TBC Classic Feral Druid DPS Stat Priority (2024)

Last updated on Jan 14, 2022 at 22:07by Seksixeny1 comment

On this page, you will find out the optimal PvE stat priority for yourFeral Druid DPS in TBC Classic. We first present the statpriority, before delving into more complex explanations.

1. Agility;
2. Physical Hit up to the 9% cap vs bosses, 5% in PvP;
3. Expertise up to the 6.5% cap vs bosses;
4. Strength (1 Strength = 2 Attack Power baseline but Druid getsextra from Heart of the Wild and Blessing of Kings making it stronger than raw AP);
5. Critical Strike;
6. Haste;
7. Attack Power;
8. Armor Penetration;
9. Stamina / Intellect / Spirit / Mp5.

This is the stat priority that will generally result in higher DPS. AlthoughStamina does not give damage it does help you stay alive, especially againstunavoidable damage; make sure to not neglect it!

Mana stats (Intellect / Spirit / Mp5) can be useful to ensure morepowershifting in long fights, but should generally not be prioritized.

Feral Druids scale well with crit and AP, and the more crit you get thesmoother your rotation will be. Ferals have less stats than other classessince Feral Druids are locked into using the low level, poorly itemized Wolfshead Helm due to its amazing secondary effect.

Your weapon DPS range is completely irrelevant, as Feral forms use their ownhidden weapons with normalized damage. The main thing you want is Feral AttackPower, which is very common in weapons throughout TBC, thankfully. You can findsome examples in the weapon guide below.

Feral Druids get 1 AP and 0.04% crit chance from each point of Agility, andAgility itself scales with Survival of the Fittest andBlessing of Kings. Agility is always better than Strength due tothe value that the crit chance provides.

Against targets your level, you have a 5% chance to miss attacks. Raid anddungeon bosses are considered to be 3 levels above you, meaning your chance tomiss attacks is slightly higher at 8.6%. Reaching the cap on hit means havinga 9% increased chance to hit through gear. As a Feral Druid, your rotation isquite fast-paced and complex at times, and a missed ability could ruin a cycle,forcing you to waste Energy or wait for an extra global before power shifting.Getting hit cap is both numerically your biggest damage increase and your bestquality of life increase for when you will not need to worry aboutShred missing, potentially throwing you off your rotation.

Expertise replaces weapon skills from WoW Classic, and reduces the chance ofyour attacks being parried or dodged. It takes 3.94 expertise rating to gain 1expertise skill. Each point of Expertise skill will reduce the target'schance to dodge and parry your attacks by 0.25% each.

Expertise is a strong stat, increasing the odds of your attacks hitting theirtarget. While enemies cannot parry from behind, they can still dodge your attacks.For level 73 mobs (bosses) the expertise cap is 6.5% dodge or 26 expertiseskill / 200 expertise rating.

Critical strikes as a Feral Druid deal 120% increased damage once you maximizePredatory Instincts. Additionally, Feral Druids benefit heavilyfrom crit due to Primal Fury, which causes your generators to awardan extra Combo Point when they crit. More Critical Strike means moreFerocious Bite casts since you will be generating more Combo Pointsper Shred. Crit does have a soft cap, however, and is onlyexceptionally good up until that point, at which point stacking AP throughStrength and straight AP becomes a higher priority.

As a melee DPS, you have your auto attacks and your abilities. When you usean ability like Shred, there are four options: it will either bedodged, miss, crit, or hit. Your auto attacks have 5 options, adding in thepossibility of a glancing blow where the attack deals 70% of its normal damage. Fordodges and glancing blows, the chance of those happening does not change. You canlower your chance to miss by reaching your hit cap, but the dodge and glancingblow chance is still there. Specifically, this becomes an issue for glancing blowsbecause of one key reason; glancing blows cannot crit. Because of this,the actual chance that an auto attack has to crit cannot be 100% or anywhere closeto it because if it is dodged or is a glancing blow it will never crit. Your critsoft cap is equivalent to the chance that an auto attack will hit normally sincethose are the only attacks that have a chance to crit. As a Feral Druid, yourcrit soft cap is 54.4% minus your chance to miss. If you are at the 9% hit cap,then 54.4% is your crit soft cap, and you should not go for more crit above thisamount. At a higher amount than this, your abilities will still be able to critmore, but your auto attacks will not, which greatly diminishes the value of crit.

Druids receive 2 AP per point of Strength, but this becomes 2.4 AP withHeart of the Wild. This is your strongest stat for pureAP gain, which will increase your damage done by all attacks. Even though thisis a very strong stat for Feral, it is not quite as a good as Agility early ondue to the importance of crit. After you reach your crit soft cap, Strength becomesyour best primary stat. Note that it is sometimes challenging to find end game gearwith Strength since it is not a common stat on leather pieces.

Attack Power is the base stat off which all of your damage is calculated. For Feral Druids,this is especially true since your auto attack damage is not based off yourweapon DPS. In fact, weapon DPS has zero value to Feral Druids. Your auto attacksare normalized on a 1-second swing timer, and the damage is calculated based onyour Attack Power. All of your abilities have their damage calculated either as a multiplierof a single auto attack's damage or are based on your Attack Power as well. You generallywill not want to pick up straight Attack Power pieces, however, because while it is a greatstat that scales exceptionally well for Feral, Agility and Strength will offermore of it point for point.

Haste is one of the new stats introduced in the Burning Crusade. It increasesyour attack speed, allowing you to get more white attacks off in a given periodof time.

Armor Penetration is another new stat in TBC which allows your attacks topartially ignore your enemy's armor. This is a nice damage increase for physicalattacks, and something you can expect to see a lot in Tier 6 gear.

Stamina increases your health and is important for your survival. A higheramount of health means that you can take more damage before dying, which giveshealers more time to heal you during raids or dungeons.

Intellect increases your Mana pool, which is relevant for Feral Druids due toPowershifting, which is extremely Mana intensive. More Mana means moreshifts over a fight, which means more Shred casts, thus more damage.

Spirit increases your health regeneration and your Mana regeneration. Your Manaregenerates according to the 5-second rule, which is quite difficult to followfor Feral Druids due to the specific windows that you need to power shift in. Ifyou find yourself out of Mana on a fight, sit in Cat Form withoutpower shifting until you have regenerated enough Mana for more power shifts.Sitting (through the /sit command, or when eating or drinking) increases Spiritregeneration by 33%.