Druid: Feral (Melee)

Hello, my name is Incarn, I have offered to make a feral guide for my friend Desenkei and the good people of this guild. I will try my hardest to cover everything from talents, stats, glyphs, gear, rotation to small mechanics for both PvE and PvP.

Here is a screenshot of my ingame UI, I use left and right click to move forward and A,D to strafe. I also use Q,W,E to target arena1,2,3 and shift Q,W,E to focus arena1,2,3. The two question marks on the right action bar is a /stopcasting macro and a /focus target macro. -> https://gyazo.com/39f5f48452a2f295f0e2bfef078c8aed

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PvP

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It is important that you do not try and go full on vs classes like Warriors, Rogues, DKs, other strong melee classes and to abuse how versatile the spec is. Powershifting - Every time you go into a new form, it will remove all roots/snares on you, therefore you can create macro which is bascially a more complex version of: "/cast Cat Form NEXT LINE /cast Cat Form" It will be listed below as will many other great macros.

Feral is quite a monstrous spec for PvP if it is used properly, abusing the Diminishing Returns schools allows you put out consistent CC. For Example: Stun - Rake,Bash,Maim. Root- Entangling Roots. Immobilize - Wild Charge (Bear Form) Disorientate - Cyclone. Due to their being a variety of DR schools this lets you have really good potential for Crowd Control if you have good DR management. Making sure you don't overlap your DR timers is very crucial. DO - Cyclone,cyclone,cyclone,root,root,root,stun,stun,stun etc DO NOT - Cyclone,root,cyclone,stun,root,stun. This will fuck your DR timers up and you will not have a fun time. (This was an example do not actually do that exact CC rotation).

My opening rotation for PvP is quite simple. The faster you do it the better. First of all Prowl for the invisiblity and then open on them with Rake. This will stun them for 4seconds and put a good DoT/Bleed on them. In this 4seconds you will try your hardest to get 5 combo points, using shred as a filler, if you cannot reach 5 combo points within the 4second timeframe use Mighty Bash out of Rake. It is important to not spam Rake and to only apply it the once, doing this will lower your DPS however make sure that it has 100% uptime on your target. Whilst doing this rotation it is important that if you drop lower than 30 energy (Which you will) to use Tiger's Fury this will increase your damage by 15% for 8seconds and replenishes 60 energy) Once you have reached 5 combo points by using shred 2-4x use Rip. Rip is a crucial bleed for feral as it allows extremely high damage consistency combined with rake and shred spam. Whilst these are ticking away and you are building more combo points with shred you can line up a very hard hitting Ferocious Bite, using 50 energy, which is a massive health chunker if it crits. It can sometimes be very important to wait for 50 energy for ferocious bite, however it can be used with 25, it just wont hit as hard. This will instantly apply alot of pressure and will force a defensive cooldown or if the player doesnt have a brain, anti-cc trinket.

If the player trinkets your opening stun you can end the game when the next STUN DR timer resets with Incanation: King of the Jungle + Berserk. A little tip for these 2 offensive cooldowns is that you should not use them at the same time unless you are guaranteed the kill. I.E Player has no outs,defensives or trinket. Incarnation stacked with Tigers fury allows very good pressure especially if you pre-bleed and can produce alot of burst combined with the 3x Rake stunlock combo. The reason why you should not use these together is that your core burst damage comes from Berserk, Incarnation will force a defensive cooldown on it's own. Once their defensive cooldown has ended you can use Berserk, it will stack with Incarnation and your 2nd stunlock will be insane. This catches alot of players offguard as it is 2x bursts and not 1.

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Tips to countering every class/spec

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Mage - You cannot be polymorphed so they cannot really reset(poly,eat) unless they land Ring of Frost on you, which can be massively prevented by using skull bash, typhoon, stuns. If you get stunned and then RoF'd(for a damage setup) just spam Survival Instincts as it will break inevitability due to damage. If it's to eat and reset, use trinket. If not, nothing you can do, use dash or stampeding roar to connect, he'll blink and then use wild charge mighty bash.

Frost Mage - Be sure to save your wild charge for their blink, it is also important to maim/bash their blink. Opener - Rake stun, dash (to counter pet freeze), wild charge, mighty bash, shred, shred, tigers fury, rip, thrash. This will allow you to get a stun on the mage before deep freeze if you are fast enough, which then you can survival instincts out of that bash as the mage will probably deep freeze you. This will create amazing opening pressure and you will force block without using incarn/berserk/natures vigil. Try not to use rejuvenation unless you can use it in stuns and then /cancelaura it as the mage can spellsteal.

Fire Mage - Glyph of Ignite is aids. However I have never lost to a skilled fire mage. Use the same opening rotation as frost, be sure to powershift off gcd unless you can connect. Make sure you have 100% uptime on Rip and Rake and be careful for Combustion, line up 1x survival instincts for this. You would've forced a block by now, if you're dying use natures vigil. Make sure you can connect to the mage, use Dash and Stampeding roar smartly and also save wild charge for blink. Try not to use rejuvenation unless you can use it in stuns and then /cancelaura it as the mage can spellsteal.

Arcane Mage - Believe it or not arcane mage can be extremely deadly. If they use the talent Evanesce, this will make them untouchable completely for 3 seconds, during this they will burst, be sure to use Survival Instincts during this and natures vigil once evanesce ends. You can even shadowmeld as a Night Elf as Arcane Mages don't have any DoTs, they do have a permanent Slow if they use it properly though. They wont have any CC, the only potential CC against you is Ring of Frost or Frost Jaw you can still use survival instincts during frostjaw and you can just powershift out of it. You will get knocked into the air twice due to their supernova, you can still use survival instincts during this so it's not an issue. Make sure you kick arcane, if you do this it will prevent them from blinking(so you can stun and they can't escape, force his trinket if you havent already) Once Evanesce has ended you can even incarn + berserk as evanesce replaces Ice Block, this will cause insane pressure especially with a stunlock and saving your Wild Charge for Blink.

Subtlety rogue - Start in bear form, 2x rejuvenation on yourself so it lasts 15seconds. As soon as the rogue opens, if it isgarrote you can still survival instincts as the rogue tends to open with Shadow Dance you will notice it wont force alot of pressure with Bear Form + Survival Instincts stacked, use Thrash(Bear Form), this will prevent him from resetting and then Faerie Fire, typhoon to get a small distance and then Bear Form Wild Charge, this will immobilize him and prevent him from moving for 4seconds, if he cloaks and vanishes spam thrash in bear form this will hopefully bring him out of stealth, the previous DoT will still be ticking however so you will find him, as soon as the bleed ticks use faerie fire as fast as you can. You can use Incarn + Wild Charge to then get alot of pressure with a stunlock, bleed(Rake + Rip) and run combo. Make sure to use Entangling Roots from Predatory Swiftness procs as your bleeds will just rot him down and he can't do anything about it. If you are forced into a defensive position use Nature's Vigil, once this is used you can use Healing Touch Predatory swiftness procs as they are amplified massively. Once the roots end up breaking he'll probably shadowstep kidney, make sure to prewall it, once that ends use berserk and end the game. NOTE - Make sure you do not get your bash evasioned, you can avoid this by using Wild Charge to get behind the target and then bashing extremely fast. Make sure you have Faerie Fire and bleed uptime 100%. Do not get stunned in Cat Form, especially shadow danced on. Use Nature's Vigil and ANTI-CC TRINKET SMARTLY, DO NOT USE IT ON BLIND UNLESS YOU CAN KILL. DOING SO WILL GET YOURSELF KILLED UNLESS YOU'RE ON THE LEVEL OF PREDICTING HIS STUN WITH SURVIVAL INSTINCTS.

Assassination Rogue - The burst from assassination requires vanish in order for an instant 5cp Envenom, this can be countered massively with Faerie Fire. When the rogue bursts with vendetta (usually opener) trinket stun, survival instincts as fast as possible > Faerie Fire > Typhoon > Wild Charge(Cat Form) This will put you behind the rogue to prevent evasion > If Night elf Shadowmeld > Rake If not night elf > Mighty bash this will probably force trinket instantly, if he doesnt trinket apply 5 combo point rip and rake out of this stun/trinket use nature's vigil, you will still have the Debuff on you and this will help to recuperate fast. Make sure to use Bear form smartly and when the stun DR timer ends on you use Survival Instincts.

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Stat Prio

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Versa>Mastery>Crit>Haste (It is important however to get about 35-40% crit (in PvP) as it almost guarantees that your ferocious bite will crit and allows very high burst consistency within Incarnation as shreds chance to crit is also doubled.

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Glyphs

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Glyph of Savage Roar (When you Rake or Shred while prowling, you are granted Savage Roar as if it were used with 5 combo points) This is by far the best glyph for your opening rotation, it can also be used with Shadowmeld to refresh your savage roar so you don't have to waste combo points.

Glyph of the Master Shapeshifter (Reduces the mana cost of all Shapeshifts by 100%) Amazing for counterting classes like mages and hunters as ferals can powershift, without mana ferals cannot cyclone, heal or powershift.

Glyph of Cat Form/Ninth Life (Increases healing done to you in Cat Form by 20%/Reduces all damage taken whilst in Cat Form by 10%) These glyphs are important due to the fact that you generally give off good off healing as a feral/are queuing Feral/Disc.Glyph of Ninth Life is excellent for PvP as it stacks with your versatility from your gear and your 2set from your PvP trinkets, it allows quite a high permanent damage reducer which is naturally good in PvP however without this ferals would just melt, my preferred one is Ninth Life.

Glyph of Cyclone (Increases the range of Cyclone by 5 yards.) This sometimes can catch people off guard in arena and is very good for Jungle and Feral Mage however I would not reccomend replacing any of the above 3 for Feral/Disc.

Glyph of Rake (Increases the range of Rake by 8 yards.) This can be good for setting up vs spell cleaves and for a composition like FLS.

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Talents

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Wild Charge - This talent is insane as it gives such a variety and the cooldown is only 15seconds. Bear Form (Charges to an enemy, immobilizing them for 4sec.) This is amazing as it doesnt share a DR school with any of your abilities and it's extremely good for setting up traps for a hunter or allowing you to get a Cyclone on healers/classes like Warrior/Rogue etc. Travel Form(Leap Forward 20 yards) This can be crucial for getting out of any "Oh Sh\*t" moment however you are more squishy if you get stunlocked i.e you will die faster. The Cat Form Wild charge is excellent for countering spells like Evasion as it leaps behind the target allowing you to get that Bash. Okay now the next one is Human Form Wild Charge, this can be setup by making a macro such as /cancelform NEXT LINE /cast [@party1] Wild Charge. This allows you to escape by flying to your arena partner or is crucial for eating traps. It has alot of potential and can be used to a high skill cap.

Ysera's Gift - Good ol' Ysera's allows a very good consistent offhealing output stacked with Rejuvenation, Leader of the Pack and your Predatory Swiftness Healing Touches. However Renewal can be used in some cases to stop 1 extra setup.

Typhoon/Faerie Swarm - Typhoon knocks the enemy back and dazes them, this can help you set up for a Bear Form Wild Charge clone prowl rake combo and can also be used as a cast-stopper. (The higher their cast % the better) as your damage will accumulate from your bleed ticks and will allow you to just get more damage on them. Faerie Swarm is insane for countering classes like Hunters or Mages as it a ranged Magical snare, you can keep it applied to one target permanently.

Incarnation: King of the Jungle - Come on man, I am named after this talent. The reason why I am not writing anything about this is because there is alot of information about it in the PvP tab.

Mighty Bash - 5 Second Stun, 45 second cooldown. Can't go wrong really.

Nature's Vigil - Oh boy oh boy, this talent is insane. This can counter alot of Offensive CDs on it's own as the healing output is high af stacked with Incarn/Berserk or Tiger's Fury. Ferals can die fast without this though so do not waste it. Also do not make a macro consisting of Nature's vigil, Incarnation and Berserk. It is important to use them seperatley. You can usually maintain yourself with the abilties stated in "Ysera's Gift".

Claws of Shirvallah - This ugly af form allows you to use spells whilst in Cat Form and doesn't bring you out, it also gives a permanent 5% versatility boost which is great as ferals naturally stack versatility for PvP.

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PvE

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Okay first of all feral has extremely good consistent damage and offhealing, it also has 2x Survival Instincts (Reduces damage taken by 50% for 6sec) it has a 2minute cooldown this is useful because you will always have a damage reducer for that "Oh sh\*t" moment in a raid, natures vigil provides great offhealing when it is lined up with Tiger's Fury, Berserk or Incarnation.

For Single Target:

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Small Tips

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To counter Mass Spell Reflect, Spell Reflect(Broken af lol firestorm) and grounding totem you can soothe them, soothe can also be very useful vs warriors, especially fury.

You can use Remove Corruption to remove Serpent Sting, Unstable Affiliation, Doom, this is important as if they're the only dots on you, you can surprise them by removing them and getting a fast restealth rake stun. Finally most importantly Hex, you cannot be hexed or polymorphed for that matter, make sure to use it on your 2v2 partner =)

Make sure you do not overlap Predatory Swiftness procs i.e use one before you get another, unless you are doing PvE which then just do damage.

Dash and Stampeding Roar are not on GCD, so you can use them whilst using other spells. This is useful as they are slow/root removers aswell as speed amplifiers.

Keep rejuvantion, Rip and Rake uptime 100% and make sure to go for 50 energy bites unless you are trying to get very fast (close to kill)pressure after doing a rotation. Asdf

Do not fight like a warrior vs melee. Learn to kite, you cannot be slowed, abuse the versatile power of the spec.