Feral End GameFollow

Hey guys, is feral spec viable for end game raiding? In other words, will my going feral ADD something to my groups in end game raiding?

Peace,
Jemac

what about kitty end game?

Of course, if you're fine not being #1 we can still hold #5+ pretty well in dps for a while, especially if you get into arenas and ZA for the choice gear in there, though I >hear< we fall behind more universally in BT (haven't been there personally, but I've been watching friends who just killed Illidan, and the druids have been drifting further back). And as always I must add the unspoken caveat that a good druid dpses better than a bad (insert great dps class here). Raid guilds try to weed em out, but unless you're looking at someone like Nihilum who gets to pick from anywhere, there's enough of a variation that druids can still fit in "the good dps we bring".

Sure, the raid might be better off with another rogue, but they have to find one who isn't an idiot first. Baelgun may be an exception, but I haven't seen enough truly good players that the raiders can cherry-pick their setup. Theorycraft only works until raid night, then you run with what you've got.

Really if you want to not only have a raiding guild's tag under your name, but be a desired raider for them, know what you can do and be ready to do it. That goes for any class. As a feral druid have solid tank gear, solid dps gear, and know how to use it. Bring healing gear as well, just in case. When brought to a raid Ferals bring mangle (rogues love a bigger Rupture when they use it), Imp. LotP (extra crit, and the healing can be handy on fights with incidental damage. It adds up), Rebirth (oh, we lost our rogue due to freak chance and need his interrupts? Stand back up and fight, soldier!) and Innervate (here mister priest, have another mana bar. This is getting even better with the spirit changes in 2.4). If you've got good healers and the tank falls over, you can grab the guy in your kitty gear (only recommended if you're well-geared, but it's better than anyone else's chances, and saved us multiple times last night when running with a guy who was a bit squishier than we liked).

For tanking we don't quite stack up to Warriors with "equal" gear (it's close), but when is gear equal? Random drops mean that someone can get dealt a bad hand, and we're not looking for the exact same gear they are, so it's more chance of >A< tank getting an upgrade. I'd still say defer to warriors for tanking if they can hack it, we lose a lot of our flexibility being constrained to bear form (ok, I did rez a guy while tanking the other day, but that was showing off, and not to be relied on).

Sigh. I get whispered to come and tank an instance while tanking a fight in Kara! Really have to question the intelligence of some people who find it hard to work out that if I am in Karazhan, I might be busy.

FFXI had an option to hide your class and level with /anon. Maybe we could get Blizz to do this for WoW. Or at least let you set a search comment (another FFXI feature) so you could tell people you aren't interested in tanking/healing for their PuG.

On the topic of kitty dps. I find myself lacking in damage mostly due to gear. Since i don't have infinite dkp and since rogues usually have priority over me on damage gear I find my dps gradually getting outdated. I see myself mostly as an off tank, so that's what I save my dkp for. The dps gear i get is usually leftovers because noone else want's it, so i can get it cheap and not blow my dkp.