Feral Changes

[Rixxe]

Firstly i'd like to say, that blizzard stated that the changes made would NOT make all the classes the same... but with this recent update, thats hardly true.

The tanking changes below are:

Frenzied Regen = Last stand (Basically the same as a warrior, it just happens to include a regen affect at the same time...)
Survival Instincts = Shield wall (This is kinda obvious)


Feral
•Frenzied Regeneration now Increases maximum health by 30%, increases health to 30% (if below that value), and converts up to 10 rage per second into health for 20 sec. Each point of rage is converted into 3% of max health.
•Savage Roar now increases autoattack damage done by 50% instead of physical damage done by 30%.
•Bash no longer interrupts spellcasting for 3 sec.
•Enrage now increases physical damage taken by 10% instead of reducing base armor.
•Survival Instincts now Reduces all damage taken by 60% for 12 sec. Only useable while in Bear Form or Cat Form. Instant, 5 min cooldown
•Heart of the Wild now increases your maximum mana by 5/10/15% instead of increasing your Intellect by 2/4/6%.

Kitty cats also lose the 30% damage increase to all abilities, now its only auto attacks which isnt as good even if its 50%!

This is just my opinion but when cata starts, all the tanks will be able to do the same stuff... Won't matter if you pick a warrior/druid/paladin, Same Cd's same amount of defensive abilities, same amount of mitigation.

Obviously more will change before Cata is released and i'm aware of this... however the changes so far don't inspire much confidence in blizzard.

[fizikz]

SR "nerfed" ? lol no.. they've made it not HAVE to be up 100% of the time, they'll balance our damage around it still being up but it allows us a lot more "wiggle room" ...if SR falls off 1-2 seconds before you're about to rip, you can still rip instead of having to 'waste' those combo points on SR again, all the while rip isn't up on the target

also huge buff to PVP feral imo - no longer have to babysit SR just to do competitive (yellow) damage. can use it for consistent damage, exactly like slice and dice, but is no longer needed to be up to do any considerable damage.

bash change is w/e - you got your real interrupt now.

CD changes are fine. tanks need to be balanced - playstyle will still be completely different, but your survivability will be the same.

[Richmond]

Bear's can still Battle res, inervate and we have Barkskin (which is unlike any other tanks CD).

The change on the savage roar wont change an awful lot in terms of DPS, a feral DPS #1 damaging attack is the auto swing and with that talent in tier 2 (i think) of the cata tree, has a % to give an additional auto attack - There wont be much to worry about.

I really don't understand why everyone is surprised, they did say that they want to bring the tanking classes closer together. The only difference between DK's / Bears and Pala / Warrior is a shield and a few other niche abilities. It will mean that we can all tank every encounter rather than bringing one class because they shine on a certain fight. Druid tanks have only been amazing recently because of the HP buff in ICC, outside of ICC we were pushing 2nd or 3rd choice tank (after Paladins).

[Billyzane]

Savage Roar thing is interesting but I agree with Fizikz, I love pvping on my feral druid but having to keep savage roar up (especially if you're not just tunneling a target and CCing like you're supposed to) is annoying as balls. Plus, now this might be old news, I read somewhere that mangle is being buffed to be more on par with Shred damage wise so that makes something else a little easier. Granted that's a pvp perspective.

[fizikz]

Bear's can still Battle res, inervate and we have Barkskin (which is unlike any other tanks CD).

Divine Protection
Reduces all damage taken by 20% for 10 sec.
3% of base mana, Instant cast, 1 min cooldown

Bone Shield
The Death Knight is surrounded by 3 whirling bones. While at least 1 bone remains, he or she takes 20% less damage from all sources and deals 2% more damage with all attacks, spells and abilities. Each damaging attack that lands consumes 1 bone. Lasts 5 min. Instant, 1 min cooldown

Shield Block
Increases your chance to block by 100% for 10 sec.
10 Rage, Instant, 1 min cooldown

blocks are ~30% less damage?


@billyzane - yeah, SR was really a bad thing for feral pvp - getting instant casts helped a bit with still being able to CC while doing some DPS, but it was a real hassle and ate a lot of CP's to keep SR up. looking forward to not being required to do that anymore

[Torne]

The savage roar change is awesome.
now our yellow damage will be balanced even if it falls of.Attacks like Ravage were totally useless in WotLK because you didn´t have SR up on your starter and the damage was balanced around having it up, pretty retarded.
Plus, if you faced an enemy in pvp with even half a brain, he could just enrage dispel you SR(hunters and rogues, and other druids with cataclysm), making you practically useless. With this change, even if SR gets dispelled we can still burst with yellow dmg.

[Woogs]

Don't forget about the soothe animal change. It now dispels an enrage effect; hopefully on more than just dragonkin and beasts. Warriors need an enrage effect to use their enraged regeneration (frenzied regeneration clone). They usually rely on two on-use enrage cooldowns that are now on the GCD in cataclysm (berserker's rage and bloodrage). It'll be hysterical if you can pull off a duel against a warrior and are able to prevent his (shield wall + last stand + enrage + regen) combo by dispelling enrages and win the duel.

[fizikz]

I didn't know SR counted as an enrage effect O.o that's interesting...

[Cortano]

Kitty cats also lose the 30% damage increase to all abilities, now its only auto attacks which isnt as good even if its 50%!

The savage roar change is awesome.

The savage roar change is AWESOME.

Cat DPS is going to be balanced with other classes. That balancing will take into account any buffs you have up, meaning Savage Roar. Reducing the impact of savage roar is basically the same thing as boosting all of our special's base damage by 30%.

(or however it turns out, it does look like our white attacks will be a larger percentage of our damage now.)

Net result: All yellow attacks are buffed

Where does this come up big: any time that SR is not up. That means you are a bit more free in your rotation... you could use rip without a SR up and not have a huge DPS hit. Good play is still rewarded, but having SR drop isn't such a loss. Big win on any movement fight.

Also... Ravage/Berserk/Shred/Swipe burst damage. This is a MAJOR improvement for burstiness. Big win for PvP'ers.

Frenzied Regen = Last stand (Basically the same as a warrior, it just happens to include a regen affect at the same time...)
Survival Instincts = Shield wall (This is kinda obvious)

freakin' awesome. How cool is that?

We get Survival Instincts rolled into Enraged Regen AND we get a new cooldown as well? Whoa! They are spreading the awesome-sauce around.

[Pompeii]

Of course we're still in beta so this could all change, but I'm really looking forward to this.. Savage roar change is definitely a good thing. I approve.

[exochaft]

blocks are ~30% less damage?

30% less melee damage, assuming you don't critically block as a warrior (that's 60% less melee damage).

You shouldn't neglect the Restoration changes, because they all can affect feral, too:

Restoration

* Master Shapeshifter bonus increased from 2% to 4% for all forms.
* Furor now gives you a 33/66/100% (up from 20/40/60%) chance to gain 10 rage when you shapeshift into Bear form and you keep up to 33/66/100 (up from 20/40/60) of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form. Now increases your total Intellect by 2/4/6%. (Old - Only increased in Moonkin form)
* Naturalist is back as a Tier 2 Talent. Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch and Nourish spells by 0.15/0.35/0.5 sec.

SR is a very nice change, because I know some of us have been in the position of wanting to use a FB or Rip, but we're right on the line where we may or may not get the stars to align to have nothing drop. SR is a change that makes the feral rotation way more forgiving, and consequently makes feral PvP much more forgiving. Curious to see how much our melee damage will represent in our damage breakdowns compared to our yellow attacks (aka, how much of a DPS gain is there from not using SR and using SR in Cataclysm). We'll likely see some actual numbers at the very end of beta or shortly after live release.

I've already commented on SI, Frenzied Regen, Bash, Enrage, and HotW in a previous thread, and I agree that they're very positive changes.

NSS/MSS is finally back up to current strength, and that's a good thing. In conjunction with the Enrage change, KotJ has more downsides for tanks in a world of limited healer mana (it only came into real popularity for tanks with 4-piece T10). With the set bonus gone, not many tanks fancy taking 10% extra physical damage (that includes bleed damage increase, too!). Plus, we received more confirmation via blue responses to shamans concerning our crit levels: "Remember that crit values overall are going to be far lower than the 70%+ that some players can reach in current content." That 4% crit for kittens is likely going to be worth a lot more than it is in current content. It's a nice motivation for moonkins and resto druids to pick it up, as well, for more spell power.

Furor offers a nice change to all specs, as well (moonkins not so much, unless they fancy leaving moonkin form on occasion). The RNG is gone for bears, there's zero energy loss for kittens, and the resto druids get more resto-oriented talents.

Naturalist, I'm still not sure how much of an impact this will have. Either we're going to have 4 different talents in Tier 2, or some talent shifting occured. Waiting for an updated talent tree since none of my beta friends care much about druids.

[Bearclaw]

I accidentally missed this thread discussion concerning savage roar change and posted a new thread on it. :/

I see general consensus is that all yellow attacks will be buffed at some point which is my idea on how developers will go about it as well, although it's kinda strange that change to special attacks is not together with change to savage roar in same patch notes so I am a bit sceptical about whether or not this is planned. We will just have to wait and see if this is indeed the approach game designers are going to take.

Crunching some numbers though just to show how much of a buff to yellow attacks is needed to keep damage in line to what we have now on live -

Approximately 1/3 of feral damage comes from autoattacks at the moment and that damage is being buffed from 1.3 multiplier to 1.5 multiplier when using savage roar, everything else goes down from 1.3 multiplier to no multiplier. This buffs feral overall damage by 16.665% rather than 30%. Overall this change would bring theoretical feral damage in pve to 89.74% of damage that is doable now.

Implications of this change in pvp are that feral no longer has a huge need to buff savage roar as it will not affect the burst needed to make a kill, but burst and bleed damage will be very poor without 30% buff from savage roar, effectively at 76.92% of what it is today.

If all of feral special attacks including finishing moves and all combo point builders do not undergo buff across the board by 20% to compensate for this change then damage will not stay the same as it is on live now and developers intention of "making feral rotation more forgiving" will also become a huge nerf to feral damage even if main goal is accomplished.

On its own this particular change is terrible nerf, but good to see people are already assuming and expecting buffs to damage across the board like I did when I saw it, and have faith that Blizzard will do exactly that.

Math proof -

33.33% * 1.5 = 50%
66.67% * 1.2 = 80%

Together bringing total damage back to 130% where it used be before the nerf when savage roar was up.

Disclaimer: I am aware that these numbers are not accurate for every feral but comparison in Rawr between my current damage breakdown on Rawr in 264 gear and top feral gear with all raid buffs indicates that current autoattack damage is contributing roughly 1/3 of total damage so it's pretty close and rough estimate of what to expect if Blizzard takes this path in buffing feral damage back.

Edit: Glyph of Savage Roar not taken into account, numbers may be slightly off but it made for nice rounding up of values to figure out how expected change may look like. I don't know if this glyph has been changed in beta from 3% damage buff to something else.

[gollie]

our melee dmg right now at arp hardcap is 30%, but since arp will be gone this number will drop in cataclysm.

[exochaft]

To limit the size of this post, I'll just pick out certain areas of focus.

"I see general consensus is that all yellow attacks will be buffed at some point which is my idea on how developers will go about it as well, although it's kinda strange that change to special attacks is not together with change to savage roar in same patch notes so I am a bit sceptical about whether or not this is planned."

Well, for starters, the numbers game comes last. Once the basic structure is put into place, Blizz will adjust the damage for all our individual moves. The reason we're seeing the SR change instead of "X feral druid move's damage increased by Y%" is because SR is a structure change, even though there's a number attached to it. Instead of focusing on getting the exact end-product numbers they want, they throw out change and adjust the power later.

"If all of feral special attacks including finishing moves and all combo point builders do not undergo buff across the board by 20% to compensate for this change then damage will not stay the same as it is on live now and developers intention of "making feral rotation more forgiving" will also become a huge nerf to feral damage even if main goal is accomplished."

Actually, this is one number they have released. The feral mastery increases bleed damage by 20% baseline, and this value is increased by mastery rating: "Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32% and increases the damage done by your Cat Form bleed abilities by 20%. Absorb and damage increased further by mastery rating." Blizz has also stated that they'll increase the damage done by Mangle so it's more useful when you cannot Shred. Their intent is rather clear, the specific scaling of abilities is still up in the air beyond the mastery component for bleeds. Besides, there are tons of passive talents that are no longer available in talent trees, as well as some newer mechanics we'll have to face that will ultimately be used to determine our baseline damage (especially haste affecting our energy regen).

I understand where your math is coming from, Bearclaw, but keep in mind that changes for Cataclysm are not meant to be balanced in the frame of WotLK. Cataclysm changes are meant to be ultimately balanced for Cataclysm end-game raiding, not WotLK (and classically, the pre-expansion patches make PvE/PvP balance insanely horrible... but Blizz has always stated that they don't balance around non-max level content). W/o Cataclysm end-game numbers we really don't have much to say other than speculation when it comes to exact damage distribution and scaling.

[Will]

I didn't know SR counted as an enrage effect O.o that's interesting...

Savage roar isn't an enrage effect. Nowhere in this ENTIRE thread did someone call savage roar an Enrage effect.

[Koumaru]

Savage roar isn't an enrage effect. Nowhere in this ENTIRE thread did someone call savage roar an Enrage effect.

Except where someone called Savage Roar an Enrage effect:

Plus, if you faced an enemy in pvp with even half a brain, he could just enrage dispel you SR(hunters and rogues, and other druids with cataclysm), making you practically useless.

[Dryade]

Sure I see where the Savage Roar change is good for PvP, but can one of you help explain how this is even remotely good for what was once the "most complex, but, most rewarding" dps class in the game? All I see that this is helping is the mouth breathers that shouldn't be playing in the first place?

No I am not an elitist, I just don't understand why Blizzard has to fix what isn't broken?

[Cortano]

Sure I see where the Savage Roar change is good for PvP, but can one of you help explain how this is even remotely good for what was once the "most complex, but, most rewarding" dps class in the game? All I see that this is helping is the mouth breathers that shouldn't be playing in the first place?

The answer to your question is so self-evidently obvious it doesn't even seem worth replying. Maybe try first to explain how you see this making any difference in your play style, so we can understand your objection.

[Balduvian]

Sure I see where the Savage Roar change is good for PvP, but can one of you help explain how this is even remotely good for what was once the "most complex, but, most rewarding" dps class in the game? All I see that this is helping is the mouth breathers that shouldn't be playing in the first place?

No I am not an elitist, I just don't understand why Blizzard has to fix what isn't broken?

100% true. If you can't handle this so-called "hard" dps class, don't roll it.
I like(d) the "complexity" of Feral Druids, and it should definitely stay. Feral DPS is perfectly viable, and atleast you need to put some attention to it.

Stop fixing what isn't broken!

[Greenmahn]

Cortano Let me explain Dryades post for you. Savage roar right now must be active at all times as soon as possible with the highest up time possible to get the max out of your class. With the new mechanic i dont see an increase in our dps over its current state maybe even a slight dps increase depending on Final numbers we will see i think myself it will eb a dps increase.

BUT with the new mechanic if you miss having your SR up now it wont seem liek that big of a dps increase a skilled Feral now will still be a skilled feral then but the difference between a medicore feral and a excellent one will be blurred with this change because the penelty of not having savage roar up all the time will be less then it is currently.

I myself Love the change depending on how our new FERAL OOC works :P and if they make ooc baseline or bring it back as a talent (that we can reach).