Feral Druid DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.0.5

Level	Choices
15	✓ Predator	✓ Sabertooth	✗ Lunar Inspiration
25	? Tiger Dash	? Renewal	? Wild Charge
30	✓ Balance Affinity	? Guardian Affinity	? Restoration Affinity
35	? Mighty Bash	? Mass Entanglement	? Heart of the Wild
40	✓ Soul of the Forest	✗ Savage Roar	✗ Incarnation: King of the Jungle
45	✗ Scent of Blood	✓ Brutal Slash	✓ Primal Wrath
50	? Moment of Clarity	✓ Bloodtalons	? Feral Frenzy

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 Still Mind and Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

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. Below are two different options that will serve you best in different scenarios as a quick pick up and play build.

This build is very much focused upon your multi-target gameplay allowing for additional boosts and flexibility with movement between encounters. It also leverages extra targets dying to allow you to deal more damage, alongside better sustained AoE tools.

• Level 15: Predator
• Level 25: Player's Choice
• Level 30: Player's Choice
• Level 35: Player's Choice
• Level 40: Soul of the Forest
• Level 45: Primal Wrath
• Level 50: Bloodtalons

Note that if a Raid encounter specifically demands AoE, then the above build used in Dungeon situations will likely serve you better, in particular if you can capitalize upon Predator resets for single-target boosts. Otherwise, use the following build to get the most out of your damage to one target.

• Level 15: Sabertooth
• Level 25: Player's Choice
• Level 30: Player's Choice
• Level 35: Player's Choice
• Level 40: Soul of the Forest
• Level 45: Brutal Slash
• Level 50: Bloodtalons

While the builds above cover different broad profiles, they do not cover specific nuance of each individual boss. You can get a breakdown of each encounte ron our dedicated raid page below.

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. If you want advice tailored to Mythic+, you can check our page below.

Some of the Feral talents also require additional maintenance to make use of during moment to moment gameplay. You can find more details on how to incorporate these into your priority on our rotation page.

✔ Predator

✔ Sabertooth

✘ Lunar Inspiration

Tier 1 talents offer a variety of different damage boosting effects for different situations.

• Predator causes Tiger's Fury to last an additional 5 seconds, and the cooldown is reset whenever a target dies with one of your Bleed effects active on them.
• Sabertooth increases the damage of Ferocious Bite by 20%, and increases the duration of your Rip effect on the target by 1 second per Combo Point spent.
• 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.

Sabertooth will almost always be the ideal choice in single-target scenarios due to the extra Combo Point retention it grants by extending your Rip effect. Coupled with the additional Ferocious Bite casts and damage, this makes it a strong pick.

Predator in any situation where you will have enemy targets dying consistently to trigger the reset will always be the strongest pick. This makes it a powerful dungeon and cleave talent, due to the extra damage increase uptime and Energy to fuel ability casts.

Lunar Inspiration unfortunately requires too much upkeep and is too locked to a niche multi-DoT playstyle to really shine anywhere. While the two other options have room to gain additional resources, this only costs more to maintain. There are some extremely niche builds that can use this with Necrolord's Adaptive Swarm and the Draught of Deep Focus legendary, but is purely single-target and unlikely to be worth the payoff compared to the alternatives.

? Tiger Dash

? Renewal

? Wild Charge

Tier 2 provides movement and survival options.

• Tiger Dash replaces your Dash ability, replacing it with a short burst of 200% movement speed decaying over 5 seconds on a 45-second cooldown.
• Renewal instantly heals you for 30% of your maximum health on a 1.5-minute cooldown. This can be used in any Shapeshift form.
• Wild Charge is an active ability that has a 15-second cooldown. This provides a different movement option based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
  • No shapeshift form: Fly to the targeted allies location.
  • Travel Form: You leap forward 20 yards.
  • Cat Form: You leap behind your target within 25 yards, dazing them for 3 seconds.
  • Bear Form: You charge your target within 25 yards, immobilizing them for 4 seconds.
  • Moonkin Form: You leap 15 yards backwards.
  • Aquatic Form: Your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

This talent tier provides some situational choices, but usually you will be taking Wild Charge due to its low cooldown and flexibility. This gives you ways to stick to your target more consistently without impacting your other movement tools. Tiger Dash on the other hand can provide a very powerful non-committal burst of speed, but the loss of your baseline Dash in exchange is not ideal, so is more situational based on the encounter.

As for Renewal, the talent is generally not worth taking since you have other healing options (such as Regrowth paired with Predatory Swiftness), and you can always take Restoration Affinity as well if you desperately need more healing. It does, however, have uses in solo play, such as Torghast.

✔ Balance Affinity

? Guardian Affinity

? Restoration Affinity

Tier 3 grants access to affinities, which allow you to focus on a secondary Druid specialization, granting access to a small amount of the tools available to them alongside one crowd control tool.

• Balance Affinity grants you the Astral Influence passive ability, which increases the range of all your abilities by 3 yards. Additionally, you gain access to the Balance-spec abilities Moonkin Form, Starsurge, Starfire, 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 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, Wild Growth, and 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. The ability to shift into Moonkin Form for short periods of downtime as well is useful when out of range (though its DPS output obviously does not compare with Cat Form abilities if you can stay in melee). Typhoon is also a useful tool to control targets or create distance if needed.

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 soak up very dangerous abilities and in some cases tank an enemy in an emergency if needed. Incapacitating Roar also provides a very strong AoE disruption tool to nearby enemies.

Finally, Restoration Affinity is the least appealing talent in this tier. The active abilities it provides will not be of much use during raids due to pulling you out of Cat Form, but they can be helpful during solo content. The passive ability is decent for raids but most often out-classed by the Guardian Affinity damage reduction passive. Ursol's Vortex, on the other hand, is a unique tool that could make this very powerful if enemies need to be locked down in a specific spot.

? Mighty Bash

? Mass Entanglement

? Heart of the Wild

Tier 4 offers different utility options.

• Mighty Bash is an active ability with a 60-second cooldown, which stuns the target for 4 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.
• Heart of the Wild is an active ability with a 5-minute cooldown. It substantially increases your chosen Affinity's abilities.

Both Mighty Bash and Mass Entanglement will only find use on specific encounters or situations, so your choice here will in most cases come down to personal preference.

Heart of the Wild, on the other hand, provides much more flexible benefits, as a long cooldown amplification to your selected Affinity from the Tier 3 talent row. This can result in extra damage at range via Balance Affinity, additional on demand survival via Guardian Affinity, or the ability to output more support healing via Restoration Affinity. Judging this talent is very hard because the mileage is going to vary significantly, and will depend on how good you are at adapting to emergency situations with off role support.

✔ Soul of the Forest

✘ Savage Roar

✘ Incarnation: King of the Jungle

Tier 5 provides a variety of damage delivery boosts depending on the type of fight you are engaging with.

• Soul of the Forest causes your finishing moves to grant 5 Energy per Combo Point spent and deal 5% increased damage.
• Savage Roar is an active finisher ability that grants you 15% increased damage and 10% increased Energy generation when active. Its duration depends on how many Combo Points you consume when cast, as follows:
  • 1 Point: 12 seconds.
  • 2 Points: 18 seconds.
  • 3 Points: 24 seconds.
  • 4 Points: 30 seconds.
  • 5 Points: 36 seconds.
• Incarnation: King of the Jungle replaces Berserk. It lasts 30 seconds (up from Berserk's 20), and in addition to Berserk's other bonuses, it also allows Prowl to be used once while in combat and reduces the Energy cost of all Cat Form abilities by 20% while active.

Soul of the Forest is currently the recommended choice due to its ease of use, and provides the best overall boost to Energy generation alongside a strong boost to your Finishers.

Savage Roar is an option that provides a good overall benefit assuming it is maintained in single-target and a smaller benefit for AoE. However, maintaining this efficiently is difficult, compared to its relatively low payoff versus easier options, and the Combo Points required could be spent on more impactful Finishers when using a different talent. Therefore, it is not currently recommended.

Incarnation: King of the Jungle had its bonus effect flipped with Berserk in Shadowlands, and the benefit of this talent is now drastically reduced. If burst damage is a necessity this could see play, but is unlikely to be a good pick compared to the much more flexible option in Soul of the Forest.

✘ Scent of Blood

✔ Brutal Slash

✔ Primal Wrath

Tier 6 grants a variety of different AoE tools that specialize in different target counts.

• Scent of Blood causes each enemy hit by your Thrash casts to reduce the cost of Swipe by 3 Energy for 6 seconds.
• Brutal Slash replaces Swipe, has 3 charges and an 8-second recharge time (reduced by Haste), a reduced Energy cost and like Swipe, also awards one Combo Point when used.
• Primal Wrath is an active finisher ability that deals AoE damage around you, and applies the Rip effect to all targets hit. Duration and damage is increased based upon Combo Points spent, as follows:
  • 1 Point: 4 seconds.
  • 2 Points: 6 seconds.
  • 3 Points: 8 seconds.
  • 4 Points: 10 seconds.
  • 5 Points: 12 seconds.

Primal Wrath serves as the strongest sustained AoE option, becoming the best choice whenever an additional target is present. This allows for a much better resource cycle, granting a strong outlet for Combo Points generated when multiple targets are active for high damage. It is also completely uncapped in AoE allowing you to deal damage to a higher number of targets at once.

Brutal Slash provides the only option on the row to impact single-target damage due to the reduced Energy cost when cast, generating more efficient Combo Points. It can also be used as a small burst of AoE on targets, but is still limited by the 5 target cap that Swipe suffers from.

Scent of Blood is extremely unlikely to see play due to the AoE cap applied to Swipe, and the other talents it has to compete with. While Thrash is uncapped allowing you to still stack this very high, the payoff is simply not there for this talent and should be avoided.

? Moment of Clarity

✔ Bloodtalons

? Feral Frenzy

Tier 7 provides alterations to your rotational tools, requiring additional Global Cooldowns to capitalize upon.

• Moment of Clarity causes Omen of Clarity to trigger 50% more often, and increase the damage of Shred, Thrash, Swipe, or Brutal Slash casts by 15% when consumed, and can stack up to 2 times. It also increases your maximum Energy by 30 when taken.
• Bloodtalons increases the damage of your next two Rip or Ferocious Bite casts by 30% after using 3 different Combo Point generating abilities within a 4-second window.
• Feral Frenzy is an active ability with a 45-second cooldown that deals a burst of Physical damage and additional Bleed damage over 6 seconds. This also rapidly generates 5 Combo Points over 1.5-seconds when cast.

Bloodtalons is currently the strongest choice on the tier, allowing you to enhance all of your finishers consistently by 30% alongside still snapshotting the effect to Rip. This is the most mechanically demanding talent on the tier to get used to especially following the Shadowlands change requiring you to pool then rapidly trigger different Energy spenders, but provides excellent throughput when played correctly to feed more damage into big finishers such as Ferocious Bite and Primal Wrath.

Feral Frenzy provides a burst tool that can smooth out dips in the rotation when you are unlucky with your Primal Fury triggers and become resource-starved. It can also be paired with Tiger's Fury every other cast to provide a mid-range burst tool if a fight demands this. The gameplay smoothing this provides by smoothing out resource gaps alongside providing good burst when paired with said tools makes this a solid option in short or timer-based encounters.

Moment of Clarity provides an easy alternative for the rotation, increasing your Energy generation via free Shred casts, and by extension increasing the cycle of your Combo Point expenditure. This has a lower ceiling compared to both other options, but is much easier to execute if you find yourself struggling.

"War Mode" is an optional feature that enables open world PvP encounters that confers 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 take.

If you are interested in doing PvP as a Feral Druid or just want to know how to navigate Feral Druid PvP encounters, check out our dedicated PvP guide.

In this section we will rank the PvP talents for leveling and playing in open world PvE scenarios. Note that in the Shadowlands update, the PvP crowd control reduction talents have been removed, and will be replaced by trinkets available at level 60.

Generally the selections are made to optimize your ability to kill enemies faster, increasing your pace when moving through content.

1. Leader of the Pack increases the Critical Strike chance of you and nearby allies by 5%, and causes players to heal for 4% of their maximum health when they critically strike with a 6-second cooldown. This is the best option available on the PvP tree for open world purposes.
2. Rip and Tear provides an instant way of applying both Rip and Rake to your target without a Combo Point cost, and is great for starting a fight with more powerful enemies without requiring any ramp up, so is highly recommended as an extra tool.
3. 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.
4. Ferocious Wound provides additional damage to your Ferocious Bite that can be useful on high health targets due the maximum health reduction it applies. Value is mostly tied to the difficulty of the enemies you are encountering.
5. Savage Momentum causes successful interrupts with Skull Bash to reset the cooldown of Tiger's Fury. This can be useful for additional Energy and damage windows, but you will generally be using Predator in the open world so they may overlap make it less flexible.
6. 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 very limited uses for extra movement speed, but you will rarely have a large number of Rips active unless 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, Malorne's Swiftness, and Strength of the Wild on the other hand have very limited PvE uses, being more focused on in-combat control and group assistance. These are much more focused on PvP encounters, so are not recommended for open world play.