Feral Druid DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — 12.0.5

Feral Druid's core rotation is dictated by its dual resource system: Energy and Combo Points. The first of these, Energy, has a base capacity of 100 (increased by certain Talents), and refills at a rate of 11 Energy per second (increased by Haste). This is used to fuel every ability, both your Combo Point generators, and your Combo Point finishers.

Feral has a few different abilities to build Combo Points (known as generators): Shred, Rake, Swipe, Moonfire (with Lunar Inspiration) and finally Feral Frenzy. When used, these generate at least 1 Combo Point, and with Primal Fury taken will also generate an additional one when dealing a Critical Strike. These are in turn used to fuel your most powerful abilities.

Finishing Moves (known as finishers) spend all your Combo Points at once, and often come with an Energy cost. The more Combo Points spent, the higher the damage (or stronger the effect), so always aim to cast with the cap of 5. Your most commonly used finishers are Rip / Primal Wrath to apply powerful DoTs, and Ferocious Bite for direct damage.

Due to the slow generation of Energy for Feral, the concept of "pooling" Energy is worth understanding. This means holding your ability uses until certain conditions are met, then spending to maximize efficiency. Feral always has a natural amount of downtime in its rotation, so planning these moments rather than being forced into a dry period is usually better. Also, try to always bottom out your Energy in the lead-up to each Tiger's Fury cast, which generates a burst of resources.

Omen of Clarity procs should be used as soon as possible (below 5 Combo Points) to avoid overwriting procs. With Moment of Clarity, this allows you to sit on one charge, allowing it to accumulate up to 2.

Feral should always aim to have 100% uptime on both Rake and Rip, with additional DoTs included based on your talent build. This is the core of your damage output, and creates the maintenance playstyle that Feral is built around. Remember, if you're playing Circle of Life and Death all of the below effects expire 25% faster!

• Rip — costs 20 Energy, but duration is dependent on how many Combo Points you apply it with. Aim to use 5 for the best Energy efficiency, and when you do so it lasts for 24 seconds.
• Rake — costs 35 Energy to apply, lasts for 15 seconds. Apply rotationally.
• Moonfire (with Lunar Inspiration) — costs 40 Energy, lasts for 18 seconds. Apply rotationally.

Feral benefits from the Pandemic effect on its DoTs, allowing you to refresh specific DoT effects up to 30% early, and carry the remaining duration into the next cast. This does not carry over any snapshotting effects; which instead need to be present when the new DoT is applied. The Pandemic timers are as follows:

• Rake — 4.5 seconds
• Rip — 7.2 seconds (assuming 5 Combo Points)
• Moonfire — 4.8 seconds

Note that these amounts are reduced by 25% with Circle of Life and Death, increasing their tick speed.

"Snapshotting" is a core pillar of Feral Druid gameplay, used to power up your Bleed effects. In Midnight, this has been significantly pulled back, with only a handful of key effects falling under this category.

The effects that have the snapshot interaction with Bleeds, and which DoTs they affect are:

• Tiger's Fury — all DoT effects
• Pouncing Strikes — Rake (from Prowl)

Tiger's Fury is the sole activator for most of your Snapshotting, and as such it's a lot simpler to make use of. Simply always remember to reapply Bleeds during this window, and ideally avoid doing so outside of it. Generally, the rule to follow is to only ever overwrite a DoT effect if you will apply a stronger snapshot, if possible. If you aren't currently able to do so, then wait until the initial Bleed expires to reapply.

Tracking these is a little more difficult with the UI changes coming in Midnight, though it should be noted that the icon changes when a Bleed was applied under a snapshot effect. Your action bar will also switch over to the empowered icon, highlighting that a stronger Bleed is available to be applied, so use these to guide your decisions.

Ferocious Bite is your direct-damage finisher, Combo Points are only spent on it after you have Rip (or Primal Wrath) active. When cast, make sure to have enough remaining Rip duration to generate enough Combo Points to refresh it before it expires. Always try to have 50 Energy when using Ferocious Bite to amplify its damage (doubly so if playing with Saber Jaws).

As covered in the rotation section, this is only something you commit to when you have spare resources. While it can be appealing to see the big damage it deals, losing uptime on DoTs is almost never worth the investment. Apex Predator's Craving procs, however, cause this to be completely free, and should be consumed immediately. These procs do gain the bonus damage from extra Energy consumption, but do not get increased further by Saber Jaws.

The above rules also apply to Rampant Ferocity, causing it to be amplified by additional Energy consumption. This talent makes it even more important to have Rip applied to all nearby targets before committing to it, as it only deals damage to enemies affected by the DoT.

As Druid of the Claw, you also gain access to Ravage procs. These follow all of the above rules, being functionally identical to Ferocious Bite in terms of how it scales. These should be consumed as soon as possible to avoid overwriting procs (especially in AoE), but still try to make sure you meet the Energy thresholds to maximize its damage.

Feral Frenzy should be used when you have 0-2 Combo Points, and immediately followed with a finishing move. This means you both need the Energy to cast it, and to use the follow-up Combo Point spender in quick succession. Whenever possible, overlap this with Tiger's Fury. It also comes with a follow-up choice node:

• Focused Frenzy reduces the cooldown by 15 seconds, and increases damage dealt by 40%.
• Frantic Frenzy is the AoE equivalent, blinking rapidly between targets and applying a strong Bleed.

Both of these nodes are strong either in single-target or AoE respectively, and are picked up in every build to enhance Feral's burst toolkit. With Focused Frenzy, it is always paired with every Tiger's Fury cast, while Frantic Frenzy is either held to align, or used with every third cast, depending on your pull cadence or add spawns. Damage is also amplified for Druid of the Claw via Tear Down the Mighty.

New in Midnight, Chomp has a 20-second cooldown and no cost, dealing high Physical damage to your target and tripled if it critically strikes. This can only be used after fallng below 30% Energy, or within 2 seconds after. This is a solid single-target option, and should be cast whenever available - ideally during Tiger's Fury, but don't hold it to align. Damage is also amplified for Druid of the Claw via Tear Down the Mighty.

The Feral Apex Talent, Unseen Predator, focuses on adding additional damage to your finisher casts. These add even more incentive to cycle your resources correctly, and are used in all builds currently:

• Unseen Predator first point - Ferocious Bite has a 15% chance per Combo Point spent to trigger either Unseen Slash or Unseen Swipe, depending on targets nearby. Deals reduced damage if less than 5 Combo Points and 50 Energy was spent to trigger it.
• Unseen Predator second and third point - increases all damage you deal by 7.5% per point for 1 second per Combo Point spent when an Unseen Attack is triggered via Unseen Predator. Extra attacks will extend the duration.
• Unseen Predator fourth point - increases all Rip damage you deal by 30%. Additionally, casting Tiger's Fury will cause your next two Combo Point generating attacks to trigger an Unseen Attack at maximum strength.

These will occur throughout your rotation, dealing direct damage and amplifying all damage you deal in the brief window after it triggers. Due to being mostly passive bonuses, there's very little rotational considerations needed to maximize the effect.

The only significant effect tied to your gameplay is the third point, Unseen Predator, which is triggered by generators after Tiger's Fury. Since you will regularly be using generators in these windows anyway – often following a resource dump – there's no real need to play around the effect, it should apply for the window on its own with your standard builder loop.

Berserk is Feral's major cooldown. This lasts for 15 seconds, with a cooldown of 3 minutes (reduced to 2 minutes with Berserk: Heart of the Lion). This is your strongest damage window, and should be used as close to on cooldown as possible alongside other strong effects. While active, it provides several benefits:

• Generates 1 Combo Point every 1.5 seconds
• All ability damage increased by 15%.
• Combo Point generating abilities generate 1 additional Combo Point.
• Up to 3 Combo Points can be stored above 5 as Overflowing Power stacks.
• Finishing Moves consume Overflowing Power stacks to refund the same amount of Combo Points.
• Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane — duration increased to 20 seconds, and the Energy cost of Cat Form abilities reduced by 25% while active.
  • Ashamane's Guidance additionally reduces Incarnation's cooldown to 90 seconds.

While there are a lot of effects tied into it, the main impact is quite simple: you deal significantly more damage, and have access to much more resources. Feral has powerful 2-minute burst windows due to this, so it strongly encourages on-use trinkets to lean into it further. This should be lined up with Tiger's Fury and Convoke the Spirits. While active, you should aim to be spending as many resources as possible, ideally having none left as it expires.

With Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane taken, you also get access to a single use of Prowl in combat each time you use it. This should be used to apply an empowered Rake via Pouncing Strikes, ideally with Tiger's Fury active.

Tiger's Fury has a 30-second cooldown, is off the GCD, and instantly generates 50 Energy when used. Additionally, all Feral ability damage is increased by 15% for 10 seconds. This damage increase also Snapshots Bleed effects applied while active, improving them for their full duration. There are a number Feral talents that interact with this:

• Predator — increases the duration by 5 seconds, and increases the damage of Combo Point generating abilities by 40% of your Haste at all times.
• Savage Fury — Tiger's Fury grants 10% Haste and 25% increased Energy regen for 8 seconds.
• Raging Fury — increases the duration by an additional 5 seconds.
• Tiger's Tenacity — causes your next three Finishing Moves after casting to also restore 1 Combo Point. Additionally, the Tiger's Fury damage snapshot applied to Bleeds is increased by 10%.
• Carnivorous Instinct — increases the damage bonus by 6% per point spent.
• Killing Strikes — Druid of the Claw gains Ravage the first time this is cast in combat.
• Strategic Infusion — Wildstalker increases the chance for Shred, Rake and Swipe to critically strike for 6 seconds when cast.
• Implant — Wildstalker applies a Bloodseeker Vines when cast and when it expires.

Tiger's Fury makes up a major part of Feral's talent tree, and is a core component of gameplay. It's pressed as close to every 30 seconds as possible, ideally with low Energy to take advantage of the refund. While active, you should aim to apply fresh Bleeds to snapshot them, and sync its uses with other strong cooldowns such as Berserk and Convoke the Spirits.

Convoke the Spirits is a 2-minute burst cooldown which, when used, casts a quick succession of 16 Druid spells (free of cost) over 4 seconds. This can be channelled while moving, but is also susceptible to interrupt effects. Each cast prefers a Feral Spell, but a handful of abilities from other specs are also mixed into the pool. This prioritizes single-target abilities on your current target. Some quick notes about the abilities it casts are:

• Ferocious Bite is the finisher in the Feral pool. This is considered a max Combo Point cast that did consume additional Energy, but is not increased further by Saber Jaws.
• Any Combo Point generating ability will still generate a Combo Point for you.
• The "exceptional spell" it can cast is Feral Frenzy.
  • This will change to Frantic Frenzy if taken.
• Moonfire, Rejuvenation, Regrowth and Wrath are also in the pool.
• Sudden Ambush will be consumed.
• Ravage will be consumed.
• Apex Predator's Craving will not be consumed.

Due to the buffs provided by Berserk and Tiger's Fury, this should always be cast during these windows. Their cooldowns naturally align, so avoid drifting these cooldowns during combat.

Ashamane's Guidance is also taken by most builds, reducing the cooldown to 1-minute while also reducing the spell count to 12. This lower cooldown means you should strictly stick to a 1-minute cast cycle to keep it aligned with Berserk and Tiger's Fury. Importantly, this increases the chance for Feral Frenzy to be selected as one of the spells. Due to both the power of Focused Frenzy and Frantic Frenzy, this makes it a more valuable talent pick in Midnight.