Over the weekend I was primarily a Kitty DPS'r in our Mag/Gruul's run (though I do tank one of the channelers in Mags). Gruul's is such a long fight, that I feel I really should be power-shifting to help boost my damage output.

At what point in the "Shred-to-5CP"-->Rip cycle should I powershift? How much (really how little) energy should I have before I should consider power-shifting? Less than 15?

We had a bear tanking Gruul, so I didn't have to waste energy keeping the Mangle debuff on Gruul. And, raid buffed, I had 45+% crit. So, I would often reach 5 CP well before the previous Rip had finished its cycle. I assume the best course of action is to continuing Shredding until Rip expires (or just before it expires), correct?

Also, I picked up 2T4 this weekend, does the 2 piece bonus effect generate any sort of UI notification when it occurs? Just wondering....

You have to use an addon to really be able to notice it, because it's just a line in your combat chat that's easy to miss. I use Scrolling Combat Text and it's pretty obvious to me when I proc the T4 bonus.

Weird. Other proc based effects (idol of terror) show up in the stock combat text. Wonder why this one doesn't. Looking back at my recount data, I do see that the effect is called "Bloodlust". Maybe it was there and I didn't see it.

Check out the powershifting thread on EJ forums, will give you everything you need to know to adapt powershifting to your particular situation, including your latency.

Powershifting will be removed, if the the change to Furor stays. At least, that is what I read (I don't have beta).

I have honestly never used powershifting in a serious dps scenario. The timing needs to be really exact for you to get any real benefit from it, and what with latency and so many other considerations in a raid environment, such as your party's health bars, I've just found it a distraction and a waste of mana more than anything else.

I just don't feel like it's worth it for what is really a very small dmg increase.

With that said I do know some druids like to powershift, so if someone wants to provide an opposition argument to bring to this debate I would be very interested to hear what you have to say :>


-Annikk

In a raid situation, and when one has most of their moves down to rote, power shifting provides mathmetician's the ability to see their DPS increase, or those who are bored a bit of interaction.

Yes you get a positive result DPS-wise if you trade Mana for Energy efficiently.

That said, I would hope that a well-oiled team would not need anyone to perform this maneuver unerringly to be victorious or to justify a spot in the raid for Kitty DPS. I'm a bit OCD so I think I'd do it out of boredom eventually. But I'd prefer not to.

IMHO, the real charm of powershifting is for movement impairing effects or to get off a rip / ferocious bite when energy is below 20. There's actually a macro, I believe on Elitist Jerks, that let's you establish an energy threshold and then exectue a script. Then when energy hits a certain floor and your mana hasn't gone below a threshold as well, it will automatically powershift. And I believe it has a coefficient for lag built-in as well. I'll poke around for it again, I really not into that level of automation...yet.

On unimpaired back-of-the-boss cat form dps, I gained 180 dps from following the advice in the EJ thread on powershifting. The real trick is to manage your mana like a caster so you can powershift the entire duration of the fight. It's hella fun. Insta mana-pot macro ftw.

That macro sounds pretty cool. I'd be interested to take a look at that, if you do manage to find it :>


-Annikk

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t25842-feral_druid_powershifting_macros_thresholds_mana_m anagement/

That's the one. Thanks Oiysters! Been out in the woods camping. No internet. :nono: