I asked him yesterday about RaT, and he did confirm that the FB portion of the talent was proving useful, but he doesn’t shred much when questing and is usually in bear for our instances. As for the maul side, he’s only received benefit when we bring along the other feral druid to 5-mans (rake/rip… I love the buff to rake’s damage!), or else when he has lacerate up on bosses… and the likelihood of having bleeds on the second maul target is slim to none, thus far. So, it seems to still be shaping up as a kitty-spec talent that happens to have some bear-form utility for when the cat is asked to tank some 5-man, or a raid with specific group makeup to provide the bear with a lot of bleed-causing melee slav– err helpers.

RE: Imp Tranquility,
I have put two points into it on my resto druid (I have two druids in T6, I am teh crazies), but I have cast tranquility itself ONCE in the past 6 levels of questing and instancing. Wild Growth has been the answer to any aoe-healing situation I’ve come up against, thus far, in the 5 mans. I am withholding judgement until I get into the 10-mans, though. A lot of the resto talents are hard to judge without knowing what you’ll be casting come raid time.

Keep us up to date with your feral speccage experiences!

Now that I’ve played significantly more with my spec, tanked a new instance or two, and generally had more time to digest what’s been done, I’m much more pleased with my spec than my post indicates. Additionally, I’ve found that OOC really does help a lot, even with tanking.

Last night in Utgarde I found several instances where I was generating very little rage while tanking trash. OOC procs made the difference more than once between a dead Titan’s Grip Warrior and, well, the alternative.

The additional tools are fun, and I’m still trying to remember to use them effectively, but they have actually saved me more than once. Whether I’d have found myself needing those tools prior to the changes are anyone’s guess, but I don’t feel notably weaker for all my lost attributes. Then again, I’m tanking in places that weren’t really designed for people in the gear my guild is sporting on its first foray into Northrend.

Still, I did okay in MH the other day, too (I just dragged the big guy a little too far and onto one of my healers and sealed all our fates – oops).

Until the dual-spec mechanic rolls, I’ll be continuing to mix my talents, but I think I’ll be using my next 9 points on KotJ, RaT, and Berserk. There are enough positive comments and insights that I think I’d be remiss to avoid them.

@Kelwind: I’ve glyphed my FR and about fell out of my chair the first time I used it. I hadn’t thought of macroing that with SI…hmmm…

@Karthiss: Yeah, I’m looking forward to KotJ a little later in my leveling curve. When I saw that change first appear in the beta notes I about wet myself with excitement. I think I’d forgotten Tiger’s Fury even existed.

@Kal: I agree, speccing is now a real question of where you want to shine.

@Hel: That’s okay, I have a baby Rogue myself so Rogue babble is just fine. L61 and slowly moving!

@Lee: I’m finding that Barkskin is at its most valuable at the beginning of a pull when tons of people are beating on me. Very good for that.

@Faradhim: We love you, don’t worry.

@Kevin: True, but you know…MUST..HAVE…APPROVAL!!

@Keeva: I keep looking at Imp Tranq for if and when I spec into healing.

@Kae: Haha, that’s funny. You have a good eye for talent specs if I do say so myself! =P RaT is something I want to try mostly because of my soloing time and that non-elites die fast enough that FB really is a good finisher then. As for Shredding Attacks, yeah, I definitely feel the extra Energy to use…

@Ranak: I expect most of us will eventually spec out of PP.

Again, thanks for the comments and I’ll see you in Northrend!

The main difference is I didn’t go for the expertise bonus of Primal Precision (as I felt I could make it up in gear later), and instead went for Berserk which is just crazy fun and helps solidly keep multi target aggro.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Kaelya

When playing my feral since 3.0, I have raided in the roles of MT, OT, and dps. In the raids where they told me to just go cat, I was DEFINITELY missing shredding attacks, but I didn’t want to go re-spec into it with the expansion looming and its many 5-mans, much time solo, and new talent points that I can spend on it later if I decide I really need it.

I’m not sold on Rend and Tear. I’m honestly considering skipping Rend and Tear entirely as I level in favor of other talents, because I feel it is far too expensive for its bear-form utility: 5 pts for a 20% boost to Maul damage only on bleeding targets, compared to Savage Fury which gives the same boost in only 2 pts and also buffs mangle, and the targets don’t have to be bleeding? It doesn’t seem balanced, and the FB + shred side of RaT don’t offset it enough for me, when I intend to be tanking. I’d rather not have to be tabbing between my closest targets lacerating them just to make sure my mauls are making use of the heavy 5-pt investment, because I’m pretty sure the Infected Wounds debuff is a disease, and Mangle is not a bleed effect.

I agree that RaT is very nice for kitty druids, but the same 5 points can instead go into Naturalist and buff ALL of my damage by 10%… swipe, maul, mangle, lacerate, and white attacks, on all targets, not just those that happen to be bleeding… and open up OoC, which I still hold up on a high old-fashioned pedestal since its days in the balance tree (and I giggle too when it procs while I’m cooking and, apparently, when speccing!).

Berserk, meanwhile, is a buff to aoe tanking, when I’ve had little issue holding aoe threat with swipe and the glyphed maul in spite of t6 set bonus increasing Mangle threat. Certainly useful, but not something I’ve ever sat back this past month and said “damn, I wish I had that talent over OoC.” I’ll certainly pick it up next level, but I’m really feeling the pain of “Berserk used to be a better talent”… a downside to watching the Beta notes like a proverbial hawk.

Just my 2cents

I’m sure people inspect me or look at my armory and wonder why on earth I have 2 points in that talent; a talent that the majority of druids will tell you is plain bad, bad, bad. It’s almost useless for raiding – I maybe use it occasionally on trash, and I used to use it on particular fights like ROS, but it’s very situational. Now that the tree aura is raid-wide, I’m not usually in the tank group anymore either, so that cuts its usefulness down even further.

BUT – it’s a half decent 5 man talent, and that’s what I’m doing most right now – finishing off heroics, and in a few days, I’m going to be doing instances solidly until 80. So it makes sense to take a talent that is tailored to 5mans. I’m also not specced into Living Seed, as many people are, because I’m just not using Regrowth very much yet, nor do I have the glyph. So it’s pointless (to me) to put 3 points into a talent that I’m probably not going to use much until I start raiding again at 80. If I’m not going to use those 3 points, why not put them into something that will help me along the way – if only temporarily.

Things will change at 80, but for now my few odd choices will serve me well and I don’t mind people /boggling at me. Even so, at 80, I won’t be afraid to stray a little from cookie-cutter builds if that’s what suits my play style and content level – I was always the token Insect Swarm resto druid..

Dare to be different!

Keevas last blog post..Hoarded quests WILL give XP after WotLK release

faradhims last blog post..All good things come to an end – Lich King invasion is here!

Also, I found barkskin to be useful while tanking bosses that have damage spikes, but I realize that mileage may vary

They boosted OoC’s proc rate in 3.02. It’s quite nice now. Like I said, it should proc in cat form about twice every 30 second period.

Kals last blog post..[Druid] Cat item list and rep list for Pre-naxx