In general, Druids are quite the peaceful people of Azeroth, but in this form of a giant carnivore cat, they are capable of letting out all the covert fury of the wildlife.
Let’s take a closer look at the weakest and the strongest aspects of this specialization:
Advantages:
Nice stable single target damage.
High mobility.
Can adapt to various combat types through talents.
Can continuously boost damage dealing due to constantly dying enemies.
Disadvantages:
Neads some warm-up time to start dealing damage.
Quite the mediocre prolonged AoE.
Demands a lot of attention paid to the resources and their correct utilization.
Basic information on the spec:
A Feral Druid, like any other Druid, has the capacity of taking on various forms, although their key Form is the Cat Form. Many abilities are tied to the image the Druid is in. In their Cat Form, a Druid has 2 key resources – Energy and Combo Points (hereinafter referred to as CP). With no Form on, or in their Travel Form, the Druid has Mana for their main resource; as a Bear, it’s Rage.
(Area of Effect) is basically the area where this of that effect is actuated regardless of whether its damage or healing. This command is usually used to act in a team/raid on several targets. It is also used to describe any ability of a Boss with the aforementioned effect.
Buff stands for any positive effect. Always reflected to the left of the mini-map, by its upper edge.
Burst is an ability to do – in multiple ways – massive damage within a short period of time.
Gear is what it is.
GCD (Global Cooldown) is the overall ability recovery time.
Debuff stands for negative effect. By default, it’ reflected to the left of the mini-map by its lower edge.
DoT stands for Damage over Time.
DPS (Damage per Second) is a measure that reflects the damage done within one second.
Cleave is an ability to damage secondary targets through damaging the main one with no (or minor) loss in the damage done to the main target.
Cooldown (often CD) primarily refers to the ability recovery time. Can be often applied to bursts and various protective abilities.
Melee and Range. Melee is the close-range combat zone, also used in the titles of all the classes and specs that do effective damage in this zone. Range usually refers to a zone that is not a close-range one and is used, respectfully, in the titles of all classes and specs that do effective damage remotely.
Trait is a name for the ‘talents’ your artifact has.
Thrash is applied from Bear and Cat Form. Deals physical damage to all the enemies within the range of 8 m instantly, and the more damage over the following 15 secs. Generates 1 CP, demands 45 Energy.
The trait Scent of Blood reduces your spending for the next Swipe cast within 4 secs by 2 units per each target hit with Thrash.
Rake costs 35 Energy, deals physical damage and elaves a 15-sec long DoT. I also slows your target down by 50% for 12 secs with Infected Wounds. When cast from Stealth, the spell deals 100% more damage and stuns the target for 4 secs. Generates 1 CP.
Infected Wounds makes your Rake reduce your target’s movement speed by 50% for 12 secs.
Moonfire deals minor Arcane damage instantly, and then some more over the following 16 secs.
Shred is only available in the Cat Form, demands 40 Energy; deals physical damage to a target. If the latter tagged with your bleedings, the spell deals 20% more damage. When cast from Stealth, deals 50% more damage, and doubles Crit. Generates 1 CP.
Swipe, for 40 Energy, deals physical damage to all the enemies within the range of 8 m. The targets tagged with your bleeding effects receive 20%more damage. Generates 1 CP.
Rip – only from Cat Form – for 30 Energy, spends 1 to 5 CP and applies a bleeding effect on the target for 24 secs. The more CP spent, the heavier the damage.
The trait Open Wounds enables your attacks to ignore 15% of your target’s armor until your Rip is on.
Ferocious Bite – only in Cat Form – initially costs 25 Energy and spends 1 to 5 CP; deals physical damage (the more CP spent, the heavier the damage). Spending additional 25 Energy, increases the damage by no more than 100%. If the target is left with under 25% Health, Ferocious Bite renews Rip instantly.
Ashamane’s Frenzy is your active artifact’s active ability. Allows you to deal massive instant physical damage over 3 secs, and leaves behind a DoT for 6 more secs. Generates 3 CP.
Berserk cuts 50% off any spendings while in Cat Form during the following 15 secs and increases your max Energy stock by 50. Demands Cat Form. CD 3 min.
The trait Feral Instinct allows your Berserk to increase your damage dealing by 20%, provided 4/4.
Tiger’s Fury restores you 60 Energy and increases all your attacks’ damage dealing by 15% during their complete action time. Active for 8 secs.
The trait Ashamane’s Energy, provided 4/4, generates additional 20 Energy once every second over the following 3 secs.
Primal Fury makes your CP-generating abilities give you one more CP upon delivering a critical strike. The critical hits by your periodic damaging do not count.
Mastery: Razor Claws increases damage delivered by the abilities causing bleeding cast while in Cat Form by 16% + Mastery rate.
Predatory Swiftness grants your CP-spending abilities a chance of 20% per each CP spent to cast your next Regrowth or Entangling Roots instantly with no Mana spent, and no form changing in demand.
Deffensive abilities
Survival Instincts reduces the received damage by 50% for 6 secs. 2 charges, CD 2 min.
Regrowth is cast once every 1.5 secs, instantly restores a small amount of HP, and a bit more over the following 12 secs.
Utility abilities
Rebirth is a combat resurrection spell, with a mechanics quite similar to all the spells of the kind from other classes. Outside a raid combat, CD 10 min. In a raid, the restoring speed depends on the number of players in the raid (90/x=CD per res; x – number of people in the raid).
Entangling Roots immobilizes the victim for 30 secs. Any damage dealt to this target cancels the effect.
Maim demands 35 Energy and spends 1 to 5 CP, deals physical damage and stuns your target for 1 secs per each CP spent. The damage dealt also grows with CP spending. CD 10 secs.
Prowl allows you to turn into a Cat and enter the state of Stealth. Can only be cast out of combat. CD 6 secs.
Skull Bash interrupts your enemy’s cast and prevents them from casting a spell of the same school for the following 4 secs. CD 15 secs.
Cat Form is a form in which you move 30% faster, and you are resistant to any ransformation effects and receive less damage upon falling. Form change cancels any movement-impairing effects.
The trait Protection of Ashamane, once you exit your Cat Form, increases your evasion chance and ups your armor by 100% for 5 secs or until you re-enter Cat Form. Can be triggered no more than once every 30 secs.
Bear Form increases your Armor by 200% and your Stamina – by 55%. You are immune to any transformation effects and generate an elevated danger rate. Form change cancels any movement-impairing effects.
Dash activates your Cat Form and increases your Haste by 70% for 15 secs.
Travel Form makes you take up one of your forms depending on the surrounding circumstances: for airborne, on-land or aquatic relocations. All Forms make you immune to transformation effects; form change cancels any movement-impairing effects. Out of combat, your forms have increased moving speed. These effects, however, do not work on the arena or on battlefields.
Growl only works while you’re in your Bear Form. Provokes your target to attack you for 3 secs.
Teleport: Moonglade allows you to teleport to Moonglade. When cast in Moonglade, returns you to your initial location – to the nearest cemetery, to be precise.
Stampeding Roar increases the moving speed by 60% for 8 secs to all your allies within the 10-m range. When cast outside of Bear Form or Cat Form, automatically triggers Bear Form.
General information. On achieving several new levels you’ll get access to new talent ‘Tiers’. Talents may have different effect on abilities: add new features, replace old ones, modify passively different effects and spells. Talents can be changed in Sanctuaries or any recreational zones. However, if you don’t have any of those places nearby you can use the Codex of the Tranquil Mind which allows you to switch channels within a minute. You can’t change talents in combat. You can’t change a talent if the talent you’ve picked in the last Tier is on Cooldown. You’ll have to wait until it’s restored first.
Tier 1. Lvl 15.
Predator. Tiger’s Fury lasts 4 secs longer, and if your target dies during any of your bleedings, the current Tiger’s Fury restores immediately.
Blood Scent. When in Cat Form, you have a 10% higher chance of delivering critical damage with your bleedings.
Lunar Inspiration. Moonfire can now be used in Cat Form. Using it now generates 1 CP, spends 30 Energy, and its damage is calculated based on your power of attack.
* Blood Scent is your default choice for almost any situation. With higher gear value of this talent decreases because of Crit weight. Lunar Inspiration becomes your new default choise after Blood Scent. Predator is a nice option for a combat with targets dying out all the time. 3 restoring time cancellings per minute are enough for this ability to become a better option than Blood Scent.
Tier 2. Lvl 30.
Renewal. Instantly restores 30% of your max HP stock. Can be cast from any form. CD 1.5 min.
Displacer Beast. Moves you 20 m forward, increases your moving speed by 50% for 2 secs and triggers Cat Form. CD 30 secs.
Wild Charge. Depending on the form, triggers one of the abilities with a 15-sec CD:
In your regular form, it flies you to an ally’s position. Bear Form – a surge towards your enemy that immobilizes them for 4 secs. Cat Form – a leap behind your enemy’s back dazing them for 3 secs Travel Form – a leap 20 m forward.
In your Aquatic Form, your swimming speed grows by 150% for 5 secs.
* The whole Tier is pretty much comprised of situation-oriented talents. Displacer Beast can help you get through dangerous areas since it basically teleports you.
Wild Charge entitles you to several options at a time, depending on which Form you are in; plus it has a shorter CD, but it does, though, demand a target to be cast. Renewal is a bad option on this Tier since it deprives you of your mobility. If you need healing, it’s better if you use Restoration Affinity.
Tier 3. Lvl 45.
Balance Affinity. Passivele increases your abilities’ active range by 5 m, and gives you the following several abilities: Moonkin Form. CD 1.5 min; in this Form, your Armor rating is elevated by 200%, and you also get 4 abilities typical of this Form. You can utilize those abilities only while in Moonkin Form. Starsurge has a 10-sec CD, deals Astral damage and increases your next Lunar Strike and Solar Wrath inflicted damage by 20%. Lunar Strike deals Arcane damage to the main target, plus more damage to all the enemies within the range of 5 m. Solar Wrath deals your enemy Nature damage. Sunfire deals Nature damage to the main target, and some damage to all the enemies within the 5-m range of it. It also eaves a DoT that deals damage for 12 more secs.
Guardian Affinity. Passively reduces the incoming damage by 6%. It also grants you several abilities: Mangle deals physical damage to the target, generates 5 Rage. CD 6 secs. Ironfur costs 45 Rage, increases your Armor by 65% for 6 secs. Frenzied Regeneration costs 10 Rage, CD 24 secs. Within 3 secs, restores Health equal to 50% of the damage received over the last 5 secs. Min 5% of max HP. Has 2 charges.
Restoration Affinity. Passively grants you Ysera’s Gift which restores 3% of your max HP count once every 5 secs. If your Health is at 100%, the spell restores the same portion of HP to the nearest injured ally. Rejuvenation instantly applies an HoT on the selected ally healing them for 15 secs. Healing Touch is a long-cast spell restoring a medium portion of Health to an ally. Swiftmend instantly restores a major portion of HP to an ally. CD 30 secs.
* Balance Affinity is the most convenient option in terms of damage dealing, as it allows you to interact with separated targets. It can also offer you Moonkin Form in case you lack enemies in your Melee for a long time. Guardian Affinity ups your survival and even allows you to hit the Boss for a short while if necessary. Restoration Affinity is more suitable for solo gaming in case you need to restore a lot of Health.
Tier 4. Lvl 60.
Mighty Bash. Can be cast from any form; stuns your enemy for 5 secs. CD 50 secs.
Mass Entanglement. Allows you to immobilize the selected target and all the enemies within the 15-m range of it for 30 secs. Any damage dealt to the entangled enemies cancels the effect.
Typhoon. In any form, throws back all the enemies within the 15-m range in front of you and dazes them for 6 secs.
* The Tier offers you control options which means the decision is completely up to you. Mighty Bash and Typhoon are used most of all.
Tier 5. Lvl 75.
Soul of the Forest. Your CP spenders deal 5% more damage and allow you to restore 5 Energy per each CP spent on those abilities.
Incarnation: King of the Jungle. Replaces Berserk. Upgrades Cat Form for 30 secs; grants you 1 Prowl, and your Shred and Rake work as if they were cast from Stealth. The Energy cost is 50% off for all abilities, and your max Energy stock grows by 50. When changing your form, you get 30 secs to keep the upgraded Form if you cast Cat Form again.
* Incarnation: King of the Jungle is the best talent on the Tier, particularly in a single-target arrangement. Jagged Wounds is good for long multidot encounters. Unfortunatly, this talent is useless at Antorus the Burning Throne. Soul of the Forest is a nice talent on its own, but it does lose to the other two.
Brutal Slash. Replaces Swipe. Deals significantly more damage, but has a 12-sec CD and 3 charges. It also generates 1 CP for you.
Savage Roar. Costs 40 Energy, spends 1 to 5 CP and increases your damage dealing while in Cat Form by 15%. Basic duration is 12 secs per 1 CP. After that, each use adds 6 secs making it 36 secs for 5 CP.
* Savage Roar is your best single target damage dealing option. Brutal Slash takes over the leadership starting with 2 targets, provided those are equal. Sabertooth is the Tier’s worst, never used.
Tier 7. Lvl 100.
Moment of Clarity. Omen of Clarity now works twice as often and can stack up up to 2 times. It also increases the damage by your previous Shred, Thrash or Swipe by 20%. Increases yourma Energy by 30.
Unlike talents, in the weapons branch there is no choice of what you can and what you can’t take. With the current Artifact Knowledge, the order of artifact acquisition is insignificant as to open all the traits, you only need to earn 2.23 billion artifact power which is extremely easy to do just over the first few minutes after you’ve reached level 110.
Relics
A Feral Druid utilizes 1 Frost, 1 Blood and 1 Life relics.
Here is the relic ranking. For your convenience, the relics’ values are equaled to your artifact’s ilvl (i.e. 1 equals a DPS boost that would’ve granted your artifact a 1 ilvl increase):
If you face situations where you’re not sure, we recommend you use the raidbots.com web-site which has a convenient interface for figuring out if it’s worth replacing Relic A with Relic B.
Tier 1 of any relic allows you to increase your weapon’s ilvl by 5 points.
Tier 2. Here you face your first crucial choice between Light and Shadow. The choice made on this Tier makes one of the edge talents on Tier 3 unavailable for you. Your objective is to pick a way of the highest ilvl equivalent sum on both Tiers.
A Feral Druid has access to the total of 14 Legendaries.
The best of them are:
Behemoth Headdress allows you to cut your current Tiger’s Fury‘s CD short by 0.5 secs per CP spent. The best single target Legendary.
Luffa Wrappings increases damage dealing by your Thrash and expands its active range by 75%. The best AoE Legendary. The more enemies, the stronger the item.
The Wildshaper’s Clutch increases the damage dealt to the prioritized target in AoE. The best Legendary for this purpose. With no additional targets, the Legendary downgrades to average.
Chatoyant Signet increases your max Energy by 100 and kicks up your Energy regeneration rate by 5%. Most beneficial when combined with the bracers.
Soul of the Archdruid grants you the talent Soul of the Forest for free. The best Legendary for almost any situation as it allows you to pull a lot less Energy. Definitely the best choice for single target; not bad for AoE, either.
Ekowraith, Creator of Worlds is worth mentioning here, too, because it has a bunch of stats and empowers Tier 3’s passive talents by 75%, which, if combined with the bracers, expands your AoE significantly.
Other Legendaries are bound to fall behind the aforementioned. If you’ve got different Legendaries that are not on the list, and you want to figure out which one of them would be better for you, we recommend you use Simcraft.
Maintain Rake (it’s preferred you do not renew this one unless it has below 4.5 secs left).
Maintain Rip on the target (your Ferocious Bite, after 25% HP, renews it on the targets on its own; and if talented with Sabertooth, the renewal happens regardless of your target’s Health).
If talented with Bloodtalons, try to cast Regrowth instantly (due to Predatory Swiftness), right before spending CP. Don’t forget to renew your Rip on the target if it has less than 4.5 more secs to go. It’s also beneficial if you activate your Bloodtalons before utilizing Ashamane’s Frenzy.
Aim at renewing Rip and Rake during active Tiger’s Fury, because your bleedings get empowered by bursts during its whole active time.
If you’re talented with Brutal Slash, always keep 1 charge restoring. You need, however, to have accumulated the max charge count by the time your enemy group appears. Also, having Tiger’s Fury and Bloodtalons‘ buff at moments like this would play out great since it altogether it would give you max AoE damaging.
For 3+ enemies with a short life span,
2-3 long-living targets: maintain Rake and Maul on all of them. On 2 targets, continue generating CP with Shred; starting with 3 targets, switch to Swipe. Also, try to maintain Rip on all the targets.
4-8 long-living targets: first of all, maintain Maul; maintaining Rake on as many targets as possible is your second priority here. Spend CP on maintaining Rip on as many targets as possible.
9+ long-living targets: maintain Maul, generate CP with Swipe. Spend CP on Rip on as many targets as possible.
In case there are prioritized targets in the pack, you can only concentrate on maintaining Rip on them, and damage the rest of the targets with Ferocious Bite.
Useful notes
Rake and Rip‘s uptime should be aiming at 100%; the same applies to Thrash on AoE. Pandemic makes it possible to renew Rake and Thrash 4.5 secs before their end with no duration loss. Rip can be renewed 7.2 secs before the end. Both these DoTs need to be renewed during active Tiger’s Fury or Bloodtalons‘ buff (if talented), because the DoTs remember the damage boost by these abilities (your character’s characteristics do not cause a snapshot – the scaling is dynamical).
* Keep in mind that the talent Jagged Wounds shifts the aforementioned time frames: Rip – to 5.8 secs; Rake and Thrash – to 3.6 secs.
Savage Roar is also affected by Pandemic – it can be renewed at 10.8 secs of the buff’s remaining time with 5 CP.
Ferocious Bite should be utilized as often as possible at the Energy level no lower than 50, to secure a 100% damage boost, provided you don’t need to renew Rip (if the target is at over 25% Health).
Use Tiger’s Fury as often as possible, but make sure the 60 Energy it generates do not come in vain. If you have multiple targets dying out successively, it makes sense to use Tiger’s Fury to restore Energy.
The current specialization’s Mastery increases the damage delivered by your bleedings in Cat Form.
Keep in mind that the charactreristics’ values might go up and down depending on the amount of a stat you have stocked. That’s why is recommended, once you receive new equipment, you use Simcraft or Raidbots.com. There is no way to get a more precise answer to which stat to focus on first, but through a simulation.
Based on the aforementioned characteristics and results of your character’s own simulation results, you can draw conclusions on Gems, Chants and Raid Chemicals.
4 pieces: The abilities Shred and Swipe deal 8% more damage per each bleeding you apply on the target.
T20:
2 pieces: Whenever Rip deals damage, you receive 1 Energy.
4 pieces: Rip deals 10% more damage and acts 4 secs longer.
T21:
2 pieces: When Rip deals damage, there is 10% probability of it delivering damage again.
4 pieces: Whenever Rip deals damage, there is a 4% chance that your next Ferocious Bite can be cast with no Energy spent on it, and it would be considered cast with the max possible Energy spending.
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