Feral M+ BFA...I'm Worried

[Psybearslat]

Hi all,

Just to preface this. I am a feral main and have been all expansion. I have run 1000's of m+ and have completed dozens of +20to+24's or so.
I have made a few guides on feral druid in legion and in BFA and whilst I am so excited for our ST finally returning to a heavy bleed based playstyle I am increasingly worried for our AOE potential in BFA

Whilst class trade-offs, such as, strong ST being offset by poor aoe dps, have historically been the nature of the game. Now that m+ has become such a HUGE industry within world of warcraft for many reasons - gearing, pleasure, skill improvement, rp?? - a class just simply cannot afford to not "have-it-all".

For anyone that has followed feral in legion you'll note that attempting to be invited to non-premade dungeon of any level/affix can be extremely difficult. You constantly get greeted by the classic
"Balance?"
"Im feral"
*you have been declined*
Whether it's a case of many feral druids not being equipped enough in their own ability or perhaps many players just don't realise the value of feral dps and utility,
The fact is. It's a struggle for a feral.

So all this begs the question, with incoming brs nerfs, no luffas, no shadow thrash etc. HOW are feral going to perform in m+?

For me. Since my feral conception I have tried my best to advocate feral being an extremely successful and competitive spec. I will continue to do so. But now it seems like the up hill battle just became a little steeper.

Thanks for reading, please let me know if you agree or disagree and your optomism/pessimism for feral going forward.

[Deleted]

Not every spec can be gods in Mythic +.
Some must be the shittier ones.

You got 4 specs to chose from. Play something else.

[Psybearslat]

That's a terrible attitude to have towards it though. Like, why just give up and go balance?

[Jonsse]

There should be a disconnect between what you want to play, and what's the most powerful way to play. A feral druid is just a character, and if you want to maximize your potential to certain content, sometimes a different character is necessary. If all classes were the same and could perform the same in all situations, choosing a class would be just cosmetic.

One of the bigger issues you face as "a feral main" is being a squishy melee spec in a sea of abundant melee. Legion brought in another melee dps class and turned one of the hunter specs melee. That's quite a large roster to choose from to do content that's fairly melee unfriendly(ie. m+).

Choosing to remain Feral is your choice, and being the best feral out there is an honorable pursuit. But in the real world someone has to be worst, and someone has to be best. Mathematically or Functionally. Let's just all be happy that almost all specs perform within a fairly small margin, it hasn't always been that narrow.

[Unholyground]

Considering everything is scaled for 120 I doubt it is an issue right now, not to mention hotfixes will be on the way within a few days.

[Psybearslat]

That's a fair response, Jonsse but at the same time. Viability and just having low dps are two different things. Im just worried that we risk being non-viable.
Especially when m+ can be pivotal early on for gearing up etc.
But yes. Melee competition is HUGE these days.
In terms of waiting for scaling. That's fine and all but we're still losing luffas, shadow thrash and slight brs nerfs. Thats a lot to scale for haha

[Jonsse]

Im just worried that we risk being non-viable.

That's really up to the whims of the community. No amount of competitive numbers will save a bad player from under performing, or a good player from being judged based on others playing the spec.

[Teph]

Why would you bring a feral, if you can choose between lots of other classes. Their utility is useless or not unique for m+. Only reason random groups will invite them is, if they get huge buffs, so even the average random can play them well.

Even if feral can do good numbers. Risk for a bad one is too high for the reward.
A rogue will always be prefered. That's the sad truth.

[Carnedge]

You can actually build a solid M+ feral. It just isn’t bleed oriented. It requires different gear and talents. Your ST suffers but your over all dungeon dps drastically goes up.

I see a lot of ppl making the simcraft mistake. They think there is only one way to do something and that’s what your high sim’d dps is.

Feral has just gotten a bad rap by “community leaders” no everyone else is too brainwashed to pull their heads out of their asses and think for themselves. They just parrot what someone else says.

[Psybearslat]

Carnedge you make some valid points. And yes, currently you can make a VERY competitive feral m+ build. The issue is whether that will all change in bfa and either become a lot more difficult to achieve. Or not possible at all.

In terms of the community aspect. When I stream and I see great ferals I support them and I do my best to encourage new ferals to learn the spec properly. Let's hope we can all do a little bit to help improve the feral stigma!

[Gameforreal]

Feral will be slow button pressing and booring in raids in start - and suck in M+
But with gear they become faster, stronger, better... every expansion it has been like this.

Every expansion I think.. Fuck it.. i change main! - and I always end up staying feral / guardian.. Tank in start, change to Feral when gear comes.

BUT! i am thinking to go Monk or Demonhunter this expansion.. DH spam is fun and up tempo.. Monk is just OP as hell atm. dps/tank/healer all their specs is good.. the dps AOE is crasy in beta.

-to the guy that said play another spec, I am guessing you mean boomkin.. Not many ferals like beeing ranged.. so another spec would be tank.. and if you wanna dps you have to reroll away from main.. and it is hard to leave you char behind xD

[rogoth]

That's a terrible attitude to have towards it though. Like, why just give up and go balance?

they already answered that question, unless all specs in the game deal 1 damage with every ability there can never be parity between specs meaning that there is always going to be a hierarchy of specs that are just straight up better in certain scenarios than others, it sucks but get used to it.

[gobio]

Feral will be slow button pressing and booring in raids in start - and suck in M+
But with gear they become faster, stronger, better... every expansion it has been like this.

Every expansion I think.. Fuck it.. i change main! - and I always end up staying feral / guardian.. Tank in start, change to Feral when gear comes.

BUT! i am thinking to go Monk or Demonhunter this expansion.. DH spam is fun and up tempo.. Monk is just OP as hell atm. dps/tank/healer all their specs is good.. the dps AOE is crasy in beta.

-to the guy that said play another spec, I am guessing you mean boomkin.. Not many ferals like beeing ranged.. so another spec would be tank.. and if you wanna dps you have to reroll away from main.. and it is hard to leave you char behind xD

Raid is always drastically different than M+ even if you take into consideration of all the affixes.
Switching from balance to feral in aggramar, you really never ever want to go back to balance. This is regardless of raw DPS potential as my feral is far from optimal both in rotation and gear.
The reverse is true for Argus, I think if I change spec into kitty I am automatically removed from raid for trolling.

[teddabear]

I haven't seen any numbers but my experience since the patch is Brutal Slash is uselss now. Savage Roar appears to be the only viable talent in that row but doubtful that it is an optimal choice in Mythic+.

[Psybearslat]

It's likely that due to lack of energy even if brs is bad (might not be) that due to the functionality it will still be a better choice than SR. To explain: brs builds combo points, allowing for more Rip multidotting. Whereas use of SR means spending combo points instead and so fewer Rips. Then again what COULD happen is just that as feral you build 2 specs. AI mythic+ high vers/crit incarn-brs spam build. And for raiding you go full bleeds, jagged, SR and feral frenzy or bloodtalons.
Let's wait and see

[Deleted]

I think the issue is humans, whilst a spec may be viable, may be completely capable of doing said run, humans on the internet want "meta".
So ultimately the fact isn't whether a spec/class can do something, it's more the perception of it, and ultimately as Woozie said some are going to be more favoured than others - either rightly or wrongly, and when you let a human on the internet decide, 95%* of humans are going to pick meta to be safe or to avoid "omg you invited a ret paladin in Vanilla!"


Ideally Blizz would create a LFG tool for M+ where some function of the below are applied:

• Previous M+ performance historically over all dungeons +/- x
• Previous M+ performance historically over specific dungeon in question +/- y
• Current ilvl
  
• and RNG

List is not exhaustive, i'm sure others have better ideas that me, but you get the drift.

*random number plucked my from random fact machine

I'm quite interested in how this plays out, as come BFA I'm going from Resto / Balance to Guardian / Feral for a change of pace.

[naeblis495]

That's a fair response, Jonsse but at the same time. Viability and just having low dps are two different things. Im just worried that we risk being non-viable.
Especially when m+ can be pivotal early on for gearing up etc.
But yes. Melee competition is HUGE these days.
In terms of waiting for scaling. That's fine and all but we're still losing luffas, shadow thrash and slight brs nerfs. Thats a lot to scale for haha

"slight brs nerfs"

i'm sorry , but in bfa state , brs could not exist and i wouldn't even notice it because it barely hit harder than swipe

[Deleted]

is it not time for feral to be reworked though? like from the ground up it still feels like it did sort of in wrath. kind of. i dont get the feeling of playing a wild animal when playing cat i get a feeling of methodical almost dull play style. should it not be a sort of builder spender play style getting rid of the combo points and energy system. retaining the stealth maybe even giving it a vanish. but giving sindragosas breath the type of ability. like it reaches max of its resource it then goes into a frenzy depleting the resource and you have to maintain the resource as it depletes over time. fast and furious play style sort of how i would picture a lion or tiger attacking me. it could still retain its stealth mechanic but not feel like a poor mans rogue. instead giving it abit of an original feel to the spec while lending from a few differnt classes already existing abilities. like making swipe give you a cleave on next 3 abilities giving it abit more use in a mythic plus?

[kenoathcarn]

is it not time for feral to be reworked though? like from the ground up it still feels like it did sort of in wrath. kind of. i dont get the feeling of playing a wild animal when playing cat i get a feeling of methodical almost dull play style. should it not be a sort of builder spender play style getting rid of the combo points and energy system. retaining the stealth maybe even giving it a vanish. but giving sindragosas breath the type of ability. like it reaches max of its resource it then goes into a frenzy depleting the resource and you have to maintain the resource as it depletes over time. fast and furious play style sort of how i would picture a lion or tiger attacking me. it could still retain its stealth mechanic but not feel like a poor mans rogue. instead giving it abit of an original feel to the spec while lending from a few differnt classes already existing abilities. like making swipe give you a cleave on next 3 abilities giving it abit more use in a mythic plus?

tbh i want the bleed build back, i doubt it would happen given how apparently it was "too hard" but it was a very interesting spec to play.

the only issue with it was you absolutely had to pick BRS to do any kind of aoe, swipe/trash were simply way to underpowered.

[Psybearslat]

tbh i want the bleed build back, i doubt it would happen given how apparently it was "too hard" but it was a very interesting spec to play.

the only issue with it was you absolutely had to pick BRS to do any kind of aoe, swipe/trash were simply way to underpowered.

You'll be pleased to know we ARE going back to the bleed build! Haste/mastery reigning supreme.

And in terms of revolutionizing the feral playstyle. Well, if it ain't broke dont fix it! But yeah maybe a savage more animalistic lore based playstyle could be cool. But I still think a mauling cat causing you to bleed quickly to death is just as realistic haha