[Feral] Legion Discussion

[Kelonaar]

Yet here is a feral who seems to get good results from what seems to me as fishing for Shadow Thrash:

From what I can tell he is using the T100 talent Moment of Clarity which in combination with Thrash is generating what would seem some really high AoE numbers that might be superior to brutal slash, with the extra addition that Moment of Clarity is not useless on single target/bosses. If I look at the first 30 seconds of Purrowl's combat. He casts thrash 4 times and had no clearcasting procs yet has some insane shadow thrash damage. I need to test if Omen of Clarity works with thrash because 3 free thrashes to fish for shadow thrash seems sick.

Saw other ferals reporting on forums they seem to have higher output with this method as well. So don't dismiss it as "not the way to go".
Back it up with a log or explanation why this would not be a valid way to get high AoE numbers.

I'd like to clarify your own advice and send it back to you. It should be "Back it up with logs that actually mean something."

You link one log of a solid feral player and try to compare it to a feral at a significantly lower level of skill without looking into their talent setups, artifact progression, gear level, etc. or even what dungeon they're in.

For example:
Purrowl
22:13 log time - 78.5% time spent active
Savage Roar uptime - 82.55%
Running Predator and reaches 43% Tiger's Fury uptime

Brmz
21:00 log time - 44.09% time spent active
Savage Roar uptime - 32.68%
Most likely running Blood Scent (13.19% TF uptime)
Doesn't even have Shadow Thrash or Ashamane's Rip

And that's just a basic five minute look at the logs from a guy who doesn't even main a feral. I'm sure someone could find even more reason why trying to compare those logs is a waste of time and definitely doesn't prove any point you're trying to make.

Also, with the recent buff to Brutal Slash it's most definitely not useless on single target. If I remember correctly, it actually wasn't even that far behind the other two talents for a pure single target fight before, you just had to use it correctly.

[Krusza]

How is feral looking for pvp? Will they be brought to RBGs now or is there still no reason to have feral? How about arenas - is it still incarnation + berserk = win or lose, or is the damage more consistent?

Definitely not a place in RBGs, they don't bring anything. Guardian will have viability as an FC again though.

Damage is more consistent, incarn isn't nearly as strong as it is now, you don't have Nature's Vigil. NV is what partly makes feral burst so stupid, as you're getting retarded self-healing for doing damage, which means you can forget about everything else. Incarn also doesn't have rake stun, either.

It also seems a lot more squishy. You've lost shirvallah, powershifting, damage reduction glyph and a lot of self-healing. It's going to be harder to play feral again, no more IWIN button.

[Tidezen]

Playing Jagged Wounds & Savage Roar together is nearly impossible to keep 100% uptime on both Rake & SR...

I wouldn't mind if feral as a whole moved away from expecting 100% uptime on everything, with much shorter dots. A big problem with DoT-based classes is that there often is a ton of wasted damage, depending on how fast targets die--but how fast they die has a ton to do with factors outside your control, namely your other dpsers. Shorter dots would offset that problem, allowing damage to be done in a tighter window, without the problem of having to balance overall dot damage around a tank-and-spank 100% uptime fight.


Affliction warlocks have an interesting thing in Legion, where they kept their two "common" dots, but then their third one, unstable affliction, turned into a more powerful shorter-term dot that costs a shard but can stack its damage.

Playstyle-wise this allows for more flexibility in where and when you can focus down targets. You can keep one stack of UA going pretty much all the time, or you can burn shards and get a huge super-dot on something for a short time. Or you can do more of a burn/conserve thing for a boss with damage windows.

If SR was something like that, it'd be a whole lot less boring. As it stands, you're right that it doesn't play well with JW, and JW is definitely something I'd like to see more of in the future for feral.

[Purrowl]

I like fishing. More often than not, i catch enough fish to feed my whole family.

[teddabear]

From what I can tell he is using the T100 talent Moment of Clarity which in combination with Thrash is generating what would seem some really high AoE numbers that might be superior to brutal slash, with the extra addition that Moment of Clarity is not useless on single target/bosses.

I would agree MoC/Shadow Thrash was the way to go for Mythic+ even if it was RNG, and was probably the reason Brutal Slash finally received a very long overdue buff.

I suspect Brutal Slash is now better. I think a lot of Ferals are hoping the Shadow Thrash proc will be changed to something a little more reliable.

[Purrowl]

Would also like a more controlled Shadow Thrash. Too easy to get 0% or 100% in a fight for doing literally nothing different in play.

[Tellof]

Has Brutal Slash always had reduced cooldown with haste? I'm on the PTR and I'm seeing 16.6 seconds... I remember it being a flat 18 before.

I have 8% haste on PTR, and 18 sec / 1.08 = 16.66667 ~= 16.6 seconds. With enough haste we could fit 2-3 Brutal slash's inside Tiger's Fury depending on how the cooldowns line up. That could be pretty cool.

[RayenDark]

Has Brutal Slash always had reduced cooldown with haste? I'm on the PTR and I'm seeing 16.2 seconds... I remember it being a flat 18 before.

It was added a while ago. It doesn't drop below 15 seconds though.

[Tellof]

It was added a while ago. It doesn't drop below 15 seconds though.

Ah, lame...

[Hobbes0773]

Stupid question time.

I am hearing the Jagged Wounds change was a nerf, but it seems to me that it is a buff?

It went from 33% to 40%, so it is even faster now.

Rake is 15 seconds. Before it did the same damage but in just under 10 seconds with JW. Now it does that damage over ~9 seconds with JW.

Rip is 24 seconds. Before it did the same damage but in just under 16 seconds with JW. Now it does that damage in 14.4 seconds with JW.

Can someone tell me how doing the same damage in less time is a nerf? I feel very dumb.

[Invispoet]

Yes, the Jagged Wounds change is a slight buff. I still think they should make the talent slightly less potent on it's own (say, 20% ish), and then make it so the talent makes bleeds scale with haste...there may be some tuning issues there though.

[Tellof]

Yes, the Jagged Wounds change is a slight buff. I still think they should make the talent slightly less potent on it's own (say, 20% ish), and then make it so the talent makes bleeds scale with haste...there may be some tuning issues there though.

I think I'd rather they just have haste increase our instant damage, i.e. Shred, Swipe, and the initial hit of Rake & Thrash... "Savage Agility" or something. At some point bleeds should still feel like bleeds and not just happen in 6-7 seconds, especially to keep open the option of synergies like the legendary that allows critical ticks to give combo points and things of that nature. Look at Assassination Rogue's Exsanguinate - they have to pre-plan having garrote up and make sure not to energy cap because the bleed-dependent effects super amplify their usual rotation and they have to recover from it. It's a super cool talent, but I wouldn't want a normal rotation to feel like that as opposed to once every 45 seconds.

[Illidariowl]

Excuse me if this is has already been answered but since the Pre Patch is coming the 19th, does this mean Feral Druids won't receive any tuning?

I've been away from the game for a long time and have been trying to follow the developments happening around Feral but I haven't seen anything about a proper tuning yet.

[huth]

Excuse me if this is has already been answered but since the Pre Patch is coming the 19th, does this mean Feral Druids won't receive any tuning?

I've been away from the game for a long time and have been trying to follow the developments happening around Feral but I haven't seen anything about a proper tuning yet.

Tuning never really ends. Beta will keep going until shortly before launch.

[Rivin]

Excuse me if this is has already been answered but since the Pre Patch is coming the 19th, does this mean Feral Druids won't receive any tuning?

I've been away from the game for a long time and have been trying to follow the developments happening around Feral but I haven't seen anything about a proper tuning yet.

There's been some tuning changes over the past few weeks. And today's blue post in the Feral beta thread suggests there might be notable changes on Tuesday.

[Lucrece]

Congrats to the crybabies with bleeds, now feral has less direct damage, ensuring it's even more garbage on mythic+ dungeons and short lived add fights. Same for PvP where burst is king.

[Celestraza]

I'd like to clarify your own advice and send it back to you. It should be "Back it up with logs that actually mean something."

You link one log of a solid feral player and try to compare it to a feral at a significantly lower level of skill without looking into their talent setups, artifact progression, gear level, etc. or even what dungeon they're in.

For example:
Purrowl
22:13 log time - 78.5% time spent active
Savage Roar uptime - 82.55%
Running Predator and reaches 43% Tiger's Fury uptime

Brmz
21:00 log time - 44.09% time spent active
Savage Roar uptime - 32.68%
Most likely running Blood Scent (13.19% TF uptime)
Doesn't even have Shadow Thrash or Ashamane's Rip

And that's just a basic five minute look at the logs from a guy who doesn't even main a feral. I'm sure someone could find even more reason why trying to compare those logs is a waste of time and definitely doesn't prove any point you're trying to make.

Also, with the recent buff to Brutal Slash it's most definitely not useless on single target. If I remember correctly, it actually wasn't even that far behind the other two talents for a pure single target fight before, you just had to use it correctly.

These logs should include the buff to Brutal Slash so that point is moot.
I am not saying one of the other build is stronger or not. That is also not how I am reading the logs.

What I trying to say is that with Shadow Thrash spam you can manage a steady overall AoE dps of at least 300k and if lucky spike to 800k (just check Purrowl's log, and hi there Purrowl, I like your ranks). My question is what kind of AoE dps can a Brutal Slash build maintain compared to this? But yeah I would have to search for a feral that can play that build better but his was the only feral log available. I also noticed he wasn't playing optimal but still it is just to see AoE dps which isn't hard...

[Emophia]

Glad they're retuning feral for more bleeds, when I play my feral I do it for phat bleeds and only phat bleeds.

[theburned]

It was added a while ago. It doesn't drop below 15 seconds though.

Mine says 14,6 sec, which last time I checked is below 15 seconds.

[RayenDark]

Mine says 14,6 sec, which last time I checked is below 15 seconds.

There was a recent hotfix that rolled out between me posting that now. We won't have patch notes till tuesday.