WotLK Cat rotation (Rip clip) - is it still bugged after almost 2 years?

[Nuru0190]

Hello,
It's in the title.
More than a year ago (probably even 2), i stopped playing my bis cat because of a very annoying bug where it is sometimes (not always) impossible to clip Rip (the 5 combo points finisher) in the rotation.
Somehow, Rip becomes impossible to 'cast' if it's already on the target and one must wait until the bleed wears off before 'casting' another one, which effectively makes it impossible to refresh.
Because of that, the rotation became much trickier to pull off, with some moment where it's downright totally screwed for a few seconds because of that bug.

I tried my Feral today, and to my disappointment, it was still bugged, but maybe during that time where my Druid was collecting dust on the shelf, someone came up with something that i'm not aware of to circumvent that bug? A trick? An addon even? Idk, something, anything really, to make it so that it's possible to play Feral normally again?

If you guys know anything, thanks in advance for sharing.

[Nelthazar]

works as intented, this was never a bug as u are trying to replace a "higher" spell with a lower one. trinket procs etc... if you have AP buffs it means the spell rank is "higher". Also who clips his dots before they expire ?

[Nuru0190]

Alright
It's interesting, i never saw it like this.
I thought higher rank was just spell rank, you know, that you buy at the trainer.
I never thought that a 'higher' Rip (because of procs, etc) should not be clipped by a 'lower' one. In fact, for many years, it was never like this. I've been on Warmane Lordaeron for 8 years now, and it's this past year only that Rip became like this.

[mcjorri]

Okay so,

Rip gets its damage from your ap and the amount of CP you have at the moment of casting. You can't ever clip a rip with lower AP than the current one, this is the way it always was in retail, on warmane, and on classic recently. Rip also snapshots any %dmg buffs that are on you, such as BQL bite or Rune of Power (Assembly of iron in Ulduar), but for some reason the game doesn't care about these huge %dmg buffs, when it comes to blocking a recast of rip.

^Meaning for example that if you cast a 5 cp rip on BQL on pull with all your AP buffs from trinkets and procs, and get bite after even one of those ap buffs has worn off, you wont be able to clip the rip you cast on pull.

Secondly clipping rip is generally a bad idea because the final tick of damage hits just as the dot expires, so if you're clipping rip constantly it's a dps loss.

Generally clipping rip is only worth it if due to a mechanic the boss is about to become untargetable. Such as BQL and Sindy air phases, Northrend beasts in togc have a bunch etc. Or in any fight if a buff like Hysteria is about to wear off a few seconds before your current rip is expiring.


If you dont ever want to be surprised by when you can clip a rip or not, get weakauras or other addons to track all your ap procs and be mindful what you have active when casting rip.