feral talents intentionally bloated?

[Brailiem]

blue posted something on the deathknight forums,

I realize your druid argument was really about PvP but I am going to talk about PvE here. The problem with ferals in BC was that with a single spec they could do nearly as much dps as a rogue and also tank as well as a warrior. The warriors and rogues understandably cried foul. If you look at the feral tree for Lich King, you'll see that it does have more bear-centric and cat-centric talents. If you pick the cat-centric talents, you'll still be able to tank to some extent, but you probably aren't your guild's main tank. Likewise, there are definitely talents that will help a DK be a good MT. Blade Barrier is a great example. But there are other talents too. You need some of them. You don't need all of them. We don't want either the druid or the death knight to be jack of all trades, master of none. If you want to tank, it's going to come at the expense of some dps talents. But you'll have more options about which tanking talents and which dps talents you do take. The trees are designed so that you can't have them all.

source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...00&pageNo=2#36

I never got into end game in BC, but everything I heard made it clear that we did not keep our rivalry of our "parent classes", and was wondering if the beta testers feel that this change in specializing in either tanking or dps is fair, when combined with other changes in beta. I have kept up to date best I can with things, but theres a big difference in reading and experiancing.

Or is this somthing we cant know till we see lvl 80/raid content?

[Thanntos]

It is something won't know till the time of the Xpac comes.
Coming from an end game raider, I am perfectly fine with the tree being bloated, since it's better to get what we want/need, then to be ignored/nerfed like we were when BC came out.

But if you have not read, they are trying to implement a two-spec system, so you can switch between the two whenever you want, or so it sounds like. If this is the case, then you will not see ferals having a Feral Spec/Resto spec to switch to whenever they want, but you will see a Cat spec and a Bear spec.
Now I find it a little strange that people would be able to switch to Holy/Shadow dureing a raid whenever they felt like (Priests) so they will probably either make it a CD on the switching, or you might need to go to a main city. If this is the case, raiding ferals will need to get with their RL's, and figure out what they will be doing most during a raid. IE Sunwell, mostly a bear heavy spec. BT, you can get by with a mainly cat dps spec.

Again, nothing is set in stone, so all this speculation needs to stop, cause its getting annoying when we won't know anything 100%, untill the time comes.

I'm probably one of the only ferals that have not put together a spec yet, just to see how it would work, because it is absolutely pointless.

[Puntar]

So, Druid is the only class who actually have 4 talent trees?

[Seraphk]

This was posted on the official WoW forums and discussed. We believe the blue has little idea what they're talking about, but, even if they do -- It won't be the first time that a blue has posted a off-the-wall statement that was later disputed by another blue post. We anticipate this happening in the future.

I mean, first off, Warriors cried about Feral Druids, this is true. However, Rogues simply cried about all other classes doing comparable damage with their lack of utility then always decided they'd bring up Druid utility from Innervate / Battle Rez / Mark / Tranquility just because we're similar to them.

Next, what "bear-centric" talents? Thick Hide and??? The closest thing we have to a "bear-centric" tanking talent is Infected Wounds. It's the only "mitigation" talent we've received that improves tanking. Also, who has a Feral Druid MT? Ever used him on Illidan? How did that go?

Either way, no we did not keep our rivalry with parent classes. Competent Rogues left us in the dirt after SSC/TK. Warriors not only have Block/Parry/Magical Mitigation/Emergency CDs but are also within a 10% hitpoint difference with Druids in BT/Sunwell gear. They're also less than a 10% physical damage mitigation difference compared to Druids in raids with Priest/Shamans critting heals on them which increase armor by 25% -- Block/Parry more than make up for it IMO.

I think they'll end up lowering something myself. All we NEED are 2 more points salvaged from some talent in order to make a viable PvE build that gives us everything we NEED. With Imp Mangle should not be 3 points, it should be 2 just like Imp LoTP. Thusfar that's the only one point that I can argue aside from maybe Master Shapeshifter that should be reduced by 1 point. Those two changes alone would make a huge difference.

[caow]

are u kidding me druids couldnt put out as much dps as rogue and a warrior feral being the case i personally thought that they feral tree was fucked beyond belief couldnt pvp or pve dps idk wtf the blue post was talking about

[Nathanyel]

If you look at the feral tree for Lich King, you'll see that it does have more bear-centric and cat-centric talents. If you pick the cat-centric talents, you'll still be able to tank to some extent, but you probably aren't your guild's main tank.

Well, raid-cat and raid-bear builds are still pretty much the same...

[Puntar]

And tanking philosophy in WotLK for plate tanks is now changed upside down and is the same as it was pre-BC for ferals.

"Tanking with DPS"

All plate tank is now filled with Strength.

I hope ferals would not get shafted (greatly) because of that!

[Abyssos]

Warriors, Paladins and Death Knights basically only needs stamina, str and some various extra parry,dodge,def,hit on random parts.
Druids will prob still be stuck with sta,agi,str,int and extra armor point from the items lv.
Just because we needs to fill that, now you tank 10sec then dps, then later you shiftout and combat ress the noob that overaggroed and died.
I rather see pure tank leather then hybrid stats.
Luckily we don't need to stack def any more due to the buff on Survival of the fittest

I'm giving up my feral tank and going for DK as tank, if DKs talent tree don't get straighten out soon (read: at release) I will prob go with my paladin instead.
I'm sick off looking at my bear-form ass while I tank (No polar bear is gonna make it fell more fun) :P

[PaleFolklore]

With the multispec mechanic we will get in Wotlk, I don't think this will be an issue for pve ferals.
Every tank class will be able to fill the role of Ferals in Wotlk due to talent swapping, this should let Ferals scale at a rate much more similar to their counterparts.

[Lysiander]

Well, it's pretty obvious that this particular blue poster never got beyond the Karazhan, Gruul, Magtherion raids because up to that point, he is basically right. However, beyond that scalling prevented us from comming anywhere close to our parent classes. I would love to say that due to this knowledge we can safely ignore his statement and just look forward to WotlK, but something tells me I can't.

The Two spec thing is a soothing thought yes, but I sincerely doubt this will launch with WotlK, simply because something like that will take a lot of fine tuning and since it isn't in yet, I very much doubt they would delay the expansion just to have this one feature in. My guess is that this will come with content patches later on.

[bbr]

Cat Druids definitely lose the parity, as they should compared to pure single trick dps classes.

[Smartie]

With the multispec mechanic we will get in Wotlk, I don't think this will be an issue for pve ferals.
Every tank class will be able to fill the role of Ferals in Wotlk due to talent swapping, this should let Ferals scale at a rate much more similar to their counterparts.

I was really hoping to have a feral and resto spec, having to use my two talent specs on ONE PVE tree build totally blows. If this is the case, give druids 4 talent trees, one pure cat and one pure bear!

[Lysiander]

I was really hoping to have a feral and resto spec, having to use my two talent specs on ONE PVE tree build totally blows. If this is the case, give druids 4 talent trees, one pure cat and one pure bear!

The feral tree used to look like that. No way I am going back to that.

Quite frankly, we don't know how multi spec is going to turn out, but as it stands right now, even with the bloated tree, it is quite possible to build a tanking/ DPS hybrid that maybe won't be completly min maxed, but it will be decent.

However, I don't really see what people are complaining about with this new direction. All we get is more options. So far we have been mostly offtanks that could still DPS when no Off Tank is needed. We can still be that and not even worse than before. However, now we *also* have the option to be either pure Tank (with still respectable damage) or pure DPS (with still decent tanking abilities). I would prefer a less bloated tree as well, but frankly, that would only lead to us beeing gods at launch, and weak kittens and cubs a month or two later for the rest of the addon.

[bfrost7]

I think its a bull that now they're making us choose to be either a "main tank" druid or a catform dps druid. The whole joy of being a feral druid was that you could do both and all you had to do is switch your gear. personally i see this as blizzard caving in to whiners, hell if i just wanted to be a main tank i would have picked a warrior to begin with. now that being said i understand that with the new druid talents that being a maintank will be a lot easier than before and that would make druids OPd but dont take it out on us. personally as a raider i see no point in taking a feral druid that can only tank or one that can only dps, i'd rather have the new ret pallys as they now provide a lot more raid contribution then ferals.

[Darthn]

ok first, i am a druid in an end game guild. We clear Sunwell weekly. Since when have druids matched a rogue in dps? I think the only time we did close to the same damage was during the beginning of T4, after that it quickly fell off. 6.4k AP buffed, 62%+ crit, Hit capped and with power shifting and the proper group... max on a fight like Teron (no heroism stacking just for #'s) i was able to put out just over 2200dps. Rogues in similar gear... 3k+ dps. Toss in a boss like Brutallus and i can't break 2k while rogues are 2500-2900dps. Same with warriors. In T6 end game raiding, druids beat out the MT's and spriests... go us. As far as tanking, we are like a warrior but can't tank certain fights without the "oh shit" factor. Illidan being one... shield block wat? Spell reflect for souls is another. Certain fights require a non-druid MT or they become substantially more difficult. Again, i play on beta as well. The spec's for all cat or all tank aren't THAT different. You can get rid of a few talents that aren't the have all be all and still do really well. Getting a wider variety of weapon enchants, ability to take potions (haste 4tw) and OOM being buffed + windfury should once again allow druids to keep up. I mean something is wrong when a druid is almost 7k AP and can't catch a rogue even if i crit every special. WTB Staff to mimic warglaives pst. I don't hope to beat rogues or be right against them in terms of dps, but i should be able to be like 2.5-2.7k when a rogue is at 3k+. Thats not too much to ask with the proper gear set and not getting like 4 heroisms to pull it off.

[Egeldi]

I think its a bull that now they're making us choose to be either a "main tank" druid or a catform dps druid. The whole joy of being a feral druid was that you could do both and all you had to do is switch your gear. personally i see this as blizzard caving in to whiners, hell if i just wanted to be a main tank i would have picked a warrior to begin with. now that being said i understand that with the new druid talents that being a maintank will be a lot easier than before and that would make druids OPd but dont take it out on us. personally as a raider i see no point in taking a feral druid that can only tank or one that can only dps, i'd rather have the new ret pallys as they now provide a lot more raid contribution then ferals.

QQ more. Rogues can do one thing: DPS. The fact is, that even with a full bear MT build, you will be able to put out respectable DPS. With a full kitty DPS build, you will still be a respectable tank. You already have that versatility, which is more than most classes can put a claim to.

Furthermore, kitty DPS will see a good boost this xpack, with the base crit being 5% higher, and a scaling finishing move (+25% AP).

Edit - And on top of all that, druids are the only class that can put points into one tree, and gain respectable access to TWO roles, tanking, and melee DPS. The fact you have to specialize a little bit and lose a bit of your potency in one role is still far more than most classes can get (may I refer you to the protection trees of warriors and paladins).

[Kuda]

"I don't hope to beat rogues or be right against them in terms of dps, but i should be able to be like 2.5-2.7k when a rogue is at 3k+."

So you want to be able to do 90% dps of a rogue yet still retain all your other raid utility?

Once a encounter is learned and you dont absolutely have to min/max dps to beat the encounter, why bring a rogue at all when you can bring other classes that bring 90% his/her dps and lots of useful other abilities.

I dont even play a rogue but hell i think if all your given by blizzard is dps then you better be one of the best and not just by a measly 10%

/shrug

[Lysiander]

I dont even play a rogue but hell i think if all your given by blizzard is dps then you better be one of the best and not just by a measly 10%

Actually, 10% in terms of DPS is a lot, and this mindset is what kills the hybrid concept. Rogues should be top DPS, I do not argue that, and they should be by a decent margin, but non DPS classes should be close enough behind so it's still viable to take them along. And as long as DPS race mobs exist, 10-15% is the absolute max that could be sacrificed for other utilities.

The concept of a hybrid is that he is worse than the specialist, but good enough in two areas to compete by his versality. What you describe with "a measly 10%" is what pre TBC, pre 1.8 was about. A low number of key classes and classes forced into certain specs because every other spec of that particular class is not viable compared to their parent/ specialist classes. This is not fun and not the way Blizzard should and I believe will go again.

[bfrost7]

QQ more. Rogues can do one thing: DPS. The fact is, that even with a full bear MT build, you will be able to put out respectable DPS. With a full kitty DPS build, you will still be a respectable tank. You already have that versatility, which is more than most classes can put a claim to.

Furthermore, kitty DPS will see a good boost this xpack, with the base crit being 5% higher, and a scaling finishing move (+25% AP).

Edit - And on top of all that, druids are the only class that can put points into one tree, and gain respectable access to TWO roles, tanking, and melee DPS. The fact you have to specialize a little bit and lose a bit of your potency in one role is still far more than most classes can get (may I refer you to the protection trees of warriors and paladins).

I understand that if you pick a rogue you expect to dps and if you want to tank you have 3 classes to pick from, my grief is that blizz is splitting the feral tree into tank or dps.
so far this is my tentative build is 0/53/11, with 7 pts left, 5 which will definitely go into NS and then MS leaving me for 2 into infected wounds, that leaves me without primal tenacity, savage fury, or KoTJ. Am i asking to smoke rogue in DPS, no that would destroy the class, although i dont think so b/c rogues are too much fun to play. As far as tanking goes i've never had a major problem, sure fear sucks and i wouldnt mind a shieldwall, but i knew exactly what i was giving up when i was picking a druid. With your logic they should nerf down mages b/c they not only dps but provide better utilities than rogues. Furthermore have you heard of AoE pally grind which is just amazing for gold farming.