Feral Damage Really That OP?

[Balduvian]

Every spec have it's ups and downs, and I would say Feral wins quite hard on CC prevention when compared to Subtely.

Obviously you didn't read previous posts. You're just repeating what was said a billion times before.

Ferals are practically 'immume' to sheep and can counter roots/slows quite easily, yes, but they are highly (more) susceptible to other CC's and additional CC's can be used against Ferals that cannot be used on other targets.

Also, this doesn't mean Ferals are as easy to peel as other targets. In fact, I agree Ferals are probably the hardest (or one of the hardest) specs to peel. However, this doesn't mean they cannot be countered in other ways through using other CC's or using CC in a smarter way for example.

I haven't blown a psy scream into a cloaked rogue all expansion that I can recall.

It's kind of different for priests I'll have to agree, purely because fear is instant 24/7. Cloak can still be used really easily to eat casted Warlock fears on command though.

you're immune to an overwhelming majority of CC in the game!

I know what he/she meant, and yes it's completely true. Not the point though.

[Biggety]

I know what he/she meant, and yes it's completely true. Not the point though.

Except that it is the point. Ferals have a very strong slew of abilities, not the least of which is their mobility and immunity to many common forms of crowd control. Their damage is less bursty than many other classes (which is a good thing, imo), but is very high overall in pvp because of their uptime on targets. You can't nerf their damage for PvE reasons, which means that ferals need to be more susceptible to peels than they are currently, which means roots and snares because those are ubiquitous anti-melee peels.

From the PvE side, removing some of the feral mobility may also give Blizzard the ability to buff feral's damage, or at least lower the ramp-up time, which could end up as a reasonable tradeoff in pvp.

[Balduvian]

Except that it is the point. Ferals have a very strong slew of abilities, not the least of which is their mobility and immunity to many common forms of crowd control. Their damage is less bursty than many other classes (which is a good thing, imo), but is very high overall in pvp because of their uptime on targets. You can't nerf their damage for PvE reasons, which means that ferals need to be more susceptible to peels than they are currently, which means roots and snares because those are ubiquitous anti-melee peels.

From the PvE side, removing some of the feral mobility may also give Blizzard the ability to buff feral's damage, or at least lower the ramp-up time, which could end up as a reasonable tradeoff in pvp.

Yeah, it WAS the point indeed. Untill me and several others countered that arguement, not going to do it again. All we're doing currently is repeating.

About your other point, the nerfing of Feral susceptibility regarding roots/slows while buffing damage...It wouldn't be a bad idea in the sense of balancing PvP. However, the problem here is that PvP will never be balanced anyway, no matter how you turn it. On the other hand, it would be yet another rather giant step towards even further homogeneity of classes, which is just plain bad and nothing else. This isn't Call of Duty.

[Whitepaw]

@ Biggety

Regarding

From the PvE side, removing some of the feral mobility may also give Blizzard the ability to buff feral's damage, or at least lower the ramp-up time, which could end up as a reasonable tradeoff in pvp.

Feral damage is already at a really good place in my opinion. We should definitely not be buffed.

The nerfs to Feral in the most current build on PTR for patch 5.4 (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/10158897/) go in the right direction. The most significant is that PS can no longer be used to cast an instant Cyclone. At the same time, the Feral CD to Cyclone gets removed.

The whole point for me to enter this discussion is not to buff Ferals - but to avoid nerfs that I find detrimental to the spec. Some would like game mechanics to work fairly consistently across all specs, since that leads to easier balancing and also makes it easier to counter opponents. I dislike that idea - it leads to a more dull game overall.

I also dislike the idea of removing the Feral ability to shift out of root effects (and no, it's not powershifting - powershifting took advantage of a certain talent back in Vanilla and TBC, where you gained up to a minimum of 40 energy by shapeshifting into cat form). The net effect for Ferals would be that Ferals would sit in root effects - and at the same time be vulnerable through a lack of counters to a range of other CC abilities. That would leave Ferals less competitive in a number of situations - and in larger scale PvP would mean even less control of their char than at present.

[Syh]

Yeah, it WAS the point indeed. Untill me and several others countered that arguement, not going to do it again. All we're doing currently is repeating.

About your other point, the nerfing of Feral susceptibility regarding roots/slows while buffing damage...It wouldn't be a bad idea in the sense of balancing PvP. However, the problem here is that PvP will never be balanced anyway, no matter how you turn it. On the other hand, it would be yet another rather giant step towards even further homogeneity of classes, which is just plain bad and nothing else. This isn't Call of Duty.

Of course not, that doesn't mean you simply just allow something overpowered to go without tweaks though; I really don't think that's a good excuse not to modify it at the very least. By the way, I'm pretty sure we're all well aware that WoW is not Call of Duty... was that comment even necessary?

I think that instead of completely removing shifting out of roots/snares they should simply make it so you can only shift roots/snares every <some number> of seconds, or something of the sort. If they were to do that, you'd have both a bit more of balance and it would shy away from homogeneity as well.

[Balduvian]

Of course not, that doesn't mean you simply just allow something overpowered to go without tweaks though; I really don't think that's a good excuse not to modify it at the very least. By the way, I'm pretty sure we're all well aware that WoW is not Call of Duty... was that comment even necessary?

Of course something should still be modified if it is highly unbalanced, however, not at the cost this high. (Ferals aren't rogues or warriors, don't make them rogues or warriors).

The point was; unbalanced + different specs/classes > a little less unbalanced (still unbalanced) + specs/classes that are practically the same. If you prefer that last option, WoW isn't the game for you. CoD could be that game for you though, that's why I mentioned it.

The change that you mentioned regarding shapeshifting is often said to be 'problem solving', and perhaps it is, I'll have to agree on that. Nontheless it would be an absolutely horrible change gameplay wise for anyone that has been playing Feral (or Druid) for a while. It's not just as simple as adding a cooldown in this particular case, like it was for cyclone in 5.2, it's actually game-changing.

[Ziene]

Seeing a crossed thread thing happening regarding slows and roots to ferals:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...8#post21531588

Getting close to crossing paths.. Just saying..