Per the suggestion of Chupid, starting this thread to consolidate all the various Feral hijacks (assuming they aren't tapped out by now) to prevent clutter of other discussions. And give XI a target-rich environment for AoE flaming. I kid.

Anyway, to get the ball rolling...my guild has been farming BWL for a few weeks now, and some of the druids (myself not included) are getting antsy about speccing out of heavy Resto builds. There's some tension about this since we are just getting started in AQ (eff you, low pop server) and two of our best-geared priests just quit. I am trying to assemble some ammunition to argue on behalf of our druids who are keen on Feral builds, but I have limited experience with Feral specs in general and zero experience playing them in a raid setting. Obviously, this makes me a suboptimal advocate.

I know properly geared Feral druids can acquit themselves admirably when called upon for tanking or DPS. However, the knock on druids has always been that the niche classes (warriors and rogues in this case) are better suited for those roles, so why dick around with Feral druids if you're really focused on PvE progression. This argument sits better with some than others, but I'm willing to concede that point. What I'm more interested in is how Feral druids contribute to a raid in ways that warriors and rogues can't. Do they? And, more importantly, can they do so consistently? Anecdotal "I saved the raid once" stories aren't opinion changers. I want to hear about the unique things you bring to the table each and every time you raid.

On one hand I really can't hold it against druids who put points in feral because of speed concerns while soloing. Personally I would never go out and farm anything for more than a few minutes, but I do know there are people out there who do enjoy it and the pain felt by resto druids when attempting to farm.

But in raid situations I just don't see the point. Out of all the content in the game, the only time I can possibly see druids' shifting into a form to be of any use is during some of the post-emps pulls and possibly on Sartura. Everything else is just pointless (and honestly an annoyance when I'm trying to pull something off a bear who is about to die because he aggroed a Wyrmguard and just won't stop taunting it.) If your guild is anything like 99% of the other guilds in wow, you have plenty of warriors. Have you ever only had 3 warriors sign up for a raid and found that you wouldn't be able to tank all of Garr's adds unless some druids went bear? Probably not. When is a raid ever hurting for melee dps? Do you somehow have no rogues or warriors in your guild? Probably not. The only times these situations arise are during the catastrophic situations that result in a large chunk of these classes dying, and by then no amount of bears or cats wearing +healing stuff is going to help you regardless of whatever amount of feral points they've got.

Even if class balances were flipped, does it really make sense to have druids that are dedicated to doing damage or tanking? A druid with points in feral can do 300 dps, but it isn't as if a druid with all those points in rest instead can't do any. Does it really make sense to putting points in tanking or dpsing when 1) they really don't do all that much more damage and 2) it wasn't necesary in the first place?

And for the guilds that do have druids with significant amounts of points in feral, do you ever really see druids going feral on raids? Sure, maybe to dps some trash or to tank an add they aggroed, but that's about the extent of it. People say "Hey let Chupid tank MC" (I'm not even going to discuss how it's year old content) but then the warriors just do it instead because they're better at it by measures of both skill and gear.

It's because putting points in feral doesn't impact a druid's healing capacity too severely that most rational people of other classes aren't so adverse to the idea. If your guild is saying that you're not allowed to put points in feral they're only a bit less stupid than the ones that require the shaman to spec Mana Spring or whatever the hell that worthless totem is named, but to try to argue that feral druids make a meaningful contribution to raids is an empty justification for increased solo and pvp prowess.

What Dios says makes sense to me.

I like Feral because it gives me a lot more PvP viability and doesn't impact my healing so much to make me a complete bane.

Yea, the "compared the number of DDs to Healers and figure out which they're going to want you to do" scenario pretty much sums it up in most cases.

The only time I can see a raid actually wanting Feral Druids is either when there's too many healers and the Druid has LotP or when the raid group has the instance down cold and just wants to clear it quick.

Edit- I agree with Bad & Diospadre. The only reason I'm putting 20 points into Feral myself is namely for Feral Charge, the MoD-equivalent talent, and the +30% Cat Form speed boost. Those just make my life easier when I'm not healing.

I have a Druid friend who is a hardcore Restoration Druid. He has something like 41 points in Restoration. :unsure:

These two sum up my feelings completely.

Bah, I couldn't edit this in my post on time:

Edit 2- It seems to me that in most PvE encounters (I can't think of anything off the top of my head where this wouldn't be true), you want to min/max as much as possible in order to get the best results. You want the best tanks tanking, the best DDs doing damage, the best healers healing, etc..

However, the Druid, fundamentally, falls short on each aspect but obviously has the adaptability change roles. But as someone above mentioned, if you're short on DDs, an extra Rogue or Hunter is generally not hard to come by. Nor are Warriors. However, healers can be and as a result you have a non-optimal (of course, this is debatable) Druid replacing a Priest's role - and the gap will probably widen after the 1.10 Priest updates. Of course, there are a few things a Druid brings to the table that no one else can but one the healers' favorite spells, Innervate, requires 31 points into Restoration thus further placing Druids into the "heal-bot" roles.

Can bears be hexed?

Nope, and the extra dps from warriors, not tanking, helps lots.
That bear just doesn't move unless he get ported.

Hakkar MC varies depending on to whom you ask about it. Jin'do definately cannot hex them though.

And that is where our short cooldown Feral Charge comes in. :)

Edit: I'm pretty sure Hakkar would be able to MC you, I know I've been MCed by Prophet while in Bear form.

Well no hex and they're not going to get MC'ed anyway unless Gilliam is in the raid.

edit: Yeah Bad cause insanity isn't just plain old MC.