Shifting Perspectives: Gearing a new cat druid at 80, part 3

By Allison Robert

Feet

Much to my displeasure, your top pick here is going to be a pretty competitive piece.

Enchant: Cats are among the few specs that don't benefit from enchanting Tuskarr's Vitality, because the speed boost from Feral Swiftness overwrites it. If you're hit-capped, use Enchant Boots — Superior Agility. If you're not hit-capped, use Icewalker.

  • Frostbitten Fur Boots Dropped (infrequently) by Marrowgar-25. Sought by several classes that have no business rolling on leather and who will blithely continue rolling on it as the guild moves into heroic Icecrown (and seriously, why the hell are frigging retribution paladins taking my goddamn boots)? Do I sound bitter? I think I sound bitter. Armor penetration as a stat can't die fast enough.
  • Footpads of Impending Death Leatherworking BoE. A very, very good piece, and if you're not likely to see the inside of ICC anytime soon, I'd make these a priority. You're unlikely to replace them for a while.
  • Blighted Leather Footpads Dropped by the Captain's Cache in heroic Halls of Reflection.
  • Footpads of Silence The other leatherworking recipes for boots, and still a pretty good piece. However, I'd only sink the money into getting these if you have terrible luck with the HoR boots.
  • Treads of Dismal Fortune Dropped by the Champion's Cache in heroic Trial of the Champion.
  • Relentless Gladiator's Boots of Triumph Available for 34,400 honor.
  • Treads of the Invader Dropped by Razorscale-10.
  • Treads of Nimble Evasion (Alliance)/Treads of the Earnest Squire (Horde) Available for 20 Champion's Seals from Argent Tournament city quartermasters.

Rings

Fortunately, you have a lot of good options that involve either minimal raiding or no raiding at all. Farming Icecrown trash is nobody's idea of fun, but the Ashen Verdict will cough up a really nice ring for all your trouble.

Enchant: If you're an enchanter, you'll want Enchant Ring — Assault on both.

Trinkets

I've written this in the two previous gear guides, but it bears repeating: Trinkets are very hard to rank. How much use you'll get from them depends on your gear, and I would really suggest using Rawr and Toskk's to look at which trinkets will immediately benefit you most. Recognizing this, the trinkets below have been ranked purely according to ilevel, with some commentary on when and how they might be useful. Either way, you really can't go wrong starting off with a Greatness card and one of the 5-man drops, particularly if it's the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion. Alaron also has an excellent post looking at all of the Wrath cat trinkets and ranking them according to your situation.

Alchemists may get some use from a Mighty Alchemist's Stone.

Jewelcrafters may get some use from a Figurine: Emerald Boar.

Engineers may get some use from a Gnomish Lightning Generator.

  • Deathbringer's Will Dropped by Deathbringer Saurfang-25. Be prepared for every physical DPS in the raid to get into a virtual fistfight over this thing, because it's just that damn good. It's because of pieces like this (and the quarrels over them that just restart whenever a raid gets a crack at their heroic version) that I have very mixed feelings at best on the "prestige trinkets" in raids.
  • Herkumi War Token Available for 60 Emblems of Frost. If you're in good gear with white hits (i.e., auto-attack) comprising a respectable portion of your damage (e.g., your average ilevel approaches or surpasses 264), haste becomes a progressively better stat. Until that point, you'll probably get more damage out of other trinkets.
  • Whispering Fanged Skull Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-10. If you can get your paws on this around the time you start rocking four-piece tier 10, all to the better.
  • Mark of Supremacy Available for 50 Emblems of Triumph. If you're hit-capped, the passive effect is obviously useless. Even if you're not, it's of debatable use. You're still quite likely to get a lot more DPS from one of the trinkets listed below.
  • Shard of the Crystal Heart Same deal here (and also available for 50 Emblems of Triumph).
  • Battlemaster's Rage Availablel for 34,100 honor. The /use effect is generally worthless for a PvE cat. While the attack power won't go to waste, I still wouldn't use the Battlemaster's stuff unless you absolutely had no other choice.
  • Battlemaster's Fury Available for 34,100 honor. See above.
  • Titan-Forged Rune of Determination Available for 25 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. Pretty much the same deal as the Battlemaster trinkets.
  • Needle-Encrusted Scorpion An excellent trinket, especially if you're at or close to the soft cap for armor penetration. If your armor penetration goes significantly above that, you may get more DPS out of axing this trinket and going for broke on the hard cap (1400 armor pen).
  • Pyrite Infuser Dropped by Flame Leviathan-10. This is actually a pretty decent trinket given the cat's traditionally high crit rate in raids, although it's obviously of more direct use if you're not hit-capped.
  • Darkmoon Card: Greatness Still amazing. This is a must-have starter trinket for every feral. It's just as useful for bears as it is for cats, and there's a very good chance that you won't find any reason to replace it with anything other than an ilevel 264 trinket.
  • Banner of Victory Dropped by the Argent Confessor in normal Trial of the Champion.
  • Mirror of Truth Available for 40 Emblems of Heroism.

Weapon

As with bears, you have a limited set of options outside of raiding, and (again, like bears) the best is the ultra-expensive Lightborn Spire. Seriously, whatever you can do here in the way of pugging ToC or ICC is only going to help; it's really hard to get a decent feral weapon otherwise. I've included a few strength maces here in the event that you find yourself in a group without a plate DPS who wants them.

Enchant: You'll want either Berserking or Mongoose (generally Mongoose) here.

Every week, Shifting Perspectives treks across Azeroth in pursuit of truth, beauty and insight concerning the druid class. Sometimes it finds the latter, or something good enough for government work. Whether you're a bear, cat, moonkin, tree or stuck in caster form, we've got the skinny on druid changes in patch 3.3, a look at the disappearance of the bear tank, and thoughts on why you should be playing the class (or why not).

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