Feral Single Target DPS

Hey all,

Been struggling with my single target DPS. Now that we’re at the end of Season 1 and my gear is capping out a bit–I thought I’d finally be pushing up the DPS charts on bosses. I don’t claim to be the best player by any stretch, but my single target DPS is just sorry, compared to other classes that are maybe 10 iLvl lower even.

Trash packs are fine–often do top DPS. But other than Tree boss in Algethar or Flamewreath in Court of Stars, my boss dps is holding me back.

I’m stealthing, opening with Rake, (Tiger’s Fury) Thrash, Brutal Slash–Rip into Incarnation, bite, etc etc. Using trinket when they are up, and I’m wondering if I should just play my Warrior Tank or Ret pally in season 2.

Anyone have any tips on how to push more single target DPS?

Cheers

6 Likes

Ferals single target is awful. Sacrifice some aoe talents for feral frenzy and the cheaper bite talent on tyrannical and sbg/court cause minimal cleave. Dont overcap on energy with tigers fury, and thats about all you can do.

5 Likes

It really depends what boss you’re on and how much uptime you have with sporadic movement. To start, I would recommend looking up what talent builds the top feral players are using for specific bosses. Try to optimize situations where you can be using cooldowns optimally while having as much uptime as possible.

Secondly, make sure you’re building the correct secondary stats. Simming yourself should give you the results you need.

Feral single target dps isn’t the best, but it’s not the worst either. You should be sitting middle of the pack if done properly.

That only thing you can really do is swap a few talents around for mythic + depending on the dungeon or get some raid pieces like grieftorch/ring for extra damage. Your Stats are pretty spot on and you have to correct Misc pieces (Whirling / CoS Ring), which is really good

My first loadout on this toon is a Single / Multi target mythic + build which will allow you to get feral frenzy and other things that increase your single target a lot by reducing heavy aoe by a significant portion if your worried about your st. Loadout 3 is the massive aoe I usually use for mythic+.

Your main single target damage comes from incarn and only incarn which also is a huge dps increase in aoe. Due to the way mythic + is setup you should be using incarn for huge aoe packs on large dungeons instead of bosses. Its all about where you believe it will be a bigger dps increase or help complete to dungeon easier but where you don’t use it will suffer.

1 Like

Quick Update:

Respecced to Feral Frenzy (dropped to 1/2 Carniverous Instinct) and saw an increase to about 60k Single Target DPS on Crawth & Vexamus. Also made sure to drop Thrash during incarnation window so I’m ripping, raking, and spamming the sweet baby jesus out of bite. Still–its a lot of work doing any single target DPS as feral.

I have a Ret Pally that just dinged 70, full 395ish Forbidden Reach gear, and can do about 40k Single target DPS. Still thinking about going Ret for Season 2. Just wish Feral Single target was more respectable.

2 Likes

could be a rotation problem, but i am keeping up and or beating class’s that are recieving Power Infusion on pure ST

i keep thrash dot up as it contributes damage to berserk:frenzy talent so you are losing out on extra dps during berserk/incarn window

To add, it also increases bite damage if you have taste for blood.

There’s other abilities (Rake/Shred/BrS) that take precedence over Thrash during Berserk

I’m very interested in that new talent that automatically applies the thrash dot.

Never having to press that button again, better yet….freeing up that space for something better will be worth it alone.

Really? All the ST guides I’ve seen put maintaining Thrash above using Shred for CP, and none of them have separate rotations/priorities for Berserk windows. Though most of those same guides take Taste for Blood too.

Given that Feral is very low on offensive keybinds as/is (with the class difficulty being around DoT uptime), getting rid of Thrash might make Feral a bit too simple.

Also there’s no talent worth really giving up for it as the Feral tree is strapped as-is, and Merciless Claws on the choice node itself is still likely more DPS.

1 Like

That’s because of this ability

I wouldn’t call pressing thrash every 12-15 seconds difficult. It’s monotonous . With with the poor damage it does and the high price tag that comes with it, it just feels bad.

I strongly doubt it.

The energy savings alone is massive. 40 energy every 15 seconds not spent on crap damage. Omen procs not wasted on crap damage.

Plus…. Shred & BrS do not account for very much of our overall damage. 20% buff to that has me feeling like…. “Meh.”

I’ll take never having to press thrash again, Pls.

No regrets!

1 Like

Shred single target is 10-13% of our damage and multi target it accounts for about 9-11% which is actually quite a huge amount especially with the buff to shred in 10.1.

If they buff blood talons again (25% on retail buffed to 30% on ptr) using thrash to gain the buff is a pretty good thing to do because you don’t want to be clipping your rakes if you can help it.

Lets look at that.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/7RZ6qt8PxMnwfC93#fight=34&type=damage-done&source=15&translate=true

2.89m damage from shred (11.95%)
20% given by merciless claws = 578,000

Thrash was used 21 times.
Thats 21 potential shreds @ an average of 28,600

(the 20% buff from Merciless claws is also provided by thrashing claws. so… pppftt)
We still get the 578000 damage, plus a potential 600,600 by not having to press thash.

huh…
look at that…
more damage… and I never have to press thrash again?

SIGN ME UP!

blood talons

No one cares.
Literally.
0% usage.
Let that talent die a horrible death already.

2 Likes

Shred gains a lot of value during berserk.

During Berserk, Shred (and rake) are treated as though they’re stealthed. That means that it does 60% more damage, has double the crit chance, and grants +1 CP. Basically, with 40% crit + 4pc, you are guaranteed to crit with Shred in berserk, which will make it generate 3 CP, and Berserk refunds 2 CP on 5CP finishers, so you can basically alternate Shred and Bite on ST for most of your berserk window.

Please use Thrash in Berserk window.

Blizzard made a talent so that Thrash isn’t totally useless https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Taste_for_Blood

The issue folks have is that the talent is still nearly useless in single target outside Taste for Blood specifically. Feral has always had a tight energy economy, and being forced to practically waste 40 energy on an ability that does pitiful damage on its own simply feels bad. Sure, you could argue that Taste for Blood makes up for Thrash’s crap damage, but at that point why not take the talent that doesn’t require you to waste that 40 energy in the first place?

Well TfB is also taken because it is required for Relentless Predator, another great talent.

I see what you’re saying though, and probably one of the reasons why they are adding in a talent in 10.1 to cast Thrash automatically.

Ret is still really really good