Brace for nerf....

Ok, after some playing around with the Mew cat simulator, I've decided how to change my stuff and did some testing.  I'm sitting at 11k self-buffed on the dummy.  My guess is that it won't last... it's almost +4k compared pre-patch.

I went with a very unorignal spec, some 0/33/3 thing, skipping nothing fundamental and using a single point in Stampede (to help a bit when doing target switches), whatever DPS increase it can provide on a raid boss is a complete joke, definitely not worth the points.

Damage distribution is nice: I went the "reforge to as much mastery as possible", gem to hit/exp cap then agi + agi/haste.  The last is the wrong choice, agi/crit is better.  Number-wise, even hit/exp cap is an error as full agi anywere beats anything, but I like the comfort of being able to chain-click without being constantly forced to make sure that my hits have landed.

Stat weights for cats have become very simple now: agi rules.  Mastery rules almost as much as agi.  Str is good, but who cares about that.  Crit is better than haste since 50-60% of the damage is DoTs, and haste does nothing for them.  Hit/Expertise are for comfort, since the big damage source is DoTs, they are irrelevant.

Cycle-wise: synching TF and Rip/Rake is a pain in the ass, so I suggest that you ignore it, UNLESS the occasion props up.  If an extra "random shred" allows you to put up both dots with the +15% TF bonus, definitely do it, but going out of your way to synch them will be a big headache for a little gain (and maybe even loss, depending on the scenario).  I think that synching TF with trinket procs/tricks/berserk (which does not cancel it anymore) is more reliable and effective.

The other thing is dot-clipping.  If before it was anathema, now in 4.0 it's recommended behaviour:  you should refresh the dot between the last two ticks: this has the effect of extending it without making you lose any tick.  Unfortunately, the addon I use, EventHorizon Continued has some issues with the correct tracking of Rip refreshes, making it hard to correctly refresh it at the end.

At the same time, it looks like everyone is holding his breath, waiting for Cataclysm.  When I go raiding, I feel people are more around to do/test something than really focus on progression.  And seeing how much better things are getting and will become with Cataclysm..... I agree.

Ok, next time a short report of our 11/12 ICC full-druid which we had just before the patch.