The current paths just gives us less tools than what we have today. It is a straight up nerf.
The point with a talent “tree” should be that there are different paths to take to reach the desired options, but most things are locked behind a single specific path anyway, forcing a certain playstyle if you want a certain utility.
As you mention in the article - there will be prerequisites, arrows etc, and you have to move downwards
You want to be able to stun people in PvP? Well, then you are going to deal damage with Rip.
You want to be able to interrupt people in PvP? Yeah well, this means you are also going to do AoE damage with Swipe.
Those are totally unrelated things! There needs to be more paths.
The only “cool” new thing is the Furor talent (assuming you actually have some other form with abilities to shape into).
As for the Feral specific tree - it is just the same old talents and re-use of the legendaries / torghast powers. Only good thing is I maaaay be able to play without the trash that is Berserk?
I was really hoping for something new, like a fix for our AoE and energy starvation (maybe it will get a little better?).
Looks like the same old garbage, but even worse, so no longer looking forward to Dragonflight.
Yh I must say I am really disappointed so far. This is just a lazy work… they took many of the old talents and randomly put them in a tree?? Still there is no clear fix for any AoE build at all and instead doubling down on ST? Why is there like 9 talents related to Tiger Fury? And more fun is that weak Berserk also eats like 3 talents LOL. Oh and the raid buff is again available for all Druids so it won’t make a difference at all for Feral since you will always have a Resto in raid…
Why can’t Feral have a decent AoE like almost all other specs??
I am super frustrated about these new talent trees.
I don’t understand. What have you been doing for months and months if it is just a re-use of existing stuff?
Does anyone at the company even play Feral at all?
As mentioned before, the only cool new thing is the Furor talent.
However, a big requirement for that talent is that you have any forms to shapeshift into.
Moonkin form requires a separate talent.
“No form” is being activated all the time because of shapeshifting out of roots / snares.
Bear form lacks any useful attacks / abilities.
Making Disorienting Roar and Mighty Bash a choice is a nerf to the current gameplay where you can have both.
Disorienting Roar needs to be improved to a SPELL THAT CANNOT BE DODGED OR PARRIED and that MAY CANCEL ON DAMAGE due to all the bleeds flying about.
Mighty Bash needs to be put on the same 1 GCD as the rest of the Feral abilities, right now it feels awkward.
Basically all talents regarding energy and Omen of Clarity need to be deleted. That they are even there is a testament to how broken and bad the fundamental energy regeneration and ability costs are. This functionality should be baseline and is a prerequisite for even playing.
Ask yourself, is spending talent points on this fun?
Primal Wrath and Brutal Slash need to be removed from the game, and they absolutely should not be gatekeepers for further talent choices.
That Brutal Slash exists is again due to the bad energy implementation.
Why add Primal Wrath as an ability and talent, when Rip itself could do this at X efficiency to all nearby bleeding targets? That would feel better and have better synergy.
All of the Feral Legendaries are really underwhelming and I was REALLY happy to get a new expansion where I would not have to play with them!
Right now I’m using Unity + The Natural Order’s Will - but they are of course not available!
If you are going to add a bunch of torghast powers etc, why not add something like the “your bleeds jumps to another target” effect which could actually be useful?
Oh yeah, maybe because it is broken and not working for basically the entire expansion and you don’t want to fix it?
You are mixing different “areas” too much, forcing irrelevant things to be pre-requisites and just giving the illusion of choice.
I would love if you could actually break the tree (which could honestly just be a circle or whatever, depending on entry point) apart a little more into sections focusing on different areas:
Stealth improvements (basic Rake/Pounce stun should be baseline still, but things like “Vanish” and “Subterfuge” should go here)
Shapeshifting utility (other forms etc)
Damage type (bleed heavy, or more direct)
Damage balance (ST vs AoE)
Customizing your ultimate ability (Berserk is actually a decent example here, but you are spreading it out too much, and to be honest, it was always garbage for the 3 min cooldown you put on it)
Typically, this would be a choice kind of like how you select your Covenant ability, but then you would have FURTHER talents based on that choice that can customize how you play.
If I want to forsake all advanced Stealth capabilities to invest more in Shapeshifting, then please let me. Right now I’m forced to pick it regardless, otherwise I’m not reaching Predatory Swiftness for example.
Furthermore, just put some effort into making interesting talents:
Follow-up talent(s) to Predatory Swiftness, with possible exclusive choices:
Increase chance by 5% per combo point.
Also affects Cyclone.
It can now stack an additional time.
Improving Regrowth:
Healing over time effect now radiates Nature damage to nearby enemies.
Overhealing applies an absorb on the target.
Also counts towards Blood Talons.
Just some examples.
If the talents stay as they are, I’m very likely to not play Dragonflight at all.
I’m just too tired of switching main, and have been waiting basically the entire Shadowlands expansions for you to fix Feral gameplay (and nerf Holy Priests) but nothing is happening.
I think it looks quite exciting to be honest, but yeah there are definitely some flaws. The class tree makes it so we all lose some very good things, things that I would say are extremely important for PvP even though losing them in PvE won’t be an issue at all. Feral tree looks very fun, but I am not sure excactly how much we get to pick so I am waiting for talent calculator before going too in-depth.
It seems we lose leap, which is not good. Losing cyclone as feral is tragic, we need it. Other than that I think it looks alright, but not perfect. It depends how much other classes lose. Having only incap or bash is fine, as long as other classes also have less. I’m not quite sure how far our points reach, but there are many cool talents to pick at least.
For feral tree I think they have done many good things, but a couple very bad ones. DELETE SABRETOOTH. DELETE BLOODTALONS. DELETE BRUTAL SLASH. The Berserk thing is really cool, but I am guessing it will be underwhelming - I’m looking forward to playing with the Berserk: Frenzy though! I like that there seems to be a bit more emphasis on bleeds now, which is good. A couple energy-related talents, like the moment of clarity one is great. It’s something we want to have now, but just can’t - in Dragonflight we might be able to pick it. The same goes for Primal Wrath, now we can pick it without making a completely dedicated AoE-build, which is good.
They have definitely given a bit of thought to our issues, but they clearly like the degenerate abilities that makes feral difficult to design and balance properly. And please, please, please put our slow on SHRED, not Rake…
remove () or search in google. have fun woth the calculator. i wrote my stuff in the general forum and i dont like that they took utility and lock them behind affinities. hibernate for example
if thats true that we need to pick all passives to get to the new talent omfg but could be just the devs implementation on this site
Nice, thanks. It seems we can’t choose talents that are connected upwards, so we can’t pick “Thick Hide” without “Ironfur”, I think it would be a mistake to implement it this way because then we don’t really have freedom to choose our own way around things. Hopefully we can do that in the real game
I’m trying my best here to convey a somewhat nuanced opinion but really? This is what the Feral designers come up with? They even kept Scent of Blood. What a joke.
Personally, I think this is a very promising start, and I like that they’re making them available for the community to see and comment on this early in the development process. It seems that they’ve taken on board the requests for a bleed based alternative to the feral bite build, and I’m excited to see where this goes.
For resto it’s a really nice addition if they decide to catweave but balance will realistically never go for skull bash.
It’s good that they aren’t in the feral base kit since now other specs can also pick those up, mostly guardian and resto. For example I wish we had Eclipse in the main druid tree but that is now balance exclusive.
Yeah the 3 wasted points do feel pretty bad. Would already be good if you could skill upwards so you only had to take sunfire as useless spell.
Indeed.
Because both resto and balance struggle for M+/raid spot. Lets give them more.
/catsarcasm
You missed the point. Just because something is in feral base kit doesn’t mean other specs can’t get it. Like Rake is given to ferals by default but other specs can still get it so should be Rip and Primal Fury, they are both core to the gameplay it’s just so silly to see it in the druid main talent tree.
Feels like some of the devs smoked too much.
I get the point but I still think it’s pretty moot. Every spec has things in the tree that’s fundamental to their kit. Ironfur for guardian, wild growth for resto and so on. And it’s not really a problem for it to do so. Honestly fundamental abilities being part of your talents has always been a thing in wow, rpgs and mmos.
They could of course unlock all of those abilities for your spec right away and then reduce the amount of overall points you have but that leaves you in the same place except with less choice. And you can’t just give the specs their abilities and the same amount of points, since if you can just skill everything in a talent tree you might as well not have a talent tree.
as i said utility spells should not be locked behind multiple usless talent points. And this is with thypoon, hibernate, innervate, basically all cc spells we have now.
Spec trees are better but also not optimal. Too much beserk talents where most of them should be just one!
you can skip starfall, moonkin form. all talents and build the worst class ever. They call it freedom. I call it stupid design. In witcher, mass effect, skyrim, whatever rpg there isn’t a usless talent. Look at that tree and you see they have never designed a real rpg game.
…and by the way, this so called “Community Council” are talking out of their butts, since nobody plays Feral or PvP they pretty much think this is fine:
but could be just the devs implementation on this site
they kept warrior of elune for balance druid