Feral Druid DPS Guide — 12.0.5

Midnight Season 1 has released, and with it came a lot of new content. It brought with it three new Raids, alongside heralding the start of Season 1 for both Mythic+ and PvP. With all the new things available, we've provided some dedicated hubs covering everything available!

Patch 12.0.5 is a smaller patch that comes with a handful of class changes alongside some additional open world content. Feral in particular is receiving some tweaks to its Apex Talent, and there's also some things worth checking out!

• The Voidforge Unlocks!
  The Voidforge is Midnight's take on Bonus Rolls and Turbo Boost, allowing you to target specific big ticket items through a new bonus roll system. You can also further empower trinkets and weapons, and we have recommendations on our Gear page.
• Void Assaults are Unleashed
  Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman are under siege from the forces of the Void. Thwarting their attacks provide a new way to acquire gear all the way up to Hero level, and you can check out more on our Void Assault hub
• Disrupt Ritual Sites
  Sharing a similar reward structure to Void Assaults, Ritual Sites are instanced content similar to Delves. You can find out all about them on our Ritual Sites page.

In addition to these new features, Feral had some specific changes made to its Apex Talents to prevent some rotational confusion:

This change is oriented toward enforcing 5 Combo Point spenders, as previously the Apex Talent was rewarding spending at lower values. It maintains the full benefit from free casts via Apex Predator's Craving and Convoke the Spirits to make sure these talents stay relevant, but is mostly done to remove confusion on when best to spend resources.

Click for Previous Season 1 Hotfixes

As Season 1 has progressed, some small additional tuning notes have been added by Blizzard to coincide with the release of March on Quel'danas.

Show March 31st Class TuningHide March 31st Class Tuning

Midnight Class Tuning - 31st March

Feral Druid

Developers' notes: Our intention here is to improve Feral damage in raids, without increasing their damage in M+, which is already competitive.

• All damage increased by 3%
• Frantic Frenzy damage reduced by 8%

This is a modest aura buff to improve performance in all areas, with a slight reduction in AoE burst potential – though Frantic Frenzy remains a very powerful AoE tool.

With the release of Season 1, Blizzard announced some significant buffs for Feral Druid on March 18th. These include a number of increases to abilities that are used across both Hero Trees.

Show March 18th Class TuningHide March 18th Class Tuning

Midnight Class Tuning - 18th March

Feral Druid

• All damage increased by 6%
• Rip damage increased by 10%
• Rake DoT damage increased by 20%
• Swipe damage increased by 10%
• Rampant Ferocity damage increased by 10%
• Unseen Swipe damage increased by 15%
• Frantic Frenzy damage reduced by 10%

These changes combined are a significant increase in the region of 10%. Feral was already looking like a solid pick especially in raids, so this will likely move it up to a top performer. Bear in mind, Blizzard have stated an intent to keep tuning over the course of the next couple of weeks, so things may change. If anything more happens for Feral, expect this guide to be updated with new information, or if any new theorycrafting findings are made.

With the release of Midnight, Feral sees some fairly significant changes, with many previously core mechanics being impacted. Snapshotting in particular has been simplified significantly, while the number of active buttons used has also been reduced. While some parts remain similar to previous iterations, there's definitely less things to pay attention to - for better or worse. Since these changes have a fairly large impact on how the Spec operates, changes are broken down into sections below.

Feral saw some sweeping changes to snapshotting mechanics and how they relate to Bleeds. Most notably, Bloodtalons has been removed and Sudden Ambush has been reworked, so the primary source of Bleed amplification is Tiger's Fury. This means there's a lot less debuff juggling, and is easier to execute.

Additionally, a few specific changes have been made in the tree:

• Thrash and Brutal Slash have been removed from the tree.
• Chomp has been added as a high damage attack available at certain Energy thresholds
• Feral Frenzy has had a follow-up node added - either reducing its cooldown to 30 seconds with Focused Frenzy, or converting it to AoE with Frantic Frenzy.
• Ashamane's Guidance now reduces the cooldown of Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane to 1m30s.
• Blood Spattered and Hunger for Battle added, providing bonuses from Rip in AoE.

The new class feature in Midnight are Apex Talents, powerful 4-step talent nodes that provide compounding benefits when taken. For Feral, Unseen Predator focuses on amplifying finishers, increasing damage dealt and triggering bonus attacks:

• Unseen Predator — Ferocious Bite has a 15% chance per Combo Point spent to trigger Unseen Slash or Unseen Swipe, depending on targets nearby. Damage is reduced if less than 5 Combo Points and 50 Energy was spent to activate.
• Unseen Predator — has two points, increasing all damage you deal by 7.5% per point for 1 second per Combo Point spent when an Unseen Attack is triggered via Unseen Predator. Extra attacks will extend the duration.
• Unseen Predator — increases all Rip damage you deal by 30%. Additionally, casting Tiger's Fury will cause your next two Combo Point generating attacks to trigger an Unseen Attack for its maximum damage.

The entire package is quite strong, buffing finishers that lie at the heart of both builds. Wildstalker in particular gets great benefit from the extra Rip multiplier, which also improves both trees significantly in AoE. The effect is, however, mostly passive and happens through regular gameplay.

While the spec saw some sweeping changes at its core, Hero Talents remain very similar to how they were before. Some additional integration has been added to new talent options, but their damage profile split is still looking to remain the same. A brief overview of changes are:

• Druid of the Claw Changes - Click for Details

  • Tear Down the Mighty now increases the damage of Feral Frenzy and Chomp by 25%.
  • Strike for the Heart now increases damage abilities by 10% and Critical Strike chance by 5%.
  • Claw Rampage now has a 20% chance to activate (down from 25%).
  • Three new talents: Limb from Limb, Twin Claw and Exacerbating Wounds.
  The changes to Druid of the Claw provide additional access to Ravage, while trying to still keep some value from Bleed effects via new talents. In particular, Tear Down the Mighty has been made more appealing by amplifying both the new Chomp and Feral Frenzy, but is otherwise built in the same way as before: a focus on high impact Ferocious Bite enhancements.
• Wildstalker Changes - Click for Details

  • Three new talents: Patient Custodian, Rampancy and Green Thumb.
  Instead for Wildstalker, very little was changed about the tree, retaining its strong focus on Bleeds and DoT effects. New talents incorporate a stronger focus on Bursting Growth by adding a passive chance for it to trigger from Bloodseeker Vines, but still remains a fairly simple passive tree.

In both the utility and defensive department, Feral remains very similar to The previously, aside from the loss of Nature's Vigil. In exchange, Heart of the Wild was turned into an active defense tool - increasing your maximum health if used during Bear Form by 30%. The Midnight utility toolkit is also is effectively the same, bringing Typhoon, Ursol's Vortex and Incapacitating Roar, while still having Innervate for your healers.