Feral WoD changes

[gestapo]

its hard enough to perfectly perform the somatic components of a spell while standing still, its even harder todo for a feral druid whi stands on 4 legs, its totaly imposable to move along with it

I disagree, but I know it's highly unlikely for this to happen. Regardless, we need to be able to cast cc without switching out of form. Even 1 & 3 would be fine. Right now we lose far too much to make it worthwhile popping out of form to cc. With cyclone being able to be removed by MD & Bubble it makes it even more worthless (if that was possible) for Feral to use. The current playstyle for Feral is terrible. They just tunnel dmg with no thought. Hence their strongest comp being Kittycleave with one of the most tunnel friendly mongoloid classes.

[hullaballoonatic]

Pandemic + No Snapshotting + No DoC + CPs stack on player neuters the complexity and depth of Feral. Bye bye, fun.

[Shardik]

I'm kind of hoping they do a special moonfire animation for cats, if I can fire lasers from my mouth it would make up for most of the changes to the class. Never going to happen though, of course they'll stick with the regular old light beam from the sky.

[Tinderhoof]

Important clarification. It seems our comb points will not be attached to us, but will shift from target to target as we change.
https://twitter.com/CM_Lore/status/452135276475711488
Not sure why this is unless they want to avoid having to make combo points expire like Chi/HP does. It will force us to pay attention and not be targeting a mob that is about to die, or we will only be able to use the combo points for SR. It doesn't feel like that would encourage good game play.

[Sylar Hao]

I'm kind of hoping they do a special moonfire animation for cats, if I can fire lasers from my mouth it would make up for most of the changes to the class. Never going to happen though, of course they'll stick with the regular old light beam from the sky.

Or from the eyes! I wanna be a lion version of Cyclops!

[Tinderhoof]

Or from the eyes! I wanna be a lion version of Cyclops!

That would be amazing. But it wouldn't be moon fire anymore unless it came from our....wait I don't want that.

[gestapo]

Important clarification. It seems our comb points will not be attached to us, but will shift from target to target as we change.
https://twitter.com/CM_Lore/status/452135276475711488
Not sure why this is unless they want to avoid having to make combo points expire like Chi/HP does. It will force us to pay attention and not be targeting a mob that is about to die, or we will only be able to use the combo points for SR. It doesn't feel like that would encourage good game play.

Thanks for the update, Tinderhoof. This raises a lot of questions:

Do rogues get the same treatment? If not, why? And what's the difference between the two? Don't they look like they achieve the same thing?

Agreeing with bolded part.

[Tinderhoof]

And just as quick, combo points being on the target are just a Visual thing, not functionally different then Chi. Nothing to see here folks.
https://twitter.com/Tinderhoof/statu...53200947101696

[exochaft]

Or from the eyes! I wanna be a lion version of Cyclops!

I was envisioning the laser mounted on top of a kitten's head... not exactly a shark, but there's meaning behind a moon beam coming from a kitten's head.

While I touched on it in another thread, there is some dissatisfaction with the lvl 90 tier talents and changes. I personally don't think it will be an issue for a few reasons.

First of all, the talent row is getting transformed into what it was originally meant to be: hybrid druid fun-time. The intent was for a druid, let's say a Feral for this discussion, to pick a talent based upon how they wanted to potentially help tank or heal for an encounter. Unfortunately, with the kitty throughput stuff attached to these talents (and the healing model of MoP doesn't help) most people did not pick the best support talent versus picking the biggest damage output talent. Seriously, which Feral picked DoC because they wanted to do bigger HT's over NV/HotW healing? Don't worry worry about the damage gains from the tier, if Ferals still need it, it will be added innately later on.

Secondly, with respect to DoC specifically, I think the damage buff could actually be baked into the Feral spec (keep in mind, the information let out was actually very little compared to the whole picture we'd like). It could end up being a passive that gives you the current talent's damage buff when you consume PS, although I'd imagine the damage modifier would need to be lower since it would basically be required to use.

[Raugnaut]

Pounce currently does incredibly weak damage. With a 100% buff followed by another 100% buff (Providing that htis is 2 seperate buffs instead of refering to just the perk), pounce will deal damage equivalent to Ravage before Mastery. Once Mastery kicks in, Pounce will deal more damage then Ravage. Granted, Pounce will be slightly more expensive then Ravage, and Ravage will still have the 50% increased crit chance on targets above 80% health.

So with high Mastery, a feral will want to attempt to open with Pounce whenever they can, and will also want to keep Pounce up as much as possible if they take Incarnation.

As for the ppl QQing about Snapshotting removal hurting skill-complexity and DPS-ability, remember that the Snapshotting change is hitting ALL classes. More of them affected by others, of course (Warlocks, Boomkins, Spriests, ect), but skill-complexity and dps-output is decreasing for everyone with this change.

[Kraineth]

And just as quick, combo points being on the target are just a Visual thing, not functionally different then Chi. Nothing to see here folks.
https://twitter.com/Tinderhoof/statu...53200947101696

Probably still need clarification, but from how I understood his statement, it sounds like CPs will work just like chi/holy power, the only difference is that the base UI will show them on the target rather than on the player. A small difference, but big enough to differentiate combo points from the other resource mechanics that are stored on a player.

I cannot imagine they will design it so that we lose CPs if our target dies, sort of defeats one of the goals of the change if we need to get off a target that is about to die or we sacrifice dps.

[kahdgarxi]

As for the ppl QQing about Snapshotting removal hurting skill-complexity and DPS-ability, remember that the Snapshotting change is hitting ALL classes. More of them affected by others, of course (Warlocks, Boomkins, Spriests, ect), but skill-complexity and dps-output is decreasing for everyone with this change.

Another important point to note, is that Snapshotting removal is only for temporary stat buffs like trinkets, Bloodlust, etc. Class-specific cooldowns like Tigers Fury will still snapshot like they do now.

[gestapo]

Probably still need clarification, but from how I understood his statement, it sounds like CPs will work just like chi/holy power, the only difference is that the base UI will show them on the target rather than on the player. A small difference, but big enough to differentiate combo points from the other resource mechanics that are stored on a player.

I cannot imagine they will design it so that we lose CPs if our target dies, sort of defeats one of the goals of the change if we need to get off a target that is about to die or we sacrifice dps.

From what I've seen we will keep the combo points regardless, but it will just show on the mob we have targeted.

[gestapo]

What do people think about the implications of Mangle being removed in favour of keeping Shred for Feral? Particularly for PvP

Obviously we know what Shred's positional requirement is being removed, and we're getting a 20% buff to Shred (think it was from a perk, correct me if i'm wrong). However, there's no mention of a change in the energy cost of Mangle. I wonder how this will effect our combo point generation in PvP. We're already used to throwing out a lot of mangles because a) cheaper b) people try keep their backs to a feral. Will I see a big difference in using a more expensive cp generator? On one hand it's definitely harder hitting.

I'm most likely taking the moonfire talent for Feral since the others look horrible for PvP (with a few exceptions for specific comps). Perhaps this will help balance it out. If we're ever knocked out of melee range or need to keep the target in combat the talent looks great and shred energy concerns maybe moot.

[Elunedra]

well passive SR seems also good for pvp, but moonfire is way more fun

[Deleted]

I have no problem keeping Savage Roar up in PvP, but passive SR is a passive SR.


If Moonfire deals enough damage, I'd consider it.
It's just Ferals version of Shuriken Toss, with a dot

[gestapo]

well passive SR seems also good for pvp, but moonfire is way more fun

Initially I thought I'd like the passive SR, but the more I think about it, I'm not so certain anymore. The way i see it I have two options:


Option 1
Use the SR glyph and grab the moonfire talent. I generally find that SR is most problematic during the opener because given enough reaction time people can get away after Pounce wears out and before you get that 5cp rip off (less so with TF thrown in, but in can happen - especially in an arena setting with team cc).

The glyph giving me a 40ish secs means i have plenty of time for my opener, and I have a great utility spell in a ranged cp builder that can be used to keep people in combat and stomp totems from range (something that was really annoying before), eat a grounding totem, interrupt a flag cap, etc.

Option 2
I use the SR passive talent which frees up a glyph spot. Seeing as some of the new glyphs are really good - for e.g. Nine Lives glyph being mandatory for most comps we run - this is the only reason i find passive SR to be a compelling talent.

However, after consideration I feel that I have to go with option 1 simply because passive SR means i will no longer have a ranged cp dump and no way to proc PS unless they give us some other finisher.

[Arrowset]

I think I'll go for moonfire cat for pvp, for basically the reasons the guy above me said. Extra ranged damage and ranged heals in pvp is hugely important.

Plus, I assume moonfire would do its full damage even if savage roar fell off- it's magical damage not physical damage. The clincher imo is that moonfire generates combo points - so you can kite, fire off a few moonfires, and use the points to get SR back up. It's also worth noting that, as a magical spell, moonfire can't be dodged. That's even more crucial since we won't have the option to use a shred that only activates from behind. So we can kite with moonfires if a rogue pops evasion.

It also seems like it will add some fun new aspects to feral pvp, instead of just tunneling damage in melee range.

[Tinderhoof]

Shred no longer has a positional requirement.

[Kraineth]

Shred no longer has a positional requirement.

I believe arrowset was talking about the fact that shred (as it is now) and ravage for that matter, both effectively ignore evasion, since these abilities currently require you to be behind the target. This is obviously only a pvp concern, with shred no longer having its positional requirement, it can no longer be used to bypass evasion.