Here's a quick pass:
The 3 kara/pre-kara guides are now useless. Druidwiki and Be Imba are not yet updated for WotLK, though both promise to eventually.
Bear form
- What stats?
Focus on Armor and Stamina first. Once at safe level, start adding Agility. Any other mitigation stats are fine, as long as you don't prioritize them over the three first ones.
Safe levels are roughly (raid buffed) 15k Health and 26K Armor for Karazhan, and 20K Health and 30K Armor for SSC/TK level raids. Those are not obviously upper limits.
I don't know if a full discussion on armor is suitable for an FAQ, but you should somehow convey the fact that leather no long has bonus armor and non-leather gear will not benefit from the bear armor multiplier in 2 or 3 weeks. Of course, going for high armor gear in all slots will probably gear you up reasonably well, but it's less important than before. Also, your health and armor milestones are obviously out of date. If you're interested in some anecdotal pre-raid stats I had around 28k armor and 26k health self-buffed when first entering 10-man Naxx/Obsidian Sanctum (30k armor and health fully raid-buffed), though after clearing 2 1/2 wings I would certainly not recommend waiting until those values to start raiding. With competant raiders I would guess that 24k armor and 22k health would be enough to start, though you'd want to beef up a bit before trying a hard hitting boss like Patchwerk or Maexxna.
- What's the quickest way to generate threat on a single target?
Enrage for rage, pull with FFF, Mangle as soon as you can - then mangle on every opportunity, stack lacerates and Maul if you have more than 50-60 rage.
Using FFF on cooldown is now a good threat generator as long as it doesn't interfere with mangle. Unfortunately it has some wierd interactions with Misery from shadowpriests for the time being, so if you regularly run with them (like I do) then this tactic doesn't work so well.
Cat form
- What stats?
Agi is your primary stat. However, due to itemization formula, any item with loads of different DPS stats is bound to be good for you. The DPS stats are, roughly in the order of value, Strength, Expertise, Hit, AP, Ignore Armor, Crit, Haste.
You will also need Stamina to build a sufficient Health base. Dead kitties deals 0 DPS.
Strength has now surpassed agility in power, and AP may have too. I've also read that crit should be ranked higher than armor pen.
- How much +Hit and Expertise do I need? Aren't they the same? Do they stack?
They are not the same (and therefore the question whether they stack or not is moot; yes, they "stack" as they affect different things):
- +Hit reduces the chance your attack will miss.
- Expertise reduces the chance your attack will be dodged or parried.
For Expertise, to hit the 'Dodge Cap' you need 102 Expertise Rating. To hit the 'Parry Cap' (only really valid for tanks) you need about 236 Expertise Rating - not currently possible.
For +Hit the cap you need 142 +Hit Rating.
These numbes are old. It's now 296 hit rating to be hit capped and 214 expertise to remove dodge (assuming a boss dodge rate of 6.5%, which to my knowledge has not been proven).
- What the best attack sequence?
Mangle, Shred to 4 Combo Points, wait for 70+ energy, Rip, Mangle, ...
Never overwrite the Rip debuff. If you have too much energy, do an extra Shred.
- What about Ferocious Bite?
Don't use it, unless the mob is about to die and the Rip doesn't have time to complete.
- Is Claw any good once I get Mangle?
No. Remove it from your action bar. Now.
- Rake?
They tripled both the instant and bleed damage on Rake, making it actually a very very good attack. Rake should definitely be on your DPS rotation.
I'm just lumping all of the ability stuff together. We now use a priority queue for attacks rather than a set sequence. The optimal sequence is still unknown, but we do have some guidelines that should tide you over for now. Copied from Kazanir at EJ:
1. Keep up Rake
2. Keep up Mangle
3. If both are up, Shred for combo points
4. Use Tiger's Fury at 25 energy or less
5. Use OoC procs to Shred over a Rip/FB
6. Use only 5-CP finishers
7. Keep up Savage Roar
8. Keep up Rip
9. If Rip and SR are up and Rip has more than 4-5 seconds left, FB
10. Berserk on cooldown, ideally when at 80-90 energy with TF up
Of course, this is just his approximation. I actually believe that keeping Savage Roar running should be #1, and I also think that it's worthwhile to use a <5-CP Savage Roar if it falls off. It should also be mentioned that you don't need to keep mangle up if you have an arms warrior keeping Trauma on the mob.
- I hear the 2-piece set bonus in the T4 set is good for DPS. True?
Yes. It alone is worth more DPS than any of the T4 pieces. It's worth around 220-250 Kitty points for T4 greared people, and close to 300 points at high end gear. It will be worth wearing until you can replace them with 4T6.
The 2T4 bonus will not work at level 80.
Everbloom Idol now has an upgrade:
[Idol of the Ravenous Beast]. It costs 15
[Emblem of Heroism].
It would probably be easier to say "Powershifting is dead" than provide a link.
Everything past this looks good.
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