Upcoming feral nurfs

[Drexxil]

Then why are we getting nerfed compared to other classes then?

Our bleeds are getting nerfed mostly because they're indispellable (cept by rogues), sure I'll bank that.

Knowing blizz however, our rips won't crit more then 6k and mastery will become, like every other dps, a pile of shit and we'll regret every single point we CAN'T reforge (since it only takes 40% of it away), on top of the fact they won't return dependence on shred and FB for dps and only grant us maybe half of the bonuses we had in Wrath.

In other words, feral's back to its BC role of "lol go tank, noob"

As for Berserk. Ferals can be sleeped, stunned (the most common CC available, EVERYONE can stun - maybe even more then once), and Frozen (trap, circle, Deep Freeze, Howling blast; I can't break out of any of these)

If we lose a 15 second fear immune on a 3 minute cooldown because we can break snares and can't be polyed, Hunters should lose their EVERYTHING-immune due to the fact they have stunning pets, very long range damaging attacks, and a myriad of status effects.

Rogues can't remove bleeds. Dwarves can with a racial. Otherwise, there is not a single class that can remove bleeds(not including paladin bubble because that removes everything).

Second, your damage will be fine.

Third, Hunter's keep their immune everything because they aren't immune to poly effects, snare/roots 100% of the time like a druid. Druid's are very difficult to control, removing your fear removal brings you down in line with other classes.

Your class perks is the fact you are difficult to snare/root, and poly removal at a whim. Where is warrior's version? Oh right, it's because they're a warrior not a druid.

[BadCarma]

I been playing feral for 2+ years now and i can say I've seen both sides of the barrel, hopefully i will be able to see the middle now ^^

[Leinie]

So they're indirectly crippling our mastery bonus, leaving us with below-standard instant melee with pathetic crit rates (I had 70% in ICC gear, I now have 33%).

Gee thanks blizz. Our bleeds hit hard because NOTHING ELSE DOES.

Also, thanks for nerfing berserk, now warlocks can go back to fear-locking us like back in BC. Lovely.

The juxtaposition of your post and your signature is ironic.

Blizzard never intended for anyone to have such ridiculous crit rates. It was the result of poor foresight in combat ratings early on in WotLK, coupled with the addition of an originally unplanned raid tier (Trial of the Crusader). In short, you were spoiled in WotLK. I wouldn't expect to reach those numbers again in this expansion, and even if we were to, I certainly wouldn't expect it during the first raid tier of the expansion. Were you rockin' 70% crit in Naxx, too?

They said they'd be buffing direct damage to compensate, which will likely shift our stat priority. Like you said, Mastery may not be king anymore. That's fine; it's not for several other classes. Depending on how exactly these changes are implemented, Haste may go up in priority, Mastery down, and they both may be very close to Crit, which was the original design goal. Base weapon DPS is likely to become much more important.

And while I agree with you on the Berserk Fear immunity, I can understand Blizzard's position. Obviously Warlocks won't be as faceroll as they are now, like you said, but with the addition of a reliable interrupt complete with school lockout, instant cast Cyclone, Feral Charge (Cat), much larger health pools, Barkskin in forms, Survival Instincts being a Shield Wall in Cat or Bear, and Maim being an actual stun, all of which weren't present in BC, I don't see Fear spam being nearly effective as it was.

[hopshock]

If we lose a 15 second fear immune on a 3 minute cooldown because we can break snares and can't be polyed, Hunters should lose their EVERYTHING-immune due to the fact they have stunning pets, very long range damaging attacks, and a myriad of status effects.

every class is op,except the one you play.

[Nielah]

Fine, if not removing fear immunity then pick one of the following to get removed.
* Shapeshift out of every snare.
* Immune to poly/hex

Go ahead, pick one.

Could we then have a few more charges or lesser cooldown on our current one to compensate for snares?
Could we then have a silence to comepensate the horrendous ranged attacks all casters have?
No.
I guess I will be going back to pleasing castercleaves as restoration.

[Winterhoof]

* Immune to poly/hex

Didn't Blizz say a while ago they wanted poly/hex to affect druids but we'd have to use a shapeshift cooldown to break it, instead of just being immune to it?

every class is op,except the one you play.

Hey, I was just generalizing.

Like the thousands of people that go "Druids are OP: they can bleed you, go bear and tank you, root you, then run away and heal to full in 2 casts"

But still, does a class that can open up on you well before you're even in charge range, and can open that distance again just as easily, need to have a skill that makes them immune to every CC?

[Bakis]

Could we then have a few more charges or lesser cooldown on our current one to compensate for snares?
Could we then have a silence to comepensate the horrendous ranged attacks all casters have?
No.
I guess I will be going back to pleasing castercleaves as restoration.

Skull Bash, arguably one of the best interrupts in the game. Sure it cost some energy but a short cd with schoollockout.

[Netherwolf]

I love this post, says a lot about the people that use these forums. You know why you avoid hit and expertise? Because you get energy back if you miss and you dont lose CPs if you miss. The nerfs are going to be increased base shred damage and nerf to rip and rake (maybe) but there really is no way hit and exp are ever going to outstrip agi and mastery. I hope I've quelled your fears now you can go back to avoiding Hit Rating to the best of your ability...

I know exactly I'm avoiding it, that's why I'm doing it <.< And if you remember ferals prior to 4.0.1, hit and expertise was our best stats after ArP just because of the amount of damage that came from shreds and auto attacks. I hardly expect to go back there due to the changes to SR and the removal of ArP, but out stat priorities can still shift around and hit/expertise *may* surpass other secondary stats just because of the change the focus of our dps away from bleeds. Just speculation, but it's definitely a possibility.

[Nielah]

Skull Bash, arguably one of the best interrupts in the game. Sure it cost some energy but a short cd with schoollockout.

Absolutely, and I'am more than happy for finally having one.
But when that situation comes, with you stuck in a DF > circle and you've got kittycharge on cooldown after a blink, you're dead meat.

Bleeds are off the charts, the nerf was necessary.
Even though, bleeds are the only thing we've got against classes like mages, dks and warriors.
Shred and mangle just don't do enough damage and currently versus mages (note: CURRENTLY) bleeds is all we've got.
They just got too much snares going off for us to be able to keep up damage out without bleeds.

Just worried ferals are going to become too vulnerable to CC. Don't get me wrong, I know druids have had best anti CC mechanics since TBC.

[wildwind]

i play feral, ok with nerf bleed as long as bz DOES compensate us in other area with the lost dps.
when tweaked, things don't usual go as planned. we see too many over-nerf and unintentional side effect of nerf already.
if bz takes away 20% of bleed dmg, hope it return exactly 20% dmg to us somewhere els and not leave us hanging

[Tharkkun]

All they really have to do is what Blizzard doesn't want to. That is making specific spells do different things in PVP compared to PVE. Faerie fire and CC is a perfect example. They could easily make berserk not break fear vs Players. Make shapeshifting not remove slow/cc effects in PVP.

I'm sure they will balance our bleeds better compared to mastery but it will probably rebalance the stat priority such as making haste better. But we won't know anything until it's up on the PTR.

[Drexxil]

Absolutely, and I'am more than happy for finally having one.
But when that situation comes, with you stuck in a DF > circle and you've got kittycharge on cooldown after a blink, you're dead meat.

Bleeds are off the charts, the nerf was necessary.
Even though, bleeds are the only thing we've got against classes like mages, dks and warriors.
Shred and mangle just don't do enough damage and currently versus mages (note: CURRENTLY) bleeds is all we've got.
They just got too much snares going off for us to be able to keep up damage out without bleeds.

Just worried ferals are going to become too vulnerable to CC. Don't get me wrong, I know druids have had best anti CC mechanics since TBC.

Try playing a rogue. You'll probably want to go back to your feral druid. You can either spec Assassination, and be kited around all day but do pretty good damage. Or you could go Sub and sort of keep up but you'll do some pretty crappy damage.

So, I wouldn't worry about feral druids being bad off. I think after they tone down the bleeds, ferals will be in a good spot.

And mages are wrecking many classes, you are not the only victim.

[Kifimbo]

Stop gimping my pve abilities to balance pvp...

QFTMFT ^^^^^


but you know they will "NERF IT TO THE GROUND"

[Nielah]

Try playing a rogue. You'll probably want to go back to your feral druid. You can either spec Assassination, and be kited around all day but do pretty good damage. Or you could go Sub and sort of keep up but you'll do some pretty crappy damage.

So, I wouldn't worry about feral druids being bad off. I think after they tone down the bleeds, ferals will be in a good spot.

And mages are wrecking many classes, you are not the only victim.

Trust me, I know your pain. Getting facerolled by "decent" mages cooped with some above-average rogues in the 2v2 bracket.
They're winning solely based on their current class utility, and not what it should be from.
Sure, my friend might've not had the best gear available at the time when we played (before the allround reset).

[lockos]

Gee thanks blizz. Our bleeds hit hard because NOTHING ELSE DOES.

are you sure something else from your skills doesn't hit hard?
because i few hours ago i took a ferocius bite for 37k dmg
i think that this is pretty hard.

[Underskilled]

So they're indirectly crippling our mastery bonus, leaving us with below-standard instant melee with pathetic crit rates (I had 70% in ICC gear, I now have 33%).

Gee thanks blizz. Our bleeds hit hard because NOTHING ELSE DOES.

Also, thanks for nerfing berserk, now warlocks can go back to fear-locking us like back in BC. Lovely.

Seriously? Blizzard said directly in their post they were going move some of feral's damage from bleeds to direct hits.

I can't see how you can complain about having only 33% crit, while just about everyone else has less than 10% crit

And the reason Berserk is being nerfed has already been said, in between being immune to poly effects, snare and root effects, being immune to fear effects pretty much makes you un-kitable.

[Leinie]

Well go ahead and polymorph your next door druid, see what happens when he/she doesn't have his/her insignia ready.
... there are a lot of very knowledgeable people around here...

What are you talking about? Yes, Resto druids can be poly'd, because shapeshifting no longer removes polymorph. Everyone here knows that.

What you don't seem to know is being shapeshifted still makes you immune to poly/hex, which, in a Feral thread, is all we're really concerned with.

edit: In hindsight, may have just bitten off on a troll. Ah well.

[scorch109]

immune to sheep/hex but vulnerable to scare beast/hibernate so that is rather moot. most classes have one form of cc they're strong against for ferals it's snares. nerfing feral damage and removing the fearbreak doesn't fix what most people complain abotu which is feral mobility. a feral druid in pvp gear runs at 45% run speed in cat form add 2 charges to the 45% run speed and it's just :/ They need to actually work on problems not just create other ones.

[Casseille]

You know why you avoid hit and expertise? Because you get energy back if you miss and you dont lose CPs if you miss. The nerfs are going to be increased base shred damage and nerf to rip and rake (maybe) but there really is no way hit and exp are ever going to outstrip agi and mastery.

Ferals are not OP in pve. I really dont care whether my dmg comes from bleeds or direct hits, but I really dont see them buffing our physical dmg enough to compensate for a bleed dmg decrease. And even if they do, I doubt they'll do it in a way so that it scales properly.

Actually, I think this might be beneficial for our scaling:

Feral druid bleeds still do a lot of damage and are undispellable. We plan to shift some of that damage back to main attacks.

For example, we don’t want Assassination rogues to dismiss crit or Feral tanks to dismiss haste. We are considering making some physical attacks such as Lacerate, Steady Shot, and Slam scale with haste.

So, Blizzard wants to shift damage back to our direct attacks. Blizzard also wants everyone to value their secondary states more or less the same.

Their example includes Assassination Rogues, who have the following stat weights:

Agility 2.6
Yellow Hit Rating 1.75
Spell Hit Rating 1.4
Mastery Rating 1.3
Haste Rating 1.2
Expertise Rating 1.1
Crit Rating 0.9
White Hit Rating 0.75
MH DPS 3.36
OH DPS 1.04

(Source: Elitist Jerks Assassination Guide)

Feral Druids have these stat weights:
DPS: 4.11
Agi: 3.03
Str: 2.32
Mastery: 1.24
AP: 1.10
Crit: 0.96
Haste: 0.91
Hit/Expertise: 0.86

(Source: Fluiddruid.net)

If Blizzard believes Crit Rating is undervalued by Rogues right now, they probably also believe we undervalue Haste, Hit & Expertise. So this is what will likely happen:

Blizzard will buff Shred, Mangle and Ferocious Bite. They will nerf Rake and Rip, and they will nerf Mastery. They will allow (some) of our bleeds to scale with Haste. I do not believe they will change how our Mastery works, because in the same blue post, they spoke about changing the Mastery of Retribution Paladins and Combat Rogues, but didn't mention us.

The probable end result will be:
DPS -> Agi -> Str -> Haste -> Mastery = AP = Crit = Hit = Exp.

Which would result in better scaling than before.

(Ofcourse, these are all just optimistic ideas.)

[Rakkam]

To the ground baby, bye bye fotm rerollers. Now we just need some frostmage nerfs like the duration of frost nova and ring and then the game will be playable again.