[Feral] Legion Discussion

[Deleted]

But for raids I think we're in a fine spot. Doing mythic+ without the legendary gloves is the only pain point for the spec.

Mythic+ is huge problem, they are main game content for lot of peoples, for lot more peoples than who progress raiding. Chances of getting legandary gloves are 1/8 for first legendary, then 1/7 for second...

We are only good in raids because EN happens to be almost perfect for feral, full of single target prio bosses with not much aoe or fast target switches needed. And even then it seems that with higher items levels its again same story as WoD expansion: after good start we are slowly getting worse and worse relative against other classes even in our only "strong" side, single target damage. For example, in mythic ursoc we are like 5th in rankings... and if looking 95% percentile, we are like 8th, middle of pack. That in boss where we should be good.

[Cuppy]

Man it's frustrating that FB doesn't hit hard. I tried some yesterday on lvl 90 dummy, got 318k and around 650k crit.
PvP seems annoying since it's all about burst.
(Had SR, TF and BT up, along with 100 energy. 837ilvl)

[teddabear]

Mythic+ is huge problem, they are main game content for lot of peoples, for lot more peoples than who progress raiding. Chances of getting legandary gloves are 1/8 for first legendary, then 1/7 for second...

We are only good in raids because EN happens to be almost perfect for feral, full of single target prio bosses with not much aoe or fast target switches needed. And even then it seems that with higher items levels its again same story as WoD expansion: after good start we are slowly getting worse and worse relative against other classes even in our only "strong" side, single target damage. For example, in mythic ursoc we are like 5th in rankings... and if looking 95% percentile, we are like 8th, middle of pack. That in boss where we should be good.

Good points, as long as Blizzard expects people to spam Rake for AoE instead of using the 100 talent that was supposed to finally give Feral AoE again, it is going to alienate a lot of players.

I recall several players pointing out that EN had a very Feral friendly design in the Alpha and Beta forum, and concerns about Ferals viability in more traditional raid designs.

We already know what the gear looks like up to ilvl 900. It would be interesting if somebody simmed Feral at 880 and 900. Then you could graph dps gain per ilvl and I expect you would see an increasing drop off. Refreshing Rip early will hit diminishing returns at some point and without a good use for additional combo points I expect to see a sharp drop off eventually.

Unfortunately the buff to Ferocious Bite will have to be extremely large which seem unlikely. When you factor in Ashamane's Bite, Rip Relics and the Rip artifact traits there is a huge disparity between the two.

[Whitepaw]

With the information about patch 7.1.5, I think it's fair to assume that the developers will revisit a number of talents, abilities and tuning.

I hope that includes druids. Having more utility would be amazing - like a return of cyclone to feral, but with extended duration in PvE - and adjusting us to fit better with the current meta in M+ is a must in my opinion.


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[teddabear]

I have no doubt Feral will finally receive some attention in 7.1.5 but I do think there are several caveats.

The biggest is Blizzard openly stating they are still fine with niche specs.

Since they could have very easily alleviated the Mythic+ issues by fixing Brutal Slash at any time, I think the dev team is out of touch with how many players feel about Feral in Legion.

Another big one is the size of the buff required to Ferocious Bite, due to the artifact tremendously boosting the value of Rip. Since the size of the buff needed is unlikely to happen, target switching and especially talents that increase combo point generation will be difficult to make viable.

Rip does almost exactly triple the damage of Ferocious Bite. Ashamane's Bite increase the value of Rip by over 40%. That means to make Ferocious Bite equal to Rip it would have to be buffed by over 400%.

Obviously it does not need to equal but the further behind it is the more it causes scaling problems and the more it effects the talent tree.
That is the facts and math of the situation, especially for the talent tree where many talents rely on Ferocious Bite to make them viable.
To various degrees the talents Predator, Soul of the Forest, Incarnation, Sabertooth, Elune's Guidance and Moment of Clarity are all effected, especially as gear level increases.
This is almost all of the talents on the DPS tiers that are not Jagged Wounds/Savage Roar/Blood Talons.
The only exception is Blood Scent or Lunar Inspiration in the first tier.

Also there is the issue mentioned previously of the 7.0 hotfix invalidating a lot of the artifact. That is a can of worms because they said they would not make large changes to the artifact then they released a patch that invalidated a lot traits on the artifact. Open Wounds, Powerful Bite and Shadow Thrash are the worst offenders.

Blizzard painted themselves into a corner with the 7.0 hotfix and the only way I see out of it is a large baseline buff to damage and a large nerf to the talents that are currently dominating the spec with a lot of additional tweaking.

That is a lot of work for a spec that has received almost no attention since a terrible hotfix right before release.

[Deleted]

Would be cool if they change Ashamane's Bite to have somting to do with FB instead of rip, feels they put way to much dps in that one ability.

[Bigzumzah]

Would be cool if they change Ashamane's Bite to have somting to do with FB instead of rip, feels they put way to much dps in that one ability.

I'm hoping for them to do as they say and bake in some of the talents that are not really choices and give some variety to talenting. They've been changing entire aspects of the game saying they want to avoid cookie cutter specs when it's fairly obvious to the feral community that we don't have choices. I am also hoping that whatever traits they amend to our tree will possibly grant something like what a lot of the more well rounded performing classes/specs have, which is cleave/aoe either included in their standard rotation or with minor variation to their rotations. Enhance shaman, marks huntards, and quite a few others have this. I would assume this would allow us to be more viable in m+ dungeons and hectic cleave type fights that we do so poorly on. Although I know it has been discussed before that we are gimpy not only due to our ramp time but because of the time allotted to our bleeds ticking out damage over shorter durations. I feel that if at least one of these issues were to be addressed I would be content with it.

[teddabear]

While baking in the cookie cutter choices sounds great there is not a very good chance this will happen with most of the cookie cutter choices for Feral.
Savage Roar was already baked in and was purposely "unbaked" in this expansion.
Blizzard attempted to remove Blood Talons from the game completely in MoP but has reversed course and made it mandatory due to the huge DPS gain. It is the poster child for playstyles that require addons so I think it is extremely unlikely to be baked in. I am fairly certain you will see a large nerf to this talent instead.
Jagged Wounds on the other hand should have been baked in a couple expansions ago so it is a very good candidate.
I definitely think Predator should be baked in since this would give a much needed boost to Feral target switching and ramp up without having to talent into the weakest talent in that row.

The milion dollar question is what are they going to do about AoE?
Bake in Brutal Slash and give back Swipe. Buff Brutal Slash. Make Brutal Slash a finisher. I think the biggest mistake was having Brutal Slash replace Swipe but if they "only" give Swipe back that won't help much because players still wouldn't take Brutal Slash so the net gain would be zero.

If they give back Swipe then Brutal Slash should be made into a finisher because Feral usually has more combo points than they can efficiently use in an AoE situation.

[Exerionx]

Hello fellow ferals.

Does anyone have information on this feral website? http://clawnalyst.nimos.ws/

It's a really solid website, but there's a big bug when you have multiple ferals in a Warcraftlog encounter.

But I can't find a subreddit, didn't find much on Discord, and the IRC channel is dead.

[Darmal]

Hello fellow ferals.

Does anyone have information on this feral website? http://clawnalyst.nimos.ws/

It's a really solid website, but there's a big bug when you have multiple ferals in a Warcraftlog encounter.

But I can't find a subreddit, didn't find much on Discord, and the IRC channel is dead.

Nimos is still working on it. I think the only way to provide that feedback currently is to catch him in Discord.

[Exerionx]

Nimos is still working on it. I think the only way to provide that feedback currently is to catch him in Discord.

No worries, thanks for the info!

[Deleted]

It's a really solid website, but there's a big bug when you have multiple ferals in a Warcraftlog encounter.

Hi, I noticed this thread as one of the top traffic source on google analytics so I checked it out.
I was already aware of those issues. Initially, I didn't account for multiple ferals at all, so in first testing, I had to make a quick workaround that bugged out in a lot of cases. I updated it today, so it should work a lot better now.

But I can't find a subreddit, didn't find much on Discord, and the IRC channel is dead.

Thanks for telling me, I ditched IRC for Discord some time ago, so having the IRC link on my homepage was pretty pointless.

If you want to contact me with any more feedback/bug reports, poke Nimos#4951 on the druid Discord (or in a direct message) or /u/Nimos on reddit!

[Hellshout]

off topic: guildie says "what's so hard about feral? just put bleeds up"

on topic:
I am a little confused about how to properly play Feral, not just bleeds up and then /dance.
-most important is to get Rip up with BT(along with other buffs, but BT most important)?
-is it ok to let Rake fall down for 1-2 seconds to apply it with BT? (can't reproduce, but it happened)
-better to be at full energy and wait for Rip pandemic or use some of that energy for a MF/Shred even if it means wasting a CP?
-does FB refresh Rip dynamically or it will keep that copy of Rip you used first?
-i play Incarn, because I wanted to start with easy stuff and then go Roar. Would playing with SR be a better gain than Inc if I let it fall sometimes?
-last boss fight I used Rip with BT a lot and even if the damage was higher than rake, regular crits were 119k with Rip and 232k with Rake. Why is Rip so low?
-if I'm at max CP and energy, Rip still has some time to ticks(happened -.-), can I use a FB even though it will mean the next Rip will be delayed for a few seconds?

I have some more retarded questions, but I might as well try them on the dummy and see what's the better way to do it.

Thanks for your help and forgive my ignorance, I promise I'll get better.

[Drihan]

off topic: guildie says "what's so hard about feral? just put bleeds up"

on topic:
I am a little confused about how to properly play Feral, not just bleeds up and then /dance.
-most important is to get Rip up with BT(along with other buffs, but BT most important)?
-is it ok to let Rake fall down for 1-2 seconds to apply it with BT? (can't reproduce, but it happened)
-better to be at full energy and wait for Rip pandemic or use some of that energy for a MF/Shred even if it means wasting a CP?
-does FB refresh Rip dynamically or it will keep that copy of Rip you used first?
-i play Incarn, because I wanted to start with easy stuff and then go Roar. Would playing with SR be a better gain than Inc if I let it fall sometimes?
-last boss fight I used Rip with BT a lot and even if the damage was higher than rake, regular crits were 119k with Rip and 232k with Rake. Why is Rip so low?
-if I'm at max CP and energy, Rip still has some time to ticks(happened -.-), can I use a FB even though it will mean the next Rip will be delayed for a few seconds?

I have some more retarded questions, but I might as well try them on the dummy and see what's the better way to do it.

Thanks for your help and forgive my ignorance, I promise I'll get better.

Speaking from my own experiences here, take this with a massive grain of salt and test things out to see how it works for your play style and your prefered gameplay feel.



1. Yes, but if you don't have BT ready, it's better to put a non-BT Rip up than spend (potentially) 200 energy, and 5-10 seconds, without any Rip up.

2. Rake is something I clip ALL the time, since I prio BT on Rip, FB, and Ashamane. However, if you can get it, go for it. I don't think 1-2 seconds will matter all that much, so it should be fine.

3. If I have plenty of time on both Rip and Rake, with lots of extra energy, always push out an FB if you can spare the time and energy. If there's not enough time for a post-FB CP build-up, throw in some Shreds/MFs, unless it would waste BTs, or if you don't have an insta heal saved up.

4. Not sure about this, but I believe it's static. As in, it refreshes the time of the Rip you put on, it doesn't refresh the entire cast. What I often do when the boss hits 25% is find a point where I can pop TF, trinkets, BT etc. to put on a full power Rip, even if it clips the one that's already on the target.

5. SR is, overall, the best talent in that row. The numbers say Savage Roar > Soul of the Forest > Incarnation. I personally go with SotF because the gameplay feels better, less wait time before I can push buttons, and less stress around energy conservation. Honestly, between SR and SotF you only lose DPS in sims. I haven't met a single feral druid, with the SR build, that can out-DPS me running with SotF build. It mostly comes down to what you feel is the most comfortable.

6. Rip ticks over a longer period of time, and it's refreshable after 25%, so the DPS ratio per second for each ability is different purely because of those differences. To balance them out essentially, however, RIP is above rake over the total duration of the cast, causing it to be your biggest damage dealing ability.

7. Since throwing that FB means you can get a BT Rip up, it won't matter as much. Just be sure not to waste those BTs before you have the CP to push the Rip. It's not a HUGE DPS loss, but if you consistently waste the BTs, or you have such shit crit that you can't get enough CPs in time, or you overestimate the time you have left vs. the time you spend to bring the CPs up again many times in the same fight, you will start seeing big drops. Be careful with this tactic though as it can bite you in the ass if it comes at a time of mechanics that force you away from the boss, but as you practice you'll get better at the timing and it can prove very benefitial. It's the things like this that is the difference between a good feral and a great one.

[Deleted]

5. SR is, overall, the best talent in that row. The numbers say Savage Roar > Soul of the Forest > Incarnation. I personally go with SotF because the gameplay feels better, less wait time before I can push buttons, and less stress around energy conservation. Honestly, between SR and SotF you only lose DPS in sims. I haven't met a single feral druid, with the SR build, that can out-DPS me running with SotF build. It mostly comes down to what you feel is the most comfortable.

this is incorrect, Incarnation is superior to soul of the forest for single target

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...uid&spec=Feral

Here's loads of ferals who can outdps sotf with SR, you don't just "lose dps in sims" you just flat out lose dps, because for single target sotf is factually worse than SR.

Please stop giving shit advice, I highly reccomend anyone looking for feral tips to read xanzara's guide, instead of relying on some of the idiots on these forums

[Whitepaw]

this is incorrect, Incarnation is superior to soul of the forest for single target

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...uid&spec=Feral

Here's loads of ferals who can outdps sotf with SR, you don't just "lose dps in sims" you just flat out lose dps, because for single target sotf is factually worse than SR.

Please stop giving shit advice, I highly reccomend anyone looking for feral tips to read xanzara's guide, instead of relying on some of the idiots on these forums

This is correct - and the reason why the other two talents should be buffed.

[Hellshout]

Speaking from my own experiences here, take this with a massive grain of salt and test things out to see how it works for your play style and your prefered gameplay feel.



1

5. .

Thanks for the advice i'll look into it.

this is incorrect, Incarnation is superior to soul of the forest for single target

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...uid&spec=Feral

Here's loads of ferals who can outdps sotf with SR, you don't just "lose dps in sims" you just flat out lose dps, because for single target sotf is factually worse than SR.

Please stop giving shit advice, I highly reccomend anyone looking for feral tips to read xanzara's guide, instead of relying on some of the idiots on these forums

He did say massive big blocks of salt and that I should test it. No need to call him an idiot tho.
Thanks for the guife, I'll check it. Thing is you don't find answers in guides. Usually you find them testing or asking someone that's doing it better.

[Tradu]

This is correct - and the reason why the other two talents should be buffed.

No, they shouldn't. In that row you pick based on the situation already, which is the perfect spot for a talent row. All 3 have their uses. Possibly a slight Incarnation buff(Swipe interaction?), that's about it.

[Whitepaw]

No, they shouldn't. In that row you pick based on the situation already, which is the perfect spot for a talent row. All 3 have their uses. Possibly a slight Incarnation buff(Swipe interaction?), that's about it.

I would much rather decide on preferred play style - Savage Roar forces backloading of our dps, it continuously feels like trying to drive with the parking brake engaged and it's a fairly old design long abandoned with other classes. So making it the "strongest" dps talent - that is, the talent providing the highest dps output - is a loss in my view. It should be on par with the other two. Buffing those would solve this, but so would buffing Ferocious Bite, so it would be an actual decision to choose the best possible finisher, instead of looking at the SR and Rip duration and then make the obvious choice.

And before anyone in this thread starts the cliche of "Using Savage Roar to max dps is the defining skill to show you are a good Feral" - I've used Savage Roar since it's introduction in 2008, and I'm fed up. When I log on to my Assassination Rogue, I can use a dps regime which is more challenging, adaptable and fun than the Feral one. But we're not a broken spec - not at all. We just need to be allowed to have some muscle, instead of having the aforementioned brake engaged.

[Tradu]

I would much rather decide on preferred play style - Savage Roar forces backloading of our dps, it continuously feels like trying to drive with the parking brake engaged and it's a fairly old design long abandoned with other classes. So making it the "strongest" dps talent - that is, the talent providing the highest dps output - is a loss in my view. It should be on par with the other two. Buffing those would solve this, but so would buffing Ferocious Bite, so it would be an actual decision to choose the best possible finisher, instead of looking at the SR and Rip duration and then make the obvious choice.

And before anyone in this thread starts the cliche of "Using Savage Roar to max dps is the defining skill to show you are a good Feral" - I've used Savage Roar since it's introduction in 2008, and I'm fed up. When I log on to my Assassination Rogue, I can use a dps regime which is more challenging, adaptable and fun than the Feral one. But we're not a broken spec - not at all. We just need to be allowed to have some muscle, instead of having the aforementioned brake engaged.

The thing is, they can't buff SotF, because it's already by far the strongest on 2+ targets. That's not a playstyle difference, it's a niche/role difference, and talents never will be when they don't fill the same role across the entire row. So no, they can't "just buff the other 2", because then you'd just never pick SR at all. That talent row is one of our 2 best ones in terms of reaching the goal of each talent having a clearly defined role(the other being T15, the T100 row fills that with BrS and BT, but not MoC).
The only change they could make to that row is making SR baseline and putting something else in its place. This allows them to make SR last longer again(a common complaint from both bad and good players) and return the ability to cast SR with 0 CP to make the opener less annoying. Now, they won't do that, because the complaints from people like you who hate maintenance buffs would be unbearable.

Also Assassination is not more challenging than Feral unless you play Feral very wrong.