Leveling a feral Druid right now and it’s feeling a little bit clunky switching forms mid combat.
Anyone using macros to consolidate keybinds or have general keybind advice?
if ur in human form and need to do big dam and dont want to wait for gcd just tigers fury and it will pop u in cat off gcd
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If by “clunky” you mean “slow,” I think that is (and has always been) intended. Very few druid abilities automatically pull you into the appropriate form. Some do (for instance, Prowl, which drops you into cat form with stealth no matter what form you use it from), but most require you to switch to the appropriate form first. The “tax” for being able to hybridize between a tanky form (bear) and a bursty form (cat) is that GCD you lose on the form shift.
However, macros can certainly help reduce the action bar overload you’re going to encounter as you level. For years, my best friends have been the [help] and [harm] conditionals.
#showtooltip
/cast [help] Regrowth
/cast [harm] Rake
If your target is friendly, you’ll cast Regrowth. If it is hostile, you’ll cast Rake. Since you’ll never cast Rake on a friendly target, nor Regrowth on a hostile target, this macro “can’t fail.” And now you have one spell slot where you formerly needed two. Trade out the spell names for whichever you’d like and make a few of these. It will help clean up your actions bars quite a bit.
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No just feels awkward switching between forms. It’s going to take some getting used to, but at the same time, I feel like picking the right binds will help. Other than that the class is a blast.
Thanks for the tips. Will start using the macro you mentioned.
Yes. I also like to add an alt modifier for regrowth @player because I use alt to heal myself.
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You shouldn’t have a significant reason to need to swap forms mid combat while leveling as Feral.
If you really feel like owlweaving while you’re doing it, all you actually need is a button that swaps you to boomy, and then an easily hit button on your boomy bar to swap you back.
The only real clunk is the fact that your GCD swaps from 1second base as Feral to 1.5second base when out of it.
Dunno if this will help you but i figured i’d share my shapeshift binds as i main feral.
Shift middle mouse- Travel/flight form
ctrl space- bear
shift space-cat
ctrl right mouse-boomy
` key-stealth
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I like random BGs.
Me too - was just keeping the base macro simple for a new druid. But yes, the @player is almost requisite for Feral, with all of those free Regrowths you should be proccing.
Do you have a gaming mouse? I’ve always tied my shapeshift/form spells to buttons on my mouse. Not sure if that is more or less helpful to you.
I used to PvP quite a bit, but these days mostly stick to PvE. That said, I still switch between bear and cat in open-world content all the time, often multiple times in a single encounter. (I almost exclusively play as Feral.) I do run Guardian affinity, so popping into bear to snag Frenzied Regrowth is useful…particularly if you’ve got 3-4 elite mobs dropping a hammer on you.
I think that is one of the most fun things about druid - expertise in switching forms at the right time for the right thing is “next level” druiding, as far as I’m concerned.
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OP I highly advise against alt/control modifies for basic shifting… very clunky
Shift middle mouse- Travel/flight form
ctrl space- bear
shift space-cat
ctrl right mouse-boomy
` key-stealth
For example, I have a one button macro to go cat (or prowl) if out of combat - click mouse wheel. Mouse wheel down is bear and mouse wheel up is travel… Simple
when you unlock this you can use healing spells and roots in cat form
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I find it interesting that you advise against alt/ctrl modifiers, then suggest a couple ctrl modifier keybinds.
Personally, I use alt-1 bear, alt-2 cat, alt-3 travel, F - Boomy
Because F* boomy.
In boomy form 1 gets me back to cat. In bear it’s 1 and 2, in travel is 1-4 all get me back to cat.
I have the Corsair mouse that has like 12 buttons under my thumb. I use the top 3 for bear, cat, boomy. My travel form is on my flying mount bind. Shift + D is what I use for that.
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I’m pretty sure he was quoting a previous poster’s recommendations for keybinds…he just didn’t use the block-quote function. In other words, he was saying, “I don’t recommend the following.”
I just did a similar bind and it feels muuuuuch nicer.
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