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PTR
11.0.7
PTR
11.0.5
Feral Druid DPS Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.2.5
By Guiltyas
Last Updated:
2022/11/28
Changelog
Patch: 11.0.5
Table of Contents
Rating: 4.1/5
(
7
Votes)
Guide Navigation
Rating: 4.1/5
(
7
Votes)
Welcome to our Feral Druid starter guide, which covers everything you need to start playing a new character in Shadowlands. While our other guide pages go into more individual detail, this simple starter guide covers all the basics in one place, whether you're a new Feral Druid, a returning player to Shadowlands, hardcore, or casual alike, it's the best place to get a beginners overview on the class. Included are basic talent builds, simplified rotations, stats, legendary recommendations, and more to get you started as quickly as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get players started quickly as an introduction, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Feral Druid Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page, and if you're leveling up in Shadowlands, you can take a look at our
leveling tips
.
Overview
NEW Season 1
NEW Nerub-ar Palace
NEW Mythic+
NEW Tier Set Bonus
Cheat Sheet
Talent Builds
Hero Talents
Rotation
DPS as a Healer
Gear
Pets
Support Buffs
Leveling
Abilities & Talents
Stats
Consumables
WA & Addons
Hotfixes
Mage Tower
About the Author
My name is Guiltyas, I'm currently raiding in Pure-Turalyon, where I joined towards the end of BFA. I've played Feral Druid since Wrath of the Lich King when I first picked it up as a main spec, since then I've engaged in almost all aspects of the game, from RBGs, to Challenge Modes, to Arena's, and of course to fairly high end raiding (around world 100 at the moment).
I've been an active and enthusiastic member of the feral druid community since discord heralded a new era of engagement among spec communities, I'm fairly well respected as a source of information and back that up with a long record of high end feral performance, I've claimed multiple rank 1's across different fights in different raid tiers, I've obtained Gladiator in the past (legion season 1), and now have a long history of providing information and help about about Feral Druid.
I'm enormously enthusiast about the spec and you can find me talking about Feral (passionately) in a few different places,
Twitter
, my
stream
, and of course the
Dreamgrove Discord
!
I enjoy walks on the beach and this is really what makes me reliable on the subject of Ferals! I do not own a cat :( but do appreciate them.
Best Feral Druid Covenant
As a quick recap, we've created the table below to highlight the notable differences between Covenants. Don't hesitate to click the headers to go to their respective guides!
Best Feral Druid Covenants and Soulbinds for Raid
Single Legendary
Double Legendary
Night Fae
Niya
Niya
Night Fae
Niya
Niya
Best Feral Druid Covenants and Soulbinds for Mythic+
Single Legendary
Double Legendary
Night Fae
Niya
Night Fae
Niya
Best Feral Druid Legendaries
Best Single Legendaries
Raid and M+ Legendary
:
Celestial Spirits
Best Double Legendaries
Best General Legendaries
:
Celestial Spirits
&
Frenzyband
Single Target Legendaries Alternate
:
Celestial Spirits
&
Apex Predator's Craving
Mythic+ Funnel Legendaries
:
Celestial Spirits
&
Apex Predator's Craving
Best Feral Druid Legendaries For Mythic+
Circle of Life and Death
, and Night Fae
Celestial Spirits
are the best options for Mythic + Content. For general purpose content here
Circle of Life and Death
is the winner combined with
Primal Wrath
for maximising AOE damage while only marginally sacrificing Single Target damage. If in a dungeon you do still want to maximize your single target and Night Fae
Celestial Spirits
can be excellent choices for burst single target. If you want to funnel damage into high health targets while in AOE then
Apex Predator's Craving
is a strong choice (while lower in true AOE damage)
Best Feral Druid Legendaries For Raiding
If you're Night Fae
Celestial Spirits
then
Celestial Spirits
will always be your strongest option to go along with that for Raiding you'll want at least two legendaries, for single target fights, or fights with a single long lived priority target you'll almost always want to use
Draught of Deep Focus
, and of course you'll want a
Circle of Life and Death
for the multi target fights that show up every tier.
To pair with your
Draught of Deep Focus
you'll want another legendary for fights that you can't use it on, you can either use your
Circle of Life and Death
, or you can use another legendary, there are a couple of options, most of which have their own niche strength.
Frenzyband
is an option for fights with heavy burst requirements,
Apex Predator's Craving
is an option for fights where you can funnel into one target with a lot of adds.
Best Feral Druid Talents
Pretty standard build that anyone who plays live Feral should be familiar with.
Tier 15
- Despite Sabertooth's nerfs it's still likely to show up as the best talent in the row for raiding.
Tier 25
- I prefer Wild Charge in this row personally but any of these 3 talents can be played.
Tier 30
- Again this row is PRIMARILY utility and any of them can work but Balance Affinity's range increase is almost always the most useful choice.
Tier 35
- Another utility row. Really any of these options work.
Tier 40
- With the
Berserk
change, Incarnation has fallen even further out of favor, and while Savage Roar may be a solid choice for AoE, for raiding Soul of the Forest reigns supreme.
Tier 45
- This row really only has two talents, on most fights you'll take Brutal Slash in this row as it's the only talent in the row that has any single target value. On fights with multiple targets you'll want to take Primal Wrath.
Tier 50
- Bloodtalons has changed but it's still the best option here. There is a chance, with how short some fights are, that Feral Frenzy might do well.
Tier 15
- As night fae Sabertooth just has too much value to take any other option here.
Tier 25
- I prefer Wild Charge in this row personally but any of these 3 talents can be played.
Tier 30
- Again this row is PRIMARILY utility and any of them can work but Balance Affinity's range increase is almost always the most useful choice.
Tier 35
- Another utility row. Really any of these options work.
Tier 40
- With the
Berserk
change, Incarnation has fallen even further out of favor, and while Savage Roar may be a solid choice for AoE, for raiding Soul of the Forest reigns supreme.
Tier 45
- For AoE Primal Wrath is a no-brainer.
Tier 50
- Bloodtalons has changed but it's still the best option here. There is a chance, with how short some fights are, that Feral Frenzy might do well.
Tier 15
- Predator's value remains supreme when you can get repeated resets. In some dungeons with heavy single target focus Sabertooth might be an option but Predator should be your default
Tier 25
- I prefer Wild Charge in this row personally but any of these 3 talents can be played.
Tier 30
- Again this row is PRIMARILY utility and any of them can work but Balance Affinity's range increase is almost always the most useful choice.
Tier 35
- Another utility row. Really any of these options work.
Tier 40
- With the
Berserk
change, Incarnation has fallen even further out of favor, and while Savage Roar may be a solid choice for AoE, for raiding Soul of the Forest reigns supreme.
Tier 45
- For AoE Primal Wrath is a no-brainer.
Tier 50
- Bloodtalons has changed but it's still the best option here. Feral Frenzy is also an option.
Feral Druid Stat Priority
Feral Druids prioritize Agility, making item level an important gearing consideration, followed by Critical Strike primarily and then Mastery or Versatility. Find out more about how stats work in the Stats Guide, or get an overview of gear to look out for from dungeons and raids in the Feral Druid Gear Guide.
Crit is our most efficient resource generating stat so that will likely remain king of the hill.
Mastery and Versatility are essentially the same stat, Mastery doesn't increase all of your damage but it's a more efficient stat than Versatility which does increase all of your damage, these two stats are likely to be pretty close together
Haste is another resource generation stat; it's less efficient than Crit but at the start of an expansion it's likely to be a reasonably good stat.
For personalized stat weights and gear suggestions, use
Raidbots
to sim your own character.
Feral Druid Enchants and Consumables
Weapon:
Enchant Weapon - Celestial Guidance
Rings:
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Critical Strike
Cloak:
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Avoidance
Boots:
Enchant Boots - Eternal Agility
Gems:
Deadly Jewel Cluster
Best Feral Druid Rotation
Rotation is a bit of a misnomer; at its core the spec operates on a priority system. You'll want to maintain bleeds and then spend any extra resources on
Ferocious Bite
s.
Your main priority will be to maintain
Rip
. You'll want to make sure you apply
Rip
with Bloodtalons and
Tiger's Fury
if possible.
Your next priority will be to maintain
Rake
. Where possible you'll want this to be snapshotted with the Stealth bonus from
Berserk
and
Tiger's Fury
, but this will not always be possible due to the duration on
Rip
and the CD's on TF and
Berserk
.
Any extra Combo Points will be spent on
Ferocious Bite
.
Last but not least, generate Combo Points with
Shred
In addition to this rotation you'll also want to generate Bloodtalons stacks when those drop off, which will be every 2nd cycle. The easiest way to conceptualize the Feral rotation as a whole is as sets of cycles, with each cycle starting at 0 cps and finishing with casting a finisher. As such half your cycles will be used to generate Bloodtalons stacks where you'll want to cast 3 different generators rather than just
Shred
.
For more details you can check the Shadowlands Feral Rotation page.
Our Feral Druid guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Feral Druid guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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Overview
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