What was accomplished with SR?

[zyzz]

Would love a good CONSTRUCTIVE argument FOR savage roar in its current state. My argument is that savage roar should not affect bleeds. My argument runs off the fact that the ability provides to much complexity to the rotation, penalizes the player above and beyond what it should if timing is missed, and is quite simply very tedious. I'm not arguing that savage roar should be completely removed from the game or changed back to the cataclysm version. IMO as you can see below its an ability that has never quite clicked and the formula has never been right, hence SR getting reworked several times.

As i believe savage roar in wotlk use to look like this: Increase attack power by 25%, duration increased by x combo points.

During Cataclysm the ability was reworked and looks like this: Increase auto attack damage by 80%, duration increased by x combo points.

Current version (changed MOP): Savage roar increases ALL physical damage by 30%

Now i would really love to find the quote by Ghost crawler on the matter but i can't, in my own words it was explained that the intent behind the change was they didn't want Savage roar to be as restricting (WOTLK) but not so that the ability was so weak it made almost no effect if you used it or not (CATA). Now what im really confused about, besides the manipulation of words how SR is any different from the wotlk version? Simple, it isnt.

If you read my last paragraph the idea is simple, make it so that SR is good enough to be used rotationally, but be more forgiving. Solution then, Savage roar should not effect bleeds. Allow Rip and Rake to stand on its own to two feet, without making SR mandatory to apply those buffs (Don't even want to go into how flawed that it is).

In the end of things, SR will still increase the damage by mangle/shred/FB/Maim/auto attack damage by 30%. So when you get that scenario when your at 4 combo points and both SR and RIP are about to fall off you have that peace of mind that you can safely apply your rip for max damage then with 1 combo point if you have to you can put your SR back up.

Thank your for reading/hope this will actually get reviewed

[roflwaffle]

im pretty sure in wrath it was 30% physical

just tossin that in as i haven't played feral since early cata i can't really put my 2 cents in on this subject

[Emane]

In the end of things, SR will still increase the damage by mangle/shred/FB/Maim/auto attack damage by 30%. So when you get that scenario when your at 4 combo points and both SR and RIP are about to fall off you have that peace of mind that you can safely apply your rip for max damage then with 1 combo point if you have to you can put your SR back up.

I have never had this problem. It's basicly coming down to plan ahead 5 CP a head. After I've JUST used 5 combo points on something. It will be a decision, will I be able to keep Rip up? Will I be able to keep Savage Roar up? If not, how many secs do I need to catch up? Is a 2-3 CP SR enough?

It's not that hard really. And they even solved the issue by not having it active on start, just use the glyph and you can use SR without Combo Points.

---------- Post added 2012-11-07 at 01:24 PM ----------

im pretty sure in wrath it was 30% physical

just tossin that in as i haven't played feral since early cata i can't really put my 2 cents in on this subject

Early Wrath it increased pure AP. Then they added %.

[zyzz]

1. SR effecting Rip/rake is unnecessary and is the point
2. Its alot different in pvp
3. The glyph is almost mandatory which shouldn't be.
4. Do you really want to spend that much time looking at timers?

---------- Post added 2012-11-07 at 11:31 PM ----------

WTB steve jobs to back me up on this. TOO MUCH unnecessary complexity. its garbage

[Kioga]

1. SR effecting Rip/rake is unnecessary and is the point
2. Its alot different in pvp
3. The glyph is almost mandatory which shouldn't be.
4. Do you really want to spend that much time looking at timers?

---------- Post added 2012-11-07 at 11:31 PM ----------

WTB steve jobs to back me up on this. TOO MUCH unnecessary complexity. its garbage

1) Keep SR up,
2) Keep 5pt Rip
3) Keep Rake up

It only takes these 3 things to accomplish adequate feral dps but don't expect to top any meters. Feral has a long history of being one of the more complex dps rotations and i'm fine with that. A complicated rotation is what separates the good from the average. This is from a PvE standpoint as the OP didn't specify in what context he had issue with SR.

[Deleted]

What blizzards intention with splitting up SR to the old model was to be able to see the differences between a bad feral and a good feral however that only lasted for a week and then ppl rerolled or learned to keep it up.

[Elunedra]

however that only lasted for a week and then ppl rerolled or learned to keep it up.

LOL!

however blizzard remvoed the need for us to kepe mangle up so, so i see SR tobe the repalcement for it tbh. instead of must keep mangle up, we not have must keep savage roar up

[Tinderhoof]

LOL!

however blizzard remvoed the need for us to kepe mangle up so, so i see SR tobe the repalcement for it tbh. instead of must keep mangle up, we not have must keep savage roar up

They gave us back the 30 second FF to replace the Mangle debuff. The SR change was to up complexity. It was poorly done because we got little to no attention during the Beta, but that is the reason.

---------- Post added 2012-11-07 at 11:32 PM ----------

Also the Mangle debuff was different because if it was applied after a bleed it would still buff that bleeds later ticks. SR is all or nothing.

[Hviske10ske]

Im tempted to say that feral dps rotation is back to around the same lvl's of wrath when i comes down to complexity.

Wrath we mostly used
Mangle 12 sec debuff
Rip
Rake
SR
FB
Shred

Now in MOP we dont have the mangle debuff up anymore as they removed that, but left with
FFF
SR
FB
Shred
Rake
Rip
Trash
Then on top of that, we are trying to maximize the use of the DoC talent.

This might make our rotation even harder than it used to be.
In wrath it could be harder to keep up fewer abilities
In mist i would say that we have more things to try and keep up, but they might be slighty easier.

My personal struggle is still to remember to weave in trash to get more uptime on the bleed, the armor debuff also sometimes falls off becos im just looking at the actually FFF icon wich last longer (this comes down to redoing some addons to track it) and lastly im still working on optimizing the use of DoC, im useally able to buff most of my rakes and the other proc useally goes to some random places shred, but would prefer it to be used on a FB or rip

[zyzz]

See the problem in itself isn't so much the timers...the problem begins when these timers intertwine with each other. You fuck up one you fuck up all.

[anthemm]

Now what im really confused about, besides the manipulation of words how SR is any different from the wotlk version?

I don't think anyone's answered your question yet.

This is what I believe has changed over the years, if I remember everything correctly:

1) In Wrath, Ferals HAD to use SR first in order to make Rip do full damage, and if SR fell off, you had to reapply SR before using Rip. So if Rip and SR fell off, you lost huge DPS because you had to put up SR then put up SR.

2) In Cata, SR wasn't very good. At the same time, you could Rip whenever you wanted to, even if SR was not up. Your Rip would still do full damage. This made the rotation more forgiving.

3) In MoP, your SR is what it was like in Wrath, except that, like Cata, you can Rip even if SR is not up, and your Rip will do full damage. You still have to keep up SR as much as possible, but you won't lose massive DPS if you let SR and Rip fall off: you simply reapply Rip (if you have like 3-4 combo points, so you simply go back to 5 combo points and Rip), then use a 0-point SR (from Glyph).

Thus, in MoP, you essentially have a compromise between how SR was like in Wrath and in Cata. It's forgiving yet involving at the same time.

However, I may be mistaken. I hope, however, that this is the answer you're looking for.

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 09:04 PM ----------

Then on top of that, we are trying to maximize the use of the DoC talent.

This might make our rotation even harder than it used to be.

Agreed. I'm still uncertain whether you use Thrash when you're at 5 combo points, and are waiting to reapply SR or Rip, or if you just use Trash when you have a Clearcasting proc. I only use Trash then, as I'm not sure if Trash is higher DPE than Shred.

What I do know is that using Rip/Rake while Tiger's Fury and/or DoC are up is worth it and is how you maximize your DPS. But this makes the rotation a lot harder: I use Rip and Rake as much as I can with Tiger's Fury, but I've stayed away from DoC for the most part. I think it forces you to tunnel-vision too much, because maximizing your rotation with DoC, I think, makes the rotation harder than it ever used to be, so I have thus far refrained from using DoC. I think it would be better to use on Patchwerk-like fights, or using it in LFR in order to practice it for real raiding.

My two cents is that DoC needs to be reworked. Some pro Feral players will probably disagree, but Blizzard (I think) said that they wanted Feral to be easier to play, to be less taxing to master. And yet DoC is so much harder to use properly than using Nature's Vigil or HotW.

A single talent should never substantially change your play style, especially if it makes your rotation way harder.

[Raugnaut]

In Wrath, it was all damage by 30%.

In Cata, it was auto attack damage by 80%- This allowed them to move the 30% damage from all attacks into our bleeds and main moves. This, combined with our mobility, caused our mobility to get nerfed to the ground.

Now, its back down to all damage by 30%, but we once again get unlimited, if not better, mobility from wrath. (We now have Stampeding Roar, which unroots allies, greater mobility, as well as decent healing/utility capability. A good trade, imo.

---------- Post added 2012-11-09 at 06:10 AM ----------

I don't think anyone's answered your question yet.

This is what I believe has changed over the years, if I remember everything correctly:

1) In Wrath, Ferals HAD to use SR first in order to make Rip do full damage, and if SR fell off, you had to reapply SR before using Rip. So if Rip and SR fell off, you lost huge DPS because you had to put up SR then put up SR.

2) In Cata, SR wasn't very good. At the same time, you could Rip whenever you wanted to, even if SR was not up. Your Rip would still do full damage. This made the rotation more forgiving.

3) In MoP, your SR is what it was like in Wrath, except that, like Cata, you can Rip even if SR is not up, and your Rip will do full damage. You still have to keep up SR as much as possible, but you won't lose massive DPS if you let SR and Rip fall off: you simply reapply Rip (if you have like 3-4 combo points, so you simply go back to 5 combo points and Rip), then use a 0-point SR (from Glyph).

Thus, in MoP, you essentially have a compromise between how SR was like in Wrath and in Cata. It's forgiving yet involving at the same time.

However, I may be mistaken. I hope, however, that this is the answer you're looking for.

---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 09:04 PM ----------



Agreed. I'm still uncertain whether you use Thrash when you're at 5 combo points, and are waiting to reapply SR or Rip, or if you just use Trash when you have a Clearcasting proc. I only use Trash then, as I'm not sure if Trash is higher DPE than Shred.

What I do know is that using Rip/Rake while Tiger's Fury and/or DoC are up is worth it and is how you maximize your DPS. But this makes the rotation a lot harder: I use Rip and Rake as much as I can with Tiger's Fury, but I've stayed away from DoC for the most part. I think it forces you to tunnel-vision too much, because maximizing your rotation with DoC, I think, makes the rotation harder than it ever used to be, so I have thus far refrained from using DoC. I think it would be better to use on Patchwerk-like fights, or using it in LFR in order to practice it for real raiding.

My two cents is that DoC needs to be reworked. Some pro Feral players will probably disagree, but Blizzard (I think) said that they wanted Feral to be easier to play, to be less taxing to master. And yet DoC is so much harder to use properly than using Nature's Vigil or HotW.

A single talent should never substantially change your play style, especially if it makes your rotation way harder.

There are other alternatives to DoC. DoC is for the old feral who REALLY loved Wrath style rotational complexty. For those who dont, NV and HotW are very good alternatives.

[Tinderhoof]

My two cents is that DoC needs to be reworked. Some pro Feral players will probably disagree, but Blizzard (I think) said that they wanted Feral to be easier to play, to be less taxing to master. And yet DoC is so much harder to use properly than using Nature's Vigil or HotW.

A single talent should never substantially change your play style, especially if it makes your rotation way harder.

Actually you have that backwards. They felt SR in Cata made cat to easy and the new (old) version of SR was to bring back the difficulty. Yes DoC totally up's the challenge. Some of that is related to the extra complication. There are also 2 bugs that make DoC a pain to use even in the optimal way.
1. PS'd and NS'd HT's cause a 1.5 second GCD. Every other Feral ability (even FF) cause a 1 second GCD. This is really annoying as it disrupts the flow of the rotation. It also ends up wasting a lot of Berserk and TF time as you always want to have a DoC proc for these instances.
2. There is a known bug from back in the beta that using NS and HT to fast together will shift you out of Bear or Cat forms. It was even posted in the Known Issues section. As a result any time NS needs to be used a delay must be put in to prevent reverting to caster. On top of that pressing a cast sequence macro twice will sometimes not execute the HT. In situations this can lead to SR falling off, Energy capping or TF/Berserk time being wasted.

Both of these situations lead to even very skilled players to have issues executing DoC. The problem though is that even with these issues DoC is still a far better output then HotW and NV in almost every situation. There are a few exceptions on a fight to fight basis, but not many. Now if you are unable to make DoC work HotW and NV are viable, but they are not even close to on par with DoC.

DoC isn't for everyone. Expecting everyone to be able to pull it off is unreasonable. However if the above issues were fixed it might not be as bad as it is now.