Low representation of Feral

[Deleted]

this is just common sense as it stays from tbc and vanilla, where ferals wasn't really implented much as dps spec they worst of all, atleast they got some love after
their rotation was complex, now it's lot easier and can't call it hard
most ppl just rolling feral for pvp propouse only as they hear how OP and mobility they are
and all that DoC vs Hotw absurd it just seem, and I strongly agree it really much RNG realted,even sim of DoC is a few% higher it is not practicaly based, as of bosses have lots of differnet mechanics

Sorry but I seriously don't understand, what your're trying to say here?

- - - Updated - - -

Their loss. I'll keep playing what I like. Feral DPS is really strong and we have a solid niche in 25 mans. In 10's, melee are generally just screwed unless they're a Warrior or Rogue and provide unique contributions.

If it's anyone's loss, it's your guilds. For causal guilds it doesn't matter, since Normal can be cleared on even shitty alts. In 25 man there's room for a Feral yes but the majority of raiding guilds as of now are 10 man guilds. And any 10 man guild aiming to clear the content on Heroic while it's still current, is cutting themselves short by bringing one.

There's a big difference between being in a Normal mode guild or in a 13/13 Heroic guild and as many people have already said, dps is not the only reason you'd rather want a Rogue or a DK for instance.

[Deleted]

If it's anyone's loss, it's your guilds. For causal guilds it doesn't matter, since Normal can be cleared on even shitty alts. In 25 man there's room for a Feral yes but the majority of raiding guilds as of now are 10 man guilds. And any 10 man guild aiming to clear the content on Heroic while it's still current, is cutting themselves short by bringing one.

There's a big difference between being in a Normal mode guild or in a 13/13 Heroic guild and as many people have already said, dps is not the only reason you'd rather want a Rogue or a DK for instance.

Bring the player, not the class. Your post is way to exaggerated. Ferals perform fine even in 10 man HC guilds, granted they normally have to talent into hotw to provide that extra utility for the raid, but it's a small loss, and you can quickly adapt to it.

[Manataurus]

Hi all,

I have thought for quite a while that ferals seem to be the least played spec in game. Personally I have been playing one for many years now and love it, although I would love a few tweaks I wont lie.
But I wasn't sure if they were the lowest played spec around. I was saddened to see a chart indicating that finally it might really be the case.

Lei Shen Kills-

Class Range/Melee % Normal Distribution % Heroic Distribution % Change from Normal to Heroic
Druid Range 5.14% 8.80% 171.29%
Rogue Melee 9.16% 11.54% 125.92%
Priest Range 8.45% 9.13% 108.00%
Mage Range 13.89% 14.33% 103.19%
Warlock Range 15.66% 16.05% 102.47%
Shaman Range 8.64% 8.68% 100.35%
DK Melee 5.91% 5.83% 98.61%
Shaman Melee 3.33% 2.97% 89.17%
Warrior Melee 5.46% 4.67% 85.43%
Hunter Range 14.94% 12.48% 83.52%
Druid Melee 1.86% 1.34% 71.76%
Paladin Melee 4.79% 2.81% 58.77%
Monk Melee 2.76% 1.38% 50.15%


I know this isn't 100% accurate as much as things can never be 100% in these cases, but its a great indicator to show the state of feral and its playerbase.
(credit must go to Adornus for info)

I know that quite a lot of people are not that fond of the spec, its different playstyle and its complexity compared to other specs, Personally that is what draws me in.

Also is this the reason why feral is the only spec which seems to be ignored the most in patch notes (PVE feral that is)
For example, If I am no incorrect, we have had zero feedback on why our DoC has been reverted apart from *it is reverted now* They billed it up to be a playstyle change to lower complexity and then turn it back into a nurfed version without feedback.

I don't care about the numbers atm, its the lack of attention the spec often gets. What do you think?

I think this has more to do with the fact that really good ferals are hard to find. Feral isn't a faceroll spec (mage, DK) and actually takes some skill to master.

[Terridon]

Why would anyone picking a new class/spec to play with choose feral? You work harder than any other spec in the game without getting anything for it. It would be fun to see some numbers on the distribution of newly dinged raiders and their specs. All classes lose players but gaining new ones makes it okay.

Back in Cataclysm at least we had bear form as an awesome utility in raids (10-man at least), even though Blizzard already then tried to stop ferals being ferals.

While i admit it would be fun to be a bit more rewarded then currently for playing well, i disagree with it not being rewarding at all. To me it's rewarding beating a fully geared normal raider on my alt druid.
The reward for me is to be able to push decent dps.

I think this has more to do with the fact that really good ferals are hard to find. Feral isn't a faceroll spec (mage, DK) and actually takes some skill to master.

Which is fun, but probably also a reason so few want to bring them. They mostly see the ferals doing lackluster damage, and hearing nobody wanting to bring them, giving them an even worse reputation.

[Deleted]

Bring the player, not the class. Your post is way to exaggerated. Ferals perform fine even in 10 man HC guilds, granted they normally have to talent into hotw to provide that extra utility for the raid, but it's a small loss, and you can quickly adapt to it.

BS that statement is so false you have to be pretty damn stupid to think it's true. If that really was the case, we wouldn't have the discussion about range vs. melee for instance, or the whole issue about Prot Paladins and Disc Priests vs. Prot Warriors and Resto Shaman. I never said you can't bring a Feral and still progress, I said that you're gimping your raid - big difference.

We agree that it's a loss having to use HotW to heal, so what exactly is exaggerated when I say, that there's no reason not to bring a Rogue who can just drop a Smoke Bomb while losing nothing but a global cd?

If you go back and read my previous posts, I wrote why I think Ferals are so low represented. Explaining that with gear/token distribution and the other druid specs being much more popular, it all adds up. But I don't think you can find any sane person who won't agree, that bringing a Rogue over a Feral is the better option.

[teddabear]

Bring the player, not the class. Your post is way to exaggerated. Ferals perform fine even in 10 man HC guilds, granted they normally have to talent into hotw to provide that extra utility for the raid, but it's a small loss, and you can quickly adapt to it.

Representation at the top indicates that it is bring the class not the player. I spent a lot of time comparing the H Lei Shen kills for the top guilds and there is a huge disparity between 25 man and 10 man. I think it's safe to say all the players in a world class guild know how to play. To paraphrase a world class Druid why bring a comp that requires flawless execution when you can get by with mediocre execution from a better comp. Rogue is a far better choice to the point where you are better off with 2 Rogues than a Feral and a Rogue in 10 man. At equal skill levels the Rogue is going to do more damage and they are far more desirable in every other regard. 2 minute Raid CD vs 8 minute. Better buffs, better debuffs and virtually invulnerable. There are other issues: Target switching of course, Burn phase DPS is quite weak unless its AoE, Berserk is almost useless at high gear levels, Cant self-remove debuffs. Ultimately the difference in Raid CDs is the #1 reason why you take a Rogue over a Feral in 10 man. A Raid CD that heals 5 people every 8 minutes is greatly outclassed by a Raid CD that prevents damage to 10 people every 2 minutes. That difference when doing heroic 10 mans is just too big to ignore.

I try not to view an individual tier's raiding content to blame for a potentially long-standing representation issue. If anything, content has become a little bit kinder over time for ferals (not perfect, nothing is perfect). Unfortunately, many people view problems from the snapshot of the current raiding tier and apply it to larger time frames, expecting it to stay relevant.

All indication is 5.4 will be infinitely less kind to melee. There are several analysis of the bosses on the ptr forum.

[exochaft]

All indication is 5.4 will be infinitely less kind to melee. There are several analysis of the bosses on the ptr forum.

Eh, it is and it isn't. There were some glaring issues on some fights that may have been fixed (I haven't tried the Klaxxi encounter since the heroic 10man testing, but that charging cleave stun on top of Calculations was pretty brutal for melee and tanks... there were some other bugs involved). Even still some fights seem to favor ranged, others favor melee. If anything is unkind to melee, it's something the tank(s) can control in many cases to make their life easier. There are even encounters where melee can just park on a boss and go to town w/o much concern for things going on. The only encounter I haven't tested on the PTR was Blackfuse, so I cannot comment on it. If you're talking specifically about Ferals, there are quite a few encounters with adds with medium/low HP and/or target swapping, and that while that may not be Feral's strongest area of damage, they should be fine. Where Ferals can shine is where there is a massive presence of raid-wide AoE and Tranquility will be very useful (since we'll be forced to spread out often) as well as personal survival via self-healing via PS->HT.

However, quite a bit of the gripe with melee is that ranged have become increasingly effective at moving and DPSing to where that melee niche is no longer a niche. Ranged being able to stand still and nuke target(s) is one thing, ranged having to run around avoiding mechanics and still DPSing as well as standing still is quite another.

We should also keep in mind that damage the PTR is admittedly or likely purposefully high. It's very hard to test mechanics of a fight if no one notices them or they are so non-threatening that people ignore them. There's also quite a huge difference in the damage output of encounters from iteration to iteration, so only when the encounters go live will we know how punishing mechanics will be.

[Deleted]

A lot of interesting views and comments going on, especially from raid leaders. But there's one thing that always gets me a bit off-guard. Why compare a feral to a rogue? I've always thought we're much closer to an affliction warlock or fire mage in terms of dps-mechanics and utility and I'd much rather see they bring our design closer to meeting goals in a way similar to these classes than being another melee-clone. In fact, if HotW's active component was balanced around it being togglable without cooldown (perhaps like shuriken toss or KJC) it would solve most of our problems right off the bat (being useful for Ra-den balls, Durumu walls, Ji-kun damage control on loose adds).

[Deleted]

We compare Ferals to Rogues cause they share the same gear and are on the same token and they're both melee. Again, coming from a 10 man PoV there's just not room for both a Rogue and a Feral, whereas you can easily have both a Lock and a Mage - in fact that's a damn good setup with those 2 classes. I fear that re-designing HotW to work sorta like KJC, would make it way too powerful. Mainly because we can use it to heal.

[Elunedra]

10 man raids are the real problem!, there is just so little room
we should go back to 25 main raiding

[Deleted]

10 man raids are the real problem!, there is just so little room
we should go back to 25 main raiding

The main real problem with 10mans is maintaining all performance-related buffs and making sure you have combat rezzes and damage reduction raid cooldowns (read: not healing). You have 2 tanks, 3 healers (that's 50%). For the remaining spots you will most likely want a DK since Gorefiend's is so powerful, either a warlock or elemental shaman for ranged multidotting (HC Dark Animus, HC Primordius, HC Durumu Walls, HC Lei Shen, HC Horridon, Ra-den balls) especially for portals on HC Lei Shen and, last but not least, bloodlust (no tanks can have it, only 1 healer class can and 3 ranged dps classes have it). Once you've done this, make sure you have all raid buffs and check that you're not hogging 5-6 people on one tier token. This is pretty much the only reason why ferals are mostly played in 25mans (but still 10-20x less than FOTM classes).

[Whitepaw]

Compare rogues to Ferals - ok:
- Rogues have superior dps atm and a 2 min raid CD on 1 GCD.
- Ferals have good dps (simmed to be in top 5, so actually really good), battle res, an 8 min raid CD that packs a LOT of healing, can dispel curses and poison and can use Healing Touch/Rejuvenation to self heal or heal other players. On top of that, a Feral can also go full healing/tanking/ranged dps for 45 sec. Oh, lets not forget Stampeding Roar.

Who has most utility? Ferals, no question. It's not even close. But it demands a flexible mindset. As a Feral, you have to have your raid icons up, so you can target others with your healing/cleansing/battle res.

So, if Ferals did more (like in just 5%) dps than rogues, everybody would pick Ferals. It's really all just down to that: How much dps do you bring? All talk about utility is just window dressing, the real 'issue' here is that small advantages will ALWAYS matter in the minds of people - even though a Feral is, at the moment, far superior to a rogue.

[Adornus]

Compare rogues to Ferals - ok:
- Rogues have superior dps atm and a 2 min raid CD on 1 GCD.
- Ferals have good dps (simmed to be in top 5, so actually really good), battle res, an 8 min raid CD that packs a LOT of healing, can dispel curses and poison and can use Healing Touch/Rejuvenation to self heal or heal other players. On top of that, a Feral can also go full healing/tanking/ranged dps for 45 sec. Oh, lets not forget Stampeding Roar.

Who has most utility? Ferals, no question. It's not even close. But it demands a flexible mindset. As a Feral, you have to have your raid icons up, so you can target others with your healing/cleansing/battle res.

So, if Ferals did more (like in just 5%) dps than rogues, everybody would pick Ferals. It's really all just down to that: How much dps do you bring? All talk about utility is just window dressing, the real 'issue' here is that small advantages will ALWAYS matter in the minds of people - even though a Feral is, at the moment, far superior to a rogue.

I dont think Ferals are that close in sims though, are they?

You're also forgetting about Rogues bring a pretty important AS buff when it comes to 10m. Ferals bring crit and stats, which are generally covered by a mage and paladin in your raid (let's be honest they're in essentially all raids).

Honestly, I'm a WW and we don't bring much of anything (especially no DPS come 5.4). But, if there is any other spec I feel that's in the same boat as me, it's Ferals, and all they have is a little bit of extra utility. DPS for feral has a higher skill cap and more positional requirements than probably any other spec in the game (maybe sub rogue?).

[Deleted]

I dont think Ferals are that close in sims though, are they?

You're also forgetting about Rogues bring a pretty important AS buff when it comes to 10m. Ferals bring crit and stats, which are generally covered by a mage and paladin in your raid (let's be honest they're in essentially all raids).

Honestly, I'm a WW and we don't bring much of anything (especially no DPS come 5.4). But, if there is any other spec I feel that's in the same boat as me, it's Ferals, and all they have is a little bit of extra utility. DPS for feral has a higher skill cap and more positional requirements than probably any other spec in the game (maybe sub rogue?).

So, if Ferals did more (like in just 5%) dps than rogues, everybody would pick Ferals. It's really all just down to that: How much dps do you bring? All talk about utility is just window dressing, the real 'issue' here is that small advantages will ALWAYS matter in the minds of people - even though a Feral is, at the moment, far superior to a rogue.

Actually, ferals are already ahead of rogues on sims (so that argument hardly carries any weight), but any fight with 2 boss-targets, mass aoe and/or target swaps will quickly favor a rogue due to their cross-target arsenal and more flexible cooldowns more-so since the further away from 99th percentile you're playing because multi-dotting as a feral druid is very skill-dependent (everything except zerk-swiping, ie. HC Twins first transition) and relies heavily on procs and our current 4set.

As for utility, I'd think twice before calling Stampeding Roar and some silly offheals more useful than Smoke Bomb.

[Deleted]

doesn't bother me theres hardly any ferals a bout. makes me feel more unique if anything plus I kick ass as feral anyway,when im not bear that is... I love that its a far more tricky melee class than all the other melee classes,

[teddabear]

Compare rogues to Ferals - ok:
- Rogues have superior dps atm and a 2 min raid CD on 1 GCD.
- Ferals have good dps (simmed to be in top 5, so actually really good), battle res, an 8 min raid CD that packs a LOT of healing, can dispel curses and poison and can use Healing Touch/Rejuvenation to self heal or heal other players. On top of that, a Feral can also go full healing/tanking/ranged dps for 45 sec. Oh, lets not forget Stampeding Roar.

Who has most utility? Ferals, no question. It's not even close. But it demands a flexible mindset. As a Feral, you have to have your raid icons up, so you can target others with your healing/cleansing/battle res.

So, if Ferals did more (like in just 5%) dps than rogues, everybody would pick Ferals. It's really all just down to that: How much dps do you bring? All talk about utility is just window dressing, the real 'issue' here is that small advantages will ALWAYS matter in the minds of people - even though a Feral is, at the moment, far superior to a rogue.

Rogues DPS has been slightly better to much better for 3 years so not really close here. Rogues receive preemptive buffs if blizzard feels there is any chance their DPS may drop.

Raid CDs are not about healing they are about keeping people from dying. Smokebomb does that Tranq is iffy. 2 Min cooldown vs 8 minute. Huge advantage to Rogues here.

Battle Res became useless when they implemented 1 per fight and give it to one third of the classes, My 10 man has 5 battle resses.

Feral has to shift twice to dispel and go back to DPS. Rogues can clear curses, poison and every other debuff in the game with Cloak. Huge advantage to Rogues again.

I've never done a boss where Stampeding roar was necessary. I'd call it more a QoL than utility. It's main use seems to be to run back from a wipe a little faster for 8 seconds.

You mention HotW like its baseline when it is a level 90 talent so not every Feral will have it. The fact that you think it makes Feral able to tank makes me think you only do 5 mans. Try tanking Heroic Horridon with HotW and let me know how that works out for you. HotW is used for Tranq. Without HotW a Feral Tranq is a joke, during HotW it heals for a lot but it only heals 5 people and damage prevention > than healing. The biggest issue is 8 minutes vs 2 minutes. An 8 minute Raid CD vs 2 minutes is a no brainer. Any sane raid leader will take the 2 minute CD if they are doing progression.

Feral is not terribly behind Rogues in DPS at the moment although it appears they will be in 5.4.

Most utility though goes to Rogues by a LOT.

[Whitepaw]

But the difference is that Ferals can cleanse and heal others as well. The healing from Healing Touch is not trivial - but it demands a setup that Ferals rarely have (raid icons up, mouse over macros etc).

And stampeding roar - well, I guess you haven't done many movement-intensive fights. It is really good.

I agree that smoke bomb short CD compared to Tranq's limitation to 5 targets and rather long CD is in favor of smoke bomb on most fights, but it does have a lot to do with boss design. Make boss have 1 big damage phase per fights = Tranq. Make him have more, but smaller damage bursts = bomb. Regardless of boss design, the 5/12 man limitation on Tranq is mainly there to nerf Resto druids.

Oh, and the 5% difference was not meant as "That is the difference between rogues and Ferals atm". It was meant as an example on how the WoW community is willing to consider even miniscule differences in simmed performance as making a huge difference in progression fights. This is rarely the case. Survivability and utility is often much more valuable. Miniscule dps differences only comes into play if the raid is beaten by an enrage timer, which rarely happens these days. As long as the raid is able to stay alive and do acceptable raid dps, the boss will be killed.

[teddabear]

It is very rare for raid leaders to ask Ferals to cleanse others since other DPS can do it without the shifting penalty. Most common use is probably to self cleanse when you are out of range. Many other classes can do this and they can cleanse other debuffs that Feral cannot.

I can only see Stampeding Roar being necessary if there are no Warlocks in the raid and that would be a very unusual setup indeed for a progression guild. It would be useful for Horridon and Lei Shen if the cooldown wasn't too long but as is it's mainly used for Jikun and it certainly isn't required.

There is no indication Blizzard intends to change encounters so frequency on Raid CDs are less important, they have been going in the opposite direction.

I've never put much stock in Sims. Going back to Ulduar I can't remember seeing one that looked accurate.

Sustained DPS is rarely an issue, for progression target switching and burst DPS are far more important. Feral is poor at both of those.

The main reasons a raid leader will go with the Rogue are Smokebomb, Cloak and Feint. Smokebomb has a 2 minute cooldown. Cloak has a 1 minute cooldown. Feint can be kept up 100% of the time if desired. Feral and Windwalkers aren't even in the same ballpark.

[Adornus]

The main reasons a raid leader will go with the Rogue are Smokebomb, Cloak and Feint. Smokebomb has a 2 minute cooldown. Cloak has a 1 minute cooldown. Feint can be kept up 100% of the time if desired. Feral and Windwalkers aren't even in the same ballpark.

I'd say it's closer to 'not even in the same continent' (at least from my light green/aqua colored WW glasses). WW has LOLZenMed (essentially a 3min personal) and Diffuse Magic (1.5 min 90% magic). Touch of Karma just eases things up on healers. Maybe if we combined Feral and WW toolkits?

[Whitepaw]

So, Teddabear - when a Feral has to shift out to dispel, it's a 'shifting penalty', but when a rogue uses Feint, he can keep it up 100%? Both is a dps loss, but the rogue looses far more dps when keeping up Feint 100% than a Feral does when selfhealing and dispelling.

I agree that a rogue has a far more convenient (= easy to use) set of utilities, but the Feral utility set is far more helpful to others in the raid. Rogues basically bring smoke bomb - that's it.

If you guys wanna include survivability CD's, a Feral has both Barskin, Survival Instincts and Might of Ursoc - none of these cost energy, they are not even on GCD. And let's not forget Glyph of Cat Form, which buffs all healing on the Feral by 20%. On top of all this, the Feral can use PS procs on Healing Touch and the Feral has a pretty good chance at using Symbiosis to get a survival CD from priests or paladins.

Adornus, if what you say is valid, then rogue utility needs a massive nerf. But I don't think it's valid. Rogue utility is easy to use and has short CD's and rogue dps is high, so they are preferred to Ferals - but jumping from that to 'Feral utility sucks', while at the same time neglecting 75% of the utility abilities available to Ferals is just illogical.