Feral Druid Talents & Builds - WoW Classic: Season of Mastery

Author: Oxykitten
Date: December 22, 2021
Updated: March 21, 2022
Expansion: WoW Classic

Intro

Welcome to our Feral Druid talent specialisation guide for WoW Classic: Season of Mastery! This guide aims to take an in-depth look at all the different PvE specs for a Feral Druid, and then go into detail on all the important talents as well as those to miss. For more information on Feral Druids, refer to the Tank and DPS guides in the navigation pane above.

Talent Specialization Choices

There are a few choices when it comes to Feral talents, and the choice generally comes down to how much value you want to place in bear-specific talents as opposed to cat-specific talents. Feral Druids are able to tank and DPS in the same spec, and this should be taken full advantage of.

Therefore, I suggest two variations of the same core spec which picks up all the most important talents in each role. The first will be ever-so-slightly DPS focused, and the second will be ever-so-slightly tank focused. Any in-between of these two specs is suitable, and I will go into detail on which talents are mandatory, and which are not.

wow classic som feral druid tank talents — **Tank-oriented Feral Spec – 14/32/5**

This Feral specialization takes all the core talents for both roles, then chooses less important tank talents such as Primal Fury and Thick Hide rather than the DPS-oriented alternatives. This is effectively the basic Feral spec, and will serve you well for anything you need to do.

wow classic som feral dps talents — **DPS-oriented Feral Spec – 14/32/5**

This Feral specialization takes all the core talents for both roles, then chooses less important DPS talents such as Blood Frenzy and Feral Aggression rather than the tank-oriented alternatives. Note that Ferocity is an important tanking talent, but in a raid environment, reducing the rage cost of Maul from 10 down to 7 is not essential if you are the fourth tank, do not tank very threat-sensitive targets, and DPS a lot of the time. In this spec, you should always use Idol of Brutality in Bear Form, and Idol of Ferocity in Cat Form. If you feel uncomfortable dropping 3 points in Ferocity, going for 5/5 Ferocity and 2/5 Feral Aggression is very reasonable for a better balance of tank value.

Open the tabs below if you’d like a run-down of how important each talent is in PvE.

The first tier of talents in the Balance tree provides no value to Ferals. However, they are necessary to reach talents further down the tree. Take your pick between Wrath Machine Guns or Grabby Roots:

Improved Wrath: Almost always useless in PvE
Nature’s Grasp and Improved Nature’s Grasp: Always useless in PvE as most raids are indoors, but great outside of raids.

Second tier:

Natural Weapons: Mandatory. Increases your damage (and therefore threat) by 10%. Massive value for Ferals.
Natural Shapeshifter: Mandatory. Reducing the mana cost of shapeshifting is essential for Feral DPS, which has one of the most mana-intensive rotations in the game. All Ferals who ever enter Cat Form should have this talent.

Third tier:

Omen of Clarity: Mandatory. Omen of Clarity can proc in form, giving you a free Shred in Cat Form or a free Maul in Bear Form. This isn’t a game-changing talent, but it’s strong for cat, decent for bear and you’re already here for Natural Weapons anyway.
Nature’s Reach: Not recommended. This talent is very niche; some Feral main tanks will get it instead of DPS-oriented talents to increase the range of Faerie Fire (Feral), allowing them to pull mobs more easily in raids. However, most guilds will have Hunters pull mobs for them, so this is not recommended for general use.

First tier:

Ferocity: Recommended: Ferocity is a very strong talent for tanks, but not very valuable for DPS. If optimising for DPS, you don’t need 5/5 in Ferocity, but I’d generally recommend getting it.
Feral Aggression: Optional. Demoralising Roar is weaker than Demoralising Shout, so this talent doesn’t really provide any value to a tank in a raid environment. It does mildly increase your DPS in cat form, though, so can be taken as a DPS-oriented talent.

Second tier:

Feral Instinct: Mandatory. 15% more threat in Bear Form is essential if you ever tank anything.
Brutal Impact: Optional. This talent is useful in PvP and in dungeons, but has little value in raids. Most targets cannot be stunned, and those that can should be stunned by Rogues or Paladins, who have better abilities for this purpose. Still, if you happen to be tanking a stunnable add that the rest of the raid is not focused on (Ghoul packs in Naxxramas come to mind), this talent can come in handy. I generally recommend putting any extra points into Feral Aggression or Thick Hide instead of this talent, though.
Thick Hide: Optional. Thick Hide increases your armor from items by 10%. This is not a bad talent, but 5 talent points is a lot to commit to something that is ultimately not very impactful. This should be skipped in most talent builds.

Third tier:

Feline Swiftness: Not recommended. This talent is useful in PvP and in dungeons, but has no real value in raids, which are mostly indoors.
Feral Charge: Mandatory. This talent is essential for getting to your target quickly, or countering knockback mechanics like on Ragnaros or Ouro by charging back quickly, and on a short cooldown.
Sharpened Claws: Mandatory. 6% Critical Strike chance from only points, and unlocks other talents in the tree. A must have.

Fourth tier:

Improved Shred: Mandatory. This talent is absolutely essential if you ever DPS. The entire Feral DPS rotation depends on this talent, so it should be taken by all Ferals.
Predatory Strikes: Mandatory. This talent is good, providing 90 attack power and unlocking essential talents further down the tree.
Blood Frenzy: Optional. This talent is good value per point, but is only for DPS. It is a good cat-oriented talent.
Primal Fury: Optional. This talent is good value per point, but is only for tanking. It is a good tank-oriented talent.

Fifth tier:

Savage Fury: Mandatory. This talent is effectively 20% more threat in bear form for only 2 talent points. Per talent point, this is one of the strongest talents in the game.
Faerie Fire(Feral): Mandatory. Faerie Fire is a very powerful debuff, generates some threat when applied, and is a good ranged pulling ability. Absolutely worth picking up.

Sixth tier:

Heart of the Wild: Mandatory. This talent provides a lot of Stamina in Bear form, and a lot of Strength in Cat form. Just really strong all around.

Final talent:

Leader of the Pack: Mandatory. This talent is a nice buff to yourself and to your group. Not an insane final talent, but worth getting nonetheless.

First tier:

Improved Mark of the Wild: Not recommended. It is very important for one druid to have this in the raid. However, that should be the restoration druid, as the cost is too high for a Feral to take it efficiently.
Furor: Mandatory. The entire feral DPS rotation is dependent on this talent, and it is very useful when trying to stay second on threat while not being hit in Bear form. Must have.

Second tier:

Improved Enrage: Not recommended. This has some very minor benefit in Bear form, but comes at the cost of far better talent for DPS. No Feral should be getting this talent.

wow classic som feral druid pvp talents — **PvP Feral Spec – 1/29/21**

Now, I will preface this by saying I’m no expert when it comes to PvP. However, I felt it was important to at least include an example of a PvP spec in this guide. This build is called HOTW/NS and is commonly used in PvP, as deep feral is very weak for Classic PvP (think of a rogue that does less damage and has no utility or crowd control). This is played more like a restoration druid, but retains some ability to do damage in forms; this is useful for conserving mana and can help win battles against mana-dependent enemies, such as Shadow Priests. A lot of the talent points can be moved around depending on preference, but the key points are Nature’s Swiftness and Heart of the Wild.

Note that this build has sometimes been recommended as a tank/heal hybrid spec for PvE. While this can work for tanking or healing dungeons to find groups more easily, it makes you bad at both roles and is not recommended for raids. Furthermore, fights where an extra healer is useful in raids are generally the same fights which require additional tanks, making a tank/heal hybrid far less useful than a tank/dps hybrid (which Feral druids are by default).

Thank you for taking the time to read our Feral Druid talent specialisation guide for Season of Mastery. I hope it was helpful, and if you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to leave a comment below, or find me as Oxy on the Druid Classic discord.

About the Author

Oxykitten

I've been an avid WoW player since Vanilla. At 6 years old, I was slowly progressing through Blackfathom Deeps and levelling up with my brothers. Since Classic Wow launched, I've found a new way to enjoy the game; participating in Feral Druid theorycrafting communities and performing well in an underdog class has been a fun challenge. I hope to be able to share all I've learned with anyone who shares that interest!