Feral Dps at 90

[teddabear]

I don't think normal modes are indicative of actual class power. For example, I've topped the charts on both our heroic Feng & Garajal kills with some of the crappiest gear in the raid (bad luck is bad. 87k on Garajal with ilvl 474). I'm literally outdamaging players with gear 10 ilvls above me.

Edit: Definitely not indicative. There just isn't a statistically significant sample size of feral druids yet. Top average parsing dps for elegon is 104k for ferals? That's not even close to potential, not when there are ferals doing 170k.

I agree Heroic mode parses are preferable. In addition to having the higher skilled pool of players it shows you how the spec performs under more complicated fight mechanics. If a spec has a larger dropoff in performance in Heroic mode then the spec is more likely to get sat. In Normal you just have to perform the mechanics correctly, you don't have to also put out high levels of DPS at the same time. However since most players are in Normal mode right now I think it is worthwhile to look at, especially since this is the first look at how specs are performing in this expansion.

[kaiadam]

Just got done with heroic Will, and man are ferals wrecking. Here's my anecdotal data:

Feng - 95k (no parse sadly), video
Garajal - 87k dps(the parse is wonky due to logger going downstairs once), video
Spirit kings - 75k dps, video
Elegon - 185k dps, video
Will - 105k dps, video

No raid gear at all for Feng & Garajal. Got shoulders from Garajal, then nothing else, and still kicking ass.

#1 on Feng, Garajal, and Elegon. Tank and 2 ranged dps got the best of me on Spirit kings, was dead for 40 sec on Will and only tank + enh shaman outdamaged me ... you can't possibly say we are 11th out of 11 classes

[DOORF]

I'm happy that you are doing so great now kitty cats! too bad I had to swap to balance for the sake of our raidsetup, and it seems like balance is doing really bad atm :[

Balance is the worst dps spec atm.

[Stinggar]

Kitty is doing fine. I've been feral for 5years and I've seen its up and downs and at the moment it's doing quite well. I think choosing those talents is kinda what you enjoy and your play style. I choose DoC and SotF because it matchs my play style more and adds a better stable dps i guess you can say. That extra heal helps alot. For those bursty ferals i guess Incarnation and NV is better. Its up to you to decide. But overall Feral is still the best =3

[Deleted]

Balance is the worst dps spec atm.

Our balance druid is doing fine, i don't get why people seem to be so hurt over it.

[alyx]

Just got done with heroic Will, and man are ferals wrecking. Here's my anecdotal data:

Feng - 95k (no parse sadly), video
Garajal - 87k dps(the parse is wonky due to logger going downstairs once), video
Spirit kings - 75k dps, video
Elegon - 185k dps, video
Will - 105k dps, video

No raid gear at all for Feng & Garajal. Got shoulders from Garajal, then nothing else, and still kicking ass.

#1 on Feng, Garajal, and Elegon. Tank and 2 ranged dps got the best of me on Spirit kings, was dead for 40 sec on Will and only tank + enh shaman outdamaged me ... you can't possibly say we are 11th out of 11 classes

Are you able to tell me which addon it is you use to keep track of HotW, savage roar etc? (from the garajal vid)

[Heywes]

Let's not forget that while doing the DoC playstyle, ferals still need to be paying attention to mechanics, and doing target swaps, and so on and so on. Not to mention the complexity of the rotation will make it impossible to do even competently in most situations. I think most people are going to opt for one of the other 2, most likely nature's vigil lined up with berserk or even 6% agility from HotW might be good as well. I see these as the better choices for progression, where people are still learning fights, and once mechanics are second nature, it might make sense to mess around with DoC. That's just my take, because the rotation (borrowed from method's guide) is as follows:

1. Precast healing touch on yourself
2. Go cat form and use savage roar
3. Pop incarnation.
4. Prepot, charge in and Faerie fire while in the air.
5. Rake
6. Ravage untill 5 combo points.
7. Nature's Swiftness+Healing touch on yourself
8. Pop tiger's fury followed by the rest of your cooldowns
9. Rip
10. Rake(overwrite old one so you can sync it with tiger's fury)
11. Ravage untill 5 combo points.
12. Cast healing touch on yourself with the predator's swiftness procc then do a Savage roar.
13. Keep ravaging untill 5 combo points and then healing touch yourself and do 1 ferocious bite.
14. At this point all your cds are starting to run out so keep burning energy as good as you can and save predator's swiftness untill last second and then healing touch yourself(so you can get 25% damage on the next rake)

If you can keep all of that straight and still be staying out of bad and doing mechanics, you are a machine. I will be having FUN doing slightly lower DPS probably. I will mess around with DoC in my spare time, but in practice, I think it's going to end up in line with the other level 90 talent choices realistically, and be much less fun to play.

Hah!
Wait, are you serious?
That rotation is border line retarded. Not that its incorrect (I have faith in method), but that, we shouldn't have to be form swapping and healing ourselves in order to maximise our dps. We should be healing when a healer dies or shit is happening, not as a core component to our "dps" rotation.
That seems so wack'd O.o

[aggixx]

Except for that's what you're supposed to do when you take a talent that requires you to heal to get a DPS bonus. Currently it's the highest simmed single target talent so if you're not ok with healing to maximize your DPS then no one's forcing you to pick that talent.

[kaiadam]

Are you able to tell me which addon it is you use to keep track of HotW, savage roar etc? (from the garajal vid)

NeedToKnow

[teddabear]

About average on Feng? The top feral parse on 10m normal Feng is 2.2k DPS above any other class. A 3.25% DPS difference between feral and any other DPS class is sure as hell not "average".

I'm curious how many Ferals are still top meters?

[aggixx]

Not very many, I imagine. I'm sure that'll change considerable when 5.3 rolls around though.

[teddabear]

Not very many, I imagine. I'm sure that'll change considerable when 5.3 rolls around though.

I don't see 7% bringing me up to Rogues, Mages, Warlocks and DKs which is what it takes to raid Heroics on my server. The only consolation is i am less behind than the 20-30% Feral is trailing by on Raidbot.

[aggixx]

Depends on the fight, in some cases I think it will, in others not so much. Regardless, a 7% buff is enough to definitely make it a lot more likely for most to "top meters" even if it isn't actually one of the best specs.

[Kojo]

Hah!
Wait, are you serious?
That rotation is border line retarded. Not that its incorrect (I have faith in method), but that, we shouldn't have to be form swapping and healing ourselves in order to maximise our dps. We should be healing when a healer dies or shit is happening, not as a core component to our "dps" rotation.
That seems so wack'd O.o

Yes it is wack'd, it is however the highest dps if you can pull it off. Fortunately if done right there is no actual form swapping, by using the nature's swiftness talent and predator's swiftness procs we can cast those ht's while staying in catform, I believe they even shaved off .5 on the gcd for us using it.

[Purebob]

I don't know I kinda feel feral dps at 90 is pretty decent plus Savage Roar getting a buff in 5.3 woot!

[teddabear]

I don't know I kinda feel feral dps at 90 is pretty decent plus Savage Roar getting a buff in 5.3 woot!

It's good in blues but in T15 it's way behind. At this rate the 7% won't even cover the jump from T15 to T16 much less the amount it is behind already.

[Deleted]

It's good in blues but in T15 it's way behind. At this rate the 7% won't even cover the jump from T15 to T16 much less the amount it is behind already.

I think you are exaggering a lot. You are mistaking world of log/raid bots number cheesing with effective damage done during progress.

[Deleted]

Feral dps atm are useless if in roster you have a dk, war or rogue.
Rogues and Wars have a solid raid cd (smoke bomb, Rcry and banner).
Rogues, Dks and Wars have nice buffs for raid compo (Atk power, Atk speed, reduction on boss)
Rogues and Dks have better personal cds (CoS and AMS)
And most important thing all 3 classes have better dps then ferals (check it on raidbots 10m HC)
Obviously at same skill
I play a Feral druid since last year, now at 10/13 hc probably for Lei Shen hc have to play a other account Mage for that encounter.
DoC / SotF Feral druid is probably the funniest class to play, but it's useless in this content (if you play 10 men i mean :P)

[Deleted]

Sorry but I completely disagree feral is a top tier class right now and I'm amazed we are getting a buff.

If you check out top ferals from streams/videos you will see they are topping meters.

[teddabear]

I think you are exaggering a lot. You are mistaking world of log/raid bots number cheesing with effective damage done during progress.

Feral is better than average at padding meters so that would favor them.