Feral WoD wishlist

[gestapo]

I'm not seeing much response from the Feral PVP side so i'll start with a wish-list:

- SR damge bonus made permanent, given haste/energy regen mechanic instead.
I loved the WOTLK gameplay - it was fun and challenging, but we're not in the same place anymore so I think it's silly to draw comparisons. I think the current effect of SR needs to be baked in to feral, made permanent. Right now it's really not hard to main the buff, but it makes for very boring gameplay.
However, we do need a CP dump. This has been mentioned before, but i'll say it again. SR as a spell could maybe function like a combination of slice and dice + recup (sans heal), albeit a weaker version. This way we have CP dump for PS procs while being useful, but not being disabled by not having it up.

- Cyclone castable in form for CC
I think bringing Hibernate as a CC is not a good option. Instead, allow cyclone be castable in forms (since we can glyph for longer range). PS should still be usable on healing touch, but if roots get taken away from PS procs that needs to be castable in form too. I wouldn't mind seeing Hibernate removed altogether.

- Mastery alternative
Someone suggested a change to mastery where for bleeds each point of mastery takes bleed damage off ticks and front-loads them. This is a very interesting idea that I'd like to see discussed. Alternatively what if the mastery acted like a better version of haste, increasing the frequency of bleed ticks per time frame?

- Combo point system on player
Combo points on the druid and not the target. This really needs to happen. Feral has a hard time with target swaps in pvp and this would go a long way towards helping that without being over the top.

Glyph of Cat form and/or Barkskin baked in
- I feel like these two glyphs are too mandatory. Either one (ideally both) should be made permanent.

- Bear form utility for Feral, and vice versa
We should have more Bear utility other than for a "MoU + healthstone and/or renewal" heal, which seems gimmicky and annoying to say the least because almost dead to 70%+ HP (numbers not confirmed) is excessive. I don't have any ideas here so suggestions welcome.

Thoughts?

[Zstr]

I'm not seeing much response from the Feral PVP side so i'll start with a wish-list:

- SR damge bonus made permanent, given haste/energy regen mechanic instead.
I loved the WOTLK gameplay - it was fun and challenging, but we're not in the same place anymore so I think it's silly to draw comparisons. I think the current effect of SR needs to be baked in to feral, made permanent. Right now it's really not hard to main the buff, but it makes for very boring gameplay.
However, we do need a CP dump. This has been mentioned before, but i'll say it again. SR as a spell could maybe function like a combination of slice and dice + recup (sans heal), albeit a weaker version. This way we have CP dump for PS procs while being useful, but not being disabled by not having it up.

there will be 100lvl talent that will made it passive, but I see Moonfire one will be much interesting, other one is AoE, maybe for rbg cleave

- Cyclone castable in form for CC
I think bringing Hibernate as a CC is not a good option. Instead, allow cyclone be castable in forms (since we can glyph for longer range). PS should still be usable on healing touch, but if roots get taken away from PS procs that needs to be castable in form too. I wouldn't mind seeing Hibernate removed altogether.

they should of done this already! when instead bringing cyclone cd 5.3, and removing it 5.4,

Glyph of Cat form and/or Barkskin baked in
- I feel like these two glyphs are too mandatory. Either one (ideally both) should be made permanent.

this was like stupid talent, that existed from Wotlk, and gone into Glyph, but well there is no other interesting choices in glyph now either, same with SR glyph it's mandotory

- Bear form utility for Feral, and vice versa
We should have more Bear utility other than for a "MoU + healthstone and/or renewal" heal, which seems gimmicky and annoying to say the least because almost dead to 70%+ HP (numbers not confirmed) is excessive. I don't have any ideas here so suggestions welcome.

HoTW is cd for that also, Frenzied Regeneration also still works, plus increased armor,
I'm finding myself more often go in bear form to just defend points or slow someone to last longer, rather then be in kitty form and do face ripping, this is annoying

[gestapo]

there will be 100lvl talent that will made it passive, but I see Moonfire one will be much interesting, other one is AoE, maybe for rbg cleave

Yeah, I'm saying I actually prefer if they gave us a different talent, bake the current SR damage bonus into our regular attacks or bleeds, and change SR to increase haste and/or energy regen. That way we still have a CP dump to get the PS buff.

I'm not sure about Moonfire talent. They better make it scale well with our AP. Can you imagine moonfire spamming in cat? That would look hillarious.

[Zstr]

I'm not sure about Moonfire talent. They better make it scale well with our AP. Can you imagine moonfire spamming in cat? That would look hillarious.

it should be like and having same damage as Rake to be on pair with other talents of that tier, but a ranged attack, it's really nice to finnish people which are are going to run away when they low hp, a little help against kiters also

maybe even give us not moonfire but a new ability to put up bleeds, something like dk's Outbreak, would also help in target switching, with cd ofcourse

[hullaballoonatic]

Combo Points on the player make them essentially no different from Holy Power, Chi, and Rage. I'd rather they stay on the target.

I would be interested in a possible savage roar replaced with a berserk made into a cp finisher, which would allow an easier time rebuilding cps on a new target, since like SR, you could use cps currently tied to corpses.

[teddabear]

Combo Points on the player make them essentially no different from Holy Power, Chi, and Rage. I'd rather they stay on the target.

There is a reason they didn't make the same mistake they did with Combo Points. It's long past time to undo that mistake.

[Paloro]

I think it all depends on the damage distribution they are going to place in WoD whether or not character based cp's would be too powerful. I would hate to get into a situation where padding was essential to keep up in damage.

[teddabear]

I think it all depends on the damage distribution they are going to place in WoD whether or not character based cp's would be too powerful. I would hate to get into a situation where padding was essential to keep up in damage.

The main result I see from moving combo points to the player is Feral wouldn't suck so bad on add heavy fights. I don't think that would have any impact on overall DPS balance. Blizzard hasn't taken into account how poorly Feral performs on those fights for tuning since Lich King.

[gestapo]

Combo Points on the player make them essentially no different from Holy Power, Chi, and Rage. I'd rather they stay on the target.

I would be interested in a possible savage roar replaced with a berserk made into a cp finisher, which would allow an easier time rebuilding cps on a new target, since like SR, you could use cps currently tied to corpses.

I don't see that being a big deal for the sake of better balance because there's so much stuff that's already homogenized. I'd argue for a soulswap or rogue redirect mechanic, but we'd be copying those abilities too. I feel like with the current system we lose too much if a target dies with cp on them or if we need to swap.

As for getting a SR type buff with duration based on finisher, it's an interesting idea, but the problem is that we'd still be balanced with the buff in mind. I think it would be much simpler to bake the SR bonus damage into our attacks and have SR itself function like S&D and/or recup.

[mmokri]

- SR damge bonus made permanent, given haste/energy regen mechanic instead.

Is not this topic created by ex-rogue? There is the way to reroll rogue.

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard hasn't taken into account how poorly Feral performs on those fights for tuning since Lich King.

Maybe blizz take this into account. It explains superb single target dps.

[aggixx]

Maybe blizz take this into account. It explains superb single target dps.

Probably not. Generally Blizzard does not balance solely around perfect play, they put a significant emphasis on what kind of numbers the majority of players playing that spec are pulling. Ferals ridiculous single target damage is probably most reasonably attributed to be being balanced in such way, which causes a bigger discrepancy in potential damage for us than most specs due to being a very difficult spec.

Blizzard hasn't taken into account how poorly Feral performs on those fights for tuning since Lich King.

Tuning on what fights? Padding fights? How does that matter?

Regardless, Blizzard balances specs by their performance in the tier overall; I don't know why you'd make conclusions about them (un)intentionally disregarding specific types of encounters.

[teddabear]

Probably not. Generally Blizzard does not balance solely around perfect play, they put a significant emphasis on what kind of numbers the majority of players playing that spec are pulling. Ferals ridiculous single target damage is probably most reasonably attributed to be being balanced in such way, which causes a bigger discrepancy in potential damage for us than most specs due to being a very difficult spec.


Tuning on what fights? Padding fights? How does that matter?

Regardless, Blizzard balances specs by their performance in the tier overall; I don't know why you'd make conclusions about them (un)intentionally disregarding specific types of encounters.

Blizzard is very tight lipped about how they balance but if they are using the boss fights from each tier they must be discarding some. Warlocks on Fallen Protectors for example.

[Tinderhoof]

They tune based on how the encounter is supposed to be played (as they planned it anyway), not based on how people can scumbag it when they over gear it.

[teddabear]

They tune based on how the encounter is supposed to be played (as they planned it anyway), not based on how people can scumbag it when they over gear it.

There is certainly a lot of that going on now, the top Lock DPS on Protectors currently is over 2 million. Going back to when they were current progression, for both SoO and ToT you had to throw out at least the best boss and worst boss for each spec for their to be a semblance of balance. You can still see this to some degree if you look at Raidbots and use median DPS for All parses. That is not my preferred metric but it is the best one now that so many people overgear the instance.

Regarding combo points I would think most people would want to avoid another Heroic Horridon and Council dilemma. There may have been some Ferals that did well on those bosses but it was an infinitesimal amount.

[gestapo]

Is not this topic created by ex-rogue? There is the way to reroll rogue.

If your argument is based on you wanting to be 'special' at the sake of balance, please feel free to come up with an idea.

[Tinderhoof]

Raidbots is a totally useless metric for a bunch of reasons.
1. Raid bots only collects data from World of Logs which is no longer the only game in town. Lots of guilds have swapped to Warcraft Logs, so you have a smaller sample size.
2. Logs are heavily affected based on who is taking the log. When looking at rankings it doesn't tell you who was the one taking the log.
3. We are at a time so late in the tier that all numbers are inflated by farm strats that were not possible during progression that favor a specific class to game higher scores.
4. Class representation spread. Comparing the logs of 10,000 warlocks vs 1000 Ferals for a specific fight isn't going to get you an accurate comparison.
5. Selling runs. Guilds are selling completion runs for underperforming alts and carrys. This adds outliers which swing numbers.

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.

[Arielle]

most of the only guilds that matter have swapped to warcraft logs, so you have a smaller sample size.

ftfy.

>.>

[Tinderhoof]

I wasn't going to say it like that...but ya I love Warcraft Logs.

[teddabear]

Raidbots is a totally useless metric for a bunch of reasons.
1. Raid bots only collects data from World of Logs which is no longer the only game in town. Lots of guilds have swapped to Warcraft Logs, so you have a smaller sample size.
2. Logs are heavily affected based on who is taking the log. When looking at rankings it doesn't tell you who was the one taking the log.
3. We are at a time so late in the tier that all numbers are inflated by farm strats that were not possible during progression that favor a specific class to game higher scores.
4. Class representation spread. Comparing the logs of 10,000 warlocks vs 1000 Ferals for a specific fight isn't going to get you an accurate comparison.
5. Selling runs. Guilds are selling completion runs for underperforming alts and carrys. This adds outliers which swing numbers.

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.

All valid points but would you agree those effects are reduced by looking at the median of all parses? If not I suspect a few posters in this thread remember what the parses looked like for TOT and SoO when they were current. Maybe Blizzard wasn't discarding parses but if so they were consciously excusing certain specs being low or being high because of their performance on certain fights.

You hear a lot about how good Feral is at single target but historically Feral was even better at single target than it is now.

My point being in MoP Blizzard wasn't willing to make Feral good enough at single target to fully make up how bad they are at certain types of add fights. It's all water under the bridge at this point but for the next expansion Ferals would be better of if they made those weak spots a little stronger.

[Tinderhoof]

All valid points but would you agree those effects are reduced by looking at the median of all parses?

I do not agree. Making a statistic out of inaccurate numbers will be just that... Inaccurate. Looking back at progression won't make the numbers better for a few reasons.
1. #2 on the pervious list. Logs are heavily influenced by the person taking them. It makes some classes look worse, and some look better just based on who was collecting numbers.
2. During progression most of the top end guilds are not making logs public so the best of the best aren't being tracked until they are already in farm/scumbag mode.

Blizzard is able to do their own data collection and they have complete numbers instead of the partial collected by Raidbots/ProRaiders. Also the goal is not to make everyone comparable. It's to make every class (not spec) useful in a majority of situations. Class stacking is unavoidable for the top 1%. They just want to make sure it stays in that 1%.

Raidbots/ProRaiders can be good for some things. It's a decent tool for you to compare your performance any given week compared to others of your spec. Numbers aren't complete by any means, and things like early deaths and padding make outliers. However as soon as you try to compare 2 classes it breaks down.