[Feral] Legion Discussion

[Whitepaw]

The damage is not the main draw. And it is still more damage than a feral can do at range without the talent, making it nontrivial. The talent is already chosen in many situations, and each talent in the row sees pretty even use when you consider all aspects of play. In fact, that row may be one of the best balanced rows in game. It isn't a row about direct DPS. It is a great row already and needs nothing.

It is anything but great.

The devs stated that their pruning of our abilities was meant to be somewhat alleviated by these talents. We then get three talents which are mostly chosen because of weak passive abilities.

Feral Druids are not about bleeds or Savage Roar or any of the more dps oriented stuff. Feral is about shapeshifting - like the whole Druid class is about shapeshifting. We once had depth by choosing the right shape for the situation we were in and the task at hand.

Now we are four legged rogues, who discuss how our dps abilities should work. Our spec has diminished into a sub-class, where we have mediocre discussions about banalities.

[Deleted]

It is anything but great.

The devs stated that their pruning of our abilities was meant to be somewhat alleviated by these talents. We then get three talents which are mostly chosen because of weak passive abilities.

Feral Druids are not about bleeds or Savage Roar or any of the more dps oriented stuff. Feral is about shapeshifting - like the whole Druid class is about shapeshifting. We once had depth by choosing the right shape for the situation we were in and the task at hand.

Now we are four legged rogues, who discuss how our dps abilities should work. Our spec has diminished into a sub-class, where we have mediocre discussions about banalities.

wow. shapeshafting more. thats soooo much deeper than actually adressing problems the spec has which lead to underperformance in the only real aspect that wow has. pve. yeah. thats really my problem these days. that I am not shapeshifting 24/7.

[Hobbes0773]

It is anything but great.

The devs stated that their pruning of our abilities was meant to be somewhat alleviated by these talents. We then get three talents which are mostly chosen because of weak passive abilities.

Feral Druids are not about bleeds or Savage Roar or any of the more dps oriented stuff. Feral is about shapeshifting - like the whole Druid class is about shapeshifting. We once had depth by choosing the right shape for the situation we were in and the task at hand.

Now we are four legged rogues, who discuss how our dps abilities should work. Our spec has diminished into a sub-class, where we have mediocre discussions about banalities.

No, your vision of feral is about shapeshifting. The devs say it is about bleeds and being a cat. You are objectively wrong here. This isn't a matter of opinion. The druid is about shapeshifting, and we do it. Quite a bit in fact. Mission accomplished. We don't need to be a moonking and a feral. Your suggestions were ill-conceived, would cause huge balance issues, and show that you aren't thinking like a dev that needs a balanced game. You were thinking like a kid that wants cool stuff, no matter the fallout. Guilty hit the nail on the head.

We are far from rogues. I also play a rogue. They play very very differently. Your vastly misinformed if you think we are still a subclass (we were when ferals first came around)

[-aiko-]

Feral is about shapeshifting? What?

With respect, you seem kind of out of touch. The class fantasy for Feral has, for years, been about being a large cat that applies massive bleeds. I am sorry if this does not match the class fantasy that you want but this is just the way it is. Druids in general have been pushed away from shapeshifting as a core mechanic and it now exists as utility. This is the way it is likely to stay moving forward, and personally I believe it is the way it should be.

I am also 100% fine with the current affinity talents because they enhance this utility without affecting our core abilities or rotation. Kil'Jaeden is an example of a fight that highlights how balanced the current affinities can be. I mostly find myself taking Resto affinity for this encounter so I can do more than just run around during intermission. However the other talents also have uses. Balance can be useful if you need to soak a far away Armageddon and still want to dish out some damage while Guardian can be really handy if you need to take an emergency soak, or if you just want to take less damage in general during intermission (stay in dat bear form, yo).

None of these talents are encounter-changing but exist again as fun utility that you can choose to use or not use while keeping some of that old Druid flavor alive. Proposed changes such as a 300% buff to Balance affinity sound awful because it pushes it into 'mandatory shapeshift' territory, which is counter to where they are taking Druids and I cannot possibly imagine more than a very small minority wanting that kind of gameplay anyways.

[Whitepaw]

Yes Aiko, shapeshifting has been reduced to a utility - that is sort of my reason to argue for the opposite.

Because that was not the intention. From the Legion class previews (https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...series-druid):

Druids are supernaturally endowed with the gift of shapeshifting, allowing them to take the form of all manner of nature’s creature and access powers as distinct as they are diverse.

Making use of multiple forms for different situations has been difficult for many years, either due to a lack of access to the “off-spec” talents that make your alternate forms feel strong or because the process itself has felt overwhelming and convoluted. To help solve this issue, we’re taking a new route by replacing Heart of the Wild with a full row of Affinity talents, which essentially allow every Druid to choose an off-spec from the remaining three specializations.

Affinities provide two benefits: first, a passive ability that is useful at all times, even to your main role; second, access to multiple key abilities to use in associated shapeshifting forms. To give you a sense for how choosing your Affinity will impact gameplay, regardless of what form you’re in, here’s a look at the passive abilities they grant:

And, finally:

Unlike Heart of the Wild, Affinities are not temporary buffs. This enhanced access to an off-spec, delivered through a cleaner game mechanic, empowers Druids of any specialization to make interesting situational combat decisions

So, the intent was clearly stated: We want to make Druids able to use active off-spec abilities situationally during combat. Which is possible within the current system, if balanced correctly.

Right now, it's not balanced. I do less than 20% of my Feral dps, if I shift to Moonkin with the Balance Affinity. On top of that, I get a 90 sec CD. Buffing that Moonkin damage to around 50% of my Feral dps isn't unreasonable. And if the majority of that dps is delivered by spells I actually have to cast, you won't see any "Moonkin-weaving" at all. What you will see is a Feral who can deliver something no other melee class can: Ranged dps in scenarios where that is required. That is a competitive advantage, in line with the stated design goal of the class.

It's the same with the Restoration Affinity: Why do we run out of mana so fast that the whole active part of that affinity is trivial? It's simply bad design.

And before you start with "That's OP!". Allow me to remind you of the incredible utility that a number of other classes bring. There are several reasons why Ferals are not in the progression raiding scene anymore - the most important being that humanly controlled DoTs don't bring enough to the table.

[Deleted]

is there a guide for 7.3?

[Hobbes0773]

Yes Aiko, shapeshifting has been reduced to a utility - that is sort of my reason to argue for the opposite.

So, the intent was clearly stated: We want to make Druids able to use active off-spec abilities situationally during combat. Which is possible within the current system, if balanced correctly.

It already exists successfully in the current system. Each affinity gives a nice passive bonus that is heavily utilized. On top of that, each provides a situational benefit with another shapeshift form that can be utilized. For boomkin, that is ranged DPS when melee dps is not possible. This is already an option.

Right now, it's not balanced. I do less than 20% of my Feral dps, if I shift to Moonkin with the Balance Affinity.

No, you do damage in situations where otherwise you would be doing 0 dps. Stop comparing your moonkin dps to your feral dps, because they are apples and oranges since they are not even remotely designed to be competitive. Nor should they be. As soon as it becomes even remotely competitive, you will begin to see moonkin weaving which is not a desired playstyle for anyone.

It's the same with the Restoration Affinity: Why do we run out of mana so fast that the whole active part of that affinity is trivial? It's simply bad design.

No, it isn't. We should be limited in our healing. Our mana also regens super fast, so with a slight cooldown period, we can begin to drop heals again. And if you think the active part of the affinity is trivial, you aren't using it in situations where it is ideal (pvp, solo). That is my go to talent choice because of how much it brings to the table.

And before you start with "That's OP!". Allow me to remind you of the incredible utility that a number of other classes bring. There are several reasons why Ferals are not in the progression raiding scene anymore - the most important being that humanly controlled DoTs don't bring enough to the table.

Your proposed changes do nothing in the way of utility, it just makes our standard rotation more complex. Spamming Solar Wrath is not utility.

This talent tier has nothing to do with why we are not in the progression raiding scene. You are just creating a straw man in order to argue for buffs to a talent tier that is almost universally accepted as a balanced row. If utility is needed, we would simply need buffs to the range of SR or a couple changes to existing abilities. We are also far from the most lacking in terms of utility. In fact, I play druid because of what we bring to the table that no one else does (the ability to be all 4 playstyles, the ability to perform multiple roles at once, qol aspects, etc etc.).

Feral in 7.3 is going to end up getting a lot more popular because we get fixes to our actual issue: the skill floor was too high and intimidating for newcomers....with very little in terms of reward for the effort.

[ErothTV]

Savage Roar will no longer be a "snapshot" mechanic damage buff, where it causes a damage over time ability to deal the bonus damage for its entire duration, like how Bloodtalons and Tiger's Fury work. This is a recent 7.3.0 change and is intended.

Snapshotting can be a contentious mechanic - some people like it, some people don't. However, snapshotting has been a mechanic on Feral for a long time, so we want to keep it in some form on the spec for now.

Savage Roar is not really an interesting place to have snapshotting, especially in 7.3.0 where its duration is being greatly increased and combo points won't be as scarce in a Jagged Wounds build. Keeping Savage Roar up 100% of the time will be much easier, and as a result, snapshotting there becomes a mechanic where you're only really given opportunities to fail with a larger than usual damage penalty. Contrast that with Bloodtalons and Tiger's Fury where - due to their limited nature - the player is instead given opportunities to maximize the benefit of those two buffs and gain more than usual benefit from a low-uptime snapshotting damage buff.

Thoughts!?

[Deleted]

Hey there,

Need some advice on gear and legendaries on the Maiden and Avatar HC fights. I seem to be doing lower DPS than I should (about 700K average on tries, sometimes 650K when I make more mistakes). I feel like I should be doing more DPS.

The build I went with on those fights is here: worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/character/darkspear/jedibleeder

Has you can see I don't have 4 set T20 yet (only 3 pieces) and I read somewhere that 4 set T19 (which I have in bags) is better than just 2 set T20. Is this true? The T19 I have is not mythic Nighthold, only HC (around 895 each piece).

[ErothTV]

Hey there,

Need some advice on gear and legendaries on the Maiden and Avatar HC fights. I seem to be doing lower DPS than I should (about 700K average on tries, sometimes 650K when I make more mistakes). I feel like I should be doing more DPS.

The build I went with on those fights is here: worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/character/darkspear/jedibleeder

Has you can see I don't have 4 set T20 yet (only 3 pieces) and I read somewhere that 4 set T19 (which I have in bags) is better than just 2 set T20. Is this true? The T19 I have is not mythic Nighthold, only HC (around 895 each piece).

Bro, 7.3.0 is around the corner, just chill with the spec, as many changes are to come

[Whitepaw]

Savage Roar will no longer be a "snapshot" mechanic damage buff, where it causes a damage over time ability to deal the bonus damage for its entire duration, like how Bloodtalons and Tiger's Fury work. This is a recent 7.3.0 change and is intended.

Snapshotting can be a contentious mechanic - some people like it, some people don't. However, snapshotting has been a mechanic on Feral for a long time, so we want to keep it in some form on the spec for now.

Savage Roar is not really an interesting place to have snapshotting, especially in 7.3.0 where its duration is being greatly increased and combo points won't be as scarce in a Jagged Wounds build. Keeping Savage Roar up 100% of the time will be much easier, and as a result, snapshotting there becomes a mechanic where you're only really given opportunities to fail with a larger than usual damage penalty. Contrast that with Bloodtalons and Tiger's Fury where - due to their limited nature - the player is instead given opportunities to maximize the benefit of those two buffs and gain more than usual benefit from a low-uptime snapshotting damage buff.

Thoughts!?

I think it's a bit odd tbh - and a reversal of what the devs recently stated was their intent.

If the consequence is that Feral bleed damage will depend on SR being up (that seems confirmed) and the Feral to be in cat form (I haven't seen that confirmed yet), that means that we will be forced to stay in cat form. I dislike that. Feral Druids have, since 2005 (before patch 1.8, Feral Combat wasn't viable at all) been able to shape shift, while retaining the bleed damage on the target. SR, when buffing bleeds, was designed from the very beginning to support that kind of gameplay.

A few examples: Feral shifts out to heal. Feral bleeds now loose 15% damage. Feral shifts to bear to tank - same thing happens.

It will make playing Feral with SR even more one dimensional, since there will now be a direct penalty to Feral dps, if we shift out of cat form. I don't like that.

I would much rather have had the devs remove Bloodtalons. That's a stupid design, forcing me to heal to gain damage. But as I understand it from the PTR, it will be subpar, which is great.

[TorikSAn]

Savage Roar will no longer be a "snapshot" mechanic damage buff, where it causes a damage over time ability to deal the bonus damage for its entire duration, like how Bloodtalons and Tiger's Fury work. This is a recent 7.3.0 change and is intended.

Snapshotting can be a contentious mechanic - some people like it, some people don't. However, snapshotting has been a mechanic on Feral for a long time, so we want to keep it in some form on the spec for now.

Savage Roar is not really an interesting place to have snapshotting, especially in 7.3.0 where its duration is being greatly increased and combo points won't be as scarce in a Jagged Wounds build. Keeping Savage Roar up 100% of the time will be much easier, and as a result, snapshotting there becomes a mechanic where you're only really given opportunities to fail with a larger than usual damage penalty. Contrast that with Bloodtalons and Tiger's Fury where - due to their limited nature - the player is instead given opportunities to maximize the benefit of those two buffs and gain more than usual benefit from a low-uptime snapshotting damage buff.

Thoughts!?

So if this will work as Berserk (damage buff from trait) increasing all damages done while it's on. With adition that it won't be that hard to have it 100% uptime. IMHO it's good because this makes opening much less mess and make initial stealth Rake benefit from SR. You could just Rake+AF and then use all those CP on SavageRoar (no more 1-2 CP SR to snapshot initial AF damage).

[Deleted]

Bro, 7.3.0 is around the corner, just chill with the spec, as many changes are to come

But I'd like to improve until then and kill Avatar and KJ HC, which are the ones I'm missing.

[ErothTV]

But I'd like to improve until then and kill Avatar and KJ HC, which are the ones I'm missing.

easiest solution: go balance

[exochaft]

I think it's a bit odd tbh - and a reversal of what the devs recently stated was their intent.

If the consequence is that Feral bleed damage will depend on SR being up (that seems confirmed) and the Feral to be in cat form (I haven't seen that confirmed yet), that means that we will be forced to stay in cat form. I dislike that. Feral Druids have, since 2005 (before patch 1.8, Feral Combat wasn't viable at all) been able to shape shift, while retaining the bleed damage on the target. SR, when buffing bleeds, was designed from the very beginning to support that kind of gameplay.

Easiest "solution" would be to allow SR to persist outside of Feral form to allow bleeds to continue to be buffed by SR. Rather interesting, though, how it coincides with the whole Affinity discussion made a few days ago, as this change would penalize Affinity active use if SR does not persist out of form. Be that as it may, the days of SR may be numbered considering the route Blizz has been going in general with classes. Not sure how many people remember when Blizz gave Ret paladins a spell that operated the same was as SR, but it was scrapped due to it being considered basically a crappy gameplay design.

More on reversal of dev statements: it's nothing really new, but I feel the pace of reversals has sped up... whether this is due to content being pumped out faster or staff turnovers for WoW, who knows. I feel the reversal on their stance with SR snapshotting is in an effort to further reduce ramp-up time and punishing aspects of Feral, and their verbage does suggest they may not be happy with SR in general. Despite some of the defense concerning Affinity talents, I agree Blizz did reverse their stance on them, and it's much more apparent when you are a Guardian.

For example, earlier in Legion Guardians were pretty much exclusively using Affinity talents for passives but had the option of catweaving with Feral Affinity to allow for a decent DPS gain if content allowed. With all the more recent changes to Guardian, even catweaving is generally off the table because it's just not worth it. If the upcoming SR change for Feral has you lose your SR buff to change forms, the cost will probably be too great to use Affinity active use abilities even with the power of SR being reduced. Resto druids probably have it the best when it comes to Affinity talents, but they still can be lacking. As Legion progresses, the Affinity row is being almost exclusively used for their passives, and most of the druid population would probably not notice (or care, sadly) if all the active use portions of the talents went away. The Affinity talent active uses, in my view, are not even comparable to the old HotW talent, which could have immense impact on an encounter and actually made me feel like a hybrid for a short while.

[Deleted]

easiest solution: go balance

Balance is for druid pussies :P
No way. lol

[Whitepaw]

Easiest "solution" would be to allow SR to persist outside of Feral form to allow bleeds to continue to be buffed by SR. Rather interesting, though, how it coincides with the whole Affinity discussion made a few days ago, as this change would penalize Affinity active use if SR does not persist out of form. Be that as it may, the days of SR may be numbered considering the route Blizz has been going in general with classes. Not sure how many people remember when Blizz gave Ret paladins a spell that operated the same was as SR, but it was scrapped due to it being considered basically a crappy gameplay design.

More on reversal of dev statements: it's nothing really new, but I feel the pace of reversals has sped up... whether this is due to content being pumped out faster or staff turnovers for WoW, who knows. I feel the reversal on their stance with SR snapshotting is in an effort to further reduce ramp-up time and punishing aspects of Feral, and their verbage does suggest they may not be happy with SR in general. Despite some of the defense concerning Affinity talents, I agree Blizz did reverse their stance on them, and it's much more apparent when you are a Guardian.

For example, earlier in Legion Guardians were pretty much exclusively using Affinity talents for passives but had the option of catweaving with Feral Affinity to allow for a decent DPS gain if content allowed. With all the more recent changes to Guardian, even catweaving is generally off the table because it's just not worth it. If the upcoming SR change for Feral has you lose your SR buff to change forms, the cost will probably be too great to use Affinity active use abilities even with the power of SR being reduced. Resto druids probably have it the best when it comes to Affinity talents, but they still can be lacking. As Legion progresses, the Affinity row is being almost exclusively used for their passives, and most of the druid population would probably not notice (or care, sadly) if all the active use portions of the talents went away. The Affinity talent active uses, in my view, are not even comparable to the old HotW talent, which could have immense impact on an encounter and actually made me feel like a hybrid for a short while.

Yeah - Feral Affinity is also tuned way too low. Just like Balance and Resto.

Having these talents with trivial output is bad and lazy design. Especially when compared to other classes, which now have better self healing and better utility.

At least Heart of the Wild actually had some serious throughput. The way the devs frame it, Affinities should be better, because we can now access some of the abilities from other Druid specs all the time - except now, they have very little effect!

How little, you ask? Well, Balance gives around 150k dps in a raid environment (single target). Resto allows me to heal myself up (I have around 4 mio hp), but then I am OOM - and it takes me several casts with HT, as that is the most mana efficient healing spell I have with Resto Affinity. I can not heal a tank up. I do approx. 150k hps, with HT doing 200k non-crit every 2 sec (200k is 5% of my total hp).

That healing throughput is the worst it has ever been for Feral since 2005. We can not use HT rank 3 (like in Vanilla), we can not use Tranquility (like we could for several expansions), we can not use Heart of the Wild, Dream of Cenarius, Nature's Vigil or any other of the healing talents we used to have in WoD.

So Hobbes, it's great that you can heal yourself a bit in solo play etc. But if you try again to reject the objective truths about how Feral hybridity, utility and versatility has been all but negated in Legion, you will be making a fool of yourself.

And my point still stands: It makes us much less viable for raid spots and much less competitive in all kinds of gameplay, because the other classes - especially the "pure" dps classes - have been given so superior survivability and utility abilities (3 of them even have immunities). On top of that, they also out dps Feral with several specs.

[Hobbes0773]

stuff

Stop calling your subjective opinions objective truths. I have said exactly why your subjective opinions hold little water and why I think you are wrong about one of the most balanced tiers in the current game. There is literally no where else to go with the discussion so feel free to move on to something else feral related instead of beating the ever loving shit out of a very very dead horse.

[Reiziger]

Stop calling your subjective opinions objective truths. I have said exactly why your subjective opinions hold little water and why I think you are wrong about one of the most balanced tiers in the current game. There is literally no where else to go with the discussion so feel free to move on to something else feral related instead of beating the ever loving shit out of a very very dead horse.

Aren't you doing the same thing?

While I don't agree with his proposed buffs I can definitely see where he is coming from concerning the way druids used to be about shapeshifting, but can just be considered a watered down version of their big brother classes these days. I still remember being able to off-tank if shit hit the fan way back, or being able to use tranquility to at least help out healers somewhat. While I don't think anyone will argue that the affinities are pretty decently balanced in their current state, I would personally not consider them succesful in their original goal. They do not come even close to giving the 'specialization' that they were apparently supposed to give, per the earlier mentionted quote.

Aside from this little mini-rant I have little stake in the actual discussion, but your latest post kinda triggered me I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Hobbes0773]

Aren't you doing the same thing?

I'm literally not. He literally called his statements "objective truths" with:

But if you try again to reject the objective truths about how Feral hybridity, utility and versatility has been all but negated in Legion, you will be making a fool of yourself.

I may be full of myself, but I didn't stick my head that far up my ass and sniff my own subjectivity and call it "the objective truth."

Everything here is an opinion for the most part, and I have seen no one call it that except for that kid. Can we move on from that entire topic now? because it died a long time ago.