Feral Buffs Confirmed!!

[Knolan]

It's not like Blizzard screwed Feral by accident. They knew exactly what they were doing when they nerfed Shred to the ground. Their tools are at least as good as Simulationcraft. Even if they weren't they could have looked at Simulationcraft at any point and seen how awful Feral is. Feral is terrible because Blizzard wants Feral to be terrible. Blizzard made sure Feral was so bad that they can buff it every tier and it will still be terrible for the entire xpac.

They are probably looking at it in very high haste levels, where energy regeneration smooths out.

I am much more bothered that we have at least 3 dead talents (Mass entanglement, Feral Frenzy and Soul of the Forest) and one incredibly boring talent (Blood Scent) in our talent tree. Also, more changes should be coming before September 4th, as they mentioned (it is when the actual competitive content begins).

From a PvP point of view, we are terrible in the CC department and we have possibly THE worst PvP talent in the game, Enraged maim. A 5 CP / 30 Energy ability that lasts marginally more (5s vs 4s) than Gouge (15s CD, 25 energy) and replaces our stun. Ah did I mentioned that the damage of enraged main is worse than the regular maim?

[teddabear]

They are probably looking at it in very high haste levels, where energy regeneration smooths out.

I am much more bothered that we have at least 3 dead talents (Mass entanglement, Feral Frenzy and Soul of the Forest) and one incredibly boring talent (Blood Scent) in our talent tree. Also, more changes should be coming before September 4th, as they mentioned (it is when the actual competitive content begins).

From a PvP point of view, we are terrible in the CC department and we have possibly THE worst PvP talent in the game, Enraged maim. A 5 CP / 30 Energy ability that lasts marginally more (5s vs 4s) than Gouge (15s CD, 25 energy) and replaces our stun. Ah did I mentioned that the damage of enraged main is worse than the regular maim?

Feral is about 15% down in single target and a huge amount in AOE. We can tell from comparing the 385 profile to the 340 profile that Feral gains about 1% tier.

[Whitepaw]

They are probably looking at it in very high haste levels, where energy regeneration smooths out.

I am much more bothered that we have at least 3 dead talents (Mass entanglement, Feral Frenzy and Soul of the Forest) and one incredibly boring talent (Blood Scent) in our talent tree. Also, more changes should be coming before September 4th, as they mentioned (it is when the actual competitive content begins).

From a PvP point of view, we are terrible in the CC department and we have possibly THE worst PvP talent in the game, Enraged maim. A 5 CP / 30 Energy ability that lasts marginally more (5s vs 4s) than Gouge (15s CD, 25 energy) and replaces our stun. Ah did I mentioned that the damage of enraged main is worse than the regular maim?

SotF is a great talent though. So is Feral Frenzy, although it is undertuned. Mass Entanglement...needs serious reworking.

Blood Scent is not only boring - it also goes against the specific goal of having discarded the old talent trees (where you had a lot of +X% damage/crit/whatever passive stat gains) and replaced it with new, more active talents.

Enraged Maim is a trap. Choosing that almost telegraphs that you don’t read the tooltips.

But my main objection when I look at Feral talents is how well the Assassination talents are fleshed out. The spec looks a lot like Feral: It has bleeds, uses energy and combo points, stealth. But it also has an added layer of complexity: It uses poisons. That extra layer is used very skilfully by the devs to design interesting talents and abilities. Just take a look at how well Envenom synergies with talents and abilities - then take a look at how Ferocious Bite doesn’t. And that’s just one example.

I think the idea behind snapshotting is solid - but it has now become a one trick pony, making the spec seem stale and old-fashioned, unable to compete in the current M+ dominated meta game.

And that’s a step back. The Feral we had in WotLK would have competed wonderfully in today’s game.

[Lex Icon]

they need a new design for feral... assassination rogues already got that perfected.

i'm thinking a more of rend & tear kind of style. you make em bleed but instead of making it tick faster you shorten the bleeds and make them hit harder. arteries poppin and all of that jazz.

[Tharkkun]

Assassination rogues are bottom of the barrel right now but the playstyle flows nicely. I'd just love to see blood talons gone and go back to the old LK/Cata feral before the spec was split. It still took skill to perfect.

[-aiko-]

Feral really doesn't need a massive overhaul or spec re-design. We just need a sweep of the talent tree, a new talent or two, and numbers adjustments.

[teddabear]

I'd just love to see blood talons gone and go back to the old LK/Cata feral before the spec was split. It still took skill to perfect.

Blizzard would never go back to LK Feral, the problem is Feral has gotten very little for all the things they have lost.

Since snapshotting has been 99% gutted BT has lost it's mojo and reason for existing. Now it's just there because a very small group of people got attached to it back when it was actually powerful. That would OK if it was somewhere else in the talent tree instead of Tier 100. The entire top Tier is uninteresting, uninspired crap. The 75 Tier is really the only tier that is well done. Having to take a Tier 90 talent to even do mediocre DPS is ludicrous.

It's fairly obvious looking at sims and combat logs that Shred, Swipe and BrS need to be buffed about 100%. Blizzard could have easily done that since that would have put Feral in the middle in both ST and AoE. That would have given Blizzard some actually useful data for them to do some real tuning. Instead Feral got a meaningless token buff, so I woulndn't count on the tuning patch fixing Feral.

[Deleted]

Tbh, if feral would deal nowdays 5-10% more dmg than other speccs, no one will discuss about bad class design and gameplay.

[Whitepaw]

Tbh, if feral would deal nowdays 5-10% more dmg than other speccs, no one will discuss about bad class design and gameplay.

You mean, like in MoP? The whole RoR and Reforging shit going on back then was an abomination and I hope we never ever get back to that. The only reason Blizzard didn’t dial that back was because people got used to it and would have whined endlessly if hit by the nerf hammer.

The problem now is that people want that state of Feral back (bleed-heavy and overpowered on single target - because the rotation is so hard!), but now the devs have decided to not only aim for balanced dps, but actually try to achieve it.

So now, the choice is this: Do you want a bleed-heavy spec, with a convoluted rotation and balanced dps - or a spec with more direct damage abilities, a less convoluted rotation and balanced dps? I want the latter, because the bleed-heavy is more prone to error, way less flexible, way worse in any situation with more than one target - and forces me to use my PS proc when the rotation dictates, instead of when I actually need to heal something. And that is bad game design.

[Deleted]

"The Feral we had in WotLK would have competed wonderfully in today’s game"

Can you describe the WotLK feral and why it would compete today, only playstyle perspective (no number comparson). Thanks.

[Deleted]

Tbh, if feral would deal nowdays 5-10% more dmg than other speccs, no one will discuss about bad class design and gameplay.

we dont have to go that far, simply doing 20% more single target dps than any other spec in the game (while doing 50-80% less AoE damage than everyone else) would put feral in a very good spot

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If you dont know where you are going no road is going to be okay. Devs keep saying feral is very good on single target (its not, has not been for years now) and then they keep buffing AoE.

Im up for complete redesign of this spec. It just doesnt work, there are constant issues. Single target direct abilities are too spammy and do minor damage, finishers are always meh (partially because of armor, beforementioned assa rogue has "magic" finisher), bleeds take too long to do serious damage and compared to warlock/assa rogue they are weak. Defensives are almost non-existant. "Agile cat"? Give me a break. AoE is always a joke.

I would love to see a smaller cd (1 minute maybe) similar to DH which would make you jump between closest 5 targets, raking them and dodging all spells&attacks. But lets just buff something by 20% instead.

[teddabear]

we dont have to go that far, simply doing 20% more single target dps than any other spec in the game (while doing 50-80% less AoE damage than everyone else) would put feral in a very good spot

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If you dont know where you are going no road is going to be okay. Devs keep saying feral is very good on single target (its not, has not been for years now) and then they keep buffing AoE.

Im up for complete redesign of this spec. It just doesnt work, there are constant issues. Single target direct abilities are too spammy and do minor damage, finishers are always meh (partially because of armor, beforementioned assa rogue has "magic" finisher), bleeds take too long to do serious damage and compared to warlock/assa rogue they are weak. Defensives are almost non-existant. "Agile cat"? Give me a break. AoE is always a joke.

I would love to see a smaller cd (1 minute maybe) similar to DH which would make you jump between closest 5 targets, raking them and dodging all spells&attacks. But lets just buff something by 20% instead.

Blizzard would never do that. No one is ever that far ahead in ST and they wouldn't make feral 5% ahead of everybody even if they were 90% behind in AoE. AoE is a special gift that is bestowed upon their favored classes at no cost. In addition there would be a legion of whiners claiming they didn't want their AoE, give them more ST.

Fixing AoE is simple, remove combo points from Swipe and Brutal Slash and then they can be tuned like everybody elses AoE.

[Gontier]

Fixing AoE is simple, remove combo points from Swipe and Brutal Slash and then they can be tuned like everybody elses AoE.

Rogue still gain combo points by using Fan of Knives, so what's your argument behind this? I'm intrigued. The whole purpose of gaining combo points by using AE is building up to our bleeds, Rip in this case. Build Combo Points and put up Rip on the important targets. What's the purpose of having AE abilities if they don't generate combo points to use our main abilities? We'd just be spreading Rake (as we do right now) and put up Rip then instead of actually using our AE abilities, rendering them useless.

It's not a "fix" in my eyes. An adjustment, sure, but not a fix. I for sure would hate that.

[naeblis495]

Rogue still gain combo points by using Fan of Knives, so what's your argument behind this? I'm intrigued. The whole purpose of gaining combo points by using AE is building up to our bleeds, Rip in this case. Build Combo Points and put up Rip on the important targets. What's the purpose of having AE abilities if they don't generate combo points to use our main abilities? We'd just be spreading Rake (as we do right now) and put up Rip then instead of actually using our AE abilities, rendering them useless.

It's not a "fix" in my eyes. An adjustment, sure, but not a fix. I for sure would hate that.

because putting rip on a single mob when there is 20 around feel like shit ? might as well do another swipe because it will do more dps anyway

also , rogue do have way to spend their combo points for aoe damage : sub have that weird buffed evicerate , outlaw have blade flurry to make their single target finisher hit everything and assa have their bleed aoe finisher as a talent

if swipe and trash would ditch the combo builder part but did actual damage , like 200% damage buff bare minimum ( trash being 5-10% of my damage outpout in a mm dungeon is offending) it would feel good to press them for what they do

either that or change trash to be a aoe finisher with a short 8-10 sec duration that deal medium damage

[Whitepaw]

"The Feral we had in WotLK would have competed wonderfully in today’s game"

Can you describe the WotLK feral and why it would compete today, only playstyle perspective (no number comparson). Thanks.

In WotLK, we had Armor Penetration as a stat and as part of the ability Faire Fire (Feral) (FFF), which reduced the target’s armor by a percentage . So, a Feral did bleed damage and direct physical attack damage - and the latter was buffed by Armor Penetration and an ability like FFF.

At the time, we only had Swipe as our AoE attack. But this worked really well, because (1) The ability itself actually punched out some competitive damage and (2) It was directly buffed by our Armor Penetration stat. If you fx gathered the trash at the start of ICC and activated Berserk + Tiger’s Fury, you would reach good numbers using Swipe. You still needed to keep up Savage Roar (which was a baseline ability back then, raising all your damage by 25%), but if you did so, you often ended up by pulling all aggro - the damage done on such a pull was simply insane.

Since then, our damage model has been simplified. And it shows. We now have direct damage abilities and dots. The devs seem to be extremely reluctant in buffing our direct damage (took them almost a year to do so in Legion - even though our Mage Tower challenge was about burst AoE! We could have done the cleave encounter, but we got the one which we were explicitly NOT designed for).

I don’t think the Armor Penetration stat was a good solution, just like I hated RoR in MoP (having such a blatant difference between being geared just right - or being geared 80% right should not be a thing in WoW), but the idea of the Feral being able to reduce the armor on a target should be explored more in my opinion. Just look at how Assassination Rogues have both bleeds and Poisons (poisons in WoW bypass armor) or how Arms Warriors actually have an armor reducing ability in their rotation.

The most important thing here is the effect on the gameplay: Is it more exciting to play around armor reduction/poison enhancing attacks - or to buff your next bleed attack with a heal? In WotLK, we did the first. And it was really - REALLY - exciting to play Feral back then!

[Psybearslat]

In WotLK, we had Armor Penetration as a stat and as part of the ability Faire Fire (Feral) (FFF), which reduced the target’s armor by a percentage . So, a Feral did bleed damage and direct physical attack damage - and the latter was buffed by Armor Penetration and an ability like FFF.

At the time, we only had Swipe as our AoE attack. But this worked really well, because (1) The ability itself actually punched out some competitive damage and (2) It was directly buffed by our Armor Penetration stat. If you fx gathered the trash at the start of ICC and activated Berserk + Tiger’s Fury, you would reach good numbers using Swipe. You still needed to keep up Savage Roar (which was a baseline ability back then, raising all your damage by 25%), but if you did so, you often ended up by pulling all aggro - the damage done on such a pull was simply insane.

Since then, our damage model has been simplified. And it shows. We now have direct damage abilities and dots. The devs seem to be extremely reluctant in buffing our direct damage (took them almost a year to do so in Legion - even though our Mage Tower challenge was about burst AoE! We could have done the cleave encounter, but we got the one which we were explicitly NOT designed for).

I don’t think the Armor Penetration stat was a good solution, just like I hated RoR in MoP (having such a blatant difference between being geared just right - or being geared 80% right should not be a thing in WoW), but the idea of the Feral being able to reduce the armor on a target should be explored more in my opinion. Just look at how Assassination Rogues have both bleeds and Poisons (poisons in WoW bypass armor) or how Arms Warriors actually have an armor reducing ability in their rotation.

The most important thing here is the effect on the gameplay: Is it more exciting to play around armor reduction/poison enhancing attacks - or to buff your next bleed attack with a heal? In WotLK, we did the first. And it was really - REALLY - exciting to play Feral back then!

I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. But for the sake of playing devil's advocate. Was swipe spam really the highlight of feral aoe play? I take you're focusing more on the armor pen addition but even so. Im not too excited about our thrash brutal slash spam play style anyway so it's not like that's much better.

The armor pen/bleed play could be interesting (I didnt play feral in wotlk) but at the end of the day that basically just translates to "keep the playstyle up the bleed damage"

[teddabear]

Rogue still gain combo points by using Fan of Knives, so what's your argument behind this? I'm intrigued. The whole purpose of gaining combo points by using AE is building up to our bleeds, Rip in this case. Build Combo Points and put up Rip on the important targets. What's the purpose of having AE abilities if they don't generate combo points to use our main abilities? We'd just be spreading Rake (as we do right now) and put up Rip then instead of actually using our AE abilities, rendering them useless.

It's not a "fix" in my eyes. An adjustment, sure, but not a fix. I for sure would hate that.

Shred and Swipe cost the same energy. Swipe can only be buffed 50% from current value before it overtakes Shred in single target and everybody removes Shred from their bar since Swipe also generate combo points. Also Swipe can generate 2 combo points if there is more than 1 target. I haven't seen a calculation but I suspect the current value is where Shred is barely better on 2 targets and Swipe is definitely better on 3. Swipe would need to be buffed almost 200% to give Feral competitive AoE. BrS is on a timer so that's very different but clearly it is nowhere near competitive currently.

The 2 ways to address this problem is to substantially buff Shred to give room to buff AoE or to remove the combo points from AoE. Buffing Shred would also be a decent and probably better interim solution. Feral is 22% behind Monks in ST. Shred damage would have to be tripled to overtake Monks. They should have doubled Shred and Swipe, that would have put Feral right in the middle of the pack.

[Whitepaw]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. But for the sake of playing devil's advocate. Was swipe spam really the highlight of feral aoe play? I take you're focusing more on the armor pen addition but even so. Im not too excited about our thrash brutal slash spam play style anyway so it's not like that's much better.

The armor pen/bleed play could be interesting (I didnt play feral in wotlk) but at the end of the day that basically just translates to "keep the playstyle up the bleed damage"

No, it wasn't. But it performed well, and the current AoE "rotation" isn't that hot either. Having Thrash be an AoE finisher would probably be the most elegant solution now.

But what I did like was that I had more abilities to factor in. On single target, I had to apply an armour debuff - and when I didn't (or didn't keep it up), I did less damage. That gameplay with dots, debuffs (we had 2 at the time), combo point builders (we had 3 for single target use) and a selfbuff (Savage Roar) - all of these had to synergise to give max DPS. But at the same time, you never felt as if you were fighting your own spec (like Bloodtalons do).

The most important change has probably been the complete removal of our debuffs (FFF and Mangle). Other melee specs still use debuffs and that makes them more fun imo. It also makes a spec like Assassination more complex to have Poisons as a core part of the gameplay. We could have Armor Penetration - not as a stat on gear, but as an ability - to add a layer of complexity on our DPS gameplay.

It would even fit thematically. Cats have fangs for a reason: To penetrate the skin of their prey and sever their artheries.

[teddabear]

Was swipe spam really the highlight of feral aoe play?

The epitome was single target. Swipe spam beats Rake spam every day of the week. DPSing trash should not be more difficult than boss mechanics. Especially now that Blizzard nerfed the range of Balance affinity by half.

[Minotaure]

When they first announced the Feral buffs but had not released what they were yet, we on the Feral Discord were brainstorming what they might be. I (lightheartedly) threw out this idea as a possible new talent, but now I think it would be a stellar AoE move:

Mufasa's Revenge - Summon a pack of wildebeests at your location, doing damage to enemies in a straight line in front of you. Slows enemy movement speed by 50%. Does 20% more damage for each bleed active on the target.

Something like this would improve our Mythic utility (AoE add slow to help tanks kite), would synergize with our bleeds, would be more engaging as directional move (rather than boring BrS), and would just feel like a badass Feral-type move. Obviously the name would be different, but I would still call it that.