Guardians sharing their main, most iconic ability with Ferals would be bad, in my opinion. Get rid of Mangle for cats and rework Shred. The visual effect of Mangle is silly anyway.
They will prob combine the two instead of removing one. Similar how monks blackout kicks work they do more dmg if behind the target. Personally i think that is going to happen if they want to modify those abilities.
Shred/Mangle is the best example of pure "ability bloat" that does not add skill requirements beyond having better gaming hardware (compare to maintaining two DoT effects, managing Shapeshift forms, using Innervate situationally, using hybrid heals, and yes, Savage Roar, all of which may be seen as "bloat" but do actually add skill cap).
I'd say Mangle baseline, Shred removed, and druids balanced around using Mangle as a primary CP generator. Positioning is always adding to skill cap whether or not you're penalized stupidly for it or not because aside from bosses where you are simply not allowed to be behind (Ultraxion), you can be parried = 3% less DPS potentially more if it screws with your rotation.
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Considering that Guardian/Feral were the same spec, I think it's fair they share their Iconic ability. I still think it's good design to have many abilities be Feral/Guardian only for that reason despite having a "main use" in only one of the specs, with a few abilities of course being tied to each to create spec and role differentiation.
Do you play feral? It does add pretty much as much skill cap as Savage Roar does in milking Omen of Clarity procs. Yes it's fairly negligible but there's other abilities from other classes which would be much better examples of "pure ability bloat"; ones that literally have no purpose at all.
Which you could do by removing Mangle for Feral and having us use Shred. Mangle becomes unique for guardian, Shred is reinforced as unique for ferals.
I guess people are probably just saying "guardian/feral" when they mean "bear/cat", but to be clear, I'd expect that every druid spec is getting/keeping both bear-mangle and cat-(mangle or shred) regardless, since every spec needs to be able to function in cat and bear forms.
Feral has been my main since classic wow, I won't reroll to a mage or whatever you want me to. The fact that I hate the sound of Mangle because it's annoying, I prefer Shred sound anyday; and the fact that Savage Roar adds nothing but a damage "boost" (it isn't a boost at all, it just lines feral damage up to everyone else, which is lame. If I don't use savage roar then I'm losing 40% damage. 40%!!! Lamest ability in game.), doesn't give you the right to suggest I should reroll.
Keep track of multiple timers (Rip, Rake, DoC, SR, Thrash, etc...) may sound funny for some people. I'd rather have a little less trackers to watch and enjoy the encounters I'm fighting in.
They could do so many different funny and interesting things with Savage Roar, Maim... etc... Feral performance in cleave situations is pretty underwhelming. How come we didn't get Savage Roar (obviously renamed acordingly) to do something like Hunter's Lynx Rush Talent? Or like the ability of the last boss in Zul'aman when shapeshifted to a lynx that looks like a different version of Killing Spree. That would be a pretty awesome and sick combo point finisher.
But all of this, of course, is just my opinion. So please, refrain to suggest other people to reroll from a class they enjoy.
Edit
On-Topic: I'd say let Shred for Cat form and Mangle for Bear form. We don't need to be "forced" to be stuck with Mangle since our shapeshifts are stanced and use their own action bar, so at the end of the day Mangle for both or Mangle-Bear and Shred-Cat will both options only appear as 1 button in them.
It could be interesting if Shred loses the positional requirement and instead adds something like +5% crit damage if performed from behind.
Swipe and Thrash should also be merged, just reduce Thrash bleeding duration and add Swipe functionality and damage to it. It will still only be nice to use on single target while OoC procs.
Innervate is most likely going for Restoration only.
I can also see Stampending Roar and Dash merged together.
Revive and Rebirth maybe? Almost everybody have them macro'ed anyway.
I'd really like to see Thorns back somehow, in a talent or baked into Barkskin. It was really funny in Cataclysm.
And finally Entangling Roots and Nature's Grasp could be merged up. It could be a single ability with a short cd, 10 secs maybe, that's instant and can be cast either on an enemy or on the druid itself to cause it proc when being hit.
Other than that, I really don't see us losing anything else.
Last edited by Sylar Hao; 2014-03-01 at 10:33 PM.
For what it's worth, I think we can agree that Shred and Mangle will be combined into one button. Which one it is called (whether it is "Shred" or "Mangle") could be a debate, but I hardly see it as one worth getting militant over.
I'd imagine the positional requirement on CP generators (whether it is "Shred" or "Mangle" with appropriate sound-file/animation) would go away too, but that's a more meaningful debate :P