Shape shifting change... didn't see that coming!

[Ilnezhara]

I played my druid for the first time on the beta today and I have to say, WOW feral feels clunky. I've never felt anything that feels as bad as hitting my cancel form macro and having to wait 1 second before I can shift back in. They killed powershifting, the quintessential aspect of feral! It feels really bad, anyone else notice this?

[Gemini Soul]

This has been known since last year

[Masoner]

I played my druid for the first time on the beta today and I have to say, WOW feral feels clunky. I've never felt anything that feels as bad as hitting my cancel form macro and having to wait 1 second before I can shift back in. They killed powershifting, the quintessential aspect of feral! It feels really bad, anyone else notice this?

quintessential of feral...

is this 2010?

[FelPlague]

since when do druids leave their forms in combat? wut? this isent wrath of the lich king

[prwraith]

This is a pvp change. Because pvp matters....it doesn't.

[RayenDark]

I've never felt anything that feels as bad as hitting my cancel form macro and having to wait 1 second before I can shift back in.

Never mind (with required artifact trait) you get 100% dodge when you leave cat form for the duration of leaving the form (Max of about 5 seconds). You can throw a heal on yourself and be back in Cat form in a global?

One could argue that is better than powershifting....

[Cyous]

When this change went live, most players on Beta were druids (only a few available specs). No one really noticed for literally 2-3 days...literally.

[Ilnezhara]

In the 1500 bracket when people don't understand positionals 100% dodge might equate 20% damage reduction from cat form.

- - - Updated - - -

When this change went live, most players on Beta were druids (only a few available specs). No one really noticed for literally 2-3 days...literally.

There are a lot of awful druids in the world, this isn't news.

[heelflip]

Never mind (with required artifact trait) you get 100% dodge when you leave cat form for the duration of leaving the form (Max of about 5 seconds). You can throw a heal on yourself and be back in Cat form in a global?

One could argue that is better than powershifting....

For escaping maybe, but when you are trying to chase someone and another enemy is spaming hamstring on you, its clearly a nerf, an overnerf to the spec and class fantasy, druids , specially ferals, shoul be able to ignore snares and chase enemys without any difficulty.

They need to add something like "You are imune to snares for 5 sec after shapeshifting" to compensate or simply revert the change

[Divinar]

When this change went live, most players on Beta were druids (only a few available specs). No one really noticed for literally 2-3 days...literally.

Let's be quite honest here though. When this went live, most players on Beta were (and still are) dragonslayers who never set foot in the Arena. I spend 10 hours a week slaying Dragons with the best of them, but I'm also an arena junkie. This change had absolutely zero effect on PvE, but is devastating for PvP.

Pretending like it doesn't matter because people who largely play the game by facetanking mobs with no real need to be mobile. When you have to GTFO out of dodge in a raid situation, the game rarely applies a raid-wide slow.

[Az0na]

Playing feral on beta never realy felt this as an issue. Must be me

[heelflip]

Playing feral on beta never realy felt this as an issue. Must be me

Do you play pvp? you dont have any issues against a perma slow frost mage ? hamstring warriors? nothing?

[Cyous]

Let's be quite honest here though. When this went live, most players on Beta were (and still are) dragonslayers who never set foot in the Arena. I spend 10 hours a week slaying Dragons with the best of them, but I'm also an arena junkie. This change had absolutely zero effect on PvE, but is devastating for PvP.

Pretending like it doesn't matter because people who largely play the game by facetanking mobs with no real need to be mobile. When you have to GTFO out of dodge in a raid situation, the game rarely applies a raid-wide slow.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Because this happened to coincide with th e PVP Realm. And they had lots of PVPers on the PVP Realm. And these PVPers include names you would recognize.

And you're still clueless.

Here's a good tip: You can use other forms. Stop crying.

[Ilnezhara]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Because this happened to coincide with th e PVP Realm. And they had lots of PVPers on the PVP Realm. And these PVPers include names you would recognize.

And you're still clueless.

Here's a good tip: You can use other forms. Stop crying.

Cyous, you're the moonkin I respect most, y u haff to be r00d? =(

That being said, my appreciation of your contributions to the druid community aside, please take a moment to appreciate a thought out response without disdain.

I've either been Duelist or Gladiator on feral for every season between 8 and WoD so, while I'm not the best, I do have some notion of feral PvP. This change is absolutely disastrous. You are correct, you can cat-bear-cat but with the global CD, this just isn't enough. Give you an example, a warrior spamming hamstring on you to keep you off their healer used to be non-sense, now it's highly effective.

But Nez, it's good for ferals to have counters! If they don't they're overpowered. Agree, whole heartedly I do agree. That being said we already have more counters than average. Between our extremely low survivability, our being the only melee who has to cast a spell to apply effective crowd control, the fact that out bleeds are suffering incessant nerfing... there is a lot to not like about the direction they've taken with ferals in this expansion.

I also find it a little hard to see how it took top tier PvP'ers days to notice it. I literally realized it five minutes in while setting my buttons up (I usually run around powershifting for fun, to be fair!)

To put it in the balance perspective, the weakness of Balance PvP is its heavy reliance on casting, this change is tantamount to removing Owlkin Frenzy.

The overall ramifications of this change will be the utter invalidation of feral in PvP. Especially with how good Rogue bleeds are presently on the PTR, there is no niche for ferals in their current state. Rogues do more damage, Rogues have more mobility, every other melee has better survivability.

Given how tightly our damage, survivability (able to kite) and utility is tied to movement, this is the silent but deadly straw that broke the cammel's back for feral. After a WoD of us being way too strong, it's time for me to decide if I want to still play a druid that has been my main for 9 years or reroll to something that can actually be fun in both PvE and PvP.

[Spl4sh3r]

I don't see why anyone think it is anything other than a balancing change. Why should Ferals be immune to slowing effects? Which they basically are if you keep allowing powershifting as you put it

[Twistedelmo]

Goodbye
'/cast !travelform'

It was a great macro to have playing a druid... however playing against one with it was annoying.

[Ilnezhara]

I don't see why anyone think it is anything other than a balancing change. Why should Ferals be immune to slowing effects? Which they basically are if you keep allowing powershifting as you put it

Because we die when a rogue looks at us funny.

[Divinar]

I realize I'm not one of the cool kids here with an ancient forum account and thousands of posts. I've been an MMO Champion reader for as long as it's existed, and started WoW in 2004 like I'm sure some of you have.

i.imgur.com/etyoEdf.png

That doesn't automatically make me more knowledgeable than any given poster here, but I'm hardly clueless.

Powershifting is an exceedingly important part of both the Resto and Feral arena toolkit, and losing it is an absolute travesty. For someone as seemingly "with it" as Cyous to spout off on how top PvPers "literally didn't even notice for 2-3 days" is the height of absurdity. I guarantee you that any Feral above 1300 live rating and any druid who has ever played an arena game against a melee class prior to logging into the beta knew about the loss of powershifting immediately. It's something that is performed dozens upon dozens of times in just about every single game.

[xhisors]

This is a pvp change. Because pvp matters....it doesn't.

This post makes me so sad.... because blizz makes it true.... /cry

[Cyous]

I've either been Duelist or Gladiator on feral for every season between 8 and WoD so, while I'm not the best, I do have some notion of feral PvP. This change is absolutely disastrous. You are correct, you can cat-bear-cat but with the global CD, this just isn't enough. Give you an example, a warrior spamming hamstring on you to keep you off their healer used to be non-sense, now it's highly effective.

But Nez, it's good for ferals to have counters! If they don't they're overpowered. Agree, whole heartedly I do agree. That being said we already have more counters than average. Between our extremely low survivability, our being the only melee who has to cast a spell to apply effective crowd control, the fact that out bleeds are suffering incessant nerfing... there is a lot to not like about the direction they've taken with ferals in this expansion.

I also find it a little hard to see how it took top tier PvP'ers days to notice it. I literally realized it five minutes in while setting my buttons up (I usually run around powershifting for fun, to be fair!)

To put it in the balance perspective, the weakness of Balance PvP is its heavy reliance on casting, this change is tantamount to removing Owlkin Frenzy.

The overall ramifications of this change will be the utter invalidation of feral in PvP. Especially with how good Rogue bleeds are presently on the PTR, there is no niche for ferals in their current state. Rogues do more damage, Rogues have more mobility, every other melee has better survivability.

Given how tightly our damage, survivability (able to kite) and utility is tied to movement, this is the silent but deadly straw that broke the cammel's back for feral. After a WoD of us being way too strong, it's time for me to decide if I want to still play a druid that has been my main for 9 years or reroll to something that can actually be fun in both PvE and PvP.

Is there some way you can keep the healer from moving, perhaps a Bear Form Wild Charge?

Damage model aside, there are options available. Not a case of a Rock, Paper, Scissors nerf, but consider that spammable slows should have been mostly removed. I would still suggest looking for ways to cover your weaknesses.

You could have noticed it more due to the "puff of smoke" changing to a different spell texture (the purplish fade-in) -- it was still the same puff of smoke at the time. Not an excuse, but it really did a while for people to actually realize what's going on.

FWIW, PVP hasnt been tuned yet. We should be seeing PVP mods sooner rather than later.