Fellow Druids you urgent attention please!!!

[lostdruid]

Hello,
I been playing a druid since the release. I know you guys don't like to read so I will try to make it short.

-- Feral is not on par with the other hybrids. --

Blizzard tried to do something in BC but as soon gear progressed the feral weakness were obvious both in tanking and dps.
This is not a so much a fault of gear as all usually said (itemization etc) but more because of talents and mechanics.

Druid is a lethal class in pvp if played well but in pve has many problems.

Now I know in wotlk blizzard wants to make hybrids perform better but how well a druid stands compared to the other classes ?

First, lets start with the talents. After 3 years blizzard finally gave to druids some of those changes the community were begging from the beginning : pots and procs, leap, panic buttons and some 5' specials.

The BIG letdown is not that they giving us what we should had years before now but they giving it as end talents.

In comparison, almost ALL classes and ALL trees instead of 3-5' specials have new spells and abilities that work every 10 seconds (average) or gives them or new tools to play with.

The biggest changes in feral are the "defensive stance" sort of (like the other tanks) for bears and a 3' minute special for cat.

Problem is nothing new that enhances our functionality (pve).

Bear situation.

Now that armor and (probably with end gear) hps will be more close to the other tanks, bear mitigation still relies on dodge.
Yet a Tier6 Bear can't do this : because of the mechanics.
No block (or sufficient dmg reduction), not enough heal and dps.


(t4 pala survived)

As you can see clearly no matter our hps and dodge we are still inferior to the other tanks.

Cat situation.
First let's not make fools of ourselves. We are (pre wotlk patch) the worst hybrid for dps and as it looks like we will remain the worst.

Blizzard added a 3' special "ala adrenaline rush" we wanted years now, a new finishing move "ala rampage or slice and dice" and a talent for shred.
Thing is when we talking for constant DPS, Berserk plays a minor role and is more for the effect.
Our dps cycle is much more complicated now with savage roar and rake but it's not more efficient.

Take a look what dps do : a moonkin with 700spell, an arms blue /green warrior, a t4 paladin and a t6 shaman in comparison to cat.
Not to mention their new spells and abilities to play with their dps is far better than cat.






I know I don't have the best gear around but I've seen t6 druids and the do mostly the same.

All classes received new spells and talents and we got what ? a 3' special ?
Druid functionality remains the same and in comparison with the other classes and hybrids we feel gimped.
Take a close look to the other classes or hybrids. Do you think we still "look" as cool and perform the same?

I am posting this here because for some reason I can't post on wow forums in a futile attempt for blizzard to rethink the ferals.

[Chinook]

first, shrink your images so I actually have an idea what you're trying to get across

[seph]

Bear tanks were great in TBC, druid dps was broken for the most part. The changes that are coming in wrath are going to benefit feral/balance dps'rs. What is the problem with that?

[lostdruid]

first, shrink your images so I actually have an idea what you're trying to get across

there's a bar you can't navigate with it ?

[yellowbiz]

Maybe it's just me, but I can't understand what are you whining about.

You want an I-WIN button or something ?

[lostdruid]

Bear tanks were great in TBC, druid dps was broken for the most part. The changes that are coming in wrath are going to benefit feral/balance dps'rs. What is the problem with that?

Are you playing a druid ? Bear tanks were a blast at the beginning of tbc but they ended as a sponges.
Problem is we are getting far less than the other hybrids (and classes) and the changes still aren't good, take a look at the pics and information of other classes.

[lostdruid]

Maybe it's just me, but I can't understand what are you whining about.

You want an I-WIN button or something ?

i am not whining and i dont want an i win button. But after watched and played with other classes at 70 the difference is big.
Feral feel weak.

[Avermra]

Feral druids are better tanks in sunwell if your guild got over the mentality of using a warrior because of their oh crap buttons or just basic stereotypes. Shield wall helps solidify a victory and most likely won't turn a bad wipe into one. Even if it manages to do so, you didn't deserve that kill (first kill or not). Ferals are also better tanks if you didn't gem stamina like there's no tomorrow, which 90% of the population do. If you did that and complain about feral tanks being inferior compared to prot warriors, grats on gimping your own class.

For feral dps in 3.0, it is probably still lacking because we can't get all the essential talents we need (at the very least you can't get OoC and Berserk at the same time). In wrath, however, it is simulated to be able to hit 5k dps as cat spec in naxx 10 and heroic gear. This is not lacking at all; it is competitive, if not overpowered, as I have not looked into other classes' numbers as deeply yet.

I don't research balance and restoration that deeply so I won't pretend I have experience about it.

[nunomcm]

Dude, stop whining...

The only sad part about feral druids in TBC was the DPS scale. We were doing pretty fine DPS before BT but then we stayed a little behind. About tanking druids we were, are and will still be awesome tanks if you know how to play. In BT only didn't tanked RoS and Illidan (tanked the flames) and in Sunwell only didn't tanked Kil'jaeden because i stopped playing while we were on M'uru so start making constructive threats and saying "look look, we do less dmg than those over there..." isn't a constructive threat...

[lostdruid]

Feral druids are better tanks in sunwell if your guild got over the mentality of using a warrior because of their oh crap buttons or just basic stereotypes. Shield wall helps solidify a victory and most likely won't turn a bad wipe into one. Even if it manages to do so, you didn't deserve that kill (first kill or not). Ferals are also better tanks if you didn't gem stamina like there's no tomorrow, which 90% of the population do. If you did that and complain about feral tanks being inferior compared to prot warriors, grats on gimping your own class.

For feral dps in 3.0, it is probably still lacking because we can't get all the essential talents we need (at the very least you can't get OoC and Berserk at the same time). In wrath, however, it is simulated to be able to hit 5k dps as cat spec in naxx 10 and heroic gear. This is not lacking at all; it is competitive, if not overpowered, as I have not looked into other classes' numbers as deeply yet.

I don't research balance and restoration that deeply so I won't pretend I have experience about it.

Sunwell is a special case different from bc with the debuff and the bosses. Sure helps if you have 55% dodge but in the end the blow will be blow. Not like the other tanks with block.
As for the dps i don't know what 5k means for other classes in beta but you can get a taste of the dps now as posted above. I don't think 1 talent and 1 finishing move will change that.

[lostdruid]

Dude, stop whining...

The only sad part about feral druids in TBC was the DPS scale. We were doing pretty fine DPS before BT but then we stayed a little behind. About tanking druids we were, are and will still be awesome tanks if you know how to play. In BT only didn't tanked RoS and Illidan (tanked the flames) and in Sunwell only didn't tanked Kil'jaeden because i stopped playing while we were on M'uru so start making constructive threats and saying "look look, we do less dmg than those over there..." isn't a constructive threat...

i am not whining, i am just trying to pinpoint something. If those things are not reported now then when do you expect to, when we hit nax25 or arthas?
I don't know if it's constructive or not but this is the truth.
some times i think druids really are in the emerald dream..

[Haskel]

Haha, I love it

*picture of a paladin aoe-tanking non-heroic non-elites*

Clearly, paladins are better tanks than druids.

Your pictures do have a scroll bar, but since you have 5 huge pictures in there, the horizontal scroll bar is WAAAAAY down at the bottom, and I can't even get half the image in my screen at once. So to see the paladin Aoe tanking, I have to scroll down 5 pages, move the bar over half a screen, scroll back up, register to memory what's in the middle of the picture, scroll back down, move over, go back up, you get the picture (no pun intended :P). Or just open it up in a different window and select View Image so Firefox will scale it down for me

As for your actual topic (see, I'm not a troll after all), you show yourself getting outperformed by an arms warrior, a ret paladin, and a moonkin druid. Go over to the warrior forums, see if you can find at least one post of an arms warrior claiming to be the most gimp spec. Then try it on the ret forums (even as OP as they are in pvp, they claim the "worst DPS" spot for themselves in PvE like everyone else). Check if you can find any balance druids talking about how poor their DPS is going to be.

Point is: Everyone is doing less DPS than someone else. As much as people hate to admit there is skill in PvE, it's a simple truth, it's really easy to botch up a class really bad. I've seen a rogue do 1/3 the damage of my enh shaman. IN LIVE. (tribute to the suckyness of the rogue, not the awesomeness of me :P). And there are so many little things you can do to squeeze every last drop of DPS out of your class, and these really, really add up. Now, I'm not here to rate your skill as a druid (the one melee class I'm least familiar with), but bliz is working on getting everyone to a similar starting ground in terms of DPS, if a warrior can pull off 800 more DPS than you in gear way worse than you, then turn around and complain that his DPS is too low, you gotta ask yourself if you're really doing everything you can to efficiently play your class.

Granted there are some balance issues that they are still working on, but given a little research, I'm sure I could find you an example of every class/spec doing #1 DPS, and another example of the same class/spec claiming to be the worst DPS (simply because the poster didn't know how to play the class)

PS. If it makes you feel any better Demonlol is hitting 2 target dummies with his consecration and divine storm, vastly inflating his DPS numbers.


And what exactly is a "constructive threat"? :P. Is that like saying "if you don't remember to keep slice and dice up all the time, and gem for hit, then I'M GOING TO POUND YOUR FACE!"

[Avermra]

Sunwell is a special case different from bc with the debuff and the bosses. Sure helps if you have 55% dodge but in the end the blow will be blow. Not like the other tanks with block.
As for the dps i don't know what 5k means for other classes in beta but you can get a taste of the dps now as posted above. I don't think 1 talent and 1 finishing move will change that.

You do know that block only partially mitigates damage, right? Block mitigation allows a warrior to tank roughly same amount of overall damage as a druid tank under ideal situations. The only problem for a feral (or a paladin) tank in TBC is that
1.Majority of guilds are still close-minded about needing a warrior MT
and
2.Some fights which heavily favored a warrior (unless you have really good dps warrior to intervene shear, or really good dps to kill RoS phase 2 without spell reflect, or really good healer to top you off during Kael pyroblast, etc)

edit: and sunwell radiance nerfs all class equally in terms of avoidance, so the only "advantage" Ferals had over other instances, is the removal of crushing blow, which is also gone in 3.0 anyway. So "Sunwell is different because of the debuff" did not, does not, and will not even be part of the argument as long as any of your 3 types of tanks have more than 20% dodge for sunwell radiance to take away, and if you're doing sunwell I'd hope you have more than 20% dodge on your tanks.

The fact is that Feral tanking is NOT gimped in TBC at all if we are analyzing the amount of flat damage we take (as opposed to spike damage), the fact that our avoidance is as good as a warrior's, and the fact that we can do much better threat than they can in survival gear, and survive better than they can in full threat gear while still outpacing them in threat. EVEN WITH THE PRESENCE OF CRUSHING BLOW, Druid took overall less spiky damage (crushing blow on druid armor is same as warrior taking normal blows)

Feral DPS IS lacking, and I am not disagreeing with you here. Personally I have pulled 2.1k DPS on Brutallus with just Enhancement Shaman and Fury Warrior as synergy with one Heroism. Is this lacking to the 3k Hunters are pulling, sure. But this is being addressed in WoTLK, as devs acknowledged the fact that feral DPS is lacking IN SCALING (which is why we were fine in t4-t5, but sucked in t6 and beyond.)

I just read through some spreadsheet and simluation of other classes: 5K dps is the high end of the spectrum. With Savage Roar (40% extra ap is a LOT of scaling, believe it or not), buff to Rake and Mangle (both of which are better than shred at combo generating and only lag a bit behind, if at all, in terms of DPE. Running 2SR/5rip rotation puts my DPS at around 4800 raid buffed, and 5k when I do 5SR/5Rip/5FB rotation. All this means that currently in WoTLK feral dps is VERY competitive while still able to bring raid utiltiy such as innervate and battle rez.

All in all feral is in very good shape right now coming into the expansion, and from the way Predatory attacks and Savage roar scales with gear, I don't think we will lag behind in the future as well. The way you presented your opinion in such a subjective method of (well, we didn't get any new toys so we're bad), or (well, we got one new attack and one new finisher and I don't think they'll make an impact, when SR is probably the best self buff in the game) makes it extremely difficult to take you seriously and not dismiss you as just another whine post without base, no offense.

[Heartrend]

Great post avermra. I am switching mains from my holy pally to a resto druid but I still wanna be able to tank and deeps when needed.

[Furo]

I agree with you. We are missing somewhat a 'omg thats so cool I'm gonna love it!!!!' talent. Other classes 3.0 talents are a great bonus to what they got already and are almost all quite nice.
Ferals only get what they should have gotten even before TBC. We dont get anything really 'special', just what we need since a long while now.

[Töasty]

I think the problem is you are looking at lvl 70, not level 80. Some classes are more powerful at lvl 70 already getting some of there new spells, but I think once druids get savage roar, http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=52610 , 40% more ap will buff dmg and bleeds by a lot.

[sakir]

i am not whining

you definitly are

[Beasty]

I'd love to see the abilities being used by that shaman because I bet they include chain lightning from Maelstrom.


also your terrible gear vs his sub par gear

feral dps is honestly fine, as is tanking, I've done both at 80 and I can tell you that, Savage roar is a good few hundred dps upgrade too, blizzard have done an excellent job listening to us and every other class too.

[mgp84]

I as a feral, with SWP experience, and balance experience can tell you you have no clue about the impact of the changes that Blizzard has reworked for us in WotLK. Your images don't prove a point whatsoever. You want to try and do so? Numbers please.

[Asyl]

Btw the picture of a boomkin doing decent dps with bad gear (no hit 12% crit) was on a level 60 target dummy so of course the dps would be higher....