Recently started working on my feral as my alt. Ive been reading guides and watching videos as well as using previous experience maining a kitty. I feel like I’m nailing my rotation, but my dps all around feels quite lacking. I know my gear isn’t the greatest (especially my crappy 400 weap), but I can’t shake the feeling like I might be missing something.
Is there a guide or website that’s better than wowhead for Ferals?
I personally use Icyveins every now and again but it isn’t updated enough. Should get you started on the right path. Doing thorough research on multiple websites instead of just one will yield better results in my opinion.
For your rotation, ferals are very reliant in almost everything. Gear, traits, essences… you name it. Both single target and AoE have almost entirely different builds. I could share what I personally use, or you could research on the websites. It’s up to you.
Are you using Weakauras to help? I find it useful for maximizing my rotation (even though I am far from perfect still lol)
As you said, your gear. You’re only 425 overall which is very low at the moment, so simply getting more gear will help immensely.
You have 2 JF and another Crit trait which are both really good Azerite traits for feral. The other 3 are not that great though. There are better traits such as Wild Fleshrending and Heart of Darkness (raid gear) which are much better.
You seem to have a ton of haste, which is definitely our weakest stat. Try focusing more on Crit and mastery. Feral can already work very well as a low APM spec so if it’s possible to trade haste for other stats, that’s usually more beneficial.
Conflict and Strife for you essence does have the potential to work really well, especially on AoE, but it does have a lot of downsides such as only working on melee mobs, and they must be frequently attacking your target.
I guess rotation-wise things I can recommend are ensuring that you are using bloodtalon buffs on Ferocious Bites, Rips, and Rakes, and not using Ferocious Bite until you have 50 energy since that is when it does max damage.
If possible, get your legendary cloak. It’s simply good
Dont expect to see great feral dps numbers until you get x3 Tigers fury and x3 WIld fleshrending traits for pve.
We are heavily dependent on those, and getting the pieces that have both those traits are rough. Hence why ferals that do good damage are few.
what is your dps at? Are you applying as much dots as possible?
Thanks for all the helpful replies!
@Aabay I haven’t checked out Icy Veins yet so I’ll see what they recommend for feral. Any help you can impart would be greatly appreciated in regards to what you use.
@Iatromantis I haven’t been using, I run ElvUI which has been tracking stuff for me, but maybe Weakauras would do a better job.
@Flavorpuss
2 & 3. the pieces I have now lack good traits, but the ilvl upgrade from the previous gear I had is why I’ve got them, working on getting better optimized. Also was running a resto which is why I’ve got so much haste gear and am so low on crit.
4. Working on getting better essences, only have access to Conflict, Breath of the Dying, and the default one atm.
5. For AoE when running PW, am I supposed to tab target through mobs and Rake them all if they’re going to live for a bit or just Swipe?
6. I’m currently about 3/4 of the way through that chain for the cloak.
@Darkombra Just getting 3x Jungle Fury seems hard enough lol
@Konen I can hold about 28k ST on a dummy currently.
Sounds good – I’ll share what I can. The builds I use got me through heroic Nylotha and also timed all +15 and up m+ dungeons in season 3.
Below I’ll list talents that I personally use for a given build/situation. Please note that any talent rows not mentioned are flexible. Use whatever you’d like.
Single target (ideal for raiding)
Sabertooth
Balance affinity
Mass entanglement (only if you’re running high corruption)
Soul of the Forest
Brutal Slash
Blood Talons or Omen of Clarity
Traits of choice are Jungle Fury and Wild Fleshrending
Essence of choice are situational. You can run crucible, condensed life force, blood if the enemy rank 3, or Worldvein resonance. Great minors include lucid dream and breath of the dying. The third is interchangeable.
Stack a lot of crit and mastery/versatility. Prioritize crit.
Multitarget (ideal for M+, world content, horrific visions, and anything involving consistant uptime on at least 3+ targets)
Predator
Balance Affinity
Mass Entanglement (if running with high corruption)
Soul of the Forest
Primal Wrath
Moment of Clarity
Traits of choice are Jungle Fury and Wild Fleshrending
Major essence can be Focusing Iris or Blood of the Enemy rank 3. Minors are Purification Protocol, lucid dreams, and breath of the dying.
Stack a lot of crit and mastery/versatility. Prioritize crit.
Note: Simming your character will let you know if you should be focusing more on mastery or versatility. Both work great in my experiance.
Hope this helps!
Ran a quick sim for you and it’s coming out as 29.8k so you’re doing perfectly fine for your ilvl. Really at this point all you need is ilvl.
For an AoE rotation, I can’t remember the rake breakpoints but I think it’s something around:
-Maintain on at most 5 (?) Target’s as long as they will survive for the duration.
What I usually end up doing is maintain on 3-4 targets, or focus the 1-2 priority targets and then the rest of your rotation is swiping and dumping cp’s on PW
Sweet that helps a bunch, thank you! I havent messed around with Omen so will give that a shot for M+ (I used it while leveling, but then I got a bit out of practice with my bloodtalons useage lol) Will also need to work on some of those essences and hoping I get some better luck with Corruption. Is Stars the best corruption for us for ST?
@Flavorpuss Thanks for the info on Rake!
It is, but only if the target stays alive long enough for infinite stars to stack up. I find Twilight Devistation to perform better on targets that die quickly.
you can not get a guide any better then wowhead for ferals, cause it is written by mythic raiding ferals. also you should go to the dreamgrove discord, which is the druid discord, all the top ferals is in there
Do you have a weak aura package that tracks bleed strengths? The one I have (afenuar I think) tells me how strong they will be if I apply now compared to what is already on the target which helps greatly with snap shotting.
Is snap shotting even a thing still? I heard it’s not anymore.
Very much still a thing for feral.
It comes in handy more for raid or long single target fights in my opinion.
For dungeons a lot of us use moment of clarity now. But the Blood talons build still works fairly well.
Just have to watch out and not replace a snap shotted rip with a normal one to maximize it.
It is, but not nearly as much as it used to be. If memory serves, Tiger’s Fury and Bloodtalons are the only two things that snapshot. Everything else should be dynamic.
It is for feral but not any other specs