Kitty PvP 4.2 (Long Read)

[QtDemon]

Ok hi, my name is...no longer Demongorgon because I got permabanned and had to remake a druid. 425days total time played, 11k achivement points out the door.
Anyway, i'm about to throw my kitty up on the shelf till MoP, and play my mage till then. So I figured i'd toss out every bit of info on my feral before I forget it. Including what I know about MoP so far.

I started playing my feral druid on September 26th, 2008.

Should have mentioned this when i first posted this guide.

DoT's = Damage over Time (Rip, Rake, etc)
HoT's \ Heals over Time (Lifebloom, Regrowth, etc.)
CC's = Crowd Control (Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Hibernate, etc)
IMO = In my Opinion.
ATM = At the Moment

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Talents

Currently, this is my build. Pretty basic cookie cutter spec for Cataclysmic season, since this season is a resil season, make sure you spec into Natural Reaction, and make sure you shapeshift into bear a lot. Not much more to say about this.

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Gems

Gems are a big part of any class, and spec, a simple swap of gems could increase your performance by a lot.

So, to keep it nice and clear. Hit, Spell Pent, Agility, Mastery/Crit.

5% hit. Easy to get, you shouldn't even have to gem for this, just reforge for it.
190 Spell Pent. Easy, toss a Stormy Ocean Sapphire in your blue slots and you're done.
Agility, Red slots. Nuff said.
Mastery/Crit. I go with mastery right now because well, bleeds are still amazing. Ferals can go for crit, but I don't suggest it unless you're playing like...uhh feral dk dk dk dk fives. (/sarcasm) Crit isn't bad, but I like mastery more, you can see what you like better, but it doesn't matter too much.

Red Delicate Inferno Ruby OR Delicate Queen's Garnet
Blue Stormy Ocean Sapphire OR Stormy Deepholm Lolite
Orange (Mastery = Adept Ember Topaz/Adept Lava Coral Crit = Deadly Ember Topaz/Deadly Lava CoralMeta: Agile Shadowspirit Diamond.

Gear
(Scroll down to [LT]'s post for more detail. Thanks. [LT]!)

Gear is pretty self explanatory, Cataclysmic obviously. Vial of Shadows isn't that great in pvp anymore for ferals, unless you want that static agility, Wrath of Unchaining is ok but isn't that great either. Personally, i'd still go with resil trinkets, cause I really don't feel like getting two shotted. However, if you get your hands on a normal Deathwing Polearm, use it. :P Time your burst with it, it's amazing, I promise.

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Glyphs

Prime	Beserk	Rip	Shred
Major	Rebirth	Barkskin	Ferocious Bite
Minor	Dash	Aquatic Form	Rebirth

What i use.

Glyphs are fairly simple right now, but for major glyphs.

Prime Glyphs should be Glyph of Berserk, Rip, and Shred. these benefit us the most when used together. Berserk for the super long 25 second burst time, Rip for the insane bleed damage increase, and shred to increase the duration for rip.

Major Glyphs, these are fairly trickier. I am currently using Rebirth, Barkskin, and Bite. i use rebirth because its amazing in rated battlegrounds, which i seem to be doing a lot of lately, Glyph of ferocious bite isn't all that great, but its a nice heal every now and then, especially if you get an instant cast healing touch right after, Barkskin is amazing and you should take it no matter what. If you're a night elf, and know how to use shadowmeld, get the glyph of pounce, so you can pounce right out of shadowmeld even if the target is moving. Glyph of feral charge is also really nice, if you know how to use feral charge bear perfectly to cc targets, go for that.

Minor Glyphs don't matter too much, but i think Dash and aquatic form is a must, i'm using minor glyph of rebirth because i'd never remember to carry around the reagents.

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Enchants

These are pretty self explanatory as well, however, 130 agility is in-fact better then Landslide, unless you like to be bursty and can time all your cd's with landslide.

Enchant Cloak - Greater Spell Piercing
Arcanum of Vicious Agility (Sold by PvP Vendors in Stormwind and Org, Head Enchant.)
Enchant Boots - Major Agility
Enchant Gloves - Haste because it's cheap. But if you can get Mastery, go with mastery. :P
Enchant Chest - Mighty Resilience(For surviving, If not, get Peerless Stats, 20+ all stats to chest.)
Charscale Leg Armor
Greater Inscription of Vicious Agility(Sold by PvP Vendors again, Shoulder enchant.)
Enchant Bracer - Critical Strike(Or agility, but it is pricey, so i go with Crit.)
Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility, 130 agility > Landslide, unless you can berserk with landslide and make great use of it, ferals benefit a lot more from agility though.

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Addons

I think addons are really important as well, for feral, you need a way to make sure your DoT's almost never fall off, if you're looking for a whole UI rework, i suggest ElvUI, it's great, lightweight, and does everything you need it to do. You can find it at ElvUI - Addons - Curse However, it's also at ElvUI « Tukui, Elvui is a modified version of TukUI, so if you don't like ElvUI that much, you can try out TukUI, which are both great interfaces. Most ferals should know about BadKitty and FeralByNight, these are both well put together addons that keep track of all DoTs and debuffs, as well as combo points, highly configurable. I personally do not use these because ElvUI tracks everything for me. Power Auras is another great addon you should have, you can set up animations in-game for almost anything, combo points and buffs mostly. Last but not least, GladiatorlosSA. This is your best friend, she'll be your personal announcer, telling you when that rogue that keeps beating you pop shadow dance to spam ambush on you, so you can cyclone them asap, and tell you when his mage friend pops cold snap, so you can expect another ice block, while his hunter friend pops deterrence. It announces everything for you, very very helpful, make sure to change the settings, otherwise every enemy you can see while be announced when they use any cooldowns or special abilities. Traxex84 suggested a Predatory Swiftness Addon I think its great, however if you already have Power Auras installed, you can make your own version of this. But, it is still quick and easy to instal if you don't want to make your own. TehVoyager suggested this tracker addon for our DoT's it looks amazing, i have not tried it out personally yet.

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Macros

Not many macros in all honesty.

You want a macro to pop everything at once, this is what i use, but you should change it accordingly to what racials, enchants, and trinkets you have. I think it's really nice to have some sort of chat info macroed to your berserk, this helps a lot when running with friends. Ex, in arena, your team mates should know exactly when you pop your offensive cooldowns so they can get you dispelled asap, or freedom, etc.
Use tigers fury, then berserk in your macro.
Berserk won't let you pop Tiger's Fury after you've used Berserk, so use Tiger's Fury before Berserk.

#showtooltip Berserk
/cast Ruthless Gladiator's Badge of Conquest
/cast Tiger's Fury
/cast Berserk
/cast Berserking(Racial)
/use Potion of the Tol'vir
/p Zerking

Focus Target CC (Replace 'CC' with ability.)

/cast [target=focus] (CC)

You should have one of these for Cyclone, Skull Bash, Roots, and Hibernate, so you save time not having to switch targets, also, keybind Focus Target to something easy to reach, this will allow you to easily press a button to set your current target as a focus. I have mine keybound to H.

Bear and Cat Stampeding Roar.

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1] Stampeding Roar(Bear Form); Stampeding Roar(Cat For

Bear and Cat Skull Bash

#showtooltip
/cast Skull Bash(Cat Form)
/cast Skull Bash(Bear Form)

Focus Kick Bear and Cat Skull Bash

#show Skull Bash(Cat Form) 
/cast [stance:1, target=focus] Skull Bash(Bear Form); [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form);
/cast [stance:3, target=focus] Skull Bash(Cat Form); [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form);

Feral Charge Ravage (Tap after you feral charge for that free ravage.)

/cast Feral Charge(Cat Form)
/cast Ravage(Cat Form)

Any form Faerie Fire (Really helpful for when you spazz out at rogues and press you button for faerie fire in manbearpigdragongooserabbit form.)

#showtooltip
/cast [nostance] Faerie Fire
/cast [stance:1] Faerie Fire (Feral)(Feral)
/cast [stance:3] Faerie Fire (Feral)(Feral)

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Rotations and Abilities






As a feral, you don't have much of a rotation, most of you know its mostly priorities. I also included Abilities many ferals forget about, feel free to ask about anything else. Spamming Mangle is not good, you're not a rogue, shred will ALWAYS hit for more then mangle, no matter what, even if you glyph for it. Only use mangle to get the debuff, and when you can't reach your target's back. Also, after playing my feral druid for long, this is muscle memory for me, and i have really bad habbits of using certain abilities at the wrong time. So, start doing everything 100% right, so you won't have to adjust later on. x)

1. Keep up Mangle
2. Keep up Faerie Fire
3. Keep up Rake
4. Keep up Rip (Hopefully you managed to crit before this, so you have 5 combo points by now, if not, shred before you rip.)
5. Shred for Combo Points
6. Watch your bites, a bite with low energy is almost never any damage, only bite if the situation requires it. Example Will be mentioned in the Mages Strategies part of this guide. Only bite if All DoT's and Faerie Fire are up.

Tigers Fury: A skill many ferals don't realize the power of. Bleeds do damage based off your stats when you APPLIED that bleed, if you have 100,000,000 attack power for half a second, and you apply Rip during that time, that full duration of rip will tick based upon 100,000,000 attack power. Tiger's Fury increases physical damage by 15% for 6 seconds, so if possible, apply rip and rake during this time, and yes, obviously, that means a 15% harder ferocious bite.

Berserk: Don't misuse it, if an enemy still has cooldowns up to counter your berserk, like... ice block, pally bubble, dispersion etc, don't use it. Use it when they're defenseless, leave them searching for something to defend them self with while you enjoy a nice meal. (When to use berserk mentioned in Strategies.)

Barkskin: I hate when i see other ferals not using this. Keybind it to your S key, so everytime you try to backpeddle, you remember how bad you are and instead of being bad, you pop barkskin, making you look good, because you only backpeddle when you're in danger anyways. No no i'm joking, but really, if you're not using barkskin, get in the habbit of using it, macro it to Survival Instincts if you'd like, but remember you can use it two times before Survival Instincts is off cooldown again. The Glyph of Barkskin reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by 25%, meaning with about 3,500 resil, you will have a 30% chance to be critted while barkskin is up, and keep in mind, it REDUCES damage taken, so learn to use it before damage is bursted into you. Ex: As soon as you get Deep Frozen.
Frenzied Regeneration: Remember that ability you macroed to survival instincts in WOTLK and forgot about? Yeah well, it got nerfed, and was changed a little. Increases maximum health by 15%, increases health to 15% and converts rage into health for 20 sec. So, lets say you're at 5% health, you go into bear, pop this, it brings you up to 15% health instantly, then starts converting rage into health. This will buy you some time if you're waiting on a healer to catch up, trying to finish off a kill, or defending a node longer. DO NOT macro this to Survival Instincts, it was a good idea in WOTLK when survival instincts gave health, meaning you'd get bigger heals from frenzied regeneration, but they're horrible used together. Survival Instincts reduces damage taken, meaning you have to pop it before all the damage is pumped into you, Frenzied Regenration should be used when below 15% health.

Dash and Stampeding Roar: If you have not checked the talent Feral Swiftness, then you're probably wasting these abilities. They now break all movement impairing effects when used, so basically, you can powershift twice in ~2 minutes. (Powershifting was the old way of breaking roots just by simply switching forms, or casting a form twice.)

Savage Roar: Useless in PvP? Not exactly, the damage increase is nice, go test it out, it pushes me up from about 1,500 white hits, to 2,500 white hits, but this counts as a finisher, meaning you can use this to get instant cast nature spells. See Predatory Strikes Talent. I don't think i've mentioned this yet in this guide...somehow. But uh, as said, each combo point you use has 20% chance to give you a buff that lets you instant cast any nature spell. Meaning, you can instant cyclone, healing touch, hibernate, entangling roots, and wrath while moving without any cast times. You should use every one of these you get, most of the time anyways. You'll probably use them for healing touches or cyclone most often, which is good. As i was saying, using savage roar to get this buff means you can use combo points from halfway across a map to instant heal or cyclone something no where near your original target. If you're target is kiting you and you need a quick cyclone, savage roar, cross your fingers for the buff, then cast cyclone.

Natures Grasp: Should be used often to counter melee, annoying as hell, and lets you make swift escapes against 3 or less melee. VERY useful for beast mastery hunters, when ccing their pet.

Note: CC'ing is great, even if you have to hard cast, show some love and peel for your healers. Energy regenerates at 10 per second, shred costs 40 energy, Cyclone is about 2 seconds cast time as well as entangling roots, meaning once you blow all your energy, you can pretty much toss these two out and jump back into cat form with half energy ready to go. (Global cooldowns are 1 second)

Openers

Openers vary depending on class, on every class but for rogues, druids, mages, and hunters the regular opener is a feral charge followed with a tigers fury, mangle, rake, ravage, and shred. Rip, maim, or bite as soon as you get 5 combo points. You should rip most of the time, unless you're peeling off for a friend, or trying to CC, then maim, you should bite the least, unless you're stacking cooldowns and you can bite away half of your targets Hp.
For Mages, pounce, feral charge blink, then finish off with the regular rotation.
For Rogues, try your best to get the opener, ferals have a stronger stealth then rogues do, so you'll see them before they see you. Pounce, Faerie Fire, then rotation.
For Druids, another feral will have equal stealth as you do, so if you do get the opener, finsih off with regular rotations.
For Hunters, if you see them before they camo (Most of the time in duels) stand on them and spam pounce. You can feral charge and pounce faster then a Flare can get you out of stealth. If they are camo'd in a flare, you can either wait for camo or the flare to run out, then feral charge or dash in and pounce asap. Or, you can run in with dash, and try to get a pounce off, which probably won't happen... then finish off with your rotation. Barkskin here.

Bursting

If you read this guide back in 4.2, you probably remember how I spazzed out and told you feral burst was amazing, and oh it was.

But if you thought it was great in 4.2, let me tell you how your definition of great is about to be shattered.

Kiril Fury of Beasts
Cataclysmic Badge of Conquest
Cataclysmic Insignia of Conquest

+ Tiger's Fury
+ Beserk
+ Buffs.

Have fun.

Playing Defensive

Surviving is the key to any situation. It's super easy to survive as a feral druid, if you know how. First off, dashing and stampeding roaring, two easiest methods to get away, if you dash, stay in cat form as much as possible but try to toss HoT's up when you're ranging whatever you're running from. If you roared, either go into bear form, or human form. If you're in human form start tossing HoT's up asap and keep running.
Feral Charging. Feral charge is a good option to get away, feral charge a less dangerous target to get some distance, then toss HoT's up as you move even further, remember, you can feral charge totems and pets.
Restealthing, the most beneficial way of playing defensive. If its 1v1, cyclone, and restealth right as cyclone is about to fall off, from there you can run off and LOS to heal, or re-open and put out more pressure, giving you a nice instant cast to heal or cyclone again.
Bear Form cooldowns, survival instincts if you're expecting lots of damage, this ability is best used before you get zerged on, so all of your enemy's cooldowns to go to waste. Frenzied Regenration, pop it if you're blow 15% health to jump back up to 15% health, give you 15% more total health, and convert rage into health for 20 seconds.
Glyphed Aquatic Form, you can swim faster then any other class in the game, death knights and shamans can waterwalk though, meaning they can catch up to you, but they cant do anything if they have DoT's on them. Use water to your advantage, no one likes fighting in water either. :P

Key Bindings

Very important, i'm not going to tell you exactly how to key bind, nor give you an addon that keybinds everything for you. But, i am going to give you an addon(Note: If you have ElvUI, type /hb to bring up Hoverbind. Elvui comes with Hoverbind.) that lets you keybind things easier and give you a general idea of where things should be bound.
Everything should be bound to the left side of your keyboard, 1-5 (Or 6), and all keys on the left side of U, J, and N. Use shift, control, and alt to bind buttons more then one time, but only use them for abilities you wont use so often. Example, B could apply faerie fire for you, but pressing Shift+B could berserk, Alt+B could be your mount, and Ctrl+B could be your trinket. (Don't use these, i just made them up.) I think your mouse wheel should be bound to forms, since you use them a lot. Here is how mine is set up currently.

Mouse Wheel Up - Cat Form
Mouse Wheel Down - Bear Form
Shift Mouse Wheel Up - Travel Form
Shift Mouse Wheel Down - Aquatic Form

These are just how mine are set up, i think it works great personally.
Have keybinds for focus macros, especially kick, and remember to keybind Focus Target in the key bindings option.
Unbind Turn Left, Turn Right, Move Backwards and Move Forwards. You mouse will do all of these. Don't keyboard turn! Keep Strafe keybound if you'd like.
So, in short... You want one hand on your mouse and one hand on the left side of your keyboard at all times, minimize clicking.

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Professions

Not going to go in detail. (yet, still have to look up and make sure all my info is right.)

Engineering and Jewelcrafting are probably the two most common right now, the tinkers from engineering are nice, a extra bursty on use item for your bursty macro, plus the gems are amazing.
Alchemy and Jewelcrafting are also very common, more static agility, from the flask and the gems.
Personally, i have Mining and Herbalism (These are a waste to help you in combat as a feral.) Just because i use my druid to bot, and whatnot. I'll drop them sooner or later though, probably for Engineering and Jewelcrafting.


Jewelcrafting is no longer optimal with 4.3. If you're looking for stats, go with Blacksmithing, you can get that extra gem slot, and fill it with an epic gem, and get more stats than a JC would with Chimera's Eyes.

Strategies

Ok, into the good stuff, Strats.

Druid

Save Stampeding Roar and Dash for Nature Grasp roots! Maim if you can and break all three with one roar or dash.
When a druid pops frenzied regenration, rage starve them, meaning don't attack them, if they're converting all their rage into health, they wont be able to do anything but sit there and get small heals unless you attack them, if you attack them, they get rage, and convert more rage into health and able to do damage to you. If you starve them they'll be worthless for the 20 seconds frenzied regeneration is up, unless they leave bear form, which removes the buff anyways.

Balance - Lol, ferals will eat them alive, just don't let them kite you! Be careful and don't let them Typhoon you off of something, save feral charge for that if you know it is bound to happen, nature grasp the Trees, cyclone when too far out of range, interrupt any cast you can get. They won't do much damage, but have some HoT's up beforehand so you can counter those dirty instant Starsurges. Berserk if you catch them in a long stun out of moonkin form. (Human or Cat only, they'll be squishy.)

Restoration - Time Cyclone with Lifebloom, don't let those stacks wear off without them being in a cyclone or else they'll get a supermassive heal, try to cyclone every lifebloom if you can, watch for regrowths, they'll cast these often, its your chance to interrupt and put some pressure in. Berserk once tree form is down, watch for nature's grasp and natures swiftness during this time, have your trinket ready.

Feral - Watch your bleeds on the target, if they get the opener, big deal, barkskin as soon as they pounce you and they'll do no damage to you, as soon as barkskin wears off you have many options to get a few feet away from them to pull of your counterattack. Out of their pounce or get combo points for a instant cast, but here's the catch, you're gonna try to hibernate them. Meaning, you can't put bleeds on them, so spam mangle and shred for combo points and get an instant cast, or like I said, bash them then hard cast hibernate, if they're anything above decent they'll shift out of it while you're casting it though. Once you get a Hibernate off, toss some heals up, and wait for their bleeds to fall off for a restealth, also, make sure you have Faerie Fire on them. Restealth, get the opener, pop some cooldowns and make sure you hit them hard enough so that they can't recover from that opener itself.

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Warrior

Easy mode now in patch 4.2, save your trinket for Throwdown, it hurts, kite them as soon as you start fighting, they will waste their charge and you'll be able to get away later, DO NOT TRINKET FEAR, get bleeds up asap, keep HoTs up if you know they'll throwdown, try not to get thrown down in human/cat without having a trinket up, dash away from Bladestorm. Don't forget to use roots to your advantage, but watch out for Reflecting Shield.

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Warlock

Also easy mode, most will be affliction, as a feral you can tear through them, don't trinket Death Coil, if you do this they'll fear you right after, try your best to skull bash those fears. (I don't see many warlocks on my server, and the ones that do pvp are affliction, so if you have any info you'd like to add on demon and destro spec, please do so, but they're pretty garbage for pvp from what i've heard.)

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Priest

Tip: After facing priests, you'll be able to tell when they are trying to get a fear off on you, you can range these so they go to waste. If you see a priest running towards you, or into a large group, chances are they are going to fear.

Shadow: Pretty easy and straightforward, berserk after dispersion if its necessary, watch out for mind blast crits, power shift mind flays if skull bash is down, or if they're out of range. Use dispersion time to toss HoT's up.

Discipline: Fairly hard, all they need to beat you is desperate prayer, honestly. Save berserk till after inner focus, fear, and Desperate Prayer is down. If you can maim them right after you get their shields down, then pop everything, you should get it. You can maim Inner Focuses to interrupt them during that time. Save your trinket for getting Feared while berserking. Also, if you're a night elf, this is where your /cast Shadowmeld /cast Pounce macro will come in handy, as soon as Inner Focus goes up, spam the living hell out of that macro, and watch as their cooldown goes to waste.

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Hunter

Pretty easy to counter usually, unless they're Beast Mastery. (Tip: In duels, stealth and stand right ontop of the hunter, and spam pounce, so camo and flare are gone to waste. You can feral charge into a flare and spam pounce, and get the pounce off before flare takes you out of stealth. If flared and camo'd, either try to wait for the split second camo or flare is down, and go in then, or just dash right in and try to get a few hits before they Disengage away.

Marksman: Don't let them get aimed shots off, if they steady shot they have a 60% chance to get a buff, after 4 stacks of that buff they can instant aimed shot, so don't let them get off steady shots if possible either. Watch out for Chimera Shot, it hurts, and heals them if they have Serpent Sting on you. Their pet is rather worthless in this spec. Berserk after both deterrence's are down, they can pop readiness and deterrence again, use bear form charge to immobilize, most hunters pop Deterrence on this.

Beast Mastery: 2nd Hardest spec to counter as a feral, imo. CC the Pet when not enraged, use Nature's Grasp, instant cast roots, or cyclone, pop survival instincts when the hunter pops enrage, you can expect a kill command from the pet, which goes up to 25,000 damage on 3,500 resilience. (That I've seen on myself so far.)Try your best not to let the kite you, hunters themselves don't hurt as bad as pets do, but... they DO hurt. Berserk after Detterence and feral charge is up for disengage, watch for Master's Call.

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Paladin

Easy to counter if they're ret, hard to counter if they're holy.

Holy: Try to get off as many kicks as possible, they instant cast a lot, maim them when they freedom, berserk after bubble goes down. Save trinket for hammer of justice during berserk. Takes practice. Good class to practice energy management on. Keep your energy high!

Retribution: Easy to counter, just dish out damage, pop survival instincts as soon as they pop wings, go into bear, bash, cyclone, anything, don't let them get off hammers of wrath, if you can get a restealth off after they pop wings, gg. Berserk after wings and bubble.

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Death Knight

Fairly simple to counter.

Blood: Bleed kite, bleed kite, bleed kite, restealth if possible. Don't let them touch you, they'll heal and do insane amount of damage. Try to bleed kite as much as possible, during pounce, apply rake and a full 5 combo point rip, then try to gather up some more combo points before kiting, when rip is about to wear off, feral charge in, ravage, and apply rip and rake again, or maim, then build combo points back up. restealthing is your goal here, use your instant casts for heals, and cyclones when they death grip. This will take a little bit of practice. Keep bleed kiting and try to get them as low as possible, at aruond 40%, berserk and try to finish them off, try to maim then asap.

Unholy: Pretty easy, you can trinket the ghoul stun since there isn't anything else to trinket, aoe slows are annoying, but you can dish out damage faster then they can.

Frost: Easymode spec, even in 4.2 Chains of Ice are annoying, get them to pop one early so you can kite and heal later on, bleed kiting is nice, but not the best way to go, try to do as much damage as you can in pounce, maim after if you'd like. Keep HoT's up, before you go in head to head to do damage, they hurt. Berserk whenever most of your cooldowns are up, pop survival instincts if you'd like. (Need more details, please let me know what i'm forgetting.)

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Shaman

Pretty simple to counter again, but for resto. Maim during Spirit Walker's Grace, Faerie Fire if grounding totem is up.

Elemental: Super easy to counter, roar/dash their roots, interrupt lava bursts, their lava bursts is the only thing that hurts, watch for Elemental Mastery. Berserk after roots.

Restoration: Rather hard to counter, try to get off as many interrupts as you can like always, don't berserk before spirit link totem. You can hibernate in ghost wolf if you need a resealth, but watch your DoT's.

Enhancement: Survive wolves, then go offensive and kill, really simple, but they do hurt, try to kite and root wolves, a restealth is the biggest advantage. Berserk after wolves.

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Rogue

Keep Faerie Fire up, If you know they're going to Cloak of Shadows into a Vanish, try to bear form charge them right after they cloak, they will still be able to vanish, but won't be able to move, so swipe after 3 seconds to get them out of stealth. Immobilization lasts 4 seconds, unbreakable stealth lasts 3. You won't be able to see them. If they don't vanish, or if you get them out of stealth, re-apply Faerie Fire ASAP, after cloak goes down, you can pop trinket for blind, but never before cloak. Root them a lot, you can get them to pop cloak this way, and give yourself time to heal after they pop cloak, watch for smoke bomb, they'll use this if you've gathered some distance and faerie fire is about to run off, so they can get a re-stealth, dash back in and try your best to stop them from restealthing.

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Mage

Hardest class to counter. Bash them to make them blink, then feral charge bear for 4 seconds of free time. Or when you pounce, they blink, then you build up 5 combo points, and maim, before blink is up again, this is your free time to berserk, its the only free time you'll get, unless they iceblock. Then you just won't get any. If you are applying Rip and Rake, apply a 1 combo point rip first, they will ice block it off, wasting it, after they do, re-apply a 5 combo points rip. (They could Cold Snap another Ice block for it, but i doubt it.) If you're having a hard time applying rip and rake, just use every 5 combo points you get to bite, use instant cast for either roots, instant healing touch, or cyclones.

Fire: Fairly easy, they can't out run you unless they get their speed boots proc, interrupt as many scorches as possible, watch out for instant cast pyroblasts, you can watch for the animation and barkskin before. After you get them to 1%, and you get a hit that would have killed them, they'll regain 40% health back from from Cauterize. They'll lose all health after 6 seconds though, unless they iceblock, in which case you'll have to finish that 30% off again.

Arcane: Easy, they can't kite you that easily, roar their frost nova, power shift their slows, interrupt as many arcane blasts, they'll be squishy. Feral Charge will probably be used on blink, but you might need it for when their arcane shield breaks.

Frost: Hardest spec to counter as a feral, roar and dash ONLY when you can break an ice nova to get an interrupt, barkskin on deep freeze, try to save your trinket for the 2nd deep freeze, or try to time survival instincts before deep freeze. They'll deep freeze you after they use their pets frost nova, which generates fingers of frost, so... if you get frozen from a far distance away, and they have not used deep freeze yet, you can expect a lot of damage. Takes a lot of practice and luck to beat frost mages, we don't have much to counter them with right now, your best bet is mentioned above in bol

Comps

Jungle Cleave (Hunter, Druid, Healer)

Easy cleave, CC is great with scatter shot, traps, cyclones, and fear, hexes, or pally hammer depending on what healer you chose. Personally i'd choose a holy paladin to run with for freedom, always. But, mana burns are really nice, as well as shaman's windshear.
Run in, play defensive till they pop their cooldowns, then as soon as that happens, give your team mates the head up, hunter especially, then pop everything you have on a defensless target, the burst damage from berserk and bestail wrath is insane, stuff should die.
Note: Go after Warlocks, lots of teams use warlocks now, and jungle cleave can... tear them to peices. No warlock should get out over 10k damage unless their CC is amazing with Jungle Cleave. As soon as my team comes across a warlock, we rush straight for them, pop everything, cc the healer once, and he's dead. We've faced 2 gladiator warlocks who did 0 damage done total. The reason you can just blow them to shreds is because they don't have much defensive cooldowns, besides portal. Which you should be on them before they put it down.
Anything else however, i suggest waiting till they use all their cooldowns. You can always try using all your cooldowns first though.

FMP(Feral Mage Priest)

This is probably the easiest comp for feral druids. The mage and priest carry you, no joke. It is skill-less, if you want easy wins, go with this. No further explanation is needed. This is the easist comp in the game according to statistics, its what most comps above 2200 are.


Ebola Cleave (Feral Dk Healer)

This is pretty easy too. I think it's pretty fun, the DK does so much damage, focus kicks, so many interrupts. omagawd. Hungering Cold, oh lawd. This is really fun, i'm doing it with a holy paladin right now. Healers don't get much time to heal, in most cases pallies toss their bubble up and start healing in that for a few seconds. Everything still dies. (Got stuck with this at exactly 2000 rating.)

Kitty Cleave or Bleed Cleave (Feral Warrior Healer)


Pretty easy comp. 4th most popular comp above 2200 rating. I usually play defensive most of the time, and wait for my warrior to get a good chance to throwdown, toss a cyclone on the healer and berserk and kill whatever he threw down. Super easy.


Feral Rogue Healer

Not my favorite either, but this comp has lots of CC, with Saps, Blinds, and Gouges. However, Smoke Bomb should make this comp fairly easy. Haven't tried this recently, nor have i seen anyone running this. But it shouldn't be too hard.

Beast Cleave Feral, Enchance, Healer.

From what I heard, this still works pretty well if you can play it off right, although it's much more difficult than these other comps.

For 2's and 5's. You can almost run anything honestly. 2's is kinda useless so, doesn't really matter there. For 5's, i heard Feral Fmage Afflic Warlock, Rshaman, Dpriest was good. But i haven't done 5's in a while. If you have any comps for 5's that you know work well (At high rating) Please let me know.

Mists of Pandaria

The future looks bright my friends, here's the talent tree I made for MoP, Mists of Pandaria - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I know things will probably change, but for now I went with Wild Charge, just because it seems like it could have a lot more uses than Displacer beast.
Nature's swiftness and Cenarion Ward don't really seem like they would benefit a feral as much as a desperate prayer every 3 minutes would.
Mass Entanglement or Typhoon, hard choice. I feel like Entanglement and Ursols vortex would work good together.
Incarnation seems like a no brainer, same with disentanglement.
I'm not really sure about glyphs yet, I haven't seen all of them but the travel form glyph looks really legit.

I found a video for you on Ursol's Vortex if you haven't seen it yet, it's not mine, so. yeah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xId3Ij8N-nM

Farewell for now, expect more MoP stuff soon.

[StefanSon]

ZOMG ! ur epic man... +Rep for this, wanted to try some feral for some time, but this shit is epic man! GREAT!

[DarraX]

Could you tell me what the spell penetration is for? :S

[Traxex84]

Could you tell me what the spell penetration is for? :S

Insta cyclones with Pred swiftness.

[QtDemon]

Could you tell me what the spell penetration is for? :S

Sorry, i'll update everything later with links and explain exactly what everything is for.

Also, thanks StefanSon.

[TehVoyager]

yeah. enjoyed. thanks man. might try some arena after firelands tonight

[tiptopz]

I'm curious, what is your rating?

[[LT]]

I would like to add some stuff to the guide if thats alright with you?


Gear

Head: Vicious Gladiator's Dragonhide Helm
Neck: Vicious Gladiator's Necklace of Prowess
Shoulder: Vicious Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders
Back: Vicious Gladiator's Cape of Cruelty
Chest: Vicious Gladiator's Dragonhide Robes
Wrist: Vicious Gladiator's Armwraps of Accuracy
Gloves: Vicious Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves
Waist: Vicious Gladiator's Waistband of Accuracy
Legs: Vicious Gladiator's Dragonhide Legguards
Feet: Vicious Gladiator's Boots of Cruelty
Ring1: Vicious Gladiator's Ring of Accuracy
Ring2: Vicious Gladiator's Ring of Cruelty
Trinket1: Vicious Gladiator's Badge of Conquest
Trinket2: Vicious Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity or Vicious Gladiator's Medallion of Cruelty
Weapon: Vicious Gladiator's Staff or Vicious Gladiator's Pike
Relic: Vicious Gladiator's Relic of Triumph

Note: This is the gear you should buy as you will be hit capped after reforging. Buy Vicious Gladiator's Medallion of Cruelty if you want extra crit or buy the Vicious Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity if you find that you die easily. As for weapon it dosen't matter wich one you choose just go for the one you think looks best on your character.



Gemming

Red: Delicate Inferno Ruby (+40 Agility) If jc Delicate Chimera's Eye (+67 Agility) x2
Blue: Stormy Ocean Sapphire (+50 Spell Penetration) If jc Stormy Chimera's Eye (+84 Spell Penetration) x1
Yellow: Deadly Ember Topaz (+20 Agility and +20 Critical Strike Rating)

Note: If you are JC you should replace 2 Delicate Inferno Ruby with Delicate Chimera's Eye for 54 extra agility and replace 1 Stormy Ocean Sapphire with Stormy Chimera's Eye for 34 extra spell penetration that will get you spell caped with 254 spell penetraion.
If you are not a jc you will only have 220 spell penetration wich means mages who play with a shaman can still resist your cyclones if they have the totem down, 240 Spell penetration is requierd to not get resist. If you find that you still die alot even after choosing the resilience insignia replace the Deadly Ember Topaz gems with Lucent Ember Topaz


Reforging

Head: Mastery --> Crit
Neck: Mastery --> Crit
Shoulder: Expertise --> Hit
Back: Do not reforge
Chest: Do not reforge
Wrist: Do not reforge
Gloves: Do not reforge
Waist: Do not reforge
Legs: Haste --> Hit
Feet: Do not reforge
Ring1: Do not reforge
Ring2: Do not reforge
Trinket1: Can't be refoged
Trinket2: Can't be refoged
Weapon: Do not reforge
Relic: Do not reforge

Macros

One click in and out of bear

/cast !Bear Form

One click in and out of cat

/cast !Cat Form

Great guide and thanks for the strategies.

[QtDemon]

Sure thing [LT]. My rating as of right now is 2150 in 3's, 2000 in 2's, and 1900 in 3's, nothing to huge, but i have not being doing much arena lately. I have 1900 rating in RBGs (After tanking my rating from 2194 just to get conquest points.) I have 209 wins in rated battlegrounds. 2,308 arenas played, 1,233 arenas won, i'm surely no scrub, but i'm not the best either.

[ally4821]

How to play feral - roll face

Nice guide but I didn't read all of it because I don't really need tips

[tiptopz]

I appreciate your honesty, as far as I'm concerned anyone over 2k has credibility, that's where the real game starts.

[ev1]

AMAZINGLY well written for a feral newby like me, tons of great info +3 rep. gearing up the druid right now because of this

[QtDemon]

Ty all, and i understand, i would just scan through it for more advanced ferals. Thank you so much for the great feedback. ^.^ <3
Edit: I wish i could link my druid's armory, but i'm too scared to on here. xD my account is on its final warning apparently. :|

Guys, toss me some suggestions, i'll try to answer everything. I pawmise.

[ev1]

Ty all, and i understand, i would just scan through it for more advanced ferals. Thank you so much for the great feedback. ^.^ <3
Edit: I wish i could link my druid's armory, but i'm too scared to on here. xD my account is on its final warning apparently. :|

Guys, toss me some suggestions, i'll try to answer everything. I pawmise.

I know it may be obvious to some, but what meta should I go with? What is a good rotation to open up with on 1v1? Since i'm farming battlegrounds right now, i'm learning but i feel i'm lacking some hard hits and stuff. It just seems I take much more damage then i can put out in 1v1. Gear isn't an issue either - i'm full pve/pvp 365 iLvl - i should be hitting a ton harder i would think :X

[QtDemon]

I know it may be obvious to some, but what meta should I go with? What is a good rotation to open up with on 1v1? Since i'm farming battlegrounds right now, i'm learning but i feel i'm lacking some hard hits and stuff. It just seems I take much more damage then i can put out in 1v1. Gear isn't an issue either - i'm full pve/pvp 365 iLvl - i should be hitting a ton harder i would think :X

Hmm, pve and pvp gear you say? That might be why, you need that pvp gear, drop the pve! [Agile Shadowspirit Diamond] is what meta you're looking for, copied and pasted right out of my helm. for 1v1 openers, a typical feral charge, pounce, mangle, faerie fire, rake, shred, rip, use instant cast, shreds, re-apply rake when needed, re-apply rip or bite. 365 item level? Farm up the new pvp gear! :O It's ilevel 371 and only costs honor. go go. :P Good luck ^.^

Edit: Can't believe i missed the meta, will have to add it in later, i'll do a section on openers and professions tomorrow. Gnight all.

Edit2: Updated with links and meta.