Feral Druid guide for WoW Forever

The Feral Druid in WoW Forever is two specs in one: a cat that deals melee damage with Energy and Combo Points, and a bear that tanks with Rage. You can build for one of them or keep both. The old powershifting is gone, but Shifting Power turns mana into Energy, and you can use consumables and talk to most NPCs without leaving form. This guide covers four builds for level 60, the key talents, both rotations, resources, stats and races.

Role	Melee damage in Cat Form, tank in Bear Form
Builds for level 60	Hybrid 9/42/0, Cat 9/40/2, Bear 9/42/0, Solo 0/35/16
Key talents	Feral Charge, Shifting Power, Primal Bite, Leader of the Pack, Berserk, Nature’s Reach
Strength	Two roles in one, Leader of the Pack, the fastest character indoors and outdoors
Weakness	Hybrid damage, three resources to watch, a high skill cap
Other Druid guides	Druid leveling, Balance Druid, Restoration Druid

Strengths and weaknesses

Two roles. A cat deals damage like a Rogue, a bear tanks like a Warrior, and you can switch in the middle of a fight. Out of form you still have Rebirth, Innervate, Remove Curse and a few heals.

Raid buffs. Mark of the Wild, Thorns and Faerie Fire like every Druid, plus Leader of the Pack: 3% more melee and ranged critical strike chance for the whole party or raid within 45 yards. Demoralizing Roar lowers the damage of the enemy.

Mobility. Feral Swiftness makes you 30% faster in Cat Form, indoors too. Dash, Feral Charge and Pounce close gaps in combat, and Prowl gets you past danger.

Hybrid damage. Blizzard keeps hybrids a little below the pure damage classes on average. You can still top the meters, just less often than a Rogue.

Three resources. A cat watches Energy, Combo Points and, for Shifting Power, mana. A bear has Rage. Add bleeds and debuffs, and Feral is one of the harder specs to master.

Four builds for level 60

All four use 51 points, the full talent count of level 60. Every build takes 9 points in Balance for Genesis 5/5, Nature’s Majesty 2/2 and Nature’s Reach 2/2, except the solo build.

Hybrid, 9/42/0

Cat and bear in one build, for endgame groups that ask for either role. Open the build in the talent calculator.

Talent	Points
Ferocity	3/5
Heart of the Wild	5/5
Feral Swiftness	2/2
Feral Instinct	3/3
Thick Hide	3/3
Shredding Attacks	3/3
Savage Fury	2/2
Feral Charge	1/1
Sharpened Claws	2/2
Shifting Power	1/1
Primal Bite	1/1
Predatory Strikes	3/3
Blood Frenzy	2/2
Improved Shifting Power	2/2
Leader of the Pack	1/1
Natural Instinct	2/2
Rend and Tear	5/5
Berserk	1/1

Cat, 9/40/2

For a Druid who never tanks. Open the build in the talent calculator. Compared to the hybrid build: Ferocity 5/5 instead of 3/5, no Thick Hide and no Primal Bite, and Furor 2/5 in Restoration.

Bear, 9/42/0

For a Druid who only tanks, with more Rage and survival. Open the build in the talent calculator. Compared to the hybrid build: Ferocity 5/5 and Natural Reaction 4/5, no Shredding Attacks, no Shifting Power and no Improved Shifting Power.

Solo, 0/35/16

For questing and farming alone: cheaper shapeshifts and efficient self healing, at the cost of some group performance. Open the build in the talent calculator. Feral Combat as in the cat build without Ferocity, and in Restoration Nature’s Focus 1/5, Furor 5/5, Naturalist 5/5, Natural Shapeshifter 3/3, Gift of the Earthmother 1/1 and Swiftmend 1/1.

What the key talents do

Talent	What it does in Forever
Nature’s Reach	4% more chance to hit, and 20% more range for offensive Balance spells
Heart of the Wild	10% more Intellect, 20% more Stamina in Bear Form, 10% more Strength in Cat Form
Feral Charge	Bear only: charge an enemy, root it and interrupt its spell for 4 seconds, and leap behind it
Shifting Power	Instantly turn 55% of your base mana into 40 Energy
Primal Bite	A bite for 100% weapon damage plus a bonus, with a lot of threat
Blood Frenzy	5 extra Rage on a critical strike in Bear Form, an extra Combo Point on a critical strike in Cat Form
Leader of the Pack	3% more melee and ranged critical strike chance for the party or raid within 45 yards
Natural Reaction	5% more dodge chance and 5 Rage every time you dodge
Rend and Tear	10% more damage with melee abilities on bleeding targets
Berserk	Primal Bite hits up to 3 targets without cooldown, 100% more critical strike chance for Combo Point builders, and it clears and blocks Fear
Furor	10 Rage when you shift into Bear Form; Cat Form gives back the Energy you had, plus 10 Energy per second spent outside Bear Form
Gift of the Earthmother	0.5 seconds shorter global cooldown on Rejuvenation, Swiftmend and Wild Growth

For the solo build: a quick Rejuvenation and Swiftmend heals you up, then you go back into form.

Cat rotation

1. Keep Thorns on yourself when you are alone.
2. Keep Faerie Fire on the target.
3. Rip at 5 Combo Points.
4. Keep Rake up.
5. Shifting Power on cooldown when you are below 50 Energy.
6. Shred to build Combo Points, or Claw when you cannot get behind the target.

Save enough Energy to put a bleed back as soon as it ends, but do not refresh it before then. On monsters that die quickly, skip the bleeds and just Shred or Claw. Ferocious Bite is not worth its Energy for now.

Bear rotation

1. Keep Thorns on yourself.
2. Keep Faerie Fire on the target; it also pulls from range.
3. Keep Demoralizing Roar up.
4. Primal Bite on the main target on cooldown.
5. Lacerate up to 5 stacks and keep them up.
6. Swipe against several targets, Maul against one.

On weak monsters, Primal Bite and Maul for one target, or only Swipe for a group.

Cooldowns and utility

• Growl taunts one enemy, Challenging Roar all enemies around you, on a 10 minute cooldown.
• Cower lowers your threat as a cat.
• Barkskin lowers the damage you take, in any form.
• Frenzied Regeneration turns Rage into health in Bear Form. Only when you are in danger, because that Rage is your threat.
• Enrage gives Rage but lowers your armor. Good for threat, risky against heavy physical hits.
• Innervate and Rebirth cost you your form. Rebirth is the only battle resurrection in the game, on a long cooldown.

Resources and forms

Mana keeps regenerating in form. It is hidden by default. Turn on the Personal Resource Display in Options, Combat, so you see whether you have mana for Shifting Power, a utility spell or a shift back.

Energy caps at 100 and ticks back like mana. Combo Points go up to 5 per target and do not move to another target.

Rage starts at 0, or at 10 with Furor, and caps at 100. You get it from taking damage, from critical strikes with Blood Frenzy, from dodges with Natural Reaction and from Enrage.

Stay in one form. Powershifting and bear weaving no longer pay off. In return, you can now use consumables and talk to most NPCs and objects without leaving form.

Bleeds ignore armor and switch on Rend and Tear. Keep them up and refresh them just after they run out.

Positioning

As a cat, stay behind the target: Shred needs it, the enemy cannot parry you and you avoid frontal attacks. Feral Charge puts you behind the target, but only from Bear Form. As a bear, you set the pace: pull casters around a corner to group them, then turn the pack away from your group.

Stats and gear

Cat: hit up to the cap (Nature’s Reach gives 4%, against raid bosses you need 9%), then expertise up to its cap, then critical strike chance, Agility (attack power and critical strike), Strength (twice the attack power of Agility) and attack power. Haste is rare.

Bear: the cat stats for threat, plus defense up to 440 against raid bosses so they cannot land critical hits, dodge (you cannot block or parry), armor and Stamina. A Druid tank takes heavy hits with a large health pool rather than with mitigation.

Gear. Leather with the stats above. Feral attacks use weapon damage in Forever, so look for a hard-hitting two-handed weapon, but not one with useless stats. An idol in the relic slot gives a small bonus; carrying two to swap is fine. Level 60 gear is not known yet.

Races and professions

Faction	Race	Why
Alliance	Night Elf	Critical strike bonus, good with a build full of critical strikes
Alliance	Skyborne	Haste and a mana regeneration cooldown
Horde	Tauren	Area stun and 5% more Health
Horde	Skyborne	Haste and a speed cooldown, less useful than the Alliance mana cooldown

The differences are small, so pick the race you like. Leatherworking makes some of the best leather gear, part of it only for leatherworkers. Engineering gives useful gadgets. Herbalism suits a Druid, because you gather in Travel Form, and Alchemy turns those herbs into your own consumables. More about groups in our dungeon guides.