Feral Bear Druid

Overview

Talents and builds

Level 60 and raid build

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Key talents

• Ferocity5/5Maul, Swipe, Primal Bite, Claw and Rake cost less Rage or Energy
• Furor5/5Rage on shifting into Bear Form (it moved from Restoration to Feral's top row in client 1.60.1.70707)
• Feral Swiftness2/2Natural Reaction5/5Dodge, and Natural Reaction also pays Rage whenever you dodge
• Thick Hide3/3Extra base Armor while shapeshifted, growing with Defense Skill beyond five times your level
• Feral Instinct3/3Savage Fury2/2Rend and Tear5/5More damage from Swipe, from your melee abilities, and from every ability against a bleeding target, which Lacerate keeps on the boss
• Lacerate1/1A talent since client 1.60.1.70707, and the bear's bleed: it stacks five times, and each cast hits for 10% of weapon damage for every stack already up
• Shredding Attacks3/3Cheaper Lacerate
• Sharpened Claws2/2Predatory Strikes3/3Natural Instinct2/2Blood Frenzy2/2Crit, Attack Power, crit damage, and Rage on a critical strike
• Leader of the Pack1/13% more critical strike chance for the party and raid, on attacks and spells alike
• Primal Bite1/1The capstone since 1.60.1.70707: a high-threat bite on its own cooldown, the best single button the tree gives a bear

This build is the Feral tree almost whole (45 points) plus 6 in Restoration, and it is the build this site’s tank simulator runs, taken from the client’s own talent text.

The Restoration points are Heart of the Wild, more Stamina in Bear Form (it moved from Feral to Restoration’s top row), and one point of Naturalist. Berserk, which took the cooldown off Primal Bite, left the tree in 1.60.1.70707; its point went to Lacerate. Left out: Brutal Impact, Feral Charge, Predatory Discipline and Shifting Power, which are for the cat or for a fight with movement.

Open the planner at /planner?class=druid to build this out.

Rotation and priority

This is the rotation the simulator runs, measured in the simulator’s tank fight (a level 63 boss that swings at you every two seconds, healers assumed). Everything is in Bear Form, which Dire Bear Form replaces at level 40.

1. Primal Bite on its cooldown.
2. Lacerate built to five stacks and kept ticking: Rend and Tear reads it, and a cast on a full stack hits hardest.
3. Maul, queued on your next swing with spare Rage.
4. Swipe as the Rage dump.
5. Barkskin on its cooldown, a small cut in damage taken for a smaller cut in threat; Frenzied Regeneration as the heal when you are under half health.

Left out on purpose: Demoralizing Roar, because the simulated boss has no attack power for it to lower (a boss that has some changes this), and Enrage, which buys a little threat for a little more damage taken because it costs armor while it lasts. Growl, Challenging Roar, Bash and Feral Charge do nothing in a fight with one stationary enemy.

Stat priority

1. 1Expertise
2. 2Defense
3. 3Stamina
4. 4Dodge
5. 5Agility
6. 6Hit
7. 7Armor
8. 8Critical strike
9. 9Strength
10. 10Attack power

A tank is scored on one number that rewards, in this order, effective health (how much of the boss’s damage your health pool can take once armor and avoidance have done their work), then a risk index that punishes spiky incoming damage, then threat. Each stat in the table is how much one point of it moves that score, shown in the same convention as every other spec: against the stat the table is anchored to.

Why the stats land where they do is mechanical, and stays true when the numbers move. Stamina is health, and a bear’s Stamina is multiplied in Bear Form. Armor is multiplied by the form and lowers every physical hit by a fraction that shrinks as you stack it. Dodge is the only avoidance a bear has, because it cannot Parry or Block, and Defense Skill both lowers the chance to be critically hit and feeds Thick Hide. Agility is Dodge, Armor and crit at once. Strength and Attack Power are threat, and so is your weapon: in Bear Form your paw has your weapon’s damage per second, swung every 2.5 seconds, so a low-DPS caster staff costs you threat. Expertise lowers the boss’s chance to dodge you, which is threat, not survival, and no item carries it yet.

Best in slot

Enchants and consumables

Races

• Night Elf (Recommended)
• Tauren (Recommended)
• High Order Skyborne
• Windshaper Skyborne

Night Elf is the Alliance pick: Quickness. Tauren is the Horde pick: Endurance.

Professions

Skinning and Leatherworking, as for the cat: leather is the armor a druid wears, and Leatherworking turns Skinning’s leather into it.

Leveling

Outlined: points added in this level range.

Bear Form is available from level 10, and a bear is a safe way to pull and survive as a leveling druid at the cost of killing speed. This site’s tank simulation covers bands from level 20, and its low-level bands are the least reliable part of it; treat them as a direction, not a verdict.