Feral Druid DPS Guide — Shadowlands 9.2.5

Feral, the Melee DPS specialization for Druids, forms its core gameplay around balancing two separate 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

• Strong single-target damage and burst.
• Powerful cooldown tools with Berserk and Convoke the Spirits.
• Very high mobility and flexibility in a raid environment.
• Strong survival tools.

Weaknesses

• Can require ramp-up to reach full damage on priority targets.
• AoE tools are DoT-based, so burst is lacking.
• Requires talents that push you strongly into one damage profile.
• Gameplay relies on pooling and smart resource management, which can be punishing.
• Low base utility in raids as a melee spec.

We are maintaining a list of changes for Druids, so you can see what changes with every patch of Shadowlands. Be sure to also check out Feral's specific changes from the previous patch, 9.2, to hear our thoughts on the tier set bonuses that arrived at that time.

From Patch 9.1.5 onward, both Legion Timewalking and the Mage Tower have returned. As such we have created a separate guide detailing what you can expect from the Mage Tower challenge available to Feral Druids.

If you are interested in playing a Feral Druid, but have not got one at max level yet, you can take a look at our leveling guide for pointers to help you along the way.

Adjusting once you hit max level to a whole new UI can also be quite difficult, especially with the number of things that Feral requires you to track. Therefore, we recommend taking a look at our Addons and Macro page to make use of 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 both 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 into your decision making and foresight, rather 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 in our dedicated gear page.

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

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

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

Unfortunately Patch 9.2 is not very kind to Feral. It gains very little from the new Tier set and double Legendaries opening up, and most of its core issues remain. While it is likely to still be good at the start of the patch thanks to the strength of Convoke the Spirits paired with Celestial Spirits, as time goes on and others gain access to new effects it will fall further and further behind. It still brings good single-target and burst, but it is likely that it will fall out of favour in the Sepulcher of the First Ones.