Feral Druid 5.2

Druid Archive Patch 5.0+
41

I’ve modified some of the macros I’ve found to be a little more dps friendly. At least with my current setup I pull more dps using these macros then some of the others I used as a base for my setup. I didn’t add the damage mitigation cooldowns, as I personally prefer to pop those when I need them. I was doing up to 35k dps on a level 85 dummy using a level 85 druid in non-optimal gear.

Also, the only real issue I’m having with getting the most out of the macros is that when a mob dies and I have combo points the macro will savage roar again. Then the Savage Roar in my castsequence won’t take because one more powerful is already active.

Anyone know a way to conquer that?

 

 

Single Target Non-Directional:

#showtooltip 16
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Tiger’s Fury
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Berserk
/castsequence reset=target Savage Roar, Faerie Fire, Rake, Thrash, Mangle, Mangle, Mangle, Rip, Savage Roar, Rake, Thrash, Mangle, Mangle, Ferocious Bite
/startattack

Single Target Cat’s Do It From Behind:

#showtooltip 16
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Tiger’s Fury
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Berserk
/castsequence reset=target Savage Roar, Faerie Fire, Rake, Thrash, Shred, Shred, Shred, Rip, Savage Roar, Rake, Thrash, Shred, Shred, Ferocious Bite
/startattack

My Easy Peasy AoE:

#showtooltip 16
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Tiger’s Fury
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Berserk
/castsequence reset=target Savage Roar, Thrash, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Rip
/startattack

 

 

 

42

Hey Jeff just tried out your macro. The problem with yours is that SR at least on my char always falls off before the finisher. That is a huge DPS loss. Our finishers are stuck in time with the damage increase modifiers from which point we do them… So if we do not have savage roar up on a RIP for it’s entire duration does 30 percent less damage. I notice it happening in times when we do not have a TF or beserk up when we get into the Energy Starved phase. Maybe @ level 85 it is not that big of a deal. Also I am almost certain that if you PVP it will not matter all that much anyway either.

43

I do not think the /startattack is necessary since any of your attack abilities will automatically begin the “/startattack”. I have tested my macros with & without it and haven’t noticed any difference.
Also I have downloaded and installed the addons you mentioned Christopher. I haven’t had a chance to test drive them. I’ll give several of these macros (MJ’s, Jeff’s, yours, and mine) a test drive and see what I get.

My char lvl is 85 also. I don’t recall what WoW has as my listed char dps, but I’ll post what it is along with the Skada results for each script when I get a chance.

Christopher, what is your char lvl and base (WoW listed) dps? Do you have Skada / Ovale results for the different scripts?

Also consider the statements that I added onto these macros. It allows me to use one button for stealthing, shift to cat form, initial attack, buffing, and main attack. I tried to align the buffs with the main attacks to maximize damage. It also frees up buttons for other actions.

Next things for me to do is get familiar with the combat add-ons, begin testing the combat macros, and begin key mapping.

44

Christopher,

 

It must be because I’m 85, but it’s not falling off for me. My energy generation must be high due to level or something. Once I get around to leveling him I’ll test it further. Also, to remedy that you can remove Thrash from the rotation as it does not create combo points.

The only issue I’m having with the macro is that Savage Roar eats excess combo points on target change and then locks up due to the Savage Roar not being able to overlap a higher combo point Savage Roar.

 

Jim,

 

Yeah I had that stuff in the macros originally. I’m really just trying to break the macro down to it’s base dps form currently. Those can easily be added back in. If I can conquer the Savage Roar issue then I’ll get a complete macro together.

45

 

 

So, one thing I’ve noticed about putting the macros in. It doesn’t matter if I use Super Duper Macro or Macro Toolkit (I prefer Macro Toolkit now that I’ve tried it) when I enter the macro Tiger’s Fury doesn’t work correctly even though it’s correct in the macro. I have to backspace it out and type it again. This then fixes the use of Tiger’s Fury in the macro. The great thing about Macro Toolkit is that you can see when something isn’t going to fire off.

 

46

Jeff.

I think the problem with Tiger’s Fury is the single quote “’”. I think different applications / browsers use a different ascii code for it. I encounter the same problem when performing database migrations, the single quote introduces a lot of problems :).
I recommend ALWAYS retyping the single quote for every macro.

The reason for including Thrash is not for a cp, but the weakened blows debuff and its DOT. Thrash may decrease your dps but it is supposed to help your survivability. In a mob situation you also get AOE.

MJ’s macro omits it.

Also MJs testing and macros indicated that we do not need the duration of a fully empowered SR. MJs macros take advantage of that by putting in 1-2 cp generators before the SR. In my macro (and MJs and Christopher’s) we try to take advantage of that fact to shorten the macro length. Up until now, I have only had my eyeballs and anecdotal perception to evaluate these macros. I hope to use the tools mentioned by Christopher earlier in the thread to get some hard data on them and try to determine things like whether to keep the Thrash or remove it makes more sense.

I want to first test these on the dummies and then take them into Molten Core (which for me is a good testing ground for these things). The bosses are almost as tough as a pvp player for my level 85 and I also get to try to interweave healing and cc actions along with straight attacks. The loot is ok too, so I get a little extra benefit from testing there :slight_smile:

Do you (or Christopher or MJ) have favorite testing grounds for these?

47

Jim,

 

Let us know what you find out. Looking forward to seeing what you discover!

48

Jeff,

When looking through your latest, I think I noticed a problem:

/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Tiger’s Fury /castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Berserk
With this castsequence with priority (and if I understand the mechanics right), your Berserk fires first. Since TF can't be cast while Berserk is in effect, your TF fails to fire until more than 10 seconds later.

I think your script will work better if you reverse these lines and make this look like:

/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Berserk /castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Tiger’s Fury
If you want, I'll try this out both ways to see which works better.
49

I did a quick test of the latest scripts I could find from MJ, Christopher, Jeff, and myself. My character is a lvl 85 feral druid. Ilvl 312. WoW reported dps (in cat form) of 3500-4766.

  1. My currently in use script avg 16,000 dps

  2. MJ ~ eyeball average of avg 13,800 dps

  3. Christopher ~ eyeball average of 15,000 dps

  4. Jeff ~ eyeball average of 15,000 dps

  5. My mod to Christopher’s latest ~ eyeball average of 15,000 dps

Some notes:

MJs macro excludes Thrash.

Christopher’s and Jeff’s macros were “spikey” while the others were more constant. Christopher’s spiked at over 18,000 dps and dropped as low as 13,000 dps (was the peak due to a Ferocious Bite?). Jeff’s spikes were not as big ('m thinking those are due to Rips, but I’m not sure).

My mod to Christopher’s macro was a little spikey (as high as 16,000 and as low as 14,000 dps). This macro NEVER fired a single TF. I had to add those in manually.

Jeff’s macro hung at a Rip (I think) but I’m not exactly sure where/when. I had to hit a Mangle to get it to proceed.

I think the spikey macros are due to the falling off of various DoTs before they get renewed. I’ll have to instrument a bit better and run the test again with more attention to detail.

Thrash could be up to a dps loss for me, however, it includes a 10% damage reduction. I need to find what magnitude of loss it is to see whether that dps loss is balanced by the damage reduction and makes it a combat gain. I think it is but I do not know that it is. I should repeat the test by taking out the Thrashes from one of the macros.

This is the macro I am currently using (buffs applied manually with a second macro):

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=target [stealth,mod]Ravage;[stealth]Pounce;[nocombat]Prowl;[noform:3]Cat Form;Mangle,Rip,Rake,Mangle,Savage Roar,Thrash,Mangle,Rake,Mangle

I have not spent a lot of time with this one so I do not know why it scored higher. Maybe I didn’t run it long enough to get into the lull (most macros exhibited an early spike with a lull after 30 sec or so). Perhaps it is short enough that none of the DoTs ever run out.

I need to rerun and do a specific number of key clicks (say 30).

50

I finally really looked into the mechanics of these attacks and this is what I think is happening:

Thrash - Physical Dmg (AoE), Bleed Dmg (DoT), debuff, lasts 15 sec
Rake - mostly Bleed Dmg (DoT), lasts 16 sec
Rip - mostly Bleed Dmg (DoT), lasts 16-22 sec
SR - 30% *physical* Dmg boost (lasts 18 - 42 sec)

The longer attack sequences are very complicated and I think some of these effects wear off before getting reapplied. This leads to the spikey nature of the damage profile.

The short and simple attack sequence is so short that none of these DoT timers ever wears off (including a 1 pt SR) before cycling back to the beginning. Comparing the better damage of my macro over MJ’s, I suspect Thrash is a dps enhancer.

Since SR enhances only physical damage and Thrash and Rake inflict a lot of bleed damage, then I think we can put these in front of the SR to get our DoTs started. My new script looks like this:

Thrash,Rake,Savage Roar,Mangle,Mangle,Mangle,Mangle,Rip
I do not expect this to improve the average dps over time, however, I hope that this speeds up the process of getting to our max dps. Note if for an odd reason something like our SR wears off earlier than we want, I've got the other attacks stacked so that the Mangles happen immediately after our SR and should always benefit from it.

I’m not really sure what to do with Rip. Clearly we want a fully empowered Rip, which means we have to wait awhile to put it on, however, this means we don’t get its DoT until late in the sequence. Since we have to wait that long, I want to go ahead and put a single point SR in there so we can benefit from that damage enhancement while waiting for our Rip.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

I’m going to try to test these today.

51

New tests performed, used Skada’s combat summary rather than my eyeball to average performance. I ran each script out to 65-70 sec (3 TFs). In order of performance:

Chris's attack sequence @ 15,900 dps
My 1/2 @$$ed sequence (inspired by MJ's) @15,465 dps
My tweak to Chris's sequence @ 15,400 dps
Jeff's sequence @15,100 dps
My attempt to improve my 1/2 @$$ed sequence @13,100
MJ's sequence @11,600 dps

Of interest to me was the fact that my complicated tweak to Chris’ macro fired 1 TF during the run. I had to trigger the other two manually. All other scripts (except MJs) required manual triggers for TF.

The only reason that I can see the drop in dps performance between my original attack script and attempt to improve that script, was that my assumptions on how long the DoTs lasted was wrong and I am losing dps for some portion of the attack.

At this point though, I have to say that anyone reading this forum should feel free to pick any macro from 1-4 above and just use it. The dps difference is small enough that you can just use your preferences and do fine. Right now, no attempt to automatically trigger the TF has turned out well, so I recommend leaving your buff/debuff abilities in a separate macro and just trigger that manually.

And as MJ pointed out, we are at the point of diminishing returns. I think it is time to move onto another macro problem.

Congratulations Christopher! You win the attack macro of the thread contest!

:slight_smile:

52

Since SR enhances only physical damage and Thrash and Rake inflict a lot of bleed damage, then I think we can put these in front of the SR to get our DoTs started.

You are thinking about it incorectly. Rip and rake and thrash are all included in savage roar damage increase. If what you spoke was true Savage roar would have no place in our rotation as only shred and mangle are our “physical damage”. The bleeds count as physical as they are not magical.

 

Like I said if it only increased our physical direct damage it would be worthless to us as our direct physical attacks are just filler our bleeds is where are damage is from. Do not take my word for it google it. Bleeds ARE physical.

 

53

Christopher,

Thank you for setting me straight on that.

I reran the tests and now MJ’s is now scoring even with the others (and I’m doing lower dps with all of them). sigh I give up.

Let’s try our some AoE macros.

I do suggest one change to simply putting this in your buff:

/use Tiger's Fury
/use Berserk

A lot of energy goes to waste with this combo. I suggest replacing this with:

/castsequence [combat]Tiger's Fury,Berserk

Now you just need to hit this when you need some energy.

 

54

Another thing to remember is that our bleeds are frozen in time from the time we put them on a target. So that means optimally we want to have Everything we can up when we rake rip and thrash. TF-Trinkets-procs-SR . the more of a boost we can put in there when we put on a dot the more of a DPS increase it will be. What is even better even if we refresh the RIP with mangle our stats at the refresh does not matter only the stats at the time first initially applied.

55

Good gravy the mechanics of Feral is HORRID. Too much crap to watch. They made every class so easy a 3 year old can play and bumped the difficulty of Feral.

56

Also, your item level and gear selection can skew the results. For instance bleeds will start taking over as the largest amount of damage once your mastery is high enough. Some people will pull more dps with one macro and some with another.

57

Ideally our bleeds should be doing most of our DPS. Right now I hit level 70 and rake and rip are my top damage abilities.

Yet you are correct. Addition haste or crit can make a macro obsolete. More crit and you will have more combo points to spend. More haste faster energy regen which means you will reach point A to B faster. However Haste is our worst stat ideally we want more Crit. we want more Mastery then Crit even as Mastery is pulling way ahead of the parses. Even more in 5.2 as every pred swif proc we use we will get extra combo points as well. We will get from point A to B faster then ever.

58

FYI, while on my flight I think I figured out 2 issues:

  1. 10% or more decreased damage in my second test serious - I think this was due to lag.

  2. MJs script coming up to par with the others - I think I originally spammed MJs and did not wait for gcd to finish for the abilities. This means it was skipping through the sequence and not hitting all of the abilities.

I think I need to retest them all and ensure I await for the gcd on all tests (I did make sure to do this on later tests).

From other comments it appears that we each need to develop our own macro based upon our own abilities -> Yuck! At least we have the work here as a template.

59

[quote quote=5878]I do suggest one change to simply putting this in your buff:/use Tiger’s Fury
/use Berserk A lot of energy goes to waste with this combo. I suggest replacing this with: /castsequence [combat]Tiger’s Fury,Berserk Now you just need to hit this when you need some energy. [/quote]

Refer to this thread for a better explanation of how and why TF and Berserk are used.

Ideally you want to do TF first then Berserk but with the above castsequence and the way macros work Berserk will not be cast immediately after TF unless it is on a separate macro. Then you have the problem of the different CD’s, 30 secs and 180 secs so in effect you should be able to do 6 TF’s for every Berserk but you will find even then they won’t line up every 6 TF’s because there is no way you can do 6 TF’s in 3 minutes exactly due to lag etc. Which means Berserk will be inactive for at a rough guess 5 to 10 secs to align both at once.

Not sure if this matters dps wise. The way I have it in my macro is as in the quote above and I notice they do activate both at once in the beginning of the sequence but due to downtime and CD’s they only both activate from then on if both are on CD which is not too often. Personally I don’t care if they line up or not.

Due to both spells not having a global it may work properly - I might even try adding that castsequence into my macro and test it when the servers come back up.

60

[quote quote=5841]I’ve modified some of the macros I’ve found to be a little more dps friendly. At least with my current setup I pull more dps using these macros then some of the others I used as a base for my setup. I didn’t add the damage mitigation cooldowns, as I personally prefer to pop those when I need them. I was doing up to 35k dps on a level 85 dummy using a level 85 druid in non-optimal gear. Also, the only real issue I’m having with getting the most out of the macros is that when a mob dies and I have combo points the macro will savage roar again. Then the Savage Roar in my castsequence won’t take because one more powerful is already active. Anyone know a way to conquer that? Single Target Non-Directional: #showtooltip 16
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Tiger’s Fury
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Berserk
/castsequence reset=target Savage Roar, Faerie Fire, Rake, Thrash, Mangle, Mangle, Mangle, Rip, Savage Roar, Rake, Thrash, Mangle, Mangle, Ferocious Bite
/startattack Single Target Cat’s Do It From Behind: #showtooltip 16
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Tiger’s Fury
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Berserk
/castsequence reset=target Savage Roar, Faerie Fire, Rake, Thrash, Shred, Shred, Shred, Rip, Savage Roar, Rake, Thrash, Shred, Shred, Ferocious Bite
/startattack My Easy Peasy AoE: #showtooltip 16
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,0,Tiger’s Fury
/castsequence [combat]reset=0.3 0,Berserk
/castsequence reset=target Savage Roar, Thrash, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe, Rip
/startattack [/quote] I just can not get the Macro to work at all… All i do is Auto attack and nothing else… non of the Abilities are popping…