PvE Feral Druid DPS Best Professions

Author: Oxykitten
Date: November 9, 2022
Updated: November 9, 2022
Expansion: WotLK Classic

Feral Druid DPS

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Stat Priority

Best Races

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Rotation & Cooldowns

Best Professions

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Addons & Macros

Professions are a crucial part of your World of Warcraft character, potentially offering a large boost to your damage, healing or survivability, while also allowing you to generate some gold.

This section will cover some of your best options for professions as a Feral Druid DPS.

Best Professions

Engineering is a very strong profession and significantly better than any other option. Jewelcrafting is the best second profession, but is close in value to most other professions. Read on below for more detail, and click on the profession links for access to profession leveling guides.

Engineering is the king of professions for PvE content, offering a lot of benefits.

A significant benefit for Engineering lies in the unique glove enchant. Hyperspeed Accelerators give +340 haste rating for 12 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown. This translates into a ~10% attack speed increase with a 20% uptime. This is great for DPS, and also for threat if you ever tank.

Additionally, as an Engineer you have access to the Nitro Boosts boots enchant, passively giving +24 crit rating and coming with an-use effect which massively increases your speed for 5 seconds. Aside from being a lot of fun, this is useful for avoiding mechanics or simply moving through a raid faster.

Finally, and most importantly, Engineers can use powerful explosives such as Global Thermal Sapper Charges.

Jewelcrafting is the second best profession for Ferals. The main benefit of Jewelcrafting is the Jewelcrafter-unique gems, Dragon’s Eye, which are more powerful than regular gems, but are limited to 3 equipped at a time. Compared to normal gems, these unique gems add up to +63 stamina or +42 strengtht for your tank or DPS sets. These stats are higher than other professions, but more importantly are versatile to suit whichever role you play.

Useful Professions

The following professions are considered viable, but offer a lesser benefit compared to the best professions, so they’re not recommended. If you’re not focused on making your character 100% optimal, you can use any of these professions just fine.

Blacksmiths can add 2 extra gem sockets to their gear — 1 on wrists, and 1 on hands. Socketing 2x stamgems or 2x agigems onto them translates into a +60 stamina or +40 strength bonus. This is slightly worse than Jewelcrafting but still has the same versatility.

As a Leatherworker you gain access to Fur Lining – Attack Power, providing +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault. This is close to, but weaker than the agility from Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting. It also gives access to the stamench bracer enchant, which provides +62 stamina over the standard enchant available to everyone, normstamench. This is a slightly stronger tank enchant than what Blacksmithing offers for your tank sets.

As an Enchanter you gain access to Enchant Ring – Assault which provides +80 attack power. The ringstamench enchant, provides +60 stamina to your tank set – overall, Enchanting is almost identical to Leatherworking.

As a Scribe, you gain access to the Master’s Inscription of the Axe shoulder enchant, which provides a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Greater Inscription of the Axe. This is equivalent to the DPS gain from Enchanting and Leatherworking. However, Inscription provides little value to your tank set, as Feral tanks prefer the glad shoulder enchant.

Scribes also get to make Glyphs & scrolls, providing a nice source of income, but many will argue that the real benefit in Inscription comes in not having to grind The Sons of Hodir reputation for the standard shoulder enchants!

Skinners gain access to the Master of Anatomy passive, which offers a +40 crit rating boost. This is roughly equal to the DPS boost from Leatherworking, Enchanting, and Inscription, but provides less value to your tank set.

Skinning is generally not that good at gold generation either, so it’s overall not a great profession.

As an Alchemist, you gain access to the Mixology passive effect, which increases the effectiveness of flasks and elixirs you consume, but only if you can craft them yourself. This results in a +650 HP increase when using Flask of Stoneblood. This is weaker than the stamina provided by other options. The DPS set contribution is a +64 attack power increase when using Flask of Endless Rage, which is also weaker than other options.

On the flipside, Alchemy is one of the best professions for gold generation, as potions, flasks and elixirs are always relevant and in high demand. This makes it a great profession for your alts to have.

As a Tailor, you gain access to the Swordguard Embroidery cloak enchant, a proc which gives you +400 attack power for 15 seconds with a 45 second internal cooldown. This translates into a possible +133 attack power bonus on average if it procs exactly every 45 seconds, or a +100 attack power bonus on average if it procs every 60 seconds. However, the benefit over the standard cloak enchant, Enchant Cloak – Major Agility, or the engineering cloak enchant, underlay, is quite minor for both a tank and a Feral DPS.

Sub-Par Professions

The following professions provide significantly fewer PvE benefits and are thus not considered viable for Feral tanks.

Miners gain access to the Toughness passive, which offers a +60 stamina boost. While decent for tanking, it provides almost no value to your DPS.

Mining is okay for gold generation, and Druids are well suited to gathering professions. If you don’t care about PvE contribution from your professions, it is a fine choice.

Herbalists gain the Lifeblood active skill, which heals you for 3600 over 5 seconds, with a 3 minute cooldown. This can occasionally come in handy, particularly while leveling, farming or questing, but will generally never be enough to save you in a dungeon or raid.

The only positive thing to say about Herbalism is that, like Mining, it’s a decent gold generation tool and Druids are arguably the best class for gathering professions. If your Druid is going to be an alt you rarely play, you could pick Herbalism; otherwise any other profession is a better choice.

About the Author

Oxykitten

I've been an avid WoW player since Vanilla. At 6 years old, I was slowly progressing through Blackfathom Deeps and levelling up with my brothers. Since Classic Wow launched, I've found a new way to enjoy the game; participating in Feral Druid theorycrafting communities and performing well in an underdog class has been a fun challenge. I hope to be able to share all I've learned with anyone who shares that interest!