The Feral Druid In Cataclysm

World of Warcraft's Feral Druid is once of the three Druid specializations (specs) the others being Blance and Resotration. Ferals offer tha ability to get face to face with the opposition and rip them to pieces as either a cat or a bear. Of course when the fight is over you can heal yourself, which is something most melee classes can't do.

In cat form you can prowl (sneak) as well as any Rogue, your attacks from stealth are just as good, and your continuing damage is up there with anyone's. What's not to like? As a Bear youi don't do as much damage, but you take it quite well. In fact, you can act as the Tank for dungeon groups and perform almost as well as any other tank.

When leveling your Feral Druid you will actually pick up your first form, the Cat form, at level 8, before you get any of your talents. This means that instead of thowing a feeble Wrathbold at your opponents you can claw them and bite their kneecaps off. (Bear form is at level 15.)

At level ten you get to pick your spec and you'll get your first talent point. Naturally you will be picking the "Feral" tree. As you probably know you will be sticking with Feral until youi have spent 31 points in that tree (when you will be level 69.) After that you can pick up points in Resto or Balance, if you like.

These are the special abilites that you will get for choosing Feral:

• Mangle - This will become your primary attack. It does damage and adds a bleed to the opponent. Among other things, that bleed will keep other Ferals, or Rogues, who attack you from going back into stealth.
• Aggression - increases your attack power, so you will hit harder with everything you do.
• Vengeance - Bears only - as you take damage your attack power is increased. This is a very nice ability as it ensures that you will get the attaention of the mobs that you are tanking.
• Feral Instinct - Yes, you're now sneakier.. This is why Rogues hate you, since you are now at least as good as they are.
• Mastery: Savage Defender (Bears soak more damage) or Razor Claws (Cat bleeds to more damage.)

Mastery is trainable at level 80 and, in theory, improves what you do best. For Ferals it works quite well and is one of your most desireable stats.

People always wonder about the best stats. For the Feral Druid it's pretty easy. Agility above all else. If you're tanking then Stamina is very important, as it is for PvP. Resilience is very important for PvP, useless outside of PvP. While Strength is actually an Ok stat, Agility is much better. Skip Int and Spirit completely.

For secondary stats Mastery is easily the best. Get your Hit to 8% and then stack Mastery. Crit rating is nice, and youi can reforge other stats into Mastery or Crit.

Gear - For weapons go with two handers and get the highest DPS that you can. Agility and Mastery are the best stats to get on the weapons.

Gems are easy. If you helm has a "meta" socket, then put an Agile Shadowspirit Diamond -(54 Ag and +3% crit damage) into that socket. All other gems, if your a Cat, should have the +40 Agility Delicate Inferno Ruby, even if the socket is blue or yellow. For PvP you can slot some yellow Mystic Amberjewels for 40 Resilience each. Bears might want to look at a few Solid Ocean Sapphires - 60 Stam each. Socket bonuses aren't usually high enough to change these recommendations.

Enchants - Each of the professions has a "self-only" enchant or ability that adds about 80 points to youir best stat (Agility.) As far as the rest of the available enchants go, look to Agility first, then Attack power. Crit is your third choice. At the end-game you will want the best enchants that you can afford.

Now go and mangle, rip, shred, claw, and bite something.