Feral Druid 7.3

[Valks 2,375]

On 1/27/2017 at 4:40 PM, Guest Kufi said:

Sorry if this is an obvious question, but the AOE section of the guide never mentions Savage Roar usage. Should SR be used always, regardless of the situation? I'm particularly thinking in 2-3 target scenarios, keeping rip on 2-3 targets instead of using SR

Just stopping by to confirm. As said above, you would aim to maintain it with the same priority as in the ST rotation. It is incredibly important. 

[Valks 2,375]

23 hours ago, SupermanDan said:

yea you pretty much want SR up 100% of the time. for aoe situations I always have BT on open with thrash and swipe then SR another BT then thrash + swipe. lower aoe cleave throw in some rakes and a rip.

Thanks for helping to answer! :)

[Guest Unstopabull]

Hello all you Cat/Bear lovers.

I`m wondering if you can help. I have some issues with my feline DPS, while allot of it involves timing I have one major question which boggles the mind I swear. My Ferocious bite sometimes refreshes RIP BUT I do not have Sabertooth talent, and its driving me nuts... First I thought it was because of a CRIT (if ferocious bite crits refreshes) but NAH. And I am having some serious problems with my DPS because of this, I can only output 400k in avg in raids...

 

Hope you guys can help

Thanks

 

[Valks 2,375]

13 minutes ago, Guest Unstopabull said:

Hope you guys can help

It happens when you are fighting mobs that are below 25% HP. It's an automatic part of Ferocious Bite. 

If you want help with your other DPS issues, you can always make an account and just ask the questions you need answered :)

[maverisk 0]

10 minutes ago, Blainie said:

It happens when you are fighting mobs that are below 25% HP. It's an automatic part of Ferocious Bite. 

If you want help with your other DPS issues, you can always make an account and just ask the questions you need answered :)

Already done man, already done, just that I took the wrong order by posting comment ahead of making an account. :)

[Valks 2,375]

1 minute ago, maverisk said:

Already done man, already done, just that I took the wrong order by posting comment ahead of making an account. :)

Ah, I see! Well, welcome to the forums and, if you need help, just ask :)

[Guest Cyredther]

'Easy mode' for feral suggests we talent for sabertooth and moment of clarity; the talent build section suggests we talent for bloodtalons and jagged wounds.  Which is the better overall DPS?

[Valks 2,375]

18 hours ago, Guest Cyredther said:

'Easy mode' for feral suggests we talent for sabertooth and moment of clarity; the talent build section suggests we talent for bloodtalons and jagged wounds.  Which is the better overall DPS?

The talent build section will always be the best choices for DPS. Easy Mode is only about making the spec as simple as possible to play.

[Guest Sajitarius]

I looking at the Feral 4-piece bonus from nighthold. Is it assured that casing thrash on a clear-cast for a single-target fight?

 

I make a (possible incorrect) assumption that,  per thrash cast with 10-second bleed (jagged wounds) there will be ~3 shreds cast.
Also, shred will typical be gaining a +%30 effect from rip and rake
Thrash over 10 seconds = 204,000 damage  (no luffa)   shred = 279,000  + (279,000 * 0.30) = 362,700

So, if the cast of thrash was shred instead of thrash, those following 3 shreds would be gaining the %30 instead of %45, so casting thrash instead of a shred loses  362700-204000 = 158700 damage

If thrash was cast, the next 3 shreds would gain another %15, so  279,000 + (279,000  * 0.45) = 404550.
The difference in the shred damage is 404550 - 362700 = 41850 per shred for a total of  125550  damage gained from the extra %15 thrash bleed grants.

So, casting thrash gains 125550 damage over the next three shreds,  but loses 158700 damage from not having cast a shred instead, for total loss of 125550 - 158700 = -33150

 

This is changed if luffa is taken (but then lose effects from better-stat'ed legendary or better effect legendary) or if there is more than one target. However, the effect on a 2+ target cleave may still also be lessened, since effort should be put into maintaining  2+ rakes, which will reduce the casts of shred and reduce the effectiveness of the extra damage. A string of lucky clear-casts mean thrash + swipe which will be good, but no string of clear-casts means casting a thrash,  then focusing on tab-raking targets without as many shred casts... casting the one swipe would have done more damage than the one thrash with no swipe. (Using a swipe instead of tab-raking also loses DPS). It may be up to luck whether casting the trash or only casting a swipe was the better choice.

[Guest FailralxD]

Just got bracers and 4piece as feral. I assume I use thrash for single target now. any other spec changes?

[Guest TheHerb]

just  wanna see if i under stand the relic choosing, i see that a 10iLvL on a relic gives 3 iLvL to my weapon so does that mean a 860 Tear the Flesh relic would be equal in power to a 870 Razor Fangs relic or 875 Ashamane's Energy/ Feral Power relic or 900 Attuned to nature/ Honed Instincts relic? 

[Guest Treestyler]

Hi,

you say the new legendary legs in 7.1.5 are bad but for example Mr. Robot and so on are weighting them pretty high. Isnt it worth to use a mailm for a ferocious bite? With my gear and the aliuro pouncers i'll always have some combo points for a filler finisher.

What do you guys think?

Regards

[gatygun 0]

Thanks for posting the guide.

I tested it out and i must say either the build doesn't deliver or is over complicated to the point of people just dropping feral entirely for minimal gains.

My results are with 851 gear, really poor performance on boss fights and really poor performance on aoe fights.  And this has nothing to do with not being skilled enough. It has everything to do with builds.

What you want is high burst on aoe and high burst on boss as they won't last that long. 

A typical mystic boss takes here 1-4 minutes. A really hard one can go as long as 6-7 minutes.

The easy mode setup in the guide isn't delivering. Sure it's easy mode, but the damage is really really bad. The tanks will catch up on you pretty easily by following that. I wouldnt'advice it anybody.

It's like saying just apply rake and rip and call it a day which is also easy but doesn't give you any decent numbers.

Maybe you could update the guide with this following information of mine.

My vision on feral:

- ) Feral needs to do good single target damage, good aoe damage, and needs to be relative easy to play.

- ) Feral shouldn't be, decent at single target damage, bad at aoe damage, and extremely hard to play.

Therefor i did some tests and came out with the following results for new / mid geared ferals to perform well in both solutions while having a easier and fun time to play the char.

Talents:

1) blood scent - requires no management = more damage on aoe + single target + combo regeneration. absolutely must

2) wild charge - better at tailing monsters and swapping

3) balance affinity - more aoe range + easier to switch or tail bosses / monsters. absolute the best

4) mighty bash - needed to interrupt monsters casts / attacks. crucial

5) Incarnation king of the jungle - absolute best single target, multi target, but big aoe packs it falls a bit behind.

Single target boss fight:

Provides hefty boss burst, out damages savage roar on single target bosses if they last under 2 minutes, does equal damage as savage roar at 3 minutes, incarn does more damage at 4 and 5 minutes and equal to a bit less at 6 minutes, after that it's pretty much equal. but that only is the case if you can keep savage roar + rip + rake rolling at its full potential non stop which is hard.

In other words it's far more easier and yields better / same results ( short / long fight ) as savage roar on single target solutions.

The difference is here. 350k incarn in a short boss fight of 2 minutes, vs 220k savage roar. Big difference. Longer fight its about 240k like savage roar. As every 2,5 minutes after it being cast you can recast it which boost damage again.

Big groups of monsters.

Incarn + aoe = absolute king in performance. The thing is you won't be using incarn really because you want it to be ready for boss fights to boost your single target damage big time. This makes savage roar outperform it, as all your aoe will hit with 20% more damage in total. Which will help your damage meters. 

This however gets fixed by the 100 talent which i will address later on.

6) Jagged wounds - absolute best solution 33% faster damage on bleeds is a lot more pressure on the targets you are damaging

7) Brutal slash - the crucial aoe we need. This talent hit's extremely hard on aoe packs has a short reload cooldown and it's mind boggling how people underrate this talent.

I will go a bit further in on this.

single target situation:

- Brutal slash, does 300.000 damage here, can give you 1 to 3 combo points  and costs 20 energy.

- Shred however gives you 100k damage + 20% more so 120k damage if it's bleeding. Can generate 1 to 2 combo points through a crit at a cost of 40 energy.

It's not bad for single target at all, it's actaully a good burst skill ( pretty much a small furious bite damage dealer ). It hits twice as hard, for twice less energy and generate more combo points while hits more targets around you at the same time.

big aoe groups

Brutal slash hits all monsters around you, all of them. So if the group pulls 20 monsters, and you crit the 3 brutal slash casht you willl do pretty much in 3 gcd's up to 33 million damage. ( it can crit up to 550k on a single target )

On 851 in mystic packs i sometimes do up to anwyhere from 1,4-2m dps aoe wise. with simple throw thrash on target + tiger fury and spam those brutal slashes 3x. The damage is huge from it.

Not only that, each brutal slash can give you up to 3 combo points which makes it easy for you to gain combo points to place rips on higher profile targets. It also costs a really low amounts of 20 energy, which gets even further reduced if you trash hits targets ( scent of blood traith ).

Trash = every target hit, brutal slash energy cost gets reduced by 2. which means if you hit 10 targets with trash at the opener your brutal slash is pretty much complletely free. which gives you room enough to rip and rake every high profile target.

Basically brutal slash will fix all your aoe issue's you have, and incarn will fix all the boss first single target issue's you got.

About blood talons:

It increases 50% of your next 2 ability's. which basically gets used for your artifact / rip and rake and even furious bite.

The issue:

1) proc doesn't always line up fine which result in a lot of wasted energy or no advantage of it.

2) hard to track with other procs, which can make things with savage roar extremely complicated at times.

3) interrupts flow of attacks

4) takes a global cooldown to cast

5) if proc expires and you cast it, it tend to throw you out of form.

The gains:

33% damage boost ( which is the real value ) on rip / rake / artifact. Which will noticable help you with single target burst. In combination with incarn the damage can go really high on a single target boss.

The reason to not take it:

We already do good single target damage, the aoe pack damage is low. brutal slash will help with single target a tiny bit, but will put you in the charts at aoe damage big time. It can crit up 550k on 851 geared feral on a single target and can hit everything around you.

It also makes management of energy and the flow of the char a lot more easy +  multi dotting.

The whole build is basically a alternative towards savage roar and blood tailon, as both work for a boost on single and a boost on multi target. but its overcomplicated and less effective for most mystics. For raiding + high end gear it's probably not. But really for starting ferals and mid geared ferals this is the way to go by far.

My rotation:

Single target boss:

Opener:

Stealth > incarnation > tiger fury > rake > artifact > brutal slash / shred ( if brutal slash is up go for that ) > 5 combo points rip > rake > bs / shred > furious bite at 5 combo points

Rotation:

- keep rake up

- keep rip up

- furious bite left over energy

Note: if you know loads of adds come in, save brutal slash for that moment or just use 1 brutal slash and let it restack to 3 stacks

Use tiger fury in combination with your artifact / rake / rip. Best solution is when you hit 4 combo points and are drained of energy, use tiger fury + rake + rip + artifact so it effects all three.

After 3 minutes incan again and repeat.

Super simple, super easy.

Big groups:

Tiger fury > trash > brutal slash x3 > rip main target and rake > trash > brutal slash > rip target and rake.

3 targets:

keep trash up on them, + rake + brutal slash and rip the main target, repeat.

Example mystic with this build:

First boss, 410k dps

second boss: 390k dps

thirth boss 360k dps

fourth boss 400k dps

Trash pulls highest number 1,4 million dps

average 750k dps

Edited March 3, 2017 by gatygun

[Guest exx]

Wich legendery is best for single target for feral? The ring or the chest?

[Valks 2,375]

On 3/5/2017 at 9:26 PM, Guest exx said:

Wich legendery is best for single target for feral? The ring or the chest?

Ring.

[Valks 2,375]

We are currently in the process of updating our guides in preparation for the release of 7.2 - please understand that we will not be answering questions in this section about "What is better for 7.2?" prior to the patch release, since all the information will be available when the patch goes live. Please be patient and thanks for waiting!

[Guest Anova]

Hi all, i want to say my opinion on feral mythic+ (with T19 4/4):

Build: Predator, Savage roar, Bloodtalons.

Rotation Single target:

Normal single target rotation + trash (use with omen of clarity proc (if omen of clarity proc at 5 combo point use finisher, rake and then trash)).

Rotation 2 Targets (this work already on pull where there are 2 longlife mob and other shortlife mobs)

Normal rotation (savage roar always up and rake, rip, trash (use with omen of clarity) for every targets...shred to build combo point). If there are shortlife mobs use at start trash and swipe and when you get 5 combo point apply rip and then rake. When mobs die use your predator talent.

Rotation 3/4 Targets:

Savage roar up, apply rake on all target, trash, rip (on 2 or more targets) and swipe to build combo point. At start not use Tiger's Fury...use when u don't have energy. 

Rotation 5+ Target:

Savage roar up, Trash + Swipe + Tiger's Fury every time mob die ... i like make savage roar up before pull to make more aoe damage.

I think predator is very powerful with boss encounter that spawn mobs like the first 3 in NL, the first 2 in MOS (on helya tentacles predator don't work), second boss in DHT, first 3 boss in EOA, First two boss in VOTW+ lav'golm, first 2 in COS..

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Furline]

Hello, wanna clarify the rotation of SR. Like do you guys cast SR at 5 cp? then refresh it when it is about to expire? So the rotation would be like SR(5cp) then build up to 5cp again (cast regrowth for BT) then use Rip, Rake? At first I thought you'd use it at 1cp but realize you can't cast Rip within 8sec.

[Valks 2,375]

On 4/1/2017 at 9:42 AM, Guest Anova said:

I think predator is very powerful with boss encounter that spawn mobs like the first 3 in NL, the first 2 in MOS (on helya tentacles predator don't work), second boss in DHT, first 3 boss in EOA, First two boss in VOTW+ lav'golm, first 2 in COS..

This will depend on the time of adds, however, and their HP level. If the adds die extremely quickly, one after the other, you might find yourself only getting a single additional use of TF, due to the overlap of the reset. It's why Pred on some of those bosses only works on high M+.

[Valks 2,375]

3 hours ago, Guest Furline said:

Hello, wanna clarify the rotation of SR. Like do you guys cast SR at 5 cp? then refresh it when it is about to expire? So the rotation would be like SR(5cp) then build up to 5cp again (cast regrowth for BT) then use Rip, Rake? At first I thought you'd use it at 1cp but realize you can't cast Rip within 8sec.

I'd recommend reading this section on SR - it answers your question:

Quote

4.3.5. When to Refresh Savage Roar

The timing for refreshing  Savage Roar is not very strict, but you should still try to refresh it right as it is about to expire so as not to waste any of its duration.

It is, however, important to note that if you have 5 Combo Points and 7.2 seconds left on Savage Roar, you can refresh it without losing any of its duration. Making use of this can make keeping up the buff quite a bit easier, but refreshing Savage Roar even with fewer than 5 Combo Points is acceptable in emergencies.

For your last statement, if you mean 1CP in the opener, it is 1CP. You should definitely be able to cast rip in that 8 second window. 

[Guest Furline]

Woah, sorry about that. Have read the rotation page already, I might have missed that one about SR. tnx will try feral again with that in mind. Though, it is still complex to play feral. Huh..

[Valks 2,375]

On 4/5/2017 at 3:44 AM, Guest Furline said:

Woah, sorry about that. Have read the rotation page already, I might have missed that one about SR. tnx will try feral again with that in mind. Though, it is still complex to play feral. Huh..

No problem. It is. Feral is all about making decisions with multiple options often available, rather than simply going 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4.

[Rokomis 0]

I'm running with sabertooth/SoF/MoC build. Anyone know if I should be Ripping at 5cp only, or 4-5c so I don't waste CPs?

[ArusVicious 156]

On 4/25/2017 at 11:58 AM, Rokomis said:

I'm running with sabertooth/SoF/MoC build. Anyone know if I should be Ripping at 5cp only, or 4-5c so I don't waste CPs?

Doesn't matter what build you use, but you should never cast rip without 5CPs as it is a major dmg loss. If you are using the sabertooth talent, just use all the snapshots you can before casting your first rip; tiger's fury and berserk for you. Basically just spam FB at 5CP after that. 

Edited April 27, 2017 by Maxkitty

[ArusVicious 156]

So I'm wondering between the hands and the boots, which legendary would end up giving me the best ST increase, or, as many feral legendaries, a quality of life improvement. 

Thanks in advance!