Ok so with the advent of the this talent...

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/4082/rendandtearzs1.jpg

...it looks like Ferocious Bite crits are going to be pretty much standard in raids, since rogues and warriors also generate bleed effects all the time with garrotte and so on.

Now I realise it's still a long time until we actually begin raiding at level 80, but I was hoping to start theorycrafting through this now, to see how it stacks up.

First of all, is my above assumption accurate? That there will always be a bleed effect of some description on a boss?

Second, does the fact that Ferocious Bite will (basically) always crit, mean it becomes better damage per point of energy, than Rip?



Existing damage theory states that it is always better to Rip - and in situations where Rip won't work, say on a bleed-immune mob (of which there are very few these days) it's better to just continue shredding and ignore your Combo Points, unless you have 5 combo points and 35, 36, or 37 energy - in which case it becomes energy-efficient to use Ferocious Bite.

Over the course of this thread I would like to explore how these new changes affect our rotation, our bite sweet spots, and through these to arrive at an optimum dps raiding spec and an optimum dps rotation.


-Annikk

I think Bite will be very viable, but it probably will be something along the lines of an inflection point. If your AP is below X, FB is better or Rip is better. Above that point the other takes over.

I spec'd for the FB crits and I can tell you it is dang near 100% crit rate with just a simple rake. So I'll very commonly use Mangle, Mangle, Rake, FB and it will crit for a LOT.

Can you put some figures to "a LOT" Allahanastar? :>
What is your attack power and how much does ferocious bite usually crit for?

I have not tried playing on the Beta. Can anyone give us an idea of how much damage a full mangled Rip produces?

You know... the problem is that I haven't had a chance to fight many bosses. FB Crits using 4 combo points regularly top 5500 damage and my AP was about 3700. I'm guessing a fully talented and combo point Rip might do more damage, but again for things like trash mobs or normal mobs you kill they aren't alive long enough to probably tick a full Rip. So bosses might be better with a Rip (but I can't say that for sure).

For the purposes of calculating raid dps lets assume that the boss, or mob, will live well beyond the duration of the Rip.

Could anyone with beta access get some hard figures for us? :>

We need to know:

1. Your attack power
2. The amount your FB crits for, on average - and how much "spare" energy you had going into it
3. How much damage each tick of Rip [with the mangle debuff] is for
4. Your spec
5. Specifics of the fight - what were you fighting, what debuffs had been applied, any relevant idols, etc.

Cat drood will nuzzle you if you halp!! :>


-Annikk

They now have boss level target dummies on the PTR (and I assume in the beta).

For the horde players they are found back near the hunter trainers in Ogrimmar.

As Annik said FB will only be viable with 35,36,37 energy.
If more energy shred will be more usefull i think.
dont forget the +20% damage from shred on bleeding targets.
so shred will be close to a low-energy-FB.

but time will show ;-D

The theory crafting on this may go on for quite awhile. The geniuses over at EJ are tying themselves in knots trying to find the "one right answer" to maximizing your dps. However, according to Ghostcrawler:

We worked pretty hard to make sure it wasn't possible to easily math out whether Vampiric Blood, Unberakable Armor or Bone Shield was the best talent. If the debate goes on and on, we'll be happy.

If you think you know for sure which one is best, you might poke around on the forums a little bit more.

I think it is a safe bet they have taken this approach with all specs. Not trying to discourage, theorycrafting is half the fun of this game for me. But I am enjoying immensely the idea that the best dps rotation changes from moment to moment based on several variables, making maximizing dps a skill rather than a rote "mangle, shred to 4CP, rip, rinse, repeat" cycle.

Last I saw our cat attack sequence is rather dynamic...

Keep SR up all the time
Keep Mangle up all the time
Keep Rake up all the time
Shred otherwise
Rip or FB

Assuming you have RnT, it seems like FB might be "better" before T7 gear, but later Rip takes over.

Rake is also in the mix, and there is debate about ignoring combo points and getting finishers off before our debuffs drop off.

There is a possibility things will change again though. GC has said that there are classes whose dps so high as to be broken (her word), but has not said which classes. Ret pallies and DK's are rather obvious targets for the nerf bat, but cat druids are happy so I admit to a bit of apprehension.

Rake is also in the mix.My bad, I meant Rake, not ravage. I don't have either on my bars today, so I often get them mixed up.

GC has said that there are classes whose dps so high as to be broken (her word), but has not said which classes. Ret pallies and DK's are rather obvious targets for the nerf bat, but cat druids are happy so I admit to a bit of apprehension.

Mut rogues and frost mages too.

They should leave ferals alone... they still haven't figured out how we scale. Back when BC was released, our dps (in cat and bear) was insane compared to other classes, then others slowly surpassed us at 70 as they got new weapons, etc.

But nerf ret pallies. Waaay too much 'sustained burst' from what I've been reading / seeing in random videos.

The really depressing thing about Ret pally's??? They've toned them down.... they were getting like 21k crits when the beta first started. I watched one burn down three elites at once... it was just sick.