Feedback on Dragonflight feral: An m+ player

Classes Druid
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Intro and about me

Heyo Im Polverll, passionate feral player. I mainly play m+ now, so my feedback will mostly be focused around that area. I’ve got to point out that I don’t currently have access to the Alpha, so I haven’t playtested yet. This is purely from fidgeting and playing around with the talent tree.

Throughout Shadowlands I’ve been pugging most of my m+ groups, and needless to say; it’s been hard. Feral is not the best performer in m+, but it’s mostly because of the community’s judgement of the spec. Feral has had a dark cloud above their head for a long time now, and it’s affecting our ability to compete/enjoy the hardest content.
I’m no top of the top or anything, but I’ve climbed relatively high up the leaderboards, currently sitting at ~3360 score.

Quick disclaimer: The feral community is a rather small one, and even though the size is small, there’s a lot of different ways people enjoy the spec. None are “better” (not accounting for performance/DPS) or more correct than others, my feedback will of course be from my perspective and how I enjoy playing the spec, you may not agree and that’s completely fine. :smiley:

The feedback

Feral specific talent tree:

Brutal Slash
Currently my biggest critique is the whole Brutal Slash deal. The problem right now lies in the position of it in the current iteration of the talent tree.

  1. It blocks (if not chosen):
  • Our main defensive CD, Survival Instincts:
    Even with Barkskin as baseline, this still feels quite like a must have for higher keys.
  • Berserk: Frenzy (Frenzyband)
    This talent is what makes Berserk somewhat useful in AoE situations (as well as a boost to ST), because you can spam swipe and apply the bleed onto everyone (reduced damage beyond 5 targets). Currently in Shadowlands I play with Frenzyband legendary, without it, Berserk feels like a weak cooldown (especially for a 3 min. CD).
  • Cat-eye Curio
    Not a lot to touch on with this one, it’s a nice to have and I think it’s a neat combination with Moment of Clarity.
  • Apex Predator’s Craving / Draught of Deep Focus
    My focus with this node is Apex Predator’s Craving, since it has a really nice synergy with the later talent Circle of Life and Death (also a legendary I’ve used in SL until covenant legendaries came out), it feels like a must have, at least a “would really like to have” with Circle of Life and Death.
  1. It replaces Swipe
  • Not a lot of explanation is required here, it feels awful having your AoE builder on a CD.
    Possible solutions:
  • Move Brutal Slash to an end node, so you would have to pick it, to get to something else.
  • Make it not replace swipe. This would also make some interesting gameplay with Bloodtalons.

Berserk

Let’s talk Berserk, our offensive cooldown. Generally speaking Berserk has felt like a weak cooldown for a 3 min. CD. Though with an increase in power with the latest season of Shadowlands and it’s tier set (4 set bonus: Sickle of the Lion).

All in all, Berserk has 4 available nodes/talent points to spend in the tree, some more powerful than others. Currently the first version available in the tree, Berserk: Relentlessness, alone is a really weak 3 min. CD. And with the current position of Brutal Slash, if you’d want your actual Swipe, you wouldn’t be able to get the one (Berserk: Frenzy) that gives you the most power in AoE.

Yes, you could spread Rake with Berserk: Jungle Stalker, but let’s be real, tab-targeting and pressing a single-target ability doesn’t feel great in an 8+ trash mobs pull, especially not during a cooldown window.

I’ve always liked Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane (earlier known as Incarnation: King of the Jungle), it used to make everything go smoother in our cooldown window due to its energy cost reduction, but in the current Dragonflight talent tree, there’s so many options to get more energy, to name them: Soul of the Forest, Cat-eye Curio, Savage Roar, Moment of Clarity, Scent of blood, Predator, Max energy, Improved Tiger’s Fury.

With all of these talents, Incarnation loses its value, since (without playtesting) it looks like energy won’t be a problem.

Possible solutions:

  • Reduce the number of points to “max out” Berserk, could maybe put Berserk: Jungle Stalker and Incarnation: Avatar of Ashamane into one?
  • To make Berserk feel a lot better in AoE situations, swipe could be added to the Stealth bonus, so it would do X% increased damage from stealth and therefore that would increase the power of Berserk: Jungle Stalker (or incarnation if put together).
  • Add Sickle of the Lion. This has made a huge difference in ferals damage in m+ and I would love for it to be in the game in the future.
  • Maybe revisit/add Blood Mist; the Rake bleed damage chance to grant you Berserk for a short period of time.

“Minor”, quality of life things:

Minor is in quotation marks; some is a bit more than minor.

  • Our combat resurrection, Rebirth, is not castable in cat-form.
    I would really like to see it implemented in Predatory Swiftness (which brings me to the next point)
  • Predatory Swiftness
    Having to commit a point in this, so far down the tree and to the side, feels bad. It’s been a thing we’ve had for an eternity, and I would really like to see it baseline, way farther up at the top in the tree or in the druid tree.
  • Innervate castable in cat-form?
    I’ve not played on the Alpha myself, but I would really like to have Innervate be castable from cat form (I don’t know if this is the case already, but think I read from someone, that it’s not)
  • Incapacitating roar
    I love that we get the possibility to have this as feral! But it would be so much smoother and a huge quality of life improvement if we would be able to cast/use it from cat-form
  • Stampeding Roar
    When casting/using Stampeding Roar in caster-form it will make you shift into bear-form. It would be nice to have it shapeshift you into cat-form when in feral spec.
  • Shapeshifting
    As some of you may know, shapeshifting has been part of playing feral, yes, I’m talking about Owlweaving. Also shifting into bear-form to get a bit extra health and survivability for certain mechanics (especially with Ursine Vigor). I like to utilize my druid for what he is, a shapeshifter, but it feels less than great atm. I’ve had an idea for a while now, that could(?) make shapeshifting a bit more fluid.

My idea was to make shapeshifting have “its own GCD”, very much like how it works when you shapeshift out of a form, that form you were in, goes on a GCD, but nothing else. This but with all forms and no other abilities. Say I was in cat-form, I could shapeshift into Moonkin form and immediately cast a Sunfire and go back to cat-form when the “shapeshifting GCD” would have refreshed. Tuning this to not be overpowered, I’m not sure, but now the idea is out there.
(Note: I’m not a fan of Furor talent from Druid tree)

Druid talent tree:

I’ve not got a lot to point out in the druid talent tree, except from the point I made above about the Furor talent. I’m not a fan of this, I’d like to spend most my time in cat-form when I play feral – and I feel like (again, without playtesting) this would make the playstyle change a lot and make you spend less time in cat-form overall.

Maybe it’s not that bad (and would not be worth in a DPS rotation) if it would require you to have been out of cat-form, for 15 sec. before it would grant you the 4 sec. of free costs after shifting into cat-form.

I’m not completely sure how this currently works, so read the above as concern, since I’ve not got the facts straight about how it really works.

The nice stuff:

I also wanted to make a section about the great stuff. I love the thought of having all the following abilities/talents/effects at the same time:

  • Savage Roar
  • Circle of Life and Death
  • Apex Predator’s Craving
  • Moment of Clarity
  • Soul of the Forest
  • Sabertooth/Predator
  • Cat-eye Curio
  • Berserk: Frenzy
  • Bloodtalons/Feral Frenzy

Thanks for reading my feedback, I’m excited for Dragonflight as a whole and ferals potential. :slight_smile:

- Polverll

4 Likes
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I agree with much of what you said, but most specifically this. It would be the easiest thing to implement, and would mean we could actually use 3 AOE abilities to proc BT in AOE situations, which would be much more fun (or alternatively, if they ever make thrash do enough damage that overwriting it matters, we could avoid overwriting it).

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It’s a terrible idea, we’d have far too many keybinds just to do our basic dmg rotation

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Hi! That’s fair, but I personally would not see a problem with this, it’s one extra button for AoE and ST - and I dont currently feel like keybinds is a problem as feral. :slight_smile:

Your opinion is valid and I respect everyones opinions, but I don’t agree. :smiley:

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I don’t think having Swipe and BrS seperate is a good idea as we will basically have two buttons that do the same and practically have the same animation… grant the same amount of CPs and it just… not fun really but also it means we will still have BrS as a ST rotation ability which is just stupid.

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I also don’t think ‘too many keybinds’ is a good argument against improving the AOE rotation. We’re druids. We already have about 2 million keybinds. One more won’t make a difference.

Do they? The sound effects are very different.

I would also argue against them doing the same. BrS damage isn’t buffed by bleeds so you can use it before thrash/PW to get a charge on CD right away - oh, and it has charges and a CD. Also, you can proc BT with thrash, swipe, BrS. You can’t proc it with thrash, swipe, swipe.

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I’m also not for having too many keybinds, though there are ways around that with an ability that turns normal attacks into multi-attacks, just getting it balanced is the issue I guess.

For me the problem is rather that feral FEELS so repetetive and boring due to very little feedback back from what you’re doing. The sound design, the visual… Again I like to bring out the Shaman which FEELS absolutely fantastic to play, can we get that kind of life into feral druid too? I would not feel the class being so dull if I get some great visual and audiatorial feedback on what I’m doing.

The idea behind feral druid is awesome, but the execution is really totally uninteresting to me.

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I get the lack of flashy feeling. It’s why I find playing my paladin such a glorious experience sometimes. You don’t get more flashy than a pally popping wings.

However, the reason I started playing feral (and much of the reason I continue, to be honest) is because I want to be a cat. (Judging by the number of cat pictures posted in the feral discord, this is a common theme among feral players.) Cats are not flashy. Cats are silent hunters. I get enough auditory and visual feedback to know the button I just pressed was the one I intended to press (aside from bite, which gives more than enough feedback), and that works for me.

There are some things that don’t make sense - why does savage roar sound like a gunshot and not a roar? - but overall, I prefer subtle sound effects and visuals, as is in keeping with the theme of the spec.

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Yh sure they have a little difference in the sound but do you actually notice a big diff in animation? In general we have very boring and lazy animations… one spell we sipe left paw and the other right paw lol… I personally find it to be a boring playstyle if we get Swipe and BrS together… we need a different spell for proper AoE and we need proper attention for once… every xpac its the same sh*t with being ignored and then we just ask for any bandaid fixes like this…

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I get where you’re coming from, but I’m pretty happy with the visual upgrades we got in legion with the bunch of new forms.

One thing I’d love to return, though, is the old incarnation, where you’d get the cool “forest” armor on your cat model. I understand why they removed it in legion, when they added all the new cat-forms, but I think it’s time to bring it back. At least as a customization option.

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No, I don’t notice a big difference in animation, and that’s fine with me. As I said, cats are subtle creatures. They don’t go in for big, flashy moves.

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