How does ferals compare to other classes?

[Vonwulf]

Im a long time reader of mmo-champion but this is the first time i post in this forum so first of all i would like to thank Mihir for all the excellent guides and inputs he has made. His advices alone made me the feral i am today.

Now to the topic. As far as i know ferals are not supposed to be top dps in raids. Is this true? My guild just started raiding and we have downed the pvp boss and Magmaw and we have had som good tries on Halfus. And on every single encounter/try i have toped the meters by a good margin. The second best dps is a frost dk (about 3-4k behind) closely followed by a hunter. We usually go with a mix of hunter/feral/dk/ele.shammy. Most of the times weve got 2 hunters or 2 shammys. Heals being priest, priest and druid. Pally and warr tank.
We all got about similar gear, 349-350 iLvl.
If what ive heard is correct should i expect my fellow dps to perform better than they do or is the raidsetup (were a casual guild so we dont have alot to choose from raidwise) extremely good for ferals?
This is not a bragpost. I just want to know if these numbers are what to expect or if there are margins for the other dps´s to improve (raidsetupwise, gearwise or playstyle).

[Elunedra]

on equal gear / skillz / ect.ferals are amoung the top dpsers together whit mages / hunter and dk's atleast that the results i have been getting lately

i am not an expert on http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/dtb/11/0/3 but i cant get it show specs only the druids overall damage and i think balance druids take the druid rating down

[Vonwulf]

Ty for answering. That means ill have to get used to hearing "nerf ferals" over and over again on vent

Wowmeteronline dont seem to have a very good playerbase. I saw some redicilously low numbers on magmaw. Our warriortank who went dps for that fight in half tankinggear pulled almost 12k.

[Mnemon]

Magmaw is a very bad fight to judge dps. Ferals have to stand on that little ledge with the tank tanking on the opposite side just to be able to shred. You also have to move around occasionally and depending on if you have to jump on his back, you may lose dps time. Also, some classes can load up their cooldowns for the head phase and stack dps like others can't.

To answer your question though, ferals are in a fairly good place. If you have equal gear and mastery of the rotation, you will see good dps numbers. Ferals have potential to be up high. The only issue seems to be that the rotation is very unforgiving and many fights are not very friendly to ferals due to movement and positioning. But this has been the case for a while. Basically expect to have to work harder for it, but you can definitely see some good numbers.

[cantsee]

Stateofdps.com

Feral is currently the 10th or 12th best DPS spec depending on if you prefer median or average. There are also no ferals near the top of any specific boss encounter on WOL the last time I checked (Jan 8th I believe). Comparing your dps against your guildies is useless. Doing more DPS than a bad player doesn't mean that you or your spec is good, you need a much bigger sample size.

[Fahrenheit]

Ferals are maybe slightly ahead of middle of the pack. But NO WHERE close to being OP in terms of PvE DPS. If the hunters you keep beating are survival they either need lots of gear or need to learn how to play their class to the fullest. Especially on the Tol Barad boss.

[Quehn]

Basicly. Everything above 15k on a standstill fight is good enough for raiding, in 346 that is. If you would like a more detailed answer then elaborating on your raid's numbers would help a lot.

Also, Ferals do come easier to dps now a days than they did a year or two ago

[Vonwulf]

Cantsee: I do compare myself to my guildies becasue i consider the ones i raid with to be skilled players who know their class(es). And my intent with this post was to figure out if there was a way for them to squeeze out a little more dps than they do. And if their classes are supposed to do better than me then we know that there are ways to improve.

On the try where we killed magmaw i did 19,8k in dps, the frost dk did 15,3k and the hunter just above 15k. I was on backduty and did some ressing/tranquility and inervating. The dk helped alot on adds with howling blast and kiting them.

[Ohforfsake]

Hi there. Im a diehard feral DPS, playing the spec since 2004. Im top DPS by a significant margin in a 11/12 guild ATM, was top dps up to until sunwell in burning crusade and through WOTLK as well. Feral is definitely capable of topping the meters just as many other class given the skill and dedication. That said if i was a mutilation rogue and would put just as much thought and effort into my class, i would beat my feral in damage. Same with survival hunter and unholy DK. Feral is not OP as far as game mechanic goes, personal skill is.

20k DPS on magmaw is pretty low btw.. You should be doing about 23-24k in 10man. Other classes should follow close or beat you if they really know what to do. Just stack your burst on grounded phase and be mindful of FB vs Rip priority there depending on the time left on the phase.

You can't really learn other classes job for them to teach them, it's a bit too much. And people are usually very defensive when you try to teach them. You can just check wowmeteronline.com for maximum possible class DPS/

PS: Mihir has a bunch of points outdated atm, while i do appreciate his work, he seems to be slacking or took a break from it.. The best way to always be on top is to swim ahead of the tide, to do the math and research yourself. If you have the understanding and skill to do so of course.

Also, Ferals do come easier to dps now a days than they did a year or two ago

Wrong. Buffing the bleeds with TF has added a lot more complexity than prolonged SR/Rip took away, overall Pro-feral dps has become even more difficult than ever. Probably close to powershift madness of TBC in terms of small gains for big efforts game.

[chocho]

ill have to get used to hearing "nerf ferals" over and over again on vent

and you will hear it your entire life till either u stop playing wow or we kidnap someone that is in charge of the nerfs :P

[Alski]

on equal gear / skillz / ect.ferals are amoung the top dpsers together whit mages / hunter and dk's atleast that the results i have been getting lately

i am not an expert on http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/dtb/11/0/3 but i cant get it show specs only the druids overall damage and i think balance druids take the druid rating down

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dtb/all/11/0/3
Top 20 for all Cata raids, druids barely make it in any of the categories.

Looking at druids specifically each spec has their fights where one will top the other
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dtb/drd/11/0/3

Edit: seems like all the pure dps classes + DK's are consistently putting out higher numbers than druids of both spec.

[Deleted]

Dont forget, 50% of feral druids are shit.
I'm playing with much better geared people than i when i run my daily HC, and i usually am only around 1k below them. The best geared warlock in our guild does around 3k~ more dps than me (he's doing roughly 20k while im stuck at 16-17k on a simple fight) - he's almost full epic now, 8994 gearscore according to wowprogress and the best geared warlock on our server.. I'm in 346 gear from HC's all around, with the exception of my belt of nefarious whispers (359 epic belt, crafted using LW).

Not saying ferals are OP, but im saying there is a big difference between a good feral and a medium feral.. That's what makes this spec so fun!

(Then there's the shit ferals. You know, the ones that does mangle till they get 5 CPs then does FB. No rake, no SR, no rip and no shred... Only pure awesomenezz!)

[Vonwulf]

I know that plenty of Mihirs work is outdated by now, but it was his guides that made me get enough understanding of ferals to make my own decisions.
20k on magmaw might be a bit low, but enough to get the boss down. Im not sure thou that i should be pulling 23-24k in iLvl 349 gear since i only find 3 ferals on worldofloggs that do over 23k on magmaw. But my mainconcern atm isnt my own dps, but how to improve the entire raid. I just put our numbers up to get a comparisson between our dps´s.

Sneglzilla: The reason i started to play feral was the fact that playstyle does make a difference. And this was in the time where everyone rolled a paladin in icc (my main was a paladin at the time). Ferals ARE fun to play

[cantsee]

Cantsee: I do compare myself to my guildies becasue i consider the ones i raid with to be skilled players who know their class(es). And my intent with this post was to figure out if there was a way for them to squeeze out a little more dps than they do. And if their classes are supposed to do better than me then we know that there are ways to improve.

On the try where we killed magmaw i did 19,8k in dps, the frost dk did 15,3k and the hunter just above 15k. I was on backduty and did some ressing/tranquility and inervating. The dk helped alot on adds with howling blast and kiting them.

The average DPS for feral on Magmaw is 19.8k. The average DPS for survival hunter on Magmaw is 22.7k. Either your hunter is NOT survival, wearing greens and blues, or probably not nearly as skilled as you think he is. The numbers don't lie. Feral is the 11th highest spec on Magmaw on average. You can look at any spec versus another on any given fight at stateofdps.com. It compiles its data from WOL. Once again, comparing yourself against your guildies is pointless. If you wanted to know who was going to win the next big election and took a poll, would you get more accurate results asking 1 person or the entire community?

---------- Post added 2011-01-11 at 01:18 PM ----------

Hi there. Im a diehard feral DPS, playing the spec since 2004. Im top DPS by a significant margin in a 11/12 guild ATM, was top dps up to until sunwell in burning crusade and through WOTLK as well. Feral is definitely capable of topping the meters just as many other class given the skill and dedication. That said if i was a mutilation rogue and would put just as much thought and effort into my class, i would beat my feral in damage. Same with survival hunter and unholy DK. Feral is not OP as far as game mechanic goes, personal skill is.

20k DPS on magmaw is pretty low btw.. You should be doing about 23-24k in 10man. Other classes should follow close or beat you if they really know what to do. Just stack your burst on grounded phase and be mindful of FB vs Rip priority there depending on the time left on the phase.

You can't really learn other classes job for them to teach them, it's a bit too much. And people are usually very defensive when you try to teach them. You can just check wowmeteronline.com for maximum possible class DPS/

PS: Mihir has a bunch of points outdated atm, while i do appreciate his work, he seems to be slacking or took a break from it.. The best way to always be on top is to swim ahead of the tide, to do the math and research yourself. If you have the understanding and skill to do so of course.

Wrong. Buffing the bleeds with TF has added a lot more complexity than prolonged SR/Rip took away, overall Pro-feral dps has become even more difficult than ever. Probably close to powershift madness of TBC in terms of small gains for big efforts game.

According to WOL, there are only 14 recorded cases of feral pulling 21k+ DPS on 10 man normal and only 3 cases of 23K+. I would love to see some actual data supporting your claim that 23 - 24k DPS is average.

[Vonwulf]

cantsee: youre right ofcourse. The bigger the population the better if you want any kind of statistic. And yes, our hunters are survival. But they are really close in dps with roughly the same gear so i suppose they both do the same misstake or its something else thats factoring their dps.

[Kazlehoff]

Pre 4.0.6: a little stronger that other classes. not "OP" or "Broken" but a bit too powerful.
Post 4.0.6: Start collecting boomkin gear.

[gililore]

at this point iv seen that i'm a bit behind the rest of the dps classes in my guild. i cap around 12-15k dps and we have an unholy dk that does around 15-20k depending on the fight. and a few others that head me by 1-2k. granted dps is my offspec but i do know how to play is very well, just my gear is lagging a bit behind in that department.

[Fahrenheit]

Lets put it this way OP.

If you took 25 WoW playing robots who play the game at the highest possible inhuman level (perfect) and gave each one a different spec class in BiS gear in a raid where it's a patchwerk style DPS race. And then did this 100 times to get a good average to weed out RNG. Ferals would not be near the top, they'd be slightly ahead of the middle of the pack.

Not OP, (Surv Hunters). But not garbage, (BM Hunters)

[chocho]

According to WOL, there are only 14 recorded cases of feral pulling 21k+ DPS on 10 man normal and only 3 cases of 23K+. I would love to see some actual data supporting your claim that 23 - 24k DPS is average.

thats because you are getting that from a prolly fully epic person , now thats like saying the poor people should wear a designer pants right off the bat lol , but well the burocracy will never understand what are our limits and will ask to be at the same level , when we clearly not all of us cant.

[Shizznizz]

Pre 4.0.6: a little stronger that other classes. not "OP" or "Broken" but a bit too powerful.
Post 4.0.6: Start collecting boomkin gear.

Made me lol

(surely it can't be that bad)