Feral Druid DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.0.7

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 a close-to-optimal build and a more straightforward breakdown. While the recommendations on the page below are not strictly optimal for endgame, 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:

The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.

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.

We have provided rotation switches below that allow you to populate the priority list based on talents we recommend in the Talents section. Check each box based on your current talents . Passive options or talents without direct impact on the rotation are not included.

Talent Selections
Apex Predator's Craving	Adaptive Swarm	Berserk
Bloodtalons	Brutal Slash	Convoke the Spirits
Feral Frenzy	Lunar Inspiration	Sudden Ambush

1. If you have no Bloodtalons charges, pool Energy to allow for a quick burst of 3 different Combo Point generators following your next Finisher.
2. Cast Tiger's Fury on cooldown, ideally at 30 Energy or less.
3. Cast Berserk if available, ideally alongside Tiger's Fury.
4. Cast Convoke the Spirits, ideally with Tiger's Fury active and less than 3 Combo Points.
5. Cast Adaptive Swarm.
6. Cast Feral Frenzy if at less than 2 Combo Points. Try to align with Tiger's Fury if possible.
7. Cast Ferocious Bite with Apex Predator's Craving procs.
8. Maintain Rip on your target, refreshing if less than 7 seconds remaining with 5 Combo Points.
9. Cast Ferocious Bite if at 5 Combo Points, Rip is active and your Energy is about to cap.
10. Maintain Moonfire on your target.
11. Maintain Rake, spending Sudden Ambush procs if possible on it.
12. Maintain Rake, refreshing at 4 seconds remaining if you are below 5 Combo Points.
13. Cast Brutal Slash with charges available to build Combo Points.
14. Maintain Thrash, ideally with Omen of Clarity procs.
15. Cast Shred 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 if applicable. After that, your Energy and Combo Points are used for direct damage, but always make sure you have enough in the tank to keep Bleeds active.

Talent Selections
Apex Predator's Craving	Adaptive Swarm	Berserk
Bloodtalons	Brutal Slash	Convoke the Spirits
Double-Clawed Rake	Feral Frenzy	Lunar Inspiration
Primal Wrath	Sudden Ambush

1. If you have no Bloodtalons charges, pool Energy to allow for a quick burst of 3 different Combo Point generators following your next Finisher.
2. Cast Tiger's Fury on cooldown, ideally at 30 Energy or less.
3. Cast Berserk if available, ideally alongside Tiger's Fury.
4. Cast Convoke the Spirits, ideally with Tiger's Fury active and less than 3 Combo Points.
5. Cast Adaptive Swarm.
6. Cast Feral Frenzy if at less than 2 Combo Points. Try to align with Tiger's Fury if possible.
7. Cast Primal Wrath if at 5 Combo Points.
8. Cast Ferocious Bite with Apex Predator's Craving procs.
9. Maintain Rip on as many targets as possible.
10. Cast Ferocious Bite if at 5 Combo Points, Rip is active on all targets and your Energy is about to cap.
11. Maintain Thrash, ideally with Omen of Clarity procs.
12. Cast Brutal Slash if you have 2 or more charges.
13. Cycle Rake between targets, spending Sudden Ambush procs if possible on it.
14. Maintain Rake on as many targets as possible.
15. Cycle Rake on as many targets as possible.
16. Maintain Moonfire on all targets when 3 or less are active.
17. Cast Brutal Slash.
18. Cast Swipe to build Combo Points.
19. Cast Shred with no Brutal Slash charges available.

Many of the rules that Feral plays by in single-target remain in Cleave and AoE situations, so you will find your gameplay similar with some slight deviations alongside some multi-DoTing when possible. Your finishers are largely replaced by Primal Wrath whenever taken, with Apex Predator's Craving procs being consumed as quickly as possible.

Swipe 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. You should also try to keep Rake active on as many additional targets as your Energy generation allows (this also applies to Moonfire with Lunar Inspiration taken).

Feral has minor quirks depending on which talents you select when navigating the opening sequence to set up its Bleed effects. Select options from the tool below to populate the list:

Talent Selections
Adaptive Swarm	Bloodtalons	Brutal Slash
Convoke the Spirits	Feral Frenzy	Lunar Inspiration

1. Cast Prowl before combat starts.
2. Cast Rake
3. Apply Moonfire.
4. Cast Brutal Slash.
5. Cast Thrash if you have not yet triggered Bloodtalons.
6. Cast Shred until you are at 5 Combo Points.
7. Cast Adaptive Swarm.
8. Cast Berserk.
9. Cast Tiger's Fury and immediately apply Rip.
10. Cast Feral Frenzy.
11. Cast Berserk and immediately Ferocious Bite.
12. Cast Convoke the Spirits whenever you are low on Energy and Combo Points with Tiger's Fury active.

Always try to have all of your major effects applied before entering into Berserk in single-target, as you will be spending a lot of time casting Shred and Ferocious Bite due to the resource flood. Convoke the Spirits is also relatively flexible when you use it - ideally when you are low on resources. Both Berserk and Tiger's Fury are off the GCD so that they can be used alongside another ability immediately.

In AoE situations, the opening Rip is replaced with Primal Wrath, and Shred is replaced with either Swipe / Brutal Slash or applying multiple Rakes to build to your first finisher.

Season 1 introduces a Tier Set available from the Vault of the Incarnates raid, and the Inspiration Catalyst, unlocked in patch 10.0.5. The bonuses granted by the Lost Landcaller's Vesture set are:

• Feral Druid 2pc increases the damage of Rip and Ferocious Bite by 6%.
• Feral Druid 4pc causes Finishing moves to increase your Rip, Rake and Thrash damage, and increase the chance for Shred, Swipe / Brutal Slash, Rake and Thrash to critically strike by 2% per Combo Point spent for 4 seconds.

While both of these are solid bonuses and provide a substantial increase most of Feral's damage they do not require any actual gameplay chances to use. The 4-piece on the surface looks quite complex, but just playing the rotation, as usual, will provide the most benefit, and micro-managing the buff is unnecessary.

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 two charges before you consume them for a Finisher. If you do not have a buff already active 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 after to trigger the buff again.

Try to make sure you sync your refreshes of Rake with Tiger's Fury windows wherever possible. This extends to Rip as well, which should also overlap with Bloodtalons stacks wherever possible to snapshot your Bleeds at their highest damage potential.

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:

• Base Adaptive Swarm 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.
• With Unbridled Swarm, Adaptive Swarm bounces each have 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 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, should be paired with Tiger's Fury to snapshot it at its highest possible damage. In multi-target situations, you should use this on separate targets to have multiple high-damage 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 you cannot consume these as the effect is naturally caused by it.

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. This is also a good Bloodtalons activator in single-target.

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 causes your Shred and Rake to behave as if you were in Stealth, granting their respective bonuses if using Pouncing Strikes. This has a 3-minute cooldown (but can be reduced by other talents), lasts 20 seconds, and is off the Global Cooldown. You should aim to pair this with as many other buffs as possible such as Bloodlust and Tiger's Fury.

You should always be planning your Energy around the refund provided by Tiger's Fury, so drain in advance as its cooldown ends. You should aim to refresh any Bleeds that you need to while it is active for the snapshot effect. Note as well in AoE scenarios (especially Mythic) if enemies are frequently dying and you are using Predator you can use this even if you are refreshing an old buff solely for the quick burst of Energy.

Berserk requires you to more aggressively cycle between builders and Finishers due to the refund provided. 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 as possible.

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.

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.

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.

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 you have taken the Lunar Inspiration talent, then you also need to have 100% uptime with Moonfire. Note this is not a Bleed, so it gains no benefit from Mastery. Still, 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.

All of your damage-over-time effects will expire 20% faster with Circle of Life and Death if taken, so bear this in mind.

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.

Bleed snapshotting does still exist for Feral Druids, but it only works with some specific damage-increasing buffs. Snapshotting means that the damage 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.

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 20% 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. There are some recommended options on our Addons page.

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, and making sure the Combo Points get the most significant return for investment is essential.

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.

Predator is quite straightforward. 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). Also, make sure that any target that is about to die has a Bleed applied to make sure to capitalize on it.

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.

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.

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 simultaneously. On single-target this is used as a cheap Combo Point builder due to the higher Energy efficiency compared to Shred, so make sure it is always recharging. Make sure to have as many charges as possible if extra targets are coming.

Bloodtalons provides a buff with two charges that increase the damage of your next two Finishers by 30% after you cast 3 separate Combo Point generators within 4 seconds. Activators are Shred, Rake, Swipe / Brutal Slash, Thrash, and Moonfire (with Lunar Inspiration taken). This means you will always need to pool some Energy to be able to fit in a quick burst of 3 abilities to trigger this buff, creating a cycle of pooling energy, casting a Finisher, triggering the buff, and repeating.

You should be aware of when you need to regain these charges, as you only need to do this every other Finisher, but with this talent taken you must make sure that you have it active for each cast. If you miss the buff when using a Finisher, it is a massive hit to the power of this talent.

Feral Frenzy should be used when you have 0 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.

Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane empowers your Berserk by increasing its duration to 30 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 should be cast on cooldown, but try to save it for burst periods if needed. Casting this after dumping Energy is good due to the spells casting for free.

Ashamane's Guidance when paired specifically with Incarnation has an assumed bug, where it cannot proc within an active buff and extend it, but you can extend a proc with a cast of Incarnation itself. In practice, this reduces its uptime compared to the expected value which is worth noting. It has roughly 1 RPPM, so will trigger very infrequently during an encounter so do not rely on it or hold anything for these.

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.

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.