It’s patch day! Here are some things to read while you wait for your download to complete.

New Tree Shirts: Stormcrow Wings and Adult Critter Form

There’s a new vinyl, vector design in the Tree Shirts shop featuring the wings of the Night Elf Stormcrow, depicted in purple and brown and embellished in metallic gold. These wings are positioned on the back of the shirts on which they’re shown.

By request, I’ve also added some adult options for the Critter Form shirts, including a maternity shirt. Note that most (though not all) of these are in pre-set colors because of design limitations.

Posts of Interest from Around the Blogosphere

• The Death Knight Survival Guide from Healer Envy
  Learn the tricks of this new Druid-obliterating hero class.
• Druid Tanking: Overview (WotLK) from Of Teeth and Claws
  Karthis takes a moment to summarize the changes to tanking in Wrath.
• Healing Sartharian (25-Man) with Drakes from Tree Bark Jacket
• Leatherworking Goodies from the PTR (3.08)
  Learn about important changes to this typically Druid profession.
• Mixology 101: Kitty Cat Consumables from Unbearably HoT
  Optimize the FITE in your Cat Form with these potent potions.
• Prepping for Patch 3.08 from Think Tank
  A great overview of changes Feral Druids can expect to see with today’s long-awaited release of Patch 3.08.

Druid Pole Dancers Video

Are Feral Druids the new Arena Pole Dancers this season?

Credit to Aurdon of I Sheep Things for submitting this giggle-inspiring video.

New Druid Blogs

Antileah the Druid by Pippa

I’m re-evaluating the way I handle my blogroll. I’m no longer going to provide descriptions for blogs since they often end up sounding very generic – yet writing them takes a huge amount of time – and they don’t typically remain relevant. Druid blogs will still be categorized by spec, and I will continue to remove those who haven’t updated in a month or more, but I need to look at areas where I can save time and this is definitely one of them.

• Achievement: Name a Blog
• Casual Cow
• Druid Heal
• Druids Do It on All Fours (French)
• Moonglade Exalted
• Orbital Bombardment
• The Tree House 
• A Tree’s Tale

Related Posts

• New Tree-Shirts!
• Community Spotlight
• Community Spotlight

Phaelia: This week, I bring you another fabulous guest post from Graylo of the Balance blog, Gray Matter. While some of the talents discussed here are more typically found in a Balance-oriented build, the analysis of their value is also relevant to a Restoration Druid and will no doubt come in handy with the release of dual-specs.

If you played a Balance Druid in vanilla WoW, you are very familiar with the term “Oomkin.” Our mana issues were so pervasive that this term survived through most of the Burning Crusade, even after most of our mana issues were fixed. In Wrath of the Lich King, our “Oomkin” days are far behind us, and anyone that uses the term is either uninformed or joking.

However, I still regularly receive question asking: How much mana regen do I need? Which talents are best? Can I give up Talent X to get more DPS talents? With that in mind I wanted to provide this little guide for Moonkin mana regen.

Talents

How much regen do I need?

This depend a lot on your group make up, but as a general rule you will need more regen as your group gets smaller and the fights get longer.

In 25-mans, I have absolutely no mana issues, and I have seen some high-end raiding Moonkin drop all of their mana regen talents without issue. In 10-mans, I have issues on the longer fights like Sarth-2D because my group doesn’t have a Mage, Shadow Priest or Ret Pally. In 5-mans I don’t have any issues because the fights are too short, but my experience may not be relevant to you. My gear level makes up for my low mana regen.

If your playstyle focuses on 5-mans and you don’t have a lot of gear, then you’re probably going to want as much regen as you can get. If you raid 10-man’s regularly, it’s going to depend on your group composition. If you regularly raid 25-mans, you probably have most of the buffs covered and can sacrifice some mana regen for some DPS talents. However, the best way to tell if you need more regen is if you’re consistently running out of mana on boss fights.

Ok, I need some regen, but which talents do I choose?

If you’ve looked around the various moonkin forums then you have probably seen this equation.

Omen of Clarity > Intensity > Dreamstate > Moonglow

This equation was written with well-geared raiders in mind, but it is a pretty good guideline and fairly vague. Let’s see if I can put some numbers to it to explain it better.

The Numbers

Omen of Clarity

Numerically, this is a hard ability to nail down. It’s very random, you may get it but not use it, and it’s hard to determine which spell consumes it. To calculate its value I looked at several old WWS reports. Look at a couple of high-casting fights like Patchwerk and Razuvious, the proc rate does indeed seem to be about 2 times per minute but highly variable.

Next I tried to figure out what is the average mana cost of the spells I cast during a boss fight. Looking at the WWS report from the raid where I got the Undying achievement, I summed my total spell casts for a Naxx clear. (I know this is a 10-man instead of a 25-man. However, I don’t think my casting habits change much if at all from 10-mans to 25-mans.) I won’t give you the boring details but I cast a total of 1,326 during boss fights at an average mana cost of 458 per spell with one point in Moonglow.

Now, even though Omen of Clarity procs twice per minute on average, not all of those procs will be used and it is highly variable. So, to try and get a minimum value let’s assume that you only use Omen of Clarity one and a half times per minute.

We can get an MP5 equivalent by dividing the mana saved per minute by 12. Therefore the equivalent MP5 is equal to:

(458 * 1.5) / 12 = 57.40 MP5 equivalent (assuming one point in Moonglow)

This may not seem like much, but since it costs only one talent point, it is far ahead of what you would get by investing that point in Dreamstate or Intensity. Just for reference, if you invest a full 3 points into Moonglow, Omen of Clarity would be worth 54.10 MP5 equivalent under these conditions.

Moonglow

This talent was much easier to quantify, but it is very easy to present misleading information. If you look around the web, you may find a person or two that will indicate one point in Moonglow is equivalent to 45 – 50 MP5. Their numbers may be theoretically accurate, but here not practical because they are evaluating the talent under ideal circumstances. For Moonglow to reach those levels of mana savings, you have to be constantly casting with no breaks and no latency. In real life that isn’t going to happen.

So to accurately quantify the value of Moonglow, I will have to look at WWS reports again.

Looking at just the boss fights in my latest Naxx run I cast Starfire 488 times, Wrath 525 times, Moonfire 113 times, and Starfall ~10 times. All 15 boss fights took a total of 46 minutes and 6 seconds (2766 total seconds). For each spell cast I saved the following amount of mana:

Starfire: (3496 * 0.16) * 0.03 = 16.78
Wrath: (3496 * 0.11) * 0.03 = 11.54
Moonfire: (3496 * 0.24) * 0.03 = 25.17
Starfall: (3496 * 0.35) * 0.03 = 36.71

So, to get MP5 equivalent for the raid, you take the total mana saved and divide it by the time spent in combat times five.

MP5 Equivalent = (((488 * 16.78) + (525 * 11.54) + (113 + 25.17) + (10 * 36.71)) / 2766) * 5
MP5 Equivalent = ((8,189.03 + 6056.82 + 2844.35 + 367.08) / 2766) * 5
MP5 Equivalent = (17457.28 / 2766) * 5
MP5 Equivalent = 6.31 * 5 = 31.56 MP5

These numbers will vary from person to person and night to night, but I doubt it will vary much. In fact, I think my estimation of Moonglow’s value is a little high because I used Wrath a little too much.

Dreamstate

This one is really easy to quantify. All you need is your total Intellect fully raid-buffed. To calculate it, look at your armory and get your unbuffed Int. Then add 60 for Arcane Intellect and 51 for Improved Mark of the Wild. Then multiply that value by 1.1 for Blessing of Kings, and by 1.1 again for Furor. For me the equation works out like this:

Total Intellect = (889 + 60 + 51) * 1.1 * 1.1 = 1210 Intellect

When you have your fully raid-buffed Intellect, you multiply that value by 0.04 to find the value of the first point, and 0.03 to find the value of the second and third point. So, for me Dreamstate is worth:

Dreamstate _{Point 1} = 1210 * 0.04 = 48.4 MP5
Dreamstate_{Point 2 & 3} = 1210 * 0.03 = 36.3 MP5

Intensity

This one is a little more complicated to calculate. First, we need to find our out of combat mana regen. To do that we use this formula at level 80:

MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + sqrt(Int) * Spirit * 0.005575 )

I’ve already showed you how to find your raid-buffed total Intellect. Finding your raid buffed Spirit is very similar. Look at your armory and get your unbuffed Spirit. Then add 80 for Divine Spirit and 51 for Improved Mark of the Wild. Then multiply that value by 1.1 for Blessing of Kings. For me the equation works out like this:

Total Spirit = (371 + 80 + 51) * 1.1 = 552 Spirit

So my out of combat mana regen is:

MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + sqrt(1210) * 552 * 0.005575)
MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + 34.79 * 552 * 0.005575)
MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + 34.79 * 552 * 0.005575) = 535 MP5

Therefore, to get the value of each talent point, we just multiply this by 10%. So for me, each point I put in Intensity is worth:

Intensity(1pt) = 535 * 0.10 = 53.5 MP5

The TL:DR Version

As a general rule you can currently use this priority when evaluating mana regen talents:

Omen of Clarity > Intensity > Dreamstate > Moonglow

Please remember though that Omen of Clarity and Moonglow are very static since they are based primarily upon the spell’s mana cost. This means that they favor relatively low levels of gear, but will be outpaced by Intensity and Dreamstate as your gear improves.

That said, Omen of Clarity is still the best mana regen talent currently because it only costs one talent point. I do not expect this to persist until the end of Wrath of the Lich King because Intensity and Dreamstate will improve significantly in Tier 8 and Tier 9.

Related Posts

• Intensity to Become 30% Regen while Casting
• Blessing of Kings vs. Blessing of Wisdom
• Revaluing Spirit

I’m super busy this week, so this will be a quick post reviewing Ghostcrawler’s responses to Resto-related questions from Arenis of Bonechewer (US).

1. Is any attention being given to how bad many Druids perceived Replenish? Maybe uping the returns of mana at the very least?

Yes, it is dreadful. Totally agree.

Replenish is pretty lackluster and doesn’t justify its 3-point expense. The returns are either negligible or unnecessary and Rejuvenation is an awkward healing spell to leverage in anything but a 5-man instance where you’re guaranteed to be the only healer. It also doesn’t have any hope of comparing to the awesomeness of Replenishment. Not that it necessarily should, but the effects are similar enough that the comparison will be drawn. » More on Replenish

2. Is any attention being given to how bad many Druids perceive Living Seed? Living Seed is very low on overall healing for 3 talent points mostly because it is based off crits, which outside Regrowth aren’t a Druid’s strong stat, it is over-heal the majority of the time.

I don’t think Seed is nearly as bad as Replenishment. We get caught in this cycle sometimes where a class says "I don’t want X stat" so we give them a talent that uses it and then the response is "now you are making me want a stat I don’t want." That’s overly pithy to describe the situation, but it does come up a lot.

That’s definitely overly pithy. Resto doesn’t value crit because our primary method of healing, heals over time, do not benefit from it. What crit we DO benefit from is easily achievable through Improved Regrowth, making stacking crit for our other direct heal(s) kind of silly.

3. Is any attention being give to how bad our PvP survivability is? We can’t stay in Tree if a warlock is around. We can’t CC if we are in Tree. If we aren’t in Tree we lose our armor and melee tear through us faster than if we are in it. Lifeblooms that cost about 1500 mana to stack to 3 are being wisped away by DKs without so much as a thought or bloom. The regen in what PvP gear is accessible to losing teams is terrible. The numbers show Resto Druids are the worst Healers in arena atm. Yes even worse than priests.

PvP survivability is not something we want to address on a class by class basis at this point. A lot of players feel they are dying too quickly. Going through all the talent trees to offer survivability doesn’t get at the root of this concern. As an aside, non-tanks often skip survivability talents anyway unless they are borderline OP in PvP. We are trying to bundle more of them with offensive effects.

Resto is definitely paying for its dominance in S2-S4 right now. I spend more time in Wisp Form than Elf Form in battlegrounds these days. If they buff Holy Paladins with Resto Druids and Holy and/or Discipline Priests, I’m going to be peeved.

4. Haste and Crit on our gear is pretty useless to us after a certain point. Once we reach the Haste softcap for raids, which is pretty low, we don’t need that anymore. Crit is also pretty situational as it will only really affect Nourish and we don’t get enough Crit on our gear for it to be a substantional boost to the spell. Perhaps Haste affecting Hot Ticks. Perhaps Crit affecting Hots – yeah i am dreaming on that one, but can u tell us why not?

Honestly, there is a technical limitation that prevents hots (and dots) from being able to crit. We are removing that limitation though, so who knows.

Haste and armor pen are things we put on lower level gear to make it lower level gear. Higher level gear will be more suitablly optimized.

–

I did not say your hots will just start critting in the next patch. I said we had the technology to do that if we think it is necessary. We would certainly have to nerf Resto in other ways to compensate for those higher healing numbers.

Critting HoTs is potentially promising though I have to disagree with the idea that we would need to be nerfed to make up for such a change. Tanks are the primary beneficiaries of our HoT ticks, and much of that healing is already overhealing (regardless of whether it displays as such on the meters). Providing a more sporadically beneficial health buffer shouldn’t necessitate a reduction of throughput in other areas.

5. Poor Idol choices. Currently there is 1 for lifebloom and 1 for rejuv. Any hopes of getting more for other spells or perhaps less specific idols?

We will try and add more. Typically these need to go on vendors (though not always) since they are so spec specific (and therefore prone to causing frustration when they drop).

The idol choices in Wrath really, really stink. As Arenis points out, they only benefit Lifebloom (nerfed so badly that it’s only useful triple-stacked) or Rejuvenation (generally reserved for tanks). I’m worried that if they only put these items on token-based vendors, that we won’t get anything as cool as the [Idol of the Crescent Goddess] was in TBC. There’s a certain something extra special that can be given to items that are acquired from individual bosses that you don’t typically see from items that are token-purchased. Qwezar of Zangarmarsh (US) made a really good suggestion that these idols could be acquired through a token system similar to the tier tokens. This would allow one item to drop that was possibly redeemable by a Protection Paladin, Elemental Shaman, or Restoration Druid.

6. Why can’t we cast thorns in Tree Form?

We want druids to be shapeshifters so we constantly struggle with how much to allow them to do without shifting. Feral and Balance have a lot of the same questions.

This is another silly limitation. Expect to see Thorns duration increased to 30 minutes or Tree of Life able to cast it … in the Emerald Dream expansion.

7. We can’t Trees cast Barkskin while silences. Trees do have bark afterall.

If you have bark, then why do you need more? Seriously, this is something we are considering.

This would be a nice change but won’t affect me a ton since I currently have no plans to participate in Arenas.

8. Having more than 1 Tree in a Raid usually only happens if there is a lack of other healers. Any input on what can be done about Trees stacking better with eachother? Like a boost to Hots if another tree has one up on a target?

I am not finding this is a general rule (one tree per raid) except for groups that just tended to keep the same players they had in BC. Except for paladins with their weird buff stacking mechanics (something we are looking at) I do see plenty of concerns from all classes that there isn’t enough reason to bring more than one of them. Yet, that was kind of the point. All things being equal, we would prefer you to bring a diverse group (to avoid raid stacking and get everyone into the raids) but we don’t want to overly penalize you if you cannot for whatever reason.

I also haven’t experienced this personally. Given, my guild isn’t the type that necessarily min/maxxes its raid composition (nor is WotLK raid content such that this is necessary so far), but I don’t really feel any less effective if there’s a second Druid on board.

Overall, it was really nice to see some responses in the healer forum to something other than Priest whining, and I’m encouraged by the acknowledgement that Replenish is “dreadful.”

Related Posts

• Blue: Mana Regen Complexity and Restoration Scaling
• Forum Watch: Class Feedback for WotLK Solicited
• Blue: Changes to Buffs and Debuffs

This is part two of my series on recommended pre-raid gear, organized by item slot and roughly ordered by my preference/recommendation. Note that, while there might exist items better than some of those listed here, these are the items that I consider ideally itemized for the Restoration Druid (and thus, the ones I think you should focus your efforts on acquiring).

• Part I: Head, Shoulder, Chest, Hands, Legs, Feet
• Part II: Back, Waist, Wrist, Neck, and Fingers
• Part III: Two-Handed Weapons, One-Handed Weapons, and Offhands (coming soon)

Quick Links

• Back
• Waist
• Wrist
• Neck
• Fingers

Back

1. [Reanimator’s Cloak] – Drak’tharon Keep (Heroic) Zone Drop
   Despite being a blue item, this is a great cloak and one of the few that includes Spirit. The additional red gem slot with a +4 Intellect socket bonus is pretty great, too.
2. [Wispcloak] – Tailoring (BoE)
   While it does waste some itemization points on MP5 (a relatively pricey stat compared to the equivalent amounts of Intellect/Spirit), this is the only Epic back slot we have access to pre-Naxx. The graphic is pretty awesome, to boot.
3. [Shroud of Moorabi] – Moorabi in Gundrak (Heroic)
   Great Intellect and high spell power but lacking the customization of the [Reanimator’s Cloak]. Still a viable option on par with the Wispcloak.
4. [Subterranean Waterfall Shroud] – Jedoga Shadowseeker in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom (Heroic)
   The highest available Spirit value of any of the ILevel 200 cloaks but lacking in Intellect.

Compare these items

Waist

1. [Sash of Jordan] – World Drop (BoE)
   Tons of Spirit and a red gem slot make this the best-in-slot item for a pre-Naxx Resto Druid, although you can expect to pay a hefty sum for the pleasure of wearing it.
2. [Vine Belt of the Woodland Dryad] – 40 x Emblem of Heroism
   Similar to the [Elegant Temple Gardens’ Girdle] in potency, the fact that this belt is made of leather makes it the slight favorite.
3. [Elegant Temple Gardens’ Girdle] – 40 x Emblem of Heroism
   One of the few items to include both Spirit (YAY) and MP5 (boo). Also includes a yellow gem slot with +4 Spirit socket bonus.
4. [Girdle of Bane] – King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle (Heroic)
   Because of the hit rating on this item, be courteous and defer first to the DPS casters in your group.

Compare these items

Wrist

1. [Putrescent Bands] – Grobbulus or Gluth in Naxxramas (BoE)
   A great balance of stats, leather, and featuring haste over crit, these are my best-in-slot choice and can be picked up from the auction house for around 1,000 gold.
2. [Cuffs of Winged Levitation] – Cache of Eregos in the Oculus (Heroic)
   These bracers and the [Plague-Infected Bracers] are pretty evenly matched with the nod going toward the Cuffs because I prefer spell haste to spell crit.
3. [Plague-Infected Bracers] – Dark Runed Chest in the Culling of Stratholme (Heroic)
   Also a great choice if you can get your hands around them – or get them around your hands – these bracers are also leather.
4. [Ancestral Sinew Wristguards] – Wyrmrest Accord (Revered)
   One of the few available reputation-based items to include Spirit (if somewhat lacking). Includes a blue slot just begging to be slotted with Spirit or Spirit/spell power with a +4 Intellect socket bonus.
5. [Wound-Binder’s Wristguards] – Knights of the Ebon Blade (Revered)
   Preferring Intellect to Spirit, these are an easily obtainable faction-based reward. P.S. They’re leather.
6. [Handler’s Arm Strap] – King Dred in Drak’tharon Keep (Heroic)
   Similarly statted to the [Cuffs of the Trussed Hall], these have the advantage of being made of leather.
7.  [Cuffs of the Trussed Hall] – Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle (Heroic)
   You’ll be all trussed up with nowhere to go in these high-Spirit ILevel 200 bracers.

Compare these items

Neck

1. [Encircling Burnished Gold Chains] – 25 x Emblem of Heroism
   The one epic option for necklaces, what this chain lacks in Spirit it makes up for in spell power and Intellect. Unfortunately, wastes itemization points on spell hit so you’re better off saving your badges for the T7 equivalent gloves and chest first.
2. [Necromancer’s Amulet] – Salramm the Fleshcrafter in the Culling of Stratholme (Heroic)
   The highest Intellect of the ILevel 200 blues make this the top contender among the three.
3. [Dragon Prow Amulet] – Utgarde Keep (Heroic) Zone Drop
   Purchaseable from the Auction House, this item comes with a lot of Spirit.
4. [Zuramat’s Necklace] – Zuramat the Obliterator in the Violet Hold (Heroic)
   At 64 Stamina, this is the beefy choice among necklaces, though obviously Intellect and Spirit remain preferred.

Compare these items

Fingers

This was a particularly difficult slot to fill with most rings including wasted stat points on spell crit, spell haste, or spell hit.

1. [Loop of the Kirin Tor] – 6400g at Exalted with Kirin Tor
   A great option for the Restoration Druid whose primary benefit is perhaps its ability to teleport you to Dalaran once an hour. This ring would be a tremendous boon for completing daily quests, allowing you to set your hearthstone to a more convenient reputation-proximate locale. Still, 6400g is hardly a sum to sneeze at so I only recommend this if you intend to make use of its teleportation aspect.
2. [Signet of Hopeful Light] – Argent Crusade Exalted
   Amazing Intellect and haste over spell crit make this my second choice for rings, though honestly what Druid worth their sawdust will waste time raising their faction with those Paladin goodie-two-shoes?
3. [Spectral Seal of the Prophet] – The Prophet Tharon’ja in Drak’Tharon Keep (Heroic)
   A blue ILevel 200 ring and the only option aside from the [Loop of the Kirin Tor] that includes Spirit.
4. [Titanium Spell-Shock Ring] – Jewelcrafting (BoE)
   Wasted itemization points on spell crit but also includes a red gem slot with +5 spell power for customizability. Purchaseable via the auction house.
5. [Band of Guile] – Dark Runed Chest in the Culling of Stratholme (Heroic)
   Pretty evenly matched with the [Titanium Spell-Shock Ring] but with the advantage of spell haste instead of spell crit.

Compare these items

Related Posts

• Pre-Raid Gear: Head, Shoulder, Chest, Hands, Legs, Feet
• Mailbag: Zul’Aman Healing Chests
• Guest Post: Balance vs. Restoration Gear

This week, I am honored to bring you a guest post from Karthis Winterleaf, author of the well-respected Feral blog, Of Teeth and Claws. I asked Karthis to educate a noobish Tree like myself on what I’d want to look for when building a kitty cat set for dailies, soloing, and the occasional catnap under a tree.

Druids, no matter what their final spec, all start life walking down the same path: we spend nine levels exclusively in caster form dabbling with a mix of Restoration and Balance spells before earning the durable Bear Form at level ten, and then the fierce Cat Form at level twenty.

I distinctly remember the great power that seemed to be granted to me upon reaching that magical level twenty milestone all those years ago – no longer was I stuck as a frail caster or a curiously weak bear, instead suddenly I could shift into the form of a graceful killer and deal some real damage. The joy that I felt when I first sunk my claws into a foe and then proceeded to tear its face off remains unsurpassed by anything since. Bliss.

Surely, gentle trees, you too sometimes wish to leave your stiff limbs behind and slink into the shadows? Surely you too wish to taste something more fulfilling – far richer – than just simple water and sunshine? Surely you too wish to feel bones snap between your jaws, watch flesh part beneath your razor claws, and hear howls of helpless pain fill your ears as you destroy those who dare to stand in your way?

If so – and I know that in your heart of hearts you all do – then read on.

Evaluating Feral Gear

Druids are nearly alone in being able to utterly change their play style from healing to DPS (two flavors) to tanking with a single respec. It is because of this innate versatility that many Druids collect multiple sets of gear for when they want to step outside of their traditional role, and do something different for a while. It can be a great change of pace to heal a battleground after off-tanking a heroic raid, and I’m sure that the reverse is also true.

If you are to truly unleash your inner kitty, it pays to understand what makes a cat tick, and to ensure that your off-spec gear collection is as potent as it can be without passing up usable main spec items. Gear-wise, Cat Form benefits from the following stats: Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Crit Rating, Expertise Rating, Haste Rating, Armor Penetration, and (Feral) Attack Power. If that seems like a lot of trade-offs to juggle, then you’re not far off the mark.

Attack Power

Attack Power (and for now, Feral Attack Power) increases the damage that all of your attacks deal. Both white and yellow attacks scale directly with attack power, and thus the more of it you have the harder you will hit. Although the bonus attack power that you see on gear often looks enormous, it pays to calculate the equivalent Strength or Agility this converts to (or vice versa) so that you can compare apples to apples when making a loot choice.

Strength

Strength is a strong stat on Druid gear in WotLK, which is a change from the later stages of TBC. Each point of Strength is worth roughly 2.2 Attack Power, which as discussed is the underlying stat that all kitty dps abilities scale with. Picking up leather gear with lots of strength is never a bad idea, and often times strength gems and enchantments are your best choices.

Agility

Agility used to be the key stat for all feral Druids, however it has fallen behind strength in terms of DPS utility. Offensively, agility increases both your Attack Power (1 Agility = 1.67 AP) and your chance to score a critical hit on a foe (1 agility = 0.013% chance to crit). Despite losing some prominence in WotLK, Agility is still an excellent stat to stack, and the ideal piece of cat gear will have a healthy dollop of Agility AND Strength on it.

Hit Rating

Hit rating decreases the chance that you will miss with your attacks, and thus indirectly boosts your overall damage. While it is not as flashy a stat as Attack Power, Strength, or Agility, it is probably the most important stat to pay attention to when building a Feral DPS gear set, since missed attacks deal zero damage no matter how much attack power that you have stacked. Against raid bosses the best current theorycrafting suggests that you need enough hit rating to overcome an 8.0% miss chance – this translates to +263 hit rating. If you are sticking to level 80 mobs you will only need to overcome a 5% miss chance, which requires +164 hit rating. Please keep in mind that stack hit rating beyond the cap is wasting stats, so some critical thought is required to maintain a good balance.

Expertise Rating

Expertise is a stat that feral Druids love to hate; it reduces the chance that enemies will dodge or parry our attacks (which is great) but seems to either appear in huge doses or else not at all (which makes stacking it a pain). Similarly to hit rating, capping your expertise is advisable if you intend on aiming to maximize your DPS. Against raid bosses you need to counteract their 6.5% chance to dodge which requires +214 expertise rating (parry is of lesser importance since you will be attacking from behind most of the time). Level 80 mobs only have a 5% chance to dodge, which +163 expertise rating will take care of. (Note: The Primal Precision talent – a core of any serious feral build – grants 10 expertise, or 82 expertise rating, so subtract this from the above numbers if you have specced into it).

Crit Rating

Crit rating increases the chances that you inflict double damage on your foe with either a white or a yellow attack. It is difficult to exactly quantify the DPS increase that crit rating grants you since a properly talented Feral Druid will have their Primal Fury talent maxed out, and thus receive an extra combo point in addition to double damage when they score a critical hit. More combo points leads to easier management of the complex Feral DPS cycle, which indirectly leads to higher sustained damage. Still, the consensus seems to be that crit rating is less important than raw attack power. Number junkies will want to know that every 46 crit rating that you acquire will bestow a 1% increase to your chance of scoring a critical hit.

Armor Penetration Rating

Armor Penetration Rating decreases the effective amount of armor that an enemy has to protect itself with against your attacks. While an increase in armor penetration leads to higher DPS, this is not a stat that feral Druids should go out of their way to acquire – if the gear has great other stats and some armor penetration thrown in then it’s not a bad thing, but armor penetration should rarely make or break a gear decision. Every 15.4 armor penetration reduces enemy armor by 1% (and keep in mind that enemy armor values are far lower than most players).

Haste Rating

Haste speeds up the time between white damage melee attacks. Since Druids in cat form have an attack speed of 1, this stat is of minimal impact to our bottom line DPS. Like armor penetration, having gear with haste on it cannot hurt, however it is not nearly as beneficial as the other stats that could be found in its place. Every 32.8 haste rating will increase attack speed by 1%.

Quick Comparisons

If your head is spinning a little bit right now, I don’t blame you – Feral Druids have a lot to consider when selecting their gear. As a rule of thumb, however, here is a guideline to follow:

hit > expertise > strength > agility > attack power > crit > armor penetration > haste

If you reach the cap for hit rating or expertise, then they drop to the back of the flow chart.

For an in-game numerical comparison of gear, I highly recommend that you use an addon like Pawn. Pawn allows you to assign weights to stats and that calculates a composite "score" for an item and displays it within the item tooltip. For reference, here is the Pawn scale that I use for evaluating cat gear:

Ap = 1, FeralAp = 1, Strength = 2.2, Agility = 1.565, CritRating = 1.025, ExpertiseRating = 1.033, HasteRating = 0.786, ArmorPenetration = 0.922, HitRating = 1.133, RedSocket = 25.04, BlueSocket = 16, YellowSocket = 24.264, ColorlessSocket = 25.04, MetaSocket = 32.865

Toskk and Rawr are also good sources for alternate gear scales for those who are interested in different points of view.

Always remember to keep the Hit Rating and Expertise caps in mind when making gear decisions, as their value cannot be modelled with a simple number in a scale like this. A composite stat-based gear score is no substitute for a little bit of critical thought.

If you want to plan your cat gear in advance, I have prepared a Loot Rank template that can be used to get a listing of kitty gear ranked by slot: Karthis’ Kitty Loot Rank. If you do not expect to be raiding then you can uncheck some of the boxes on the Loot Rank form, and click the "View Loot Ranking" button to regenerate the list to get a bigger list of gear that is relevant to your situation.

Final Thoughts

It can be a wonderful change of pace to play a different style than you are used to for a while, and the Druid class offers the ability to do this without having to roll an alt and level it up. It only furthers your enjoyment if you have a functional set of gear that makes your transition even smoother. In the end the Feral path may not be for everyone, but all Druids owe it to themselves to surrender to their inner beast for at least a little while, and get up close and personal with their foes.

Related Posts

• Guest Post: Balance vs. Restoration Gear
• BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King
• Phaelia’s Guide to Roguery