Feral Druid - first impressions

[Arcdelad]

After chain running heroics the last few days, I have been able to test out some of the new druid abilities...here are my thoughts:

Bear

• We still smell bad. Sorry guys.
• We have a TON of new buttons to push! [spell=27009]Nature's Grasp[/spell], [spell=22812]Barkskin[/spell], [spell=50334]Berserk[/spell], [spell=50322]Survival Instincts[/spell] - all of these should NOW be in your rotation or at the ready, and don't forget with all these new buttons that you still have trinkets to push LOL (for me, I made a macro that has ALL of my bear and cat trinkets in it - I push one button and no matter what trinket is equipped in any gear set and it uses it)
• Hey - where did my armor go? Yeah...we got a huge armor nerf...mine went from 30k in my trash mob set to 23k. However, we now MITIGATE more damage with things like [spell=57877]Protector of the Pack[/spell]. Also, my health now in base bear form jumped to almost 19k (NON RAID BUFFED)- so we gained health, and we gained a slight bit of dodge. We have come out ahead despite the armor nerf.
• Threat - we can now generate some wicked good threat. To maximize bear threat you NEED the following talents: [spell=48491]Improved Mangle[/spell] (mangle is our #1 threat builder...having it on a shorter CD is critical), [spell=50334]Berserk[/spell] (Pop berserk at full rage and watch you pull miles away from anyone else in threat, especially on a boss), and [spell=16949]Feral Instinct[/spell] (your new aoe tank ability depends on swipe damage, so the 30% stronger swipe is crucial)
• Rage generation is a non issue - especially with [spell=57881]Natural Reaction[/spell] - I have never once found myself lacking for rage on any fight.
• Aoe tankage! I had people like Panzer, Vesuvius, and others try their best to steal mobs from me with aoe abilities when i aoe tanked, and they had a damn hard time doing it...swipe is your friend, but its limitation is its reach, so dont be shy about moving around to hit all the enemies...also DONT FORGET about your main target ("x") when aoe tanking...mix in a healthy supply of mangle and maul to hld threat on X, swipe, maul and use Berserk + Mangle to hold threat on the rest - and don't forget that [spell=5209]Challenging Roar[/spell] is now on a 3 min CD instead of 10.

Cat

• Supposedly we cant be BOTH top notch dps and tank at the same time anymore. That is absolute bullshit - don't buy into that garbage. I have tested out cat form dps as well against some of our guild heavy hitters and been top of the charts or at the very lowest NUMBER TWO. I even hit 1300ish DPS in some boss fights in 5 man heroics - NOT raids, 5 mans. Talented right you CAN still be a dual threat with just the change of your outfit.
• One of the fundemantal changes to us is our attack rotation. [spell=59886]Rake[/spell], which I didnt even have mapped last week, is now a critical part of our rotation. Thin of our attacks this way - [spell=59886]Rake[/spell] and [spell=49800]Rip[/spell] feed all of our overall damage with the [spell=51269]Rend and Tear[/spell] talent specced...BUT mangle still conversely increases bleed damage AND shred damage....SO...start with your opener, THEN [spell=59886]Rake[/spell], then [spell=48566]Mangle[/spell], then [spell=48572]Shred[/spell], and then [spell=49800]Rip[/spell] - rip will then replace the need to use rake anymore for that mob, so you revert to a standard mangle, shred, FB/rip rotation
• New buttons to push! [spell=50213]Tiger's Fury[/spell] is like an OOC you can CONTROL, [spell=50334]Berserk[/spell] increases your DPS during its duration like CRAZY...if you really want to have a blast, use a trinket like [item]Berserker's Call[/item], hit your drums of battle, AND use berserk....gooooooooooooooooooood times =)
• Dont forget you need to live to dps - you can still use [spell=50322]Survival Instincts[/spell] and [spell=22812]Barkskin[/spell] in cat form when needed.
• Feral charge - cat is weird and a little buggy right now IMO...first of all it looks...well..stupid....second of all someties you use it and find yourself immediately out of range to hit the mob (again, stupid)...also i used it last night and it faced the camera angle the wrong way so I was disorientated for a second trying to find my bearings....its a nice tool, but i think its still a little bugged

edit: thanks koth! fixed!

[Kothnok]

See the [.spell=] at the front of the thing you want to link?  Treat that like a [.url=] and put the spell/ability # after the =.  Alternatively you can just use [.url=web address from wowhead] and it will work just the same.

[Arcdelad]

BTW...a panel of judges has concluded this song from "Clerks" is the new druid theme song (about 1:00 in)

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D-9X3ooFvo[/youtube]

[Arcdelad]

A quick note on rake - analyzing my own data, rake does about as much damage over the course of its run as SHRED does. You need to put a bleed on these guys anyway, but dont feel like using rake is waste just for that bleed.