WotLK Classic Feral Druid DPS Stat Priority
On this page, you will find out the optimal PvE stat priority for your Feral Druid DPS in WotLK Classic. We first present the stat priority, before delving into more complex explanations.
Stat Priority for Feral Druids
- Agility (1 Attack Power and some Crit before being multiplied by
Survival of the Fittest,
Improved Mark of the Wild, and
Blessing of Kings);
- Armor Penetration;
- Critical Strike;
- Strength (2 Attack Power before similar multipliers to Agility);
- 8% Hit before talents / Draenei to cap Hit;
- 26 Expertise Points before
Primal Precision to reduce Boss Dodge % to 0;
- Haste;
- Feral Attack Power (stat on weapons dependent on their item level, has 20%
extra scaling than regular Attack Power from
Predatory Strikes);
- Attack Power.
For actual EP values, try out the Feral DPS Wrath Simulator (work in progress). Input your gear, buffs, talents, and glyphs, hit the Stat Weights button and it will give you the exact value of each stat for your current gear profile! The stat priority above is a rough ordering of the EP values coming out for the preset profiles.
Stats Explained for Feral Druid
Feral Druids scale well with Agility, Armor Penetration, and Critical Strike, as well as most other stats to a lesser extent.
Agility
Feral Druids get extra Crit, Dodge, and Armor from each point of Agility
while in Cat Form or
Dire Bear Form. Your Agility is also multiplied
due to
Blessing of Kings,
Survival of the Fittest, and
Improved Mark of the Wild.
Armor Penetration
Armor Penetration allows your attacks to partially ignore your enemy's Armor. This is one of the best stats for Feral, as all of their damage is Physical, and it becomes better the more of it you have, as it becomes more and more valuable to reduce an enemy's Armor as their total Armor value decreases.
Critical Strike
Feral Critical strikes deal highly increased damage due to Predatory Instincts
and
Relentless Earthsiege Diamond and generate extra Combo Points through
Primal Fury, making it an excellent stat with direct influence on the speed
of your Combo Point generation.
Strength
Feral Druids receive 2 Attack Power (AP) per point of Strength. This is your strongest stat for pure AP gain, which will increase your damage done by all attacks.
Hit
Against boss targets, you have a 8% chance to miss attacks, which requires 263 Hit to be overcome. Reaching the Hit cap is a decent DPS increase, but by no means mandatory due to Feral's Energy refunds on abilities and finishing moves that fail to land.
Expertise Rating
Expertise reduces the chance of your attacks being parried or dodged. It takes 32.79 Expertise Rating for a 1% Dodge and Parry chance reduction and boss enemies have 6.5% Dodge and 14% Parry baseline, making it useful to have some Expertise to avoid being dodged while attacking from behind.
Haste
Haste increases your attack speed, allowing you to get more auto attacks off in a given period of time.
Feral Attack Power and Weapon Stats
Your weapon DPS range is completely irrelevant, as Feral forms use their own hidden weapons with normalized damage. The main thing you want is Feral Attack Power, which only depends on the item level of the weapon you are trying to equip.
Attack Power
Attack Power is the base stat off which all of your damage is calculated. For Feral Druids this is especially true, since your auto attack damage gets no benefit from weapon DPS.
Stamina
Stamina is incredibly important for Feral Tanks in particular, as they get a high multiplier
on their Stamina values due to Dire Bear Form and
Heart of the Wild.
Combined with
Blessing of Kings,
Survival of the Fittest, and
Improved Mark of the Wild, each point of Stamina increases your maximum
health by 16 instead of the normal 10! However, Stamina remains important for
Feral DPS Druids as well.
Armor
Armor reduces your damage taken by Physical attacks. This is a great mitigation
stat when it comes on your Leather pieces, as it is multiplied by Dire Bear Form,
Thick Hide, and
Survival of the Fittest, but any Armor on non-Leather
slots is not multiplied, and thus quite weak.
Defense
Each point of Defense gives you an additional 0.04% chance to be missed, not
to be crit, and to dodge. While it used to be important to avoid being critically
hit, in Wrath Classic the Survival of the Fittest talent takes care of making
you uncrittable by itself, making this stat only useful for its avoidance benefits.
Resilience
Resilience is only found on PvP gear and reduces your chance to suffer a Critical
Strike. While it used to be important to avoid being critically hit, in Wrath Classic
the Survival of the Fittest talent takes care of making you uncrittable by
itself, making this stat only useful in PvP.
Resistance
Resistance, while inherently niche due to different bosses dealing different magical damage types, can be very useful while progressing specific bosses. Wearing resistance gear of a type makes you take less damage or even completely avoid damage when hit by that type of magical damage.
Other Stats
Intellect, Spirit, and maybe even Mp5 will most likely be on some of your gear, but they hold little to no value as a Feral Druid. Intellect and Spirit only become valuable when you use Mana, which can really only happen through swapping forms repeatedly.
Changelog
- 18 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Phase 2 release ahead of Ulduar raid release.
- 20 Sep. 2022: Page added.
This guide has been written by Seksi, original vanilla player and multi-class player, currently playing on Gehennas Horde. You can find him on the Classic Shaman and Druid, as well as the Icy Veins Discord.
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