Hi guys.
So let me open up about myself; I consider myself a semi-hardcore player in current WoW. I Mythic Raid pretty seriously (.4% away from 7/9M while Epic/Legend parsing constantly and a 1700 io), but I also tend to be the “special snowflake”. … I play a Pandaren Survival Hunter as a main, and my second most geared is a Feral Druid. I don’t care if something is top tier spec wise, I only care if it’s completely unusable, and from what I’ve read Feral is usable just not top tier (in Vanilla) and so it’s caught my eye. I’ve always had a fascination with felines (all my in game names are variants of Neko) and I could go on for a while.
Tl;dr, to get to the point, I’m considering Hunter and Feral DPS as mains in Classic for multiple reasons, even aware of a lot of the pros and cons.
However I do have some concerns. (Note: Everything onwards is going to be specifically Classic/Vanilla related, not live)
-
I’ve read that you have to PvP as Feral to gear by some. I couldn’t find too much info to back this up however. Is it true that in Vanilla you have to PvP to gear up early? Another guide listed a bunch of dungeon drops as BiS and that’s got me way more excited, not gonna lie.
-
I’ve read that you have to Powershift, that gets mana intensive, and you have to farm a lot of mana pots/runes. My concern with this is that I plan on playing modern and classic wow; my ideal case would be spending half the week on one and half on the other, and that this might eat up too much time. How much time would I be devoting to farming these items compared to what other specs do? Are the runes mandatory?
-
Manual Crowd Pummeler. So, I kept reading that this is our BiS period and that you have to farm them for every attempt. Which started to scare me away from the spec, the idea of needing one weapon for every 3 pulls is kinda scary. But then I read on another guide that “Fist of Omokk - Highlord Omokk, LBRS.” is our pre-raid BiS, a 29 strength 2H mace. That Dire Maul will replace that mace with Bonecrusher. And then that’ll be our BiS pretty much. Is there truth to this? Could I play Feral without Manual Crowd Pummeler? If it is that would certainly get me a lot more eager to devote to the spec.
-
Wolfshead Helm. Is that our BiS forever? Do we never replace it?
(Also side note, I was completely surprised as someone who hasn’t touched Classic since he was a kid, but did play in it, that Strength>Agility for kitty dps! But apparently it’s better so color me impressed).
Thanks for your time~!
Edit: Added question #4
Yes, you will have to farm consumes, MCPs, and wear the Wolfshead helm. 20 energy every time you shift is unbeatable. When you’re not using the MCP charges you will be wearing a a stat stick.
Feral is a tryhard just to make decent dps. You can’t be viable dps without MCPs, the helm, and pots in raids. You’ll be fine in dungeons without them.
Look up Shedothedruid on YouTube for good feral dps guides.
So I swap the weapons in combat? Would I use one charge of the weapon per raid attempt, starting with it and then swapping to my stat stick after for the remainder of the fight?
You’ll swap weapons once the MCP’s charges are consumed and the buff is gone. Each MCP has 3 charges. They can be used separately or at the same time, but there is a cooldown on their usage. You’ll be using multiple MCPs per raid and per fight. Farming MCPs isn’t hard, but having the bag space is another story.
Blizzard didn’t make a lot of feral gear and as it was for the first expansion as well we used a lot of rogue leather. There are stat sticks you will upgrade and use, but MCP’s on-use ability is so OP as a feral. Even bear tanks use MCP for fast threat generation. A Tauren feral used it in the level 30 duel tournament on the beta and you could see the results from it. We don’t get anything from weapon dps or proc enhancements unlike other specs.
So it goes use MCP-> Buff is finally gone, swap the weapon out -> MCP is usable again, swap it back on and use it -> Buff is finally gone, swap the weapon out -> Repeat?
Oh boy. Guess I better learn to like Gnomergan.
Mostly, except trash or if not dpsing.
Yeah Feral Druid is very time intensive and you gotta love it. Also, many ferals hybrid hard - they tank, they heal, they dps, they PvP. It’s tough competition for that one raid spot.
Judging by your post, I think you’d like Hunter more. By comparison, it’s way easier, and they are special snowflakes in raiding. Most raiding guilds will take 2, rarely 3. You’ll handle the tranqs, MD pulls, and kiting. You’ll get gear very quickly for just showing up. And if you need any gold, just farm DireMaul, which Hunters are great at.
Gnomeragon has a back way that takes all of 5 minutes to get to the boss.
Feral is definitely constrained by consumables so you will need to farm a decent amount.
Druids have a lot of versatility and if you don’t mind doing a little bit of everything (tanking, healing, and DPS) you should be able to find yourself a spot in most raid groups though you might struggle to get into a more hardcore group.
For manual crowd pummeler- you’ll use it for the buff uptime and then switch to another weapon. It’s hard to say what the exact impact of it is on retail but if you’re looking for those sweet top tier parses you’ll likely need to farm it. That goes for runes and consumables as well. Not necessary if your plan is on the more casual side.
You can’t be certain on any BIS lists until people are able to verify how everything runs on the actual client. Private server data is a great starting point but with the guesswork that went into the private servers you can’t know how certain BiS items will actually play out.
The important thing is to just play what you find the most fun.