The most tank & spank ‘DPS measurement’ boss in the current phase is XT.
Here are the 99th percentile DPS rankings for XT (dmg to boss only):
Rogue (Assn)
Druid (Feral)
DK (Unholy)
Warlock (Affliction)
Rogue (Combat)
DK (Frost)
Warlock (Destro)
Shaman (Enhance)
Warlock (Demo)
Rogue (Subtlety)
Mage (Fire)
Warrior (Fury)
Hunter (Survival)
Shaman (Elemental)
Priest (Shadow)
Druid (Balance)
Paladin (Ret)
Mage (Arcane)
Warrior (Arms)
Hunter (MM)
Hunter (BM)
Mage (Frost)
Not only was the Feral buff way too big, but there’s a serious disconnect between perceived DPS potential and actual DPS potential due to all the gimmicky mechanics in Ulduar. Notice how the top DPS spec of two pure-DPS classes are no longer even top 10… this squeaky wheel crap needs to stop.
Go check my post history I haven’t said anything negative about feral druids. I think blizzard egregiously handled trying to re-balance feral druids by nerfing both bear and PVP damage. Feral are still likely doing more DPS than blizzard intended for them to do after their initial buff, and they should be slightly nerfed to get them to where they intend for them to be.
Hybrid classes don’t get to be on top.
That is just how the game is supposed to function.
Every raid has gimmicky mechanics, most fights have something gimmicky with patchwerk fights being an exception not the norm. Feral actually deals with them the worst as target switching, moving away from the boss etc… are huge hits compared to other classes.
Feral are doing about 8% more damage on ignis across the board. If anything blizzard fell short in bringing up the bottom and hit the mark on the top end. I don’t see why people keep saying feral is doing too much and then specifically picking the fights that either a) explicitly favor their damage profile (Vezax) or b) explicitly unfavored bearweaving (algalon) and pointing at their dps lift there instead of using the melee patchwerk fight of the tier.
They’re right behind rogues pretty much across the board and even pull ahead on fights like Freya. While bringing significantly more utility…
The only reason their average dps isn’t higher at a glance is because they’re just absolutely terrible on 2 fights, Kologarn and Hodir. Their dps is so bad on Kologarn the median for feral druids, even after the buff, is actually lower than Arms Warrior, Sub rogue or even Bm hunter lol… But take those out and they’re even better than the overal stats indicate.
Side note: Why exactly are ferals so dogwater on kologarn?
ferals on the top end are doing mega swipes on the lasher packs 30% aoe dmg reduction+barkskin+survival instincts is a hell of a drug. also they can eat several beams again because of the same there’s much less uptime they need to give up to live. similarly the big treant lives just long enough to get ok uptime on and berserk is probably the best burst cd in the game.
Kologarn is a fight where unless you reliably can find the cleave spot quickly (or with the new stealth tech) without falling to your death you cannot dps the boss well. remember feral druids are the only spec in the entire game with a hard positional requirement.
Thaddius is another one where you can’t reliably stay behind the boss, I forget exactly in ToC and ICC but there’s other fights that don’t favor feral much.
But yeah in general there’s swing from fight to fight. Which is why isn’t not a good metric to cherry pick fights that happen to back up your position to prove feral is fine or not fine.