[5.2] Does Feral need love?

[Garth]

Honestly, after a day or so of using it, it's very simple.

The easy way to look at is, to do your normal rotation, but have DoC up when you use any finisher. To do this, pool energy when you are at 4/5cp so that when you use the finisher, you are at 0cp and almost full energy, spam shred until you get 4/5cp which is easily possible before PS runs out, if you are close to full energy. I highly recommend trying it, it's really fun when you get the hang of it.

I have tried using it, and didn't have a TON of trouble with it, even screwing it up terribly, I still did a lot more DPS than with NV. I can't dispute the effectiveness, my gripe is that it is not fun to play that way. It feels overly complicated and takes away from enjoyment. Just found out a warrior in my guild had to quit. Time to switch mains maybe.

[FeralSynapse]

Honestly Feral is in a good place at the moment, we could use a little more love in the energy regen department but when hasn't that been the case? I'm honestly enjoying my feral more in this first tier of Mop then I did last expac. I don't think feral's skill cap as been increased at all, one just needs to really pay attention to what you are doing.

As far as DOC goes, you just have to get used to it. I'd high recommend hitting the dummy for a few hours before trying it any other setting. Eventually it will just 'click' and using it will become second nature. There is a very nice flow to the rotation once it's done right and things just seem to line up for you (timers wise) after that. It took me about a week or so completely understand the rotation and be able to use it in a raid environment proficiently.

As a side note with DOC you *must* be Hit/Exp cap'd otherwise you can miss the buffed Rip/Rake and completely nullify using the talent. You cannot really afford to have this happen.

[Deleted]

@Garth HotW is a good talent to pick if you don't like DoC it is not a bad dps talent and it gives alot of utilities such as the amazing healing we do with tranq for instance.

[Bakahr]

Well tbh.

the only place that feral needs some love is energy regen. a change to Sotf so its like monks Ascension talent so it grants like 15% energy regen. would be lovely instead of what it does atm.

and maybe some better taget swapping since feral always have lacked abit behind here but thats just me i think :-)

else they are in a reaaaaally good spot atm. not overpowered or underpowered just fine

[Kronic1]

Your forgetting that this is just the first tier of the expansion. As gear gets better, you'll have better energy regen. As for utilizing DoC, it'll have to a must to get Droodfocus to keep track of DoC/TF buffed bleeds. I've been playing DoC outside of raid and can out damage my down dps with NV but thats on a Training Dummy. In an actual raid situation, I doubt I'll be able to pull off DoC perfectly but that'll come with practice.

[Redpanda]

I have no real issues about feral aside from target switching, wish we would have some type of actual "cleave". If bliz wanted us to use thrash at least have it give us a combo point or some shit >_>5

[Raugnaut]

As a feral, I am pretty happy atm with my class. The only change I would LIKE to see is Master Shapeshifter made baseline, and talent swapping reducing mana to base mana, or not reducing mana at all.

[Sylar Hao]

I just wish Savage Roar gets totally revamped/reworked/replaced. Makes the spec feel clunky and not fun.

[Deleted]

LOL.

Out of 16 current bosses, WoE is the only melee unfriendly encounter, unless you are told to focus boss only.

which any smart raidleader will do seeing how crap it is for feral to target switch ^^

[Deleted]

Since there's no 1 tank fights on Heroic, I don't really get to play Kitty in our raids (MS Bear). But during DS I always went Kitty on 1 tank bosses and as such I got to play the spec enough to actually do decent.

Now, on the odd occasion where I have to play Kitty, I don't enjoy it at all. I did play Kitty during Wrath and was always in the top 5 in 25 man, felt like I had the rotation and understood the mechanics of a Kitty. I do still understand the mechanics but I don't enjoy them anymore.

I'm using the DoC talent as well and that's not really an issue but I do feel the ramp up time is too long, I feel Energy starved and not getting the free Ravage after a Feral Charge (DS 4p bonus), is really something I miss.

Having to implement Thrash into my rotation (OoC procs) seems silly, as in, the Energy cost seems too steep to me. Cause if Thrash falls off and you don't have an OoC proc, it's a dps loss - unless you spend a lot of Energy - which ofc requires that you have SR up and a 5 cp Rip running and then need to dump some Energy.

I know that if I spend more time practicing on the dummy, I'd do better but with 4 raid nights per week, the grinding of buff food, dailies for Charms and doing Alt raids and some RBG, I don't feel like I have the time. One could argue, that I make a choice, which is true in some ways. On the other hand, I have to be prepared for our raids and Kitty is my OS.

I guess where I'm going with this, is that it feels a bit too complicated to maintain my rotation and manage my Energy while not dying in fire, has gotten a bit too complicated for someone like me, who only plays Kitty as OS.

[mojrer]

Getting back to the first post...
Well at the start of expansion i had similliar feelings about loosing good old bear form when it was suddenly too much "crowd". It took some time to get used to and play more... wisely. Pick your battles, play more like rogue use new skills and talents.
For example from now on u could find a shaman at LM base during AB and let him taste his own medicine throwing him down to his death with typhoon.
Someone mentioned loosing free ravage after charge... u might try new "blink" for feral activating prowl and find its strength during arenas.
We lost something but we gained alot, it just takes some time to get used to.

And about last talents tier.
Dont feel fun playing with DoC? take HotW, enjoy with versatility u feel u lost, u will be still competitive.
And keep few tomes in your inventory, be ready for talents swap.

Honestly if u feel its too complicated try something else than DoC and get back to it when u can manage your energy regen and other stuff, and worry about 5.2 when it come live but not now

[Deleted]

I guess where I'm going with this, is that it feels a bit too complicated to maintain my rotation and manage my Energy while not dying in fire, has gotten a bit too complicated for someone like me, who only plays Kitty as OS.

I agree and I'm in the same situation, only boss that I've played kitty on is Protectors HC and I'm certainly not gonna bother my raid with shit dps/missed interrupts while I try to learn DoC.

[Deleted]

I have tried using it, and didn't have a TON of trouble with it, even screwing it up terribly, I still did a lot more DPS than with NV. I can't dispute the effectiveness, my gripe is that it is not fun to play that way. It feels overly complicated and takes away from enjoyment. Just found out a warrior in my guild had to quit. Time to switch mains maybe.

I know how you feel but I hated it at first, my dps was higher while I was using HotW (great for progression btw), but after I spent about 2-3 hrs on a dummy, perfecting it, my dps just kept going up. I'm still getting use to the thrash on OoC as I find myself still spamming shred quiet a lot. Also my other major concern is all the over-healing I'm doing. I tried using a targetoftarget macro but then I find it quiet difficult to heal myself when I needed it, but if there was a way of been able to make it automatically cast on the target with the lowest HP, it would be like having half a healer there as well because my over-healing on some fights is pushing 5 million, bit crazy once you consider you are a DPS.

I would just say practice more, I thought I knew DoC when using it for just 1 hr, but when I got into it, and learnt what to do, and what not to do, I couldn't see myself going back to NV or HotW, not only do I find it boring, I just do much lower dps with them both. Although I do tend to spec for HotW while we are learning a fight, that HotW'd tranq is just too good to pass up on emergency situations.

[Bakahr]

I just wish Savage Roar gets totally revamped/reworked/replaced. Makes the spec feel clunky and not fun.

Soo that the spec actually returned to be abit more complex again is clunky? what it did during cata was clunky since it was close to useless there :-) now it matters to use it again atleast

[Croente]

I know how you feel but I hated it at first, my dps was higher while I was using HotW (great for progression btw), but after I spent about 2-3 hrs on a dummy, perfecting it, my dps just kept going up. I'm still getting use to the thrash on OoC as I find myself still spamming shred quiet a lot. Also my other major concern is all the over-healing I'm doing. I tried using a targetoftarget macro but then I find it quiet difficult to heal myself when I needed it, but if there was a way of been able to make it automatically cast on the target with the lowest HP, it would be like having half a healer there as well because my over-healing on some fights is pushing 5 million, bit crazy once you consider you are a DPS.

I would just say practice more, I thought I knew DoC when using it for just 1 hr, but when I got into it, and learnt what to do, and what not to do, I couldn't see myself going back to NV or HotW, not only do I find it boring, I just do much lower dps with them both. Although I do tend to spec for HotW while we are learning a fight, that HotW'd tranq is just too good to pass up on emergency situations.

Completely agree, DoC is way to go, other talents are for druids which are "lazy" to learn the doc rotation or they do not need more dps then they are doing with those talents, but in heroic progress doc spec is must-have, im using nv + incarnation just on meljarak, and tried it on fights like amber shaper and elegon (which was pretty good also, try it )
I was playing with hotw at early stage of hc progression because i had blue agi weapon and blue spell staff, and there it was quite good dps gain to go with hotw, but then they nerfed it and its pointless to pick it right now i would say, nv is much better.
To Savage Roar: I think savage roar is good how it is, it was really bad in cata but they reverted it to how it was in wotlk. Also they have fixed a lot of scaling issues with this revamp they had in cata. I wouldnt change savage roar anymore

[Icefalcon28]

I prefer the DoC rotation, but there is one big issue i have with it. Our rotation right now feels very frantic and rushed, yes in some regards its clunky, but it wouldn't feel clunky if you didn't feel like a crazed christmas shopper the second black friday dinged.

Due to the 6 sec window we have with predatory swiftness it forces us to do basically our whole rotation within 6 sec. we need to go from 0-4 combo points in 6 sec. Now with good crit and good energy regen that can be easy, but right now its terrible. If you can reach 4 combo points in 6 sec and still have time to cast HT then you can almost spend up to 10 sec waiting for energy to near 100 so you can use a finisher and then frantically blow through your rotation again. Its the combination of rush the rotation then wait... rush rotation then wait that is imo stressful about this spec. If predatory swiftness was a longer buff maybe a 10 sec duration that would let us make a little bit more calmed rotation i would enjoy it a lot more. I'm pretty sure everyone has had those moments when the stars aren't aligning, no crits and you finally reach 4 combo points go to cast HT and find that predatory swiftness has expired, rip is falling off, savage roar is about to expire and your whole rotation has just exploded... i hate that part and it happens at least twice a fight.

[Deleted]

I prefer the DoC rotation, but there is one big issue i have with it. Our rotation right now feels very frantic and rushed, yes in some regards its clunky, but it wouldn't feel clunky if you didn't feel like a crazed christmas shopper the second black friday dinged.

Due to the 6 sec window we have with predatory swiftness it forces us to do basically our whole rotation within 6 sec. we need to go from 0-4 combo points in 6 sec. Now with good crit and good energy regen that can be easy, but right now its terrible. If you can reach 4 combo points in 6 sec and still have time to cast HT then you can almost spend up to 10 sec waiting for energy to near 100 so you can use a finisher and then frantically blow through your rotation again. Its the combination of rush the rotation then wait... rush rotation then wait that is imo stressful about this spec. If predatory swiftness was a longer buff maybe a 10 sec duration that would let us make a little bit more calmed rotation i would enjoy it a lot more. I'm pretty sure everyone has had those moments when the stars aren't aligning, no crits and you finally reach 4 combo points go to cast HT and find that predatory swiftness has expired, rip is falling off, savage roar is about to expire and your whole rotation has just exploded... i hate that part and it happens at least twice a fight.

I only had this problem when I wasn't using DoC correctly. Pool about 60-70 energy before using a finisher, and you'll easily get to 4 CP before PS runs out, normally around 2 seconds. I don't apply this to SR atm so if im going to be using my 5 CP on an SR, i just refresh my rake and use it with a shred (Not sure if it's the proper way of using it, but it's been working fine for me), I noticed, for some reason I manage to get a lot more FB's in this way.

[Icefalcon28]

I only had this problem when I wasn't using DoC correctly. Pool about 60-70 energy before using a finisher, and you'll easily get to 4 CP before PS runs out, normally around 2 seconds. I don't apply this to SR atm so if im going to be using my 5 CP on an SR, i just refresh my rake and use it with a shred (Not sure if it's the proper way of using it, but it's been working fine for me), I noticed, for some reason I manage to get a lot more FB's in this way.

2 sec is exagerating a little and doesn't include possible lag or human interaction. a global is 1 sec. You've got to press either shred or rake after that global. So if your extremely lucky and get both crits at least 3 to 3 1/2 sec has past. Now if you don't get 2 crits then it will take an additional 1 sec plus some to get to 4 cps, thats nearing 5 sec now and you still have to wait a global to push ht. With a very high crit the rotation is made simpler and some of the stress is gone but my point is if ps lasted longer the DoC rotation wouldn't be so hard to keep up. Even then its a flurry of pressing buttons to get 4 cps and cast ht in 6 sec then waiting for energy to pull to near 100 before another flurry of button smashing. I'd prefer a much smoother rotation and extending the duration of ps would help with that imo.

On top of all that you've got to pray that the boss doesn't move, you don't have to move, some huntard doesn't need to be b rezed, OoC procs and you got to use a global on thrash or something else in the encounter doesn't come up to the point that you can have that 6 sec window to focus entirely on your rotation.

A longer ps duration could also let us throw heals to the tank or someone else that might need it so we don't have to waste it in overhealing.

[Deleted]

2 sec is exagerating a little and doesn't include possible lag or human interaction.

No it's not. Crit rate isn't as low as everyone thinks it is, mines at 31%, so almost 1 in 3 attacks will proc 2 CPs. Not only that but OoC, at least for me, procs quiet a lot, and since i'm still into the habit of spamming shred to 4CP, it normally gets wasted on a shred anyway. Very very rarely do I not get to 4CP before PS runs out, and even in those rare cases which I don't, I still have NS to save my ass, which atm I consider a part of my opener, and an "Oh shit I messed my rotation" button. That or used for target switching which I don't really agree on.

Extending the duration of PS would just kill it. You also get the 6 second window. PS is 8 seconds. Granted you will be in a GCD the 1st second, so lets say you get 7 seconds of active time, which is more then enough imo, has been working out fine for me, never heard anyone else complain that PS is too short either.

I moaned to the high heavens when trying druid on PTR, I also thought it was clunky, unfinished and unrefined, but it just seems it was an issue with PTR and the fact i get around 400-500ms. Now, I love the DoC feel. They did a great job with it, actually makes my spec feel like a hybrid, which is technically what a druid is all about. We get damage and heal increase from the lvl 90 talents. I would love to see a little more variety in the talents, but if anything was better then DoC, I would miss DoC's style of play.

[Deleted]

Came back to it myself just this week, really did not enjoy it. positional requirements, dot management, energy starvation, combo point management, savage roar (yuck), melee range! DoC, and so much more just turned me right off feral. After being destroyed on healing by our paladin and disc im now happily rerolling an elemental/resto shaman.

Bad choice. Resto and Elemental are even weaker than their counterparts in 10m. So boomkin > elemental (weakest dps specc) and resto druid > resto shaman (in 10m).

Ferals dps is very good. PErfectly played you are topping on single target fights and fights with brust AOE. But PVE wise, there downsides, so a few quality of life issues should be solved.

But if you don't like the playstyle, then it doesn't matter. A feral is perfectly viable as far melees currently are.