News

Talent Tree changes

In our spec tree, Rampant Ferocity has moved to where Merciless Claws used to be, Panther's Guile has moved to where Rampant Ferocity was, and Merciless Claws is now where Panther's Guile is in 12.0. What does this really mean?

1. Coiled to Spring is now locked in for pure single target fights, as it is the last talent that technically provides single target remaining. Though its weak enough that, with essentially any AoE we will replace it.

2. Rampant Ferocity is more accessible, which should help somewhat in handling AoE during Raid encounters.

3. If we want to talent Soul of the Forest (which we do), we must path through either Panther's Guile or Infected Wounds. Infected Wounds is a much stronger m+ talent than Panther's Guile is, and as such, Rake builds will be considered the default going forward.

12.1 Tier Set Bonus

2p) When Berserk/Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane ends, you deal 10% increased damage for 1 sec per combo point spent during Berserk/Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane. With both Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane and Ashamane's Guidance talented, it is 0.75 sec per combo point spent instead.

4p) Berserk/Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane lasts 10 sec longer.

This tier set favors Druid of the Claw a bit more than Wildstalker, and as such, Druid of the Claw will see a notable uptick in play for Raiding content. This is due to the sets synergy with Claw Rampage.

Nebulous Voidcores

Upon completing any content that gives vault rewards, you can spend Nebulous Voidcores to generate an item from that instance. Once you generate an item, it is removed from the loot table for your character from successive voidcores.

You should be selecting these from your Great Vault for the first few weeks, unless your Great Vault happens to have Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique, in which case you should probably select that instead.

We will be spending these on Heroic Ula'tek in Guardian Loot Spec, to acquire Voracious Heart of the Ula'tek and Abyssal Broodfiend's Bardiche. If you get those two items from your first two rolls, it may be worth to continue bonus rolling the boss for the other two items, particularly the neck Aqirbane Reliquary which, depending on your gear, can be nearly as good as any myth 6/6 item you may otherwise get despite being (presumably) 1/6M. If you are not a mythic raider, then this path is safe (Make sure to get the helmet Gaze of the Coiled Watcher as well). If you are a mythic raider, make sure to sim your gear at this point to determine its worthiness. If in doubt, feel free to ask in the Dreamgrove Discord's #Feral channel, where we can help you decide.

Omnium Folio

• This is a system added in 12.0.7 that will last for the rest of the expansion. Upgrades are earned through a short questline for now. The first row lets you choose a Core Rune, with the remaining rows providing extra bonuses whenever that Core Rune procs.

  When all the rows are unlocked, the best setup is as follows:

1. Rune of Unleashed FIre.
2. Rune of Lynxlike Reflexes The choices in this row are very weak so you are more or less free to choose.
3. Rune of Lingering, this is the only choice you have. Garf.
4. Rune of Burning Haste if you just want to set and forget. The options here are all stat procs, so sim your character to find the one that's best for you: Or just pick your favorite stat because the difference is marginal.
5. Rune of Overload

Rotation

Single Target

What is a priority list?

When reading the priority lists below, you should not think about these as steps to follow in a specific order. At any given point in combat, you should cast the first thing in the list that you are able to cast.

The way this section is written is very formulaic and has the same structure as the Action Priority List (APL) used in sims.

Pre-Combat:

1. Precast Swipe until you're tapped on energy
2. If you have it, precast Algethar Puzzle Box
3. Prowl
4. Tiger's Fury immediately before Rake
5. Rake from stealth.

Select which talents you have to filter the priority list:

Druid of the Claw

Wildstalker

Feral Frenzy

Convoke the Spirits

Incarnation

Lunar Inspiration

Chomp

Apex Predator's Craving

Sudden Ambush

Shadowmeld

Sample Single-Target Opener

Pre-cast swipe as often as you need to start the fight at low energy. Tiger's Fury generates enough energy to last you until Convoke.

Main idea of the opener is to get into your cooldowns as quickly as possible. If you know you will hold later, or that you wont lose any cooldown uptime, you can opt to delay by getting a 4+ combo point Rip up and then using Berserk/Feral Frenzy. You must do delayed opener without Feral Frenzy talented. Skip Convoke the Spirits and the ensuing Ferocious Bite in the listed order if you do not have it talented.

Single Target Priority List:

Multi Target

Select which talents you have to filter the priority list:

Druid of the Claw

Wildstalker

Double Clawed Rake

Wild Slashes

Infected Wounds

Feral Frenzy

Frantic Frenzy

Convoke the Spirits

Incarnation

Lunar Inspiration

Apex Predator's Craving

Rampant Ferocity

Shadowmeld

Primal Wrath

Panther's Guile

Sudden Ambush

Sample m+ Opener

x3

The exact opener you should choose will have a ton of variables. The Rake casts are dual-purpose: They generate combo points, and they delay you going into cooldowns instantly (which risks you dying from threat). You can prepull Prowl if the Rake stun won't be problematic. You may need to cast more Rakes in order to reach 5 combo point in opener. Replace Rake with Swipe if target count is high enough to justify. If you already have combo points from a previous pull, You may even open with Primal Wrath directly. Do not use Frantic Frenzy until the group is stacked. You may want to wait anyways so the tank can generate threat.

AoE priority list (2+ targets):

Talents

Class Talent Explanations

Class Tree Choices

Never Take

Niche

Optional

Take

Class Tree

2/2

2/2

2/2

2/2

2/2

Raid Talents

Coming Soon. Check back August 17th. This section will likely see several updates over the course of the tier as strategies are developed and changed over time. Both hero trees are looking extremely competitive with each other, though Wildstalker pulls cleanly ahead if you are receiving Power Infusion.

Dungeon Talents

My recommendation will continue to be Druid of the Claw for mythic+. That being said, Wildstalker is just as good. Especially if you feel you need more single target. The main downside of Wildstalker is your ramp-up time is a bit longer (and its arguably more punishing as Rake uptime is more relevant).

Sample talents and explanation of choices will be provided just before the release of Mythic+ season 2. Check back in on August 17th.

Consumables

Type	Consumable
DPS Potion	Potion of Recklessness
Healing Potion	Concentrated Silvermoon Health Potion
Food	Any main-stat feast. For example: Harandar Celebration
Flask	Highest simming of Flask of the Magisters (default) /Flask of the Blood Knights/Flask of the Shattered Sun
Oil/Stone	Thalassian Phoenix Oil
Augment Rune	Void-Touched Augment Rune

Gearing

Stat Priority

Gems and Enchants

Slot	Gem/Enchant
Gems	Early on you will continue to play 1x Indecipherable Eversong Diamond. With more gear, the ideal gem will switch to Powerful Eversong Diamond. Make sure to have all 4 colors when you start using the latter.
Weapon	You should sim to see which enchant is the best for your character. If you don't want to, Arcane Mastery is generally safe once you start acquiring s2 gear.
Helmet	Empowered Hex of Leeching
Shoulder	Silvermoon's Mending
Chest	Mark of the Worldsoul
Legs	Forest Hunter's Armor Kit
Boots	Shaladrassil's Roots
Ring	Eyes of the Eagle

Crafting

Crafting Order:

No strict crafting order, as you generally want to target the highest temporary dps gain, with Arcanoweave Lining as the embellishment of choice. Long term bis is Bracers + Shoulder/Gloves. Note that you should not craft a necklace, helmet or weapon as we will acquire those via Heroic Ula'tek bonus rolls.

Endgame ideal is on Wrists + Cloak/Loa Worshipers Band, but you should try to get your item level as high as you can in all slots.

Trinkets

Coming Soon. I am anticipating a large trinket tuning pass, which includes buffing many of the suspiciously poor trinkets, and nerfing our current best ones. I am also expecting a nerf to some 12.0 raid trinkets. This will be updated shortly after those notes are released, or August 18th, whichever comes first.

Trinket FAQ

Q: Should we be playing double on-use trinkets?

A: No, Feral will typically play just one on-use. None of the damage on-uses look viable at this time.

Q: Are any of the delve trinkets good?

A: Not really. Some are fine for their item level, but get quickly outscaled by trinkets from superior sources.

Q: Why do damaging items deal more damage as Wildstalker?

A: The Wildstalker Hero Talent Vigorous Creepers also buffs the damage of non-druid effects.

Miscellaneous

What is snapshotting?

Snapshotting is when a damage-over-time (DOT) effect benefits from certain buffs based on how things were when it was applied, rather than dynamically adjusting to the current state. It takes a "snapshot" of those buffs whenever you apply the dot.

Note: You will not necessarily upgrade every snapshot.

Which bleeds snapshot which buffs?

DoT	Tiger's Fury	Pouncing Strikes
Rake	✅	✅
Rip	✅	❌
Primal Wrath	✅	❌
Lunar Inspiration	✅	❌
Dreadful Wound	Only Upgrades	❌
Feral Frenzy	Each direct hit separately	❌

A dot will ideally be applied only when 30% or less of the prior dot remains. This triggers a mechanic known as “pandemic,” which is common to most damage over time spells.

What is “pandemic range?”

This term refers to a DoT mechanic in WoW. The baseline duration of a DoT can be extended by up to 30% if a target is already affected by that DoT. Due to the 30% cap on extension, DoTs generally shouldn't be refreshed too early, as potential ticks will be lost. The ideal window of time to refresh a DoT is known as its “pandemic range.”

Let’s use an example. Consider a 10 second DoT:

• Refresh with 1s remaining: the new DoT will be 11s long (10s baseline duration + 1s from prior DoT)
• Refresh with 3s remaining: the new DoT will be 13s long (10s baseline duration + 3s from prior DoT)
• Refresh with 8s remaining: the new DoT will still be 13s long (10s baseline + up to 30% from prior DoT)

It is therefore most efficient to wait until 70% or more of your bleed has ticked to refresh its DoT.

Fun trivia: the name “pandemic” derives from an old warlock passive that was eventually integrated as a baseline feature of damage over time spells.

What is “clipping?”

Clipping refers to refreshing a dot prior to its pandemic window.

Macros

Here, we provide a list of helpful macros. These macros are not required, but may be of use to you. Customize them as you see fit.

Cast Ursol's Vortex at your cursor location (@cursor macro):

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Ursol's Vortex

Use your trinket(s) and/or weapon at the same time as an ability:

Some trinkets and weapons should be used with a major cooldown. A lot of players will bind these items with Berserk.

• 13 is the top trinket slot
• 14 is the bottom trinket slot
• 16 is your weapon slot

If you would like to use all three items with Berserk, use this macro:

#showtooltip
/use 13
/use 14
/use 16
/cast Berserk

This macro may be modified. For example, the macro below only uses the 2nd trinket with Berserk:

#showtooltip
/use 14
/cast Berserk

Shadowmeld into Rake

Need to press twice for it to work. If you press it once, it will only Shadowmeld (which you will want to do sometimes)

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nostealth] reset=5 Shadowmeld, Rake

Cast Entangling Roots on your mouseover target:

This macro casts Entangling Roots on your mouseover target. If your mouse is not hovering over a target, the macro instead casts Entangling Roots on your current target.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, harm, nodead] [] Entangling Roots

Dispel/Soothe on the same bind:

This is the classic help/harm macro, but using mouseovers as well.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, harm, nodead] Soothe; [@mouseover, help, nodead] Remove Corruption; [harm, nodead] Soothe; Remove Corruption

Skull Bash your Focus target:

This macro casts Skull Bash on your focus target. If you have not set a focus target, the macro instead casts Skull Bash on your current target.

We recommend creating a keybind that will assign a target as your focus with one click. This option can be found in the game's keybind settings.

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus, harm, nodead] [] skull bash

Rebirth/Motw in one button:

This macro casts Rebirth on your current friendly but dead mouseover target. If your ally is alive, the macro instead casts Mark of the Wild.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover, help, dead] Rebirth; Mark of the Wild

Why does my mouseover macro not work?

You probably have it bound to a mouse button, which doesn't allow mouseover macros by default. To fix this, you can use an addon like Clicked, or just map the mouse-button to a different key. Backtick (`)/Tilde (~) can also have this issue. If you don't have it bound to a mouse-button and it still doesn't work, then there is likely an issue with the macro itself. In this case, it's almost always the ommission of help, harm or exists in the brackets containing mouseover.

Feral Druid Abbreviations

Shortcut	Name	Shortcut	Name
tf	Tiger's Fury	omen/cc	Omen of Clarity
coiled	Coiled to Spring	pw	Primal Wrath
mc	Merciless Claws	tc	Thrashing Claws (can also be theorycraft)
pred	Predator	DCR	Double-Clawed Rake
TE	Tireless Energy	SA	Sudden Ambush
SI	Survival Instincts	RF	Usually Rampant Ferocity (sometimes its Raging Fury)
IW	Infected Wounds	LI	Lunar Inspiration
PS	Predatory Swiftness	zerk	Berserk, sometimes Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane
incarn	Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane, sometimes Berserk	TFB	Taste for Blood
TT	Tiger's Tenacity	Lion	Berserk: Heart of the Lion
MOC	Moment of Clarity	Frenzy(band)	Berserk: Frenzy
BRS	Brutal Slash	CI	Carnivorous Instinct
FM	Frantic Momentum	SJ	Saber Jaws
Convoke	Convoke the Spirits	HOTW	Heart of the Wild
SOTF	Soul of the Forest	R&T/Tear	Rip and Tear
VR	Veinripper	FF	Feral Frenzy Surrender
AG incarn	Ashamane's Guidance for Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane	AG	Usually refers to AG incarn
1min voke	Ashamane's Guidance for Convoke the Spirits	Circle	Circle of Life and Death
Apex	Apex Predator's Craving	DOTC	Druid of the Claw Hero Talent
WS	Wildstalker Hero Talent, rarely Wild Slashes	RA	Ruthless Aggression
KS	Killing Strikes	FR	Frenzied Regeneration
rejuv	Rejuvenation	owl	Moonkin Form
dispel/decurse	Remove Corruption	IF	Ironfur
WC	Wild Charge	Clone	Cyclone
Vortex	Ursol's Vortex	Mass Root	Mass Entanglement
Roar	Stampeding Roar	WHI	Well-Honed Instincts
vate	Innervate	incap	Incapacitating Roar
bash	Mighty Bash, sometimes Skull Bash	vigor	Ursine Vigor
1min roar	Improved Stampeding Roar	inspiration	Lycara's Inspiration
Roots	Entangling Roots	brez/cr/br	Rebirth
Bark	Barkskin	cp	combo points