I do several dungeons a day, and I have never, ever, not once seen a feral dps. Not that I would take one if I did. It’s the one dps I would refuse (and I gladly take furries, arms and rets). Why would you be so incredibly selfish to play a feral dps when there are 3 groups for your dungeon of choice spamming LF1M tank, summon ready.
Feral tanks are okay, better than warriors for dungeons, worse than palas. You always take the first tank that comes along anyway.
Feral offtank is superb in Kara, being in cat 80% of the time and a bear on a few bosses/trash packs that need it.
25 mans have to have one, and one only feral, obviously.
I will not take a Feral DPS but a Feral Tank in 10 or 25. In dungeons, I don’t care honestly.
If they want to DPS because there’s nothing to tank, let’s go. But don’t expect a Bloodust or whatever as a Feral cat, better to help the Destrolock/BM Hunter/Arcane Mage, they do more damage than you anyway and scale more with buffs.
Nothing against Feral dps, good utility and works well as a hybrid. Example can have a feral dps tank for the adds on Magtheridon and then go cat dps for the rest. Of all the 3 tanks the feral probably does that role best, and the 5% crit as a big boost for physical setups.
That said, if you’re not tanking in some capacity it’s a tough call, you’re the weakest melee in most scenarios.
I take the Hunter and the Warrior then look for an Enhance Shaman. For most dungeons it would clear faster, and if they pull agro it doesn’t matter because the mobs stay in melee. If I invite Warlocks they will just seed of corruption 2 seconds into a pull and then run around like a headless chicken with agro, while doing mediocre single target most of the time.
Honestly, much prefer tanking for physical setups.
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Every raid should have 1 Feral max.
The role the Feral Druid plays is 3rd tank or the off-tank for the more HC Guilds that want to min max. Feral even in full tanking gear will easily outdps any Paladin or Warrior tank once he goes into cat.
You bring a 5% crit buff for your Hunters. Extra healing sustain on your grp ever 6 seconds, but thats very minor overall. Another battle-rez and innervate, which is always amazing.
On top, where as most wont tell you, Ferals do very good dmg, especially in p1 now. No you will not beat most classes on cleave, but good thing that most fights in TBC are not cleave fiestas.
The main problem is that people in general are not very intelligent in WoW and love being meta slaves with out really understanding the game. They check top performers, see most of the bis Guilds do like 1 tank, which is Prot Pala and say “Thats that, Prot Pala is king” Sure is, if you are killing bosses in 20-30sec.
So to sum it up. Ferals will be doing high medium to medium high dmg, and on a lot of fights can easily top the charts even in overall solid Guilds. Bear tank will be king from BT to the end of TBC because you have a metric ton of AP+Crit, resulting in you doing proper dmg in Bear and holding more agro than any other tank (Long live the King) (p.s. Gets even worse in Wotlk, or better I guess since Feral is about 3x more op in all forms). And the insane dodge + capped armor and mass hp are nothing to shy away from.
HC dungeons… its… well, ok, not amazing, better options out there, but… who cares, its dungeons. Normal its not good at all since we bring no AoE and im sure most people will just cleave a ton of mobs.
No, you leave because you know that Feral and Dps war are rolling on a lot of the same loot as you. You can get a caster cleave, and you will clear sooner. But are those 5 mins going to change anything ? If you really leave like that im quite sure your server has you marked down as an idiot already.
Would be nice if people posted on their mains, never understood the cocky attitudes when posting on alts, screams of bad logs, mistakes and deep down embarrassment of letting people see + would negate all the puffed up talk about carrying people.
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Hey plaing Feral my self
Fore raid shure 5% Crit is always good
For HC only fore melee cleave where tank isnt other feral and dungeon dont req CC
Personaly i dont see why woud you want to play cat in 5 mens when cat got no aoe no CC and waiting for tank is realy painfull and bear is 1 click away
I’ve never seen a feral dps in dungeons, even moonkins are rare (met maybe 2). Though I only do heroics with my guild, sometimes we have to pug 1 or 2 and still none of them were cats. Personally, if I had to choose and make a party, I’d make a spellcleave for normals and for heroics I usually would like two dps with decent cc as fear isn’t that reliable. Or one class with cc (probably mage) and one - the most useful of the first several wisps I get. Anyways, I did Shattered Halls as 2 locks and elem shaman, after that nothing scares me anymore. And of course, if it was my guildie from our static, I would take anyone.
Funny. People dont like feral cat and ask on forum, why no tanks in game. 
Since we’re on about Ferals in groups. I did my Arcatraz HC Trial quest with a Feral dps in group, his dps was low but I have no complaints and it was cleared fine.
They are statistically the weakest melee overall (averages) but they can still do good dps in the right circumstances. The top Feral on Gruul did nearly 1700 dps, those kinda numbers will carry you through T6. The top Feral on Maggy is just under 2000 dps, the only class that is significantly and consistently above that is BM Hunter.
And BM hunters are also skewed because they are the most likely class to get an optimal group setup + multiple lusts, or strategies where they don’t have to click on Maggy. Feral will get all the dirty jobs and less optimal groups. So actually, if you have a really great Feral cat player, you can probably fit that into an optimised physical comp.
Ferals are probably the worst dungeon DPS, since no AoE. Single-target DPS can be decent and helpful on bosses, but what are bosses - 1% of a dungeon? And not every feral can powershift well enough to output the numbers.
Ferals can save the day by offtanking/offhealing/innervating/battleressing in emergency. But it’s arguably wrong to plan for an emergency.
In raids I think feral DPS are just as ok as rogues and furies. But it makes more sense for ferals to (off)tank.
I play feral myself and would gladly take a fellow feral if I know they’re competent : )
If you or your group can’t deal with 1 feral that says enough about you or the group ^^
1 feral per raid? There is no reason to bring a warrior tank to 25mans now that we’re fully geared, they just limit the amount of damage your raid can put out.
Even T5 content was not designed around fully geared T4 players, it’s gonna get cleared without warrior tanks week 1.
2 feral druids and 1 paladin for bosses that require a shield is the meta.
I wouldn’t take a feral dps for a 5man, and I’m feral xD
Not that you can’t clear with lower dps, but why would you choose to if you have the option to make the run easier ?
Whatever you think mr nobody. Everyone is pro on forums.
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As far as I know, the “meta” is 1 tank holding it all, outside of Gruul where you clearly need a second one to soak the hateful strikes. The MT can be who ever can hold more (So Prot Pala) and the Feral is the OT since he can go into cat and do good dmg which is something that the War and Pala cant do. I am talking for the majority of the Guilds here, Guilds that dont speed run, but just care about having a clean raid in decent time.
A Prot Warrior can equip a Fury gearset and do well in excess of 1000 dps on a boss like Gruul, while also having decent cleave/aoe for other scenarios. Just to hit that home, the top Prot Warrior parse on High King Maulgar is higher than the highest dedicated Feral dps, at over 2200 dps.
Alternatively a Warrior with half dps/tank gear can offtank Gruul in defensive stance to take the 2nd threat spot while dual-wielding for dps output/threat and having enough survival to take the hits, allowing for high dps speedkills where melee threat will be an issue.
Paladin isn’t very good for the 2nd threat spot, they will fall behind and eventually go oom, they either have to main tank or not at all if you want your melee dps to be able to pull any kinda dps.
Did a heroic with a feral who so ever so often would go bear for some reason and we made it. Recommended class.
Notice how most people who say here that they wouldn’t take a feral also admit to never having seen one.
Feral does pretty good dps given they know how to powershift and use wolfshead. They cannot cleave but single target/burst is good. Better druids will also know that for large packs bear form + swipe does solid aoe damage.
They also provide ok to good CC with cyclone, bear silence/immobilise (every 15s), and maim (6 second cd interrupt)
They can also save your behind with battle ress and innervate.
They also save your behind with off tanking and off healing.
Truly, people that say they would leave the group if there’s a feral dps have not played with one (or at least one that is average at his/her class)
Edit: best groups i’ve been in usually had 2 meta dps and a feral. Having someone that can off tank/heal in a pinch while still providing good dps really lets meta dpsers go crazy
Fearl CC is onyl usefull in OHF , all other things you mentioned can be done by Bear more effectivly,
Any Feral who know how to play and already got gear will simple go as Tank and make it all faster and easier , what make that majority of Ferals who want to joing group as DPS are freash ding and bad at game
I love my feral alt, bear in alt raids, even cat. Powershifting is fantastic, with my bad gear I can do 800-1000 dps on singletarget, not amazing as a dps, but overall an awesome support.
Go out of bear to cyclone, innervate, off heal or use maim in cat? I dont think so. Even battle ressing can be risky if you have mobs hitting you
That’s just your opinion. I disagree that you should write off a spec like that