lvl och bear
min fina lvling av priesten fortsätter, jan är inte den snabbaste lvlaren men det får fram.. så idag hoppas jag på att ta 78 idag..hehe.. fram tills des får ni njuta av lite bear info^^
Single target
- Mangle, always use that ability on cooldown/proc
- Lacerate, one stack only to get the Lacerate dot up (+20% damage on Maul and allows berserk procs)
- Thrash
- Pulverize buff, ONLY use Pulverize with 3 stacks of Lacerate AND if the Pulverize buff is not up/running out
- Lacerate
The priorities ignore Maul which is still off-GCD, so if rage is not an issue it is recommended to just spam Maul while following the above.
Ever since patch 4.0, our Berserk talent allows Lacerate ticks to reset the cooldown of Mangle. What this means is that you will use Mangle more often than every 6 sec. Once Mangle is on cooldown, make sure you have at least one stack of Lacerate dot up on your target, in order to get the 30% damage buff on Maul as well as allowing the Berserk talent to proc (free Mangle). Your next priority is Thrash, because of its good scaling Thrash comes up surprisingly high on the priority list. After using Thrash, check the duration left on the Pulverize buff (+9% crit) preferably with the help of an add-on. If the Pulverize buff is running out or isn’t up AND you have three stacks of Lacerate dot up then you should use Pulverize. Otherwise, use Lacerate as filler. With Cataclysm’s new dot queuing system, you won’t lose any tick of your Lacerate dot even if you spam Lacerate.
These are the standard priorities at level 85, but you need to understand that they are dynamic. They will change depending on your attack power mostly. Because of Vengeance, our attack power can vary a lot during boss fights; you can easily go from 10000 AP to 35000 AP in a matter of seconds.
In low-rage situations avoid using Maul on cooldown (30 rage) and if you need even more rage forget about Thrash (25 rage) and use Lacerate instead even if you already have 3 stacks. In extremely-low rage situations (under 15) or if you’re not in melee range, use Faerie Fire (Feral).
Ever since patch 4.0, our Berserk talent allows Lacerate ticks to reset the cooldown of Mangle. What this means is that you will use Mangle more often than every 6 sec. Once Mangle is on cooldown, make sure you have at least one stack of Lacerate dot up on your target, in order to get the 30% damage buff on Maul as well as allowing the Berserk talent to proc (free Mangle). Your next priority is Thrash, because of its good scaling Thrash comes up surprisingly high on the priority list. After using Thrash, check the duration left on the Pulverize buff (+9% crit) preferably with the help of an add-on. If the Pulverize buff is running out or isn’t up AND you have three stacks of Lacerate dot up then you should use Pulverize. Otherwise, use Lacerate as filler. With Cataclysm’s new dot queuing system, you won’t lose any tick of your Lacerate dot even if you spam Lacerate.
These are the standard priorities at level 85, but you need to understand that they are dynamic. They will change depending on your attack power mostly. Because of Vengeance, our attack power can vary a lot during boss fights; you can easily go from 10000 AP to 35000 AP in a matter of seconds.
In low-rage situations avoid using Maul on cooldown (30 rage) and if you need even more rage forget about Thrash (25 rage) and use Lacerate instead even if you already have 3 stacks. In extremely-low rage situations (under 15) or if you’re not in melee range, use Faerie Fire (Feral).
About Berserk, our 3 minute cooldown: try to use it right after refreshing the Pulverize buff as well as the timer of Lacerate stack in order to spam Mangle for the whole duration without losing too much on Pulverize/Lacerate stack uptime. If you do it right, you can ignore everything else when Berserk is up and just spam Mangle and Maul.
Multi Target
The multi target priorities are pretty straight forward:
Multi Target
The multi target priorities are pretty straight forward:
- Thrash
- Swipe
- Mangle + Lacerate on every possible target
Keep both Thrash and Swipe on cooldown. Then use Mangle and Lacerate as much as you can on every possible target. Use and abuse of your Tab key. Thrash has the highest priority and will always be better than Swipe damage and threat wise. Actually, even the initial hit of Thrash alone hits for more than Swipe. That being said Swipe only costs 15 rage so it is a good alternative if you’re too low on rage. For the same reason, these priorities ignore Maul which you should use as soon as it's up providing you have the rage to do it.
Stat priorities
As you can probably imagine, Stamina is still a very good stat for us, and it now is even better since the more you have the better you Savage Defense shields will be thanks to the new threat mechanic, Vengeance. You will get around 1.3 more attack power per point of stamina with a fully-stacked Vengeance (with all raid buffs). To put things into perspective, one blue stamina gem (+60 stamina) gives your Savage Defense shields an increase of around 27 on the amount absorbed in an optimal scenario.
Agility is a good all-around stat since it increases threat, avoidance, damage, etc… pretty much everything. Your Savage Defense shields absorb more damage the more agility you have. Generally speaking you want to use agility dps-oriented items in your neck/ring/cloak slots. You will get almost as much dodge as a strength tank-oriented item (more if you take reforging into account) and you will also get a lot more crit and attack power if you go with the agility item which increases both the uptime of your Savage Defense shields and the amount absorbed by them. Obviously do not use subpar items only to avoid strength items (i.e. do not equip a 333 agility ring over a 346 strength tanking ring).
Also worth mentioning is that you cannot miss Growl anymore, it will always hit. Likewise you cannot miss Skull Bash. While it seems like a bug, right now even if you do miss your Skull Bash, the interrupt part of it will still happen. EDIT: The bug that made Skull Bash unable to miss has now been fixed (5/01). Taking all of that into account, hit and expertise are not as appealing as they could be. Especially with threat becoming a non-issue once Vengeance starts stacking up. Hit and Expertise also increases the chance for you to proc Savage Defense shields on yellow attacks (see two-roll system), simply because if you don’t hit you won’t crit. Expertise rating under the soft cap ranks a lot higher than hit rating though, simply because it reduces both parry and dodge chances (twice as good as hit under the dodge cap).
That being said, with the recent nerfs to our Savage Defense shields (4.0.3a), mastery is not as good as it used to be on the beta (70% of AP and could proc from dot crits). With only 50% chance to proc from a direct attack crit and considering a druid has around 30-40% critical chance (with Pulverize on), the uptime on the Savage Defense shields is not exactly high and very RNG-dependant. Therefore our best survival "green" stat is dodge rating. Dodging an attack also indirectly increases the chance you will get a Savage Defense shield on the next incoming attack because you will then have more time to get a critical strike. Critical strike rating is about as good as mastery rating, it simply increases the chance to get a Savage Defense shield (outside of the obvious threat/dps increase).
Addons
Essential Addons:
General Tips
Cooldown staggering: Avoid using all your cooldowns at the same time, their effectiveness will be reduced since damage reductions are multiplicative. For example if you use Survival Instincts at the same time as Barkskin, you will take 1-(0.5*0.8) or 60% less damage instead of 70% if it was additive.
Enrage Macro: “/cancelaura Enrage /cast Enrage” - Simple Macro that cancels the Enrage buff that increases damage taken by 10% when you use it, you will lose a bit of rage, but you won’t even notice it. Remember that you have to use the macro twice to remove the buff.
enjoy och lycka till med er spec:)
Stat priorities
As you can probably imagine, Stamina is still a very good stat for us, and it now is even better since the more you have the better you Savage Defense shields will be thanks to the new threat mechanic, Vengeance. You will get around 1.3 more attack power per point of stamina with a fully-stacked Vengeance (with all raid buffs). To put things into perspective, one blue stamina gem (+60 stamina) gives your Savage Defense shields an increase of around 27 on the amount absorbed in an optimal scenario.
Agility is a good all-around stat since it increases threat, avoidance, damage, etc… pretty much everything. Your Savage Defense shields absorb more damage the more agility you have. Generally speaking you want to use agility dps-oriented items in your neck/ring/cloak slots. You will get almost as much dodge as a strength tank-oriented item (more if you take reforging into account) and you will also get a lot more crit and attack power if you go with the agility item which increases both the uptime of your Savage Defense shields and the amount absorbed by them. Obviously do not use subpar items only to avoid strength items (i.e. do not equip a 333 agility ring over a 346 strength tanking ring).
Also worth mentioning is that you cannot miss Growl anymore, it will always hit. Likewise you cannot miss Skull Bash. While it seems like a bug, right now even if you do miss your Skull Bash, the interrupt part of it will still happen. EDIT: The bug that made Skull Bash unable to miss has now been fixed (5/01). Taking all of that into account, hit and expertise are not as appealing as they could be. Especially with threat becoming a non-issue once Vengeance starts stacking up. Hit and Expertise also increases the chance for you to proc Savage Defense shields on yellow attacks (see two-roll system), simply because if you don’t hit you won’t crit. Expertise rating under the soft cap ranks a lot higher than hit rating though, simply because it reduces both parry and dodge chances (twice as good as hit under the dodge cap).
That being said, with the recent nerfs to our Savage Defense shields (4.0.3a), mastery is not as good as it used to be on the beta (70% of AP and could proc from dot crits). With only 50% chance to proc from a direct attack crit and considering a druid has around 30-40% critical chance (with Pulverize on), the uptime on the Savage Defense shields is not exactly high and very RNG-dependant. Therefore our best survival "green" stat is dodge rating. Dodging an attack also indirectly increases the chance you will get a Savage Defense shield on the next incoming attack because you will then have more time to get a critical strike. Critical strike rating is about as good as mastery rating, it simply increases the chance to get a Savage Defense shield (outside of the obvious threat/dps increase).
Addons
Essential Addons:
- Buff/Debuff Tracker: In order to track Pulverize uptime, Savage Roar’s duration… or the duration of any important buff/debuff I recommend Tellmewhen. While there are other alternatives, Tellmewhen is an easy-to-use add-on and does its job well, not more than needed. You can basically create an icon for any buff/debuff and place it wherever you want on your screen. Most of the buffs/debuffs class are preset to save you some time. Alternatives: PowerAuras, Needtoknow…
- Omen: I don’t think I need to introduce this one. Usefull to know where you are on the threat meter
- Player frames: Don’t leave your player frame in the top left corner for the love of god (Pitbull/SuF/…)
General Tips
Cooldown staggering: Avoid using all your cooldowns at the same time, their effectiveness will be reduced since damage reductions are multiplicative. For example if you use Survival Instincts at the same time as Barkskin, you will take 1-(0.5*0.8) or 60% less damage instead of 70% if it was additive.
Enrage Macro: “/cancelaura Enrage /cast Enrage” - Simple Macro that cancels the Enrage buff that increases damage taken by 10% when you use it, you will lose a bit of rage, but you won’t even notice it. Remember that you have to use the macro twice to remove the buff.
enjoy och lycka till med er spec:)
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