To all those druids that wanted DoC to change..

[Kojo]

I am not confused at all. DoC is not difficult to play. The timing and preparation to execute it correctly is stupidly easy to get the hang of. It really is just a slowed down feral play style. But since it incorporates something new (strict healing spells in a dps spec to increase damage), people are spouting how difficult it is to play. DoC is just so far ahead right now it needs a nerf. I doubt this change will make the spec unplayable, but it will certainly make the other options competitive. And I personally like feral because it is fast paced, but right now DoC doesn't allow you to play like that.

I don't think you're playing feral right if you think it's fast paced, or that DoC slows it down. As far as making other options competitive, not really, as it looks like HotW will just be the default dps choice instead with DoC being roughly as far below as it was previously ahead (and the now even more insignificant healing 'utility' will still be ignored), and Vigil...is still just there.

[Deleted]

This is true. But you missed my point. The point of the hybrid tier is to allow limited hybrid utility without compromising dps. Who would blow GCDs on PS heals unless it was offset by a dps boost? Not many. Hence, DoC. Half of this talent is supposed to be the healing component, same way as half of HotW is a hybrid cd and half of NV is a healing cd. On live, DoC functionally has no healing component.

In fact i don't understand healing components in a Dps-spec, except for a small surv. With DoC talent i see HT as a small personal Cd for increase dps, like a TF if you want, who require each time a GCD for cast but give a buff. Without this buff use a GCD for each HT you'll cast, feral dps will be compromised and not competitive with other melee classes. You can compare it with other classes: which class requires a Heal spells for make a significative dps? Noone. So, cast HT and use a GCD for make reasonable dps it's Ok, and this is the part of talent hybridization, if you want tell about hybrid class; and it's precisely this mechanic who make Feral hard but wonderful to play

[Dysheki]

DoC is just so far ahead right now it needs a nerf.

You are right in that DoC is ahead, but it's not so far ahead that we never use HotW at all. I consider it to be within an acceptable range on live considering the passive nature. This statement shows how little you know. DPS variance is actually more on the count and timing of trinket procs more than DoC vs HotW.

Some points I don't understand from you: if DoC is so easy (which, to be honest, it isn't hard to use at all - but neither is anything in this game) why are they simplifying it? Why do you say things like feral is fast paced without DoC? Feral is one of the more casual specs in that you don't need to do something every GCD to do max dps and you spend a lot of time waiting. That's how it's always been. Taking DoC out and reducing the need to use PS HTs will actually cause you to do less than a live DoC rotation. If it's so boring why do you consider dumbing something down even further will make it more fun?

I just don't understand your statements.

[Burburburs]

Probably you use your spells completely random for say "feral is not difficult to play". Is it not difficult compared to which class sorry?

Is there a difficult class to play in wow? no, not really. I have been playing feral since Naxx 80 and each expac just makes it easier to play.

I don't think you're playing feral right if you think it's fast paced, or that DoC slows it down. As far as making other options competitive, not really, as it looks like HotW will just be the default dps choice instead with DoC being roughly as far below as it was previously ahead (and the now even more insignificant healing 'utility' will still be ignored), and Vigil...is still just there.

Feral used to be very fast paced. Watching timers, trinket procs, seeing when it is safe to get an extra FB in, how soon so TF off CD to utilize that buff. IMO feral was at it's best when mangle had a bleed debuff that lasted 12 secs, you were always on your toes. DoC does incorporate a lot of that but it's overshadowed by the importance of getting the 4-5 combo points and making sure you spend those charges on rake/rip. Sometimes in DoC it's even a good idea to hold off on finishers to wait for energy to regen.

And as for it not being balanced. I believe it will be buffed if testing shows it was nerfed too much. A lot is going to change between now and 5.4. I am just glad blizzard is seeing this talent it too good and is fixing it.

[Paloro]

Dysheki pretty much summed up my thoughts on your comment(s) Burbuburs.

I've been playing feral since early in BC and can say confidently that wrath feral was not fast paced. Energy regen was slower due to haste being complete and utter crap and overall you had less debuff/buffs to manage. Not to mention everything back then was on icd's that could be tracked and any good player could anticipate/track them.

Everything you said about timers/trinket procs/FB chances/TF still is there. The only difference is Mangle which is replaced with Thrash, so yea 12 sec was harder then 15.....but come on man, you are making very little sense.

Perhaps you have just become better as a player and as such it doesn't feel as difficult?

[Deleted]

Is there a difficult class to play in wow? no, not really. I have been playing feral since Naxx 80 and each expac just makes it easier to play.



Feral used to be very fast paced. Watching timers, trinket procs, seeing when it is safe to get an extra FB in, how soon so TF off CD to utilize that buff. IMO feral was at it's best when mangle had a bleed debuff that lasted 12 secs, you were always on your toes. DoC does incorporate a lot of that but it's overshadowed by the importance of getting the 4-5 combo points and making sure you spend those charges on rake/rip. Sometimes in DoC it's even a good idea to hold off on finishers to wait for energy to regen.

And as for it not being balanced. I believe it will be buffed if testing shows it was nerfed too much. A lot is going to change between now and 5.4. I am just glad blizzard is seeing this talent it too good and is fixing it.

If you say all classes are easy to play and you're bored with Feral, you can easily play another class and enjoy with that :P
Sure Feral damage isn't based on a timed offensive CD use like some classes, or on a bored rotation like some others. You have to use your spell, ALL YOUR SPELL, at right time for mastering it, for reach important goals. If you play only casual for complete Daily with 3-button press, yeah i'm agree with you, Feral is easy and boring :P

[Tarazet]

I am not confused at all. DoC is not difficult to play. The timing and preparation to execute it correctly is stupidly easy to get the hang of. It really is just a slowed down feral play style. But since it incorporates something new (strict healing spells in a dps spec to increase damage), people are spouting how difficult it is to play. DoC is just so far ahead right now it needs a nerf. I doubt this change will make the spec unplayable, but it will certainly make the other options competitive. And I personally like feral because it is fast paced, but right now DoC doesn't allow you to play like that.

I don't think DoC slows down the rotation, simply because Feral isn't GCD locked except during Berserk/Bloodlust. It does slow down the rotation if you try to use it as a bear, but the damage bonus is so small compared to HotW/NV that it isn't even worth considering.

NV remains attractive to Guardians in any situation where you have more than one target. You can line it up with Berserk, have Mangle hitting up to 3 targets, and every one of those hits will proc a heal - not to mention do a tremendous amount of damage. Council, Animus and Consorts are examples of where it's very, very good. It's also the best choice on Megaera, where you don't have a 45-second window to stay in Cat Form, and possibly heroic Ji-Kun when you're on the nests. (I don't know offhand if there are multiple targets on the tank nests.)

[Burburburs]

Dysheki pretty much summed up my thoughts on your comment(s) Burbuburs.

I've been playing feral since early in BC and can say confidently that wrath feral was not fast paced. Energy regen was slower due to haste being complete and utter crap and overall you had less debuff/buffs to manage. Not to mention everything back then was on icd's that could be tracked and any good player could anticipate/track them.

Everything you said about timers/trinket procs/FB chances/TF still is there. The only difference is Mangle which is replaced with Thrash, so yea 12 sec was harder then 15.....but come on man, you are making very little sense.

Perhaps you have just become better as a player and as such it doesn't feel as difficult?

Perhaps but how I remember feral in wotlk, there was much less room for error and much more going on. I personally don't hard cast thrash on single target, I wait for CC procs, but I am not main spec feral this patch so that might have changed. Also, old mangle and thrash are significantly different because thrash doesn't interact with other dots.

As for slow-paced/fast-paced. DoC feels more like a fury warrior to me, where you have windows of actions and the other time you are preparing for the next window (don't take this comparison too literally). The typical feral style feels more constant than DoC, I am much more likely to throw out a FB is all looks good and less likely to clip rip/rake with a long remaining duration unless their are some really sexy procs up.

Maybe using the words slow paced and fast paced was a poor choice. But my larger point is neither of the builds are difficult and people need to stop trying to sell DoC as some incredibly difficult build because it really isn't. Blizzard isn't trying to make feral easier, they are giving a much needed nerf to a dominate talent.

[Dysheki]

Blizzard isn't trying to make feral easier, they are giving a much needed nerf to a dominate talent.

I don't have enough time to coment on the rest so I'll focus on this comment.

They ARE trying to make it easier. They HAVE SAID SO in the patch notes.

They have said they prefer active talents to give a slightly higher reward than passive ones.

/boggle really hard

[Burburburs]

I don't have enough time to coment on the rest so I'll focus on this comment.

They ARE trying to make it easier. They HAVE SAID SO in the patch notes.

They have said they prefer active talents to give a slightly higher reward than passive ones.

/boggle really hard

You have two build. Neither are difficult. You make them both viable. How is that making the class easier to play?

But I am done having to justify myself to a bunch of upset people. Have fun in 5.4.

[Dysheki]

You have two build. Neither are difficult. You make them both viable. How is that making the class easier to play?

But I am done having to justify myself to a bunch of upset people. Have fun in 5.4.

Can you read patch notes?

Dream of Cenarius has been completely redesigned to reduce complexity and increase usability, but maintain the spirit of the effects.

reduce complexity

Like I said, I'm not saying DoC on live is that terrible difficult for me (http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/us/elune/Dysheki/). But to say it's not harder than the PTR version is delusional.

And anyway, they will fix the numbers so DoC will be a slight DPS gain over HotW again like it was before. You can count on it. They have said they prefer 'active' talents to benefit more than passive talents (I say active with quotes because it really won't be active on the PTR version, just use a HT when you get PS every time and you won't need to worry about it). So your point will be moot because both talents won't be equal (probably same as they are now). Instead they are just trying to lower the skill cap for the average WoW player.

But hey, I had fun being trolled I guess. Laters.

[teddabear]

I have yet to see a single post supporting the DoC nerf that made any sense. However none the posters supporting the DoC nerf actually played DoC so it sounds like sour grapes to me. It was too hard for them so they want it nerfed so the players using it won't do more DPS than them. I don't use DoC because my raid often uses my Tranquility but I have no issue with people that do use DoC doing more damage. Whether is difficult or not it is obviously more difficult than HotW and they are giving up a raid CD so why shouldn't it do more damage? It makes absolutely no sense for it to do less damage than HotW.

[ErothTV]

Well... Just remember that Ferals is a hybrid class, just like enha, retris..
You still have a good defensive cds, big offheals, You can't be OP and this is calling balancing the game. Obviously it was done for the *bad* players which couldn't handle DoC procs (just like INQ for the Retris), however it's going to be a nerf for good PvE ferals and in PvP.

As I said already before -
Do not get stressed yet, it's just the beginning of the PTR, A LOT will still change !

[Kojo]

Well it's a good thing we're not op then. And yeah it is the ptr, which is why you have to make noise so they don't rape your spec, though for us it's more like make a lot of noise so when they thoroughly wreck you maybe they'll fix it a few months later. I've already seen enough "oh that won't go live or they'll change it first" only to see it go live and broken.

[aggixx]

"oh that won't go live or they'll change it first"

Yeah, this is exactly the attitude you don't want to have. Is everything going to live as it is now? Of course not. Do you think they are going to change it to what you want it to be if nobody gives feedback? Of course not.

[Mormolyce]

Personally I feel like healing (or out of spec abilities) should not be part of any dps rotation. Used to be like that on Sub Rogues, it was a dumb design then and it's a dumb design now.

I'd prefer that the entire tier did not contribute to dps at all.

[Whitepaw]

Perhaps but how I remember feral in wotlk, there was much less room for error and much more going on.

Burburburs, take off the rose-tinted glasses, 'cause ArP isn't coming back.

ArP is the reason you loved Feral back in WotLK. Even if you had to refresh Mangle every 12 sec, that design wasn't necessarily a good thing back then, so there were many work-arounds to it:
1. If you had an arms warrior, he would refresh it as part of his standard rotation.
2. If you had another Feral, you had a mangle-bot.
3. If you had to do it yourself, you had the Mangle-glyph (18 sec duration).
4. And the debuff was actually changed to 1 min already in WotLK.

I get it: ArP made us hit really, REALLY hard with Shred, FB and Ravage. It was fun - but only if you had the gear to cap ArP. The downside was this inherent gear dependency. I could play Feral to perfection - but before I reached ArP cap, my dps was mediocre. After reaching it, my dps sky-rocketed. The padding on my back from other raiders was great - but because better dps did NOT equal more skill, it was bad design. The situation was the same for warriors, combat rogues, hunters and blood DKs (then a dps spec).

Oh, and ArP screwed pvp as well.

We almost had the same situation in DS, with agility classes getting that Trinket of Skill (can't remember it's name - agility passive, with a damage proc). Compare 2 x Ferals: One has Trinket of Skill, the other doesn't. The trinket procs could do 4-5% of the Feral's damage - by itself. The second Feral could do his rotation to perfection, but would trail in dps to the first Feral, who had the trinket. Bad design imo, one item should never have such an impact in performance.

And just to be clear: The Feral dps rotation in patch 5.3 is way harder than in WotLK. HT (with a PS proc of 8 sec!) to bring up DoC charges, 3 abilities (Shred/Mangle/Rake) being very equal as combo-builders, Thrash being a dps gain on single-target - and a requirement for AoE and a truck-load of procs that can change priorities in your rotation. It's just a lot more complicated now than it ever was.

[Tinderhoof]

You forgot about Crit capping. That + ArP was why we were good. Our auto attacks either hitting for full power or a glance and combo points flowing like candy because of the crits. The whole system was broken. If you had ArP cap, and you and Crit cap, and if you have a Mangle bot, and if you got Hysteria you would rank. Otherwise not so much.

[Deleted]

Thank goodness the anti 5.4 DoC change sentiment is strong. It's one of the only reasons I play Feral, they have imo the best rotation in game now. I have played hunter and warlock (destro/demo) in MoP before rerolling feral for 5.2 ToT, never had so much fun.

Playing with DoC is not hard, but it's a damn site more interesting than any other class I have played.

[Deleted]

Playing with DoC is not hard, but it's a damn site more interesting than any other class I have played.

It's like all other class play DoC Feral. It's hard mastering it