Feral Changes

[Naked Hippie]

I Didn't bother reading walls of text so i will just say this suggestion for the future and leave it at that:

Vinegrip






GG

[Rixxe]

I Didn't bother reading walls of text so i will just say this suggestion for the future and leave it at that:

Vinegrip






GG

If your not going to read what people have wrote, why even post?
(Maybe you can't read?.......GG!!!!)

[Bearclaw]

I am curious as to what people think of the Faerie Fire talent change, The fact that we can now have 'up to 3 stacks' (please correct me if im wrong), is this purely for PvP purposes? or does it actually make a difference in PvE?

Personnally i dont really understand the reason why its changed, unless when in Bear it is worth 3x the threat. (Which would be odd) As they could just increase the threat from the single faerie fire.

Thoughts?

Feary fire stacks 3 times for 4% armor reduction each time up to 12% in cataclysm, and it was supposed to mimic sunder armor in all its aspects as basically a carbon copy of ability with different name and icon down to having a 15 rage cost in bear form. It still had 6 second cooldown though so first change was to lower its cooldown with FA talent so it can be spammed just like sunder armor, then they just changed FA effect to apply 3 stacks. Most recent developement is they removed rage cost from it so it can be used as pulling tool again. Feary fire being harder to dispel in pvp as a result of main idea behind this change was just a side effect I believe.

[Higgi]

I am curious as to what people think of the Faerie Fire talent change, The fact that we can now have 'up to 3 stacks' (please correct me if im wrong), is this purely for PvP purposes? or does it actually make a difference in PvE?

It reduces the ramp up time for the debuff and saves some GCDs so it is a slight increase in raid dps in your standard tank'n'spank fight. If there is a lot of target switching and/or adds it becomes more useful. I would call the talent more of a cat thing due to the increased FB damage and the FF effect a convenience bonus.

[Torne]

Except where someone called Savage Roar an Enrage effect:

Yes, it was in the 3.1 patch notes:

Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): Is now considered an Enrage effect and now increases physical damage done by 30% instead of increasing attack power by 40%.

[Jahdu]

Personally i loved the complexity of the feral DPS rotation, it was a challanging and rewarding class to play. Although the SR change will make the rotation alittle more forgiving i dont think it will change the nature of feral DPS.

To do maximum DPS you still need to manage your your rotation correctly to keep everything up, fury swipes talent ensures that SR is still important and shouldnt just be ignored and allowed to drop off with no cost.

As a side note im more excited about the Nom Nom Nom talent allow FB to be utilised more, even if only towards the end of the fight.

[Rixxe]

Feary fire stacks 3 times for 4% armor reduction each time up to 12% in cataclysm, and it was supposed to mimic sunder armor in all its aspects as basically a carbon copy of ability with different name and icon down to having a 15 rage cost in bear form. It still had 6 second cooldown though so first change was to lower its cooldown with FA talent so it can be spammed just like sunder armor, then they just changed FA effect to apply 3 stacks. Most recent developement is they removed rage cost from it so it can be used as pulling tool again. Feary fire being harder to dispel in pvp as a result of main idea behind this change was just a side effect I believe.

It's always been a pulling tool (as far as i was aware) and hopefuly this wont change, Even if it had a rage cost it would still be worth it if there was enough of an increase in threat gen.

Isn't Armor Pen getting removed? I thought that there was no ArP gems in Cata, and therefore ArP talents would be removed (Obviously this wont happen if it stays as it is, but ArP didnt really increase damage done until it was around 70% or above.) Perhaps this is another thing that might change, or ArP is coming back...

As far as the PvP side of things goes, hopefully it will make a difference with the Dispels having a cooldown.

[Melonberry]

Yes, it was in the 3.1 patch notes:

Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): Is now considered an Enrage effect and now increases physical damage done by 30% instead of increasing attack power by 40%.

Strange, it's never actually been an enrage effect, as they stack.

[Greenmahn]

It's always been a pulling tool (as far as i was aware) and hopefuly this wont change, Even if it had a rage cost it would still be worth it if there was enough of an increase in threat gen.

Isn't Armor Pen getting removed? I thought that there was no ArP gems in Cata, and therefore ArP talents would be removed (Obviously this wont happen if it stays as it is, but ArP didnt really increase damage done until it was around 70% or above.) Perhaps this is another thing that might change, or ArP is coming back...

As far as the PvP side of things goes, hopefully it will make a difference with the Dispels having a cooldown.

If it had a 15 rage cost it wouldn't be a range pull tool on initial pulls as you wouldn't have 15 rage so they removed the rage cost they implemented so yes its still a range pull tool.

Yes armor PEN is going away. No arp gems however the armor reduction talents are still around sunder armor, devastate, expose weakness and FF, FFF. Ans yes they do increase your damage even at a measly 12% its just not as noticeable until you get to 70%

As far as the PVP side of it dispels not only have a cooldown they also cost more mana and mana will be a bigger issue in cata. they are reducing the amount you heal and also increasing our health pulls. they are trying to get away from people dieing in 3 globals and making pvp more of your skill base then a class based.

[Bearclaw]

First time I hear about cooldown on dispels in Cataclysm. Wowhead tooltips for cataclysm do not show any cds on dispels and searching for source of this change I only found one forum topic where someone suggested adding cooldown on dispel and blizzard representative commented that it would be a poor solution. One of changes to dispelling is that it's no longer smart spell that will not consume any mana when you use it on target that has nothing to be dispelled.

[Fahrenheit]

As a side note im more excited about the Nom Nom Nom talent allow FB to be utilised more, even if only towards the end of the fight.

Yeah, that should be fun. If a bit boring rotation wise.

[Seraphk]

I think this argument is rather void. It does not matter if a buff increses one part of damage big time (white damage through SR) or if it increses it this part by a little less (white damage through SnD) and another part by a bit (poison damage von SnD). The only real difference is that because of this the effects of SnD are harder to quantify by looking at a combatlog. The thing that makes SnD slightly more interesting is the increase in energy regen mechanics (Focused Attacks/Combat Potency) which lets you deal more active damage. Druids can achieve this via King of the Jungle.

TL;DR: While SR is slighly more boring than SnD the difference is for the most part small and subjective.

PS: I am talking from a pure PvE perspective, I do not care much for PvP. Although I feel that the new SR is also a great improvement for PvP over the old implementation.

I don't care how much it increases my damage output, I care about having scalability through actual scalability rather than it being provided through an ability which was a mirrored mechanic from a class that gets a lot more benefit from their ability while also having talents / tools capable of recovering from finishers far easier.

The difference is in the class, not the abilities. Mechanics of their damage are what make the abilities different, not the fact that one is a finisher that increases damage by 30% & the other is a finisher that increases haste by 40%. The ability is acting as projected scalability when Blizz goes to consider how much potential damage Druids are capable of doing. It's silly that they are using an ability to grant us the scalability that other classes already possess.

It hinders utility of choice in other finishers while only buffing a single part of our damage -- What's fun about it? What's fun in having to open on a mob then know that the first finisher you're gonna use is gonna be SR rather than FB, Rip, or Maim? Nothing.

They've decreased its significance in overall damage output in our rotation so it is more forgiving -- Why decrease its significance and keep it around other than for the sake of making our rotation a little more annoying? It's like bringing back 12 sec Mangle debuff, but making it a 10% bleed damage increase.

I'm just asking... Why have it as a finisher when they're decreasing how important it is, it isn't a fun mechanic as it is whether it be in PvE or PvP, & it mirrors an ability of another class to achieve scalable white damage rather than a true increase to our damage dealing capabilities?

[Cortano]

I'm just asking... Why have it as a finisher when they're decreasing how important it is, it isn't a fun mechanic as it is whether it be in PvE or PvP, & it mirrors an ability of another class to achieve scalable white damage rather than a true increase to our damage dealing capabilities?

I don't think SR is a particularly fun ability either, but the new one is a LOT better than the old version (assuming they balance our DPS with other classes.)

[Cheezee]

SR is a finisher because hitting shred 3-5 times followed by rip or ferocious bite is even more boring. You know, that whole 1112, 1113, 1112 rotation they keep trying to avoid.

[Graverot1991]

Still. 30% (atm) dmg buff has to be the most boring thing in game. Along with HfB. SnD is more fun, and I'd like SR to do something "funnier" It would be cool if it would give your shred a 50% chance to do double dmg or something along these lines.

[Fahrenheit]

I agree, Savage Roar is very much an "Un Fun" ability and even more so that it's one of our "finishers".

What I'd love to see is SR be baked into our normal damage and it made into a raid wide buff, think +3% damage or +10% AP, 10% haste I don't know, something besides buffs white damage, I mean it's so lame it buffs the one part of our damage that we do nothing to inflict, auto attacking... whoopty do!