Feral Dueling Guide

Post Reply
User avatar
jamhead
Posts: 348
Joined: 21 Nov 2010 17:40

Feral Dueling Guide

#1 » Post by jamhead » 14 Oct 2013 01:48

Hello fellow feral fanatics! So a while ago I was writing a massive feral dueling guide back when I was obsessed with dueling on Arena Tournament. Since university was coming up I kind of forgot all about it and only just remembered about it now. It seemed like such a waste not to post what I wrote so I thought I'd share it and if there's any interest I could always continue it. So here we go:

So lately I've been hard at work defending my Duelist title on Arena Tournament, currently with 74% wins, mainly dueling other duelists. (Note: Duelist on AT is 1,000 duels with over 70% wins). Being the jack-of-all-trades class, ferals are incredibly diverse in duels and I find myself constantly finding new tactics and tricks to fight every spec. Since feral dueling is just so addicting I thought I'd share all the tactics I've found for every fight and hopefully somebody out there will benefit from it :P

I currently use 3 sets for dueling: My 67% crit spec with 1.2k resil, my 60% crit spec with 1.3k resil and bauble/key, and my super defensive set with 1.4k resil and Bauble for dueling rogues. I seriously recommend Whispering Fanged Skull for both the 60% and 67% crit specs.

Class Specific Strategies

Feral Druid
Difficulty: Mirror


Gear: I nearly always use full crit spec for this. Having above 65% crit will result in a huge advantage to you as the other feral won't generate anywhere near the same amount of combo points. If the other feral is specced for full ArP and is doing a huge amount of damage, you might want to consider using the 60% crit+key spec, but avoid dropping below 60% crit if you can.

Start off the duel out of stealth in cat form with nature's grasp up and immediately put faerie fire on the feral. Most ferals will start the duel out of stealth to save time, but if the other feral does go for stealth to pounce then simply jump around in a confusing manner, the aim being to make him waste pounce on getting rooted by Nature's grasp. Don't be tempted to try pounce at the start yourself, 90% of the time you'll fail and pounce bleed will really mess up your cc later on. Keep faerie fire on the feral at ALL times!! Use it constantly to avoid it running out while your sitting a hibernate and cyclone together. Now after this I always use the same trick that works on nearly every feral:

Spam mangle to get 5 combo points but do NOT put any bleeds or use your combo points yet. Once you have 5 combo points, immediately use war stomp and a casted cyclone. When the feral trinkets cyclone, you then use your 5 combo points on savage roar to instantly hibernate him. With the trinket down you can now fully heal and have full control over the feral with no trinket. If the feral doesn't trinket the cyclone, then simply apply rip and rake with your 5 points and attempt to deal as much damage as possible. You can also spend that cyclone on casting healing touch, then use a second cyclone for another healing touch. Once rip is running out, your going to apply the same trick again with bash.

Same as before spam mangle to build up 5 combo points without using any bleeds or using your combo points, then charge->bash to give you the freedom to hard cast another cyclone, still keeping those 5 points unused. If the feral trinkets this time then savage roar->hibernate like before, giving you a full heal opportunity. (Note: if your Night Elf then your going to have to use bash instead of war stomp or try find an opportunity to hard cast cyclone without the feral being stunned).

Pay good attention to the duration of faerie fire on yourself, if it drops below around 10 seconds then immediately try and hibernate the feral. If faerie fire is going to fall off during this cc, then the feral is forced to either trinket or take a full pounce+maim.

There are two situations I normally berserk: either because I'm really struggling to get any combo points and I can't keep up with the other feral, or because I have the opportunity to pounce+maim the feral, normally resulting in a kill.

Another great tip for this duel is to try and predict when the feral wants to hibernate you and shift out until the feral's instant proc is wasted. Most commonly this will be at the end of a full maim. Shift out of cat at around about 1-2 seconds left of maim and you can force the feral to use cyclone instead, just don't go shifting out when you've got bleeds on you. While shifted out, it's normally best just to use lifebloom or try and hardcast cyclone if your able. Don't be afraid of the feral doing any more damage after maim, he'll be out of energy and won't be able to deal any more damage.

The most important point about this duel is to always have a backup plan and NEVER, EVER take your chances on instant procs with less than 5 combo points. Always try and have 5 combo points as insurance for all your cc's.

Tip: “The more you jump, the more you dodge!” This'll sound crazy, but jumping will seriously help you get behind the feral to both avoid getting dodged, and make it easier for you to dodge the other feral.

Frost Mage
Difficulty: Medium


Gear: Full crit, the more combo points for Ferocious Bite the better.

The key to this duel is to just land those ferocious bites. If you can manage to land just 3 full ferocious bites then you've won.

Start off the duel with a pounce, the mage will blink and then you use cat charge. If your not using a power shift macro, then you better get one for this duel. Focus on Mangle, rake and 5 combo points straight away. Use dash as soon as the duel starts. You'll be greeted with tons of roots one after another. Just spam powershift as quickly as possible while jumping. The mage will deep freeze you as soon as possible: trinket it. This your first opportunity for a full ferocious bite. Using trinket means you get out of all roots and are free to dps the mage for a little while. Don't bother trying to maim or rip the mage, either his blink or Ice Block will just ruin it.

Quite soon after the first Deep Freeze will be his ice block. If the mage's Mirror images or Water Elemental are in range of the ice block, then immediately berserk and spam swipe, but do not go losing your combo points on the mage, if neither the elemental nor the mirror images die, then just forget about them, it's not worth it. When the mage leaves ice block, this is your second opportunity to get a full Ferocious Bite, this time his Ice Barrier won't be up.

The mage will then blink away, so charge it but DON'T bash the mage. The mage will simply trinket it and be free from your snare. Consider putting up rip at this point since he can't stop it with ice block. A second deep freeze is on its way which you can't trinket. Use barkskin on one of the frostbolts but cancel it straight after to avoid spell steal. The mage should be either dead by this point or very low on health. The mage should be running low on ways to root you at this point, so give it your all to manage one more FB. If the mage survives all of those FB's and shreds between them up to this point, then your probably going to die soon, if you haven't already. This is the only point in the duel I generally use any instant healing touches. There isn't much point trying to cyclone the mage at any point. The constant fire from the elemental and mirror images will just screw up your casts and give the mage a chance to get some cds back.

If your finding that you just can't reach the mage for whatever reason, you can use cyclone in an effort to close the distance and get Infected Wounds back up. Don't be afraid to do this twice on DR if you really need it to reach the mage. Don't try and use roots over cyclone for this, the mage just has so many ways to deal with.

This duel really does just come down to whether you land those Ferocious Bites or not. Although this duel has a very steep learning curve, you can nearly always beat the mage when you master every step of the duel, which always plays out very similar. Practice, practice, practice is all I can say for this duel.

Fire Mage
Difficulty: Medium


Gear: Full crit, the more combo points for Ferocious Bite the better.

The strategy for this is very similar to frost mage but with a few differences. Start off with pounce and charge the blink. The key to winning this duel is to just run circles around the mage. Use dash straight away and constantly get behind the mage with heavy shreds and the odd rake, if you do it well you can normally waste the mage's dragon breath. Trinket the first impact stun or dragon's breath he uses, again this is your first great opportunity for Ferocious Bite. Note that if you don't trinket the first stun, it'll just be followed by the mage being able to aim the dragon's breath without worry, so it's not worth saving when you can potentially avoid it.

The mage will probably ice block after the first string of stuns, so just stick right on him and, similar to frost mage, try and swipe the mirrors if they're in melee range of the ice block, but DON'T waste those combo points stored on the mage. When the ice block either runs out, or the mage cancels it, this is a perfect moment for a full ferocious bite, with the mage having no buffs up. Again don't stress about the mirror images and just ignore them if they weren't in melee range.

At this point it is inevitable the mage is going to hit you with a full stun. You can't do anything about this but you should be fine to take the damage. Save barkskin for when the Mage gets you in a full dragon's breath and he has low enough hp for pyroblast, but immediately cancel it after your hit. I recommend having a macro to cancel aura barkskin for this.

You can deal absolute ridiculous damage to the fire mage throughout the entire duel. I normally find myself shredding away throughout the whole duel until the mage quickly dies in a matter of seconds. Against a mage of equal skill, this is generally quite an easy win, however it can be a quick loss if the mage gets really lucky with blazing speed procs and you never manage to get back onto him. If this happens and you can't manage to get on the mage, use cyclone to close the distance. Whether he trinkets it or not you should be able to close the distance. Don't use roots since the mage is still free to stop you in just a ton of ways. If you do end up making the mage trinket cyclone, be sure to use bash after ice block and blink for 3 seconds of free dps.

Again this duel has a steep learning curve, but practice, practice, practice and you should nearly always win.

Rogue
Difficulty: hard


Gear: Full resilience + bauble/key. Your going be stunned for 70% of the match so aim for over 1400 resil if you can.

You've got no chance at winning the stealth war so start off in bear form and start spamming Demo Roar, use enrage for more roars, and once that's finished powershift out of bear to gain 10 rage from the Furor talent (you should totally have 5/5 in furor for this reason) to continue a few more demo roars. If you actually managed to catch the rogue doing this then you can just immediately use faerie fire and force him to waste his cds right off the bat.

Chances are you didn't catch the rogue and he has now sapped you. The rogue will now open up with cheap shot but DO NOT BARKSKIN ON CHEAP SHOT. If you barkskin on cheap shot a decent rogue will then vanish and wait 15 seconds to stun you again with barkskin on cd. Use barkskin only on kidney shot. Note that if the rogue is sub ignore this and barkskin on shadow dance, he isn't going to vanish with shadow dance up. Don't be tempted to trinket kidney vs mutilate rogue. A decent muti rogue will just wait it out and use blind later on when the dot falls off. An exception to this is if your 100% sure you can get the kill before he can blind.

As soon as kidney ends, immediately use demo roar if the rogue tries to vanish, followed quickly by faerie fire. I shouldn't have to tell you to keep faerie fire on the rogue at all times! If you're a Tauren then you can use war stomp->casted cyclone to instantly waste the rogues trinket right away. You can also attempt to use bash, but this can be very tricky since evasion should now be up. If you want to be super lame you can also use the engineering bomb to get a second cyclone, but that's a little too lame for my liking. Now the next point is very important if you want to dps the rogue with evasion up:

Immediately sprint away with dash and try to get far enough to use feral charge cat. This will put you behind the dazed rogue giving you a chance to shred the rogue from behind. Rogues have no way to deal with Infected Wounds, so once you land that all important first shred you should hopefully be able to manage 5 combo points on the rogue. The aim here is to get 5 combo points for an instant cyclone. If at any point you manage to get a full cyclone on the rogue, you can get a full pounce+maim and win the duel. During this time you also need to try and get rake up on the rogue. If you do, then he cannot use cloak without the bleed putting him out of stealth again.

At some point your going to have to trinket blind, but don't trinket it immediately! Wait until about 5 seconds of blind left. The rogue will assume your sitting it. Trinket the stun at 5 seconds and your now out of combat to prowl and pounce the rogue out of nowhere, he'll never see it coming. After a few duels the rogue will probably pick up on this trick, but remember, you need to trinket blind either way, so you may as well always try and use this trick. This trick works surprisingly often and can easily end up winning you the game!

Be extremely careful throughout the whole duel to never risk getting stunned in caster form. Even a noob rogue can drop you from 100-0% if he gets a full kidney on you in caster. Pay attention to the extremely short cd of cheap shot and kidney and always assume he's going to use it.

The way to kill the rogue is quite simple, but very hard to pull off. If at any point in the duel you either A: get a full cyclone on the rogue, B: Manage a full maim sometime while fighting the rogue, or C: Somehow get out of combat and pounce the rogue. You'll be able to either kill the rogue or severely cripple him if any of these scenarios are achieved. Save berserk for this moment, it's useless any other time.

The main difficulty with this duel is if the rogue constantly manages to restealth, and your just dropping more and more each stun, with no way to stop it without a full blind in your face. The first thing I normally do is use frenzied regeneration after the first restealth. Don't attempt to cast any heals between restealths, a decent rogue will just gimp you in caster the second they spot it. If you have access to bauble, I seriously recommend it for this duel. The rogue can't keep up his restealths forever, and the big heal from bauble lets you survive a huge length of time without needing to shift out for heals. It's a lame trinket, but it's an even lamer duel if the rogue keeps this up.

Look out for opportunities to get a full entangling roots on the rogue once cloak is down, your probably still under threat from a trinket or bleeds ruining it however, so you still need to be careful about being stunned in caster. If your a Night Elf then this is a perfect time to use shadowmeld and pounce the rogue, or you can simply go maximum distance from the rogue and try and prowl from there.

This can certainly be a very difficult duel vs a good rogue and your going to have a far harder time not making mistakes than the rogue, but by using all the tricks mentioned above, you should hopefully manage to kill the rogue somehow. Although I beat the majority of rogues, I still lose to duelist rogues quite often, generally because of the ridiculous damage some rogues manage, so I certainly don't feel like I've found all the tactics out for this duel yet, but using these tactics it's very possible to beat the majority of duelist rogues (Just not as consistently as I'd like).

Death Knight
Difficulty: easy-medium


Gear: 60% crit and as much resil you can manage on top of that. Use either key or bauble. If you have both you could trade medallion for double defensive trinkets, since there's not much to trinket.

Immediately start the duel with prowl->pounce, and try and build up 5 combo points for savage roar. Use your first instant to get both Regrowth and Rejuvenation up ASAP. The DK will probably use his minion stun so just trinket it, there's nothing else to trinket. If your using double defensive trinkets then just sit through it, it won't do much. Use demo roar straight after the regrowth+rejuvenation, this will both lower the DKs damage, and it also lowers the gargoyles damage if it's on the DK when he summons it! Keep playing defensive by using rip and rake with 5 combo points until he uses gargoyle, but don't use either barkskin or berserk yet.

Now early on that gargoyle should have come out. The tactic is to kite the DK as much as possible to avoid his damage while CCing the gargoyle as much as possible. Immediately Feral Charge Bear the gargoyle to interrupt its cast, followed by bash a few seconds after. Pop dash as soon as the gargoyle appears and root the DK if you manage to waste his death grip. Get 5 combo points on the dk during bash and use an instant cyclone on gargoyle. Your going need to use your defensive trinket around now and barkskin since you need your instants for cyclone. Now while the gargoyle is cycloned get another 5 combo points and cyclone the DK at the end of the gargoyle's cyclone. There's probably still some time left until the gargoyle is gone so just continue with another feral charge bear or any cyclone you can manage. If your a tauren you can use the war stomp-> cyclone trick at any point if the dk and gargoyle are both in range. If your struggling at any point you can also go bear form, use demo roar and jump around with frenzied regeneration. You probably won't get much healing out of this (if any), but it'll stop a large amount of damage coming your way.

Once the gargoyle is gone you can pop berserk and go fully offensive on the DK. Use your instants for healing touches and you can't really die at this point. Get a good maim on the DK if you can for either good damage or some healing. Don't try to cyclone the DK to use healing touch unless the pet is dead, otherwise it will just ruin your heals and probably stun you. Use nature's grasp if you didn't during the gargoyle phase or just use an instant root on the dk and spam lifebloom. And that's it really, just overwhelm the DK with damage and heals and you've won.

I used to lose to DKs all the time but with this tactic even duelist DK's aren't too hard to beat. The only thing that can screw you over really here is the DK silence. Just avoid dropping below 50% and have your defensive trinket ready to deal with it. Always have some plan in your head how you could stop any more damage; there always at least 1 cc you haven't used yet.

Shadow Priest
Difficulty: Easy


Gear: Full crit for huge deeps.

Start the duel with prowl->pounce, get savage roar up and just immediately berserk him down. Trinket Psychic Horror which they'll use straight away. Don't use rip or maim yet, just hard shreds and huge ferocious bite crits as quickly as possible. When the priest disperses keep up the pressure with a rip, rake and try and get 5 combo points for a full maim at the very end of disperse. Now just continue with the heavy damage and there's nothing the priest can do to outheal your damage.

If the priest somehow survived your berserk then you've lost. Their damage will go insane and they can just spam heals while you sit a full fear and have no energy left. If the priest only just about managed to survive, then you still have a chance if you use survival instincts and do whatever you can to squeeze in just a bit more damage. Don't try and use heals, if your forced to use healing touches then you've lost.

Unless the spriest goes with 1400 resil + Bauble + Key and is quite skilled you really can't lose this. Just go flat out offensive and don't be tempted to heal.

Arms Warrior
Difficulty: Medium-hard depending on RNG.


Gear: 60% crit and as much resil as you can manage. I seriously recommend bauble or key for this.

I've always found this to be one of the most uninteresting feral duels, simply because it generally just comes down to RNG and the warrior crying the minute you entangling roots him. I'd highly recommend having some way to track the DR of controlled stuns for this, personally I have a timer set to 20 seconds when I use bash or maim.

Don't even think about trying to take the warrior head on, the warrior has an arsenal of ways to kill you 1v1 including bladestorm, retaliation, shield wall, defensive stance, higher damage and plenty of other crap you won't survive. Oh, and don't forget everybody's favourite thing, mortal strike! Destroying your heals and your dreams since vanilla. Instead you need to aim to constantly land full length maims followed by cyclone to get max range from the warrior to heal up.

Start the duel off with prowl->pounce and get rip up straight away, I don't normally bother getting savage roar up first since your about to run away anyway. With rip up use the instant proc to cyclone. Be careful of the warrior now trinketing in an effort to completely decimate you. If he doesn't trinket then use the opportunity to Regrowth->rejuvenation while you still can. After this it depends on what cd the warrior randomly feels like pushing today from his big list of fun visual effects. If he uses retaliation then immediately go bear and bash that horrible thing, followed by either a cyclone or roots. If he uses a defensive cd, such as shield block or shield wall, build up 5 combo points and get a full maim along with cyclone or entangling roots. Always aim to get a full stun on the warrior to avoid spell reflect, if he does use it you can either use engineering gloves or moonfire to waste it.

Once you've got your full cyclone or roots on the warrior, run away! Use travel form or dash to get out of charge range and spam lifebloom, rejuvenation, Healing Touch or nourish. Heal up and try to prowl, opening up as soon as the DR on maim is finished. Rinse and repeat the above with a full maim->instant cyclone combo and reset the fight again. The aim is just to keep resetting the fight and healing up while the warrior slowly loses hp and runs out of cds. The warrior will probably start eating while your going far away from him, just let him since you'll be healing far more.

At some point the warrior will bladestorm. Don't run away from it or he'll just charge at you dealing huge damage, instead go cat form with barkskin, aiming to constantly face him. You should end up dodging most of the warrior's bladestorm. Spam mangle during this to build up 5 combo points, use maim straight after bladestorm for a 5 second stun with (hopefully) no heal reduce on you!

When the warrior drops to low health, DO NOT assume he's about to die. Warriors can stay at 10% health for what can feel like an eternity. Don't try and take on the warrior upfront even when he's this low on health, just continue to reset the duel and he'll eventually die. Just remember, upfront the warrior can easily drop you to 10% in a matter of seconds if the RNG gods like him, so don't risk it.

Sadly there are countless things that can go wrong, and making the match last a long time does make this a very difficult duel. One good charge or spell reflect can easily be your death, which is why I highly recommend bauble or key. There's no particular moment you need to trinket, but it's certainly worth having medallion for either spell reflect putting you in cyclone, getting fully feared with berserk on cd, or possibly even charge.

I generally find I always end up winning 50% of duels vs the same warrior and it just comes down to whoever gets more dodges at the right times or one of us randomly managing huge damage.

Hunter
Difficulty: Hard


Gear: 60% crit with as much resilience you can manage + defensive trinket.

Now sadly if the hunter plays perfectly in this duel, your going to lose. Fortunately 90% of duels their will be plenty of mistakes for you to take advantage of.

Start off the duel in prowl and spam pounce next to the hunter to try and land pounce, but either the flare or the hunter using feign death normally stops it. Waste no time to trinket, whatever CCs you first. Normally it will be scatter, in which case immediately trinket it and just try to avoid a full freeze. Use nature's grasp when you have a free gcd to hopefully stop the pet a little, but its likely that Master's Call will ruin it. Get Infected Wounds up ASAP, never ever let it drop off. Whatever you trinket, the hunter will then jump away and you'll need to immediately feral charge cat towards him.

When the hunter uses deterrence shred him down. A lot of bad hunters can just be completely blown up during deterrence with shred, but a good one will dance around with it. If the hunter uses Scare Beast laugh at him and pop berserk, he's just given you 2 seconds to do whatever you want while berserk makes you immune, if somehow the duel lasted long enough for berserk to be off cd, just shift out and have 1 GCD of free dps.

If the hunter manages to kite away from you with no Infected Wounds then don't save your charge for Disengage, just use it and immediately get Infected Wounds back up on the hunter. He'll then disengage, probably along with Master's Call, so to deal with this use cyclone. Even if he trinkets this, the goal is just to close the distance. You can't use entangling roots for this since he can use master's call on it, and he'll also manage a lot of damage too. You can do this multiple times, even if cyclone is on DR those 3 seconds are more than enough to get back on the hunter.

Look out for the hunters heal reduce falling off you, a few instant healing touches are worth it during this time, but don't expect any major heals out of it.

Two really annoying cds the hunter has will make you struggle to target him, make sure you have a bind to target enemy player to not waste any time. The first is feign death, just immediately hit tab and get right back on him getting that Infected Wounds up. The second one is Snake Trap; against this just let thorns deal with them and again you need to quickly re target the hunter with a target player macro. It might also be worth throwing in a swipe during deterrence if it's convenient, but don't stress over the snakes.
You probably won't have any opportunities to use FB on the hunter, so instead focus on rake and rip. Hunters have no way to deal with this, so even rip with 3 combo points can be particularly dangerous. Bash and maim can also score you a lot of damage if you somehow get them off, but its no easy job.

Mainly this duel is just practice, practice, practice. Like vs mage, it has a steep learning curve but you can easily overwhelm most hunters once you master it. Don't let their enormous damage scare you, your damage is equally as strong once you get near them.

Warlock
Difficulty: Easy-Medium


Gear: Full crit spec

This duel can go two ways, depending on how the Warlock trinkets. Either way the plan is to go full crazy deeps mode and kill the warlock before berserk ends.

Scenario 1: Warlock trinkets pounce:
The main difficulty with this is that Infected Wounds is now off from the warlock and he can potentially screw over your damage quite significantly. Powershift hard at the start, do whatever it takes to get Infected Wounds back up. Use berserk straight after that shadowfury for maximum berserk time. Don't forget to pop dash! Since the warlock trinketed pounce, make the effort to set up the perfect maim, don't just go maiming without it being properly setup. 2 combo points for savage roar should be enough, get rake and mangle up and then aim to maim him after sacrifice is down.

Scenario 2: Warlock saves trinket for maim:
Open up with pounce and use the time to set up a full savage roar with bleeds. Save berserk for after shadowfury or fear, using it before just wastes valuable berserk time, every second counts. Of course, if the warlock for some reason uses neither then don't go wasting time being out of energy. Since he didn't trinket pounce you don't have to worry about Infected Wounds dropping off, just hit dash and go heavy on the shreds, landing as many Ferocious Bites as possible. If the warlock uses sacrifice then use a full rip instead of FB. Don't use maim or bash at any point, this is exactly what the warlock wants, he'll get out of infected wounds and kite you all night long.

In either scenario your aiming to trinket death coil but be very careful when the warlock uses his portal, it's possible for him to waste your charge completely by using death coil halfway through charging. You can't do much about this besides reacting as fast as possible to the warlock and not being so obvious with your charge.

One very annoying trick the warlock has is to put his portal as far away as he possibly can. The warlock can easily waste 10 seconds of berserk like this, followed by fear spam. It's a very lame tactic that you can't do much about. If the warlock is planning on doing this it may be worth holding back dash in preparation for this. Fortunately, not many warlocks do this so it shouldn't be an issue.

Protection Warrior
Difficulty: easy-hard


Gear: Full crit spec with a defensive trinket

Unlike arms warrior, you can't really kite a prot warr without a 10k shockwave coming at your face, not to mention the unlimited source of stuns, silences and interrupts they have. Sadly this duel can be even more luck based than arms and it just comes down mainly to who dodges more.

Start with prowl->pounce and immediately use dash and beserk. Run circles around the prot warr. Just aim to really run around in a confusing manner, the aim being to make him completely waste shockwave. Trinket the first stun, whatever that is. Don't try and save your trinket for a particular stun, if you don't trinket the first one your just giving the warrior a free shockwave afterwards, instantly downing you to 50% health. If you trinket the first stun you can continue running around and hopefully you'll either dodge any other stuns, or he'll shockwave in the wrong direction. Don't forget barkskin.

Use healing touches when you get the chance but don't try and root the warrior to heal up, the warrior is bound to have some way of stopping it. Don't forget warriors are very susceptible to maim. Try and land a maim when the warrior hasn't got quite so many defensive cds up, and shred away!

That's all their really is to dueling prot warrs and there isn't really much else to it, it really does just come down to who gets the most dodges. Note I'm assuming the warrior is full pve in this case. If the prot is for some reason in pvp gear then you can actually just outheal him by using high resil and spamming instant healing touches.
Currently addicted to hearthstone playing at legend rank. Feel free to add jamhead#2986

My quest to prove anybody can paint - jamheadii.deviantart.com

Check out my new puzzle game Slide!

User avatar
Myaoming
Former Staff
Posts: 2803
Joined: 05 Mar 2011 14:13
Location: Lacking patriotism.

Re: Feral Dueling Guide

#2 » Post by Myaoming » 14 Oct 2013 12:02

Jammeeeeeeeeh :D
jamhead wrote:Feral Druid
...
Once you have 5 combo points, immediately use war stomp and a casted cyclone. When the feral trinkets cyclone, you then use your 5 combo points on savage roar to instantly hibernate him.
The usage of SR in normal form xD
jamhead wrote:Frost Mage
...
There isn't much point trying to cyclone the mage at any point. The constant fire from the elemental and mirror images will just screw up your casts and give the mage a chance to get some cds back.
There could be a point in my opinion. If your dash and charges are on cooldown, and the mage gets to root you and blink, he will have enough time to cast a bolt. Cyclone can interrupt this, and if Barkskin isn't on cooldown, it can be used to cast 2 HTs without any pushbacks.
jamhead wrote:Rogue
...
If you actually managed to catch the rogue doing this then you can just immediately use faerie fire and force him to waste his cds right off the bat.
And apply a quick Lacerate if possible before he pops his cooldowns.
jamhead wrote:Rogue
...
During this time you also need to try and get rake up on the rogue. If you do, then he cannot use cloak without the bleed putting him out of stealth again.
That's why I keep saying Dwarf Rogues are best for PvP :D
jamhead wrote:Rogue
...
or you can simply go maximum distance from the rogue and try and prowl from there.
There's Shadowstep for Subs.

Also, use Abolish Poision once you manage to CC a Rogue somehow. You don't wanna use that if the Rogue isn't CC'd, as you'll end up stunned in normal form.
jamhead wrote:Arms Warrior
...
Once you've got your full cyclone or roots on the warrior, run away! Use travel form or dash to get out of charge range and spam lifebloom, rejuvenation, Healing Touch or nourish.
I'll have to disagree here. If you've got your full cyclone on the Warrior, you don't have to run anywhere. Just cast 2 HTs and restealth.
If you've got full roots, don't run away as you'll end up being charged. Just move a bit away from him, so that he can't hit you nor charge. You have 10 seconds to heal up, but a skilled warrior will use his throws to slow your casts, and of course, Intimidating Shout, and HERE is where you're gonna use your trinket (don't Berserk this of course) as fast as you can so the fear doesn't get you any much further from him to avoid being charged. This works if Bladestorm is on cooldown.
Now if Bladestorm isn't on cooldown, you still root, and force him to Bladestorm it so you can have a peaceful root later. To counter Bladestorm, follow this:
jamhead wrote:At some point the warrior will bladestorm. Don't run away from it or he'll just charge at you dealing huge damage, instead go cat form with barkskin, aiming to constantly face him. You should end up dodging most of the warrior's bladestorm. Spam mangle during this to build up 5 combo points, use maim straight after bladestorm for a 5 second stun with (hopefully) no heal reduce on you!
However if you're HP is low by any chance, go Bear instead of Cat. You keep the same dodge chance and gain more physical damage reduction due to the insane bear armor. Bash/Stomp (Tauren) the Warrior after Bladestorm to cyclone and heal up.
jamhead wrote:Hunter
...
You probably won't have any opportunities to use FB on the hunter, so instead focus on rake and rip. Hunters have no way to deal with this, so even rip with 3 combo points can be particularly dangerous.
^ This. Unless the Hunter is a Dwarf, I recommend trying your best to apply a 4-5 Combo Points Rip on the target after the 1st pounce.
If the Hunter stands in the middle of his flare, you won't be able to Pounce him at all. However if he's playing monkey and moving around on his flare, you can jump and Pounce.


Read it all, great guide Jammy! Post something about Retributions. I wanna see how you manage to down them :P
Elder Myaoming (aka Slardar): Level 80 Tauren Feral PvE/PvP
Siforosse of the Undercity: Level 80 Undead Affliction Warlock PvP/Demon PvE
Zibuluge of the Ashen Verdict: Level 80 Human Frost DK PvP/PvE
Inverse: Level 80 Human Fire Mage PvP/PvE
Slar: Level 80 Night Elf Resto/Feral Druid PvE

User avatar
jamhead
Posts: 348
Joined: 21 Nov 2010 17:40

Re: Feral Dueling Guide

#3 » Post by jamhead » 15 Oct 2013 00:19

Myaoming wrote:Jammeeeeeeeeh :D
jamhead wrote:Feral Druid
...
Once you have 5 combo points, immediately use war stomp and a casted cyclone. When the feral trinkets cyclone, you then use your 5 combo points on savage roar to instantly hibernate him.
The usage of SR in normal form xD
Well normally I go cat form straight away before to use savage roar, but yeah that thread before has kinda made me agree with you it should be usable outside of cat :P
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Frost Mage
...
There isn't much point trying to cyclone the mage at any point. The constant fire from the elemental and mirror images will just screw up your casts and give the mage a chance to get some cds back.
There could be a point in my opinion. If your dash and charges are on cooldown, and the mage gets to root you and blink, he will have enough time to cast a bolt. Cyclone can interrupt this, and if Barkskin isn't on cooldown, it can be used to cast 2 HTs without any pushbacks.
Admittedly there are VERY rare situations where you can manage to cyclone the mage for heals. The problem is most mages are saving the trinket for either bash or maim after the first freeze+blink after. If somehow the trinket is on cd there's still the massive problem your letting the mage get his cds back up. If you get stunned without your trinket up your gonna be pretty screwed by the mage kiting you without infected wounds up. Good luck recovering the pressure after the mage has all his cds back from that cyclone.
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Rogue
...
If you actually managed to catch the rogue doing this then you can just immediately use faerie fire and force him to waste his cds right off the bat.
And apply a quick Lacerate if possible before he pops his cooldowns.
Well its pretty much guaranteed they'll either use evasion or restealth anyway for a full stun, so it probably won't ever do anything :P
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Rogue
...
During this time you also need to try and get rake up on the rogue. If you do, then he cannot use cloak without the bleed putting him out of stealth again.
That's why I keep saying Dwarf Rogues are best for PvP :D
Being able to kill ferals in 2 stuns with double deaths verdict is much more OP if you ask me :P
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Rogue
...
or you can simply go maximum distance from the rogue and try and prowl from there.
There's Shadowstep for Subs.

Also, use Abolish Poision once you manage to CC a Rogue somehow. You don't wanna use that if the Rogue isn't CC'd, as you'll end up stunned in normal form.
If he's close enough for shadowstep then he may as well use throw knives :P Needs to be miles away :P
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Arms Warrior
...
Once you've got your full cyclone or roots on the warrior, run away! Use travel form or dash to get out of charge range and spam lifebloom, rejuvenation, Healing Touch or nourish.
Myaoming wrote: I'll have to disagree here. If you've got your full cyclone on the Warrior, you don't have to run anywhere. Just cast 2 HTs and restealth.
If you've got full roots, don't run away as you'll end up being charged. Just move a bit away from him, so that he can't hit you nor charge. You have 10 seconds to heal up, but a skilled warrior will use his throws to slow your casts, and of course, Intimidating Shout, and HERE is where you're gonna use your trinket (don't Berserk this of course) as fast as you can so the fear doesn't get you any much further from him to avoid being charged. This works if Bladestorm is on cooldown.
Now if Bladestorm isn't on cooldown, you still root, and force him to Bladestorm it so you can have a peaceful root later. To counter Bladestorm, follow this:
jamhead wrote:At some point the warrior will bladestorm. Don't run away from it or he'll just charge at you dealing huge damage, instead go cat form with barkskin, aiming to constantly face him. You should end up dodging most of the warrior's bladestorm. Spam mangle during this to build up 5 combo points, use maim straight after bladestorm for a 5 second stun with (hopefully) no heal reduce on you!
However if you're HP is low by any chance, go Bear instead of Cat. You keep the same dodge chance and gain more physical damage reduction due to the insane bear armor. Bash/Stomp (Tauren) the Warrior after Bladestorm to cyclone and heal up.
No no you wanna go cat to deal huge damage while generating combo points. The aim is to get 5 combo points to cyclone or roots immediately at the instant BS ends (Even if he reflects, server delay generally ignores it)


You kind of described why staying near the warrior is a bad idea :P 2 hots with MS up is really bad healing. The other huge problem is DR. Even if you manage pounce through piercing howl you'll be low on energy and not be able to maim because of both DR and a lack of energy. Getting charged while running is fine, it means his trinket is now down and you can literally control the warrior all day long.

When you have a full roots on the warrior then you really can't heal at all with the warrior spamming throws at you on top of a very likely MS. Running away and resetting the fight is just far more reliable than dealing with the trillion cds warriors have. Remember if you were 1v1 with a warrior in arena you would constantly LoS him, running away is the same logic just using a huge distance instead of a pillar.
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Hunter
...
You probably won't have any opportunities to use FB on the hunter, so instead focus on rake and rip. Hunters have no way to deal with this, so even rip with 3 combo points can be particularly dangerous.
^ This. Unless the Hunter is a Dwarf, I recommend trying your best to apply a 4-5 Combo Points Rip on the target after the 1st pounce.
If the Hunter stands in the middle of his flare, you won't be able to Pounce him at all. However if he's playing monkey and moving around on his flare, you can jump and Pounce.
You can still pounce in the middle of flare at the instant a duel starts, though it nearly always fails because of something like feign death. Yeah dwarf is incredibly hard to deal with when it screws over your only bleeds. Fortunately almost nobody plays dwarf since its not worth it just for one duel that is already easily in the hunter's favour :P
Myaoming wrote: Read it all, great guide Jammy! Post something about Retributions. I wanna see how you manage to down them :P
I honestly have no idea how to beat a ret pally in duels sadly :( it's extremely rare I will ever beat a duelist ret and there aren't that many so I haven't had much chance to practice vs them. On AT I normally just go with my 70% crit spec and just really try hard to keep up with heals. I really can't think of any other tactic that would work.
Currently addicted to hearthstone playing at legend rank. Feel free to add jamhead#2986

My quest to prove anybody can paint - jamheadii.deviantart.com

Check out my new puzzle game Slide!

User avatar
Myaoming
Former Staff
Posts: 2803
Joined: 05 Mar 2011 14:13
Location: Lacking patriotism.

Re: Feral Dueling Guide

#4 » Post by Myaoming » 15 Oct 2013 14:53

jamhead wrote:
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Frost Mage
...
There isn't much point trying to cyclone the mage at any point. The constant fire from the elemental and mirror images will just screw up your casts and give the mage a chance to get some cds back.
There could be a point in my opinion. If your dash and charges are on cooldown, and the mage gets to root you and blink, he will have enough time to cast a bolt. Cyclone can interrupt this, and if Barkskin isn't on cooldown, it can be used to cast 2 HTs without any pushbacks.
Admittedly there are VERY rare situations where you can manage to cyclone the mage for heals. The problem is most mages are saving the trinket for either bash or maim after the first freeze+blink after. If somehow the trinket is on cd there's still the massive problem your letting the mage get his cds back up. If you get stunned without your trinket up your gonna be pretty screwed by the mage kiting you without infected wounds up. Good luck recovering the pressure after the mage has all his cds back from that cyclone.
So you mean casting 2 Healing Touches while the Mage is cycloned is bad because it's giving him few seconds less on his cooldowns? oO
jamhead wrote:
Myaoming wrote:
jamhead wrote:Rogue
...
or you can simply go maximum distance from the rogue and try and prowl from there.
There's Shadowstep for Subs.
If he's close enough for shadowstep then he may as well use throw knives :P Needs to be miles away :P
Nevermind, I completely forgot that Shadowstep can't be used while snared :D
jamhead wrote:
Myaoming wrote:To counter Bladestorm, follow this:
jamhead wrote:At some point the warrior will bladestorm. Don't run away from it or he'll just charge at you dealing huge damage, instead go cat form with barkskin, aiming to constantly face him. You should end up dodging most of the warrior's bladestorm. Spam mangle during this to build up 5 combo points, use maim straight after bladestorm for a 5 second stun with (hopefully) no heal reduce on you!
However if you're HP is low by any chance, go Bear instead of Cat. You keep the same dodge chance and gain more physical damage reduction due to the insane bear armor. Bash/Stomp (Tauren) the Warrior after Bladestorm to cyclone and heal up.
No no you wanna go cat to deal huge damage while generating combo points. The aim is to get 5 combo points to cyclone or roots immediately at the instant BS ends (Even if he reflects, server delay generally ignores it)
Yes, but dodges rely on luck, and you don't wanna try your luck when on low HP. You can stay in Cat but you'll surely have to pop Survival Instincts.
jamhead wrote:You kind of described why staying near the warrior is a bad idea :P 2 hots with MS up is really bad healing. The other huge problem is DR. Even if you manage pounce through piercing howl you'll be low on energy and not be able to maim because of both DR and a lack of energy. Getting charged while running is fine, it means his trinket is now down and you can literally control the warrior all day long.
I actually Healing Touch by "HT" not HoTs :D
Anyway, I don't really get this part of yours. Why you mentioned DR here? The only DR I can see is on the 2nd Root that comes after the Bladestorm that I mentioned before. But why would you Root in this case? A Cyclone fits better here and the next 5 combo points generated will be for a full Root. Bladestorm will still be on cooldown at that moment, and your Energy will be generating in those 6 seconds so you won't be low on it. Let's not forget Tiger's Fury too.

And in my opinion, being Charged while running away from a rooted Warrior is not fine. Charge will remove the root, and you'll end up getting huge damage.
jamhead wrote:Remember if you were 1v1 with a warrior in arena you would constantly LoS him, running away is the same logic just using a huge distance instead of a pillar.
You LoS him because you don't wanna be charged. However running away won't prevent you from being charged. With that said, LoSin a Warrior in Arena makes it easy for you, since you won't have to deal with the "complications" of this:
Myaoming wrote:Just move a bit away from him, so that he can't hit you nor charge. You have 10 seconds to heal up, but a skilled warrior will use his throws to slow your casts, and of course, Intimidating Shout, and HERE is where you're gonna use your trinket (don't Berserk this of course) as fast as you can so the fear doesn't get you any much further from him to avoid being charged. This works if Bladestorm is on cooldown.
jamhead wrote:I honestly have no idea how to beat a ret pally in duels sadly :( it's extremely rare I will ever beat a duelist ret and there aren't that many so I haven't had much chance to practice vs them. On AT I normally just go with my 70% crit spec and just really try hard to keep up with heals. I really can't think of any other tactic that would work.
And I thought I'm one of those noob Ferals because of not knowing how to beat a Ret Pally... xD
Elder Myaoming (aka Slardar): Level 80 Tauren Feral PvE/PvP
Siforosse of the Undercity: Level 80 Undead Affliction Warlock PvP/Demon PvE
Zibuluge of the Ashen Verdict: Level 80 Human Frost DK PvP/PvE
Inverse: Level 80 Human Fire Mage PvP/PvE
Slar: Level 80 Night Elf Resto/Feral Druid PvE

User avatar
jamhead
Posts: 348
Joined: 21 Nov 2010 17:40

Re: Feral Dueling Guide

#5 » Post by jamhead » 16 Oct 2013 00:35

Myaoming wrote: So you mean casting 2 Healing Touches while the Mage is cycloned is bad because it's giving him few seconds less on his cooldowns? oO


Most of the mage's arsenal of slows are around 10 seconds cd or so, I'm not so much saying that cyclone will cost you the duel as such, but 1 healing touch isn't really worth it compared to the mage getting potentially out of Infected Wounds, Getting some precious time to reset his ice barrier.

Honestly just never giving the mage any chances to shake you off and kite you is the key to this duel imo.
Myaoming wrote: Yes, but dodges rely on luck, and you don't wanna try your luck when on low HP. You can stay in Cat but you'll surely have to pop Survival Instincts.

Can't say I ever have problems dealing with BS in cat like this. Just pop barkskin and get 5 combo points up and that BS is a piece of cake. Sitting in bear form won't accomplish anything useful.
Myaoming wrote: I actually Healing Touch by "HT" not HoTs :D
Anyway, I don't really get this part of yours. Why you mentioned DR here? The only DR I can see is on the 2nd Root that comes after the Bladestorm that I mentioned before. But why would you Root in this case? A Cyclone fits better here and the next 5 combo points generated will be for a full Root. Bladestorm will still be on cooldown at that moment, and your Energy will be generating in those 6 seconds so you won't be low on it. Let's not forget Tiger's Fury too.
Ah sorry I kinda meant healing touch also xD

In the guide I basically mention how your always going to be cycloning straight after a maim, so this is the typical scenario I get:

Pounce->mangle->tigers fury->blablabla-> 5 combo points and full maim. ->cyclone

In this case I will still have a cd on tigers fury (about 15 second), a 10 sec DR on maim and not enough energy to reliably make use of another pounce. So instead of trying one risky healing touch I'll dash away and reset the fight for as many healing touches as I want. Now I can wait until tiger's fury and DR for a full stunlock once more.
Myaoming wrote: And in my opinion, being Charged while running away from a rooted Warrior is not fine. Charge will remove the root, and you'll end up getting huge damage.
What? You can't charge while rooted so unless that's a truewow bug you've got 10 secs to reset the fight and stunlock once more :P
Myaoming wrote: You LoS him because you don't wanna be charged. However running away won't prevent you from being charged. With that said, LoSin a Warrior in Arena makes it easy for you, since you won't have to deal with the "complications" of this:
Yep it will. Maybe I haven't made it clear I literally mean run away far, far beyond charge range. If we're talking dueling in dalaran sewers then it can be kind of hard to pull this off, though this guide was more written with the AT dueling zone in mind.
Currently addicted to hearthstone playing at legend rank. Feel free to add jamhead#2986

My quest to prove anybody can paint - jamheadii.deviantart.com

Check out my new puzzle game Slide!

User avatar
Myaoming
Former Staff
Posts: 2803
Joined: 05 Mar 2011 14:13
Location: Lacking patriotism.

Re: Feral Dueling Guide

#6 » Post by Myaoming » 17 Oct 2013 00:11

jamhead wrote:
Myaoming wrote: Yes, but dodges rely on luck, and you don't wanna try your luck when on low HP. You can stay in Cat but you'll surely have to pop Survival Instincts.

Can't say I ever have problems dealing with BS in cat like this. Just pop barkskin and get 5 combo points up and that BS is a piece of cake. Sitting in bear form won't accomplish anything useful.
You use an Agility build, right? I was thinking about a ArP build all the time. Yeah an Agi build will help a lot here, and duels generally.
jamhead wrote:What? You can't charge while rooted so unless that's a truewow bug you've got 10 secs to reset the fight and stunlock once more :P
Maaaaaaan, I really remember being charged in duels by a rooted warrior, and I always root them behind pillars in Arena just to make sure I won't get charged. But yes, last time I tested Shadowstep, I couldn't use it while snared, and same should be for charges. Then you're totally right.
Elder Myaoming (aka Slardar): Level 80 Tauren Feral PvE/PvP
Siforosse of the Undercity: Level 80 Undead Affliction Warlock PvP/Demon PvE
Zibuluge of the Ashen Verdict: Level 80 Human Frost DK PvP/PvE
Inverse: Level 80 Human Fire Mage PvP/PvE
Slar: Level 80 Night Elf Resto/Feral Druid PvE

User avatar
jamhead
Posts: 348
Joined: 21 Nov 2010 17:40

Re: Feral Dueling Guide

#7 » Post by jamhead » 17 Oct 2013 00:18

Myaoming wrote: You use an Agility build, right? I was thinking about a ArP build all the time. Yeah an Agi build will help a lot here, and duels generally.
Yep there's absolutely no reason to go arp in duels imo since it's better to play for the long game vs all platers. If your referring to the increased dodge in agility then honestly I never consider the difference when making a spec, people have just gotten too good at getting behind when it counts these days.
Currently addicted to hearthstone playing at legend rank. Feel free to add jamhead#2986

My quest to prove anybody can paint - jamheadii.deviantart.com

Check out my new puzzle game Slide!

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest