Post by Dragfighter on Nov 24, 2014 2:14:40 GMT
This is a thread as to how I play my druid's feral spec. This is not exactly a guide, but can be used as a reference as to what you should be doing when playing feral. Reputable guides are all over the place, and instead of adding one more, I'd like to only add my input on my success as a feral druid and leave the nitty-gritty to the many guides out there. To begin, I'd like to mention that the talents and glyphs I use may not be optimal, as I tend to use talents that help in a broad range of situations so that I won't be changing them all the time. That being said, this is pretty much a hybrid setup; it can be tweaked for maximal efficiency on a given situation.
Talents:
15: Wild Charge
Best of the bunch. With it, you have 5 options regarding what you can charge to:
With Feline Swiftness, there is not much I can do if I was being kited, I can't leap behind the enemy and maybe get a stun in to ensure that I stay close for at least some time. Displacer Beast is similar to Travel Form's Wild Charge, but you won't take any damage when blinking through fire-wall style mechanics. Comes with a nice movement speed boost which I don't find convincing enough to deter me from Wild Charge.
30: Ysera's Gift
This passive spell is a nice amount of healing that doesn't require you to keep a constant eye over. Its handy when you're stunned, now that you can't activate Barkskin to reduce damage, and heals others too when your health is topped off.
Renewal is a nice cooldown for when your health is worrisome. While it could be a nice lifesaver, you should ultimately be avoiding situations that result in a near death. Hence, this cooldown would rarely be used and much more healing can be outputted with Ysera's gift than the amount of times Renewal will be needed.
Cenarion Ward comes pretty close to Ysera's Gift; I found myself switching to it every now and then because it sometimes seems to be better than Gift. I normally combo this with Survival Instincts to reduce damage taken and get that health up when need be, at only a 30 second cooldown. It's pretty good when you can keep this ability on cooldown. But if you don't want another button in your rotation(or have a hard time remembering to press it), Ysera's Gift is a great choice.
45: Typhoon.
Completely situational, I find Typhoon to be my talent of choice. Good for interrupts, good to slow down (although pushing a little bit away) an enemy while my wild charge finishes its cooldown, great at pushing Horde off cliffs when you please! Great for keeping melee away when coupled with a root. I find that the interrupt capabilities of this talent keeps me from choosing the other talents in this tier as viable.
Faerie Swarm to me is basically a ranged shred with the movement debuff but without the damage. Wild Charge + shred serves the same purpose, and you can choose another talent that you can benefit more from. Mass Entanglement is a mass root, great for crowd control, and can be broken. It's good for those moments cc is needed, but nothing that a Entangling roots can't accomplish. If you need to cc a lot of things, then either get help, or you pulled too much.
60: Force of Nature
After trying all other talents, Force of Nature was where I settled. with the ability to have up to 3 treants out at one time, one can swarm an enemy with lots of adds, potentially making it annoying to tab-target. With each treant, summoned, it casts Entangling Roots on the target, allowing one to get away from or catch up to a target. This gives time for one to run away and heal or keep the pressure by staying on the opponent.
There was a time where I took Incarnation: King of the Jungle - it was before I gave Soul of the Forest and Force of Nature a chance. Incarnation is a great pvp talent with burst potential, but I didn't want another cooldown that I'd have to wait 3 minutes to be able to use. While it can be used as a finisher in PvP or for high dps at the start of a boss fight, it does not lead to overall higher numbers, or a constant push of dps on pvp.
Soul of the Forest was rated to be the best PvE talent, offering some nice energy for every finisher done (best combo'd with Berserk), but I couldn't really use it as a defensive if I wanted to. To play defensively with this talent, I'd pair this with Berserk and Nature's Vigil, where I can keep attacking my target to constantly get some health returned, and as long as I could keep good offensive numbers, I'd have good defensive (healing) numbers as well. Berserk + Nature's Vigil can still be used even without the Soul of the Forest talent, but you'd run out of energy quicker. Nevertheless, it is still a good way to be offensive while topping up your health.
75: Mighty Bash
Didn't like that targets break from Intimidating Roar on hit, and targets can still hit me even with Mass Entanglement cast, as I'd still be in melee range on the offensive. I can definitely see the use of Disorienting Roar and Mass Entanglement in controlling a number of enemy targets. So by opinion, I prefer the reliability of this 5-second unbreakable stun. I'd go Mighty Bash when going solo, or any of the other two when in need while in a group.
90: Nature's Vigil
Nature's Vigil provides a nice healing bonus with a relatively short cooldown. It can be while playing defensively or offensively, by hiding and healing, or pairing it with some nice offensive abilities to also get some nice healing done to yourself(Berserk + Tiger's Fury + Nature's Vigil + pots, etc.).
Heart of the Wild is greatly situational, where with a 6-minute cooldown, one has to really be sure that they want to use it at the time it is used; one can serve better at doing damage or healing for a nice 45 seconds. However, a 6-minute cooldown is a deal breaker when considering constant pressure and healing. This talent is superb when activated, however, I've found that I am able to keep myself or a teammate alive with Nature's Vigil while putting out consistent damage.
Dream of Cenarius is also good and comes close to Nature's Vigil. Works great with Healing Touch insta-casts and when in a duo group, as casting a heal(Healing Touch or Rejuvenate) on your teammate also heals the caster. Works great with insta-casts but feels slow when healing with a cast time.
100: Lunar Inspiration
I haven't tried the other talents but had "Blood Talons" pre-6.0 when it was integrated into Dream of Cenarius. Perhaps I didn't go with Blood Talons to try something new, and decided Lunar Inspiration could be better than Claws of Shirvallah. Lunar inspiration allows for a ranged ability that actually does damage comparable to rake; an extra DoT on the target that can be placed before you even get in melee range of the target. This extra DoT could be thought as the extra 30% damage Blood Talons would do without the need to have cast Healing Touch, but costing an extra 30 energy with the added ranged bonus. The extra energy usage could possibly be justified with the GCD or cast time associated with Healing Touch, where energy would instead replenish. It is possibly that the 30% damage bonus from Blood Talon provides a greater damage, but Lunar Inspiration is great utility when out of range, and wouldn't mind a bit less damage trade-off for a versatile way of dealing the damage. I haven't found reason to change this talent to refund the 30 extra energy I'd be using, hence currently being my talent of choice.
Blood Talon requires one to time their healing touch such that the best way to benefit from the 30% damage boost is to use it on Rake, Rip, or Ferocious Bite, where the latter's usefulness has increased as we move to being a less DoT heavy class. This means that Healing Touch must either be used at 4 combo points, followed by a Rake (5) and then a RIP [pun intended] (if no rip is on the target), or at 5 combo points, followed by a Rip/Ferocious Bite and then a rake(1). Preferably, you want to pair the DoT with Tiger's Fury (and the mandatory Savage Roar) for massive DoTs. Sounds pretty good(and perhaps still is!), but I prefer the ease and uniqueness of a ranged ability for my feral.
Ferals can use their abilities without leaving Cat Form and receive a 5% versatility bonus with Claws of Shirvallah. However, there are times where I don't mind shifting out of form and don't need to use abilities in Cat Form. Rejuvenation can already be cast while in cat form and casting other spells out of form is no trouble, especially when low on energy and could spend time being out of form while the energy replenishes. This could be trouble in PvP though, as it gives targets a window to polymorph and otherwise immune target. The 5% versatility bonus is a plus, but range ability > 5% versatility.
Talents:
15: Wild Charge
Best of the bunch. With it, you have 5 options regarding what you can charge to:
- Default Stance: you can escape or jump ahead to a nearby ally's position.
- Bear Form: you can charge an enemy and inevitably root them for 4 seconds.
- Cat Form: you can leap behind an enemy, reducing their run speed considerably.
- Travel Form: Just a forward leap of 20 yards. Useful when there isn't an ally to leap to, as you can go farther when leaping to an ally.
- Aquatic Form: Swim at the speed of light! Well, 5 seconds of 150% increased movement speed.
With Feline Swiftness, there is not much I can do if I was being kited, I can't leap behind the enemy and maybe get a stun in to ensure that I stay close for at least some time. Displacer Beast is similar to Travel Form's Wild Charge, but you won't take any damage when blinking through fire-wall style mechanics. Comes with a nice movement speed boost which I don't find convincing enough to deter me from Wild Charge.
30: Ysera's Gift
This passive spell is a nice amount of healing that doesn't require you to keep a constant eye over. Its handy when you're stunned, now that you can't activate Barkskin to reduce damage, and heals others too when your health is topped off.
Renewal is a nice cooldown for when your health is worrisome. While it could be a nice lifesaver, you should ultimately be avoiding situations that result in a near death. Hence, this cooldown would rarely be used and much more healing can be outputted with Ysera's gift than the amount of times Renewal will be needed.
Cenarion Ward comes pretty close to Ysera's Gift; I found myself switching to it every now and then because it sometimes seems to be better than Gift. I normally combo this with Survival Instincts to reduce damage taken and get that health up when need be, at only a 30 second cooldown. It's pretty good when you can keep this ability on cooldown. But if you don't want another button in your rotation(or have a hard time remembering to press it), Ysera's Gift is a great choice.
45: Typhoon.
Completely situational, I find Typhoon to be my talent of choice. Good for interrupts, good to slow down (although pushing a little bit away) an enemy while my wild charge finishes its cooldown, great at pushing Horde off cliffs when you please! Great for keeping melee away when coupled with a root. I find that the interrupt capabilities of this talent keeps me from choosing the other talents in this tier as viable.
Faerie Swarm to me is basically a ranged shred with the movement debuff but without the damage. Wild Charge + shred serves the same purpose, and you can choose another talent that you can benefit more from. Mass Entanglement is a mass root, great for crowd control, and can be broken. It's good for those moments cc is needed, but nothing that a Entangling roots can't accomplish. If you need to cc a lot of things, then either get help, or you pulled too much.
60: Force of Nature
After trying all other talents, Force of Nature was where I settled. with the ability to have up to 3 treants out at one time, one can swarm an enemy with lots of adds, potentially making it annoying to tab-target. With each treant, summoned, it casts Entangling Roots on the target, allowing one to get away from or catch up to a target. This gives time for one to run away and heal or keep the pressure by staying on the opponent.
There was a time where I took Incarnation: King of the Jungle - it was before I gave Soul of the Forest and Force of Nature a chance. Incarnation is a great pvp talent with burst potential, but I didn't want another cooldown that I'd have to wait 3 minutes to be able to use. While it can be used as a finisher in PvP or for high dps at the start of a boss fight, it does not lead to overall higher numbers, or a constant push of dps on pvp.
Soul of the Forest was rated to be the best PvE talent, offering some nice energy for every finisher done (best combo'd with Berserk), but I couldn't really use it as a defensive if I wanted to. To play defensively with this talent, I'd pair this with Berserk and Nature's Vigil, where I can keep attacking my target to constantly get some health returned, and as long as I could keep good offensive numbers, I'd have good defensive (healing) numbers as well. Berserk + Nature's Vigil can still be used even without the Soul of the Forest talent, but you'd run out of energy quicker. Nevertheless, it is still a good way to be offensive while topping up your health.
75: Mighty Bash
Didn't like that targets break from Intimidating Roar on hit, and targets can still hit me even with Mass Entanglement cast, as I'd still be in melee range on the offensive. I can definitely see the use of Disorienting Roar and Mass Entanglement in controlling a number of enemy targets. So by opinion, I prefer the reliability of this 5-second unbreakable stun. I'd go Mighty Bash when going solo, or any of the other two when in need while in a group.
90: Nature's Vigil
Nature's Vigil provides a nice healing bonus with a relatively short cooldown. It can be while playing defensively or offensively, by hiding and healing, or pairing it with some nice offensive abilities to also get some nice healing done to yourself(Berserk + Tiger's Fury + Nature's Vigil + pots, etc.).
Heart of the Wild is greatly situational, where with a 6-minute cooldown, one has to really be sure that they want to use it at the time it is used; one can serve better at doing damage or healing for a nice 45 seconds. However, a 6-minute cooldown is a deal breaker when considering constant pressure and healing. This talent is superb when activated, however, I've found that I am able to keep myself or a teammate alive with Nature's Vigil while putting out consistent damage.
Dream of Cenarius is also good and comes close to Nature's Vigil. Works great with Healing Touch insta-casts and when in a duo group, as casting a heal(Healing Touch or Rejuvenate) on your teammate also heals the caster. Works great with insta-casts but feels slow when healing with a cast time.
100: Lunar Inspiration
I haven't tried the other talents but had "Blood Talons" pre-6.0 when it was integrated into Dream of Cenarius. Perhaps I didn't go with Blood Talons to try something new, and decided Lunar Inspiration could be better than Claws of Shirvallah. Lunar inspiration allows for a ranged ability that actually does damage comparable to rake; an extra DoT on the target that can be placed before you even get in melee range of the target. This extra DoT could be thought as the extra 30% damage Blood Talons would do without the need to have cast Healing Touch, but costing an extra 30 energy with the added ranged bonus. The extra energy usage could possibly be justified with the GCD or cast time associated with Healing Touch, where energy would instead replenish. It is possibly that the 30% damage bonus from Blood Talon provides a greater damage, but Lunar Inspiration is great utility when out of range, and wouldn't mind a bit less damage trade-off for a versatile way of dealing the damage. I haven't found reason to change this talent to refund the 30 extra energy I'd be using, hence currently being my talent of choice.
Blood Talon requires one to time their healing touch such that the best way to benefit from the 30% damage boost is to use it on Rake, Rip, or Ferocious Bite, where the latter's usefulness has increased as we move to being a less DoT heavy class. This means that Healing Touch must either be used at 4 combo points, followed by a Rake (5) and then a RIP [pun intended] (if no rip is on the target), or at 5 combo points, followed by a Rip/Ferocious Bite and then a rake(1). Preferably, you want to pair the DoT with Tiger's Fury (and the mandatory Savage Roar) for massive DoTs. Sounds pretty good(and perhaps still is!), but I prefer the ease and uniqueness of a ranged ability for my feral.
Ferals can use their abilities without leaving Cat Form and receive a 5% versatility bonus with Claws of Shirvallah. However, there are times where I don't mind shifting out of form and don't need to use abilities in Cat Form. Rejuvenation can already be cast while in cat form and casting other spells out of form is no trouble, especially when low on energy and could spend time being out of form while the energy replenishes. This could be trouble in PvP though, as it gives targets a window to polymorph and otherwise immune target. The 5% versatility bonus is a plus, but range ability > 5% versatility.
