Consumables for the feral druid
There are 4 types of consumables you can have active buffs from. You can have 1 food buff, multiple scroll buffs (as long as the buffs do not overlap with player spell casting), and 2 buffs from Potions, 1 Guardian effect and 1 Battle effect.
This post is going to list the different types of consumables that most benefit feral druids, and what my personal preferences are for each category.
Consumables for Bear Tanking
Tanking priorities are; Agility, Damage Reduction, Stamina.
Flasks (counts as both Guardian and Battle Elixir)
Flask of Fortification - +500 max health and +10 defense rating for 120 minutes. Effects persist through death.
I do not personally consider the Flask a better choice over having both an Earthen Elixir and an Elixir of Major Agility active. However, if you are taking on a boss encounter or raid encounter for the first time, and expect multiple wipes, one Flask that persists through death is far more cost effective than 20 Elixirs.
Elixir (Guardian)
Earthen Elixir (1st choice) – Prevents up to 20 damage done by a physical or magical attack for 60 minutes. This is per attack. This is a very nice Tanking buff, especially for bear tanks that do not have special defenses against magical attacks.
Elixir of Major Fortitude (2nd choice) - +250 Max Health and +10 Health per 5 seconds for 60 minutes.
(Edit: As many of you have noted, choice of which potion or flask to use is situational, and in most high level raids the extra health will be of more benefit that a meager -20 damage per hit. I would suggest, however, that in many cases for instance tanking early on the number of encounters with magical AOE or attacks make the Earthen Elixir quite attractive. You can’t go too far wrong by choosing Elixir of Major Fortitude as your pot of choice, though.)
Elixir of Major Defense (Last resort) - +550 Armor for 60 minutes.
This does not multiply in Dire Bear form, so it remains a flat +550. (See below)
Elixir (Battle)
Elixir of Major Agility (1st Choice) - +35 Agility for 60 minutes.
Elixir of Mastery (2nd Choice) - +15 All Stats for 60 minutes.
I’m sure there can be a great deal of debate over which of these is better. On the one hand, you get +35 Agility. On the other, you get +15 Agility, +15 Stamina and +15 Strength. For myself, I consider the boost to Dodge from +35 Agility to override the other benefits.
Scrolls
Scroll of Agility V – Agility +20 for 30 minutes.
Scroll of Stamina V – Stamina +20 for 30 minutes. (Cannot stack with Power Word: Fortitude or Prayer of Fortitude. Scroll of Stamina is therefore very useful when you do not have a Priest in your party, but otherwise unnecessary.)
Scroll of Protection V – Armor +300 for 30 minutes.
This does not multiply in Dire Bear form, so it remains a flat +300. (See below)
Food
Warp Burger - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Grilled Mudfish - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Spicy Crawdad - +30 Stamina and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Fisherman’s Feast - +30 Stamina and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Consumables for Cat form DPS
Flasks (counts as both Guardian and Battle Elixir)
Flask of Relentless Assault – +120 AP for 2 hours, effects last through death.
Elixir (Guardian)
Earthen Elixir – Prevents up to 20 damage done by a physical or magical attack for 60 minutes.
Elixir of Major Fortitude - +250 Max Health and +10 Health per 5 seconds for 60 minutes.
Elixir (Battle)
Elixir of Major Agility (1st Choice) - +35 Agility for 60 minutes.
Elixir of Major Strength - +35 Strength for 60 minutes.
Onslaught Elixir - +60 AP for 60 minutes.
Scroll
Scroll of Agility V – Agility +20 for 30 minutes.
Scroll of Strength V – Strength +20 for 30 minutes.
Food
Warp Burger - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Grilled Mudfish - +20 Agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Roasted Clefthoof - +20 Strength and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
Ravager Dog - +40 AP and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes.
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Consumables in my opinion pretty much covers anything you can carry around in your bags that you can use to provide a temporary buff to your abilities or stats. The buff should last at least 15 minutes, and you should be able to reapply it after a wipe.
I am not listing buffs such as the Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer that you get when in Stormwind City or Ogrimmar when the Head of Onyxia or Nefarion is turned in, or the Fire Resist buff you can get in Blackrock Spire by Mind Controlling a Scarshield Spellbinder. Special circumstances buffs such as this have a decent duration, but disappear upon player death, and so are useless in a raid/instance after the first wipe.
Also, since we do not get any benefit to our combat abilities from weapon enchants, I did not list items such as Wizard Oil, Mana Oil, or Sharpening Stones. However, if you (like me) run alts, keep in mind that Wizard Oils and Mana Oils are awesome Enchanting created potions that you apply to your weapon, that stack WITH existing weapon enchants. For some reason, many casters forget they are available, and they are fairly inexpensive in materials cost to make.
On the topic of “How many buffs can I have active at one time”, according to a Blue post by Pavonum, you are allowed to have 32 active buffs, although only 16 icons are displayed on screen at any one time. So the more consumables you bring to the party, the better.
In all cases, remember that with Heart of the Wild, in Cat form Strength is increased by 20% and in Bear form Stamina is increased by 20%. So if you are DPSing in Cat form, a +20 Strength Roasted Clefthoof is actually giving you the effects of +24 Strength. Since in Cat 1 point of Strength equals 2 Attack power, this means that Roasted Clefthoof gives you +48 AP, while a Ravager Dog is only +40 AP.
When considering bear tanking consumables, Agility scores higher than Stamina because Agility applies directly to both Dodge and Armor. 14.7 points of Agility equals 1% Dodge bonus. 2 Points of Agility equals 1 Armor. Dodge is far more effective at damage mitigation at higher levels of armor than Stamina is at soaking the damage that gets through.
Elixirs and Scrolls of Protection are considered the bottom of the list for bear tanks because the effects of +armor are considered enchants, and are unaffected by the dire bear multiplier.
For the Elixir of Major Defense, the +550 Armor is a flat effect.
Assuming 25000 Armor in Dire Bear;
25k base armor equals
25000/(25000+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7030 (70.3%) damage reduction.
Add 550 armor and;
25550/(25550+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7076 (70.76%) damage reduction.
In long endurance fights this can help, but not enough IMO when compared to an Earthen Elixir or Elixir of Major Fortitude.
For the Scroll of Protection V, the +300 armor is also a flat effect.
Assuming 25000 Armor in Dire Bear;
25k armor base equals
25000/(25000+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7030 (70.3%) damage reduction.
Add 300 armor and;
25300/(25300+400+85*(70+4.5*(70-59))) = 0.7055 (70.55%) damage reduction.
In conclusion, IMO .25% damage reduction is not worth the bother of the bag space.
For cat form DPS, Agility and Strength are considered equally valuable, with a slightly greater value to Agility due to the combo point gains from Crits.
In Cat form with all feral abilities, according to mathematical modeling, your DPS benefits equally from Agility and Strength. 1 point of Agility contributes to both Crit and AP, and Strength contributes double to AP.
When you factor in the extra Combo points you get from more frequent Crits, then Agility actually seems preferable to Strength. Personally, I think that shooting for a balance between high AP and Crit Chance is best, but please take a look at the results yourself before taking my word as gospel. I set my goal for a target of 2200 AP, before switching my focus to increasing Crit. Your results may vary.
If you are interested in the math behind this, I can’t take credit for the awesome work. Check out http://web.mac.com/sven_schmidt/AnuBear/Welcome.html
And in conclusion…. Wear more sunscreen.
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