Cataclysm Classic Feral Druid DPS Talent Builds

Feral DPS Druid, like most Cataclysm specs, is heavily restricted to its namesake specialization tree, Feral Combat. You will always want to put points into this tree first and foremost, with the few leftover points after you hit the capstone talent, Berserk, being dedicated to passive damage increases in the Restoration tree.

If you want to maximize your potential DPS and raid utility as a Feral Druid, there are next to no optional talents in the build that you could swap around, unfortunately.

In this section, we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Feral DPS Druid. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its top strength.

• Feral Swiftness — increases your movement speed while in Cat Form by 30% and chance to dodge in any animal form by 4%. This is a great talent which allows you to move much faster from very early on.

• Primal Fury — add two combo points instead of one after critical striking your target. This increases the value of critical strike rating and is helpful for extra combo point generation.

• Feral Aggression — increases Ferocious Bite damage by 10% and causes your Faerie Fire (Feral) to apply its maximum possible armor reduction effect right away, allowing for much more DPS early on in the pull.

• Feral Charge — leaps behind a nearby enemy, dazing it for 3 seconds. Its true value comes from the follow-up talent, Stampede.

• Stampede — after using Feral Charge, you can use a free Ravage with no positional requirements, which is likely to deal a large amount of damage.

• King of the Jungle — causes Tiger's Fury to instantly restore 60 Energy. Due to Tiger's Fury low cooldown, this is can be used often for a large Energy boost.

• Leader of the Pack — your main raid buff; it increases the critical strike chance of nearby allies by 5% and causes critical strikes to regenerate your Health and Mana once every 6 seconds.

• Survival Instincts — your main defensive cooldown, it reduces your damage taken by 50% for 12 seconds.

• Endless Carnage — increases Rake and Savage Roar duration, making it a good quality of life talent with DPS impact.

• Blood in the Water — causes Rip to be refreshed when you Ferocious Bite a target at 25% or lower health. This saves Energy, global cooldowns, and allows you to snapshot and maintain a large Rip on a low health boss target.

• Berserk — cuts Energy cost of abilities by 50% for 15 seconds. If you start from a high Energy point, this allows you to use a lot more abilities than you would usually be able to, and is Feral's best DPS cooldown.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. While there are a couple of different options to choose from, there are some very clear front runners for each specialization.

• Glyph of Bloodletting — allows you to extend Rip by up to 6 seconds on most targets.
• Glyph of Berserk — increases the duration of your Berserk by 10 seconds.
• Glyph of Rip — increases the damage of Rip by 15%.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. While there are many different options for Feral DPS, we will list below the ones we find more useful.

• Glyph of Thorns — you will be likely to fight many enemies at once while doing solo content, making Thorns surprisingly strong for extra damage.
• Glyph of Rebirth — causes your Rebirth to return the target to life at full health, lessening the chance of instant death.
• Glyph of Feral Charge — reduces the cooldown of Feral Charge, increasing your mobility and damage potential with free Ravages.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typically depend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you. We give a few suggestions below.

• Glyph of Mark of the Wild — reduces the Mana cost of Mark of the Wild by 50% which makes it cheaper to cast when buffing someone recently resurrected.
• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth — removes the reagent requirement from Rebirth, saving some gold over time.
• Glyph of Dash — reduces the cooldown of Dash by 20%, increasing your potential mobility in the process.