I Killed A Dragon, And Learned Something New
So, you’re runnin’ around in ful feral glory, rocking a bearcat spec, dpsing in the best kitty gear you’ve been able to get your hands on. The 3.1 patch is still somewhere over the horizon and thanks to your abysmal gold-making abilities you’ve barely got enough for regular raiding, so constant re-specs are unheard of.
You’re nowhere near the top of the damage meters and, while leagues ahead of your DK and Warrior tank-offtank counterparts, you still wish you could eke out more DPS.
I made one change in my rotation last night that netted me approximately 300 extra damage per second.
I switched from casting Savage roar on five combo points to casting it on three.
My previous combo point rotation was:
5 cp – Savage Roar
2-3 cp – OOE – Tiger’s Fury
finish up to 5 cp – Rip
5 cp – Savage Roar
5 cp – WAY OOE – Rip falls off, Rip
OOE is out of energy. I’ll end up using Tiger’s Fury, depending on crits, somewhere either before my first Rip of shortly after. That helps get me up to 5 CP again to refresh Savage Roar (which is only about halfway ticked down, but if I don’t refresh it then it’ll fall off entirely)
Then, by the time my Rip is ticking down dangerously low I’m OOE again and have been for quite some time. It’s all I can do to keep Rake and Mangle up with the energy available, let alone squeeze in Shreds. Inevitably, by the time I make it to 5 combo points again Rip has fallen off and my DPS has taken a hit as a result.
Last night I switched things up a bit.
3 cp – Savage Roar
5 cp – Rip
3 cp – Savage Roar
OOE – Tiger’s Fury
5 cp – Rip
3 cp – Savage Roar
5 cp – OOE – Rip
3 cp – Savage Roar
Still OOE – Tiger’s Fury
During the build-up of Combo Points for the third Rip I found myself going OOE again, but since I had cast Savage Roar on 3 cp before instead of 5 I had a cushion of time to wait for my energy to regen and by the time I had 5 combo points I was in plenty of time to refresh Rip without it falling off.
If I get a chance I’d like to try to test these two variations in the rotation against a dummy. I’m thinking 3 minutes of DPS-time for each test, self-buffed, and without using Berserk.
