I need some help with feral talents.

[Krabkilla]

Essentially, i'm having trouble not being energy starved. My item level is 819. I tried out savage roar as recommended by some guides and I was struggling to pull 130k+ dps because of the sheer amount of energy it required to maintain. So I switched to king of the jungle and my dps sky rockets to 250k + then averages out after it ends to around 215k at the end of the fight.

In every guide I have read savage roar tends to be recommended all around and I don't understand why. Maybe i'm doing the priority rotation wrong or it's just not as good as they think it is. I start off by going rake, ashmanes, shred (depending on crits) savage roar. then rake, shred, shred, healing touch, shred (depending on crits.) rip. THen I just prioritize whatever is falling off faster. I usually pop my cds at the start of the fight and tiger's fury on CD or whenever I am below 25 energy. Also, moonfire whenever the dot isn't up.

I can't find any good youtube vids describing feral priority rotation. What talents do you guys recommend based on experience? This is my first time ever playing a feral druid and i'm trying to get everything situated before the raid comes out.

I should clarify I only use rake if my duration is 4 seconds or less. I know it's a priority based rotation, but I would still like some insight on how people play so I can improve myself.

[renji1337]

Essentially, i'm having trouble not being energy starved. My item level is 819. I tried out savage roar as recommended by some guides and I was struggling to pull 130k+ dps because of the sheer amount of energy it required to maintain. So I switched to king of the jungle and my dps sky rockets to 250k + then averages out after it ends to around 215k at the end of the fight.

In every guide I have read savage roar tends to be recommended all around and I don't understand why. Maybe i'm doing the priority rotation wrong or it's just not as good as they think it is. I start off by going rake, ashmanes, shred (depending on crits) savage roar. then rake, shred, shred, healing touch, shred (depending on crits.) rip. THen I just prioritize whatever is falling off faster. I usually pop my cds at the start of the fight and tiger's fury on CD or whenever I am below 25 energy. Also, moonfire whenever the dot isn't up.

I can't find any good youtube vids describing feral priority rotation. What talents do you guys recommend based on experience? This is my first time ever playing a feral druid and i'm trying to get everything situated before the raid comes out.

I should clarify I only use rake if my duration is 4 seconds or less. I know it's a priority based rotation, but I would still like some insight on how people play so I can improve myself.

If you are feeling energy starved then you are playing the SR rotation wrong. SR/JW/BT rotation involes alot of auto attacking and pooling for energy(don't just spend all of your energy on shred), you basically only use FB once maybe during the opener, and then when you are at 25% or below, you almost never use it otherwise now.

For raiding I reccomend LI, SR, JW and BT.

If you can refresh predator at-least 3RPPM, then predator is the best talent vs BS or LI. Emerald nightmare boss-fights SOTF might be better for 2-3 target rip-cleaving.

Openers below for raid spec

Option 1
Pre HT > Rake > LI > SR > Berserk TF> AF > Shred to 5cps > Rip > HT > Rake > Shred to 5 > SR

Option 2
Pre HT > Rake > LI > SR > Shred to 5 > TF Berserk at low energy > Rip > ht Rake > AF > Shred if needed > SR


For Heroic Dungeons, I recommend SOTF or Incarn

For Mythic Dungeons I recommend SOTF

Lunar Inspiration vs Blood scent is your own choice. LI is only 1-2% DPS higher.

For reference here is a sim with LI/JW/SR/BT. I sim 302-306K DPS because I have ashamanes bite but you can see that in this 420second sim, alot of time is spent waiting and pooling for energy. (the below picture is time spent doing something, not how long buffs were on for)



Up to date feral guide --- Xanzara Feral Guide
Make sure to use a feral rotation helper such as DotFocus, Feral TellMeWhen, or Pawkets WeakAuras (I use pawkets)

[Sinnerbenkei]

Renji's answer is pretty much spot on.

The reason everything says that savage roar is so good is because the vast majority of our damage comes from 2 DoTs (>50% on ST). Because Rip/Rake have so much more effect on our DPS it's important to maximize those two in particular, which is why top sims revolve around peak Rip/Rake damage. So you want to always have up Savage Roar, and cast Rip/Rake with Blood Talons whenever possible. Since Ashamane's has quite a long cooldown it's worth just waiting a few seconds to cast it with a spare Blood Talon to get the extra 40% in my opinion. I like to cast it only when all of the following is true: 2 or less CP, 70 or less energy, Rake+Rip w/ BT and don't need refreshed yet

Something you'll have to get used to for a while is that ferals need to spec towards AoE or single target, they struggle to do both efficiently at the same time.

Also note that ideal raid talents will be very different from dungeon talents, since every dungeon is quite plentiful with adds you should probably take Predator if you want to maximize DPS.

[automation]

For reference here is a sim with LI/JW/SR/BT. I sim 302-306K DPS because I have ashamanes bite

Which sim program do you use?

[Agartha]

If you're using AF without BT you're wasting a lot of damage. A better opener is pre-HT, rake, LI, berserk, shred to 5 cp, SR, Shred to 2CP(or refresh rake if you need too) ,HT/TF, AF,Rip. You get 40% more damage out of AF and a BT rip out faster.

I don't understand the non-5 cp SR suggested above, in fact about 40% of the time it means you're only going to get a 2 cp SR which means you might not even have it for your first rip lol. HT at 0 cp is questionable too, non-BT rake for one or two GCD's is preferable to blowing HT early. Both of those things are going to cost you dps.

[renji1337]

If you're using AF without BT you're wasting a lot of damage. A better opener is pre-HT, rake, LI, berserk, shred to 5 cp, SR, Shred to 2CP(or refresh rake if you need too) ,HT/TF, AF,Rip. You get 40% more damage out of AF and a BT rip out faster.

I don't understand the non-5 cp SR suggested above, in fact about 40% of the time it means you're only going to get a 2 cp SR which means you might not even have it for your first rip lol. HT at 0 cp is questionable too, non-BT rake for one or two GCD's is preferable to blowing HT early. Both of those things are going to cost you dps.

Option 1
Pre HT > Rake > LI > SR > Berserk TF> AF > Shred to 5cps > Rip > HT > Rake > Shred to 5 > SR

In this opener AF is using BT as LI never uses BT for some reason. Both openers will apply a BT'd AF

However, you are correct in the CP for SR. SR should always be casted at 5 CP only, the only time it is not casted at 5 CP is during the opener, you cast immediately after rake in the opener, this is done because you can get all of your bleeds up in the 8-12 time span you have, and then immediately re-apply a 5 CP SR because of berserk, after this period it is always recasted with 5CP.

HT should always be casted at 4 or 5cp. You cast it at 4 if you need to re-apply rake and get 1 CP

[Agartha]

Option 1
Pre HT > Rake > LI > SR > Berserk TF> AF > Shred to 5cps > Rip > HT > Rake > Shred to 5 > SR

In this opener AF is using BT as LI never uses BT for some reason. Both openers will apply a BT'd AF

However, you are correct in the CP for SR. SR should always be casted at 5 CP only, the only time it is not casted at 5 CP is during the opener, you cast immediately after rake in the opener, this is done because you can get all of your bleeds up in the 8-12 time span you have, and then immediately re-apply a 5 CP SR because of berserk, after this period it is always recasted with 5CP.

HT should always be casted at 4 or 5cp. You cast it at 4 if you need to re-apply rake and get 1 CP

Yep, I completely missed that the BT does in fact go on AF, but it still means you're likely not getting BT on your first Rip, unless you're very lucky. I think the 2-3 gcd's you save by using an early SR are completely negated by a rip that is doing 40% less damage for its duration. You're also missing out on valuable FB's that can only be used in the berserk window because you have to refresh SR and reapply Rip with BT (or let it go with 40% less damage).

[renji1337]

Yep, I completely missed that the BT does in fact go on AF, but it still means you're likely not getting BT on your first Rip, unless you're very lucky. I think the 2-3 gcd's you save by using an early SR are completely negated by a rip that is doing 40% less damage for its duration. You're also missing out on valuable FB's that can only be used in the berserk window because you have to refresh SR and reapply Rip with BT (or let it go with 40% less damage).

You pretty much refresh that rip very quickly, thats why you apply it first just to get it on there. and 20-40% of the time, you'll have another HT before you put that first rip on there, so there is some RNG

if you read xanzara's guide he recommends to refresh SR at 10.5 seconds and RIP at 8 seconds effectively avoiding the pandemic mechanic too, look at the in-depth rotation discussion. You really only want to FB once in the opener. FB has been nerfed pretty hard and sometimes shred hits harder then a 5 CP FB, which is the whole reason behind why the option 1 rotation is the way it is

[fearer]

You pretty much refresh that rip very quickly, thats why you apply it first just to get it on there. and 20-40% of the time, you'll have another HT before you put that first rip on there, so there is some RNG

if you read xanzara's guide he recommends to refresh SR at 10.5 seconds and RIP at 8 seconds effectively avoiding the pandemic mechanic too, look at the in-depth rotation discussion. You really only want to FB once in the opener. FB has been nerfed pretty hard and sometimes shred hits harder then a 5 CP FB, which is the whole reason behind why the option 1 rotation is the way it is

i totally get that i can snapshot a higher rip on my target. does it work the other way around tho? can i kill my snapshooted rip if i cast a normal one?

[renji1337]

i totally get that i can snapshot a higher rip on my target. does it work the other way around tho? can i kill my snapshooted rip if i cast a normal one?

Yes, which is why you have to judge when to replace it.

[Agartha]

You pretty much refresh that rip very quickly, thats why you apply it first just to get it on there. and 20-40% of the time, you'll have another HT before you put that first rip on there, so there is some RNG

if you read xanzara's guide he recommends to refresh SR at 10.5 seconds and RIP at 8 seconds effectively avoiding the pandemic mechanic too, look at the in-depth rotation discussion. You really only want to FB once in the opener. FB has been nerfed pretty hard and sometimes shred hits harder then a 5 CP FB, which is the whole reason behind why the option 1 rotation is the way it is

I don't see what the quoted text has to do with our discussion of openers. You're argument is that getting a slightly faster unbuffed RIP off of a short duration SR is better than getting a fully buffed Rip off of a longer duration SR but 2-4 GCD's behind. I understand that FB is not that good right now, but if we're talking about maximizing an opener we're still talking 300k-500k free damage that you are not getting. I can comfortably get 2 FB's off in an opener without losing uptime on fully buffed rips so I'm not sure where this idea of "only one FB" comes from. Getting more FB's off will only get better as artifact item levels improve.

[renji1337]

I don't see what the quoted text has to do with our discussion of openers. You're argument is that getting a slightly faster unbuffed RIP off of a short duration SR is better than getting a fully buffed Rip off of a longer duration SR but 2-4 GCD's behind. I understand that FB is not that good right now, but if we're talking about maximizing an opener we're still talking 300k-500k free damage that you are not getting. I can comfortably get 2 FB's off in an opener without losing uptime on fully buffed rips so I'm not sure where this idea of "only one FB" comes from. Getting more FB's off will only get better as artifact item levels improve.

RNG tells if you can get 2 FB's off in the opener. Sometimes you'll get a HT from using the 2CP SR which then lets you apply a BT's RIP in the opener, and in this scenario, you could get 2 FB's off.

And FB stays terrible at all ILVL's. Shred was hitting harder sometimes then 5CP FB's at 880 ilvl. Our CP generator has the ability to hit harder then one of our spenders, and thats an issue.

Ultimately. just go test your openers on test dummies, you should see that option 1 and 2 will be the best DPS wise.

The 1 "FB" opener, is said as one, because it is normally one under normal circumstances with both the option 1 and 2 opener, which are considered the best openers in all feral guides written and simmed.

[Dumaw]

I got tired of being energy starved and that time on auto attacking, so I started using Soul of the Forest and the gameplay changes a lot, feels more fun to me, more fluid, so now I don't even care if I'm losing some DPS anymore... I can't see myself going back to SR soon