Feral Druid DPS Phase 8 Class Overview - Season of Discovery

By Balor Updated: 2025/04/07

What's New for Feral Druid DPSonly69%30%Cat Form

was buffed from doing 225% Weapon Damage to doing 300% Weapon Damage.

received a large buff to its overall damage values, increasing both the initial damage and the damage over time by 125% (2.25x as much damage). More importantly, this ability now scales with your Attack Power at a rate of roughly 5% of your Attack Power on the initial hit and on each tick pre 2.25x modifier, giving each hit around 11.25% Attack Power scaling. This turns it from a mostly useless ability in Classic Era to one of your strongest individual casts.

now lasts for 16 seconds, up 4 seconds from 12.

Select weapon procs, including the powerful Crusader now work in Cat Form.

The iconic Feral items Wolfshead Helm and Manual Crowd Pummeler have been replaced by and , allowing Feral to use any available Helm and freeing them from the endless Gnomeregan farm.

now works indoors, giving Feral excellent maneuverability even while in raid.

Viability for Feral Druid DPSStrengths and Weaknesses for Feral Druid DPS

Strengths

Weaknesses

Best Specialization for Feral Druid DPSFeral CombatOmen of ClarityHow to Play Feral Druid DPSCat Formnever beforeStats and Gear for Feral Druid DPSandSpirit of Zandalar4 piece Tier 14 piece Tier 2.52 piece Tier 22 piece Tier 3Stat Priority

Expertise

Hit

Agility

Strength

+1 Bonus Weapon Damage

Crit

Attack Power

Haste %

Band of JinSeal of JinWowhead Gear Planner

These weights are computed while in Phase 6 BiS with world buffs including and Spirit of Zandalar. This set uses 4 piece and does not use 4 piece . All weights change with context. In worse gear and without buffs, the "scaling" stats like Hit and Crit lose value relative to Attack Power.

The value of Crit changes dramatically depending on what set bonuses you are using and whether you have world buffs. The bleed effect from the 4 piece bonus from , for example, makes a crit functionally add +178% bonus damage rather than +100% without it, after accounting for . This bonus dramatically increases the value of Crit, which in turn increases the value of Agility. 4 piece has a similar effect by allowing Rip and Rake to benefit from Crit.

As mentioned above, Hit and Expertise have lower values in practice than those shown in the table because you are not actually free to stack up on these stats; you instead must choose the most efficient pieces to use your 6% of Hit Budget on.

Mana stats like Intellect, Mp5 and Spirit are not included because their impact on total DPS via Powershifting is extremely small. In practice with proper consumables and raid usage of or , running out of Mana should not be a concern.

Stat

Normalized Weight

Attack Power

1.0

Feral Attack Power

1.0

Strength

3.036

Agility

3.325

Hit

50.1

Expertise

50.1

Critical Strike

32.57

+1% Haste

12.6

+1 Bonus Weapon Damage

11.66

Gear Recommendations for Feral Druid DPS - Phase 8Cloak of Draconic Might

All of the new Tier sets for Feral are powerful items to aim for, both for their stats and their strong set bonuses. 2 piece Tier 3 is absurdly strong, as is from AQ, but , and the Tier 0.5 items like are amazing as well.

The 3 piece set is extremely powerful for Ferals and should be relatively easy to acquire without entering 20 man raids.

and are two SoD exclusive on-use trinkets from which work very well for Feral and are easily obtained.

Ferals completely ignore the base weapon damage and speed of their equipped weapon; they only benefit from the stats listed on it. As such, you should primarily use weapons that include Feral Attack Power, such as the new Druid specific staff . These weapons don't start to exist until you near level cap, outside of a few examples from earlier phase raids such as . This is because the Feral Attack Power mechanic is designed to bring your base paw weapon damage up to par with the weapon's damage, and your base paw weapon damage scales up with you as you level up. is a strong weapon to grab in your final levels as you prepare to enter raids.

Best Races for Feral Druid DPSBest Alliance RacesQuicknessNature ResistanceBest Horde RacesEndurance5%War StompBest Professions for Feral Druid DPSEnchantingEngineeringDense DynamiteGoblin Sapper ChargeAlchemy

Comments

Comment by Nobleshield

The real question will be if they remove the reliance on MCP. Probably the worst thing ever, requiring farming a crappy low-level item to be seen as viable.

Comment by mb17bow

I'm new to feral so this may be a dumb question. But I don't see how the listed " Iron Counterweight - 3% Attack Speed" would be beneficial to ferals?

Comment by Kildar2112

Sarthe, let's be realistic and put 'alternative' gear recommendations that are more feasible for 99% of players. Going with the BoE items that have an incredibly low drop chance that only super-sweats/RMT can afford is disappointing. I like your YT content but this gear list is a bummer.

Comment by RidingNerdy

Can confirm that Wild Strikes applies a weapon enhancement so it does NOT stack with sharpening stones, poisons, etc.

Comment by Forfold

Looking at the rotation section, it says that Rip will apply a second bleed, but I don't see the first bleed ever mentioned. Should we be casting Rake after Mangle as well for maximal damage output?

Also as others have mentioned, gear alternatives would be nice. For instance, I'm running Herbs/Alchemy instead of Engineering, so I won't be getting that cape. I'm going after the Cape of the Brotherhood in the meantime.

Comment by Dworg

Anyone else super confused by stat weightings being:
Hit %
Strength
Attack Power
Haste %
Agility
Crit %
Intellect
Stamina
Armor

But then the gear list is mostly Agi gear?

Comment by Forfold

Some alternatives:

Helmet:
(Wetlands Rare Mob)

Shoulders:
(LW - 12 Medium Leather and an Elixir of Lesser Agility)
(Dungeon Trash Mobs)

Chest:
(Horde Quest Reward)

Cloaks:
(Deadmines)
(Wailing Caverns)
(Rank 3 in PvP, SW or Org vendor)

Gloves:
(LW - 10 Medium Leather and 2 Lucky Charms)
(World Drop)

Belt:
(Alliance Quest Reward)
(World Drop)
(LW - 10 Perfect Deviate Scales and 10 Deviate Scales)

Legs:
(Wailing Caverns)
(Wandering Salespeople)
(Wandering Salespeople)

Shoes:
(World Drop)

Bracers:
(Wetlands Rare Mob)

Rings:
(SFK)
(World Drop)
/ (WSG Honored)
(Horde Quest Reward)
(Alliance Quest Reward)

Weapons:
(Deadmines, no alternatives as good)

Edits: Clarity, added cloaks

Comment by Bimo

NGL this guide feels rushed and give 0 thought process.
Also feels like it was made before 'pre-alpha' where you think we can reach certain profession cap and be able to get the rarest of the rare gear possible.
Strenghts: ''3% increased Crit Chance Buff to their group after Phase 1 with the Talent Leader of the Pack'' ?
'Best races' ?

This is just a *thing of sorts for the heck of it and sadly expected from Sarthe.

Comment by Rayearthx

Honestly, I think suggesting Omen of Clarity and "powershifting" without helm at level 25 is a bit try-hard.

Maybe it's different in BFD, but I have done every dungeon (aside from SFK) with other druids that were running OOC, Paladins (all flavours) and rogues.

I am just running just "normal feral".

I constantly out-damage people in better gear who run the Omen build. Even Paladins with their AOE. Hunters can give me a run for my money.

And I rather like having 30% extra movement speed in the open world.

Comment by Tian

Guys wild strikes still procs after using Blackfathom Sharpening Stone as a Feral.

Comment by MHegs77

Lol. Sarthe

Comment by Soapybawlz

For the love of god please allow swipe to scale with Attack power, and take mangle and lacerate OFF THE SAME ITEM SLOT!

Comment by Soapybawlz

ALSO @sarthe as of 12/18/23 ferals CAN use sharpening stones AND gain the effect of wildstrikes.... I did it personally if you dont believe it please try it

Comment by Lefsefisen

Why no update for P2?

Comment by Rudelis

@sarthe update for phase 2!

Comment by BungerOverheat

Season two guide made just in time for my last last gnomer before p3 let's go! ty sarthe

Comment by Dreals

Never updated,
recommending a temple only consumable,
missing a lot of items in bis lists,
speaking about best in P3,
different stat priorities from one page to another,

this guide is garbage, except the rota/priority-list.
2024-08-22

Feral Druid DPS Phase 8 Class Overview - Season of Discovery

Contribute