Competing with other melee classes in Legion

[Ontis]

TL : DR > Rant post. Move along, nothing to do here.


So yeah. Legion.
I knew I should've abandoned my old main. I knew it. I flippin' knew it.
Yet couldn't suppress my old habits.

I did a small 'test-drive' on various other melee classes, namely their rotations vs single target encounters. I was, frankly speaking, quite displeased with the outcome.
Rogues: 3-4 key abilities. A few cooldowns.
DKs: 2-3 key abilities, one spender. No fillers (they roll with their runes, duh). Several bursty cooldowns.
Hunters: 3-4 key abilites. Spammable filler.
DHs: *facepaw*
Warriors: 2-3 key abilities. No fillers. They either have to wait for their rage to stack up (fury), or they cannot think of a way to dump it (arms). Oh the irony. Also, several cooldowns to poke.
I skipped paladins and enhshammies. I will never do monks (due to certain bit of OVERWHELMING HATRED towards the failed addon of 5.x) so I cannot comment on their rotations.

And then there's cat. 8 key abilities for single target plus 1 extra (you WILL want to dump your Omen procs into single-target Thrash eventually).
But hey, lets be 'fair'. 8 key abilities. 8 as in eight.
Lets not forget about the outright retarded (yes I said retarded) mechanics of Bloodtalons. Whoever 'designed' this one must be flayed alive. With paws. And salt. A lot of salt.

Now lets get back to other classes:
Rogues: majority of damage is instant ability damage (unless you're Sin, but then you're missing the fancy Outlaw spec).
DKs: majority of damage is instant. DoTs can be applied/REapplied ridiculously easy.
Hunters: do they even have any DoTs these days?
DHs: ._.
Warriors: some abilities proc DoTs. Still, instant damage skills prevail in their rotation.
Paladins, Shammies, Pandacrap: no idea.

Back to cat now.
60-65% of our damage are DoTs. I kid you not. Go poke a dummy or something. I scored 61.7% DoTs in KotJ build and 65.8% DoTs in SR build.
Why am I bringing this up?
Reason is simple: until these fancy raids kick in, we're condemned to 5ppl runs. And outright majority of encounters in these dungeons does NOT favor Feral druid. Enemies just keep dying without our DoTs dealing half the damage they're supposed to. Suramar dungeons are even worse so.

And then there's a matter of AOE.
We have none.

Seriously. Would someone please be so kind to point me at the man who thought that granting nearly ALL classes (including DHs who ALREADY had OP AOE) artifact AOE-abilities was a good idea, but refused to give us cats one?! We, who are unable to outperform TANKS on this matter, much less to compete with firemages, DHs and DKs, are graced with a SINGLE TARGET DOT. With a cooldown of 90 seconds to boot.



Speaking of dummies. After I scored 229k dps against raiding dummy (KotJ build, six minutes of poking) and 246k dps shortly afterwards (SR build, six minutes) I asked my guildmate DH to do the same and forward me his stats. Given that we had nearly the same gear quality (849 DH vs 848 Cat), I expected him to be slighty behind on a single target dummy. That was before he Skype-shared his screen and began poking that dummy.
Steady 255-262k dps vs single target. No cleaves. No glaive bounces. No AOE abilities whatsoever.
And no DoTs, except for the glaive throw proc. All the damage DH does is instantaneous.
So yes, he outperformed me on a single target DPS run. Need I remind you ladies and gentlemen that these derps outrank everyone else by FAR when it comes to cleave or full-scale AOE encounters?

I don't get it. Can someone please enlighten me? I merely want to know what the actual flock Billzord had been doing with their fancy Alpha and Beta tests that ended up putting Cat spec druids into this state?
I am unwanted in 5ppl runs. I won't be wanted in these two new raids, too many cleave encounters. For me, the one who had been raiding in hardcore mode for several years (TLK, Cata, early pandacrap), this is practically a spit to the face. All these 'realm firsts' I scored feel worthless these days.
Why can't we have nice things?

[Tradu]

We have higher sustained ST DPS than most of the others you listed(warrior and rogue being the 2 closest to us) and very good 2-3 target cleave. We have "okay" burst AoE in the form of Brutal Slash. You doing less DPS than your Havoc buddy probably just shows that he has better trinkets/relics and/or is just plain better at the game.
Feral is in a better state than it has been in a very long time. Wait and see how raids play out, because obviously very burst AoE heavy specs are going to absolutely dominate 5mans.

[Ontis]

Brutal slash is in the same tier as Bloodtalons. Oh and thank you for this reminder. 8 total key abilities for cat, not 7. My bad. Will fix that.
Brutal slash has ridiculous cooldown. It cannot be used the way other classes use their tier 6-7 abilities. While mages can roflmaolivingbomb the crap out of all enemies, DKs can outright destroy them with DoT alone and DHs are, well, DHs, Cats are unable to do anything. Yeah fine, we can perform three decent cleaves. Then what? No charges, no AOE. DHs are guffawing out loud watching us struggle.
You also missed the point of my post. I want to know why are we condemned to this preposterous 'rotation' of eight key abilities total while ALL OTHER CLASSES have their rotations oversimplified already? Why weren't we graced with an AOE artifact ability? Why all the hate?
And... you DO realize that there are NO Patchwerk-class bosses in this game anymore, right?

[Nuziatella]

I completely agree with your rant up to the point of single target damage. I've never been out dps'd by any class single target. So going to agree with the guy above me. He has either better relics/trinket procs or is a better player. For feral make sure you are only using Rip % and rake % increase relics. All other relics are dps loss regardless of ilvl.

Also, ferals don't get blessed with any AOE as you'll melt kill targets in AOE and a properly played feral doesn't get beat single target. After I get home from work I'll respond to this post with a video of my target dummy 5 mins sim. I pull 290k+ without even using savage roar or bloodtalons. (I prefer the incarn+bs build)

Character name on live: Nuzi - Proudmoore

[Ontis]

I completely agree with your rant up to the point of single target damage. I've never been out dps'd by any class single target. So going to agree with the guy above me. He has either better relics/trinket procs or is a better player. For feral make sure you are only using Rip % and rake % increase relics. All other relics are dps loss regardless of ilvl.

I wish RNGeezus would throw me some decent relics.

with a video of my target dummy 5 mins sim. I pull 290k+ without even using savage roar or bloodtalons

For the bloody sake of my sanity, please do. Perhaps I am doing something awfully wrong, but I fail to find out what could it be.

[Tradu]

Brutal slash is in the same tier as Bloodtalons. Oh and thank you for this reminder. 8 total key abilities for cat, not 7. My bad. Will fix that.
Brutal slash has ridiculous cooldown. It cannot be used the way other classes use their tier 6-7 abilities. While mages can roflmaolivingbomb the crap out of all enemies, DKs can outright destroy them with DoT alone and DHs are, well, DHs, Cats are unable to do anything. Yeah fine, we can perform three decent cleaves. Then what? No charges, no AOE. DHs are guffawing out loud watching us struggle.
You also missed the point of my post. I want to know why are we condemned to this preposterous 'rotation' of eight key abilities total while ALL OTHER CLASSES have their rotations oversimplified already? Why weren't we graced with an AOE artifact ability? Why all the hate?
And... you DO realize that there are NO Patchwerk-class bosses in this game anymore, right?

Then go play another class if you suddenly realized that having a lot of buttons isn't for you anymore. There's clearly a lot of other options.
And you're too focused on 5mans on low difficulties. In raids, BrS is what you'll pick for something like imps on Mannoroth, stuff that lines up reasonably well with the CD. Will you be top on the adds? Unlikely, but you'll still do very respectable ST DPS on top of what you did to the adds. In higher mythic+ levels trash doesn't just get pulled in huge piles and burst AoE'd down, meaning Feral does better(due to longer lived, lower amount of targets).
I'll give you the artifact ability, it's definitely one of the worst/least powerful/least interesting ones out there. And just because no pure Patchwerk bosses exist doesn't mean having very high ST DPS isn't a valuable contribution.
And what does the number of the talent row have to do with anything? Different classes have different stuff in their talent rows, they're not all set up in the same way.

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I completely agree with your rant up to the point of single target damage. I've never been out dps'd by any class single target. So going to agree with the guy above me. He has either better relics/trinket procs or is a better player. For feral make sure you are only using Rip % and rake % increase relics. All other relics are dps loss regardless of ilvl.

Also, ferals don't get blessed with any AOE as you'll melt kill targets in AOE and a properly played feral doesn't get beat single target. After I get home from work I'll respond to this post with a video of my target dummy 5 mins sim. I pull 290k+ without even using savage roar or bloodtalons. (I prefer the incarn+bs build)

Character name on live: Nuzi - Proudmoore

This is not true. Rip is definitely the best relic type, but Rake is on a tier below that(along with TF), and after that it doesn't suddenly go from Rake to "worthless". Yes, a relic having Rip on it does make it better than higher ilevel ones(up to a point), but once again, that doesn't mean the other relics are suddenly completely trash, you always need to compare the trait and ilevel, and then consider which to use based on that.

[Ontis]

Then go play another class if you suddenly realized that having a lot of buttons isn't for you anymore.

"A lot of buttons" is fine. "A lot of buttons" in a retarded skillset is not.
SR went from 42s duration to 24s duration while at the same time its cost has been nearly doubled. This is the worst part of it. You simply can't fit it properly these days.

[Tradu]

"A lot of buttons" is fine. "A lot of buttons" in a retarded skillset is not.
SR went from 42s duration to 24s duration while at the same time its cost has been nearly doubled. This is the worst part of it. You simply can't fit it properly these days.

You definitely can fit it properly, and the old duration was way too long(especially coupled with Incarnation), it had to be reduced(although maybe not as drastically)
And once again, this is nothing new, Feral has not changed much, so if you already hated the skillset before, why were you even playing the spec?

[Sixy]

TL : DR > Rant post. Move along, nothing to do here.


So yeah. Legion.
I knew I should've abandoned my old main. I knew it. I flippin' knew it.
Yet couldn't suppress my old habits.

I did a small 'test-drive' on various other melee classes, namely their rotations vs single target encounters. I was, frankly speaking, quite displeased with the outcome.
Rogues: 3-4 key abilities. A few cooldowns.
DKs: 2-3 key abilities, one spender. No fillers (they roll with their runes, duh). Several bursty cooldowns.
Hunters: 3-4 key abilites. Spammable filler.
DHs: *facepaw*
Warriors: 2-3 key abilities. No fillers. They either have to wait for their rage to stack up (fury), or they cannot think of a way to dump it (arms). Oh the irony. Also, several cooldowns to poke.
I skipped paladins and enhshammies. I will never do monks (due to certain bit of OVERWHELMING HATRED towards the failed addon of 5.x) so I cannot comment on their rotations.

And then there's cat. 8 key abilities for single target plus 1 extra (you WILL want to dump your Omen procs into single-target Thrash eventually).
But hey, lets be 'fair'. 8 key abilities. 8 as in eight.
Lets not forget about the outright retarded (yes I said retarded) mechanics of Bloodtalons. Whoever 'designed' this one must be flayed alive. With paws. And salt. A lot of salt.

Now lets get back to other classes:
Rogues: majority of damage is instant ability damage (unless you're Sin, but then you're missing the fancy Outlaw spec).
DKs: majority of damage is instant. DoTs can be applied/REapplied ridiculously easy.
Hunters: do they even have any DoTs these days?
DHs: ._.
Warriors: some abilities proc DoTs. Still, instant damage skills prevail in their rotation.
Paladins, Shammies, Pandacrap: no idea.

Back to cat now.
60-65% of our damage are DoTs. I kid you not. Go poke a dummy or something. I scored 61.7% DoTs in KotJ build and 65.8% DoTs in SR build.
Why am I bringing this up?
Reason is simple: until these fancy raids kick in, we're condemned to 5ppl runs. And outright majority of encounters in these dungeons does NOT favor Feral druid. Enemies just keep dying without our DoTs dealing half the damage they're supposed to. Suramar dungeons are even worse so.

And then there's a matter of AOE.
We have none.

Seriously. Would someone please be so kind to point me at the man who thought that granting nearly ALL classes (including DHs who ALREADY had OP AOE) artifact AOE-abilities was a good idea, but refused to give us cats one?! We, who are unable to outperform TANKS on this matter, much less to compete with firemages, DHs and DKs, are graced with a SINGLE TARGET DOT. With a cooldown of 90 seconds to boot.



Speaking of dummies. After I scored 229k dps against raiding dummy (KotJ build, six minutes of poking) and 246k dps shortly afterwards (SR build, six minutes) I asked my guildmate DH to do the same and forward me his stats. Given that we had nearly the same gear quality (849 DH vs 848 Cat), I expected him to be slighty behind on a single target dummy. That was before he Skype-shared his screen and began poking that dummy.
Steady 255-262k dps vs single target. No cleaves. No glaive bounces. No AOE abilities whatsoever.
And no DoTs, except for the glaive throw proc. All the damage DH does is instantaneous.
So yes, he outperformed me on a single target DPS run. Need I remind you ladies and gentlemen that these derps outrank everyone else by FAR when it comes to cleave or full-scale AOE encounters?

I don't get it. Can someone please enlighten me? I merely want to know what the actual flock Billzord had been doing with their fancy Alpha and Beta tests that ended up putting Cat spec druids into this state?
I am unwanted in 5ppl runs. I won't be wanted in these two new raids, too many cleave encounters. For me, the one who had been raiding in hardcore mode for several years (TLK, Cata, early pandacrap), this is practically a spit to the face. All these 'realm firsts' I scored feel worthless these days.
Why can't we have nice things?

Monks have 7 key abilities for single target plus an eighth added in for 2 or more targets. We also have to weave abilities for our mastery + combo strikes and constantly plan 8-10 seconds ahead or more with our chi.
Not complaining at all (I love it), just pointing out that there is another class with alot of buttons to manage.

[Ontis]

You definitely can fit it properly, and the old duration was way too long(especially coupled with Incarnation), it had to be reduced(although maybe not as drastically)
And once again, this is nothing new, Feral has not changed much, so if you already hated the skillset before, why were you even playing the spec?

Alright, I give up. You're either trolling or trolling me right now. Or both, for that matter.
Old rotation was fine. It was fun. It was something that kept me alive without falling asleep @ 2AM during the 206th wipe on Yogg-Saron +0. It was something that differed us from all other classes. But now its not 'different', its 'messed up and retarded' (and most definitely NOT 'fun'). With current skill durations we constantly suffer from the lack of CP, lack of energy or lack of SR duration. And don't even start with all that fancy "lmao 7.3 gear will feex eet".
I merely want Billzord to roll back these changes that were utterly illogical. Feral cat is already complicated enough as it is. There is no need to bullshit this class even further, especially with the constant casualization of all other classes.

[Nuziatella]

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This is not true. Rip is definitely the best relic type, but Rake is on a tier below that(along with TF), and after that it doesn't suddenly go from Rake to "worthless". Yes, a relic having Rip on it does make it better than higher ilevel ones(up to a point), but once again, that doesn't mean the other relics are suddenly completely trash, you always need to compare the trait and ilevel, and then consider which to use based on that.

TL;DR Relics tier list - Rip > Rake > Tigers Fury =/> Trash relics

Your statement is untrue. I've had all 850 relics in my weapons for purely the boost in stats/ilvl and had a significant decrease in DPS. The relics were the mythic feral instincts, rip, and healing touch. When I realized the sudden drop in dmg, I'm not sure in exact percentages but in the first boss of HoV mythic I went from 260k+ sustained dps (835 rip relic, 830 rip relic, 840 rake relic) to 200K +/- sustained (850 mythic relics stated above), I went and farmed heroics until I got my 2 relics back. I first replaced the 850 feral with an 840 rake relic which that alone netted me back about a chunk of my dps then replaced with the healing touch with an 840 rip relic and my dps returned to its normal amount.

Rip and Rake dmg is the key component to our dmg outside of ashamanes frenzy. Any item that increases their dmg is superior by a significant margin. To save myself the effort I highly suggest you runs sims and it will in fact prove that Rake and Rip relics are superior to all other relics.

[Sprucelee]

John fucking madden. Nothing changed.

[Tradu]

Alright, I give up. You're either trolling or trolling me right now. Or both, for that matter.
Old rotation was fine. It was fun. It was something that kept me alive without falling asleep @ 2AM during the 206th wipe on Yogg-Saron +0. It was something that differed us from all other classes. But now its not 'different', its 'messed up and retarded' (and most definitely NOT 'fun'). With current skill durations we constantly suffer from the lack of CP, lack of energy or lack of SR duration. And don't even start with all that fancy "lmao 7.3 gear will feex eet".
I merely want Billzord to roll back these changes that were utterly illogical. Feral cat is already complicated enough as it is. There is no need to bullshit this class even further, especially with the constant casualization of all other classes.

Back in Wrath there was even more shit you had to pay attention to, if anything, so I'm not sure how it's suddenly gotten worse. Legion barely changed anything other than reducing SR duration(necessary change) and adding JW(which allows using stronger abilities more frequently, which is good)

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TL;DR Relics tier list - Rip > Rake > Tigers Fury =/> Trash relics

Your statement is untrue. I've had all 850 relics in my weapons for purely the boost in stats/ilvl and had a significant decrease in DPS. The relics were the mythic feral instincts, rip, and healing touch. When I realized the sudden drop in dmg, I'm not sure in exact percentages but in the first boss of HoV mythic I went from 260k+ sustained dps (835 rip relic, 830 rip relic, 840 rake relic) to 200K +/- sustained (850 mythic relics stated above), I went and farmed heroics until I got my 2 relics back. I first replaced the 850 feral with an 840 rake relic which that alone netted me back about a chunk of my dps then replaced with the healing touch with an 840 rip relic and my dps returned to its normal amount.

Rip and Rake dmg is the key component to our dmg outside of ashamanes frenzy. Any item that increases their dmg is superior by a significant margin. To save myself the effort I highly suggest you runs sims and it will in fact prove that Rake and Rip relics are superior to all other relics.

Rake is only very slightly better than TF, below that there's Berserk and Shred(about even), Swipe and FB below that(with Swipe being good on AoE and FB being generally pretty bad), and below that there's the 2 where the trait has no DPS impact.
As a rule of thumb, add 25 to the ilevel of the relic if it has Rip, 15 for Rake or TF, 5 for Berserk or Shred and nothing for the others(except Swipe specifically on AoE, where it'd slot in just above Berserk and Shred)
Notice how ilevel clearly isn't irrelevant. Some traits do make the relic more valuable, but not to the point where other relics can't possibly be stronger.

[Sprucelee]

Alright, I give up. You're either trolling or trolling me right now. Or both, for that matter.
Old rotation was fine. It was fun. It was something that kept me alive without falling asleep @ 2AM during the 206th wipe on Yogg-Saron +0. It was something that differed us from all other classes. But now its not 'different', its 'messed up and retarded' (and most definitely NOT 'fun'). With current skill durations we constantly suffer from the lack of CP, lack of energy or lack of SR duration. And don't even start with all that fancy "lmao 7.3 gear will feex eet".
I merely want Billzord to roll back these changes that were utterly illogical. Feral cat is already complicated enough as it is. There is no need to bullshit this class even further, especially with the constant casualization of all other classes.

Let me guess, you start playing Feral in WoD with our disgusting trinkets/Tier that made us a spammy mess?

We are somewhere in the middle of WotLK and MoP in terms of complexity. Feral has always been more trouble than its worth for many people, but some enjoy it. For the most part they have rewarded that with the highest sustained ST damage, or top 3, at least. Feral has never had good AOE, though we have more options this time around (and our sustained cleave is up there now), especially once at 34 and off the main ST artifact path. Good feral players will need to be very active in talent swaps on a fight to fight basis.

[Deleted]

DKs 2-3 keys? This coming from feral? I loled.

DK's dmg instant/frontloaded? Talking about dk makes you look really bad. L2P.

[Tradu]

DKs 2-3 keys? This coming from feral? I loled.

DK's dmg instant/frontloaded? Talking about dk makes you look really bad. L2P.

Just in general the "analysis" of other classes is way off. Claiming that Havoc is faceroll is pretty lulzworthy. It's probably the most mechanically intensive spec in the game since they changed WW.

[renji1337]

DKs 2-3 keys? This coming from feral? I loled.

DK's dmg instant/frontloaded? Talking about dk makes you look really bad. L2P.

In his defense, I also play a DK. It's much easier, it's not anything mongo like my BM hunter, but it is easier than feral. Feral is the hardest spec to play at this point in the game, and this is because of the changes they made and how you end up having to watch timers on 4-5 different abilities, and watching pandemic thresh-holds, all while pooling energy and thinking ahead of time in your rotation.

Personally. I'm 848, I have Ashamanes Bite and OW. I end up doing around 300k ST on bosses, and I am always #1 on bosses. AoE? I'm mediocre, but thats because we don't have our AOE gold trait, that does help a little bit.

Feral does great in raids, and was one of the top classes from the emerald nightmare raid testing because of 2-3 target cleave. Ferals also do decent at higher level M+'s because they actually have the ability to cleave at this point. Don't compare yourselves to DH in AOE. DH's beat every single class in AOE at this point.

[Ontis]

Let me guess, you start playing Feral in WoD with our disgusting trinkets/Tier that made us a spammy mess?

RF: Death's Demise, RF:CD, RF:Grand crusader, ToI, RF:LK, five RFs in Cata (although these are guild-bound so screw them and screw Blizzard once more for binding them to guilds, not players), two RFs in Pandacrap before I quit it.
Yep, totally started in Craplords of Crapenor. How did you manage to expose me, Sherlock?

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Claiming that Havoc is faceroll is pretty lulzworthy

Ah. Trolling it is then. Duly noted.
I'd like to ask you to refrain from hurpderping ITT. Please do me a small favor and go be helpful elsewhere. This thread is not worth your time. Have a nice day.

[Sprucelee]

RF: Death's Demise, RF:CD, RF:Grand crusader, ToI, RF:LK, five RFs in Cata (although these are guild-bound so screw them and screw Blizzard once more for binding them to guilds, not players), two RFs in Pandacrap before I quit it.
Yep, totally started in Craplords of Crapenor. How did you manage to expose me, Sherlock?

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Ah. Trolling it is then. Duly noted.
I'd like to ask you to refrain from hurpderping ITT. Please do me a small favor and go be helpful elsewhere. This thread is not worth your time. Have a nice day.

I'll admit, your thread feels so trollish I just skimmed. No offense, but you really do come off like you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about, and the fact your buddy is better than you at hitting a training dummy is nothing to base a thread off of.

Like I said, John Fucking Madden, if that is news to you and you feel the need to whine about "OMG 8 abilities! But they only have 3!" then re-roll. Feral has always been more trouble than its worth when compared to the latest FOTM melee.... but some like that.

[Cannibalus]

@Ontis

Feral has been in a bad spot since forever. That's why i currently main Guardian and only play feral in pvp. I am sick of having to use my fingers to fight ninjutsu with my keyboard just to be on par with 3-4 button classes... it's stupid. Not to mention adding the prolonged dots mechanic (the 33% one, forgot it's name) while we're still the only spec in the game that still snapshots dots... like wtf. To spite us they even give us a talent where they tick and expire faster... that's similar to punching a paraplegic, laughing then farting before you leave.

The only moment of glory i remember was in MoP with the rune trinket, i could pull massive dps, but still not top, locks had that place, it's an experience that i will never forget and that i'm sure will never happen again.

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DKs 2-3 keys? This coming from feral? I loled.

DK's dmg instant/frontloaded? Talking about dk makes you look really bad. L2P.

You actually have 4 buttons, srsly go have intercourse with a hooved grazer.

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Just in general the "analysis" of other classes is way off. Claiming that Havoc is faceroll is pretty lulzworthy. It's probably the most mechanically intensive spec in the game since they changed WW.

Every kid and their grandma are pulling 250k+ on bosses and 600k-2mil on trash packs. Mechanically intensive? DUUUUDE you must be just religiously obsessed with slapping people that play feral.

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I'll admit, your thread feels so trollish I just skimmed. No offense, but you really do come off like you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about, and the fact your buddy is better than you at hitting a training dummy is nothing to base a thread off of.

Like I said, John Fucking Madden, if that is news to you and you feel the need to whine about "OMG 8 abilities! But they only have 3!" then re-roll. Feral has always been more trouble than its worth when compared to the latest FOTM melee.... but some like that.

And you're "poking the dead relative" why exactly? It's a perfectly legit post about feral stuff that changed from bad to worse with Legion. If you find that normal you must be a feral hater aswell. These forums are designed for people that play druid, not for ones that HATE druids (@Tradu aswell).