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  1. #21
    My thought is that since faerie fire has no resource cost (other than the GCD), it's going to be optimal to play around its cooldown, making sure that you always have a free GCD when it comes up.
    i'm just not so sure considering the nature of energy. clearly you wouldn't ever use it with surplus energy. i amended to include (cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds) however.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Trubo View Post
    Not sure why this would be the case as I don't believe bleeds from Bear form benefit from Feral Mastery.
    good point. i'll just scrap that whole thing altogether.

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Trubo View Post
    Not sure why this would be the case as I don't believe bleeds from Bear form benefit from Feral Mastery.
    It's already barely worth going into bear form to thrash (or would be if this didn't risk a crit or haste proc from Rune). If shapeshifting were taken off the GCD, there is a risk that these kinds of actions would become more prevalent.

    Lacerate isn't the first ability I'd worry about, though. Thrash is the big one, since it can coexist with cat thrash. Even if that were fixed, mangle does more damage than lacerate (even if the lacerate is maintaining a 3-stack it's still comparable). And you have to worry about people shifting out to cast moonfire for free (if Nurturing Instinct were changed to grant all spellpower) -- indeed this would happen even without the shapeshifting GCD change.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    i'm just not so sure considering the nature of energy. clearly you wouldn't ever use it with surplus energy. i amended to include (cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds) however.
    But if you do that, then it no longer competes with passive savage roar, which is worth -- at worst -- 5 combo points every 42 seconds. You pretty nearly have to assume that faerie fire gets used on cooldown for that talent to be viable in the first place.

    (Edit: I guess with dream of cenarius, passive savage roar loses some value. It's hard to quantify how much.)
    Last edited by Aseyhe; 2014-01-22 at 10:01 PM.

  3. #23
    You make good points. I've moved some things around. I left the buff for nurturing instinct in regards to nature, and then amended the moonfire talent to allow NI to apply to all spell schools, as well as allow PS to trigger an instant wrath.

    As well, given the simple numbers provided, a 10 second cooldown on cp from faerie fire seems best.

    I also gave up on the concept of shapeshifting on its own gcd (and the bear form rage reset thing) which is probably unnecessary. I added a glyph that allows cats to use cyclone, healing touch, roots, and rejuv in cat form, which assuages much of the need for shapeshifting on its own gcd.

    Replaced the soul swap mechanic with increased rip and rake durations. Then moved that talent to tier 100 to replace the pets. Then put Dream of Cenarius in the vacant tier 45 spot. Now DoC competes with extra cps in the form of faerie fire or permanent savage roar.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Can you give me your thoughts on the merits of an aoe finisher? I feel like it's a sorely missing piece to an otherwise pretty well constructed aoe rotation. If it additionally spread rake (which is colossally overpowered now, but assuming it were tuned in WoD otherwise), then doing aoe would no longer involve such an incredible amount of wasted CPs. If you reduced the damage of thrash to the level that this is balanced, you would simultaneously remove it as an effective energy dump, but that might automatically occur regardless with an improved Ferocious Bite and the suggestion with a change to Ravage.

    I suggest replacing maim with this aoe finisher, because 5 finishers seems excessive, and I feel Maim is the weakest link (obviously in pve) but also perhaps in pvp as well, and blizzard wants to be scaling back on CC anyways.
    Last edited by hullaballoonatic; 2014-01-22 at 11:40 PM.

  4. #24

    Post

    A lot of these sound good but some of them are very one-sided and biased towards PVE..

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    All positional requirements removed
    -- I like this one

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Increase Ravage damage by 40%. Increase Ravage energy cost to 80. Ravage no longer requires stealth. Energy cost in stealth reduced by 40. (to be used with damage cooldowns or clearcasting procs or as energy dump)
    --This would pretty much default all of our CC procs to Ravage and I don't like that..

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Ferocious Bite damage increased by 20% per tick of rake, up to an increase of 100%.
    -- This isn't what Ferocious Bite needs. There's a better way to make it more appealing such as removing the God-awful energy dump and increasing it's damage...

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Shred removed
    Why? Because it has a positional requirement? They should just remove the positional requirement and make Mangle a Bear-only ability. That would eliminate all of the Mangle vs. Shred nonsense and it would make both Guardian and Feral feel that much more distinct.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Soothe removed (presumably all enrage dispels would go, or they would be combined with regular dispels
    -- Soothe has it's use... This is definitely not one of those abilities that should just go to eliminate button bloat.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Nature's grasp removed (turned into talent)
    -- One of the one-sided suggestions I was referring to.. This ability may not be big in PVE but it's huge in PVP and making it a glyph would just make it another mandatory thing that just takes up another glyph slot.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Might of Ursoc removed (baked into talent)
    -- I don't see the point to this suggestion.. This would just be an all-around survivability nerf to both PVE and PVP.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Maim reworked - now reads: Deals y (+x%ap) damage to all enemies within 8 yards of the druid. Deals additional damage per combo point. Spreads rake to all affected. (Gives feral a much needed aoe finisher)
    -- Another one-sided, PVE change that would hurt PVP..

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Nature's Swiftness made baseline for feral and balance druids. No longer affects cyclone.
    -- What exactly is the point of this suggestion..? Predatory Swiftness already gets the job done..

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Renewal now additionally increases maximum health by 30% for 20 seconds.
    -- This would really get out of hand. a 30% heal + another last stand for ferals on a 2 minute CD would be kind of broken in PVP. I personally think this is a good change but I guarantee you it wouldn't be in the game long before it gets changed because of all of the people complaining about our survivability.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Feral: Savage Roar is now passive.
    --Savage Roar being passive is just dumb IMO.. If it were a passive then what would even be the point of it being there? It's the equivalent to a rogue's SnD.. It's there, solely to help set the gap between people who are actually putting effort into their character by keeping good uptime on it and those who just don't care or even know what they're doing.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Incarnation reworked. Now has a 1 minute cooldown for ferals and reads: Reduces the energy cost of Ravage by 40. Lasts 15 seconds.
    -- This is honestly a step-down from what Incarnation is now.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Heart of the wild no longer increases stam, agility, and intellect by 6% at all times.
    ---Then HoTW would be useless DPS-wise..

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Nature's Vigil no longer has a damage component.
    --This would make that talent less appealing than what it already is.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Restoration: Your direct healing spells now apply an absorb effect on the target equal to 30% of the amount healed.
    -- Yeah, no. Lol While this sounds nice this would literally make resto druids broken. I'd suggest that they do something to living seed so that it's not just 2% of my healing on any given fight.


    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    New glyph - Glyph of Pounce. Major. Your pounce no longer requires stealth, but has a 1 minute cooldown.
    --This is a nice suggestion from a druid perspective but we wouldn't be able to keep something like this for long before Blizzard takes it away from us.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Then put Dream of Cenarius in the vacant tier 45 spot. Now DoC competes with extra cps in the form of faerie fire or permanent savage roar.
    Yeah, I was thinking of suggesting this because it seems to fit pretty well with the other talents: you pick them based on how you want to play and not necessarily based on fight. A nice feature is also that DoC isn't the only "high skill" choice here: properly timing your abilities to make optimal use of faerie fire is also something that would take effort.

    (I'd leave the faerie fire talent at 6 seconds to make sure it beats passive savage roar with optimal use, but that's just a number.)

    ---

    Regarding AoE finishers, I never really saw the need for an AoE finisher in feral's current design -- swipe generates few combo points per energy and tab raking generates none. However, if Blizzard is planning to make rake spreading part of the AoE rotation, then I will say that having a finisher spread rake feels more appropriate than having thrash spread it. You could probably just as well have ferocious bite spread rake instead of making a specialized finisher (ignoring any believability issues with a bite having an AoE effect).

    One thing to work out would be how the number of combo points affects rake spreading. If it doesn't, then it'd probably be optimal to use a 1-2-CP finisher right after rake, at least in the opening.

    Also, swipe should probably start generating two combo points if it crits your target (like other CP builders), just to reduce the likelihood that ferals end up using single-target builders to get the finisher out quicker.
    Last edited by Aseyhe; 2014-01-23 at 12:46 AM.

  6. #26
    One thing to work out would be how the number of combo points affects rake spreading. If it doesn't, then it'd probably be optimal to use a 1-2-CP finisher right after rake, at least in the opening.
    Originally the thought was to have a finisher that could be used to make use of the useless cps spent on raking targets, but actually, instead I think making thrash spread rake and just having a damaging finisher would be the right choice. This would also remove the necessity of primal fury affecting swipe, though I don't see the reason why it doesn't.

    -- One of the one-sided suggestions I was referring to.. This ability may not be big in PVE but it's huge in PVP and making it a glyph would just make it another mandatory thing that just takes up another glyph slot.
    Please consider that all classes will be receiving "nerfs" in pvp in the cc department. I am removing abilities from the mandatory-bound position, and providing them as potent major glyphs for pvpers.

    ---Then HoTW would be useless DPS-wise..
    If you didn't notice, I removed all dps components of that tier. Nature's vigil is not useless. It actually does provide the most healing of any of those spells over the entire course of a raid fight. I don't think pvp ferals would want it, but would probably instead pick up HotW, which I think has great opportunity in pvp as a survival cd, or spot healing, or what have you.

    -- Yeah, no. Lol While this sounds nice this would literally make resto druids broken. I'd suggest that they do something to living seed so that it's not just 2% of my healing on any given fight.
    Yeah, probably overpowered. Even if druids mostly use hots, giving them this amount of throughput is probably unnecessary. I like your point about living seed. I changed the talent to change living seed to apply an absorb shield on the target equal to its amount immediately instead of its current effect. As well, gave that talent an additional active.

    Why? Because it has a positional requirement? They should just remove the positional requirement and make Mangle a Bear-only ability. That would eliminate all of the Mangle vs. Shred nonsense and it would make both Guardian and Feral feel that much more distinct.
    Because my suggested Ravage change essentially merges the two abilities. Shred has no use anymore at that point. Mangle is leftover. Your suggestion is just mangle still. They can rename mangle to shred for all I care. The point is they do the same thing and don't both need to exist anymore.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by mmokri View Post
    Blizzard wants to rework this bullshit. I mean you heal yourself everytime even full health. Its useless spell good for recount-only.
    Tracking more buffs? Nope thx.
    Better move would be balance its bleed component. Do you need your core ability changed so much?
    Do you mean omen of clarity procs? Too radical change.
    My own suggestion - go reroll rogue. He has savage roar very passive for one spec and not punishing downtime for two others.
    Do you want feral as retribution at pvp(as support)?
    This is pvp nerf for pve AOE sake. Goddamit.
    Do like me. Make macro that targets your targets target. That way you will way more often use it to actually heal, and you have a shift-bind if you want the heal for yourself.

    A lot of OP changes would buff feral way too much for pvp though. Like rage not disappearing. You would just swap between bear and cat constantly.
    Overall i like feral, though just aoe feels boring and lackluster. I don't mind having to find "behind" of a boss. It's pretty much the reason i like to play melee. Having to run around and get it all working. Can be frustrating if it doesn't at all, but it mostly does, and then it feels rewarding. At least to me.

    I want savage roar to stay. It's overall a stupidly simple mechanism, and if you fail it you don't deserve to play feral. I like the idea of savage roar being able to be passive, but the other talents in that tier have to be really nice, to make up for it. That can be in terms of dps/ imunity/clear of dots/fear-breaker. Just want there to be a reward for still using it. Prefer a dps boost.
    Everyone has so much to say
    They talk talk talk their lives away

  8. #28
    Some very inspired (and not totally stupid ideas) in here for sure, I think Stenhaldi hit the nail on the head when he said you have a good idea of the spec, although your suggested changes would pretty much wreck feral PvP (as in, we wouldn't be the ones getting wrecked. Incarnation + Berserk for 26 energy ravages that hit more than 2 times harder than they do now? Balanced!).

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    I believe the suggested talent rework offers a lot of flexibility in how complex the player wants their rotation to be.
    Honestly, I think you're providing too much flexibility and complexity between all of your suggestions. Most of them are good at an individual level but combined it might be a bit too much. Supernatural is really the main offender here, I think.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Ferocious Bite damage increased by 20% per tick of rake, up to an increase of 100%.
    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Increase Ravage damage by 40%. Increase Ravage energy cost to 80. Ravage no longer requires stealth. Energy cost in stealth reduced by 40. (to be used with damage cooldowns or clearcasting procs or as energy dump)
    While I think leaving the whack-a-mole-eqsue Omen of Clarity mechanic we have right now is an admirable effort, I think this would be far too rewarding for skilled players and too punishing for the unskilled. Even if Ravage did the same amount of damage that it does on live it would be very, very significantly more important than Mangle vs Shred is now.

    Furthermore, the Ferocious Bite change is partially, if not entirely, trivialized by the Ravage change because if you had the spare time on your bleeds you would likely consider swapping over to 80 energy Ravages as it could have a higher or significantly higher DPE than Ferocious Bite.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Maim reworked - now reads: Deals y (+x%ap) damage to all enemies within 8 yards of the druid. Deals additional damage per combo point. (Gives feral a much needed aoe finisher)
    Thrash damage reduced. Spreads rake to all targets affected.
    Have to agree with Stenhaldi that this isn't the most fleshed out system ever. Having a spammable attack that generates no combo points spread Rake doesn't really make sense when you have a hard hitting combo point-consuming finisher. It also works against Maim because any time you have a situation where new adds are being (re)introduced to your AoE pool, you would be casting Thrash more often which significant detracts from your ability to Maim. Unless Maim hit like a train it would suffer a very similar issue to Ferocious Bite on live on anything but a bunch of semi-longliving static adds.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Berserk now reduces energy cost by 40% (down from 50%) but increases damage of non-bleed abilities by 20%
    A good change, for PvE at least, and I've suggested this one myself in the past. However, it significantly exacerbates the issue with Ravage (and especially Incarnation) being useful in PvE without being completely retarded in PvP. You would probably have to specifically exclude Ravage from the damage increase. There's also no reason to state "non-bleed" specifically instead of just "direct damage" as you're meddling with Rake's value when you don't particularly need to.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    New tier 45 talent - Touch of Elune
    Feral: Your faerie fire generates 1 combo point.
    Really not sure how I feel about this. It seems extraordinarily clunky, but it's also not entirely bad as it does kind of mesh with the other options the way you have it set up, and it does encourage people to apply Weakened Armor which is a good thing to. Overall not sold on it.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Incarnation reworked. Now has a 1 minute cooldown for ferals and reads: Reduces the energy cost of Ravage by 40. Lasts 15 seconds.
    Sounds more interesting from a PvE standpoint but it has horrible, horrible PvP implications.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Heart of the wild no longer increases stam, agility, and intellect by 6% at all times.
    New tier 90 talent - Blossoming Touch
    Your healing touch now heals all allies in a 5 yard radius of the target for 40% of the healing done.

    Nature's Vigil no longer has a damage component.
    Not really any objections here, would be a step up from the relative abomination the tier is right now. Nature's Vigil should probably work on all damage (instead of single target damage) so it would basically become a druid version of AG; duration and CD would probably need to be adjusted significantly.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    New tier 100 talent - Blessings of the Ancients
    Feral: You can now moonfire in cat form. Moonfire costs 35 energy and generates 1 combo point. Predatory Swiftness now additionally allows the player to cast Wrath. Wrath now triggers Dream of Cenarius. Nurturing Instinct now applies to all spellpower.
    Dream of Cenarius should just be changed to trigger off of any consumption of PS as baseline (in addition to Healing Touch), but Wrath PS sounds good. It could be a good idea to adjust Blossoming Touch to also trigger off of Wrath baseline, but you run into synergy issues with Heart of the Wild as well as looking at the big druid picture outside of just tunneling at our own specialization (although Blossoming Touch may be really broken like that regardless, /shrug).

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    New Tier 100 Talent - Will of Malfurion
    Feral: Increases the duration of Rip by 4 seconds and Rake by 6 seconds.
    This has serious implications with the readiness stat. Maybe not in the first tier, but mid-expansion onward we probably wouldn't have too much of an issue achieving enough increased cooldown recovery rate to make TF have the same cooldown as Rip's duration, which would vastly simplify the rotation and be a significant damage increase now that snapshotting is gone (use TF to apply Rip every 25 seconds, reap benefits of doing tons of damage with little thought in maintenance).

    While it's really not the end of the world it would have a very significant effect on the spec throughout the expansion. It would probably make our stat priority
    Readiness to 20% > everything else
    to take advantage of the drastic damage boost. Also causes some balancing implications with having a sudden threshold of gear that would offer us such a large increase in single target damage.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    New tier 100 talent - Supernatural
    Feral: Replaces combo points with rage bar. CP generating abilities now generate 10 rage per would-be combo point. Finishing moves now cost 10 rage per would-be combo point. Cat form generates 3 rage per second while in combat. (does not replace energy)
    Really not sold on this one, sounds awkward and extraordinarily difficult to balance, not to mention it would be a colossal change to our playstyle/stat priority/everything else.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Glyphs
    New glyph - Glyph of Nature's Grasp. Major. Your entangling roots is replaced with Nature's grasp.
    New glyph - Glyph of Pounce. Major. Your pounce no longer requires stealth, but has a 1 minute cooldown.
    New glyph - Glyph of Faerie Swarm. Major. Your Faerie Fire now reduces the target's movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.
    New glyph - Glyph of the Deft Feline. Major. You can now cast Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Cyclone, Hibernate, and Entangling Roots in cat form.
    No reason to baseline Nature's Grasp imo, I wouldn't really call it bloat in PvE because you can easily just not put it on your bars, and it's actually really useful in PvP.
    Pounce change almost seems like a glyph tax, not sure if that's good implications for PvP but it may be fine for PvE if they don't let us continue to have our 2 major glyph slots more or less eternally gridlocked.
    Faerie Swarm glyph makes sense.
    Deft Feline seems awkward/pretty silly, I'm not sure I can really offer any legitimate feedback other than saying it just sounds like a bad idea.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Originally the thought was to have a finisher that could be used to make use of the useless cps spent on raking targets, but actually, instead I think making thrash spread rake and just having a damaging finisher would be the right choice. This would also remove the necessity of primal fury affecting swipe, though I don't see the reason why it doesn't.
    Probably to significantly deter the ability to use it as a cleave. Its DPE is significantly higher than Shred or Mangle on 2 targets and if you let it proc Primal Fury you remove the deterrence for the feral to substitute it in.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Because my suggested Ravage change essentially merges the two abilities. Shred has no use anymore at that point. Mangle is leftover. Your suggestion is just mangle still. They can rename mangle to shred for all I care. The point is they do the same thing and don't both need to exist anymore.
    That was basically his point, that your Mangle should basically just be renamed and have it's icon changed to Shred to add some distinctiveness.
    Last edited by aggixx; 2014-01-23 at 09:53 AM.


    Druid / Demon Hunter SimulationCraft Maintainer

  9. #29
    I really appreciate this criticism. I'm wondering what your overall thoughts on clearcasting is in an environment missing shred altogether barring any other changes. At the point where you're spamming mangle (sometimes applying a thrash) regardless, it just doesn't have the exciting gameplay implications anymore. Especially with its tendency to proc multiple times in quick succession and then go dead for awhile, the gameplay just isn't nearly as rewarding. Perhaps setting it to the RPPM system would somewhat alleviate this issue (unless it already is, though I feel like the tendancy for RoRO to proc multiple times in a row is far, far lower than omen of clarity).

    You've convinced me of quite a bit of the folly with the Ravage idea. I'm removing all changes except it's lack of stealth requirement. I'm toying with the idea of Ferals not having any abilities that require stealth by default, and prowl by default increases the damage of your next ability used by a certain amount.

    I changed my Incarnation suggestion. I want something that is appropriate in pvp as well as pve. The new idea is that bleeds applied during incarnation tick twice as fast but at reduced damage per tick. I think this works as burst. Maybe I could amend it to cause all current bleeds to start ticking twice as fast as well, but I'm having a hard time comprehending all the implications in both pvp and pve.

    Perhaps it's about time thrash generates 1 cp?

    I changed the bleed duration talent to increase the duration of just rip and the rate at which it deals damage by the same amount. The intent is to fit 2 extra ticks in the same timeframe, though I can't think of a way this won't act strangely with rip extension via mangle.

    Really not sold on this one, sounds awkward and extraordinarily difficult to balance, not to mention it would be a colossal change to our playstyle/stat priority/everything else.
    Imagine ferals getting a max of 10 combo points instead of 5, and they stack on you instead of your target. How is this different from a standard rage bar? Energy sticks around, using it allows you to generate rage through formerly cp generating abilities. Things like Primal fury still apply, so a mangle, which normally applies 10 rage, instead applies 20 on a crit. Finishers scale per 10 rage in their cost, up to a maximum of 50. Other than the obvious ability to cast two finishers in a row, also added is 3 rage generated per second in combat, to count as the standard throughput of the talent.
    Clearly this adds nigh immeasurable flexibility to the spec, that may be too appealing. But I don't think it's as difficult to balance from a standard damage viewpoint at all. In PvE, likely the most far reaching of these implications is to apply a powerful rip on two targets, whereas in pvp it may be the ability to ferocious bite twice in a row. Given that pvp burst is a real danger, I think FB's standard functionality that will eat your energy, making the followerup one less strong, coupled with it being scaled around rake ticks will assure it's more like 1.5 times biggest FB.

    Your other suggestions are great, and I'm going to include them wholesale.

    A final thought, you accuse me of not considering the overall implications of all the talent choices, but I have mused over this pretty substantially, although perhaps not enough. My suggested talents offer 3 throughput tiers (coincidentally so does blizzard's) and this can get tough to balance.

    - - - Updated - - -

    When it comes to pvp, what feral is leftover with after my suggested changes for CC/stuns/interrupts:

    Cyclone
    Entangling Roots
    Nature's Grasp
    Pounce
    Skull Bash
    tier 75 talents

    versus currently we have all that plus Mighty Bash, Tier 45 talents, Maim, and Hibernate.
    Last edited by hullaballoonatic; 2014-01-23 at 10:43 AM.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    I really appreciate this criticism. I'm wondering what your overall thoughts on clearcasting is in an environment missing shred altogether barring any other changes. At the point where you're spamming mangle (sometimes applying a thrash) regardless, it just doesn't have the exciting gameplay implications anymore. Especially with its tendency to proc multiple times in quick succession and then go dead for awhile, the gameplay just isn't nearly as rewarding. Perhaps setting it to the RPPM system would somewhat alleviate this issue (unless it already is, though I feel like the tendancy for RoRO to proc multiple times in a row is far, far lower than omen of clarity).
    I completely agree. It's only really an exciting mechanic when you get it at just the right time to apply a bleed during a proc window (gone in 6.0) or when it chain procs during AoE, but neither of those are common enough or particularly compelling in the broad scope of things.

    Also, I believe it is flat chance on each auto-attack (4%?), not PPM, RPPM or ICD based. Could be mistaken.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    I changed my Incarnation suggestion. I want something that is appropriate in pvp as well as pve. The new idea is that bleeds applied during incarnation tick twice as fast but at reduced damage per tick. I think this works as burst. Maybe I could amend it to cause all current bleeds to start ticking twice as fast as well, but I'm having a hard time comprehending all the implications in both pvp and pve.
    I think that's got much fewer issues, but also depends pretty heavily on where our bleed damage lands in our breakdown in 6.0. If we're as bleed reliant as we are not that could be pretty nuts for PvP. Reducing the damage of the dots may be unnecessarily complicating things when you could just in have them tick 60% faster instead of double, I don't think having them tick a little faster and for a little less significantly reduces it's burst in PvP.

    Consider making it affect already applied DoTs only while the target is in execute range, then it would have a great synergy with (formerly) Blood in the Water, and you could have it end the accelerated ticking if the target came back out of execute range (for PvP reasons), unless new DoTs had been applied during the effect.

    As much as I like the idea though, I'm not sure the mechanic really fits the kit of the ability at all. It would make a lot more sense as a sort of a "mark" ability, kind of like the Rogue "Marked for Death" called something like Predator's Onslaught/Fury/Wrath. Or a different angle: "Relentless Assault" or a more humorous "Bleeding Frenzy".

    (can you tell I'm having fun with this? :3)

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Imagine ferals getting a max of 10 combo points instead of 5, and they stack on you instead of your target. How is this different from a standard rage bar? Energy sticks around, using it allows you to generate rage through formerly cp generating abilities. Things like Primal fury still apply, so a mangle, which normally applies 10 rage, instead applies 20 on a crit. Finishers scale per 10 rage in their cost, up to a maximum of 50. Other than the obvious ability to cast two finishers in a row, also added is 3 rage generated per second in combat, to count as the standard throughput of the talent.
    Clearly this adds nigh immeasurable flexibility to the spec, that may be too appealing. But I don't think it's as difficult to balance from a standard damage viewpoint at all. In PvE, likely the most far reaching of these implications is to apply a powerful rip on two targets, whereas in pvp it may be the ability to ferocious bite twice in a row. Given that pvp burst is a real danger, I think FB's standard functionality that will eat your energy, making the followerup one less strong, coupled with it being scaled around rake ticks will assure it's more like 1.5 times biggest FB.
    Ah so it's basically a feral version of Anticipation but with complete different distinct drawbacks. In theory it sounds alright then but I'm not sure I want copy of a rogue ability which is already a bandaid fix. And yea, PvP burst, and it would be especially ridiculous with Incarnation (Incarnation -> Rip -> Rake -> Bite).

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    A final thought, you accuse me of not considering the overall implications of all the talent choices, but I have mused over this pretty substantially, although perhaps not enough. My suggested talents offer 3 throughput tiers (coincidentally so does blizzard's) and this can get tough to balance.
    No I understand, and it's really hard to be able to comprehend how all these things fit together without being able to try them out, theorycraft them, or view them side-by-side, especially when things are predominantly imbalanced placeholder values. I didn't mean to discredit you if that's the impression you got, the thread is actually suprisingly well-constructed and thought out (if a bit long-winded, but not much you can do about that) for player feedback.
    Last edited by aggixx; 2014-01-23 at 11:13 AM.


    Druid / Demon Hunter SimulationCraft Maintainer

  11. #31
    Deleted
    So basically just lower the PvE skill cap from above average to Rogue level?

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Megamisama View Post
    So basically just lower the PvE skill cap from above average to Rogue level?
    If you read the OP carefully you'd realize he intentionally devised several mechanics that encourage a significantly increased skill cap from what Feral would be post-snapshot removal. In fact I'm really not sure which of his suggestions reduce the PvE skill cap at all aside from the ones he included that were already provided by Blizzard (*cough* passive Savage Roar *cough*) and the increased Rip duration one.
    Last edited by aggixx; 2014-01-23 at 11:17 AM.


    Druid / Demon Hunter SimulationCraft Maintainer

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Megamisama View Post
    So basically just lower the PvE skill cap from above average to Rogue level?
    Blizzard has essentially ensured this by removing dot-snapping.

    Ah so it's basically a feral version of Anticipation but with complete different distinct drawbacks.
    Well, I think it's a bit more elegant than anticipation, which seems wonky to me. The first 5 cps stack on the target, the next 5 on you for anticipation. You may recall that prior to Ghostcrawler leaving he did tweet saying something along the lines of "Maybe it's about time combo points generate on the player." My only issue with that concept is it seems not too far removed from holy power, chi, or rage at that point. I think my rage concept opens more flexibility to pvpers than it does to pvers (who rarely run into an issue of excess combo points.) Though, it would give a lot of perhaps unnecessary breathing room to the pve rotation.

    I completely agree. It's only really an exciting mechanic when you get it at just the right time to apply a bleed during a proc window (gone in 6.0) or when it chain procs during AoE, but neither of those are common enough or particularly compelling in the broad scope of things.
    So how would you change it to make it more interesting? If ravage did more damage, potentially it could be restricted in its used to only ravage, but that could just bloat the tooltip.

    As much as I like the idea though, I'm not sure the mechanic really fits the kit of the ability at all. It would make a lot more sense as a sort of a "mark" ability, kind of like the Rogue "Marked for Death" called something like "Predator's Onslaught" or "Relentless Assault" or a more humorous "Bleeding Frenzy".
    I feel like I'm restricted in my brainstorming to something that involves the incarnation cat form. Perhaps something like while it's active finishers generate 3 combo points?
    Last edited by hullaballoonatic; 2014-01-23 at 11:28 AM.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    So how would you change it to make it more interesting? If ravage did more damage, potentially it could be restricted in its used to only ravage, but that could just bloat the tooltip.
    Definitely not the cleanest solution but you could change it from making the ability free to reducing the cost by 50 or so energy. That way it keeps the opportunity cost in check between the default generator and ravage to justify it hitting abnormally harder.

    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    I feel like I'm restricted in my brainstorming to something that involves the incarnation cat form. Perhaps something like while it's active finishers generate 3 combo points?
    Personally I'm not sure I really like that mechanic in general (the current 4p is passable because it's a limited rate, but over and over I think would be kind of strange, and very against the typically slow pace that is feral), and it would be a bit uninspired as a talent I think (not that the current design is any more thought provoking). It would also cause some weird balance issues like the two talents that rely on PS procs getting much much better (and SotF if you didn't remove that).

    I guess the tricky part is that any bonus that grants increased resources (either CP or energy) risks vastly increasing the pace of the spec during the cooldown, as well causing some balance/burst issues, so it's probably best to stray away from that. I almost feel like the best way to go with it would be to give it a new, different (pseudo)passive mechanic that isn't significantly consequential to how you play during the cooldown. Something like one of these:
    - Your direct damage attacks increase the damage of your next Rip or Rake tick by 50%.
    - Your direct damage attacks cause your Rip to tick instantly for half damage.
    - Your direct damage attacks cause your bleeds to elapse 1 second of time instantly.

    The nice thing about having a benefit that triggers off direct damage attacks is it (imo) elegantly allows you to grant a benefit that is good in PvE without having to worry too much about the PvP burst implications, as you can be hard CC'ed or peeled to shut down the damage somewhat.
    Last edited by aggixx; 2014-01-23 at 11:47 AM.


    Druid / Demon Hunter SimulationCraft Maintainer

  15. #35
    Neat suggestions. Feral feels like it needs a medium length offensive cd for pvp, so they don't seem so left in the mud while they wait for berserk to come back off cooldown, and I wonder if that fits the bill.

    Also, feral pve is still really missing the ability to switch to an add that will only live ~10 seconds and deal meaningful damage to it. I was kind of hoping Incarnation could fill this role, but unfortunately anything that involves sticking rip on a target is not going to suffice. How would you solve that issue?

  16. #36
    While i dont have a huge list of ideas, things id like to see are (in no particular order)

    Bleed damage to come down as a overall % of my damage. Its like 50-60% of my total damage now while shred/mangle is something like 12% combined which feels a bit crazy.

    Rip to get the 3 extra ticks baked in as standard so i dont get that annoying bug of it randomly dropping off early.

    I actually dont mind savage roar but its so easy to maintain at moment that im not sure if its worth keeping in this current iteration

    Something to replace dot snapshoting otherwise im going to get bored playing the spec.

    I dont mind sucking at frequent switching - its a weakness and specs should have them.

    Symbiosis to get reworked or removed. (3/4 of the abilties are junk)

    This is purely a PvE viewpoint. I dont PvP
    Last edited by Makrar; 2014-01-23 at 12:24 PM.

  17. #37
    Deleted
    They should just remove the positional requirement and make Mangle a Bear-only ability. That would eliminate all of the Mangle vs. Shred nonsense and it would make both Guardian and Feral feel that much more distinct.
    I agree with this.
    Regarding AoE finishers, I never really saw the need for an AoE finisher in feral's current design -- swipe generates few combo points per energy and tab raking generates none. However, if Blizzard is planning to make rake spreading part of the AoE rotation, then I will say that having a finisher spread rake feels more appropriate than having thrash spread it. You could probably just as well have ferocious bite spread rake instead of making a specialized finisher (ignoring any believability issues with a bite having an AoE effect).
    That too.

    I'm not sure this is supposed to be in a feral wishlist, but I'll say it anyways. I hope they turn down (IMMENSELY) or just remove mindless smart healing like Nature's Vigil, Ancestral Guidance and all other smart healing really (even smite). It is not interesting in the slightest and turns healing into a mindless spam game. If all this would be turned down or removed, our Healing Touches would be a lot more warranted, and we wouldn't need talents/abilities like HotW or "that-aoe-healing-touch-idea" to compete in utility. Then again... if they would do this, I would switch to resto as soon as my guild could need a healer.

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by hullaballoonatic View Post
    Also, feral pve is still really missing the ability to switch to an add that will only live ~10 seconds and deal meaningful damage to it. I was kind of hoping Incarnation could fill this role, but unfortunately anything that involves sticking rip on a target is not going to suffice. How would you solve that issue?
    Feral is actually fairly strong at this already, mainly due to pooled energy. There's also the possibility to hold TF. The biggest problem for feral is what it costs in damage to your main target. If you burn all your energy and combo points on another target, it's going to take a while to recast rip on the main target. It should be noted that this is actually alleviated somewhat with the loss of DoT snapshotting -- now you won't have to worry about getting a proc when you're so deprived of resources. Another easy improvement would be to make rip no longer require extension. Then at least switching targets won't cause it to fall off earlier than it otherwise would.

    That said, it's far from the strongest spec at dealing with such targets and if we want to make it stronger, it might be interesting to look at a time when it was one of the strongest such specs: Dragon Soul. Back then feral charge triggered a free ravage, and due to a set bonus, tiger's fury also triggered a free ravage. On Madness of Deathwing, for example, I'd hold tiger's fury and feral charge for the corrupting parasites and then outdamage pretty much everyone on them using the two free ravages.

    So there are a few directions we might go here. One is to make it less costly to hold tiger's fury: what if tiger's fury had two charges? Could be a baseline thing or a talent. With this, you could always keep one charge pooled at no cost for use on some important add. Of course, then you have to worry about people pooling both charges and potentially doing more burst damage than intended (especially in PvP). Maybe this idea would work better with a spell that has meaningful duration so that chaining it back-to-back isn't as big of a deal, like Incarnation. That might make it too similar to force of nature, but I would really like to rework force of nature because it's not an interesting spell, being totally separable from the rest of the rotation.

    Another thought might be to make Tiger's Fury a stronger target-switching tool than it is now (like how it used to give a free ravage). Blizzard actually attempted that this tier by making Tiger's Fury put 5 combo points on your target, but that was awkward to use and their final version of the set bonus (granting combo points after the next finisher) ended up being mostly worthless for target switching. But a more general problem with making Tiger's Fury stronger is that it then becomes even more costly to hold it for a target switch.

    In that vein, I do miss having feral charge trigger a free ravage. It was nice because due to the minimum range of the ability, it was pretty much break-even to use it on a target you were already attacking -- so that meant you could always just hold it for a target switch at minimal cost. Unfortunately with feral charge being a talent, that's not something that can really be done anymore. But perhaps there is another way to accomplish something similar. Perhaps ravage could be stronger -- do more damage, or grant more combo points, or refund some of its energy cost -- when used against a target that doesn't have your rip or rake on it. (I'm tempted to say just rip because I don't want people to be afraid of spreading rake at the wrong time, but with just rip it'll be harder to keep it from being used frequently in a single-target rotation.)

  19. #39
    are you all ppl playing ferals what postion requirements you talking about?
    there common `be behind` of boss to not parry for all classes,
    Mangle is alternative to Shred to use as CP if boss is facing you, even sometimes it's valiable to use instead of Shred while behind boss.
    Revange is Steath opener aka cat's Ambush, pvp set bonus already give you ability to use it infront and out of steath, also in Incarnation it not have place in PvE target rotation due already lots abilites to use.

    for OP, you are heavy PvE orientiered player, you don't have expirience from PvP side, If you think something is not have use while fighting bosses it doesn't mean it can be delete and redesigned in your wish

  20. #40
    All positional requirements removed
    Would be nice but remove either Shred Or Mangle if that is the case. Ravage would need tweaked.
    Weapons can no longer be swapped in combat.
    The fire kitty in me says HECK No. The HOTW Progression user in me says HECK No.
    Hibernate works on all enemy types but not players or player controlled creatures.
    Could be an interesting change but meh.
    Omen of clarity reduces energy cost of next ability by 50 instead of making it free.
    Not needed.
    Ravage no longer requires stealth. Increased energy cost to 60. Costs 15 less in stealth.
    Change not needed.
    Pounce no longer requires stealth, but has a 1 minute cooldown. Bleed component removed.
    Leave pounce as is.
    Prowl now increases the damage of your next ability by 30%.
    No. Stealth on the pull for most bosses is more of a pain than an aid.
    Shred removed.
    You generally don't use it outside of Berserk for PVE anyway-just remove positional requirement and give Mangle to bear.
    Innervate removed.
    Why?
    Might of Ursoc removed.
    No this is a major emergency survival CD.
    Maim reworked - now reads: Deals y (+x%ap) damage to all enemies within 8 yards of the druid. Deals additional damage per combo point.
    Haha-No, leave it a a PVP move.
    Thrash damage reduced. Thrash now awards 1 combo point. Spreads rake to all targets affected.
    Thrash is fine as is, that is broken.
    Berserk now reduces energy cost by 40% (down from 50%) but increases damage of direct damage by 20%.
    Berserk is Fine.
    Mighty Bash removed
    No. It's actually quiet useful.
    Heart of the wild no longer increases stam, agility, and intellect by 6% at all times.
    No. I'd like some flexibility in my talents and not just DoC spam.
    Last edited by FeralSynapse; 2014-01-23 at 03:59 PM.

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