Feral Druid Guide for The War Within

The Druid class tree has seen a big reshuffling in its layout, condensing some 2-point talents into single points, and opening up broader pathing options. This gives easier access to some previously very expensive utility, but some previously easily accessible effects are now gated behind a stricter point lock.

A big thing that affects Feral is the removal of melee ability range increases which particularly stings considering the spec has had it since Legion. This causes there to be a high investment to reach the right side of the tree for Renewal, Typhoon and Rising Light, Falling Night. Compounding on this, the bottom right containing Innervate and Nature's Vigil is gated behind the newly added 2-point Lore of the Grove which is mostly worthless. On the plus side for the right, Fluid Form has been added, making it significantly easier to switch in and out of Cat Form to use utility spells such as Disorienting Roar.

For the left side, some pathing has been consolidated alongside making Thick Hide easier to access, but the same number of points will be spent here in most situations. A good amount of defense has been baked into this area between that, Matted Fur, Ursine Vigor and the new Oakskin all being added below the new Instincts of the Claw which is also welcome, and very easy to pick up.

Lastly for the central tree, Stampeding Roar is slightly harder to access with more utility "tax" points to pick up, but Lycara's Teachings has been condensed to 2 points here to compensate.

Much of the class tree shuffling on paper looks like it has opened up options, but where it counts, it seems like there is an uncomfortable amount of friction around things that could previously be combined, and the sting still remains of having to path through a lot of tax points to really get to what you want. That said, it is an improvement in terms of power for Feral gameplay compared to the current Dragonflight iteration.

For The War Within, Feral has seen a bit of an overhaul in its resource economy going forward, putting more of a strain on managing Energy and Combo Points effectively and reducing the potential for flooding. AoE has seen the biggest changes, with the Tiger's Fury reset removed from Predator significantly slowing down the availability of resources in these situations. Alongside that, AoE delivery has been consolidated by removing Tear Open Wounds, instead refocusing on Primal Wrath as a Rip application tool, and Rampant Ferocity being put more into central focus to convert Ferocious Bite into AoE damage.

With the removal of the Predator reset, more weight has been put into your Tiger's Fury windows themselves giving Feral a 30-second ebb and flow cycle. Instead, Predator still grants the duration extension but also grants an additional Haste multiplier to Combo Point-generating abilities while active, adding some extra scaling into the toolkit. Taste for Blood has also been changed to be a flat amplifier to Ferocious Bite that strengthens during these windows, alongside Savage Fury being added as a further boost to the Tiger's Fury windows. Lastly, Tiger's Tenacity has been granted an added effect to enhance the snapshotting potency of Bleed effects applied while it is active. This is a much more compelling option now compared to Raging Fury, which has also had its duration extension flattened to 5 seconds.

Generally the feel of Feral is somewhat similar to Dragonflight, just much slower and without as many overlapping ability clashes that serve similar purposes. This, in some ways, limits flexibility in builds, but in other ways, allows for the gameplay to be more focused on what the designers intend for the spec to do, so we will see going forward how successful that is.

Druid of the Claw very heavily leans into the direct damage build-and-spend aspect of Feral. The keystone talent, Ravage, is an empowered Ferocious Bite cast that triggers from auto-attacks, dealing significantly more damage while also dealing damage to nearby targets. This plays similar to previous "bite builds" that Feral has had in the past, with a lot of power tied to reacting to Ravage procs. One big downside however is that the AoE range for Ravage is extremely small, making the loss of additional range even more obvious when playing Feral.

The majority of the tree is very plug-and-play with previous Ferocious Bite focused playstyles, with a lot of passive increases to abilities to go alongside the keystone proc. The capstone, Claw Rampage, massively increases the frequency of Ravage procs, making a strong cooldown even stronger, giving Feral a very potent 2-minute burst window thanks to the changes to Heart of the Lion. Killing Strikes also provides a guaranteed way to activate procs on pull, which is particularly useful in Mythic+ with frequent combat drops. A unique potential option is Wildpower Surge, which encourages infrequently shifting to Bear Form for an empowered strike, working particularly well with Fluid Form and reducing some of the opportunity cost of shifting for defensive reasons.

Speaking of defense, there are some solid active tools present on the tree. Fount of Strength providing maximum health while Frenzied Regeneration is active, turns it into a small survival cooldown alongside the heal, especially when paired with Empowered Shapeshifting, allowing you to cast it in Cat Form. Alongside these is Dreadful Wound that grants 4% additional damage reduction following a Ravage cast. For utility, the only real benefit here is Pack's Endurance which, while a couple of extra seconds of Stampeding Roar is nice, is not much of a game-changer.

Wildstalker focuses on the Bleed portion of Feral's toolkits, hinging off the keystone talent Thriving Growth that triggers from Rip and Rake damage. These provide an additional damage over time proc that also overlap rather than refresh, allowing for multiples to be active on a target at the same time. The capstone finishes this off with Vigorous Creepers that increases all damage dealt to targets by 6% when a vine is present.

Much of the tree is linked to these growths, most importantly on the third row of each part of the tree. Resilient Flourishing provides some bonus duration and also some redundancy should a target die while affected, while Root Network amplifies your own damage the more you have spread out , giving a good multi-target node that also provides some benefit in single-target. Bursting Growth is an AoE conversion tool that causes Bloodseeker Vines to burst on expiration, or allow you to trigger them manually with Ferocious Bite instantly. Finally, Twin Sprouts adds a chance for each growth to immediately split off and trigger on a second target, while Implant guarantees a trigger whenever you lose the Tiger's Fury effect for some more controlled application.

The remainder of the tree is mostly passive bonuses to Feral's toolkit that are very broad, making the tree focused on DoTs but still flexible enough to allow for some customization in the spec tree. The general gameplay leans much more heavily into building up DoT effects on targets, so spreading Rake around in AoE is more of a focus to leverage the additional vine triggers. Adaptive Swarm and potentially also Unbridled Swarm will likely also find even more value here for a more measured, less aggressive playstyle in comparison to Druid of the Claw.

For defense and utility though, Wildstalker is extremely sparse. It provides some additional healing either in the form of healing taken via Bond with Nature, or personal Regrowth casts with Harmonious Constitution. Neither of these are particularly compelling compared to options on the Druid of the Claw tree, which may make this a hard sell especially in Mythic+ situations despite its strong damage output. Utility is even more niche, as a short root from Ursol's Vortex is unlikely to change much nor is some movement speed/small healing from Barkskin casts.