Gunship

The 3rd encounter in ICC, and probably the easiest boss fight, Gunship has both an alliance and a horde component.  Once you go up the elevator (or take the teleporter) after Deathwhisper, you have a choice to go left or right.  Left is for the alliance ship, right is for the horde ship (you go to the ship of the faction you’re apart of).

The Fight:

Prior to the fight, everyone should grab a rocket pack from the goblin, and you should split your raid into 2 teams (explained later). Once that is done, talk to either Saurfang, or Muradin to start the fight.  Once you initiate the fight, a big RP event will happen, and the opposing ship will appear and fly next to your boat. 

Home Boat – This is the boat you start on, you should have 2-4 reliable people manning guns (we use ranged) a good AoE tank, your healers, and your ranged.  The tank will stand in the middle of the boat and collect the adds that will come periodically through the portal that appears there. all ranged will focus adds when they come aboard (watch out for whirlwinds), and when the adds on your ship are down, fire at the mobs close to your side of the boat.  Also on the home ship, you will see areas on the ground that will have a glowing circle type thing, these are areas where rockets will hit from the opposite ship.  It’s best to move out of these if you can help it.

Gunners – On the home boat, you will see 2 cannons on 10 man, 4 on 25.  These should be manned by 2-4 reliable people (Preferably ranged).  The job of the gunners is to damage the opposite boat, which once the boat “dies” the encounter is over.  The guns have 2 abilities, one is a rocket that does an AoE and builds up heat which will appear where your rage / energy / mana bar usually is.  If your heat goes over 100, your gun will stop firing for a few seconds as it cools back down to Zero heat.  On the flip side, the second ability takes the amount of heat your gun has, and adds that as extra damage.  The goal is to get your gun as close to, or at 100, and then fire doing lots of damage.  Also, usually you want to aim your guns at the adds in the back (cannoneers) as they will be shooting at your home boat and usually do not die unless you kill them with a cannon.  When the mage on the away boat comes out, he will freeze the cannon, dismounting the gunners, and will not be unfrozen untill the mage dies.

Away Boat – On this boat, there are 2 major points of interests. First off there will be either Saurfang or Muradin, this mob must be tanked and taken away from your team on that boat, usually towards the edge of the boat closest to the home boat.  The other is a mage that will come out and freeze the guns, all dps needs to be on the mage when they are up.  The mage does not attack anyone, so it does not need to be tanked.  If you are returning to the home boat, you can either rocket back to the home boat, or run off the side, and you will be teleported to your home boat. WARNING!: once the away ship is “dead” if you run off the side, you will fall to your death, to avoid this, you can either jump back while the away ship is exploding…or just stay on that boat, and you will be teleported to the landing area.

Alternate strategy -  Another thing you can do is on the away boat is have a tank, all the dps that will be hitting the mage, and one healer.  Pretty much all the dps will attack the home ship attacking mobs, and when the mage appears, the mage.  The healer will heal the tank that is over on the away boat, and the tank will go towards the back of the ship (where Muradin / Saurfang appears).  All the tank has to do is pick up the boss, and collect as much threat as you can (I usually wait till he gains 2-3 stacks of his buff that increases his damage), and then rocket to the raised area in the back.  The boss will then run up either the ramp (horde boat), or the stairs (alliance boat), once they get close, you jump down, wait for them to run back down to you, and then rocket back up.  The boss will sometimes hit you if you don’t time your jumps right, hence the need for the healer.  With this method, the team that is on the away boat does NOT have to return to the home ship.

Heroic -  The only 2 big differences is the Rockets that hit the home boat now have a knock back and the gunners on the away boat will gain experience faster (does damage the higher levels they have.)

Blood-Queen Lana’thel

Blood-Queen Lana’thel is the final boss in the blood wing.  This fight is a DPS race, along with a slight healer check.

Lady Deathwhisper

Lady Deathwhisper is the second encounter in ICC, the key to this fight is managing adds and spliting your raid between adds and the boss. She starts off with a mana shield that needs to dpsed down, untill that happens, she will spawn adds that needs to be tanked.  Once the shield is destroyed, she is tankable.  I’d advise you use 2 tanks on 10 man, and 3 tanks in 25.

The Fight:

Before the fight starts, you should divide your raid between adds and Lady Deathwhisper.  Lady Deathwhisper has a mana shield around her that must be burned down, till that happens, she will continue to spawn adds.  The right side spawns 2 adherents and 1 fanatic, the left side spawns 2 fanatics and 1 adherent.  The backside, if you’re in 25 in normal or heroic (or 10 man in heroic), will spawn one add, it could be either a fanatic or an adherent.

Adherents are the caster add.  They have a shadowbolt attack, and a spell reflect they put on themself that must be broken through melee attacks.  They also have a curse that increases cooldowns by 15 seconds, so this must be decursed as soon as possible.

Fanatics are the melee adds, they have a cleave, can heal for damage they inflict, and also have an attack that applies a debuff that absorbs healing.  So, make sure healers are on top of your heals to pop that debuff off, and make sure you face the adds away from your raid.

Usually, we put our melee on the right side since there are 2 adherents and they have a spell reflect that they apply to themself. On the left side, we put casters and have them nuke the adherent first so that they cant apply the spell reflect. The back add should either be picked up by a tank, or killed by a predetermined team, we usually use our hunters.

Lady Deathwhsiper will occasionally cast Dark Martyrdom or Dark Empowerment on adds.  Dark Martyrdom will explode the add, they will then become reanimated.  Reanimated adherents will require physical classes to attack them, whereas reanimated fanatics will need magic casters on them.  Dark Empowered adds will increase in damage, and also lose threat once they are empowered and will be needed to be re-established.

Lady Deathwhisper herself will also cast death and decay on random people and you would have to move out of that AoE, along with random shadowbolts.  In 25 (and 10 man heroic) she will mind control 1 person, (3 in 25-heroic) so make sure you CC them and are cautious with your AoE damage, if they are MCed in a group while you’re downing adds, you run the risk of killing them.

After the mana shield is broken, she can be tanked.  If you have rogues and hunters, you should have them use their aggro transfering skills on your tank to establish aggro.  In this phase she gains 3 new abilities, she has a frostbolt that can be interrupted (and should be, it hurts), she summons ghosts that will target someone and explode when they get into melee range of their target (doing AoE damage when they explode), and she applies a debuff called Touch of Insignificance which stacks up to 5 and reduces the target’s threat 20% per stack.  In normal mode, she can be taunted, however, in heroic mode, she cannot.

Heroic -  In 10 man heroic, one person will be MCed throughout the fight, she cannot be taunted in the tanked phase, and she still summons one add in the back.  In 25, along with not being tauntable, she MCs 3 characters, and summons 3 adds from sides that alternate after each wave.

Abilities:

Phase 1:

Mana Barrier – This is her mana shield that you must destroy to get into her phase 2.

Shadow Bolt - Lady Deathwhisper targets a random person and shoots at them.

Death and Decay – Lady Deathwhisper drops a green Death and Decay on the ground, dealing damage every second you’re in it’s radius. Lasts 10 seconds.

Dark Empowerment - Empowers a random adherent, causing them to deal area damage with spells. Also makes the target immune to interrupts.

Phase 2:

Frostbolt – Lady Deathwhisper attacks her primary target for a large amount of damage.  Can be, and should, be interrupted.

Death and Decay - Lady Deathwhisper drops a green Death and Decay on the ground, dealing damage every second you’re in it’s radius. Lasts 10 seconds.

Touch of Insignificance – Reduces target’s threat generation by 20% per stack.  Stacks up to 5.

Summon Vengeful Shade – Summons ghosts that will explode, dealing AoE damage when they reach their target.

Feral Tips:

Bear

• If you’re tanking, try to become the OT, this will open you up to do more damage.  Usually I take the backside add in 25 and the OT for Lady once her bubble pops.  While you’re not tanking, in Phase 1, you should join the melee side on the right, and in Phase 2, when you’re waiting for your debuff to fall off, you should turn into a cat and dps lady deathwhisper.

• If you DO take the back add, if you get a fanatic, take him to the left side and make sure you’re careful of cleaving the other tank and raid while you’re dragging him through.  If you get the adherent, take him to the right, try to target  another adherent on that side and feral charge them to stop a cast.  After you charge them, duck behind one of the pillars and line of sight them till they are in the group and charge back in there.

Lord Marrowgar is the first boss in ICC and one of the easier bosses, on both normal and heroic.  In 10 man, this boss requires only 2 tanks in both normal and heroic modes, where as the 25 requires 2 on normal and 3 on heroic.  As far as healers go, we usually run 2 on 10 man, and 6 on 25.

The Fight:

When you start this fight, the tanks need to stack up so that the cleave he does can be split between them.  Everyone else needs to stack up behind Marrowgar, in melee range, with only hunters on the outside, but still behind.  Marrowgar will target someone and place a strip of flame on the ground that will deal damage to anyone in it’s path.  With everyone stacked up, the only people that would have to move would be tanks and hunters.  Tanks should coordinate the way they will move before the encounter.  We usually go right 3-4 times, then go to the right to the first open spot, and continue to go right untill bonestorm. 

Also while Marrowgar is not bonestorming, he will choose 1 person in 10 man, and 3 people in 25 man to bone spike.  Bone spike does initial damage, along with an extra 10% health every second untill it’s destroyed.  These must be destroyed as soon as possible.

While bonestorm is going, the closer you are towards his center, the more damage you take, so make sure that you dont stand in the middle of his hit box.

About 6-8 seconds before bonestorm, we usually have everyone except for tanks spread out.  During bonestorm, Marrowgar will target someone, and speed towards them, and then stop where they were when he targeted him.  After20 seconds in normal(30 seconds in heroic), he will stop bonestorming and can be tanked again.  At this time tanks should stack up again, and as the rest of the raid moves back into melee range.

Heroic – In heroic mode, other than him hitting harder, only 2 things change.  The flames he puts on the ground last 8 seconds instead of 3.  Secondly, he will continue to bone spike while bonestorming.  With the addition to the extra bone spikes, the raid should make sure that ranged should still spread out, but make sure they dont stand near the spikes, only 1-2 melee should be near a spike while they’re up.

Abilities:

Bone Slice - This is Lord Marrowgar’s cleave attack, it will hit his target, and up to 2 nearby allies.

Cold Flame – This is the strip of fire he throws towards a targeted player during the tanking phase, this lasts 3 seconds (8 in heroic)

Bone Spike Graveyard – A casted spell that will impale 1 person (3 in 25 man) that will deal initial damage, and then an additional 10% every second before it’s destroyed.

Bone Storm – Deals damage to everyone to the raid every 2 seconds, the closer to the center of his hit box you are, the more damage you’ll recieve.

Feral Tips:

Bear

•  If you are MTing, make sure that you pop berserk in the beginning after your first lacerate and then spam mangle and maul, this will help your initial threat so that your raid can lay into him right off the bat.  This will also allow your raid to pop Bloodlust (Heroism) at the start without the worry of losing threat.
• Marrowgar’s hit box is extremely large, so while he is bonestorming, you can reapply your lacerates with ease without taking very much damage.

Cat

• Since everyone is stacking up, you can use swipe when bones spike happens, the only spikes you should not be able to hit would be the ones that are applied to hunters.
• Marrowgar’s bonestorm is an AoE, so if you’re talented into Preditory Instincts (which you should be if you’re a cat.), you’ll take 30% less damage from it, so you can stay at the edge of his hit box, and mangle / reapply bleeds without having to worry too much about your health.

PLEASE NOTE: When Cata comes out, our rotation will change quite a bit.

Trash / Multiple Mobs:

Trash. Nothing is more annoying, but it’s gotta be taken out (Get it? ). Now, there are two ways trash comes in; Patrols, and stationary groups. Both are usually pulled the same way, but patrols sometimes sneak up on you. When they do, you can’t start the way I like to, with a Faerie Fire.

Stationary:

1. Faerie Fire your main target.
2. Get up to the group, position yourself so that you’re facing majority of your enemies, and won’t break CC.
3. Swipe
4. If you have an Idol that increases agility, or AP with Mangle, use mangle now.
5. If you’re not rage starved, spam Maul (should be glyphed so you hit 2 targets) along with spamming Swipe. (Please note that while you’re Mauling, you might want to tab to other mobs so that you build major threat on those as well.)

For mobs with quite a bit of health, when you start your your Maul spam, Lacerate the mobs you’re holding one time each.  This will increase the amount you’re Mauling for due to Rend and Tear.  Also, if you catch a patrol while you’re still tanking a previous group, you should probably skip step 1, and move right to Swipe spam.  We skip step 1 because of healer / dps aggro if the patrol is off to the side and aren’t effected by your Swipe / Maul.

Single Target / Bosses:

1. Pull with Faerie Fire.
2. While still getting in position, Mangle (Mangle is your instant snap aggro move, this will also give you the added Agility / AP if you have those types of Idols.)
3. Lacerate once (This makes Maul hit harder due to Rend and Tear.)
4. If the fight has no fear effects, activate Berserk, and continue spamming Mangle, along with Maul.
5. Once Berserk expires (or the fight includes fears), start Lacerating while Mauling.  Mangle when it’s off cooldown.

Once you achieve 5 stacks of Lacerate, you get into a juggling act.  First off, don’t ever let Lacerate fall.  Second, Mangle every time that it’s up.  If Lacerate is far from expiring, and Mangle is on cooldown, Swipe.  While doing all of these, remember to Maul.

Tips:

There are a few things that I see tanks often doing that just makes things turn south.  All of them are easily solved, just have to keep calm, and think about what you’re doing.

First off, positioning is a pretty big thing for us, it used to be even bigger before they made Swipe a 360° move.  None the less, you need get as many mobs with your initial Swipe, and the following Swipes as well.

Glyph of Maul.  I have no idea how I can stress this glyph any more, but this glyph is huge.  Being able to Maul two targets is HUGE for threat generation on multiple mobs.

Never pull using anything anything other than Faerie Fire or Feral Charge along with Swipe spam.  I have no idea how many tanks pull with Taunt, which is a huge waste, along with not creating any real threat. (Faerie Fire now does quite a bit of damage and threat, along with making your following attacks hit harder due to lowering the target’s armor by 5%).

While we’re on the topic of Taunting, don’t EVER Taunt unless you’ve lost threat on that target.  Taunting any other time is a complete loss.  Taunting builds NO threat, and when your dps actually DOES pull, guess what, you just put your Taunt on cooldown, and the person that pulled will probably die, which means you’re not protecting your party.

Rend and Tear.  This talent helps quite a bit with threat.  Maul is your big threat generate along with Mangle.  While you can’t always spam Mangle, you keep Maul going.  So if you do have talent points in Rend and Tear (you should anyway) remember to Lacerate atleast once before starting up your Mauls.

If you encounter a fight that you seem to be losing threat, especially at the very start, pop Berserk right after you Faerie Fire, and apply one Lacerate.  Then spam Maul and Mangle untill Lacerate has to be reapplied.  Once Berserk has expired, continue with the normal rotation.

Please note: The following lists are in order from what I’d believe is most important to least.

Potions:

• Crazy Alchemist Potion *Requires 400 Alchemy!* (3100-3500HP + Random potion effect)
• Runic Health Potion (2700-4500HP)
• Any resistant potion (I.E. Indestructible Potion (3500 Armor for 2 minutes) or any potion that absorbs any amount of spell damage)
• Powerful Rejuvination Potion (2475-4125HP)

The reason I selected the Crazy Alchemist Potion for the top slot is because of the higher low number compared to the other two health type potions, plus it gives something extra.  Sometimes it can be armor, sometimes speed, both beneficial, and according to my research, the only ill effect that can come from the potion is the effects of potion of nightmares which will put you asleep.  However, this seems to only happen out of combat.  Also, for the resistant potions, these wont be used very often, and I personally like the instant health than the damage to be absorbed.  As of right now, the only fights I can see where resistance plays a role are possibly Sartharion with 3 drakes up, Hodir, and Sindragosa (though I have done all these fights even on heroic without resistance increases).

Flasks:

• Flask of Stoneblood (Max health increased by 1300)
• Flask of Endless Rage (180AP)

Flasks are pretty easy.  Usually, since you are a tank, you will be using Flask of Stoneblood for the increased health of course.  However, if you find that you’re in a fight that you’re not making the enrage timer for, or find that you lose aggro quite often, I’d try the Flask of Endless Rage.

Elixirs (Guardian):

• Elixir of Mighty Fortitude (Max health increased by 350HP + 20HP5)
• Elixir of Protection (800 Armor)
• Elixir of Mighty Defense (45 Defense)

The Elixir of Mighty Fortitude is on top because flat out there are more fights that have more sources of damage other than physical, so having an overall higher health pool will help you with 100% of the fights.  However, there are still those fights that are physical damage heavy, and the extra armor will do just as well.  Elixir of Mighty Defense was put on the list solely for the purpose because you can still get a little bit of Dodge / miss from it (About 0.4%) and that it should be the last resort as you should already be defense capped through the talent Survival of the Fittest!

Elixirs (Battle):

• Guru’s Elixir ( +20 to all stats)
• Elixir of Mighty Agility (45 Agility)
• Elixir of Major Agility  *Outlands recipe* (30 Agility + 12 Crit Rating)
• Elixir of Deadly Strikes ( +45 Crit Rating)

Battle elixirs are a little more tough to select.  I’d say always go for Guru’s Elixir if you have it available, you’ll be getting more health, dodge, crit, armor, and Attack Power.  Also, the two agility elixirs I’d say would be neck and neck, however, I believe you’d get more out of the Elixir of Mighty Agility just due to raid buffs and such. Elixir of Deadly Strikes also is included just for the fact of Savage Defense, so that’s pretty much equivilant to 0.98% chance to absorb 25% of our AP.  If you find that you’re missing or getting parried / blocked often, you might want to try Elixir of Accuracy (+45 Hit Rating) or Elixir of Expertise (+45 Expertise Raiting).

Food:

• Blackened Dragonfin ( + 40 Agility, + 40 Stamina)
• Spiced Wyrm Burger (+40 Crit Raiting, + 40 Stamina)
• Hearty Rhino (+40 Armor Pen + 40 Stamina) (2.6% Armor pen)
• Fish Feast / Poached Northern Sculpin (80AP, +40 Stamina)

With food and tanking, the biggest thing you’re wanting to be conserned with is the stamina.  Usually with any raiding party, you’ll have someone dropping Fish Feasts and those are super, you get extra AP so more absorption when you crit (along with helping threat), and 40 stamina.  Blackened Dragonfin of course is at the top, because of how much Agility brings to the table in terms of survivability. Hearty Rhino will also help you a little with your aggro as you will hit the mobs harder, in turn creating more threat.  And again, as with the battle elixirs, if you find yourself missing or getting parried / dodged quite often, try the Expertise food (Rhinolicious Wormsteak) or Hit foods (Snapper Extreme / Worg Tartare).

Please Note:  I am including every glyph that effects an ability you would use at a bear, even if it’s not useful, so that you don’t waste your money and time on a worthless glyph.

MAJORS

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration:  This glyph increases healing done to you while having Frezied Regeneration up by 30%.  As a tank, extra healing power equals you living longer most of the time, and usually if you have popped this ability, you’re in trouble, so anything that will extend the duration of you living is always a plus.  This is even more powerful if you actually have healers that do what they are supposed to and have HoTs ticking on you at all times, as this will increase their effects as well, but none the less, if you have a disc Priest or a holy Paladin just booming their cast heals into you, it is still pretty effective.

Glyph of Mangle:  Now that this glyph increases mangle damage by 10%, it’s not a terrible glyph.  It’ll help your soloing, and also, help you with threat.

Glyph of Barkskin:  This glyph reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 25% while barkskin is active.  Again this glyph is pretty awful for bears  As any feral druid, you should spec into Survival of the Fittest; not only does it increase all of your stats, and increases armor, but it also makes you over defense cap, and being defense cap, YOU WILL NEVER BE CRIT WITHOUT A DEBUFF ON YOU.  Now, if you do happen to have a debuff on you that reduces your defense you should always have an off tank ready to taunt off you.  The only time this would be of any use for a bear is if your offtank goes down and you have a decrease defense buff, you could probably sit through it, but there are so few mobs that have that ability that you can use better glyphs no doubt.

Glyph of Berserk:  This glyph increases the duration on Berserk by 5 seconds.  Berserk as you all should know, for bears, eliminates the cooldown of mangle completely for the duration of Berserk, and also allows you to Mangle three adjacent mobs (You can also increase the damage done while in Berserk if you spec into King of the Jungle.)  For bear, as for cat, I cant see this being very viable for PvE.  Berserk is a nice to burst your threat, or nuke mobs, but an extra 5 seconds is only going to buy you about 3 Global cooldowns of Mangle, which by my standards, just isn’t cutting it.  Just the uptime that you’d be using this should be a turn off,  if you pop this ability every time it is up in an hour that would be an extra minute and a half-ish of Berserk.

Glyph of Survival Instincts:  This glyph increases the amount of health you get when you use Survival Instincts by 15% of your maximum health, making you Survival Instincts grant you 45% instead of just 30% of your max health.  This glyph is HUGE.  Survival Instincts and Barkskin have saved me so many times in encounters that we have to have a cooldown rotation between myself and my healers (examples: 3D Sarth, Mimiron).  Being able to increase the cusion that your healers have to keep you up is amazing.  Just to give you some numbers, back in Ulduar, with Kings, Imp Mark of the Wild, and Fort, I had around 41k health.  Popping Survival instincts unglyphed: 53,300hp  Glyphed: 59,450hp, so for me it’s a gain of 7,150hp during that time.

Glyph of Growl:  This glyph increases the chance of your Growl to hit by 8%.  This glyph is pretty useful since taunting can save your group.  A lot of tank gear does not have hit, so you have quite a bit of hit to make up to be capped (17% / 16% with a Draenei).  Good thing to note, a lot of the trash / bosses in Ulduar, ICC have tank switching mechanics, so being able to have your Growl hit every time, it makes things go a lot more smooth.

Glyph of Maul:  This glyph allows you to hit an extra mob with Maul.  This glyph is A MUST HAVE.  This will help you a ton keeping aggro on trash and multiple boss mobs.  The only thing you have to really worry about is keeping away from CCed mobs, as it will break it if it hits it.

MINORS

Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth:  This glyph allows you to use Rebirth without a reagent.  This is extremely useful so that you never have to exuse “I forgot my nuts!”, and you have a few places free in your bags because you no longer have to carry the reagent around.

Glyph of the Wild:  This glyph lowers the mana cost of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 50%.  Not a super strong glyph, but it makes things move faster after a wipe or if someone dies and you rebirth them and need to apply the buff to them without the hastle of drinking, or waiting for mana to regen.

Glyph of Thorns:  This glyph increase the duration of Thorns by an extra 50 minutes when applied to yourself, (increasting the duration to an hour.)  The extra damage helps a ton to keep aggro, so this is always nice to put on yourself, and with the extra time, you wont have to keep applying it to yourself.

Glyph of Challenging Roar:  This Glyph reduces the cooldown of your Challenging Roar by 30 seconds. Challenging Roar is a 3 minute ability, so this glyph reduces it to a 2.5 minute cooldown.  I personally do not use Challenging Roar often, but if you seem to use this ability often, I would pick this up.

My Personal Picks:

Majors:

• Glyph of Maul
• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
• Glyph of Growl

 Glyph that almost made the cut:

Glyph of Growl:  Only use this if you find yourself missing quite a bit, I have a bit of hit, so this isn’t as useful as it once was.

Minor:

• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth
• Glyph of Thorns
• Glyph of the Wild

If you do find yourself wanting the Challenging Roar glyph, I’d replace Glyph of the Wild with Glyph of Challenging Roar.

MAJORS

Glyph Of Shred:  This glyph refreshes your Rip for an extra two seconds each application of Shred for an extra addition of six seconds.  For all of you keeping score at home, you’d need to Shred three times to get all six seconds, and those six seconds equal three additional Rip ticks. In addition to that, you have to be behind your target for this to be efficient (So, for example, if your tank is horrible at positioning on fights like, lets say Heigan and you have to stay infront of him or else you’ll get killed by the fissures, this is not the glyph for you.)

Glyph Of Mangle:  Now increases damage done by Mangle by 10%.  Not something I’d get for endgame, however, it would be useful for soloing.

Glyph of Rip:  This glyph increases the durration of your rip ability by four seconds. So, an additional two ticks of Rip.  The nice thing about this you don’t need to use extra energy for the extra time on Rip like Glyph Of Shred does, and also, you do not have to be behind your target.  The down side is, you get one less tick.  All in all, very nice Glyph to have because it’s a for sure 2 ticks, where as with Glyph Of Shred, you might miss a shred, and therefore possibly losing the effect if Rip wears out.

Glyph  Of Berserk:  This on not too PvE in my book, yeah, it’s an extra five seconds of berserk, so 50% less energy per move, and you can’t be feared which means higher dps on a boss that can fear.  But I think you’d possibly get more out of the other glyphs.  The only thing I can see this viable for is Arena or PvP in general to avoid from using trinket or nuking a priest / warlock when they panic and fear.

Glyph Of Savage Roar:  This glyph increases the damage you do by 3% while Savage Roar is up.  Extrodinary in my book, 3% might seem like a whole lot, but over time, it’ll add up.  Especially effective since Savage Roar should ALWAYS be up, or else you’d be losing a lot of DPS.

Glyph of Rake: Honestly, the worst cat Glyph out there, This glyph stops any mob from running away as long as Rake is on them.  Kinda poor considering that nothing in instances after Outlands runs away anymore.  I’d highly stay away from wasting a spot or money on this.

MINORS

Minor glyph wise, there really isn’t a whole lot to choose from.  I also tend to keep the same minor glyphs for booth my cat and bear form specs.

Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth: This glyph allows you to use Rebirth without a reagent.  This is extremely usefull so that you never have the excuse “I forgot my nuts!”, and you have a few places free in your bags because you no longer have to carry the reagent around.

Glyph of the Wild: This glyph lowers the mana cost of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 50%.  Not a super strong glyph, but it makes things move faster after a wipe or if someone dies and you rebirth them and need to apply the buff to them without the hastle of drinking, or waiting for mana to regen.

Glyph of Thorns: This glyph increase the duration of Thorns by an extra 50 minutes when applied to yourself, (Increasing the duration to an hour.)  the Extra damage from this is actually a lot better for being a bear, but in cat, if you’re soloing, or accidentally pull aggro, you still get extra damage in.

Glyph of Dash: This glyph reduces the cooldown of Dash by 20% making dash available every 2 minutes and 24 seconds (knocking off 36 seconds).  Can’t really see the utility as a cat other than maybe long fights with lots of movement, or for travel for leveling.

Glyph of Aquatic Form:  Increases the speed of which you swim while in Aquatic Form.  Not very useful as there really arent any instances, except for Coilfang instances, that have water.  Possibly usefull for leveling and that’s about it.

My personal picks:

Major:

• Glyph of Rip
• Glyph of Savage Roar
• Glyph of Shred

Minor:

• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth
• Glyph of Thorns
• Glyph of the Wild

1. Always make sure that you’re behind your target if you can help it!
2. Always keep Savage Roar up.
3. Always keep up Feral Faerie Fire.
4. Always keep Mangle up.
5. Always keep Rip up (only 5 combo point rips, nothing less)
6. Always keep Rake up.
7. If all the above are applied, Shred.
8. If all the combo point required moves above have 9 seconds or more left, Ferocious Bite.

With all of that said, my personal rotation goes a little like this:

• Get in position
• Feral Faerie Fire
• Mangle
• Savage Roar (gives me 14-19 seconds depending on if I’ve crit or not.)
• Rake
• Shred till I have 25 or less energy
• Tiger’s Fury (for 60 extra energy as I am speced into King of the jungle, and extra damage is always good!)
• Shred till 5 points
• Rip

usually after, or right before you do a combo move, you’ll have to reapply rake, though if it’s before the combo move, make sure that you do it for the last two combo points if you can help it.  If you applied it afterwards, use whatever combo points you get from that rake, and build up to 5 with shreds.  After you’ve attained 5 combo points, look at your buffs, if Savage Roar and Rip have 9+ seconds left, Ferocious Bite.  Also a good rule of thumb to follow is to do two combo point moves and Savage Roar when reapplying (only use one combo move for the initial application), and Always use a 5 point combo for Rip or FB (Only exception is FB on a mob close to death, than just go to as many as you think you can before it dies.)

Side Note: My current Cat spec / Projected glyphs that I’d take are found here. (An indepth look into Glyphs and Talents are to come soon!)

A few thing that might need to be cleared up:

Mangle: Make sure this is appied before any bleeds are applied or you shred, as it does increase their damage and only needs to be applied every 60 seconds.

Rake: Not as strong as any of the other moves you can do initially, but the bleed is still powerful (especially on those mobs that have high armor, as bleeds are not effected by armor reduction.) And anytime you can do damage while continuing your rotation is most certainly a gain.

Feral Faerie Fire: Quite a few druids of all specs forget to apply this, and it’s a shame, I personally apply this while I’m getting in position since it’s the only ranged move I can do as a cat.  Also, this will increase not only your damage, but everyone in your party that relies on physical attacks.

Tiger’s Fury: With the changes that were applied in Wrath of the Lich King, this should almost be activated every time it is up.  The only exception is if you’re speced into King of the Jungle, as it gives you 20/40/60 energy back instantly when activated (Along with the extra damage Tiger’s Fury already gives!) If you’re speced into King of the Jungle, you should most definitely wait till you have 25 or less energy.

Savage Roar: Every move that you do while this is up (except for the initial move to gain the combo points to apply it), you’re losing dps, and a lot of it.  So almost at all costs, make sure that this is up.

Rip: This is now our bread and butter Sustained damage over long fights now that it can crit.  If Savage Roar and Mangle are applied (if mangle was not applied or is wearing out, you should probably reapply it getting points to either Savage Roar or Rip) you should rip.

Ferocious Bite: This is our big burst damage.  This is kinda the filler between Savage Roars and Rips so that your combo points don’t go to waste.  When this move crits, it’s awesome, when it doesn’t, not so much. Armor pen makes this move really shine.

Berserk: This was one ability that I did not cover as it is very situational and you have to talent into it.  I personally don’t see a situation where either a cat or a bear druid would not pick this up, but I’ve seen it before.  Pretty much though, you get 15 seconds of abilities being 50% energy cheaper, so this is a MAJOR dps boost.  As I said though, it’s situational, If you know the fight is going to last longer than 3 minutes, activate it early. Warning!: Tiger’s Fury cannot be activated while Berserked so always apply Tiger’s Fury first if you need the extra energy!  If it’s shorter, wait till that clinch moment that everyone has to burst a certain mob down, or if the boss has a percentage enrage (see Patchwerk and Maexxena).  Also some people like to pop it when the group Bloodlusts (or Heroism for all you Alliance people out there. ).  I personally like to use it after the initial Savage Roar and after Tiger’s Fury, or after the Bloodlust, and after Tiger’s Fury if it is up.

Even with how hard it seems, it’s quite simple to keep everything you need applied up almost all the time. Also, if there are any questions with this, or any of the posts I make, please, feel free to comment, and I can try to help answer them as best as I can.

Now on to some trash talk! ( get it?) Trash is all about doing a bunch of damage really fast, which is perfect for cat druids because we deal our damage in bursts for the most part.  Trash usually doesn’t have high health, and you have a lot of people doing AoE’s like yourself, so there isn’t much time to really establish a complex rotation.  So, first thing to do is get in position. 

Being that swipe is our only AoE that we have, you want to get where you’re behind the middle most mob, and turn your character so that you’re facing the most mobs nearest to you.  I know this is kinda like a “Duh!” statement, but I don’t know how many druids forget good positioning.  Also, wait for your tanks to establish aggro.  Another fault that I see a lot of cats have is they will see the tanks pull one of the mobs, Feral Charge in, and start their rotation.  This will most likely lead to your death, and ultamately lead to you having lower dps.  So, with that said, getting positioned without the help of Feral Charge helps give your tanks a few extra seconds that might be vital for your survival.

Secondly, you need to get Savage Roar up as quickly as possible, and to do that, you’ll need combo points.  As you can tell from the tool tip on Savage Roar, it’s ability lasts longer the more combo points you have.  How many points you hold out for depends on how quickly your group clears trash, but for the most part, you should be able to get by on one or two (If you are speced into Primal Fury and crit).  Now to get these points are up to you, I usually go for Rake, It’s cheap, and I get extra damage from the bleed while I’m swiping.  Although a Mangle will do the trick as well, and it does a bit of burst just incase you’re killing something that dies before a few ticks of your bleed goes off.  Once you land that first blow, be it Rake or Mangle, you need to hit Savage Roar.

Side note: If you have not speced into King of the Jungle, this would be the time you would hit Tiger’s Fury for extra damage on the next step.

Once Savage Roar is applied, the fun begins.  You need to start Swiping.  You should be able to get one off after landing Rake/Mangle, and Savage Roar unless you’ve speced into Clearcasting, and it has proced, then you get another Swipe in.  Once you cannot swipe again, you have two choices, you can either wait for enough energy to regenerate to swipe again.  Or, if you’re speced into King of the Jungle, you can activate Tiger’s Fury and gain energy (up to 60 energy) and some extra damage on your next swipe.  However, after you activate that, unless you get a Clearcasting proc, or 30 seconds have gone by (and you dont have the tier 7 set bonus to reduce the cooldown of Tiger’s Fury to 25 seconds), you’ll have to wait for the energy to regenerate, and by that time, your mobs could be dead.

Once the pull thins down to one mob, chances are they are almost dead, so you cant quite start up a standard single mob rotation and have to do as much damage before they die.  So again you’re faced with one of two choices that I see, and that is either Mangle and then Shred them to death (Mangle increases the damage of Shred), or you can just Mangle spam till it dies.  Rake does low initial damage, and the bleeds might not make up for the damage of Mangle and Shred by the time the mob dies, and your other abilities for the most part require combo points you may not have to equal the damage you could do with the two abilities mentioned above.

Side Note: Some people might say it might be better to Mangle one time and then Ferocious Bite(FB), but with one or two combo points, you would have to crit, and hope for the high end of the damage range on FB to equal the damage that you could easily do with Mangle or Shred.

Below is a flow chart that I usually run through my head for trash, and it might be useful for someone so I’ve decided to post it. (Also, I’ve never seen a rotation as a flow chart and thought it would be fun. )

Another Side Note: For the chart below to be 100% accurate you need to be talented into all energy reduction talents, King of the Jungle for the 60 energy when Tiger’s Fury is used, and also Clearcasting.