My biggest Feral Concern: Death of the hybrid

[Beetlejuice]

I know a lot of people talk about if they will still be able to tank or do enough damage but those are just numbers, which can easily be adjusted if they should not fit. I am more troubled about basic game mechanics.

Right now my biggest concern is how the new equipment, talent tree and stat conversions will kill the hybrid feral, which imho always was the reason a feral druid (especially kitty) found a spot in a raid (and was fun to play btw). Even if feral cat druids would do same dps as rogues, e shamis or even off warriors i would never ever take one over a rogue or e shami if they were not able to offtank and squeeze out some emergency heals once in a while.

One of the main reasons to bring melee dps instead of ranged is for their interrupting qualities and kick, pumel and wind shock are all very reliable at doing that, even the new improved maim is not. To interrupt something as a kitty you have to have at least one combo point, 35 energy and no global cooldown, a rogue in this situation only has to have 25 energy. Just one example where pure kitty support is either completely lacking or just subpar compared to rogue/off warri/e shami (always forget that paladins are considered to have a dps tree now too, i know they have lots of support, just don't know if they can interrupt on short cd).

In BC this was ok, our support came from flexibility. And i liked that approach, i don't want rogue toys like vanish, poisons, aoe attacks etc. I don't want to become just another rogue with an uglier skin. I liked to be subpar but borderline viable as kitty in terms of damage and making up for the gap with flexibility. And i fear in wotlk we will end up still beeing subpar (if not in damage then surely in utility and thats the worse part) but now without the flexibility we had before.

The main problems i have right now are a bloated feral talent tree, the equipment and ability conversion changes. There are now several heavy impact bear only and cat only talents and you hardly have enough talent points to skill one of them. But that is actually the part i have the least problems with. If we really turn out to be very competitive dmg and tanking wise i can easily sacrifice a few points here and there.

What bothers me most are the equipment and ability conversion changes. I know a lot of people are thrilled at the idea to tank in dps gear but actually that is what we always did, at least as much as we will do in wotlk. The only slots i swap for dps gear are trinkets, rings and cloak. All of those (maybe except the cloak) i will still swap in wotlk (trinkets and rings actually will be even more importaint to be swapped for tanking in wotlk).
Druid itemization was very good, especially because of the good ability conversions. And they were very hybrid friendly. Agi for example was a great stat for both bear avoidance and cat dps and we had it in loads on our gear. And while we will still have it in loads it just wont be very good anymore because of the nerf in conversions to dodge and crit. Strength on the other hand will still scale nice in both forms (though it only helps with threat as bear and not with avoidance), just it wont be found on our gear anymore. So while in BC i could get badge and Tx equip and socket it with agi to get an awesome bear and cat item now i have to get 2 badge or Tx items for the same slot, one socketed with crit rating, the other one with dodge rating.
Int won't be found on our equip anymore either. In wotlk i will loose more than half of my mana, and with tranq and rebirth beeing around 70% base mana and combat forms beeing 35% base mana i guess nurturing instincts has become a joke, even if you would have the talent points as hybrid to take it. The new imp lotp won't help much either i guess. 8% of nothing is still nothing. And it doesn't change the fact that you will have to change shape after a few casts to refill, loosing even more mana you first have to gain back.

But then again when druid tanks in full tank spec and druid cats in full dps spec turn out to be overpowered a hybrid druid might be just ok .

[peewee672]

hold ur horses cowboy, blizz is working on it

[Jathro]

They are? Blizz has stated they want us to have the option to choose between being full bear (sacrficing some kitty pts to do it), full kitty (sacrificing bear pts), or being a hybrid (and most likely gimping both forms).

I agree with the OP. Our raid flexibility is what made us so useful in BC. When you need that extra tank for trash but the boss fight is only 1 tank, you bring a feral druid over a warrior for obvious reasons. I enjoy being useful in both areas and by doing so, I give my raid a better composition and likelihood to succeed. From early looks, it doesn't seem I'll be able to do that successfully.

[arel00]

Actually if you followed Blizzard's CMs accurately, you would have noticed that they said that chosing between a bear and a cat build means picking your role between Main Tank or (mainly) dps.
If you're not specced to be THE tank your guild relies on, it doesn't mean you can't offtank trash better than a fury warrior when it's needed. IT just means that if you wanna compete with prot warriors then you're way behind.

The same goes the other way. If you're bear specced it doesn't mean you can't do dps at all, or will be worse at it than prot warriors are. IT means you'll not compete with a rogue on the damage charts.

We can also try the "gimp both" spec, as you called it. I tried some on the PTR, went Hyjal, and did both a good tanking on the waves / boss adds and a good dps where I didn't have to turn bear.
Ofc it's not Sunwell, I didn't have a trusted guild to see that, but a hybrid build is a hybrid. I can't expect to be top dps when minmaxing at Brutallus and then be MainTank for the rest of the raid. I am still way better than fury wars when it comes to tanking those packs of trash. And if I'm hybrid spec I can probably offtank a boss good enough.

Don't jump to it. We still have to see. AND, being able to chose means that those who actually wanted to be picked over a prot warrior to be THE tank, or be picked over a rogue to top damage charts, maybe now can do it.

[Natgul]

Feral Druid, in BC, arent OP, and never be OP a Feral, cause our talent three, can't allow this.
In Live, we usually merge Bear + Cat talent Point, cause we can maxout our DPS and Tank Ability.
In WotLK, we must choose a way, and lose the functionality.

2 Solution (you never see Blizz make this):
Bring all Resto-feral talent and put it over existing Feral three.
Redesig all Feral Talent, for pump-up our dps/defensive stance.

But the real problem is only one:

We are the PURE HYBRID class, and after speccing in a talent, we lose our hybrid ability, cause we are the only one which don't have sinergy from our stat/ability/talent. We are unique, at the bottom of the class.

When WotLK start, i think, for Tanking, start rolling a DK, for having a fun class, easy to make a dps or tank, like (with a big of new stuff), BC Feral.

[Jzar]

I'm one of the ones excited about new itemization changes. I don't know about you, but I had a full set of gear for DPS and an entirely different full set for tanking. The tanking leather you could get from the T4 gear combined with badge gear had almost twice as much armor as normal rogue gear, which pretty much made up my DPS set. Not to mention that in TBC we still had to have some defense. I was almost armor capped against 73 mobs in TBC with tank set on, and I could tell a huge difference in the incoming damage when I had to switch to bear in the middle of a trash pull, so that I was unable to put on my high-armor gear. The ability to tank in our DPS gear really is a BIG difference, and enhances our flexibility.

I think we'll still be the most flexible class, and you'll still get let in as a hybrid.

[ajthebest1]

Personally I hate the idea of being a pure hybrid. "Jack of all trades is master of none." In my eyes a hybrid should be someone who can spec a certain way and perform that job competitively rather than having to level another character if s/he wanted to switch roles. In reality the only non-hybrids we have in this game are mages, locks, hunters, and rogues. Other than that every other class can perform either two or all of the roles.

[Natgul]

Looking for the change happen in TBC, and now in WotLK, Hybrid are now not a class, but a spec, and deep in a spec, the benefit granted if u can (allow from your class), make different thing.

Hybrid are now the type of damage, and the talent sinergy that allowing your char to put a +XX in one stat for allowing you to make +YY in other.

Paladin, Shaman, Druid, are the example of Hybrid, that can, over a talent spec, make a job very well.

But....follow me:

Shaman SHARE the gear with Hunter.
SH & Hu need mana for casting their damage, Hunter for main damage, Shaman for Off damage, but shaman is hybrid, so, are born some talent that trasform INT in AP, and AP in Spellpower.
Shaman grant benefit from Gear (INT), and self heal, summon pet, have a proc for make an ISTA-CAST, have damage reduction, solid armor, haste, etc...


Paladin Share Gear with War (?)
Well, paladin damage is Physical and Magical, and without a INT in armor...NOT a problem!!! DPS talent grant mana regen, ISTANT, increase SpellPower from AP, and the game is done.


Druid DPS.


After that, because i feel my class good as a Shaman or a Paladin, i want only 2 thing:

-Increase SpellPower from AP
-Re-desing my Shapeshift, so i can stay in Human form, with a Bear or a Cat Head, with all my Bear and Cat utility and spell/ability, but i can now use my spell and cast, for adding the Hybrid functionality on my Hybrid Class.


Then, i thank's finnaly Blizzard.

[Beetlejuice]

I'm one of the ones excited about new itemization changes. I don't know about you, but I had a full set of gear for DPS and an entirely different full set for tanking. The tanking leather you could get from the T4 gear combined with badge gear had almost twice as much armor as normal rogue gear, which pretty much made up my DPS set. Not to mention that in TBC we still had to have some defense. I was almost armor capped against 73 mobs in TBC with tank set on, and I could tell a huge difference in the incoming damage when I had to switch to bear in the middle of a trash pull, so that I was unable to put on my high-armor gear. The ability to tank in our DPS gear really is a BIG difference, and enhances our flexibility.

I think we'll still be the most flexible class, and you'll still get let in as a hybrid.

I never said you should tank in your dps gear (if your dps gear is rogue gear), i said you should dps in your tank gear. If you are not wearing heavy clefthoof but badge/tx gear this will work surprisingly good. Because of our great agi to crit and str to ap conversion i yet have to find a rogue item that is really better than my badge gear. Only thing that is missing is hit, and that is what sockets (and in my case one trinket slot) are for. Again, of course you will have to swap rings and trinkets, but so you will have to in wotlk. Embrace of Everlasting Prowess for example is an awesome tanking AND dps chest. And so are all other high end druid items.

[arel00]

I never said you should tank in your dps gear (if your dps gear is rogue gear), i said you should dps in your tank gear. If you are not wearing heavy clefthoof but badge/tx gear this will work surprisingly good. Because of our great agi to crit and str to ap conversion i yet have to find a rogue item that is really better than my badge gear. Only thing that is missing is hit, and that is what sockets (and in my case one trinket slot) are for. Again, of course you will have to swap rings and trinkets, but so you will have to in wotlk. Embrace of Everlasting Prowess for example is an awesome tanking AND dps chest. And so are all other high end druid items.

Reach above badge level into deep T6/SWP content and you'll see how much difference there is between tank and dps gear. Tank gear requires crit immunity, armor cap, high stamina and high dodge. Dps gear requires high AP, high crit, hit cap, expertise and possibly some haste.
The stats are so much different that while tanking in dps gear is clearly foolish, cause you'll end up smashed in under 20 seconds, dpsing in tank gear gimps you damage so much you'll be embarassing. If you think you can pull out over 1,8k dps for Brutallus while using tank gear, with tank enchants, gems and so on... well I want your tank gear then, cause it's clearly better than everything we've ever seen.
Oh, on a sidenote: there is a small little friendly program widely recognized as reliable, called RAWR. Go and check what top end damage items are. If you disregard rogue gear, you'll have quite a surprise.

Druid DPS.


After that, because i feel my class good as a Shaman or a Paladin, i want only 2 thing:

-Increase SpellPower from AP
-Re-desing my Shapeshift, so i can stay in Human form, with a Bear or a Cat Head, with all my Bear and Cat utility and spell/ability, but i can now use my spell and cast, for adding the Hybrid functionality on my Hybrid Class.


Then, i thank's finnaly Blizzard.

We do not need spellpower, this is just pointless whining. Shamans and paladins have unique combinations of elemental (or holy) and melee damage when performing melee dps roles. Druids' melee dps is rogue-like, and as far as I can remember, rogues never had mana or spellpower.

Besides, there is a whole point missing here. Druids aren't hybrids. Druids are shapeshifters, to their very core. Hybrid means doing many things at once, while not as good as others. Shapeshifting means choosing which thing we do, and then doing it (supposedly) as good as the "original".
There is a deep difference in class design that tells us apart. Get along with it, cause this is something that won't change as long as we have Forms.

[Natgul]

We do not need spellpower, this is just pointless whining. Shamans and paladins have unique combinations of elemental (or holy) and melee damage when performing melee dps roles. Druids' melee dps is rogue-like, and as far as I can remember, rogues never had mana or spellpower.

Besides, there is a whole point missing here. Druids aren't hybrids. Druids are shapeshifters, to their very core. Hybrid means doing many things at once, while not as good as others. Shapeshifting means choosing which thing we do, and then doing it (supposedly) as good as the "original".
There is a deep difference in class design that tells us apart. Get along with it, cause this is something that won't change as long as we have Forms.

No Arel, we are the Worst version of Rogue or Warrior. For maxout damage, we need a spell damage infusion in our ability, or we still sucks, everytime, in everywhere.

If there's no change in this week, and before WolTK come's live, you'll see Feral change about number, because with the actual change, our class enter in the "frustrating mode on", very closed to the pre-BC status.

I love Druid, but if i must pay for play, i don't know why i need to stay in a "no-sense" area, with an "3/4 tank" or a "3/5 dps" player, even if i bring all the item, rolled against the rogue community.

[Nightcrowler]

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...00000000000000


With this build you only basically lose some utility like ImpLoP or Brutal Impact.

With this spec you have 98% bear potential (you only don't have Feral Aggression).
With this spec you have 92% cat potential (you don't have Feral Aggression, ImpMangle and Master Shapeshifter).

So you basically tank better than now (you already don't have FA).
You are also doing better dps than now because a 100% cat druid will do 100% dps of a rogue. So you will do 92% dps of a dps that is far more than the 70-80% we are doing live.

So?
An hybrid spec in Wotlk works better than a NORMAL feral spec now. But we will also be able to specialize further.

[SharpXXShooter]

tl:dr but what I got from it was "They need to make kitties just like rogues" :

[Alski]

wind shock

[Beetlejuice]

Reach above badge level into deep T6/SWP content and you'll see how much difference there is between tank and dps gear. Tank gear requires crit immunity, armor cap, high stamina and high dodge. Dps gear requires high AP, high crit, hit cap, expertise and possibly some haste.
The stats are so much different that while tanking in dps gear is clearly foolish, cause you'll end up smashed in under 20 seconds, dpsing in tank gear gimps you damage so much you'll be embarassing. If you think you can pull out over 1,8k dps for Brutallus while using tank gear, with tank enchants, gems and so on... well I want your tank gear then, cause it's clearly better than everything we've ever seen.
Oh, on a sidenote: there is a small little friendly program widely recognized as reliable, called RAWR. Go and check what top end damage items are. If you disregard rogue gear, you'll have quite a surprise.

Well, pretty much exactly my point. Where do you think we get high ap, high crit, high dodge best from? Agi and Strength. We get the most out of these and they scale the best (survival of fittest, blessing of kings). Problem is in wotlk we won't have any strength on items anymore and we will get the lousy agi to crit conversion of rogues, and suddenly rogue items aren't so sexy anymore.
If you wanna talk sunwell, lets take a look at chestpiece. After buffs, with socket bonus but without gems (they have exactly the same slots, so that is just a static number) you get a whooping 3 more ap and 14 more armor ignoring, the biggest part is the higher crit, rogue chest has 1,45% more here. But that is exactly the part you won't take over in wotlk, because we will hardly get any crit from agi anymore (right now we get 1% crit for 25 agi, rogues get 1% crit for 40 agi). So they took out the 2 stats we scale best with.
On the other hand you loose 29 int (nice for powershifting, cheesy game mechanic that will gladly get fixed in wotlk), 19 stam and 308 armor (no great cat stats but gives your raid healers a little bit more time and a dead kitty does no damage at all). And of course i don't have to tell you what happens with those stam and armor once you shift into bear.
And tank/dps gems and enchants? Again exactly my point. Clear choice right now, Agi. In Cat you get great crit and atk, in bear you get more avoid than of any other stat. Again, both gone in Wotlk. THERE you WILL have to gem/enchant differently as bear or cat (most likely str or crit rating for cat and dodge rating for bear, right now geming agi is better than both of them together).
Btw, your example of brutallus is a pretty bad one. For both tanking and dps this is a very untypical boss. 90% of the boss fights are no dps fights. There more dps is nice because you kill faster, maybe even skip a phase or at least have less time to make an error, but it is not essential because of a short enrage timer which insta gibs everything. And while tanking brutallus might be all about stacking stamina, on 90% of the boss fights you are better off with going for agi. Stam means your healers have a little bit more time to heal, agi means they don't have to heal at all. And with good equipment you will have enough health anyway to give your healers enough time unless they suck horribly, so you are better of saving some of their mana with dodging once in a while.