I’ve been maining Feral for the first time, and am wondering if I can get some insight on tracking my bleeds. Does Blizz’s UI have any way of showing how much bleed time is remaining on a target before it expires? Also, if I am against 2 or more enemies, do I need to alt-tab to each one to apply a bleed, or does one of my talents allow my to apply bleed when using AoE attacks?
I’ve either played with it for too long or I’m just not aware that it’s a legitimate setting, but debuffs already have numbers that count down their durations on your targets frame. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the question.
As for multi-dotting, as a general rule I always by default tab target and use focus casting to spread dots. That being said, feral does have a few talents that allow you to speed up that process. “Primal wrath” a talent, is an aoe spender that applies rip to everyone, and there’s a double rake talent that for whatever reason I can’t remember its name at the moment and I’m sorry - it will apply rake to an enemy for free while you’re applying it to your current target. You can’t really control who gets the free rake.
As far as I’m aware, those are the only 2 ways you can actively spread feral bleeds with direct control.
A bit of advice, rake will do more damage when used from stealth. If you have the double rake talent, be careful not to tab carelessly because you can accidentally overwrite the stronger rake with a weaker one.
Have fun
I’m only using the Blizz UI, but I went through all the settings to see if I could find anything and it seems to be default.
Double-Clawed Rake
And it’s a smart application - it’ll land on a mob without a Rake. It will not overwrite one. In the even that it will overwrite, I’m not 100% how it chooses which mob it’ll go to.
If that’s how it’s officially categorized then the definition of “smart” is being subpoenaed for questioning lmao
I have it overwrite my mega rakes all the time in small aoe pulls (3-5 out in the word)
Thank you for the info! I like Feral, but I definitely need to practice it more.
Can you explain focus casting? I understand tab-targeting, but not too familiar with focus casting.
Also, should I use sticky targeting (I think that’s what it is called). A problem I’ve run into is that I lose my target from time-to-time.
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Well, it’s also based on range too - if a mob without Rake is out of range, then the second one has to go somewhere.
But in the sense of a pile of mobs, the second Rake will go to one without it. But like I said, when all mobs have Rake, I’m not sure how it goes about applying the second one
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You’re right. However once you tab over to apply rake to another naked target it will sometimes choose to overwrite my beefy rake instead of to the final target. Dumb luck? Maybe an issue with proximity? Whatever the case may be, it happens to me often enough to where I will forgo a manual rake to an off target if I can help it (if I have a beefy rake going).
Of course, in the grand scheme of things it’s not a problem that I will encounter most of the time due to tigers fury. But the fact that it can happen at all makes me a little irritated.
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Sure thing. Focus casting means casting abilities at your “focus” target. There are faster ways to do it but for the purpose of this lesson it will have to do.
If you right click your targets frame, there will be an option called “set as focus.” If you hit that then a new frame will appear. That’s your focus target. You can keep your focus target forever as long as you don’t clear it or it gets too far away to register. This allows you to target 2 things at once.
Now I normally use “shift” as a modifier for my abilities to specifically cast at my focus target as long as shift is held down. This allows me to for example target you, and focus anduin. I can be targeting you but if I hold down shift then whatever ability I press will try to cast onto Anduin instead and as long as he’s in range it will hit him. This allows me to track both of your frames at the same time and helps a lot with managing bleeds or cc
As far as sticky targeting goes, I’d advise against it. It may be useful so you can learn but it will become more of a hassle the better you become.
I already use Shift as a modifier. Did you have to create a bunch of macros, or is there a checkbox/keybind to cast your skills on your focus target?
There is a general setting for focus casting and you can set it to whichever button you want. If you go that route then you’ll have to add @focus lines to any existing macros you have that you’d want to do that for because the general setting doesn’t recognize a macro as the spell itself.
For example, I macro almost all of my cat form abilities to put me into catform to begin with, helps me with bind space. Anyway, rake is one of them for me. I do use the general setting for shift casting at my focus target, but because my rake is part of a macro, shift will no longer work from a general setting sense - because the rake that I’m pressing isn’t the general rake (it’s a bunch of other things and rake at the same time). That means I have to add a conditional line to the macro so that when I press shift it accomplishes the same thing.
TLDR is I use the general setting because I don’t have every single ability in macro form. Cyclone for example is not part of a macro and the general setting for shift will work for it.
I’m sorry if that didn’t make sense. Let me know if I confused you and I’ll try and explain it better.
Double-Clawed Rake sounds amazing! for some reason I wasn’t using it. I just wish we had a Rogue vanish type ability
I’m pretty sure I understand you! The problem I will run into is that I use shift for so many other keybinds already (no macros, though). I did this because while I already have the muscle memory of a few keys, I figured adding shift as a modifier to other keybinds made sense, rather than using other keys that felt uncomfortable or harder to reach. I also have CTRL modified into a few keybinds, although those are more menu or utility keybinds. I could try using CTRL for my focus spells.
As a side note, I’m really wanting to get better at feral. According to the analyzer, I don’t renew my bleeds enough and I sit on cooldowns too long. I don’t use OBS, but I do have it on my bar as sort of a guide of what to use next while I’m still figuring the out the class. And I feel like I’m constantly losing my target so I sit there for a few seconds trying to find my mouse pointer so that I can click the target and start attacking again. Do you happen to have any beginner-friendly tips?
There’s a couple things I can give you.
There is a setting to increase your cursor size to make it easier to find it during those moments.
If you don’t have nameplates enabled you can turn those on. Easier than clicking a moving model.
You could also create a standalone macro that targets the last thing you were attacking and just hit it when you lose your target.
By the way - I do not want to discourage you from using sticky targeting either. You can absolutely use it as a beginner. As you improve, it’s likely you’ll organically take it off. I’m confident you’ll know what I’m talking about when you reach it.
Also, I wanna tell you that while it’s great that you’re determined to improve - it’s both important and wise to allow yourself to fail with grace. Don’t beat yourself up, and don’t give up. You got this.
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I’m so sorry, I didnt catch you were asking for feral specific advice. I can give you a few of these too.
A good habit to build is the order you apply your dots. I play with lunar inspiration so I have moonfire as an additional dot. Whatever order you decide to apply these dots, the number one rule is to try not to waste your combo points.
An example of what I mean by that is if you have 4 combo points, and your target doesn’t have any bleeds on them yet - or it’s just a new target in general, you’ll want to apply Rip first to get rid of those combo points, feral frenzy to instantly build 5 combo points, ferocious bite those combo points off, then apply rake and moonfire. This sequence prevents me from building unusable combo points if that makes sense. It doesn’t really matter what order you apply these dots in out of stealth as long as you don’t waste the points.
From stealth you should always start with rake - even if you waste points. The extra damage you get from it offsets the loss.
Another tip is when you’re fighting multiple things at once, don’t just swipe swipe swipe. Spend your combo points. Primal wrath to get rip up but after that try to bite things. It’ll proc your apex and it will give you feel good tingles
And lastly. Don’t ever sit on tigers fury for too long. Use it liberally. It’s HUGE damage and procs your apex for free twice. I practically use it every chance I get no matter what.
Have fun
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Amazing advice! I know for sure that I’d sit on Tiger’s Fury when I’d try to line it up with Berserk. I need a buff bar to help me keep track of the cooldown as opposed to just looking at the ability icon.
Just so everyone is tracking double clawed rake is currently not really taken in progressive contrent- even after the buff to rake it does low damage and on aoe packs is far less important than swipe, you still might throw a few out but we dont go into large packs trying to spread rake, only on small packs.
we have talents that offer much more value in aoe than double rake-
as FOR OPS question i suggest you get plater and set the bleeds to have a specific order as well as clear timers, then you know ever frame will have rake then rip then moonfire (if taken) it helps track not having them shift around