Feral 5.4 CC changes.

[kweenbee]

Is it just me or does the whole "cannot use cyclone with pred swiftness/have to cast it outside of form" sort of thing just not seem totally fair. If you look at the whole thing it doesn't really make to much sense unless you are planning on giving feral another CC that is possible to be dispelled. Cyclone is very important for 3v3s, expecially to be viable to play certain comps. Sure you could just learn to juke players and just cast it every now and then. But I'm playing a MELEE class not a caster. If I wanted to cast I would have rolled a boomkin. It also doesn't help that your form reduces dmg taken. Feral out of cat form is never good. You take a LOT more dmg. If people want to, the second you get out of cat form they could hard swap, stun then just kill you right then and there all because you were trying to get a kill and no one had any other good CC for the healer. How is it suppose to help if you can never get a kill cause the healers just healing away. I agree completely feral needed a CC nerf. I think the 20 seconds on it was a bit to much to be honest. But it didn't make us completely un-viable for a lot of comps. Why not make it 16 seconds. You still have time to set things up and it's not impossible. Also wont be dead the second you leave cat form, or you could even make it so its castable in cat form if you don't want to make so it can be used with pred swiftness. Don't really see the logic behind this. Sure you guys took off the 20 second cooldown. But really? Was that all really necessary?

[Deleted]

Its a move to the right direction which is less instant cc. Also ferals needed some sort of nerf, be glad it wasn't the dmg or the mobility.

Also clone is spammable again so its actually a buff when you need to peel for your team mates when you are fighting against spell cleaves & a nerf against melee heavy comps who sit on you.

Anyways these kinda things usually get reverted quite fast due to fotm fanboys crying their eyes out about it so i wouldnt be too worried..

[kweenbee]

See I agree with the whole less instant cc thing. They did need some sort of nerf. Personally the 10% dmg buff for last patch to Savage Roar wasn't totally necessary IMO. The only problem I really totally have with the cyclone thing is the fact that you have to cast it outside of form. If boomkins can cast it in form then why can't a feral? We take twice the amount of DMG outside of cat form. As I said before, if they wanted to they could hard swap, stun feral so they can't go back in cat for the that dmg reduction and that would be it.

[achromatickang]

As a Rogue it's really hard to sympathize with a class who currently does everything better than me. Nothing like facing BM Hunter / Feral in 2s 6 times in a row just now, having Druid pop NS to 0-100 himself and hunter multiple times, and Heart of the Wild to be unkillable meanwhile out DPSing me and having an easier form of CC to use. Not to mention faerie fire. Irony being after changes Feral, Balance, and Resto will still all be more viable than my entire class. lol.

sorry no QQ for you.

[kweenbee]

I'm talking about 3's not 2's. Also I am talking about next patch hence the 5.4 CC changes.

Have you even seen the buffs to rogues yet?

"Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Glyph of Hemorrhaging Veins Your Saunguinary Veins ability now also increases damage done to targets affected by your Hemorrhage.
Glyph of Recovery While Recuperate is active, you receive 20% increased healing from other sources.
Glyph of Redirect Redirect no longer has a cooldown.
Glyph of Sharpened Knives Your Fan of Kinves also damages the armor of its victims, applying 1 application of the Weakened Armor effect to each target."

If not there they are. Also, popping NS and going from 0-100 is very unrealistic unless they have HoW popped. Which BTW lasts one minute and after has a six minute CD.

As for faerie fire there's not much I can say about that because it is dumb.

Rogues have always been about control and burst. Not about heavy DMG anyway.

[Lirina]

Feral's mobility is what kills people. You can't stop them. Having a slow and unlimited mobility is pretty much what got warriors nerfed. Now ferals are going to be next. I think resto should be the only powershifting allowed. Damage is meh. If they could be kited I think ferals damage would be manageable. It really sucks as a healer to get pounced, cloned, bashed, skull bashed, then CCd by traps / silence or w/e instant CC the other DPS has. It pretty much always lands a kill. Not to mention they get the best sybiosis. Bubble, deter, Dispersion. I just think if they were more controllable the CC and damage wouldn't be as prevalent.

[Astronomy]

Feral's mobility is what kills people. You can't stop them. Having a slow and unlimited mobility is pretty much what got warriors nerfed. Now ferals are going to be next.

I highly doubt it.

Feral was always the most mobile class in game. That is their core ability.

They nerfed it on Cata, and reversed in on MoP. I don't think they'll do that mistake again.

[Deleted]

Ferals take more dmg outside cat form? Casting cyclone as feral is hard? This is a nerf?

?????

After casting Cyclone they have to shift back into Cat Form and wait 1.5s for the GCD to finally be offensive. Quite abit of time wasted. And with the amount of interupts in the game plus the short range of Cyclone it will be extremely difficult to get one off succesfully.

[kweenbee]

Yes they do take more dmg outside of cat form. Casting cyclone as a feral would be hard in 3v3. It would be almost impossible if you ever got high rating, can't see how you would sinse that would make you pretty much un-viable for pretty much every comp. You do realize without that nerf ATM feral is viable for really only 3 comps? One of which would be impossible to get 2.2k in. Yes I realize that talison and yipz and all those high rated ferals have good rating, but they all play with rank 1 players so it's not as hard to make up for the time lost. All of the silences, kicks, pollys, typhoons ... the list goes on. Do you really think it's gonna be easy to be able to hard cast that? Also to your comment below about 5.2? What? We had instant clones then too lol. Instant cc has always been a core ability for a feral druid. Maybe you should go read up some more.

[Hand Banana]

Yes they do take more dmg outside of cat form. Casting cyclone as a feral would be hard in 3v3. It would be almost impossible if you ever got high rating, can't see how you would sinse that would make you pretty much un-viable for pretty much every comp. You do realize without that nerf ATM feral is viable for really only 3 comps? One of which would be impossible to get 2.2k in. Yes I realize that talison and yipz and all those high rated ferals have good rating, but they all play with rank 1 players so it's not as hard to make up for the time lost. All of the silences, kicks, pollys, typhoons ... the list goes on. Do you really think it's gonna be easy to be able to hard cast that? Also to your comment below about 5.2? What? We had instant clones then too lol. Instant cc has always been a core ability for a feral druid. Maybe you should go read up some more.

Im sure all casters are just waiting for the druid to pop out and cyclone so they can CS it. Yea, lets save our CS for a cast that doesnt harm the feral in any way as he can just shift back like nothing ever happened. Hell, Im sure FMP would be glad to have a cyclone CS'd, means his priest can dominate mind or his mage can poly without fear of interrupts. Melee will have an easier time interrupting to be sure, but stopcasting is something no druid can do apparently.

Feral is viable for so many comps its unbelievable. Of the non healers, hunters are probably the only class with more variety of comps. FMP, Jungle, Ebola, spriest/feral/healer (if it has a name, FPS with an rsham?), ret/feral, enh/feral, kittycleave is decent still except that warriors suck.

And the 5.2 comment, I forget when ferals got a cd on cyclone, but I think thats what he's referring to. He means before the cd was implemented ferals hardcasted alot of cyclones as peels and extra cc.

[kweenbee]

Im sure all casters are just waiting for the druid to pop out and cyclone so they can CS it. Yea, lets save our CS for a cast that doesnt harm the feral in any way as he can just shift back like nothing ever happened. Hell, Im sure FMP would be glad to have a cyclone CS'd, means his priest can dominate mind or his mage can poly without fear of interrupts. Melee will have an easier time interrupting to be sure, but stopcasting is something no druid can do apparently.

Feral is viable for so many comps its unbelievable. Of the non healers, hunters are probably the only class with more variety of comps. FMP, Jungle, Ebola, spriest/feral/healer (if it has a name, FPS with an rsham?), ret/feral, enh/feral, kittycleave is decent still except that warriors suck.

And the 5.2 comment, I forget when ferals got a cd on cyclone, but I think thats what he's referring to. He means before the cd was implemented ferals hardcasted alot of cyclones as peels and extra cc.

I'm not saying none of those comps are completely un-viable I'm just saying most of them can't be played to push high rating. I'm not worried about how it will be with caster teams other then just out-ranging it. I'm concerned with melee. BTW no good disc priest should be using DM at high rating 3s. But that was also when bear form was retardedly unkillable. So they knew if they were on you you just go bear and they weren't gonna kill you.

[Kals]

Let us cast clone in form and I'd be even more happy with the change than I already am. I like being able to peel, as much fun as it is having to pop hotw to save my mage 20s into a match vs Ret/Hunter/Disc.

Other than that I don't have a problem. When I play FMP (mostly all I play) my mage lets me know when he's setting up damage anyways, so he'll usually poly/ring offtargets and deep the target, i'll burst with tf, clone out of his poly and he'll CS the trinket (if we're not on healer). Played almost the exact same way in Cata, pretty sure I'll be completely fine doing it again.

Also I have no idea where you're getting this idea that feral takes more damage out of form. We don't. At all. The only thing we lose is the 20% bonus healing to cat from the mandatory Glyph (which should be baseline again, since EVERY feral takes it for both PvP and PvE). Pretty sure there was a talent in the feral tree that did that in Cata that most ferals only put 2 points in (to get to the next tier) but that's about it, and even then I'm pretty sure that was Perseverance which reduced spell damage taken by 2/4/6% (3 points).

Edit: Remembered Thick Hide from cata as well, but that was pretty much complete garbage for PvP.

[Teokis]

Everyone saying it's a buff because you can "Spam" it obviously doesn't arena enough at higher ratings.

Hopefully it gets reverted.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone logically complain about Cyclone. It's always been Tree stun or some sort of crap like.

"ERMAIGOD. HUNTER PET STUN ME THEN TRAP ME AND I TRINKET INTO CLONE INTO SILENCE SHOT INTO FEAR!!121122"

Yeah.

And yes feral was able to get by casting Cyclone YEARS ago.

Now that everyone has a stun/kick/fear etc. Will not work.

[Crruor]

If a lock can get fears off and a mage can get polys off at high rating why cant a feral get a clone off ?

[Sixteen18]

If a lock can get fears off and a mage can get polys off at high rating why cant a feral get a clone off ?

They are used to facerolling while doing unhealable damage and being one of the worst switch targets.

[Snuggli]

Pretty sure there was a talent in the feral tree that did that in Cata that most ferals only put 2 points in (to get to the next tier) but that's about it, and even then I'm pretty sure that was Perseverance which reduced spell damage taken by 2/4/6% (3 points).

Edit: Remembered Thick Hide from cata as well, but that was pretty much complete garbage for PvP.

I think we also used to get a lot of dodge and armor from shifting into cat form in cata. They fixed everything for Ferals in MoP though, caster and kitty only have the 20% healing difference - and the fact that SI doesnt reduce damage taken out of form.



OT: The problem with this change is that Ferals will be able to get more clones out when they are peeling for team mates and less clones when playing offensive. It means that enemy DPS will often be double or even triple cloned as soon as they try and do any pressure, and when the Feral is trying to go for a kill they'll just tunnel damage into one target because they don't have any CC. I see this as less skillful, because when your team is in trouble you'll just spam clones, and when going for damage you won't even concern yourself with CC.. you'll just tunnel damage.

When playing against a Mage, how many Poly's does he land? Normally he'll have to deep->poly or nova->CS and even that has a stupidly high chance of being stopped by the DPS if they are even half aware of whats happening around them (unless Fear/Ring was used to peel the DPS). Now imagine if it had half the range and they didn't have pom.

I think Ferals will need to be compensated. I agree that Treant + Pred Swiftness + Nature's Swiftness is too strong, Treant stuns are obnoxious, Pred Swiftness is probably okay but coupled with NS is probably too strong, mainly because NS can be used to clone trinkets which can really hurt the enemy team.

A lot of the top '1%' players complain about Ferals, even Azael called them the most overpowered class on stream last night, but they are hardly ever seen on ladder - and when they are, they are always playing with a disc or hunter.

There's a few things that could happen to keep Ferals competitive. Being able to cast it in Cat form, or cat form while moving, would help a lot and would mean Ferals were less clunky. Or, Blizzard could revert the change on Treants, NS OR PS. Treants would help Ferals land a casted clone, PS would bring back being able to clone healers and NS would give Ferals the on-demand Healer clone once a minute when they are bursting.



TL/DR: Ferals will land more clones vs DPS but realistically wont land any on Healers - taking cyclone in completely the wrong direction in my opinion. Ferals aren't really seen on ladder much at all, and if all 3 of the major nerfs (PS/NS/Treant) go through then their population will probably be lower than that of Rogues last season.

[Lulbalance]

good post by snuggli as usual.

not sure how anyone is arguing this isnt an over nerf :s .

this patch is a cruel one for ferals..cy@ kitties <3.

[Kals]

Hmm. Never really thought about the "clone while moving" thing, I kinda like that.

Maybe they'll make Glyph of SR and CatForm baseline (dunno why Cat Form Glyph got removed from baseline to begin with... -_-) and give us a glyph for cyclone in some way other than range. Unfortunately I think if they make it too good it'll be just "almost always mandatory" as SR or if it's way too good, 100% mandatory like Cat Form.

I like this thread, let's keep throwing around ideas!

[kweenbee]

Nah you didn't get any armor at all and that guy is even talking about getting killed in stuns in caster form where dodge is useless. I didn't know that one about shield wall though.

I agree that it will be harder to land cyclones on healers, your teammates will have to set it up for you instead of the other way around. But I don't think ferals will be weak though or that it's the wrong direction - unless other classes get buffed.

It's not that feral's will be terrible or "weak" it's just they wont be as appealing if you have another option. I mean especially the whole arena changes coming out too. Who wants to risk their win/loss or rating over something so dumb. When you could play with a DK, ret, rogue, etc.

- - - Updated - - -

I think we also used to get a lot of dodge and armor from shifting into cat form in cata. They fixed everything for Ferals in MoP though, caster and kitty only have the 20% healing difference - and the fact that SI doesnt reduce damage taken out of form.



OT: The problem with this change is that Ferals will be able to get more clones out when they are peeling for team mates and less clones when playing offensive. It means that enemy DPS will often be double or even triple cloned as soon as they try and do any pressure, and when the Feral is trying to go for a kill they'll just tunnel damage into one target because they don't have any CC. I see this as less skillful, because when your team is in trouble you'll just spam clones, and when going for damage you won't even concern yourself with CC.. you'll just tunnel damage.

When playing against a Mage, how many Poly's does he land? Normally he'll have to deep->poly or nova->CS and even that has a stupidly high chance of being stopped by the DPS if they are even half aware of whats happening around them (unless Fear/Ring was used to peel the DPS). Now imagine if it had half the range and they didn't have pom.

I think Ferals will need to be compensated. I agree that Treant + Pred Swiftness + Nature's Swiftness is too strong, Treant stuns are obnoxious, Pred Swiftness is probably okay but coupled with NS is probably too strong, mainly because NS can be used to clone trinkets which can really hurt the enemy team.

A lot of the top '1%' players complain about Ferals, even Azael called them the most overpowered class on stream last night, but they are hardly ever seen on ladder - and when they are, they are always playing with a disc or hunter.

There's a few things that could happen to keep Ferals competitive. Being able to cast it in Cat form, or cat form while moving, would help a lot and would mean Ferals were less clunky. Or, Blizzard could revert the change on Treants, NS OR PS. Treants would help Ferals land a casted clone, PS would bring back being able to clone healers and NS would give Ferals the on-demand Healer clone once a minute when they are bursting.



TL/DR: Ferals will land more clones vs DPS but realistically wont land any on Healers - taking cyclone in completely the wrong direction in my opinion. Ferals aren't really seen on ladder much at all, and if all 3 of the major nerfs (PS/NS/Treant) go through then their population will probably be lower than that of Rogues last season.

Yea, idk I guess I just don't really get how this is suppose to work out with the whole healer thing. I think that's just my main concern. I'm also kinda afraid that with a melee comp against you in 3s, this will lead you to be the focus because of the fact that if they do that there wont be much of a way to get cyclone off. Which would be a big pluss for the other team. That also means that your team will have to contribute a lot of their cc's to try and peel for the feral. Which leaves even less for setting something up. I think what you said about making it so it could be cast in cat form and while moving would be alright. I mean at least if a healer is trying to run out of range from you, you have a chance to get it off, and are not just a sitting duck. I agree with the whole "taking cyclone in the completely wrong direction" thing big time. They are just taking away to much from feral's and not compensating anything towards it. Sure they did make it so you could keep spamming it. But in the long run in a 3's team you will lose leverage trying to spam it. Yes there are ways to set it up but you only have such a long time before that chance is gone and a good team with focus kicks and what not aren't going to let you do that.

[gestapo]

I'd rather they do this than touch our damage or mobility. The more you think about it, the more obvious this change was. They couldn't touch mobility because it would break feral in pve and pvp, and any damage reductions would impact pve negatively. In fact, someone mentioned the 10% buff to Savage Roar - that was strictly a PVE change.

The change is a step in the right direction, but we need a few more things to happen before 5.4 goes live.

1. Other instant cast CC needs to have a cast time as well, if cyclone is getting this treatment. This means no more insta hex for enhance, etc. So far I haven't seen any other instant CC on the radar, though Blue specifically said that they would be doing so. Here's to hoping.

2. We should be able to cast cyclone in cat/bear (Feral only - not Guardian). The incurred global cooldown when shifting back in is a game breaker and will be really bad for feral pvp.

3. When the Predatory Swiftness buff is active cyclone should be able to be cast in form while moving, thus consuming the buff. The buff should remain dispellable and still allow the other instant spells of course.

4. The incarnation + berserk + ravage! spam combination needs to have it's damage reworked somehow. We need our strong bleeds but i suspect a lot of complaints come from the burst during this phase. Perhaps the cooldown and duration could be cut by half? This way it's a little easier to counter since 30 seconds is a long time in pvp.

5. There needs to be some utility brought back to Bear Form. In my opinion bring back Bear Enrage for Feral & Moonkin only on a 3 min cd. Allow the Enrage to instantly shift you into Bear form and break fear. This way it's a long cooldown fear break and you're forced into bear form, so to use offensively you'd have to shift back to cat/moonkin form anyway to do any damage.