Introduction
Hello I am Cheesey, and I played Feral druid in Honestly, the top Oceanic guild. I’ve played Feral on and off for a long time, but largely came to prominence in Shadowlands showcasing how other covenants were situationally stronger than Night Fae, particularly Necrolord and my ‘beekeeping’ M+ guide which included a vast amount of theorycrafting based on numerous hours of playtesting. I managed to get rank 1 logs in raid as all four covenants, when it was previously assumed only one was viable, and that kind of sums up my approach: think outside the box and get creative! It’s a video game, after all.
I enjoy both M+ and raid and will equally cover both here. You can also find me on YouTube, Twitch, and in the Druid discord.
What has changed
11.2 Feral Changes
The Ghosts of K’aresh brings some interesting Feral changes, notably through a new tier-set whereby the effects are based on whether you’re playing Druid of the Claw or Wildstalker hero tree.
For Wildstalker, the 2 piece offers some AOE burst by instantly implanting Bloodseeker Vines on up to 3 different targets when you use Tiger's Fury, while also increasing the proc chance of Vines and damage of Bursting Growth. The 4 piece causes Vines to passively trigger Bursting Growth, which works particularly well with the 2 piece AOE Vine implant. While the set may seem more on the passive side, it does increase the importance of core Wildstalker AOE gameplay - such as maintaining Rake on as many targets as possible to trigger as many Vines as possible, and Biting targets with Vines on them to trigger Bursting Growth.
The Druid of the Claw set is a little more interesting, with the 2 piece giving us a Crit, Haste, and Bleed buff for 5 seconds after using Ravage. This pairs nicely with things like Feral Frenzy, and creates an opportunity to dump energy or even Brutal Slash charges with the buff up. On top of this, it emphasises Druid of the Claws burst, where you will have almost full uptime on this buff during Berserk, meaning the 2 piece buff gets to stack with all your damage amps from Berserk and Tiger’s Fury. The 4 piece simply gives Ravage a 40% chance to ‘echo,’ casting again 4 seconds later - meaning you will want ensure you position correctly for this, and yes it also procs the 2 piece again, as well as things like Sabertooth and Soul of the Forest.
Notable about these sets is a bit of a shakeup of Hero tree roles, whereby Druid of the Claw becomes a lot more powerful than it previously was in raid - such as on single-target fights, and conversely Wildstalker looks to be a lot more competitive in M+ (though it's still up in the air as to whether it can be better than Druid of the Claw in M+).
Additionally with new tier-sets also comes a shake-up of viable talents, where we no longer need to play Apex Predator’s Craving in all scenarios (as we did in season 2). See the talents section for recommendations.
Beyond these, some general tuning changes, for example Sabertooth has been buffed from 3% to 5% per combo point, meaning maximising the uptime of this buff can be more rewarding. Additionally, a rework to Lycara’s Inspiration is a nice addition where we now get a permanent 4% Stamina increase in Cat Form, offering a nice little boost to our survivability.
Patch 11.1.7 Feral Druid Changes
For Patch 11.1.7 there are no significant class changes for Feral Druid. There is however the addition of the new D.I.S.C belt. To learn more about unlocking the DISC belt, you can read Method's D.I.S.C Belt Guide. For Feral Druid specific recommendations you can head to the gearing section in this guide.
11.1.5 Feral Druid Changes
For 11.1.5 there are no significant class changes for Feral Druid. However, there is a lot of other new patch content being added to the game that you can check out in our 11.1.5 articles.
11.1 Feral Changes
Patch 11.1 offers a number of new things for Feral. Firstly a new class tree for all Druid specs, a new tier-set and with that an adjusted damage profile, as well as the usual new items, and an increasing item level which brings faster gameplay with it (more energy, more procs etc). However other than being a little faster, Feral should play pretty similar to the previous patch, however the noted adjustments with damage profile brings new opportunities for Feral to be viable and potentially even meta, so if you were disheartened with Feral’s performance last patch, I would suggest giving it another go as it’s certainly looking a lot better, especially in M+.