New Cat Ability at 85

[ctskelton]

I was just brainstorming some ideas for a new ability for ferals at 85 late at night randomly and came up with some different ideas that I thought could actually be interesting for feral rotation. Keep in mind feral is my offspec, so I'm by no means a master at the spec. The goal of my new abilities is to keep the rotation one of the most difficult to maintain and one of the most difficult specs to master. I always liked that about feral. And with Blizzard's new philosophy in Cataclysm about "choosing some of your own talent points based on personal preference," I think making the feral dps rotation a bit more interactive and variable would make it a very fun spec to play and enforce their opinion.

Idea #1
Tear
10 Energy
Instant
Requires Cat Form
Tears the target's wounds, extending the duration of each of the Druid's bleeds on the target by 0.5 seconds.

So sort of a low energy move than you can spam (no CD) to keep your bleeds on a bit longer that generates no combo points. It would probably need to do some sort of X damage up front as well, and the exact amount of energy, could, of course, vary. They may also have to change Glyph of Shred to keep it from being too similar.

Idea #2
Tear
10 Energy
Requires Cat Form
Tears the target's wounds, dealing X [low amount] damage instantly and applying the debuff, "Inflammatory Cuts" which lasts 4 seconds. After 4 seconds, each of the Druid's bleeds on the target is extended by 1 second. Stacks up to 4 times. [Only affects the bleeds present during the first application of Tear]

This is almost too complicated in my eyes. A sort of idea that came to me was spending 4 seconds getting up this debuff, then after 4 seconds, getting 4 seconds back. Sort of like the idea above, except you really have to think when you use it. You can't wait till rake/rip is below 4 seconds and it has to be 8-9 seconds to receive the full benefit. But, I didn't want Tear to be able to sustain rake/rip for extended periods of time. You could use these abilities when you have lots of time on your debuffs/SR and full combo points, but now have a choice to use these versions of tear or FB or something else.

So, druids who might know the feral spec a bit better than me: thoughts? Would you like or dislike the addition of this type of ability? Would it fit into your rotation with some practice? How could I improve upon these ideas? Does anyone else have any other ideas of a 85 cat ability? Mature discussion only please.

[Tobyjohn]

Sounds cool. I thought it sounded very OP when i first read it, but then i saw it didn't add combo-points

[ctskelton]

Sounds cool. I thought it sounded very OP when i first read it, but then i saw it didn't add combo-points

Yeah I thought a good addition to the rotation would be an ability that didn't add combo points and instead sort of "buffs" all the debuffs and bleeds we have going on. Maybe even giving a choice to either use a move like Tear and focus on bleeds or continue using shred and FB during SR and rip downtime, although it would probably be difficult to keep the two 'methods' similar in dps value.

[Moshy]

Feral cats don't need more abilities.

[SmokeyIllidan]

No offense but both those ideas suck and we don't need either one. Bring back Play Dead and leave everything else as is. That's all we need, threat mitigation.

[Halazz]

No offense but both those ideas suck and we don't need either one. Bring back Play Dead and leave everything else as is. That's all we need, threat mitigation.

Cower?

[badge]

Cower?

Cower removes as much threat as an auto attack.

for Cata id like to see druids getting something like "play dead" that will only last about 5/10 seconds or something, that or expand on the whole "infected wounds" talent and have them inflict nature damage on an auto attack or a disease or someting, but then again with the mangle timer "buff" i suppose we hvae room for another bleed now

[SmokeyIllidan]

Cower?

Did you really just post that with the intent that Cower is a useful ability? Someone doesn't play Feral, or is awful at their class.

[cise4832]

I will be happy if they simply make rake scale with haste and crit in cata.

Or change cower into something useful. :P

[Deleted]

Tbh, we don't need more abilities, except for a aggro-dump.
We already have the most complicated rotation...

[cise4832]

Tbh, we don't need more abilities, except for a aggro-dump.
We already have the most complicated rotation...

OP's idea is about making our rotation easier.

I do agree we don't need more abilities in our rotation tho.
If the bleeds are running off, why not simply reapply them. :

[SmokeyIllidan]

I don't want an easier rotation. Mangle debuff lasting 1 minute IS our easier rotation. Anything simpler than that and we will have more window lickers flocking to our class because they want 80% Crit and 10k AP while idling in Raids.

The "hard" rotation keeps a lot of bad players off our class, and I like it that way. Just let me dump my aggro so I can pug randoms without having to hope for a raid geared tank every time.

[Zibeline]

Mortalstrike

[sapiorion]

Cower?

You ever actualy tried to use cower? If you have your a bad kitty!

Play dead should be the only thing they are implementing why 'o' why did they take it from us.

[Nest]

Mortalstrike

That added to Infected Wounds debuff.
Not OP.

[sapiorion]

I don't want an easier rotation. Mangle debuff lasting 1 minute IS our easier rotation. Anything simpler than that and we will have more window lickers flocking to our class because they want 80% Crit and 10k AP while idling in Raids.

The "hard" rotation keeps a lot of bad players off our class, and I like it that way. Just let me dump my aggro so I can pug randoms without having to hope for a raid geared tank every time.

Amen. I just cant pug unless I get lucky or unless I tank it. If there just happenns to be an imba kitty in the pug god dam it im swapping out strength rings and neck for agil ones to gie me the edge I'd rather sponge mana than have a dead kitty.

[Oneru]

A non-disarmable Pawstorm whirlwind would be kinda nice :.

Nah, I'd just vote for an aggro dump as well, but that's something every dps druid can use (balance as well).

[ctskelton]

OP's idea is about making our rotation easier.

The goal of my new abilities is to keep the rotation one of the most difficult to maintain and one of the most difficult specs to master.

[Raith]

I want a real aggro dump.

[arel00]

I doubt we'll see new Cat abilities. Obviously Play Dead would be a nice addition, but let me say it:

For once, after all these years, feral druids are finally in good shape.

Bears could use an extra button, Blizzard already recognized that, but other than "Bearclap" I think it's the Balance tree that needs, and probably will get, more love form Cataclysm.
Remember we also get to have Haste increase energy regeneration, which is a huge plus for kittens.

Man, it made me happy to say that :P It was about time