[WIP] WoD PvE Feral Complete Guide

[Themessiah]

I'm not actually sure what you're doing now, it seems like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. It's very clear what you're trying to do, you want to be the person to write a guide because it makes you feel special or whatever, I've seen it many times before on lots of different MMOs.

To put it blunt, your guide is bad, almost everything you have mentioned is wrong and any top Feral would say so too, to make it worse you're then trying to defend yourself for whatever reason, as if you think we're attacking you or something. Then you say it's your opinion so it doesn't have to be correct, in which case then this isn't a guide and you should probably delete it and post it on your personal blog or something.

If you are making a guide you have 2 options:
1. Make sure everything you say is correct; or
2. Don't make a guide

Also just so you know purposely giving our false information can earn you infractions on MMO-C.

He could maintain that this is a guide on how to play feral in the way that he/she does. Just because it's an opinion does not mean it necessarily cannot function as a guide. It might not function as a guide you or I would be interested in, but that is a separate issue. Moreover "everything" being correct is a little stringent. Surely "mostly correct" is the reasonable requirement?

[xtramuscle]

He could maintain that this is a guide on how to play feral in the way that he/she does. Just because it's an opinion does not mean it necessarily cannot function as a guide. It might not function as a guide you or I would be interested in, but that is a separate issue. Moreover "everything" being correct is a little stringent. Surely "mostly correct" is the reasonable requirement?

Id say that most of the guides on MMO that make it to stick status are 'completely correct' or 'open to debate' at the time it is relevant. You might find some of the guides out of date now, but when they were released they were top notch.

You may also find issues like in the windwalker thread where people say Ticking Ebon Detonater is better than Accurance of Consequence: and in a perfect world it is, but in a realistic raiding environment 99.9% of players don't use Fists of Fury well enough (aka meeting all its requirements) along with Energizing brew enough to pull the extra dps out of AoC so in game TED>AoC so that is debatable at best. But it has been debated at length, it isn't just what the author says is best.

@OP If you say this is the 'highest HPS build for a Feral Druid' I'm not going to call you out and say no it isnt. I'll simply ask, whats the point? Noone will ever take a feral dps to a raid for their overhealing capabilities, hell if you want to take a druid for offhealing use a balance.

If off healing is your thing, why is there no mention of versatility as your 'go to' tertiary stat? Saying 'versatility is the best tertiary stat for off healing as a feral druid' is 100% accurate, BUT in terms of dps, it is your least wanted stat; if it can be avoided, noone will take it.

This guide may very well be the best way of doing what you want to do, I just cant imagine anyone else wanting to do, what you're try to.

Yes there is that band of people who play a druid and they consider it 'not their job' to heal, anything, ever. They would rather die and wipe than lose some of their personal dps to save the raid group. You don't want those sort of people in your raid and I'd agree and call them a 'bad raider' as you said earlier. There are other people like myself, who while I value my dps, I understand it is required of me to hotw/tranq for a full 8 seconds during bats on thok and in turn decimating all chances of me ranking. But (on progress) it was a requirement to kill it. I've even been know to NS HT someone dropping low to save them, and that makes me a good raider.

But nowhere inbetween those two examples is there a 'good' feral druid topping the over healing making him a better raider.

[FracturedTeucent]

@OP If you say this is the 'highest HPS build for a Feral Druid' I'm not going to call you out and say no it isnt. I'll simply ask, whats the point? Noone will ever take a feral dps to a raid for their overhealing capabilities, hell if you want to take a druid for offhealing use a balance.

If off healing is your thing, why is there no mention of versatility as your 'go to' tertiary stat? Saying 'versatility is the best tertiary stat for off healing as a feral druid' is 100% accurate, BUT in terms of dps, it is your least wanted stat; if it can be avoided, noone will take it.

The reason I don't mention versatility is that at the start of the expansion combo generation is more of an issue than it currently is on live. You are forced into a crit build to help generate additional combo points. As for overhealing I haven't even looked at that meter. Yes potentially if you don't look at hp bars before using HT/Rej I'd imagine most of it to be overhealing. However once WoD goes live most have decent enough raid frames that you could mouse over target and heal those that need it most.
Note: I believe this healing is too powerful. Yesterday with an Spriest and Fmage running two different 5 mans I matched a Hpaly in healing and out damage everyone on single target fights... Feral aoe isn't well tuned yet. With that said I think they will nerf the off healz, probably to a point where they won't be used anymore.

[Glurp]

You are forced into a crit build to help generate additional combo points.

Now you're just making shit up.

[Deleted]

This isn't even a very effective utility or healing playstyle either. Those macros will usually just overheal the tank, which helps no one.

With that said I think they will nerf the off healz, probably to a point where they won't be used anymore.

Wrong. In-form healing touches and rejuvenations used right will NEVER be a dps loss. As long as there is any healing done, they will continue to be used.

You aren't writing a proper guide if you don't intend for it to be correct, you are merely stating the way you play your character.

[Gurg]

Claws of Shirvallah - im not quite getting why people mark this as PvP talent? To me it looks strong PvE choice too, maybe even on pair with Bloodtalons, if not then slightly behind. Why? Because +5% Versatility is +5% of ALL DAMAGE DONE, that is its PASSIVE +5% FLAT dps increase and +2.5% damage reduction and its far more easy to maintain it in rotation than Bloodtalons. Keep in mind that for Bloodtalons to be active you need to spend a GCD firing off that HT to get DPS buff active which somewhat complicates your rotation. Maybe im selfish, but im kitty, i want to spend my time doing damage, not offhealing raid.

[Rioo]

Note: I believe this healing is too powerful. Yesterday with an Spriest and Fmage running two different 5 mans I matched a Hpaly in healing and out damage everyone on single target fights... Feral aoe isn't well tuned yet. With that said I think they will nerf the off healz, probably to a point where they won't be used anymore.

When I tested the mythic boss with the 4 animal adds I kept rejuv up probably 90%+ of the fight on both myself and a warrior, used HT for blood talons and Cenarion ward (which probably is the best talent now) a lot, and my healing was far, FAR, behind the real healers. I can add that my rejuv did about 60% more than the other druid's Ysera, so picking that talent wouldn't have made me do insane HPS either.

So no, I can't agree with you.

[Kaeth]

Claws of Shirvallah - im not quite getting why people mark this as PvP talent? To me it looks strong PvE choice too, maybe even on pair with Bloodtalons, if not then slightly behind. Why? Because +5% Versatility is +5% of ALL DAMAGE DONE, that is its PASSIVE +5% FLAT dps increase and +2.5% damage reduction and its far more easy to maintain it in rotation than Bloodtalons.

Unless you have additional Versatility from gear, in which case the 5% bonus from CoS contributes less than 5% to your overall damage and falls farther behind the 30% damage buff from BT, which will always be an end multiplier on your damage regardless of your gear.

Keep in mind that for Bloodtalons to be active you need to spend a GCD firing off that HT to get DPS buff active which somewhat complicates your rotation. Maybe im selfish, but im kitty, i want to spend my time doing damage, not offhealing raid.

Feral is far from a GCD-locked spec. Yes, BT complicates your rotation if you take it, but as long as you don't energy cap, you can squeeze that Healing Touch into your rotation with no damage lost. Just macro it to self-target by default if you don't have a valid mouseover target when you cast it.

[theburned]

Claws of Shirvallah - im not quite getting why people mark this as PvP talent? To me it looks strong PvE choice too, maybe even on pair with Bloodtalons, if not then slightly behind. Why? Because +5% Versatility is +5% of ALL DAMAGE DONE, that is its PASSIVE +5% FLAT dps increase and +2.5% damage reduction and its far more easy to maintain it in rotation than Bloodtalons. Keep in mind that for Bloodtalons to be active you need to spend a GCD firing off that HT to get DPS buff active which somewhat complicates your rotation. Maybe im selfish, but im kitty, i want to spend my time doing damage, not offhealing raid.

These 2 talents is comparable to the current lvl 90 talent row - NV, with the 6% agi and stam gain vs DoC, where DoC is clearly superior, but complicates the specc to some extent. while HotW has other uses, claws of shirvallah does not for PVE thus a pvp talent. The same people who goes for HotW on every fight now, will use claws, while people who went for DoC for damage and hotw for tranqs will go for blood talons, easy as that. depending on fight and tuning I suppose they will go for moonfire if the fight contains lots of target swapping at range or just in general forcing you out of melee range.

It adds less damage than a flat 5% damage bonus, but adds the rest of the versatility bonuses like reduced damage taken and healing done. this due to the fact that you have some versatility from the start like 3% from raid buffs, and additionally you might have some on your gear. So its not a flat 5% damage increase.