3.1 Buffs Cat DPS > 1k

I've not changed gear since the patch except upgrading a blue hit trinket with Grim Toll. I moved points out of master shapershifter and into predatory instincts, 10% larger crits wins over 4% crit any day. Lost that 4% damage increase in bear form too, but threat hasn't been an issue at all.

Since I didn't have to spec into natural shapeshifter either that gave me a point for primal gore, bleeding lacerates more than makes up for a 4% threat loss in bear plus in cat this is a huge buff for DPS with rips that can crit. I had a point left over so I tossed in into king of the jungle. 20 free energy every 30 seconds is nice. It was either that or furor, but 3/5 or 4/5 for furor seems negligible. Took two points from furor to stick into improved mark of the wild, still getting used to that. Sometimes you just want some rage, particularly after mistiming an enrage due to someone delaying a pull.

Lastly I've got marksman hunters in my life again. Trueshot aura is a significant boost to cat DPS and bear mitigation. It would be nice if I could withhold my leader of the pack buff from those stingy survival hunters.

So those being the only changes I have observed an increase of well over 1k DPS. Much more than I would of expected. I'm have a little extra hit now too since upgrading to grim toll so I am sure to eek a little more damage from swapping in a couple more tier pieces or something.

While the news on the DPS front is all good, bears on the other hand got a little bit of a nerf. We lost armor, which is really no big since the armor cap is still within range with ulduar gear. The stamina nerf hurt a little more. There were very few cases where that health was needed, just lowered the time we can live without heals. We still have a lot of health.

Then there is savage defense. I think it added just to make the armor and stamina nerfs more palatable. It doesn't do much and what it does do is rather buggy and unpredictable. For the new hard hitting bosses it is pretty negligible. I have a feeling it will evolve in the next couple patches. If it was changed from a static amount of damage to absorb to a percentage (still based on AP) that would be pretty nice. Right now it is almost too good for light hitters and useless for heavy hitters.