Dying breed

[Viromand]

Not once have I ever used DoC on a progression fight. HotW tranq is hands down more useful to the raid than forcing out a little more dps. Why bother doinga little more dps when 1 raid cd and a few seconds of my time can allow us to 2 heal an encounter? DoC vs. HotW is far from an obvious choice, many top-end ferals use HotW and many of them use DoC.

Ok, I didnt write that the way I wanted it to sound like.

During progression on a new tier, once you start heroic you are most likely undergeared. So everybody needs to max out dps and hps. Now with lower gear almost everybody has lower health, so EH and absorb win here, tho strong healing like tranq is good too on almost every fight.

The difference between an hotwtranq and a non hotw tranq as guardian or feral with int weapon is huge. now the problem is DoC does more damage (not that big of a difference but it still does more) than HotW. So you have to choose the other classes dont. Tranq alone is a nice support but a HotW tranq is huge, its curretnly the strongest healing cooldown ingame. And even than they would have to cast it for 6 seconds. Plus if you have to move you lost a one time cooldown.

Shamans heal so much with jsut changing a glyph and a talent which doesnt affect dmg on some fights. Sure a bit positional requirements. every class utility has its weaknesses as melees, bnanner need to be placed near the boss, smokebomb needs to be placed and raid stacked. The long cooldown the channeling and that HotW tranq is so strong are alot of restrictions for our only raid cooldown. and you loose dps by speccing hotw.

In the real world "feral" spec was devided into two - guardian and cat, so cat should be 2 times more rare than any other spec just because of this change.
- Most ferals choose guardian, because tanking feels more rewarding.

This is a huge problem after they changed this I only played feral twice in lfr or raid nd brawlers of course. I even quest as a bear right now. having two different specs and two different sets makes playing feral alot harder.

I mean both speccs are really strong, and suitable for every raidencounter up to now. with the current one tanking tier having a druid like the old days as a tank would be insane maybe even to strong.

And to add feral is really cool to play cause this tier almost every hard ability in the game is not hitting melees. even on heroic. having a class with a fun rotatian and DoC is really nice. melee is just tunneling on the boss and use a cooldown every now and then, cause almost no important ability hits melees.

[Grubjuice]

why feral when you can guardian? ferals are hard to play and it takes forever to get into a Queue when you are DPS and not tank.

[Deleted]

Maybe its just me but does if feel like ferals are kind of a dying breed? Ill jump into many a pug only to have people A. Be shocked that a geared feral exists. B. See a feral doing competitive. C. Not be bad. I know it may not be true but but gd it feels like we are the last of a dying breed dont really see much ferals out there. Stay strong in the struggle brothers and sisters. *paw up*

because:
A)Ppls like to cast awesome spells.
B)Fight with big 2h weapons or awesome knifes.
C)Most of us don't like to kill our enemies with our claws.
end of story, that's the real thing.

[Redpanda]

dont get me wrong Im not telling anyone to reroll or quit. its just a observation ive made. There are many times when Ill jump into a raid and people are like wtf is a feral doing in the top 5 dps, all the while Im doing my rotation and doing mechanics correctly and not scumbag dpsing I use that term loosely because lets be real its not hard to scumbag dps on a feral. I feel we bring ALOT of utility from passive boosted personal healing, to predicable burst damage, to retarded amounts of personal and to some extent raid mobility.And Hotw tranq is a very nice raid cd plus helps when you cant be in melee range of the boss (just need a good int weapon)

@ laumex. I have no idea what youre trying to say

in the immortal words of Lord Alamo

DURIDS IS MUST ALWAYZ HALP EECH OTHER: sumtimes a new durid is need sum halp and advise frum a good durid so u shuld alway halp unother

[Dysheki]

why feral when you can guardian?

Because if I were a tank I would like to have big boy active mitigation instead of only having heals and . . . extra dodge.

[Paloro]

Feral has always been an underrepresented class. I seriously doubt that it will ever change either.

Any kind of big change they would make to the spec to encourage more people to play it would force it to be deemed "OP" and then shortly removed. Do we have some issues? Sure, but if you can get the narrow minded people to realize that a well played feral will out damage a rogue (which I do all the time), you should have no problems ever getting a spot in a raid.

[GrieverXIII]

Always loved Feral but i hardly play it outside PvP and Levelling/questing. Its just hard to justify being a melee dps when you have 3 other specs that are mucch more sought and easier to get into groups with. WW Monk also didn't help the case and added just another competitor to the already limited "melee hybrid" raidspots. 10man raids can barely fit one (between Feral, WW, DPS Warrior, Ret, Enhance) and 25man guilds aren't really ever actively recruiting any either so i figure a lot of ferals just give up and either reroll or go Guardian, Resto or Boomkin.

- - - Updated - - -

Because if I were a tank I would like to have big boy active mitigation instead of only having heals and . . . extra dodge.

Trust me, other tanks aren't harder to play, they simply have much more situational tools than bears and in the paladin's cases, broken scaling with vengeance.

Overall i just think splitting Feral and Guardian in 2 specs was a bad move and removed much utility to melee druids. The ability to be a versatile DPS and Tank was what gave a lot of druids their raid spots while now i can hardly see a justification to bring either spec into a raid, specially when Moonkin and Resto are pretty good, not accounting player skill obviously.

[kaiadam]

Other tanks are harder to play. At the very least, they don't get 95% effectiveness from spamming one of two castsequence macros depending on the situation.

Feral was beast in T14, I know I was fairly dominant on the meters and our boomkins were begging to be able to mainswap to feral, plus some decent utility in HoTW tranq (HoTW is the way to go for progression), roar, multiple sunders, and rez. Then they gave rogues smoke bomb buffs, boomkins started to hit their stride with scaling, and guardians were rendered even more useless for progression, there just wasn't much reason to keep throwing agi gear at a druid. I'm glad I swapped to a monk this tier, at least.

[traen]

Other tanks are harder to play. At the very least, they don't get 95% effectiveness from spamming one of two castsequence macros depending on the situation.

More like 50% effectiveness.
Try to tank a random heroic dungeon "spamming two buttons" and look at your dps numbers/mitigation uptime/healing and compare it to the numbers when you do it properly.
You can achieve 50% effectiveness with any tank, you know.

And what's the point of comparing one noob playing one class using castsequence macroses to another noob using castsequence macroses? We know that their performance is awful, but you would never even interfere with them if you play the game right.

[Pacab]

More like 50% effectiveness.You can achieve 50% effectiveness with any tank, you know.

95% is pretty accurate, the only dynamic component of Guardian's rotation is Mangle CD being reset which is impossible to use perfectly anyways because of the nature of GCD locked spam.

[Volitar]

I don't think Feral is bad but they have always been an underrepresented dps class. I guess the side effects of being melee and hybrid? (at least Feral is usually in a better spot than Ret, poor Ret)

[Tarazet]

dont get me wrong Im not telling anyone to reroll or quit. its just a observation ive made. There are many times when Ill jump into a raid and people are like wtf is a feral doing in the top 5 dps, all the while Im doing my rotation and doing mechanics correctly and not scumbag dpsing I use that term loosely because lets be real its not hard to scumbag dps on a feral. I feel we bring ALOT of utility from passive boosted personal healing, to predicable burst damage, to retarded amounts of personal and to some extent raid mobility.And Hotw tranq is a very nice raid cd plus helps when you cant be in melee range of the boss (just need a good int weapon)

@ laumex. I have no idea what youre trying to say

in the immortal words of Lord Alamo

DURIDS IS MUST ALWAYZ HALP EECH OTHER: sumtimes a new durid is need sum halp and advise frum a good durid so u shuld alway halp unother

I've also gotten, "Why is a Feral Druid spamming Wrath/Hurricane and topping the meters?" Lots of hilarity at least in T14. That doesn't happen anymore.

The reason why I don't play Feral is that I can use the same gear, be a tank and do higher DPS.

[FeralSynapse]

I really think feral appeals to a particular type of person-just *who* that is I haven't quiet figured that out yet.

I started raiding the very tail end of Firelands (Yep-Cata baby and proud, I must say) and can recall very clearly guildmates telling me, "That isn't a beginner spec-you should reroll, you'll have a better time and less of a headache."

I couldn't understand why they would say such a thing. I had fallen in love with the playstyle and how the spec worked. I wanted to learn this amazing spec that put a smile on my face everytime I logged on. I figured a lot of things out for myself via research and had a little help from other raiding Feral Druid but eventually found my feet and I haven't looked back.

I honestly think I would quit WoW before I would quit my Feral Druid.

[Moogin]

I'm the only feral in my 10m guild and damn proud of it. Worked hard to get the spot and I'll fight any melee who would like to take my spot. Sure I've had to soak an offspec guardian/Boomkin once in awhile but my kitty always comes first in gearing.

[Deleted]

I find it funny that there is one 25man convinced that ferals are in an okay position and disregards the fact there is also 10 man. Here is my answer to that: Having raided both modes this current tier: You can bring about any dead weight to a 25 man raid and carry them. That is coming from someone who was in a 25 man guild that on a weekly basis killed Jin'rokh with 12 people dead. Hell, in the current tier, you'd probably be alright carrying 10 bad/average players in a 25 man raid up until Dark Animus hc.

So raid comps and classes you bring in a 25 man are irrelevant, therefor you can afford to bring a feral druid or two. If those feral druids are skilled and can pull of respectable numbers, then all the better, but technically, the dps they bring in that kind of environment doesn't matter. All you need these days in 25 man is one competent tank, 4 competent healers and 8-9 competent dps, the rest can be the worst players you could find, and you'd still kill heroic bosses up until Dark Animus. Try doing something similar in a 10 man: You're probably gonna have a bad time, especially if you bring a bad raid comp as well, probably won't even make it past the second heroic boss.
We are talking about a mode here that can afford you to throw away people, letting them die and ress them back up, on mechanics like Frostbite on Council Heroic, while 10 man has to bring a very specific raid comp in order to cheese that mechanic in the same way.
On 10 man, a rogue will always be better than a feral druid mainly because they can put out higher numbers, have a lower skill cap and arguably, bring more utility. Smoke Bomb is an essential tool to have on Council heroic and a very strong cooldown on most bosses in Throne of Thunder. Tricks, stuns, shorter cooldown interrupt if glyphed, cloak of shadows to negate encounter effects.
A feral's pitiful tranq cannot match up to a flat 20% reduction (considering no good feral actually takes HotW). The small bit of additional healing you provide isn't really needed anyways, and innervate these days (at least, until next patch) is a questionable GCD to even cast at this point.

Ferals have always been an underrepresented spec in raids, it is not strange that hasn't changed. I personally played feral during Wrath when it was the hardest spec to play, after one tier of raiding in Cata, they kind of butchered the John Madden style and simplified the spec. My guild asked me to swap to moonkin mainly because they had utility ferals didn't have acces to: Typhoon for Rag Heroic, strong tranq, mushroom aoe, mushroom kiting, etc.
I do have to admit I haven't played a lot of feral during this expansion, but the addition of DoC and placing some of the more utility in the new talent system were a welcome change to ferals, but even than there wasn't a real reason to go back.

[FeralSynapse]

considering no good feral actually takes HotW

I know a certain Feral in Midwinter that would like to have a word or two about that comment.

[Deleted]

I know a certain Feral in Midwinter that would like to have a word or two about that comment.

Good, tell him I sent you. There is no question that if DoC is used properly, it is better than HotW. Looking at his logs, he or she doesn't even use HotW for anything aside from the passive bonus. Let's also consider that current content is farm content for them, and we all know how relaxing people want farm runs to be. (aside from aoeing bats on tortos with hurricane.)

[Sinister Knight]

There are a couple of reason why you dont see as many ferals anymore.

2. Other melees: Rogues do more dmg in almost every aspect and have alot to not get bursted(like on tortos a rogue doesnt lose any life an that fight). Warriors provide banners. shamans have extreme utility and heal.

3. Loot: So you raid 10m and you have a hunter and 1 leather tank. SO you already have two people running the same trinkets and gear and alot of guilds look at this one alot dont know why i never did we raid with 3 druids and 2 leather tanks but still.

5. DPS: The feral does alot of dps if played really good. The problem a lesser skilled rogue or DK will do more dmg. Like SPs need to be played alot better to be on par with Wls(looking at dot management and uptimes). There are alot of fights where ferals cant compete right now,like council or horridon. mostly talking about heroic but still.

6. overall melees: After they buffed movement dps from casters to a ridiculous level. melees are not favored anymore. Mostly there are only 1-2 fights every tier where melees shine. And its more likely to get bursted as a melee on almost every boss than as a range, sure some abilities dont hit you. And not to forget the space they need. If you run with a MW monk you already have 2 melees with a feral and the monk.

I played feral throughout BC/WotLK on a good level and even got some ranks in ulduar. Now i am a guardian who is GM and RL, we are currently 5/13 and have had many raidcomp changes, but I never considered a feral. They have a hard rotation and can mess up alot. The need one trinket that drops of the last boss so getting this on heroic is really hard. Having a 10m guild that wants to raid heroic you have to can choose from 5 leather agi specs Guardian/BRM rogue WW feral. Most classes prefer DPS tank in 10m so you will most likely have a guardian or brm, now you take 1 plate dps and another melee. Alot of guilds will choose rogue or WW.

2. On paper, maybe. Or maybe not. Ferals are still parsing really well last I checked. Since you mentioned Tortos, I will destroy almost any equally geared Rogue on that fight. RoR makes my aoe god. Do you have anything to back up your statement that Rogues do more dmg in almost every aspect? Sounds biased to me.

3. Loot: Rogues will take anything a feral will take, so this is a non issue. The only difference is weapons, which they really only compete with monks for. I don't see how this makes Rogues better to take than Ferals.

5. A lesser skilled Rogue or DK will never out dps me. Ever. Equally skilled, they have a chance. Saying they will simply because of their class/spec is pretty ignorant and pointless.

6. Pointless statement since we're talking Rogues vs. Ferals. Both are melee, and Ferals have just as much if not more mobility than Rogues.

You don't need a Heroic RoR, hell you don't even need a Normal mode one. As for the difficult rotation, Ovale Spell Priority and Nerien's Ovale Scripts make the rotation very easy and very accurate, especially with DoC. It's a tool to be used, and it works. If anyone has a problem with it, too bad.

[Deleted]

2. On paper, maybe. Or maybe not. Ferals are still parsing really well last I checked. Since you mentioned Tortos, I will destroy almost any equally geared Rogue on that fight. RoR makes my aoe god. Do you have anything to back up your statement that Rogues do more dmg in almost every aspect? Sounds biased to me.

5. A lesser skilled Rogue or DK will never out dps me. Ever. Equally skilled, they have a chance. Saying they will simply because of their class/spec is pretty ignorant and pointless.

You can just look at parses and see that rogues are consistently parsing 20k or more higher than feral on most fights in Heroic ToT. Even if we take heroic Tortos, Assasination rogues beat ferals by about 50k, looking at top 200 parses. The only boss where this gap becomes more narrow is Megaera25H, even then, rogues are coming out of top.

This is not theoretical, these are actual numbers which you can easily gather from World of Logs. Obviously, there could be some kind of gimmick that is being abused, like Ji-kun constantly being ontop of the platform, getting free feathers from platform 1, 3 & 7 to get max uptime from primal nutriment, but it'd be logical to assume that the top parsing ferals are also abusing the same mechanics, so that is a moot point, really.

Hell, If we were going to bring ferals purely on the basis that they bring "utility" (in my opinion, they don't really), why not bring a warrior, dk or paladin? Ret paladins can bring a flat 20% reduction in magic damage taken, which is more valuable than a tranq on magical based fights. They can also continue their dps during said raid cooldown. Warriors bring Rallying cry, Skull Banner and Demo banner, all of which are valuable raid cooldowns to have, especially skull banner. Death Knights will bring AMZ next patch and can bring either an aoe grip or aoe stun dependent on their talent choices.
The thing is that every bloody melee dps has great raid utility these days. Druids are no longer a utility class, since everyone has become a utility class in some respect. You cannot bring a feral druids simply on basis of "oh they have this utility" when in reality, "utility" from other classes is flatout better than a shoddy tranq.
Then in becomes a matter of "Which person does the most dps and will be the most valuable asset to our raid group?".

Ferals are viable. But are they the best melee dps? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Fooling yourself into that is silly.

[Viromand]

Other tanks are harder to play. At the very least, they don't get 95% effectiveness from spamming one of two castsequence macros depending on the situation.

No good guardian tank plays with castsequence makro. Not saying guardians are super hard to play, but monks are alot easier infact the can be played with a castsequence makro and not loose anything, warriors are easy as well. in terms of dmg mitigation guardians are the hardest to play righ now.

Dont know how anyone can say other tanks are harder to play when you have monks and warriors in the game. hands down there is no easier tank class than monk there is nothing hard about them, in terms of AM and DPS.

95% is pretty accurate, the only dynamic component of Guardian's rotation is Mangle CD being reset which is impossible to use perfectly anyways because of the nature of GCD locked spam.

Its not impossible, and saying its impossible and using a castsequnce makro is like playing a feral with RoR and not using the proc.

2. On paper, maybe. Or maybe not. Ferals are still parsing really well last I checked. Since you mentioned Tortos, I will destroy almost any equally geared Rogue on that fight. RoR makes my aoe god. Do you have anything to back up your statement that Rogues do more dmg in almost every aspect? Sounds biased to me.

3. Loot: Rogues will take anything a feral will take, so this is a non issue. The only difference is weapons, which they really only compete with monks for. I don't see how this makes Rogues better to take than Ferals.

5. A lesser skilled Rogue or DK will never out dps me. Ever. Equally skilled, they have a chance. Saying they will simply because of their class/spec is pretty ignorant and pointless.

6. Pointless statement since we're talking Rogues vs. Ferals. Both are melee, and Ferals have just as much if not more mobility than Rogues.

Ok lets see.

3. You say RoR makes you an AoE god but you say you dont need RoR.

5. Just proving my point. Not beeing outdpsed by lesser skilled players. So you are comparing your dps to lesser skilled rogues or dks, cause druids are behing on dmg or why would you compare yourself to lesser skilled players. Ferals do good dps noone says otherwise, but Rouges are currently top melee dps.

6. we are talking about why other melees are currently beeing favored. And why ferals are under represented.

You don't need a Heroic RoR, hell you don't even need a Normal mode one. As for the difficult rotation, Ovale Spell Priority and Nerien's Ovale Scripts make the rotation very easy and very accurate, especially with DoC. It's a tool to be used, and it works. If anyone has a problem with it, too bad.

You need RoR you even said it makes you a aoe god. the dps gain from RoR is insane for ferals.

using ovale or stuff like that and than saying less skilled rogues do less dmg is like...wow. dont have any problems with people using it, saying you are a better skilled player than cause you do more dmg cause someone tells you what buttons to press. You are not even actually playing the class and are not that skilled with it if you have to use addons like that.
You can use them but would you be able to pull the same dps without them, if not and you will drop under those lesser skilled rogues and dks that, now if you think druids are on par with rogues that actually means you are a worse player.