The Cat Guide - 4.3

[Bigslick]

If people only knew my horrible luck with staves, having to wait now 3 weeks without a new one dropping is discouraging.

I'm guessing the drop rate is pretty low. We got one this week, on our second kill (25m), and it was the first to drop on our server which has had perhaps 20 kills so far across all guilds (though we're the only 25m guild to down him - rest are 10m). Yeah, we're not exactly a high-progression server

[Xenerix]

Just go some trash runs for Ranseur and give it to him as a gift so he will pass majordomo's staff for ya.

[Decimation]

Brace yourselves, Unheeded Warning and other Feral-centric things are likely to hit the nerf sensors:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...m-about-ferals

"Thanks for taking time to break your feedback down, Hotted. We're keeping a close eye on Feral in PvP and understand the concern. Things currently on our radar include the Berserk duration, the Unheeded Warning trinket, and the Predatory Swiftness talent" - Zarhym.

[Gino]

I was lucky to pick up malevolence and staghelm staff the first time they dropped. but back in wrath I think all ferals paid the price of the wait game for weapons.

[Nathanyel]

It was to be expected. People whined about strong bleeds, so bleeds got nerfed and our direct (=burst) damage was increased. Now people whine about our burst damage.
But actually, all they ever whined about was that Ferals were actually a threat, just like many other classes. They may be killed a hundred times each by frost mages, arms warriors etc., they're used to that, but when they're killed once by a Feral, it's "Feral is OP!"

[Tygroen]

^This. I posted several times in there, and stated that the only reason we "may" do slightly (very slightly) too much damage in arena's is due to scaling issues that were present during cata release and still present. Getting more weapon dps/agi (higher ilvl) items are going to increase your dps faster than for a lot of other classes, and it'll probably even itself out again.

And there is nothing OP about our CC...it's on par with a lot of classes' CC's (that don't share DR with each other, and have no ramp up time but instead some have cooldowns). Silly complaints because we are actually competitive are silly.

But..I welcome an Unheeded Warning nerf. I don't think it's the game changing nerf the QQ'ers want, but I don't like being forced into using a 359 trinket for PVE or PVP.

[SmokeyIllidan]

I am completely in favor of an UW nerf. I don't care if it's a DPS loss, I'm tired of using this trinket. Simple as that.

[Williee]

I agree with smokey, this trinket matches hungerer and rag trinket making it absurd.
U can gain huge dps gain if you get full 10 seconds up time w/ berserk or little dps gain if it procs too early.
Gets to be a pain :|

I saw the huge burst inc... when they decided to buff shred and extend berserk glyph. However, the instant cyclone which most people could deal with before, cannot since our damage is higher.

[Collie]

Although Blizzard stated at some point they were in favor of trinkets lasting multiple tiers, count me as one of those opposed. I would welcome a nerf to UW as well. Certainly more than nerfing Feral as a spec again... It'd be a lot easier to recover from a gear nerf than (another) one to Feral itself.

[calibro]

I don't care whether UW is overpowered or not. I like big numbers and like not being pressed to spend DKP on newer trinkets when UW is close to them. I like adapting to that 10 sec big damage window in every fight. I like to wear a 359 trinket if it is worthy. Not a fan of current "oh it's 6 ilvls higher - forget the old one!" philosophy.
DON'T YOU DARE NERFING IT, BLIZZARD!
DMC:G wasn't nerfed. DB was fixed/buffed.

Oh, and regarding PvP'ers that aren't feral druids and complain about our "high damage":

[Gootgot]

Hotfix was implemented.
While wearing [Fandral's Flamescythe] you get a buff "druid of the flames" , and whenever you switch to cat, you are a flame cat. No more need to be in combat.
Thanks bliizard.

[Duilliath]

I don't care whether UW is overpowered or not. I like big numbers and like not being pressed to spend DKP on newer trinkets when UW is close to them. I like adapting to that 10 sec big damage window in every fight. I like to wear a 359 trinket if it is worthy. Not a fan of current "oh it's 6 ilvls higher - forget the old one!" philosophy.
DON'T YOU DARE NERFING IT, BLIZZARD!
DMC:G wasn't nerfed. DB was fixed/buffed.

I do want it to get nerfed. I rather see a trinket nerfed which is stupidly overpowered (and, to be frank, is so because it shows Feral mechanics are very wonky) than Ferals. The entirety of Feral Burst problems can be derived back to two things:
1) Unheeded Warning -> adding 8k damage to shred crits is just absurd
2) Ferocious Bite -> 50k Ferocious Bite crits happen. So do 4k Ferocious Bite hits. The thing is you never hear anyone complain about receiving the latter. They should just narrow the range and give it a different PvE buff. Lots of stuff would work (+20% damage on white hits for x seconds, whatever) without affecting PvP.

One could make a case that 25sec Berserk is too much. I see little problem with it getting dropped to a 2min cooldown with a shorter duration. Same DPS boost, less PvP burst. Throw Ferals a bone and make it break fear (not grant Fear immunity) and most everyone will gladly take a burst reduction on it.

[Kittahsmash]

So do 4k Ferocious Bite hits. The thing is you never hear anyone complain about receiving the latter.

I don't know about other ferals, but I definitely bitch if FB doesn't crit.
"FUCK I hate it when that doesn't crit. Making me waste energy" - something to that effect anyways. I just don't do it as vocally as I used to, since I know it's not a guaranteed crit and all.. but it definitely makes me die a little on the inside when it doesn't

[Deleted]

One could make a case that 25sec Berserk is too much. I see little problem with it getting dropped to a 2min cooldown with a shorter duration. Same DPS boost, less PvP burst. Throw Ferals a bone and make it break fear (not grant Fear immunity) and most everyone will gladly take a burst reduction on it.

But will that be a change welcomed by PvPers? I only did arena in the first few seasons, so I'm not that experienced. But I do see the PvE version of Berserk... and I'm running out of energy at the end of its duration anyway. By reducing the CD by one third, the duration of Berserk would shrink to ~16 seconds. 16 seconds without any energy starvation AND the benefit of reusing the ability again 104 seconds later. And as I recall, arena matches might well take longer than that. So imho you would trade a longer period of pressure against a lot more decent pressure times.

As a PvE player I would welcome such a change. Although I would have to experiment with a shorter duration to optimize the use in boss fights, it would add some flexibility to feral gameplay.

As with UW .. as "The Hungerer" is not that far apart from UW, I don't see any major difficulties if the trinket gets nerfed. But as said multiple times, stay away from the voo... eh... ferals!

[Duilliath]

Kittah, -you- bitch. Sure. But you won't be up in arms on the forums for FB only hitting for a small amount. You know on average the numbers are okay(ish). The people getting hit for 4k with FB won't be storming to the forums either to brag how a Feral only hit them for a small amount. Getting hit for a 50k crit though (whether it's Mind Blast, Aimed Shot, Arcane Barrage, Ferocious Bite or what-not) will have people whining on the forums. And, to be blunt, rightly so. I'll gladly have it drop down to ~35k crits if it means the bottom end goes up by an equal amount.

Steellynx, I'm not sure how PvP-ers would react. One has to be careful already anyway to not get CC'ed away from your target for part of Berserk's duration. While it does grant you 'new' energy to use once you connect again, it can be annoying. Opening up more kill opportunities while losing some pressure would probably be a fairly decent trade-off.

[Rioo]

2 min CD would be most welcomed if they were to nerf the duration. It just feels wrong that we'll be nerfed due to a trinket. Blizzard should have seen this coming a mile away when they only buffed our weapon damage scaling on shred and mangle.

[Collie]

Hotfix was implemented.
While wearing [Fandral's Flamescythe] you get a buff "druid of the flames" , and whenever you switch to cat, you are a flame cat. No more need to be in combat.
Thanks bliizard.

Are you sure about that? I see no hotfix notes on the forums, no announcement, and no change so far with my staff.

I know from time to time, if I leave a BG or get DC'd while in combat, I usually get to keep the buff without having used the hidden CD. I don't see any persistent passive buff granted by the staff though.

[Bigslick]

Hotfix was implemented.
While wearing [Fandral's Flamescythe] you get a buff "druid of the flames" , and whenever you switch to cat, you are a flame cat. No more need to be in combat.
Thanks bliizard.

As of this moment, this is not the case for me (Thunderhorn-US, though if this has begun to roll out -- a change of which there's been no indication by blue post -- it's possible it simply may not have hit all servers yet).

[Deleted]

I could change forms without losing the Druid of the Flames buff, therefor changing back into fire cat form. However, you can manually right click the buff and cancel the aura. It wouldn't change into fire cat form if you haven't used the Flamescythe for the initial Druid of the Flames buff.

[Gino]

I just tried to do this and I do not get the druid of the flames buff when I switch to cat.. there is no hotfix for my staff.