Feral Druids - The Cat Guide. 3.1 Edition

Cat Form

First off lets take a look at Cat Form.  Blizzard describes it as

"Cat Form
Shape shift into Cat form to increase attack speed and gain the use of various Cat abilities. This form has an innate threat reduction component. The cat is much like the Rogue. You should read the Rogue Basics page for more details on how to play a Rogue. Many Cat abilities are similar to Rogue abilities. Cat form is best for soloing and for party use. If you're a Rogue player, you can appreciate how useful this form can be. Feline Swiftness regains its speed increase when moving from indoors to outdoors. "

I find this pretty ironic since Feline Swiftness works indoors now and was renamed to Feral swiftness (correct me if i'm wrong though.)  Anyways there's also a basline formula to how Cat AP is derived.  It is

#Attack Power is increased by the formula: (Strength x 2) + Agility + (Character Level x 2) - 20

Now looking at that you may say well Strength is 2 times as effective we should just stack that right?  Wrong.  If this was pre-3.1 the numbers would agree with you.  But since 3.1 both Armor Penatration (known as ArP from hereon) and Agility (Agi from hereon) are significantly better then strength.

Reason behind the numbers - Since 3.1 both Savage Roar (our main uptime buff ability) and rip (out main DoT) have been overhauled.  Our Rip can now crit (making Agility more favorable in itself over Strength since Agility gives Crit rating as well).  Our Savage Roar is 30% Damage increase instead of 40% attack power (AP derives directly into Strength ergo making Strength more favorable pre 3.1; Since it is a straight damage increase AGI > STR because of the crit.)

Also on topic of druid form to cat form ratios; our weapon gives us Feral AP directly from the weapon's DPS or ilvl.  It's 14 feral AP per DPS point - 54 If i remember correctly.  This will let you figure out what's best for you as you progress through the game.

So What's better then Agility or Armor Pen?

Well as mentioned before since 3.1 both armor pen and agility are both better then Strength so what should ferals Gem now?  The answer is simple. If you can reach 220 Armor Pen unbuffed and have the Shred Idol gem for armor pen.  It has no DR and only gets better as you get more of it.

Agility is also important.  It is a generally stated rule that you should have 50% Crit unbuffed.  If not maybe gemming agility would be a better option for you.

Once you reach this threshold Armor pen is the way to go.  If you want you can keep stacking agility tho as each point is only a 2 DPS difference or so.  With 10 gems that could equal about a 320 DPS loss maximum.  Not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

Stat values post 3.1

Some people, like myself, rather know what % of your DPS each stat is worth.  Here is a table taken from http://elitistjerks.com

Stat        points      Error      dps value Error
Armor Pen    30.3    +/-    0.1    1.80    +/-    0.01
Agility          25.0    +/-   0.1    1.49    +/-    0.01
Feral AP     12.0    +/-    0.1    0.71    +/-    0.01
Strenght    23.8    +/-    0.1    1.41    +/-    0.01
Crit           20.0    +/-    0.1    1.19    +/-    0.01
Hit            22.8    +/-    0.1    1.35    +/-    0.01
Expertise    22.8    +/-    0.1    1.35    +/-    0.01
Haste       19.6    +/-    0.1    1.25    +/-  0.01
AP            10.0    +/-    0.1    0.59  +/-    0.01

This is a up to date 3.1 Table with BiS gear.

Other important numbers to know

Hit Cap - 8% or 263
Expertise Cap - 6.5% or 132 rating w/ primal precision 214 without PP (26 expertise total)

Cat DPS Priority Table

This is a Priority system I derived from lots of testing and beating the target dummy a lot; most people over at EJ agree.

1) If ooc proc use shred or rake if rake is down
1) Keep SR up (with 1+ cp)
2) Keep RIP up with 5 CP
3) Use FB if the conditions are good: Hard to explain but if you think you can get enough points to put up rip and SR w/out expiring then go for it.
4) Keep mangle up
5) keep rake up
6) Use shred to generate CP with energy micromanage to avoid rake/mangle downtime (basically use it if you will have enough energy to refresh rake/mangle when they expire or simply use shred if you have 3+ cp)
7) If you are going to lose SR before you can reapply it -> use your CP to refresh SR (yes SR clipping is good)
 If you have 5 cp and you are going to waste energy waiting rip to expire (you have more than 95 energy) -> try to reapply rip, otherwise wait for rip to expire.

This is the best way I could explain how I DPS.  It looks confusing but once you get the hang of it it's not to difficult.  Feral DPS; at least imo; is all about feel.  Sometimes you might take a risk doing that FB and hoping you get a OOC proc or two to get you back on track.  A lot of times it works out, sometimes it doesnt.  You can still manage to always get your priorities back on track even if you make a mistake or two.  The main thing is to never lose your cool.  Always stay focused and most important: DONT DIE IN THE FIRE.  Dead DPS is useless DPS.

Glyph Choices

Feral DPS have only a few Glyphs to choose from that actually increase their overall DPS

Major's

Glyph of Savage Roar - A must have for any fulltime kitty.
Glyph of Shred - Also considered a must have
Glyph of Rip - This one is completely dependent on how good you are at keeping up rip full time.  It will make your rotation ALOT smoother.
Glyph of Berserk - Usually used for PvP but is not a terrible PvE choice either in some cases.

Minor's

Glyph of Dash
Glyph of Thorns
Glyph of the Wild
Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth
Glyph of Challenging Roar (mixed spec mostly)