[Feral] 5.2 Tier bonuses

[Deleted]

Hi!

The tier set bonuses have been announced and the feral ones are as follows:

Item - Druid T15 Feral 2P Bonus (New) Predatory Swiftness grants you an additional combo point on your current combo target when consumed.
Item - Druid T15 Feral 4P Bonus (New) After using Tiger's Fury, you gain 40% increased critical strike chance on the next 3 uses of Mangle, Shred, or Ferocious Bite.

It seems the 2P forces you to spec DoC as using PS without DoC but with HotW/NV is useless.

The four piece is rather interesting; critical strike is becoming less useful as we get free 40% crit every 30 seconds for our main CP generator and execution ability and with Blood in the Water, FB will crit nearly all the time. Same goes for Shred, which deals increased damage versus bleeding monsters, hence becoming better than Mangle.

What are your thoughts? Need tweaks?

[Litre]

Honestly? I still miss my 2P & 4P set-bonus from my Dragon Soul set. I think this is a step in the right direction. I like it better than the current set-bonuses, I'm just hopeful the last tier is on-par with what Dragon Soul offered.

[Deleted]

Well, first tier sets' bonuses are not often "fun", i.e. T11. When looking at T12 (my favourite so far) we actually saw a very neat 2P and an even better 4P. However, T13, Dragon Soul, made Rip nearly useless <60% and made FB too strong and the 4P after the change is bollocks.

Now, the new tier set bonuses in T13 are kind of the same as T11, but T14 looks good, which I did say.. 2P is just a bit weird as it may emphasise on using DoC over the other 2 talents, although it could also be a way of forgiving the 2 choices, so that PS is viable with all 3 talents.

[Kals]

It seems the 2P forces you to spec DoC as using PS without DoC but with HotW/NV is useless.

Unless something changed dramatically with gear since I stopped PvEing 2 months back there were enough gaps in the rotation where you're pooling energy that you can fit in an NS HT easily; biggest concern is during Berserk, allowing a HotW/NV spec to still work. But last I knew, DoC is theoretically the top performing spec for feral anyways on any fights you can actually pull it off without wanting to rip your hair out.

[Stratogod]

It seems the 2P forces you to spec DoC as using PS without DoC but with HotW/NV is useless.

i dont think it will be useless for HotW/NV users since a free combo point is nice in any spec. If DoC is more complex to master than the other options, this set bonus might encourage more people to use DoC

[Garth]

They nerfed NV for PvE halving the cooldown and the damage so it can't be stacked with berserk. I was doing just fine using NV this tier because I don't really enjoy the DoC rotation.

Now they're doubling down on the DoC madness and making it even more the preferred choice. This goes against their earlier claims of making it a real choice between three options and trying to steer players toward a specific choice. This is just my opinion and I know some people like playing DoC, but it just feels gross to have to weave in heals rather than just clawing and biting monsters till they bleed to death.

I'm curious if it is ever possible for agility to get to the point where 6% more from HotW becomes the preferred choice. I would like this the best because it is just less to keep track of and a more forgiving rotation to perform while trying to do boss mechanics and stay out of the fire.

DoC is all well and good on a target dummy, but just try to make sure to use an insta cast HT at the right time to not let predatory swiftness wear off while dodging double death bubbles on Zor'lok HC.

/rant

[Paloro]

Feral energy regen has always been pretty slow. Even before 5.0, I would always find myself throwing in random FFF's to keep myself from spamming shred and let my energy regen properly. With the implementation of DoC, using HT is just another means to fill my wait time. I highly prefer the DoC rotation because you get rewarded with great dps if you play it properly!

Our rotation is actually pretty simplistic if you take out the FB portion (above 25%). You are essentially just changing your finisher from Rip to SR every time. Because of that, you don't really need to "track" the timers so much leaving PS as the only main thing to look at.

[Trubo]

Hi!

The tier set bonuses have been announced and the feral ones are as follows:

Item - Druid T15 Feral 2P Bonus (New) Predatory Swiftness grants you an additional combo point on your current combo target when consumed.
Item - Druid T15 Feral 4P Bonus (New) After using Tiger's Fury, you gain 40% increased critical strike chance on the next 3 uses of Mangle, Shred, or Ferocious Bite.

It seems the 2P forces you to spec DoC as using PS without DoC but with HotW/NV is useless.

The four piece is rather interesting; critical strike is becoming less useful as we get free 40% crit every 30 seconds for our main CP generator and execution ability and with Blood in the Water, FB will crit nearly all the time. Same goes for Shred, which deals increased damage versus bleeding monsters, hence becoming better than Mangle.

What are your thoughts? Need tweaks?

How is it useless? Doesn't PS still make the next spell cast instant, free and no longer breaks you from cat form? Yes it's better with DoC but I wouldn't call it useless for the other choices.

As for the 4 piece, it's probably a good thing that PvE tier bonuses are still inferior for PvP. Imagine the QQ about Feral burst if it wasn't.

[Garth]

Imagine the QQ about Feral burst if it wasn't.

PvP is the reason Feral always gets gutted in PvE. PvP should have been saved for a different game.

[Tinderhoof]

They nerfed NV for PvE halving the cooldown and the damage so it can't be stacked with berserk.

Can you explain how halfling a 3 minute cooldown causes that now 1.5 minute cooldown to not line up with a 3 minute cooldown?

How is it useless? Doesn't PS still make the next spell cast instant, free and no longer breaks you from cat form? Yes it's better with DoC but I wouldn't call it useless for the other choices.

It isn't useless, but it does have a cost. The PS'd HT causes a 1.5 second cooldown, and you can not do damage with it. The problem with this ability is that you can't get the extra "Free" combo point when ever you need it. It often will come at 3-5 combo points which can often come during a TF trying to get a Rip off. Losing 1.5 seconds of TF during DoC (which happens all the time) is annoying, but dps nutral. Same think happens with Berserk. You will end up using PS at least 2 time during Berserk. Thats 3 seconds wasted out of our 15 second cooldown.
Now it may come out as a DPS plus in all of this. However the it is much easier to make a mistake and waste the bonus all together. The 2p is great for highly skilled DoC players. It makes a clunky rotation even more clunky to anyone not in that bucket.