Shapeshifting
The one distinguishing characteristic of a druid is the ability to shapeshift. This is their greatest strength and ironically one of their notable weaknesses. When the class was designed, the folks at Blizzard envisioned a protean opponent that constantly changed forms during an encounter. While the design didn’t completely end up that way, with druids mostly keeping to one form suited for a particular task (e.g., bears when tanking), players get to see druids change shape more often during PvP. It’s essential. Some of the best druids switch forms appropriately and often, although this can sometimes take a toll on their mana.

Druids are a hybrid class and thus enjoy the benefit of having three distinct roles and fighting styles which can confuse enemies at the beginning of a fight. Their shapeshifting, noted as their strength, is also their weakness here as it usually reveals their hand earlier than other hybrid classes because their forms are usually distinctive to their spec. A moonkin, for example, is obviously a ranged caster and likely to be an unsavory opponent in Eye of the Storm (stay away from the edge just to make sure).

By the same token, a druid is weakest in their normal (whatever passes for normal for a shapeshifting class, anyway), humanoid state. There is almost never a better time to beat down a druid as when they are in their Night Elf or Tauren — and soon Worgen and Troll — forms trying to cast a life-saving spell. Their various forms confer numerous protective benefits, and improvements to the moonkin and Tree of Life forms in the past have made for irritatingly surprisingly resilient opponents. Fortunately for would-be druid killers, forms have some restrictions, too.

Moonkin, for example, are unable to cast any healing spells. This means that a Balance druid getting low on life should be expected to change form at some point in order to cast Rejuvenation or worse, Rejuvenation and Swiftmend. Other times, some druids will retreat into their Dire Bear Form while allowing a HoT to take effect — an unusually mana-intensive, but sometimes necessary, recourse. Expecting these changes between forms is key to fighting druids: as a general rule, druids are strongest in their primary forms (e.g., Cat Form for DPS feral, Tree of Life for Restoration) and weakest when they are out of them. Catching them in humanoid form with a silence or stun is PvP gold.

Movement
The defining aspect of druid PvP is mobility. More than almost any other class, druids move around in combat not just because they must but because they can. One of the most powerful features of a druid’s shapeshifting ability is the way it removes polymorph and movement-impairing effects, effectively making the druid the most elusive class in the game. With Travel Form, druids are able to free themselves from tight situations and easily create some distance between themselves and their opponents. In the rare instances where there’s water involved, such as in world PvP scenarios (e.g., Wintergrasp), druids are unparalleled in their mobility with Aquatic Form and sometimes when glyphed for it, are — pardon the term — a class all their own. Needless to say, it is extremely imprudent to engage a druid in water.

In world PvP, in fact, druids even have the enviable option of instantaneous flight. Night Elf druids, in particular, can use the retooled Shadowmeld to drop out of combat and instantly shapeshift into flight form to escape the fray. Because Shadowmeld doesn’t activate the global cooldown, it can be written into the same macro as a shapeshift. Obviously, because of their various transport forms, outdoor scenarios favor druids immensely and open areas are terrible places to engage a druid.

Although feral druids thrive in close quarters, having the option to flee is always best even for them… and no class is more capable of fleeing than a druid. It’s virtually impossible to pin them down because of their ability to shake off movement-impairing effects, and then there’s Dash, an ability that sees frequent use in Battlegrounds such as Warsong Gulch as druids make their way out of the enemy base.

All druids regardless of spec are capable of disappearing with the Prowl ability. Sometimes throughout a fight, druids will create some distance and exit combat, enter stealth, and reappear when it’s most beneficial to strike. This isn’t limited to the rogue-like feral druids, either. It takes tremendous effort to pin down and catch a druid off-guard, and is often only pulled off with coordination and precision as demonstrated in Arenas. The ability to flee, disappear, and reposition is essential to druid PvP which makes them terrible candidates for a first target in a group.

It’s always important to remember their natural ability to shrug off polymorph and movement-impairing effects, so it’s just a waste of resources to target them with these things. It won’t even slow them down. We’ve only barely touched the surface as we now have an idea of what druids are like. We haven’t even gotten to the part of all the hurt they can bring to a fight.

General abilities
All druids regardless of spec have access to the most powerful crowd control spell in the game, Cyclone. Unlike other forms of crowd control, it can be cast on any target regardless of type. It’s so powerful that not even a paladin’s vaunted bubble or a priest’s Mass Dispel can break it. The only way to remove it is through the PvP trinket, making it one of the select spells worth using the item for. Cyclone also has no cooldown, making it spammable on a target. This means that a druid can effectively take an opponent out of play for a long time, even with diminishing returns. Sometimes, druids chain cyclone different targets to sidestep this limitation. When an opponent is Cycloned, druids can cast heals on themselves, assault another target, or flee.

Druids are also able to keep opponents in place with Entangling Roots, made even more powerful in Wrath by removing the original “only usable while outdoors” restriction. It is also spammable but likewise subject to diminishing returns. This spell is used to establish distance and is sometimes triggered by Nature’s Grasp, often activated by druids who need to escape from a melee opponent. In combination with their fast-moving forms, druids can establish a lot of space between themselves and an immobilized enemy. They can even use Hibernate against Hunter pets or opposing druids.

When fighting a druid, be prepared to be ensnared and crowd controlled. After using Cyclone, many druids will cast a long cast spell such as several heals or a massive Starfire, timing it such that the spell hits just as Cyclone breaks. This means players should be wary and be on the defensive after such spells. While druids have a plethora of offensive abilities, their means of using them varies according to form. Moonkin will kite and keep as much distance as possible (moonkin form doesn’t confer too much protection) while firing laser beams and feral druids will keep enemies in place with a bevy of snares and stuns while tearing them to shreds. Restoration druids, of course, work primarily as support, keeping their more offensive-minded friends up… which probably makes them the most dangerous druids of all.

Speaking of restoration, as much as druids have different approaches, it should be noted that all druids are capable of healing themselves, albeit sometimes needing to change forms to do so. This makes them extremely difficult to take down, with even the rogue-like cats healing themselves reasonably well. One important distinction with this is that for obvious reasons, druids not specced into Restoration will have weaker and more expensive heals. Another thing is to remember is that druid healing consists of powerful heal-over-time components. This makes abilities such as Purge or Dispel Magic invaluable when fighting them. Keep those HoTs off! Most druids will have a HoT or two ticking on themselves to mitigate damage. Classes able to remove or neutralize these have a powerful weapon against druids.

Balance druids
Although a DPS tree, balance or moonkin druids suffer some disadvantages when engaged in melee and the Moonkin Form is mostly used for its offensive punch. This is why many Balance druids will open stealthily, casting a long, high-crit Starfire from a distance. It isn’t uncommon for Night Elves to start Shadowmelded while casting a high powered nuke. Starfire and Moonfire are a moonkin druid’s bread and butter along with Wrath, spammed from a distance and causing tremendous damage when left uninterrupted.

A balance druid is all about dealing damage. A whole lot of it. They will throw spells like Insect Swarm and Moonfire to apply damage-over-time effects and to boost their subsequent attacks, so classes able to remove debuffs should always make sure these stay off. The best way to deal with balance druids is to close the distance while they are in moonkin form. They will use Entangling Roots and Cyclone liberally, being the spec that is most reliant on them to establish proper distance and positioning. Catching them as moonkins means they will be unable to heal themselves and will be forced to change to humanoid form when low on life. This usually means they’re in the worst shape, so take advantage.

Balance druids also have access to Force of Nature, which summons three treants to fight for them. These can dish out a lot of damage and push back spellcasting, which can be difficult for spellcasters. Smart Druids will also debuff opponents with Faerie Fire, allowing the treants to hit for a little more. While these minions probably won’t kill a player by themselves, it buys the balance druid precious casting time, allowing them to fire off a big nuke to finish off opponents softened up by a mob of furious trees. AoE fears work well here, such as Howl of Terror or Psychic Scream. The idea is to get rid of the treants quickly and prevent the moonkin from doing more serious damage.

Feral druids
A melee druid is a fearsome opponent. Think of them as taking the best parts of warriors and rogues with the unparalleled ability to move around. In PvP, it will be more common to find cat druids than bears, whose abilities are generally geared towards PvE tanking. It isn’t uncommon, however, to see druids shift into bear form in order to use Bash to stun an opponent or interrupt a spell. Out of three specs, feral druids benefit the most from stealthed openers, usually engaging their opponents with a Ravage or Pounce.

Cat druids can unload a whole lot of damage in a short amount of time, all while their opponents are stunned. They are effectively rogues — with several abilities that mirror the class — and can prove to be a handful for many casters. Most of their abilities and debuffs are also physical, making them almost impossible to remove. As mentioned, druids can heal themselves, giving them a slight edge against actual rogues in this regard. Well-timed Maims and Bashes not only interrupt spellcasting but are also used as a precursor to self-heals, so watch out for them. Be prepared to break stuns at strategic moments and not just at the first opportunity.

One key here is that cat form confers very little by way of protection. Cat druids can dish out a lot of damage but also take it in equal measure. Veteran druids will more often face melee opponents in bear form for the mitigation, switching to cat form only during stuns or when attacking from behind and the opponent is busy elsewhere. On the other hand, feral druids will often stay in cat form against casters because physical mitigation is useless, anyway. The idea is to deal as much damage to them when they lapse into cat form and prevent them from casting self-heals, which they’ll preempt with a stun, Cyclone, or even Barkskin.

A good tip to remember is that while druids can break most movement-impairing effects, it costs a lot of mana. Because feral druids have low mana pools, they will avoid doing this too often. If you can spam crowd control or snares to force them to use up their mana shapeshifting. It’s better than allowing them to spend their mana on heals, which is what they are saving it for. Feral Druids depend on Innervate to replenish their small mana pool, so don’t allow it if your class can manage to remove buffs.

Restoration druids
Perhaps the most difficult kind of druid to engage in PvP is the restoration druid. This isn’t because they are powerful enough to kill you — they likely aren’t — but because restoration druids are almost never alone. This changes the dynamic of a PvP encounter in that restoration is a support spec and is intended to give the most advantage to friends who do have the power to kill you. It becomes difficult, then, to give specific pointers as to how to deal with a healer druid because most of the time your attention will be divided between the druid and her partner.

It is extremely difficult to outdamage the heals of a restoration druid. They can and will stack HoTs and pull off well-timed Swiftmends that pump up their targets (possibly themselves) to full health. The basic idea against druid healing is to keep removing them, forcing the druid to resort to direct heals such as Healing Touch, which isn’t the most mana-efficient or fastest-casting spell in her arsenal. It’s extremely bad to allow a druid to pull off a Nourish on a target with full HoTs. Removing HoTs as soon as they are applied also eats up into a restoration druid’s considerable mana pool, and this is key to the fight because a druid with a lot of mana can pretty much keep anyone up indefinitely.

In the battlegrounds, it’s extremely important to call attention to the healer, particularly a restoration druid who can apply Rejuvenation liberally on her allies. It will take much coordination, too, since druids as mentioned have a plethora of abilities at their disposal to facilitate escape. For the most part, a restoration druid can pretty much survive simply by keeping HoTs on herself and throwing the occasional Innervate to recoup mana. It takes an inordinate amount of DPS to take down a druid concentrating on survival.

By the same token, an unfettered druid can keep her partners alive. Thus, crowd controls and interrupts should be applied judiciously to the druid. For example, if you are able to remove all HoTs, take the druid out of play with a well-timed crowd control spell (probably a taste of their own medicine such as a Cyclone) and focus fire on the DPS. Conversely, even the best or most well-geared healers will have trouble staying alive through intense focus fire. Again, it’s difficult to predict these things because the dynamic changes greatly against a restoration druid.

Druids wary of buff removal can also use Wild Growth, which dispenses a greater part of its healing in the beginning and tapering off in the end. Clever druids won’t shift into Tree of Life form until engagement begins in order not to attract attention upon themselves. It is extremely difficult to stop druids from casting heals because they just have so many instant cast spells at their disposal. The trick here then is mostly damage control — or more specifically, heal control. Don’t allow HoTs to get out of hand. Restoration druids won’t hesitate to toss a Rejuvenation on a target with full health as the HoT provides a measure of mitigation.

In the best case scenario, a druid can be interrupted while casting a long-cast heal such as Healing Touch or even Cyclone. What you’re going for here is a school lockout, which prevents the druid from accessing any Nature spells. In some cases, this should provide a good enough opening to deal significant and hopefully irrecoverable damage to the druid or her companion(s). It’s unlikely, but whenever you’re up against a healer, you hope for the best.

The most dangerous thing about restoration druids is that they aren’t limited to heals. Remember that they can still shift into bear form and stun or interrupt opposing spellcasters or healers. They can shift into travel form and create distance. They have access to Entangling Roots, too, and the best druids are experts at using Cyclone to take opponents out of play. Because their focus is on survival — whether their own or their allies’ — restoration druids are more likely to use their various abilities to keep enemies at bay. Your best chance at an interrupt, in fact, is when they pause to use these crowd control abilities and snares.

Ultimately, fighting a restoration druid is all about keeping them under control. They will very rarely be caught in their humanoid form because their arsenal of heals is accessible to them in tree form, anyway. It is important to watch out for their buffs, as most of it is key to their success. Unless there’s a massive disparity in your damage output and your target Restoration druid’s healing capability, you’re better off moving on to another target as it’s highly unlikely you’ll be taking them down. My best advice? If you see one, just do a /dance emote. Who knows, she might oblige. Ever seen a tree do the twist?

General strategy: Wowwiki has a pretty decent one, as does TankSpot. Numerous comments both there and elsewhere have noted the fight’s resemblance to M’uru, which promises to be a jolly old time on heroic.

Apart from that:

Step one: Bind all keys to Remove Curse.
Step two: Roll face from left to right across the keyboard at a speed not exceeding 5 mm per second.
Step three: Mark your calendar for the 6th week in a row that she has failed to drop Ring of Maddening Whispers.
Step four: Wait while a squabble over some football team breaks out during loot distribution, with the raid leader ransoming gear until someone is forced to apologize for an insult made regarding the parentage of the quarterback.
Step five: Get on the elevator and ride up.
Step six: Get back on the elevator and ride down and resurrect whatever DPS fell off.

This accounts for most of the truly important features of the Deathwhisper encounter, but as always, there are some compelling minutiae:

Placement: You should stand in the middle of the room, or at least somewhere within decurse range of everyone in the raid (tanks are the most likely to duck in and out of range while grabbing adds).

Curses: Kidding aside, decursing really will be the most important job you do here. Deathwhisper’s caster adds have a nasty little ability called Curse of Torpor that will apply a 15-second cooldown to any attack or ability you use while cursed. In other words, if you cast Regrowth with Curse of Torpor on you, Regrowth now has a 15-second cooldown. This is bad for tanks and DPS, but it’s especially bad for your healers. On 10-man, this will be applied to one player at a time and you can handle it on your own; on 25-man, you can generally expect to see two or three people cursed simultaneously, and you will need another decurser to get to them all quickly. If you are one of the people affected, decurse yourself before you do anyone else, as you will — ironically — lock yourself out of the ability to decurse for 15 seconds otherwise.

Giant burning green circles of almost certain doom: Don’t stand in them.

Dominate Mind: You won’t have to worry about this on 10-man, but getting mind-controlled players out of the fight is a key feature on 25-man. As with Kel’thuzad-25, the mind-controlled player will grow in size and gain both a damage and healing buff (but unlike KT, there will only be one mind-controlled player at a time). They can also be crowd-controlled (good) or killed (bad) by their fellow raiders. With the +haste you’re likely to be packing, an ultra-fast Cyclone on a mind-controlled target will account for half the duration of the mind-control and allow your DPS time to get CC on them as soon as it ends. On heroic, Deathwhisper will apparently mind-control 3 players at a time, so get your raid trained into handling this as fast as possible.

Is this a good fight for trees?: Eh. Raid damage in phase 1 is unpredictable, and you’re going to be spending an awful lot of global cooldowns decursing rather than healing. In phase 2, Deathwhisper has an AoE Frostbolt attack and untargetable, undamageable adds (Vengeful Shades) that randomly aggro and then follow a person at a time. Blanketing the raid with Rejuvenation will help somewhat for the former, but to be frank, the overwhelming majority of it will just serve to inflate your +overheal, with more direct healers sniping in the interim. The most pressing need for fast healing in phase 2 is going to come from anyone targeted by a mind-controlled player, or caught unawares by a Vengeful Shade right before an AoE Frostbolt.

If your guild’s planning on doing the hard-mode version later, start harassing your raid now about avoiding damage from the Shades. It’s widely believed that their damage is going to one-shot most players on heroic.

Faction Gunship

General strategy: The gunship battle is pretty forgiving (and a complete blast) even if you’re new, but Wowwiki has a good page on it here.

I love this fight so very, very much, and after completing it for the first time wanted to wipe the raid and do it again. Unfortunately, Blizzard does not allow you this option after encounters are actually over, probably because exasperated raid leaders everywhere would use it as a disciplinary tool.

Placement: Wherever the hell you want. The most fun is typically to be found at the apex of a rocket jump between the two ships. Proper deployment of the jet pack will also involve macroing “WHEEEEEEE!” to its use.

Boss abilities: There’s no real boss as such on this encounter. There are, however, a number of entertaining explosions you will need to either create or avoid. If you’re on the team that stays on your own gunship, you’re likely to be healing the add tank and/or any raid members who aren’t prompt about moving out of rockets (plus mopping up a bit of unavoidable damage from ranged enemies). Due to one of the Skybreaker Sergenat/Kor’kron Sergeant’s Bladestorm attack, raids generally put their ranged DPS on the adds here and send their melee to the enemy ship. If you’re one of the lucky souls who gets to jump with them, you’ll be healing the Saurfang/Bronzebeard tank and should be careful not to jump until this player does.

Is this a good fight for trees?: Hell, it’s a good fight for everybody, but to be perfectly frank, the healing requirements are not high. You can two- or three-heal it even on 25-man, but trees are pretty good in that as you can toss HoTs around without being concerned about incoming rockets.

Also — Rocket Bear Bare.

All done? Set aside 5 seconds to rue the day you gave the Corpse Tongue Coin to the guild’s backup feral player because he needed it more than you did and it hasn’t dropped again since and did I mention he decided to take a break from the game like two days later and the stupid trinket hasn’t dropped again since.

Seriously, what the hell.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Allie: This guy’s a lot smaller than I expected.
Hunter officer: Don’t worry, Allie, he gets bigger.
Half the raid (in unison): That’s what she said!

General strategy: TankSpot has a very good guide here.

Placement: Specific placement doesn’t matter too much as long as: a). you are at least 12 yards away from everyone else, because one of Saurfang’s attacks (Blood Nova) can chain to nearby players, and: b). you can reach everyone in the raid (or almost everyone, assuming the people you can’t reach have healer coverage). In other words, spread out, but make sure the heal team is scattered for even coverage of the raid.

Boiling Blood: A debuff cast on 1 (in 10-man) or 3 (in 25-man) players that does damage and gives Blood Power to Saurfang every 3 seconds. This isn’t particularly tough to heal.

Blood Beasts: How your raid handles these (and Mark, below) will make or break the encounter, but it’s your DPS who has to worry about them (usually by way of Frost Traps, Earthbind Totem, and knockbacks). However, you should be prepared in the event that one aggros you. This is a distinct possibility as you’re likely to be running HoTs on Boiling Blood targets and the tanks. If all else fails and one’s crawling your way, Entangling Roots will prevent Saurfang from gaining Blood Power off your unlucky hide. Because DPS will be focusing the little beasts down (and thus damaging them way beyond what Roots will hold), chain-cast Roots until it’s dead.

Mark of the Fallen Champion: Saurfang will cast this upon a player after reaching 100 blood power, and the damage is intense; essentially, he’s chaining a portion of his melee damage to a player who’s not a tank. Plan on running full HoTs on the person in question, and even then, you’re going to need some help at present levels of gear unless you can devote all of your attention to that one person.
However, it’s very common for raids to deliberately allow the first Marked player to die, and DPS through the 5% heal that will subsequently occur to Saurfang. It’s usually worth it, because Saurfang will cease gaining Blood Power from a Marked player who’s died, and — assuming a competent raid — only gains Blood Power slowly from other sources. If you’re going after I’ve Gone and Made a Mess, this is the way to do it. Sensible management of the Blood Beasts and good DPS will typically result in a kill before (or shortly after) the third Mark.

Whatever else you do, do not battle-rez anyone who dies to a Mark. They will only resurrect with the Mark still on them, almost invariably die to the next tick of damage (unless you’ve spent a major glyph slot on Glyph of Rebirth), and then heal Saurfang for another 5%. Assuming that your heal team is half-awake, no one in the raid is in any real danger of dying to anything else on this encounter, and you will not need either the DPS or healing output of the first Marked player. Subsequent Marked players will need massive heals, however, and the increasing difficulty of keeping up multiple Marked players becomes a sort of soft enrage on top of Saurfang’s hard enrage at 8 minutes.

Is this a good fight for trees?: It’s not so much a bad fight for trees as it’s an amazing fight for Discipline priests. A good Disc priest can singlehandedly cripple Saurfang’s ability to generate Blood Power through smart shielding. Otherwise, there’s really not a lot of damage to worry about here. The encounter is really about your DPS’ ability to handle the Blood Beasts while maintaining high raid DPS overall.

* Depending on how your raid is ran is how you will DPS early trash. For the most part you can AoE mobs down however we have mobs that can explode in this early part of the encounter so we have a tank peel 1 out of the group at a time for single DPS. Also be cautious of chains CC and positioning if you do use some swipe early in the mobs pull.
* Break people out of webs when they get web wrapped.
* Don’t stand in front of the huge skeleton mobs, you will die.
* Don’t wonder around, there are traps that release the large guys and most raids prefer to find these after clearing all the trash leading up to the first boss.

Lord Marrowgar

* Stay behind the boss. Burn Berserk early (hopefully you get hero early as well).
* Break people out of spikes quickly
* Shift to bear and pop barkskin when he whirls. Run away and stay out of fire.
* After whirls get back to boss quickly… use kitty charge.
* Try your best to get off 5cp rips before switching to DPSing spikes that are on other people.

Trash in the 2nd Boss Room

* DPS trash in kill order.
* Be carefull using swipe here as some mobs will most likely be getting chained up.
* When on the big spiders in the back corners if you get the “mark” run away from other players until it is gone.

Lady Deathwhisper

* Convince your raid leader to have yourself and at least 1 other melee DPS to stay on the boss the entire encounter. Other DPS will down the shield as well but only in between killing add waves.
* She will stay stationary and right where she is, you have to DPS down a mana shield to get her to enter phase 2.
* In phase 1 she has no agro table or tank so you can go crazy, when she targets you and turns use mangle since shred won’t work and then resume normal rotation. Watch in case you are ever cursed and quickly cleanse it off yourself. The tanks will be busy controlling all the adds that spawn in intervals during phase 1, hopefully you are staying on the boss and don’t have to worry about this.
* Use Berserk early and whenever it is up.
* Keep an eye on the level of her shield and alert the raid when it is at 20% and then every 5% it goes down.
* Bring the shield down to 2% and alert everyone to stop shield(Boss) DPS
* Burn the last 2% in between adds spawning. Call for Heroism to make sure you get down this last 2%
* While waiting to burn the shield down at the end help clean up trash or toss a battle rez to a dead player.
* While DPSing the shield you will get and AoE damaging attack from the boss eventually, it is a big green circle on the ground around her. Run out to the other side of where you are DPSing and get right on the edge of the outside of the circle and mangle spam her front until you can run back around to her back.
* In the transition to phase 2 watch your threat while a tank picks her up… hold of hitting her until tanks build up some threat. She will no longer be stationary.
* During phase 2 the boss most likely will be kited. Be prepared to help with interrupts if asked (interrupt frostbolts) and keep an eye open for ghosts coming at you in phase 2 which will kill you and others if they get too close (you need to run from them).

Trash leading to Gunship

* Nothing special here, you fight some trash with the help of NPCs. I tend to swipe a lot.
* Nothing special on DPSing the Frostwyrm trash pull… try not to be in front of it.

Gunship

* Talk to the Goblin and get a jet pack. Equip the pack in your shirt slot. Shift to bear and rocket around the boat to practice with a jet pack on your butt.
* When using the jet pack to jump from ship to ship (you should be a member of the boarding party) you will get shifted out of cat form so be ready to shift back.
* Be careful of pulling agro when back on your own ship. Also make sure to not stand in rocket fire, watch for the targets on the floor.
* Priority 1 is the frost mage, next are the rocket goblins. The axe throwers one the side of the enemy ship closest to your ship will be DPSed down by defensive ranged players.
* There is no set time to use berserk in this encounter, burn it on a mage when DPS seems to be behind for whatever reason.

Deathbringer Saurfang

* Easy fight. Great fight to test gear setups.
* Stand behind boss and do standard rotation.
* Use berserk early and often.
* Hold your 3rd berserk and speed potion for his soft enrage, usually Heroism gets cast here.
* Loot, profit, and yell “nerf rogues!”

If you’re geared to do whatever you like and simply want to enjoy LFG for its own sake, you’ll be fine queuing as anything. However, if your priority is amassing a huge pile of badges to get yourself equipped in full Tier 9 for your preferred spec/s, the most expedient means of doing this is to go as a tank or healer.

Of these, the barrier to entry for a tank is considerably higher, and the group much more likely to be a punishing experience if your fellow players outgear you. Of the two “I can’t even finish swigging my Pepsi before the queue pops” roles, it’s easiest to start off healing, not least because you don’t have any loot competition for a Need roll on leather +spellpower gear unless there’s another druid in the group.

Admittedly, the barrier to entry for a DPS player is lower than that of a healer, but on my battlegroup I see 3-second waits as a tank (no joke), 5 to 7-second waits as a healer (score!), and 4 to 17-minute waits as a DPS (consolation; you can finish your Pepsi).

2. Only queue as a tank or healer if you can tank or heal.

People have already noticed a rash of hybrid players popping into groups through the tank or healer option while not actually being specced or geared to do either. Don’t lie about your toon’s actual capabilities — despite the queue times, only go as DPS if that’s what you’re comfortable doing. Otherwise, you get situations like the one I had last night after wiping on a Drak’tharon Keep trash pull and then finally inspecting the tank:

Me: Um, I’m sorry to ask, but are you Prot full-time?
Paladin “tank”: No.
Me (eyeing his Mark of the War Prisoner and unenchanted, ungemmed “tanking gear”): I don’t think you’re defense-capped in your current gear.
Paladin: (silence)
Me: I’m pretty sure you need 535 +defense to tank this place.
Paladin: F**k no I don’t.
Me: (discovers she is out of schnapps)
Paladin: Hey, can we do Better Off Dred?

3. When you queue can have a big impact on the group you get.

If you’re still gearing up and worried about running into players who massively outgear you, try to use LFG during typical raid times. Most raids span a period from roughly 7:30 pm to midnight, and that’s a decent chunk of time to avoid the majority of raiders if you’re apprehensive about being in a group with them.

Now, it has to be said that most people are perfectly friendly and this may seem like it’s overly paranoid, but if you’re queuing as a tank or healer, you are much more vulnerable to the problems that result from getting matched to a group with significantly better gear than yours. An outgeared tank will go prematurely gray trying to keep aggro against people in 245+ gear. An outgeared healer may not have the healing throughput or mana regen for a group that’s chain-pulling dungeons. While most reasonable players will adjust to a tank who’s doing as much threat as their gear allows, and will wait for a healer to drink between pulls when necessary, some won’t.

Queuing during your own server’s raid times isn’t foolproof — not all of the servers on your battlegroup are on the same timezone — but you are much less likely to run into players with high-end raid gear between, say, 9:00 and 11:00 pm server time. Conversely, if you want the now-archetypal silent-but-deadly group that mows through pulls with brutal efficiency, you are more likely to find overgeared players outside of raid times.

4. Doing Halls of Reflection? Remove Curse and Abolish Poison are your friend.

Icecrown’s three new 5-mans have some nasty damage in store, and Halls of Reflection trash has all of its keys mapped to Cursed Arrow, Deadly Poison, or Level 5 Death to Tank. On heroic, the failure to dispel these can result in a wipe due to the sheer amount of damage that can build, particularly if your healer gets CC’d in the interim.

Moonkin: A well-played moonkin can singlehandedly drop the difficulty of HoR trash. If your healer is a priest and struggling keep up, help them out by dispelling poisons (particularly if on the tank). If your healer is a paladin or priest, remove curses. On all 4 healing classes, keep an eye out for the healer Cowering (a magic debuff from the Ghostly Priest mobs that we can’t do anything about), getting Kidney Shot by the Shadowy Mercenary, or being ice-trapped by the Tortured Riflemen (which we can’t shift out of). In all three cases, that’s 2-4 seconds where your healer is effectively out of the game.

As a tank and sometimes healer, I normally despise Typhoon and other knockback effects in dungeons (bonus points to the players Typhooning or Thunderstorming mobs into the next pull in Pit of Saron!), but here it can be a godsend. Use it to interrupt the Ghostly Priest’s heals and/ or force some of the ranged mobs into a better position for the group. If your group needs the CC, Root the Spectral Footman or Shadowy Mercenary before they can reach the group (the Footman is probably a better target because the Mercenary is likely to shadowstep to the group anyway). Or, you can Root any of the mobs if the group has effectively LOS’d the entire pull (which they should be doing anyway).

Cats: Feral cats will point out that popping out of form all the time to dispel is a crippling DPS loss that may wind up impacting the group more negatively than if you’d just let the debuffs stay up, and that’s entirely correct. However, that still leaves you with the problem of multiple enraged mobs doing a ton of damage, and one of them (the Priest) attempting to heal. If your healer or tank is in desperate need of some breathing room, consider using Maim as a finisher on one mob and burning Predator’s Swiftness for an insta-Cyclone on another. The ability to shut down the damage output of two mobs should not be underestimated, particularly near the start of a pull. Don’t forget to Innervate the healer on cooldown; there is very little time to drink between trash waves.

Bears: All 3 of the new Icecrown 5-mans contain pulls full of caster mobs that, in Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron, can’t be LOS’d effectively or otherwise forced to move without assistance from your party (seriously, what’s up with Wrath 5-mans and the lack of LOS nooks? OK, Oculus, Pit, and Forge seem like they’re tailor-made to drive bear tanks up a wall). Warn the group that you will not necessarily have amazing aggro on each mob because you’re going to be moving between them fairly frequently. On the plus side, this does tend to give you range for a Feral Charge on any caster you’re not currently hitting, and that’ll come in handy stopping a certain amount of the damage.

If you outgear the group, marking probably won’t be necessary from a threat standpoint, but can still be desirable because splitting DPS on 5 casters mobs who are just continually unloading on you is not a great idea. In the Pit of Saron, mark and kill the Ymirjar Flamebearers first.

In Halls of Reflection, we are mercifully able to LOS most mobs by using the small alcoves located beside Falric and Marwyn. In general, I like to start off in Marwyn’s alcove (the one on the right) because you fight Falric first, and it takes him a few seconds to get over to Marwyn’s side of the room after he does his introductory bit and aggros the group. This buys your healer and DPS several valuable seconds to eat/drink after finishing the fourth trash wave. Immediately after you get Falric down, have the group switch to his alcove across the room so that Marwyn will have to cross over after the ninth trash wave. If the group has high DPS and regen, switching alcoves won’t be necessary by any means, but with a pug group don’t bank on people having the gear to make this easier.

There is a tremendous amount of incoming damage on these trash waves. Pop Barkskin and trinkets when you can, Bash mobs on cooldown, enlist a DPS’ helps in interrupting the Ghostly Priest’s heals, and — one small trick that’s usually helpful — pop Tranquility between trash waves. Not only will this give your healer a few seconds to drink while the group is healed up, but you’ll also have a fairish amount of threat on the next wave as it aggros. Due to Tranquility’s cooldown, this is obviously only good once, but don’t get caught outside of bear when the mobs finally reach you.

With pug groups, you should be somewhat strict about what you are willing to tolerate. Constantly pulling aggro on the trash waves (assuming, of course, that you’re putting out as much TPS as your gear allows) is not acceptable. Consistently failing to interrupt mob heals is not acceptable. Refusing to stop a rotation to pop a defensive cooldown for themselves or another player in the event it’s needed is not acceptable. The dungeon is oriented towards more intelligent play than the “AoE everything” mindset that dominates other Wrath 5-mans, and the group will probably fail if it takes that approach.

Trees: In healing all of the new content, one of the things I’ve noticed is that groups tend to come in two varieties:

1. Those who interrupt and CC the mobs, and:
2. Those who don’t.

#1, as you might expect, is considerably easier to heal. There is a great deal of tank damage in the new ICC 5-mans and HoR more particularly, which is made more dangerous by the fact that many of your GCD’s will be devoted to decursing and dispelling poisons. Under the circumstances, it’s especially maddening to see an oblivious group attempting to AoE down HoR trash packs while the Ghostly Priest heals without interruption and the mage Flamestrikes your group. You will have a much easier time asking specific DPS to keep an eye on particular mob attacks.

In decent gear and with a well-geared tank, it’s more than possible to brute-force your way through the trash packs with massive healing throughput, but you are much more prone to a player gib in the event that you get CC’d for a few seconds. Because trash packs aggro within a few seconds after the last mob from the preceding pack dies, it’s usually not possible to get a Revive off on a fallen party member; your only opportunity for a regular resurrection is going to be directly after defeating Falric. Consequently, DPS need to be very careful with their threat, because once you burn Rebirth, it’s not going to be up again before your group finishes the trash/bosses.

5. Make sure your reagents are well-stocked.

While groups are still learning and gearing in the new 5-mans, you will be battle-rezzing a lot (incidentally, it’s usually the only resurrection spell that has a prayer of going off between trash waves in HoR), and you may also be in the position of having to rebuff Mark/Gift of the Wild constantly. If you run a lot of 5-mans, a Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth can save you a lot of gold in the long run. If you’re constantly rebuffing Gift and burning through a lot of expensive Wild Spineleaf, you can cheap out by simply buffing Mark, especially because most competent groups will burn through an average dungeon in less than half an hour anyway. Use a mod like SmartBuff or HealBot Continued to make sure your group is buffed at all times (and Thorns is on the tank).

6. If you are the leader, freaking lead.

Do not assume that everyone in the group has done the dungeon previously, and you should ratchet that paranoia by a factor of 4,000 if you’ve landed one of the new Icecrown 5-mans or Oculus. Without exaggeration, almost every single Oculus run I’ve pugged through LFG has had at least one player who was completely new to the instance and wanted to leave it before the group convinced them to stay. These dungeons are straightforward if someone takes 20 seconds to explain what a new player can expect.

LORD MARROWGAR

BEARS: Marrowgar is very simple to tank. Whether you’re main- or off-tanking him, you’ll need to stack up on your fellow tanks to mitigate damage from his Saber Lash, and keep him turned away from the raid. Stand there. Build threat. Build more threat. Swig your nightly cocoa. Check the stock reports. Because targets of Saber Lash can’t be targeted for Bone Spike Graveyard, that’s all you need to worry about for Marrowgar’s “phase one.”

Regrettably, you do need to move in this fight for his “phase 2,” which makes him considerably less relaxing to offtank than Mother Shahraz (for whom the off-tank(s) could set themselves to auto-attack while parked on top of the main tank and AFK to make a sandwich). As he transitions to phase 2, you will see Marrowgar emote that he’s beginning to spin. That’s your cue to take off in order to avoid his whirlwind damage. Truth be told, getting hit by Bone Storm is not generally life-threatening on the normal version of this encounter (we saw 2K/hit damage), but you should try to avoid it anyway because its heroic brother is considerably more potent. Going cat for this phase for the speed boost (assuming you have Feral Swiftness, and you do have Feral Swiftness, right?) can be helpful, but if Marrowgar has headed your way and you’ve backed yourself into a corner, hit Barkskin and shift to bear.

If it’s toward the end of the phase and he’s going to become tankable soon anyway, you might as well just stay there to pick him up, because he wipes aggro at the end of phase 2 and is also untauntable. Make sure Feral Faerie Fire is off cooldown in the seconds before Marrowgar reverts to phase 1, and ask your hunters for a Misdirect. Continue to keep him turned away from the raid (very important while the raid repositions, so as to keep your buddies out of Saber Lash).

CATS and MOONKIN: This is not a difficult fight to DPS, although you will be required on occasion to split damage between Marrowgar and his Bone Spike Graveyard target(s). Moonkin will be occupied with this more than cats, as ranged DPS will typically be able to reach Graveyard targets faster than melee can. Melee, however, will need to be a lot more careful of Coldflame, as you will have less time to react than ranged. Strafe out of the way the moment you see it spawn. Because Marrowgar has a very large hitbox, you should be able to avoid all of it as long as you’re vigilant.

If you become the target of Bone Spike Graveyard, all you can do is just sit there and wait for your fellow raiders to get you out; I got hit last night and was surprised to see that Barkskin is unusable while you’re trapped there.

Phase 2 advice is roughly the same; stay out of Marrowgar’s way and Barkskin preemptively if you’re likely to get hit. Because Marrowgar wipes aggro after finishing Bone Storm, it’s generally a good idea to time any DoT’s on him to end before he resets. Because Bone Storm lasts 20 seconds, you’ve got time for a fresh Rip/Insect Swarm/Moonfire cycle, but not a reapplication (and cats obviously will not be refreshing any DoT’s on him at any point while he’s whirlwinding). Doing otherwise will give your raid a taste of the phase-transition-aggro-hell that was Leotheras. Give your tank a second or two to get solid aggro on Marrowgar after the aggro reset, and then resume your normal DPS rotation.

Of the two druid DPS specs, moonkin have a much easier time on this fight. The constant interruptions from Bone Storm are not (as you’ve probably already figured out) all that kind to the cat’s John Madden approach.

TREES: Matt Low’s article on healing the Marrowgar encounter is a great general guide. As with tanking and DPSing, this is not a really tough fight, and trees have a significant advantage in their ability to heal effectively on the move. This comes in handy on phase 2 with Marrowgar spinning every which way and most of the raid in motion. The 2K/hit damage is easily healed through by HoTs as long as people aren’t parked in the middle of the whirlwind, and if you want to preempt some of this damage, spend a few seconds applying (or reapplying) Rejuvenations to melee DPS and tanks before Marrowgar goes to phase 2. These players are the most likely to be hit when he ramps up his whirlwind (and you can count on this happening if someone’s not paying attention to the raid warnings), and you can easily Swiftmend someone who panics and runs in the wrong direction.

Roll HoTs on the main tank and off-tanks to keep a steady stream flowing through Saber Lash, strafe out of any incoming Coldflames, heal anyone caught in a Bone Spike Graveyard (think of it as a far less dangerous and non-chaining version of Kel’Thuzad’s Frost Blast), and you’re all set.

With that being said here is the guide, it’s quite a read but it’s worth it

Post updated for patch 3.2.2

Agi – Agility
AP – Attack Power
ArPen – Armorpenetrationrating
BiS – Best in Slot
CP – Combo Point
iLotP – Improved Leader of the Pack
FB – Ferocious Bite
SR – Savage Roar
Str – Strength
TF – Tiger’s Fury

1. Speccing your Cat

Maximum Single-Target DPS: Talent Calculator – World of Warcraft

This spec takes every talent, that increases single target DPS. You’ve got one point left, possibilities could be: 4/5 Furor, 1/2 iLotP or 1/3 Feral Instinct

Maximum AoE-DPS: Talent Calculator – World of Warcraft

This spec only has 5 different points. You’ve got 3/3 Feral Instinct here and 2/2 iLotP. You could aswell take the two points out of iLotP and together with the last left point skill 3/5 Feral Aggression.

Actually Feral Swiftness and Survival Instincts don’t directly increase your damage. But they offer very significant survival tools. Additionaly, both allow you to DPS for a second longer here and there.

2. DPS Rotation

As there is no real rotation, we speak of a “priority list” for cat DPS. Try to follow the following instructions in the given order.

1. Keep up Savage Roar
2. Keep up Mangle
3. Keep up Rake
4. Use shred for CP regeneration (remember, that points 2 and 3 are more important)
5. When at 5 CP and Rip is not up, use Rip
6. When below 30 Energy, use TF
7. Use Clearcast Proccs for Shred
8. When at 5 CP and Rip and SR are running with 8 seconds (might be longer, depending on your gear) or longer each, use FB
9. When Rip and SR will drop at nearly the same time (with less than 3 seconds difference), try to recognize it early. Then use SR with a small amount of CP to desynchronize both timers.
10. Use Berserk only at high energy, (but not higher than 85) not directly after TF and as often as possible. If you will get Hysteria or some boss mechanics will enhance your damage, save it for these situations.

This priority list is quite hard to maintain. Cat DPS is one of the most complicated ones in PvE WoW. Try to remember these rules:

1. Remember: Savage Roar buffs everything; Mangle buffs bleeds and shred; Bleeds buff shred. That means, never shred without applying mangle and at least one bleeding.
2. It doesn’t matter how many CP you use for SR. Just make sure it never drops!
3. Use Rip and FB only with 5 CP
4. It is very tricky to squeeze in FB’s in your rotation. At first you should try to maximize SR, Mangle, Rip and Rake uptime (in this order). When you get more experienced, try to FB more. You need to guess how much time is needed for building up 5 CP’s – this depends on your crit chance. Usually, a FB is worth dropping Rip for 4 Ticks approx (8 seconds). Remember that after using Rip, you need energy for building at least one more CP to refresh SR if necessary.
5. FB is most efficient when used at 35 energy. It gets worse when you spend more, thus making it least efficient when using with 65 energy.
6. A 5 CP FB is always more efficient than a shred, even when used at 65 energy.
7. When using the shred glyph: When rake and rip are about to expire and you could shred to extend the rip duration for 2 more seconds at the cost of letting rake drop for 1-2 seconds – do it.

3. Facts, Stats and Numbers

Assuming all important feral talents and cat form . Numbers in brackets include Blessing of Kings.

Strength
1 Str = 2.37864 AP (2.616504 AP)

Agility
1 Agi = 1.18932 AP (1.308252 AP)
1 Agi = 0.0129744% Crit (0.01427184%)

77.05 (70.07) Agi = 1% Crit

Stamina
1 Sta = 10.812 (11.8932) Health

Critical Strike Rating
1 CritRating = 0.022% Crit
45.91 CritRating = 1% Crit

4.8% of our white Crits will always be converted into white hits against bosses. We can’t reduce our chance to normally hit with white attacks below 4.8%.
Our Critchance with Yellow Attacks is reduced by 4.8% against bosses. But we actually CAN convert all our hits into crits.

76% – White crit cap (+ 24% Glancing Blows = 100%)
79.8% – Ferocious Bite Crit Cap (+ 25% Crit from Talent – 4.8% Crit Suppression = 100%)
104.8% – Yellow Crit Cap (- 4.8% Crit Suppression = 100%)

You have to subtract any avoided attacks from these caps. For example: If 4% of your attacks are avoided due to not reaching the Hit- and/or Expertisecap, then your white crit cap would be 72%.

Haste Rating
1 HasteRating = 0.030% Haste
32.79 HasteRating = 1% Haste

Hit Rating
1 HitRating = 0.030% Hit
32.79 HitRating = 1% Hit

Hit Cap vs lvl 80 targets: 5% Hit = 163.95 HitRating
Hit Cap vs lvl 83 targets: 8% Hit = 262.32 HitRating

Expertise Rating
1 ExpertiseRating = 0.030% less Chance of getting parried or dodged
32.79 ExpertiseRating = 1% less Chance of getting parried or dodged
8.2 ExpertiseRating = 1 Expertise
1 Expertise = 0.25% less Chance of getting parried or dodged

Expertise Cap vs lvl 80 targets: 5% (Dodge) / 5% (Parry) = 20 Expertise = 163.9 Expertise Rating
Expertise Cap vs lvl 83 targets: 6.5% (Dodge) / 14% (Parry) = 26 / 56 Expertise = 213.13 / 459.1 Expertise Rating

Since you should always attack from behind, your target can’t parry. Therefore you only need 26 expertise or 213.13 Expertise Rating.

But every serious Cat skills Primal Precision, which gives 10 Expertise or 81.97 Expertise Rating. So if you skill this talent, your cap will be:

Expertise Dodge-Cap vs lvl 83 targets and with Primal Precision: 16 Expertise = 131.16 Expertise Rating

Armorpenetration Rating
1 ArPenRating = 0.07145% ArmorPenetration
13.9957272 ArPenRating = 1% Armor Penetration
Hard Cap 1399.57272 ArP = 100% of the target’s armor are ignored

So, what stats are important? Generally I hardly advice you to use RAWR or Toskk’s DPSGearMethod. The value of every stat depends on the rest of your gear.

The Value of Hit / Expertise

A question very often asked is, whether we need to be hit or expertise capped. The answer is: No, not with the items available. Hit and expertise scale directly with your DPS. The better your gear gets, the higher the value of Hit/Expertise gets. When in blue gear, both contribute very little to your DPS. With Ulduar BiS, they are quite important, but still not the best stats. The same holds true for T9, although both are more important when you have really good T9 lvl Gear. It is assumed, but still not sure, that we need to be hit and expertise capped in T10 content. Also, there is no such ‘magic threshold’. Both stats always have the same value (as long as below the hard cap), no matter if you have 0% hit, 3% hit or 5% hit.
BUT – for a beginner it could be quite confusing missing a lot. Our DPS priority is already hard enough even without our attacks being dodged. It could mess up the DPS of a beginner, if his hit and/or expertise is too low. If you consider yourself weak at maintain a stable cycle, then more hit/expertise could help to stabilize it.

Topic: Armor penetration rating

Armor is a stat with diminishing returns. Meaning: the more Armor you have, the worse it gets in terms of damage reduction percentage. The first 1000 armor are far more valuable, than the last 1000 armor. That is the reason, that ArPen scales better than linear. When you have only a little bit ArPen, you reduce your target’s armor only a little bit – but we know that the last 1000 armor are not that important. But if you manage to gather more ArPen, you will reduce your target’s armor more and more, which gets more and more valuable.
Short story: ArPen scales better than linear – the more you have, the better each point of it becomes.

At about 400 – 500 ArPen, ArPen becomes the best stat
The exact amount depends on your gear (especially the trinkets). Use RAWR or Toskk to find out, when exactly ArP overtakes Agility. Also remember, that the value of both is very similar at that low lvl of ArP. The difference is extremely small and only gets bigger, when you gather more ArP.
As soon as you can reach these numbers, regemming all Agility gems for ArP gems would improve your DPS.
Our goal is to come as close to the ArP Hard Cap as possible.

And now it’s time for mentioning the two ArP trinkets currently ingame:

[Grim Toll]
[Mjolnir Runestone]

Wearing both trinkets is quite useless since they have a significant shared uptime and then there would be ArP wasted (assuming you’ve got some ArP on your gear). The goal is, to reach the ArP soft-cap. Soft Cap means: you have exactly 100% Armor Ignore when your trinket proccs.

ArP Soft-cap: 735 ArPen, if wearing [Mjolnir Runestone]
ArP Soft-cap: 788 ArPen, if wearing [Grim Toll]

For clarification, I will try to explain this. Let’s say you don’t have one of the two trinkets and x is the ArP on your gear (and with Hearty Rhino, the +40 ArP food buff):

x < 400 -> Agility is the best stat, gem for it
400 < x < 1400 -> ArPen is the best stat, gem for it
1400 < x -> Agility is the best stat, gem for it

Now finally Grim Toll drops off Gothik the Harvester and you are lucky enough to get it!

x < 400 -> Agility is the best stat, gem for it
400 < x < 788 -> ArPen is the best stat, gem for it
788 < x -> Agility is the best stat, gem for it

Just replace your soft-cap with 735, when wearing Mjolnir Runestone instead of Grim Toll.

With high level gear from the T9 content it could be better not to wear neither Grim Toll nor Runestone but instead aquiring a very high amount of passive ArP.

4. Gear

Again, please use RAWR or Toskk. Although neither of both are 100% accurate, it’s probably the best way to determine gear upgrades for you.

Some questions often asked:

Which idol should I wear?
The best Cat Idol is [Idol of Mutilation]. After that, it depends.
If you have to mangle yourself, [Idol of the Corruptor] is BiS for you. If not, then it depends on your ArP. If you are below approx 250 ArP, [Idol of Worship] would be your choice, above that the [Idol of the Ravenous Beast] becomes better. But actually the Rip and Shred idol both grant very similar DPS – the difference is really low.

Which trinkets should I wear?
The [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] is in most gear setups one of the best trinkets. This will not be a useless investment, as it is an extremely good tanking trinket aswell.
In the second slot you should wear one of the two ArP trinkets mentioned above ([Grim Toll] or [Mjolnir Runestone])

How good are our set bonuses?
The 2T7 bonus is very good. Although there are better items in every slot, the bonus outweighs this by far.
The 4T7 bonus is very bad.
The 2T8 bonus is extremely good. You really need to have this.
The 4T8 bonus is about as good as 2T7.
The 2T9 bonus is very good.
The 4T9 bonus is mediocre.

Try to collect 2 T7 items first. Head and shoulder would be the best choice.
If you’re entering Ulduar, your first aim should be to get 2T7 + 2T8, which is VERY good.
If you can choose between 2T7 + 2T8 and 4T8, choose 4T8. You should notice a very small DPS increased, based on the higher iLvl of T8 (the 4T8 bonus is actually of the same value as 2T7).
Similar holds true if you enter Coliseum. 2T8 + 2T9 will be an upgrade to 4T8. And although the 4T9 bonus is worse than the 4T8 one, the higher item level of two more T9 items outweighs this.
But because the 4T9 itself isn’t that good, it’s probably better to wear 2T9 and some offsetpieces instead of 4T9.

5. Professions, Glyphs, Enchants, Gems, Buffs

Professions

Alchemy: +80 Attack power through mixology, when using Flask of endless rage
Blacksmithing: 2 more sockets. Assuming epic ArPen gems, the bonus is 40 ArP.
Enchanting: 2x +40 AP ring enchant. Bonus: +80 Attack Power
Engineering: On use 340 Haste Rating for 12 seconds, 1 min CD. Averages out to 68 Haste Rating. Otherwise you would enchant +20 Agi. Total Bonus: +68 Haste Rating, -20 Agi
Herbalism: 3600 self-heal for 5 seconds, 3 min CD
Inscription: +80 Attack power because of the enhanced shoulder enchant
Jewelcrafting: 3x +34 ArPen gems instead of +20 ArPen. 3*14 = 42 ArP.
Leatherworking: + 80 Attack power because of the enhanced wrist enchant
Mining: + 60 Stamina
Skinning: +40 Crit Rating
Tailoring: Swordguard Embroidery grants 400 AP for 15 seconds, roughly once a minute. This averages out to approx 100 AP. You miss out the +22 Agi for this. Total Bonus: +100 AP, -22 Agi.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs:
1. [Glyph of Savage Roar]
2. [Glyph of Rip]
3. [Glyph of Shred]

Alternatives
4. [Glyph of Mangle]
5. [Glyph of Berserk]

Minor Glyphs:
1. [Glyph of Dash]
2. [Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth]
3. [Glyph of Challenging Roar]

Enchants

Head – [Arcanum of Torment]
Shoulder – Master’s Inscription of the Axe > [Greater Inscription of the Axe]
Back – Swordguard Embroidery > +22 Agi
Chest – +10 Stats
Wrist – Fur Lining – Attack Power > Greater Assault
Hands – Hyperspeed Accelerators > +20 Agi
Legs – [Icescale Leg Armor] or Nerubian Leg Reinforcements
Feet – Icewalker
Finger – +40 AP
Weapon – Berserking > Mongoose > Massacre > Executioner

Gems

There is only one Meta, you always want to have this one activated: [Relentless Earthsiege Diamond]
The [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond] is coming close, but it require 2 Blue gems and this requirement is worse than one yellow + one blue.

Red socket: [Fractured Cardinal Ruby], if you have less than 400 or more than your soft-cap of ArPen, then [Delicate Cardinal Ruby]
Blue socket: [Puissant Dreadstone], if you have less than 400 or more than your soft-cap of ArPen, then [Shifting Dreadstone]
Yellow socket: [Deadly Ametrine]

The Red gems are far superior than the blue ones and better than the yellow ones aswell. Therefore the best you can do is:
Fill every socket with red gems except of one. There you put [Nightmare Tear]. Of course you choose an item with a good Socket bonus, you would otherwise miss if you use the normal red gem instead.

Buffs

You should use a [Flask of Endless Rage] and [Hearty Rhino]. If you are below than 400 ArPen or above your soft-cap for ArPen, then [Blackened Dragonfin] would be your choice.

It’s again hard to tell you, how important each buff is as this depends on your gear. But the order should be roughly the same.

+20% Physical Haste -> Enhancement Shaman (imp. Windfury Totem) or Frost-DK (imp. Icy Talons)
+10% AP -> Blood-DK (Abomination’s Might), MM-Hunter (Trueshot Aura) or Enhancement Shaman (Unleashed Rage)
+Agi / Str -> DK (Horn of winter provides 155 each) or Enhancement Shaman (imp. Strength of Earth Totem provides 178 each!)
-20% target armor -> Debuff applied by Prot-Warrior (Sunder armor) or every rogue (Expose Armor, Finishing move)
+AP -> Warriors (+548 AP when not skilled, +685 when skilled in Commanding Presence) or Paladins (+550 AP when not skilled, +687 when skilled in imp. Blessing of Might)
+4% physical damage -> Debuff applied by Combat Rogues (Savage Combat) or Arms Warrior (Blood Frenzy)
+10% Stats -> Paladins (Blessing of Kings)
+3% Dmg -> BM Hunter (Ferocious Inspiration, their pet buffs this) or Retribution Paladin (Sanctified Retribution)
Traumabot -> Another Feraldruid or Arms warrior applying Mangle/Trauma for you so you can skip it from your DPS Cycle
+3% Crit -> Debuff applied Elemental Shaman (Totem of Wrath affects all targets within 40 yards of the totem), Retribution Paladin (Heart of the Crusader, the Paladin has to judge a single target) or Assassination Rogues (Master Poisoner affects all target that the rogue has poisoned; he can spread this with Fan of Knives)
+ Stats -> Every Druid (Yes, this includes yourself!) through imp. Mark of the Wild
-5% target armor -> Feral and Moonkin Druids (Fearie Fire and Feral Fearie Fire, you can apply this yourself without losing DPS), Hunter (if they have a wrasp as pet) and warlocks (Curse of Weakness would mean a DPS loss for them)
+3% Haste -> Balance Druid (imp. Moonkin Form) or Retribution (Swift Retribution)

Topic: Hysteria

Cats are the best target for Hysteria:

Arms Warrior – Does not stack with Wrecking Crew. Besides, they don’t have strong Cooldowns to blow while Hysteria is up.
Death Knights – A significant portion of their damage is elemental and not physical. Dancing Rune Weapon scales only half with Hysteria, summon Gargoyle doesn’t at all
Enhancer Shamans – A good portion of their damage is elemental. Feral spirit, their Cooldown, is not affected by Hysteria
Fury Warrior – Although all of their damage is physical, they cannot blow their big Cooldown Death Wish with Hysteria, because it doesn’t stack.
Hunter – A good portion of their damage is elemental and their pet wouldn’t benefit from Hysteria.
Retribution Paladins – A very big portion of their damage is elemental.
Rogues – A good portion of their damage is elemental.

Cats benefit by far the most from Hysteria. As long as you are quite close to the top DPS in your raid, try to convince your Blood-DK or your raidleader, that you should get Hysteria!

What VuhDo can do:
1. Display all relevant informations about your raid members
- Life,
- Mana, other types of power
- Debuffs
- Range
- Incoming Heal
- Aggro
- Threat
- HoTs
- Charmed status
- PvP status
- Tooltips (for race, class, level and current location)
- Player Tags (such as afk, disconnected, dead)

2. Casting
- You can heal, decurse, target, assist or focus raid memers with just one click
- You can bind any usable item and any macro to mouse clicks
- You can assign up to 40 mouse click combinations to cast on raid members
- You can assign up to 16 keys to cast when mouse over
- You can automatically fire your trinkets and instant casts whenever cooldown is over
- You can automatically resurrect and decurse players out of combat

3. Set up the raid
- manage main tanks (CTRA/ORA compatible) and personally selected players.
- Setup who is raid lead, assistant and master looter
- Check who is one of the above

4. Buffing
- You can easily keep track of all of your buffs
- You can rebuff automatically chosing the most suitable spell and target
- You can smart buff your raid automatically selecting missing buffs

Special Features:
- Up to 10 independent raid member panels
- Completely free arrangement of raid members: You can move any group to any position in any panel:
You can select to see your groups by class, group number role or any combination.
Easy group arrangement via Drag’n’Drop.
You can additionally setup to display Pets, Vehicles, Main Tanks, private Tanks.
A panel setup wizard lets you setup most common settings with a few clicks
- You can store different skins and arrangements of panels separately
Supported standards / Compatibility:
- CTRA/oRA: Main Tank setup / resurrection monitor
- libHealComm: Incoming heals from other healers
- libSharedMedia: Fonts, Statusbar textures