Feral Buffs Confirmed!!

[Zantos]

Yeah, my feral doesn't seem to be any better at all. Energy regen is still very low and now I seem to do less damage.

[teddabear]

Yeah, my feral doesn't seem to be any better at all. Energy regen is still very low and now I seem to do less damage.

You have to admit it is pretty funny that Blizzard would nerf Feral right now and to top it off call it a buff.

[JohnVX]

I've noticed a small change in AOE damage but only on trash with 4-5 mobs. ST remains the same.

[Whitepaw]

What version of feral were you playing in wrath? With max arpen and so much crit, the rotation was the easiest it's ever been, even with the mangle debuff every 12s

18 sec with the glyph

[Lex Icon]

druid = one of the most unique classes ever made while also being one of the most bland to play.
i mean warrior,rogue,mage,priest,paladin & hunter they're pretty much the staple of every game and yet they're all better designed than the druid.



/have some salt

[Fahrenheit]

Still trash tier at AoE.
Still middle/low at Patchwerk style raid boss.
Still decent at short lived dungeon bosses if we spec Incarnation.
Hopefully when we get the ‘real’ tuning patch in the next week or so we get some serious buffs and/or talent changes.

[teddabear]

Still trash tier at AoE.
Still middle/low at Patchwerk style raid boss.
Still decent at short lived dungeon bosses if we spec Incarnation.
Hopefully when we get the ‘real’ tuning patch in the next week or so we get some serious buffs and/or talent changes.

For reference 20.67% behind top spec at ilvl 340

We'll see how that looks after the tuning patch. My guess is that gap will close by less than half.

Remember when people used to complain about 5%?

[Will]

What version of feral were you playing in wrath? With max arpen and so much crit, the rotation was the easiest it's ever been, even with the mangle debuff every 12s

ArP had no effect of making the rotation easier. Lol. Crit does for sure, extra CPs. But ArP was just a raw physical damage increase. Feral in WotLK was considerably harder than it was in WoD. Seriously, you confuse me.

[Appelgren]

Overall a ridicolously small buff to AOE and a big nerf to haste/energy regen.

Ferals are still worthless ST damage dealers.

I wonder how these so called professional game developers could make these changes and call it buffs.

Class devs are even more off tune with their game than ever before...

[-aiko-]

You didn't read the blue post very well. This was not intended as a major "buff", although it actually is a very minor buff in most situations. This is mostly a pacing/gameplay change. As stated in the blue post, further tuning will be done in the tuning pass next week.

[teddabear]

Regarding Blizzard's concerns about not enough rows for AoE talents due to Affinities:
They should put some actually powerful AoE abilities in the Affinities. For example instead of giving Feral affinity a turbocharged Shred give it a turbocharged Swipe. Give Balance Affiniry a turbocharged Starfall. Pare down some of the other abilities. Make AoE the primary reason for Affinities and then you would have Druids shapeshifting all the time like they should be.

You didn't read the blue post very well. This was not intended as a major "buff", although it actually is a very minor buff in most situations. This is mostly a pacing/gameplay change. As stated in the blue post, further tuning will be done in the tuning pass next week.

Well they did say
"The sum of these changes is intended and expected to be a increase in Energy income, pacing, and damage in all situations."

That turned out not to be true, quite a few lost DPS.

[Deicoy]

It's amazing just how badly they screwed feral to start this expansion.

[Deleted]

You didn't read the blue post very well. This was not intended as a major "buff", although it actually is a very minor buff in most situations. This is mostly a pacing/gameplay change. As stated in the blue post, further tuning will be done in the tuning pass next week.

They clearly stated that this should be a damage increase "in all situations" including ST but many people report a DPS loss, which means that they made a mistake. It was supposed to be a buff for everyone. Now it's either a +1% increase or a -1% decrease for ST depending on the gear and talents the player happened to have.

For me, it's puzzling. The initial tuning certainly wasn't a crapshoot, because we still consistantly see melee above ranged and mages and warlocks both having some very formidable specs, just as usual. Then Feral's sitting way behind everyone else for some reason. I honestly don't think that the tuning patch should have to be waited for. People might not be able to even gear up initially because they won't get accepted to any groups. They could just as well have given Feral an actual, real buff and then re-adjusted during the tuning patch.

[Deleted]

Because a druid is a hybrid dont expect topping the meters anytime soon, its just not gonna happen. Dont even expect sitting in the middle of the dps group. The recent patch shows once more that Blizard dont give a fuk about ferals. Its just bad design end of story.

[Thorim]

Because a druid is a hybrid dont expect topping the meters anytime soon, its just not gonna happen. Dont even expect sitting in the middle of the dps group. The recent patch shows once more that Blizard dont give a fuk about ferals. Its just bad design end of story.

I never understood the 'hybrid' argument, yes perhaps back in what...vanilla, when you actually could heal like a healer and do some dps or tank or whatever but not since BC and certainly wrath. People now pick a class or spec because they want to play that spec, no one picks a mage thinking 'aww no I can't heal raids on this', they picked a mage because they want to be a ranged dps. Saying to a feral druid "it's okay, you're a hybrid so if feral sucks you can just go balance, or heal, or tank" is fucking ridiculous because they picked feral because of its playstyle/melee, not because they wanted to stand back casting.

The 'hybrid' argument is fucking stupid.

[Tradu]

How's that?

Because catweaving is a thing. The cat form abilities do more damage than bear form fillers.

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I believe that's the 3rd derogatory remark you've made towards teddabear today.

Raise your level of discussion - or take a break.

No, it's relevant to the discussion. Bad players not being able to make use of something doesn't mean it doesn't have value, and based on the fact that Tedda is claiming resto affinity(the worst affinity) is the only relevant one, he's clearly bad.

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The problem is the Haste buff should not have been removed until Blizzard actually fixed the spec. Almost everybody would agree it shouldn't be there but you don't remove it when Feral is 20% behind the other 3 melee leather in single target and even further behind in AoE.

Energy is not the issue, damage is. It may feel a tiny bit faster but you could have gotten that by going SotF if pace was a big concern for you.

Some people have been saying ad nauseum don't worry the tuning patch is coming. Now that it is almost here and it is blatantly obvious that Blizzard is not going to fix Feral in the tuning patch they have changed their story to "Hey at least Blizzard noticed Feral exists".

The reality is Feral is going to be worse than ever and will get few if any invites to Mythic+ and Raids.

It literally doesn't matter how far behind Feral is compared to any other spec. Removing the haste bonus a little bit at a time makes perfect sense, especially when they even buff things to make up for it.
And could you please stop this idiocy that I've bolded? The tuning hotfixes are next week and the week after, and we've known that for literally months. Feral is fine mechanically(not perfect, but definitely fine), it just needs to get buffed damage wise.

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These changes were a nerf for me.

Prepatch 10,214 DPS
After patch 10,175 DPS

So you lost 40 sim DPS from a gameplay rebalance, the world is clearly ending. Let's just ignore that tuning is still to come.

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And the devs will also remove our auto attack modifier, so you'll be even more nerfed!

No worries though, we will be buffed on our single target abilities. That will raise our value of Mastery and Versatility as well.

Are you guys actually intentionally misunderstanding literally everything or are you this dumb? They're going to be removing the auto attack modifier to solve multiple things. Higher auto attack damage means player input has less impact on your performance, reducing auto attack damage increases the value of playing well, which is a nice benefit. The most important thing reducing auto attack damage does, however, is that it lets them buff other things, specifically Shred(which is very weak atm), Rake and Rip. The latter 2 also increase performance in multitarget situations, which is something Feral struggles with currently.

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It seems like Blizzard is more concerned that Feral would have caught up with everybody except Rogues by the last tier than they are about Feral's current issues.

Can you stop imagining things now, please?

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You have to admit it is pretty funny that Blizzard would nerf Feral right now and to top it off call it a buff.

Can you fucking stop whining about nerfs or buffs? It's meant to be roughly DPS neutral, and they achieved that.

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Overall a ridicolously small buff to AOE and a big nerf to haste/energy regen.

Ferals are still worthless ST damage dealers.

I wonder how these so called professional game developers could make these changes and call it buffs.

Class devs are even more off tune with their game than ever before...

The only situation where the changes would be a nerf to energy regen(completely ignoring that they also reduced energy costs) would be if you had 80% haste from gear or more(so 120%+ character sheet haste), which you didn't.

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Regarding Blizzard's concerns about not enough rows for AoE talents due to Affinities:
They should put some actually powerful AoE abilities in the Affinities. For example instead of giving Feral affinity a turbocharged Shred give it a turbocharged Swipe. Give Balance Affiniry a turbocharged Starfall. Pare down some of the other abilities. Make AoE the primary reason for Affinities and then you would have Druids shapeshifting all the time like they should be.






Well they did say
"The sum of these changes is intended and expected to be a increase in Energy income, pacing, and damage in all situations."

That turned out not to be true, quite a few lost DPS.

A very minor amount of DPS to the point where it's irrelevant. Especially considering that, again, tuning is happening next week and the week after.

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Because a druid is a hybrid dont expect topping the meters anytime soon, its just not gonna happen. Dont even expect sitting in the middle of the dps group. The recent patch shows once more that Blizard dont give a fuk about ferals. Its just bad design end of story.

The hybrid tax hasn't been a thing since Cata.




Basically, Whitepaw and teddabear, stop your misinformed(or intentionally wrong) whining about literally everything when you don't understand anything. Tuning is still to come. The recent changes were to gameplay primarily, and to some extent to make gearing easier (something you've complained about yourselves). Yes, the spec scales slightly worse, but that's not a problem, because it was one of the best scaling specs in the game.

[Deleted]

I never understood the 'hybrid' argument, yes perhaps back in what...vanilla, when you actually could heal like a healer and do some dps or tank or whatever but not since BC and certainly wrath. People now pick a class or spec because they want to play that spec, no one picks a mage thinking 'aww no I can't heal raids on this', they picked a mage because they want to be a ranged dps. Saying to a feral druid "it's okay, you're a hybrid so if feral sucks you can just go balance, or heal, or tank" is fucking ridiculous because they picked feral because of its playstyle/melee, not because they wanted to stand back casting.

The 'hybrid' argument is fucking stupid.

The thing is if feral would be good or even as good as a rogue, a lot of people would play feral because of the possibility to change specs and heal or tank when needed. Mages are picked because of the numbers, Rogues are picked because of the numbers and the utulity, things feral does not have. So unless something drastic is gonna change to ferals, they gonna have a hard time to fight for a melee dps spot. And maybe you see its stupid to compare feral to other classes, but what do you think raidleaders or even dungeon leaders will do in the end?!

[teddabear]

Because catweaving is a thing. The cat form abilities do more damage than bear form fillers.

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No, it's relevant to the discussion. Bad players not being able to make use of something doesn't mean it doesn't have value, and based on the fact that Tedda is claiming resto affinity(the worst affinity) is the only relevant one, he's clearly bad.

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It literally doesn't matter how far behind Feral is compared to any other spec. Removing the haste bonus a little bit at a time makes perfect sense, especially when they even buff things to make up for it.
And could you please stop this idiocy that I've bolded? The tuning hotfixes are next week and the week after, and we've known that for literally months. Feral is fine mechanically(not perfect, but definitely fine), it just needs to get buffed damage wise.

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So you lost 40 sim DPS from a gameplay rebalance, the world is clearly ending. Let's just ignore that tuning is still to come.

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Are you guys actually intentionally misunderstanding literally everything or are you this dumb? They're going to be removing the auto attack modifier to solve multiple things. Higher auto attack damage means player input has less impact on your performance, reducing auto attack damage increases the value of playing well, which is a nice benefit. The most important thing reducing auto attack damage does, however, is that it lets them buff other things, specifically Shred(which is very weak atm), Rake and Rip. The latter 2 also increase performance in multitarget situations, which is something Feral struggles with currently.

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Can you stop imagining things now, please?

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Can you fucking stop whining about nerfs or buffs? It's meant to be roughly DPS neutral, and they achieved that.

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The only situation where the changes would be a nerf to energy regen(completely ignoring that they also reduced energy costs) would be if you had 80% haste from gear or more(so 120%+ character sheet haste), which you didn't.

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A very minor amount of DPS to the point where it's irrelevant. Especially considering that, again, tuning is happening next week and the week after.

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The hybrid tax hasn't been a thing since Cata.




Basically, Whitepaw and teddabear, stop your misinformed(or intentionally wrong) whining about literally everything when you don't understand anything. Tuning is still to come. The recent changes were to gameplay primarily, and to some extent to make gearing easier (something you've complained about yourselves). Yes, the spec scales slightly worse, but that's not a problem, because it was one of the best scaling specs in the game.

Idiocy like blindly proclaiming Feral will definitely be fixed the first week of raids?. You are the one that has been spamming that moronic drivel for 2 weeks.

Blizzard didn't say it was DPS neutral, they said it was a buff for all Ferals.

As usual you change your story again by adding roughly because it was not DPS neutral.

Feral is not fine mechanically, some talents are way too strong, some talents are too weak. The talents break down into groups where if you take one then you take certain others instead of having real choice.

The Haste nerf is numbers tuning, they should have changed it when they did numbers tuning.

Tuning is still to come, apologists have been saying that since WoD Alpha. What's your excuse going to be when the tuning doesn't fix feral's issues this time?

If Feral is mechanically fine and their numbers will be fixed next week then why are you playing a Shaman instead of a Druid. Hypocrite much?

[-aiko-]

Well they did say
"The sum of these changes is intended and expected to be a increase in Energy income, pacing, and damage in all situations."

That turned out not to be true, quite a few lost DPS.

You personally lost less than 0.5% sim dps. In the first place, that is well within the margin of error. On top of that, if it was intended for this to be a gameplay change to make the spec play faster and be 'easier' for the average player their statement is still true.

I don't pretend to be a theorycrafter who can crunch the numbers, but I also would imagine this is a buff for the majority of Ferals who are at appropriate gear levels for the upcoming raid.

[Tradu]

Idiocy like blindly proclaiming Feral will definitely be fixed the first week of raids?. You are the one that has been spamming that moronic drivel for 2 weeks.

Blizzard didn't say it was DPS neutral, they said it was a buff for all Ferals.

As usual you change your story again by adding roughly because it was not DPS neutral.

Feral is not fine mechanically, some talents are way too strong, some talents are too weak. The talents break down into groups where if you take one then you take certain others instead of having real choice.

The Haste nerf is numbers tuning, they should have changed it when they did numbers tuning.

Tuning is still to come, apologists have been saying that since WoD Alpha. What's your excuse going to be when the tuning doesn't fix feral's issues this time?

If Feral is mechanically fine and their numbers will be fixed next week then why are you playing a Shaman instead of a Druid. Hypocrite much?

I didn't say definitely, I said expecting it to be before tuning has happened is beyond stupid. Do I believe Blizzard will get specs closer together than the current 20% you're crying about? Absolutely, and that's coming from somebody with very little faith in Blizzard generally. Do I think Feral is going to be OP or whatever it is you're hoping for? No. All it needs is a bit of a buff across the board and it'll be fine. If they want to do more mechanical changes(like deleting Sabertooth), that's not what the tuning passes are for.
Blizzard started working on classes way too late in beta, that's why they're as much of a clusterfuck as they are now.
Of course it's going to be "roughly" DPS neutral when they change things related to scaling, it'll affect people differently based on gear. It was a minor change in either direction, stop whining.
The haste nerf is not numbers tuning. It's spec mechanics.
And guess what? Feral was very good in EN and ToV, good in NH, decent in ToS and good in Antorus.
I switched away from Feral in late NH because my guild wanted a warrior and I had one that was geared(and I'm good at playing more than 1 spec/class). Then I joined a guild that already had 2 of the best Ferals in the world(Guiltyas and Xanzara), so what's the point in me switching back to playing Feral there rather than playing something we didn't have(warrior and later enhancement)? No hypocrisy at all.

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You personally lost less than 0.5% sim dps. In the first place, that is well within the margin of error. On top of that, if it was intended for this to be a gameplay change to make the spec play faster and be 'easier' for the average player their statement is still true.

I don't pretend to be a theorycrafter who can crunch the numbers, but I also would imagine this is a buff for the majority of Ferals who are at appropriate gear levels for the upcoming raid.

As a general rule it's a loss for people with super high haste, neutral or a gain for everybody else. But yeah, again, the loss/gain is extremely minor and not meant to be tuning the spec in any direction.