Feral Prot for Cata PvP?

[sc2071]

Hey,

Just wondering if anybody else is analyzing the Cata talent trees or is in beta playing around with the idea of Prot(Bear) spec'd Feral Druid for Cataclysm PvP? I know, I know... the company line, "We are druids and should use all forms and not just one." However, my thinking is that Cat would be more situational, maybe just used as an opener and then shift into Bear to out live your opponents. And in the thick of things go Bear and act more as a disruption/support role.

I guess I just really like my Druid and would love for this playstyle to work. So, I don't really want to just reroll Warrior.

Here's a spec I though would work for that:
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMr...kMcu:rzsq0MMmz

Any thoughts, ideas, or otherwise?
Thanks!

[Elunedra]

i think at the moment now that they removed BotG from cat talents, that the talent tree is quite broken as you can now spec bear/cat while only gaining 6% spell dmg taken and loosing -10% dmg on FB and -5% chance to proc fury swipe.

so thats not a real big loss i think we need a few more talents to fix that lol

as for pvp well the think whit a bear the problem is that it cases high threat but low damage, well atleast lower damage then a cat would do. in AB i usaly charge into a group on hordies while in bear and let them pound on my while the healers keep me up and the rest of my groups slowly kills them. but on a smaller base like in an arena. that is not posable as you dont kill you enemy fast enough so his cooldowns will come avaible again and he heals himzelf or kills you

[sc2071]

I hear yah about the damage. And I wouldn't necessary be looking to do Arena, more Battlegrounds and relying on others to do the killing.

I guess I'm confused about how Prot Warriors are viable in PvP. I thought they too did little damage, but where great at shutting down melee and casters allowing their teammates freedom to DPS. In fact didn't Blizzard nerf Shield Slam or something because of Prot PvP? And even after that ended them being FotM, I thought they were still regarded as a very viable PvP spec.

I guess I was hoping that with Feral Charge, Bash, and Skull Bash Bears would be more viable in PvP.

[Azale]

Prot Warrior's bring a lot of control with Shockwave, Conc Blow, Spell Reflect (easier access than other warriors), dispells on Shield Slam, Gag Order and all that mobility from War Bringer. In contrast a Bear in PvP has very few tools at their disposal.

Your spec gives up the best talent for Feral PvP there is, Predatory Strikes, and you're gaining very little in return.

Pulverize is more likely to be a hindrance than a help in PvP (unless it ends up hitting very hard). Removing bleeds from a target could be quite helpful to them (e.g. Rogue going for restealth, Mage going for invis).

A Cat based spec with Pred Strikes will have far more control and survivability (from insta cast CC and heals) than the Bear spec you've posted. If you want to harass and shut down enemy then you still have access to Bash in Bear Form, along with Maim and instacast Cyclone and Roots (and Hibernate vs other Druids).

[exochaft]

Since I've been doing bear PvP for a while on Live, the noticeable difference is Vengeance. Since it is going to be the primary method of damage/TPS scaling, we'll need to be actively getting hit to do enough damage in bear... top that with normalized rage and almost all of our bear abilities relying on AP (Vengeance) instead of weapon damage, it'll be rough getting the damage out as a bear tank compared to Live.

Be that as it may, there are some things that are worth mentioning. Skull Bash for bear is leagues better than Skull Bash for cats, just from the sheer fact that is cost 1 rage instead of 25 energy... basically you can instantly Skull Bash in bear at anytime but for cats you need to pool energy to do it. Even with the normalized rage, the largest source of our rage is our melee attacks and avoidance/crits, so we won't completely rely on getting hit to use yellow attacks. As usual, the survivability aspect of bear is leagues beyond that of a kitten in terms of raw mitigation. Another plus is that, as a bear PvPer, you obviously just don't sit in bear all the time... but the Mastery stat would probably be your go-to stat, since bears generally have relied on bleeds as a cat instead of raw instant-damage power to kill their targets (also the damage scaling for kittens is weapon damage mostly... at least it's supposed to be once fixed).

From your spec, I'd almost say getting Thick Hide for PvP would be awesome. Remember, resilience in Cataclysm will no longer reduce the chance you are crit (just a straight-up damage reduction now), and with crit values being much, much lower at level 85, the talent's crit reduction is amazing.

My only dream is to somehow get Overgrowth into a feral PvP spec w/o losing so much damage/survivability, but I suppose if you're only there for the CC, you could subspec into Balance for it. Maybe make it a secondary spec for BGs like WSG if you're going to be the FC (laughs as their entire team is rooted trying to chase you).

*edit* Should mention that I've done a fair amount of Tol Barad on the beta for some PvP action. Now I can't say that we're going up against the best of the best opponents, but there's a decent sized crowd that isn't composed of pushovers. In most 1v1 cases, I've been able to come out on top or completely destroy almost any class/spec combination so far ... the tanking and healing versions can be a little rough, but the healers will eventually run out of mana, which is a HUGE help. I've not run into other feral druid opponents in PvP, or rogues for that matter (probably the "QQ, my spec/class is broken, i don't wanna play" syndrome). However, against your average PvPer for certain, even a complete bear tanking spec is enough to take down your opponent. However, I have noticed that our biggest threat can be when combat is over and we directly heal ourselves with spells... the mana costs are so large that we can't do as often as we do on live.

[Gecko]

I think Vengeance will be a great tool for PVP Bears and am looking forward to trying out the viability of the spec once things go live. The current view with the Cataclysm talents and abilities suggest that Cataclysm will be more viable for PVP Bears than on Live due to the scaling damage output and a few other tricks that Bears lacked on current Live. Just make sure you're not using the Frenzied Regeneration Glyph in PVP.

[Elunedra]

Since I've been doing bear PvP for a while on Live, the noticeable difference is Vengeance. Since it is going to be the primary method of damage/TPS scaling, we'll need to be actively getting hit to do enough damage in bear... top that with normalized rage and almost all of our bear abilities relying on AP (Vengeance) instead of weapon damage, it'll be rough getting the damage out as a bear tank compared to Live.

bear will scale on AP of agility aswel right ?

and i think this is a somewhat pvp bear spec
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0hb0bZfMMdRubzrck0c

[Quehn]

http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrG...zMcz:zsZq0MMmz

This

[Cheezee]

Interesting that neither of those specs takes Nurturing Instinct after what Exo said about the cost of our heals in Cata.

[Gecko]

If you have to heal as a PVP Bear, you have more problems than not having Nurturing Instinct. Sure, there will be situations that you can heal as a PVP Bear, but the likelihood of it being a primary function is low, so the value of the talent is also low. Mana efficiency or not, basing a PVP Bear talent build with Nurturing Instinct is a waste.

[Niter]

Back in TBC, you could pretty much start the fight as Cat and then do most of the fight in Bear. In WotLK we just never really had enough damage to be viable. We could survive, but we were just wasting some time since we would eventually be killed while doing little damage to our opponents.

I do *not* see it changing in Cataclysm. It seems we are not getting great abilities to do the amount of damage that a Shield Slam, Avenger's Shield & Shied Of the Righteous can do. Plus, we lack a button that we can spam. I believe that all of our skills work on short cooldowns, and that does not help.

Having said that, our healing is A LOT better on the PTR. Nurturing Instinct looks good, Thick Hide looks like mandatory, and we get nice tools like Skull Bash.

I still doubt we will be able to actually hurt other characters. So far our damage is not that good and Resilience will reduce it even further. I hope they make it viable, I loved being a Bear in PvP a long time ago. Cats just take too long to get their damage going and they feel really squishy.

[Purrfunctory]

It is too bad the Pulverize buff doesn't persist if you switch to Cat Form. That would make for some interesting and amazing play in Feral PvP.

I think cats will be much better in PvP. I can see doing something like Charge>Pounce>Mangle>Rake>Ravage>Instant Cyclone>Charge>Ravage>Rake>Shred>Instant Cyclone>Charge>Ravage and so on. I have always seen the strength of Feral PvP as our ability to shift as needs demand.

It appears to me that Feral PvP will continue to largely focus on utility and stuns but we do appear to be more valuable.

[exochaft]

Back in TBC, you could pretty much start the fight as Cat and then do most of the fight in Bear. In WotLK we just never really had enough damage to be viable. We could survive, but we were just wasting some time since we would eventually be killed while doing little damage to our opponents.

I do *not* see it changing in Cataclysm. It seems we are not getting great abilities to do the amount of damage that a Shield Slam, Avenger's Shield & Shied Of the Righteous can do. Plus, we lack a button that we can spam. I believe that all of our skills work on short cooldowns, and that does not help.

Having said that, our healing is A LOT better on the PTR. Nurturing Instinct looks good, Thick Hide looks like mandatory, and we get nice tools like Skull Bash.

I still doubt we will be able to actually hurt other characters. So far our damage is not that good and Resilience will reduce it even further. I hope they make it viable, I loved being a Bear in PvP a long time ago. Cats just take too long to get their damage going and they feel really squishy.

This one's invoking a /boggle from me.

Since I spend most of my downtime in BGs as a full PvE tank spec and tanking gear (PvP trinket, of course), the damage I can put out as bear is enormous (especially with Glyph of Maul) and just slightly inferior to a ramped-up kitty damage with the same spec/gear. The only thing that keeps me from putting out huge kitty numbers are my glyphs and a talent or two. The beauty of the tanking PvP is that we can do enough damage to keep pressure on people, while having the ability to CC and control the fight... if we get kills in, perfect, but it shouldn't be expected. While the other DPSers should be the one killing, our boon is that we have enough survivability that people will die if they ignore us. Keep in mind, this is in reference to Live, not PTR or beta.

In reference to bears not having a Shield Slam/AS/etc. ability in terms of damage... I haven't used Mangle on the PTR, but on the beta it hits HARD. Keep the Lacerates ticking and you'll get free Mangles all the time, especially on multiple targets. 6-7 Mangle(Bear) crits alone w/o Vengeance will kill your average higher-armor DPS w/o resil at lvl 85. I'm waiting for the numbers pass for druids before we get final numbers, but as someone asked in an earlier post, bears do get AP from AGI and STR... however, I wouldn't get too excited, because our AGI values haven't jumped up high enough to reach the AP we lost from FAP on weapons. It's all about Vengeance.

I'd say that will be our biggest pitfall for bear PvP, and by that I mean Vengeance. As the mechanic stands, it's all based around the damage you literally take. If you are not focused, good luck getting your AP up to super sexy numbers. However, if you are focused, high Vengeance + Berserk will murder anyone. With how our class and mastery is slated to build up, our bleeds in kitty can be the cure if we cannot get focused enough for Vengeance while in bear (plus, once fixed, abilities SHOULD scale with weapon damage instead of the FAP that no longer exists).

Overall, I'd say bears have much better tools than they do on Live to handle PvP situations, so the experience should improve. In terms of resilience, you could probably build a full PvP tanking set now since the values of stam are standardized for everyone. If you aren't running with a full-time healer, at least in my battlegroup, you can generally expect to get no heals... I haven't played enough to see if Nurturing Instinct would be worth it as a bear (since Frenzied Regen generally takes care of most healing woes), however if mana becomes an issue for ferals (especially with inflated heal costs at 85), the talent would probably be beneficial for non-stop combat.

*edit* Should also mention that of all classes/specs, I think bears have the highest crit potential (been able to get it around 32% crit with Pulverize with an average gear level of 323).

[Niter]

This one's invoking a /boggle from me.

In WotLK, we cannot seem to do enough damage. I do not want to say that if you manage to kill somebody as bear it happens because your target is just bad or undergeared, but that seems to be the case whenever I tried PvPing as a Bear. I think you are a very good player and that shows in PvP, but that does not mean that Bears are even close to being competitive in WotLK PvP. Using Cat for some damage is nice, but it is almost guaranteed that you would be a lot better if you kept fighting in Cat Form. I may be biased by my own experience and from reading so much about it, but it is the way I see it.

In Cataclysm things change, we more tools, but our damage is not amazing. I can get 8K Maul crits and nearly 5K Mangle crits on live today, but in PvP it is not that much. Mangle hitting for 10K is nice, I know how it works, but it seems that the numbers we get in Cataclysm are not exactly better than what we have right now... DPS classes, however, are getting a dramatic change in damage, they scale better (like you said, Vengeance may not be all that helpful all the time), and our 10Ks are not so hot any more since even clothies can easily get over than 50K health and have quite a bit more armour than before.

I think we lack some control that Prot Paladins and especially Prot Warriors have in order to be effective. I think 'prot specs' are nice because of their mobility, control and survivability paired with a couple of heavy hitting abilities. I love Bears, do not get me wrong, but I find that Bears are lacking in comparison to Paladins and Warriors, just like Blood DKs are not that great for PvP as well.

It may change when they get our numbers right, but *today* this is my conclusion =]

[exochaft]

Haha, well I think the reason paladins/warriors seem much better than druids in PvP on live is because they have so many tools. They have multiple forms of interrupts, paladins can heal with SP scaling as prot, they both have shields which counter fast-attacking low-damage melee attacks (aka, rogues and feral druids) very well, warriors have stuns everywhere, and they have the ability to use almost all their tools w/o sacrificing their survivability... which is huge since we have to leave bear form to use the majority of our abilities.

In Cataclysm, I think what will help bear PvP more is mastery. I'm not really saying in terms of SD, I'm thinking when we're in kitty form. The big advantage we'll have over the other prot classes is that we'll be able to use both a tanking and DPS mastery, since the other classes will be restricted to tanking masteries due to the nature of talent trees in Cataclysm. I think our damage potential will be that much greater just from Mastery alone (which is why bear PvPers might actually opt for mastery when the choice presents itself).

While everyone pretty much has standardized stamina on their gear, the stamina values of casters will be much higher. However, it doesn't make them any less squishy. I've become a big fan of Tol Barad on the beta servers, because it let's me test out how viable we can potentially be... and yes, the lower armor of casters lets us tear them a new one even as bear, however we'll spend most of our time in kitty still (btw, the Tiger's Fury change is ridiculously OP atm, I had to abuse it a little for fun since the rest of kitty damage is fairly low). However, it never really was about the HP of the caster that would hold a bear PvPers back... it's the healer behind them. As it stands right now, there isn't much resilience on the beta, but ferals still have such an easier time locking down and killing healers than we previously have had. With Skull Bash, Bash, Maim, and Cyclone, it's amazing what we can do now compared to live... plus I'm more partial to Skull Bash in bear since it costs 1 rage.

Should also mention that the armor values of even tank classes are much lower than on Live, so we can tear through plate classes fairly easily.

[Niter]

So it is looking good!

to be honest, I never really liked WotLK PvP. I loved PvP back in TBC, when we were real hybrids, going from DPS to tank and then throwing a quick heal here and there. I seriously do not enjoy much the 'Roguish' playstyle we currently have.

Let's hope they keep our Bear damage in a good shape so we have more choices than "nuke, CC, run away, restealth". I truly miss the old days

[Balduvian]

I doubt it will be viable, as it was never intended as a PvP spec like Prot Warrior/Paladin was.

[Deleted]

Now that we've had time to play PVP, what are the thoughts now? Bear got a chance to be viable in PVP. I hate that to be a PVPer you have to be a button mashing DPS!

[Balduvian]

Now that we've had time to play PVP, what are the thoughts now? Bear got a chance to be viable in PVP. I hate that to be a PVPer you have to be a button mashing DPS!

Bear in PvP is still bad until you pop Berserk and start spamming Mangle. Then it's godmode for 20 seconds.

[sethers656]

Yeah Cat is still the way to go for feral... but against teams that I can hit both targets, Mangle spam FTW! I have soloed a few 2v2 arenas when my parter died really early (He is a nub mage).

I do go bear if I am being attacked so I can rotate my CDs or hit Bash or feral charge.

Feral is really fun in pvp and I'm having a blast... but Full Bear pvp is not viable.