Feral Druid DPS Guide — Dragonflight 10.0.5

Feral, the Melee DPS specialization for Druids, forms its core gameplay around balancing two resources while leveraging those to apply powerful Bleed DoT effects on targets. Alongside that, Energy and Combo Points are used in tandem to set up high burst windows via pooling gameplay.

Strengths

• Variety of high value damage profiles
• Versatile talent tree with different builds
• Strong AoE both in cleave scenarios and uncapped situations
• Good burst cooldowns for priority damage
• Gains damage from low priority enemies dying
• Powerful defensive toolkit and off-healing capabilities
• Good group utility options

Weaknesses

• Raid utility is limited
• Resource mis-management is very punishing

We are maintaining a list of changes for Druids, so you can see what changes with every patch of Dragonflight.

Moving from Shadowlands, Feral has refocused toward its Bleed DoT effects, substantially increasing their contribution to output while at the same time reducing the highly focused Ferocious Bite focus that had become prevalent. It has also received several extra tools to improve its AoE gameplay, allowing it to deal damage in various scenarios more efficiently. It has a diverse number of talents for different damage profiles. Notable inclusions are:

• Tear Open Wounds and Rampant Ferocity keep finishers as a crucial part of the AoE rotation and add a much-needed AoE component to Ferocious Bite casts, making funnel less all or nothing.
• Double-Clawed Rake allows for easier multi-target application of Rake, lessening the burden of tab-target maintenance.
• Circle of Life and Death and Apex Predator's Craving are both returning Shadowlands legendaries that were previously exclusive but can now be taken together with synergy for AoE situations and new talents available.
• Sabertooth has been reworked to instead focus on your Ferocious Bite empowering Rip rather than extending it, keeping the core maintenance gameplay intact.
• Predator is now much easier to access, so Tiger's Fury resets are a core part of gameplay rather than a contentious pickup.

If you are interested in playing a Feral Druid but have yet to get one at max level, you can look at our leveling guide for pointers to help you along the way.

Adjusting once you hit max level to a new UI can also be quite difficult, especially with the number of things that Feral requires you to track. Therefore, we recommend looking at our Addons and Macro page to use these while leveling to get used to them to make the transition smoother.

Feral is one of the more complex specs to grasp due to relying on a dual resource system that requires you to manage and pool them correctly at different times. It has a slow passive resource in Energy that can be converted into Combo Points via generator spells, such as Shred, and then spent on finishing moves, such as Ferocious Bite.

Alongside this, Feral also has Bleed mechanics that apply debuffs to your target that require different resources, e.g., Rake needing Energy and Rip needing Combo Points. This creates a spec that, on paper, seems very busy with a lot to pay attention to but tends to play slower and more measured. This puts more weight on your decision-making and foresight than your snap gameplay. Once you grasp the concepts, however, it tends to click into place and becomes a lot more fluid to manage; it just takes a little practice!

If you have never played Feral before and are looking to learn the basics of what the spec has access to, we recommend looking through our Spell Summary first, as well as the Easy Mode page linked below too.

While giving hard rules on how to gear directly due to the increasing number of variables and systems in World of Warcraft, you can find some basic information on what you should be looking out for, especially Best in Slot options in the current tier on our dedicated gear page.

Once you have started to gear, you must ensure that you have the appropriate consumables, gems, enchants, and more. We have a dedicated page that covers these questions and a stat page that covers what stats are good, when, and what to aim for.

Like all specs, Feral, when leveling, plays very differently at max level when progressing or doing end-game content. Therefore we have dedicated pages for Mythic+ and PvP to cover the nuances of these content paths.

If you are looking for an answer to a specific question, often these are common queries many players have. We keep pages that cover the most frequently asked questions and also mistakes players tend to run into.

Dragonflight Season 1 already showcased that Feral is much improved from Shadowlands in terms of damage delivery profiles, with strong uncapped AoE and a decent Mythic+ toolkit for different situations. The flexibility of the tree is a strong point, and the 10.0.5 changes improve many of the previously undesirable weaker talents bringing its single-target potential up. While it does now enforce Survival Instincts in the pathing, the buffs that came with it are generally a net positive, and the spec is likely to be in a good place.