Hi. So I just specc'd back feral, and couldn't be happier. I was getting slightly burnt out on my druid raiding for the past 9 months... hmm, Probably why I got my warlock to 49 and left him there absolutley dominating WSG / AB... Ok, back on topic:

I have a good friend that is a decked out hunter, and we plan on leveling together. He just respeccd to BM from Marks, and his boar is an aggro monster. Which frees me up to dps in cat form from behind. Last night we were owning stuff in Tyr's hand, each testing the limits of our new talents. I am currently 0/41/10 and my build includes 2/2 Shredding Attacks (Shred now costs 42 energy). I have a question about the highest dps attack sequence:

I'll start out with a ravage (or pounce if they are casting something), then Mangle and FF. From there, I dont know whether it would be better to Mangle spam, or Shred spam. Reason being, I think the mangle debuff says that it increases the damage from Shred, which would probably make the shred higher dps, as long as the Mangle debuff is active.

Anyone have any thoughts of pure Mangle Spamming, vs Mangle then Shred spamming? Thanks.

From the looks of it, especially on bosses, mangle debuff up + shred spam is the way to go, the fact that a mangled shred can crit for huge numbers makes it seem pretty awesome (I was getting close to 2k crits raid buffed). Having the shredding attacks talent is probably recommended for this, I dun have it yet, so my energey regen when using this method isn't the best, but I still like the burst damage it offers. I imagine with the talent it'd work lovely. Ideally if you can say, have a bear tanking, then you'd just shred spam cause they'd be mangling. :D

i've heard the mangle+shred combo is the better of the two, with talents in shredding attacks, of course.

It r0x0rz your s0x0rz. Mangle should also replce Claw for future notice. Claw is teh useless~

=o

What Trixtaa said.

So I'd suspect that if you could manage it an good opener would be: Pounce, mangle, rip, shred-spam

reapplying the mangle and rip when needed. Mangle adds damage to all bleed effects.

Oh and definitely what Trixtaa said: Claw costs the same energy and does less direct damage than mangle. Mangle does nearly 100 more direct damage than claw and it does 160% of normal damage... and to top it off tosses up a nice debuff =]

All for the same energy as claw.

Now my question: I don't have shreding attacks yet (coming next 2 levels I think)... is mangle spam or mangle+shred spam better? Mangle is 40, shred is 60.

So my simple math shows that at level 60, mangle spam is slightly better. At level 61, we get a new level of shred and mangle+shred spam is now better.

This is without shredding attacks.

The formula is D for weapon damage

D*1.6 + 204 = 40 energy
Rank 5 (D*2.5 + 180) * 1.3 = 60 energy
Rank 6 (D*2.25 + 236)*1.3 = 60 energy

If we assume D=100
Mangle :9.1 damage per energy
Rank 5 shred:8.77 damage per energy
Rank 6 shred:10 damage per energy
Rank 5+SA : 12.5 damage per energy
Rank 6+SA : 14.3 damage per energy

Now of course this talks about damage per energy, not damage per second. DPS is what we really care about. With mangle, you get 1 mangle per 2 ticks of energy. Without shredding attacks, shred is 3 ticks, or with it, slightly more than 2.

I doubt it'll matter.

I suspect what will matter more will be positioning... mangle doesn't require being behind your target. Some times getting behind your target can take a bit of time.

I'm assuming your math is correct. What you said about positioning is also true. Some people will spend an extra 1-2 seconds to always get behind the mob just because mangle+shred does more dmg. Remember, if you're not doing dmg, its hurting your DPS.

But now that Mangle also increases Shred, Shredding Attacks should is an awesome talent for kitty druids doing DPS in instances.

So after spending a lot of time in cat form, Mangle & Shred is definitley better, ESPECIALLY with shredding attacks. My attack sequence now, starting from behind:

Pounce, Mangle, Shred, FF, Rake, Maim, Shred, Mangle, FB.

Using that combo, I pretty much dont take any damage at all, and at lv 62 with 1350 ap and 25% crit, I generate combo points like mad. I absolutley love Maim for solo'ing / pvp'ing. Kitty Gouge is the $hit! I almost feel OP.

I've bee MT'ing in all the instances I've done so far, so I haven't really had a chance to test out my aggro using cat form there. On my last Ramparts run with a 61 priest 61 rogue, 61 mage, 66 hunter and myself at 61, I was #2 on the dmg meter, 5% under the hunter, 4% above the mage and 6% above the rogue. The hunter posted the dmg meter at the end and the mage / rogue couldnt believe it. HUGE Bear DPS. 1.4k mangles? 1.2k mauls? I love it.

If the mob will live to see the finisher, Mangle, Shred, Shred, Shred (maybe one more), Ferocious Bite/Rip (depending on the mob) is the most efficient. If the mob won't live long enough to get to the FB, replace some Shreds with Mangles.

Claritondeus,

You don't need to start from behind to Pounce anymore. You can do it from anywhere ;D. But other than that your sequence looks pretty sexy.

^^

I start from behind just to save myself the trouble of running behind them to shred. Of course, if getting behind them is to much trouble, I'll stun them from the front and then mangle as I'm running behind them for the (hopefully crit) shred.

I had a 1600 crit in bear last night ( don't remember if it was maul or mangle though ) while running Mana Tombs and topping around 10k hp <3

The last boss kicked my butt though. We had 2 63s with us ( me 65, priest 66, warrior 65, 63 priest ( shadow ) and 63 lock ) so that had some to do with the difficulities, but even then the instance is not an easy one.