I recently switched to Feral from Balance I played during BfA as this version of boomkin wasn’t making sense to me and didn’t feel great to play, and while I like it during group content, it feels very weak in solo.
At 183 ilvl and with Apex Predator lego, both open-world and Torghast feel slow and dull as feral, mobs take long to die and I’m extremely squishy with Regrowth instant casts barely doing anything. My arms warrior has been 3-shotting mobs since 170 and Feral struggles way more with all types of enemies at 13 ilvls more. I feel energy-starved and lego barely procs at all from Rip.
Now they’re both at around 180 ilvl and I’m hitting slightly higer dps in dungeons as the druid, 2,5-3k, but he’s still much much weaker than the warrior in all solo content. I only did 2 Torghast runs with him since I switched from balance and both were miserable, ended up quitting and switching back to chicken to finish the run, but that was around 168 ilvl I think.
When I have Convoke off-cd I’m melting elites but without it, it’s just sluggish and taking too much dmg constantly. Am I missing something or is Feral just not that great for solo content?
Feral is great atm for aoe/cleave but not so great for single target (outside of convoke), it’s an almost perpetual thing tho for single target damage to be poor, it’s just sort of made up for in a way with survivability and the ability to grind elites down, albeit skowly.
I like it even on single target within dungeons, at least as long as CDs are up, then it gets really really slow but still not that bad considering there aren’t many purely ST fights.
However it’s demoralizing doing anything in the world be it WQs, Maw, anything. I don’t have much points of comparison as I’m only playing Feral and an Arms warrior who is melting mobs so it might not be a fair comparison but, it’s a really slog compared to that.
I feel like it needs a lot more crit and some dynamic energy regen or a chance to generate 2-3 combo points with builder spells or something like that.
I have an arms warrior too, I find it kinda balances itself out in a way as on my warr I’m less able to deal with larger packs where as with feral I always feel like I’m able to handle the situation or if it gets too messy I can just disappear and reset. Same with elites, will always have a crack at them solo on my feral, knowing if it’s bad I can usually escape ok… on my warr I tend to just get squashed or end up running into more danger just trying to get away.
I go with Resto affinity outside of raids and my self healing seems extremely strong. And with Swiftmend I can heal to near full every 15 seconds. Not sure why that seems different to you?
I mean, sure, a 600k HP elite with kill me fast if I don’t run away but the ``lesser’’ elites with around 100k I can easily solo as Feral, particularly when Convoke is up.
in solo content it really depends on what talents you have. For torghast i prefer predator in first row and primal wrath and moment of clarity for more free swipes / shreds. In AOE situations its best thing, fast dps, kills. But in single target feral lack speed or idk how to say that… sometimes it feel so slow waiting for energy
proc. rate of omen of clarity with talent should be default like that or give feral energy regen speed like rogue have … come on blizz
Pretty much sums it up, right talents make a big difference… forever forgetting to change talents after doing BG’s then going out to do quests n stuff, then pull a pack and realise I now have my work cut out to kill them all without primal wrath.
It could be because of how we do damage. Given the fact a large portion of both speccs damage comes from convoke burst damage our sustained DPS doesn’t really add up that high overall.
Some damage profiles work really well in group and raid environments but not so well in a solo enviroment.
He said feels weak in solo content not that the speccs performing badly.
Shadow priest in BFA was like 4th on logs, but in solo felt horrific.
I am maining resto but still doing WQs, Maw, Torghast in feral. The gear I have is basically resto gear (minus trinkets and weapon) I have ilvl 190 gear (for feral and no legendary) without proper secondary stats… rather, I don’t even know which stats are the best for feral
Tbh first i struggled with feral too, and had to play for a few days to understand how it works, managing dots and tiger’s fury too. Also, not wasting any free regrowths during longer fights.
What helped me is that I’ve set up some weakauras to track Tiger’s fury and Bloodtalons up time/reset. I always take predator talent as it is really useful in energy management, in Torghast f.e. I always pull 1-2 mawrats to the pack, dot them up(trash,rake), wait for them to die -> free tiger’s fury -> use abilities, another mob dies, free tiger’s fury again. I don’t oneshot big packs either, sometimes I need to kite them, because they hurt, but that is absolutely fine. We are not DHs with perma leech to facetank 5 mobs easily.
Imo feral is REALLY good for solo content and I love it. (Especially WQing with WM on). I can easily solo layer 8s, but ye it is boring a bit. But if you get some good powers (20% dmg on FB, SwiftMend / 60% rake, rip / convoke / etc) you can kill really fast elites and bosses.
Like I said in the post, I was primarily making a comparison with my Arms warrior who’s my only other capped character, and since they also have the same ilvl. I meant solo content exclusively in terms of fighting mobs both in the open world, Maw, and Torghast.
However, by the point when I made the post I only did 2 Torghast runs with horrible anima powers, which I also mentioned. Since then I did 3 more runs and they mostly felt a lot better since the powers were better and I’m getting more familiar with the spec.
I didn’t say it’s op or weak, I simply stated that it may feel weaker depending on what the OPs comparing it too 🤷🤷…
Gear can also have a affect too. Energy based speccs and classes have a habit of feeling slow prior getting decentish stats. Dunno if that affects feral tho, haven’t played feral in SL but it’s a speculation from trying rogue.
Exactly this, I know the feeling. If all cooldowns are over and the rare/elite isn’t dead yet, it starts being insanely slow and feels like Vanilla gameplay.
Clicking on Shred slowly once you pool the energy one combo point at a time feels terrible, thankfully those situations don’t last that long. Omen should definitely be baseline and there should be more mechanics of passively stacking up more combo points or energy to speed up those periods.
That’s probably because feral is a lot more complex than arms. It requires energy pooling, mechanics management and a lot more keybinds if you want to play it optimally.
Weak auras is essential to manage snapshotting. If you search ‘shadowlands weak auras’ on YouTube you’ll find a video from Luxthos. He’s creates excellent weak auras layout for every class. He’s really done a great job. You can copy and paste them in and you’re good to go.
Ultimately feral has excellent damage, mobility and survivability through off healing. Solo content and Thorghast are a breeze one you get the classes mechanics down. Good luck!
not that the speccs performing badly.