New to Feral

[Julesc]

Hi all

I'd appreciate some guidance whether it's links to resources or general advice.

I have to admit i'm a level 80 playing icc 10 hc and icc 25 norm and have never tried feral spec. I leveled as balance and never thought of changing form Moonkin, however a couple of months ago my guild needed an extra healer so I stepped in (poorly at the time) but now i'm primarily a tree and my Moonkin days are limited.

Since we have most of the 10 man gear now when we do normal mode to help newer members/alts a lot of the gear is disenchanted or given as 'bank spec'....hence i've found myself with a few 251 feral gear pieces and no idea what to do with it.

Ok I admit i'm female and a bit blonde but i've gone this far without trying feral and honestly now i've decided to give it a go have no idea where I start. There doesn't seem to be as many websites on feral as on moonkin and resto, and those that are about talk about leveling.

So my question is as a lvl 80 noob to feral but able to buy most triumph gear and a few frost and top that up with some icc pieces has anyone got any beginner tips to help me on my way?

We have no feral druids in our guild to ask advice from so any hints/tips would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Oakes]

Ok I admit i'm female and a bit blonde

Everyone be quiet I'm talking to a girl!

Since most people don't need help with tanking I am going to assume you are looking to DPS.

Much like any class, but more so for us, Feral DPS is all about mastering your rotation. I would recommend picking up one of the mods that Alaron has covered on his blog. I myself use facemauler, at this point I generally use it for suggestion purposes. Once you've spent as much time looking at a bosses behind as i have you kind of get an internal clock for your rake and rip timers.

Stats-
I would focus first on getting your hit rating close to cap. Missing specials kills kitties since we rely so heavily on our rotation. you'll need ~260 as horde or without a Draenie. Exp is nice to capp out as well but less so then hit. Exp cap (with Primal Precision) is 26
Once hit capped focus first on agility. Arp is amazing for druids but only at high levels. You shouldn’t worry about gemming for it until you get about 800 static armor pen. Agi is your friend until then.

Glyphs/Gems/Gear-
Savage Roar, Rip and Shred are the standard cookie cutter major glyphs for feral dps. Nothing really out there is better for you.
As for gems, 20 agi, 10 agi 10 crit, 10 agi 10 hit, 20 hit, and Nightmare tear is all I tend to use. You can also go with haste as we scale well with it and it also increases our OOC procs. Gem bonuses are nice if you can work your gem scheme into them but don’t gem for them explicitly. Only one meta out there for us and that’s 21 agi 3% crit damage.
Set pieces- 2 piece t9 is ok but not everything, get 4 piece T10 asap.

Hope this helps. There is a lot that goes into being a good feral druid but once you master it is a lot of fun. We are the ultimate support class since we can rebirth,tranquility and innervate without worrying about having to tank something or having to keep a raid healed, and the melee/hunters absolutely love us.

Good Luck!
Oakes

[Alaron]

*bumps oakes out of the way*

Everything oakes said is good stuff, actually.

- UI: getting a mod to track your buff/debuff timers together is pretty critical. I use NeedtoKnow, but there's several options: look at this blog post of mine. A DPS helper addon is very useful as well, and I've covered those here.

- Gemming: While gemming for hit isn't optimal, it certainly makes the cat rotation easier. I prefer straight agi, generally.

- Rotation: Focus on maintaining your Savage Roar buff and your Mangle/Rip debuffs; once that's down, add Rake. Don't worry about Ferocious Bite.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

[Goodmongo]

Rushing to try and help the lady.

The single most important thing I can say is for you to get the four piece T10 bonus. This is a real nice DPS boost. It is much better then 4 lvl 264 pieces that are not tier.

Don't get caught up in the agility vs. ArP stuff. It's a pain and so much depends on the gear you have on. Besides teh DPS gain may only be 20 to 80 more DPS that it doesn't make much sense. So gem agility and crit unless you are crit capped.

Finally, to pad your numbers on trash use one mangle, a savage roar and then swipe till SR ends. Rinse and repeat.

[Julesc]

Thanks for all your responses, I think i'll wait a couple of weeks until I have enough frosts for the T10 gear before giving it a go....is slightly daunting to switch between specs so would want to be able to do a half decent job if I do.

Will come back with questions when I do i'm sure if that's ok

[Alaron]

We'll be here.

Yeah, the 4pT10 set bonus is very powerful...it's a 5%ish DPS boost. It doesn't really change your rotation though, so feel free to start whenever you're comfortable.

[Mortianna]

ooh! thank you so much for asking these questions. I am a very nooby feral druid currently 74 heading for 80 soon. Am just trying to get my rotation right at the moment and this thread has helped me a great deal! at least I know what to go for once I hit 80. Thank you guys (also a lady and also a bit blonde!)

Morti

[Goodmongo]

Mortianna, Get the Ovale addon and use the script found in another post here. It will greatly help you in your rotations. But remember these are really for fights that last a minute or more. On trash use mangle, Savage Roar, Swipe till SR drops.

And also get an addon that trackes timers such as Need To Know, Cat's Eye, etc. There was a post on the main page talking about these.

With these two addons you should be fine as far as 'rotation' goes.

[Leafkiller]

Actually, you are better off doing Rake, SR, then Swiping. Think idol...

[Mortianna]

Thanks guys

Have downloaded the addon and have it ready. I don't have savage roar quite yet so once I do I will be getting the rotation up to speed asap. I am planning to hit the randoms hard to get badges I am already doing the normal one at least once a day to get the badges saved and they are dropping some rather nice gear too. Trying to stack agility as much as possible as well so fingers crossed. The DPS has gone up but it still seems low compared to others in the group? not sure what I am doing wrong but then again I have no enchants yet or gems and at this point the gear is not worth enchanting as I am only going to have to change it further on.

I really appreciate the help guys I would be lost otherwise

[Mortianna]

PS as much as I love EJ I find some of the talk sometimes goes way WAY over my head and gets rather technical (yup the blonde gene is well and truly installed!) so this forum rocks!

Morti x

[Goodmongo]

Hey Leafkiller, Rake first is really only good if you have the idol od crying moon. Most still use the idol of mutilation. There has been tons of discussion on the two. Crying Moon is better on stationary one target fights like Fester. It takes time for the benefit to add up and actually be better. Most other fights like PP, Sindy, etc where you have other targets Multilation is still better DPS wise. And that means starting with mangle to get bleed effects up and running. I also thought I read that with 4 piece bonus the DPE on rake with SR is much higher then the DPE on mangle with SR up.

[Tinderhoof]

I agree with Leafkiller here. Using rake instead of mangle saves you energy for the swiping. Cause lets be honest trash pulls you are using swipe on won't last long enough to really make a difference with proc's buff's or bleeds. This is more relavent now that a lot of feral kitty's are dropping improved mangle. Using rake first will get you the combo points needed for SR and at least one extra swipe before you need to hit TF. And any way it's trash, and tweaking dps for trash builds bad habits.

[Goodmongo]

Oops we all made a mistake. I started it with the line "Mangle, SR, the swipe to 5". I meant shred instead of swipe. I think Leaf knew I meant shred because he said "think of idol". On trash rake is fine to use and in fact it's a great DPE attack. But on boss fights I stand behind my mangle first, the SR. The reason is most don't use the Crying Moon idol as alot of the math shouws it's really not better then the other idol for the majority of the fights.