I've played a decent amount on beta at this point, including raid testing. I've also participated a lot in the feral channel of the druid Discord, and I'm very up to date on sims. Here's my thoughts as far as stuff at 110 goes.
Apparently Blood Scent is only going to be useful until you hit 50% Crit after that the sims are saying that Lunar Inspiration is going to pull ahead. Especially in long term fights. We are going to still be able to keep the same level 30 talents.
This isn't correct. The current sims have Lunar Inspiration as the favorite at 110 regardless of crit rating (although not by much). LI also sims better on cleave fights as well. Blood Scent pulls ahead for AoE (basically any fight you'd be using Brutal Slash) or if you need to kill a priority target (which we aren't so great at right now anyway). Predator is good in situations where you have a lot of things dying with your bleeds on it, basically sustained AoE. It comes out ahead when you're able to trigger it roughly 3 times a minute or more. It's also great for questing and leveling.
45 Talents: I will be going to with Balance Affinity. I believe I will be careful enough not to need resto or Guardian Affinity and I’m thinking that the extra 5 yards as a Melee will come in crazy useful.
Balance Affinity is the only one that's a theoretical DPS increase, since you will be able to reach targets more quickly, and also reach further with AoE. That being said, a lot of times, the guardian affinity will be the better choice simply because it allows you to survive mechanics better, and there will be fights where you don't necessarily need the extra range balance affinity gives you. Resto affinity is really only useful for leveling and questing, I found.
75 Talents: Some people are saying they love Soul of the Forest. Unfortunately it does not seem to be simming to well and while it is fun I get quite a bit less DPS out of it. Now Incarnation was viable with the Seed trinket. Only because having 1.3 mins with 50% reduced energy and a maximum of 50 Energy was just amazing. The consensus seems to be as soon as you get a better trinket than your seed you are going to switch to Savage Roar.
SR is the clearcut highest DPS talent for ST at 110 for its talent tier. You are correct that SotF isn't simming well right now, but it may become useful in 2-3 target cleave situations with multidotting. Incarnation may see some situational use on fights where there's a short, high-damage phase like
Il'gynoth, but that's TBD.
90 Talents: For PVE the only talents that are viable and are seeming useful on the forums are Sabertooth and Jagged Wounds. What I’ve noticed is I’m pulling way ahead with Jagged Wounds. Although sabertooth is a lot easier when it comes to micro managing your bleeds.
Jagged Wounds is vastly superior for single target right now. However, like SotF, Sabertooth can pull ahead in cleave situations where you're multidotting a lot. Note that the strength of JW vs Sbt is entirely dependant on how strong Ferocious Bite is. Currently FB is very weak, so Sabertooth isn't very good. If FB gets buffed, things may change.
Prepot<Rake<Beserk<Tiger’s Fury<Shred until 5 combo points < Savage roar< Artifact Weapon< Moonfire< Shred until 5 combo points<Healing Touch < Rip < While all 4 buffs/debuffs are up you supplement in Ferocious bite.
You're going to want to use a low-CP Savage Roar early to buff opener damage. Openers haven't been simmed for a while, but from what I've seen there are two main options:
HT > Prowl > Prepot > Rake > SR> TF/zerk> Moonfire > frenzy > shred to 5, Rip
HT > Prowl > Prepot > Rake > SR > Moonfire > Shred to 5 > TF/Zerk when low energy > rip > frenzy at 2+CP with BT
The biggest question is whether it's best to Frenzy before or after you put up Rip. Even with a low-CP Savage Roar, you should have enough energy and time to get to 5CP after the opener to put another SR up.
This honestly makes me a little nervous. That is a lot of bleeds, debuffs, and buffs to micro manage. I am thinking that I am going to be a little energy Starved. I’m honestly thinking after I get rid of Blood Scent after 50% crit to go ahead and switch out Jagged Wounds with Sabertooth just so I don’t have to worry about RIP anymore.
Having played on the beta, it's a little tough to do at low gear levels, but once you get some decent heroic 5-man gear it gets a lot easier. For fights that aren't heavy ST, you will want to swap up talents accordingly though. Generally what's been found is that you really can't use FB until you get to the sub-25% health phase where it refreshes Rip. Sims found that even if you refresh Rip at 10 seconds (well outside the JW pandemic window for it) it is a DPS gain over using FB, because it will likely lead to SR or Rip falling off later down the line.
Overall though, I'd say feral is looking pretty solid for T19. If nothing or little is changed, it looks like our single target damage is going to be top tier, and we have decent options for cleave and burst AoE. We will struggle on priority burst targets and sustained AoE. Emerald Nightmare has a lot of fights that favor us, and while Nighthold has more priority adds, it hopefully won't be so bad. We're clearly in a much better place than we were in HFC though.
Some links for your reference on some other stuff:
Xanzara's Feral Guide
Druid Class Discord - go to #feral
Artifact, Talent, and Trinket Sims
T19 Patchwerk Sims - DISCLAIMER: ALL SIMS BUT ROGUE AND FERAL ARE OUT OF DATE AND LIKELY TOO LOW
Hopefully I didn't overlook something in this post. It's late, and I'm tired. EDIT - I did, added some stuff about Predator in the discussion about that talent tier.
