Feral Druid DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within Pre-Patch
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Feral Druid in both single-target and multiple-target situations. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your DPS. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within Pre-Patch.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Feral DPS Druid rotation.
Feral Druid Rotation
Welcome to the Rotation section of our Feral Druid guide. If you came here without first checking over the Spell List/Glossary page, we recommend that you do so if you are new to the specialization. Understanding what your spells and abilities do will make it much easier to understand what is discussed on this page.
If you are looking for an introductory primer to get started and find the full breakdowns overwhelming, you can always start with our Easy Mode page to get yourself started with starter builds and a more straightforward breakdown. While the recommendations on the page below are not strictly optimal, they provide an excellent springboard to get to grips with the core gameplay Feral focuses on:
In addition to your rotation in general content, there is also a separate section of this guide devoted to how your playstyle may change in Mythic+ as situations are often less scripted and more hectic. Please take a look at the page below if you are looking for more tailored information for that content:
PvP
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, visit our PvP page below.
Feral Druid Rotations
Each of the sections below explain the rotation for Feral at different target counts. Click the boxes to switch to the desired damage type.
Feral Druid Rotation
The buttons below can be used to select between curated talent loadouts from our talent page. You can also use the switches below to add or remove individual talents you may also be using:
Talent Selections | ||
---|---|---|
Apex Predator's Craving | Adaptive Swarm | Bloodtalons |
Brutal Slash | Coiled to Spring | Convoke the Spirits |
Double-Clawed Rake | Feral Frenzy | Lunar Inspiration |
Primal Wrath | Rampant Ferocity | Saber Jaws |
Sudden Ambush | Thrashing Claws | Season 4 Set |
Feral Druid Single Target Rotation
Feral Druids in single-target focus on building Combo Points via Energy spenders, and consuming them with powerful Finishing moves in a cycle. It is a mixture of resource management and DoT maintenance, with a heavy emphasis on planning with some reactive elements.
- Cast Tiger's Fury on cooldown, ideally at 70 or more Energy below the cap.
- Cast Berserk on cooldown with Tiger's Fury active, try to sync with Convoke the Spirits.
- Maintain Rip on your target with 5 Combo Points. Only refresh this with Tiger's Fury and Bloodtalons active.
- Cast Ferocious Bite if at 5 Combo Points and Rip is active on your target.
- Maintain Thrash, ideally with Omen of Clarity procs.
- Cast Shred or Brutal Slash to build Combo Points.
The most important thread throughout all of Feral is making sure that you maintain Rip and Rake as efficiently as possible, ideally snapshotting them with Tiger's Fury and Bloodtalons. After that, your excess Energy and Combo Points are used to fuel Ferocious Bite while always keeping in mind your Bleed maintenance. Some key notes are:
AoE Rotation for Feral Druids
Feral in AoE almost entirely hinges off powerful talent picks in the tree that allow for much easier application of Bleed effects in AoE. It relies heavily on a mix of the high power spender Primal Wrath (which can be selected above) and tab-target gameplay with Rake.
- Cast Tiger's Fury on cooldown, ideally at 30 Energy or less.
- Cast Berserk if available, ideally alongside Tiger's Fury.
- Maintain Rip on as many targets as possible.
- Cast Ferocious Bite if at 5 Combo Points, Rip is active on nearby targets and your Energy is about to cap, or with an Apex Predator's Craving proc.
- Maintain Thrash, ideally with Omen of Clarity procs.
- Cycle Rake on as many targets as possible.
- Cast Swipe to build Combo Points.
Many of the rules that Feral plays by in single-target remain in Cleave and AoE situations, and it introduces the multi-DoT requirement of cycling Rake depending on choices. Your Rip maintenance is replaced by Primal Wrath, which should be used to apply it to all nearby targets, but avoid casting it repeatedly unless it needs refreshing. Excess Combo Points are spent on Ferocious Bite for priority damageto trigger Rampant Ferocity. Apex Predator's Craving procs are spent as quickly as possible. Key notes are:
- Swipe Brutal Slash replaces Shred as soon as an additional target is present, and you also need to make sure to maintain Thrash on all nearby targets as much as possible.
- Rake should be maintained on as many targets as possible, using any Sudden Ambush procsto amplify them. Aim not to overwrite stronger snapshot Bleeds when possible while switching targets quickly. Moonfire with Lunar Inspiration should also be maintained when at lower target counts.
Feral Druid Opening Sequence
Feral has a relatively fixed opening sequence to generate enough Combo Points to get its Bleeds set up, then enters into its cooldowns. How you spend your first few sets of Combo Points, however, varies depending on target count, so select the encounter type below:
Encounter Type | |
---|---|
Single-target | AoE |
- Cast Prowl before combat starts.
- Cast Rake
- Cast Shred until you are at 5 Combo Points.
- Cast Swipe Brutal Slash until you are at 5 Combo Points.
- Cast Berserk.
- Cast Tiger's Fury and spend your opening Combo Points on Primal Wrath.
- Cast Tiger's Fury and apply Rip to your primary target.
- Cast Tiger's Fury and immediately apply Rip.
- Continue with the normal priority list.
Always try to have all of your major effects applied before entering into Berserk, as you will be spending a lot of time casting building and spending aggressively due to the resource flood. Some notes are:
- Both Berserk and Tiger's Fury are off the GCD so that they can be used alongside another ability immediately.
Tier Set Bonus for Feral Druid
During The War Within Pre-patch, the Season 4 set bonus from Dragonflight is still available. The Benevolent Embersage's Guidance focuses on Feral Frenzy, and grants the following bonuses:
- Druid Feral 10.2 Class Set 2pc — casting Feral Frenzy also grants Smoldering Frenzy, increasing all damage you deal by 20% for 8 seconds.
- Druid Feral 10.2 Class Set 4pc — reduces the cooldown of Feral Frenzy by 15 seconds, and during Smoldering Frenzy, enemies burn for 10% of the damage you deal to them over 10 seconds.
This bonus requires you to take Feral Frenzy at all times to activate the effect. While extremely powerful, adding in a big 30-second cooldown burst window to overlap with other effects; it plays intuitively. You simply cast it on cooldown, making sure to line other cooldowns up with these casts. Make sure as well to have all of your DoTs set up before entering into it — you want to fill the 8 seconds with as much direct damage as possible.
Feral Druid Talent Details
Certain talents on the tree have specific interactions and management styles that change your approach. Below, we cover the most rotation-altering picks and how to play around them.
Rotation Warping Talents
Bloodtalons
When playing with Bloodtalons, you will often be playing in a cycle. That means you will trigger the effect by spending Energy in quick succession via Shred into Rake into Thrash/ Brutal Slash (if taken), and then sit on the three charges before you consume them for a Finisher. If you do not have any charges remaining from a previous cycle, that means you need to think about your Energy pool before casting a Finisher to make sure you can quickly cast three different Combo Point generators following that to re-activate the buff.
Due to there now being 3 charges, you should be able to buff all of your finishers with Bloodtalons with as little waste as possible. Plan out expected refreshes of Rake with Tiger's Fury to efficiently generate these stacks, and aim to overlap your Rip Bleed inside this buff window as well paired with a Bloodtalons stack.
Adaptive Swarm
Playing around Adaptive Swarm has some small quirks that can be optimized if you choose to do so, and there are additional rules to consider depending on if you play with Unbridled Swarm:
- Adaptive Swarm - when played, this should be applied to your main target with Bleeds active. This can be refreshed, and the charges will be added if it bounces back from an ally. The ideal tactic (once you have an active swarm) is usually to refresh a swarm on the boss that has 1 or 2 stacks as close-to-optimal to the end of the duration as possible, refreshing the dot and extending the duration on your desired target.
- Unbridled Swarm - grants Adaptive Swarm bounces a chance
to clone into two swarms, making the ability more complex to optimize with
slightly different rules for single-target and AoE:
- In single-target, ideally, you should build up swarms and then leave them alone. When you do not have any (or few) active swarms, cast it on the enemy (refreshing 1-2 stacks at the end of the duration as with a normal swarm). When you have a lot of active swarms, cast it on an ally with 1 stack or no swarms on them. This is to maximize the possible number of bounces (and, therefore, chances for cloning).
- On multi-target, you generally apply the same rule to enemy targets; Prioritizing enemies with 2 stacks, then 1 stack, and finally targets without any swarm active. In Mythic+, you can refresh active swarms on allies between pulls when out of combat to keep them rolling between different packs. Your priority should be 2 stacks > 1 stack > no swarm > 3 stacks in that order.
Sudden Ambush
Sudden Ambush procs are generated from Finishers, so you will generally be at zero Combo Points when this is generated. Ideally, you should spend these on Rake if possible for the Stealth damage bonus and, when possible, pair it with Tiger's Fury to snapshot it at its highest potential. In multi-target situations, you should use this on separate targets to have multiple stronger Rakes ticking. In contrast, try to avoid overwriting a buffed Rake in single-target if you can. In all other situations, use it for Shred if you have excess procs. Note as well that during Berserk, this adds another multiplier to both of these abilities, keeping it valuable during cooldowns.
Brutal Slash
When using Brutal Slash, try to ensure that you always have at least one charge on cooldown, but bank charges for when a wave of enemies is about to spawn. Try to have short-duration buffs such as Tiger's Fury active for as many high-target casts as possible. In single-target, this is worth casting as a more energy-efficient equivalent to Shred. With Bloodtalons taken as well, this is usually the third activator in single-target when you have your Bleeds already maintained.
Lunar Inspiration
Lunar Inspiration revolves around keeping up the Moonfire DoT. This should be maintained on a single target at all times. 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 are 4.8 seconds or less left on its duration to make maximum use of the pandemic effect. With this talent, it also becomes a Bloodtalons activator.
Apex Predator's Craving
Apex Predator's Craving is quite simple to play around with — whenever a proc happens, you should aim to consume it as quickly as possible to avoid wasting a follow-up proc. Due to the Ferocious Bite being free of any resource cost and dealing the maximum possible damage, there is no reason to sit on these procs when they occur.
These procs also have their trigger chance reduced as additional Rips are applied in AoE, meaning that your trigger rate should be roughly similar at most target counts.
Feral Druid Cooldowns
Feral comes with 2 DPS cooldowns, one being a short cooldown, high uptime buff that is more rotational, while 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, and is also off the Global cooldown. Additionally, it instantly restores 50 Energy. It should be used on cooldown, but try to burn any excess Energy before casting so it does not waste the generation portion.
- Berserk has a 15-second duration and a 3-minute cooldown
(reduced to 2 with Berserk: Heart of the Lion), and provides the
following benefits:
- Generate 1 Combo Point every 1.5 seconds
- Combo Point generating abilities generate 1 additional Combo Point
- Finishing Moves restore up to 3 Combo Points generated over the cap of 5
- Ability damage increased by 10%
You should always be planning your Energy around the refund provided by Tiger's Fury, so drain in advance as its cooldown is ending. You should aim to refresh any Bleeds that you need to while it is active for the snapshot effect.
Berserk requires you to more aggressively cycle between builders and Finishers due to the resource flood. This means you will sometimes drain yourself, but try to make sure you enter the window with as much Energy in reserve as possible to cast as many high-impact spells while it is active. Remember that the overflow protection granted means that you can generate up to 3 extra Combo Points without worrying about resource waste.
Mastering Feral Druid Mechanics
The above information tells you everything you need to know to get the most out of your Feral Druid's DPS toolkit. Here, we go through the more specific details that let you understand the fundamentals of what makes Feral Druid tick, helping your decision-making and understanding of how it works.
Feral Druid Insights
Combo Points and Energy
As a Feral Druid, the core of your abilities needs Energy to be used. Your Energy bar has a capacity of 100 Energy and refills at a rate of 11 Energy per second. Your Energy regeneration is increased by your Haste.
Feral has a pool of abilities that build Combo Points (defined as builders) being Shred, Rake, Swipe / Brutal Slash, and Thrash. To go with this, you have abilities that spend these (defined as Finishers), consuming all current 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.
Energy Pooling
Energy pooling is beneficial and should be done in most circumstances. It is not mandatory but can be helpful to improve your output when dealing with specific fight mechanics. Making sure you have a healthy pool of Energy before dumping allows you to frontload damage more effectively. You should always make sure to spend any excess before pressing Tiger's Fury if possible, to not waste the generation it grants.
Omen of Clarity procs should be used as soon as your cycle allows so that they do not get overwritten by subsequent procs. With Moment of Clarity, this allows for more flexibility to sit on one charge, allowing it to accumulate up to 2.
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 DoT maintenance gameplay. Bear in mind, if you are playing Circle of Life and Death all of the below effects expire 25% faster.
- Rake costs 35 Energy to apply and lasts for 15 seconds, making it the easiest tool to manage.
- Rip costs 20 Energy, but its duration is also dependent on how many Combo Points it is applied with, so you should aim to apply Rip at 5 Combo Points for the best Energy efficiency. When done at 5, it lasts for 24 seconds.
- Thrash costs 40 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 at all times in AoE and Single-Target. If playing Thrashing Claws, however, this is completely removed from the rotation and instead maintained by Shred and Swipe.
If you have taken the Lunar Inspiration talent, then you also need to have 100% uptime with Moonfire. It can be cast from 40 yards, making it easier to maintain as a filler during downtime or on different targets not in melee range.
Snapshotting
Bleed snapshotting does still exist for Feral Druids, but it only works with some specific damage-increasing buffs. Snapshotting means that the damage to the Bleed effect will be decided at the time of application and carry over the amplification effect of the following buffs (where applicable) for the entire duration.
The effects that have the snapshot interaction with Bleeds are:
- Tiger's Fury;
- Sudden Ambush;
- Bloodtalons.
Tiger's Fury applies to any Bleed effect, while Bloodtalons will only apply to your Finishers in Rip and Primal Wrath. Sudden Ambush also only applies to Rake via the Pouncing Strikes effect.
When to Refresh Bleeds and Buffs
Feral benefits from the Pandemic effect on many tools, allowing you to refresh specific DoT effects, buff up to 30% early, and carry the remaining duration into the next cast. This does not carry over any snapshotting effects; they need to be present when the new effect is applied. The pandemic timers are as follows:
- Rake — 4.5 seconds
- Rip — 7.2 seconds (assuming 5 Combo Points)
- Thrash — 4.5 seconds
- Moonfire — 4.8 seconds
Note that these amounts are reduced by 25% when using Circle of Life and Death due to the increased tick speed.
Tracking these is made considerably easier when using external addons to keep tabs on each buff and debuff. It is recommended to use some additional tools to make sure you are always aware of your current buff/debuff state due to how core it is for Feral, so check our addons page for recommendations.
Ferocious Bite
You should always be pooling Energy to 50 before using Ferocious Bite if you intend to cast it (provided it does not impact your Rip uptime). The additional 100% damage is significant due to how hard Bites can hit in Dragonflight, especially if playing Saber Jaws.
As covered in the rotation section, ensure you have room to cast Ferocious Bite before committing the resources to it. That means you have your Bleed effects in Rake and Rip maintained and have enough excess resources that it will not cause either to fall off.
Other Talent Details
These are details on talents that are generally core picks in most builds, but are not rotationally warping enough to require extra rotational explanation. These are just mechanical details worth noting.
Coiled to Spring
This provides some level of overflow protection to Combo Points, granting a 10% increase to finishers if you generate above your cap. Doing so is not strictly a benefit, so this talent is more of an option to make life easier when balancing your resources rather than something to actively play around, as it can be hard to fit into a build.
Thrashing Claws
Thrashing Claws is a performance loss, but it does simplify the rotation by completely removing the need to press Thrash actively. While it is not usually recommended, it can make the spec easier to learn early on by replacing this maintenance with your regular Shred and Swipe casts.
Moment of Clarity
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.
Feral Frenzy
Feral Frenzy should be used when you have 0-2 Combo Points, and you should follow this up with a Finishing Move. This means you need to ensure that you have the Energy available to use the surge of Combo Points instantly. Ideally, you should pair every other cast of this with Tiger's Fury, too, to boost the damage. With the Season 4 Set bonus, this naturally aligns with Tiger's Fury, and you should plan around using this as soon as it is ready.
Incarnation
Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane empowers your Berserk by increasing its duration to 20 seconds and reducing the Energy cost of all abilities by 20%. This should still be used on cooldown, and it is essential to pair it with other damage boosts like Tiger's Fury to make the most of it due to it being a cooldown. Aim to have spent all resources as it is about to expire.
Convoke the Spirits
Convoke the Spirits should be cast on cooldown, but try to save it for burst periods if needed. Casting this after dumping Energy and Combo Points is good due to the spells casting for free and the flood of resources it provides.
Ashamane's Guidance
Ashamane's Guidance, when paired specifically with Incarnation, each of your Rake and Rip effects on a target individually increase their damage taken from you by 3%. This is active during Incarnation and for 30 seconds after it fades. While this is active, aim to keep them both active throughout.
Soul of the Forest
Soul of the Forest is a simple talent that boosts your Finishers and smooths out your Energy generation. The benefit this talent confers is enormous to the rotation after each Finisher and is always taken due to how much additional resource generation it represents.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4, no gameplay changes but restructured page for readability.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5, moved Convoke to the primary button, added AoE opener switches.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2 and restructured the rotation tool.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Restructured for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5, small tweaks and notes about Dire Fixation AoE.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1 to include new Berserk changes and updated builds.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Druid Guides
Guides from Other Classes
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.
- Hunter Changes in the War Within Beta 55789
- The War Within Official Cinematic: Shadow's Beneath
- World First Mythic Garrosh Solo in MoP Remix
- Druid Changes in the War Within Beta Build 55789
- Alysrazor Bugged in the War Within Pre-Patch
- The War Within Pre-Patch Early Mythic+ DPS, Tank and Healer Log Rankings
- The War Within and Season of Discovery Hotfixes, July 25th
- Game Time Incoming for Players on North American Realms