What Feral Druids Would Like

[Deleted]

i.e. *Name of Talent* - your Feral Charge makes your next Demo Roar silence all enemies in X yards for 3 seconds.

imagine this in pvp ;D

besides that, I like most of your ideas, however, I disagree about the "make cat rotation more simple". We got one of the hardest "rotation" in the game, and we can dish out with incredible damage. Please keep it in that way

[TheShinyOne]

Easier cat rotation? Please. My druid's the only class I can dps on without feeling like drooling mouth-breather anymore. :l The mangle change was enough to make it so our rotation doesn't make you want to cut yourself from raiding.

Agreed, Cat has ruined me in that I am almost unable to damage as any other class due to excessive boredom melting my brain.

[coocoo]

Once you've bear tanked hc saurfang & had to glyph out of maul for that fight, and unable to use swipe either while beasts are up near you...
wtb something to singletarget smack your target with when ff/mangle are on cds and your lasc doesnt need refreshing for the next 9sec.

[Cortano]

Lacerate:
We need -some- spammable attack
make lacerate hit harder based on the number of stacks applied (+10% damage per stack)
glyphable to add two stacks at once

Swipe:
Swipe is too attractive, needs to be changed somehow to create room to add something interesting

Maul
The change is good ... but ....
Maul changing leaves a big gaping hole in our DPS/Threat (need something else to step up)
Maybe change this into a cone/AE attack (still applying the slow), add a cooldown

General stuff:
Rotations in tanking are still too predictable. We need some REACTIVE talents to reward paying attention.
some ideas
- A real interrupt
- dodge refereshing mangle (at zero-rage)
- some other "RNG" ability

[Astronomy]

Swipe/AoE Bleed

Agreed.

Savage Defense/Stacks

Well I got to disagree as I've never liked the idea of SD.

Play Deads Return

Signed. Or another way to manage your threat, but we definetly need something.

Smoother Rotation

I'd vote for a little more complex rotation tbh.

Kitty Swipe/Shred Limitation Removal

That'd probably make me hate my class. If you want cat = (assasination) rogue, please leave cat alone and roll for a rogue.

Whats wrong with positional requirements, really? Thats what makes cat dps unique, and how comes so much people want it to be removed? Lots of people here wants something very similar to rogue abilities, but (I guess) denies to roll for a rogue.

Please, don't touch my class' uniqueness, play with rogue or something.

[xebtria]

What else should it be dependent on? If you screw up your dps suffers. That's a good mechanic.

it could let you suffer a little less.

- rogues have one (sinister/mutilate) ability to build combopoints, druids have 2.5 (mangle once a minute).
- rogues have to take care of poisons (automatically applied), slicendice (if mutilate, autorefresh), rupture, hunger for blood (mutilates only) and tricks of the trade. all of them are finishers, while HfB and TotT are neither one nor the other. druids have to take care of savage roar, rake, rip and maybe mangle, while rake and mangle are CP-generating and roar/rip are finishers.
- rogues have passive talents to regen their energy (2 on every crit or a chance for 15 energy on offhand-hit), druids have to take care of tiger's fury cooldown. (note: rogue's EPS scales with gear (hit/crit chance) while druid's ability is pretty static - except this one set bonus). Druid's also have clearcasting which is completely RNG and should not even considered really. however, if you manage to always hit shred on a proc it could be better than refreshing that 20-energy-rip with that proc - so it's infact maybe something worth to track.
- rogues have two burst-wtf-talents (adrenalin rush and that combat ultimate) as combat, one ... a little meh-ish for mutilate (cold blood). the combat variants may fuck up a rogues rotation, but only in the worst case. It may be a tiny bit better if it's used just within bloodlust. cold blood is nothing that fucks up your damage hard. it's one guaranteed crit for one offensive ability per 3 minutes. Druids have one burst-wtf-talent (berserk), that has to be done on a brilliant time point (rake/rip/SR are running long enough, TF does not get ready within the time of berserk, you are guaranteed to be on the boss for the duration and preferable when the duration will fit in at bloodlust) and/or at the very beginning of a fight. if you hit it on the wrong time point it can literally mean that you won't even notice the damage gain from it.


don't get me wrong, I also like the challange of a cat druid. But it's a bit frusttrating when you consider the effort you have to put in compared to the effort of another class to get an equal performance... I don't even try to compare it to an arcane mage ... it would make me want to kill myself... :|
so it could just be fair to ease that thing a little bit. OR (!) maybe make everyone else's rotaion a bit more difficult. But I guess, that won't happen.

so ... maybe ...

- remove mangle debuff (and so, trauma as well).
- let mangle (cat) apply the rake debuff, make it exclusive to the druid who applied it and let the shred and rip damage scale with that "rake". Same with mangle (bear) and lacerate for Maul-scaling. maybe lacerate stacks removed and handle it as 1 stack now = former 5 stacks. It's quite logic, that if you "mangle" a target, you "rake" or "lacerate" a target with that mangling, isn't it?^^
- ferocius bite refreshes savage roar duration to 5cp maximum (needs a deep-feral-talent, ofc).
- remove tigers fury (or use it for something else, since the name's pretty cool^^). change king of the jungle so it provides you with lets say 2 energy each critical strike (mutilate equivalence).


don't forget, blizzard's philosophy is to make the game fun also for beginners. A cat druid's rotation is anything, but not fun for beginners. So something like that would fit that philosophy without making it a 2-button-class.

[Berniee]

I don't understand people playing Hybrids wanting to be JUST as good as the pure classes. Hybrids are support classes! I mean, if I were just as awesome in 3 different speccs and as 4 different roles I think Everyone wouuld roll said class. Am I the only one that thinks like this?

[Nalla]

I don't understand people playing Hybrids wanting to be JUST as good as the pure classes. Hybrids are support classes! I mean, if I were just as awesome in 3 different speccs and as 4 different roles I think Everyone wouuld roll said class. Am I the only one that thinks like this?

Sorry But I had to LOL alot here.

Where in the hell do you get support from?

Show me a "pure" tank class or heal class.

No? there isn't one, they are all hybrids, so by your statement all other classes are here to support the 4 pure DPS specs. I never have expected to out do an equally geared pure DPS class as long as they have the skill to beat me and my complex rotation.

[xebtria]

I don't understand people playing Hybrids wanting to be JUST as good as the pure classes. Hybrids are support classes! I mean, if I were just as awesome in 3 different speccs and as 4 different roles I think Everyone wouuld roll said class. Am I the only one that thinks like this?

It was blizzards statement, that the definition of "hybrid" is, that you can change your role without changing the character (you only need different gear and a different spec). so please stop talking bullshit and gtfo.

[badge]

Leave the rotation the way it is.
Savage Defense is never up long enough to get the chance to stack.

[Nassam]

About "DoT" clipping:
quote from blue post on priest

Preventing dot clipping is something we want to do in general. It obviously benefits Shadow priests just as much as warlocks.

quote from blue post on warlock

When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.

when reading these, i assume we will also benefit from this.

But how will it work ? it extends the duration only when "cliping" (before last tick) or whenever ?
If it's just before cliping, it means we will have better uptimes
if it's whenever, is there a "maximum" extended duration ? otherwise, it will be much much easier to "keep bleeds up" by stacking say "2 full rip and 2 full rake" and thus letting FB more often ...

how do you see it ?

[xebtria]

I think it says... "ok rake lasts 9 seconds. you press rake again after it ticked once - on second 4. this leaves 5 seconds left. so the second rake expands that to 9+9 = 18 seconds, so if you press rake the second time after 4 seconds, the debuff from rake now lasts 14 seconds - so you don't get 3 ticks but 6 ticks from that debuff."

would be interesting if this can be exploited/exploited... if you only spam rake and every 6th rake rip (maybe), you could create two ridiculous (spelling? jeez I hate that word) long-lasting-bleeding debuffs on any target. I doubt that this "refresh" works if that spell that is tried to refresh lasts longer than one remaining "tick". but how should this work then? Even though it would be nice that "clipping" won't work anymore, how it actually should work seems to be very confusing ...

[sapp]

Well first of all if Blizzard dumbs down our rotation i'm rerolling Rogue or something because it's what make kitty DPS so unique. What i want to see is a nice threat-reduction ability that is useful like ToTt, i would love to be able to actually burst at start without having to play around the 95% threat zone.. also love the tiger's fury idea.. :P

But ye overall dont dumb down the rotation... it seperates us from wanting to play rogues imo.

[Seraphk]

Don't have time to quote everything, but like I said -- I didn't mean to make it sound like I want a simple rotation. I just want a rotation that allows us to keep up Savage Roar easier in both PvE/PvP purposes along with a way to generate combo points other than critting. It would make models for balancing our damage output much more accurate. We get enough RNG surprises from Omen of Clarity procs, and I do not enjoy RNG itself. I mean, it's fun to anticipate that anytime I get an Omen of Clarity proc I instantly know to hit my Shred key on a single target or Swipe key with multiple targets to maximize my DPS. But, we have other things to worry about that are more important such as changing our position to get behind a mob or simple survival.

Savage Defense is up long enough to get stacks if we Swipe & crit on multiple targets... If Lacerate crits & your melee attack crits right after... And/or if we were granted an AoE bleed for better AoE aggro. The lacerate + melee attack crits also apply to single raid encounter bosses. It's definitely stackable. I watch multiple Swipe crits all the time wishing that it would apply stacks of Savage Defense. For the person that doesn't like Savage Defense, it's a very unique idea that just needs a little tweaking. Its the closest you can get to block without having block, the only problem is that it isn't nearly as consistent since it does not have stacks & disappears no matter how much damage you take.

I don't understand people playing Hybrids wanting to be JUST as good as the pure classes. Hybrids are support classes! I mean, if I were just as awesome in 3 different speccs and as 4 different roles I think Everyone wouuld roll said class. Am I the only one that thinks like this?

I've been playing MMORPGs for a very long time and hybrids are what I've always specialized in since I understand that utility = adaptability = survival. I cannot go through the evolution of hybrids through every generation of MMORPGs, all I can say is that they started out as melee oriented classes with the exact same spells as their parent classes only at a lower rank (i.e. EverQuest). It was understood that their spell damage and melee damage were both subpar but their extra utility was important. As MMORPGs evolved though, so did hybrids -- They started becoming their own classes with their own unique abilities.

However, WoW was one of the first games to introduce "specs" which was a complete contradiction to hybrid concepts. Thus, they had to classify hybrids as classes that could perform two roles in one spec or basically tank/DPS that could heal itself. This was fine when certain classes provided so much extra utility that you were required to bring them along. They realized in the development of WoTLK that such utility was not always required in many situations, characters only cared about survivability/damage taken when they were a tank -- damage output as a DPS -- healing per second as a healer. The only reason people care otherwise is in particular circumstances when they could have used the extra utility to survive a specific situation. Just like the fact that your school lunch is just as filling as Little Johnnys, but Little Johnny got Milk while you got Orange Juice making you jealous cause your Oreos do not taste good with Orange Juice. This lead to the conclusion that all classes must be able to perform their "spec" role adequately. Thus, if a hybrid specs into DPS -- His damage should be comparable to that of most other DPS classes. As a trade off, Blizz started adding certain hybrid utility to pure classes minimizing the potency of hybrid utility, especially heals.

Right now, there is only one class left in the game that cannot heal itself in some form -- Rogues. There are only a few things remaining that make hybrids desirable in some situations, but there are also pure classes that have abilities making them more desirable in certain situations (i.e. Druid Battle Rez, Rogue/Hunter misdirect, etc.). I feel as though Blizz has done the best they can possibly do to make it to where hybrids can co-exist with pure classes without making them more desirable. However, it still doesn't change the fact that "specs" are an opposition to the word "hybrid" -- Thus why so many people are uneasy about hybrids being able to perform their roles on par with classes specifically designed around that role. In the end, if you want a little extra utility in the form of subpar heals -- Roll a hybrid. If you enjoy one role so much along with the unique playstyle / skill-set -- Roll a pure class.



Finally, I didn't say I wanted Druids to be like Assassination Rogues. They are just very comparable to the Assassination Rogue in terms of how their rotation works & their abilities. Xeb broke down the similarities quite well into their basic components demonstrating the complexity of our rotation along with the fact that it's very similar to that of an Assassination Rogue (note how many Assassination talents/abilities he puts in parenthesis compared to that of Combat/Subtlety). The Assassination Rogue works because it is able to easily generate combo points via other talents, its able to keeep Slice N Dice up, Mutilate's positional requirement was removed, & it has extra persistent damage via Poisons while white damage is much more formidable (dual wield mechanics always surpass 2H due to the extra effect haste has on it).

[Epoch]

I don't understand people playing Hybrids wanting to be JUST as good as the pure classes. Hybrids are support classes! I mean, if I were just as awesome in 3 different speccs and as 4 different roles I think Everyone wouuld roll said class. Am I the only one that thinks like this?

I dont understand why people who have never played as a druid in endgame raiding for more then a week insist on qqing in the druid forums about topics which they know nothing.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but the argument which a blue started in vanilla wow and used to responding to druid questions about tanking and dpsing of (because he didnt want to come out and say - I have no clue about the druid class because i play a warrior, and since i dont want to lose my mt spot im going to nerf your class repeatedly because i have a small wang) "BUT YOU ARE A HYBRID CUZ YOU CAN INNERVATE AND BREZ LOLOL!" Hasn't worked for a little over 4 years; and is one of the most incoherent illogical statements anyone could say. So to your response of "Hybrids are support classes!" You are a complete & total moron.

Hows that 10 man progression going? How does it make you feel to know that while you are gloating about clearing content (in your sig) top world guilds cleared 10 and 25 progression before you did on their alts while messing around? Do you get alot of women IRL when talking about your amazing 10 man progression in bars / clubs? If your going to attempt to flame someone & crack a pathetic joke, be prepared to be flamed back (especially when you have no clue wtf you are talking about). In short - you fail, the druid forums are too complicated for you to understand, go back to the rock you crawled out from under. Dk / shaman forums are thattaway -------------->

[FOZZIEBEAR]

I agree with many of the points here, but I think that adding a cooldown to swipe is a bad idea



I think they should keep it spammable, but nerf the damage a bit so that its not ALL we do for aoe. Think like spamming swipe but having some other button we press when its up on say, 12s CD


Even a weaker version of a spammable swipe is a great tool, we're the only class besides mages that have an instant cast, 360 degree, no CD, spammable snap threat ability (that I can think of). That makes us the strongest tanks for picking up new adds right as they spawn in a steady stream (think gunship portals)

[Dylis]

- Kitty Swipe/Shred Limitation Removal- Kitty Swipe needs to be 360 degree damage due to the fact that there are caster mobs that are usually out of range or all over the place. Other classes have targettable AoEs and Rogue's Fan of Knives is 360 AoE allowing them to hit every mob including caster mobs. Shred should not require you to be behind your enemy - Period. It hinder DPS in any raid situation where the mob randomly chooses targets to cast on and impedes reliable PvP damage due to the fact that your enemy can just jump all around you in circles preventing you from using it. If you can remove the directional requirement from Assassination Rogue's Mutilate, you can do it for Shred too. Why do I keep comparing Druids to Asassination Rogues? Because that's what they're most similar to.

I totally agree with this, it is to limited atm imo and it makes it a pain to hit all the mobs if they are running all over the place and not bunched up.

[The Cat]

it could let you suffer a little less.

No. If you make a mistake you should pay for it. Enough of this society that you get trophies for participating and showing up. If you're not first, you're last.

[Freakwave]

They could give bear swipe a CD, but make it a bit special. For example:
---
"Bear Swipe has 10 sec CD

When Bear Swipe is on CD, Mangle will hit target first in your threat table for 90% damage and the 2 targets lowest on your threat table for 40% damage. Reduces current Swipe CD by 4 seconds. Puts Mangle on CD but with 2 extra seconds of CD duration

When Bear Swipe is on CD, Lacerate will hit all targets for 30% and Give them a stack of lacerate. Reduces CD of Mangle by 1 but increases CD of Bear Swipe by 2 seconds. Gives Lacerate 4sec CD

New attack: When Bear Swipe and Lacerate are on CD, Will hit 4 targets lowest on your threat table for *70% Mangle damage* and the rest for *30% Mangle Damage* and refresh the duration of all lacerates on range, but not add to the number of stacks"
----
These numbers are totally random, and I am sure they will not approach it this way, just wanted to point out that CD on Swipe is always a possibility without making it totally boring.

[Niter]

What I would like to have:

Savage Roar Gone
Most people would disagree with me here, but Savage Roar is a bad mechanic in my opinion. Especially in PvP, we take even more time to DPS anything by having to get Savage Roar going. If you are being focused, or CC'd, there goes your Savage Roar out of the window. It is even worse if you lose your Berserk as well. I do not like the idea of having a Finisher to increase damage and then having it to be refreshed. Paying attention to different timers is not fun to me.

If we do not have to worry about Savage Roar anymore, our 'rotation' would be easier, right? Not really. Instead of watching another timer, we would have to pay attention to include more Ferocious Bites in our 'rotation'. Scale FB down if needed.

Ferocious Bite has enough 'drawbacks' to make it harder to use.


Dire Cat Form
Old idea, but I still like it. Give cats a bit better mitigation (since we are not sure that Survival Of the Fittest will still exist and there is a really good chance that bears will be automatically uncrittable by entering bear form), more damage (it would make up for the loss of Savage Roar) and something to make us look different from lower level cats and Resto/Balance cats.

New main attack
Shred is too strong not to have positional requirements. I would combine Mangle and Shred and have a new skill with no limitation.

Whislt I understand and agree with those who say that Cats feel unique because of how Shred works and do not want Druids to be like the Assassination spec, I must also be frank with the fact that it hurts PvP a lot and if your latency ever goes over 100~150ms, hitting moving targets can be a pain.

It also feels like Blizzard wants more movement in the new xpac. Having seen the Leap Of Faith and the "Life Grip" for Priests, Shamans getting a way to cast while moving... I get the feeling that Shred may become even more of a hassle in Cataclysm.

New Lacerate
Only 1 charge, but having a lot more front load damage and threat and a more damaging DoT. Mangle would buff its damage (the application, especially).

That would make us switch targets more often and to get the best out of Lacerate and would make room for another change:

New Swipe
Instead of being a skill to be spammed all the time, it would have a very short (3 or 4 seconds) cooldown and do 100% more damage than it does now. It would hit targets affected by Lacerate harder.

New Maul
It also stuns the target for 2 seconds if it crits and makes the next Mangle do more damage.

I do not think Bears need a lot more skills. Faerie Fire, Swipe, Maul, Mangle, Lacerate, Demoralizing Roar, Challenging Roar... Those are enough buttons. Instead of having more buttons to press, we should have more procs to pay attention to. With those changes I want:

- bears doing more damage in PvP. They are pathetic right now.
- bears being more offensive overall. DKs and Paladins have better self-healing skills. It is only natural that we deal more damage in order to achieve the same thing but in a different way.
- bears having to switch targets more often, paying attention to the skills they are using in order to increase their damage output (and, obviously, threat) without spamming everything or having to go back to the boring days of TBC.
- Maul will not be what it is today, so having it buff another skill and an additional effect would not be overpowered.

Brutal Instinct
No longer a talent, it is base line now.

Those are the changes I would like to see. Some are still rough, but I would go that way.