Feral WoD wishlist

[hullaballoonatic]

Wild ideas: in lieu of savage roar, berserk is changed to a finisher reducing the energy cost of the next y abilities by x, each depending on cps used (e.g. 1/10%, 1/20%, 2/30%, 2/40%, 3/50%) and, like savage roar, can be used on corpses. This would be a significant direct damage finisher, as well as a powerful aoe finisher, and an efficient way of quickly reapplying dots to new targets. In a potential WoD world where most of our damage still comes from bleeds, it would not be a finisher that i expect would maintain 100% uptime in extended single target or even cleave situations. There are a lot of wide-spread implications to such a change, though, that I have a hard time completely understanding. For example, there would be a 1:1 comparison in direct-damage-bursting-situation-value between berserk and ferocious bite, and the former would likely win in most cases.

[exochaft]

They stop trying to balance classes after the first month or so in a tier. Most times unless there is a class ability that acts oddly with an encounter they don't touch balance till the end of the tier. The last tier is also going to show off the most swing because we usually get the best itemized gear and the most crazy effects so we all feel the most powerful "at the end". Trying to look at all at balance now is pointless. No changes are going to be made, and you can't compare what we are now to what we will be as we don't have a good idea what is coming.

I imagine Blizz also takes a look at the progression of classes/specs as they get better gear through an expansion. We've seen it in the past where new changes come with a raid tier with the explanation that <insert ability/mechanic> will scale too well, getting a preemptive adjustment. It's a legitimate concern if a certain class/spec goes from underwhelming to overpowered due to inherent designs of the specs... the opposite is true, as well. For example, Fire Mages have had problems early on since they don't have enough crit to perform, requiring future raid gear to actually work "properly." Realistically, this happens to everyone, but it certainly affects some specs a lot more than others.

The primary concern is adjusting a class so that there isn't a need for constant adjustments throughout an expansion to keep them within the main pack. Obviously, there will be adjustments no matter how well Blizz balances, but the mechanics of certain specs cause a lot more grief and variance should indicate that said specs should be adjusted to progress better throughout an expansion. It's all about those deltas, even if they occur over the course of an expansion.

[Aseyhe]

A note on the idea of changing savage roar to let you cast more abilities (whether by increasing haste, increasing energy regeneration, or reducing cost):

If you do this, you need to balance it out by reducing base energy regeneration or raising base ability costs. Otherwise, you end up vastly accelerating the pace of the rotation, which is a big playstyle change that I don't think a lot of us are looking for.

[hullaballoonatic]

What if the finisher is not intended to have as consistent an impact on the rotation as such a thing you would be casting too regularly. Not particularly sure how that would be accomplished, but as a general idea...

[kpii]

Please don't dumb down the class

[gestapo]

Please don't dumb down the class

Yeah, good luck with that.

[teddabear]

We seem to be vacillating between whether we are talking about the top 1% or the average player. Imo the median of all parses is still a good representation of the average player. There is one caveat, you have to pick a boss with enough kills for there to be a large sample size. I would agree the general public does not have access to good data to evaluate how things are at the top. Regardless it won't make much difference in WoD. I have a feeling the top Ferals are going to be hugely disappointed in WoD anyway. Losing both snapshotting and Rune is going to be a huge drop in skill cap. Blizzard would have a hard time replacing that and I seriously doubt that they even want to.

[Zstr]

I have a feeling the top Ferals are going to be hugely disappointed in WoD anyway. Losing both snapshotting and Rune is going to be a huge drop in skill cap. Blizzard would have a hard time replacing that and I seriously doubt that they even want to.

I'm playing feral from tbc, and I was never care about that, I'm always was top or max first 5 on damage in my heroic raiding guild, and I don't care about loosing snapshotting at all, it was a late mop addition of op trinkets, if blizzard compensate it with other damage, of direct abilities or buff bleeds , and they will do it I'm fine. I just want to play same kitty spec. What I really care of it's they will remove core componets of how feral is playing, for exapmple removing shred, coz mangle almost do same, removing rake, and leave only rip , coz rotation is so bloat and there are too many buttons to press, etc

[Cantor]

Losing both snapshotting and Rune is going to be a huge drop in skill cap. Blizzard would have a hard time replacing that and I seriously doubt that they even want to.

Both of those were late additions to MoP - Feral was challenging before they were introduced and can remain so; they might reduce the duration or Roar/Rake/Rip for example, or give us a new ability to track (Moonfire?). There is plenty that can be done to retain the complexity of the spec without snapshotting and RoO.

[hullaballoonatic]

I think the talent system is a good place to offer snapshotting gameplay. Considering there is a wide diversity of ferals and what they want from the spec, it would be a waste of resources to not use talents and glyphs to offer that versatility.

[teddabear]

I'm not referring to compensating for the damage, I am talking about compensating for the challenge. I agree that trinkets have gotten out of control for everybody. Imo there is no need to remove snapshotting if they get trinkets under control.

[mmokri]

have gotten out of control for everybody

Its incorrect. Trinkets increase dps of snapshot-able classes more than direct damage classes. See demolock 5.2(or 5.3 idk).

[Zstr]

I'm not referring to compensating for the damage, I am talking about compensating for the challenge. I agree that trinkets have gotten out of control for everybody. Imo there is no need to remove snapshotting if they get trinkets under control.

you called that a challenge - installing dottracker and watch it when it turn green to press needed button?!

[hullaballoonatic]

There is far more to playing feral appropriately with dotsnapshotting than watching add-ons, which is why the better players consistently out-perform the sims. It is necessary to consistently plan out the use of your energy and cps to prepare for powerful trinket procs.

[Pusekatten]

The one thing I wish for i WoD is making bleeds scale with haste.

[teddabear]

you called that a challenge - installing dottracker and watch it when it turn green to press needed button?!

Compared to WoD definitely. Plus if you played Feral you know the real challenge was properly planning so you could press that button.

[Zstr]

Compared to WoD definitely. Plus if you played Feral you know the real challenge was properly planning so you could press that button.

ye but now dot strengh tracker do it for you, instead you think yourself of bleeds damage
rest of: using SR or FB or don't let Rip fell off are still in same skill place in rotation and not going away

but need just wait for beta anyway, to see original development concept, to see things in action, and then give feedback and whine for what went wrong or what you don't like anymore

[teddabear]

ye but now dot strengh tracker do it for you, instead you think yourself of bleeds damage
rest of: using SR or FB or don't let Rip fell off are still in same skill place in rotation and not going away

but need just wait for beta anyway, to see original development concept, to see things in action, and then give feedback and whine for what went wrong or what you don't like anymore

Dot strength tracker only tells you when to overwrite a Rip, it doesn't tell you how to make sure you have 5 combo points so that you can overwrite it.

[mmokri]

Dot tracker addon increases feral/afflock dps... thats blizzard point.

[exochaft]

Dot tracker addon increases feral/afflock dps... thats blizzard point.

This is partly why snap-shotting is going away, as I see two main reasons for the change (both of which happen with Ferals).

The first is that it can cause scaling issues by snap-shotting procs. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, it does put direct-damage at a huge disadvantage compared to those DoT people. Add on top that it can cause some crazy results and completely skew damage spreads, it's just asking for trouble when it comes to balancing.

The second reason, and probably the bigger one as mmokri is implying, you need an add-on to play effectively. With snap-shotting in place, you would need to know the exact value of bleeds depending upon multiple combinations of buffs (such as RoR, Dancing Steel, another trinket proc, and any combination of the above... toss on DoC for kicks, too!)... there's a reason we use an add-on or WA to track the strength of bleeds, because it really is complicated. Even with the added help, how many people know at which threshold of bleed values you would overwrite Rip/Rake compared to the new strength of the bleed you could potentially put it? While I think some of us could handle juggling these variables even w/o the use of something to track bleed strength, it's insane to think the majority of the WoW population could.


All that being said, I don't think the complexity of the Feral rotation should be how fast someone can do math on the fly... and this is coming from someone that loves doing math. Imagine people that hate doing math... I've been hit by flying Calc books in the name of my spouse hating math.