Mangle Should...

[yurano]

The idea is to keep Shred while getting rid of the positioning requirement.

Shred can be a proc based ability like Arcane Missiles. 50% chance on Mangle to proc Shred. This way you can't chain spam Mangle and still do top dps, but you wouldn't be forced to stand behind the target to do maximum dps.

Last I checked, Feral Druids are cats. Now if feral druids were dogs, I would understand Shred's doing it from behind issue.

[utopianh]

Like I said initially, my issue is neither facing bosses, nor maxing dps from the back.

Yes when facing mobs the damage loss bothers me ofc (and Utopianh, I don't see why it should be "okay" to be penalised - even not as much as could be implied dude).
But more importantly it's the non contribution of mangle to our "rotation". Now the huge cost of mangle considering its virtual nil return should (and could as you suggest) be compensated by extending rip, or like I suggested earlier on with energy regen.

But imho, whatever the debate as to what would work best, something is direly needed when facing bosses.

Most classes suffer greatly due to parries, as expertise is a much larger valued stat for them, than for us. Certainly, the penalty is more severe for us than them, but we're hardly the only dps class to lose dps from attacking from the front.

Also, most casters lose dps from movement, yet we don't, why not? Some classes have a much higher loss in dps from running off the target and then back to it, we have the lowest loss of all. Class mechanics are different for a reason, and I doubt they'll get rid of the penalty unless they have all the major bosses start having times you can only attack from the front, which I highly doubt will happen. Before this tier, there were very few mobs we could only attack from the front. Al'Akir is one of the big ones this tier, with some small phases in a few others where we couldn't, and the mechanics of this tier haven't favoured ferals well, but that doesn't mean all tiers are going to be this way at all.

Like I said, the penalty from attacking from the front is currently too high, but it certainly doesn't "need" to be eliminated for us to be viable.

The biggest problem with shred's positional requirement is PvP, and they could easily make a prime dps glyph that remove's shred's positional requirement for that situation (and you'd just have to sacrafice one of the dps glyphs for it).

[Tareum]

Like I said, the penalty from attacking from the front is currently too high, but it certainly doesn't "need" to be eliminated for us to be viable.

Too high a penalty is enough to not be right.
Personally I want to be competitive, not just viable.

I accept restrictions such as not being able to nuke during air phases, but in instances where I should be dealing damage, I find it unfair I am being penalised due to poor mechanics design.

[utopianh]

Too high a penalty is enough to not be right.
Personally I want to be competitive, not just viable.

I accept restrictions such as not being able to nuke during air phases, but in instances where I should be dealing damage, I find it unfair I am being penalised due to poor mechanics design.

They'll need to redesign nearly every class to eliminate all instances of dps penalties, and eliminating ours would also involve eliminating our benefits of movement over all the other melee in the game, removing all dps penalties for offtime (since we continue to have our bleeds tick, and energy regain during our time out and lose very little damage since we have such low white damage). They'd have to make all dots have a 1 target limit to remove multi-dotting situations, and then figure out a way to scale up dot user's burst so they can be useful for burn phases. There's so many things they'd need to due for the sake of being this term you use "competitive" - which is to say, I want to be the top of the meters in every fight, regardless of the mechanics, which is not competitive or balanced at all.

As it stands, there will be fights ferals will dominate all the other melee on simply due to our bonus mechanics. Any fight with a nova to run out of we crush everyone else by a large margin. As it is right now we can do more damage to magmaw's head than any other class in the game if you time berserk, TF, and refresh your bleed right before the head phase ends (especially if you get an unheeded warning proc to line up), and the only reason you wouldn't be topping the meters on heroic magmaw is if your guild forces you to swap to adds, instead of just using OOC procs on swipe and when they get backed up after head phases.


I reiterate my point, the problem isn't that there's a penalty, the problem is the -degree- of the penalty is too high currently.

[Tareum]

I reiterate my point, the problem isn't that there's a penalty, the problem is the -degree- of the penalty is too high currently.

Then we agree 100%.

Note that I'm not as deluded as to expect topping meters in every instance, I expect however a FAIR chance at doing so.