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Leveling Guide
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Post by
241152
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194492
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480474
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Post by
Heckler
Here's an interesting piece of trivia that not a lot of people know: Swipe only has a 360° radius when you use the level 80 version, the previous ranks still only work in a frontal cone.
Post by
241152
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Post by
466571
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466571
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Post by
Novak
To be honest, I'm leveling up as cat right now (Level 60.
here
is my druid's profile) and..
1) Even with 2/2
Shredding Attacks
, and 0/2 Improved Mangle, Mangle is STILL greater dps than Shred.
2)The 4 points wasted on
Shredding Attacks
+
Brutal Impact
are really a bummer. They could be much better used in
Heart of the Wild
for 10% bonus AP (and 10% bonus stam in Bear).
3)
Infected Wounds
seems like a waste to me too. Get the
Glyph of Rake
so targets don't run away. Once you've got that, you really don't need to worry about their run speed. The attack speed decrease isn't too great either. (and yes I know that my Druid doesn't have that glyph. I bought the wrong one when he was 20 and haven't bothered to go back to the AH).
4) Stealthing up to your target, while imperative if you're going to Shred your way to 80, just slows you down really if you Mangle. Pull with FFF, drop your Rake, and then Mangle. IF the target has lots of health, Rip then. If the target doesn't, Mangle again and use Ferocious Bite.
5) 1/2
Nurturing Instinct
is another talent that feels wasteful, at least by the time you picked it. Your entire mana pool is saved for heals, you don't have to worry about having big heals. Your instacast Regrowth and an occasional Rejuv should be just fine. It's not like Boomkins, who have to split their mana pool between damage and healing. They need to worry about mana efficiency.
If the logic for NI is "I may run instances and need to heal," my question is.. Why don't you have a healing set? If you try to heal a dungeon in your feral gear, I think you'll find quite a bit of mana issues.
For the few times I did AOE as bear, what I always did was round up a bunch (while mounted), go behind a wall/pillar, cast Regrowth and throw a Rejuve on myself, pop into bear, Enrage, and just swipe until they all died. Having those two hots up really helps.
I try to make sure they all die at relatively the same time (I constantly change targets to the one who has the most) because with the 2 hots, and Savage Defense, LotP and the Barkskin at my disposal, more rage was more important to me, to keep swiping.
Post by
241152
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Post by
Novak
(phew. I typed a huge thing out and then wowhead went down for maintenance. Good thing I had copied it into a text document beforehand.)
@Genericusername
I did actually have 2/2 Brutal Impact and 2/2 Shredding Attacks, until I got Mangle.
I use an addon called
Dr. Damage
which shows (If you set it as such) Damage-per-Mana (or, in cat's case, damage per energy).
When I got mangle at 50, it was roughly 24 damage per energy, while Shred (even with 2/2 Shredding Attacks, to reduce cost) was somewhere around 16 damage per energy.
In the last 10 levels (As I am 60 now), that has stayed roughly the same, Mangle being superior to Shred.
So I thought "Well I'll just drop Shredding Attacks". But then I realized, I had 2/2 Brutal Impact solely for the Shredding Attacks synergy. I didn't
need
the mobs stunned for other reasons. So I dropped those two.
HotW isn't impressive, I agree. Predatory Instincts and KotJ are more impressive.
But on the way in order to actually REACH PI and KotJ, I needed to throw some points into junker talents. If you want to join me on my talent-placement journey (as if I was a level 50, respeccing to get rid of Brutal Impact and Shredding attacks):
24 points spent
is our base. Those are all talents that (IMO, at least) are important. I need 1 more point to get to the next tier. Best choice for me was 1/5 Feral aggression. Skip ahead to..
28 points spent
. We need 2 more points to get to Leader of the Pack. Feral Aggression and HotW are the only choices that seem right to me. I go with 2/5 HotW. Now we're at..
33 points spend
. 2 more points needed for the next tier. I don't want Primal Gore, I don't PVP. So I went with HotW again, 4/5. Now it's..
38 points spent
, 2 more points again needed to get to Mangle. I again, don't PVP, so I don't want Infected Wounds. So I go with 5/5 HotW and then put a second point into Feral Instincts.
So we end up at
Mangle
time. We have filled out 3/3 PI (which we both agree is better), and we are able to then fill out KOTJ (which we both agree is better), but needed HotW to get to that point.
Of course, I am leveling with 3 BoA items. Weapon, chest, and trinket. With the Crusader on my weapon, and the HP restore on my trinket, I got fairly sufficient heals so that I didn't require the more defensive talents (Thick Hide and Nurturing Instinct). If I was leveling without those BoA items, perhaps I would need those little boosties to keep me alive.
But I think also, most people these days are leveling with BoA items.
Post by
pezz
Just to add to the argument of Shred versus Mangle, Shred doesn't get better than Mangle until 2/2 Shredding Attacks and 5/5 Rend and Tear. Personally, I wouldn't sink 7 talent points into making an ability you're only going to be able to use once per mob which is otherwise extremely subpar worth using. I have no theorycrafting to back this up but that seems like an awful big investment in talents which are not otherwise absolutely awesome for leveling, though I'll grant Rend and Tear isn't too bad even ignoring the buff it gives Shred. Also you can't fill that up all the way until you're level 59. I didn't take Rend and Tear until I hit 80 and respecced to my raiding build, and I just used Mangle all the way up without ever touching Shred and I found that worked very well. Of course, like I said, I don't have any numbers to say that my way is much better than your way.
Post by
241152
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Post by
pezz
Ah yeah, I really can't defend the time where you have Shred and not Mangle. I used Claw but that was rather frusturating.
Post by
342189
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Post by
Novak
Also, Rip
Mangle > Rake > Mangle.. to 5 CP > Rip. Once you get a 5CP rip up, target the next mob and run (charge, waste of energy imo) and let the dying mob limp over to you while you are killing the next one. This is very fast and and a lot of fun, if you have OoC and time your TFs (with KotJ) well you can keep going until you need to heal (4-5 mobs at least).You need to be 71 to pick up OoC, KotJ and Primal Gore which i suspect are required for this to work smoothly so its more of a rotation for northrend.
I've found so far (Level 60) in leveling, if I get 5 CP, my rip will only last a few seconds before the mob dies. I usually FFF, Rake, Mangle, Rip, and then switch targets.
Post by
342189
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241152
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