WoW Forever Feral Druid Changes: Shifting Power Analysis

The WoW Forever Feral Druid changes swap Tiger's Fury for a new Feral talent, Shifting Power, which instantly grants 40 Energy at a significant Mana cost on a 16-second cooldown that Improved Shifting Power reduces to 8 seconds. For PvE the trade is considered beneficial even though Feral loses the 15% damage increase with 20% uptime that came with Tiger's Fury and King of the Jungle, because more Energy matters more. For PvP the same change removes a good amount of Cat Form burst.

What Shifting Power does

Shifting Power is a new 16-point gold medal talent in the Feral tree, with Shredding Attacks as its prerequisite. It instantly converts 55% of base Mana into 40 Energy, and its cost is reduced by effects that reduce the cost of Shapeshifting. It starts on a 16-second cooldown that other talents can reduce further.

The row now holds two gold medal talents: Shifting Power for Cat-oriented play and Primal Bite for Bears. Shifting Power is new to the build following the beta update that added it, and is not in the beta yet.

The Energy and Mana tradeoff

Shifting Power trades Mana for Energy while you are in Cat Form. Because it converts a percentage of base Mana, the Mana drain is a real cost in PvP, where the abundant mana usage is a major concern.

The talent exists because Furor was redesigned: at 5 talent points it lets the Druid regenerate Energy while not in Cat Form as if they were in Cat Form, but all that Energy is lost on entering Bear Form, which prevents the "bear-weaving" gameplay seen in versions of Classic World of Warcraft. That removed the "power shifting" gameplay some players prized, so Shifting Power was added back in a more approachable form.

Cooldown and the Improved Shifting Power talent

Improved Shifting Power is a new row 5 talent that requires Shifting Power and reduces its cooldown down to 8 seconds. Two points in it halve the cooldown. At level 30, if you unlock enough Legacy Points for the Talented trait and its five extra talent points, those points can go into Improved Shifting Power for even more Energy.

What Feral loses: Tiger's Fury and King of the Jungle

Tiger's Fury has been removed and replaced with the new Feral-specific Shifting Power talent. Along with it, Feral Druids lost the King of the Jungle talent, which gave 60 Energy. The lost 15% damage increase had 20% uptime.

PvE upside and PvP burst loss

For PvE, the change is beneficial despite the lost damage buff, because more Energy is more important. For PvP, it removes a good amount of the burst in Cat Form.

There is a utility cost too. Furor makes shifting from Cat Form to Bear Form and back remove all your Energy, so you have to use Shifting Power to get any Energy back; the tooltip wording suggests you should keep the Energy you had either way and only not gain Energy while in Bear Form, so this may be an oversight. You also lose all your Energy if you use Feral Charge to interrupt a cast or Bash to stun. With Tiger's Fury this was less of an issue, but now you spend a global cooldown and Mana just to reach the point you would have been at instantly on shifting into Cat Form in Vanilla World of Warcraft.

How to use Shifting Power in the rotation

Use Shifting Power on cooldown, making sure you have less than 60 Energy so none of the bonus Energy is wasted. In Cat Form you build combo points with Shred and spend them on Rip when the target will live through most of the bleed, and use Omen of Clarity procs on Shred. If you cannot get behind the target for Shred, use Claw instead, which deals less damage for a similar Energy cost.

Shifting Power does not require a macro, making it more available and convenient for less experienced players. It also does not remove slows or snares the way "powershifting" did in Vanilla.

If you would rather have the beta's dungeon content handled for you while you test the new Feral toolkit, an The Drowned City boost clears the run on your character. For the wider class picture, see WoW Forever class changes.