hey guys im lookin to pick up either my druid or rogue again and came here to see what people thought of feral but i think i only saw like what 2 post about it on the whole page? is feral in that bad a spot? does no one wanna play it? serious question
The community perception of feral is far worse than the objective performance of feral, and has been for at least a decade. It isn’t a very popular spec, so it rarely gets much attention from the devs whenever there are issues; that’s also why you aren’t seeing many posts on the spec.
As far as its performance, feral is very talent-point capped in its spec tree. In order to deal good single target damage, it has to fully commit to single target. In order to deal good AOE damage, it has to fully commit to AOE damage. This causes it to struggle on any fight that is a healthy mix of single target and AOE.
Additionally, while the spec has high burst output, it requires a fairly lengthy setup for max damage and its damage profile outside of its burst cooldowns requires getting heavy work out of its bleeds. This requires enemies to live for a while in order for the spec to be competitive with other specs that can start getting damage out immediately.
If you are doing content where enemies will live for a while and with a singular damage profile (single target versus AOE), feral is quite strong. Over the past decade or so, feral druid has flirted with the highest single target damage spec in the game, oftentimes actually holding that crown. If you look at logs today, you will see that feral’s overall output in raid is below average, but its damage to bosses is somewhere near the top 5. This is because most raid fights feature short-lived adds which feral can’t really deal with due to the spec limitations I mentioned previously. But the single target output over a long period is quite strong.
Feral in keys is in a rather weird place. In top level keys, feral objectively does quite well. If you look up the top keys that feature a feral druid, oftentimes the feral will top the damage output for the group. As the key levels drop to ranges the masses will play, feral’s relative performance drops off sharply. Groups stop pulling as big and enemies don’t live long enough for feral to keep up on the packs outside of their cooldowns. To be clear, if you know what you’re doing, you won’t be an anchor for your group in those keys by any stretch. But most of the more popular specs when played as well as you are playing feral will have higher output due to having less stringent restrictions for optimal performance.
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I figured this was the case. it was why i originally quit feral in the first place back in wod. I hate that blizz just leaves certain specs to rot but will rework shadow and lock every xpac and almost always keep mages op etc. its so annoying
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While I wish feral would get more love from the devs, I really don’t want to be in the shadow priest position. Having to learn effectively a new spec every 6-12 months sounds miserable to me. I still want feral to feel like feral patch in/patch out. I just wish they would address some of the glaring holes in the spec that have existed for years.
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Yeah I agree completely
I am not an expert in druid, especially not feral, but the problem seems to be you’re a melee class competing against a ranged dps. Not only that, but also competing against a meta healer resto druid. In the raid for example, the fights aren’t so favorable towards melee, so feral would struggle, in contrast with balance which would benefit from most of the raids.
In M+ Feral is actually strong enough in physical comps. I think feral + rogue + arms warrior is the meta phys comp or something like that. Druid will always be a viable option over rogue simply due to their overwhelming group utility. I played a rogue and it was so pathetic how little group utility they have.
It sounds as if you are worried about classes being in a bad spot, so I will tell you feral isn’t in that bad of a spot. The other specs it competes with are just better. I’d recommend you play druid over rogue 10/10 times.
play what you enjoy, if you enjoy the feral play style then go for it. 
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Feral druid is a good option, i played it back in Dragonflight and i enjoyed it greatly. But as others have mentioned, you are really punished to things not living long enough, or you miss time your CD’s and rotation.
It takes a lot of practice, but overall, i enjoy feral much more than rogue. You bring more utility such as a raid buff, multiple different interrupts, off healing potential ETC. brings more to the groups which is always a bonus. which in turn, makes it more engaging.
in summary for my opinion, feral druid is WAY more fun.
I agree.
I have tried all the other dps class and most of the specs, and always come back to feral as i enjoy it the most. It was challenging to learn it but was well worth the effort.
Another benefit, 4 different specs…where rogue is always DPS. can always change your playstyle, without changing characters. actually a pretty massive perk if you have alti-aholic tendencies.
Need a tank? Bear. Need a healer? resto. Need a ranged DPS? Boomy. And all options are very viable in all content.
yup guardian has come in handy when solo running t11 delves since valeria as a tank, ugh…
Community perception
Ive got a Rogue and a Feral
I really prefer the Druid over the Rogue hands down
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