Bradykin 16 Report post Posted February 17, 2015 WoD Feral 6.0.3 Guide, by Bradykin Still finishing the formatting of this guide, please do not judge me too harshly if it's not perfect yet, almost done!This guide is intended both for those who are new to feral, and those who are more experienced. It will help you learn how to get the most out of your feral druid in dungeons and raids. It covers dps, positioning, cooldowns, utility, and everything else about ferals in WoD, and will include tips and tricks for all current raid bosses. If you have any questions/comments/suggestions/hurtful messages you wish to send to me, you may either post below message me on Bradykin, Mannoroth US Alliance. Last updated 16/02/2015Updated for patch 6.0.3 / Blackrock Foundry opening Table of ContentsI: Overview of Feral in WoD / What has Changed→ Ability Pruning→ DoT Changes→ Combo Points→ Core Spell ChangesII: Talents and Glyphs→ Talents→ GlyphsIII: Stat Analysis→ List of Stats→ Stat PriorityIV: Best in Slot and T17 Bonuses→ Best in Slot list→ Tier 17 BonusesV: DPS Rotation and Cooldowns→ Energy Holding→ Simple Rotation→ Optimal Rotation→ Multi-Target RotationVI: Utility Breakdown→ Defensive & Movement Utility→ Healing UtilityVII: Tips and Tricks: WoD Raids→ Blackrock Foundry→ Highmaul VIII: Macros IX: Thanks and FeedbackX: Change Log I. Overview of Feral in WoD / What has Changed Ability PruningIn 6.0, Feral, just like every class, received a fair amount of ability pruning. Here is what we lost. A lot of our utility outside of cat form has been removed, such as Innervate and Tranquility, and our ability to shift into bear form and do something resembling usefulness has largely decreased. Our stealth attacks, Ravage and Pounce, have been removed, and baked into Shred and Rake. We have unfortunately lost the awesome damage mitigation of barkskin. The main spell we lost, however, is Mangle. Mangle is now a bear-only ability, and we just use Shred as our filler combo point generator. DoT ChangesPandemic was originally a passive ability for warlocks in Mists of Pandaria, however, it has now been expanded into a game-wide mechanic. When you refresh Rip, Rake, or Savage Roar while they are currently on the target, you add up to 30% of the original duration to your new spell. So if you cast a Rake while your previous one has 4.5 seconds or less left, you will not lose any of the duration. As well, leftover duration of a dot is now converted into a partial tick equal to the amount of time that was leftover. However, the single, massive change to DoTs is the removal of snapshotting. In the past, when you cast a DoT, it would take a snapshot of your current stats and use that for the full duration. So if you had a trinket proc for a massive amount of stats, those stats would be used to calculate the damage of the full duration of the DoT, even if the trinket proc ended halfway through the duration. This was a large part of feral DPS, and of every class that uses damage over time spells. Now, DoTs no longer do this, and recalculate their damage based on your stats for every tick. It is worth noting that ferals have a couple abilities that do still snapshot with our dots, making us very unique amongst classes nowadays. It was too much of a core mechanic for us to be completely removed, and DoTs still snapshot with Savage Roar, Tiger's Fury, and Bloodtalons. No other affects will snapshot for us. Combo PointsFor Ferals, combo points were previously stored on the target, and could only be stored on one target at a time. So if you had 4 combo points on one mob, and target swapped to a second and used Rake or Shred, the previous 4 combo points would disappear and we would rebuild from scratch. This was often annoying and greatly hampered our ability to target swap. In WoD, all combo point classes were changed to having the combo points stored on themselves, rather then the target, meaning we can now swap targets without losing them all. This is a very nice quality of life change to our class, and will allow us to target swap much more easily. Core Spell ChangesSeveral of our Core spells received a large amount of changes in Warlords of Draenor. Cat Form now gives us 30% bonus movement speed, up from 25%. Shred no longer requires you to be behind the target. Aswell, it has had some of the effects of Ravage incorporated into it, giving Shred 35% more damage and double the critical strike chance while stealthed. Ferocious Bite now has double the chance to critically strike against bleeding targets, instead of having a flat additional 25% chance to critically strike. Rip now has a base duration of 24 seconds, up from 16, and no longer has it's duration increased by Shred. Tiger's Fury now lasts 8 seconds, up from 6, and can be cast while in Berserk. Rejuvenation may now be cast in Cat Form. Overall, our Prowl buttons were rolled into our normal rotational buttons, and our finishers have been tweaked slightly. II. Talents and Glyphs Tier 1 (Level 15) Movement Tier Feline Swiftness is a passive movement speed increase Displacer Beast is a short teleport that gives you a burst of movement, and shifts you into Cat Form Wild Charge is a movement ability based on form, in cat form, it leaps you behind an enemy target. There is no truly correct choice here. Feline Swiftness, in my opinion, should be the default choice, unless there is a reason that either of the others would be useful, which their often is. All three are completely viable, and it is mostly down to the specific fight, and somewhat to your preference. I will cover which talent to use in this tier for specific bosses in the overviews of those bosses. Tier 2 (Level 30) Healing Tier #1 Ysera's Gift gives us a passive 4% of maximum health heal per 5 seconds, redirected to an ally if we are fully healed. Renewal is a 2 minute cooldown that heals us for 22% of our maximum health. Cenarion Ward is a 30 second cooldown that places a healing ward on a target that heals them when they take damage. Ysera's Gift is going to almost always be the best choice in this tier. It gives the most healing over time, and is completely passive, not requiring any management or attention. Tier 3 (Level 45) Utility Tier #2 Faerie Swarm replaces Faerie Fire and decreases the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds. Mass Entanglement is basically a spreading Entangling Roots, rooting your target and spreading to those nearby. Typhoon is a knockback spell that hits targets in front of you, knocking them back and dazing them. For raiding, this tier will be almost completely irrelevant. For dungeons, it's up to you what you like. From my experience, Typhoon is the most useful of the three, and is occasionally (very, very occasionally) useful in a raid environment, so I would take that. Tier 4 (Level 60) DPS Tier #1 Soul of the Forest gives you 4 energy per combo point when you use a finishing move. Incarnation is a 30 second duration buff with a 3 minute cooldown that causes Shred and Rake to function as if you were stealthed, and allows the use of Prowl in combat. Force of Nature has 3 charges, and summons a Treant that will root your current target, then proceed to bash them for a small amount of physical damage every 2 seconds. This is our first tier of DPS talents. It is currently correct, in every single scenario, to use Incarnation. There is no situation where either of the previous two talents will be more effective then Incarnation unless Blizzard tweaks them. It is worth noting that with Incarnation, Glyph of Savage Roar becomes mandatory. Tier 5 (Level 75) Utility Tier #2 Incapacitating Roar is an AOE ability that incapacitates all targets within 10 yards for 3 seconds. Ursol's Vortex is a circle that slows all targets inside by 50%, and the first enemy to attempt to leave the circle gets pulled to it's center. Mighty Bash is a 5 second stun on a 50 second cooldown. This is our second tier of random CC that has virtually no application in a raid environment. Take whichever one you like the most. I personally use Ursol's Vortex, after being taught how to use it properly by Krazyito. It is the most fun and useful ability of the tier, and even has a use on Kor'agh in Highmaul (will be discussed later on). Tier 6 (Level 90) Healing Tier #2 Heart of the Wild is a 6 minute cooldown that allows us to significantly improve our ability to either tank, spellcast, or heal for 45 seconds. Dream of Cenarius is an ability that increases the healing of our Healing Touch and Rejuvenations by 20%, and causes them to also heal us when we use them on someone else. Nature's Vigil is a 1.5 minute cooldown that for 30 seconds, causes our healing and damage to cause additional healing on nearby friendly targets. This tier gives us 3 ways to augment our healing abilities. In my opinion, the most powerful effect is Dream of Cenarius. There is no cooldown button to manage, and it means that a properly played feral druid will often require no healing, because they can send off-heals to the group and heal themselves through them at the same time. Tier 7 (Level 100) DPS Tier #2 Lunar Inspiration gives us the ability to cast Moonfire in Cat Form, and causes Moonfire to be an energy-cost ability that scales off of attack power. Bloodtalons causes our Healing touches to increase the power of our next two special melee abilities by 30% Claws of Shirvallah unlocks a new shapeshift that is basically a Saberon, which allows us to cast both feral and normal-form abilities. It also increases Versatility by 5%. In almost every scenario, Bloodtalons will provide the optimal DPS for us. It is far stronger single target then either other talent. There are some niche scenarios with 2-3 targets where Lunar Inspiration provides more damage, as it essentially provides you with a third dot, which could give you a small damage increase. The only scenario I can think of where you would use Claws of Shirvallah is if you for some reason need to help with cleansing. It is a massive dps downgrade in every scenario, leave that one to pvp. Glyphs Ferals have several glyphs that are potentially useful, but only a couple that directly effect dps: Glyph of Savage Roar causes your Rakes or Shreds to apply a 5 combo point Savage Roar if done from stealth. This works with the stealth effects caused by Incarnation. Glyph of Savagery makes the Savage Roar effect happen passively, but decreases it's effect by 10%. The above two glyphs are mutually exclusive with each other. Glyph of Savage Roar is mandatory with Incarnation, and since Incarnation is mandatory, that means this is too. This is the only glyph that will increase our direct dps output. A lot of people ask about whether or not the difference is really that big when you aren't playing perfectly, and i'm going to address that here. I respect those who say that non-mythic players should just use Glyph of Savagery and not worry about the 2-3% dps downgrade they recieve (since they most likely can't manage Savage Roar optimally). I disagree with this line of thinking. I will never advocate for someone to use a lesser rotation due to their perceived level of skill, because trying to learn how to master things like Savage Roar is how players learn to play better, which presumably everyone reading a guide wants to do. At optimal play in BRF, Glyph of Savagery is roughly a 6% dps downgrade. That may not sound like much, and in all honestly, in a 20man raid environment that isn't huge. But if everyone takes an indulgence like that? That's a massive dps downgrade throughout the raid, and therefore I cannot support that line of reasoning. Glyph of Cat Form increases all healing received while in Cat Form by 20%. This is mutually exclusive with Glyph of the Ninth Life. Glyph of the Ninth Life decreases all damage taken by 10%. This is mutually exclusive with Glyph of Cat Form. Glyph of Dash decreases the cooldown of Dash by 60 seconds. Glyph of Stampeding Roar increases the radius of Stampeding Roar by 30 yards, and allows it to be cast in all forms. Glyph of Rebirth causes your Rebirth to bring a target to life at 100% health. Glyph of Survival Instincts reduces the cooldown of Survival Instincts by 40 seconds, but reduces it's duration by 50%. These are the frequently relevant glyphs that we have remaining for our last two slots. It is essentially mandatory to use either Glyph of Cat Form or Glyph of the Ninth Life, as they give you significantly more survivability. I personally use Glyph of Cat Form and Glyph of Stampeding Roar from this list for almost all scenarios, finding them to be the most useful. However, there are several bosses where Glyph of Survival Instincts would be the superior choice to Glyph of Stampeding Roar, Gruul would be a good example. III. Stat Analysis List of Stats Haste gives us a bonus to our attack speed, spell casting speed, and energy regeneration. Critical Strike gives all of our attacks and spells a chance to deal double damage or healing. It scales at double effectiveness with Ferocious Bite, which has a doubled critical strike rate. Furthermore, when one of our combo-point builders crits, we gain an additional combo point. Mastery increases the damage of all of our bleed abilities. With 0 mastery, we get a base increase of 25%. It is worth noting that while Lunar Inspiration Moonfire is a dot, is it not a bleed like our other dots, and does not benefit from Mastery. Also, our 4 piece dot does not benefit from Mastery to the best of my knowledge. Multistrike gives each of our damage procs a chance to deal additional damage. Whenever we land a source of damage, be that a melee attack, Shred, dot tick, whatever, the game takes two rolls. For each roll that succeeds, we deal an additional 30% damage with that attack. The chance of those rolls succeeding is increased by our Multistrike rating. It is worth noting that a dot application multistriking does not apply another dot, it simply increases the damage of the initial hit. Versatility is a stat that increases all of our damage done by a flat amount, and also reduces our damage taken and increases our healing by a flat amount. Stat Priority Before saying anything, I want to state outright that secondary stats pale in importance to good play. While it's important to know what your aiming for in this regard, you should never be using gear that is significantly lower Item Level because it has better secondaries. I don't want to be wading through a ton of stat questions on the forums, so in all cases I will redirect you to Simcraft to check for yourself. Stat priorities can waver slightly based on your current gear level and secondary stats, but for the most part will remain fairly constant to us throughout all of WoD. While leveling is may vary tremendously, for level 100, we will almost always see the following priorities: Single Target → Agility > Attack Power > Crit > Multistrike > Mastery = Versatility > HasteMultiple Targets → Agility > Attack Power > Mastery > Crit > Multistrike > Versatility > Haste It is not a bad idea if you have multiple pieces at the same item level to hold onto them, since our stat priorities change based on the type of encounter. Based on these values and on current fights, I generally prioritize my gear as: Agility > Attack Power > Crit > Multistrike = Mastery > Versatility > Haste The last thing to note is that Crit does have breakpoints for us, at 33.3% and 50%. It will still be our best stat after 33.3%, but will drop in value significantly when we reach 50%. To explain why these breakpoints exist: At 33.3%, during Incarnation (when our Shred has doubled crit chance) we will mathematically reach 5 combo points with 3 Shreds, meaning we gain a higher chance of wasting combo points after this point. The difference to crit's value is very minor though. At 50%, during Incarnation our Shred will now have 100% crit chance, meaning it will gain nothing from more crit rating (where it previously gained doubled value). Furthermore, our Ferocious Bites at all points in combat will not gain anything from crit rating. This results in crit dropping in value significantly in single target, but (bizarrely) remaining our second best stat in cleave and AOE scenarios. IV. Best in Slot and T17 Bonuses Best in Slot For Single Target: Head: Living Wood Headpiece Neck: Darklight Necklace Shoulders: Living Wood Spaulders Chest: Living Wood Raiment Waist: Conductor's Multi-Pocket Girdle Legs: Shattering Smash Leggings Feet: Furnace Tender's Treads Wrists: Bracers of Shattered Stalactites Hands: Living Wood Grips Finger1: Unexploded Explosive Shard Finger2: Spellbound Runic Band of Unrelenting Slaughter Trinket1: Beating Heart of the Mountain Trinket2: Humming Blackiron Trigger Back: Drape of the Dark Hunt Weapon: Tal'rak, Bloody Skull of the Thunderlords For Cleave: Head: Living Wood Headpiece Neck: Engineer's Grounded Gorget Shoulders: Living Wood Spaulders Chest: Living Wood Raiment Waist: Conductor's Multi-Pocket Girdle Legs: Living Wood Legguards Feet: Treads of the Dark Hunt Wrists: Bracers of Shattered Stalactites Hands: Cannonball Loader's Grips Finger1: Unexploded Explosive Shard Finger2: Spellbound Runic Band of Unrelenting Slaughter Trinket1: Beating Heart of the Mountain Trinket2: Humming Blackiron Trigger Back: Drape of the Dark Hunt Weapon: Head-Lopper Skullscythe T17 Bonuses 2-Piece: Feral 2-Piece rewards us 1 energy every time one of our bleeds deal damage. This does not include Moonfire from Lunar Inspiration. This is a small boost in single target fights like Gruul, but a large boost in cleave fights such as Iron Maidens, and a massive boost to sustain AoE (as the Thrash ticks give us a ton more Swipes). The only major thing this changes is that it boosts the importance of Thrashing on multiple targets, and occasionally makes it worthwhile to Thrash on an OoC proc (however that is a corner-case scenario). 4-Piece: Feral 4-Piece gives us what is the rough equivalent of a Fire Mage's Ignite during the duration of our Berserk. It counts all damage except for our autoattacks. This doesn't change anything in our rotation, only adds even more importance to our cooldowns, and makes Incarnation/Bloodtalons even stronger in comparison to the other talents then it already was. V. DPS Rotation and Cooldowns Please note: This is written on the assumption that you are using Glyph of Savage Roar, Incarnation, and Bloodtalons. Energy Holding This is the most fundamental concept in Feral play: Energy holding. Basically, this is the idea that energy does not need to be spent as soon as it is generated. The highest energy cost spell we have costs 50 energy, and we have a bar that holds 100. That means that we have the luxury of delaying our spells until the right time to use them, rather them mashing the buttons as soon as we can. The difference between a good feral druid and a bad one is told in their ability to use their resources at the right time. Simplified Rotation (Single Target) Feral rotation at it's core is fairly simple, however, optimizing it gets very complex. The basics of Feral are shown by a small priority system, as shown below: Cast Savage Roar if it is about to fall off. Use DPS cooldowns (Tiger's Fury, Berserk, Incarnation) if they are off cooldown.3: Cast Rake if it is about to fall off. If at 5 combo points and Rip is about to fall off, cast Rip. If at 5 combo points and Rip and Savage Roar are well-maintained, cast Ferocious Bite. Shred for combo points. That is the heart of our rotation. Sounds simple, right? It's not. There are a ton of ways we can optimize the above to nurse every point of dps we can. Let's go over a few of these ways we can get our optimal damage. Optimized Rotation (Single Target) When you are considering how to optimize your rotation, you basically take the simplified priority system, and consider a bunch of additional variables. Let's talk about them: Opening RotationOur opener is extremely important to our overall damage. We use all of our cooldowns at the beginning of a fight (unless mechanics of the fight give us a damn good reason not to) and this contributes a ton of our damage. The optimal rotation goes as follows: (Pre-Pull) Cast Healing touch to gain 2 stacks of Bloodtalons (Pre-Pull) Stealth (Pre-Pull) Use your Draenic Agility Potion (On-Pull) Rake Incarnation Shred twice Berserk+ Tiger's Fury (Also use all trinkets at this time), as you cast either Shred (if not at 5 combo points) or Rip (if you are) Cast Rip if it was not used in Step 7 Shred until you have 5 Combo points Healing Touch Ferocious Bite then Rake Repeat steps 9-11, using a Shred instead of Rake if Rake does not need re-application When Incarnation is about to fall off, use Shred or Rake to refresh Savage RoarUsing this opener, you will gain the optimal DPS from your cooldown cycle, and end that cycle with a full Savage Roar and a good control of your bleeds. You will also have made optimal use of Bloodtalons by buffing each of your finishing moves with it, as well as all of your Rake applications. When your cooldowns come back up mid-fight, you use this exact rotation again, skipping steps 1-4 as you cannot pre-cast in combat. Incarnation & BerserkI list these together because they should be synchronized with each other. Use them on the opener as described above, then get as many uses of them throughout the fight as you can. When using them midfight, the procedure is basically identical to the opener, make sure you refresh Rake as your first GCD inside of Incarnation (to gain the doubled Rake damage) and get your Berserk running when appropriate. It doesn't necessarily need to be right at the start of the Incarnation, but there is rarely a reason to delay it more then a couple GCD's. Try to coordinate the cooldowns with on-use or RPPM trinkets, but make sure you never lose an activation of your cooldowns to do so, they are too important. How exactly you want to time them comes down to the specific fight, I would highly advise you plan ahead for each encounter. Tiger's FuryTiger's Fury is only a 30 second cooldown, and will be used throughout the fight every 30 seconds. This means you must consider a few things in relation to it. Tiger's Fury gives you 60 energy. That means that you must be prepared to receive that energy, so you must be below 35ish when you cast it so you do not cap and waste any. Tiger's Fury gives you a 15% physical damage buff for 8 seconds, and snapshots with your bleeds. Therefore, you want to apply your Rake during this to take advantage of it, and want to use all of your energy during this duration rather then pooling to make the greatest use of the buff. Rake has a 15 second duration, meaning that every other Rake should be aligned with Tiger's Fury. Pandemic & SnapshottingPandemic allows us to refresh our bleeds and Savage Roar at any point within the last 30% of their duration. This means that you can use it at whatever point on the last 30% of the bleed's duration that makes the most sense, allowing us to delay for procs and Tiger's Fury. When it makes the most sense is based largely off of snapshotting. Snapshotting your bleeds is still very relevant in Warlords of Draenor, even though it is not based off of our stats, instead being based off of Savage Roar, Bloodtalons, Tiger's Fury, and Improved Rake. Savage Roar is largely irrelevant in this topic, since it should always be maintained and thus should be part of every point of damage you deal, bleed or otherwise. Bloodtalons, Tiger's Fury, and Improved Rake are far more interesting points of discussion. Without going into the overwhelming details that can only truly be learned through practice, the simple way of thinking about it is that you want to buff your bleeds as much as you can, and when you have to apply a weaker bleed after a stronger one (for example a regular Rake after your Incarnation-buffed Improved Rake) you want to let the old one tick for a long as you can. On the flipside, when you can apply a stronger bleed then the current one (such as a Tiger's Fury + Bloodtalons buffed Rip over the previous one that only had Bloodtalons) you want to overlap right at the beginning of the Pandemic range, since it will add the remaining seconds to your new, more powerful bleed. Savage Roar Savage Roar can be applied at any number of combo points to receive the 40% buff, just for different durations. However, you always ideally want to use it for 5 combo points Roars, as this is the best way to not waste energy. If you must use it at a smaller amount to ensure Savage Roar is maintained, that is completely acceptable, it is far more important that the buff never falls off. However, you want to be able to predict ahead in your rotation to make sure that you do not run into this scenario if at all possible. Bloodtalons Bloodtalons being used optimally is one of the largest differences between a good Feral and a bad one. To clarify, you never, ever want to break form to cast a healing touch, as some people believe. Whenever you use a finishing move, you have a 20% chance per combo point.The optimal targets to buff with Bloodtalons are finishing moves, followed by Rake. You proc your free healing touch when you use a finishing move, and thus are at 0 combo points. However, you don't need to use that Healing Touch yet. Predatory Swiftness lasts for 12 seconds, you can sit on it until you have reached 4-5 combo points, and use the Healing touch then, giving you the two stacks of Bloodtalons and allowing one to be used on the next combo move. If executed perfectly, you should be buffing every single finishing move, and most if not all of your Rakes, with Bloodtalons. Needless to say, if you can stop someone from dieing with the Healing Touch, do so rather then letting them die so you can nurse a bit more DPS. Ferocious BiteWhen weaving Ferocious Bite into our rotation, it is very important to remember that it will spend up to 25 additional energy to increase it's damage is increased by up to 100%. This is definitely worth taking advantage, meaning that you must pool 50 energy before using Ferocious Bite. It is also vital that you do not lose Rip or Savage Roar up time when weaving in Ferocious Bites. This is not something that I can mathematically show you how to do, but something that you learn while playing: every feral has a different combo points per second based on their crit and haste levels, and therefore will have different timings on when they can use Ferocious Bite. Practice is the best teacher, not math, in this regard.Omen of ClarityOmen of Clarity is a random proc off of our auto-attacks that makes our next energy ability free. When this procs, you must take a few things into consideration. Firstly, you want to use it as quickly as possible, in case another OoC proc happens and overlaps the first one. Secondly, you want to use it on the most expensive spell that makes sense to use, however, don't simply press the most expensive button you can find. This distinction is mostly for things like when Rake needs to be refreshed within 4 seconds, you have 2 stacks of Bloodtalons and can either cast Shred->Rake or Rake->Shred to the same results. In some scenarios, it will even make sense to use Thrash (even in a single target scenario) but that is mostly with higher gear levels (aka 2 piece and higher levels of mastery). Multi-Target Combat Feral cleave is fairly similar to it's single target, except you want to maintain Thrash on the group of targets (Thrash also becomes the optimal choice to use OoC procs on), and you want to place your bleeds on as many targets as possible. Ferocious Bite is removed from the rotation, instead using Rips whenever you have 5 combo points on whichever targets do not have it applied. You will use far less Shreds, as you will be generating a lot of combo points by trying to maintain Rake on every target. If there are 7-10ish targets (depends on your stats, i'd say 9 is a safe number) it becomes simply better to just keep Thrash maintained and hit Swipe,. Any less then this, and it is not worth using Swipe. VI. Utility Breakdown Defensive & Movement Utility We do not have as much of these tools as we have in past expansions, but we still have a few tools at our disposal. Survival InstinctsSurvival Instincts reduces all damage taken by 50% for 6 seconds. It has 2 charges, and a 2 minute recharge. This is our defensive cooldown, which should be used in preparation of large damage spikes. If the damage spikes in your current fight are a single hit rather then pulsing, glyphing Survival Instincts may be beneficial for you. DashDash is our go-to movement cooldown, giving us 70% movement speed while in Cat Form for 15 seconds. This is an extremely powerful movement cooldown, which should be used to avoid mechanics on a boss or to traverse large distances that some bosses require melee to run across. Stampeding RoarStampeding Roar is our raid movement cooldown, giving nearby allies 60% increased movement speed for 8 seconds. This is very valuable for when the raid needs to reposition, and should be planned in advance to use at the optimal time for the group. Healing Utility Ferals have some amazing off-healing if they are used effectively. While this will not increase our dps, this will help out the healers that are working to keep the raid alive. They will never thank you, since they probably won't notice, but you will get a nice fuzzy feeling inside since you know that you were helping. There are three sources of our healing, each equally important to making the most of this. Ysera's GiftYsera's Gift is our passive effect that gives us a lot of free heals on the group for no effort. Nothing else really needs to be said about this, spec it and let it do magic. Healing TouchHealing Touch is part of our rotation, but our DPS doesn't care who we cast it on. However, with Dream of Cenarius, we can cast it on an ally and also receive the heal, meaning we can double our effectiveness if we purposely aim the heal at a friendly that needs it. This means that every time we want to use a Healing Touch, we can spike both our health and a friends up, assisting the healer's in their job. RejuvenationWe have a lot of spare GCDs. I mean a lot of them. Especially at the beginning of the expansion when we have low crit and haste, we will spend a lot of time doing nothing. This means that we have plenty of spare time to use Rejuvenation on targets that need it, which thanks to Dream of Cenarius will also cast one on ourselves. This, if used right, will be our largest healing output. Be careful though: Even in feral, Rejuvenation does cost mana, and you can run out. Have a mana indicator somewhere on your UI so you know how much you are using it, and try to ensure you have the mana to cast at least one every 12ish seconds so it is rolling on you for the entirety of the fight. VII. Tips and Tricks: Wod Raids and Dungeons Blackrock Foundry (Work in Progress) GruulTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Survival Instincts Welcome to Blackrock's target dummy! The only real advice I have for you is to not stand in the danger zones, and do your dps rotation as well as you can. Glyphed Survival Instincts is very useful on this boss to mitigate the Inferno Slice's, giving the healers a bit of a break. If you get petrified, spend most of your energy so you don't waste any in the couple seconds you are stunned. Other then that, enjoy your target dummy. OregorgerTalents: Preference | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar For phase 1 of Oregorger, just do as melee do in the fight, with the back and forth dance and the interupts. Pretty simple. Make sure you don't soak the Acid Torrent, we aren't great at that. Use all your cooldowns in these phases, there is no point to them during the boxes. When Oregorger starts rolling around the room, use our increased movement speed to stay alive. We aren't the best at killing the boxes, but we can do our part, and you shouldn't have any trouble not getting hit by the rolls if you are paying attention. The Blast FurnaceTalents: Preference | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Beastlord DarmacTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Operator ThogarTalents: Feline Swiftness/Displacer Beast | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Hans'gar and Fran'zokTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Flamebender Ka'grazTalents: Preference | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar KormogTalents: Wild Charge | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar The Iron MaidensTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | Lunar InspirationGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar BlackhandTalents: Preference | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Highmaul Kargath BladefistTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Avoid being the person sent to the stands at all costs, we are terrible at it. If for some forsaken reason you are sent up there, don't bother using more AoE then Thrash, just try to burst down the relevant mobs (The not-grunts) For the rest of the fight, it's pretty tank and spank for melee. Be careful not to get Berserker Rushed, and beyond that, just stab the boss. Dodge the ground sludge, and the fireballs if on mythic. The only thing of note for us is to be careful not to blow our cooldowns right before chain hurl, because you will lose about 10 seconds of uptime on the boss there. Use all of your energy right before the chain hurl, and save any cooldowns for afterwards. Otherwise, there is no reason to save cooldowns during this fight. The ButcherTalents: Wild Charge | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar The Butcher is the raid's target dummy, so we need to put on our best face for dpsing and healing. Utilize your off-healing, since we have nothing else to focus on: Use your spare GCD's to throw out Rejuvs, and send your Healing Touches towards logical targets. Most groups will swap melee piles at 3 stacks of the bleed, which comes out every 5 seconds. Since our Survival Instincts lasts 6 seconds, use it just before the second bleed is applied, to mitigate the most damage. Save some stacks of SI for the last 30%, when the healing is more strained. Wild Charge is important on this fight to give us the most uptime, as it is the fastest way to return to the target dummy whenever the target dummy uses Bounding Cleave. IMPORTANT: The Butcher has a 5 minute enrage. That means that you will not be able to use your cooldowns more then once beyond using them on the pull. Don't just mash them when they come back up 3 minutes in, be intelligent about it. Since we only get 1 more use of them, let's time it right. For those with proc or on-use trinkets, the best timing for your second pot + cooldowns would be aligned with those trinkets. For instance, I use the Darkmoon card (115 second ICD) and Lucky Coin (2 minute cooldown). So both of those will be used at roughly 2 minutes into the fight again, and be back for around 4 minutes (Darkmoon card sometimes doesn't keep to schedule, but it's pretty consistent). Aligning my cooldowns with the trinkets at 4 minutes will be a massive dps increase for me. Look at your trinkets, and see if there is an optimal time for your second cooldowns. If there isn't, use it at 30% health, when the damage becomes higher and the burn should go faster. 30% also gives you time to apply a good bloodtaloned Rip (if one is not applied) to refresh constantly with Bites below 25%. BrackensporeTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Use Displacer Beast over Feline Swiftness if on flamethrower duty. If you are not using the flamethrower, this boss is really simple for melee: kill adds, stand in the good mushrooms. This fight has a 10 minute enrage timer, which means that if you are quick on using your cooldowns as they are up, you will get to use your 3 minute cooldowns 4 times this fight. Do so. This will be more important then aligning it with trinkets/mushrooms. If your raid is going to kill it before the 9 minute marker and you want to pad dps, then align them and only use the 3 that are timed well with trinkets or Blue Mushrooms. The optimal time for Survival Instincts is during Infesting Spores while on a blue mushroom, since our passive healing + green should basically handle ourselves without healer involvement for all difficulties but mythic. When the Fungal Flesh-Eater is up, maintain Rake on both targets, and focus the Flesh Eater (You can try to maintain Rip on both targets if the Fungals dieing is not a problem for your group, but it is better to hard focus the add if your raid is struggling to kill them in time). Beyond that, there isn't much to say. TectusTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Our main job on Tectus is not to die. Get your dodging boots on, and use your increased speed to dance around all of the dust clouds and earth spikes. We have a major advantage over most melee in our natural movement speed, so we should use it. For Phase 1, swap to adds and dot them up, but try to keep your bleeds on the boss at all times. For Phase 2, you can keep Rake on both targets if they are beside each other, but focus down the appointed target. I would save major cooldowns during this part for Phase 3. In Phase 3, we unfortunately are put in a cleave fight as a class without good cleave. However, we gotta do the best we can. Keep Thrash up at all times, and try to roll Rake on each target. One target should be marked with a skull: Put your Rips on that target, and try to have it be the one you are meleeing most of the time. It is worth it to refresh Thrash without an OoC proc for 4 target combat, although obviously preferable with one. Try to use your Bloodtalons procs on Thrash and Rip, with Rake being third priority. Use all of your cooldowns and your second potion at the beginning of this phase. Once the 4 motes are dead, rinse and repeat with the second 4. In terms of using Survival Instincts, I personally save 1 at all time for emergencies on this boss (and by emergencies I mean if I screw up and stand in the dust cloud) and use the others during Tectonic Upheaval (assuming the one casting it is not just going to die in the first second of the upheaval). Twin OgronTalents: Preference | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | Lunar InspirationGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Our main job on Twin Ogron, once again, is to not die. However, we also have a boss where we can use our bleeds on both of the bosses for most of the fight. Thrash on OoC procs if you can hit them both, and keep Rake on both at all time, with as much Rip uptime on both as you can achieve. Movement tier has choices here based on preference; the only one I would say is a terrible idea is Wild Charge. I personally prefer Feline Swiftness on this boss. but I know a lot of people like Displacer Beast for this fight, and it works just as well. When the bosses are split up, be aware of which one you are on and what it's mechanics are, because they both have anti-melee mechanics: Pol will charge across the room and splat anyone in his path, and Phemos will do a whirlwind. Pol is probably the better target to chase if you are forced to choose. In terms of Survival Instincts usage, I like to have 1 stack available during the Fire Waves, in case I mess up and get clipped by one of them. Other then that, good times to use SI would be Pulverize. Ko'raghTalents: Feline Swiftness | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar The movement tier is not incredibly important in this fight, I feel like Feline Swiftness is the best choice but it shouldn't have a major effect on your performance. For melee, Ko'ragh is basically a target dummy for most of the fight, but for the part that he likes to run around annoyingly back and forth. Be aware of when he is going to charge to the ranged, and try to follow him there and back (if feasable) to get a bit more uptime. When he goes into his vulnerable phase, be VERY careful not to stick a paw into the circle, keep back and do your damage from outside of it. Beyond this, we actually have a metric crapton of utility in this fight. First of all, Stampeding Roar will break the Frost orb slow on everyone in range, which is amazing. Coordinate with other druids to break each one as needed. In the vulnerable stage, we can be very useful in grouping the adds up without ever leaving the boss, using Ursol's Vortex. By sticking it in the zone the tank is trying to drag the adds into, we can help keep them contained. While my raid has never asked me to use this, we also can Typhoon them straight into the circle, which would be hilarious, and highly effective (I think? As long as you don't aim it badly). If you are doing this, put the Ursol's down FIRST, so it snaps them all into the radius after you knock them through it. Imperator Mar'gokTalents: Displacer Beast | Incarnation | Dream of Cenarius | BloodtalonsGlyphs: Glyph of Savage Roar | Glyph of Cat Form | Glyph of Stampeding Roar Displacer Beast is absolutely amazing on this fight. Every time he knocks you back with the Force Nova, if you pause for a half second and then Displacer Beast, you will jump straight through it and only take a single tick of damage, rather then the 2-3 you would get by running through. Waiting that half second is important though, as if you don't you will get caught in the back part of the wave on the other side and take a couple unnecessary ticks of damage. I would recommend you time your cooldowns for the 2 transitions on this boss, even though they will most likely be up slightly before then, as that is when the damage is most relevant for the raid. For Phase 3, coordinate the use of Stampeding Roar with other druids to best run the raid away from the target that got Mark of Chaos'd. The best time for Survival Instincts is during the transition when the little adds are blowing up, and when one of the Arcane Aberrations is alive, excluding phase 1 because those ones are pushovers. I like to try and pocket a charge of SI for if I receive a high stacked Arcane Wrath for whatever reason, but if you gotta use it, then use it. Try to help the healers as much as you can. this is a long and grueling fight for them. Beyond that, do your damage, kill the adds in transition, and for god's sake don't step in any mines. VIII: Macros Healing Touch Macro #showtooltip Healing Touch /run SetCVar ("autoUnshift",0) /cast [@mouseover, exists, nodead][@targettarget, exists, nodead][@player] Healing Touch /run SetCVar ("autoUnshift",1) This macro tries to cast Healing touch on mouseover target, followed by targettarget, followed by yourself, all with the conditional of "Will not break form to cast Healing Touch" to prevent any accidents. Very useful, can be modified if you prefer to target different (using focuses for example). I want to specify that I did not design this macro. To the best of my recollection, I found it on battle.net about a year ago. I apologize if whoever made it comes here and feels like i'm trying to steal credit, but I can't recall who made it, so i'll just say thanks to whoever did. IX: Thanks and Feedback I'll get around to thanking everyone, for now I've got two names.Thank you to Vlad and the mod team as a whole for trusting me with this responsibility. I'll make you proud.Big thanks to Kazistrasz who is giving me awesome feedback and smacking me around about formatting, I appreciate the help. X: Change Log 17/02/2015: Finished most of the guide, working on formatting to break up the wall of text. 19/02/2015: Bit more formatting, added the macro section. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bradykin 16 Report post Posted February 17, 2015 Reserving this post for future need. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
