Most of the guides for feral druid say stat priority is 1) Hit, 2) Strength, 3) Attack Power, 4) Agility in that order but all the best in slot gear is mainly focused on Agility (some put haste before Agility but I don’t remember haste in vanilla?). I am struggling to figure out which gear is best for me. I am currently 23 but have been stacking stats in the order listed above. I seem to be in the minority though. I out DPSed a 25 feral in DM and he messaged me wondering why I was out DPSing him at level 22. Same runes and talent points, was it my strength over agility choice? Is a Murloc Scale Breastplate with 5 Str and 3 Agi better than the Defias Armor with 4 Str and 3 Agi? or the Tunic of Westfall with 11 Agi (I am ignoring the stamina as it has no bearing on DPS with a good tank). Any and all knowledgeable advice is appreciated.
Agi is king, most of our easy gear has STR on it. But also at 25 Str and Agi are both pretty solid choices, Once talents open up for P2 that will allow crits to reward 2 combos. Agi will be that much more king. 1AP Plus Crit % is very very nice. Str only gives us 2ap which is still fine but crit adds to DPS so much.
Anyway lots of text ty say Hit untill hit cap and then stack Agi or Str at 25 whichever you can find more of on an item. Past 25 focus on Agi but STR is still good also with HOTW STR will give 2.4AP per 1STR but we dont really get that till P3+ because we need Furor so cant spec that deep into full feral
so again, this seems to be pushing strength. I know agility is the clear winner in retail but all the main sites I find put agility as 4th in priority for Feral in SoD.
Wowhead says:
- Hit % 2. Strength 3. Attack Power 4. Haste % 5. Agility 6. Crit % 7. Intellect 8. Stamina 9. Armor
Icy Veins says:
- Hit Chance (6% is the cap against BFD bosses which are treated as being your level +2);
- Strength (1 Str = 2 Attack Power);
- Attack Power (includes Feral Attack power from items such as
Fist of the Wild ); - Haste;
- Agility (1 Agi = 1 Attack Power, and a small amount of crit, dodge, and armor);
- Critical Strike (200% on normal swings);
- Intellect (more Mana to powershift with).
Hardcoregamer says same as above
Zockify: this says something similar to what you are saying:
- Hit Chance (up to 6% against enemies 2 levels above you like raid bosses in BFD)
- Crit Chance
- Agility
- Strength
- Attack Power = Feral Attack Power
Everything above the 6% hit chance increase has no additional effect when fighting against bosses in Blackfathom Deeps.
Note: in Phase 1, you get a bit more DPS from one point of Strength than Agility. Starting with Phase 2, Agility and Strength are closer together. This is mainly due to the talent 
Blood Frenzy.
I still find it a bit confusing but I guess the last part helps me understand. It seems to me BIS for P1 should be stack Str but once that talent is available in p2 crit quickly becomes very important. I wish I had some testing with all str vs all agi vs a mix of both to make it clear.
People keep saying Blood Frenzy in Phase 2…
I still think you are going to want Furor and OOC… so you will not get BF … I have to see the numbers to see if BF is better then Power Shift or Omen procs…
On Icyveins it clearly says Hit>Agi>STR
Agility is king until you get Heart of the Wild
Strength gives 2 melee AP per 1 point which a lot of people are missing I think.
It does not. I just checked after reading this.
Icy-veins says
- Hit Chance
- Strength
- Attack Power
- Haste
- Agility
- Crit Chance
- Intellect
However in the regular Classic section (not SoD) it says Hit>Agi>Str
So you are looking in the wrong spot.
If you go under the SoD section for Feral DPS it matches what he put above.
Whether this is right or wrong for lvl25 or lvl40 I don’t know, I’m not getting into theorycrafting again for Druids. That being said to the OP and anyone else, gear choices are limited as can be so you really aren’t ever making critical decisions. Take a look at leather chest options for next phase, where the top contenders are Blazewind Breastplate, Insulated Chestguard, and Quillward Harness.
Quillward Harness, BoE drop from RFD, lvl34 req
8 STR, 19 AGI
Blazewind Breastplate, Quest reward from Badlands, lvl40 req
3 STR, 23 AGI
Insulated Chestguard, Token drop from Gnomer, lvl40 req
17 STR, 13 AGI
Alone, the raid drop is solid but you’d probably be slightly better off with the Badlands green, but the Insulated Chestguard is a set piece that will contribute to 1% Crit and 20 Feral AP when you get the other pieces. When you look at the other options in the leg/boot slots, it gets even easier to decide. Boots have no real competition because the other options have less offensive stats and larger budgets on Stamina/Armor. Set legs have %Hit on them, so that’s a no brainer.
So despite Blazewind Breastplate being fantastically stacked with Agility for this level… you’ll just want 3pc Insulated Leathers.
I’m sure there will be more intelligently presented BiS lists once everything finalizes, but for now you can pretty much just stack Gnomer and Bloodmoon items, fill in any blanks with PvP rep/rank gear, and be 99% there.
Everyone who plays feral knows strength and agility are so close, you can interchange them equally, and you wont notice any significant change. The difference is so minor.
Gnomer piece all day…
47 AP… compared to 27…
all for a 6 agil difference… which is nothing really crit wise
You compared the BoE from RFD, not Blazewind.
Okay 47 vs 26
for 10 point agil difference… less then .5% of crit… give me the 21 AP all day
At lvl60, 10 points of agility is exactly 0.5% crit (before we account for Kings and whatnot). However, I’m 99% certain its worth more crit at lower levels, the same way only a few points of Agility can grant whole percentages of dodge at low levels.
It has been a long time since I looked at sub-max level scaling formulas and I don’t have time for that now.
I just know that even with HotW and Blood Frenzy, Agility and Strength cut very close in terms of power when raid buffed. One fuels direct damage (STR) while the other amps up the rotation more by getting in extra finishers along with periodic amped damage.