Feral DPS PvE BiS list

Guys I've been toying around with Rawr and thinking what is actually the bis list for feral. I've read contradictory opinions in the forum as well as other guides online and different players. Mainly, the controversy comes to whether feral should get strength, haste or more agility once all other stats are capped (hit, expertise, arpen and crit). This would be the most commonly used bis list so far:

1. Head - Sanctified Lasherweave Headguard

2. Neck - Sindragosa's Cruel Claw

3. Shoulders - Sanctified Lasherweave Shoulderpads

4. Cloak - Sylvanas' Cunning / Vereesa's Dexterity

5. Chest - Sanctified Lasherweave Raiment

6. Bracer - Umbrage Armbands

7. Gloves - Aldriana's Gloves of Secrecy

8. Belt - Astrylian's Sutured Cinch

9. Legs - Sanctified Lasherweave Legguards

10. Boots - Frostbitten Fur Boots

11. Ring 1 - Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance

12. Ring 2 - Signet of Twilight

13. Trinket 1 - Sharpened Twilight Scale

14. Trinket 2 - Deathbringer's Will

15. Relic - Idol of the Crying Moon

16. Weapon - Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General

Note: needless to mention every item is meant to be Heroic.


Now, I think there's no doubt about all the items are indeed staple bis except for 3 slots: Neck, back and wrists. So, these would be the bis contenders:

Neck - Penumbra pendant
Back - Shadowvault Slayer's Cloak
Wrist - Toskk's Maximized Wristguards


So, why is there any controversy with these items to begin with? The problem comes when feral is able to cap all the stats that are important: hit, expertise, arpen and crit (trough agility). Which stat should feral aim for after that? Well, the debate is between strength (gives most raw AP), haste (more autos and more clearcasting procs) or agility (continue stacking it even after you've reached the melee and ferocious bite crit cap around 80% crit); most people opt for strength.

After toying with Rawr these are my own thoughts:

- Penumbra is better than sindra neck due to its higher item lvl and more raw stats, strength is preferable over haste, agility can be capped without the neck anyways.
- Veressas/Sylvanas > Shadowvault > 50EoF cloak . Arpen can be capped with the haste cloak anyways, making shadowvault sightly better than onslaught cape due to the ilvl difference. I included the EoF cloak because many people don't even raid ToC25HC so they use it as a sightly worse alternative to the toc cloaks.
-Umbrage is better than Toskks for the same reason, higher ilvl and arpen can be capped anyways.

So tell me what you guys think, as I said these are my thoughts and my personal opinion. My feral is sitting around 6.3 gs and still missing some of these items to test them myself hence why I came here to ask you.

After you cap hit/exp/arp, you have a few different choices on what stats you want to push. Agility, haste and hit have similar values but due to how clearcasting works, most people prefer going for haste.

Shadowvault has crit/ap/haste, vereesa has crit/ap/arp. Playing vereesa = getting more arp = you're able to gem more of another stat of your choice. Because haste is a tier1 stat that you already aim for, it only makes sense that you take the item with the highest ilvl and the most possible stats, meaning shadowvault is going to be better.
Take hunters for example, where haste has a 0.3 to 0.35 ev, meaning that the 60 haste from shadowvault is going to be the equivalent of 20 attack power. It makes sense that you take vereesa so you can gem more agility, a stat that is actually useful and has a way higher value. Cats scale very well with haste and it has a similar value to other tier1 stats like agility so picking up the item with the most raw stats is going to be your best choice. Shadowvault > Vereesa.

Penumbra is 284 str/crit/arp, cruel claw is 277 agy/ap/haste/arp. Agy+attack power+haste > Strength + Crit even if there's a small ilvl difference. If the stat difference would be bigger (let's say 284 vs a 264 item) than it maybe would be better going for penumbra. As it stands, even with a little bit less stats, sindy neck is better.

Umbrage vs Tosk is pretty much the same story as Shadowvault vs Vereesa but with a bigger ilvl difference in the favor of Umbrage.

Extra mention - your rings. Signet of Twilight is clear bis, Band of the Bone Colossus (marrowgar 25hc) should be your 2nd ring of choice instead of Ashen. More stats, haste > crit and the proc on Ashen has been nerfed to the point where it's not worth playing.