Feral Druid DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (Season 1)
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Feral Druid in World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1). We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Feral DPS Druid talents.
- 5. Bloodtalons Mythic+ Build
- 6. Delves Build
- 7. PvP Talents (War Mode)
Best War Within Talent Builds for Feral Druid
Note that these builds are popular build recommendations for various different damage profiles. For more specific recommendations for the Raid and Mythic+, check out the dedicated pages below.
Talent Cheat Sheet for Feral Druids
Feral has two fairly distinct Hero Talent trees that lean into different aspects, but their actual gameplay impact and talent decision-making is minimal. Currently they are tuned very close together, with Wildstalker having the edge in single-target situations, while Druid of the Claw provides more flexibility with cleave/AoE. They are both very similar in terms of throughput potential though, and either can be played in all content.
Recommended Build Import Codes:
Single-target builds give up the majority of Feral's AoE tools to specialize, but it does not sacrifice much to pick these up for dungeon situations. Both Wildstalker and Druid of the Claw build in similar ways. Due to them both being competitive, we have set up a tool below to toggle recommendations between your desired Hero Talent tree. Note that whichever you pick will affect the entire page, and information will be tailored to that selection.
War Within Feral Druid Talent Builds
Hero Talents | |
---|---|
Druid of the Claw | Wildstalker |
Single-Target / Raid Build
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In single-target, both hero talents tend to build fairly similarly, making sure to pick up a strong core of Energy talents and enhancements to Ferocious Bite to empower finishers. They also need both Berserk and Convoke the Spirits to provide the punchy 2-minute burst that Feral has access to. Some notes about specific talents are:
- Coiled to Spring is an option to further empower finishers, but it comes at the cost of Energy options for some builds so is more of an optional pick. This does help with some comfort allowing for redundancy in case of overcapping from Primal Fury.
Bloodtalons Mythic+ Build
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Both builds operate on the same framework, aiming to maintain Rip via Primal Wrath and use excess Combo Points on Ferocious Bite to trigger Rampant Ferocity. Some individual notes are as follows:
- Both pick up the core AoE talents Primal Wrath and Rampant Ferocity to provide AoE Rip application and a way to convert Ferocious Bite into AoE damage.
Delves Build
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Raiding
While the builds above cover different broad profiles, they do not cover the specific nuances of each boss. It can be a tricky decision to decide between other conflicting interests. Generally, we recommend the Single-Target Convoke build for most raid encounters, but for bespoke builds made for each boss, you can check our tips page below:
Mythic+
Mythic+ tends to require a more versatile damage profile that can necessitate you mixing and matching different talents to cover a full run, depending on affixes or composition each week. You can check our page below if you want advice tailored to Mythic+.
PvP Talents (War Mode)
"War Mode" is an optional feature that enables open-world PvP encounters that confer some benefits when active:
- Grants access to PvP talents in the open-world.
- 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
- 10% more experience gained while leveling.
- Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.
With the benefits of War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will open yourself up to open-world PvP, so be aware of hostile enemy players who could interfere with you; this is a risk you will have to decide on your own if you want to take.
If you are interested in doing PvP as a Feral Druid or want to know how to navigate Feral Druid PvP encounters, check out our dedicated PvP guide.
Feral Druid War Mode Talents
In this section, we will rank the PvP talents for leveling and playing in open-world PvE scenarios.
Feral Druid PvP Talents
Generally, the selections are made to optimize your ability to kill enemies faster, increasing your pace when moving through content.
- Fresh Wound can provide additional burst to targets when applying your Rake effect and is a solid increase across the board when cycling between targets.
- Ferocious Wound provides additional damage to your Ferocious Bite that can be useful on high health targets due to the maximum health reduction it applies. Value is mostly tied to the difficulty of the enemies you are encountering.
- Leader of the Pack increases the movement speed of you and nearby allies by 10% and causes players to heal for 3% of their maximum health when they critically strike with an 8-second cooldown. This provides some additional speed and sustain passively.
- Savage Momentum causes successful interrupts with Skull Bash to reduce the cooldown of Tiger's Fury, Stampeding Roar and Survival Instincts by 10 seconds. This can be useful for moving around the world and extra burst windows on targets. Still, you will generally be using Predator in the open-world, so that overlap makes it less damage-oriented.
- Thorns can provide some use if in situations with extra enemies present, to allow you to deal additional damage back when being hit.
King of the Jungle can provide minimal uses for extra movement speed. Still, you will only have a large number of Rips active if you are AoEing large groups with Primal Wrath, at which point you will likely not be moving far away.
Freedom of the Herd, High Winds, Reactive Resin, Malorne's Swiftness, Wicked Claws, and Strength of the Wild on the other hand, they have very limited PvE uses, being more focused on in-combat control and group assistance. These are much more focused on PvP encounters, so they are not recommended for open-world play.
Changelog
- 30 Sep. 2024: Updated single-target recommendation to Wildstalker.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for recent Bloodtalons hotfix and Druid of the Claw recommendation.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 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, slight touch ups but no major changes to builds.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5, moved Convoke build to recommended for single target.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2 with new builds.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7, small restructuring to some sections but same recommendations.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Re-added Hybrid build, reworded some segments and also highlighted importance of Dire Fixation.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1 to include new Patch 10.1 changes and build options.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed 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.
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