How complicated can a DPS spec be?

[Deleted]

Firstly, snapshotting on feral bleeds: - Not just on BT or TF. ALL effects snapshot including trinket procs and Incarn Rake.

yo are you still playing MoP because trinkets and all that shit updates dynamically and only bt and tf snapshots. Incarn rake doesnt snapshot, it just does more damage because it counts as from stealth.

If you think ret is more confusing then feral

i did not say its more confusing, buddy. its harder (subjective) because there is no downtime for ret and you mash buttons like crazy. Feral got what 30-40% downtime, so its more chill playstyle.

Feral is all about minute decisions that make a big difference, such as:
"Incarn is ready in 20 seconds and SR is about to fall off. I'll do a 1 combo point SR to fill in the gap until Incarn is up, instead of a 5 CP SR."

if you think those are big decisions, how do you put pants on in the morning ? 5-10 boss fights as new feral and you already know wtf to do.



maybe you have so many addons configured, you get confused by that lol. cp/energy/rip/rake/swiftness is all you need to track.

Obviously if you want to be top 1% feral, its not easy, and no spec is, so thats irrelevant.

[Blueredwolf]

For anyone actually considering picking up feral, I beg of you to take everything in this thread with a grain of salt. So much misinformation.

[Will]

yo are you still playing MoP because trinkets and all that shit updates dynamically and only bt and tf snapshots. Incarn rake doesnt snapshot, it just does more damage because it counts as from stealth.

Dude, do you actually play feral or what? Savage Roar and Incarn Rake both snapshot. The rake you apply from stealth has a double damage factor and it remains for the duration of the rake, and it can be overwritten by a weaker Rake prematurely. Don't take it from me, go ask any top feral, heck go ask Pawket if you don't believe me. Rake snapshots the incarn multiplier during application.

The fact you failed to consider SR as a bleed-snapshotter staggers me. You talk about how easy Feral is and stuff like that, and yet you thought only TF and BT snapshotted? What, do you think doing SR when bleeds are already up will dynamically scale them? Wrong!

I was incorrect about the trinkets, as they do not Snapshot, and I concede my point there. The 4 feral snapshotters are: TF, BT, IncarnRake and SR. Accordingly I have edited the original post. It was an honest mistake and in truth you learn something new every day. Years of playing feral and I guess I never really noticed, because the addon Claw is only tracking the regular snapshot multipliers. I guess I should have realised it never suggested renewal of bleeds on any trinket procs. My misinformation stemmed from laziness and over-reliance on addons :P

if you think those are big decisions, how do you put pants on in the morning ? 5-10 boss fights as new feral and you already know wtf to do.

I said MINUTE decisions, not BIG decisions. In other words, I'm saying lots of small decisions all add up to make a big difference. The word 'minute' isn't solely limited to minutes of time. There's a different word which is spelled exactly the same, which basically means 'small'. So I essentially said 'Feral is all about small decisions" [that add up to make a bigger picture]. There's no need to be rude simply because you misunderstood me, because I do not recall using the word 'big' or implying it at any point.

For ANY spec in the game you can know what to do in 5-10 fights. Knowing and execution are not the same thing. you could study how to play MM hunter and know what to do, but you still need to practice to get the hang of it. Good for you that you picked up on the basics of feral so quickly.

cp/energy/rip/rake/swiftness is all you need to track.

Oh, and you need to be aware of your cooldowns, trinkets, Savage Roar. Sometimes Thrash depending on the situation; when I'm tab targeting Rake on multi-target I often like to drop a thrash with my clearcasts, as they provide very high energy return using the T184PC. If Thrash is already up in such a situation, you'd be silly to clip it.

Obviously if you want to be top 1% feral, its not easy, and no spec is, so thats irrelevant.

I don't want to be a top 1% feral but I do enjoy making a decent effort at least.
I have to say you really are a rude individual, talking to us as if we're scum. Can't you get off your high horse, man up and have a civilised discussion like an adult?

Any fool can play a class at a mediocre level; when people come to the forum asking for help, they're doing so because they have the drive and desire to play at a higher standard. All you've done to chip in is tell people how easy feral is, which isn't really constructive aside from making you look arrogant.

Message to others: I noticed at other points in the thread people suggested saving TF for when it's time to refresh bleeds. Generally I recommend using TF on cooldown. Delaying it slightly is okay if you desperately need to dump excess energy first, but I would only do this if I knew I'd be delaying it for a very short amount of time.

Feral is generally the highest downtime spec, or it was before I got my T18 bonuses - unpredictable OOC procs returning energy, eh) but when Berserk is up, coupled with Seed, you're practically mashing away! I love it. T18 + Seed, and your only concern regarding energy becomes spending it without allowing it to get too high. An OOC proc + high energy = wasted DPS. Downtime is actually very low when you get chain-OOC procs or Berserk is up.

[Deleted]

Feral quite complicated overall, but each individual part is fairly simple. I played my feral alt a lot during T17, and I found that by far the biggest variance in dps was due to how you used bloodtalons. It buffs the next two spells, so the idea is to use it on your two hardest hitting spells, your finisher (rip/bite) and a rake. Sounds simple, but it means you have to get 4 CP between your finisher and the time your instant HT buff falls off, meaning you have to plan around pooling your energy or be very lucky with crits.
If you're really struggling, the glyph of savagery isn't as bad as it seems. Yeah it looks like a flat 10% dps loss, but remember that the CPs youd be spending on roar can be used on something that actually does damage instead, so it ends up being only 4-5% dps loss iirc. That being said, glyph of Savage roar is amazing, giving you roar for free for the opening ~50 seconds of the fight, and then again three minutes later when Incarnation comes up.

It may have changed a bit with new tier bonuses and higher crit levels, but I found it pretty fun, even if a mediocre performer.

[Deleted]

Dude, do you actually play feral or what? Savage Roar and Incarn Rake both snapshot. The rake you apply from stealth has a double damage factor and it remains for the duration of the rake, and it can be overwritten by a weaker Rake prematurely. Don't take it from me, go ask any top feral, heck go ask Pawket if you don't believe me. Rake snapshots the incarn multiplier during application.

The fact you failed to consider SR as a bleed-snapshotter staggers me. You talk about how easy Feral is and stuff like that, and yet you thought only TF and BT snapshotted? What, do you think doing SR when bleeds are already up will dynamically scale them? Wrong!

I misspoke, yeah, SR snapshots, i just put it into different category because its long duration buff and stays up all fight.

Snapshoting by definition is about + dmg % buffs, so rake/stealth/incarn is different, as its no +dmg buff on yourself, rather rake itself gets buffed from stealth, thats why i dont count it as a snapshotting mechanic.

My point was not to be rude, but i read this topic as whining about feral complexity, when in fact:

1) Its easier to play feral than ever
2) Its not hard to play feral generally
3) Its not harder to play feral than other specs (not easier, and its subjective, but not harder either)

[Daedius]

Any monkey can play a DPS, it takes a fair bit of knowhow to do exceptionally great at it though.

[Seikusa]

destruction on pure singletarget is rather easy if you aim for medicore numbers, compared to demo for example, but that doesnt mean being a destro you will perform good in raids.

[Deleted]

t18 made the spec extremly spammy and even easier to play.
before you had situations where you actually could pool energy and think about when to refresh dots etc....which gave us a little gap between good and very good ferals.
but now, its mostly about how long does the fight go and how often does your soulcap proc for most of the encounters (if you are dps horny).

[badzerath]

Get 4pc tier.

Spam buttons.

Maintain buffs/debuffs.

Snapshot correctly.

Use FB correctly.

?????

Profit.