Enhancement & Feral Spirit

[Grummbox]

When Feral Spirit first came out in WOTLK it was quite awesome. You do have to realize beforehand in Burning Crusade, we had only one attack (Stormstrike) and three shock spells; so essentially WOTLK brought Maelstrom Weapon, Static Shock, Lava Lash, Hex, & of course Feral Spirit. It not only brought to the Enhancement fold, Spirit Walk but Feral Spirit was considered by the vast majority of Enhancement Shaman to be solely a DPS cooldown, and was generally used as such. When Cataclysm came out we were presented with a new Feral Spirit, with the same utility (Bash & Spirit Walk), the same healing (Spirit Hunt), but it did considerably less DPS, as the result of reducing scaling with the Shaman's stats.

Don't believe me? Ask any Enhancement Shaman how much his DPS goes up with these guys out, and because of such it has taken more of a Utility role because of the mainly PvP benefits of Spirit Hunt & Spirit Walk. As you all know in Pandaria Spirit Walk, Bash, & Howl is being decoupled from the Feral Spirit Talent which correlates with one of the biggest complaints of the Cataclysm Feral Spirit, "Feral Spirit is weak and has too many things tied to it". But now let us turn to the future Pandaria Feral Spirit

- Would most of you consider Feral Spirit to be weak and how would you counter that?
- Would implementing something on the lines of the 4-set Tier 13 bonus (Your Feral Spirits have a 45% chance to grant you a charge of Maelstrom Weapon each time they deal damage) put the ability higher on our priority list.
- Should it remain as is (Minor DPS Cooldown with healing aspect)
- Should the cooldown of Feral Spirit & Spirit Walk be reduced?
- Needs to be reworked entirely

GC's comments on the current state of Feral Spirit


Last Build, Feral Spirits had a minimum (character un-geared) damage range of ~555 to ~833 at level 85. In the latest build, their base damage is now
516-517. Is there a reason their damage was nerfed and the range reduced to Base+1?

The base damage may have been reduced to line up with where we wanted the desired scaling rate to put them. The damage range being only 1 is a bug that we’ll get fixed (what you currently see is the average damage).

We also calculated their attack power scaling to be 31%, is this the intended value?
Like I’ve mentioned before, I don’t want to get into confirming or listing every coefficient, but yes, Feral Spirits get 31% of your attack power.

The tooltip damage for Spirit Bite is 96-144, but in practice it seems closer to 158-206. Is there a tooltip error at work here?

Where are you seeing the tooltip for Spirit Bite? The one I see is “Bites the enemy, causing Nature damage.” No damage value listed there. Regardless, 96-144 is the correct base damage range, but it also is increased by attack power.

Both normal Elementals and Empowered Elementals benefit from the Orc Racial Command (+5% damage). Why don't Feral Spirits also get this benefit? Is it a bug that the Elementals get the racial bonus?

Normal Fire Elementals benefit from the Enhancement Mastery for ALL attacks, but the Feral Sprit's Spirit Bite (nature spell) does not. Is this intended?
Feral Spirits should benefit from Command and Mastery. This is fixed for next build.

[Omanley]

I didn't like the concept of Feral Spirits when it made its way into 3.0 test-realm, and 3.0 live.

Why? Because it gave the impression that they tried to adress our biggest concerns with one single ability.
Anti-CC (root/snare break of Spiritwalk), gap closer (Spiritwalk sprint), selfhealing (Spirithunt), a stun (Bash) and a dps cooldown, all in one ability.

This design was heavily flawed from the day it made it into the game. Enh became heavily dependant on the ability, to a degree enh was a viable and threatening spec to play during Feral Spirit uptime, and a sub-par, underdog spec when they there gone. Result: Beast-cleave

As such, I was very happy when they made Spiritwalk its own ability.
Sadly, instead of keeping Bash with a 5sec duration/1minute cd setup though, they implemented CPT *bleh*
Twin Howl was never really important anyway.

Spiritwalk still pulls double duty as a sprint/snare-root breaker, but that is acceptable as its 2min cooldown is to long anyways to rely on it as a gap closer.

That leaves us with damage and healing. With the glyph, the healing is decent. W/o the glyph, Feral Spirits is pretty much useless as an ability, which is more than just sad, looking at how it is one of the most iconic enhance abilities next to windfury, stormstrike and maelstrom weapon.

Well, maybe their numbers wont be as crappy as we think. Stuff like scaling seems to be improved on beta (benefiting from haste, crit and mastery(spiritbite)).
I could imagine Spiritbite becoming a balance-knob for Feralspirits, with haste increasing its frequency during uptime and mastery its damage.

[Tactic6995]

That leaves us with damage and healing. With the glyph, the healing is decent. W/o the glyph, Feral Spirits is pretty much useless as an ability, which is more than just sad, looking at how it is one of the most iconic enhance abilities next to windfury, stormstrike and maelstrom weapon.

^^This, totally agree with you. My puppies do NO damage at all, it is almost at the point where the damage you would have done during the GCD of Feral Spirit would outweigh the actual damage of the wolves. /sadface.

[hristohansen]

I use them only for the sprint!

[Omanley]

I use them only for the sprint!

A thing of the past in MoP, where the sprint will be a separate ability.

On another matter: What IF Feral Spirit were to be affected by enh-Ascendence?

When using Ascendence, the Feral Spirits howl (Twin Howl sound), ascending to Thunderlord Alphas (Lightning Skin), dealing Nature damage with their standard attacks. Spirit Bite turns into Storm Bite, additionally proccing every time the Shaman uses Stormstrike or Lightning Bolt during Ascendence.

Would be pretty cool. Since we line up dps cooldowns in pve anyways, this would be a nice option to have, enforcing them with Ascendence for more damage. We'd have to decide between heal and dps in pvp then, but nice to have the option.

[Deleted]

Ghost wolfs are a defensive cd for pvp. Never thought as a dps mean. Live with that blizzard will never fix enh shammys.

[Arinnaya]

The wolves seem to be more of a defensive cooldown (self-healing) than a damage cooldown. That said, their damage is set to increase due to mastery scaling.

At this stage it's still too early to be saying whether or not they're useless - someone mentioned that you can do more damage in the GCD than you would get for pressing wolves, but you're not GCD capped so it's irrelevent. When everything is on cooldown then it's going to be more of a dps increase to hit the button than not hit it.

[Orrion]

A thing of the past in MoP, where the sprint will be a separate ability.

On another matter: What IF Feral Spirit were to be affected by enh-Ascendence?

When using Ascendence, the Feral Spirits howl (Twin Howl sound), ascending to Thunderlord Alphas (Lightning Skin), dealing Nature damage with their standard attacks. Spirit Bite turns into Storm Bite, additionally proccing every time the Shaman uses Stormstrike or Lightning Bolt during Ascendence.

Would be pretty cool. Since we line up dps cooldowns in pve anyways, this would be a nice option to have, enforcing them with Ascendence for more damage. We'd have to decide between heal and dps in pvp then, but nice to have the option.

The Paladin cooldown separation tells me they don't want synergy between CDs like that. Plus, FS and Ascendance have different cooldowns anyway (last I checked) meaning we'd have to hold FS to sync anyway.

I'm still in favor of just scrapping Feral Spirit. They're a shadow of their former glory.

[Omanley]

Would be kinda set seeing them go. It's kinda been a blizz trend to simply scrap shaman stuff, instead of fixing it. We've seen that with stoneclaw, windwall, sentry and others.
However unlike those abilities which from the very beginning were pointless, Feral Spirits made their entrance into wow with wotlk, and as the new ultimate talent to boot. Simply getting rid of that just doesn't seem to be right.

As for cooldowns matching up: Feral Spirits originally were a 3 minute cd, not hard changing it back to that, right?
As for if they would want that: Who knows? All I know is we have several cooldowns now, and they influence each other to a degree, dont they? Isn't that synergy?

Maybe throw both abilities into one => integrating Feral Spirits into Ascendence

Anyways just an idea I had. Thought It'd be cool to have.

[Deleted]

The wolves seem to be more of a defensive cooldown (self-healing) than a damage cooldown. That said, their damage is set to increase due to mastery scaling.

At this stage it's still too early to be saying whether or not they're useless - someone mentioned that you can do more damage in the GCD than you would get for pressing wolves, but you're not GCD capped so it's irrelevent. When everything is on cooldown then it's going to be more of a dps increase to hit the button than not hit it.

So we are back to cata wolves.

Does the SW melee scales with mastery? the complaint was that bite (0.3% or smt total dmg) wasnt, not sure about the melee though

[Lacomus]

Ok I have 2 ideas to make Spirit wolves more useful for enhancement.

1) My first idea is to have a Spirit Totem. It would summon the wolves, but share a cooldown with the elementals so we could make it more useful for enhancement. Then we could have the fire elemental for elemental and aoe enh and for single target enh the Spirit Totem. Also the new feat for elementals could improve it too.

2) My second idea is to have a * element spirit resource* system and the way it would work would be like the warlock soul shards, except when you pop a certain wolf they all go on cooldown.. There would be one of each element the shaman uses, a water spirit wolf for the self healing (buff it a bit since that is all it does), a fire one for aoe dmg and maybe the howl that taunts, and a nature one for single target and the stun. The wolf you summon could last for 15 seconds with a 1 minute cooldown. You could even make a talent that does allow you to pop them all.

[Deleted]

Another totem? no is not a good idea. An ice lance wold destroy that and you waste a cool down. Bad idea for me.

[Protoman]

They used to say one LL did more damage then Feral Spirits for their entire 30 sec duration. Their damage is pretty pathetic and I know they supposed to be getting some bug fixes but I have my doubts that it will really help.

I wish we could still make them do their twin howl taunt though.....it was useful when soloing or trying to eat up some damage when tank was low on hp or dead, hope they add it back in as a spell like the hunter's misdirect onto pet type ability. But glad other moves have been seperated from the wolves.

The MW5 set bonus isn't very useful cause of the MW5 priority we can't take advantage of alot of those extra stacks anyways. To fix them is simple, they just need a huge damage buff. Their spirit bite needs to hit alot harder. And their reg damage needs to hit harder. Buff the base damage, buff scaling with ap, if 30%AP is not enough make it 50%.....they should be scaling with our crit, haste, and supposedly mastery too so that will help. They need to go back to a dps cd, reduce healing some if necessary and just have glyph as option to boost it but make them do solid DPS and decent heals (thru good dps).

[Deleted]

They used to say one LL did more damage then Feral Spirits for their entire 30 sec duration. Their damage is pretty pathetic and I know they supposed to be getting some bug fixes but I have my doubts that it will really help.

I wish we could still make them do their twin howl taunt though.....it was useful when soloing or trying to eat up some damage when tank was low on hp or dead, hope they add it back in as a spell like the hunter's misdirect onto pet type ability. But glad other moves have been seperated from the wolves.

The MW5 set bonus isn't very useful cause of the MW5 priority we can't take advantage of alot of those extra stacks anyways. To fix them is simple, they just need a huge damage buff. Their spirit bite needs to hit alot harder. And their reg damage needs to hit harder. Buff the base damage, buff scaling with ap, if 30%AP is not enough make it 50%.....they should be scaling with our crit, haste, and supposedly mastery too so that will help. They need to go back to a dps cd, reduce healing some if necessary and just have glyph as option to boost it but make them do solid DPS and decent heals (thru good dps).

i repeat again that spirit wolfs are defensive pvp cd. Useless ppl whine for dmg buff. Blizard did not do it in wotkl. It has not done in data. It will not be done in mop simply because it would be op.

[Protoman]

i repeat again that spirit wolfs are defensive pvp cd. Useless ppl whine for dmg buff. Blizard did not do it in wotkl. It has not done in data. It will not be done in mop simply because it would be op.

Useless people? Feral Spirits started out as an offensive CD, our signature offensive CD.....they removed all the utility before so now it makes sense for it to do more DPS, plus the fact they gave it an actual damaging ability "spirit bite". They are fixing pet bugs and buffing pet damage, I see no reason why wolves can't be a DPS cd....it wouldn't be OP cause we don't really have that many DPS cd's, just ascendance at 3min, we have a 1min def CD already with sham rage......wolves at 2min can be a mixture of offense and defense, pref more offense with some self heals that we can improve with glyph if we choose.

Just cause blizz hasn't improved something before doesn't mean they can't ever do it.....it took them 2 xpacs to get rid of buff totems and change searing flames but it happened didn't it? Lots of people bringing up Feral Spirits doing good DPS so I wouldn't count it out.

[Omanley]

Yes, Feral Spirits startes out as an ability dealing insane damage. They were so strong that enh with wolves up there considered unbeatable. Also they were the first on enh prio-list.
If you dont know that, labeling other people as useless should be the least on your to-troll-list.

[Orrion]

Would be kinda set seeing them go. It's kinda been a blizz trend to simply scrap shaman stuff, instead of fixing it. We've seen that with stoneclaw, windwall, sentry and others.
However unlike those abilities which from the very beginning were pointless, Feral Spirits made their entrance into wow with wotlk, and as the new ultimate talent to boot. Simply getting rid of that just doesn't seem to be right.

As for cooldowns matching up: Feral Spirits originally were a 3 minute cd, not hard changing it back to that, right?
As for if they would want that: Who knows? All I know is we have several cooldowns now, and they influence each other to a degree, dont they? Isn't that synergy?

Maybe throw both abilities into one => integrating Feral Spirits into Ascendence

Anyways just an idea I had. Thought It'd be cool to have.

We still have Stoneclaw (well, Stone Bulwark) and Windwall totem is back. Bad abilities should be purged, and they have never managed to get Feral Spirit balanced. It's one of those abilities that looked awesome but was impractical.

[Protoman]

We still have Stoneclaw (well, Stone Bulwark) and Windwall totem is back. Bad abilities should be purged, and they have never managed to get Feral Spirit balanced. It's one of those abilities that looked awesome but was impractical.

Well Stoneclaw and Stone Bulwark are two totally different types of shield totems so not really the same.....they tried to take the same basic idea and make a diff type of totem based shield that is stronger so it would compete with AS on the same defensive tier. I really think Bulwark totem should have 10%HP....even stoneclaw had some actual HP on it....and even better if Bulwark also placed a small absorb shield on any other currently dropped totems (like capacitor+bulwark would be awesome).

What do you mean by Windwall though? I think that is gone for good, did you mean Windwalk totem? That is more an upgraded version of Earthen Power.....but a Windwall totem that deflects ranged damage or some kind of group grounding totem would be awesome.

I don't think Feral Spirits was hard to balance, they just nerfed it after beastcleave got so popular and when it went on a 2min cd instead of 3min but went a little too overboard and never really buffed their damage back. It should be more like Gargoyle type DPS and not treants.....I heard that even priest's shadowfiend does more DPS, wonder if that is true. Just buff base damage, buff spirit bite so it does noticeable damage to enemy HP, and improve scaling with AP and maybe even our wep damage so it's damage scales properly as we gear up.....doesn't have to be OP just not negligible damage.

[Omanley]

Stone Bulwark is not Stoneclaw. There are a dozen differences, most of them drawbacks on SBTs part even.
SBT: longer cooldown, only 5hp, requiring uptime for full benefit, not protecting other totems, not stunning attackers, not "taunting" enemies
advantage is that it scales... that's it
neutral: SCT required a glyph (which was not much a sacrifice though), where SBT requires a talent spot (of potentially more effective talents), so duh

SCT would've been fine if it attained proper scaling. Instead they scrapped it and designed an entirely new ability. That's what I call giving up on something.
Windwall Totem reduced incoming ranged physical damage (hunters). You're confusing Windwall with Windwalk.

Bad abilities should be purged? What about Rockbiter Weapon? Most useless ability to plague the game ever. It's only use EVER was during classic/tbc early levels, that's it. Now we get it at high levels. The only worth lies not in the imbue, but it's unleash/fury effect. The first is so situational you want to cry and the second will force us to imbue twist. GG blizz.
For bad abilities you should distinguish between their existence itself being useless, or their implementation being bad.

Feral Spirits were never useless, but merely badly implemented. I see no need for getting rid of an ability that only needs some adjustments to work perfectly fine.
The reason Feral Spirits were imbalanced was because blizz threw damage, healing, snare/root breaking, sprint, aoe taunt and a stun all on one ability.

In case you didn't notice: they adressed exactly that. Yes Feral Spirit would still pull double duty in both healing in damage, but enh has access to an entirely heal based talent tier, MSW heals, tier1 for absorbs and new healing totem (Healing Spring becoming single target). So if all of that doesn't do for you, yes it would be a little annoying having to pop wolves for healing when you wanted to save them for damage, but that's about it.

Feral Spirits were never impractical. They were simply to good and made us reliant on them. We were to weak without them and just about right, maybe a little op with them out. What is impractical about that?
With everything except damage and heal removed from them, we wont be reliant on them. And with enh having several other dps cooldowns, we wont be worthless with wolves on cooldown either. So really, there's no harm in both keeping the wolves and raising their damage to a satisfactory amount.

[Jpp]

I heard that even priest's shadowfiend does more DPS, wonder if that is true.

Shadowfiend does considerably more dps atleast in Cata, I'd go as far as say it does atleast 5 times more dps than wolves.