3.1 Druid Cat DPS - Abilities Overview

Maximum Cat DPS is hard to execute. You have to maintain a lot of different effects while still executing pulse damage. This is complicated by the random nature of combo point generation and Energy consumption due to our Talents (Primal Fury & Omen of Clarity).

Add to this the additional complications of Melee DPS:

• Being Dodged if you are not Expertise-capped (mobs can Dodge attacks from behind)
  
• Staying in range of the target AND behind it to avoid interruptions in your DPS
  

As a result, we need go with a spell prioritization. Rotations simply won't work. For many DPS classes, prioritization has become a factor, but Cats have a prioritization on crack. Before we can establish a priority, we have to understand our abilities.

The Moves
To fully appreciate the prioritization, we have to understand what impact our various attacks have.

First, for those new to Combo Point DPS discussions:

• Combo move = abilities that generate combo points
• Finishing move = abilities that consume all available combo points
  

Savage Roar (+30% to ALL damage; Finishing Move)
This has to be up at all times. It's a flat +30% to all of your damage; that's an incredible boost. Savage Roar is a finishing move, so it is impacted by the number of combo points you have up when you use it. The first point gives you 14 seconds, but every subsequent point only adds 5 seconds. As a result, the efficiency of points used goes down with each combo point.

• 1 point : 14 seconds (14 s/point)
  
• 2 points: 19 seconds (9.5 s/point)
  
• 3 points: 24 seconds (8 s/point)
  
• 4 points: 29 seconds (7.25 s/point)
  
• 5 points: 34 seconds (6.8 s/point)
  

This begs the question of whether you should stick with a couple of points or as many as possible. At the very least, you want to keep it going long enough to execute your next series of attacks and still maintain it.

Mangle (+30% to all Bleed effects & Shred; Combo Move)
The debuff from Mangle is simply amazing, giving +30% damage to Shreds and Bleed effects. That means your Rip, Rake, and Shred will be boosted by 30%. It's not quite as amazing as the buff from Savage Roar for your individual DPS, but it is still critical and for the raid's DPS it can be an incredible boost. Rogues, at the very least, should generally be hitting what you are hitting for maximum raid DPS.

That said, you only want to Mangle as much as necessary to maintain the debuff, as the damage is not as impressive as your other moves.

5-Point Rip (Long Bleed DoT; Finishing Move)
Rip will probably amount to ~25% of your DPS. Keep it going. With Rip, you do more damage with each combo point you put into it. WoW Wiki's page on Rip gives us the following formula for a Level 80 Rip:

Total Damage = 234 + (594 + 0.06*AP)*(Combo)

This is of course increased by Mangle and the Primal Gore Talent allows your Rip DoT ticks to score a critical Hit.

Shred (Pulse damage; Combo Move)

This will likely be 25-30% of your damage. So many of your Talents stack up to make this do more damage and it reigns supreme as the most damage you can do with a combo move.

Rake (Pulse & Bleed DoT; Combo Move)
NOTE: A new Rake will overwrite an old one, clipping the remaining damage of the previous Rake.

Rake is another bleed we can put up. This one generates combo points.

"Rake the target for [AP / 100 + 190] bleed damage and an additional [1161 + AP * 0.18] damage over 9 sec. Awards 1 combo point."

The initial damage is small, and it is the only part that can score a critical hit, the DoT bleed does not benefit from critical hits. Some might question why you would use this.

Is it worth it to use Rake? Although the bulk of the damage cannot crit, the DoT ticks are pretty potent and it actually does more damage, on average, over time, than my Shreds (after I average over all hits and crits).

However, to achieve maximum DPS, it is crucial that you do not refresh it too soon. Since you can overwrite an old Rake with a new one, you can cut off the last bits of damage and as you can see from the formula, about 90% of the damage is going to come from the DoT ticks. If you clip just one of the ticks, you drop the damage below the overall average for Shred.

Note to self - pay attention to what I just said and resume better Rake discipline.

On the plus side, since Rake costs less Energy than Shred (35 vs. 42), minor clipping will likely not reduce your DPS significantly, but it will still be a reduction from your maximum possible DPS.

An added advantage to Rake is that it helps insure that you maintain at least one Bleed to give you the +20% boost to Shred from your Rend & Tear Talents. It's also nice to give you a Bleed to boost your Shreds while you are still working on getting your initial Rip established.

Faerie Fire (Minor armor reduction)
This is easy to put up, helps everyone's DPS, and lasts through most boss fights without needing to be refreshed. It's a no-brainer that it's good to keep it up.

Ferocious Bite (Pulse damage; Finishing Move)
There was a day when you would be laughed at for even considering this a raid boss DPS ability. But now it sits atop a mountain that can be hard to climb. The problem is that it can be hard to work in FB without starving yourself for the combo points you will need for Rip and Savage Roar.

That said, never stop trying to figure out how to work it in. It does a lot of damage. Sure, over the course of a boss fight, you may only increase your damage by 5%, but that's more than enough to justify the effort. At the very least, when you pop Berserk you should be able to work in one.

For raid trash, this is still a good thing, but don't forget that your Rend & Tear boosts your Ferocious Bite as well for bleeding targets, so don't forget your Rake on the guys that die fast.

Starting to See the Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Hopefully, you are starting to formulate in your head some sense of what a good prioritization should be.

I know this discussion has helped reinforce my understanding. :)

Next Post

I guess I have let the Cat out of the bag on most of this, but in the next post, I'll pull this all together and discuss prioritization and technique.