Cataclysm Feral Druid Guide is up!

Just in time for Cataclysm launch, my Feral Druid Guide is up!
Link here: Cataclysm Feral Druid Guide!

As with my new Cata Resto Guide, the old Feral guide has been taken completely down in order to start fresh with the new guide for Cata.

I'll be updating the guide as new information comes in and with new patches and changes.

Enjoy the new guide, and enjoy the launch of Cataclysm!

Druid Healing and Kitty DPS 4.0.1, updates! and new tree form models!

UPDATE: I've completed the Restoration Druid Healing Guide for level 80 in 4.0.1, which you can find here: Full Guide: How to be a Tree! Resto Guide for 4.0.1 and Beyond!

The guide will again be updated when Cata hits to reflect changes for level 85, a full 85 spec, new gems and enchants, etc!

The old 3.3.5 Guide was removed, as was the placeholder in progress guide for 4.0.1, so be sure to update any bookmarks or links you may have.

The dust is starting to settle following the Patch. Lots of little (and big) bugs and issues which will hopefully be either hotfixed or, in the very least, will be addressed in upcoming patches.

The WoW Forums are often helpful both for reporting bugs and finding out more information about anything you may be experiencing. The Bug forum can be seen here (along with this helpful post on How to Write a Good Bug Report). Technical Support and Mac Tech Support are also very helpful (and there are some known crash issues with Macs with this patch). If you have a crash, ALWAYS send your error logs in to Blizz (a form should pop up automatically to do so), and you can also post your crashlogs on the forums as well (that's also much more helpful than just posting 'I crashed!!111').

Kitties should be feeling a lot better today! We had a blue post acknowledging the pretty major class imbalances at level 80, and we got a hotfix (along with other melee classes) boosting our damage!

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler (Source)

We made many changes yesterday. A lot of these were bug fixes, and many bug fixes will affect damage one way or the other. So just because you don't see a specific change referenced below, doesn't mean it didn't change.

With that said, here are the specific changes we made in reference to my previous post:

1) We buffed the base points and coefficients of many  warrior dps abilities. We didn't do as much to tanking abilities.

We buffed the base points and coefficients of many  Ret abilities.

We buffed the base points and coefficients of many  Feral cat abilities.

Kitty DPS should be looking a lot better than it was a couple of days ago. A quick test on the dummy saw mine had jumped pretty substantially and was looking a lot more comparable to what it was before the patch, so good news there.

I wanted to do a couple of quick updates on Healing and Kitty DPS. I've been a bit slow in getting my fully updating my guides namely for things like the above - things are buggy and subject to change, and my own playing with specs and discussions with others will lead to some alterations in my suggestions in the guide. I will be getting the full guides up, ideally over the weekend, but wanted to clue everyone in to the delay!

Healing updates:


Reforging is your best friend! Given how high mana regen is for many at level 80, especially with ICC gear and the now very large mana pools, you will find that Reforging the Spirit on your gear will be incredibly helpful. The two stats you will likely want to Reforge your spirit to is Haste and Crit.

Haste: To get an extra tick on our Rejuvs (see this post on Type H for Heals for some good background on this), we need to hit a haste cap of 1015 haste now. Reforging will help you get there without forcing you to regem.

Crit: On pieces which already have Haste on, you can Reforge Spirit into Crit. As all of our HoTs can now Crit, it's great to pick up some extra Crit to help pack some more punch into our HoTs (especially now that they have reduced durations).

Gear: You may find yourself wanting to pick up some new pieces of gear as well (or swap out with ones in your bank). Thinking along the same lines as the reforging of Spirit above, gear that has Int/Haste/Crit on it (as opposed to Int/Spirit and Haste or Crit) may be a lot more valuable in boosting both your Haste and your Crit. An easy one to pick up (especially if you have a Boomkin offspec) is swapping out the Idol of the Black Willow with the Idol of the Lunar Eclipse. On similar lines, Blood Queen's Crimson Choker over Bone Sentinel's Amulet, etc.

Ultimately, swapping out pieces of gear like that and Reforging Spirit will depend some on just what you're doing in game, i.e. your gear levels, if you're doing 25 man raids or only 5 mans, etc. While the Reforging can be a bit expensive (my pieces seem to have usually run about 10g a pop to Reforge), you can return them to their original stats at no charge. Play around with your gear and stats and see what works for you, and keep an eye on your mana (and on your healing style - if all you're doing is spamming Regrowth nonstop (now a mana-expensive spell), you will likely drive yourself OoM quickly regardless of gear or mana pool).

If you are finding you are still having some mana issues, I recommend keeping the gear changes and changing your spec to maximize your mana pool. Heart of the Wild should definitely be picked up in any spec, as it is a straight boost to your Intellect, which will increase your spellpower as well as your mana pool. Revitalize is another excellent talent providing both more mana regen for us but also grants Replenishment for the party or raid.

The optional talent you can pick up is Furor in the Feral tree to help with your mana pool. Furor will give you 5%/10%/15% increase to your maximum mana. A note on Furor: This talent will increase your mana pool but NOT your Intellect - this means it will NOT increase your spellpower. It can provide a pretty massive increase to your Mana pool, though, which can be very helpful. Even just one point in here can be useful, and there is room to move 1-3 points out of the Resto tree into Furor.

With all that in mind: This is the following spec I'm currently testing out. I'll discuss after which points can be potentially moved around in both the Resto tree and into Furor.

The two in the Balance tree are in Nature's Majesty for the straight Crit increase. Again, with Crit affecting all of our HoTs now, these are a valuable two points to pick up.

This spec does not pick up Furor (I wanted to maximize my points in the Resto tree and test out my mana regen with the gear and Reforging changes before picking up that talent). The following points I think can potentially be moved around to go into Furor if you find you need it:

Nature's Cure: This talent is a very nice utility talent, but a potentially optional one. If your primary raiding is in 25 mans (and possibly 10 mans with a good group makeup), you may find you don't need this talent as the cleanse is provided by another class in the group. If it is, you can likely skip this talent (check with your Raid Leader if you're unsure). You may want to pick it up again once Cata launches, though, as I imagine it may be useful in 5 man dungeons while leveling or in Heroics.

Blessing of the Grove: The general consensus on this talent so far seems to be that it feels quite weak. I've kept it for the time being as I'd like to maximize my heals as much as I can, and also as I'm still feeling out just how Druid healing will be (namely, whether our focus will keep up with Raid healing as our primary role, or whether it will indeed shift to tank healing, as our tank healing tools have been improved immensely). Given Rejuv is both strong as an additional HoT on our Tanks (especially with our mastery) as well as on the raid, this may still be good to keep, but again, may be a point or two you can shift out.

Empowered Touch: I would only suggest taking points out of this talent if you are doing absolutely NO tank healing at all. Nourish got a bit of a nerf, really, so you may end up using Healing Touch more on tanks than Nourish (at least if you're healing larger hits), so the Lifebloom refresh may not be as useful. The straight boost to both Nourish and Healing Touch will be very helpful. Again, some of this will depend on healing dynamics at 80 - whether we're healing more on the raid, the tanks, and also the speed of hits and health pool sizes at 80. ETA: Starting to get some proper raids in (that aren't lagged or otherwise completely horrendous due to patch bugs), you WILL be using both Nourish and HT, especially while tank healing. Nourish was indeed nerfed a little (though largely too due to the Glyph of Nourish now removed from the game) but it is still a good heal and, with this talent, it will refresh the Lifebloom stack, which is great. I prefer to keep this talent.

Naturalist: Again, I would only suggest taking points out of this talent if you are doing absolutely NO tank healing at all / if you're not using Healing Touch or Nourish at all. I prefer to keep this talent.

Nature's Majesty: You could also move a point or two out of this talent in the Balance tree, especially if you have a significant amount of Crit from gear already, but it is a pretty easy straight 4% Crit boost to pick up, so I'd spec into it if possible.

For more information you can again see my post Healing at 80 in 4.0.1, and I'll have the guides properly updated soon. I'll go ahead and add some of this new info there as well in the meantime.


Kitty Updates:


I mostly wanted to do a quick update on Kitty DPS and I'll get into more of the nitty-gritty later. Again, Reforging will be your friend - with armour pen on gear changing to either haste or crit, you may find yourself having too much of one stat or another. As mentioned earlier, we've had our damage boosted in a recent hotfix, so you should see your overall output go up a lot too. Don't forget, hit buffs are gone, so if you haven't already, make sure you're hit capped. You may also need some more expertise, as we no longer have Primal Precision (which increased our expertise).

The following spec is the max dps spec, including some utility talents which there is room for which I'll cover.

Thick Hide: I personally like this talent for its utility - it's the bear tanking talent which will make us uncrittable. Useful, I think, for emergency tanking situations and to avoid getting completely demolished by stray adds you may pick up.

Survival Instincts: Similar to Thick Hide, this is a useful survivability talent. For the mere damage reduction, I'd suggest picking it up even if you don't get Thick Hide. It's still particularly useful for fights, especially like Pungent Blight on Festergut and similar moments. Both these talents can be picked up without sacrificing DPS.

Brutal Impact: This is a nice talent which puts our interrupt onto the same cooldown as Rogue/DK/Shaman interrupts. Even with the spec above, you will be able to pick up this talent by level 85. If you want to pick it up at 80, you can drop some points in Thick Hide or Survival Instincts to get it.

Nurturing Instinct: I tend to prefer this talent for PVP (to increase your healing spells on yourself and others and to increase heals done to you, making you a bit more useful and durable), but it can also be a nice utility talent, particularly with concern for preserving healer's mana in Cata. Certainly a talent you can take.

Infected Wounds: This talent will generally be picked up by Bears, or covered by similar talents for other tanks. Can be a useful utility talent to pick up, though, particularly if in groups or raids where another class isn't providing the debuff, or for questing/leveling to reduce some damage taken (though for questing/leveling, taking Thick Hide to become uncrittable may serve you better).

The Prime glyphs (Rip/Savage Roar/Shred) are still your three key glyphs to maximize DPS. There's a bit more flexibility for your Major glyphs. Feral Charge will be useful to work in more Charges and, consequently, more Ravages. Rebirth can be useful for utility, and Faerie Fire will just give you a bit of extra range. In my Minors, Dash is still helpful and Unburdened Rebirth crucial. I picked up Challenging Roar ONLY because I specced into Thick Hide for emergency tanking situations. You can swap that out.

ETA: I forgot to include this earlier, I made up a nice macro for our new Skull Bash ability which will allow you to have both abilities on the same binding/same spot on your action bar, and which one is available will be dependant on which stance (form) you're in.

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1, nomod]Skull Bash;

/cast [stance:3, nomod]Skull Bash(Cat Form)

Again, you can see more information in my post on Kitty DPS at 80 in 4.0.1, and I'll be fully updating the kitty guide as well (it's in progress). The post also includes links to the new stat/gear analyzer Mew and an excellent post about kitty dps on the WoW Druid Forums.


I'll leave it there for now, plenty more updates and changes to come I'm sure!

I'll end with a glimpse at the new Tree form models, originally posted on MMO-Champion. These were data mined out of the latest beta update.

The forms are... interesting, at first glance. I'm undecided so far on my opinion of them, really - I've been way too distracted by both the talent/gear/etc issues following the patch as well as the technical issues, so I haven't really looked too thoroughly at them and formed a full opinion yet. I'll have to get a look at them in beta too. For those who are really concerned about them though (and it's possible the models will shift - I do not know if those are final models or not), there was the following blue post about ToL posted on MMO-Champ:

New Tree of Life
Art is very subjective. We're very used to the phenomenon of half of a class loving say their tier set art and the other half thinking they are the worst thing ever.

Messing with player models is always risky and we know the current Tree of Life model is one of those things that is either loved or hated. That is why, as promised, we are offering a minor glyph if you just prefer the older, treant-based, version of ToL. 

So it seems that the Tree of Life glyph is indeed in the works as a future glyph (not sure if it's also in that beta build or not), though rather than giving us a long lasting appearance (as opposed to the 30 second cooldown), it should just give us our Treant version of tree form back. Regardless, it's great to have that option, which I just may pick up, as I love our treant-version of Tree form.

That's all for now!

Cataclysm Beta: Dungeon Guide - Throne of the Tides

I went into Throne of the Tides again today on my main (not on heroic, as he's not at level cap yet) to try it out again and get a better look at what's going on now that I knew what to expect. I thought I'd give a rundown of what you'll find in there (barring any changes between now and release), as it will likely be one of the first dungeons you encounter.

The dungeon itself is quite cool, the art is interesting, and there are a lot of walls and corridors made of what seems to be walls of water. Discovering the entrance to the dungeon is quite fun as well, as to get to it you have to venture down into the Abyssal Maw in Vash'jir. I didn't think I would come out alive!

The above screenshot is looking up through the lift (which has finally been implemented - no more goblins with 'Under Construction' signs!). The lift itself seems to be a giant jellyfish-type creature, though unlike jellyfish, it is not soft and squishy (and fortunately doesn't sting you), so if you jump off down to it you will get hurt and/or die (as a tank in one run found out).

Overall, the damage doesn't seem too bad (on regular), especially if your group is aware enough to not stand in deadly things. You will want to use CC on some of the trash packs and even on some of the boss fights (in my opinion, anyway) and you do need to be aware of your surroundings both on trash and on bosses. While you might be able to get away with not using CC and standing those extra few seconds in poison when in the regular dungeon, I highly doubt you will last long in the heroic versions.

Many of the trash packs will involve mobs like those in the screenshot above. There are lots of little murlocs who tend to come sprinting out in those little packs (just what would you call a pack of murlocs?). They don't do a massive amount of damage, but they are a nuisance, and seem quick to target onto either dps (like the priest there) or onto the healer (like myself). Barkskin and Nature's Grasp are your friend.

Those two Naga are another common presence in trash packs. The two above can both heal, and in every trash pull with these naga there are usually two. To handle them most effectively, you should generally mark one as the main target and the other to CC. The mage in this run had fallen behind, so I popped in with some Cyclones to interrupt a few heals. You do have Diminishing Returns to contend with, though.

These big guys are another common presence in trash. They tend to be on their own more, but one or two do pat around, so it's possible you'll end up pulling one while dealing with a larger group. They hit quite a bit harder than the other trash mobs and they also throw that green poison on the ground. DO NOT STAND IN GREEN POISON. It will hurt you. A lot. Also, once again this does raise the one complication with our Efflorescence proc - the big green healing zone does disguise the green poison a little bit. You can tell the difference if you actually look where you're standing, but if the person isn't paying attention, they may end up standing in both. You could also have some fun with this and see how many DPS you can get to stand in poison, but you didn't hear that from me.

Lady Naz'jar

Boss: Lady Naz'jar


The first boss you will encounter is Lady Naz'jar. There are several things you'll want to keep in mind for this fight. At ~66% and ~33%, she will shield herself and summon adds. There are three adds, two Tempest Sea Witches and a Naga Honour Guard. On this fight I would advise either CC, interrupts, or silences for the Witches. You will want to take out the Honour Guard add first. The Sea Witches will be standing at range casting chain lightning. The chain lightning actually does a fair amount of damage, and they're fairly quick to cast it. I would recommend either CCing one or both of the Witches or at least getting an interrupt or silence on them. Once you actually switch to kill them, any class that can interrupt that cast should try to do so. Your healer will thank you.

There are also two abilities she has which the group needs to look out for. One is Fungal Spores, she will toss a spore at a target which will place a disease on them. These can be dodged if you see them coming towards you and the disease should be removable. The other ability actually does a decent amount of damage. She creates a Vortex, which is marked by light blue circle that appears on the floor, followed shortly by a vortex of water which will damage anyone caught in it and toss them in the air. These can be deadly. Screenshot below:

As you can see, my Vuhdo works on Beta, which has made me incredibly happy while healing. Though as of today it seems it needs to be updated, as it wasn't recognizing Lifebloom as a spell (likely due to some glitches with LB from Tree of Life changes).

After Lady Naz'jar, you will quickly get to the second boss.

Commander Ulthok

Boss: Commander Ulthok


Ulthok is a fairly straightforward fight. He has two main abilities to be concerned about.

He will create Shaddow Fissures which do a significant amount of damage. The tank and melee dps need to be very aware of this ability. He slams the ground in front of him (which will result in a big hit on the tank of he gets caught in it, and likely one shot any DPS) which also leaves a dark circle on the ground which deals additional damage. Kiting him should help your tank and melee avoid these.

The second ability is Squeeze; he will grab a random group member and essentially holds and squeezes them. Whomever he picks up will be stunned and will take damage. Fortunately I had a HoT on myself when I was randomly grabbed today, hadn't been expecting it! Be sure to keep yourself and others topped off if you're healing.

Ulthok also has an enrage ability which will increase his damage done for 8 seconds.


Hm, I apparently neglected to pick up a screenshot of the next set of trash on the way to the third boss. There are two types of trash in the corridor approaching the third boss. One are lots of little Gilgoblin Hunters. In general they don't seem to hit too hard, but they do have an ability that can hit decently hard, and seems to have an AOE effect as well (hitting more than just the tank). I thought I've seen two abilities from them, one (the AOE one) looks a bit like a boomkin's Typhoon. The other I had thought I had read on recount as some sort of Spear attack. Regardless, be prepared for a potentially large hit!

The other type of trash in this corridor are Faceless Watchers. They do decent hits on the tank, but more importantly is they have an ability that whips the entire party into the air and draws them to the Watcher. You will get fall damage, and I advise the entire party (or in the very least all the DPS) run out immediately, as they also do an AOE damage immediately following the pull-in. As a Resto druid, the point when the entire party is grouped up just before you land at the Faceless Watcher is a great time to cast Wild Growth, as it should hit everyone in your party and will start healing that initial fall damage and the AOE damage. There are four in this corridor. One pats, and if you wait a moment you can easily pull him back towards the steps to avoid pulling the second. The final two are by the entrance to the next boss and seem like they will have to be dealt with together.

Erunok Stonespeaker

Boss: Erunok Stonespeaker


The third boss you will face is Erunok Stonespeaker. You're not really fighting him, though, you're actually killing the Mindless One that's attached to his head and mind controlling him (reminds me of the Brain Slugs in Futurama).

There are several abilities Erunok does while hostile. He casts some coral spikes which will fire up under the feet of a party member. Naturally, move out of the spikes. He also casts Lava Bolt and Magma Splash. Magma Splash is a conal ability, so stay behind him.

At about 50%, the Mindless One will remove itself from Erunok. It now has three abilities it can do.

Mind Control: The Mindless One will attach itself to a party member, usually the one with the highest threat, mind controlling them. For the first time, it is ok to DPS the MC'd person! In fact, it's what you're supposed to do! You DPS the MC'd person to 50%, at which point they will be released. They regain full health after they are released. The MC'd player should be tanked, as otherwise they will start firing off their abilities at the party members.

The damage to the Mindless One between mind controls will be what kills him off, so you'll want to free your party members from the MC as quickly as possible. Between mind controls, he will fire off either (or both) of two AOE abilities.

Poison: Green poison on the ground. Don't stand in it.

Mind Flay: Purple beams shoot out from the boss and channel onto all party members, dealing damage.

See the screenshot below.

It's now time to make your way to the final boss!

The corridor on the approach to the final boss is filled with water elementals. The large ones should be tanked and killed quickly. The smaller ones are a bit more of a nuisance and the tank should keep a hold of them, as too many will be deadly on a DPS or healer. I'm unsure if this is supposed to be a guantlet (it's certainly a short one if it is), but it seems moving through that corridor as quickly as possible is best, as that seemed to reduce the amount of small elementals spawning. At the end of the corridor by the gate/entrance to the final boss are two more large water elementals. Apart from the small adds being a nuisance, none of this trash seems to have any abilities of any real consequence.

Neptulon

Boss: Neptulon


Neptulon is the final boss in TotT. Or, rather, Ozumat is; you are actually trying to help Neptulon.

There are two phases to this fight. The first phase, which is essentially dealing with waves of adds, and the second phase, where you have to kill the boss (Ozumat).

This fight can be a bit confusing the first time, as there are a lot of adds and you need to know which to prioritise. I suggest trying to remain grouped fairly close together to help the tank pick up adds and to not get out of range of heals.

The adds of most importance in this fight are the Sappers. Think of the suppressors on Dreamwalker - they're quite like that in concept. You can see the Sappers in the screenshot below - they will be channelling onto Neptulon. It seems like the faster they die, the faster you push the phase, so these adds are top priority.

You can see in that screenshot as well one of the other types of adds, the mutated creatures (Blight Beasts). The tank should kite these. The tank should also kite the ones that look like Faceless Ones, Unyielding Behemoths, as they hit hard and do a frontal AOE cone of black tar. Don't stand in the cone, and don't stand in black stuff on the ground. There are also more packs of murlocs which, again, are mostly just a nuisance. The tank should try to get as many of these as he can to keep them from latching onto the healer (I had a warrior tank vigi me to help with this - keeping close to your tank may also be useful to catch them in AOEs). Barkskin and Nature's Grasp are once again your friend. Nature's Grasp will work on all these adds.

If Sappers are not up, priority is Vicious Mindlashers,  the Unyielding Behemoths, Blight Beasts, and the murlocs. The sappers should spawn partway through the first phase.


Once all the Sappers are dead, Neptulon will begin yelling that the waters are cleansed and will fill the room with water.

This begins Phase 2:

The worst thing in this phase is orientating yourself at the beginning; it can be very confusing the first time. As the room has now filled with water, you begin to swim, and as you rise up and see the actual boss (Ozumat, the giant creature spewing tar into the water in the screenshot above) the room does seem to get smaller, which will move your camera position in. ETA: The buff Neptulon places on the party will make you all grow massively in size, which is also what makes the room appear smaller (Thank you to Trizophenie for the clarification!).

The fight from this point on basically is a DPS race. The black bile that's spewing in causes a stacking debuff which deals shadow damage over time (which appears to cap at 200 stacks, dealing 40,000 damage per second).

As a healer, you can likely ignore the boss and focus on healing (and you want to make sure you don't fall behind). Tranquility is great in this phase, especially if you found you have fallen a bit behind while adjusting to the phase change. You may want to target Neptulon to throw some heals his way if you need to.

For DPS and the tank, you'll want to target the boss and burn him as quickly as possible. Finding and targeting him will likely be your biggest issue, especially the first time; you will likely have to angle your camera slightly up to spot him (he's essentially on the wall of a dome, it seems like) then make sure you're facing him and in range to attack.

Currently this fight appears to be bugged, as you can target Ozumat, but you cannot attack him with anything other than melee autoattack swings. As you can see in the screenshot above, any other attacks give an error message of 'target is not in line of sight'.

And that is it! It's a pretty fun dungeon and a nice introduction to Cataclysm dungeons. I expect the heroic version will be very challenging!

Kitty DPS at level 80 in 4.0.1

ETA: Additional post with some updates here!

Some quick news first, Cataclysm finally has an official release date of 7 December, 2010! Post here.

Also, as the game world (or at least specs et al) did not blow up this past Tuesday, Patch 4.0.1 is not yet live. It is most likely coming next Tuesday (12th), but I'm not promising anything! As ever, dates can change and nothing has been officially announced (as of this writing, at any rate).

Following my post on Druid healing in 4.0.1, I thought I'd spend some time on Feral DPS in 4.0.1.

Cats are getting a bit of a mixed bag in the upcoming patch and in Cataclysm. We have some nice new talents (even if 'NomNomNom' was retitled 'Blood in the Water', which makes it sound like it should boost our Seal-form dps I think!) which, while not really game changing, are still nice boosts. Those who have struggled with kitty dps in the past will find the buffs and debuffs a bit easier to maintain, while those who enjoy the complexities of kitty dps will be pleased to know that you still have to be sharp as ever to maintain them all. We have a new, reliable interrupt off the GCD for both cat and bear form (and new Brutal Impact which can reduce its cooldown, making it on par with other classes' interrupts). With the new armour specialisations, we shouldn't have other classes yoinking our BiS pieces (oh, the raging I've seen over Tossk's Maximized Wristguards when warriors have rolled on them in pugs....).

In fact, the only real downside for cats right now seems to be in terms of actual damage numbers. As is my understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong), warriors are in a similar position right now on Beta and PTR, and a lot of the issues seem to stem from the disappearance of armour penetration a a stat (as arpen was a massive boost to all physical damage classes). I could have sworn I saw a blue post mention in passing that the developers were aware that both warrior and feral damage was low and hadn't finished being tuned, but I can't for the life of me find that post again (if anyone has seen it and can source it for me, I would appreciate it). Because of that, do not quote me on it! But I'm hoping I did actually read it and didn't just imagine it in my hopes for a fix.

Just doing a straight comparison of simple DPS self-buffed on a dummy on live and on Beta, it seems like I've lost about 2k in straight DPS. (This is with the same gear BUT, some different stats due to the arpen gem change, and missing some talents because of the new level cap). That all being said, don't panic! Simple numbers aren't the end of the world and, especially with more testing on the PTR, Beta, and when patches and more go live, hopefully the numbers will be tuned up. Cat gameplay itself is not facing any drastic changes (and have some really nice alterations in my opinion), and changes in simple numbers (rather than entire abilities) are a lot easier to come about.

Also, do keep in mind, Blizzard is NOT trying to balance all the classes around level 80 at this patch - this is all in preparation for Cataclysm, and for ultimate balance at level 85. EVERY class is going to be out of sorts for a while, and damage roles in particular will have very prominent and easy-to-see changes just from watching the damage meters in fights. The change in level cap will also affect which points we can get - you will be 83 before you can get Master Shapeshifter, which means at minimum 4% less crit than you have currently.

On to how to prepare for patch 4.0.1!

For one, if you haven't already, stock up on some gems. You may want to check the currency converter on MMO-Champ to see just how many Justice Points your current Emblem stock will get you, but I might suggest to play it safe and pick up gems now with Emblems rather than waiting (as gem prices will be changing too). It's looking like the Honour Gem quartermasters are removed as well, so if you have spare honour lying around (gems are 10k each) you may like to pick up some with that too. I suggest picking these up before the patch day as I expect many people will be taking advantage of high demand following the patch, so AH prices will likely be high.

All Armour Penetration gems will be converting to Crit Rating gems in 4.0.1. They will also all become yellow. For cats, the best bet for gemming seems to be replacing those crit gems with Agility (Delicate Cardinal Ruby). While you theoretically could keep the crit gems, remember - Agility contributes both to your attack power in Cat Form and to your crit rating, and Agility will scale with Kings and Gift. Also - Hit gems are becoming blue gems in 4.0.1 (from yellow). Most cats need to gem for hit with ICC gear and you may find yourself losing some socket bonuses where you've placed Hit gems into yellow sockets. Socket bonuses are arguable but you may find you still wish to take them, in which case you may have to shuffle your hit gems around as well as your new Agility gems.

You may also need some new enchants, the first which springs to my mind is the Executioner enchant (which increases arpen on proc). Likely your best bets for a replacement enchant will be Mongoose or Massacre. 

As with Resto and Balance, I recommend stocking up on some glyphs pre-patch, as they will likely shoot up in price on the AH as well.

At level 80, I'm planning on using the following spec at level 80:

As mentioned earlier, we do not have enough points at level 80 to pick up Master Shapeshifter, so we will have a crit loss until at least level 83. A number of the new talents are boosting our buffs, debuffs and energy. Blood in the Water will be excellent towards the ends of fights - you won't have to worry as much about whether throwing in some Ferocious Bites will result in your Rip falling off. Endless Carnage is increasing Rake and Savage Roar durations. Predatory Strikes is increasing our Ravage damage and Stampede makes it easier to actually use Ravage in our rotations, particularly on movement fights. ETA: Playing around on Beta, I've also realised another great boost to Stampede - because we get 10 seconds to use Ravage, you can Feral Charge a target while stealthed, get off a Pounce while still stealthed to get that bleed up, and be able to pop Berserk and still have time to get that Ravage in before launching into your full rotation. With Predatory Strikes increasing Ravage crit chance on targets above 80% health, it's great to throw that into our opening attacks.

Primal Madness is a nice boost as well - increases our maximum energy by 20 during Savage Roar and Berserk. On top of that, haste will now feed our energy regen. I will say this - despite my actual numbers being lower, it was definitely a lot easier to keep all my buffs and debuffs up, and I found myself both having the time and the energy to work in Ferocious Bites a lot more frequently. The difference in energy does feel noticeable (to me at least!).

You can see as well; there are enough points for me to pick up Thick Hide (a Bear/tanking talent which makes me uncrittable) and Survival Instincts, a useful survivability tool. There are enough points remaining for me to pick up Master Shapeshifter and Brutal Impact at 85. 

Glyphs:

Prime: Rip; Savage Roar; Shred. These three glyphs are still as crucial as ever.

Major: I'm still undecided on Major glyphs. It seems like we have the potential to be flexible here (and even be able to pick up some Bear glyphs). Feral Charge seems like a potentially good glyph, particularly as it would allow us to work in more Ravages in a fight. Rebirth might be a nice utility glyph to have in raids, particularly to assist healers when you need to Battle Rez someone. The Major glyphs still feel quite open to me. I'd be interested in doing more detailed research on the Ferocious Bite glyph and in seeing some theorycrafting on it. Preventing it from converting extra energy into damage seems like a waste of extra dps, although perhaps it would have some use in keeping energy levels up. However, as I was not feeling energy starved on Beta, I don't really see an advantage to this glyph in a PVE context.

Minor: The only crucial Minor glyph is, as ever, Unburdened Rebirth. Glyph of Dash is still very useful. Challening Roar may be a nice glyph to have as feral (particularly if you pick up those Bear talents in your spec) for emergency tanking situations to keep adds off of healers. Your minors are pretty flexible though.

In terms of our actual rotation: Really, not much is changing in 4.0.1 and in Cataclysm (so far). The main difference will really be working in Ravage more into fights and likely using Ferocious Bite much more than we do currently (especially towards the ends of fights). (For more information on the actual rotation and maintaining our buffs and debuffs, check out my Kitty DPS guide).

Movement fights will offer the best use for Stampede/Ravage. Some examples in ICC when you can use Feral Charge (Cat) and throw in a Ravage!

- Marrowgar: Jumping to Bone Spikes or back to Marrowgar after a bonestorm.

- Lady Deathwhisper: Leaping to LDW between waves of adds, leaping to adds themselves, or leaping back to LDW after running away from ghosts.

- Gunship: Leaping onto the Battle Mage .

- Putricide: Leaping onto the green or orange goo or Professor Putricide.

- Rotface: Leaping back onto Rotface after Ooze Explosion.

- Princes: Leaping between the Princes on each target change.

- Blood Queen Lanathel: Leaping back to BQL after fear/BloodBolt Whirl.

- Dreamwalker: Leaping onto adds.

- Sindragosa: Leaping onto Frost Tombs or Sindragosa (though be careful of Tail Smash).

- Lich King: Leaping onto Raging Spirits; onto the Lich King when running back from dropping off a Necrotic Plague, back in after transitions or after dpsing valks.

You can also use Feral Charge to open fights - if you're running in and unable to start stealthed, you can cast a Faerie Fire on the run in then Feral Charge, hit a Ravage, then launch into your normal rotation. You also have 10 seconds to use Ravage in before you lose the proc, so you don't need to use it right away - you can refresh another debuff beforehand if needed or, as mentioned earlier, if you start and Charge stealthed, you can get your Pounce in beforehand.

In summation; mostly good changes in terms of talents for Cats. The patch will be a little trickier for dps in terms of rebalancing stats around, as the removal of arpen is very significant for us, affecting both our dps and our gear stats as they shift to accommodate the change. It's seeming like cat dps will be taking a hit in this patch (though we will see when it actually goes live), but hopefully this will be taken care of soon if it is a problem. Though also, do keep in mind, Blizzard is NOT trying to balance all the classes around level 80 at this patch - this is all in preparation for Cataclysm, and for ultimate balance at level 85. EVERY class is going to be out of sorts for a while, and damage roles in particular will have very prominent and easy-to-see changes just from watching the damage meters in fights. Again, don't panic! Have fun, check out the new talents, and play around with your gear and stats (reforge if you need to!) to see what works for you. With a quick glance at Toskk's DPS Gear Method, it does not yet seem to be updated for 4.0.1 (and I'm not positive if it will be - if anyone knows for sure, let me know). I'll be keeping an eye on that and similar sites, as they are all extremely helpful for balancing stats on gear for dps.

ETA: There is a successor to Tossk's DPS Gear Method called Mew. There's a nice write-up of the programme over at the Fluid Druid, which includes some screenshots as well as how it works. There's an online version of Mew here (requires java), a downloadable binary here, and a code developers can download here. Yawning of No Chicks Allowed developed it and also wrote up a very detailed guide to kitty dps which is up on the WoW forums here, definitely worth a look!

As with my Resto guide, I'll begin preparing a full Feral dps guide for 4.0 and Cataclysm. Again, it will be a work in progress, as changes are still coming in and will continue to do so at least until Cata's release, if not for some time after as well.

RAWR!

How to Nom on bosses! (aka how to be a cat!)

At long last, I've finished and posted my guide to feral dps! Rather than spam the main page like I did with my Resto guide (which I also partly did to give a few extra posts for the launch of the blog), I published it straight to my pages section (all my Pages are listed on the right-hand side of the blog).

You can find the full guide here: How to be a Cat!

For those who may be following the blog through google reader or RSS feed and haven't spotted the list of pages on the main site, you can also find the full Tree guide here: How to be a Tree!

I will also be compiling the posts of healing guides into one page as new ones are posted to make it easier to access them all. They'll all be linked at the list here.

Enjoy!