[Cat] Feral Druid MoP Discussion Thread

[Myrrar]

Feral Druid MoP Discussion Thread

This is where any general discussion about feral druid MoP changes will go. If you want to talk about general druid specifics please use the link to the appropriate thread. If there are any updates or changes I missed PM them to me.

General: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread
Balance: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread
Guardian: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread
Resto: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...cussion-Thread

General Changes:

• The relic slot is gone. Our relics are now useless, but it's no reason to fret-- all other classes are losing their relic and ranged weapon slots.
• The Feral Specialization has been split into two different specs, Guardian (for bear tanking) and Feral (for cat dps).

New Abilities:

General:

• Might of Ursoc, a survival cooldown that forces you into bear form. Shifting out of bear form will cancel the buff.
  

Feral:

• Nothing brand-new for Ferals, just some changes to existing abilities.
  

Other Important Ability Changes:

Removed abilities:

• Pulverize has been removed.
• Demoralizing Roar has been removed.
• Challenging Roar has been removed.

Feral:

• Tiger's Fury will not increase your maximum energy.
• Mangle no longer applies a bleed damage taken increase-- that buff is no longer necessary. It does apply the Infected Wounds slow.
• Thrash can now be used in Cat form.

Talents

Calculator

Talent Changes and New Talents:

• The talent system is changing dramatically in 5.0.4. You will still select a specialization, but all specializations have the same small talent tree (6 tiers, one talent per tier-- we'll only be able to access the first 5 tiers in 5.0.4).
• Druids have four total specializations, since Feral has been split into Feral and Guardian.
• Most of the old talents you're familiar with have been rolled into spec-specific abilities and passives that you will learn naturally as you level up, or when you swap to the associated spec. For example, Feral druids no longer need to talent for Survival Instincts, Omen of Clarity, or Predatory Swiftness. These abilities and passives from pre-5.0.4 talents have not been lost.
• We can only select one talent per tier.

	Talent	Level	Description
	Feline Swiftness	15	Increases your movement speed by 15%
	Displacer Beast		Teleports the Druid up to 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl. Instant cast, 3min CD.
	Wild Charge		Grants a movement ability that varies by shapeshift form (15 sec cooldown) Non-shapeshifted: Fly to an ally's position. Bear Form: Charge to an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 sec. Cat Form: Leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 sec. Moonkin Form: Bound backward from your enemies. Can only be used in combat. Travel Form: Leap forward 20 yards. Aquatic Form: Increases swim speed by an additional 150% 5 sec.
	Nature's Swiftness	30	When activated, your next Cyclone, Entangling Roots, Healing Touch, Hibernate, Nourish, Rebirth, or Regrowth becomes instant, free, and castable in all forms. The healing and duration of the spell is increased by 50%. Instant, 1 min cooldown
	Renewal		Instantly heals the Druid for 30% of max health. Usable in all forms. Instant, 2 min cooldown
	Cenarion Ward		Protects a friendly target, causing any damage taken to heal the target for 6174 (+ 57% of SpellPower) every 2 sec for 6 sec. Gaining the healing effect consumes the Cenarion Ward. Useable in all shapeshift forms. Lasts 30 sec. 24.8% base Mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown
	Faerie Swarm	45	Grants an improved version of Faerie Fire that also reduces the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 sec. This talent replaces Faerie Fire. Instant, 2 min cooldown
	Mass Entanglement		Roots your target in place for 20 sec and spreads to additional nearby enemies. Affects 5 total targets. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. Useable in all shapeshift forms. 30 yd range, Instant cast, 2 min cooldown
	Typhoon		Summons a violent Typhoon that strikes targets in front of the caster within 30 yards, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms. 30 yd Range, Instant cast, 20 sec cooldown
	Soul of the Forest	60	Aessina's blessing grants a benefit which varies by your combat specialization. Balance: When a Lunar Eclipse ends you gain 20 Solar Energy and when a Solar Eclipse ends you gain 20 Lunar Energy. Feral: Your finishing moves grant 4 Energy per combo point. Guardian: Mangle now generates an additional 2 Rage. Restoration: You gain 50% haste for your next spell when you cast Swiftmend.
	Incarnation		Grants a superior shapeshifting form appropriate to your specialization for 30 sec. You may freely shapeshift in and out of this form for the duration of Incarnation. Instant, 3 min cooldown Balance: Chosen of Elune: Improved Moonkin Form that gains 25% increased Arcane and Nature damage while Eclipse is active. Feral: King of the Jungle: Improved Cat Form that allows the use of all abilities which normally require stealth, allows the use of Prowl while in combat, and removes the positional requirement of Ravage. Guardian: Son of Ursoc: Improved Bear Form that reduces the cooldown on melee damage abilities and Growl to 1.5 sec. Restoration: Tree of Life: Tree of Life Form that increases healing done by 15%, increases armor by 120%, and enhances Lifebloom, Wild Growth, Regrowth, and Entangling Roots spellcasts.
	Force of Nature		Summons 3 treants to assist in the Druid's current combat role for 15 sec. Treant capabilities vary by specialization. Useable in all shapeshift forms. 40 yd range, Instant, 1 min cooldown
	Disorienting Roar	75	Invokes the spirit of Ursol to roar, disorienting all enemies within 10 yards for 3 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Useable in all shapeshift forms. Instant, 30 sec cooldown
	Ursol's Vortex		Conjures a vortex of wind at the destination location that reduces the movement speed of all enemies within 8 yards by 50%. The first time an enemy attempts to leave the vortex, winds will pull that enemy back to its center. Lasts 10 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms. 30 yd range, Instant, 1 min cooldown
	Mighty Bash		Invokes the spirit of Ursoc to stun the target for 5 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms. Melee Range, Instant cast, 50 sec cooldown
	Heart of the Wild	90	Increases Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. When activated, dramatically improves the Druid's ability to perform roles outside of their normal specialization for 45 sec. Grants the following benefits based on current specialization: Non-Guardian:While in Bear Form, Agility, Expertise, Hit Chance, and armor bonuses increased, Vengeance granted, chance to be hit by melee critical strikes reduced. Non-Feral: While in Cat Form, Agility, Hit Chance, and Expertise increased. Non-Restoration: Healing increased and mana cost of all healing spells reduced by 100%. Guardian Druids may also cast Rejuvenation while shapeshifted. Non-Balance: Spell Damage and Hit Chance increased. Mana cost of all damage spells reduced by 100%. Instant, 6 min CD
	Dream of Cenarius		Wrath, Starfire, Starsurge, and melee abilities increase healing done by your next healing spell by 30%. Tranquility is not affected. Nourish, Healing Touch, and Regrowth increase the damage done by your next 2 Moonfire or Sunfire casts by 65% or by your next 2 melee abilities by 25%. Each of these bonuses lasts 30 sec.
	Nature's Vigil		Increases all damage and healing done by 20% for 30 sec. While active, all single-target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy target for 25% of the healing done, and all single-target damage spells and abilities also heal a nearby friendly target for 25% of the damage done. Instant, 3 min CD

Druid: Symbiosis

• The Druid will select a raid or party member and cast Symbiosis on them.
• The target cannot be another Druid.
• The target gains a buff that tells them what spell they have temporarily learned, and that spell temporarily appears in their spellbook, and they can drag it to an action bar.
• The Druid’s Symbiosis button will become the ability they gained from the target class.
• The Symbiosis link is cancelled if: the Druid clicks off the Symbiosis buff, or the Druid or the target changes continents or enters or exits an instance, or the Druid or the target changes talent specializations.
• Symbiosis fails to cast if Symbiosis is already active on that target.
• Symbiosis cannot be cast in combat.
• For the non-Druid target, the icon will revert to a placeholder (uncastable) Symbiosis icon when Symbiosis ends, but will become the Symbiosis-granted ability again the next time Symbiosis is cast on that target.
• The ability gained from Symbiosis is always something chosen to match the Druid’s specialization and the target’s combat role.
• The target always gets the same spell unless they change combat roles. A Druid of a given specialization always gets the same spell from each different class. If there is a change of specs, there is a change of spell.

Glyphs

General Majors

• Glyph of Rebirth: Players resurrected by Rebirth are returned to life with 100% health.
• Glyph of Innervate: When Innervate is cast on a friendly target other than the caster, the caster will gain 10% of maximum mana over 10 sec.
• Glyph of Stampeding Roar: Increases the radius of Stampeding Roar by 30 yards.
• Glyph of Stampede: You can now cast Stampeding Roar without being in Bear Form or Cat Form.
• Glyph of Cat Form: Increases healing done to you by 20% while in Cat Form.
• Glyph of Faerie Fire: Increases the range of your Faerie Fire by 10 yds.
• Glyph of Barkskin: Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by 25% while Barkskin is active.
• Glyph of Cyclone: Increases the range of your Cyclone spell by 4 yards.
• Glyph of Master Shapeshifter: Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifts by 90%.
• Glyph of Dash: Reduces the cooldown of your Dash ability by 60 sec.
• Glyph of Entangling Roots: Reduces the cast time of your Entangling Roots by 0.2 sec.
• Glyph of Nature's Grasp: Reduces the cooldown of Nature's Grasp by 30 sec.
• Glyph of Skull Bash: Increases the duration of your Skull Bash interrupt by 4 sec, but increases the cooldown by 10 sec.
• Glyph of Hurricane: Your Hurricane and Astral Storm abilities now also slow the movement speed of their victims by 50%.
• Glyph of Prowl: Reduces the movement penalty of Prowl by 30%.

Feral:

• Glyph of Savagery: Savage Roar can now be used with 0 combo points, resulting in a 12 sec duration.
• Glyph of Shred: While Berserk or Tiger's Fury is active, Shred has no positional requirement.
• Glyph of Ferocious Bite: Your Ferocious Bite ability heals you for 1% of your maximum health for each 10 Energy used.
• Glyph of Pounce: Increases the range of your Pounce by 3 yards.
• Glyph of Maul: Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target for 50% damage.

Minors

• Glyph of the Cheetah: Your Travel Form appears as a Cheetah. This glyph will prevent Glyph of the Stag from functioning.
• Glyph of the Treant: Teaches you the ability Treant Form.
• Glyph of the Predator: Your Track Humanoids ability now also tracks beasts.
• Glyph of Stars: Your Moonkin Form now appears as Astral Form, conferring all the same benefits, but appearing as an astrally enhanced version of your normal humanoid form.
• Glyph of Charm Woodland Creature: Allows the Druid to befriend an ambient creature, which will follow the Druid for 60 min.
• Glyph of the Chameleon: Each time you shapeshift into Cat Form or Bear Form, your shapeshifted form will have a random hair color.
• Glyph of Grace: Feline Grace reduces falling damage even while not in Cat Form.
• Glyph of Aquatic Form: Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form.
• Glyph of the Orca: Your Aquatic Form now appears as an Orca.
• Glyph of the Stag: Your Travel Form can now be used as a mount by party members. This glyph is disabled while Glyph of the Cheetah is active.

Other Resources for 5.0.4:

• Icy Veins' Feral (Cat) 5.0.4 guide.

[Hypnozis]

How sweet would it be if:

Force of Nature:
Summons 3 treants to assist in the Druid's current combat role. Treant capabilities vary by specialization. Usable in all shapeshift forms.
40 yd range, Instant, 3 min cooldown

Actually summoned 3 kittys to come help you in combat (I know it says treants). Has anyone heard any additional information about how this will change depending on you spec?

[dancm]

There are even more differences than you actually posted, Myrrar. I just looked at the tooltip of Cat Form:

New Version:

Shapeshift into Cat Form, causing agility to increase attack power, increasing autoattack damage by 100%, and increasing movement speed by 15%. Also protects the caster from Polymorph effects and allows the use of various cat abilities. Energy regeneration continues while not in Cat Form.

The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of movement slowing effects.

Current Version:

Shapeshift into Cat Form, causing agility to increase attack power. Also protects the caster from Polymorph effects and allows the use of various cat abilities.

The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of movement slowing effects.

Which leads to some questions:
- Is weapon damage (or normal damage as it is phrased in Claw's new tooltip) still the normal unbuffed autoattack?
- Does Cat Form stack with Feline Swiftness?
- If yes, how does it stack?
- Does 'Energy regeneration continues while not in Cat Form.' include the current Furor?

We'll probably have to wait until beta to get these questions answered.

[Myrrar]

ME3 came out last night so I'll be mia for the next few days. I'll update it when I get back. =]

[Raugnaut]

Feral is currently looking up. We seem to be loosing our current Bear surviability for PvP, but we are retaining all of our control, and gaining some more to boot! I dont see Nuturing Instinct's 20% extra healing, so thats another loss to survivability. We also loose Lifebloom, another big loss to survivability. In addition, we have old SR back, le sigh. We are also loosin Ravage! from the Stampede talent.

However with that being said, we got Root immunity back, if we pick it. So, surviability, down. Burst, down. Utility, up. Control, up.

Also, OMG INCARNATION! A huge burst buff in PvE and PvP. Incarnation+Berserk=EXTREME BURST. In PvE, it is a very good burst CD for fights where you can use Shread, probably resultin in about 25% more damage done during its time. In PvP, targets are unable to go above 80% without being burst back under, and a hurting can easily be had.

[peki]

dont get too excited, im sure incarnation will replace berserk or something similiar

[tangedyn]

As it currently stands, Incarnation for Ravage spam is a DPS gain at > 80% and DPS loss below that even with the energy cost reduction to 50 energy. We'll have to see if there are any costs or coefficient updates to make it worthwhile using below 80%.

[dancm]

dont get too excited, im sure incarnation will replace berserk or something similiar

There is no hint to support your fear. All Lv 60 talents improve dps. None of them by a huge amount.

---------- Post added 2012-03-08 at 11:18 AM ----------

As it currently stands, Incarnation for Ravage spam is a DPS gain at > 80% and DPS loss below that even with the energy cost reduction to 50 energy. We'll have to see if there are any costs or coefficient updates to make it worthwhile using below 80%.

Really?

Shred the target, causing 425% damage plus 246 to the target. Must be behind the target. Awards 1 combo point. Deals 20% additional damage against bleeding targets.

-> 510% damage plus 295.2 while the target is bleeding for 40 energy. That's 12.75% plus 7.38 per energy.

Ravage the target, causing 750% damage plus 434 to the target. Must be prowling and behind the target. Awards 1 combo point. Ravage has a 50% increased chance to critically strike targets with over 80% health.

-> 750% damage plus 434 for 50 Energy. That's 15% plus 8.68 per energy. That's not including increased crit chance above 80% target health.

So how do you come to your conclussion?

[tangedyn]

I ran it through a modified Mew, of course.
Don't forget DPE doesn't accurately determine overall DPS because it doesn't take into account CP generation allowing for more finishers. Also, Ravage doesn't extend Rip so you'll still need to fit in Shreds.
The numbers may have changed a bit since I last ran the sims, I'll check and it through again when I have time.

[dancm]

I ran it through a modified Mew, of course.
Don't forget DPE doesn't accurately determine overall DPS because it doesn't take into account CP generation allowing for more finishers. Also, Ravage doesn't extend Rip so you'll still need to fit in Shreds.
The numbers may have changed a bit since I last ran the sims, I'll check and it through again when I have time.

You'll probably want to use Incarnation in combination with Berserk. FBs DPE goes down during Berserk as the additional energy spent doesn't benefit from Berserk. Also keep in mind that Incarnation also allows the use of Pounce. Which you can use at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of Incarnation.

[Deleted]

Because the Pounce bleed ticks for sooo much?

[Deleted]

Because the Pounce bleed ticks for sooo much?

I sense sick sarcasm over here

I don't know but TF, Berserk and Ravage spam during Incarnation phase could be ridiculous burst at any point of encounter.

[dancm]

Because the Pounce bleed ticks for sooo much?

old tooltip:

Pounce, stunning the target for 3 sec and causing 2340 Bleed damage over 18 sec. Must be prowling. Awards 1 combo point.

new tooltip:

Pounce, stunning the target for 4 sec and causing 4,896 Bleed damage over 18 sec. Must be prowling. Awards 1 combo point.

Maybe something changes...

[Deleted]

Compared to rip on the new calculator: 1 cp = 4110 damage over 16 seconds, 5 cp = 16200 damage over 16 seconds.

It's only logical tho.. pounce is a nice PvP tool, so if they would make it a great dps ability as well it would be too powerful.

I can see Soul of the Forest as the way to go for PvE tho. With possibly force of nature being better for short nuke based fights like Spine.

[dancm]

Compared to rip on the new calculator: 1 cp = 4110 damage over 16 seconds, 5 cp = 16200 damage over 16 seconds.

It's only logical tho.. pounce is a nice PvP tool, so if they would make it a great dps ability as well it would be too powerful.

I can see Soul of the Forest as the way to go for PvE tho. With possibly force of nature being better for short nuke based fights like Spine.

Rip is a finisher. And the best DPE ability we have. Also they're not exclusive to each other. If you want to compare Pounce to something you have to look at Shred and Ravage. If Pounce is able to provide a higher DPE than Shred/Ravage it's worth being cast during Incarnation. We don't know if this will happen especially as those tooltips don't tell us anything about attack power scaling. I'm not talking about making Pounce a great dps ability just about the possibilities during Incarnation.

[cssh]

Will you have feral charge in your talent build? or will you have to sacrifice something (movement speed/extra dash? i think) for it?

[Elunedra]

Ravage by fefault is still wurse DPE then shred unless you get around the 2K pew damage area. this is becase ravage deal more weapon damage and therefor scales faster but the energy cost is still extremly high.

as for pounce, well whit pvp defence i think it will not matter if pounce does good dps as the pvp defence will nerf it to shite anyway and mastery should still increase its bleed damage

---------- Post added 2012-03-09 at 12:44 PM ----------

Will you have feral charge in your talent build? or will you have to sacrifice something (movement speed/extra dash? i think) for it?

if you want feral charge (i think the free ravage is gone btw :/)
you will have to talent for it this means your cat will only walk at +15% speed rather then the full +30% speed we have nowdays

[Icefalcon28]

In my opinion i feel pve ferals get the poopy end of the staff here. Other then the lvl 60 talents which all are dps boosts the rest of the talents do nothing to improve our dps. They are all control mechanisms, hybrid mechanisms or abilities to help other rolls (example pull mobs in to help tank etc.) besides our main role which is to dps.

If the lvl 60 talents where spread out i'd be super excited cause they would all be great dps cooldowns to pop.

I just don't like the hybrid talents that it feels like they are forcing on us, espcially since they are small 45 sec cds every 6 min. As a bearcat i can be a bear or a cat at any time for any amount of length so its useful. The only way these hybrid talents are going to work is if blizzard specifically creates encounters around us and we all know thats not going to happen.

Bears get some great stuff for their role on almost every talent lvl. Restos and balance also get some great beneficial talents and for pvp its going to be awesome. Yet for Pve Ferals i feel blizzard dropped a big "F U" on our role.

[Keiyra]

Restos and balance also get some great beneficial talents and for pvp its going to be awesome. Yet for Pve Ferals i feel blizzard dropped a big "F U" on our role.

I fail to see how PvE Resto or Balance is any better off than a PvE feral.

Tier 1: Movement Tier; increases survivability (get out of fire faster) and gets you back on target faster (slight dps/hps gain) basically same net effects for PvE resto, balance, feral

Tier 2: Self heal CD Tier; increases survivability. Possibly more useful for pve resto than balance or feral, but not by that much imo. (Depending on CW versus NS for resto - looks like NS lost the +50% bonus and is now 3 mins wtf?)

Tier 3: CC Tier; situationally useful or crappy for pve depending on fights with cc'able adds. Same useful/useless effects for pve resto balance or feral

Tier 4: Power CD Tier; Every body gets something, no real difference between pve resto balance or feral

Tier 5: same as tier 3 (possible tiny gain for feral in that at least you are already in melee range to use 2 out of the 3 abilities - assuming its even worthwhile in that fight anyhow)

Tier 6: crappy for just bout anyone in PvE, horray we all get a self heal every 30 secs.

So really, i fail to see how pve resto or balance is in a much different boat than pve feral.

[tangedyn]

For Tier 4, the theorycraft has not yet been done to see who benefits most from the available talents, but it seems that Soul of the Forest for Restoration Druids could be overpowered because you can buff every other Wild Growth with 50% more power, abd may just end up being nerfed. Both Soul of the Forest and Incarnation for Feral Druids are pretty potent though, I don't see why anyone would complain about them.

Tier 6 is pretty meh for just about everyone, which is a disappointment since I like the idea of role-swap CDs but Heart of the Wild seems to be badly implemented for most of the roles... except for Restoration Druids. There are several Dragon Soul encounters that will greatly benefit from having a Resto Druid with Heart of the Wild, thanks to enrage mechanics. For now though, as a Feral, I would go with Dream of Cenarius just to buff Tranquility and Nature's Swiftness.