feral multi target dps

[Static9 0]

I started WoW at the beginning of legion and am currently an 876 feral druid. The 2 legendaries I have is the one that increases my speed and range of attacks and the one that increases dmg to enemies above 90%.  During raids and dungeon bosses I do well with 300-400 dps but I am struggling with optimizing trash mob dps in mythic+ dungeons.  Any kind of advice for this is appreciated.  With 2-3-4+ mobs I can't realistically do the same strategies I do with a single boss because there isn't enough time to wait to get all your buffs before you apply dots.  I have so many thoughts and questions on this so I will try my best to organize them.

 

1) is savage roar the best talent for mythic+?  i feel i dont have enough time to keep it up during trash.  I am almost wondering if the loss in boss dps is worth it to gain trash mob dps.  the few times ive tried soul of the forest over savage roar my overall dps for dungeons is higher because of the increased trash mob dps.  in mythic 10+ im thinking for like tyrannical where some bosses are very difficult it might still be worth it to have raid talents.

2)  priority of dots for let's say 3-4 enemies?  so far i'm opening with a stealthed, bloodtaloned  rake (150%dmg), then thrash, then applying rake to all the targets.  basically, for 3-4 enemies my priority is rake+thrash on all the targets and from there i'll either apply rip or moonfire when i have time.  

 

3) what's the point that swipe becomes useful?  the damage is pitiful and has a high resource cost so currently I am only doing swipe for let's say 9 or more targets.

4)is bear form swipe ever worth it?  during big dmg I combine bear form and survival instincts for drastic reduced dmg but i recently noticed that bear form swipe costs no resources and doesn't do that much less damage than cat form swipe.  

5)is switching to moonkin and using sunfire ever worth it for aoe when you have already applied all the dots you can as a cat and are waiting for energy

 

6) is blood scent usually the most powerful talent for mythic+?  for raids i use lunar inspiration but i feel during dungeons and trash mobs i simply don't have enough time to apply moonfire and am more focused on more important dots like maintaining thrash and rake on multiple targets and ripping at 3-5 combo points.  During bosses I realize that it's almost always sub-optimal to do less than a 5 combo point rip but during trash mobs i'm thinking it might be beneficial, especially with the soul of the harvest talent that gives u back energy when using a finishing move

 

7) when is the very first talent in the 1st tier useful?  the one where tiger fury is reset when an enemy dies.  so far i have only found this useful in, around mythic 2-4s where enemies are dying so fast that u pretty much have infinite energy since tiger's fury is being constantly reset.

 

Miscellaneous Feral Questions:

a) does the "speed" stat affect travel form? I have a set of gear with about 4000 extra speed and i do find it useful, like if u die in a dungeon and u are trying to get back to your party as fast as possible and are unable to mount.  I was wondering if the speed stat affected travel form or if it was like considered a mount and had a fixed speed

b) is there a ceiling on crit strike chance?  i know the conventional wisdom is to stack mastery, which i did for a while but lately ive been stacking crit and have been performing better with it.  unbuffed I have 50% crit strike chance and 53% mastery.  Even if there's no crit strike ceiling i'm thinking i'm approaching the point where stacking mastery would be better than getting any more crit.  I just find the extra crit makes me stronger overall because of crit's giving u an extra combo point so these extra quick combo points are vital against trash mobs where the main struggle is to apply the dots as quickly as you can.

c) even if i don't take lunar inspiration could using the weak moonfire ever be worth it against a single target after you have applied all ur dots?  i know the damage is pitiful but won't the damage ticks proc Mark of the Hidden Satyr and the 30% dmg from my legendary?  I figure the only thing you are missing by switching to human form and casting moonfire is the cat melee dmg for about 2 seconds or so.  I know this could be significant since melee damage can be around 10% of overall damage.

d)I have never tried the talent in between soul of the forest and savage roar, incarnation of jungle or something, the one that improves ur bezerk to do stealth like attacks.  In any situation is this talent useful?  For the content I have done thus far I can't see it being better than savage roar or soul of the forest.  im liking soul of the forest for dungeon trash mobs because it allows SO MANY more attacks.

e) am I undervaluing the strength of savage roar?  against bosses it's easy to have 100% uptime on savage roar while maintaining dots but for trash I feel like I often don't have time to have savage roar up or if I do the enemy is already 1/2 dead and am only gaining the benefit for a short time.  the steep energy cost also makes it so u don't have a lot of energy to apply more dots to multiple targets.  currently, with savage roar, my rotation against 4 enemies looks something like this:

1) stealthed, bloodtaloned rake. 

2)thrash

3)rake 2nd target

4)rake 3rd target

5)rake 4th target

 

sometime after step 3 i will have 5 combo points.  at this point i usually would apply a 5 point rip.  should i be using savage roar instead at this point?  Let's say I have just completed step 4 and applied rake to my 3rd target and have 5 combo points.  Let's say I use savage roar.  At this point thrash is up and rake is up on 3 of the 4 targets.  I have 0 energy so I have to wait until i have energy to apply rake to the 4th target.  at this point my first rake and thrash are about to expire so I have to wait for the energy to be able to reapply those.  So the main issue I would have here is that I would have no energy and only thrash and rake up on all 4 targets.  with soul of the forest if instead of the savage roar i would use rip and gain 60 energy back which would allow me to instantly refresh thrash and apply rake/rip to more targets.  with savage roar I feel like there is a lot of time during trash where savage roar isn't up.  

 

f) in mythic+ if i teleport to order hall can i change talents?  do u think it could be realistic to port to order hall just to change talents for bosses?

 

i know this wasn't very organized but any kind of input or advice on anything i mentioned is greatly appreciated.  unrelated, but i am a bit sad that it seems feral is getting a slight nerf in the next patch.  i was hoping that we would get something to make dungeons more viable.  I am 880 ilvl with fluffed gear and even with that ilvl i consistently get rejected from dungeon groups solely on the basis that people think feral is terrible for mythic pluses(which I kind of agree).  I am not even asking for a straight up buff.  I would be totally happy if they reduced feral's single target dps and increased their aoe or SOMETHING to make them stronger in dungeons.  I haven't thought much about it but maybe something like reducing the energy cost and damage of rake, while reducing the energy cost of swipe.  the reduced energy cost and reduced damage of rake would allow you to apply rake to more targets and the reduced damage would make sure it wouldn't be overpowered against bosses.  the energy cost of swipe just seems ridiculous to me.  it's only useful against a large number of mobs and in many dungeons you don't even use swipe a single time.  swipe does pitiful damage as well but i would be okay with them reducing the damage if they reduced the energy cost.  during packs of let's say 10 or so, i apply thrash and then i can swipe twice before im out of energy.  so u can do 3 attacks and then u just sit there waiting for energy.  even if the output affect was exactly the same it would still at least be more fun if u could swipe more. 

 

PLEASE BLIZZARD. increase feral's AOE even at the expensive of decreasing feral's single target dps.  For now, all I can do is work with what I have and do my best to optimize.  Another difficult thing for me is that, as a new player, it's difficult for me to find resources to help me improve.  I barely run into feral druids to learn from and virtually all the guides and information out there is based on single target bosses which is simple and common sense.  Any kind of advice on improving my dungeon performance would greatly be appreciated.

 

EDIT: is brutal slash worth it for mythic+?  i've never tried it but i feel like it would have to do a ton of damage to be better than blood talons.  I'm hesitant to try brutal slash because ur virtually losing close to 50% dmg against bosses which is huge.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Static9

[bobifle 14]

wtf ! :D

I'm no pro with the feral build.

All I can say that you're not the first one to complain that the feral rotation on mythic trash is complex and not rewarding at all (to oppose to the shadow priest, who has a complex rotation but is actually rewarding).

It is also possible that bliz has balanced classes so that one spec is not excellent at every type of fight, to avoid ending up with feral druids swarming raids and mythic dongeons. Do your best, try to improve but there's the possibility that you'll never be as effective as some other spec for trash mobs.

[LisaMaree 0]

In Mythic plus boss fights mean nothing, unless is tyrannical affix; its all about aoe so pick the best aoe talents you can. For raids i go with lunar inspiration, blood talons, and jagged wounds but this talent choice does NOT work in mythic plus. I usually go with predator; brutal slash, and jagged wounds in mythic plus. In aoe situations keep SR up and make sure you put rake on each target while using brutal slash effectively. Also keep in mind that TF resets when you kill a mod that has a bleed up so in mythin plus it is possible to keep almost 100% uptime on TF. I hope this helps, people generally dont like ferals in mythic plus especially in +10 alot of bad ferals have given us a bad name.