As a side effect of choosing talents for Bear form Cat form receives substantial improvements to Claw while Shred is almost unchanged. By my calculations the talent improvements to Claw are sufficient to make it preferable to unimproved Shred even when behind the target. Could someone please check my reasoning and let me know if I've missed something obvious?

Claw: Does weapon damage +115 and generates one combo point. Costs 40 energy with Ferocity and the total direct damage is increased by 20% by Savage Fury.
Shred: Does 2.25 times weapon damage +180 and generates one combo point. Costs 60 Energy.
Natural Weaponry can be ignored as the percentage effect on both attacks is identical.
Blood Frenzy, although not a bear form talent, is assumed in order to simplify the calculations (the effect is to make critical hits as valuable for combo points as for the direct damage, so the percentage effect of critical hits is the same for both attacks permitting them to be ignored).
Each combo point is considered to be worth 150 damage, the difference in damage done between each rank of Ferocious bite. Using Rip higher values can be argued for, but that would tilt this calculation further in favour of Claw.

For a Druid with 120 base damage in Cat form:
Claw: 1.2 * Base (144) + 1.2 * bonus (138) + combo (150) = 432 damage per claw or 10.8 damage per energy.
Shred: 2.25 * Base (270) + bonus (180) + combo (150) = 600 damage per Shred or 10.0 damage per energy.

Did you factor in Tiger's Fury? The +40 attack power bonus affects both Claw and Shred, but Shred should multiply it rather than simply adding it.

My first reponse was 'Aha' - Tiger's Fury isn't a skill I'm in the habit (yet) of using except before a Ravage - but with closer examination it's not enough. Tiger's Fury lasts six seconds, so can at most be applied to three claws or two shreds (start at 100 energy, spend 30 on TF, regen 60 during the duration) in addition to six normal attacks. That's an extra 48 (40*1.2) on each claw or an extra 1.2 DPE - net 12 for Claw. Shreds get 90 extra (40*2.25) each, an extra 1.5 DPE - net 11.5. So even with TF Claw comes out ahead for this specific build.

TF's own DPE is (6*40)/30 or 8, plus 1.6 for each Claw I can fit in during the duration, and doesn't need a finisher to get any of the effect. Something I should start using, it's much better than it used to be.

Guess that's what happens when you change Savage Fury to not affect Shred and Ravage.

Interesting find.

In an attempt to level up my theory craft I whipped out the calculator and did some, well, calculations.

In order for claw and shred to have the same damage per energy, your base damage needs to be 226 2/3.

My current average damage in catform is 108.4 in my all purpose gear and 115 if I go all out cat. Granted, my "pure" cat form gear isn't that crash hot, but it gives me a little over 800ap with HotW. I would require over 1500ap to get my base damage up that that level. (I don't have natural weapons though, which would make quite a large differnce in getting these figures.)

Looking at a couple of other scenarioes:

Having both Improved Shred and Savage Fury: Base damage needed to give shred and claw the same efficiency rating is a little over 19. So it's pretty much a given that if you have the talent points invested, shred will give you more bang for your buck.

Having neither Imp. Shred nor Savage Fury: Base damage needed to give the same efficiency is 90. Since that is a very achievable figure, shred is going to be the more efficient attack for people who haven't invested many points in the feral tree.

However I'm not convinced that looking at these abilities in terms of energy efficiency is the right way to go about this. I think we'd be much better severed mapping them in terms of increased DPS than efficiency.

So lets look at the DPS generated using the following assumption: you start with a full energy bar, finish with Ferocious Bite (costing 35 energy) and have a base damage of 120. Given that energy regenerates at a rate of 20 points per 2 seconds, the time required to build 5 combo points is: 2*{(5*cost + 35) - 100}, or (3.5 + c/2) - 10

Claw time = 13.5 seconds, rounded up to 14.
Shred time = 23.5, rounded up to 24.
Improved Shred time = 17.5, rounded up to 18

DPS = (5*Damage + 150) / time
Claw DPS = 138.21 (note that claw gets an additional 10 damage from the 5 left over energy which is used by ferocious bite)
Claw DPS (with Savage Fury) = 155
Shred DPS = 125.42 (shred also gets a bonus 10 damage from FB)
Imp Shred DPS = 167.22 (strangely enough, improved shred also gets 10 extra damage from FB)

Ok, now things get a little strange, and I think I stuffed up my maths. (Hey, it's been about 10 years. ) Attempting to find out at what damage the dps from a savage fury claw combo and a non-improved shred combo equalled out I go 856.3! For the sake of curiosity I plugged the other numbers, and got the following: The DPS from 5 savage fury claws is the same as the dps from 5 improved shreds when your weapon damage is 57.78; and with neither talent is is 234.67. I would really, really appreciate someone with a simple graphing program or more practiced mathamatical skills than mine check these figures, as they seem waaaaaaay to wild and variable to be accurate.

I'd be very interested to hear from our resident rogues on this matter, as I think they would have a more appropriate slant on cat form calculations than us mana crunchers.

Anyways, to sum up: 1) my maths is shaky and really needs to be checked by someone else. (Which is why I haven't posted my works for the dps/weapon damage calculations: I don't want to slant anyone. ) 2) Assuming my maths is correct: claw is indeed vastly supperiour to shred if you don't have improved shred, and 3) if DPS is your goal, improved shred would seem to be an invaluable talent to get.

But, once again, I would really appreciate a second opinion on this. I know I've made a mistake somewhere, I'm just not sure if it's the logic or the maths.

For Rogues and Cat form you'll get the same relative values for skills (which is what you want to know when trying to choose between skills) whether you measure damage per second or per energy point, since energy regenerates at a flat rate. I prefer energy, since that way doesnt require contortions allowing for the initial 100 you should start most fights with. You could also treat it as '10 free seconds of skills'.

Shred does gain in efficiency faster than Claw does as attack power rises.

For me it's almost a moot point - I'm finding bear easier to play than cat, to the point of doing more damage over an instance run when using bear form for damage (with a warrior tanking) rather than cat. I don't need to watch my aggro, I don't need to stack combos and then finish before the mob gets killed, with enough Rage I can hit three targets with Swipe as fast as it cools down, I can Feral charge back into contact after a knockback or if a cloth wearer draws aggro, I get a lot more thorns procs. Much to like.

Thought I'd drag this one up from the depths for a bit of a laugh and to see how the new idol of ferocity affects things.

I went easy on myself this time and just threw a bunch of equations into a graph program and had a look at what came out. If you have the idol and savage fury but don't have improved shred, you don't want to be using shred until you have a base damage in the four hundreds. With improved shred, you only need a base damage of around 60 before it becomes more efficient than a 37 energy SF claw.

Heh I was just going to work this one out myself, but know I don't need to bother.

Something doesn't seem right... Going to run the numbers myself shortly.

Why would using rip tip the balance in favor of claw?

There's still no beating Shred in PvP. When was the last time your claw crit for 800?

That's what I was thinking, but since I invested in Feral Aggression I'm not so sure. I'm starting to think along the lines of ravage + shred, re-shift for energy and claw spam to 5cp. Follow that up with a nice big ferocious bite crit and everything's gravy.

Consistant 2k FB crits are fun!

Rip tips the favor because it - generally - gives more damage per combo point.

(On a side note, I've found the practicality of it to be a little different. For almost all trash you're never getting a 5pt rip to run it's duration. While you can usually get a 2pt rip off quite easily, I've found my aggro builds up pretty quickly doing that so I mostly hold out for FB once the mob drops bellow 20%. Of course, bosses are a different kettle of fish. )

If you could, I'd like to see the numbers you come up with. As I said in the earlier post, my maths is a little shakey so it's entirely possible I stuffed up somewhere. (Although for the graph I used Warlock's maths. )

Yes, but Rip gives the same amount of damage/time weather you built up the combo points with Claw or with Shred, so the only difference is going to be your damage/time while spamming Claw and Shred.

Doing my math right here right now. Semi-distracted by the Tich gossip boards, so pardon my mistakes.

Claw damage = Base + 115
Shred damage = 2.25*Base + 180

I'm ignoring the combo points and the rip/FB damage because, as stated above, it's just going to scale both numbers equally upward, given a mob with enough health to repeat this cycle multiple times (ie a raid boss).

Claw DPS = (Claw damage)/4 = (b +115)/4
Shred DPS = (Shred Damage)/6 = (2.25b + 180)/6
Imp. Shred DPS = (Shred Damage)/4.8 = (2.25b + 180)/4.8

So testing for values of b:

When b=50
Claw = 41.25 DPS
Shred = 48.75 DPS
Imp. Shred = 60.93 DPS

b=100
Claw = 53.75 DPS
Shred = 67.5 DPS
Imp. Shred = 84.375 DPS

b=150
Claw = 66.25 DPS
Shred = 86.25 DPS
Imp. Shred = 107.81 DPS


So far, the argument for claw is looking pretty weak. Shifting repeatedly is going to throw the balance even further in favor of Shred - it's quite easy to time a shift/reshift in between energy ticks so that with furor and the first tick you can shred as soon as the global cooldown has finished. The equations would then both be scaled equally by time, and look something like:

claw = b + 115
shred = 2.25*b + 180
imp. shred = 2.25*b + 180

This doesn't say much for the difference between Shred and Improved Shred (more of a When Things Go Wrong™ talent in this situation, IMO - you can shred again immediately if you miss), but speaks miles about the effectiveness of Shred vs. Claw.

Unfortunately, you forgot to factor in Savage Fury, which would change your maths.

Claw DPS = 1.2(b + 115)/4

So, when b = 50, Claw DPS = 49.5 (vs 48.75 from unimproved shred, and 60.93 from improved shred)
b = 100, DPS = 64.5 (67.5, 84.75)
b = 150, DPS = 79.5 (86.25, 107.81)

Also, by ignoring the damage from combo points you tip the favor towards shred. The logic behind including combo point damage is that claw generates combo points quicker than shred. Assuming 150 damage per combo point, claw gains 37.5 dps from combo (damage/time, or 150/4) points while unimproved shred gains 25 (150/6). While this is a static dps increase, it also increases the "cross-over point" where base damage generates the same dps for both moves.

Not saying I disagree with you, because I don't. Improved shred is definately the best DPS combo maker that a kitty has. However, if you haven't invested in improved shred but have maxed out savage fury then claw may very well generate better dps for you. If you have both talents, it's worthwhile playing around with claw on trash mobs to see which generates more dps.

Duh! Not like that was the point of the thread or anything. My mistake.



Like I stated above, rapid shifting with Furor (and possibly a Wolfshead helm) makes this a moot point. The time it takes to generate combo points with shred becomes the same as the time it takes to generate combo points with claw. Shifting into humanoid form, shifting back to cat and mashing the shred/claw button takes about 2 seconds due to the global cooldown, and is easy to time in between energy ticks, so DPS forumlas begin to look like:

Claw = 1.2(b+115)/2
Shred = (2.25b+180)/2
Imp. Shred = (2.25b + 180)/2

Like I stated before, it really makes less of an argument for Improved Shred (especially with the wolfshead helm), but the talent shines in letting you get a ravage followed immediately by a shred when you open up on a mob/player.