The purpose of this guide is to help feral druids prepare for WOTLK. This is written from the point of view of someone who has cleared sunwell, and is in mostly sunwell and t6 gear, so my experiences will be different from people who are still progressing through content. That said, this guide should still appeal to all druids be it tanking 5 mans and heroics to off tanking t6 and beyond, to main tanking sunwell.
Table of Contents:
I. 3.0 major talent changes
II. 3.0 major ability/item changes
III. Gear Info
A. General Info
B. Enchants
C. Rings, Necks, Cloaks, and Trinkets
IV. Glyphs
V. Talent Builds
A. Tank
B. Hybrid PvE
C. DPS PvE
D. PvP
E. Leveling
VI. Useful Links
I. 3.0 major talent changes
Here is a brief overview of things that have changed. (No abilities gained from 71-80 will be mentioned).
Furor -now lets you retain up to 20/40/60/80/100 energy when entering cat (energy will now tick regardless of form). Bear form portion unchanged.
Comment - By doing this, powershifting is effectively dead. One plus to this is in PVP chasing a mage with frostbite, you can shift and still have your 100 energy and you are out of nova. You can also go to bear for a bit, mangle, stun and then be in cat with 100 energy.
Omen of Clarity - now passive, but no longer procs off specials.
Comment - Based on Toskk’s spreadsheets for cat this is still superior to berserk (also scales with haste). Despite my tests and lack of procs, it has been confirmed this procs off of Maul as well.
Feral Instinct - threat component removed and rolled into the base threat of bear form. Now increases swipe damage by 10/20/30%. Cat portion unchanged.
Comment - Swipe now hits all targets in front of you instead of just 3, this will be a very important talent for 5mans and heroics.
Savage Fury - now increases Mangle (bear) and Maul by 10/20%. Cat portion unchanged. Now a tier 2 talent.
Feral Swiftness - move speed now works indoors, rest unchanged.
Faire Fire Feral - now a trained ability.
Comment - When used in bear form it will deal damage and produce additional threat.
Feral Charge - moved to 21 points. Feral Charge (Cat) added, bear charge unchanged.
Comment - Feral Charge (Cat) is now a mini-shadowstep, (albeit even this late in beta still very very buggy from reports I’ve heard). As of 9061 it does not break stealth. Cat cooldown is 30 seconds. Using Feral Charge (Cat) activates a 15 second cooldown on Feral Charge (Bear)
New 11 POINT TALENT: Survival Instincts- increases max health by 30% for 20 seconds 5 minute cooldown. This is usable in bear or cat.
Comment - as of the writing of this it was still on GCD, warrior last stand is not on GCD, hopefully this is a bug and will be addressed.
Predatory Strikes - grants 7/14/20% of the feral attack power on your weapon, rest unchanged.
NEW Tier 4 TALENT: Primal Precision - requires Sharpened Claws - Increases expertise by 5/10 and refunds 40/80% of the energy is a finisher fails to land.
Brutal Impact - (moved to tier 5) reduces the cool down of your bash by 15/30 seconds, rest unchanged.
Comment - Bash is now a spell interrupt, which can be used in pve to interrupt stun immune mobs/bosses and in pvp if you bash while someone is casting and they trinket they are still locked out after the trinket.
NEW Tier 6 TALENT: Natural Reaction - Adds 2/4/6% dodge in bear form, and all dodges in bear form generate 1/2/3 rage.
Survival of the Fittest - now increases all attributes by 2/4/6% and reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 2/4/6%.
Comment - This means that druids now get passive crit immunity from Survival of the Fittest and no longer need defense or resilience on your gear. Also, this talent is now an extremely powerful DPS talent as well, and should be included in any build even if you do not plan on tanking.
Imp leader of the pack - now grants 4/8% mana, heal unchanged.
Comment - It states that you only get mana when you are affected by the heal, which in theory means that If you are always at full health you would never receive any mana back. Not in beta to actually test this myself. Confirmed even if it is a 100% overheal you still get the mana return.
Primal tenacity - reduces the duration of fear by 10/20/30% and reduces damage taken while stunned by the same amount.
Comment - Possibly useful for bosses who stun but still very situational for pve, druids could have a niche as the "stun tank" by taking this talent in as your dual spec when that is implimented, much better than it was for pvp.
NEW Tier 8 TALENT: Protector of the Pack - Increases your attack power in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 2/4/6%, and for each friendly player in your party when you enter Bear Form or Dire Bear Form, damage you take is reduced while in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 1/2/3%.
Comment - This does not include the druid as a party member. At the moment, it works regardless of distance, different instances, DCed or dead players.
NEW Tier 8 TALENT: 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 8/17/25% and the attack speed by 3/7/10%. Stacks up to 2 times. Lasts 12 sec.
Comment - This is the new druid thunderclap.
Predatory Instincts - down to 3 points, 3/7/10% crit damage, AOE damage reduction up to 10/20/30%.
Comment - Ghostcrawler posted this talent now only effects cat form, but only in direct reference to the AOE damage reduction aspect of it. We still are not sure if the crit damage bonus effects bear or not. Confirmed that this is a CAT ONLY talent.
ImageShack - Hosting :: nopicontrolzc0.jpg ImageShack - Hosting :: picontrolmk0.jpg ImageShack - Hosting :: nopiwhitesbetweenmaulspa5.jpg ImageShack - Hosting :: piwhitebetweenmaulsds0.jpg ImageShack - Hosting :: maulwithpiii2.jpg ImageShack - Hosting :: maulwithoutpiji3.jpg Tier 9: King of the Jungle - While using your Enrage ability in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form, your damage is increased by 5/10/15%, and your Tiger's Fury ability also instantly restores 20/40/60 energy.
Comment - Tiger’s Fury is now a base 30 second cooldown.
Improved Mangle - Reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by 0.5/1/1.5 sec., and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 2/4/6.
Comment - With imp Mangle, WITH FOCUS ON BEAR, do not put only 1 or 2 points into it because of the 1.5 second GCD it is either 3 or none.
Tier 10: Rend and Tear - Increases damage done by your Maul and Shred attacks on bleeding targets by 4/8/12/16/20%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Ferocious Bite ability on bleeding targets by 10/20/30/40/50%.
Tier 11: 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. 3 minute cooldown.
Comment - If mangle is already on cooldown in bear, it will not reset the cooldown, use wisely.
II. 3.0 major ability/item changes SKILLS - Barkskin - now usable in forms. This is our answer to “bearwall” (even though it has more akin to shield block than shield wall).
- Entangling Roots - now usable inside.
- Nature’s grasp - now a trained ability, at the old 5/5 talented 100% chance, also usable in forms. This actually could be useful when tanking if you are taking extra damage hit this and back up some, one less thing beating on you.
- Revive - Druids new out of combat rez.
- Growl - 20 yards to match the warrior and death knight equivalents.
- Challenging roar - down to 3 minutes.
- Dash - down to 3 minutes.
- Maim - now breaks on a given amount of damage as opposed to any damage.
- Frenzied regen - will now heal for 30% of your hp if all 100 rage is consumed.
- Maul - now affected by mangle/trauma.
ITEMS - Green armor values removed from leather items.
- Weapon procs (such as mongoose and executioner) will now proc in forms.
- Healthstones, Potions, and the like can now be used in forms. Note: "the like" includes quest items. There are quests in early Tundra that requires you to burn grain, repair harvesters, and use a net to bring flying mobs to the ground, when i did these i literally cried on vent about how happy I was we finally have gotten the ability to do quests in forms. I have not tested looting ground spawn quest items but i believe (based on being able to herb in form) that you can most likely loot those as well.
III. Gear Info A. General Info
With the changes to survival of the fittest, the nerfed agi-> dodge conversion, and most notably the armor nerf, a lot of feral druids as scratching there heads as to what items are going to be good.
One thing to keep in mind when considering gear, especially enchants, is that it seems threat is more or less becoming easier, as blizzard wants more tanks to play the game.
Even with the change to armor, i still sit comfortably at 25K armor in bear unbuffed. Green armor took up item budget, so without it to keep the items ILVL, they need to add stats. Do not be surprised to see yourself gain 50-60 str stam and agi when you log in after 3.0 (about 20 or so of each stat will come from gear the rest will be from the SOTF % change). So most likely you will still be using your same gear. See "C. Rings, Necks, Cloaks, and Trinkets" for the major exceptions.
B. Enchants
If you have defense or resilence gems/enchants they should mostly be replaced:
Helm:
CoT vs SSO, both provide wasted stats in defense or resilence, but defense will still give you some dodge and chance to be missed.
CoT vs CE, if you are in high t6/sunwell gear, you may consider using the CE enchant. Newer tanks should probably still be using the CoT enchant. Remember, threat appears to be easier now so consider survival stats.
Shoulders:
Stick with the def/dodge of your faction. The tps you will gain by switching to the ap/crit is minimal for the amount, unless you are really having trouble generating threat.
Cape:
12 agi in all cases over 12 def.
Chest:
6 all stats over 15 def/resilience.
Bracers:
12 stam or 4 to all stats are both viable over 12 def.
Weapon:
I'm sticking with 35 agi simply because i don't like procs and i have to many weapons to afford mongoose on all of them. This is more for the theorycrafters. Executioner is bad because we rely on bleeds for most of our DPS and for tanking the dodge from either 35 agi or mongoose is better.
Boots:
12 agi or 12 stam. Boars speed or Cats swiftness if you feel like spending.
Legs:
40 stam 12 agi.
gloves:
15 agi still (with the change to spell hit rating,
Formula: Enchant Gloves - Spell Strike - Item - World of Warcraft is now normal hit as well but i would stick with 15 agi and get hit elsewere).
C. Rings, Necks, Cloaks, and Trinkets
The biggest changes will be to rings, necks, capes, and trinkets. Because of the lack of defense on leather these were considered our "crit immune slots." With innate crit immunity these will see the most drastic changes. They are in order of easiest to obtain.
trinkets:
Trinkets - Items - World of Warcraft
anything on that list will be a good start.
Shard of Contempt - Item - World of Warcraft threat trinket, if you are comfortable with your EH and avoidance.
Badge of Tenacity - Item - World of Warcraft will always be good, probably not replaced till level 80 heroics (there is one with 550 armor in heroics and 850 armor in naxx 25 so there is hope).
Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch - Item - World of Warcraft will still be good early on as it is fairly easy to attain (unless you have my luck with drop rates).
Shadowmoon Insignia - Item - World of Warcraft is still best in slot, but barely. if threat is an issue i will most likely be replacing this with below.
Steely Naaru Sliver - Item - World of Warcraft will probably replace my shadowmoon insignia full time so i can work more hit rating back into my gear in other slots.
rings: Ring of the Stalwart Protector - Item - World of Warcraft will continue to be best in slot unless you have access to muru.
Band of Determination - Item - World of Warcraft will probably now be in every most druids second ring slot full time now.
Violet Signet of the Great Protector - Item - World of Warcraft is still extremly viable however but unless you do not have other options, try to avoid 2 defense rings at the same time.
Band of the Abyssal Lord - Item - World of Warcraft is still ok, but definatly not prefered unless you have no other way of working hit rating into your gear.
Ring of Hardened Resolve - Item - World of Warcraft will continue to be the best ring for those with access to it.
neck: Necklace of the Deep - Item - World of Warcraft with 2 agi gems, or even 2 stam gems, will be a great way to start gearing up.
Enchanted Thorium Torque - Item - World of Warcraft is another item that is easy to attain and holds up relatively well.
Brooch of Deftness - Item - World of Warcraft is possibly the best neck even through all of BT for druids now.
Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve - Item - World of Warcraft is a great replacement if you do not want to spend the badges and you are exalted with both your faction and SSO.
Pendant of Titans - Item - World of Warcraft is probably worse than the badge neck now.
Collar of the Pit Lord - Item - World of Warcraft even sunwell druids may want to consider buying the badge neck now.
capes: Thoriumweave Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft is making a comeback, every ferals 1st tanking cape.
Slikk's Cloak of Placation - Item - World of Warcraft will still be the best however.
Gilded Thorium Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft is slightly better than thoriumweave because of the minor avoidance from defense.
Pepe's Shroud of Pacification - Item - World of Warcraft and
Crimson Paragon's Cover - Item - World of Warcraft could be substituted in if you are in dire need of hit or expertise but only if are still using 2 armor rings and badge of tenacity.
IV. Glyphs
With 3.0, you will also unlock 3 minor and 2 major glyph slots (the 3rd major will open up at 80).
Here is a preview off all the glyphs that will affect ferals (either tanking or DPS). Note the mangle one requires a skill level that will not be available until wrath.
MINOR: Glyph of Thorns - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Challenging Roar - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Dash - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Growl - Item - World of Warcraft i put this here but separate because the warrior taunt resist glyph is a minor. hopefully this is just a bug and will be changed. If it remains a major i don't see myself taking it. Also not available until wrath. Apparently i am blind because the warrior version is indeed a major glyph as well. Still, it should be minor at least until they implement duel specs and duel glyphs.
MAJOR: Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Mangle - Item - World of Warcraft -> not available until wrath
Glyph of Maul - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Rip - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Shred - Item - World of Warcraft
At 70, my 3 minors will be challenging roar, dash, and unburdened rebirth. When wrath is released i will be changing the unburdened rebirth for thorns, then at 80 going back to rebirth.
My 2 majors at 70 will probably be frenzied regen and maul. I will probably keep them for leveling, mangle duration and shred are sub-par for leveling because you spam mangle and never shred except once a fight. Rip, you usually use ferocious bite as a finisher while leveling anyway and when you do rip it will be dead before those 2 extra ticks anyway. I may switch the shred one in at 70-73ish, but I am a) not sure which one to drop, and b) will be going back to it as soon as mobs have enough hp to still be alive after pounce->mangle->shred-> rake-> FB and the mangle/shred ratio starts getting into the 4:1 range and higher.
V. Talent Builds
None of my level 70 specs will include Omen of Clarity or Berserk- This has been changed based off of new threat values i recieved (see below). Even though my original testing that OoC cannot proc off maul turning out to be false, the threat from RnT and Berserk far outways OoC and allows you to take 2 more points in feral that before. This is a personal preference though.
A. Tank
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft - heroic/10 man main tank: This build is for those who are just starting out and are undergeared. Most of the time you will not have a warrior for Demo Shout or Thunderclap, this build is based around the druid having to keep them up while tanking. Threat will be a little low with this build so you may have to tell your DPS to relax some at the start of pulls.
variants of this build->
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Doing 5 mans and heroics are really the only time you will be raged starved, with the new threat numbers this is really the only time where i feel OoC is almost a must. Anything past that bosses hit so hard that you get full rage from a single swing.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft You take the points out of Feral Aggression because you still have demo shout without it, if you take the points out of IF, you lose the ability completely. This will also greatly increase threat of maul, mangle, and swipe.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft This is for someone who is fully geared in badge/ZA gear, maybe you are not in a 25 man guild or maybe you are an alt that just does 10 mans, you might run with a warrior but not having Thunderclap just means more rage and does not put your life in jeopardy. I have the 2 points in brutal impact because these top builds are based on mitigation. In 5 and 10 mans brutal impact even in t6 going back to those places can be vital if a healer gets put out of commission, but they are really interchangeable with maxing out naturalist.
25 man main tank Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft This is the highest threat build at 70 short of sacrificing points in natural reaction or thick hide. You will always have your arms warrior doing demo and TC, you will be slamming maul because rage is never an issue with a progression 25 man boss hitting you.
variants of this build-> Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft points in Imp LOTP. Progression bosses are very taxing on healers, sacrificing 2% total damage. I would like to have taken the points from Feral instinct, but they are needed to progress further down the tree.
B. Hybrid PvE
Before I get into hybrid builds, I would like to post some cat data, taken from when rend and tear was 10% damage at 5 points. Note, this is strictly for cat form dps.
This is a rough relative value evaluation (measurements are in Kitty Points, or Attack Power equivalents):
Talent Ferocity:AP = 62.0109 (12.4022 per Talent Point)
Talent Feral Aggression:AP = 0 (0 per Talent Point)
Talent Shredding Attacks:AP = 1203.6127 (601.8063 per Talent Point)
Talent Primal Precision:AP = 126.6808 (63.3404 per Talent Point)
Talent Savage Fury:AP = 54.2102 (27.1051 per Talent Point)
Talent King of the Jungle:AP = 906.42 (302.14 per Talent Point)
Talent Predatory Instincts:AP = 582.768 (194.256 per Talent Point)
Talent Improved Mangle:AP = 74.645 (24.8817 per Talent Point)
Talent Rend and Tear:AP = 137.0766 (27.4153 per Talent Point)
Talent Berserk:AP = 379.8602 (379.8602 per Talent Point)
Talent Naturalist:AP = 752.8081 (150.5616 per Talent Point)
Talent Omen of Clarity:AP = 1421.343 (1421.343 per Talent Point)
Talent Genesis:AP = 62.6788 (12.5358 per Talent Point)
Talent Master Shapeshifter:AP = 235.2462 (117.6231 per Talent Point)
As you can see, even with a buff to 20% damage, rend and tear would still be significantly far behind KOTJ and PI. I have still not been able to confirm if the master shapeshifter pTP is out of 5 to include the 3 wasted points in NSS.
10/25 man main tank/off tank:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (this is the build I plan on going probably). This is for people who will be main tanks in 25 mans and will only DPS on single tank fights. This spec is also for those who will run 10 mans as the main tank with either a prot pally or arms/fury warrior offtank. Move the 2 points into Naturalist from brutal impact for more threat.
10/25 man off tank/DPS:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft . This is for those who will be offtanking fights like Fathom Lord, Akama, one of Kael’s advisors/weapons, Veras in the Council encounter, and Mother lashes, (but not fights like Leo, Anetheron, Azgolor, Supremus, or Bloodboil), and will be in cat most of the time. This one is probably the trickiest role to balance, simply because of the difference in TPS per point and APE per point. I posted the build with naturalist maxed only because its already a more cat-centric build. Its basically 71 TPS in bear with Rend and Tear or about 300 APE in cat with naturalist.
C. DPS PvE
10/25 man pure cat build:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. This is saying that your raid has 3 other prot warriors/pallies or feral druids. Maybe you will tank a platform on lurker or alars adds in phase 1 or one of the 1st 2 weapons to die on kael that you can tank in your DPS gear. There are no wear near as many cat talents as bear talents so you still get things like ILOTP or Brutal Impact. Scroll up to the numbers above and you can clearly see that OoC is a much better choice here, but again some people may want Berserk for the fun aspect, maybe your guild is stuck on Archimonde and the fear break would be huge, in which case you put the 6 points in rend and tear then berserk. If you do go with OoC, then the points go in NSS and MS (
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft).
D. PvP
PVP spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
pvp mana conservative spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Omen of Clarity and and 1 point in NSS are interchangeable.
mana conserve build with berserk:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
in all the PVP builds, thick hide and feral instinct are interchangeable. I prefer the extra stealth but most people will probably disagree with me. If you do not play with a healer, do not bother with NI in my opinion, your mana pool is to small and the % on NI to small to keep you alive long enough.
E. Leveling
80 is just a whole new can of worms which i will not get into in this guide, look for a WOTLK guide to be out sometime after my guild has killed Naxx and Malegoes.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is my current leveling build on beta ATM.
I really like that 1 point in brutal impact actually and it is not just randomly thrown in there, without it a lot of the time the pounce->mangle-> shred will just barely get off before pounce ends, that 1 point adds some leeway when tigers fury is on CD. Shredding attacks, and if you read about glyphs you will notice a disparity, but if i pounce, mangle, shred, rake, ferocious bite, then the mob till be dead or will tick out to the bleeds in a second or 2. At any point you can take the points out of shredding attacks though if you wish.
71: omen
72-74: feral instinct, personal preference but i like the added stealth levels it gives. if not, start in on rend and tear.
FI build 75-79: rend and tear
rend and tear build 72-76: rend and tear 77-78: max brutal impact and IW 79: either NI or imp mark
My plan with this spec is to quest and only do instances once or twice if there are quests in them, I will be fine tanking without protector of the pack and natural reaction (just keeping demo and IW up) because of my gear. I am not sure how people in heroic/kara gear with this spec will fair while tanking instances.
So for those people i would recommend this build, again getting OoC and Berserk in whichever order you like,
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. From the below spec, you gain the 60 energy proc on Tiger's Fury, but lose 6% dodge in bear. From the above build, you gain 30% damage on swipe and 12% mitigation in instances for 18 energy off shred (so instead of going pounce->mangle-> shred you just go pounce->mangle spam), 1/2 a second on bash and pounce duration, and PI.
72: Finish IW
73-75: PI
76-79: RnT
BEAR LEVELING BUILD: this is if you plan to be mostly tanking instances while leveling, if you were inspired by Xav's video.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft get one at 70 the other at 71 between berserk and omen.
72: Finish IW
73-75: KOTJ
76-79: rend and tear
The best way to level with this spec when not in an instance is to agro 2/3 mobs in bear at a time with the maul glyph and just spam swipe and maul, using enrage as much as possible. Then go cat kill one mob (once you get KOTJ), get Tiger's Fury on cooldown, then another pull in bear with enrage etc. With imp LOTP giving mana, this should not be a problem.
No Berserk Build:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
71-72: Finish KOTJ
73-74: Finish IW
75: Feral Instinct
76: Berserk
77: Feral Instinct
78-79: RnT
the one downside to this build is in my 1st leveling build, i like to be able to agro 6 mobs when berserk comes up and just rip them apart with the maul + maul glyph + berserk. Also, if you accidentally pull 4-5 mobs, while you should not die if you go bear immediatly, maybe you were at low health healing up when they spawned on you, well berserk gives you that OH %$^ button. You also lose out on 40 energy every 30 seconds. The reason i dont like this is because energy is your biggest down time while leveling, as opposed to the RNG of cat MS, you may crit 2 mangles and a FB in a row and drop a mob instantly, but a) you can do that anyway without MS, and b) if you dont crit on 3-4 consecutive specials, than you are sitting there waiting for energy to return. What you do gain is the reason people overlook this talent in PVE, the 30% reduce mana cost while leveling will not be totally useless like it would in a raid. But again there is a downside, before you had to shift out to loot quest ground spawns and use quest items on corpses/objects, that was always one of the biggest mana problems i faced while leveling. That combined with Imp LOTP returning mana, i do not forsee mana being an issue while leveling.
What i will probably do is start with the 1st leveling build i posted, then respec at 76 when i can get all 3 berserk, OoC, and MS .
VI. Useful Links The Druid Wiki » home - invaluable resource for druids, I would like to credit one of the authors there, Toskk, for his help with this write-up
Druid - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Feral 3.0 FAQ FAQ for the more casual aspects i had neither the time nor the space to cover
I would like to thank Bloodwraith for his help with the formatting and Cider and Tankspot for giving me the chance to do this.
)
