With the latest changes on PTR we are now on the so called 2.4.3 doomed cat which means that energy ticks are reset when shifting. The oddest thing is that this change is currently in instances and raids only! No more caster form 0,4 sec for extra energy. This gives us a 5 sec rotation instead of classic 4 sec. That’s a straight 20% dps nerf for cats. Why nerf an already weak specc Blizzard?
There’s an old blue post from actual TBC that talks about this change but I can’t add an link for some reason
If you know it’s correct patch 2.4.3 behaviour then why would you make a post complaining about it? I don’t get the point here, Feral dps in patch 2.4.3 is a lot higher relative to the pack than it is in Classic too.
This makes it clear that it was an unintended side effect of another change - it was not the intention back then to give feral cats a damage nerf or change their energy regeneration system.
This isn’t just devastating for cat-only ferals. Even as a Feral Tank you’ll have to go cat and dps on fights requiring only one or two tanks.
Should we just revert the arena point gain values below 1500 rating, and the required rating for gear back to its 2.4.3 values aswell then? Maybe we should just keep raid difficulties at where they were at in 2.4.3 aswell, instead of scaling them to what seems the most enjoyable. Revert the new mounts, and boosts, since they werent in tbc at all. And blablabla, I mean I just looked up a few topics to make sure exactly what they changed from the original 2.4.3 client, and I could keep on looking up more stuff but im not writing an essay here.
What the large majority of the druid community wants WAS present in tbc, even though it might not have been after later patches. And since were getting some mishmash of things that seem the most appropriate from different patches I dont see how this is an argument.
And besides, these changes werent as far as I know mentioned in the patch notes. It was an indirect (unintentional) change that came with making it so evocate and innervate didnt waste ticks. As the guy above already mentioned.
But you’re aware here this is how it was in TBC? You’re asking for a DPS buff and while I admire the hustle, this isn’t going to happen. It’s not devastating for Feral dps, it’s exactly the same as it was in TBC.
In TBC 2.4.3 Feral dps is actually “ok” on single target, in some cases you can even be reasonably competitive on meters if you’re at the absolute maximum level of min-maxing and gameplay skill, which is a massive buff compared to how it is in Classic. But you’re never going to perform like a main spec dps in the broad sense,
Feral is very attractive in raids anyway, the only hybrid that can perform close to optimal within 2 roles with the same spec and it has valuable buffs/utility.
I wouldn’t be against that, I prefer the no changes approach. Also, are you Swanny?
Nah, I dont know any Swanny. Though his name does resemble mine, so make sure he knows hes on thin ice for plagiarism!
My point wasnt about what you prefer or not though, i’m saying blizzard should stay consistent with the design phylosophy they said they were gonna follow since blizzcon. And if that design phylosophy is “keep true to the game, but change things depending on player feedback” sticking to a mechanic that a large portion of the community enjoys and that was present in 2.0-2.2 (out of 2.0-2.4 this seems like a large portion of the game) seems pretty at place.
Swanny is a feral druid I played with in the past, and the person my opinions of Feral dps are mostly based on. You being a tauren feral druid with that name, it must be like your long lost twin brother.
Anyway, if people are saying this change would be a 20% difference in dps, that’s 20% more dps than you should be doing if this was accurate to TBC. I’m completely against all these changes, I will still enjoy TBC but they have already changed it to a different version of the game from my point of view.
Currently it just resembles none of the phases of the original TBC and for me that’s not a positive, I don’t want them making more changes, whether it was unintended or not. Seal Twisting was unintended too, but it was part of TBC and it’s good that they kept it in. It’s the changes moving away from TBC that I dislike.
Considering that the change is sourced from a 2.2 tweak with dubious intentions (either it was intentional or not) and removes a lots of fun from one of the most niche, and already hard to play specs, please revert this. It is not the DPS, it just feels awful to play feral cat this way.
The 2.2 behaviour (according to contemporary sources) was likely unintentional, and heavily contested by the community even then. Reverting this to either the Classic tick system or to the pre-hotfix behaviour, would be a very good example for #somechanges, without any significant effect on game balance (see: paladin seals, Arena gear requirement, etc.).
I can see that, especially from a non-feral perspective. I dont particularly like these changes either, but I hope its also understandable that having your spec gutted and having people chime “it was like it was in 2.4.3” while literaly every other part of the game gets changed feels like you’re getting the worst of both worlds. And im saying gutted as in gameplay wise, not dps lose wise.
Because Seal Twisting was possible in 2.4.3.
Powershifting wasn’t.
Okay, I can sympathize with that.
Tell ya what, let’s revert the Cats to 2.0
Under the condition that the same is done for ALL CLASSES. Including giving Demo-Locks their 15% scaling on Demonic Knowledge (12% in 2.4.3), and letting DoTs ignore Resilience as they did at the start until they got nerfed.
Oh, and ofc rogues get to have cloak of shadows on preparation.
And everything else that was balanced, tweaked, changed, adapted, fixed over the patches.
You’re realy comparing a mechanic thats only used in raids, and gives a spec alot more debth to something that greatly inpacts arenas and gives your bigger n00mbers? Or are you just complaining that druids wouldnt be as terrible a dps relative to warlocks anymore?
I feel like people are debating this more because they feel their place on the dps meters is getting threatened then actually caring about the health of the game. And yeh, improving the enjoyment people get out of a spec is good for the health of the game.
Well I dunno about having your spec gutted. Swanny (the other one) was for example topping phase 1 on Vashj on some pulls as Feral in 2.4.3, and we didn’t have slouches on our team (high parsing experienced raiders mostly). If Ferals did 20% more dps then they could genuinely be the top single target melee spec for some fights, which is nothing like how it was in TBC.
Feral is hard to play so you don’t see people maximising it often, but when they do they are already pretty decent in TBC. Like I said, if you were to compare it to Classic it’s a huge improvement, and I get that Ferals still have that stigma of generally being one of the weaker dps specs and it mostly being secondary to the tanking role but that is how it was in TBC.
Sorry my friend, but even with Powershifting fully intact, there is zero reason for Warlocks, the class with the most powerful single-target, multi-target and AoE damage in the expansion to feel threatened
Haha, you’re replying to my idle musing and ignoring my point. Though I agree, warlocks seem awesome aswell.
Something came to mind aswell, you were comparing an intended change to a change that was (seemingly) a by-product of changes to intervene and inebriate. Uhhh innervate*
