Feral opener

[Lazersblade]

Hey guys

As new feral, it would be great if someone would explain the correct opener

Also, should i be using Brutal Slash over SR, even on single target?

[silkworm]

Maybe its not the best opener but for a starting feral it will help. A more experienced feral can give a more optimal opener.

This assumes you have Soul of the forest talent, Brutal Slash and Moment of Clarity. As far as I know theoretically Jagged Wounds+Savage Roar + Bloodtalons give more single target damage but requires higher micromanagement. As you are a beginner and because Brutal Slash is so OP even in ST, you can use these with a simpler rotation and still get good results. If you have the Soul of the Archdrud ring which gives the Soul of the Forest talent for free, you can also take Incarnation for further burst damage. If not its pretty much mandatory to have consistent energy. This build favors versatility over mastery as you will be BS and Ferocous Bite most of the time which scale better with agility and versatility. So try to maximize your crit and versatility.
Prowl
1-2 sec before pull Prepot
Pull
Rake
Tiger's Fury + Berserk(Incarnation)
Ashamane' Frenzy
Shred till 5 CP
Rip
Thrash (not maybe mandatory but its good to have extra bleed)
BS

After opener you keep your bleeds, maintain Tiger's Fury and Ferocious Bite. Use BS on single target as well, unless you need to save it for adds phase etc. The idea is to use it when aligned with procs such as Legionfall for higher damage and keep ti always under 3 charges so you don't waste it. For example if you have Tiger's Fury and Legionfall procs you can even use 3 in a row as long as you dont waste CP's.

There is a also a bleed tracker to help you when its better to refresh your bleeds because druid bleeds still snapshot certain abilities and its a dps gain to follow and reapply as necessary. Here is the weakaura link to an updated edited version of MoonBunnie.
https://wago.io/HyvcGgNSG

the above also replies your second question. BS is much easier to play expecialy if you build crit+ versatilty and use it without wasting charges. Its close enought to SR combo so yes BS is the way to go.

[Lazersblade]

Tyvm, this clarify alot, and I will go get some experience/practice ������ i was actually using incarnation instead of Sotf

[-aiko-]

Savage Roar is always better than Brutal Slash for single target, but BrS is indeed a good beginner choice if you want to avoid changing talents on bosses. If you are looking to maximize your character's DPS then install the simulationcraft addon and get comfortable with raidbots.com. Just be careful not to take simming as gospel, especially when simming single target, as in reality raids have movement and *gasp* mechanics that simulationcraft cannot always account for.

The post above is a little outdated but still pretty good for the beginner Feral so definitely start there. Here is some more information as you continue to gear up to help you keep your DPS consistently increasing:

Before going over the opener let's go over talents. As you gain gear from Antorus your "best" talents are likely to change. Moment of Clarity starts to get really good (and probably already is for you now) and you may find yourself getting a lot of haste which can see Lunar Inspiration take over Blood Scent as your go-to tier 1 talent. Jagged Wounds has actually fallen off of use for most people with Incarnation being the go-to talent. You'll see most top Ferals running some form of: LI/BS, Incarn, Savage Roar, Moment of Clarity.

Legendaries also play a role in the opener, with Behemoth (helm) arguably being the most important as it will increase TF duration during your opener. Your second legendary should likely be the Soul ring but please note that the Chatoyant ring can start to get really close or even surpass Soul at high item levels.

My opener (with LI/Incarn/SR/MoC and Behemoth/Chato) is:

Stealth
Pre-pot (1-2s on timer)
Rake
Savage Roar
Ashamane's Frenzy
Incarn + Tiger's Fury*
Moonfire (ignore if using BS)
Rake
Shred if <5 CP
Rip
Shred to 5 CP
Ferocious Bite
Normal priority rotation

*Why Incarn/TF after Ashamane's? I follow Robosaurus' advice to squeeze in more guaranteed globals under TF with Behemoth's Headdress.

Keep in mind that once you get 4 piece you may get early Apex procs during the opener forcing you to improvise.

- - - Updated - - -

Tyvm, this clarify alot, and I will go get some experience/practice ������ i was actually using incarnation instead of Sotf

Only use SotF if you are using the Soul of the Archdruid ring

[Syld]

Only use SotF if you are using the Soul of the Archdruid ring

SotF is very competitive if you use Chatoyant instead of SotA, the dps difference betwwen SotF and Incarnation is less than 1% for most people, it can even be the better talent.

[ikx]

My opener (with LI/Incarn/SR/MoC and Behemoth/Chato) is:

Stealth
Pre-pot (1-2s on timer)
Rake
Savage Roar
Ashamane's Frenzy
Incarn + Tiger's Fury*
Moonfire (ignore if using BS)
Shred if <5 CP
Rip
Shred to 5 CP
Ferocious Bite
Normal priority rotation

you would want to rake instead of shred(if less than <5cp if not FB first) right after your first moonfire to refresh a better rake.

[Jujudrood]

Also, during lust/hero with 4pc, try to pace yourself because those free bites, if you don't catch it in time, can sneak in and when you think you spent cp, turns out you didn't, which can lead to wasting energy and potential cp on shred/rake/bs/thrash (whichever you go to next at that moment because it changes throughout priority).
Not a game-breaker, but I had to slow myself down at first to get the hang of it all.
I mean, free 5pt bites are free 5pt bites, so who can complain, right?

[-aiko-]

you would want to rake instead of shred(if less than <5cp if not FB first) right after your first moonfire to refresh a better rake.

Oops you're right, I just completely forgot to include it. You also need the CP from that Rake to even be able to get to 5 CP without needing Shred.

[axxey]

Opener you keep in mind with incarnation shred is highly likely 2 combo points every shred, vs brutal slash/rake/moonfire are 1 with chance of 2.
I recommend brutal slash in general for newer people as the optimisation of SR(after nerfed) is a loss screwing it up vs not screwing up brutal slash.

So you open with

Potion
Rake(watch combo points for crit)
Incarnation(20%+ damage for 15 sec from feral instinct)
Tigers Fury
Ashamane's Frenzy +3 combo points.
Rip if innitial rake crit or brutal slash for 5th combo point if not to start a charge cooling down.(I'm unsure about the gain here slashing without 15% armor debuff vs delaying 1st slash)
Rip
Shred
Shred (4 combo points usually from incarnation shreds)
Rake (1+ combo point)
Ferocious Bite
Brutal slash
Shred
Shred


If not bloodlusting on pull i spend brutal slash during max damage buffs(ie brutal slash, shred then brutal slash again if 1st slash crit), if bloodlusting on pull i spend charges only so dont overcap charges while spending more energy on shred to overcap energy less.

Ashmane's after incarnation when using brutal slash because you dont need to burn the innitial combo point on savage roar, also you using moonfire after ashmane's for non garanteed 5th point breaks all of the reasoning for robosaurus using it early and fitting in extra finisher in TF. He also uses TF and a global spacer before incarnation to be able to TF bite/stealth at the tail end of incarnation. Robosaurus calculations are based on basic blood scent build, be careful changing that without thinking about where you're changing things.

Robosaurus' page that Aiko linked has a very good explaination of a perfect opener with savage roar/blood scent and the reasoning behind it, any situation outside of a target dummy however can become very difficult to execute such a thing but it's good to understand.

[silkworm]

Regarding opener with a cast sequece macro like Robosaurus, after the opener do you continue your rotation manually or do you have smaller macros (i.e. cast sequence macro within Tiger's Fury) for smaller burst windows.

[ikx]

Regarding opener with a cast sequece macro like Robosaurus, after the opener do you continue your rotation manually or do you have smaller macros (i.e. cast sequence macro within Tiger's Fury) for smaller burst windows.

continue your rotation normally. But I recommend not using his cast sequence due to 4pc procs having RNG elements.

[silkworm]

Ah sure, first he did not have 4pcT21 at that point which gives Apex buff and second, he is way better at micromanaging things than me. I'm an old school player who does things manually except for using mouseover macros etc simple things.
I made a cast sequence opener for myself, which is pretty simple compared to his. Basically it runs

Rake 1 CP
Savage Roar 0CP
Ashamane's Frenzy 3CP
Tiger's Fury
Incarnation
Shred 5 CP (%100 crit with base %39 crit and bleed on target and Incarnation)
Rip 0 CP
Rake 1 cp
Shred 3 CP(%100 crit)
Shred 5 CP(%100 crit)
Savage Roar

From here on I continue manually. This way I make sure I start with Savage Roar, max rake rip and savage roars and use the remaining time on Incarnation Shred and Ferocious Bite. Sure I may waste 1 or 2 cps, and/or Apex Buff but if I try to do this manually I usually mess something up. (Forget Rip, forget 2nd SavageRoar etc)
Even with near perfect manual execution, I barely register above 3 mil dps on opener but if I use castsequence, I get around 3,7 to 4 mil depending on crits. This is the reaction time and trying to remember which button to press next assuming I do not mess something up.

So thats whay I asked. For example if TF is open and Ashamane is coming up, I thought I could make smaller castsequence macros for these burst windows not to mess those burst opportunities.

[ikx]

Ah sure, first he did not have 4pcT21 at that point which gives Apex buff and second, he is way better at micromanaging things than me. I'm an old school player who does things manually except for using mouseover macros etc simple things.
I made a cast sequence opener for myself, which is pretty simple compared to his. Basically it runs

Rake 1 CP
Savage Roar 0CP
Ashamane's Frenzy 3CP
Tiger's Fury
Incarnation
Shred 5 CP (%100 crit with base %39 crit and bleed on target and Incarnation)
Rip 0 CP
Rake 1 cp
Shred 3 CP(%100 crit)
Shred 5 CP(%100 crit)
Savage Roar

From here on I continue manually. This way I make sure I start with Savage Roar, max rake rip and savage roars and use the remaining time on Incarnation Shred and Ferocious Bite. Sure I may waste 1 or 2 cps, and/or Apex Buff but if I try to do this manually I usually mess something up. (Forget Rip, forget 2nd SavageRoar etc)
Even with near perfect manual execution, I barely register above 3 mil dps on opener but if I use castsequence, I get around 3,7 to 4 mil depending on crits. This is the reaction time and trying to remember which button to press next assuming I do not mess something up.

So thats whay I asked. For example if TF is open and Ashamane is coming up, I thought I could make smaller castsequence macros for these burst windows not to mess those burst opportunities.

Practice practice practice. In time, you'll perfect your opener.

[Rayaleith]

Ok that might seem like a noob question but I haven't played feral at Legion. I am leveling a High Mountain Tauren Druid now (wow normally!). With the new leveling system (plus more difficult dungeons) I have already at 103 developed the muscle memory for my rotation! The question now..

I read that ferals are the last spec that can snapshot their bleeds. And this applies to only TF and Bloodtalons buffs. So I use artifact ability, rake and rip after TF since they do not update automatically from TF, right? That means that even if I open with rake, I refresh it (even before the pandemic range sometimes) before TF expires since the first rake is not getting TF effect.

I see here openers that use artifact ability before TF. Why?

[fathom81]

Ok that might seem like a noob question but I haven't played feral at Legion. I am leveling a High Mountain Tauren Druid now (wow normally!). With the new leveling system (plus more difficult dungeons) I have already at 103 developed the muscle memory for my rotation! The question now..

I read that ferals are the last spec that can snapshot their bleeds. And this applies to only TF and Bloodtalons buffs. So I use artifact ability, rake and rip after TF since they do not update automatically from TF, right? That means that even if I open with rake, I refresh it (even before the pandemic range sometimes) before TF expires since the first rake is not getting TF effect.

I see here openers that use artifact ability before TF. Why?

You read it?
'TF after AF for extra globals inside TF during Incarn'

[silkworm]

The snap shot bleed damage does not scale as well as the shred ferocious bite spam (with appropriate pooling and spending under Tiger's Fury and/or Incarnation) with crit/versatility build.
There is a bleedtracker (see my first post above) that you can use but personally I don't try to maximize rake and Rip bleeds as much as I used to. As long as Rip is runing for 4pcT21 procs and Rake is on its OK for me. Sure if I get a chance to do a %125 more or %200 more rip/rake I do it but I pay less attention. At the end of the day in a 5 minute boss fight your most dps comes for Shred and Ferocious Bite.

Ashamane's Frenzy; here is text from Robosaurus own page. He did it to maximise dps in an opening seuqence so that he can cast an extra Rake or whatever at the end of the 30 sec. opener window. He is a ruthless min.maxer and if you can execute as good as he can you can inrease your dps and be way better than your average Joe (me). Well as an average Joe if I can simply pull my simulated dps on boss fight I'm happy.

Why did I use Tiger’s Fury after Ashamane’s Frenzy?
Ashamane’s Frenzy is a 15 hit channel with 4 Ticks. The way this particular spell works is that it snapshots in a peculiar manner which allows you to cast Tiger’s Fury slightly after. This image explains it.
Casting Tiger’s Fury after a Off-GCD after Ashamane’s Frenzy allows you to have an extra ability within the Tiger’s Fury buff. Because Behemoth’s Headdress is used, an extra 0.6s is sufficient. This extra 0.6s PLUS Behemoth’s Headdress extends actually snuggly fits in another finisher, hence an additional THREE abilities are buffed. Without this delay, you cannot give Tiger’s Fury to Finisher 6 (Rip), which would have to be moved back to Finisher 5 without this trick.

[tomatosaucin]

ive been doing:

if i have 3+ cp on target (very often in m+)

shred from stealth
incarn tf
rip
rake
ashmane frenzy
brs for 1 cp or if at 5 ferocious bite
shred/brs til 5
bite
etc

huge dmg on openers

[Will]

Ok that might seem like a noob question but I haven't played feral at Legion. I am leveling a High Mountain Tauren Druid now (wow normally!). With the new leveling system (plus more difficult dungeons) I have already at 103 developed the muscle memory for my rotation! The question now..

I read that ferals are the last spec that can snapshot their bleeds. And this applies to only TF and Bloodtalons buffs. So I use artifact ability, rake and rip after TF since they do not update automatically from TF, right? That means that even if I open with rake, I refresh it (even before the pandemic range sometimes) before TF expires since the first rake is not getting TF effect.

I see here openers that use artifact ability before TF. Why?

Bleeds are simply not strong enough that it's worth refreshing them when Tigers Fury is off cooldown unless they're already at their pandemic (refresh) point of <30% of their original duration. In other words if a bleed is high in duration remaining, clipping it (reapplying it before the pandemic threshold and wasting ticks) is not worth it just for the sake of the 15% damage increase Tiger's Fury provides. Easily a dps loss if you do this.

The best and most viable feral builds at the moment prioritise versatility and focus more on direct damage. Hope this changes back to bleeds in BfA.

[axxey]

side note - even though bleeds are bad scaling damage, remember to keep rip uptime 100% for open wounds artifact 15% armor ignore for your direct damage.

[silkworm]

side note - even though bleeds are bad scaling damage, remember to keep rip uptime 100% for open wounds artifact 15% armor ignore for your direct damage.

and also for possible T21 x 2pc (extra damage from rip) and T21 x 4c procs (When Rip deals damage, you have a 4% chance to cause your next Ferocious Bite to consume no Combo Points and count as if you spent the maximum amount of Energy) and

for possible Ashamane's Rip damage (Your combo point generators against targets bleeding from your Rip have a 10% chance to awaken the Spirit of Ashamane, which inflicts a Shadowy duplicate of that Rip on the target.)