WoW TBC Feral Druid: A Quick Meta Guide

[@KnotxD]

Part of me knew they would declare leatherworking a false idol. In that case, I'd recommend Enchanting + Engi or Alchemy, perhaps switch to JC in SWP if the neck turns out to be BiS. Also - one thing I forgot to mention, once Swipe scales ahead of Lacerate, Maul loses value as primary rage dump as Swipe is spammable, so you only want to maul to prevent capping once swipe is your go-to.

[@AndreT1990]

Hey, TBC Feral druid here :D. I still think LW would be the way to go even with the nerfed drums. Its not like they will remove them, most likely just a 2 min debuff so you cant have 100% uptime. IMO there will still be a demand for 1 drummer in each group and makes perfect sense to have LW as a feral druid (BiS LW set pre-raid BoE but will be expensive so it will be a head start, a lot of craftable gear throughout the expansion as well as drums which are still a threat and dps increase for 5 players even the nerfed version). I don't see any profession better, enchanting is 8 all stats (2x +4 ) and JC is 3 stam in each gem so like 30 stam overall. LW imo has a lot more value. Other then that great video, I would have liked to see the armor cap being mentioned since druid is the only class that can achieve it.

[@KnotxD]

@@AndreT1990 Very true, 1 drummer will still be a thing and feral does make sense there for the same reasons I emphasised it in the video pre-nerf. Its also worth considering that engineering may be 'meta' if mass-sappers is a thing that raid groups adopt.

[@davidfence6939]

You should level LW first to at least make the tanking pieces. There are two BIS recipes from SSC. I say this as a retail BC feral main. I regret not having it for T4 and T5. T6 not so much

[@KnotxD]

@@davidfence6939 very true, the boots specifically are very good. Though belt you can dream of the Vashj belt!

[@bridgerzev8745]

InstaBlaster

[@Djuntas]

3:12 PvP gear was flipping bomb. Tanked some BT and stuff with it. PvP gear is soo good for us in TBC.

[@ryvyr]

Even today, though especially back im these eras of WoW, Ferals seem like one of the best kept open secrets of casually dominating the game with all the fun of a cute swiss army knife :>

[@lunalux100]

Zangar and Feral two of my favourite things in wow, lovin it! Amazing stuff as usual!

[@KnotxD]

An update due to new theory crafting, with max raid buffs, Swipe will pull ahead of Lacerate on Single target by the time you're kitted out in Tier 4 level raid epics/tier pieces. Just an FYI.

[@mrSnotyify]

These quick meta guides are amazing, love them. I know its kinda a meme but my alt is gonna be a smite priest so if you ever run out of topics for specs/classes I'd love to see a meta guide for a smite dps priest.

[@ShamaticWow]

Informative and not too much rambling, i like it! I've subbed and am looking forward to your future vids :)

[@ajays9936]

Great vids man, good quality - One tip keep the memes coming. watching the mage vid in this series was so funny with the sound effects

[@SebastienRTG]

As a former Feral main, I approve of this video

[@Ant12468]

Do ferals still need to farm manual crowd pummelers to do the best damage possible?

[@imaginarymatter]

Nope. We are free of Gnomeregan!

[@davidfence6939]

Haste changes in BC. The Manual Crowd Pummeler doesn't give 50% attack speed increase so you can expect it to fall off.

[@lepakage2]

I very much appreciated this video when I first watched it and I still enjoy your guides but it's incredibly easy for existing ferals to get crit immune. Assuming you have a couple pieces from classic you pretty much just need 20 marks for each the shoulders/bracers from PVP and a couple resilience items (such as the trinket from slave pens) and boom - you're there! Very easy to get there as soon as you're 70

[@Apparentt]

Same as feral has always been really, p much up until mop It’s not the best at anything it does but it can be very strong if you put the effort in, as a result it is incredibly rewarding and you’ll definitely stand out when you perform well in any environment

[@Malinkadink]

What? Feral becomes nuts in WOTLK, remains great in Cata and then MOP, after MOP they removed snapshotting except for ferals when they added bloodtalons in WOD and the spec has never been the same, it wasn't bad but it was too cumbersome to play only to still be below other classes that were much easier to play.

[@johndoe-is2fw]

Feral it will be. great overall preview. cool idear with the background(flight). and besides the easy sound echo its a decent video. like, sub.

[@constantvariable5907]

The one true spec, great video as always Knot

[@privatprivat7279]

hi! 10:37 do u spam maul ? or is it a one key hit and hold?

[@KnotxD]

You only use maul when potentially capping rage. So against hard hitting bosses, you toggle maul on each auto til your rage is not in danger of going over 100, which is pretty often when you're being trucked hard. Against lesser damage, you'll mostly just not use maul. In terms of the button itself, it only goes off on autos, so spamming it doesn't do anything, you just toggle then toggle again when its used with your next auto. It's like heroic strike.

[@kogdanetdeneg]

This will be the first toon I finish leveling to 70 even before my main. the gathering abilities are insane

[@KnotxD]

Very true, since we are getting 58 boosts whether we like them or not, I think I will spend mine on a 2nd Druid just for gathering!

[@staplesfoley]

Isn't lacerate in the early stages better threat than maul, the rotation I learnt and have been doing good threat with is mangle on CD then spam lacerate again and again, only maul if I'm getting rage capped as most of the threat generation of lacerate is in the application and new applications don't reset the tick so there is no negative to it, where as maul lost its massive threat modifier in prepatch didn't it? From what I heard maul just gets your usual bear and talent threat modifiers now, so it's not a massive threat increase like classic, you just get some extra dmg on a auto(which is also used) so if you took the threat from a normal auto and added lacerate it does more than just a maul

[@Rakschas666]

Hey Knot, would you still go with leatherworking now that drums have recieved the nerf?

[@KnotxD]

Potentially, would depend if one of the hunters in the group are LWing instead. Since the LW nerf, I personally am going Engi/Enchanting; you could play something othert than enchanting til P3 since +4 stats isnt in the game yet but im keeping it cause of all the formulae I have learned etc in wait of P3!

[@tomislavskarica4725]

hi man, i cant find anywhere what sockets do i use on tanking gear. Maybe that would be good video for all classes for you :) . Can u tell me what are the best sockets, yellow and meta gem for tank feral?

[@KnotxD]

Hey man, early on you want 12 stam gems (or 9 if it's not a great piece) to stay alive, once you're comfy, Agi gems will perform best but you may not want to go that route til the end of Phase 2. Meta wise you want 12 Agi and 3% crit damage, relentless earthstorm diamond. Its super good compares to the others. The biggest thing to remember is that socketing for the bonus is rarely worth it. More often than not you will just shove stam or Agi gems in regardless of socket color.

[@davidfence6939]

You're almost fully optimal spec'd. Mostly if you're going to tank you will lose slightly a little dps. That said we are better tanks than dps. And that's by no small margin. A feral is again at their best being flexible. Tanking when needed and swapping to dps as needed. Yes, most of the performance differences will be due to gear, but there are some slight talent tree differences.

[@Asuya93]

hey man whats the site u got all those price jump graphics out from ur other videos

[@KnotxD]

www.wow-auctionhouse.com/atlantiss/Netherwing_Horde - Enjoy!

[@Yorashy]

For stats you forgot to metion armor. High armor value items are realy nice, since you can reach armor cap as a bear in TBC.

[@Rhinopiek]

Been even told by guildies its easier to heal a buff bear > warrior for mit heavy fights. Gruuls, mags, High king ect.. granted threat might suffer...

[@tomislavmoslavac1265]

Damn! Very nice dude! I thank thee in the name of all new salmon lovers and purrers 😁😁. Heres a sub! Have a good one! /salute

[@codydamm9530]

Awesome video. Your stuff is great.

[@blizzfreak]

Any chance of a resto shaman guide?

[@KnotxD]

I'll be putting up a poll over the next few days for the next spec. Hunter is almost ready, so will begin working on whatever the poll selects soon!

[@MyTomServo]

How good are TBC sappers?

[@KnotxD]

Expensive and share a cool down with drums if I recall

[@jonathanwynne6925]

@@KnotxD oh snap, does the drums nerf mean sappers are back on the menu for melee?

[@KnotxD]

@@jonathanwynne6925 Not 100% sure but I think it's still probably slightly better to get ring enchants and some nice BoP items from whatever is most impactful for the phase /spec. That said though, I wouldn't rule out sappers being good for speed running etc.

[@MooseCastle]

Even without sappers, flame turrets are a 40 raw dps gain which is larger than any other profession.

[@BlueHans]

frustrating that this fresh video is already outdated due to the announced drums changes :-p Question: will manual crowd pummeler still be a thing in tbc?

[@matrim_1337]

No they will not at all. Congrats and enjoy Gnomer while it lasts on Classic :D

[@HeathenHammer8]

HA! The "Limitations/Avoid" section is why I roll Feral! xD

[@champboehm7863]

Haha

[@WillyTung]

Which class has the highest crit in TBC?

[@Malinkadink]

rogues

[@RJMacReady1]

@@Malinkadink what? No. Cats do. Rogues have crit in the same range as ret paladins and warriors, depending on the warrior spec

[@Lakutus88]

Warlock

[@WillyTung]

@@Lakutus88 Crit chance?

[@sanyiyewow565]

Most bosses in tier 6 content dont crush making feral the best possible mt choice in terms of tps except for those that do crush or where you want spell reflect like Illidan RoS Council and I think Teron aswell as 1 or 2 bosses in hyjal if memory serves me right. (none of the swp bosses can crush making feral exceptional as a mt there).

[@KnotxD]

Yeah late game, especially SWP is all bears tbh, I think my guild will be running 2 ferals with an alt prot to flex in

[@christaylor1528]

I dont think the rogue is better in the same way. I think a high end gear arms war feral rshaman will be r1 option with proper effort. I could be wrong but think it wont be exactly the same pvp meta like 2007

[@imaginarymatter]

So excited!

[@TomsWhip]

Very nice guide :)

[@methmouse4844]

Knot, are you going to roll druid during TBC classic? If so what server? Great video too BTW, getting me to relive the glory days.

[@KnotxD]

I'll be playing Druid as my main, yeah, not sure which server though at the moment. I'm currently on Ashbringer but it got hit pretty hard by the server locks in P3/4, so I'm considering which realm to potentially move to once we get more information on servers for TBC release (server merges perhaps etc). Thanks for the good vibes!

[@methmouse4844]

@@KnotxD Nice, yea I'll be taking a druid into TBC. Back in the day it was a frost mage and my good friend played a druid. Horde or Alliance for you? Horde at heart, but I was thinking alliance for BG queues.

[@KnotxD]

@@methmouse4844 I played horde on retail for over 10 years so I decided to go alliance for the classic reboots and I haven't regretted the decision very much, I've found it quite nice to have nostalgia paired with some new quests/hubs compared to what I remembered. BG queues are indeed very fast as alliance, seems we always lose AV but other BG win rates are fine at least.

[@methmouse4844]

@@KnotxD Well I have a 57 Horde druid now, but I stopped my sub back in 2019 when my friends quit. Do I level up a NE Druid now, or boost it? I'm glad you mentioned that you've played horde before, new flavor seems like a good thing. I'll miss War Stomp.

[@KnotxD]

@@methmouse4844 Levelling in the prepatch might be nice, with all the shamans levelling up alliance side. War stomp is a big miss for sure, have come to love shadowmeld drinking though!

[@genaroroblesquintana1892]

Muchas gracias por el video

[@Syllabus15]

What is the name of that Weeb Staff? Asking for a friend.

[@KnotxD]

xD Terestian's Stranglestaff

[@samueljosephfernald4663]

This isn't commonly talked about, but there is a 1 button feral dps macro in tbc. recent development in the past 2 or so years on private servers. It's bis and lets ferals hit numbers above 3k in t6.5 content. it should be the meta once ppl know about it, and makes 1 feral dps the meta for melee group (1 enh/ret/rogue (imp ea)/ms/feral dps) kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6aodIKpns-eqM0

[@KnotxD]

Very interesting if the skill cap can be removed from feral dps. But is that macro going to work on live? Comments suggest people had difficulty replicating it on their private server of choice. Also classic uses the updated macro system right? Unsure if that macro is going to function sadly.

[@jarlfisk]

Let me know if someone find out if this will work in classic tbc

[@KnotxD]

@@jarlfisk did a little digging, this won't function on TBC classic servers

[@jarlfisk]

@@KnotxD ahh to bad :( there goes the feral dps Dream....

[@samueljosephfernald4663]

@@KnotxD should be a top priority for the feral community in tbc to get this working for the client. the the classic brain trust can figure it out 100%

[@dyrox232]

look up spottman feral rating in 2s 3100+

[@Stompinwind]

Lol primal tenacity is main tank talent, you cant dodge when stunned

[@OnlyGhostType]

this guide is a little misleading. it mentions two parts, pve and pvp, but only half of those subjects. it is only mentioned as raiding for pve, and arenas for pvp... nowhere is the guide or "meta" for pve while leveling and questing, or how a druid feels in dungeons. also the other half of pvp is not mentioned or even thought about either. how does a druid feel in battlegrounds or world pvp? not everyone raids, and certainly not everyone plays arenas. you will never catch me in a raid or arena. but i will be in the occasional dungeon/battleground.