Feral Druid Patch 9.1 Changes Analysis (2024)

Last updated on Jan 15, 2024 at 15:00by Wordup26 comments

For this section of the guide, we will go over all of the important changesfor Feral Druids going into Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands. A full list of changes tothe entire Druid class can be found on our dedicated page below. For anadditional list of content coming in Patch 9.1, you can also check out ourPatch 9.1 Overview page.

No changes have been introduced for Feral Druids in the base kit.

No talent changes have been introduced for Feral Druids in Patch 9.1.

Every Covenant has been given access to a Legendary exclusive to it,enhancing the effects of your given Covenant ability:

• Kyrian: Kindred Affinity grants you and your partner5% of a given secondary stat (or 100 Mastery rating) depending on theirCovenant selection. When your bond is empowered, this increase is doubled.
• Necrolord: Unbridled Swarm gives each tick of Adaptive Swarm a 60% chance to split into two when it jumps betweentargets.
• Night Fae: Celestial Spirits reduces the cooldown of Convoke the Spirits by 50%, and reduces the channel time to 3 secondswhile only casting 12 spells. It also has an increased chance to trigger Feral Frenzy.
• Venthyr: Sinful Hysteria extends the duration of Ravenous Frenzy by 0.2 seconds each time you gain a stack, andwhen the effect ends you gain 2% damage dealt and 1% Haste per stackpresent for 5 seconds.

Kyrian's new option, should you be playing it, is likelyto be a strong pick to empower your partner, especially paired withsome of the new Soulbind options.

Necrolord does improve the Cleave/AoE gap that Adaptive Swarmhas, but unfortunately just does not keep up with alternative optionsthat fill that same role while also being more flexible.

Night Fae saw a very powerful last-minute buff at the onsetof the patch, and as 9.1 has gone on has clearly shown it is absolutelyworth the craft for any fight where you can capitalize on the cooldownreduction. It also pairs excellently with Soulbind buffs, making it apremier Legendary craft for Night Fae players.

Venthyr provides one of the stronger new options thatenhances the Ravenous Frenzy ability even further, but puts you ontoa very fixed 3-minute cooldown cycle so it will require you to plan outa fight in advance to make good use out of the Legendary.

Feral already has a strong leaning toward playing Night Faesolely because of how well it can make use of Convoke the Spiritswindows, and as Celestial Spirits is the strongestCovenant-specific Legendary available, this only cements that further.While Venthyr is interesting, it simply cannot compete in the same waywhen it overlaps with Frenzyband, and Kyrian has some uniquepower for buffing your raid but the individual loss by changing Covenantsis arguably too much.

There are no changes to Conduit options for Feral in the current 9.1build.

Every Covenant will get access to one additional Potency slot for starters,alongside one of either Endurance or Finesse based on your path for everySoulbind. Additionally, all Covenants will be gaining access to newSoulbind-specific traits depending on your selection.

We have listed all of the abilities with a DPS impact below.

• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos — Soulglow Spectrometer — Causesyou to apply a damage buff on the first target you hit in combat which stacksby 1% every 3 seconds, up to 5% and expiring after 15 seconds. This can only beactive on one target at a time, and the cycle will begin anew when itexpires.
• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos — Effusive Anima Accelerator —Causes your Kindred Spirits to deal Arcane damage over 8 seconds, splitbetween all enemies within 12 yards of your current target. For every targethit, the cooldown of Kindred Spirits is reduced by 4 seconds, up to amaximum of 20 seconds at 5 or more targets hit. The cooldown reduction alonegives this a lot of potential for AoE situations, and the extra damage is justa free bonus on top.
• Pelagos — Better Together — grants a 40Mastery rating buff for 1 minute to you and an ally when you move within 3yards of them. You can only be affected by one buff at a time. This is freedamage and also has benefits allowing you to share the buff to another playerin your group.
• Pelagos — Newfound Resolve — Occasionallyspawns a "Doubt" unit near you while in combat. Turning to face it despawns theenemy and grants you 12% increased Agility and Stamina for 15 seconds.Currently this is expected to be at a 1 RPPM (so roughly 3% average Agility),making it an extremely good end trait.
• Kleia — Light the Path — Causes your Valiant Strikes Soulbind Ability buff to also grant 0.25% CriticalStrike per stack. It also causes its heal effect to grant you and the targetyou heal 5% Critical Strike for 12 seconds. Due to the 1-minute lockout ongenerating stacks after it triggers, this is fairly weak (especiallyconsidering the newly improved alternatives) but does provide benefits toallies.
• Emeni — Pustule Eruption — Causes Fleshcraft to grant you 9 pustule stacks. When you take damage or gethealed, they blow up for a small amount of damage to nearby enemies. This damageis respectable, but not particularly strong and relies on you using Fleshcrafton cooldown to optimize, which is not usually ideal for defensive tools.
• Bonesmith Heirmir — Carver's Eye — Grants you aMastery buff when you hit a target above 90% health, which lasts 5 seconds andstacks up to 5, and refreshes its duration when you generate a new stack. Eachindividual target you generate a stack from, however, has a 10-second lockoutbefore another stack can trigger, meaning you need multiple enemies to stackthis.
• Bonesmith Heirmir — Mnemonic Equipment —Causes your attacks on targets below 35% health to deal 3% extra damage over 5seconds. This is really weak compared to alternatives because of thelimitation on target health and overall gain, despite it being on a strongSoulbind tree.
• Plague Deviser Marileth — Kevin's Oozeling —Causes your Adaptive Swarm casts to spawn an Oozeling to attack yourtarget. This deals minor damage and increases the damage you deal to its targetby 2%, and lasts for 8 seconds after being spawned. The uptime just is notthere to keep this competitive with alternatives numerically, and does not helpan already weak Soulbind choice.
• Niya — Bonded Hearts — Causes your Grove Invigoration procs (both from casting Convoke the Spiritsand the RPPM effect) to increase the Mastery granted by all stacks present by50% for 5 seconds if you are close to non-Night Fae allies whentriggered.
• Dreamweaver — Dream Delver — treat this as aflat 3% damage to targets if you are active on them, with a small ramp up.
• Korayn — Wild Hunt Strategem — When you hita target above 75% health, you gain a 1-minute buff. If you then attack an enemybelow 35% health, this buff will be consumed and increase your damage to sub-35%targets by 5% for 10 seconds.
• Nadjia the Mistblade — Fatal Flaw — improves the Thrill Seeker effect by causing it to grant either Critical Strike orVersatility by 20% (depending on your highest rating) when the Euphoria Hasteeffect ends for 10 seconds. This is just a flat boost to improve uptime,increasing the time spent with bonus stats.
• Theotar the Mad Duke — Party Favors — grants an itemwith a 1-hour cooldown that grants either 3% Agility or a random secondarystat with a 4-hour duration. This is fine, but the buff is removed if youswap Soulbinds making it a bit awkward if you ever want to change it upor you get a bad stat from the item.
• General Draven — Battlefield Presence —Increases your damage done and reduces damage taken by 1% for every enemywithin 5 yards of you, up to 3%. In any multi-target situation this is anexcellent pick based on the average power level of most Soulbind traits, butunfortunately is on a tree that is currently low-value.

The biggest ones to look at are both Night Fae due to it alreadybeing the dominant Covenant pick, and also surprisingly Kyrianthat serves as an outlier gaining more in the Soulbind department than anyother Covenant.

Starting with Night Fae, the power of Convoke the Spirits is socondensed that the benefit from Bonded Hearts has no RNG, and makes theburst even more potent, so will make an already good tree even better. Othertrees, however, did not get much of an improvement. Kyrian, on the other hand,have good gains both with Pelagos and especially Forgelite Prime Mikanikos,as the potential to combine Effusive Anima Accelerator and even the Deep Allegiance Conduit can make Kindred Spirits way moreflexible in terms of its cooldown window, especially considering the newlegendary option.

Unfortunately for both other options there is not much in the wayof appealing changes. Thrill Seeker rarely lines up with strongcooldown windows and Fatal Flaw does not really improve thatconsistency due to the long duration of both Berserk and Ravenous Frenzy. Necrolord has some already good Soublinds, butnone of the new options improve them to the same degree as otherCovenants.

There are no changes to Druid Anima Powers in Patch 9.1 so far.