Not a Feral specific issue though 
My list.
Add Damage boost to Berserk.
Vanish please.
Need some Mastery boost like Arms Warrior.
Remove GCD from cast Regrowth when with Predatory Swiftness is active.
Remove Corruption cast able in form.
2 Likes
- Sure
- You’re a NE - you’ve got it
- Masterful Instinct azerite trait.
- May I ask why? In most cases you’re pooling energy for a buffed Ferocious Bite and have a GCD to spare. Outside of Zerk, we have a GCD or two to spare
- We can?
3 Likes
I parse…decently in m+, and the last raid I did I was 6th overall and was probably one of the least geared people there at 437. It’s not our damage that’s really the problem.
I recently returned and have been trying to decide between Druid and Shammy. I like healing, but I want to be able to do things by myself. There are many aspects of the Druid that I love - travel form, the healing is fun and engaging, the theme - but I find Feral so dull when I solo PvE. Putting up bleeds and building damage just puts me to sleep; it’s so predictable and boring. I love the Shammy Enhance for solo play but the healing isn’t as fun as the Druid. I’m conflicted.
Some of the big issues with feral is their damage overall.
We take a look at rupture vs rip rupture does way more.
Garrote vs rake = garrote wins.
Envenom vs bite = envenom really wins because it ignores armor.
We’re a bad version of rogue with more complexity that doesn’t reward for its complexity even if we nail our rotation rogue will destroy us. But if we mess up our complex rotation we’re punished hard af.
We need more damage on bleeds and arm pen on FB and a utility to add to raid and just a little bit more survivability.
1 Like
I’m really struggling just to survive open world end game daily content. I play with pretty bad latency issues which makes tight rotations almost impossible. This isn’t an issue on my survival hunter who just beasts his way through groups of 8-10 mobs at a time or casually solos elites without being in any danger, but with my druid I am walking on egg shells.
I feel like if I fail to dodge any hard hitting ability I am liable to lose anywhere between 60-100% of my HP in one go. My damage feels good, but if I try to tackle more than two or three mobs at once they’ll hammer me into the ground before I kill them all. I’ve been unable to kill certain quest chain boss fights as a feral at all.
It is very telling that when I switch to Guardian I can beat encounters that would trash my feral spec. Even with my azerite traits being tuned for feral and not guardian.
The fixes that feral needs isn’t going to fix your latency. Feral isn’t a tanky build but if you play correctly you’re going to be casting regrowth every cycle which evens that out. Most specs wish they had a more engaging rotation, we’ve got that. All I could suggest for you is pick another spec until you have a better Internet connection.
It won’t fix my latency, but it might bring feral closer to other classes and specs that I can survive with fine. Of the ones I play only feral results in such a high death rate and that can be fixed in a variety of different ways.
- Better bleeds.
- Better defensive tools.
- Better escape options.
- Better control options.
Really any kind of buff could alleviate my issues.
It is funny, but druid is supposed to be the versatile class that has a trick in its hat for every scenario but most of the time I feel like I have barely any options at all when I start to get swarmed.
To be fair, you’re working on content tuned about 30 ilvl above what you currently have. My 415 monk feels fairly squishy in the new content too, and that’s around the ilvl they expect. Some of your thoughts aren’t too off point though.
Just to go into further detail:
- I’d much rather have 30k rip crits over the 100k+ FB crits that I’m getting, that would also make the spec much more forgiving than it is in its current iteration which would probably help a lot of ferals who are struggling right now. Unfortunately, most skilled ferals have pretty competitive dps. I don’t always top meters, but I’m rarely far from it.
- I had some ideas in this, but honestly our survivability isn’t all that bad. We actually have one of the strongest defensives in the game. Every thought I had on improving that I think would break us in one way or another.
- My main is NE, so I’m fairly spoiled with a vanish, but I’ve played druid as every potential race it can be and yes, the lack of a vanish feels bad. That’s one thing I’ve been begging for for years but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. You do have better escape options than pretty much any class though, you have roots plus travel form plus 2 different kinds of sprints. No other class in the game can boast as many ways to get out of a hairy situation than we do.
- We have…decent control, although I think Mighty Bash should be baseline and replaced with something else. Maim is an absolute miserable finisher for PvE and unless I’m doing arenas I don’t even keep it on a keybind. Mass entanglement and Typhoon are both amazing control talents though, and shouldn’t be discounted, but it does feel silly that we don’t have a baseline stun that isn’t a complete dps loss. Buffing rip over FB would make maim more appealing as well, but still doubtful.
All in all though, the druid is the most versatile class. The specs, however, aren’t.
I didn’t realize Uldum was tuned for that. Kind of wish there was some kind of warning or that I just didn’t get the quests until I hit a certain mark.
Though this isn’t a recent development. Even doing normal leveling on my alts feels like a pain on my feral druids compared to any other class or spec I am working with. I don’t have a rogue so maybe that is just the cost of having stealth, but it wasn’t always this bad.
I’ve pretty much resigned to leveling my Zandalari as a Guardian because doing it feral is so much slower.
- Better bleeds probably would help me a lot, yah. Back in Cataclysm when I bothered with raiding last I geared my feral for a heavy focus on mastery specifically because the damage coming from bleeds made the rotation more forgiving on my latency issues.
- I miss barkskin being available to all specs. Honestly survival instincts is strong but it’s also the most boring kind of defensive tool you can have. Just a flat damage reduction.
- Mighty Bash being baseline would be great. Being able to keep that stun and still take mass entangling roots or typhoon would probably greatly increase my ability to deal with large groups all on its own. I’d also really like it if cyclone stopped being a PVP only spell.
It is a shame that our specs are so… Straight forward now. I miss Feral and Guardian being the same spec that focused on shapeshifting. The affinity traits give us back a little bit of that versatility but, at least in my opinion, not as much as they should.
Rogues have a lot of tools at their disposal. Vanish, crimson vial, sprint, stuns, etc, but in solo content they aren’t much less squishy than we are. Neither of which I would agree are poor to solo content, they just require engagement which as you said your connection pushes you away from a little bit. I’m at 440 and can literally pull everything I can find in an area and mow it down, although I have an advantage with essence of the focusing iris and typhoon. Even when that’s on cd it still doesn’t really stop me, I just have to pull a little less. Our aoe damage is so good though that even with the paltry healing we do have I rarely am in much danger. Hopefully acquiring more gear will be helpful for you. Heroic will be up to 415 next week.
1 Like
I’d like some sort of rework to feral to have some sort of bad luck protection with FB and 5 combo’s and 50 energy.
Nothing worse than coming to your pay off to fall flat. My Shreds are doing more at times than my FB due to no crit and the mobs armor.
So some Armor pen / Ignore are if xxx bleeds are up, 100% crit if used with 50 energy to make it feel better. Really a lot could be done with FB.
Feral’s output for this world content is fine. I just wish our bleeds hit harder.
I’ll head back to Nazjatar and work on my item level a bit then. I’ll also swap out Mighty Bash for Typhoon. I always take that in PVP (knocking people off cliffs is one of life’s greatest joys even if I rarely get the chance) but I hadn’t considered it for clearing open world stuff, but now that you bring it up I do die a lot when the mobs are down to 5-10% HP and my energy isn’t good enough to finish them in a timely manner. Typhoon might be the AoE to make the difference.
Thanks for the advice.
When I tell people that feral is unforgiving this is more or less what’s meant. I’m not sure when it got changed that the majority of our damage in single target was between shred and bite instead of our bleeds but it makes it to where if you have to stop to provide utility like a stun or even a bres you can lose a good chunk of dps. I put out competitive numbers for the most part but I have to be on it with minimal to no mistakes in my rotation.
Typhoon doesn’t do damage, it can just provide a little breathing room or interrupt in a pinch. It also can keep things off of you while you’re getting meme beam off. As you get more gear though you’ll naturally get more agility, crit and mastery which will make you hit much harder.
Aw, I remember it used to do damage. Oh well.
I’ll still try it. Breathing room seems pretty important with this spec and while Mighty Bash’s stun is a great lead up from a stealth stun for single targets I really need something to deal with groups. Even if just for a few seconds while I get off a couple quick heals.
When playing guardian I play resto affinity and in some situations I’ll pop typhoon, turn away while casting a swiftmend into a rejuv and go right back at it.
Speaking of affinities, I’ve looked around but didn’t find a satisfactory answer to this.
Do the spells from Balance Affinity still scale with Int, making them hit like wet noodles in Feral spec? Having some range would probably be a huge help in some encounters as well.