Is feral as rare as I think it is?

[Ulfhedinn]

I see Resto and Balance druids all the time in LFD, LFR... around the world. I rarely see Guardians and I pretty much never see feral. Feral druids and Rogues of all types. Seems odd that I never see them. Maybe they are all being sneaky?

[theostrichsays]

Feral is not as wanted as healers/tanks or ranged. With that said I see a number of ferals around, most of them just suck is all. Plus still battling rogues/monks for melee spots. See tons in random bgs and more then a few in Arenas.

[Ulfhedinn]

Feral is not as wanted as healers/tanks or ranged. With that said I see a number of ferals around, most of them just suck is all. Plus still battling rogues/monks for melee spots. See tons in random bgs and more then a few in Arenas.

Really sucking seems to be something rogues, monks and ferals are really good at. Of all the LFRs I have done I have only ever seen one good rogue and one good monk... never seen a good feral. Maybe the need to plan things out better with those three classes is to much for most people? The GCD speed could be another issue.

[creamo42]

They're all prowling.

[justjm]

Not at all. I have 26 90s capped and have done a LOT of LFR and normal raids, in this xpac. Met more than a fair share. If anything people get annoyed by moonkin with all the sun/moon nonsense as one friend put it.

[Nathanyel]

Feral's still a demanding spec, despite the changes in Cata and MoP. Many who roll Druid alts level as Feral or Balance, but switch to the caster specs at max level.

They're all prowling.

Feral druid cat form prowling now.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Feral is harder to pull high Dps so I guess people tend to stay away from that spec.

Nah, there are just better melee specs to bring. I'd take any melee other than enhance shammy over a feral, utility is low on those specs relative to other melee.

[TJ]

Nah, there are just better melee specs to bring. I'd take any melee other than enhance shammy over a feral, utility is low on those specs relative to other melee.

Not sure how you can say that when Druids have a ridiculous amount of utility available to them and Feral pulls probably the highest numbers single target. Their dps is broken.

[Thandorr]

Fragnance for example. He easily beats top tier locks on most fights.

Obviously, this guy is talking out of his ass. Go look at the parses man. Affliction Locks are so broken, they destroy every other spec in the game. This is coming from a feral druid as well. No disrespect to frag, or any of the top tier ferals, but we're not taking affliction locks on anything but Jugg.

Right now, melee is far less desireable than ranged, but feral has it's niche. We excel at fights were we can maintain high uptime on a a single target and our mobility and utility are incredibly useful. The majority of guilds nowadays are 10man, where ferals are far less useful than in 25man. We're in a decent spot for WoD though.

Not to mention the incredibly high skill cap that comes with the spec. The vast majority of ferals also don't track bleed strength with trinket procs, DoC, etc. it makes for a very complicated rotation that is difficult to yield results comparable to easier specs.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Not sure how you can say that when Druids have a ridiculous amount of utility available to them and Feral pulls probably the highest numbers single target. Their dps is broken.

I bring a guardian, resto or boomkin if I want the utility a druid brings.

[Lynxx89]

Been a feral main for a long time now. It is a very niche spec, but imho I think that a good feral can be an asset to any raid. The only reason people want to bring rogues over ferals is they haven't had the pleasure of raiding with a GOOD feral. Also rogues can't tank or go ranged or heal when asked to. As for monks, I think they are still finding their place as a dps spec. They haven't stood the test of time with being consistant. Ferals are one of the best single target specs in the game. With the new healing and damage model in WoD I think ferals will be able to shine by bringing some hybrid aspects that the rogue just can't. It's happened many times before for me, but a good feral can save the raid from wiping many times over. I love my bleeds, but it's Def a lesser played spec.

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Not to mention the incredibly high skill cap that comes with the spec. The vast majority of ferals also don't track bleed strength with trinket procs, DoC, etc. it makes for a very complicated rotation that is difficult to yield results comparable to easier specs.

But oh so rewarding when you do. I love the finesse you can have with feral right now and the control we have over our damage. Beta is playing nice as well. Less headache with bleed strengths but still retains a decent skill cap that will allow us to separate ourselves from the average players. Bleeds ftw.

[Deleted]

It's considered by many the hardest spec, and maybe just like rogues are the least played class, ferals are also not so popular compared to other specs.

[Shamanegans]

I mainly play a feral druid with an alt shadow priest and rogue. Played them close to 8 years, I honestly don't see how people can say feral has little to no utility, we have:

HoTW.
Remove curse/poison.
Stampeding Roar.
Interrupt.
Battle res (instant with PS).
ability to quickly grab agro and tank for a short time if needed.
alot of CC including:
Stuns.
Sleeps (only on some).
Disorientate.
Knock Back.
Roots.

On top of all that if you find a feral that knows how to snapshot and use the spec to it's full potential they can deal a sick amount of damage and easily be one of the highest DPS specs in the game. The spec has been dumbed down alot since Cata and even more so in MoP, but the spec is still one of the hardest to master in the game imo. If you put in the time to learn a feral druid then you will easily be able to be an asset to ANY raid situation simply because you are playing a class that can "do it all" and do it damn well no matter what is asked of you.

[Deleted]

No, cause they look like crap.

Infracted

[Ulfhedinn]

But oh so rewarding when you do. I love the finesse you can have with feral right now and the control we have over our damage. Beta is playing nice as well. Less headache with bleed strengths but still retains a decent skill cap that will allow us to separate ourselves from the average players. Bleeds ftw.

I haven't been tracking my bleeds with addons but I do try to pay attention to what is active/when I use them. I leveled a druid off and on since vanilla but never reached cap on him... used my WoD boost on a troll druid. At first I hated him (still not a big fan of guardian even though I love tanking) but once I figured out I needed to slow down I started doing better. Coming from a monk main it was a bit odd not pushing buttons on purpose. Went from 39k dps at best to 80k and still climbing... and I haven't upgraded my gear because SoO hates my druid.

Druids skill cap is pretty high so that could be a lot of what I am seeing. Monk and Rogue skill caps are pretty high as well so that could explain why those three specs/classes are not very common. I do agree that Feral is among the hardest.

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I mainly play a feral druid with an alt shadow priest and rogue. Played them close to 8 years, I honestly don't see how people can say feral has little to no utility, we have:

HoTW.
Remove curse/poison.
Stampeding Roar.
Interrupt.
Battle res (instant with PS).
ability to quickly grab agro and tank for a short time if needed.
alot of CC including:
Stuns.
Sleeps (only on some).
Disorientate.
Knock Back.
Roots.

On top of all that if you find a feral that knows how to snapshot and use the spec to it's full potential they can deal a sick amount of damage and easily be one of the highest DPS specs in the game. The spec has been dumbed down alot since Cata and even more so in MoP, but the spec is still one of the hardest to master in the game imo. If you put in the time to learn a feral druid then you will easily be able to be an asset to ANY raid situation simply because you are playing a class that can "do it all" and do it damn well no matter what is asked of you.

The utility of druids is better than rogues and windwalker brings almost no utility. On my windwalker I can soak a little damage on Garrosh and that is about it... On my druid I soak damage in the form of aoe heal, knock adds into iron stars, stampeding roar in the phase shifts, battle res, and tank any adds that get out of control or the dps beat tanks to (slow DKs).

[otro]

Keeping up savage roar, thrash, rake, rip uptime, pooling energy for a decent ferocious bite, using your instant healing touch to get a decent finisher buffed by DoC and a correct usage of tigers fury (not to mention our current tier bonus). Its not an easy spec at all, but when you get that rip ticking 500-600k Oh the joy!

[Ulfhedinn]

Keeping up savage roar, thrash, rake, rip uptime, pooling energy for a decent ferocious bite, using your instant healing touch to get a decent finisher buffed by DoC and a correct usage of tigers fury (not to mention our current tier bonus). Its not an easy spec at all, but when you get that rip ticking 500-600k Oh the joy!

The size of the numbers doesn't do much for me but what I really enjoy is watching rip tick while I am out of range of the boss for whatever reason.

[Krazzorx]

In the larger picture, It probably is due to feral not being the first thing people think of when they think "Druid". When most think Druid they think caster and especially healer. Obviously feral fits thematically, but its not the first thing that comes to people's minds.

Not to mention playing a cat is not what most people think of playing when playing an RPG.

Difficulty of the spec, utility, etc. in the overall picture those don't effect spec population. For example, while Rogues are arguably the best melee dps spec (great defenses, always do great dps) they have such a small population.

On the other hand, hunters whined all throughout MoP about lack of utility and damage, and still were one of the highest played classes in MoP.

[Shamanegans]

In the larger picture, It probably is due to feral not being the first thing people think of when they think "Druid". When most think Druid they think caster and especially healer. Obviously feral fits thematically, but its not the first thing that comes to people's minds.

Not to mention playing a cat is not what most people think of playing when playing an RPG.

On the contrary, When someone says druid to me the first thing I think of is a feral cat ripping things apart, then I think about a healer. I think about a moonkin last when someone says druid to me. Hence why my druid is feral, To me being a druid is to be feral and roam the wilds as a wild animal.

What really pisses me off about playing feral though is when I sign up to do something the first thing I get asked is can I tank or flag carry ... No one ever wants a feral druid in there team for some reason when I honestly cannot see why, they have excellent utility as well as excellent damage if played properly.

[Mooninites]

most guilds are 10m and there are limited spots to any 10m raid team. Feral doesn't exactly bring anything that makes you say "we need a feral druid". Sure feral has good utility HotW+Tranq, Stampeding Roar, Battle Rez; but literally every druid spec brings that. Sure it might be a little more practical for feral or guardian to use stampeding roar, but that doesn't mean Moonkin or Resto doesn't have access to it when it's needed. I think another thing is the difficult of the spec, feral is probably the hardest spec out there, and it's not particularly rewarding. Sure I get personal joy out of playing the spec, but aside from patchwerk style fights (which don't or rarely exist) feral struggles on a lot of fights.

Feral struggles with target switching, aoe, prolonged movement or down time on the boss. I mean ranged in general has dominated MoP so people are inherently less inclined to bring melee, and feral is already pretty low on the totem pole for melee.

On the other hand, hunters whined all throughout MoP about lack of utility and damage, and still were one of the highest played classes in MoP.

Hunters have always been one of the most played classes, and they probably will be regardless of their utility or damage output. A lot of people just like the idea of the hunter or like the way it plays