In Forever your paws hit with your weapon's damage, so a cat's set starts with the highest-DPS two-hander it can get, then stacks crit, Agility and Strength. The weapon's speed doesn't matter, since a cat's paw swings once a second whatever it holds. These pieces come from everything a cat can collect before the first raid opens, as our gear search picked them: dungeon and world drops, quests, crafts, reputation and vendors, wherever Forever's stats are published. It averages item level 62.7.

Pre-raid gear

Next to each piece are its runners-up, priced in DPS on this fight. A runner-up marked "level" is as good within the noise, so there's no need to replace it.

Weapon

Both factions wear The Unstoppable Force on every fight, a 3.6-speed two-hand mace of 61.5 DPS with 19 Strength and 2 % crit, bought in Alterac Valley. In Cat Form that DPS becomes your paw's: 46 to 77 a hit on a one-second swing.

No slot in the set has a bigger gap: replacing it with Hammer of the Titans costs 14.7 DPS.

Every searched set also opens with the Manual Crowd Pummeler, a Gnomeregan drop. Wear it for the pull, use it for 30 seconds of 50 % attack speed, then swap back to the two-hander. Whether Forever lets you swap weapons in Cat Form mid-fight hasn't been tested yet. If it doesn't, skip the Pummeler.

Idol

Howling Idol takes 1 second off Shifting Power's cooldown, from 8 seconds to 7: about three more Shifting Powers, 120 Energy, on a three-minute fight. Every other idol in the pool does nothing a cat uses, so the next best costs 11.8 DPS, the same as wearing none. It's on Pix Xizzix's list in Stranglethorn Vale.

Wrists

Forest Stalker's Bracers, sold by vendors in Ashenvale and The Barrens, is one of the larger gaps in the set: the next bracers cost 7.5 DPS.

Head, chest and legs

Outlaw's Collar, Timbermaw Tunic and Warbear Woolies are Leatherworking crafts that bind on equip, in every searched set. The legs are only item level 57, but Strength counts as much as Agility for a cat, and their 28 Strength and 18 Agility beat higher-level leather. The next legs cost 5.0 DPS.

Trinkets

On a three-minute single-boss fight the trinkets are Molten Heart of the Mountain and Adaptive Combat Assistant. The Molten Heart is made by Enchanters and binds on pickup. Its 2 weapon damage lands on every paw hit, and its 55 attack power for 15 seconds goes out with Berserk at the pull. Its doubling in volcanic areas isn't counted. The Assistant, another Pix Xizzix item, carries 2 % expertise. Its absorb shield isn't simulated.

Reputation and vendor pieces

Shoulders and gloves need Exalted with one of Forever's Barrens factions: Alliance cats earn them from the Theramore Expeditionary Force, Horde cats from the Darkspear Raiders. Exalted takes longer than anything else here, so start those reputations first. Shifter's Belt, a druid-only belt, comes from Pix Xizzix like the idol and the trinket.

Wolfshead Helm isn't in the set. Forever's version gives 5 Energy each time you press Shifting Power, not Classic's 20 on every shift.

Enchants

• Weapon: Superior Impact. Its 9 weapon damage isn't scaled down to the paw's swing, so it lands in full on every one-second white hit and on every Shred.
• Head and legs: Lesser Arcanum of Voracity for the helm, Lesser Arcanum of Voracity for the legs. Lesser Arcanum of Voracity comes in a Strength and an Agility version, and the sets take either, sometimes one of each, since the two stats are a tie. Some fights take Arcanum of Rapidity's 1 % haste instead.
• Chest: Greater Stats.
• Wrists and hands: Agility and Superior Agility. The Strength versions of the same size are a tie, and some fights' sets take them.
• Feet: Greater Agility. Back: Lesser Agility. Neck: Agility.

Consumables

Bring these every time: Elixir of the Mongoose (3.1 %), Juju Power (2.2 %), Ground Scorpok Assay (1.8 %), an Elemental Sharpening Stone on the two-hander (1.4 %), Juju Might (1.2 %) and Grilled Squid (0.7 %), whose well-fed buff is 1 % crit in Forever. Stones and weightstones work in Cat Form now.

Flask of Distilled Wisdom adds 2,000 mana for Shifting Power: 0.5 % on three minutes, next to nothing on one. The Goblin Sapper Charge (Engineering) and Dragonbreath Chili are small on one boss, 0.4 % and 0.5 %, and large on three, 4.5 % and 2.7 % on the one-minute fight.

The Major Mana Potion and the Demonic Rune come out at −0.1 % and −0.1 %: in our simulator each one costs a trip out of Cat Form and back, which eats most of the mana it gives. Blizzard says potions no longer break your form, so in game they are worth more than this. Forever also makes Thistle Tea and rage potions usable by Druids. Neither has been tried in the cat's benchmark yet.