's Step (The speed boost does NOT stack with cat / cheetah, but is nice when you have to go bear / caster.)
Weapon: Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility; 130 agility > Landslide, unless you can berserk with landslide and make great use of it. Ferals tend to benefit a lot more from agility though.
Addons
- Gladius - Handy addon for establishing opponents' spec and class early, fast target switching and focus switching at a mouse click, and many other options such as enemy trinket cooldown timers!
- Quartz - Replacement cast bar addon, swing timer, and many other utilities.
- Purgeatory (or Purge) - Both are addons that announce dispels and interrupts; either on your screen or in party/raid chat, etc. Mashing the dispel button is one thing, knowing what the game has chosen for you to randomly dispel is another. (Found only on wowinterface.com - doesn’t seem to be on Curse. Purge seems to be a similar addon.)
- Grid - Fairly lightweight raid frame replacement.
Shadowed Unit Frames - My favorite unit frames addon. Has a toggle to turn off blizzard frames altogether, I use this for player, target, target of target and pet frames with the aforementioned Grid as my party/raid frame.
- OmniCC - Puts a timer on your abilities that are on cooldown. Much easier to glance over then to mouse over in combat! Also useful as a dot/debuff timer.
- LoseControl - CC tracker. Tells you via an icon what cc has been used on your target/teammate/yourself, and how long it will remain.
- Dominos - Action Bar addon. Some use it to hide almost all abilities aside from the ones with cooldowns.
- BattlegroundTargets - Like Gladius for battlegrounds. Lists all the opposing team, and shows their current spec, hp, mana and role.
- Clique - Normally seen for healing, but can apply almost anywhere. This addon can be used with mouse-over macros onto target name-plates or the UI plates, whereas Healbot cannot do either one.
- PlateBuffs - displays buffs on enemy nameplates in large icons, such as Pain Suppression, Heroism, Pally bubble, etc. Helpful in knowing when to Soothe a player or coordinate other such strategies as Cycloning an Innervate, etc.
Common 3's comps:
- FMP - Feral, Mage, Priest: Tons of CC that doesn't DR, amazing peels and crazy damage, all in one package!
- Kittycleave - Feral, Warrior, Healer: Strong zerg comp, feral control and CC compliments warrior's strong damage. Plays best with a holy pally, as they offer a lot of freedom cooldowns and pallys have a high healing output.
- Jungle Cleave - Feral, Hunter, Healer: Really fun comp against mages. Good against most comps, pet freedom is a big plus!
- Ebola Cleave - Feral, DK, Healer: High damage pressure comp. Works best with a paladin imo, for same reasons as kittycleave.
- L S D 3.0(FLS) - Feral, Lock, Shaman: Strong multi-dot pressure comp, hell for healers!
Datah Posts!
On Targeting: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881719831?page=4#69
On Crit vs Mastery: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881719831?page=4#70
On Priest / Feral vs Heals / DPS: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2743699609?page=5#98 && http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881719831?page=2#21
On R.Shammy and Unholy DK: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2743699609?page=5#99
On Mage / Rogue: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881719831?page=2#24 & http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881719831?page=2#25 (cont'd)
General Strategy Posts:
Frost Mages: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3530335344
How to deal with hunters: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3430807463
Rogues: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3530333852 (Ignore the "But they're so easy!!" posts...)
Suedama's 1v1 feral guide - LOTS of tricks against various classes. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2089111000
Clay's Feral Burst Tutorial: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3967589766
Notes and Links (odds and ends):
- You may notice that you see your “caster form” (or even get stunned in it) when swapping from one form to another. This is because the caster form isn’t actually a form. What happens when you go from form to form, is your first form gets canceled (you can’t be in two forms at once), and your next form is applied. Latency may show you in caster form for longer than normal.
- Soothe was a WONDERFUL tool against tank-classes (Blood DK, Prot Pallys / Warrs, and Bears)in 4.3. Since 4.3.2, they fixed it so that Vengeance is not gained by other players beating on a tank class, only NPC mobs. However, things like pets still do apparently give vengeance to tanks, so it's still a good button to have within easy access. There is a macro in the macro's section, that will alert you as to when you will need to dispel vengeance from a tank class.
- Pericth's Feral Tutorial: http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=190013
- Feral Macro Thread (Arena Junkies): http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/204345-feral-macros/ - note: while there are many other threads about Ferals on AJ, this is one of few that stays on topic.
- SkillCapped Youtube (How to Burst): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tE7KhVmhrA
- SkillCapped Youtube (Openers): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3OMZ2ymD6Q
PowerAuras Settings:
To import something, type "/powa" in the chatbox, then click on "Import".
Copypasta the following string into the chatbox to show when there's a Soothe-able effect on a player. (It also works on some NPCs.)
"Version:4.2; target:true; icon:Spell_Holy_AshesToAshes; buffname:Ice Block/disper/evasion/anti/divine sh/hand of prote/barksk/berserk/pain sup/shield w/deterr/hand of sac/combat inc/combat readiness/unholy frenzy/divine prot/survival ins/guardian spiri/strength of ; texture:21; owntex:true; sound:10; size:0.48; y:317; texmode:2; timer.h:1.73; timer.enabled:true; timer.y:339; timer.x:-10"
Unfortunately, you only get so many characters to store as strings, so if you want to put "vengea" in there to show vengeance, then you will have to drop something. It was suggested that "strength of" is kind of useless, so you can delete that for space. Credit to Squanky for the code, and to Reygahnci for re-posting this in the forums. :)
Macros:
Don't say I didn't warn you; there's a lot. ;)
Swapping gear for casting heals
#showtooltip Rejuvenation
/cast Rejuvenation
/equip Ruthless Gladiator's Gavel
/equip Ruthless Gladiator's Endgame
This works with Rejuv as well as Lifebloom. LB is actually great because the first tick of it will not have the stats, but the 2nd and 3rd applications of the spell will, and it will 'forget' that the 1st stack didn't have the buff. Rejuv is a great way to cast it on yourself, and then throw a PS HT or regrowth, etc with the Int bonus from the healing gear. You can reapply Rejuv to get the SP bonus from the caster gear, but because changing your weapon incurs a GCD, as does the spell, it's not until the 2nd GCD that the stats benefit the healing spells.
Replace the Gavel and Endgame with whatever you have that has caster stats on it.
#showtooltip
/cast Cat Form
/equip Ruthless Gladiator's Staff
/equipset pvp
To swap back to cat + feral PVP gear. The equipset requires that you use the ingame manager, and isn't strictly required, unless you sometimes forget to equip your PVP gear. :)
Macros Continued::
The first thing to note, is that you cannot macro two abilities on the Global Cool Down (GCD), like Swipe and Thrash, together. However, you can macro together anything that is OFF the GCD, such as Maul and Skull Bash.
You generally want to start the macro out with
#showtooltip Prowl
This will show the tooltip of the indicated skill. If it is left blank, it will show the first skill. You can use this with just plain #showtooltip to show the first skill that is currently on that key. With my setup, I actually use this to my advantage, though I found it by accident. :)
Here's how: You can macro two abilities to 1 key, with a key modifier.
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Barkskin; Feral Charge(Cat Form)
This will cast Feral Charge on the plain keypress (whatever key you bind that button to), and cast Barkskin if you hit shift + that key. The side benefit, is that when you have the modifier key (shift, in this case) pressed, the icon will switch to Barkskin. If you were to put in #showtooltip Barkskin, it would only ever show Barkskin.
Great for clickers (keybinding is much faster and more reactive, though I know a couple of people that swear by it) or people like me that prefer to see the skill of the button I'm pressing.
/cast Cat Form(Shapeshift);[stance:3]!Prowl
Spammable ANYthing! - Adding an ! to the start of the skill will prevent the skill from being recast, IE: mashing the Cat button more than once may actually kick you OUT of Cat. Not fun!
This says "If you're in stance 3 (cat), then cast Prowl - but DON'T let me use this to cancel Prowl."
/cast [nostance:3] Cat Form; [stance:3, nostealth] Prowl; [stance:3, stealth] Pounce
This says, "If you're not in Cat Form, cast cat form. If you ARE in Cat Form, but aren't stealthed, cast Prowl. If you're in Cat Form, AND Stealthed, cast Pounce." This looks like it would throw you into cat if you're Shadow Melded, which would break the meld, but it's a good example to show how to use conditions.
#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1] Faerie Fire (Feral)(); [stance:3] Ferocious Bite()
This is a way to say "If I'm in Bear Form, cast FFF, if I'm in Cat Form, cast FB." This will also (because the showtooltip is blank) show the key for the form you're in.
/cast !Cat Form(Shapeshift)
/cast !Bear Form(Shapeshift)
/cast !Travel Form(Shapeshift)
Each of these lines is one macro. "Power Shifting", if you press them out of form, they'll put you in that form. If you press them when you're ALREADY in form, it will cast the form again. This was more useful when we had shifting break roots, but still useful to break snares and slows.
#show Skull Bash(Cat Form)
/cast [nostance] Cat Form(Shapeshift); [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form)
This will put you into cat form (if you aren't already), and cast Skull Bash on your target. Because Skull Bash is off the GCD, you can macro it to the form cast. The caveat is: there is still a slight lag because the server needs to check that you actually have the energy to pay for it through the skill Furor (assuming you have it). If you don't have Furor, this will not work, as swapping into the form will not give you the energy immediately, and the interrupt will not go off until you press the key again.
#Showtooltip
/cast [nostance:1] !Bear Form; [stance:1] Feral Charge(Bear Form)
/cast Enrage(Bear Form)
/cast Bash
This should put you into bear form (but will not take you out of bear form) on the first keypress if you aren't already in bear form, then FC on the next button press (or on the first if you're already in bear). On the 3rd button press (or if you are in melee range), you will also cast Enrage and Bash on your target.
#showtooltip
/use Fel Healthstone
/cast [stance:1] Enrage(Bear Form); !Bear Form(Shapeshift)
/cast [stance:1] Frenzied Regeneration(Bear Form)
Puts you into bear on the first keypress, casts Enrage + FR and uses a Healthstone if you have one on the second.
#show Cyclone
/cast [mod:shift, target=arena1] Entangling roots; [target=arena1] Cyclone
This should cast roots on the first arena frame, or cyclone it using the shift modifier. You can change this to 1 - 5 to avoid having to use a mouseover / focustarget. Just make sure you're in range. ;)
#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1, target=focus, exists] Skull Bash(Bear Form); [stance:3, target=focus, exists] Skull Bash(Cat Form)
/cast [stance:3] Feral Charge(Cat Form); [stance:1] Feral Charge(Bear Form)
Interrupts your focus-target, and feral charges back to your target. Works in both bear and cat forms. Sometimes it acts in odd but beneficial ways...
Macros Continued:
#showtooltip
/cleartarget [noexists, stealth]
/targetenemy [noexists]
/use [stealth] Pounce; Rake
/use [nostealth] 10
Spam this when looking for stealthies near you. It also doubles as rake when out of stealth.
The cleartarget at the top will clear your target (hey, lookit that!) so that you can attempt to /targetenemy the next thing (the [noexist] being a stealthy shadow).
The next line says that "if you are stealthed, use Pounce; if not, use Rake". This way you can use the macro on your rake button. You can replace Rake with anything else.
"/use [nostealth] 10" says "If you are not in stealth, use thing in equip slot 10." (Gloves, in this case, in the event you had an "on use" ability (like springs) on your gloves." This can be removed, if you don't have anything, or can be added to any macro you like.
#showtooltip Dash
/cancelaura Stampeding Roar
/cancelaura Darkflight
/cast Dash
Cancels Stampeding Roar and Darkflight (if either are up) and casts Dash. This is due to not being able to actually cast a dash if you're already under the effects of another Dash-type of skill.
#showtooltip [stance:1] Stampeding Roar(Bear Form); [stance:3] Stampeding Roar(Cat Form)
/cancelaura Dash
/cancelaura Darkflight
/cast [stance:1] Stampeding Roar(Bear Form); [stance:3] Stampeding Roar(Cat Form)
With the Stampeding Roar macro for cat / bear to save space on hotkey bars baked in.
#showtooltip
/cast [nostance] Faerie Fire
/cast [stance:4] Faerie Fire
/cast [stance:1] Faerie Fire (Feral)
/cast [stance:3] Faerie Fire (Feral)
Pasting all of this into 1 macro means that the FF / FFF button will change based on whether you are in a form or not.
#showtooltip Feral Charge(Cat Form)
/cast Feral Charge(Cat Form)
/cast Faerie Fire (Feral)(Feral)
Shows the tooltip for Feral Charge on the button, regardless of what ability comes first (since the CD is so much longer AND it has the min range component), and then casts them in sequence. Since Feral Charge is off of the GCD, they basically happen simultaneously.
This works best when you have a UI that will give you an extra stealth bar, like ElvUI and a bunch of others. I say this because you may be stealthed and need to FC to a target to Pounce on it. Since FFF kicks you out of stealth, you can see how this might be a problem! The added bonus is key saving. If your target is too close to FC / FC is on CD, the FFF will still go off (assuming it is off CD). I have FFF alone elsewhere on my bar so I can see when it's up, but not need an extra key for it.
I love it in PVE, because I don't have to remember to apply it! In PVP, the armor debuff is nice, but getting it up immediately on a rogue can be crucial. Quick note on Rogues: I've seen them dispell FFF from themselves (I believe through Cloak of Shadows), but FFF may be on CD, so you can't reapply. However, caster form FF isn't! Just something to keep in mind.
#showtooltip Survival Instincts(Cat or Bear Form)
/cast [form:1]Survival Instincts(Cat or Bear Form);[form:3]Survival Instincts(Cat or Bear Form);[noform]!Bear Form(Shapeshift)
Uses SI regardless of which form you're in, BUT, if you're in caster form, it will default to bear and then cast it.
#showtooltip
/cast Ravage(Cat Form)
/castsequence reset=10 Feral Charge(Cat Form), Ravage!
This will let you use the same key to FC -> ravage!. You will need to hit this 2x, it's not a "macro 2 things together" deal. After FC'ing, you have 10 seconds in order to use the Ravage! buff. If you do not use FC within 10 seconds, it will reset the sequence, and automatically assume you want to FC, not Ravage next time you hit that key. However, if you use the macro while FC is on CD, it will not do anything; avoiding the scenario of "FC has 2 seconds on CD, smacking it by accident means you now have 10 seconds of it thinking you want to Ravage! when you don't have the buff.
Additionally, if you are in stealth, and in melee range, you will simply Ravage the target.
Diminishing Returns:
Diminishing Returns (DR) come into play when you cast the same type of spell on the same player more than once within ~15 seconds. The first time it is cast, the person gets the full effect. The next time, the effect is then diminished by 50%, then 75%. The next time, the target is immune. Because it's not actually a 15 second timer, but the server checking every 5 seconds, it is not accurate to say that DR will drop on the 15 second mark. Most addons show the effect has worn off after about 18 seconds.
Note: Deep Freeze (Mage) and Ring of Frost (Mage) are the only two weird ones that share a DR with each other, as well as the rest of the spells in their particular classification.
Disarms: Chimera Shot (pet), Disarm (Warrior), Dismantle (Rogue), Psychic Horror - disarm effect (Priest), Snatch (pet)
Disorients: Dragon's Breath (Mage), Freezing Trap (Hunter), Gouge (Rogue), Hex (Shaman), Hibernate (Druid), Hungering Cold (DK), Polymorph (Mage), Repentance (Pally), Ring of Frost (Mage), Sap (Disorient), Shackle Undead (Priest), Wyvern Sting (Hunter)
Fears: Blind (Rogue), Fear (Lock), Howl of Terror (Lock), Intimidating Shout (Warrior), Psychic Scream (Priest), Scare Beast (Hunter (./hiss)), Seduction (Lock Succubus), Turn Evil (Pally)
Horror: Death Coil (Lock), Psychic Horror (Priest)
Roots (Controlled): Entangling Roots (Druid), Freeze (mage pet), Pin (pet), Frost Nova (Mage), Storm Earth and Fire (Shaman)
Roots (Random): Improved Cone of Cold (Mage), Improved Hamstring (Warrior), Shattered Barrier (Mage)
Silences: Arcane Torrent (BE Racial), Gag Order (Warrior), Garrote (Rogue), Improved Counterspell (Mage), Improved Kick (Rogue), Shield of the Templar (Pally), Silence (Priest), Silencing Shot (Hunter), Spell Lock (Lock), Strangulate (DK)
Stuns (Controlled): Bash (Druid), Bash (Enh pet), Cheap Shot (Rogue), Concussion Blow (Warrior), Deep Freeze (Mage), Demon Charge (Lock), Gnaw (pet), Hammer of Justice (Pally), Holy Wrath (Pally), Intercept (Lock Felguard), Intercept (Warrior), Intimidation (Hunter), Kidney Shot (Rogue), Maim (Druid), Pounce (Druid), Ravage (pet), Shadowfury (Lock), Shockwave (Warrior), Sonic Blast (pet), Warstomp (Tauren Racial)
Stuns (Random): Impact (Mage), Seal of Justice (Pally), Stoneclaw Totem (Shaman)
None (itself): Banish (Lock), Charge (Warrior), Cyclone (Druid), Entrapment (Hunter), Frost Shock (Shaman), Hamstring (Warrior), Mind Control (Priest), Scatter Shot (Hunter), Slow (Mage)
Current Talent Spec: http://wowtal.com/#k=-bKWjQ6zn.b0w.druid.-L1GLX
There are multiple different ways to spec your talents. Let's start with a look at the stuff we don't necessarily need for arenas.
- Thick Hide: Pve tank talent. This might be useful if you face a ton of melee cleaves or are a flag carrier in BGs, but I don’t see it often taken in any other instance.
- Perseverance: If you face a lot of wizard cleaves or are going for flag carrier, you might decide to use this. 6% flat magic damage reduction is good, but you'll take it usually at a loss of Primal Madness, and likely a point from feral aggression.
- Blood in the Water: I don’t see this taken in a PVP setting in any form. If you’re biting a target below 25% health, the likelihood is that they will die from the bite, or very soon thereafter.
- Fury Swipes: RNG talent that procs off of our white hits. Some people like it for their 2 floater points, others put them into Primal Madness for the temporary boost to TF/Berserk.
- Primal Madness: Buffs Enrage / Berserk to give you an instant 6 rage, and Tiger's Fury to increase your maximum energy by 20. Be careful with this one, it has 1 downside. When TF wears off, you will also LOOSE 20 energy. This is because when your Energy bar collapses back to 100, it takes it out of your available energy as well, regardless of whether you are capped or not. If at all possible, you want to be as close to 0 energy as possible, so you loose very little when this happens.
And on to some stuff that we do, actually need. As mentioned above, we get two floater points to play with.
- Feral Swiftness: Increase to movement, big help when your highest damage and burst require you to be behind the enemy. Also gives us two root breakers (Dash and Stampeding Roar will break roots once this is spec'ed into. It also includes a 4% chance to dodge in either cat or bear form.
- Furor: Will let you keep 0%/33%/66%/100% of your energy, depending on how many points you have in there. You also have have that percent chance to gain 10 rage upon shifting to bear. This is helpful in the event you need to immediately Bash something, you do not need to wait for rage to do so.
- Predatory Strikes: Gives us the instant-cast spells that our opponents hate about us so much. Upon using a finisher, you have a % chance per combo point (100% at 5 CP) to gain the buff. But be aware of dispellers! They can take this buff away from you. It's most commonly used for an instant Healing Touch or a Cyclone.
- Infected Wounds: Slows the enemy down, helpful in staying behind the enemy, and getting away from them if we need to heal up a bit. Also slows down their Attack Speed a bit.
- Primal Fury: Gives you a 50%/100% chance to gain 2 CPs when you crit with an ability, instead of just one. Faster combo points means faster finishers.
- Feral Aggression: You generally choose to bite an enemy when they are very low on health. But the harder you bite them for, the more likely the chance they will keel over before you. (Plate is hard on the teeth!)
- King of the Jungle: Gives Tiger's Fury (TF) the ability to restore 60 energy. Also gives the bear form Enrage ability 15% extra damage. I don't know about you, but I like free energy!
- Feral Charge: A must have. While Skull Bash can function as a (buggy) gap closer in addition to an interrupt (and indeed, when we first gained the ability many moons ago, it was our ONLY gap closer), Feral Charge (FC) is on a much longer range. Note: cat and bear form versions of this ability share a CD, however, the bear form version is on a 15 second CD, and the cat version is on a 30 second CD. If Feral Charge (Cat) is on CD for another 15 seconds or less, the bear form version is half as long and can be used instead. Shifting to bear for the purpose of casting it, might get you where you need to go faster. Bear form also roots an enemy, whereas cat form dazes them.
- Stampede: When you take the FC talent, you can then buff it with Stampede. Taking this talent will mean that every time you use FC, you will get a free (no energy cost / no prowl needed) Ravage. As Ravage is our hardest hitting ability, aside from a 5cp bite, this is very handy indeed for burst.
- Leader of the Pack: A free self heal and a 5% boost to crit for yourself and all party / raid / BG members in range.
-Brutal Impact: Unfortunately, we have to spend 2 talent points to take our interrupt from 1 minute down to 10 seconds. The talent also increases mana cost for all spells for 10 seconds to whomever you Skull Bashed.
Nurturing Instinct: Increases your heals by allowing your Agility to count as Intelligence, and increases healing done to you in cat form.
Survival Instincts: Reduces damage by 50% for the duration. Available for cat and bear form. (At least until MOP, but thats a cat of a different color.)
Endless Carnage: Increases the duration of your bleeds. Nuff said.
Natural Reaction: Reduces damage taken by 18% in bear form, increases dodge chance by 6%, and lets you gain rage when you dodge. If they can't resist smacking the bear with Frenzied Regen up, you may as well take advantage of it. :)
Rend and Tear: Increases damage done by Maul, Shred, and Ferocious Bite to bleeding targets.
Berserk: Critical to burst, but on a 3 minute timer. Use it wisely! Reduces the energy cost of all cat abilities by half. Mangle in bear form has the ability to hit 3 targets, and have no cooldown (besides the GCD). It also has a passive agent, where Lacerate has the chance to refresh the CD on Mangle in bear form.
Heart of the Wild: Increases Intellect in caster form, AP in cat form, and Stamina in bear form. All around nice talent to have.
Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces the mana cost of shifting by 20%. You shift far more than you think you would in PVP. Either going between cat / bear or throwing out heals / Cyclones.
Master Shapeshifter: Increases physical damage for bears, crit for cats, and healing for caster form. Another all around good talent to have.
Bear Flag-Carrying (FC):
(Note, this is primarily geared towards RBGs, rather than randoms)
Bears are not the ideal FCs in a stacks game where turtling to increase stacks on the FCs is common. But, if you're all your team has, this part might help you a bit. Gearing / Spec'ing for FC is a lot different than regular Kitty PVP.
Lovingly crafted *cough*Stolen*cough* from: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3932983775
Thanks to all in that thread! (#)
Spec / Glyphs: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZrrGcRubzMczMcu:q0rri0m0z
Gemming: You want to gem for maximum possible resilience, using 40 resilience gems in just about every slot except 1 agi/resil in the helm and chest for the meta gem. Spell Pen is a bit less important, perhaps Steady Dream Emerald in the blue sockets if the resilience tradeoff from the bonus (while using a hybrid gem) is better than just shoving a +40 Resilience gem in the hole. You won't be casting many Cyclones when it becomes really important, you'll generally be running your fuzzy rear off or eating damage to the face - popping out of Bear to Cyclone something while you're the focus target is inadvisable for obvious reasons...
The meta gem to use, would be Effulgent Shadowspirit Diamond or Powerful Shadowspirit Diamond. You could potentially get two helms, one for each meta, and switch based on the other teams comp.
Reforging: Basically goes Hit to 5%, some Exp (IE: not reforging shoulders and using the Expertise necklace might be worth it - 20 is the softcap for PVP), everything else into Mastery or Dodge. (Although, you cannot Dodge from behind, and players WILL try to get behind you - it's nigh impossible to try to get behind everyone at once! However, Dodging a Throwdown can be more beneficial than trying to mitigate damage. The jury's still out on this - please feel free to post your preferences!)
Enchants:
The only one that would be different, would be the Cloak (since you don't need Spell Pen).
Likely Enchant Cloak - Major Agility is best.
Trinkets: Definitely use Cataclysmic Gladiator's Emblem of Tenacity & Cataclysmic Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity
Team Composition & Strat (Heals): Laväche, a well known feral FC, generally ran (up to about 2400 MMR without issues) with 4 healers: 1 Resto Shaman, 2 Holy Paladins, and 1 Disc Priest. (Sometimes 2 disc and 1 hpal depending on who was around.) The Discipline Priest would go with the offense while the other 3 stayed with me unless the FC was having a rough time and needed the extra healer.
Strats:
With fears, if your opponents arent dps'ing you then you want your healers to just dispel it. If they are dps'ing you, dont worry about trinketing it since the damage will break fear pretty quickly for the most part. Instead save your trinket and Stampeding Roar for smoke-bombs that put you in trouble.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3932983775?page=2#31 - Great write-up by Terias. The only change here, is that Vengeance no longer happens in PVP based on players attacking you (pets may still give it to you though).
Some strategy highlights:
The idea with the strats above is that you stay with your team, as playing split only puts the feral carrier at a disadvantage. At low stacks, high mobility is our greatest advantage, try to keep the caps quick, stick with the group, and avoid sitting on high stacks. A high stack turtle game favors the prot carrier and they can easily send a stealth team or a small team past your team to snipe you.
Also, you will sometimes find situations where you kill their EFC, wipe them in their base, and you hit 4+ stacks. In these cases it's usually to your advantage to drop the flag and reset if you are in/near their base or you aren't sure you can make it across the field with 5-10 stacks. While the same is the case for their carrier, losing run speed hurts your team far more than a prot team, drop the flag and pick it back up when stacks reset if the option is available. Once you gain the momentum of the first cap, getting the rest is usually easier, especially if you are holding their gy.
In order to heal a druid your healers are going to have to be completely on the ball. Especially when it comes to smoke bombs, having one healer stand on your at all times is almost required. It's very likely that you'll even get stuck inside the bomb you trinket on. There's very little that you can do to save yourself. Having a Pally on hand for Hand of Freedom (or Lay on Hands, as a last resort), a Priest to Life Grip you or a Priest on top of you in the bomb for AOE fear, are all good options.
A worgen druid carrier has a very big advantage over any other race. If you're going to carry for a team regularly, you might consider going worgen. The speed boost it provides in travel form is about equal to crusader aura mount speed.
Videos: A team playing against Terias, as a FC bear. It's not from the bear's (or even his team's) perspective, but does show a bit of what the bear was doing during the game. http://www.twitch.tv/samk920/b/307088587 - From 1:47-2:14ish, is Terias' team against a 2600 team. It shows a lot of flag carrying, and gives a good idea of how a feral carrier works.
Reserved
Ok - I'll work on spreading out the posts so that I can add stuff from the other guide tomorrow. For now, I'm done. Oh, and Ramzies still owes me a Fandral's Flamescythe.
If this doesn't allow me enough space, I'll eat my first Flamescythe. (Of course, this assumes I actually *GET* one... but whatever... lol. I have 1 more week of raids till 4.3 comes out... ./prays little kitty prayers)
You should move your Change Log to the top of the first post, it helps.
Oke; Done - thanks!
Question - Should I put the Spec up above where it makes sense (up with geming and reforging and gearing and whatnot) or leave it at the bottom because that section is just so long? Opinions?
This is actually very well developed. Well done! like/sticky
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