The next post will feature a discussion on the future of the feral tank as well as provide some more insight into some of the new abilities and how they play a role in your feral life. This will just serve as a quick summary of what you need to worry about for now.

I. Mechanics

1) Energy regenerates fluently now. It may be initially encouraged to spam abilities until you can find your new rhythm.

2) Powershifting for energy is no more. Furor no longer sets your energy at 40 upon shifting but maintains your energy regeneration rate. While this mechanic was interestingly exploited for more dps, it does mean that you can shift out to tend to other duties i.e. Rebirth and Innervate and retain energy.

3) Proc’s now work in feral forms. Mongoose is now the enchant of choice for both your tanking and dps needs. For tanking, its agi yield is superior than the static +35 agi. For dps, its agi yield is roughly equal; however, it does provide for far greater burst potential and thus should be selected. Executioner is not a preferred enchant for any role.

4) Potions (and healthstones) can now be used in feral forms. Finally! You can remove all your powershifting potion macros now. If you’ve been scarcely using potions before due to the mechanics limitation; now is the time to start stockpiling. Along with this comes the general potion mechanics change in that you can only use one potion during combat.

5) You gain full crit immunity via talents (Survival of the Fittest). The biggest gearing dilemma is finally over. If you have any gimmick defense enchants/gems/setups, now is the time to get rid of them. A fantastic change .

I. Abilities

Not only did feral talents change but some core abilities as well. Reconsider your rotations in light of these changes.

1) Barkskin: Now usable in all forms. When tanking, you should be actively using barkskin. Depending on the encounter, time it for when you anticipate a damage spike. Start playing with it to discover the most optimal use of it. Do NOT treat it as an emergency CD though; you should be using it actively.

2) Frenzied Regeneration: Restored 30% of maximum HP over the course of its full duration. Finally it scales with your health and is now a solid emergency CD. Pick up the Frenzied Regeneration glyph as it increases healing done to you while the effect is on you by 20%. Begin to learn its proper use and pop it preemtively when necessary.

3) Nature’s Grasp: This ability is now a base ability. Not so useful for maintanking but it does have its situational use, so much so that you should find a spot for it on your hotbars.

4) Challenging Roar: CD reduced to 3 minutes. You should be actively using it when necessary.

5) Growl: Range increased to 20 yards. Finally our taunt has range. This can now be used as an effective pulling tool in conjunction with faerie fire. You can now use it to babysit CC’d mobs while still actively tanking.

6) Swipe: No longer has a target limit. Blizzards answer to feral AE tanking. Watch your positioning around CC carefully; you’re far more likely to break sheeps & traps now if you’re not careful.

7) Mangle: (talent) CD reduced to 4.5 seconds. You have to pick up the improved mangle, but you will regardless. More mangles are always good; however, watch for this CD decrease in your rotations.

8) Maul: (glyph) Maul will now attack 2 targets. While very helpful when tanking multiple mobs, watch for your positioning while around CC’d mobs. Regardless, you should choose this glyph for increased multi-tanking efficiency.

9) Survival Instincts: (talent) Increases your Health by 30% for 20 seconds. The feral’s Last Stand and should be used so accordingly. This is your one proper emergency CD; don’t be trigger-happy with it. Nonetheless, use it aggressively where necessary.

10) Tiger’s Fury: (talent) When combined with King of the Jungle, tigers fury will give you 60 energy. Remember that powershifting is no longer possible so this ability (which is probably collecting dust in your spellbook) will make a strong return in your rotation.

11) Berserk: Mangle has no CD and hits 3 targets and all abilities cost 50% less energy. This is a fantastic rage dump; it allows for 10 successive mangles. Use it when you have the rage to burn; preferably early on as it provides for an incredible threat boost. For dps’ing, time it with your trinkets for maximum effect.

II. Talents

The feral tree philosophy has changed; you no longer combine both dps and tanking utility in one build but rather specialize in your primary role. This is great news for both tanks and dps ferals as your performance in this area will go up. While I’d encourage everyone to experiment with builds, I’ll list several level 70 builds that may help you out. Several notes: Pick up no more than Furor in the resto tree. Yes, I know that naturalist/Omen of Clarity is a big deal and you’ll get them back at 80 – don’t worry about statistical increases but rather about ensuring that your core functionality is in place.

NOTE: Things are very much in flux right now; these are not definitive builds by any means (unlike the 47/14 build). Experiment as you will.

Main Tank build:

This build assumes that you’re primarily tanking and rarely, if ever, dps’ing. This will be true of many feral tanks in the future but may not be so for you, especially when the MT assignments are given to other warriors. Of note in this build is the use of Infected Wounds as your own version of thunderclap, as well as 1 point into imp. bash – remember that bash is now an interrupt as well as a stun and will work on bosses.

OT/DPS build:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000005032321323220103531203203130100500000000000000000000000

This build tries to fulfill the role that you’re likely to be in right now. You lose Imp. Bash and Infected Wounds but gain the ability to shred again which helps your dps enormously. The last 2 points are placed into Predatory Instincts for their dps value only; the avoidance portion no longer affects bears.

DPS build:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000005032321323220100531200303135100500000000000000000000000

If you’re not tanking, or very rarely off-tanking; then this build is for you. This will maximize your dps at 70; however, you should not attempt to tank any challenging content as it compromises your survivability.

III. Armor

Don’t freak out; your armor will be drastically lower. Enhanced armor is no more and bearform got nerfed to 370% armor increase. To compensate, bears now get passive 12% damage reduction via Mother Bear. In the long run, this change is a positive thing but be aware of this when still facing level 70 content as Ironshield potions may win out over Health potions. I’ll discuss this change in much greater depth in my next post.

More to come; stay tuned.

The game and the druid class are changing and we will all have to experience the journey for ourselves and come to find new discoveries and revelations. What worked in TBC will likely not work for us in Wrath. In the coming days, I will lay out a roadmap for the feral druid to give you an idea what is to come and what to look for. However, I no longer want to limit myself to feral.

Come Wotlk, I want to rediscover the druid class. I intend to spend quality time with the balance tree, which has always been my secret passion. Restoration is starting to look interesting and I’m finally eager to give it a try, after having spent long raidnights in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair with nothing else aside from Healing Touch, Regrowth and Rejuvenation. Ferals will at last be more than just the designated off-tank. While this is happening, I’m hoping to meet the titular goal of at least a weekly update. 

I’m aware that not many people read this blog; the majority of people that come here have been linked to particular articles. Perhaps that can change; perhaps not. Either way, I’ll still keep going .

[Edit] Reworded some sentences.

It’s important to speak a little on proper gearing practices as Vanilla WoW implemented an ultimately ineffective itemization scheme for druids and some still carry on the habits this brought about into their TBC gearing. Back then, druids were envisioned as a Swiss army knife for encounters; able to tank, dps and heal whenever the situation called for it. Gear was rich in all stats and thus there were no distinct feral or balance sets. It turned out that druids were forced down restoration as the other trees were largely ineffective and by the time they were properly revamped (patch 1.8 with the introduction of the moonkin and Leader of the Pack aura), the gear did not exist to properly utilize those specs.

In TBC, this was largely fixed; druid itemization for all trees was plentiful and effective; it was forced down its own separate path. You can’t find gear such as The End of Dreams and the Genesis Raiment that caters to multiple spec’s. While just about every druids embraced this separation of itemization, some are still caught up with the view that the feral tree is singular in purpose and role – it isn’t. The feral tree serves two functions and while the spec for each function is largely identical, it’s gearing is most certainly not.

All of this is simply to say that you should clearly separate your tanking and dps gear. You may share several pieces between the two and while you may enchant and gem those for your primary role, do not try to force a single set of gear for both functions – you will be ineffective as both. Feral tanking is about survival and should be maximized for such; feral dps is very specialized as you need to consider the hit cap and maximizing crit/ap – anathema to a tanking set. That doesn’t mean that those will be your only sets; you will start building additional sets for different purposes such as threat-generation or avoidance. However, you must at the very least have two different sets for feral as the strength of the current feral tree comes from its versatility to fulfill both functions very well with little overhead.

A note about gemming and enchanting:

Unlike other classes, there are no homogenized stat stacking paths for druids in the area of enchanting and gemming. Most of it is brought on by the crit immunity dilemma, which may force druids down unorthodox enchanting/gemming paths. However, a good part of it comes from the need to balance out avoidance with mitigation as druid gear often does not provide secondary avoidance stats. While gemming and enchanting will be discussed in more detail further on, this post will provide some general guidelines regarding both.

All ratios are with level 70 and The Burning Crusade values in mind. A summary of all ratio’s can be found at the end of this post.

STAMINA

Stamina is one of the most important stats for any tank. It is classified as a mitigation stat, that is it helps in your survival against non-avoided hits.

Theorycrafting:

Stamina scales incredibly well for feral druids. In bearform, you gain an additional 25% of your stamina and with Heart of the Wild, you gain yet an additional 20% of your stamina. These increases are not additive but multiplicative meaning that in bearform, every point of stamina is worth 50% more.

100 stam (casterform) = 150 stam (bearform)

It’s important to mention Blessing of Kings in this topic as it affects bearform differently than expected. Blessing of Kings increases all base stats by 10%; however, it acts multiplicative with any other modifier, such as bearform and heart of the wild. The result is that Blessing of Kings does not give you 10% but 15% more stamina.

100 stam (casterform) = 165 stam (bearform) (kings)

I mention Blessing of Kings because it’s important to understand it’s scaling nature with bearform. While you may not always have a paladin in your group or raid, if you do, make sure that you get kings over light when tanking for the increased survivability.

Gearing Practices:

Stamina is one of the main tanking stats; as mentioned, it increases your survival by allowing you to take more successive hits before getting healed. As such, you will find much of your gear rich with stamina and you should heavily factor in the stamina factor when evaluating upgrades. PvP gear can become desirable as it is incredibly rich with stamina, although you should carefully evaluate it.

Most of your enchants will be stamina and your gems will emphasize it as well; however, you will not fill every gemslot with pure stamina as you have to balance it out with avoidance. It is very important not to disregard avoidance in favor of stamina. Your standard socket configuration will usually be a pure stam gem followed by an agi/stam gem; however this may depend on the socket bonus or any particular gear goals you are trying to achieve.

AGILITY

Agility serves three purposes: it increases dodge, critical strike, and armor. It is regarded as a primary avoidance stat.

Theorycrafting:

Druids have the lowest agi to dodge ratio of any class, the ratio being ~14.71agi for 1% dodge. It takes roughly 18.92 dodge rating for 1% dodge for any class. This makes druids the only class where agility yields more dodge than dodge rating.

1 agi = ~0.07 dodge
1 dodgerating = ~0.05 dodge

Druids also have one of the lowest agi to crit ratio, the ratio being 25 agi for 1% crit. The crit rating to crit ratio is 22.1 to 1% crit, which is lower than the agi to crit ratio albeit not by much. What has to be considered is that in catform 1 agi = 1 ap so the benefit of agi in terms of dps outweighs the benefits of stacking crit rating itself. Finally, agi is a scalar stat whereas crit rating is not.

1 agi = 0.04 crit
1 critrating = 0.045 crit
1 agi = 1 AP

The agi to armor ratio is 1 agi to 2 points of armor. The armor gained through agi does not scale with bearform or thick hide so it is strictly a secondary benefit.

Gearing Practices:

Agi is your primary avoidance stat and as such you should not neglect it. Most feral tanking gear comes with plenty of agi on it; however, you should not depend solely on your gear to provide sufficient avoidance; supplement it with agi/stam gems where appropriate and possible. NEVER gem for dodge or crit rating; there are agi alternatives: agi/stam (purple) and agi/hit (orange). Never enchant for dodge or crit unless there are no other alternatives. Places where there are no alternatives are your head and shoulder enchants. Again, watch for socket bonuses; any agi or stam bonus is usually worth pursuing but evaluate each item with your gearing goals in mind.

STRENGTH

Strength is a druid’s primary dps stat. Since druids do not use shields, there is no other benefit in strength apart from increasing attack power.

Theorycrafting:

The ratio for strength to attack power is straightforward: 1 str yields 2 ap. Strength is a scalar stat whereas AP is not.

1 str = 2 AP

Gearing Practices:

For tanking, you should never gear, enchant or gem for strength; however, you should seek out tri-stat gear wherever possible. Tri-stat gear is such that has high strength, stam, and agi with little to no secondary stats such as dodge or crit or attackpower. Strength is NOT a threatstat; expertise and hit are (covered below). If anything, agi yields potentially more threat as increased primal fury proc’s (which are on crit chance) yields more rage efficiency. Nonetheless, you will wind up with a good helping of strength allowing you to output adequate dps in tank gear when needed.

For DPS, when first starting out, you should work on your crit chance (agi) over AP (str) although you will gain both at a good rate. Again, tri-stat gear is usually very advantageous and should be carefully considered although you cannot limit yourself to it. You should always gem for agi when possible and strength when not. Likewise, your enchants will be agi unless such enchant is not possible. For example, your bracers will be enchanted with strength. Bottom line: only start thinking about strength when other metrics are met (such as hit cap and sufficient crit).

Hit & Expertise

One really cannot discuss hit without discussing expertise so both are combined into one section. Hit rating decreases the chance that your attacks miss; expertise decreases the chance that your attacks are dodged and parried. Hit & expertise are the 2 primary threat stats as the more swings and specials land, the more threat you can outout rather than increasing your attackpower minutely. 

There will be much more written on the subject of hit & expertise v. attack-boosting stats such as attack power, crit and haste; the below just deals with the nature of hit & expertise.

Theorycrafting:

There is no special hit formula for druids; autoattacks are considered as attacking from the main hand, and the weaponskill is always at maximum. Thus, against bosses, there is a 9% chance to miss an attack, requiring 142 hit rating to overcome. For a more detailed discussion on hit, refer to the WoWWiki article.

Hit cap = 9% hit = 142 hitrating

Expertise yields a greater benefit than hit as it reduces both the chance of dodges and parries. However, this is only up to a point as the chance to dodge and parry are different. Thus when referring to expertise, we speak of a softcap, which refers to negating all dodges and a hardcap which refers to negating all parries. Expertise is worth more than hit up until you hit the softcap, at which expertise and hit are equally valued.

While there still exists some debate over the actual values, it is widely accepted that a raidboss 3 levels higher than you has a 6.5% chance to dodge and a 15% chance to parry.

Expertise softcap = 26 expertise = 102 expetise rating
Expertise hardcap = 60 expertise = 236 expertise rating 

Gearing Practices:

For tanking, maximising both hit and expertise yields a significant increase in threat. However, you should start developing a seperate set just for that purpose since in order to maximise expertise and hit, you will need to sacrifice survival stats. You should be close to the hit cap and close to the expertise softcap in your threatset. You will be unable to attain expertise hardcap with the currently available gear.

You can’t currently enchant for hit, nor should you do so. You should also not enchant for strength in leu of hit as the benefit to threat is very minimal. When gemming, do consider agi/hit when possible – they make for a strong choice in any red or yellow slot. That being said, consider your survival needs over your threat needs and only gem for it if appropriate.

For dps, attaining hit rating is very important and it should be one of your earlier goals although you may not reach it immediately. Pure hit gems are attractive here and should be used in every yellow slot until you attain hit cap. Once you start attaining more and more items with larger amounts of hit, start swapping out your pure hit gems for agi/hit.

Defense & Resilience

Defense and resilience are important stats to a tank as they can eliminate your chance to get crit by a boss. Defense has always been a classic avoidance stat for warriors and paladins; however, for a feral druid, its yield is very minimal as it only increases your dodge and miss chances. It should never be considered for avoidance as that task is better left to agi. Resilience, while primarily a PvP stat, is also important for a feral druid for the purposes of attaining crit immunity. The reason is that resilience yields a higher return per point towards crit immunity than defense and is much more readily accessible than defense gear.

Theorycrafting:

Mobs of equal level have an inherant 5% chance to crit a player. This chance rises by .02% for each level the mob is higher than the player. Thus, against a boss, an additional .06% crit reduction is needed.

Total crit % reduction needed = 5.6%

Each point of defense reduces the chance to be crit by .04%. At level 70 you need 2.36 defense rating to make up one point of defense.

1 defense rating = ~.017% crit reduction

Resilience is not broken down by rating; thus you need 39.4 resilience to reduce crit chance by 1%.

1 resilience = ~.025% crit reduction

It’s clear that in terms of crit reduction, resilience wins out over defense.

1 resilience = 1.47 defense (crit reduction only)

However, one must consider the secondary benefits of defense and that is its contribution to avoidance. One point of defense yields .04% to miss, dodge, block, and parry. A bear cannot block or parry, thus one point of defense yields .08% avoidance.

1 defense rating = ~.03 avoidance

Recall that one point of agi yields ~.07 avoidance and you’ll see that defense for avoidance is an inferior consideration.

The only secondary benefit of resilience is the damage reduction of periotic damage effects; however, as this is a highly situational use (most bosses don’t feature such element), and as it has no competing stats, it is not seriously considered.

Gearing Practices:

Volumes could, and have, been written about the struggle to attain and maintain crit immunity for a feral druid. While resilience is superior to defense for attaining crit immunity, in reality you will have a good helping of both. The issue is much more prevalent once you move past the Heavy Clefthoof set and the Earthwarden as defense on leather becomes very scarce. Get rid of any prejudice you may be feeling towards resilience due to its primary PvP purpose; it is an important feral tanking stat and to ignore it is to put yourself at a strong disadvantage. The subject of gearing for crit immunity can occupy an entire post – I will try to provide a good summary of some principles that have helped many druids.

Adapt the concept of modular gearing. Modular gearing is laying a foundation of crit immunity with as few pieces as you can. This allows you to swap in pieces where needed, such as for a dodge or threat set, without worrying if you’re going to break crit immunity. Minimize the use of your crit immune enchants and gems as spreading them out too far puts you at greater risk to break crit immunity.

Consider your enchants carefully; calculate what you are loosing by not enchanting them optimally and choose the option with the least loss. For example, a popular path is to enchant the cloak and bracers with defense, thus losing out on +12agi/stam. However, if you enchanted the chest with +15 resilience, you would be very close to the gain of +24 defense rating (you’d be off by 2 defense rating) but you would only lose +6stam/agi. 

For gemming, always choose resil over defense. Your goal should be to work out any crit immune gems you may have. Never consider defense over resilience for its avoidance value; it is minimal and you want to replace it later with agility which provides a much greater avoidance benefit.

While there are many different paths to obtain crit immunity, most of which are dependent on your current state of gear, there is a right and wrong answer. Remember that your goal is to obtain crit immunity with as few concessions as possible. I HIGHLY recommend using rawr to work out your crit immune plan. Find out more about this program.

The rest of the stats are all caster-related and are thus not covered here. Remember that while there are right and wrong answers, there are still many answers depending on where you are with your gear and content and what works for someone may not necessarily work for you. Understand how stats work for you as a feral druid and build your own plan for what is must appropriate for you.

Summary of formulas:

• 100 stam (casterform) = 150 stam (bearform)
• 100 stam (casterform) = 165 stam (bearform) (kings)
• 1 agi = ~0.07 dodge
• 1 dodgerating = ~0.05 dodge
• 1 agi = 0.04 crit
• 1 critrating = 0.045 crit
• 1 agi = 1 AP
• 1 str = 2 AP
• Hit cap = 9% hit = 142 hitrating
• Expertise softcap = 26 expertise = 102 expetise rating
• Expertise hardcap = 60 expertise = 236 expertise rating 
• Total crit % reduction needed = 5.6%
• 1 defense rating = ~.017% crit reduction
• 1 resilience = ~.025% crit reduction
• 1 resilience = 1.47 defense (crit reduction only)
• 1 defense rating = ~.03 avoidance

Keep in mind that this is for PvE utility only; there are feral PvP (don’t laugh) spec possibilities that will be covered in later posts; nonetheless, the foundation for any spec discussion will be laid down here.

BALANCE

For the purposes of PvE, there is nothing in the balance tree that will help you out as a feral druid. While some talents are nice extras, such as Nature’s Grasp, talent points are at a premium and are better spent elsewhere.

FERAL

Tier 1:

(5/5) Ferocity: Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, Rake, and Mangle abilities by 5 rage or energy.
A good talent that increases rage efficiency and a good way to start off the feral tree. A threat talent and thus a no-brainer. All five points are a must to advance further down the tree.

(0/5) Feral Aggression: Increases the Attack Power reduction of your Demoralizing Roar by 40% and the damage caused by your Ferocious Bite by 15%.
This talent has been continuously rendered obsolete to the point where no points are ever warranted in this talent. While Demoralizing Roar is not a bad ability and should be used, it is always overwritten by a warrior’s Demoralizing Shout, which has far greater AP reduction (-240 for Demo. Roar vs -300 for Demo Shout).
In practice, you will either have a Warrior Off-tank or a fury warrior put 2-5 points into Improved Demoralizing shout covering a boss’s entire AP+Curse of Wrecklessness (if all 5 points) leaving no place for your Demoralizing Roar, which falls woefully short. Even if you do not raid with a warrior (which in a 25-man setting is next to unlikely), there are better ways to spend the points. More on this in a later post.

The increased damage to Ferocious Bite has been rendered obsolete with the buff to bleed effects. Ferocious Bite is a terrible finisher compared to rip; however, in the past, many things (think almost everything in Karazhan) were immune to bleeds. Now that most things are no longer immune to bleeds, you will rarely use Ferocious Bite in fights that last longer than 10 seconds.

Tier 2:

(3/3) Feral Instinct: Increases threat caused in Bear and Dire Bear Form by 15% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling.
This is a very important threat talent, foundational to tanking. 15% is a huge increase and the strength of any feral tank lies in his threat generation. This talent is similar to the Warrior protection talent Defiance, found in the third tier. A no-brainer talent.

(0/2) Brutal Impact: Increases the stun duration of your Bash and Pounce abilities by 1 second.
Useless in a PvE setting; you are bashing either to interrupt a cast or to hold it in place long enough to regain aggro for which 3 seconds is plenty or 4 seconds not enough. It’s definitely not a “black sheep” talent; however, the 2 points are better invested elsewhere. This talent does have its place in PvP where you are using it in a Crowd Control capacity.

(3/3) Thick Hide: Increases your Armor contribution from items by 10%.
Feral Tanks are known for the high amount of armor they can attain rather effortlessly and this talent contributes to this. A survival talent and a must have in any feral build.

Tier 3:

(2/2) Feral Swiftness: Increases your movement speed by 30% while outdoors in Cat Form and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form, Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 4%.
The extra dodge is the real benefit from this talent and a free extra 4% is very helpful. A survival talent and thus a no-brainer.

(1/1) Feral Charge: Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 sec.
A strong ability that has many different uses. While it does not contribute to threat or survivability, it does contribute to utility and thus every serious feral build will include this rather foundational ability. Usefull for interrupting casters or charging after mobs that peel away. It also has tremendeous PvP utility to the point where most resto builds will include it.

(3/3) Sharpened Claws: Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 6%.
More crit means more threat. This talent is the prerequisite for Primal Fury, which increases rage efficiency, thus all three points are required.

Tier 4:

(2/2) Shredding Attacks: Reduces the Energy cost of your Shred ability by 18 and the Rage cost of your Lacerate ability by 2.
While this looks primarily like a dps talent, it also increases rage efficiency for lacerate. A threat talent and a must have.

(3/3) Predatory Strikes: Increases your Attack Power in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin Forms by 150% of your level.
This talent gives you 105 more AP, which doesn’t sound all that exciting at first; however, it is the prerequesite for Heart of the Wild. In bear form, the extra AP is definitely welcomed and thus this is another decent threat talent. All points are a must.

(2/2) Primal Fury: Gives you a 100% chance to gain an additional 5 Rage every time you get a critical hit while in Bear and Dire Bear Form and your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point.
This talent is responsible for our incredible rage efficiency and thus important for threat generation. It allows you to steadily generate rage even when not receiving primary damage and thus makes druids ideal for Off-tanking. A foundational, must-have talent for any feral druid.

Tier 5:

(2/2) Savage Fury: Increases the damage caused by your Claw, Rake, and Mangle (Cat) abilities by 20%.
The first time we see a pure dps talent with no added tanking utility; however, you will still want to put all 2 points into this one as it will increase your dps done in cat form. The value of a feral tank is in his versatility to dps when called upon so don’t ignore that aspect.

(1/1) Faerie Fire: Decrease the armor of the target by 610 (max rank) for 40 sec. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible.
This is primarily a pulling tool and a fantastic one at that. It’s free of any cost and instant-cast allowing for smoother and trickier pulls. The armor reduction increases damage done and thus increases threat; it also increases the damage done of your raid and party and thus should not be allowed to fall off. Faerie Fire is classified as a nature spell and thus is susceptible to a higher resist chance (17% against mobs 3 levels higher) so it should be used liberally to ensure it does not fall off.

(0/2) Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by 100% of your Agility and also increase healing done to you by 20% while in catform.
This talent has no place in any PvE build be it either for tanking or for dps as it does not increase damage. This is in no way an endorsement of forgetting your heal buttons; as dps, you are responsible for your own survival as much as you can and healing touch counts just as much as a health potion/stone. However, the extra healing it will do is not worth the 2 points for the few times you do have to pop a healing touch on yourself.
This talent does have a role in PvP builds for those that are adventurous enough. Unlike in PvE, you will offheal a bit in PvP and the increased healing done to you in catform helps with survivability albeit not enough.

Tier 6:

(5/5) Heart of the Wild: Increases your Intellect by 20% In addition, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form your Stamina is increased by 20% and while in Cat Form your Attack Power is increased by 10%.
A wonderful talent that increases survivability immensely. The 20% increase in stamina stack multiplicative with the 25% increase in stamina while in bearform giving 1 point of stamina a value of 1.5 while in bearform. An essential talent; all 5 points in this talent are a no-brainer.

(3/3) Survival of the Fittest: Increases all attributes by 3% and reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 3%.
A very essential tanking talent; it reduces the crit-immune defense cap from 490 to 415. Much discussion on this blog will be devoted how to attain crit immunity; for now realize this is an important talent without crit immunity is nie to impossible to attain if not unfeasible. The extra stat increase is a nice bonus as well.

Tier 7:

(3/3) Primal Tenacity: Increases your chance to resist Stun and Fear mechanics by 15%.
This may be one of the more controversial talent picks and more discussion may be devoted to it later; however, to quickly recap, yes, this talent is good and yes, you should invest all three points. Fear and Stun resists shine the brightest in a PvP environment; however, these elements are present in PvE and chances to resist them, while not essential due to its random nature, can and will help out.
The better case for this talent comes from the fact that there are no better places to spend these 3 points – the best contender being 3/5 feral Aggression or 3/3 Natural Shapeshifter. Feral Aggression was already covered earlier; 3/5 is even worse of an idea. Natural Shapeshifter is intriguing at first but does not practically pay off enough even in full-blown powershifting rotations.

(1/1) Leader of the Pack: While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%.
An essential talent; the reason that feral druids are prized in non-caster groups as it is a strong dps increase to your party. It also indirectly increases rage efficiency with Primal Fury and thus is also a wonderful threat talent in more ways than one. A no-brainer talent and one you probably have been waiting for while leveling.

(2/2) Improved Leader of the pack: Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to have a 100% chance to heal themselves for 4% of their total health when they critically hit with a melee or ranged attack. The healing effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.
This is a wonderful improvement on the static crit bonus. While the amount healed is not much, it is free and based on critical attacks, meaning it will trigger often. Over time, this talent can do a substantial amount of healing and can provide the necessary buffer needed in certain situations. While tanking, this talent can provide a nice chunk of healing given your high HP base, which only further contributes to your survivability. The more you see it in action, the more this talent will grow on you; don’t pass it up.

Tier 8:

(5/5) Predatory Instincts: Increases your critical strike damage bonus with melee attacks by 10% and your chance to avoid area effect attacks by 15%.
This is a threat and survival talent rolled into one and for that reason alone, you should feel no hesitation to invest all five points into it. While the extra critical strike damage bonus is easily embraced, some wonder if the AE avoidance chance is on par with Primal Tenacity’s randomness. However, unlike Primal Tenacity, which offers you a chance to resist effects that can incapacitate you – a chance that you should strive to avoid entirely, this talent offers pure avoidance; a chance to resist certain effects entirely. Many different encounters feature AE elements such as Najentus’ Tidal Wave and a chance to resist potentially huge splash damage provides your healers just enough breathing room to make encounters more managable. As you cannot gear for this kind of avoidance like you can with melee attacks via dodge, it’s good to have it in talent form.

Tier 9:

(1/1) Mangle: Mangle the target, inflicting damage and causing the target to take additional damage from bleed effects for 12 seconds. This ability can be used in Cat Form or Dire Bear Form. Also causes the target to take 30% additional damage from Shred.
The very cornerstone of the feral tree; there are NO viable x/40/x builds possible. This is the most efficient threat move that you will gain; it is akin to a warriors shield slam. In cat form, it forms the foundation of your rotation as it amplifies both your shred and rip damage. The one talent that truly cannot be debated.

RESTORATION

Tier 1:

(0/5) Improved Mark of the Wild: Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 35%.
Mark of the Wild is a druids primary group buff so the temptation will always exist to place 5 points here; however, there simply aren’t enough points to include this talent plus the other talents that are much more beneficial to the actual feral build. In practice, any restoration or balance druid will have this talent thus greatly diminishing your need to pick up this talent.

(5/5) Furor: Gives you 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear or Dire Bear Form or 40 Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form.
This talent yields an indirect ability that is widely termed powershifting. More discussion will be devoted to powershifting later; however, to summarize quickly, it allows you to quickly gain extra rage or energy at the cost of a global cooldown by swiftly switching out and into form. It also lets you start off every pull with 10 rage which is quite handy when enrage is still on cooldown.

Tier 2:

(5/5) Naturalist: Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%.
Increased damage equals higher threat generation. The best talent to choose from this tier; investing all 5 points allows you to move onward to tier 3 which is the last tier we consider in our feral build.

(0/5) Nature’s Focus: Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting the Healing Touch, Regrowth, and Tranquility spells.
You’re here to tank or to dps, not to heal. This talent provides no benefit in any feral setup and is safely and obviously skipped.

(0/3) Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 30%.
This talent deceivingly looks like it would belong in any feral build; however, it’s only purpose is in a powershifting rotation and when considering the rate at which powershifting should occur plus the natural mana generation that occurs automatically, there is little practical benefit. The choice is made easier when considering the alternatives provided by tier 3.

Tier 3:

(3/3) Intensity: Allows 30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting and causes your Enrage ability to instantly generate 10 Rage.
This talent often gets overlooked for more gimmiky alternatives; it should not be. You gain an additional 10 rage with enrage which with Furor allows you to immediately open up with mangle followed by a series of lacerates independent of any rage you may gain from incoming damage. The most sensitive time for threat generation is within the beginning of the pull and this talent greatly assists in locking down your target(s) quickly. The extra rage is also welcomed when offtanking and rage is at a greater premium.

(0/5) Subtlety: Reduces the threat generated by your spells by 20% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 30%.
An irrelevant talent to any feral setup. Safely and obviously skipped.

(1/1) Omen Of Clarity: Imbues the Druid with natural energy. Each of the Druid’s melee attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana, Rage, or Energy cost of your next damage or healing spell or offensive ability by 100%.
While many people don’t like proc-style abilities, they do play out well in the long run. This is a good talent not to be skipped as it will increase efficiency allowing for increased threat or dps.

There are no further talents in the Restoration tree that are beneficial to a feral druid.

Builds:

(0/47/14): http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxhGsfroeuioVxcz

This is really the only true feral build for the PvE setting. There exist several alternatives; however, any modification takes away from efficiency in favor of personal utility.

Ultimately, it depends on the purpose of your feral druid. I’m aware that you could drop Intensity for Brutal Impact+Nature’s Grasp; however, neither of those talents factor into PvE gameplay as you cannot root indoors and stuns are inconsequential past their interrupt utility. Some druids still choose to pick up Feral Aggression; however, in any PvE setting, a warrior’s shout will overwrite your roar, rendering those points worthless. If you’re casual towards the raiding game and only participate in it infrequently, then there are several other build possibilities, some of which may get reviewed later. For those that want to be most efficient in the PvE setting, (0/47/14) is the only build.

As for myself, I currently raid as a feral druid and am currently exploring Tier 6 content. I have tanked extensively on both a feral druid and a warrior so you may see me compare the two classes where appropriate and where experience warrants it. I don’t claim to know everything about the class; however, I do engage in my own research and constantly try to find ways to be more efficient at my job. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pass on those tips and tricks that will help you be more efficient at yours .