Why Don't Cats Gear for Strength?Follow

Okay, so I started a new Druid and was selecting enchants to put on gear to speed up his leveling. During that time, I read up on itemization guides and everything told me to go for Agility over Strength.

But, this confuses me. While Agility gives Crit over strength, it also only gives half the AP.

Is there a reason for this, or was I just misinformed? I mean, it isn't like Agility gives all that much Crit at 80, but a lot of the cat abilities seem to have AP modifiers--and you get quite a bit of % bonus to stats, so more Strength means even more AP...

Help?

Well, I just checked for Bear form and regular form--both get 2 AP per strength.

The formula I found for cat AP was:

(Strength x 2) + Agility + (Character Level x 2) - 20

[EDIT]

I didn't check for Cat because I don't have it yet--4 levels to go.

Edited, Jun 5th 2009 8:30pm by idiggory

Agility gives crit as well. Which causes it to be better as crit feeds CPs and the build is very CP reliant to maintain buffs and DoTs. Faster CP generation is good and crits give 2 CPs.

Before they changed SR to increase damage Str was better due to the AP scaling on SR. Now Agility is king or maybe ArP. Depends on your gear and desired play style.

Agi lends well to burst and can be spikeier. ArP, with a certain base level of ArP depending on Idol, has a more sustained DPS pattern.

There is no right way to my current knowledge. Both can lead to high DPS. Also your desired methodology can depend on gear sharing with bear options as that will lend to Agility as ArP is lame for bears, comparatively speaking.

I'm starting to mess around with an ArP set since I got Grim Toll. The proc is nuts and makes me want DS to really play with it as y bear spec is missing out out SA and KotJ which are huge for cat DPS cycles.

Great, thanks for the replies everyone. It'll be a while until I need to know this, but I hate not knowing as much as possible about the class I'm playing. I'll focus on Agility enchants then, if nothing better is available.

Now, if only someone would post a Greater Stats Chest enchant on Dalaran's AH, alliance side.

Maybe if I see Poldaran on I'll ask him...

One last question, which I'll just stick it here. I grabbed a Black Malice for my cat, and am now debating between enchants:

Fiery, Crusader and +25 Agility.

The first is 3 PPM for 40 additional damage. I'm leaning away from this one, though.

Crussader Heals and gives 100 strength (200 AP) and is boosted by talents. But, I don't know the proc rate. I THINK it is PPM.

+25 Agility is a constant 25 AP and increased crit rate. But, the crit will reduce over time. I'd say it is about 2% crit for a long while (it is 1% crit and change at level 60).

I assume I'll use the weapon into my 30s, unless I just happen to get something better. I don't really care about money--my DK is more than capable of funding this alt. And he's only level 16 but has already made 100G from DEing. : )

If you got the cash for twinking then might as well go with Crusader - I put it on my ret pally's weapon and it was proccing like an SOB (slow two hander mind you) so I'm sure it'll kick butt for a kitty.

For the reasons in bold you should always take Agility while leveling. As it does more for bear as well as cat. Of course a lot more strength means switch but for example; +4 Agi +4 Stam vs a +5 Str +4 Stam, the Agility one would be the better overall choice mainly due to being a more versatile weapon and weapons sell for good money while leveling.

Of course having a main to feed your toon makes the point moot as you can just keep both since money shouldn't be an issue.