How do you Feral mains stay Feral?

[Eldrad]

OP Short answer is that you don't play any class based off a single factor.

Does feral AoE suck? yeah, always has.

You play feral though because it's typically fun as hell! A little less so in an expansion that doesn't allow flying though.

[teddabear]

Does feral AoE suck? yeah, always has.

You play feral though because it's typically fun as hell! A little less so in an expansion that doesn't allow flying though.

A lot less fun in raids that require AoE. ( Hint - All of them)

Skilled players should play both Feral and Bombkin.
Staying Feral full time is irresponsible to the raid, especially given how the gear works now.
All you need is a few other pieces and even with substandard weapons and trinkets you can do more AOE as bombkin.

One of our players was skeptical about switching at first, and now he is easily our best damage on any fights with additional targets. Barely plays feral any more.

Its like refusing to play holy when there are 2 disps and a paladin. You need to be able to play your class to its fullest otherwise you are still playing Classic.

In that case it is irresponsbile of Blizzard to not make Feral Rings, Trinkets, Weapons and Amulets work for Boomkin as well.

I'm not espeically enthused about playing Boomkin but I would do it if i didn't need a bunch of gear that is needed by 2/3rds of the raid and which they rightfully have higher priority on.

[Deleted]

Skilled players should play both Feral and Bombkin.
Staying Feral full time is irresponsible to the raid, especially given how the gear works now.
All you need is a few other pieces and even with substandard weapons and trinkets you can do more AOE as bombkin.

One of our players was skeptical about switching at first, and now he is easily our best damage on any fights with additional targets. Barely plays feral any more.

Its like refusing to play holy when there are 2 disps and a paladin. You need to be able to play your class to its fullest otherwise you are still playing Classic.

ye cuz you ain't skilled if you have Guardian or Resto as OS?

[Reyzzz]

Skilled players should play both Feral and Bombkin.
Staying Feral full time is irresponsible to the raid, especially given how the gear works now.
All you need is a few other pieces and even with substandard weapons and trinkets you can do more AOE as bombkin.

One of our players was skeptical about switching at first, and now he is easily our best damage on any fights with additional targets. Barely plays feral any more.

Its like refusing to play holy when there are 2 disps and a paladin. You need to be able to play your class to its fullest otherwise you are still playing Classic.

No thanks, melee sucks.

[Maxie]

There is not a single fight so far where single target dps isn't important.

[Deleted]

As said above, I take pride in doing the role which Feral excels at - Single Target. There's only been one fight so far in BRF where I've swapped to play Balance and that was for Mythic Kromog progression, because well... Boomkins are really really strong there and we needed it to get all 3 pillars down. Once we've got more gear as a whole then I'll play Feral for that fight for more ST damage on the boss.

Also, permanent fire kitty is pretty cool but other than that I've mained Feral since I started playing and don't find any other class/spec as fun so I don't want to play anything else as a main.

[Krekal]

My guilds ferals are quite good on fights like oregorger and kromog, i dont know whether to count them as singletarget or not though.

[Deleted]

Oregorger is single target, depending on how you do the boxes in the second phase it's only around 20 seconds downtime the way my guild does the boxes. Kromog is mostly a Single target fight but every 1:30 minutes you've got either the grasping hands which ofcourse is AoE and then the Pillars which are somewhat cleave but for melee it's single target.

[Futile]

In BRF every fight can be competitive as a feral. You'd only notice how much feral lacks on certain fights if you are in a guild with the best players of every class. Or if you are just bad at feral... for a fight like Oregorger, ferals usually just follow the boss the whole time and if done correctly you have 0 downtime. On Kromog ferals reign on pillars if they save their cooldowns for each pillar phase.

[FeralSynapse]

In BRF every fight can be competitive as a feral. You'd only notice how much feral lacks on certain fights if you are in a guild with the best players of every class. Or if you are just bad at feral... for a fight like Oregorger, ferals usually just follow the boss the whole time and if done correctly you have 0 downtime. On Kromog ferals reign on pillars if they save their cooldowns for each pillar phase.

100% this, unless your raid needs more AoE for some reason there is no reason to spec boomkin over feral for any fight. Furthermore if your raid needs *you* to change to boomkin to beat an encounter someone else likely isn't pulling their weight as long as you are pulling respectable numbers for your ilvl. More so with all the nerfs and adjustments to the raid as of late.

[Thandorr]

What keeps me and many others playing feral is because of what many have been mentioning all throughout this thread. We excel at single target and when we provide that big dick dps it makes dealing with our aoe damage much easier. My guild runs with two ferals, but both of us also swap to boomkin where applicable (namely beastlord and kromog so far in our progression as we're on thogar mythic).

Pretty much the only reason I play the game is for putting out that BIG DICK DPS and for collecting doz purpzzz! We have to come to conclusion that the guild comes first. So, though it may suck to have to play boomkin on fights where it is the clear winner or to sit for a favorable comp, it does not suck when your guild progresses and succeeds. Put the guild first and they will take care of you, and if they don't find a better place to go.

[teddabear]

What keeps me and many others playing feral is because of what many have been mentioning all throughout this thread. We excel at single target and when we provide that big dick dps it makes dealing with our aoe damage much easier. My guild runs with two ferals, but both of us also swap to boomkin where applicable (namely beastlord and kromog so far in our progression as we're on thogar mythic).

Pretty much the only reason I play the game is for putting out that BIG DICK DPS and for collecting doz purpzzz! We have to come to conclusion that the guild comes first. So, though it may suck to have to play boomkin on fights where it is the clear winner or to sit for a favorable comp, it does not suck when your guild progresses and succeeds. Put the guild first and they will take care of you, and if they don't find a better place to go.

Actually Feral is slightly above average in single target DPS.

http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T17M.html

6th place out of 20.

5k difference between 1st and 6th, 3k difference between 6th and 20th.

Meanwhile there are a lot of specs doing 100% more AoE DPS than Feral. I don't know whether its laziness or incompetence but it is definitely not acceptable.

[Thandorr]

Really, we're in third place, because you can only choose one spec at a time, so we're not really competing against all three specs of hunter or both specs of mage that are excelling. At any rate, I find that I beat out our hunters and mages a significant portion of the time on pure ST fights. But that's not the point, you can quibble and gripe about feral AoE being bad, because it is; no argument from me, but if you're going to try to invalidate feral ST you're going to make me laugh. Feral ST is in a very good spot on live right now. We don't have to be number 1 to excel, we're likely to outperform our sims significantly anyway.

[Kraineth]

Pretty much just come to accept the lack of AoE, in most realistic situations AoE is usually not the main worry in any given fight, a few exceptions to arise like Chogall during Mythic Imperator or the final burn of Tectus, but these are few and far between.

We may yet see a sizeable AoE buff for 6.2, but even if we dont, it isn't a huge worry.

On top of that, the whole "I main a feral" thing is on shakey ground given the fact that Boomkin and Feral gear almost completely overlap. It's time to start maining a class rather than a single spec. If a mage in a mythic raid said that he "mained" frost and didn't want to play the other 2 DPS specs, I would laugh at him. Many ferals that I talk with regularly went boomkin for Kromog, and some even for Blast Furnace/Blackhand. I myself only went Boomkin for Kromog, and still do every week.

[gardner]

Anyone should play what they want, what spec they want. As long as they know the spec and perform good it usually is not a problem. Feral has its place on every boss in BRF normal/hc and also mythic. Our guild is now 6/10 Mythic, working on Thogar atm and as a feral i was always there for every fight. Why? Because i know my spec and do the thing that ferals should do very good. If people dont wanna play a spec just because its better for a fight for reasons that they dont know it, they are not interested in it, fair enough, no one has the right to force them.
If you bench a feral just because the AOE is shit and you cant kill a boss, you probably have problems somewhere else in the raid group. One ferals AOE DOESTN make or break a mythic kill.

[Hrothgar]

It's time to start maining a class rather than a single spec

This! That being said the only fight u want 2 boomies is BH otherwise feral is a bomb.

[teddabear]

It's time to start maining a class rather than a single spec. If a mage in a mythic raid said that he "mained" frost and didn't want to play the other 2 DPS specs, I would laugh at him. Many ferals that I talk with regularly went boomkin for Kromog, and some even for Blast Furnace/Blackhand. I myself only went Boomkin for Kromog, and still do every week.

That would be fine if the jewelry and weapon were interchangable but they aren't. Yeh you might be able to buy a crappy necklace and ring on AH but it's laughable to think you can be competitive without a Spellpower Weapon, or Trinkets.

Really, we're in third place, because you can only choose one spec at a time, so we're not really competing against all three specs of hunter or both specs of mage that are excelling. At any rate, I find that I beat out our hunters and mages a significant portion of the time on pure ST fights. But that's not the point, you can quibble and gripe about feral AoE being bad, because it is; no argument from me, but if you're going to try to invalidate feral ST you're going to make me laugh. Feral ST is in a very good spot on live right now. We don't have to be number 1 to excel, we're likely to outperform our sims significantly anyway.

The math is still the same, Feral is 5k behind 1st place and last place is within 3k of Feral. So Feral is nowhere near first in single target and even the worst single target spec in the game is very close to Feral in single target.

Meanwhile there are some specs that are 100% higher in AoE DPS. I'm sure everybody has done enough large trash pulls to know this is true. Both Mages and Hunters beat Feral in single target and they can switch to their AoE spec and decimate Feral with the SAME gear.

[Futile]

It does suck that our AOE is not higher, however, if people have a real dislike for the class how it is then they need to switch specs or classes. My personal experiences this tier have not been bad, I am still able to keep up with most of the people in the raids I've been in, this is what matters to me. Again, it would only be an issue and noticeable if I'm in a raid with the top players of every spec...

[Gino]

I have been playing feral since wrath I have played thru the good times and the bad times I just love the class and spec with the complexity. I will continue to main feral as long as I play wow

[Pory]

I've always wanted to main Feral, but AoE fights make me cry. How do you guys who have played Feral for so long stick with Feral despite being handicapped in certain situations?

The single target rotation makes up for it