Feral WoD wishlist

[hullaballoonatic]

it's 30 sec, cd with stacking readiness it would bring it maybe to the point of current AoC trinket about 20sec, and if it would have 2 charges, so u have to press it each 10 sec,
it's going to be another SR to maintain
and kittens gonna choke from it's energy gain

You wouldn't press it every 10 seconds. Bringing the ability down from 30 seconds to 20 seconds would probably require a metric fuck-ton of readiness, but I'll assume that condition anyways. You would press tiger's fury twice at the start, and then once every 20 seconds from there on out. Stacks in wow do not recharge together, but one at a time.

[Zstr]

You cannot possibly be accusing the Feral rotation of simply being 5 gcds -> finisher -> repeat. Are you constantly running circles around the bosses? That's the only way I can think shred vs mangle being semi-compelling gameplay.

that how it going to look from you PoV, simplified rotation...
running circles around boss, to what you have said this?
I see you don't either know CP builder usage, and ferals is probably your alt that you start recently playing and have problems with positioning and other stuff and you trying to rebuild it for yourself

[aggixx]

Yeah I really do miss feral charge giving a free ravage. I loved that part although cata felt dull as feral.

After a nights worth of raiding I have one more thing for this wishlist: Change the goddamn Savage Roar sound. Oh my god it sounds horrible, especially how we often "spam" savage roar pre pull. So annoying.

Aww, but it's so great for annoying people when you play with your game sound off.

And what hulla said, not only would 50% readiness not be achievable for a while into the expansion, if ever, adding charges doesn't change how often you use the ability.

[Zstr]

You wouldn't press it every 10 seconds. Bringing the ability down from 30 seconds to 20 seconds would probably require a metric fuck-ton of readiness, but I'll assume that condition anyways. You would press tiger's fury twice at the start, and then once every 20 seconds from there on out. Stacks in wow do not recharge together, but one at a time.

why I should waste a 2nd stack when I get buffed bleeds from first and energy capped

[hullaballoonatic]

why I should waste a 2nd stack when I get buffed bleeds from first and energy capped

not necessarily at the start. the point is what aggixx said stands. adding an extra charge only gives you a grand total of one additional tiger's fury over the course of a fight, not twice as many.

[Aseyhe]

Yes, very interesting. Would this be appropriately tweaked by bumping it to 80 energy with a refund of 20 to bring it to 60? Then for a simple CPpE standpoint spamming a mangle at 35 energy for a chance at 2 cps is better than spamming Ravage at 60 with a guaranteed 2.

At 80 energy it could still be worth using ravage at lower gear levels, but it'd be more of a situational energy dump (competing with ferocious bite) rather than a CP builder competing with mangle/shred. 80 energy also completely kills ravage's viability below 80% (at 60 energy it at least beats mangle/shred in damage per energy; at 80 energy it does not).

Anyway, the specific numbers aren't as important as the idea. Should ravage be a viable CP builder above 80%? Or should it just be a situational energy dump? Below 80%, should it be viable at all outside of clearcasting?

I will say that I like having ravage as a viable energy dump (at all health levels) for two reasons. First, this would mean that you could then use it to avoid energy capping during berserk. This would mean, in turn, that berserk can be safely be left as it is: 50% energy reduction, no damage increase. The second reason is to preserve some of the mangle/shred/thrash gameplay: you'd be able to use ravage to dump energy if you don't anticipate being able to fit a 5-point ferocious bite before your next rip/roar refresh.

I'm also kind of afraid to let players cast an ability that costs 80 energy. That's very expensive and could serve as a trap for new players. If you're going this route, maybe it's better to not allow ravage to be cast at all except at specific times (like clearcasts or high health). My concern may be entirely unfounded though.

Also, it would be confusing to have ravage do one thing above 90% and another thing above 80%. If you add another feature to the ability at high health levels, it should also take effect above 80%. Alternatively, we could just as well take away the increased crit chance above 80%, in preference for whatever other effect we are looking to add.

[raffy]

Lots of interesting comments and ideas in this thread.

As many people have mentioned, I also liked free Ravage on Feral Charge, and I dislike the current Wild Charge talent. IMO, Feral plays terribly w/o Wild Charge. I wish this talent was restored to Guardian/Feral baseline and our "movement" tier was reworked.

I'm also a fan of turning single-use/single-cooldown abilities (ie. the typical DPS cooldown) into a charge-based cooldown. It encourages more optimal usage of cooldowns and doesn't penalize you for aligning to variable fight mechanics.

I like the idea of giving Berserk a damage modifier, but a 2-charge 90sec-regen Berserk (with shorter duration) is also very appealing.

I don't like having Mangle/Shred/Ravage -- three abilities that do the exact same thing but with different damage numbers and prerequisites.

I miss having that extra energy ceiling during TF.

HotW (temporary role swapping, not the 6% stats) is an awesome druid ability. I wish all druids got a weaker form of HotW baseline as their 87 ability (replacing Symbiosis.)

While it doesn't jive with our Mastery, I like the idea of shorter-duration bleeds and having somewhat relevant direct damage. Maybe 100% Rip uptime shouldn't be necessary?

I think Blizzard should just abandon instant direct-damage finishers (FB/Evis/Env.) There's no good way to balance them without it being OP in PvP or terrible in PvE (see: combos bound to target, Redirect on GCD, etc.) Instead, finishers should be about future planning: SR (maintenance damage buff), Rip (I'm staying on the same target), Maim (I need to control my target), etc. Rip should be changed to variable duration, same damage (rather than variable damage, same duration) so it's usable at any combo level, like Maim and SR. Lastly, FB should be redesigned to give you charges, that are consumed on bleed ticks, which amplify their damage.

QoL stuff:
Roots, Hibernate, Soothe, Rebirth should be castable in form.
Moonfire/Faerie Fire could be condensed.
Dash duration/cooldown are too long.

[hullaballoonatic]

I feel like there is a sweet spot for ravage damage and energy cost so I could be useful as an energy dump, clear casting choice, berserk ability of choice, and sparse but intelligent cp builder. I just am having trouble thinking up the conditions to allow this.

[aggixx]

Rip should be changed to variable duration, same damage (rather than variable damage, same duration) so it's usable at any combo level, like Maim and SR. Lastly, FB should be redesigned to give you charges, that are consumed on bleed ticks, which amplify their damage.

I've thought about bleed ticks increasing the damage of FB quite a bit, but never the other way around. That does sound like a good change (and less boring).

Not sure about changing Rip into Rupture, that's part of what makes it distinctly one of the most skill-based DoTs in the game to maintain. Changing it would basically make it Savage Roar, where people who have a firm grasp of how the spec works would have it up all the time, and people that don't wouldn't. It would be far more black and white of a distinction than it is now.

[Blur4stuff]

combo points on character

[hullaballoonatic]

What if feral charge went back to the way it was and the talent got replaced with the locust leap ability in the dread wastes or something? I'm not really intrigued by such an idea though. It seems outside the realm of possibility that blizzard would revert wild charge.

Also if you haven't checked the OP in a whole it might be worthwhile toward your continued thoughts.

[aggixx]

I will say that I like having ravage as a viable energy dump (at all health levels) for two reasons. First, this would mean that you could then use it to avoid energy capping during berserk. This would mean, in turn, that berserk can be safely be left as it is: 50% energy reduction, no damage increase. The second reason is to preserve some of the mangle/shred/thrash gameplay: you'd be able to use ravage to dump energy if you don't anticipate being able to fit a 5-point ferocious bite before your next rip/roar refresh.

I would think it would also significantly increases our burst ability against very short lived targets. Pool -> Swap -> Ravage x2 (cheap from 80%+) -> TF -> Ravage -> FB = pretty respectable burst in a couple globals without any bleeds at all.

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I feel like there is a sweet spot for ravage damage and energy cost so I could be useful as an energy dump, clear casting choice, berserk ability of choice, and sparse but intelligent cp builder. I just am having trouble thinking up the conditions to allow this.

Agree, although I think finding those values via napkin math would prove difficult. Probably not too bad with simulation and maybe a little hands-on testing.

[Deleted]

that how it going to look from you PoV, simplified rotation...
running circles around boss, to what you have said this?
I see you don't either know CP builder usage, and ferals is probably your alt that you start recently playing and have problems with positioning and other stuff and you trying to rebuild it for yourself

Hey now, is that really necessary? Everyone who has replied to your posts here has done so with consideration and respect, even though we don't agree with you.

Yeah I really do miss feral charge giving a free ravage. I loved that part although cata felt dull as feral.

Yeah, I miss it too. Don't know what you have until it's gone, or so the saying goes. I kinda feel like the solution to target switching issued lies in a simpler solution like this. I'd rather not see us go overboard on the switching aides - It's easy to fall into a trap of wanting all of your weaknesses fixed, but don't forget that weaknesses define specs as much as strengths do. Planning and optimizing to do well despite your weaknesses is an interesting meta-game.

I like the idea of TF charges, but on a larger scale, I start to wonder if it possible to have too many 'charged' abilities in the game. They've kinda been Blizzards favourite toy this expansion.

I feel like there is a sweet spot for ravage damage and energy cost so I could be useful as an energy dump, clear casting choice, berserk ability of choice, and sparse but intelligent cp builder. I just am having trouble thinking up the conditions to allow this.

Give it a short cooldown (~15s), have some sort of proc mechanic to reset the cooldown. Essentially the same as Ret's Art of War. Proc could be guaranteed on 5cp finisher or flat chance on bleed tick. Give it a fairly high energy cost (45-55) and a fairly high DPE. During Berserk, remove the cooldown (similar to Bear Berzerk).

Just an idea, not sure if I like it or not.

[hullaballoonatic]

I've thought about bleed ticks increasing the damage of FB quite a bit, but never the other way around. That does sound like a good change (and less boring).

Can you expand your idea for how this would work?

Also giving ravage a cool down seems to be overboard considering the role of energy.

[aggixx]

I like the idea of giving Berserk a damage modifier, but a 2-charge 90sec-regen Berserk (with shorter duration) is also very appealing.

From a gameplay perspective I think 2 charge TF makes a lot of sense, but not really sure on adding charges to Berserk too. Having some rigidity and planning in cooldown usage is good, being able to pull burst out of your ass anytime you want just by sitting on 1 charge of each seems a bit much, especially for PvP.

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Can you expand your idea for how this would work?

Well raffy suggested it first, but something like "Your next x ticks of Rip or Rake deal y% additional damage." (edit: this would be an effect of FB, if that wasn't super clear) where x would be some value, probably the # of CP spent, and y would be something like 20-50%. Maybe just have it affect Rip to discourage microing the effect favorably, not sure if that would be an issue or not (would also reduce burst).

Also not sure if the buff would stack beyond 5 so you wouldn't have to worry about casting 2 FBs to quickly, or if you would just cap it at 5 and let the players deal with clipping stacks for skill incentives. Either would be fine I guess.

Would definitely be a good way to make FB have a high dmg/CP without making it completely broken in PvP, as a significant chunk of the damage would be spread out over time following the bite.

Edit: I guess maybe the simpler way would just have FB apply a debuff that makes your bleeds tick for x% more damage, duration being based on the number of CP spent. Removes some complications that way I think. You could make the kit of the ability be that the Ferocious Bite causes the targets wounds to fester, increasing their effectiveness.

[raffy]

I agree on the skill/timing involved with getting a proper Rip off, but the choice is pretty binary: 5-pointer or bust, only rarely apply a 4cp Rip.

My crazy idea only makes sense if you reconsider the purpose of finishers: how do I want to increase my damage in the future?

Instead of thinking about Rip as something you maintain, think about it as a way to get additional damage in the form of a bleed (like a single-target SR, but more efficient, that scales with mastery and can be snapshot)
FB would be a way to amplify any existing/new bleed damage (short duration)
SR would be a way to increase all future damage (long duration)

Rip could be 1 tick per combo, and instead of Rip overwriting, a new Rip would add simply add snapshot ticks to your existing pile of Rip ticks.

BitW could be: each time you apply more Rip ticks (<25%), you get the FB effect for free (since the extension mechanic is built-in to Rip by default) resulting increased Bleed damage during execute.

[aggixx]

Rip could be 1 tick per combo, and instead of Rip overwriting, a new Rip would add simply add snapshot ticks to your existing pile of Rip ticks.

BitW could be: each time you apply more Rip ticks (<25%), you get the FB effect for free (since the extension mechanic is built-in to Rip by default) resulting increased Bleed damage during execute.

I'm not sure that would be terribly compelling, especially if it didn't have a somewhat restrictive duration cap. Wouldn't it just boil down to:

1. Maintain SR like live (or don't if you take the passive talent).
2. Ferocious Bite if Rip has more than x seconds left (whatever is found to be optimal).
3. ~3 CP+ Rip to apply it if it's down, 5 CP Rip to stack more ticks if it's already up.

Also keep in mind there's no reason to cling to ticks in 6.0, you can have it be seconds per combo point with the new DoT mechanics. Celestalon stated that DoT extensions will be handled by seconds, not ticks and the same presumably applies to DoTs as a whole.

[raffy]

Yeah, that's probably true. Just brainstorming I wonder if Rip random-extension bug will be fixed...

[aggixx]

I would honestly be shocked and a little appalled if it wasn't.

[Aseyhe]

Symbiosis was briefly mentioned above and I just want to make a quick remark. I know a lot of people don't like it, but the sorts of immunity abilities it provides -- dispersion, divine shield, ice block, deterrence, cloak of shadows -- have become really important in the raid composition metagame, and it would be a pretty serious blow to druid viability on a variety of fights if symbiosis were to be removed.

Holinka made a tweet saying that they're changing it to provide mostly defensive cooldowns, and that seems like a reasonable way to handle the ability. It will still provide the needed defensive utility, but it will be less important to have a particular class for symbiosis, since the abilities provided will be more similar.