Before anything please note that this guide is limited by my knowledge and isn’t all the absolute correct way of doing things please contact me if you have anything new that can help improve DPS overall, I'd love to hear it. Whisper Lythan (Ally on K2) (Most preferred way of contact).
Table of Contents
Why Bring a Feral, “On a Tick”
Talents and Race Choice
Pre-Raid BiS
Stats and Consumables
Powershifting
Abilities, Rotation, and Innervate
Why Bring a Feral
There are 2 reasons to bring a feral over another rogue. 1) Leader of the Pack, gives a group 3% crit allowing you to create a powergroup able to do a lot more damage then you didn’t bring a feral. 2) Easy faerie fire, feral druids can easily faerie fire since it costs nothing other then a GCD, this allows your resto druids to focus on healing. You may bring up damage but currently a good feral druid can keep up with rogues pulling 325 – 350 DPS with self buffs and no consumes and 500 DPS with raid buffs and 600 DPS if the stars align and the boss is a tank and spank. Keep in mind this is only with pre-raid BiS. Another misconception is that ferals don’t get gear and fall behind. This is sort of true in BWL/MC phase of the game but not true when AQ comes out since we can replace all of our gear. Although the sad truth is that Naxx is not friendly with us and that’s when we drop off again although you’ll still provide 3% crit to your group and easy faerie fire.
“On a Tick”
“On a Tick” - Energy in vanilla and TBC comes at 20 energy per 2 seconds when you do something on a tick you are doing something as your 20 energy comes in if your at max energy this in a way reduces your ability cost by 20.
Talents and Race Choice
Why Bring a Feral, “On a Tick”
Talents and Race Choice
Pre-Raid BiS
Stats and Consumables
Powershifting
Abilities, Rotation, and Innervate
Why Bring a Feral
There are 2 reasons to bring a feral over another rogue. 1) Leader of the Pack, gives a group 3% crit allowing you to create a powergroup able to do a lot more damage then you didn’t bring a feral. 2) Easy faerie fire, feral druids can easily faerie fire since it costs nothing other then a GCD, this allows your resto druids to focus on healing. You may bring up damage but currently a good feral druid can keep up with rogues pulling 325 – 350 DPS with self buffs and no consumes and 500 DPS with raid buffs and 600 DPS if the stars align and the boss is a tank and spank. Keep in mind this is only with pre-raid BiS. Another misconception is that ferals don’t get gear and fall behind. This is sort of true in BWL/MC phase of the game but not true when AQ comes out since we can replace all of our gear. Although the sad truth is that Naxx is not friendly with us and that’s when we drop off again although you’ll still provide 3% crit to your group and easy faerie fire.
“On a Tick”
“On a Tick” - Energy in vanilla and TBC comes at 20 energy per 2 seconds when you do something on a tick you are doing something as your 20 energy comes in if your at max energy this in a way reduces your ability cost by 20.
Talents and Race Choice
There are a couple talents choices you can make but the spec I use is this: [Link]
You can move a couple talents around like Feral Instincts, Feline Swiftness, and Feral Faerie Fire (if you have another druid willing to keep it up).
Race
You can move a couple talents around like Feral Instincts, Feline Swiftness, and Feral Faerie Fire (if you have another druid willing to keep it up).
Race
For races you have Night Elves which give you extra dodge, better stealth, and shadowmeld which is off GCD and has some uses in PvP and Tauren which gives you more stamina and warstomp, a 2 second AoE stun which also has some uses in PvP.
If you want to easily justify your raid spot my suggestion is to go Night Elf just to be on alliance. This is due to the fact that feral druids cannot benefit from windfury which in turn puts them at an even worse disadvantage over other melee DPS. You also get Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Salvation, Blessing of Might, and Blessing of Wisdom which all help feral a lot. You can still go horde and do well but it’s a lot harder to justify a raid spot for you.
Pre-Raid BiS
Helm: Wolfshead's Helm
Neck: Mark of Fordring
Shoulders: Truestrike Shoulders
Cloak: Cape of the Black Baron
Chest: Cadaverous Armor
Bracers: Blackmist Armguards
Gloves: Devilsaur Gauntlets
Belt: Cloudrunner Girdle
Pants: Devilsaur Leggings
Ring 1: Tarnished Elven Ring
Ring 2: Tarnished Elven Ring
Trinket 1: Hand of Justice
Trinket 2: Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom / Blackhand’s Breath
Weapon: Bonecrusher
Relic: Idol of Ferocity
If you want to easily justify your raid spot my suggestion is to go Night Elf just to be on alliance. This is due to the fact that feral druids cannot benefit from windfury which in turn puts them at an even worse disadvantage over other melee DPS. You also get Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Salvation, Blessing of Might, and Blessing of Wisdom which all help feral a lot. You can still go horde and do well but it’s a lot harder to justify a raid spot for you.
Pre-Raid BiS
Helm: Wolfshead's Helm
Neck: Mark of Fordring
Shoulders: Truestrike Shoulders
Cloak: Cape of the Black Baron
Chest: Cadaverous Armor
Bracers: Blackmist Armguards
Gloves: Devilsaur Gauntlets
Belt: Cloudrunner Girdle
Pants: Devilsaur Leggings
Ring 1: Tarnished Elven Ring
Ring 2: Tarnished Elven Ring
Trinket 1: Hand of Justice
Trinket 2: Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom / Blackhand’s Breath
Weapon: Bonecrusher
Relic: Idol of Ferocity
You might of noticed that there is only 7% hit on your pre-raid BiS, this is as close to hit cap as you can get while also not sacrificing either Bonecrusher or Wolfshead Helm which both greatly increase your DPS, if you truly want hit cap then swap out Bonecrusher for Impervious Giant but never replace your Wolfshead's Helm. This is also an intro to feral’s greatest issue until BWL gear, hit cap.
Stats and Consumables
Feral druid has some of the best stats to AP/Crit conversions in the game your stats conversion goes as following:
1 Str = 2.4 AP (2 without HotW)1 Agi = 1 AP1 Crit = 20 Agi1 DMG = 14 AP
So your stat priority is as following:
Hit > Str > AP > Agi > Crit
Now heres the weird part the 2000 AP Rule (or the 1200 AP rule without HotW) that states that after 2000 AP Agi becomes better then Str, making your stat priority the following:
Hit > Agi > Crit > Str > AP
The math behind this rule can be found here if you want to look more into it.
Consumes
Stats and Consumables
Feral druid has some of the best stats to AP/Crit conversions in the game your stats conversion goes as following:
1 Str = 2.4 AP (2 without HotW)1 Agi = 1 AP1 Crit = 20 Agi1 DMG = 14 AP
So your stat priority is as following:
Hit > Str > AP > Agi > Crit
Now heres the weird part the 2000 AP Rule (or the 1200 AP rule without HotW) that states that after 2000 AP Agi becomes better then Str, making your stat priority the following:
Hit > Agi > Crit > Str > AP
The math behind this rule can be found here if you want to look more into it.
Consumes
Dense Weightstone
Elixir of the Mongoose
Juju Power
Juju Might
Juju Flurry*
Savory Deviate Delight**
Smoked Desert Dumplings
Major Mana Potion*
Demonic Rune*
Flask of Distilled Wisdom
Manual Crowd Pummeler***
R.O.I.D.S.
Ground Scorpok Assay
* Please note for these consumes you have to pop them in the middle of a powershift, this may make Juju Flurry not worth the risk but demonic rune and major mana potions are almost necessary.
** Not necessary but helps a lot if you are trying to stack since it makes your hit box very obvious.
*** This is a weird one but worth, use these on bosses that you don’t move around a lot or at least have 30 seconds between your movements otherwise just use your normal weapon. Please note that you have to keep it equipped so use a dense weightstone on it.
Powershifting
You may of read previously the term powershifting, this is the act of poping out and in of cat form to convert 478 mana into 80 energy or 60 if you screw up your timing. This is a very simple concept but takes a little practice, this is where the skill of feral druids comes from. You want to shift on a energy tick, around 1 second or 1.5 seconds into an energy tick so that your can get 80 energy instead of 60. Starting out you should powershift when your GCD is over but as you get into you’ll start your powershift 3/4th of the way through your GCD for maximum effect. This concept also gets weird when you have to pop mana potions, demonic runes, or juju flurrys mid shift. Practice this, get good at it since it’s where most your DPS comes from.
Abilities, Rotation, and Innervate
There are 3 abilities that you’ll use all the time and 6-7 abilities that you’ll use depending on whats happening at the moment.
Main
Shred – 48 energy cost (60 without talents), 225% damage + 180
Ferocious Bite – 35 Cost, uses combo points, every additional point of energy = 2.5 more damage
Faerie Fire (Feral) – Reduce armor by 505, useful for your whole raid keep it up, use it while at 28 energy waiting for a tick
Alt
Claw – 45 energy cost (37 with talents and relic), useful when you can’t get their back
Rake – 40 energy cost (32 with talents and relic), Bleed damage useful on high armor otherwise not worth
Tiger’s Fury– 30 energy cost, doesn’t trigger GCD, useful when your almost energy capped, cast on energy tick
Ravage – 60 energy cost, prowl opener, 350% damage + 343, if you can use it
Cower – 20 energy cost, drops some aggro, if you have 20 energy and less then 1 second from energy tick use it
Rip – 30 energy cost, uses combo points, bleed damage useful all around, use if your raid has less then 16 debuffs and you have low crit chance, saves mana
Dash – No cost, use this to get your Ravage opener and or getting to safety.
Rotation
Shift every time your below 28 energy if you are at 28 energy its better to faerie fire and wait for the tick then shredding.
Elixir of the Mongoose
Juju Power
Juju Might
Juju Flurry*
Savory Deviate Delight**
Smoked Desert Dumplings
Major Mana Potion*
Demonic Rune*
Flask of Distilled Wisdom
Manual Crowd Pummeler***
R.O.I.D.S.
Ground Scorpok Assay
* Please note for these consumes you have to pop them in the middle of a powershift, this may make Juju Flurry not worth the risk but demonic rune and major mana potions are almost necessary.
** Not necessary but helps a lot if you are trying to stack since it makes your hit box very obvious.
*** This is a weird one but worth, use these on bosses that you don’t move around a lot or at least have 30 seconds between your movements otherwise just use your normal weapon. Please note that you have to keep it equipped so use a dense weightstone on it.
Powershifting
You may of read previously the term powershifting, this is the act of poping out and in of cat form to convert 478 mana into 80 energy or 60 if you screw up your timing. This is a very simple concept but takes a little practice, this is where the skill of feral druids comes from. You want to shift on a energy tick, around 1 second or 1.5 seconds into an energy tick so that your can get 80 energy instead of 60. Starting out you should powershift when your GCD is over but as you get into you’ll start your powershift 3/4th of the way through your GCD for maximum effect. This concept also gets weird when you have to pop mana potions, demonic runes, or juju flurrys mid shift. Practice this, get good at it since it’s where most your DPS comes from.
Abilities, Rotation, and Innervate
There are 3 abilities that you’ll use all the time and 6-7 abilities that you’ll use depending on whats happening at the moment.
Main
Shred – 48 energy cost (60 without talents), 225% damage + 180
Ferocious Bite – 35 Cost, uses combo points, every additional point of energy = 2.5 more damage
Faerie Fire (Feral) – Reduce armor by 505, useful for your whole raid keep it up, use it while at 28 energy waiting for a tick
Alt
Claw – 45 energy cost (37 with talents and relic), useful when you can’t get their back
Rake – 40 energy cost (32 with talents and relic), Bleed damage useful on high armor otherwise not worth
Tiger’s Fury– 30 energy cost, doesn’t trigger GCD, useful when your almost energy capped, cast on energy tick
Ravage – 60 energy cost, prowl opener, 350% damage + 343, if you can use it
Cower – 20 energy cost, drops some aggro, if you have 20 energy and less then 1 second from energy tick use it
Rip – 30 energy cost, uses combo points, bleed damage useful all around, use if your raid has less then 16 debuffs and you have low crit chance, saves mana
Dash – No cost, use this to get your Ravage opener and or getting to safety.
Rotation
Shift every time your below 28 energy if you are at 28 energy its better to faerie fire and wait for the tick then shredding.
Your basic rotation is this:
Dash > Tiger’s Fury on Tick > Ravage > Shred until 5 Combo Points > If energy > 35 Ferocious Bite else powershift and Ferocious Bite
You can also open without Ravage say like on Ragnaros where he’ll knock you out of prowl:
Tiger’s Fury on Tick > Shred until 5 Combo Points > If energy > 35 Ferocious Bite else powershift and Ferocious Bite
Innervate
If your guild doesn’t have shotty healers then you can innervate yourself for mana, try to find a time where most the DPS is not hitting the boss to innervate i.e. Fear, knockback, dodging mechanics.
Dash > Tiger’s Fury on Tick > Ravage > Shred until 5 Combo Points > If energy > 35 Ferocious Bite else powershift and Ferocious Bite
You can also open without Ravage say like on Ragnaros where he’ll knock you out of prowl:
Tiger’s Fury on Tick > Shred until 5 Combo Points > If energy > 35 Ferocious Bite else powershift and Ferocious Bite
Innervate
If your guild doesn’t have shotty healers then you can innervate yourself for mana, try to find a time where most the DPS is not hitting the boss to innervate i.e. Fear, knockback, dodging mechanics.
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