Feral Druid Playstyle and Rotation Guide

Single-Target Rotation:

1. Use Tiger's Fury on cooldown, doing your best to be at low energy when it comes up as to not overcap
2. Maintain Rip with 5 combo points and you have Bloodtalons active (if talented), and ideally Tiger's Fury active too. If Tiger’s Fury is not active, but your previous Rip was snapshot with Tiger’s Fury, wait until it expires before refreshing. If you have Tiger’s Fury up, you can refresh anytime in the pandemic window (less than 5.8 seconds remaining).
3. Use Berserk on cooldown, used with or immediately after Tiger’s Fury.
4. Use Convoke the Spirits on cooldown (if talented), paired with Tigers Fury and Berserk.
5. Use Adaptive Swarm (if talented) if its missing from the target, or when it's close to expiring if the target has 1 or 2 stacks. If the target has 3 stacks, let it expire before casting. Alternatively to all this, you can press it on cooldown instead (easier to play and not much of a damage loss).
6. Use Feral Frenzy (if talented) on cooldown and you have low combo points.
7. Cast Ferocious Bite with 5 combo points if Rip is not in its pandemic window (less than 5.8 seconds remaining) or you would downgrade the Rip (Tiger’s Fury is not active).
8. Maintain Rake, and upgrade its snapshot by refreshing it early if any combination of Tiger's Fury or Sudden Ambush offers a stronger than your current Rake.
9. Proc Bloodtalons (if talented) off any Rake cast, generally pairing Brutal Slash and Shred with it.
10. Maintain Moonfire if Lunar Inspiration is talented.
11. Cast Brutal Slash to keep the charges rolling and/or proc Bloodtalons (if talented).
12. Maintain Thrash (even on single target). Pair Brutal Slash and Shred with it to proc Bloodtalons (if talented).
13. Spend Clearcasting procs on either Shred or Thrash (if it’s within pandemic).
14. Cast Shred to generate Combo Points and/or proc Bloodtalons

Single-Target Opener:

Provide openers that are important; such as with or without Lust, or if you have certain talents.

1. Prowl
2. Rake
3. Thrash
4. Brutal Slash (procs BT)
5. Brutal Slash (to 5 combo points).
6. Adaptive Swarm if talented
7. Tiger's Fury
8. Rip
9. Berserk
10. Feral Frenzy(if talented)+Ferocious Bite
11. Convoke the Spirits if talented

AoE Opener:

1. Prowl
2. Rake
3. Thrash
4. Brutal Slash (procs BT)
5. Rake (to 5 combo points)
6. Adaptive Swarm if talented
7. Tiger's Fury
8. Rip
9. Berserk
10. Feral Frenzy(if talented)+Ferocious Bite
11. Convoke the Spirits if talented

AoE Rotation:

1. Use Tiger's Fury on cooldown
2. Maintain Rip via Primal Wrath if it has expired or is within pandemic and you have Bloodtalons and Tiger's Fury active.
3. Use Berserk on cooldown, used with or immediately after Tiger’s Fury.
4. Use Convoke the Spirits on cooldown (if talented), paired with Tigers Fury and Berserk. Make sure Rip will last the full duration of the channel.
5. Use Adaptive Swarm on cooldown (if talented).
6. If you are at 5 combo points and Rip has a healthy duration (6+ seconds), weave a Ferocious Bite if you have the energy to do so.
7. If Tigers Fury is not active, but your previous Primal Wrath was snapshot with Tiger’s Fury, try to weave in a Ferocious Bite with energy+combo points if Rip has enough time remaining that it won’t fall off, in order to not downgrade the snapshot.
8. Spend Apex Predator procs
9. Cast Brutal Slash to keep the charges rolling and/or proc Bloodtalons (if talented) while doing your best to use as many charges as possible during Tiger's Fury windows
10. Maintain Thrash
11. Cast Rake regardless of target count
12. Maintain Moonfire if Lunar Inspiration to proc Bloodtalons or if targets already have Rake on them.
13. Cast Shred as a last resort to proc Bloodtalons, or you have a priority target.

Playstyle

Snapshotting

Snapshotting is a mechanic unique to Feral. It refers to a bleed maintaining a buff that is present upon its application for the entirety of its duration. The buffs that can snapshot are as follows:

Tiger's Fury: Rip, Rake, Rips applied through Primal Wrath, Lunar Inspiration Moonfire, Thrash,

Adaptive Swarm, and Feral Frenzy.

Bloodtalons: Rip, Rips applied through Primal Wrath

Stealth/Sudden Ambush: Rake

Moment of Clarity: Thrash

Snapshotting is very impactful to both gameplay and performance. It can be ignored for the most part when it comes to Thrash. However, you must always apply the strongest Rip; it can be worth not having Rip actively up for up to 5 seconds to ensure you get one up with both Tiger's Fury and Bloodtalons.

When it comes to Primal Wrath, you should always use it with Bloodtalons active. Clipping (or overwriting) a Rake with a better snapshot is worth it as long as it has 80% or less of its duration remaining. You should always let your Stealth Rakes tick out all the way to 0.

Pandemic

The Pandemic mechanic refers to any DoT maintaining up to 30% of its remaining duration when refreshed early. This allows you not to lose any uptime while refreshing early and also, in combination with snapshotting, allows for a longer duration on your stronger Bleeds.

It should be noted that Circle of Life and Death also influences the pandemic, and generally you only need to learn to follow the pandemic timers with Circle, as even if you’re playing without it, there’s still a large window to refresh in and you will never accidentally refresh early. Whereas if you learn

The Pandemic timers for your DOTs (with Circle) are:

• Rip: 5.8 seconds (when cast at 5 Combo Points)
• Rip: 3 seconds (when cast with Primal Wrath and 5 combo points).
• Rake: 3.6 seconds
• Thrash: 3.6 seconds
• Moonfire: 4.3 seconds

Also it should be noted that Adaptive Swarm does not pandemic, meaning sometimes it can be beneficial to wait as late as possible to refresh.

Pooling

Feral is a spec that has, by its nature, a large amount of downtime. Pooling is how you can turn your inescapable downtime into a DPS gain. You generally want to get to 5 Combo Points and wait. This has no opportunity cost and is a DPS neutral at worst. You’re more often than not waiting for either a DoT to need to be refreshed, to gain 50 Energy to cast Ferocious Bite, an additional target to either Rip or Primal Wrath, or for an Omen of Clarity proc, along with high Energy.