Idea to remove mangle?

[Shifthappens]

If you ever played Feral pvp and faced someone who actually knew how feral works (eg backpaddled) you would understand, ive always hated Shred positional bullshit. Its fine till about 2k Arena, then it gets retarded, you dont meet stupid people anymore. However i couldnt care less about its position requirement in PVE (more or less).

[Rauros]

Only reasons it's still in the game is because they can't change Backstab, because of the name, and if they changed Shred now, rogues would complain about being the only ones with this positional nonsense. There's also the problem in that if they removed Mangle or Shred, the only 2 combo point gaining abilities (used) would be Shred and Rake, vs. spending it on savage roar, rip, ferocious bite and maim.

Main problem far as I can tell is that two of three combo point building abilities do pretty much the same thing, except one does it flat better. The positional thing is contrived, nonsensical immersion-breaking tripe, with ferals being the only ones forced to deal with it. Rogues change specialisations as to what's best on the fight, they don't care, seen our rogues do very handily as every single one this expansion. This positional is the one thing keeping me from playing cat ever in raids (being a bear). Well, that and the almost uncontested intellect leather.

I think it's fairly unanimous that anyone without an unreasonable grudge against Ferals would happily see this ridiculous and dated mechanic finally die the death everyone has wished it.

[dancm]

Let's take a look at the current beta situation:

Claw: available to all druids, costs 35 energy, 350% weapon damage
Claw exists to allow every druid doing some damage in cat form.

Mangle: only available to Ferals and Guardians, does have two versions (for cat and bear)
Mangle(Cat): costs 35 energy, 480% weapon damage
Mangle(Cat) is an improved form of Claw to separate the damage of Feral/Guardian vs Balance/Resto

Shred: Feral only, costs 40 energy, 480% weapon damage, +20% damage if target is bleeding, must be behind target
Shreding a non-bleeding target is actually less damage then just mangling it because of the energy cost difference. The DPE advantage of Shred over Mangle on a bleeding target is only 5%. Mangle still builds CPs faster then Shred. Bringing Mangle and Shred close to each other actually allows us a more consistent PVE (and probably PVP) performance. Just two examples: If we can't get behind (e.g. Ultraxion) we'll probably lose less then 1% damage overall. If we have to kill adds with low health pools (e.g. Blistering Tentacles on Madness) just mangling them down will be better then today.

Now let's look at your suggestion:

Remove shred's position req. but increase its damage by 20% from behind.

This is still a positional requirement (as for max damage you still need to be behind the target). It's basically the same as now (the difference isn't as big as now but way bigger then the design in beta). Live DPE difference: 36.5%. Your suggestion: 26%. Beta: 5%. That's why I don't appreciate your suggestion.

[Mihir]

They should give other classes positional requirements as well.. for example frostbolt and icelance only usable from behind ;p

[aggixx]

Let's take a look at the current beta situation:

Claw: available to all druids, costs 35 energy, 350% weapon damage
Claw exists to allow every druid doing some damage in cat form.

Mangle: only available to Ferals and Guardians, does have two versions (for cat and bear)
Mangle(Cat): costs 35 energy, 480% weapon damage
Mangle(Cat) is an improved form of Claw to separate the damage of Feral/Guardian vs Balance/Resto

Shred: Feral only, costs 40 energy, 480% weapon damage, +20% damage if target is bleeding, must be behind target
Shreding a non-bleeding target is actually less damage then just mangling it because of the energy cost difference. The DPE advantage of Shred over Mangle on a bleeding target is only 5%. Mangle still builds CPs faster then Shred. Bringing Mangle and Shred close to each other actually allows us a more consistent PVE (and probably PVP) performance. Just two examples: If we can't get behind (e.g. Ultraxion) we'll probably lose less then 1% damage overall. If we have to kill adds with low health pools (e.g. Blistering Tentacles on Madness) just mangling them down will be better then today.

Now let's look at your suggestion:



This is still a positional requirement (as for max damage you still need to be behind the target). It's basically the same as now (the difference isn't as big as now but way bigger then the design in beta). Live DPE difference: 36.5%. Your suggestion: 26%. Beta: 5%. That's why I don't appreciate your suggestion.

Very well put post, although the damage differential could definitely be just a simple number tweak. It would also remove the awkward mechanic of "maybe it's better to mangle, even though it does less damage."

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 05:39 AM ----------

They should give other classes positional requirements as well.. for example frostbolt and icelance only usable from behind ;p

Hunters used to be able to get glancing blows from the front in Cata Beta.




That said, this change would heavily blur the line of when you are and aren't behind your target. It would be significantly more difficult to tell when you are and aren't behind your target. Especially when you're in a situation where that status is rapidly changing, the only way to know would be to just Shred and see if the damage got the bonus or not, in which case you've alreaded wasted damage from Shredding at the wrong time for the sake of knowing if it was the right time to Shred.

Somewhat counterintuitive.

[dancm]

They should give other classes positional requirements as well.. for example frostbolt and icelance only usable from behind ;p

For Hunters: Shoot from behind

[Kiune]

Shreding a non-bleeding target is actually less damage then just mangling it because of the energy cost difference. The DPE advantage of Shred over Mangle on a bleeding target is only 5%. Mangle still builds CPs faster then Shred. Bringing Mangle and Shred close to each other actually allows us a more consistent PVE (and probably PVP) performance. Just two examples: If we can't get behind (e.g. Ultraxion) we'll probably lose less then 1% damage overall. If we have to kill adds with low health pools (e.g. Blistering Tentacles on Madness) just mangling them down will be better then today.

Then to be honest, why would we even keep shred if the difference is so small? Any time that there is a question of whether we can get the back or not we will just default to mangle so as to not waste time/energy/cp. I'm just dreading having to mangle spam cause the sound effect is so horrible, not to mention the rotation is getting *even further* dumbed down, when it's already pretty simplistic (and no, savage roar change doesnt count as increased difficulty because it does not change our rotation, only our priority list)

[Ryukai]

Thing is if they did make it into one ability, how would you know if you were 'behind' the boss/mob or not, and I don't mean directly behind.

I'm on about when you have to stand to the side of whatever you are killing, aka dragons due to tail swipe, or something like domo, (just far enough beyond to claw so you still get aoe damage, but close enough for aoe heals). By merging them you wouldn't know if your doing 'mangle' damage or 'shread' damage, and could make feral dps more... annoying :P

[tangedyn]

Let's take a look at the current beta situation:

Claw: available to all druids, costs 35 energy, 350% weapon damage
Claw exists to allow every druid doing some damage in cat form.

Mangle: only available to Ferals and Guardians, does have two versions (for cat and bear)
Mangle(Cat): costs 35 energy, 480% weapon damage
Mangle(Cat) is an improved form of Claw to separate the damage of Feral/Guardian vs Balance/Resto

Guess you are not up to date with the current beta situation.

Claw has been removed from the game.
All druid specs get Mangle now.

[Kekkeri]

Man just make it so you have a chance to dodge spells if they're cast from in front of you.

[Kiune]

Thing is if they did make it into one ability, how would you know if you were 'behind' the boss/mob or not, and I don't mean directly behind.

I'm on about when you have to stand to the side of whatever you are killing, aka dragons due to tail swipe, or something like domo, (just far enough beyond to claw so you still get aoe damage, but close enough for aoe heals). By merging them you wouldn't know if your doing 'mangle' damage or 'shread' damage, and could make feral dps more... annoying :P

You mean the same issue that all melee dps cope with at the moment with regards to parries? I agree it'd be slightly annoying but nowhere near as annoying as having to change the ability you're spamming just for the sake of being behind...

[Fahrenheit]

Remove shred.
Keep mangle.
Add the bonus damage to bleeding targets to mangle.
Tweak damage numbers on mangle so we don't lose any DPS by not shreding.

[aggixx]

Remove shred.
Keep mangle.
Add the bonus damage to bleeding targets to mangle.
Tweak damage numbers on mangle so we don't lose any DPS by not shreding.

Eww...

All damage the same, who would want Mangle over Shred? 0.o

[Vasek]

Anyone can bump my thread on official forums!? http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...8941871?page=3

[Madkitty]

As it is
Mangle=Shred with 0 debuffs
Shred is 20% stonger with bleeds.

You want it
Shred only and 20% stronger behind.

There is no removal of positional requirement!!!

The only significance of removal of mangle is you can spam shred, and if you get in the right place it does more. Rather than judging when to press mangle or when to press shred.

[Gnowo]

I do not think this is a good idea

[invader]

and again, another example of simplifying the game to boring straight forward no brainer easymode standards.......no.. just no.... if you dont like doing it from behind then roll another class ;p

[MugenNoKaze]

change the name of mangle and keep the exact same ability
there perfect solution

[Wolfdragon]

mhm... so what do we gain by removing mangle? shred means our attacks can't be dodged/parried(in pvp) meaning that we can actually counter evasion, the constant 30% dodge from rogues etc. etc. . By removing mangle and making shred baseline, we lose all of this, so sorry, but it's a bad idea.

[LeyrHao]

Self-copy from EU Beta forums:

Mangle (Cat): no cost, 6 sec CD, doesn't share CD with Mangle (Bear). Deals damage and generates 10 energy. Your other abilities have a small chance to reset this CD.

Problem Solved.