Originally Posted by
Snuggli
I think we also used to get a lot of dodge and armor from shifting into cat form in cata. They fixed everything for Ferals in MoP though, caster and kitty only have the 20% healing difference - and the fact that SI doesnt reduce damage taken out of form.
OT: The problem with this change is that Ferals will be able to get more clones out when they are peeling for team mates and less clones when playing offensive. It means that enemy DPS will often be double or even triple cloned as soon as they try and do any pressure, and when the Feral is trying to go for a kill they'll just tunnel damage into one target because they don't have any CC. I see this as less skillful, because when your team is in trouble you'll just spam clones, and when going for damage you won't even concern yourself with CC.. you'll just tunnel damage.
When playing against a Mage, how many Poly's does he land? Normally he'll have to deep->poly or nova->CS and even that has a stupidly high chance of being stopped by the DPS if they are even half aware of whats happening around them (unless Fear/Ring was used to peel the DPS). Now imagine if it had half the range and they didn't have pom.
I think Ferals will need to be compensated. I agree that Treant + Pred Swiftness + Nature's Swiftness is too strong, Treant stuns are obnoxious, Pred Swiftness is probably okay but coupled with NS is probably too strong, mainly because NS can be used to clone trinkets which can really hurt the enemy team.
A lot of the top '1%' players complain about Ferals, even Azael called them the most overpowered class on stream last night, but they are hardly ever seen on ladder - and when they are, they are always playing with a disc or hunter.
There's a few things that could happen to keep Ferals competitive. Being able to cast it in Cat form, or cat form while moving, would help a lot and would mean Ferals were less clunky. Or, Blizzard could revert the change on Treants, NS OR PS. Treants would help Ferals land a casted clone, PS would bring back being able to clone healers and NS would give Ferals the on-demand Healer clone once a minute when they are bursting.
TL/DR: Ferals will land more clones vs DPS but realistically wont land any on Healers - taking cyclone in completely the wrong direction in my opinion. Ferals aren't really seen on ladder much at all, and if all 3 of the major nerfs (PS/NS/Treant) go through then their population will probably be lower than that of Rogues last season.