Feral Druid Frequently Asked Questions — Dragonflight 10.0.5

Many Feral mechanics benefit from the Pandemic effect. This means that you can refresh them with up to 30% of the duration remaining, and they will be added to the new application (but snapshotting will not be carried over). This includes the following abilities at the following times:

• Rake — 4.5 seconds;
• Rip — 7.2 seconds (assuming 5 Combo Points);
• Thrash — 4.5 seconds;
• Moonfire — 4.8 seconds;

With the Circle of Life and Death talent these values are proportionally shorter:

• Rake — 3.375 seconds;
• Rip — 5.4 seconds (assuming 5 Combo Points);
• Thrash — 3.375 seconds;
• Moonfire — 3.6 seconds;

Any time remaining after the above thresholds will instead be added onto the maximum duration from the new cast and combined for an extended uptime. This allows you to refresh any time within this window, whenever is most suitable for you.

In virtually all situations, you should strive to have as close to 100% uptime on both Rip and Rake, and ideally also Thrash. The latter extends especially to situations where you are playing with Taste for Blood.

Your decision comes down to the type of burst damage window you are looking for. Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane takes more time to get its damage out but is extremely potent over its duration. Convoke the Spirits on the other hand, it is extremely condensed but could be more reliable overall. Still, it can be reduced to a 1-minute cooldown should it be needed. They are both reasonable options, and preference plays a large part in which you play.

Conditionally, yes. You should avoid wasting any Energy, the primary resource you will pool. Generally, you will begin to pool this at high Combo Points and start spending when you need to refresh an effect (though with Bloodtalons taken, you will do a pool-dump-pool cycle instead). The primary rule is to use resources wisely for Feral as that dictates your output at all times, and pooling is often a core part of that. Ideally, you should put yourself in a situation where you generate your Combo Points and wait on Energy before re-entering into another Spend-Generate-Pool cycle, to minimize the chance of an Omen of Clarity proc being wasted.

Snapshotting refers to mechanics involving Tiger's Fury and Bloodtalons, that will confer the damage increase to the entire Bleed DoT effect if these buffs are present when you apply them. This is specific to these two effects and does not apply to trinkets or active buffs such as Sabertooth. This means maintaining Bleeds with these effects up is very important to make the most out of them, and ideally, you want to make sure Rake is buffed by Tiger's Fury, and Rip is buffed by both that and Bloodtalons if taken. You should also try to minimize the number of times you overwrite these effects without these buffs.

In virtually all situations currently, when extra targets are present, your finishing move will be Primal Wrath at all times. While the Sabertooth effect is nice to maintain, the raw damage of Primal Wrath and Tear Open Wounds is more valuable, and instead your Ferocious Bite casts (and thus uptime of Sabertooth) is fuelled by Apex Predator's Craving. This shifts slightly if you are looking for more priority damage, at which point you should maintain Rips with Primal Wrath and Bite your kill target.

The answer to this question in any context will always be to simulate it. This is because what is an upgrade for you may not be an upgrade for someone else. In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer, even when talking about 2 completely identical comparisons from you to another person. Everything in your gear affects everything else.

This applies to gear, set bonuses, trinkets, and talents.

The only exception to this rule is when a specific fight dictates a certain set of optimal talents and gear pieces that enhance their strength. If you are curious about what kind of setup to go for a specific fight, WarcraftLogs.com's rankings and statistics are a good place to see what others are doing.

We have a guide on how to sim yourself here:

For Feral, there is no strict "amount" or breakpoint of any stat you must reach. Nor are there any points at which a stat stops being desirable. In most cases, the specific secondary you have is less important than the volume. However, this is another case of a situation in which a simulation to check your ideal gear pieces and stat values will provide you with invaluable information.

Druids have limited race options for each faction, but the current simulations for races indicate the following: