An in-depth Explanation on Ferals

[Snuggli]

WARNING
This post is really really long. Unless you're willing to read a lot, don't read half of it and make a smart comment.

Please check the comments before posting for stuff that has already / is already being discussed. Thanks

I've included notes throughout this post for handy tips or facts you might not know about Ferals.

Introduction
Just for arguments sake lets completely ignore BGs, duels and 2v2 for a bit. Blizzard has stated it doesn't balance around 1v1 or 2v2 anymore.

I'm also going to avoid comparison to other classes as much as possible, however obviously it is inevitable.

The reason for this 'Guide' is that after reading a lot of posts on official forums and MMO-Champion I believe the main reason for a lot of complaints is that players still don't quite understand how to counter Feral abilities. Would you ever treat Mages and Warlocks the same when you're playing against them?

Feral Druids require different tactics than other melee.

Please read this post with an open mind. I am not stating whether Ferals are overpowered or not, I am giving an explanation to the most complained about abilities and giving supportive arguments for each of these abilities..

Feral Druid complaints: Main Points
1. They have good mobility
2. They have good burst
3. They have good defensive cooldowns
4. They have good peels
5. They have good crowd control

1. Mobility
The main complaint about Feral mobility is due to a very early talent in the Feral tree:
Feral Swiftness

This gives Ferals a passive run increase and root break on Dash and Stampeding Roar.

The 2 other complaints are Skull Bash having a range, and Feral Charge.


Argument supporting Ferals

Feral Swiftness:
Both Dash and Stampeding Roar have extremely long cooldowns. Dash has a 2 minute cooldown (glyphed) and Stampeding Roar also has a 2 minute cooldown. This gives Ferals 2 root breaks per 2 minutes. Feral's root-breaking is hardly worth mentioning as in 3v3 roots are easily dispelled by a healer.

Another bad point worth making about Stampeding Roar is that it costs 30 energy. Nearly equal energy cost to that of a Shred (40 energy). However, unlike Dash, stampeding roar breaks roots for all party members within 10 yards. This can be helpful for helping team mates out of sticky situations.

Note: A Feral can't use Stampeding Roar while Dash is up, so in order to break 2 roots in simultaneously (this is needed fairly often) they have to remove the buff from Dash to cast Stampeding Roar.

Skull Bash & Feral Charge:
This ones quite simple; if Ferals decide to use Skull Bash as a gap closer (normally only ever against melee who are kiting or Hunters), it means that the Feral cannot interupt a cast or heal for 10s, allowing freecasting. Skull Bash also does not apply a slow or stun to the target, so aslong as the Feral is slowed the person skullbashed can quite easily make more distance before the Feral can mangle.

Feral Charge has a 30s CD. Feral Charge also places you behind the target and is not an instant travel. The buff from Feral Charge can also be dispelled, which stops a 15-30k Ravage! depending on resilience, gear etc.

Due to the fact Feral Charge has travel time (unlike shadowstep) and does not stun the target (unlike charge) it means that Ferals suffer slightly with the Cat gap-closer. Ferals do, however, have the option to go into Bear Form and use the 15s CD charge which immobilises the target for 4s. This charge is a lot better to use against Mages and Hunters who rely on kiting. However, this means the Feral has to:
1. Go Bear Form (+GCD)
2. Feral Charge travel time (<1s roughly)
3. Swap to Cat Form (+GCD)


2. Burst
Burst from Ferals is quite substantial, and I am completely willing to admit that. The best Feral burst occurs when:
- The Feral already has rip and rake on a target
--- The Feral may also have Savage Roar up
- The target has little-to-no defence or defensive CDs available
- The Feral has a full energy pool up
- The Feral has Tigers Fury off cooldown
- The Feral has Berserk off cooldown

This allows the Feral to, without losing any bleed damage, shred to 0 energy, pop tigers fury to get full energy again and use berserk. This gives the Feral nearly infinite energy if all they are doing is mangling / shredding. Which means it's going to be 10-15k every single GCD while bleeds are rolling.

The main point to note here is that for complete Feral burst there is A LOT of ramp-up time (like 1 minute on a standing still target).

The main complaints about Feral damage are when they pop Berserk on opener and use Ferocious Bite instead of Rip / Maim / Savage Roar. Ferocious Bite is a veryyyyyy risky spell. Personally i've seen it hit as low as 3-5k, and at the same time, I've had 40k crits against fully geared Mages. The stars really do have to align if a Feral uses Fero Bite for it to be even remotely worthwhile. Rip is a much better spell of choice outside of burst as if the target stays alive more than 5 seconds Rip will out-damage Fero Bite.


Argument supporting Ferals
Unlike many other melee classes, Ferals cannot get any immunity to CC while they are bursting (ex: AMS, Bladestorm, Cloak of Shadows). This means that in order to completely negate Feral Burst (or force a trinket) all you need to do is pop a CC on him when he has berserk up. Problem solved!

Feral damage comes in mini-bursts every 30 seconds or so from Tiger's Fury. Due to the talent King of the Jungle, Ferals get an extra bunch of Energy when they use it and that allows us to pop out a few more shreds than normal.

Only a bad Feral (no offence!) will use Berserk when he is on low energy. The idea is to get full energy and use it. (Get full energy, attack to 0 energy, pop TF for damage increase and energy reset and use Berserk+Trink). This means that Feral burst is kind of predictable. Damage will be slow until TF when 3-4 shreds will come in succession. Berserk is also on a long CD, at 3 minutes.


3. Defensive Cooldowns
If I'm completely honest, the main complaint about Feral defensives seem to come from people who don't understand them. So, lets break this subject down into 3 main categories.

Barkskin
This is the CD that nearly all Ferals will use when they start taking damage. Most Ferals will save it for when they are deeped vs Mages or Kidney'd versus Rogues as it IS usable during stuns. Barkskin provides -20% damage reduction, which is fairly useful, especially while stunned. When glyphed Barkskin also provides -25% chance to be critically hit. (Which is extremely useful when Deeped).

Survival Instincts
This is the only 'main' Feral survivability cooldown. It reduces damage taken by 50%. It cannot be cast while stunned and does not effect Druids when they are in caster form. It's got a 3 minute cooldown.

Bear Form!!!!!1111
This is the main cooldown that people seem to get COMPLETELY confused about. Bear Form is NOT godmode. Bear Form reduces melee damage taken due to the increase in armor but that's about it. This is unless Druids are specced into Natural Reaction. This talent reduces the amount of damage taken while in Bear Form by 18% and increases the dodge by a further 3%. This seems to be a popular talent choice for Ferals this season.

Once inside Bear Form, Druids can pop Enrage and Frenzied Regeneration . This is the cooldown that keeps Ferals alive once in Bear Form. It increases Feral health by 30% and gives us a heal that converts our rage into health. It has a 3 minute cooldown.

Other defensive abilities to note:

Druids get a lot of passive dodge while in cat and bear forms, which means that attacking a druid from the front has a high chance of being dodged.

Druids have a spell called Natures Grasp which can be used in any form. This has 3 charges and casts entangling roots on any target when they melee attack the Druid. This root does DR and can be dispelled, however this root can be used extremely potently when pulling melee LoS and rooting them LoS of their healer for a full 8s CC.


Argument supporting Ferals

Barkskin is usable once a minute and is Ferals main go-to Defensive CD. Considering most DPS have stuns every 30s, Barkskin will not be usable every stun. This opens up Ferals to be in Cat Form (Maybe even Caster), without ANY damage reduction at all for a full stun. This is how I die on my Feral atleast 50% of the time, and I'm sure other Ferals will have similar experiences.

Survival Instincts reduces incoming damage by 50%. This means that it has to be used as a preventive Defensive CD rather than a saviour defensive CD (Spirit Link, Bubble, Desperate Prayer etc). A good tactic is to pummel a Druid until he uses SI and then swap off him for the duration of it. There's no point wasting damage when only half of it is actually doing something.

Note: Barkskin and SI are multiplicative, not additive. See this post.

Frenzied Regeneration is the only cooldown that I will put my hands up and admit could be considered overpowered. It transfers Druids rage into health and such a rate that if the Rage bar is full the Druid is pretty much invulnerable. The cooldown is easy to negate, however, by knowing when the Feral is likely to use it and simply CC'ing/slowing/rooting him so he can't get any rage. Another thing to note about this ability is that the Druid will do 0 damage while this buff is up as all the rage he receives Rage will be fed straight into his health pool.

Apart from Barkskin, both Ferals main defensive CDs have 3 minute cooldowns and can only be used in form. Killing a Feral in Cat or Caster in a stun without Barkskin is the way to go. At the very least it'll make the other healer panic and force a couple of cooldowns.

Note: Ferals can (and often will) use Barkskin and Survival Instincts offensively giving a large amount of passive damage reduction to keep on their target. They do this so they can keep 100% uptime on their target and to avoid going bear form when going for a kill. If you see this, then know that the only CD left for the Feral is bear form + frenzied regen.

Note: When forced into Bear Form, Druid damage suffers hugely. It also stops Ferals from getting any instant procs at all.


4. Peels
Nothing much to say on this front. Ferals have a passive slow from Infected Wounds, a talent very early on in the Feral tree which is applied on Mangle, Shred and Ravage (all part of Feral default rotation). This can be annoying for melee when they are trying to catch up to a target, however, most melee get slows equal to this so once they're on a target it doesn't really matter.

Other peels include:
Entangling Roots (8s), can be instant from Pred Swiftness. Can be dispelled
Hibernate (8s), can be instant from Pred Swiftness. Feral vs Feral only. Can be dispelled.
Cyclone (6s), can be instant from Pred Swiftness. Easily outranged.
Feral Charge - Bear (4s), requires Feral to go Bear Form.
Bash (4s), requires Feral to go Bear Form. Costs Rage (You get the Rage from Furor upon enterring Bear Form).


5. They have good crowd control
Along with Bear Form, this is the main one that gets on my nerves.

Most of Feral crowd control comes from Cyclone and Bash. Cyclone becomes instant for Ferals from a buff called Predator's Swiftness.

Argument supporting Ferals

A guide - how to avoid Predator's Swiftness:
1. Healers such as Shamans or Priests can offensively dispell Predators Swiftness.

2. Healers such as Shamans, Resto Druids, Priests or Paladins can stand 20 yards away from the Feral and out-range Cyclone.

3. Healers such as Shamans, Resto Druids, Priests or Paladins can stand Line of sight from the Feral when he gets a buff called 'Predator's Swiftness'.

For those of you who don't understand the buff: Ferals must have 5 Combo Points to get a guaranteed chance of their proc. Outside of Tigers Fury and with a lack of crits this can take aslong as 10-15s. Feral instant CC is anything BUT instant. If you kite a Feral well, he may never get a single instant CC out.

Note: If a Feral has 5 combo points on you and you kite / LoS it, the Feral can cast Savage Roar from ranged and get his Predators Swiftness buff still.

Regarding Bash, it requires the Feral to get to the Healer, go bear form, get Rage, Bash the Healer and go back to Cat Form. It's a very clunky CC.



TL;DR
Feral's may have some things that are broken with them, mainly Frenzied Regen, but I feel that some people don't fully understand what they are complaining about when posting on Forums. A lot of Feral abilities can easily be countered in the same way as other classes, they just need to be understood.

Please don't quote the entire post if you want to argue points. It makes it easier to read/address comments if you keep quotes small.

[Kaharon]

Very well written and nicely explained, sorry to break it to you, but q.qers won't understand, because in their eyes it's op and you can't change that, same as trying to convince a kid not to eat sweeties.

[Maiwenn]

You forgot to mention we can get cced by 2 extra cc that no other class ca be targeted from, hibernate and scare beast, we might get some cc breakers but there are other ways to get us cced

[Snuggli]

You forgot to mention we can get cced by 2 extra cc that no other class ca be targeted from, hibernate and scare beast, we might get some cc breakers but there are other ways to get us cced

Good shout. This is always an important note to mention, however it's easily counterable by just looking out for when a Druid is casting Hibernate or a Hunter is casting Scare beast and just coming out of form.

But yeah, it does open us up to long CC chains if there is no global between them.

[Shaderas]

You forgot to mention we can get cced by 2 extra cc that no other class ca be targeted from, hibernate and scare beast, we might get some cc breakers but there are other ways to get us cced

That's a break even because you're immune to polymorph and hex (I believe on hex, not sure)

[Deadvolcanoes]

Ferals are in a very good place at the moment, and that's fine. If this post is an attempt to convince me otherwise, it has not succeeded.

[2fast4u]

Your logic is flawed in so many ways,my friend
This kind of "in-depth-explanation" can be written for any class of the game:
Mages pop icy veins you dispel them,the poly you -> out LOS them , shock them,ground them
Lock pops demon soul you dispel l it,fears -> tremor
"Killing a Feral in Cat or Caster in a stun without Barkskin is the way to go. At the very least it'll make the other healer panic."
Have you ever tried killing a rogue without a trinket in a full stun, they just fall apart from one look.
inb4 you're gonna make excuses about your feral, I have one question: is that you playing in that video that you have in your signature ? If so I liked how you train your target 24/7 randomly cycloning the opposing team.Oh and the barkskin + SI + regen + bear form and just relax and tank the dk and a ret while your healer is cc'd / afk for infinity.I'm not hating or anything, but the amount of time you can survive while your healer is cc'd is just ridiculous and once you're on DR for the CC you just rape any class.Proof? the mls clip in your signature
p.s Overall the ferals are in a better state than they ever were, combine them with a hunter and a shaman and you have such and endless CC chain and a massive burst that you'll be glad you're playing your kitty.

[Snuggli]

This kind of "in-depth-explanation" can be written for any class of the game

You're right. It can, and I just did. Many people don't understand Ferals as much as they understand Mages. Mages CC / Damage is very in-your-face, whereas a lot of Feral CC and damage happens on the Ferals side of things and unless you take the time to read all the Feral talents not all of it is that clear.

If so I liked how you train your target 24/7 randomly cycloning the opposing team.

I wont even try to defend DK/Feral/Hpala last season. Lets just say watching us beat teams by training them to oblivion is better than watching us LoS an RMP for 2 days before we finally get a kill.

Oh and the barkskin + SI + regen + bear form and just relax and tank the dk and a ret while your healer is cc'd / afk for infinity

I had to pop all my CDs to survive all their CDs. Seems fair and balanced.

Anyway, that video is old and unrelated to my post. I'm not defending Ferals in any way. I thought I made that clear by calling it an explanation. I'm just giving 2 sides to an argument in a detailed way so people who aren't 2.4k+ can see why their isn't any Feral R1's, but loads of Ferals 1.8k-2.4k


edit: inb4 you link me a feral r1. I was being facetious

[Illana]

Um

bear charge roots for FOUR seconds. That's enough time to justify the globals spent on on shifting and you spend a lot of the time of those globals actually travelling

also feral charge is not on gcd, you just have to wait for the rage from furor to actually use it.

Also no good feral uses cat charge unless it's for switching or you're bursting something down

Also i don't understand what prevents a feral from usin barkskin or survival instincts while bursting?

You forgot to mention the fact most good ferals will take natural reaction which means free 18% damage reduction in bear plus 6% extra chance to dodge

What dps have stuns every 30 sec? You mean mages and rogues? Yeah. Ferals can barkskin throwdown almost every time they can barkskin hoj every time. They have barskin for every shadow dance.

And where did you get this nugget: "barkskin and SI do not stack" why the hell wouldn't they? It's just that no feral would use them on top of each other cause it diminishes the effect and also wastes 2 cds.

hibernate can really screw a hunter over as a sleeping pet without its trinket up means no master's call or roar.

Bash is 10 rage which you get for free on the next melee swing or from shifting into bear and is a 5 second stun. It's NOT a clunky cc, a clunky cc would be scatter trapping. Feral charge is targeted and will root guaranteed unless it's against a lucky nelf and you can easily make your way behind someone in a 4 second root.

Also you have no mention of nature's grasp AT ALL.

I'm sorry but your in-depth explanation has so many holes in it i wonder if you even play feral at any decent standard at all.

[Angy]

No misunderstandings, no disrespect but this is a very flawed post that only tries justifying almost all abilities except for the obviously ridiculous regenaration.
You are only talking about the downsides of ferals, hell even while explaining fero bite, you are trying to get some sympathy by saying it sometimes hit for this/that k damage.

This is nowhere near an "in-depth explanation" but more like an advanced version of "hoping people will stop qqing about your spec, so you don't get nerfed".
I read your op and replies and you are claiming not to be defending ferals but I just can't see wherr you mentioned that you are immune to two of the most common cc, coming from 2of the most common pvp characters as mage and shaman nowadays. I can't understand how you try to justify feral mobility when it has 2charges 2movement speed increasing/root breaking abilities and a ridiculous(but somehow reasonable since it is a wild cat and all.) passive run speed
I don't see you talking about how ferals can dodge passively, reducing the pressure on them.

I'm not saying ferals are too op to be true but this thread only tries to get some sympathy by pointing out some sad stories about 5-40k fero bites and secretly comparing them to rogues in ways not many will understand. This is nowhere near an in-depth explanation of a class.

[Snuggli]

1. You forgot to mention the fact most good ferals will take natural reaction which means free 18% damage reduction in bear plus 6% extra chance to dodge

2. What dps have stuns every 30 sec? You mean mages and rogues? Yeah. Ferals can barkskin throwdown almost every time they can barkskin hoj every time. They have barskin for every shadow dance.

3. And where did you get this nugget: "barkskin and SI do not stack" why the hell wouldn't they? It's just that no feral would use them on top of each other cause it diminishes the effect and also wastes 2 cds.

4. hibernate can really screw a hunter over as a sleeping pet without its trinket up means no master's call or roar.

5. Also you have no mention of nature's grasp AT ALL.

1. -- snipped -- (I was wrong).

2. Rogue, Mage, Warr (45s), Feral, Paladin.

3. Barkskin and SI diminish, that's all I meant. Different word but we meant the same thing.

4. What's better, a 6s cyclone on the hunter or a dispellable 8s CC on his pet? :S I was talking about 3v3 and very rarely do I ever find it more beneficial to Hibernate a hunters pet instead of cycloning an actual player.

5. Good shout, completely forgot about it. I wrote all of this is one huge bulk while not even logged in to WoW, so I was bound to miss some things.

---------- Post added 2012-02-13 at 11:18 PM ----------

I can't understand how you try to justify feral mobility when it has 2charges 2movement speed increasing/root breaking abilities and a ridiculous passive run speed

I didn't mean to seem like I was 'justifying' it. I simply meant to show a different point of view.

When you say:

> 2 charges
> 2 movement speed root breaks
> a ridiculous run speed

it sounds completely different to

> 30s CD charge
> 10 yard charge which is also their only interrupt
> 2 root breaks every 2 mins (one costs energy)
> run speed increase while in cat form

This is all I was trying to achieve. Explain the actual cooldowns / talents that get ignored when people are arguing for or against Ferals. I wasn't defending them, just offering an explanation of Ferals that people can then debate from... instead of straight away calling them OP or bad.

[kosechi]

i really have no sympathy for ferals are bad posts like this. ferals have replaced warriors in many comps and are second only to rogues in a season completely dominated by casters where melee in general is completely under represented.

Unlike many other melee classes, Ferals cannot get any immunity to CC while they are bursting (ex: AMS, Bladestorm, Cloak of Shadows). This means that in order to completely negate Feral Burst (or force a trinket) all you need to do is pop a CC on him when he has berserk up. Problem solved!

you are immune to many ccs simply by the virtue of being a feral and spending most of your time in non-humanoid form. i can't repentance you, i can only peel you by HoJ, or BoPing my deathknight.

2. Healers such as Shamans, Resto Druids, Priests or Paladins can stand 20 yards away from the Feral and out-range Cyclone.

many holy paladins play comps that are low on actual cc making their melee range stun and their melee range kick that more valuable, ranging or LoSing a feral when trying to initiate a cc chain is nearly impossible at times. not to mention a feral can kill some one in the space of one cyclone.

I honestly can't be bothered to write much about peels. Every class has peels and those that don't can WoG for 150k

this hurts. it really does. it shows that people really don't understand how ret heals work, how much setup goes into them, and how easy they are to shut down, particularly by classes with snares and movement speed boosts. ferals are particularly terrible targets for rets to hit because of their absurdly high passive dodge and no one is punished more for dodges/parrys then rets.

Barkskin is usable once a minute and is Ferals main go-to Defensive CD. Considering most DPS have stuns every 30s, Barkskin will not be usable every stun. This opens up Ferals to be in Cat Form (Maybe even Caster), without ANY damage reduction at all for a full stun. This is how I die on my Feral atleast 50% of the time, and I'm sure other Ferals will have similar experiences.

i'm not sure what you are getting at here, my stun is on a 1 minute cooldown ( and is trivially dispelable). my dk's stun is on a 1 minute cooldown and requires his ghoul to be in melee range and have energy. my warrior's throwdown is 45 seconds.

[Illana]

1. Show me some good ferals who are specced into that.

2. Rogue, Mage, Warr (45s), Feral, Paladin.

3. Barkskin and SI do not 'stack' in the way that you mentioned, they diminish, that's all I meant. Different word but we meant the same thing.

4. What's better, a 6s cyclone on the hunter or a dispellable 8s CC on his pet? :S I was talking about 3v3 and very rarely do I ever find it more beneficial to Hibernate a hunters pet instead of cycloning an actual player.

5. Good shout, completely forgot about it. I wrote all of this is one huge bulk while not even logged in, so I was bound to miss some things.

---------- Post added 2012-02-13 at 11:18 PM ----------



I didn't mean to seem like I was 'justifying' it. I simply meant to show a different point of view.

When you say:

> 2 charges, 2 movement speed root breaks and a ridiculous run speed

it sounds completely different to

30s CD charge, a 10 yard charge which is also their only interrupt, 2 root breaks every 2 minutes and one costs energy and a run speed increase in cat form

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...n/Ziir/simple- second spec is pvp
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...lent/secondary
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...talent/primary

Yeah no good ferals spec into it.

No ret specs into imp hoj anymore cause of how powerful last word is

When cyclone DR is up then hibernate is the better thing to do. Most healers won't have time to dispel a pet if you're pressuring properly.

[Snuggli]

you are immune to many ccs simply by the virtue of being a feral and spending most of your time in non-humanoid form. i can't repentance you, i can only peel you by HoJ, or BoPing my deathknight.

this hurts. it really does. it shows that people really don't understand how ret heals work

We are also vulnerable to many CCs. The bit about Ret healing was a joke, sorry you took it literally (I put it in smaller font), next time I want humour i'll joke about Blood DKs :|.

Also, it seems you're talking very narrow mindedly only taking the view point of a Paladin vs a Feral Druid. Idk. You're called me biased but you seem biased yourself.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...un/Ziir/simple second spec is pvp
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...lent/secondary
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...talent/primary

Yeah no good ferals spec into it.

No ret specs into imp hoj anymore cause of how powerful last word is

When cyclone DR is up then hibernate is the better thing to do. Most healers won't have time to dispel a pet if you're pressuring properly.

First link 404'd
Edit: Nvm, it had a '-' at the end of the URL.
Do you know the last time this team played any games? ... I like his weapon too.

Second one is playing junglecleave with 57% win/loss

Third, if that's a legit team, who has 50-2 or whatever it was, fair play. Don't see why Junglecleave would want the Feral to have more bear form survivability when they normally try to win in faster games, odd.

Fair play for the Ret comment. I thought some Holy's still take it though, idk, haven't looked into Holy specs in a while.

Also, I meant, in a 3v3 situation, it's nearly impossible for a Feral to get all 3 players on Cyclone DR especially against most Hunter comps... and even if that does happen and you're pressuring a healer enough that he wont dispel it may not even be worth the GCD's. Okay, I guess, It just seems very unlikely that it'd get to that stage, but I guess if it did get to that point it would be best.

[Feranor]

I've always specced into Natural Reaction since WotLK, but then again I don't do Arena. I remember most 3v3 Ferals not having it before Cata, but I don't know whether they do now.

[Deleted]

Not everyone plays a frost mage. Having incredible passive movement speed, powerful speed buffs, easy appliable snares, free snare breakers and two low cd gap closers is too much. Pretty much undeniable. Just because frost mages have too many roots doesn't justify making ferals unkitable (through snares).

13 yard range interrupt and instant cyclones is fairly difficult to counter and very easy to apply. Sure it's nice for some classes to have medium range 4-6 sec instant CC on a 45 sec-1min cd, but it can become a bit overkill when there's no universal cd.

Having bleeds scale with mastery can become a bit too much in a pvp scenario. I am not saying that they are far too strong, but melees are from a design perspective about dealing damage when you're at the target and not dealing damage when you're not at the target. Combine that with very strong burst and you suddenly have a lot of preassure where a lot of it isnt predictable. Personally I'd prefer if berserk had a lower cooldown and was toned down to balance it around (similiar to shadowdance).

Ferals have too strong defensive cooldowns and too many at their disposal. Survival instincts should be tank-spec only, which will probably happen in MoP. It should have been bear only, but hey that's just me. Also frenzied regeneration is too strong, but it's much better after the vengeance fix.

Concerning peeling off ferals: I definitely think it's flawed making them almost unkitable. I am very grateful that berserk as a fear-immunity was taken off, which btw is far too common when it comes to other melees and undeads (too many fear breakers). That, and that you are able to sap them (since wotlk or cata??). About hex and polymorph immunity and the vulnerability against scare beast and hibbernate... shamans and mages vs druids (in general) and hunters.. what to say. Don't buff shamans and mages further than their current state.

[Snuggli]

I've always specced into Natural Reaction since WotLK, but then again I don't do Arena. I remember most 3v3 Ferals not having it before Cata, but I don't know whether they do now.

I've always thought it'd be an interesting talent to play around with. One of my feral friends on my realm uses it but says he'd rather have the TF/Berserk increased energy talent and is probably going to spec back soon.

All 3 of the ferals linked have dropped Fury Swipes for it though.

[iamthedevil]

NOTHING should be taken away from Ferals. They are a near perfect spec/class. Other classes need to brought in line with Ferals.

[Snuggli]

NOTHING should be taken away from Ferals. They are a near perfect spec/class. Other classes need to brought in line with Ferals.

I almost completely agree. I'd hate to see Ferals homogenised into a simple 1-form 3 button class.

There are some minor tweaks here and there to be done, frenzied regen should be toned down, our burst could be toned down. Only being able to use SI in bear form would be a good replacement if they were ever to remove Frenzied Regen.

I think changes could be made, I'd just hate to lose the feel of Ferals like Warriors lost so much going from BC/Wotlk to what they are now. How I miss proper stance dancing :[

[roahn the warlock]

You forgot to mention we can get cced by 2 extra cc that no other class ca be targeted from, hibernate and scare beast, we might get some cc breakers but there are other ways to get us cced

You also can't be sheeped for repented, so your point?