Contents

1 Introduction 2 Overview 3 Talents and Glyphs 3.1 Spec 3.2 Glyphs 3.2.1 Prime Glyphs 3.2.2 Major Glyphs 3.2.3 Minor Glyphs 4 Gear 4.1 Stats 4.2 Gems 4.3 Set bonuses 4.4 Enchants 4.5 Professions 5 Rotation 6 Addons 7 Other

[top] Introduction

This post contains information about dpsing as a feral druid in a high end raid setting. It should be enough for beginners to gain a solid grasp on the fundamentals of the spec, and should also be a reference for players who have specific questions about our mechanics.

We'll go into more detail later, but if you have specific gearing questions you can use Rawr - Rawr or Mew - [Feral] Mew Simulator

I will do my best to keep this post up to date, but if you find something that is old or just plain wrong please send me a PM so that I can fix it quickly. Thank you.

[top] Overview

As a dps it is your job to do as much damage as possible while taking as little as possible and using your utility abilities intelligently. Be ready to cap your hit rating if you're on interrupt duty (will not be necessary in an upcoming patch), use Rebirth, Tranquility, or Innervate if needed, and use CC if called for. You should also be ready to act in a hybrid dps/tanking role, since you can easily grab every important talent and glyph for both tanking and dps and operate at 95% efficiency or more in both roles at the same time.

[top] Talents and Glyphs

[top] Spec

For choosing Feral as your spec you get Aggression (increases your AP by 25%) and the ability Mangle. We also get a 2 part mastery, one for cats and one for bears. The cat portion of our mastery is called Razor Claws and increases the damage of bleed abilities by 3.1% per point of mastery.

For dps you absolutely want to pick up Feral Swiftness, Fury Swipes, Primal Fury, King of the Jungle, Feral Charge, Leader of the Pack, Endless Carnage, Blood in the Water, Rend and Tear, Berserk, Heart of the Wild, and Master Shapeshifter. Other talents that I would recommend are Furor, Feral Aggression, Nurturing Instinct, and Survival Instincts. Even grabbing all of those still leaves you with points to pick up situational talents such as Brutal Impact, Perseverance, or Stampede. Or you can also pick up Thick Hide and Natural Reaction so you're ready to be an emergency tank if your main tank dies.

A basic spec might look like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[top] Glyphs

[top] Prime Glyphs

[Glyph of Rip]
[Glyph of Shred]
[Glyph of Tiger's Fury]
[Glyph of Berserk]
[Glyph of Savage Roar]
[Glyph of Mangle]

Glyph of Rip and Glyph of Shred are your top 2 glyphs at all times (unless of course you're unable to use one or the other, such as Shred on Kologarn). The third glyph spot is close and under various circumstances can be Tiger's Fury, Berserk, or Savage Roar. Mangle is almost never worth using. Note that if you are an engineer you should not use Glyph of Tiger's Fury as it will cause Tiger's Fury to desync with Synapse Springs.

[top] Major Glyphs

[Glyph of Faerie Fire]
[Glyph of Feral Charge]
[Glyph of Ferocious Bite]
[Glyph of Rebirth]

The major glyph that I'd strongly recommend is Rebirth, as there is a world of difference between resurrecting someone with 20% health and 100%. Glyph of Feral Charge is also useful to increase mobility and allow more usage of the Stampede talent, including some bosses that can be charged from melee range. Glyph of Ferocious Bite usually shows up as a dps loss in simulators. You may also consider [Glyph of Maul] if you plan on off-tanking.

[top] Minor Glyphs

[Item not found!]
[Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth]
[Glyph of Dash]

You can also consider [Glyph of Challenging Roar] if you plan on off-tanking.

[top] Gear

[top] Stats

General information on combat ratings can be found here: Combat Ratings at level 85 (Cataclysm)

Agility
Agility increases your attack power and crit chance. Each point gives you 2 AP and it takes 324.85 agility for 1% crit. It is by far the best stat for dps and should be stacked whenever possible, though usually that only means gems and enchants because you cannot reforge for agility.

Strength
Strength increases attack power, providing 2 AP per strength. It is technically our second strongest stat after agility. However, it is strictly inferior to agility and since both are primary stats only one or the other can be on a single piece of gear, so in practice it is almost never used. The only exceptions are if you have access to a piece of strength gear with a much higher item level than agility gear for that slot, and glove enchants since there is no equivalent agility enchant available.

Mastery
It takes 179.28 mastery rating to gain 1 point of mastery. Each point of mastery increases your bleed damage by 3.1%. Mastery is your best secondary stat and should be stacked as much as possible, though not ahead of agility. You should reforge for mastery whenever you have a piece of gear without it, although whenever possible you want gear that already has mastery.

Crit
You need 179.28 crit rating to gain 1% crit chance. Crit is generally a strong secondary stat, but you should use Rawr or Mew to confirm where is stands relative to the other secondary stats besides mastery.

Haste
You need 128.05701 haste rating for 1% haste. Haste became somewhat stronger in 4.0.6 and can be competitive with Crit, so use Rawr or Mew to help decide which is better for you.

Hit/Expertise
You need 120.109 hit/expertise rating for 1% hit/expertise. These stats are generally not as strong as crit or haste, but again you should use Rawr or Mew to confirm. Note that interrupts can no longer miss, so there is never a specific need to cap hit.

[top] Gems

There is now 1 real choice for your meta gem: [Agile Shadowspirit Diamond]. All red slots should be filled with [Delicate Inferno Ruby]. Oftentimes you'll want to skip blue or yellow socket bonuses and use delicates there as well. If a blue or yellow socket bonus is worth getting you should use [Glinting Demonseye] or [Adept Ember Topaz].

[top] Set bonuses

Both 2T11 and 4T11 are worth using. Once you have 4T11 you'll need to track the buff Strength of the Panther and keep it stacked to 3 with as few Mangles as possible.

[top] Enchants

Head: [Arcanum of the Ramkahen]
Shoulders: [Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal]
Back: Major Agility (22 agility)
Chest: Peerless Stats (20 to all stats)
Wrists: Agility (50 agility)
Hands: Mighty Strength (50 strength) (yes really)
Legs: [Dragonscale Leg Armor]
Feet: Major Agility (35 agility)
Weapon: Mighty Agility (130 agility)

[top] Professions

Jewelcrafting very slightly offers the most agility. If used on cooldown Synapse Springs from Engineering provide a minimum of 80 agility on average and usually somewhat more than that, and can also be lined up with other cooldowns for more effective benefit than a static buff. Jewelcrafting, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing are all a bit more flexible than other professions, though this is not as useful as it was in WotLK.

Alchemy: 80 agility from [Flask of the Winds].
Blacksmithing: 80 agility from 2 extra gem sockets.
Enchanting: 80 agility from ring enchants.
Engineering: Synapse Springs provide 480 agility for 10 seconds on a 60 second cooldown. This averages to 80 agility but in practice will be slightly stronger than that if used correctly.
Herbalism: Minor heal and 480 haste for 20 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown.
Inscription: 80 agility from shoulder enchant.
Jewelcrafting: 81 agility from Chimera's Eyes.
Leatherworking: 80 agility from bracer enchant. Can also use the level 80 resistance enchants if needed.
Mining: 120 stamina, no dps benefits.
Skinning: 80 crit, not as good as other professions.
Tailoring: Swordguard Embroidery - Spell - World of Warcraft chance to proc 1000 AP for 15 seconds.

[top] Rotation

Depending on how exact you want your rotation to be it can become quite complicated. A simplified version would be

1. Keep up Mangle
2. Use Tiger's Fury on cooldown
3. Use Berserk on cooldown
4. Keep up a 5CP Rip
5. Keep up Rake
6. Keep up Savage Roar
7. Shred for combo points

As of 4.1 Swipe has become worthwhile in AoE situations.

[top] Addons

The default UI is pretty terrible for tracking everything you need to know to dps well as a feral. There are a number of addons out there that can more cleanly display information you need. BadKitty and FeralByNight are tailored towards feral dps, and Power Auras is also popular. Leafkiller keeps an updated Ovale script on his site Fluiddruid.net. My personal choice is RoguePowerBars. There are a lot of choices out there, find one that fits your needs and use it.

[top] Other

If there's something else you'd like me to include please PM me.

Bumping this just so that it's first page for responses. (Then I'll delete this post).

Is the mastery bonus apllied only when a bleed is put up or does your bleed scale with say a mastery proc? Because I want to maximize the damage my bleeds do since stacking mastery had a huge effect on my dps.

Bleeds take mastery into account when applied, as far as I'm aware. For example, if you get a mastery proc, it is ideal to line up applying a bleed with the proc.

As far as I can tell (and I stand to be corrected) mastery effects the Rip as it is applied in the same way as you should always make sure to use Tigers Fury for the damage boost prior to applying Rip not after. This means if you have a mastery trinket that is on-use, make sur eto pop this before you apply your bleeds (both rake AND rip ideally). In the same way, popping a trinket for increased mastery after rip is already on the target will not increase it's damage.

I believe rake was fixed a few days prior to cataclysms release, as I saw a dramatic decrease at level 80 on my rake's damage. (Yawning confirmed it was procing double mastery, I was seeing 16k rake ticks at 80, and that dropped to 12k on the saturday or sunday prior to cata)
That being said, I have noticed rake ticks being almost excessive at the moment, but that may be due to trinket procs (My highest rake tick on a normal fight was 46,000 with the "stars aligned" so to speak, 3500 agi in trinket procs and TF up. However, in parses on boss fights, my rake stands at roughly 30%, along with 30% damage from rip, which is our speculated and generally accepted percentages of damage breakdown. Thus I believe rake may not be bugged, and while you are seeing higher ticks than rip, you must realize it only ticks 2/3 of the time.

Here's a real breakdown of theralion and valiona for me, I let rip drop due to a misjudged FB (Cast with 3sec left on rip, didn't refresh)

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
30.4% rake
29% rip
17.9% shred
16.2% melee
3.4% fury swipes
1.4% fb
1.1% ravage

Also note, I had dark intent, which makes my dots a higher percentage of damage

yesterday my Rakes were 30-31%, followed by Rip 29-30%, etc but today it seemed like my Rips were doing 31-32% followed by Rakes which were doing 20-22% of my damage. It seems like they fixed Rake. Can anyone else confirm?

Rake was indeed hotfixed:

What's the best course of action when you have 5CPs, ~60-70energy, Rip will expire in 1-2 seconds, TF just got off the cooldown: rip & TF or dump energy into shred, wasting CPs, then TF & Rip?

[Razor-Edged Cloak] from Leatherworking is quite similar to the [Softwind Cape] and so it probably belongs on the list.

It was my understanding that Primal Madness constituted zero net DPS increase, which is why I'm curious as to why it appears in your optimum talent tree. This information is based on extensive calculations done during beta, and as far as I can tell the ability has not changed since. The most it gets you is a temporary burst increase, by saving you a GCD when you use it. You then have to make that GCD up though, when you lose the buff.

Unless I've missed something Primal Madness is a waste of two points. Please clarify if able. Thanks.