Feral Druid DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. What has changed in Patch 7.3?
  • 3. What has changed in Patch 7.2.5?
  • 4. Strengths
  • 5. Weaknesses
  • 6. Viability in the Current Patch
  • 7. Contents
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Spell Summary
  • 2. Main Resources
  • 3. Artifact Ability
  • 4. Basic Abilities
    • 4.1. Bleeds
    • 4.2. Other Abilities
    • 4.3. Offensive Cooldowns
    • 4.4. Additional Utility
  • 5. ChangeLog
• ×Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Talent Cheat Sheet
    • 2.1. Open World, Levelling and Questing
    • 2.2. Dungeons and Raids
      • 2.2.1. Single Target
      • 2.2.2. AoE
  • 3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
  • 4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
  • 5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
  • 6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
    • 1.1. Early Progression
    • 1.2. Patch 7.2 Progression
  • 2. Artifact Ability
  • 3. Relic Choice
    • 3.1. Tear the Flesh/Razor Fangs
    • 3.2. Razor Fangs/Ashamanes Energy/Feral Power
    • 3.3. Feral Instinct
    • 3.4. Sharpened Claws
    • 3.5. AoE Relics
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. Optimization between Light/Shadow Tier 2 and Relic Tier 3 Choices
  • 2. Tier 2 Priorities
    • 2.1. Best
    • 2.2. Good
    • 2.3. Average
    • 2.4. Weak
  • 3. Tier 3 Priorities
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single Target Rotation
    • 1.1. Opening Sequence
  • 2. Multiple Target Rotation
    • 2.1. Ashamane's Frenzy
    • 2.2. Brutal Slash
    • 2.3. Long Duration Adds
      • 2.3.1. 2-3 Targets
      • 2.3.2. 4-8 Targets
      • 2.3.3. 9+ Targets
    • 2.4. Short Duration Adds
    • 2.5. Priority Targets
  • 3. Cooldowns
  • 4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Feral Druid
    • 4.1. Mastery: Razor Claws
    • 4.2. Combo Points and Energy
    • 4.3. Single Target Rotation in Detail
      • 4.3.1. Bleeds & DoTs
      • 4.3.2. What to do the Rest of the Time
      • 4.3.3. Energy Management
      • 4.3.4. When to Refresh Bleeds
      • 4.3.5. When to Refresh Savage Roar
      • 4.3.6. Ferocious Bite
    • 4.4. Detailed Cooldown Usage
      • 4.4.1. Tiger's Fury
      • 4.4.2. Fury of Ashamane
      • 4.4.3. Berserk
      • 4.4.4. Tier 1 Talents
      • 4.4.5. Tier 5 Talents
      • 4.4.6. Tier 6 Talents
      • 4.4.7. Tier 7 Talents
  • 5. Tier 19 Set Bonuses
  • 6. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
  • 7. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
    • 1.1. Jagged Wounds Builds:
    • 1.2. Incarnation Builds:
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
  • 3. Advanced Stats
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Druids
      • 1.1.1. Rebirth
      • 1.1.2. Remove Corruption
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Feral Druids
      • 1.2.1. Regrowth Macro
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Druids
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. Omen Threat Meter
      • 2.1.5. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.6. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.7. Recount / Skada / Details!
      • 2.1.8. Grid and GridClickSets (Optional)
      • 2.1.9. TellMeWhen
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Feral Druids
      • 2.2.1. DotFocus
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List
    • 1.1. Trinkets
    • 1.2. Tier 19 & 20 Bonus Combinations
    • 1.3. Evaluating Upgrades with dynamic Item Levels
  • 2. Racial Bonuses
  • 3. Legendary Items
    • 3.1. 7.1.5 Legendaries
    • 3.2. 7.2 Legendaries
    • 3.3. 7.2.5 Legendaries
    • 3.4. Recommended Choices
  • 4. Loot Competition
  • 5. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Feral Druids in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Feral Druid guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author and Reviewer

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.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Xanzara, a top-ranking Feral Druid, who sometimes streams on YouTube.

1. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
15	? Predator	✔ Blood Scent	✘ Lunar Inspiration
30	✘ Renewal	✔ Displacer Beast	✔ Wild Charge
45	✔ Balance Affinity	✔ Guardian Affinity	? Restoration Affinity
60	? Mighty Bash	? Mass Entanglement	? Typhoon
75	✘ Soul of the Forest	✔ Incarnation: King of the Jungle	? Jagged Wounds
90	✘ Sabertooth	✔ Brutal Slash	✔ Savage Roar
100	? Moment of Clarity	✔ Bloodtalons	✘ Elune's Guidance

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Talent Cheat Sheet

Feral has a number of flex choices within the talent tree that lean toward different damage delivery methods, both with single target and AoE focuses. As such, below are 3 builds for different circumstances that hone in on the power talents.

2.1. Open World, Levelling and Questing

This build is very much focused upon your open world gameplay allowing for additional boosts and flexibility with movement between encounters.

• Level 15: Predator
• Level 30: Displacer Beast / Wild Charge
• Level 45: Restoration Affinity / Balance Affinity
• Level 60: Mighty Bash
• Level 75: Jagged Wounds
• Level 90: Brutal Slash
• Level 100: Moment of Clarity

2.2. Dungeons and Raids

Due to Feral having so many split options between single target and AoE, these are two separate builds depending on your primary focus, and the encounter at hand.

2.2.1. Single Target

• Level 15: Blood Scent
• Level 30: Displacer Beast / Wild Charge
• Level 45: Any Choice
• Level 60: Any Choice
• Level 75: Incarnation: King of the Jungle
• Level 90: Savage Roar
• Level 100: Bloodtalons

2.2.2. AoE

• Level 15: Blood Scent
• Level 30: Displacer Beast / Wild Charge
• Level 45: Any Choice
• Level 60: Any Choice
• Level 75: Incarnation: King of the Jungle
• Level 90: Brutal Slash
• Level 100: Bloodtalons

3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

? Predator

✔ Blood Scent

✘ Lunar Inspiration

• Predator causes the cooldown of Tiger's Fury to be reset when a target with one of your Bleed effects on them dies, and lasts an additional 4 seconds.
• Blood Scent increases the critical strike chance of your Cat Form melee attacks by 10% against targets that you have a Bleed effect on.
• Lunar Inspiration allows the use of Moonfire in Cat Form, causing it to grant 1 Combo Point, deal damage based on Attack Power, and cost 30 Energy.

Blood Scent is the recommended option in most situations providing a flat boost to Critical Strike.

Predator can be situationally useful if you can consistently get 3 or more resets per minute, however, if these are going to overlap and minimise uptime of the Tiger's Fury buff, this is diminished. It is however very powerful in dungeons and in the open world where resets happen frequently.

Lunar Inspiration is still very close in single-target, and can win out in 2-3 target cleave situations, but has a much more significant impact on the rotation so is not recommended for such a small gain.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

✘ Renewal

✔ Displacer Beast

✔ Wild Charge

• Renewal is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It heals you for 30% of your maximum health, it is usable in all shapeshift forms, and it is off the global cooldown.
• Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward, activates Cat Form, and grants you a 50% increase in movement speed for 2 seconds.
• Wild Charge is an active ability that is off the global cooldown and which differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
  • No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
  • Travel Form: you jump to an ally's location.
  • Moonkin Form: you leap backwards.
  • Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilising them for 4 seconds.
  • Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
  • Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

This talent tier provides some situational choices, but the ultimate decision will probably be between Wild Charge and Displacer Beast. Wild Charge has a shorter cooldown than Displacer Beast, but it requires a target to be present where you wish to go, and also puts you in danger when moving through damaging areas (disadvantages that Displacer Beast does not share).

As for Renewal, the talent is generally not worth taking since you have other healing options (such as Regrowth), and you can always take Restoration Affinity as well if you feel you really need more healing.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

✔ Balance Affinity

✔ Guardian Affinity

? Restoration Affinity

• Balance Affinity grants you the Astral Influence passive ability, which increases the range of all your abilities by 5 yards. Additionally, you gain access to the Balance-spec abilities Moonkin Form, Starsurge, Lunar Strike, Solar Wrath, and Sunfire.
• Guardian Affinity grants you the Thick Hide passive ability, which reduces all your damage taken by 6%. Additionally, you gain access to the Guardian-spec abilities Mangle, Ironfur, and Frenzied Regeneration.
• Restoration Affinity grants you the Ysera's Gift passive ability, which heals you (or a nearby ally, if you are at full health yourself) for 3% of your maximum health every 5 seconds. Additionally, you gain access to the Restoration-spec abilities Rejuvenation, Healing Touch, Swiftmend.

For increasing your DPS, the only option in this tier is Balance Affinity where the increased ability range will make it easier to multi-DoT targets. Even doing damage in Moonkin Form is acceptable for short periods of time when you cannot otherwise attack the target in melee range (though its DPS output obviously does not compare with yours in Feral).

Guardian Affinity offers a very useful passive damage reduction that will almost always be of great worth during progression raiding. Moreover, going into Bear Form (combined with using Survival Instincts), you can actually successfully tank the boss for a short while, even in Mythic raids.

Finally, Restoration Affinity is the least appealing talent in this tier. The active abilities it provides will not be of much use during raids, but they can be good during solo content, while the passive ability is decent for raids but most often out-classed by the Guardian Affinity damage reduction passive.

6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

? Mighty Bash

? Mass Entanglement

? Typhoon

• Mighty Bash is an active ability with a 50-second cooldown, which stuns the target for 5 seconds. It is usable in all shapeshift forms.
• Mass Entanglement is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown, which roots the target and all enemies within 15 yards of them in place for 30 seconds. Damage done to rooted targets may break the effect. Mass Entanglement is usable in all shapeshift forms.
• Typhoon is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown. It knocks back all targets within 15-yards in a cone in front of you, dazing them for 6 seconds. It is usable in all shapeshift forms.

Your choice here depends entirely on encounter mechanics or content you are applying it to. Typhoon and Mighty Bash both provide powerful control methods if you can capitalise upon them, but it is entirely personal preference.

7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

✘ Soul of the Forest

✔ Incarnation: King of the Jungle

? Jagged Wounds

• Soul of the Forest causes your finishing moves to grant 5 Energy per Combo Point spent and deal 5% increased damage.
• Incarnation: King of the Jungle replaces Berserk. It lasts 30 seconds (up from Berserk's 15), and in addition to Berserk's other bonuses, it also allows Prowl to be used once while in combat and causes Shred and Rake to deal damage as though you were in stealth. It does not trigger the global cooldown.
• Jagged Wounds causes Rip, Rake, and Thrash to deal their damage 20% faster (the duration is reduced but the overall damage stays the same).

Currently Incarnation: King of the Jungle serves as the recommended option, enhancing the power of your cooldown window significantly whilst not impacting the rotation significantly.

Soul of the Forest is an acceptable choice due to it simplifying the rotation, but is behind both other options so is not recommended.

Jagged Wounds is competitive and can perform well in multi-target situations, and scales very well with gear. Also increases damage more consistently over the course of a fight rather than in one big burst.

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

✘ Sabertooth

✔ Brutal Slash

✔ Savage Roar

• Sabertooth causes Ferocious Bite to deal 20% increased damage and always refresh the duration of Rip.
• Brutal Slash replaces Swipe, has 3 charges and an 12-second recharge time (reduced by Haste), and like Swipe, also awards one Combo Point when used.
• Savage Roar is an active ability (a finisher) that grants you 15% increased damage for its duration. Its duration depends on how many Combo Points you use it with, as follows.
  • 1 Point: 12 seconds.
  • 2 Points: 18 seconds.
  • 3 Points: 24 seconds.
  • 4 Points: 30 seconds.
  • 5 Points: 36 seconds.

Savage Roar is currently performing the best in pure single target situations, and should be used if you only need to focus on dealing damage to one target.

Brutal Slash quickly pulls ahead at 2 or more targets, and should always be taken if cleave or AoE is a priority.

Sabertooth is worse in almost all situations now, and despite it making the rotation slightly easier, is not really recommended in any situation.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

? Moment of Clarity

✔ Bloodtalons

✘ Elune's Guidance

• Moment of Clarity causes Omen of Clarity to affect the next 3 Shred, Thrash and Swipe casts (up from 1), increases their damage by 20%, and also permanently increases your maximum Energy by 30.
• Bloodtalons causes Regrowth casts to make the next two melee abilities (used within 30 seconds) deal 50% increased damage for their full duration (which is of notable relevance if they are Bleeds).
• Elune's Guidance is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown that instantly grants you 5 Combo Points, as well as 1 Combo Point every second for 5 seconds.

The go to choice in this tier is still Bloodtalons in 7.3 due to its consistent and predictable damage increase. This can also work very well when combined with Brutal Slash in AoE situations, so despite losing a lot of its strength it is now slightly more versatile and less punishing to optimise.

Moment of Clarity is, on average, roughly equal to Bloodtalons but is significantly more random. This means that you can take it if you so choose, and it will be easier to play with, but you will see less consistent results.

Elune's Guidance may see some uses on specific fights requiring a very short burst of additional resources, but is currently much worse than both other options so is not really used.

10. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 29 Aug. 2017: Updated for new 7.3 talent tree layout changes with new build recommendations.
• 12 Jun. 2017: Updated for 7.2.5.
• 22 Apr. 2017: Clarified that Wild Charge when in Travel Form causes you to jump to the location of an ally, and not to fly to them.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 09 Jan. 2017: Updated for Patch 7.1.5.
• 25 Oct. 2016: Patch 7.1 updates
  • Added a mention that Incarnation is now off the global cooldown.
  • Updated Guardian Affinity's description (Thick Hide now passively reduces damage by 6%, down from 10).
  • Updated Bloodtalons' description (Regrowth has replaced Healing Touch for non-Restoration Druid specs).
• 30 Jul. 2016: Updated tier 1 talent discussion.
• 22 Jul. 2016: Improved tier 1 talent discussion slightly.
• 20 Jul. 2016: Updated the amount by which Bloodtalons increases the damage of the next 2 abilities to 40%.
• 19 Jul. 2016: Updated some small details regarding Soul of the Forest and Savage Roar to account for changes that came about in a recent hotfix.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.