Feral Druid Builds – Mangle DPS Talent Druid Spec
Posted on February 9th, 2010 by Lawbringer under Alliance, Build, Druid, General Tips, Heroics, Horde, Instances, Night Elf, PVE, Raiding, Spec, Tauren, Tips, World of Warcraft, WotLKThe Cat Is Back In Patch 3.3
Not too long ago we did a post about feral druid cat form and had our fair share of negative feedback from the feline community. It seems that any feral build without mangle was just not going to satisfy certain kitties with quite finicky tastes. we promised we would revisit the build in a form that included mangle, and here it is. It’s not going to put out as much overall DPS, but if you’re used to it it might just be better for you than the new version without Mangle. Besides, with a max DPS of 10,913 theoretical dmg you might just find it’s plenty anyway (plus one moar button to push when face-rolling).
Gear
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14726081#talents
Talent Build
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14726081#inventory
Glyphs
Major
Minor
As is the case with most builds, the minor glyphs are mostly up to you since none of them figure into direct DPS in any way. So if you are in love with something else feel free to use it, but these are pretty typical.
Priorities
This build does Mangle, and adding something to the priority list certainly does not make the list less complex. It’s not nearly as bad as some DK lists with internalized rotations inside the list, but there are some conditionals you have to bear in mind. Check the thread below this post for input from the folks who do this all the time for more nuts and bolts. And remember, this is NOT a rotation, so things may seem a little out of order. It’s a priority list, so get that straight before you complain.
- Flask = Endless Rage
- Food = Hearty Rhino
- Form = Cat
- Maim (interrupt)
- Faerie Fire
- Tigers Fury (when energy is less than 40)
- Berserk (when energy is less than 90)
- Savage Roar (without SR buff)
- Savage Roar (With 5 combo points on target and Rip has more than 6 seconds left)
- Shred (to extend Rip when Rip has less than 4 seconds)
- Rip (when at 5 combo points to debuff target)
- Ferocious Bite (when combo points are at max and target has less than 6 seconds to die)
- Ferocious Bite (at 5 combo points and rip has more than 10 seconds left)
- Mangle
- Rake (unless the target will die in less than ten seconds)
- Shred (if you have more than 70 energy)
- Shred (when Omen of Clarity procs)
- Shred (when combo points are below 4 and rip has less than 3 seconds left)
- Shred (if the target will die in less than ten seconds)
- Shred (if Berserk is still active)
Damage Sources
Remember that according to the wikki simulcraft engine, this build Feral Druid Spec Pwns Face WITHOUT using Mangle does 214 more DPS than a mangle rotation. And the build above is the Mangle inclusive build everyone yowled for. Either way you want to go , it turns out that a well-played cat really does Dominate.

















In a raid environment, without a bear tank or an Arms warry, the mangle debuff will net far more than the 214 DPS that you’re giving up, especially with more than one rogue in the raid. I think that amount of utility, coupled with the very respectable DPS, makes this the build to go for
In reply to your comment, Rogues and bleeds are old news, for rogues that are at ICC level most are either playing a ruptureless Mut (No bleeds) or a ruptureless Combat(No bleeds)
So looking at your arguement about ‘more than one rogue’, it doesnt matter how many rogues, because at ICC level few and far between play with rupture now.
I really was not aware that most raiding rogues do not rely on bleeds anymore. Then the only other class that uses bleeds, aside from the druid, is an arms warry really, and he brings his own debuff.
Does this theorycraft include the damage buff from mangle or just mangle itself? On the surface, yes, replacing shred with mangle will be a DPS loss. The mangle buff, however, adds a lot more damage to your rakes and rips. Adding 30% to every rake and rip tick will easily make a mangle build > non-mangle build.
Odds are, in a 25 man, you’re going to have a warrior or another feral (dps or tank) that will give you your mangle buff anyway.
guys im having alot of trouble with my rotation and keeping everything up, maybe im just doing one shred too much or not but any tips or addons you could reccommend would be great..altho im not a huge fan of relying on addons. for example i did the new voa boss on 10 man and was topping dps at 8.7k. at around halfway point it started dropping off bad and i finished with 5.5k dps. is there anyway to prevent this or is it just part of the cat dps and energy?
@Albullno: I don’t play a druid myself but I think I understand what your talking about, I see similar things happening on my dps characters. From what I can understand is the inital DPS will be fairly high because your starting out getting your hard hitting cooldowns off so you can use them again as fast as possible. This will spike your dps up, if the fight goes on after that the hard hitting spikes of damage will be mixed with auto attacks etc and that will then even out your dps more and it will average out lower then your initial output. Thats my theory atleast if someone has a diffrent opinnion I would like to hear it.
Cheers
Banor
it [should] include the DPS from the mangle debuff as well. i can’t speak for the engine, but it seems to take everything into account. In the end I think it turns out that somewhere along the line the tooltip for mangle and the debuff just don’t add up to direct DPS somehow, but I can’t do all that theorycrafting on my own since I’m not a druid expert. I have found the advice from the engine to be very accurate across amny specs (although I’ve just about given up on my shaman healer and his ele spec – can’t get it to match the numbers – sigh).
3.3 is now in place and I still see more Boomkins then ever- is Feral (Kitty) still viable as a good form of dps? The other part to the question is what rotation is everyone using to get better numbers? I know my gear still has a long way to go, but even at that any rotation help would be beneficial.
Thanks
Good to see you are still doing this law! Keep the kitty alive!