Will you keep playing if Feral AoE is not fixed

[lightheart789]

Tab rake is not a punishment be happy you can keep your CP's when you do it.
why would you compare rake to shred then to swipe? your numbers are way off because you did not work in the energy component. Swipe is 45 energy rake is 35
For each feral the swipe limit will be different and based on gear. The more mastery you have the higher target threshold before you swipe.

Doing a pug while I post this thread so these numbers are taken from trash.
rake
54,000 damage
1543 damage per energy

swipe
8,000 damage per target
178 damage per energy

To figure out your swipe threshold
1543/178=9
so you need 9 targets within an 8 yard radius to swipe. Need 18 targets during incarnation (should save inc if this is the case anyway)

Please do not post information if it's not valid. Some poor feral would read your post and believe it.

[teddabear]

The calculations are based on DPE.

i.e. Damage Per Energy

[lightheart789]

Can you lay out more clearly how you arrived at 4 targets? I could be wrong don't think I am though.

[teddabear]

6.0
Shred 648 DPE
Rake 239 DPE + Rake ticks 1433 DPE = 1672 DPE
Swipe 168 DPE

6.1
Shred 648 x 1.2 = 776 DPE
Rake 1672 x 1.05 = 1756 DPE

Swipe Test
Swipe at +175% = 168 x 2.75 = 462

(Rake) 1756 / (Swipe) 462 = 3.8 targets

Swipe 6.1
168 x 1.2 = 202

(Rake) 1756 / (Swipe) 202 = 8.7 Targets

In 6.1 it will take 9 targets before Swipe surpasses Rake

I'm not sure if these values include tier bonus but my guess is they don't. If not then actual number of targets to surpass Rake will be much higher.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Absolutely. We don't currently have a Feral in our raid, and I don't play Feral for any reason.

[lightheart789]

I think I see where you went wrong. Do simple value math in your head to see if something is right. Swipe is buffed by 20% rake 5%, by your account next patch the swipe threshold will more than double........even though swipe is being buffed more.
you got the swipe DPE and then multiplied it by 175%. The 175% is the damage it does scaled off your gear has no bearing in what we are trying to figure out. You didn't make the same mod to the 6.1 feral which puzzles me.

Using your DPE values
rake-1672
swipe-168
swipe threshold=rakeDPE/swipeDPS
swipe threshold=1672/168
6.0 swipe threshold=9.95
This tells us at 10 targets swipe will do more damage than tab raking. This all of course is assuming that the rake targets will live to or beyond 15 seconds.

For 6.1 we are seeing a 20% swipe buff and a 5% rake buff
6.1 Rake DPE 1672*1.05=1755.6
6.1 swipe DPE 168*1.2=201.6

6.1 swipe threshold=1755.6/201.6
6.1 swipe threshold=8.7

if you want to add in the feral 2 set just use 27 energy to calculate your rakes DPE to account for the energy gain

6.0 2 set rake DPE 1672*35/27=2122 DPE
6.0 2 set swipe threshold=12.63 targets
6.1 2 set rake DPE 1755*35/27=2275 DPE
6.1 2 set swipe threshold=11.28 targets

The breakdown of this is that swipe is still garbage except on very large packs.

[teddabear]

+ 175% was just a test. That is a value where Swipe starts to approach Shred in single target damage , not factoring in combo points, although when the 20% buff to Shred hits that will not longer be true. It would not take anywhere near that much to make Feral AoE competitive.

The main point was just to show there is plenty of room for Blizzard to increase Swipe damage. Imo Feral AoE should transition to Swipe at 4 targets. Given the current values and tier bonus that isn't achievable at this time but it would still be beneficial and a huge QoL improvement if it was much less than 9.

[lightheart789]

I do not understand why you keep talking about shred? it has no bearing in the AE conversation. Shred is an energy dump garbage filler move.
" not factoring in combo points" also don't know why you keep mentioning combo points. Only time you need to factor in combo points is when you are comparing an ability that generates them vs one that doesn't. Thrash and shred are really the only abilities that need that comparison.


I would tend to disagree with buffing swipe to the 4 target threshold. Swipe was never fun, in cata when all we had was swipe one button AE anyone could pick up feral and do the same damage as an elite. They added thrash and we started to have an ae rotation. Now swipe use is nearly non-existent and combo points are stored on you not the target so we can bleed everything. Tabbing around raking is time consuming and exhausting for the small gain in damage but I would take it any day over swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. Rake cleave is no different than a boomkin spreading around moonfire.
IMO remove swipe as a dead ability, we don't use it and buffing it by 20% won't do anything for our AE except on large trash pulls. Even on those large pulls swipe won't compete with a warrior bladestorming in those cases we are best to just thrash and help bring down the main target.

Replace swipe with an AE finishing move. This would open up a dynamic to our rotation instead of simplifying it. You could choose single target or AE depending on situation, Could pool cp and energy for spawns. The ability could be as simple as a flat damage roar or 20 seconds of shred causing splash damage. Maybe you drop a pulsing shroom that releases spores that increase bleed damage. Who knows but buffing swipe by 175% so we can swipe swipe swipe is not the solution I am looking for

[mmokri]

The breakdown of this is that swipe is still garbage except on very large packs.

Targets must live for 15 seconds, then applying rake to 9 targets = 9*35 = 315 energy = 9 seconds min.

[lightheart789]

Targets must live for 15 seconds after the application of bleeds. To apply thrash and 8 rakes would take ~20 seconds to apply assuming you start with full energy and use one tiger's. With two set that time would be less by maybe 6 seconds. You gain 64 energy from thrash and 8 from each rake. You need an aoe pack to live for 30-50 seconds ~ for rake cleaving. Is it a dps gain to swipe 8 targets or 7 if they are only going to live for 5 seconds?
Lets steal Tedda bears DPE values yet again
6.0
Shred 648 DPE
Swipe 168 DPE
5x(target) swipe=168*5
5x(target) swipe=640

And now I get a gist of why teddabear was insistent on shred comparison. these numbers show us, assuming a bleed is somehow active on the targets and they will live less than 15 seconds swipe on 6 targets is an increase over SHRED. However, this situation is unlikely. The targets would probably not be bleeding unless they were your bleeds and you wouldn't apply direct damage to hasten clipping your own damage. Unless these were PRIORITY die now or raid wipe I would shred the boss.

[teddabear]

Killing small and medium groups of adds quickly is an important part of mythic raiding. Every spec should at least be adequate at it. Because of the length of time it takes Rake to do it's damage Feral is a liability in those situations. To paraphrase Dysheki it doesn't matter if it's a cone shaped AoE behind you called Fart, Feral needs an ability that works in those situations.

[Whitepaw]

We lack AoE, that's for sure. We trail by large numbers when AoE is demanded.

But this is accentuated by the current and preferred solution to encounters with multiple targets, which seems to be "AoE the shit down!", both because it's often the best solution, but also because it's desirable. People simply like big numbers. Being pretty old-school myself, I would have preferred to have these situations solved by more clever gameplay = off-tanking or use of crowd control, but both these solutions and abilities/play styles are under-used in modern raiding. In Vanilla and TBC, you simply couldn't AoE most stuff down, unless you vastly out geared the content - and that made the encounters more difficult to execute properly.

Instead, we end up advocating for more AoE because we trail on the meters. I'd prefer to discuss encounter design and play experience. Discussing meters, to me, is a very binary discussion - if you don't lead them, you risk being benched (or that's the prevailing presumption). Well, in most encounters, survivability is much more important than dps meters, so what we should be discussing is our hps and survivability cooldowns. That is, as long as we're still delivering relevant dps.

So, are we? As long as we are within the average, we are in fact delivering relevant dps. We don't need to be over performing on single target (what most people call the Feral "niche" in MoP), we just have to perform within acceptable limits. Being buffed too much above that, and we face the nerfbat. We'll now be buffed around 8% on single target, which is pretty nice (and borderline OP) - I wonder if that will allow us to spec CoS for the added survivability. I also wonder when the flood of tears from PvP will start the tsunami and open up to nerfs on our core and signature abilities. You know, our shapeshifting, healing and CC abilities. A lot of the stuff which adds flavour and fun to our class and spec.

And that's my itch: That people, used to MoP and the counter-intuitive dot-snapshotting and over-excessive reliance on bleeds from that expansion, expects that Ferals, by some divine heritage, is supposed to be topping the dps meters - and acts accordingly where possible. I sincerely hope that Blizzard keeps track of our true performance, instead of caving in to, what I suspect, is a yearning for bragging rights and a safe raid spot based on borderline OP mechanics.

That being said, we do need more AoE - I just wish Blizzard would instead nerf other spec's AoE, change encounters and thereby incentivise more use of single target focused killing of adds, CC, off-tanking and healing.

[Lynxx89]

Feral till I die. Nothing else really interests me. Ive been through ups and downs before, its not like we are in a bad place. There are only a few fights where it becomes apparent that I lack the AoE "umpf". Im sure they will adjust it in good time.

[teddabear]

After the buffs and after 4 pc Feral will be 2nd in single target and at the bottom on AoE. I wouldn't consider that OP status. In my opinion ignoring the mechanics of the fight to top meters doesn't count. Even if you are at the top you still got carried. The only time I would consider that a substantial contribution is if you ignored the mechanics and just barely beat the enrage timer.

[Xyuvam]

Playing feral even if they nerf it, not gonna switch to *click starfall * spec.

[teddabear]

Now that classes are starting to blow by Feral in singe target damage due to scaling I believe it is worth looking at this again.

Not counting combo points Swipe would have be buffed by 870% to do as much damage as Rake and 380% to do as much damage as Shred.

Just to refresh

Rake DPE - 1756
Shred DPE - 776
Swipe DPE - 202

Of course I am not asking for 800+% buff but 100% seems entirely reasonable given this large of a disparity.