Balance vs. Feral for Druid Raid DPS.

[McNurley]

Assuming roughly equivalent gear, which class is better for raiding? And by that, I mean which 1.) pulls higher dps 2.) is more useful 3.) is more needed.

Thanks

[Pieterman]

Feral on melee friendly fights
Balance on ranged friendly fights

OR

Play what you enjoy more / are better at.

[xxAkirhaxx]

We had a really good feral for a while, then we made him start tanking. He pulled competitive dps, but most of the fights seem to favor boomkins right now. In his favor, he did pull out like 45k or 47k on Nef one night. The boomkins have only ever pulled 42k at the highest.

[Deleted]

No bosses favor melee, Boomkin has more mana for vates and I think does better aoe?

[Moonstra]

Group composition is also important.

Do you have a rogue? If so, a feral druid will buff his damage and get his damage buffed as well.


Do you have a mana hungry priest/shamman/paladin? If so then a Boomkin could be the help needed.

[Regen]

At about 352 ilvl I out dps 359 boomkins as feral. Might be an L2P issue for them, or it might just be that I'm better at it.

To simplify it: always always always always choose what spec you feel like you perform better at and the spec that you enjoy most. If you play the "worse" spec better than others play the "better" spec, you can obviously beat them. Do what makes you happy.


Kitty for life!

[elira]

Boomkin for the current raiding content.
1.) every fight favors range over melee
2.) most fights are multitarget fights and favors dot classes
3.) you can provide innervates for your healers
4.) you can cast Tranquility for heavy aoe dmg fights and help out your healers.
5.) you don't have the problem that your most-damage-dealing-ability can only used from behind (shred sucks)

edit: forgot that as a boomkin you also have thyphoon which is powerfull for fights like chogall and omnotron and the aoe silence

hope this helps

[Lilija]

The one YOU (the player) enjoy more...

[McNurley]

Well, I'm mainspec resto, and will probably only be going dps for fights/runs where my group doesnt need me to heal. Back in WotLk I was exclusively boomkin/resto but now as I've ran my share of heroics and whatnot, I've compiled what i consider to be a decent raid starter of a feral set. I know how to play boomkin well from wrath, and i guess i was just wondering if learning how to play feral is worth it.

Note: I don't know my raid make-up as I'm about to switch servers to be with some friends.

Thanks for the input guys (and maybe girls?)

[Ragekitty]

While it's true that there are a lot of melee-unfriendly fights, ranged DPS have it pretty rough in a lot of fights too.


Attacking from behind should never be an issue as long as you have a competent tank.


It really just boils down to what your raid composition is like. If you've got warriors/rogues, go feral. If you're caster-heavy with no other boomkins, go balance. Ultimately, play whatever's comfortable most; seeing as you were resto/balance in LK, I'd suggest you stay with boomkin until you play enough feral to decide you either love it or hate it (because yes, there will be that ultimatum feeling to it).

[Jinto]

Boomkins > ferals for the current raid tier.

[Nyxis86]

Ferals have their time to shine (heroic nef for example for obvious reasons), but in the current tier boomkins are favored a bit more. It depends on what is needed. Having ferals is still great, until patch 4.1 at least when battle rez is giving to my grandma who is a level 87 geriatric.

[Deleted]

Like Elira said, innervate & Tranquility are very powerful tools And since most fights favor ranged, I would say Balance wins by large margin.

[Yunru]

Like Elira said, innervate & Tranquility are very powerful tools And since most fights favor ranged, I would say Balance wins by large margin.

Unles if you dont like playing a big fat chicken with lazors , play feral.

It depends on your rly.

[Maldread]

feral dps > boomchicken dps

boomchicken versatility > feral versatility

depends what A) you want to do, and B) what role you most need to fulfill.

[Jinto]

I dare say those of you who think feral dps > balance right now is not into HMs.

[Ragekitty]

I dare say those of you who think feral dps > balance right now is not into HMs.

Depends on the fight.

[elira]

Attacking from behind should never be an issue as long as you have a competent tank.

Well in most fight this is true but there are a lot of situations where you can't shred e.g.:

Al'akir P2 - 100% ne shred possible
Sinestra P1 & P3 - Yeah if the tank is on the edge with one hoof in the lava there is a tiny spot where you can shred but your screwed if you have to move more than 2 meters.
Toxitron - Depending on how you do it but to have the tank in range he will be facing you
Chimaeron - during feud-phases no shreding

dunno if there are others but you get my point...
it is just a very clunky and outdatet mechanic...

[eylieen]

Attacking from behind should never be an issue as long as you have a competent tank..

except that valiona, maloriak, chimaeron, nefarian, omnitron, al'akir, and (lol)argaloth all have phases, mechanics, or adds that require you to be attacking from the front for at least part of the fight. this tier is very ranged-friendly when compared to melee, and again valiona, omni, nef, halfus, cho'gall, magmaw(on heroic) and asc council all favor dot classes that are able to multi-dot easily. if you're equally geared and competent at both boomkin and feral, you'll likely find boomkin being the way to go for the current tier. hopefully blizzard will avoid blantantly melee-unfriendly fights in firelands, it gets kinda old.
edit: elira covered a similar point. man it sure is fun when your 35% execute is countered by 'lol boss are facing at you'.

[Azerate]

Feral on melee friendly fights
Balance on ranged friendly fights

If there are any at all melee friendly fights its the minority, also moonkin's easier to play and has better dps output. Also has great aoe when needed.
Feral cat is one of the harder dps specs in game, it's dps is not really rewarding for the difficulty level, it has the same downsides as all melee dps, can only attack from the back (which IS a problem sometimes, especially with less hardcore guilds and their tanks)

PS. http://stateofdps.com/index.php?data...s=200&spec=dps

So yeah, its one of the lowest dps specs atm while still being one of the hardest, not worth it totally.