Table of Contents:
I. Introduction
II. Feral Talents
III. Resto Talents
IV. Balance Talents
V. 1-70 Changes
VI. 71-80 Additions
VII. Talent Builds
1. Tanking Builds
2. DPS Builds
VIII. Glyphs
1. Minor
2. Major
IX. Threat
X. Macros
XI. Gear
I. Introduction The purpose of this guide is to provide an in depth analysis of the different talents and builds of both Bear tanks and Cat dpsers. My experience consists of tanking for a server first progression guild through all of Ulduar including 10 man algalon and 25 man hard modes with the exception of Firefighter. I will try to keep this as up-to-date as possible but things may change as Wrath is patched. However, if you see any errors I may have made please point them out. If you feel that i have omitted anything of importance, post a reply and i will make note and add it where it is applicable.
Also, the patch to wrath guide 3.0 feral druid pre-wrath and leveling guide is still around check it out for useful leveling info.
II. Feral Talents Tier 1 Ferocity: Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, Rake and Mangle abilities by 1/2/3/4/5 Rage or Energy.
Comment:
Feral Aggression: Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Roar by 8/16/24/32/40% and the damage caused by your Ferocious Bite by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Comment: Tier 2 Feral Instinct: Increases the damage done by your Swipe ability by 10/20/30% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling.
Comment:
Bear form now has the same threat modifier as Defensive stance (207.35), includes feral instinct's old threat base now.
Now affects Swipe (Cat).
Savage Fury: Increases the damage caused by your Claw, Rake, Mangle (Cat), Mangle (Bear), and Maul abilities by 10/20%.
Comment:
Once again affects bear abilities, tier 2 moved from tier 5.
Thick Hide: Increases your Armor contribution from cloth and leather items by 4/7/10%.
Comment:
No longer affects rings, trinkets, neck, or weapons. Also no longer affects bonus armor on capes, for example the base armor for every ilvl 213 cape is 154, shadowed sun has 490, that 154 receives the 10% while the extra 336 does not.
Tier 3 Feral Swiftness: Increases your movement speed by 15/30% in Cat Form and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form, Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 2/4%.
Comment:
Active everywhere not just outdoors.
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. 3 minute cooldown.
Comment:
3.0.8 patch notes: Survival Instincts: The extra health from this ability now persists in all forms, but the ability can only be activated in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form. This prevents the health gain from occurring multiple times if constantly shapeshifting.
This also fixes the problem i mentioned earlier of dieing instantly upon shifting out of form because you would be taken to 1hp if you were below the amount of health received from the buff.
Updated for 3.1, the cooldown reduced to 3 minutes to bring it in line with the change to Last Stand.
Sharpened Claws: Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 2/4/6%.
Comment: Tier 4 Shredding Attacks: Reduces the energy cost of your Shred ability by 9 /18 and the rage cost of your Lacerate ability by 1/2.
Comment:
More testing needs to be done on lacerate vs swipe single target AP->threat Scaling. In BC swipe quickly outpaced lacerate even on single targets making this talent lackluster for bear. Also, lacerate rank 3 was buffed quite a bit, but it remains to be seen how much threat is from the bleed and how much is on the initial application. It may well be that we just keep a 5 stack and swipe/mangle.
Predatory Strikes :Increases your melee attack power in Cat, Bear, and Dire Bear Forms by 50/100/150% of your level and 7/14/20% of any attack power on your equipped weapon.
Comment:
Update for 3.1 to reflect the removal of Moonkin form.
Primal Fury: Requires 3 points in Sharpened Claws: Gives you a 50/100% 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 50/100% chance to add an additional combo point.
Comment: Primal Precision: Requires 3 points in Sharpened Claws: Increases your expertise by 5/10, and you are refunded 40/80% of the energy cost of a finishing move if it fails to land.
Comment:
This grants 10 expertise not expertise rating.
Tier 5 Brutal Impact: Increases the stun duration of your Bash and Pounce abilities by .5/1 sec and decreases the cooldown of Bash by 15/30 sec.
Comment:
Bash now interrupts casting on stun immune mobs (ie bosses).
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.
Comment:
Feral charge (cat) activates a 15 second cooldown on feral charger (bear).
Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 35/70% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% while in Cat form.
Comment: Tier 6 Natural Reaction: Increases your dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form by 2/4/6%, and you regenerate 1/2/3 rage every time you dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.
Comment: Heart of the Wild: Requires 3 points in Predatory Strikes: Increases your Intellect by 4/8/12/16/20%. In addition, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form your Stamina is increased by 2/4/6/8/10% and while in Cat Form your attack power is increased by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Comment:
Updated for 3.1 to reflect the lowered stam multiplier.
Survival of the Fittest: Increases all attributes by 2/4/6%, reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 2/4/6%, and increases your armor contribution from cloth and leather items in bear form and dire bear form by 11/22/33%.
Comment:
Correct, you do not need defense to be immune to crit from bosses with this talent maxed. Updated for 3.1 to reflect the armor reduction.
Tier 7 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 members within 45 yards by 5%.
Comment: Improved Leader of the Pack: Requires 1 point in Leader of the Pack: Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to heal themselves for 2/4% 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 4/8% of your maximum mana when you benefit from this heal.
Comment: Primal Tenacity: Reduces the duration of Fear effects by 10/20/30%, reduces all damage taken while Stunned in cat form by 10/20/30%, and reduces the mana cost of bear form, cat form, and dire bear form by 17/33/50%.
Comment:
Update for 3.1 to reflect the damage reduction while stunned only applies in cat form.
Tier 8 Protector of the Pack: Requires 1 point in Leader of the Pack: Increases your attack power by 2/4/6%, and reduces the damage you take while in Bear or Dire Bear Form by 4/8/12%.
Comment:
The tooltip is confusing, but the ap only effect bear form.
Group requirement removed.
Predatory Instincts: While in Cat Form, increases your damage from melee critical strikes by 4/7/10% and reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 10/20/30%.
Comment:
No portion of this talent affects bear form in any way anymore, this talent is 100% cat.
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:
Druid thunderclap.
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:
Per point damage (for bear) increase using enrage:
Every 60 seconds .833%
every 61 seconds .819%
every 62 seconds .806%
every 63 seconds .793%
Mangle: Requires 1 point in Leader of the Pack: Mangle the target, inflicting damage and causing the target to take additional damage from bleed effects for 12 sec. This ability can be used in Cat Form or Dire Bear Form.
Comment: Improved Mangle: Requires 1 point in Mangle: Reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by .5/1/1.5 sec., and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 2/4/6.
Comment:
Because of the restriction of GCD, getting 1 or 2 points in this talent means you either need to not use any abilities for .5/1 second while off global, or when you get to mangle it will be off cooldown and you still still be on global. For tanking, its all 3 or none. For cat, if you plan on raiding seriously in 25 mans guilds will most likely have a trauma warrior and you will never need to mangle. For sustained dps, you mangle once every rotation so even without a trauma warrior it is lackluster for cat.
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 5/10/15/20/25%.
Comment:
It does not have to be pounce, lacerate, rip, or rake, any bleed will proc this talent, from any class. Updated for 3.1 to reflect the crit reduction on Ferocious Bite.
Primal Gore: Requires 5 points in Rend and Tear: Grants the periodic damage from your Lacerate and Rip abilities the chance to critically hit.
Comment:
While tanking this greatly increases the value of a 5 stack of lacerate as the crits proc SD.
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: III. Resto Talents Tier 1 Furor: Gives you 20/40/60/80/100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to 20/40/60/80/100 of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin form by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Comment: Improved Mark of the Wild: Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 20/40%, and increases all of your total attributes by 1/2%.
Comment:
Updated for 3.1 to reflect the addition of increased stats. Now a mandatory talent.
Tier 2 Naturalist: Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Comment:
On your character screen, for melee damage when you mouse over your damage range you will see x102/x104/x106/x108/x110.
Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 10/20/30%.
Comment: Tier 3 Intensity: Allows 10/20/30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting and causes your Enrage ability to instantly generate 4/7/10 rage.
Comment: 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%.
Comment:
No longer procs off specials (maul being on neck swing still procs it).
Master Shapeshifter: Requires 3 points in Natural Shapeshifter: Grants the druid an effect in the respective forms. Bear: Increases Physical Damage by 2/4%. Cat: Increases Critical Strike Chance by 2/4%.
Comment:
If taken out of 5 points, as NSS is more or less useless in pve, it balances out to .8% damage increase per point.
IV. Balance Talents Tier 1 Genesis: Increases the damage and healing done by your periodic damage and healing effects by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Comment:
Leaving this here to say IT DOES NOT AFFECT pounce/rip/rake/lacerate. They changed the wording of it a while back and since that patch it stopped working for bleeds.
The following 2 sections will cover changes to all 3 specs as some changes will overlap into feral. For now they are in no coherent order but I will edit them once things settle down.
V. 1-70 Changes - Energy- now ticks regardless of form.
- Swipe (updated for 3.1)- The Bear Form and Dire Bear Form version of this ability no longer has a targeting requirement and hits targets behind the druid and to the sides.
- Faerie Fire (Feral) (updated for 3.1)- is now a trained base ability (level 18 same as normal faerie fire). When used in bear, it will both do damage and generate extra threat. In bear for it will now do damage equal to 15% of your AP up for 5%. Now lasts 5 minutes in pve up from 40 (still has a pvp duration of 40) - this change also applies to normal Faerie Fire. To keep it in line with the other changes to ArP mechanics it now reduces armor by 5% instead of a flat ammount.
- Tiger's Fury- is now a 30 second cooldown and costs no energy, off GCD.
- Barkskin - now usable in forms.
- Entangling Roots - now usable inside.
- Nature’s grasp - now a trained ability, at the old 5/5 talented 100% chance, also usable in forms.
- Revive - Druids new out of combat rez.
- Growl - 30 yards to match the warrior and death knight equivalents.
- Challenging roar - down to 3 minutes.
- Dash - down to 3 minutes.
- Maim (updated for 3.1)- This ability is now considered a stun, and shares a diminish category with all other stuns. It no longer has a chance to break from the target taking damage. Duration lowered to 1 second per combo point.
- Frenzied regen - will now heal for 30% of your hp if all 100 rage is consumed.
- Maul - now affected by mangle/trauma.
- Hurricane - cooldown removed.
- Rake - damage greatly increased, better DPS than mangle but less than shred.
- Rip - AP contribution increased on 5CP, previously 4 and 5 points rips received the same AP %.
- Green armor values removed from leather items. THIS WILL BE UPDATED in the near future to include GC's most recent remarks about bonus armor and the bear modifier once the bear modifier is announced.
- Weapon procs (such as mongoose and executioner) will now proc in forms.
- Healthstones, Potions, and the like can now be used in forms. You can also mine, herb, and use quest items in form as well.
- Abolish Poison (updated for 3.1): Now ticks every 3 seconds, up from every 2. Now lasts 12 seconds, up from 8.
- Innervate (updated for 3.1): This spell no longer costs mana. This ability has been redesigned to grant 450% of the casting Druid's base mana pool to the target over 20 seconds.
- Lifebloom (updated for 3.1): Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.
- Pounce (updated for 3.1): No longer affected by diminishing returns with other stuns, however, it now shares a diminishing return with Cheap Shot (Rogue).
- New ability: Savage Defense (added in 3.1): Trainable at level 40 with Dire Bear Form as a prerequisite.
When the druid deals a melee critical strike, it gains a physical damage shield equal to 25% of its attack power. The next hit completely consumes the shield, regardless of how much damage was done. Only active in Bear Form.
VI. 71-80 Additions - Swift Flight Form - available from a trainer at level 71. Still requires 300 riding skill.
- New ability: Savage Roar (updated for 3.1) - available from a trainer at level 75.
Now considered an Enrage effect and now increases physical damage done by 30% instead of increasing attack power
25 energy 100 yard range Requires Cat Form
Finishing move that increases physical damage done by 30%. Lasts longer per combo point:
1 point : 14 seconds
2 points: 19 seconds
3 points: 24 seconds
4 points: 29 seconds
5 points: 34 seconds - New spell: Nourish - 18% base mana 40 yard range 1.5sec cast. Heals a friendly target for 1883 to 2187. Heals for an additional 20% if you have a Rejuvenation, Regrowth, or Lifebloom effect active on the target.
VII. Talent Builds
1. Tanking Builds
@ wowhead: Why must you hate me so. In the meantime:
I'm not feral, I'm a Bear: Community Spotlight: Tentative Feral Raiding Specs for 3.1 and
3.1 Bear Specs
Building up a spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Should be the base of your spec. I will take Feral instinct but millage on lacerate is still to be seen.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Now you need to decide if you need Infected wounds or not (will you have a warrior in the raid with you at all times).
I will but most people wont, so that brings us to
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft VIII. Glyphs 1. Minor Glyph of Aquatic Form - Item - World of Warcraft -> could be useful for leveling not so much at 80
Glyph of Challenging Roar - Item - World of Warcraft -> must have
Glyph of Dash - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Thorns - Item - World of Warcraft Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth - Item - World of Warcraft 2. Major
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration - Item - World of Warcraft -> must have. with the buffs to frenzied regen and this glyph it will finally become something useful again
Glyph of Maul - Item - World of Warcraft (updated for 3.1) -> at 1st I hated this glyph, now I am in love with it. Unfortunately there are a lot of taunt sensitive encounters in ulduar. Several of my blogging friends have done odes to this glyph on their blogs as it has been replaced with the below glyph.
Glyph of Growl - Item - World of Warcraft (updated for 3.1) -> As mentioned above, this is pretty much a must now for ulduar.
Glyph of Mangle - Item - World of Warcraft -> really more for cat DPS than tanking
Glyph of Rip - Item - World of Warcraft -> madatory for cat
Glyph of Shred - Item - World of Warcraft (updated for 3.1) -> Mandatory cat glyph
Glyph of Barkskin - Item - World of Warcraft (new in 3.1)-> PvP glyph
Glyph of Berserk - Item - World of Warcraft (new in 3.1) -> PvP glyph, not as effective as shred, rip and SR for cat pve. Possible burst threat potential for bear but there are actually good bear glyphs now.
Glyph of Savage Roar - Item - World of Warcraft (new in 3.1) -> Absolute must for cat PVE.
Glyph of Survival Instincts - Item - World of Warcraft (new in 3.1) -> My new favorite bear glyph. This + 4pc t8 gives you 28 seconds of 45% increased health.
Recommendations:
Bear:
Growl, SI, Frenzied Regen.
Cat:
SR, Shred, Rip. (If you are the mangle bot switch rip with mangle).
IX. Threat 
WOTLK Feral Druid Guide
