Feral in BFA, how is it doing?

[Thrashmetal]

I'm worried that feral will be weaker version of Assassination rogue since he is poison/bleed dot type of stealth.

[naeblis495]

I'm worried that feral will be weaker version of Assassination rogue since he is poison/bleed dot type of stealth.

feral as always been a subpar rogue anyways

[Spiral Mage]

but that's one of the main things that makes dot management/cd management interesting for the spec.

without that its just "spam shred like a mongoloid"

I think this is impossible for me to phrase correctly without a lot of thought.
But off the cuff: while snap-shot-ing gives you something to think about,
I don't feel that it provides compelling gameplay and there are other ways to do that.

[Deleted]

fbi does it well lol

[MookieRah]

How is Feral's single target damage overall though? Is it solid despite having crap AoE?

[Jaewalk]

Copied-

Currently the play style of live feral isn't possible in beta. Resource cost can't keep up even remotely. A lot of the changes got reverted numbers wise, which tbf could still change, but since we've had a massive thread that has managed to go unanswered for over 2 months now and still we've gotten no post on the direction they want to take the spec. Instead every time we find ways to make the spec play decently it gets nerfed, for example the rip cp trait that just took a hit or the maim CD nerf that was probably geared towards the big hit maim trait.

SR no longer snapshots, which means you can't let it fall off like you could in EN as long as your bleeds were up. Also our artifact was given to us as a super bad talent. It's damage is meh (again numbers), but it also is a delayed compo point generator that also stops hitting and generating cps if the target gets out of range or gets behind you, unlike ashamanes frenzy that gave us 3cp instantly. MoC nerf by half, also contributing to not being able to play like live. Berserk/incarn nerf even though it's the worst 3min CD in the game and was only made decent due to all the damage multipliers our artifact weapon gave us. Currently berserk gives us 40% energy reduction, but no damage boost and only lasts 15s, what a riveting CD. Shred damage while stealthed got nerfed in half so even incarn got wrecked.

Then you have survivability hits like no ashamanes protection, 4s of SI l (both artifact losses so expected) bear form extra stam reduced by 25%. With no compensation to what was already considered ferals biggest liability.

Then you get to the lack of aoe. All the fixes they made in 7.3 out the window so our aoe doesn't really exist nor does it feel remotely good to play even if we had the numbers.

I'm in the process of leveling my 2nd feral druid to 120 on beta and damage wise tons of classes wreck me on anything but ST in which I do pretty well but not vastly far ahead enough to justify doing 1/4 the aoe dps. All we want is for feral not to be a meme in m+ for over a year after expansion launch, yet again (7.3 came out over a year after launch). Sadly community perception is made pretty shortly after expansion launches and takes exceptional work to overcome such as Feral being actually decent in 7.2.5 but no one took them seriously until brutal slash got waaaay overturned.

[naeblis495]

Not really true though is it? Rogues don't have the utility a feral has

you're right , they don't have our utility , they have far better ones be it for pvp or pve

their whole class is designed aroud stealth and what they can do with it , while feral only have some of the tools rogues have ( proper vanish ? cloak ? sap ? blind ? proper aoe ?)

feral now can heal itself and others a bit more than rogue and brez but none of those are feral exclusive tho

[teddabear]

I still hate Rake tab targeting and how there's both Thrash and Swipe but I feel like these are "me" problems where it feels archaic in a way.

Not a me problem, it's a Blizzard problem. For whatever reason they decided to break tab targeting. They finally fixed it but it took several years. It left such a bad taste in my mouth I'd rather not play then go back to Rake spam.

[Deleted]

Not really true though is it? Rogues don't have the utility a feral has

hahahahahahahaha :P I'm a rogue. I've never mained feral. This post literally made me chuckle. When was the last time you had a raid spot over a rogue because of your awesome utility? Rogues are bar none the best melee utility class when it comes to PvE(which is all that really matters)

[Zephn]

I'm sure that I will regret it but I'm going to play Feral at launch, I'll probably have to switch to something else for mythic+ though. Maybe I'll revisit being a Moonkin, it's been a long time (since Cata) but it might be worth a shot.

[Lucrece]

Not really true though is it? Rogues don't have the utility a feral has

LMAO.

Utility?

Rogue has shroud of concealment for group skips, soaking via cloak of shadows, and massive survival tools like cheat death, on top of having far better dungeon CC like sap or blind and distract for stalling groups of mobs.

Feral has roots (worse version of sap), brez, and shitty offheals. That's it.

[teddabear]

Not really true though is it? Rogues don't have the utility a feral has

Feral was king of utility in Burning Crusade and Lich King. Feral utility has gotten significantly worse in every single expansion since then.

[exochaft]

Feral was king of utility in Burning Crusade and Lich King. Feral utility has gotten significantly worse in every single expansion since then.

I miss the LotP aura. But yeah, rogues >>>> feral druids for utility, it's not even close.

[Wild]

I still hate Rake tab targeting and how there's both Thrash and Swipe but I feel like these are "me" problems where it feels archaic in a way.

Not just you. Same here.

[teddabear]

Copied-

Currently the play style of live feral isn't possible in beta. Resource cost can't keep up even remotely. A lot of the changes got reverted numbers wise, which tbf could still change, but since we've had a massive thread that has managed to go unanswered for over 2 months now and still we've gotten no post on the direction they want to take the spec. Instead every time we find ways to make the spec play decently it gets nerfed, for example the rip cp trait that just took a hit or the maim CD nerf that was probably geared towards the big hit maim trait.

SR no longer snapshots, which means you can't let it fall off like you could in EN as long as your bleeds were up. Also our artifact was given to us as a super bad talent. It's damage is meh (again numbers), but it also is a delayed compo point generator that also stops hitting and generating cps if the target gets out of range or gets behind you, unlike ashamanes frenzy that gave us 3cp instantly. MoC nerf by half, also contributing to not being able to play like live. Berserk/incarn nerf even though it's the worst 3min CD in the game and was only made decent due to all the damage multipliers our artifact weapon gave us. Currently berserk gives us 40% energy reduction, but no damage boost and only lasts 15s, what a riveting CD. Shred damage while stealthed got nerfed in half so even incarn got wrecked.

Then you have survivability hits like no ashamanes protection, 4s of SI l (both artifact losses so expected) bear form extra stam reduced by 25%. With no compensation to what was already considered ferals biggest liability.

Then you get to the lack of aoe. All the fixes they made in 7.3 out the window so our aoe doesn't really exist nor does it feel remotely good to play even if we had the numbers.

I'm in the process of leveling my 2nd feral druid to 120 on beta and damage wise tons of classes wreck me on anything but ST in which I do pretty well but not vastly far ahead enough to justify doing 1/4 the aoe dps. All we want is for feral not to be a meme in m+ for over a year after expansion launch, yet again (7.3 came out over a year after launch). Sadly community perception is made pretty shortly after expansion launches and takes exceptional work to overcome such as Feral being actually decent in 7.2.5 but no one took them seriously until brutal slash got waaaay overturned.

It's normal for resources to be low at the start of the expansion, that is not necessarily a problem. Berserk has always been a poor cooldown due to the long CD and not stacking with Heroism very well. What they should have done a long time ago is nerf it some and make it a 1 min CD. However when it comes to things that suck Blizzard insists they be kept for flavor but that does not apply to things that were strong. AoE like utility has gotten worse in every expansion since Lich King. The problem is Blizzard makes more changes than they can balance before an expansion starts, then they don't get around to fixing Feral until the last tier and they overtune it so Ferals will come back for the next expansion. This is the fourth expansion in a row that I have pointed this out.

[Druitz]

Swipe: Damage increased by 50%.
Thrash: Damage increased by 28.5%.

Is it enough? Look like big buff

[Whitepaw]

I miss the LotP aura. But yeah, rogues >>>> feral druids for utility, it's not even close.

Actually, that could change in BfA. It depends on our affinities. If they are buffed - compared to Legion, where they were trivial - then we could have done utility.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Swipe: Damage increased by 50%.
Thrash: Damage increased by 28.5%.

Is it enough? Look like big buff

I notice AOE being a lot better on the beta. Of course I plan to let those that really crunch numbers in some excel sheet make the final call.

[Deleted]

I notice AOE being a lot better on the beta. Of course I plan to let those that really crunch numbers in some excel sheet make the final call.

Those buffs are for the Guardian spells, not Feral.

[teddabear]

feral as always been a subpar rogue anyways

Only fair I address this too. Feral was nothing like Rogue in Burning Crusade and Lich King. Lich King was the last really diverse expansion, homogenization began in Cataclysm and has continued in every expansion since.