Druid cat build

[Brista]

Firstly let me preface this by saying that I am waiting for the postman to bring me my copy (it was due today but didn't come) so please don't mistake me for an expert or anything :)

I've been looking at a Druid cat build following Tuftears' report of upcoming druid changes, especially with regard to cat form
http://www.theamazonbasin.com/wow/forums/i...?showtopic=4191

The relevant parts of his post for this build are:

From the patch notes:

• <>
  
• Cat Form - DPS increase at levels 40-60.
  <>
  
• New Ability (Cat Form): Ferocious Bite (available at level 32) - Finishing move that causes damage per combo point and converts each extra point of energy into additional damage.
  <>
  [st]

Note, in the following analysis the skill and talent desriptions are taken from:
http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Skil...pe&sort_dir=asc
http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Talents.View

There appear to be some inaccuracies with regard to the higher end scaling of abilities on that site

I have edited the talent effects into the subsequent skill descriptions (reducing energy costs etc)



Druid cat build

The build intends to support soloing in catform. The option to change into a caster for healing is available but the gameplan will not normally involve pulling in caster form.
Ideally the build will be able to solo mob after mob with great movement and tracking abilities as well as a decent chance of detecting enemy players first in contested zones (due to Tracking and Prowl). Erm that is, if Tracking works on players

Talents

Class: Druid
Level: 60

Balance Talents (0 points)

None

Feral Combat Talents (35 points)

Ferocity - 5/5 points
Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, and Rake abilities by 5 Rage or Energy.

Sharpened Claws - 5/5 points
Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear or Cat form by 5%.

Blood Frenzy - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from Cat form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point.

Improved Prowl - 5/5 points
Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling. More effective than Improved Prowl (Rank 4)..

Improved Shred - 2/2 points
Reduces the Energy cost of your Shred ability by 10.

Predatory Strikes - 5/5 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus from your Cat form ability by 20%.

Faerie Fire (Cat) - 1/1 point
Decrease the armor of the target by 175 for 40 seconds. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible.

Feline Swiftness - 1/1 point
Increases your movement speed by 30% while in Cat form. Only active outdoors.

Strength of the Wild - 4/4 points
Increases your Strength while in Bear or Cat form by 12%.

Improved Ravage - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Ravage ability by 10%.

Restoration Talents (16 points)

Improved Mark of the Wild - 5/5 points
Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild spell by 35%.

Improved Healing Touch - 5/5 points
Reduces the mana cost of your Healing Touch spell by 15%.

Intensity - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to gain 40 Energy when you shapeshift into Cat form.

Gift of Nature - 1/1 point
Increases the effect of your Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Tranquility spells by 5%.


Cat Skills

Cat Form
Requires: None 52 Mana
Instant cast
1.5 second cooldown
Shapeshift into cat form, increasing movement by 30%, attack power by 50 (?), crit chance 5% and Strength by 12%. Also protects the caster from polymorph effects and allows the use of various cat abilities. The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of roots, snares and freeze effects. Gives 40 Energy

Man Tracking (Rank 1)
Requires: Cat Form Instant cast
Requires Cat Form
Shows the locations of all nearby humanoids on the minimap for 3 minutes

Track Humanoid (Rank 1)
Requires: Cat Form Instant cast
Requires Cat Form
Shows the location of all nearby humanoids on the minimap. Only one type of thing can be tracked at a time.

Dash (Rank 2)
Requires: Dash (Rank 1) Instant cast
5 minute cooldown
Requires Cat Form
Increases movement speed by 60% for 15 seconds. Does not break prowling.

Cower (Rank 3)
Requires: Cower (Rank 2) 20 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Requires Cat Form
Cower, causing no damage but lowering your threat a large amount, making the enemy less likely to attack you.

Rake (Rank 4)
Requires: Rake (Rank 3) 35 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Requires Cat Form
Efficiency: 3.03 damage per energy
Rake the target for 46 damage and an additional 75 damage over 9 seconds. Awards 1 combo point (2 on a crit)

Shred (Rank 5)
Requires: Shred (Rank 4) 50 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Requires Cat Form
Shred the target, causing 225% damage plus 180 to the target. Must be behind the target. Awards 1 combo point (2 on a crit).

Pounce (Rank 3)
Requires: Pounce (Rank 2) 50 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Efficiency: 3.0 damage per energy
Requires Cat Form
Pounce, stunning the target for 2 seconds and causing 150 damage over 18 seconds. Must be prowling and behind the target. Awards 1 combo point (2 on a crit)

Claw (Rank 5)
Requires: Claw (Rank 4) 40 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Efficiency: 2.56 damage per energy
Requires Cat Form
Claw the enemy, causing 115 additional damage. Awards 1 combo point (2 on a crit)

Ravage (Rank 4)
Requires: Ravage (Rank 3) 60 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Requires Cat Form
Ravage the target, causing 350% damage plus 343 to the target. Must be prowling and behind the target. Awards 1 combo point (2 on a crit). +10% additional chance to crit

Prowl (Rank 3)
Requires: Prowl (Rank 2) Instant cast
10 second cooldown
Requires Cat Form
Allows the Druid to prowl around, but reduces your speed to 70% of normal. Lasts until cancelled.5 levels of Improved Prowl

Rip (Rank 6)
Requires: Rip (Rank 5) 30 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Requires Cat Form
Finishing move that causes damage over time. Damage increases per combo point:
1 point: 228 damage over 12 seconds (Efficiency: 7.6 damage per energy)
2 points: 354 damage over 12 seconds (Efficiency: 11.8 damage per energy)
3 points: 480 damage over 12 seconds (Efficiency: 16.0 damage per energy)
4 points: 606 damage over 12 seconds (Efficiency: 20.2 damage per energy)
5 points: 732 damage over 12 seconds (Efficiency: 24.4 damage per energy)

Tiger's Fury (Rank 4)
Requires: Tiger's Fury (Rank 3) 30 Energy
Instant cast
Requires Cat Form
Increases damage done by 40 for 4 seconds.

Faerie Fire (Cat) - 1/1 point
15 Energy
Instant cast
30 yard range
Decrease the armor of the target by 175 for 40 seconds. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible.

New Ability (Cat Form): Ferocious Bite
(available at level 32) - Finishing move that causes damage per combo point and converts each extra point of energy into additional damage.

Buffs

Mark of the Wild (Rank 7)
Requires: Mark of the Wild (Rank 6) 445 Mana
Instant cast
30 yard range
Increases all of the friendly target's armor by 385, all attributes by 16 and all resistances by 27 for 30 minutes.

Thorns (rank 6)
Requires: Thorns (Rank 5) 320 Mana
Instant cast
30 yard range
Thorns sprout from the friendly target doing 18 Nature damage to attackers when hit. Lasts 10 minutes.

Main heal:

Healing Touch (Rank 10)
Requires: Healing Touch (Rank 9) 672 Mana
3.5 second cast
40 yard range
Heals a friendly target for 1985 to 2342.


Key solo combo Ravage - Faerie Fire - Rake - Claw - Claw - Claw - Ferocious Bite
Key group combo Pounce - Cower - Faerie Fire - Rake - Shred - Shred - Shred - Ferocious Bite
Escape Dash or Travel Form (to break roots, snares and freeze) and Dash
Key buffs Man tracking (while levelling in contested areas), Prowl, Mark of the Wild, Thorns

PvP thoughts

Stealth is huge in pvp games, so is movement speed so this has the potential to be a great predator (sic). There probably isn't enough damage here to kill many players easily so most fights are going to be long. Stun (using Prowl) is probably only an option in group pvp since it just doesn't last long enough and there's no additional stun moves to prolong the stun (unless you take bear form or you're tauren)
The key asset is that this build is hard to kill, you can shake off roots snares and freeze, you're immune to sheeping, you're faster than most builds, you can heal and you can ruin a caster's day with melee or take caster form to root and nuke meleers

Faerie fire and man tracking should allow you to dominate rogues - if you can stealth and they can't that's one heck of an advantage.

Potentially it's a build which will have many inconclusive fights, some spectacular wins but relatively few losses

I see stun and fear as obvious weaknesses but that's probably true of most pvp builds

Stupid question: this is probably the kind of question that only a power-gamer would ask but still...
Role-players please cover your eyes....




Can cats use bombs? :rolleyes:

[ima_nerd]

Ravage (Rank 4)
Requires: Ravage (Rank 3) 60 Energy
Instant cast
5 yard range
Requires Cat Form
Ravage the target, causing 350% damage plus 343 to the target. Must be prowling and behind the target. Awards 1 combo point (2 on a crit). +10% additional chance to crit

Ambush (Rank 6)
60 Energy
Must be behind target and Stealthed
Ambush the target, causing 250% weapon damage plus 290 to the target. Must be stealthed and behind the target. Requires a dagger in the main hand. Awards 1 combo point.

Call me crazy, but wtf? I play a Rogue and am shocked to see Ravage being so blatantly superior to Ambush. I guess crit chance is much lower on Ravage? Perhaps I'm reading it wrong. Does the 'damage' in '350% damage' equal the 'weapon damage' in '250% weapon damage'? If it does then that's crap. Druids can use 2h weapons...350% weapon damage would be insane. I must be reading it wrong. Correct me if I am. And if I'm not...I'm rerolling a Druid just for that ability.

[Arnath]

This is a somewhat offtopic question, but I don't really know that much about druids: is your damage in cat form at all affected by your weapon? And if so, how much?

Arnath

[Treesh]

This is a somewhat offtopic question, but I don't really know that much about druids: is your damage in cat form at all affected by your weapon? And if so, how much?

Arnath
[right][snapback]69993[/snapback][/right]

It's not the weapon you have equipped; it's an "innate" weapon, for lack of a better term right now, whose damage isn't affected by what you have equipped. So that big boost won't be out DPSing a rogue's ambush, unless the rogue has super crappy daggers. Probably.

[Kevin]

Cat form uses the cats claw as the weapon, what you have equipped doesn't affect damage at all, except for the stat modifiers on it.


Edit: Equipped has two p's...

[Artega]

This is a somewhat offtopic question, but I don't really know that much about druids: is your damage in cat form at all affected by your weapon? And if so, how much?

Arnath
[right][snapback]69993[/snapback][/right]

I'm pretty sure I've heard that shiftforms use your standard Unarmed damage, but do the attack rolls based on what you have equipped. There's currently an exploit where you can potentially have 300 fishing or 300 skinning (or theoretically 300 mining) and thus have an Attack of 300 vs. mobs that might only have a Defense of 150 or so, thus making it nearly impossible to miss more than the base five percent. At least, that's what I've heard.

[Warlock]

My main is a 53 Druid with 31 in Restoration and the rest Feral, focusing on the bear forms. I do use cat from time to time, particularly for stealth, but it's not my main focus.

I'm not sure how large the promised dps boost is going to be or how good the new direct damage finishing ability will be. My comments here are based on the current patch with a few guesses at the effects of the upcoming changes on this build. At the moment I consider a cat-focused build to be good variant materiel - it's not horribly weak as many claim, just not up to the same standard as the Druid's other options.

I recommend that you move five talent points from the Feral tree into Restoration in order to get Nature's Swiftness. This is regrettably a cookie cutter talent, but it is justified as this is the single most important talent in a Druid's talent trees. With it, you can shift to caster and be sure of getting a Healing Touch off without interruption before dropping back into cat form. It is possible that the new Barkskin skill will reduce the importance of this talent.

If you decide to spend a little more in Restoration, the first place I would look at cutting points is Strength of the Wild and Predatory Strikes. Assuming that you can reach two hundred Strength by the end game (I have less than half of that, but my equipment focuses on Caster stats) each point in the former is worth six strength - a little less than one damage per second, even less after armour is taken into account. One DPS per talent point isn't terrible, but it's not exactly great either. The latter (which is also the prerequisite) is about one third as powerful.

The changed Swiftshifting also sounds very useful to a Feral Druid, but would require diluting your Feral talents even further.

Man Tracking is probably an earlier name for the Humanoid tracking skill - only the latter is in the game. I've never tested to see whether it can see stealthed players or even NPCs.

Cats cannot use bombs or any other items, even potions.

[Warlock]

Ravage v Ambush
The Cat form inherent weapon can be thought of (at the moment) as a two-handed standard (white) weapon with 1.0 attack speed. A Rogue of level sufficient to use the last rank of Ambush will almost certainly have a weapon of higher quality and slower speed for much higher base damage per attack and therefore superior ambush damage despite the lower scores on the skill itself.

Weapon effects in feral forms
The only features of weapons that apply in Bear and Cat form are the stat bonuses - the damage, speed and any special effects of the weapon are ignored. (Armour factor on the weapon does count and does benefit from bear form). Special effects on armour do count.

Weapon skills
Feral forms always attack as if your weapon skill was maxed for your level even though the character screen displays the skill of your equipped weapon. Picking up a staff after using maces for twenty levels will make you miss a lot in Caster form but not in Feral. I'm pretty sure (but haven't tested myself) that using professional skills (Fishing etc) in place of weapon skill was fixed in a previous patch.

[ima_nerd]

Phew. I really didn't want to reroll a Druid. Thanks for clearing it up.

[Bun-Bun]

Firstly let me preface this by saying that I am waiting for the postman to bring me my copy (it was due today but didn't come) so please don't mistake me for an expert or anything&nbsp; :)

Ideally the build will be able to solo mob after mob with great movement and tracking abilities as well as a decent chance of detecting enemy players first in contested zones (due to Tracking and Prowl). Erm that is, if Tracking works on players


Stupid question: this is probably the kind of question that only a power-gamer would ask but still...
Role-players please cover your eyes....
Can cats use bombs?&nbsp; :rolleyes:
[right][snapback]69990[/snapback][/right]

Tracking works on other players. You can't use items in feral forms. If you need to pull, the only ranged option is Furry Fire.

I can't speak to the PvP aspects of the build, but it should be a decent but not overly powerful PvE build. Maybe a bit weak in soloing due to low armor, but excellent if you duo with a tank. Warlock is spot on in saying that Nature's Swiftness is a superb skill; an instant big heal can save your bacon when you're just not winning the damage trade in a battle, and it's wonderful if you're the primary healer.

I've never had any problems stealthing without the improved talents. PvP may make that a more profitable option for you.

I think it's important not to neglect Restoration talents, since you'll be faced with the choice of being the primary healer on occasion or skipping some group opportunities.

On the talent choice front, I'd skip Intensity completely, and put those 5 points in something useful like Nature's Focus or Furor. If you're using feral forms as your main plan of attack, you should be in cat form with full energy at the start of a fight. If you switch out to heal, you'll have to start from scratch in energy, but energy regenerates so quickly I don't see diverting 5 precious Restoration points to get a special strike in sooner as having much value.

[Lord BEEF]

Weapon effects in feral forms
The only features of weapons that apply in Bear and Cat form are the stat bonuses - the damage, speed and any special effects of the weapon are ignored. (Armour factor on the weapon does count and does benefit from bear form). Special effects on armour do count.
[right][snapback]70007[/snapback][/right]

I'm sure you're aware of this but didn't make it quite clear in your post.

Effects on weapons that start with "Equip" such as "Equip: Increases your chance to hit by 1%" DO work for shapeshifted forms.

This makes weapons like Impervious Giant from BRD a great option for shapeshifting: http://wow.allakhazam.com/item.html?witem=11921

And anyone who uses bear form wants the epic warden staff for its huge armor boost:
http://wow.allakhazam.com/item.html?witem=943

[Warlock]

I'm sure you're aware of this but didn't make it quite clear in your post.

Effects on weapons that start with "Equip" such as "Equip: Increases your chance to hit by 1%" DO work for shapeshifted forms.

This makes weapons like Impervious Giant from BRD a great option for shapeshifting: http://wow.allakhazam.com/item.html?witem=11921

And anyone who uses bear form wants the epic warden staff for its huge armor boost:
http://wow.allakhazam.com/item.html?witem=943
[right][snapback]70046[/snapback][/right]

That's interesting - I wasn't aware of that. I knew that the procs (do this x% of the time you hit) didn't work but have never had +crit% weapons.

The warden staff is very, very sweet for a Bear druid. They also cost around 150g in the local Auction House - I can afford one, but I'd still feel ripped off and want to see what I can find myself. The Giant is less impressive - it's effectively 3% more melee damage. I could get that from a generic green +Str mace and have another stat too (albeit without the armour). Those characters with higher base damage output would benefit more from the percentage increase.

[playingtokrush]

On the talent choice front, I'd skip Intensity completely, and put those 5 points in something useful like Nature's Focus or Furor. If you're using feral forms as your main plan of attack, you should be in cat form with full energy at the start of a fight. If you switch out to heal, you'll have to start from scratch in energy, but energy regenerates so quickly I don't see diverting 5 precious Restoration points to get a special strike in sooner as having much value.
[right][snapback]70033[/snapback][/right]

I just wanted to chime in here and agree with Bun-Bun on this front. Intensity is a rather crummy talent for a full 5 points. Its combat effectiveness isn't going to be that noticeable, and out of combat it's really nothing more than a minor convenience.