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Guide to Feral PvP (3.2.2)
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Post by
Lightrain
Intro
Feral is one of the most challenging PvP specs around, but is quite viable in many cases. After 3.2, agility just doesn't cut it if your looking for massive burst damage. With the change to resilience and the nerf to reduce Feral output in raid, which was mainly cosmetic in the higher tiers of gear, armor pen works better for massive direct burst.
After 3.2.2, we have 2 buffs, along with one nerf.
The nerf to armor pen does hurt, but I believe it's still advantageous to stack armor pen. I have over 50% crit in cat stacking full armor pen, so I'm not complaining.
The 2 buffs are pretty big. Having Infected wounds proc off one hit instead of 2 is a big step. Our energy reserves are rather small, so having to stack twice to slow people back down to our speed was pretty terrible. This is a very good buff IMO and puts us in line with all the other snares of the game.
The second, and biggest buff since 3.0 came out, is
Predatory Strikes
. This is huge for helping ferals CC, especially when you have a DK or rogue on you and standing in human form casting cyclone is a very vulnerable state. Being able to throw control out instantly against these control teams is a very big step in the right direction!
Take note, the buff for this talent IS Dispellable! If you are fighting a priest/shaman, Use this instantly or it WILL get dispelled.
Stat stacking?
Agility- More consistant damage thru bleeds and quicker CP generation. However, stacking a few PvE pieces and having around 200-250 armor pen on gear does help offset resil a bit for your direct damage.
Armor Penetration- Less consistent, more bursty, and requires a lot of AP(at the very least a very good weapon). You have less survivability as you mix in PvE gear, around 2-5 pieces, to get enough armor pen on your gear to make it worth it, and you need an Armor Pen proc trinket to go with your gear.
Gear and stats
Gear has always been a mix and match depending on what is available to you.
Direct nuking with armor pen
-
If you like dueling, armor pen helps a lot for massive direct burst. If you have an offensive dispel on your team this route is also viable, but keep in mind, it's pretty tough to play and you'll have points in a match that feel like you aren't doing any damage.
Why would I recommend Armor Pen over agility? You get an extra 8-12k worth of burst during your pounce. That' a very large bit of burst you lose with agil stacking.
The benefit to armor pen is you have massive direct damage against non plate and plate wearers. The disadvantage is survivability. You have to mix in PvE gear, and therefore reduce your resil. You need to have an armor pen proc trinket in order to get away with stacking armor pen.
I recomend keeping the 4 set bonus from PvP gear. The extra run speed is what gives you the advantage in most fights as feral dps has always been shred based, and that doesn't change in PvP.
After the 4 set bonus, a piece of PvE gear with armor pen on it is a great addition. If you want to stay away from raids and heroics, try the
crafted chest
.
My personal recomendation, is to stay above 800-900 resil(I stay around 844 in current gear) as you mix and match your gear. You need to stay as close to 164 hit rating (5%) as you can, and
Grim Toll
is an incredible trinket for the PvPing feral. Run Naxx 25 until you get it, otherwise use
NEC
. The hit rating allows you to stack more crit out of your cloak and/or neck slots, so I prefer Grim Toll. While you are grinding heroics, do the heroic daily and get
Idol of Mutliation
with 25 Emblem of Triumph.
PvE gear with hit rating on it will still have agility, and possibly crit, while PvP gear with hit rating on it has no agility or crit on it, only straight AP, resil, and a lot of stam, which isn't the greatest for feral. This is why I put emphasis on telling you,
Grim Toll
is an amazing trinket for feral PvP. It's nearly priceless when you can push armor pen soft cap in a PvP setting/gearing.
Here is a profile showing agil stacking. There are many ways to stack armor pen, and it really depends on what gear you have available.
http://www.wowhead.com/profile=21346719
You need around 8000 AP in cat form(skill dependent) now to be able to perform over the 1600 rating range.
Agility stacking for more stable dps thru bleed damage
-
This is a good way to go still, especially in 3's and 5's. With this you can stack more resil since PvP gear has a massive amount of agility on it.
Gearing this way is simple since you just stack agility on PvP gear and use PvE offset pieces that have agil on them(rings, cloak, neck, possibly a set piece if your gear is lacking). Grind out as much PvP gear as you can and use the
Titan-forged Rune of Determination
to help increase your ap if you need it.
Here
is an example of a very good agility stacking feral. Mewnfare is one of the highest rated ferals around.
Gems
For Feral, resil is a moot stat as far as gems are concerned unless you really need the resil that badly. Over 800 resil you should stick with Agil/arp gems.
Meta
-
Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
. The only meta a feral should ever put in dps/pvp gear. Period.
Red
-
Fractured Cardinal Ruby
. These should be stacked in every slot you can put it in.
Prismatic
-
Nightmare Tear
. If you only want one socket bonus, and want the extra 10 strength, armor pen, and int, you can use one of these to complete your meta requirement. This would be the best choice considering stat advantage to min/max.
Armor Pen
Blue
-
Stormy Majestic Zircon
- You need 3 of these, or 2 JC spell pen gems. Without it, druids have an 18% chance to resist cyclone. The RNG on that much of a chance is terrible, trust me.
Yellow
-
Deadly Ametrine
,
Glinting Ametrine
, or ]. You need at least one of these to qualify your meta gem. You will have to stack hit rating with these dependent on whether you found enough hit rating in other ways or not. The less hit rating you have to stack thru gems, the better.
Agility
Stack as many
Delicate Cardinal Rubies
as you can. With this, you might need to put a
Rigid King's Amber
in a yellow slot as needed.
Make sure, when you put a gem other than a pure red gem, you use it to get a socket bonus. I like putting yellow in my shoulders for the crit bonus, and blue in legs to get the agility bonus.
Enchants
Feral is by design a sturdy class when needed, so I stay away from defensive stats. Check the enchants on the 2 profiles I linked for the standard in enchants. The enchants not shown in the profile are as follows.
-For the rep/gold deprived.
Head
and
shoulder
enchants can be bought in wintergrasp. While they aren't as good as the rep counterparts, they do work well and I have seen high rated druids with these enchants.
-The normal wrist enchant is
Greater Assault
. The one in my profile is Leatherworking's
Fur Lining
-
Stam and agility
is used by a lot of ferals on their legs. I prefer more nuke power rather than a bit extra stam, but your preference is your preference.
-
Icewalker
for boots if you are low on hit rating.
Specs
2v2(beginner) and general survival/burst(AKA- BG spec)
- This is a general 2v2 spec. This is recomended for under geared ferals starting out. This gives you good burst with survivability in bear form. With a good healer, you can tank damage and give yourselves another chance to go on the offensive. Using this spec gives you more average time in the arena per game and helps you feel out the play style. This spec also gives you more survival in 3's and 5's. If you find yourself focused more than your partners, you might want to stick with this spec.
2v2(advanced) and agressive 3v3/5v5
- This is a very common feral spec. If you have a high level of gear, you probably want to learn to use this and stay alive. This is more for pushing the other team back on their heals. You will be cycloning/cc'ing offensively and defensively with this spec, and you will be doing it a LOT.
Partner specific
- This is what I call the "assist" spec. This is a great 3's and 5's spec if you are partnered with a team mate with reliable slows(DK, warrior, rogue, hunter). Geared toward offensive as well as balancing defensive. This gives you the advantage of being able to take offensive heat while still being able to put out loads of damage. I'll be using this in my 3's and 5's. The main goal of this spec is to double up on a specific target with your counter part and burn them down quickly, while still giving you major damage reduction if you are the primary focus.
Partner specific burst variation
- Same concept as above, but this is specific to burst/zerg. If you plan on blowing berzerker at the start and trying to gib, you can use this spec to get SR, shred spam and a FB off inside the initial zerg to try for an insane amount of zerg damage. This works really well with a rogue in 2's or 3's. With considerable gear, you can push upwards of 11-12k crit FB's with this spec with good RNG and a grim toll proc. RNG would be the key here. You will be focusing more on massive direct damage, but you won't last long if you get focused.
RNG/Latency and High rogue population spec
- I've been having major issues lately with latency issues and rogues/DK's and their insane slowing abilities along with their high avoidance. This spec is designed to help counter this. This should also get very close to making it so casters don't get RNG parry/dodges on your FB's and save you energy when you do get avoided. Nothing makes a PvPer more furious than a 5cp finisher getting dodged/parried and having zero energy left for your efforts while the enemy is sitting at 5k hp...... >.<
Glyphs
Required
Glyph of Savage Roar
- There's no question about having an extra 3% damage.
Glyph of Berserk
- This is one of the most debated glyphs as it's preference. If I get jumped by a rogue right after I pop Berserk, I can usually trinket kidney shot and get back on the target I want to kill before berserk is done. This glyph is more powerful if you stack Armor Pen. Not so much if you stack agil. The increase to resil, however, makes this less powerful.
Glyph of Rip
- Having a long duration DoT helps keep rogues out of stealth longer. This is almost a necessary glyph unless you are playing an insta-gib comp.
Glyph of Shred
- Since the changes to mangle, this is not higher priority.
Rare
Glyph of Barkskin
- This is a very uncommon feral glyph. Usually more of a resto or boomkin glyph. If melee is your problem, you are doing something wrong, but the glyph is good if you are very bad at getting rogues off and need the extra survivability.
Glyph of Mangle
- Since the change to mangle, the glyph was altered, and we all know mangle spamming for feral is bad unless fighting solo against NPC's.
Post by
Lightrain
Priority abilities
Mangle
- The favorite for the beginners. Mangle, is a debuff, and should always be up unless you partner with a trauma bot, in which case an initial mangle on the focus target is all you should ever need. It is to be treated as a debuff unless under specific circumstances, which quite often do arise.
DO NOT SPAM MANGLE AS YOUR PRIMARY DPS ABILITY
. Unless....
A) Your goal is to kill a specific target, and it has backed up against a wall or is hanging off a ledge. This is happening more and more now. It's annoying, but sometimes you have to deal with this. Specific instances for reducing to this will come in the strategies section.
B) Your target/yourself has a bad comp/lagg issue. I run into this more in BG's than arena. Nothing is more annoying than that rogue, druid, or hunter that is jumping back and forth and you just can't get behind them, or his character model is lagging behind his actual movements.
C) You can't get enough time not slowed to get a shred off thru powershifting, and your target is at full speed. You must slow them down. There is no other choice. Feral revolves around being faster than everyone else, which is why you have the 4 piece set bonus on your PvP gear. In this situation, you are still using it as a debuff to get
Infected wounds
back up on the target.
Rake
- This as well as mangle should be up at all times.
Rend and Tear
is the definition of shred being better than mangle in the DPS race. Learn to watch your debuffs. Always. This does a descent amount of damage, so you want to put it back up after it falls off, every time, before going back to shredding.
Shred
- Think of shred as the feral version of
Mutilate
,
Hemorrhage
, or
Sunister Strike
. Shred should be your number 1 damage dealer and combo builder. Learn to use it all the time. Make it work. Period. If you can't get shred off, you can consider yourself out played.
Savage Roar
- Your main finisher. If you don't have SR on yourself, something is wrong with you. Get it back quickly. I find myself hitting 2-3cp SR's all the time in arena to spare the energy and get back to high burst.
Rip
- The staple for Feral dps. When your game plan has to switch from a zerg to an overload, Rip is more important than FB. You don't want to blow a FB on a target unless they are at 50% or less, and usually maim is a better choice in that situation.
Ferocious Bite
- Topping on the cake. You want blow this with 5 cp's if you have everything rolling and your target is below 50-30% and sitting in a stun/cc from someone else or has a major debuff on him like MS and
Unrelenting Assault
from your arms warrior buddy. If no such CC/pressure exists. You more than likely want to maim instead so long as your target isn't on stun DR.
Control
Pounce
- This will basically be your only opener. Switching up to a ravage on a mage or on a stunned target is possible, but Ravage really doesn't do much damage, and strategy wise, doesn't help you out as much in the long run. Also, take note, you can only "Miss" openers. They can not be avoided, so a rogue with evasion up will still get hit by this if you open on him.
Maim
- Usually not worth trying to use this with a rogue unless you either know he has no trinket or doesn't have evasion up. If you use this instead of Rip on a rogue, you have a couple issues. A) He can trinket and CC you with ease for a good 20-30 seconds. B) He will 90% of the time avoid it if he isn't stunned. I'm not kidding. The RNG of throwing this at a rogue is really screwed up. Remember to use this with extreme caution. Refreshing a stun DR from another source by maiming is only worth it if you are interupting a vital heal and you're the only toon available to interupt it.
Warnings aside, maim is very useful. I'll use it quite often to get a clean cyclone off on a dps when his healer is coming out of CC and I need to keep heals off him, interupt a heal when a healer is low, interupt CC and dps casts. Maim is most reliable during a cast. Your opponent can't dodge/parry/block anything while casting, and if it gets avoided, it goes on cooldown, so you don't want to waste it. Try to make sure you are behind your target when you use it.
Bash
- Again, pushes stun DR. I pretty much only use this after a Feral charge in order to get a clean cyclone off or keep the target from healing/CC'ing while cycloning another target. I will also use it when I'm DPSing and need an interupt that doesn't take up CP's. It's also useful as it lets you regen some energy, but does take 3 global cooldowns to get it off and get back to cat dps, so keep that in mind.
Feral Charge(Bear)
- Used in 2 ways. Interupting heals, and catching up to kiters. I watch healers for casts when dps get low, and I will FC, bash, and cyclone them while their dps is bleeding to death. Sometimes in 5's, when you get good, you will FC, bash, and cyclone the other healer. This is an almost guaranteed kill, at least a cooldown popper if you can do this effectively and at the right times.
Feral Charge(Cat)
- Almost religiously used in stealth. Occasionally used to catch up to hunters, mages, and warriors when they are trying to get away, also when you get DG's by a DK and are trying to finish off their healer. Remember, this has a longer CD than bear charge, but also shares the same CD proc, so if FC cat isn't off CD, FC bear could very easily be. Keeping track of this can save you a second or 2 of confusion and possibly avoid missing a kill opportunity.
Entangling Roots
- You use this a lot with X/druid teams, and even mage/rogue. Usually it's best cast using
Nature's Grasp
as you don't have to actually cast it. I actually cast this much more often in 3's and 5's. Getting healers to stop healing blow GCD's/mana on dispels is always a good thing if you can afford the stop in DPS. This also helps your partner(s) catch up to kiters.
Cyclone
- The bread and butter of druid PvP. After 3.2, I find myself using this spell probably way too much. The difference between skilled/high rated druids is how well they use cyclone to stop healing on a target or stop a target from casting/healing/dpsing.
Hibernate
Very situational cast. Great against other druids. If you can catch a resto trying to run away with a FC/bash/hibernate, then hit him with a cyclone after, you are above the curve in versatility. It's magic dispellable, so pretty much the only time this will ever stick is if the target has LoS'd his healer or has a druid healer. Feral/resto is a tough/uncommon team. You don't see it often at all because of shared DR. I have seen 1 feral/resto team above 1800 in 2v2, so I'll say again, it's very situational.
Post by
Lightrain
Feral comps
- All the viable comps that I've seen over 2k with a feral.
-Priest/Feral- This is a burst and burn team. Control, aoe fear, and working to keep pressure off your priest so he can play more offensively is key to this team.
-Holy Paladin/Feral- This comp is tough because paladins don't have a whole lot of offensive ability. The advantage of this team is being able to leave your healer alone for a while while you focus on getting burst and control down on the other team. This team requires armor pen now. You need the direct burst to push the other team back on their heels.
-Prot Paladin healer/Feral- The extra stuns and the silence allow for a range of versatility. The disadvantage of this team is your healer is required to cast heals. You have to peal the dps if he gets low, and try to keep CC from the enemy healer off him so he can stay alive. This is a great team to play offensively with as you have a 20 second timer on his stun, and you have a silence to help with keeping pain suppression off priests during berserk for a hopeful zerg. The other advantage is you can use Rip instead of Maim more often and increase your dps.
-Resto sham/Feral- This is a good zerg team. If you like playing offensively, shaman are an excelent partner. Shaman can stay alive rather well, but are rather vulnerable if they don't have earth shield on themselves, so keep your cc/interupt ready to help your shaman out.
-Rogue/Feral- This is a fun comp if you can find a rogue with good gear and quick reflexes. Eat one of the other team alive in 5-10 seconds and then reset and destroy the other. Find a rogue that really knows how to control a team and it's a sure fire way to insta gib. BM hunters and paladins are the toughest opponents for this team.
-Ret/Feral- Same as rogue/feral, but you have a dispel and bubbles. Expect teams to focus the paladin. Putting a paladin defensive is a major bonus on a dual dps team. You have to force them defensive or you will lose.
Strategies
- From a healer+feral PoV.
Cycloing
- There are multiple uses for cyclone, some of which are extremely useful, some are more to annoy the other team. Using instant cast procs off finishers to cyclone healers during a high burst phase is amazing at the moment. I'm finding it is an immense help in 3v3's especially since we can chain CC rogues, and pop cyclones on mages and warlocks so they can't CC our paladin.
Offensive- Keeping the healer from healing his dps while you focus the dps down.
Defensive- Interupting the dps so your healer can catch up or you can throw some heals to aid your healer or kite out of harms way while your healer is CC'd. DK/druid and ret/druid are very dangerous on CC chains, and getting this cyclone off could easily save you, or if you get stunned, easily kill you.
Strategic- There are multiple ways of using cyclone this way.
One that I've been using more and more is cycloning my focused target, if it's the dps, at half HP, then cycloning his healer. This does 2 things. 1) Keeps heals off the dps, which helps a lot if a LB is about to pop or his healer is about to get a big heal out as well as messing up the healer's rythm. 2) You can stun the DPS and cyclone him so he can't interupt you cycloning his healer or you. If the healer is out of cyclone range, this is a very useful way to cyclone.
Cyclone can also be used to stop mana returns such as shadow fiend, divine plea, and innervate, however, it doesn't stop the mana return of lifebloom procs(I tested and verified this).
I like to put pressure on healers such as resto druids or disc priests by bursting someone to half, then cycloning them and quick switching to the other target. This strategy is almost a necessity now. This pressures rather well if you focus dps and switch to the healer because the healer has to heal both of them at the same time and usually hasn't stacked heals on himself, so he has to do it while under pressure. A well timed stun on the healer after this will cause even more pressure, and you can even cyclone the healer and try to finish off the dps.
Deciding offensive or defensive
- This is always a tough to master problem and usually determines the difference between a 1600 and a 2k rated team. If you have a priest or paladin healer, you want to restealth whenever possible so long as your healer isn't getting mana burned and CC'd to death while you do it. Getting an opener on a rogue is almost always a good thing. Opening on him more than he opens on you is a major amount of stress on him and is an amazing way to turn a game, if you can manage it.
Playing against a druid healer is tough because of cyclone and the fact that it's more available to him than to you. By this I mean, if you spend half your time cycloning, you aren't doing any damage. You need to recognize when the resto will cyclone and get into bear form and possibly blow cooldowns if needed. Interupting chain cyclones increases your survival in 2 ways. 1) Gets your healer or you out of CC, and 2) gets you away from the enemy dps or into a position where you can aid your healer. Interupting the first one is not always a major achievement unless you are already low on HP, but interupting the second is a very good thing. This puts your healer on cyclone DR and gives him a chance to heal you between the full duration and half duration cyclones.
Restealthing
- This is a hit or miss strategy. Sometimes this saves lives, sometimes it kills your enemy, and other times it kills your partner. Being able to quickly get out of combat and restealth is an awesome skill if you do it at the right times. Running to restealth while your partner is struggling is quite often a bad idea. Restealthing after CC'ing while your healer is kiting the other team and keeping their rogue/feral in combat is a good idea. Learning when and how to successfully use this to your advantage is a lot of times a game breaker.
Strategy against common healer+dps teams
Priest/rogue
- This is one of the main "tough to beat" teams. If the rogue is good, you will have a hard time doing much. For pretty much any 2k+ team, this is a 50/50 win loss. It's dependent on how good the rogue is, and how well you and your healer can keep out of fear. The best way to beat this team pre 3.2 was focus the priest like crazy and hope for cooldowns to be blown. You can't do much to a rogue unless he's ignoring you. So, focus priest, but if the rogue is putting too much pressure on your healer, switch to him to keep him from ignoring you. Once the pressure is off, switch back to the priest after getting some debuffs on the rogue so he can't vanish as easily and negate your efforts to peal him. Try to get abolish poison on whoever is being focused by the rogue, especially if you have a priest healer. After 3.2, this is a really hard fight because priests resist dropping even more now. Quick restealths while your healer isn't in trouble and controlling the rogue is always good.
If you get control early, and can get a fear off after pounce wears off, you have a good shot of finishing off the priest before he realizes you are doing so much damage. I love a good misdirection, and have gibbed quite a few priests lately. Berserk in stealth, pounce>rake>mangle>SR(this is about a PW:S worth of damage, so he doesn't think he's in much danger yet), shred spam>interupt from your healer>5cp rip>shred spam>mangle interupt on first heal and he'll be dead if he didn't pop pain suppression before your healer's interupt unless you get CC'd.
Paladin/dps
- As a druid, paladin healers are usually one of the easier healers to handle. Chain CC the paladin and focus the dps. Get the dps to half and cyclone him while putting some pressure on the paladin. Direct heals don't like cyclones. It might take a while, but paladins are usually easier to handle than other healers so long as you get your healer to help with CC chains and use your berserk at the start of CC chains.
Resto druid/DK
- Long, annoying fight. Switch a lot. Your healer has to do what he's good at. offensive dispels, stuns, fears, assist dps. Everything. If you have a paladin healer, try to interupt cyclones. Ret/resto teams are about the same, but the snares aren't as bad. You will be trying to keep the druid from drinking. If you have a shaman healer, you will probably have to focus the dps to keep them off your shaman and he'll have to purge a lot and try to keep the druid from drinking that way.
The defenses of DK's and Ret paladins got buffed pretty heavily with the change to resil so there isn't much you can do but try to out dps the other team and keep the pressure up so the resto can't stop and drink. Switching targets a lot will force a lot of over healing out of the resto druid. If you can get more than 1 LB out of the resto druid before you switch your in good shape. I've won these fights more often killing the DK than the resto, but the resto is much more vulnerable to burst if you can keep him from stacking HoT's too much with stuns and fears. If you have a priest, it will be a mana war. If you can get a few burns off on the resto and keep him from drinking, you're typically in pretty good shape so long as the DK doesn't get a strang/interupt/stun chain and finish off your priest early, but priests are usually pretty good against dk's and ret's.
warrior/healer
- I very rarely lose to warriors. CC them regularly, burn them down, kill off their healer, etc. So long as your healer can handle his burst with MS/BS, you can handle almost any warrrior team. Sham/warrior will be the worst if you partner with a priest since playing priest/warrior doesn't have good synergy. If your healer can't handle the warrior's dps, focus the warrior. If he can handle the switches, focus his healer, or switch frequently. Use your roots and cyclones when he gets good burst on your healer, keep a lot of pressure up and they will have to go defensive. Since a warrior can't keep you slowed indefinitely like rogues and some DK's, you can kite them quite effectively and play their own game of slow>run and kite them to LoS from their healer for a big burst.
mage/priest
- One of the most over powered teams. I don't know why blizzard has given mages such power. With the resil change, you have to nuke the priest before the mage nukes you or your healer. This is not a small task. You have to kite when you healer gets poly'd, powershift every snare to avoid shatter bursts and save your trinket for Deep Freezes. A mage is dangerous up until he's completely oom, and even then, he's still a problem as he can go and drink. Your best partner for this team is a holy paladin, but even then, it's a rough fight. Use cyclone liberally and don't chase them out into the open. Restealth frequently and use rake on every add that crosses your path. You usually won't be able to burst the mage down quickly unless you have a priest or a shaman on your team. If you have the offensive dispel, go ahead and pressure the mage to put them on defensive. Controlling the mage is a major advantage if you have offensive dispels to remove his buffs. Call out poly's and make sure you kite/CC/avoid the mage when your healer is stuck in poly.
Warlock/healer
- Destro's are dangerous, but much squishier than haunt locks. Killing the pet is a very good strategy. You have to kill it twice, but throwing cyclones and CC's on the warlock and healer alternately is a good way to get the pet down without too much pressure on your healer. Haunt locks, you may have to kill the pet. Just remember, in a warlock/healer team, you have 3 targets to switch to, and killing the pet is never a bad thing against a warlock team, so long as you or your healer isn't getting destroyed in the process. Druid/lock is the toughest and priest/lock is pretty tough as well, but getting your stuns and cyclones off and helping heal during fear spamming is sometimes the only way to go.
Haunt locks over 2k with a descent healer are just horribly over powered if played right. We only win against haunt locks if they do something stupid and let us win...
The best strategy for a desto team is to stay close to LoS and kiting away from the lock during burst attempts and trying to help your healer with heals when he's getting low from a CC chain. Hope for good RNG on fears and that you don't get feared to the opposite end of the map as your healer. That will usually end up killing your healer. Sham/destro can be acceptionally deadly if you stay in LoS too long. Try to interupt the lock as much as possible so your healer can dispel you. Kiting a desto is usually a very productive strategy, and is easier to achieve if you have a priest healer.
Hunter/healer
- TBH, most hunters aren't good at PvP. You really notice the good ones from the bad ones in higher ratings. Anyways. Focus the hunter. If he's BM, killing his pet is sometimes a very good idea. Blowing berserk while he's in BW is a good idea. However, don't let him kite you away from LoS or you can get into trouble before you realize it. If you can force him defensive while on a CD your doing good. Having a healer to back you up helps against hunters a tremendous amount. If he's on deterence, spam shred and hope for a crit or 2. If he has a resto druid partner, LoS the hunter when the druid cyclones your healer. If you partner with a priest, keep abolish poison on him. Stick on the hunter and he will usually start jumping around, which reduces his damage by half or more. Your healer being good at LoS is also a good thing when fighting a hunter. Be aware of your healer at all times. Don't let the hunter kite you away from your healer or you could get into trouble quickly. If he wants to sit out in the open, stay near LoS and restealth for burst pressure.
Post by
Lightrain
Strategy against Dual DPS
Ret/X
- Focus ret and your healer needs to LoS CC as much as possible. You need to keep the ret on defensive so he doesn't blow wings and zerg you or your healer down. This, while annoying because of bubble and odd because of the fact that they don't have the interupt capability of most ret partners, seems to be the best way to handle all Ret dual dps teams. I ran into ret/enhance sham yesterday, and they were able to out heal me with their instant heals, they stopped once to heal..... That is a really tough team to play against and I had full bleeds up on the paladin.
Mage/rogue- This is a tough comp, and is dependent on your healer. One thing you must always do is FFF the rogue. Every cooldown FFF him. With a priest or shaman, dispelling ice barrier and mana shield and opening the mage with a pounce to force blink, then FC and force an iceblock. You want to jump into bear as quickly as possible after the opener and throw a demo roar out to try to catch the rogue. Your healer needs to be able to stay near LoS to avoid poly's. Reset if they let you. The more cooldowns you can force early, the better. With an offensive dispel, you can nuke the mage much quicker than the rogue.
With a paladin, it's a bit different. You need to bleed the rogue like crazy, and try to stay near LoS so your paladin doesn't get poly spammed. Opening the mage and bleeding him, forcing a blink and possibly bleeding thru his shields is a great thing, but bleeding the rogue out is usually the way to win. You will have to go bear almost instantly to try to catch the rogue in stealth. Your paladin's ability to stay out of CC is a key factor to winning against this comp. Some fights are won in bear, some are won in cat. It depends on how well they burst, and who they are putting pressure on.
Ele sham/destro warlock- Kiting and restealthing is a key strategy here. Opening and trying to zerg down the shaman at the start is a good way to control the initial, but believe it or not.... most ele shams can actually spam heal themselves enough to stay alive..... Don't let them nuke you down during heroism/bloodlust. They will do too much damage, and destro locks have too much control/cc. Don't be out in the open unless you have one of them under control, and we all know that doesn't last long. Destro's get an instant cast 6-8k cast if you hit them, so they will immolate>insta conflagrate you for half your hp in 2 seconds, therefore nuking the ele is usually a better idea, and interupting the lock with a bear charge when the stunlock is up and kiting for a restealth is a good strategy. Healer keeping the lock near LoS is always good. Reducing their damage this way works well because the lock wants a fear on your healer, possibly sending his succubus after the healer.
(To be continued)
Post by
Katsudon
I think you meant to say shred is the feral version of sinister strike? or possibly muti? Eviscerate is a finisher and shred is a combo builder.
Post by
Heckler
I'd say its closest analogy is
Backstab
.
This guide is looking amazing Lightrain, you've always been my most trusted source for Feral PvP info on these boards, I can't wait to see this in its "final product" form =)
Post by
Lightrain
I think you meant to say shred is the feral version of sinister strike? or possibly muti? Eviscerate is a finisher and shred is a combo builder.
You're right. I'll fix it when I get home.
Post by
Kramp
Arp, arp, arp. Yes, Arp trough the roof but don't forget Spell pen. I used 80 in season 6 and I am quite sure nothing changed in spell pen in 3.2.
Post by
Kaitain
Great start! GJ.
I think Shred is best descibed as a feral version of Mutilate really. The energy cost is more comparable (talents aside), and the fact that that both benefit from a debuff on the target (mangle for shred, poison for mutilate). Drop the Sinister Strike bit.
For the Maim bit, maybe some more info about classes it is particularly effective against (beyond interupts on healers)? Almost your entire para on it is negative.
On a similar topic maybe mention how to best manage your DRs, with respect to your own CC and synergy with other people's CC. Stuns in particular, perhaps mentioning how best to play with a rogue, how pounce/CheapShot are separate to the other stuns, etc.
Also - worth mentioning how and when best to try reset fights / restealth? I guess full resets is sort of limited to 2s with rogues tho so maybe not.
Post by
Lightrain
Good points Kaitain. Some rogues do play sub instead of mut spec, but not many, so I left it there. I did forget to mention about restealthing, I'll add that at the top of the strategy portion.
I'm pretty negative about feral atm(annoyed from 2's last night...), so a lot of it probably sounds negative. At the moment I'm trying to get most of the info out, and then I'll have to go back and proof read it all and reword some of it.
Post by
meowliekacat
9k fb on my shadow priest with 936 resil definitely made me freaking sad panda. :(
/rant
Post by
Kaitain
Good points Kaitain. Some rogues do play sub instead of mut spec, but not many, so I left it there.
Don't Sub guys use Hemo, Backstab and Ambush? :-P I thought SS was for raiding combat rogues. I may well be wrong though :-)
Also, is it worth mentioning
Mjolnir Runestone
as an alternative to
Grim Toll
? As it's hard mode loot from Ulduar 10 it may be less accessible to many people, but ironically to anyone in an Ulduar farming guild it's probably more accessible given that Naxx is off the menu. And Thorim 10 Hardmode is not particularly hard.
Post by
Lightrain
Good points Kaitain. Some rogues do play sub instead of mut spec, but not many, so I left it there.
Don't Sub guys use Hemo, Backstab and Ambush? :-P I thought SS was for raiding combat rogues. I may well be wrong though :-)
Hehe, shows you how much experience I have with rogues...
Also, is it worth mentioning
Mjolnir Runestone
as an alternative to
Grim Toll
?
That would be preference. It's a lot easier to find crit on PvP gear than to fully itemize hit rating without gemming or enchanting for it, but I'll mention it. I personally think grim toll makes gearing a lot easier.
Post by
Lightrain
I'm working up some gear sets to show the difference with different trinkets and advantages and disadvantages.
Let me know what you guys think. Suggestions, typo's, problems. I'll be working on dual dps strategies afterwards.
Post by
Kaitain
good idea. the new(ish) wowhead profiler is really awesome. My new favourite toy :-)
PS - 90% sure you are right about the 2 trinkets without even going there. the Thorim trinket is usually a very nice upgrade for a PvEer, but the PvE gear is designed to work for dual wielding rogues so it normally has too much hit on it for ferals. That is not so much the case on the pvp gear.
Post by
Kaitain
Cat form adds how much crit %? is it 12% all in or something?
Anyways, as a relative comparison (all stats are caster form):
Grim Toll:
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14126122
Melee
33.22% ---- Critical
4.30% ---- Hit
14.78% ---- Armor Penetration
825 ---- Resilience
Spell Pen ---- 78
Majolnir:
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14126184
Melee
34.28% ---- Critical
4.27% ---- Hit
14.78% ---- Armor Penetration
805 ---- Resilience
Spell Pen ---- 78
all other stats were the same
.
** - i may have done the gemming a bit wrong but I'm fairly certain the relative comparison of what we are looking at isn't affected (i.e. it's a bit wrong on both)
Post by
Lightrain
Stuff
I'm not sure why you itemize resil gems. I'll have to add that into my post. You want as much armor pen as possible while maintaining 45%+ crit in cat form.
I posted profiles, one is a carbon copy of my profile so it won't change, and the other is swapping items to use the runestone. Same resil, almost identical stats.
Anyways, I don't itemize spell pen because I prefer the dps stats. I've seen very few resisted cyclones. They usually are misses on rogues or paladins. I think I've had a grand total of 3 cyclones that were resisted at a point in time that might have turned the game.
Also, you want 5% hit. Less hit tends to be a bad idea. I have under 5% hit on my paladin, and I definitely see more misses when playing it.
Post by
Kaitain
yup fair enough. I mainly wanted to see if it was possible to regain the hit from the trinket and between +hit neck and gloves with almost all PvP gear and it more less is. Hence my own point that my gemming was wrong (i.e. the resilience), but that it didn't matter as it wasn't any items where the rebalancing occurred.
Good point about the hit. i forget how many races have the extra 2% miss passive (most of them?).
-- i am confused about your view on spell pen tho. I play crappy resto arena and see a enough cyclones resist to want to gem it so it never did. The logs i looked through showed about 15% of my cyclones resisted with no spell pen on MotW targets.
Your profiles look great though. good work.
Post by
Lightrain
yup fair enough. I mainly wanted to see if it was possible to regain the hit from the trinket and between +hit neck and gloves with almost all PvP gear and it more less is. Hence my own point that my gemming was wrong (i.e. the resilience), but that it didn't matter as it wasn't any items where the rebalancing occurred.
Good point about the hit. i forget how many races have the extra 2% miss passive (most of them?).
-- i am confused about your view on spell pen tho. I play crappy resto arena and see a enough cyclones resist to want to gem it so it never did. The logs i looked through showed about 15% of my cyclones resisted with no spell pen on MotW targets.
Your profiles look great though. good work.
Well, at 1800-2k rating, they try not to let you cyclone, but I have seen ferals gem for spell pen. I prefer to itemize for dps rather than against resists, but to each their own.
My friend who maintained a 2350 rating last season as feral and gemmed for spell pen previously, has now regemmed to full armor pen and has no spell pen.
Post by
irishsnout
excellent thread! If you dont mind me asking, whats the minimum gear stat requirement to jump in arena? Ive been working on the hateful/deadly set.
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