How come I rarely see Feral?

[AdrianCC100]

As someone who has been interested in playing feral (I'm a hunter), just wondering why I rarely see them.. Are they bad? I know they're not that great at AOE, but how about their ST?

[Khayelynn1121]

They aren't bad per se; the playstyle can be considered more difficult than others (although a few weakauras help a ton). Largely, and this is just my opinion, raid wise anything a kitty can do a rogue and even a warrior can do much better. Feral ST is above average but still behind the aforementioned melee and they don't have any worthwhile raid CDs (rip HotW tranq). Rogues have so many ways to completely negate mechanics in raids that a feral just can't compete with. Unless you have a firm raiding spot in a guild, spaces for melee like ferals/windwalkers/sometimes rets and enhance are also tough to come by. I love my kitty, but from a raiding perspective I just can't see playing her over my rogue.

[Trimshadow]

Feral's are great ST, and 2 target cleave - if you can get the rotation down, as they have arguably the hardest rotation to master - and yes their AoE is sub-par compared to others - they can still be pretty fun to play though and they aren't the worst melee going around (*cough enhance), it's just that Balance is much more... Balanced in terms of ST and AoE so most people play Balance...

Our team has a great Feral, in the top 3-5 everytime (except Fights like HF Assault where there are lots of adds) but he's kind of freak though, constant 90+ percentile player on most fights

[Blueredwolf]

Lately we have less ferals than previously because we haven't been great at our specialty, which is ST and 2-3 target cleave. We aren't equipped with an ability to consistently burst down short lived adds and we have some pretty awful aoe. But that's why we are getting buffed.

[Deleted]

Feral's are great ST, and 2 target cleave - if you can get the rotation down, as they have arguably the hardest rotation to master - and yes their AoE is sub-par compared to others - they can still be pretty fun to play though and they aren't the worst melee going around (*cough enhance), it's just that Balance is much more... Balanced in terms of ST and AoE so most people play Balance...

Our team has a great Feral, in the top 3-5 everytime (except Fights like HF Assault where there are lots of adds) but he's kind of freak though, constant 90+ percentile player on most fights

If your feral is top 3 every fight your mages/rogues/warlocks/hunter etc, are doing something terribly wrong.

[rock4ever]

As someone who has been interested in playing feral (I'm a hunter), just wondering why I rarely see them.. Are they bad? I know they're not that great at AOE, but how about their ST?

Cuz They're all on point servers waiting to gank you

[Tradu]

Feral has never been a very highly represented spec, and right now Balance is quite strong, so a lot of DPS druids might be going for that instead. Feral isn't necessarily weak currently, it just has a very specific niche and doesn't do very well outside of that niche(and even within its niche, other specs do it better)

[Mormolyce]

IMO, it has always been one of the most complex rotations. It's like a sub Rogue minus 10 years of quality of life improvements.

But I think the real reason is just that Druids have 3 other specs and when does a group ever NEED more melee?

[Trimshadow]

If your feral is top 3 every fight your mages/rogues/warlocks/hunter etc, are doing something terribly wrong.

wow really... i said top 3-5 and the guy is a beast. there are Feral's around that just play that well and he's one of them, (like Vanguards with his Ret in PvP when the spec was complete shit, he was still a multi-glad player because he was that good) so stop being an ass-hat...

[MonsieuRoberts]

Play one and you'll find out.

[idonthinksodude]

All ferals are busy ruining the low level pvp experience.

[teddabear]

As someone who has been interested in playing feral (I'm a hunter), just wondering why I rarely see them.. Are they bad? I know they're not that great at AOE, but how about their ST?

At this point Blizzard has been making Ferals worse and Rogues better pretty much non-stop for the past 6 years. The end result is not surprising.

[Deleted]

I love Feral but am Expansion-new to the spec. I find it quite unforgiving if you mess up and I think that's something that frustrates people. I'm one of those people who look at my numbers 24/7, so to see my DPS drop because of one mistake I made is very upsetting.

I have much to learn, but I also find it difficult to maintain DPS when switching targets.

[Deleted]

With the changes to PVP in Legion this is a good thing for Feral, As they are pretty solid in PvP it was hard to buff them in PvE and not break the PvP scene. Now the two will be balanced differently we can expect Feral to get abit of love in Legion... Atleast thats what Im hoping for.

[Yoshimiko]

They don't really play like any other class/spec. They're *ALWAYS* energy starved, and there's no playing around it. Everything on Feral is calculated. Their rotation is..well weird, the pruning hit them pretty hard, too. They're not bad, just different.

[mkultra55]

They don't really play like any other class/spec. They're *ALWAYS* energy starved, and there's no playing around it. ...........

I like the slower playstyle as an alternative to other melee specs but the Energy issue is one of the big factors in our inability to burst down priority adds like some of the other DPS can.

I think Blizzard missed an opportunity with the L60 Tier to help in that area. Currently Inc. is just too strong. Force of Nature has the potential to be a short CD, on demand burst skill that would fill in that gap in our kit but Blizzard left the row broken the entire x-pac.

[PixelFox]

Stealth. Duh.

[Ploto]

Ferals are extinct

[Tehterokkar]

Ferals have a more limited toolkit compared to a Rogue. And usually ranged are preferred, so Druid spots are mostly taken by Boomkins.

[Seikusa]

Ferals lack in prio based add killing since almost none of the adds live throuh any of the dots.
Hellfire M is only add focus and passive cleave.
reaver M is bomb switching.
kromrok M is somewhat ok, but rogues are much better for the runes.
Hellfire Council seems ok for them.
Killrogg has 3 kind of adds which need to die.
Gorefiend even more low Hp adds.

and the amount of of Prio based add fights just go on and on.
Every Feral that gets a Tier token is a Token lost, if you have a rogue in the raid which still needs the item.