Feral Druid DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1
Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, we list your Feral Druid core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth 8.0.1. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Feral Druid.
The other pages of our Feral Druid guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.
About Our Author
This guide has been written by Wordup, a frequent theorycrafter involved in a number of class communities. He is also an experienced player who has been in the world top 100 since the days of Sunwell, currently raiding in Echoes. You can also follow him on Twitter.
1. Feral Druid Single Target Rotation
The Feral Druid rotation revolves around keeping up various buffs and debuffs, while generating Combo Points and using them on Finishing Moves.
Use the below switches to tailor the rotation around the talents or situations you expect to be using, and it will populate the rotation priority list appropriately:
- Lunar Inspiration
- Sabertooth
- Brutal Slash
- Savage Roar
- Feral Frenzy
- Bloodtalons
- Cast
Tiger's Fury at 30 Energy or less. - Cast
Berserk if available. - Maintain
Rip (at below 25%, replace with 
Ferocious Bite). - Maintain
Rake. - Maintain
Thrash. - Cast Ferocious Bite if at 5 Combo Points.
- Cast
Shred to build Combo Points.
When using 
Bloodtalons, you should aim to cast instant
Regrowths gained through 
Predatory Swiftness just before
a finisher, and if possible also refresh 
Rake if it is within the
pandemic window to spend the charges.
Also try to sync your refreshes of both Rake and 
Rip
with your 
Tiger's Fury windows, as this will snapshot the damage
increase for the duration, as elaborated on further on in the page.
While this rotation is for the most part complete, putting it into practice takes a slightly deeper understanding. For this, we strongly suggest that you read our detailed section.
2. Feral Druid Opening Sequence
Below, we list the ideal way to start the fight.
- 5-20 seconds before the pull, cast
Regrowth, if you are using
the 
Bloodtalons talent. - Immediately before the pull, use your
Battle Potion of Agility and 
Prowl. - Cast Rake.
- If taken, cast
Savage Roar. - Cast Berserk/
Incarnation: King of the Jungle. - Cast Tiger's Fury.
- Cast
Moonfire if 
Lunar Inspiration is taken. - Cast Shred to reach 5 Combo Points.
- Cast Rip.
- Continue with the normal rotation.
Always make sure to cast 
Berserk before casting
Tiger's Fury, as it is on the Global Cooldown while Tiger's Fury is
not. This grants the most amount of time actively dealing damage with the two
damage boosts present in tandem.
3. Multiple Target Rotation for Feral Druids
Depending on the number of targets, there are a number of additional steps that need to be taken, and you should mould your ability usage around these rules.
3.1. Brutal Slash
When using 
Brutal Slash, try to make sure that you always have at
least one charge on cooldown, but have as many charges as possible when a wave
of enemies comes into range. Try to have short-duration buffs such as
Tiger's Fury and Bloodtalons active on as many
high-target casts of Brutal Slash on demand, as it deals massive AoE burst
damage with each cast.
3.2. Long Duration Adds
3.2.1. 2-3 Targets
Against 2-3 high health, high priority targets, you should aim to maintain
Rake on all of them, alongside maintaining 
Thrash.
Against 2 targets, you should use 
Shred as your Energy-spending
filler to gain Combo Points, whilst at 3, this should be replaced with
Swipe. Whenever possible, try to maintain Rip on as many
targets as possible when Combo Points.
3.2.2. 4-8 Targets
At 4 targets, you should be maintaining Rake on as many targets
as possible that your Energy allows. Thrash should be applied
as often as possible after this, and is your highest priority to get active with
Omen of Clarity procs. At 5 Combo Points, maintain
Rip on the most important targets. At 5 targets and above, Thrash
becomes the highest priority to maintain on enemies.
3.2.3. 9+ Targets
Against 9 or more targets, you should maintain Thrash on all
targets and then spend Energy on Swipe. Spend Combo Points on
Rip on the most important targets when you reach 5.
3.3. Short Duration Adds
When there are 3 or more short-lived, high priority targets, you should
apply Thrash and then Swipe, while spending your
Combo Points on 
Ferocious Bite as bleeds will be unlikely to tick
for their full duration.
3.4. Priority Targets
In case of multiple low priority targets and one high priority target (such as a boss), you have two options.
- Perform a single target rotation on the high priority target while
maintaining Thrash on all targets. If you are facing 5 or more
targets, you can replace Shred with
Swipe in your
single target rotation. - Perform a single target rotation on the high priority target and completely ignore the other targets.
4. Feral Druid Cooldowns
Feral comes with 2 DPS cooldowns, one being short cooldown, short duration and more rotational, whilst the other is a mid duration, long cooldown.
- Tiger's Fury increases your damage done by 15% for 10
seconds, on a 30-second cooldown. Additionally, it instantly restores 50
Energy. It should be used on cooldown, but always make sure it does not
cause you to reach maximum Energy.
- Berserk reduces the Energy cost of your abilities by 40% for 15
seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown. It should be used as many times as possible
during the encounter, and ideally stacked with Tiger's Fury, as we
explain later on in the guide. Note that choosing the
Incarnation: King of the Jungle talent causes it to replace
Berserk.
- When combining the two, you should always be using Berserk
first, as it is on the Global Cooldown whilst Tiger's Fury is
not. Ideally you should wait for the Global Cooldown incurred by activating
Berserk to complete, and then synchronise your next ability cast with the use
of Tiger's Fury.
Additionally, your talents have the potential to provide you with additional active DPS cooldowns. We discuss this, as well as the proper timing and usage of your default cooldowns in a subsequent section.
5. Mastering Your Feral Druid
The above information tells you everything you need to know in order to get the most out of your Feral Druid's DPS toolkit. Here, however, we will go into more in-depth aspects that let you truly shine and understand the fundamentals of decision making.
5.1. Mastery: Razor Claws
Your 
Mastery: Razor Claws increases the damage that your Bleeds do.
This affects Rake, Rip, Thrash, and
the Bleed portion of 
Feral Frenzy.
5.2. Combo Points and Energy
As a Feral Druid, the core of your abilities need Energy to be used. Your Energy bar has a capacity of 100 Energy and refills at a rate of 10 Energy per second. Your Energy regeneration is increased by your Haste.
Some abilities add a Combo Point, and are considered builders, those mainly
being Shred, Rake, Swipe, and
Thrash. Other abilities, termed Finishing Moves, consume your
Combo Points. The more Combo Points a Finishing Move consumes, the more
powerful (or longer-lasting) its effect is. Your Combo Point generation is
increased by 
Primal Fury, which causes your Combo Point generating
abilities to grant an additional Combo Point any time they critically strike
with direct damage.
5.3. Single Target Rotation in Detail
The Feral Druid rotation is a balance of keeping up several bleeds on
the target as well as keeping up 
Savage Roar if talented, while
continuously generating Combo Points.
5.3.1. Bleeds & DoTs
You should always strive to have 100% uptime on the target with
Rake and Rip. This forms the core of your damage
output, and making the most of them is what makes the difference between good
play and great play.
Rake costs 35 Energy to apply and lasts for 15 seconds (reduced
by Jagged Wounds), making it the easiest tool to manage.
Rip costs 30 Energy but its potency is also dependent on how
many Combo Points it is applied with, so you must always be applying Rip with 5
Combo Points.
Thrash costs 45 Energy to cast and deals its damage over 15
seconds. This much like Rake is easy to maintain and applies to all targets hit,
and should be maintained as much as possible at any target count.
If you have taken the 
Lunar Inspiration talent, then you also
need to have 100% uptime with 
Moonfire. Note this is not a Bleed so
gains no benefit from Mastery, but can be cast from 40 yards making it easier
to maintain as a filler during downtime, or on extra targets not in melee
range.
5.3.2. What to Do the Rest of the Time
When your bleeds and self-buffs are all up and do not need to be
refreshed, you will essentially be filling the time with casts of
Shred or Swipe to generate Combo Points, or dumping
resources with Ferocious Bite if you have a large surplus.
In addition to Shred, some Combo Points will also be generated by your casts
of Rake, although this number is much smaller.
5.3.3. Energy Management
Energy pooling is useful, and should be done in most circumstances.
It should mostly be done to deal with certain fight mechanics, making sure to
use your Energy wisely, however, so you can still maintain your Bleeds, and dump
as much Energy as possible leading up to your Tiger's Fury casts so
as to not waste any that it grants when activated.
Omen of Clarity procs should be used right away, so that
they do not get overwritten by subsequent procs.
5.3.4. When to Refresh Bleeds
Bleed snapshotting does still exist for Feral Druids, but it only works with some specific damage-increasing buffs. This means the damage of your Bleeds is determined at the time when they are applied, based on what buffs you have active, and the Bleeds will continue to do the same damage throughout their durations even if those buffs expire in the meantime. It also means that they will not dynamically update with new applications of said buffs. The result of this is that Bleeds applied when you are under effects that increase your damage are more powerful than bleeds applied when you are not under any such effects.
The effects that have the snapshot interaction with Bleeds are:
- Tiger's Fury;
- Bloodtalons (tier 7 talent).
This means that you gain more DPS by applying or refreshing your bleeds at the right time (when you benefit from one of the aforementioned bonuses), and doing this will net a large amount of increased damage dealt by your Bleed effects.
With regards to refreshing, the base durations of Rake and
Thrash can safely be refreshed with 4.5 seconds remaining or
less (but even refreshing them with more time left will only be a minor DPS
loss), while Rip can safely be refreshed with 7.2 seconds or less.
In the case of Rip, when the target is about to reach 25% health, it is a good
idea to apply a new, fully buffed Rip with any effects you have available that
you can then extend for the rest of the fight (via Ferocious Bite).
If you have taken the Lunar Inspiration talent, then
Moonfire can be refreshed with 4.2 seconds remaining on its
duration.
Note that if you have the Jagged Wounds talent, then the
remaining durations when it is safe to refresh change to 5.8 seconds for
Rip, or 3.6 seconds for Rake and Thrash.
Regarding Rake, it is important to ensure that your Rake always
benefits from a Bloodtalons proc. Any Rake that is applied without
benefiting from Bloodtalons should be reapplied with Bloodtalons as soon
as possible. Moreover, if your Rake is about to expire and you have a
Bloodtalons proc, you should refresh Rake to benefit from it.
This is made considerably easier with external addons to track, and there are some recommendations on our add-on page.
5.3.5. When to Refresh Savage Roar
The timing for refreshing Savage Roar is not very strict, but you
should still try to refresh it right as it is about to expire so as not to
waste any of its duration.
It is, however, important to note that if you have 5 Combo Points and 10.8 seconds (assuming it was cast at 5 Combo Points) left on Savage Roar, you can refresh it without losing any of its duration due to the pandemic effect. Making use of this can make keeping up the buff quite a bit easier, but refreshing Savage Roar even with fewer than 5 Combo Points is acceptable in emergencies.
5.3.6. Ferocious Bite
It is a DPS gain to pool Energy to 50 before using Ferocious Bite (provided that it does not cause your Rip to fall off), boosting its damage through the additional 100% boost for the extra 25 Energy cost. This is due to the investment mostly being tied to the Combo Point requirement, so the small extra Energy investment to double its damage is a significant boost.
Whenever you use Ferocious Bite on a target that is below 25% health, your
Rip on the target will be refreshed. This makes it a much more
efficient way of maintaining Rip on the target, since you are dealing damage
while also refreshing a high resource cost debuff, for the same amount of Combo
Points. A Rip that is refreshed in this manner will have the same power as its
original application (determined by how many Combo Points you applied it with,
or any snapshotting buffs such as Tiger's Fury that were present at
the time of application).
You should normally use Ferocious Bite with 5 Combo Points, but if the
target is below 25% health and Rip will expire before you have time
to reach 5, you should use it with however many Combo Points you have, in order
to refresh the active Rip.
As we have mentioned, if your Energy and Combo Points are at maximum
capacity and Rip and Rake do not need to be immediately
refreshed, you should use Ferocious Bite even if the target is above 25%
health.
5.4. Detailed Cooldown Usage
Both of the cooldowns listed earlier on this page are important to use correctly and are important to your performance, hurting your output if utilized poorly.
5.4.1. Tiger's Fury
There are several things to consider when using Tiger's Fury.
- It should always be used on cooldown.
- Before using Tiger's Fury, make sure you have as little Energy as possible to avoid becoming capped thanks to the 50 Energy it provides you with.
- The damage effect "snapshots" onto Bleed DoTs you cast while active, increasing their damage for the full duration even after Tiger's Fury falls off.
Due to these factors, you should always be planning your Energy around the refund that this will provide when it comes back, so drain in advance. You should also be trying to refresh any Bleeds that you need to while it is active as maintenance, and cycle this between your Tiger's Fury casts.
5.4.2. Berserk
Berserk reduces the Energy cost of all your abilities by 40%
while it is active. Currently it is a fairly weak DPS cooldown, and simply
provides a window of consistency during Energy starved periods. It serves best
as an AoE tool to freely cast Swipe if taken, but do not expect it
to drastically improve your single target damage when active.
You will want to use Berserk as many times as possible during a
fight. Ideally, you should pool Energy before using Berserk (up to around
50-80), so that you can use more abilities throughout its duration. If you
are under the effects of
Heroism/
Bloodlust/
Time Warp, then you should
not pool Energy, and instead you should use Berserk when you have near minimum
Energy.
Moreover, it is optimal to use Berserk when Tiger's Fury is
available or has 5 seconds or less left on its cooldown, so that you
can fit the entire duration of Tiger's Fury inside Berserk.
5.4.3. Feral Frenzy
Currently, simulations are not entirely compiled for Feral Frenzy,
however its expected use is generally agreed upon. This should
always be used on cooldown as often as possible, and as such it is required for
you to drain your Combo Points prior to use. This can also be used as a way to
quickly gain a surge of additional Combo Points to refresh Rip in an
emergency. Every other cast should also ideally be synchronized with
Tiger's Fury to boost its base damage.
5.5. Talent Specifics
5.5.1. Tier 1 Talents
Predator is quite straightforward, and the only thing to look out
for is not wasting any of the Energy you gain from Tiger's Fury casts
when there are repeat triggers (unless you know you will be able to reset its
cooldown again shortly after).
Lunar Inspiration revolves around keeping up the
Moonfire DoT. This should be maintained on a single target at all
times, and you should also multi-DoT targets with it when you are dealing with
a cleave situation and have selected this. Moonfire should be refreshed when
there is 4.8 seconds or less left on its duration to make the maximum use of the
pandemic effect.
5.5.2. Tier 5 Talents
Incarnation: King of the Jungle should be used on cooldown, or saved
for moments when you need to do increased burst damage to a target if the
encounter demands it. Whilst this is active you should have no issue with Energy
starvation, so should be free to spend as aggressively as possible until it
expires.
Jagged Wounds maintains the same rotation, except that you will
have to refresh your Bleeds more often. Moreover, the remaining amount of time
when you can safely refresh them without losing duration is decreased by 20%.
This means you will have to manage your Energy and Combo Points more strictly to
make sure you stick to the high uptime required on your Bleed effects.
5.5.3. Tier 6 Talents
Brutal Slash is essentially a super- Swipe, which
should be used to damage multiple targets. If you want to burst down a large
pack, try to have Tiger's Fury up at the same time. Against a single
target, you can still burn off excess Brutal Slash charges (instead of
Shred) as a cheap generator, provided that you will have all the
charges available for when you need to use it against multiple enemies.
If you are using Bloodtalons, try to make sure that any Brutal
Slashes cast during AoE are buffed by this effect, as it will be the biggest
part of your damage. In single target, you can generally just dump all of
these charges during your Tiger's Fury window, as that should
generally sync up with the recharge time. Try not to waste your
Omen of Clarity procs on this however, due to how cheap the spell
is to cast for lower returns.
Savage Roar provides a flat damage buff to all damage when active,
which updates dynamically to any DoT effects when activated. This
means that you are able to focus on keeping Rip active regardless
of whether you have Savage Roar present, and simply cast it as soon as possible
afterwards and the damage increase will dynamically update if things go wrong.
This buff is paramount to keep active at all times if taken, so try to plan
ahead when spending your Combo Points so that it does not fall off for too
long.
5.5.4. Tier 7 Talents
Bloodtalons buffs your next 2 melee abilities following a
Regrowth, increasing their damage by 25%. Ideally, one charge
should be used on a finisher such as Rip, while the other should be
used on Rake if it is about to fall off. If it is at a healthy
duration, spend it on Shred instead.
You should hold on to your Predatory Swiftness proc until you have
5 Combo Points. Then, you can use your free Regrowth to trigger
Bloodtalons. The Bloodtalons buff lasts 30 seconds, so once it is triggered,
you have plenty of time to use it up. Since Predatory Swiftness only lasts 12
seconds, you can make things easier on yourself by casting finishers at high
Energy when possible. This will allow you to immediately cast the abilities
you need to create a surplus of Combo Points and trigger it comfortably.
Feral Frenzy should be used when you have 0 Combo Points, and
you should follow this up with a Finishing Move. Making sure that you also have
the Energy available to instantly make use of the surge of Combo Points is
useful, and having this as a backup plan to refresh Rip if you fall
behind on your cycle is very useful.
Moment of Clarity means that you will have an increased frequency
of Omen of Clarity procs, allowing you periods of smoother Energy
management by having some builders come free. Try to make sure you do not cap
your Energy when these trigger (which is helped by the additional Energy limit
granted), and be aware that you should pool less aggressively when using this to
allow room to make use of the effect.
6. Changelog
- 26 Aug. 2018: Updated to indicate Thrash usage in single target.
- 13 Aug. 2018: Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
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