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Feral Combat PvE Guide
By Cenaryus
Valid as of Patch 3.3.3
This guide is aimed at any Druid who wishes to play Feral Combat, focusing on both Tanking and DPS-ing aspects of this Specialisation. Feral Combat, in general, focuses on two of the Druid’s combat forms (the third one being Moonkin Form, available only as Balance), which are Bear Form, used for Tanking, and Cat Form, used for melee DPS-ing, in a similar manner to Warriors and Rogues, respectively. The information found here is based on personal experience and knowledge, discussions with other Druids and Tanks in general.
This guide should be helpful to both people who are new to Feral Combat, as well as advanced players, who may find some useful tips here.
Contents:
I. General Aspects about Feral Combat
1. Talents
a) Feral Combat Talents Tree
b) Restoration Talent Tree
2. Gear and Tier Set Bonuses
II. Feral Tanking
1. Talent Builds
2. Glyphs
3. Abilities and Rotation
4. Required gear, stats, socketing and enchanting
III. Feral DPS-ing
1. Talent Builds
2. Glyphs
3. Abilities and Rotation
4. Required gear, stats, socketing and enchanting
I. General Aspects about Feral Combat
1. Talents:
This section will analyse all existing Talents found in the Feral Combat Tree, as well as some other talents found in the Restoration Tree that are required by these builds. Each Talent’s tooltip will be quoted, its usefulness will be described, for both Tanking and DPS-ing aspects of Feral Combat. The tooltip’s bonuses will be displayed with maximum bonus only.
a) Feral Combat Tree Talents
Tier 1 Talents:
- Ferocity: Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, Rake and Mangle abilities by 5 Rage or Energy. This Talent is useful for both Tanking or DPS-ing. Since Rage or Energy management can be troublesome, a Feral Druid should always aim for Talents that reduce abilities’ Rage or Energy consumption. Five points should be spent, regardless if you are a Tank or DPS.
- Feral Agression: Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Roar by 40% and the damage caused by your Ferocious Bite by 15%. The Demoralizing Roar bonus, although it can be helpful in heroics or when soloing, spending points in this Talent is generally a waste as a Tank, because there are other more important talents for Bears. A Feral DPS should spend 4 or 5 points in it, since Ferocious Bite does significant damage and the 15% (with 5 points) extra damage to this ability is worth the points.
Tier 2 Talents:
- Feral Instinct: Increases the damage done by your Swipe ability by 30% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling. This Talent is useful for both Bear Form and Cat Form. For tanks, Swipe is a crucial AOE-tanking ability and 30% extra damage to it means more AOE Threat. Cats should spend at least 1 or 2 points in this Talent for extra AOE damage, although it’s not always necesary, if you prefer other bonuses such as Improved Leader of the Pack.
- Savage Fury: Increases the damage caused by your Claw, Rake, Mangle (Cat), Mangle (Bear), and Maul abilities by 20%. The importance of this talent is pretty obvious, as it buffs many Bear Form and Cat Form abilities. For Bears, this means more Threat, while for Cats, more DPS.
- Thick Hide: Increases your Armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 10%. This Talent is crucial for Bears, as Tanks should aim for maximum possible mitigation, avoidance or Stamina. Since this is a Tanking Talent, it should not be picked up at all if you are a Feral DPS.
Tier 3 Talents:
- Feral Swiftness:Increases your movement speed by 30% in Cat Form and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form, Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 4%. The 6% extra dodge from this talent makes it very important for Tanking and for DPS-ing the 30% increased speed can be helpful in some fights where the druid is required to kite, for example Sartharion 3 Drakes, if done with Zerg Strategy. A Tank should maximise it, while a DPS can go with only one Talent point.
- Survival Instincts: When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 sec while in Bear Form, Cat Form, or Dire Bear Form. After the effect expires, the health is lost. This is Bear Form’s strongest survival ability and is a must for any Feral Tank. If glyphed, this ability grants 45% extra Health, instead of 30%, making it extremely useful when tanking hard modes in Ulduar or Trial of the Grand Crusader (do not use it when tanking Anub’arak though, except for the really desperate situation, because this will give the boss more health to leech from). In terms of DPS-ing, this talent is completely useless and should not be picked at all.
- Sharpened Claws: Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 6%. This Talent’s usefulness is obvious, because critical strike chance is required by Bears in building Threat and triggering Savage Defense more often, and for Cats by increasing their overall damage done.
Tier 4 Talents:
- Shredding Attacks: Reduces the energy cost of your Shred ability by 18 and the rage cost of your Lacerate ability by 2. Although this Talent reduces the Rage cost of Lacerate by 2, the reduction is so small that no Druid Tank should bother spending points in it, since when Tanking in a boss fight, you will very rarely run out of Rage, and this happens for only a few seconds. However, it is extremely important for Cats, because energy management is a real issue for them. Shred costs 60 energy out of a total of 100 energy Cat Form provides and this talent reduces its cost by 18. Shred is Cat’s main attack, as it scales very well with debuffs and buffs, providing the highest damage output being second only to Ferocious Bite.
- Predatory Strikes: Increases your melee attack power in Cat, Bear and Dire Bear Forms by 150% of your level and 20% of any attack power on your equipped weapon. In addition, your finishing moves have a 20% chance per combo point to make your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. become an instant cast spell. This talent should be maximized in both Tanking and DPS-ing situations, as the Attack Power bonus is required for Threat and damage.
- Primal Fury: Gives you a 100% chance to gain an additional 5 Rage anytime you get a critical strike while in Bear and Dire Bear Form and your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point. The Rage bonus from critical strikes (which for Tanks can be as high as 50% in raids or more) is beneficial when Tanking trash or bosses that deal lower damage and where it is likely to remain out of rage for a few seconds. For Cats it boosts DPS as every time you critically hit, you gain 2 combo points instead of one and many of Cat Form’s ability require combo points, as well as increasing overall damage done.
- Primal Precision: Increases your expertise by 10, and you are refunded 80% of the energy cost of a finishing move if it fails to land. Crucial Talent for both Tanking and DPS-ing, because reaching the Expertise dodge cap can be daunting and any Talent that gives such benefits should be taken. A Cat should have 6.50% expertise, while a Bear should have more, from personal experience i have found out that 9% is safe enough for threat. Values lower than this are likely to produce huge TPS spikes, as Tanks will still face Parries, though this amount needs to come entirely from gear.
Tier 5 Talents:
- Brutal Impact: Increases the stun duration of your Bash and Pounce abilities by 1 sec and decreases the cooldown of Bash by 30 sec. This talent, reducing cooldown for Bash and Pounce is completely useless as DPS and its usefulness in Bear Form is questionable. It can be important in fights like Twin Val’kyrs in Trial of the Grand Crusader, especially on 25-man version, where the DPS requirement is very high and, for this reason, damage dealers cannot focus on interrupts and this job falls mainly on the Tanks. It can also be useful at Faction Champions, where stuns are really helpful. Other than that, it should not be picked up if there are other, more important Talents that have not been chosen yet.
- Feral Charge: Teaches Feral Charge (Bear) and Feral Charge (Cat). Feral Charge (Bear) - Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 sec. This ability can be used in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form. 15 second cooldown. Feral Charge (Cat) - Causes you to leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 sec. 30 second cooldown. This ability is useful for gaining initial aggro for Tanks, as it generates about 2000-3000 instant threat and Cats may find it useful in fights where it is required to move between targets.
- Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 70% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 20% while in Cat form. This Talent can sometimes be useful in PVE as DPS, if you have tanks that are building low Threat, in which case melee are the first to die if they overaggro. However, responsability for Threat falls largely on Tanks and if there are other more important Talents, you should not bother spending any point at all in it. Generally, this talent is more PVP-oriented, not being of great use to Cats and totally useless for Bears.
Tier 6 Talents:
- Natural Reaction: Increases your dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form by 6%, and you regenerate 3 rage every time you dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form. Dodge is one of the key stats for Tanks and the 6% bonus makes this a must-have Talent for Tanks. Obviously though, no point should be spent in this as DPS.
- Heart of the Wild: Increases your Intellect by 20%. In addition, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form your Stamina is increased by 10% and while in Cat Form your attack power is increased by 10%. This talent should receive five points, regardless of spec used, as it provides 10% extra Stamina for bears and 10% extra Attack Power in Cat Form.
- Survival of the Fittest: ncreases all attributes by 6%, reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%, and increases your armor contribution from cloth and leather items in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 33%. This is the most important Talent for Tanks and should be maxed out, because it eliminates the need of Defense Rating from gear completely, making Druids the only crit-immune Tanks from Talents. Actually, the bonus is so strong, that a mob would have to be at least 5 levels above you to critically hit, that is if there are no cloaks, rings or necks that provide extra Defense Rating. It also has great stat benefits for both Bears and Cats and, therefore, should be maxed out even as DPS. Furthermore, it allows Cats to go Bear Form and tank some low-damage bosses in Naxxramas or 5-man heroics in fights where more Tanks are needed, but only for short times.
Tier 7 Talents:
- Leader of the Pack: While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party and raid members within 45 yards by 5%. This is one of the greatest melee buffs, helping both the Druid, all melee DPS and Hunters in raid. Critical Strike Chance, as mentioned above, is important for Threat in Bear Form and overall damage done in Cat and should, therefore, be picked up in both situations.
- Improved Leader of the Pack: Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to heal themselves for 4% of their total health when they critically hit with a melee or ranged attack. The healing effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec. In addition, you gain 8% of your maximum mana when you benefit from this heal. This Talent is of great use for Tanks by making Leader of the Pack heal raid members (including the Tanks), for 4% of their total health. While at bosses, the healing provided may not seem much, though it may still help at trash and it’s useful when soloing and doing 5-man heroics. Additionally, this talent becomes of great uses on fights like Faction Champions in Crusader’s Colliseum, where the Druid, regardless of being Tank or DPS, is required to change form a lot and use Entagling Roots or Cyclone, abilities that will quickly drain your mana. This ability is more desirable to regenerate mana in that fight, as Innervate should be kept in case a healer needs it. It is a must-have talent for Bears and, although not really necessary, it is of great use even in Cat Form, but should not be spent over Talents that increase overall damage.
- Primal Tenacity: Reduces the duration of fear effects by 30%, reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30% while in Cat Form. In PvE, Fear effects are largely handled by Tremor Totems or Fear Ward and the number of bosses that fear is very low, making this a PvP Talent. Neither Tanks, nor DPS-ers should bother spending points in this Talent.
Tier 8 Talents:
- Protector of the Pack: Increases your attack power by 6% and reduces the damage you take by 12%, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form. This is one of the most important Talent for Feral Tanks, due to the damage mitigation it provides. It’s also worth mentioning that it reduces all damage taken by 12%, including spell damage, making it the only Feral Talent that absorbs all types of damage.
- Predatory Instincts: While in Cat Form increases your damage from melee critical strikes by 10% and reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 30%. While this is completely useless for Tanks as it provides no bonuses to Bear Form, it is a must for DPS, as it is one of the Talents that increase overall damage.
- Infected Wounds: Your Shred, Maul, and Mangle attacks cause an Infected Wound in the target. The Infected Wound reduces the movement speed of the target by 50% and the attack speed by 20%. Lasts 12 sec. This debuff is similar to the ones found at other classes, such as Paladin Tanks. While Infected Wounds does not stack with other similar effects, a Druid should never rely on the fact that they always have a Paladin tank with them and should, therefore, maximize this Talent, as it provides 20% attack speed reduction and this works on most bosses, reducing damage taken a lot.
Tier 9 Talents:
- King of the Jungle: While using your Enrage ability in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form, your damage is increased by 15%, and your Tiger's Fury ability also instantly restores 60 energy. In addition, the mana cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form is reduced by 60%. Although it provides benefits to Enrage, buffing damage and, consequently, Threat for its duration, there are more important Talents to spend on and no Feral Tank should spend points in this. However, it is a key Talent for Cats, as it makes Tiger’s Fury instantly restore 60 Energy, which makes it the only ability that can restore energy for Cats, enabling them to resume their DPS rotation when low on Energy.
- Mangle: Mangle the target, inflicting damage and causing the target to take additional damage from bleed effects for 1 min. This ability can be used in Cat Form or Dire Bear Form. This effect, increasing bleed damage take by mobs by 30%, is similar to Arms Warrior’s Trauma and therefore, they do not stack. This ability is crucial for Tanks, as it provides a large amount of instant Threat when used and Cats should pick it up as well, as they cannot rely on the fact that a raid will always contain a Druid Tank or an Arms Warrior placing their debuff for them.
- Improved Mangle: Reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by 1.5 sec., and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 6. This Talent should receive maximum number of Talent Points as a Tank, since Rage can be a problem on bosses that deal low damage or trash. As a DPS, at least 2/3 Talents Points are required, if you are absolutely sure the raid will always have a Feral Tank or Arms Warrior, but, generally, this Talent should receive all 3 points.
Tier 10 Talents:
- Rend and Tear: Increases damage done by your Maul and Shred attacks on bleeding targets by 20%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Ferocious Bite ability on bleeding targets by 25%. This Talent buffs both Threat in Bear Form and damage done in Cat Form. All targets that have bleed effects will receive more damage from Maul (Bear Form) and Shred (Cat Form), making it one of the absolutely required Talent in both Tanking and DPS-ing specs. In addition, Ferocious Bite has a 75% critical strike chance, if the Cat has 50% chance to critically hit, with possiblity of reaching 100% Critical Chance, achieveable if you have 75% Critical Strike Chance buffed. As a result, five points should be spent in this Talent.
- Primal Gore: Grants the periodic damage from your Lacerate and Rip abilities the ability to critically hit. This Talent is of great importance in many ways. For Tanks, it buffs Threat and Critical Hits from periodic damage also trigger Savage Defense, one of Bear Form’s most important passive abilities. For DPS-ers, it provides a huge damage boost, because Rip is Cat’s strongest damage-over-time ability.
Tier 11 Talents:
- Berserk: When activated, this ability causes your Mangle (Bear) ability to hit up to 3 targets and have no cooldown, and reduces the energy cost of all your Cat Form abilities by 50%. Lasts 15 sec. You cannot use Tiger's Fury while Berserk is active. Clears the effect of Fear and makes you immune to Fear for the duration. This 3-minute Cooldown ability is very helpful at Tanking trash, as Mangle produces very high burst Threat on the three targets it hits. This allows Maul to hit 20% stronger on targets that are affected by this debuff and with Glyph of Maul, the ability hits two targets. On bosses, it provides a very high TPS burst and it is usually best to keep it for Heroism or if one of the damage dealers is in danger of overaggroing. For Cats, it is a great high-cooldown ability as well, which ca be used at the very start of the fight to quickly apply debuffs and buffs and then start Shred spamming, or in mid-fight, if the encounter has moments when the boss takes more damage, such as heart phase during the XT-002 Deconstructor fight in Uduar. It can also be saved for Heroism or Bloodlust, or moments when it is required to escape fears. The use of Berserk depends on the fight and also un player’s preference.
b) Restoration Tree Talents
Tier 1 Talents:
- Improved Mark of the Wild: Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 40%, and increases all of your total attributes by 2%. All Feral Druids should take this Talent, regardless if they are DPS-ing or Tanking, as Improved Mark of the Wild, not only improves the Druid’s performance, but also raid’s as well. Furthermore, the 2% bonus, although doesen’t seem much, is important, after all, bits like this put together is what makes the difference between succesfull players and ordinary ones.
- Furor: Gives you 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to 100 of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin form by 10%. This Talent, in terms of Tanking, is very important for initial aggro and should receive at least 3/5 points, if not 5/5. This depends on the specialisation used, but 5/5 is much better. Each point affects the chance this effect will enable (100% with 5 points up, 60% with 3). At 3/5, you might need to shapeshift several times in order to get the buff and in heroics or raids it can sometimes be frustrating having to do it several times in a row, especially with Enrage on cooldown. Therefore, I prefer 5/5 points. In terms of DPS-ing, 3 points are enough, as there are other, more important Talents that need to be taken and Energy regenerates by itself.
Tier 2 Talents:
- Naturalist: Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%. The 10% damage bonus from this Talent makes it very important for both Tanking and DPS-ing, increasing Threat generated and overall damage done respectively, so it has to be maxed out.
- Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 30%. This Talent itself doesen’t bring great benefits, but it is a requirement for Master Shapeshifter which, although it brings real benefits for Tanking, it should not be picked up, because it requires 5 points which have to be spent on other, more important Talents. As a results, if you are Tanking, do not spend points in Natural Shapeshifter, however, as DPS you have to max it out.
Tier 3 Talents:
- Omen of Clarity: Each of the Druid's damage, healing spells and auto attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next damage, healing spell or offensive ability by 100%. Clearcasting helps both Tanking and DPS-ing, because Rage can sometimes be a problem on bosses that deal small amounts of damage damage, or if you dodge many attacks and sometimes getting abilities to use free of any cost can be helpful. This bonus is even more important for Cats, as Feral DPS has realy Energy management problems. Getting as many Clearcasts as possible is vital, as it has a generally positive impact on your rotation, with a high DPS increase.
- Master Shapeshifter: Grants an effect which lasts while the Druid is within the respective shapeshift form. Bear Form - Increases physical damage by 4%. Cat Form - Increases critical strike chance by 4%. Moonkin Form - Increases spell damage by 4%. Tree of Life Form - Increases healing by 4%. As stated above, this Talent is required for DPS-ing, as it provides 4% extra critical strike chance in Cat Form. When designing your Feral DPS build, Natural Shapeshifter and Master Shapeshifter should be among top priorities to spend Talent Points upon, but should not be chosen as part of a Tanking build, because it requires 5 points which have to be spent on other, more important, survival Talents (see Feral Tanking, Talen Builds section).
2. Feral Combat Glyphs
The following list contains all Feral Combat Glyphs. Each of them will have their tooltip displayed and their usefulness presented for both Tanking and DPS-ing:
- Glyph of Berserk (Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, Cat Form): Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec. In both Tanking and DPS-ing situations, although this Glyph can be fun to use in 5-man heroics or when solo-ing, it should not be picked in neither cases. For Tanking, there are more important survival-oriented Glyphs, while for DPS-ing, there are Glyphs that help energy management indirectly or provide damage boost.
- Glyph of Claw (Cat Form): Reduces the energy cost of your Claw ability by 5. Claw is great while leveling and this Glyph can be useful when your character has low level, but this ability is completely replaced by Mangle, which renders this Glyph useless for Feral Combat.
- Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration (Bear Form, Dire Bear Form): While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful. This Glyph turns Frenzied Regeneration into a powerful survival ability for Bear Form and should, therefore, be picked when Tanking.
- Glyph of Growl (Bear Form, Dire Bear Form): Increases the chance for your Growl ability to work successfully by 8%. This Glyph may be useful for low-geared Tanks, who do not have high Hit Rating and need it to prevent getting missed Taunt effects. However, a well-geared Bear should never pick up this Glyph, as there are survival-oriented Glyphs that are more useful, especially when tanking hard mode bosses.
- Glyph of Maul (Bear Form, Dire Bear Form): Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target. This Glyph is crucial for AOE-Tanking, as Swipe alone, although useful, does not provide enough AOE Threat because it doesen’t scale with other debuffs or buffs. This makes Maul one of the most used AOE-Tanking abilities, due to its high damage output and the ability to benefit from debuffs such as Lacerate or Mangle.
- Glyph of Mangle (Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, Cat Form): Increases the damage done by Mangle by 10%. This Glyph is of great uses to both Tanking and DPS-ing, after it has been completely revamped in Patch 3.3.3. It provides a good Threat increase while using Mangle and it’s great for DPS too, as it will make this ability more reliable in situations where Shredding is not possible.
- Glyph of Rake (Cat Form): Your Rake ability prevents targets from fleeing. This Glyph is helpful while leveling to prevent mobs from running, but, in PvE, it provides no real benefits to this ability at all.
- Glyph of Rip (Cat Form): Increases the duration of your Rip ability by 4 sec. This Glyph helps DPS-ing a lot, because Rip requires 5 Combo Points to be used in order to get maximum bonus. The ability costs a lot of Energy, so does getting the needed Combo Points up, and getting extra seconds on Rip is really helpful for DPS rotation.
- Glyph of Savage Roar (Cat Form): Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 3% bonus damage done. This is one of the key Feral DPS Glyphs because Savage Roar is one of the main buffs applied using Combo points. The ability will grant a total of 33% extra physical damage, up by 3%.
- Glyph of Shred (Cat Form): Each time you Shred, the duration of your Rip on the target is extended 2 sec, up to a maximum of 6 sec. This Glyph is an absolute requirement for any Cat, because it makes Rip last a lot longer, giving time to apply other debuffs, or use Shred a lot more often.
- Glyph of Survival Instincts (Bear Form, Dire Bear Form): Your Survival Instincts ability grants an additional 15% of your maximum health. This Glyph is a must for any Feral Tank, because this is the strongest survival ability Druids have. The standard ability grants 30% extra health for 20 seconds, while glyphed it gives 45% extra health. This is extremely useful on desperate situations or in particular cases when the damage taken is very high.
3. Gear and Tier set bonuses
The armor type used by Druids in general is leather. With a few exceptions, namely rings, necklaces, cloaks and trinkets, rest pieces are the same. Rogues and Druids share the same type of armour. Druid Tanks usually share dodge rings, cloaks and necks with other tanking classes, while Feral DPS use agility cloaks, rings and necks. A Feral DPS should never use items that grant strength. Tanks may use agility rings, cloaks or necks as well, because Bears get most of their dodge from agility, they are defense capped from Talents, and the Critical Strike Chance or Attack Power bonuses that come directly from them are key stats for Feral Tanks as well.
The stats granted by Leather armor are Stamina and Agility and there are always three on-equip bonuses. The first one is always Attack Power, while the other two can be a combination of Hit Rating, Expertise Rating, Critical Strike Rating, Haste Rating or Armor Penetration Rating. Additionally, one piece can contain up to 3 sockets. The fact that there are always three on-equip bonuses is very important in designing gear. While some people may not consider this an important fact, it does play a great deal when choosing whether to loot an item or not, because having too much from one stat will always make you lose at the other, so consider carefully whenever you loot. A Feral Combat player always needs to have balanced stats, depending on the Feral branch they play. The actual stats for Tanking and DPS-ing will each be explained seperately, in dedicated sections.
As for Tier, they all follow the same rule as other leather items and the sets are all identical for both Tanking and DPS-ing. Each Tier provides the following set bonuses, which may or may not be ignored, depending on their importance for either Tanking or DPS-ing. In most cases though, for sets lower than Tier 10, Set Bonuses should be skipped if there are non-set items which provide significant upgrades to your stats.
Tier 7:
- (2) Set: Your Rip lasts for an additional 4 seconds, and your Lacerate deals and additional 5% damage. This Set Bonus is helpful for Tanking, because Lacerate is an important ability in keeping threat up, so the 5% bonus is a really great boost. As for DPS, Rip is the strongest damage over time effect and 4 seconds can ease keeping it up, enabling the use of Shred and Ferocious Bite abilities more often.
- (4) Set: Increases the duration of Barkskin by 3 seconds. Barkskin, although usable in all forms, is a Tanking ability, with a relitavely short cooldown of only 1 minute. It lasts 15 seconds and provides 20% damage reduction to all types of damage. In other words, if used whenever off cooldown, the Bear takes 20% damage for 15% of the time, and this Set Bonus raises it to 18%. It is a good buff, although the bonus can be ignored if there are better non-Tier items available.
Tier 8:
- (2) Set: The periodic damage dealt by your Rake, Rip, and Lacerate abilites has a chance to cause you to enter a Clearcasting state. This Set Bonus is one of the most important ones for DPS-ing due to the fact that, as mentioned earlier, Cat Form has Energy management problems. This also increases the usefulness of Rake ability. While with Tier 7 Gear it can be ignored, as it doesen’t do so much damage, with Tier 8 it should become a very important part of the DPS-ing rotation, as it doubles the chance of getting Clearcasts from the Set, which, consequently, allows the more frequent use of Ferocious Bite. As for Tanking, it can be helpful in heroics or when Tanking trash or bosses with low damage, as the Druid can ocasionally run out of Rage for a few seconds, although the bonus can be ignored if there are better non-Tier items available.
- (4) Set: Increases the duration of Savage Roar and Survival Instinct by 8 sec. This Set Bonus helps Tanks in some hard mode fights, as Survival Instincts is the strongest survival ability, which normally lasts 20 seconds. As for DPS-ing, it is helpful since Savage Roar is one of the buffs that needs to be kept up all the time and the 8 second bonus can give the player more time to use Ferocious Bite.
Tier 9:
- (2) Set: Decreases the cooldown on your Growl ability by 2 sec, increases the periodic damage done by your Lacerate ability by 5%, and increases the duration of your Rake ability by 3 sec. This Set Bonus brings real benefits for Tanking. As with Tier 7, it provides 5% bonus damage to Lacerate ability, which boosts Threat, and the 2-second cooldown reduction to Growl ability is useful when the Druid is needed to spam Taunt on targets they cannot physically Tank, such as the the Cult Adherents in the Icecrown Citadel Lady Deathwhisperer encounter, if he is tanking Cult Fanatics as well. The reason for not being able to Tank both of them is the Cleave done by Cultists, which, therefore, should not be tanked next to Adherents. Furthermore, if Growl fails, you can always use it 2 seconds faster (Growl has an 8-second cooldown, without set bonus). In terms of DPS-ing, this Set Bonus is best used with the one provided by 2 items of Tier 8, as Rake helps Clearcasting. Other than that, a Feral DPS shouldn’t chase this Set Bonus very hard, if there are better gear upgrades
- (4) Set: Reduces the cooldown on Barkskin by 12 sec and increases the critical strike chance of Rip and Ferocious Bite by 5%. The cooldown reduction on Barkskin helps in most fights as the Druid can use it more often. Barkskin should be used with caution though in fights such as General Vezax in Ulduar, where Barkskin should be kept for the phase when the boss doubles his damage, which happens every minute. As for Cats, it is a strong bonus, as Rip provides the strongest damage over time and Ferocious Bite is the strongest instant damage ability (Cats can crit for around 15k damage with it, when properly buffed and the adequate rotation is used).
Tier 10:
- (2) Set: Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy. This is one of the strongest Set Bonuses provided by any Wrath of the Lich King Tiers for Druids. The advantage provided is of great importance for tanking, as Swipe is one of the main AOE-tanking ability, and Lacerate is important for single target Tanking, although it can help when dealing with more mobs as well. The 10 energy reduction in Rip helps Feral DPS-ers, because, as mentioned earlier, Cat needs a very good Energy management and everything should be done to reduce the cost of abilities for better DPS. Generally speaking, it is a Set Bonus all Feral Druids should aim for.
- (4) Set: Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike. This Set Bonus basically turns Enrage, from an armor reducing ability, to a short cooldown survival ability, which has a tremendous importance especially, in Icecrown Citadel, due to the fact that general avoidance is greatly affected by the -20% dodge debuff and Tanks in general need as many damage mitigation abilities as they can get. For Tanking, this Set Bonus is a must, while for DPS-ing, it is of help as it makes Rake a more important and stronger damage over time ability.
Last edited by Cenaryus on Tue Jun 08, 2010 7:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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