Feral Druid - Cata

[Cheezee]

I'm going to try really hard to not flame you two for wanting to dumb down feral that much.

There isn't another class in the game that does 30% (33%) less damage because they don't have their spec specific buff up. Hell, Blizzard announced recently that HFB was going bye bye and that was a very easy to maintain self buff. 15 energy, 1 min duration, requires the target to be bleeding. That's what SR should have been and I wouldn't shed a tear if blizzard removed it as well.

[Alski]

There isn't another class in the game that does 30% (33%) less damage because they don't have their spec specific buff up. Hell

Savage roar isnt spec specific :P

[Cortano]

Savage roar isnt spec specific

For all practical purposes savage roar is one half of one spec specific...

[Cheezee]

Savage roar isnt spec specific :P

You know what I meant. It's only usable in cat form so it may as well be. :P

[Hinalover]

There isn't another class in the game that does 30% (33%) less damage because they don't have their spec specific buff up.

I have to disagree with you there. I'm currently leveling up a Combat rogue and my dps while leveling is pretty crappy if I don't keep up Slice and Dice. Slice and Dice increases' a rogue's melee attack speed with talents that increase it's effectiveness by up to 50%. SR is the kitty sister ability to Slice and Dice, form my perspective.

[Cheezee]

I have to disagree with you there. I'm currently leveling up a Combat rogue and my dps while leveling is pretty crappy if I don't keep up Slice and Dice. Slice and Dice increases' a rogue's melee attack speed with talents that increase it's effectiveness by up to 50%. SR is the kitty sister ability to Slice and Dice, form my perspective.

Increased melee swing speed is not the same as increased physical damage. Your special attacks, finishers and poisons still hit just as hard with or without SnD running. Every attack I make does 30% less damage if SR is not up.

Just so we're clear my concern with SR is PVP based. It's an interesting mechanic in PVE that I don't mind. It's an awkward, clunky & annoying mechanic when you're trying to kill another person.

[Mortimer]

Just so we're clear my concern with SR is PVP based. It's an interesting mechanic in PVE that I don't mind. It's an awkward, clunky & annoying mechanic when you're trying to kill another person.

It seems to me you're complaining that you can't just spam one button to kill things in PVP. Having to take one GCD out of your mangle spam to get SR up just makes for better gameplay in my opinion. Even in PVP. I can see where you're coming from with your concern about the ramp up time, but it really isn't as bad as you make it sound. It means you have to think about what you're doing. Having to use more than two buttons in PVP is a good thing.

[Lorsk]

The problem with savage roar is it feels like a "job" sort of ability. Same thing with rogue's hunger for blood and GC recently announced they were getting rid of that. Savage roar however, is probably the WORST of all these (job-feeling, non fun) abilities. The reasons being that:

-30% increase to ALL damage is too sweet a plum to EVER really allow to go down. Since is required to do reasonable DPS on raids, it just feels more like a debuff to NOT have it up rather than a buff to have it up. Everything must be built around savage roar. In PvP, you better get that savage roar up asap in every circumstance. Just this blanket, annoying thing that is pervasive in there in every situation of the game.

-It isn't a fun mechanic. It feels like a job to me more than a game. Ferocious bite is like OHHH YEAH. Rip is like, OHHH THEY ARE SO SCREWED NOW!! Savage roar is like, "Just doin my job sir...." But despite all that, it is the most used finisher because it is simply too good a buff. Just a totally weird mechanic, making a finishing move a buff that must be reapplied almost constantly, it is very nagging and annoying.

The problem is, whenever someone questions something that is already in the game, an army of people come out of the woodwork to proclaim that, "The class is so easy, why do you want to make it more easy." While not an incredibly difficult task to play a cat druid, it has bar none the most complicated dps rotation, if done optimally. I know people just want to give the impression that they are some sort of magic man and things that mere mortals find an insurmountable task they do with great, exaggerated ease. The problem is not that the mere mortals are incapable of achieving your greatness. The problem is that it is just not fun in terms of gameplay.

Then, the moment Blizzard comes in and posts they are changing it to a better mechanic, everyone rejoices.

[gollie]

If any of your suggestions were implemented I'd be truly a happy bear. The only good thing with the tanking today is that I can with no problem take my eyes off the actionbars and still do a perfect tanking rotation, which gives me a lot of time to watch what's going on in the fight.

Your suggestions are imaginitive and really makes it interesting, without being OP in any way.

[Cheezee]

It seems to me you're complaining that you can't just spam one button to kill things in PVP.

No, I'm complaining because I have to use a minimum of 60 energy, 1-2 combo points and a GCD in order to do the damage that I'm supposedly balanced around in PVP where as everyone else just lays into targets at full tilt from the get go.

[Cortano]

The problem with savage roar is it feels like a "job" sort of ability.

I agree with this 100%. Savage Roar isn't "fun".

If it had a 5 minute cooldown, and was something you used then proceeded to kick ass, that would be "fun".

As it currently exists, Savage Roar is an ability you must use to not suck. All stick, no carrot.

[TGS]

I have a few issues. In some ways I think it's going to be addressed in cata. Which really tbh it should have been addressed now but whatever that's just me.

The AoE bleed is gonna reduce our lack of threat vs non-bleeding targets. Right now I have a massive issue with threat because I'm using a 232 weapon in ICC10/25 content. Guess what... I struggle to generate threat in trash pulls and I fight against 6k gearscore dps and 5.5k gearscore tanks to hold aggro. My gear isn't bad I'm sitting at 5.4k myself but I struggle. Especially because feral is designed to have several modifiers that "boost" their threat. The thing is it only boosts it to the same level as everyone else starts at.

For example tanking I have to drop mangle... put lacerate so they're bleeding just to get the full effect of maul. Maul through Rend and Tear has a modifier if the target is bleeding. Maul also has a modifier if the target is vulnerable to bleeds (Mangle). Yeah they improved it a bit by upping the duration of mangle to a minute but the end of the day is mangle has a cooldown... you can't mangle 6 trash mobs all at once without popping berserk and scrolling through targets. That basically means we generate less threat than other tanks and also dps by default.

As far as DPS goes its the same thing. We essentially have to "ramp up" to get our dps up. I know a few other classes deal with this as well but not to the same level. Other classes don't dramatically suffer if they can't keep certain buffs up. It adds to the interesting nature of the class but it also hampers our ability to fight in certain situations. IE PvP.