Kiras - Feral Druid

[Kiras]

Hello, my name is James and I play a feral druid named Kiras.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-tale ... n&cn=Kiras (currently in threat gear, I will get him in tanking gear ASAP)

I'm a 24 year old gamer who is currently an officer in the Air Force, working full-time, and I'm looking for a raiding guild. I'm looking to raid 2-3 times/week, and after talking to Shanai about it I think that Ephemera would be a good fit for where I would like to take my wow career. Along with Shanai, I used to raid regularly with Rezzy, (at the time it was Intothevoid) Hyperpower and Rick.

For boss tanking, as a feral druid rotation is fairly easy. Usually on the pull I will hit the boss with feiry fire, and then move onto the main rotation; Mangle, Maul, Lacerate and Swipe. I will run this basic rotation until lacerate is capped out and then I will move to Mangle, Maul and Swipe x 2-3 until I need to refresh Mangle/Lacerate. Feiry fire is pretty much my goto move for picking up new adds, but in a pinch I use taunt as well.

For feral dps, I start with mangle, rake, savage roar, shred, mangle, rip, and then basically it's just keeping up 5cp rip, 5cp savage roar, rake, mangle and shredding for combo points. Mangle is omitted if there is a arms warrior in the raid b/c trauma provides the same buff. With 3.3.3, this rotation will change a bit too, b/c mangle will move up to a 60 second debuff, making the rotation a lot easier to keep up.

As far as tanking stats, stamina > armor > dodge. This has become especially relevant with the 'Chill of the Throne' debuff taking away 20% of my dodge. While that is active it's much more important to be able to mitigate as much of the hit as I can with armor, while maintaining the health to survive it.

My talent build is mostly cookie cutter for both tanking and dps. The only oddities might be my decision to take king of the jungle in my tanking spec. I chose to take King of the Jungle and Feral Instinct over Master Shapeshifter because with the 4pcT10 bonus I use enrage just about everytime its up and while that only comes out to about 1.5% increase in damage over the long term, I think the other points in feral instinct make up for it because I use swipe almost excessively (encounter permitting, not such a good idea on Saurfang when the adds spawn).

I have a frost resist set that I could pull out of the bank if necessary. And my feral dps set is mostly 245+ with only odds and ends being below that gear level.

My last guild was Dol Amroth, I left on good terms do to waning interest in raiding from the guild as a whole that has basically led to its collapse. I have several level 80s that I play in my spare time and occasionally raid 10s with. All of them are geared with triumph badge/heroic gear with some 251+. Main spec's listed first, off-specs second.

Warrior - Chektor (Prot / Arms)
Death Knight - Skandronan (Blood Tank / Blood DPS)
Paladin - Vidron (Prot / Holy)
Hunter - Keanow (MM / Beast)

I realise it says that you all are full on feral druids, however, I feel that I an exceptional player and I amwilling to sit out based on senority. I thank you for taking the time to review my app and look forward to hearing from you.

[Johan]

Hey, which would you consider your "main" role, dps or tanking? I think we're pretty full on tanks for the moment, but we always take exceptional apps.

[Mindful]

First of all, you're lacking 2 points in Improved Mark of the Wild which I can only assume is because you missed the fact that the talent gives you 2% to all stats. 2% to all stats is HUGE, and definitely not optional, especially considering how little use PVE druids get out of Furor (don't get me wrong, it's not useless, it's just not optimal).

Secondly, your language is rather ambiguous about your usage of Mangle and FFF, both of which provide more threat per GCD than swipe/lacerate and are worth using every time they come up, and not just to refresh the debuffs that they provide.

Other than that, everything looks in order in terms of tanking. I'm not knowledgeable enough about cat dps to comment about it. Lastly, Johan is right about us having plenty of tanks, but who am I to shoo away loot competition?

[Vespelia]

Hi James,

Mindful already mentioned most of what I'd mention regarding your tanking spec/rotation, but I'd like to add a couple of questions. First, can you explain a little more about your stat priority? You said you prioritize stamina > armor > dodge, but you didn't mention agility - where does that fit in? Would you still value armor over agility? Also, can you explain how the bear armor multiplier works with bonus armor and armor on rings, necks, weapons, etc?

Regarding your cat spec/rotation, I notice you currently have 3/3 Imp. Mangle - will you be changing that when 3.3 comes out? Why/why not? How do you prioritize your cat stats? If 5cp Rip and SR are going to fall off at the same time, which do you refresh first? When do you use Ferocious Bite?

I know that's a lot of questions - sorry about that! Just trying to get a better sense for how you play.

Thanks!

[Kiras]

I am mainly a tank, no slouch for dps, but its not my main role usually. I will however do what is asked of me.

As far as mangle/FFF, I always refresh mangle as soon as its CD up. For FFF, I wont always use it depending on my role. As I said I use it for picking up any adds that may be coming in. I would rather hold it for some threat on something new than blow it for a marginally more threat on the present target. I dont usually have threat problems.

I spec'd out of imp mark when I stopped raiding last week. I have been mainly grinding mats/gold since than and its worth it to start out in cat with enough energy to just kill something straight out with all the shifting. I would want those stats back were I to go raid tanking again.

As far as where agility fits in, imo its maybe a little bit ahead of dodge for ICC content. With the boss designs, I feel that the damage is going to come, via spells or just sheer number of attacks. Having the armor and stamina to eat it seems like the best bet (especially with fights, like fester and bloodqueen)

For cat stats, right now I am just breaching the point where ArP is my best stat, I have just started to gem for it (breaking the 400 mark). Agility is second.

With 3.3 I will drop to 1/3 imp mangle and shift the points to feral agression. Mangle is only something to be applied for the debuff in cat, once every 50-60s doesn't deserve those 2 points. If I were to get in trouble I could use tiger's fury. Savage Roar > Rip, Rip is nice, but savage roar buffs all my attacks. I tend to use ferious bite a little my sparingly then I should, but right now I use it if I have 10+ seconds on roar/rip, depending on if tigers fury is up, bersek is running and what my current energy levels sit at.

[Rezzy]

This guy gets my vote. One of the best feral druid tank in Durotan. What took you so long to apply?

[Rick]

This guy gets my vote. One of the best feral druid tank in Durotan. What took you so long to apply?

What Rezzy said.

[Jeff]

Please find an officer in game.