Greetings!
Yes I’m back! Slightly new name but defidently a new server!
A lot of text incoming so in the immortal words of King Arthur “Run away!”
I wrote a huge post half a year ago here: Cat Food - Feral Suggestions!, I havn’t read it myself in a long time and have no idea how useful it is today. So time to make another more updated post! 
Overall I think Feral cats are in a good spot. I enjoy playing it. Our damaging abilities are well balanced between eachother (with the exception of FB), we got some fun support stuff to do and there is room for skill.
There are however some issues with the rotation and general gameplay that can be ironed out for a very smooth and enjoyable experience. So here are a bunch of suggestions on how I think we could improve Feral cats.
I’ll start by presenting what I think is the main issue and then go into suggestions on how to improve it.
The first section are primary suggestions that shouldn’t present too much difficulty in implementing or balancing. Second are talent changes I’d like to see (I’ll put a (!) in front of what I think are the most important ones). And lastly are secondary suggestions that would be nice and then a bunch of random ideas. Some ideas can sometimes be contradictory as they can be different solutions to the same issue…
So if you want the short version just read the primary suggestions.
Enjoy! 
Main issue: Messy rotation
“Mangle>Savage Roar>Rake>Mangle spam” isn’t fun on every single mob while solo. And on mobs that are immune to bleeds all you do is spam medium damage Mangles. And “Mangle>SR>Rake>Shred/Mangle spam” isn’t fun in groups either.
Savage Roar isn’t interesting to keep up. It is just a maintenance buff which is required to even be allowed to do damage.
Three finishers is too many in a classic environment where feral toolkit in general isn’t built around that. SoD has just added more stuff that individually sounds good on paper. But it is currently complicated just for the sake of being complicated.
What feral druids need to keep track of:
2 major cooldowns (Berserk and Catnip), 1 minor cooldown (Tiger’s Fury), 2 maintenance debuffs (Faery Fire and Mangle), 1 maintanance buff (Savage Roar), 0-2 trinkets, 2 DoTs (Rake and Rip), getting behind your target to even use your main builder, 1-2 procs (Tiger’s Fury and the T0.5P4 bonus), juggling 3 finishers and then add in powershifting. That is a lot to keep track of! And then we haven’t even started thinking about snapshotting DoTs yet. 
Primary Suggestions
Shred
Remove the positional requirement. With how much mobs and bosses spin around it just doesn’t work. It is very frustrating to play with. Not to mention the ability is useless when you don’t have a personal tank with you…
Combo Points
They shouldn’t dissappear if you switch target unless you use a combo point builder on a new target. Is there some coding issues with changing Combo Points? If so, please say that in some dev post (not Twitter)!
Savage Roar
Make it a passive for 25% increased damage while in Cat Form. Or bake in the T16P bonus (along with an increase in max duration so it’ll last from enemy to enemy while solo or in PvP). Damage value nerfed as it being passive/T1P6 will allow for more energy being used on builders and finishers. I’d rather have it being passive. Less button bloat and that would solve more issues.
Very boring and annoying ability to use, especially on anything that isn’t a raid boss with lots of health. The current version also devalues our openers as you often don’t have SR active when opening from stealth. The damage doesn’t justify them costing 60 energy.
Making this passive would also alleviate some of the issues with combo points not being useable after a target dies.
Elune’s Fire
This feels more like a Balance rune with some Resto/Feral thrown in as an afterthought. I kept waiting for the “real” Feral rune to be introduced during P3. However I love the idea of a rune giving bonuses to multiple specs. This is what a lot of runes for hybrid classes should look like.
Improvement: Mangle extends the duration of Rake by 3s. This gives the rune some usage outside of group play (and let’s be honest it only really has value while in raid).
If Shred can be used from the front then "Shred extends the duration of Rip on the target by 2 seconds. If there is no Rip it extends the duration of Rake by 3 seconds. "
This rune needs “something” to make it not feel like a dead rune slot outside of raids (bosses in dungeons are often dead before Rip has run a full duration anyway)!!! Or a completely new rune to switch to when Elune’s Fire isn’t useful.
Another version could be that Shred/Mangle extends the duration of Savage Roar by like 6s. I’d much rather SR be passive though…
And with the nerf to +1s per Shred on the PTR… The rune will feel even more like an insult and like an afterthought.
Mangle
Needs some buff for damage if Shred can’t be used from the front. It is a tricky situation though as buffing it too much makes it the default builder over Shred in all situations. The better solution is to simply allow Shred to be used from the front and leave Mangle as a maintenance debuff.
Wild Strikes
Give it something extra for the druid. 2 hits per proc like shamans? Bake in the T1P4 bonus or the T1P6 bonus? Something extra so two feral in the same group/raid can both use it without feeling like they’re missing out on getting some extra survivabilty through Survival of the Fittest. Especially now that it is raid wide… Hunters got an extra 10% stats on their Kings rune for this very reason.
Skull Bash
Make baseline or learned from a skill book. Gap closer and interupt in one for feral. 15s+ CD? Not on a shared CD with Feral Charge. This rune is almost never taken over Mangle. Mangle is just too valuable for the druid and for the party/raid.
Ferocious Bite
Needs to be tweaked. Better scaling on the extra energy used. Like +1% damage per energy up to 50% or something. Similar to the WotLK (with Glyph) or the Cataclysm version. Or remove the energy scaling alltogether and give it +10% damage per bleed (I like the idea of the energy scaling so this is a boring solution).
Fixing FB with an Idol (see P5 PTR) is NOT a solution. If that is how issues like these are handled we’ll end up with 10 different Idols to improve 10 different abilities and switching Idol 100 times during combat… This goes for Paladin’s Librams and Shaman’s Totems as well!
Catnip
Unpopular opinion but this should be removed. It isn’t needed. We already have Berserk as a CD. Does Catnip bring anything interesting to the table more than a button you probably macro into Berserk/Tiger’s Fury/trinkets anyway? Buff something else to compensate if needed but judging by ferals performance I doubt that a buff is needed.
Talents
(!) Feral Charge
Cat version as well (ignore if Skull Bash is baseline).
(!) Predatory Strikes
Make it scale with gear rather than a static 90 AP at lvl 60. Give AP equal to 300% of weapon DPS. That could potentially allow you to remove Feral AP from all weapons if this has enough % to compensate. Or at least reduce it and put it only on “special” or legendary weapons like the Hammer of Ragnaros getting an extra +100 Feral AP. Or a complete druid legendary wtih effects for all three specs might have a lower base DPS (as it is kind of a caster weapon) and thus get extra Feral AP to compensate.
This would be a nerf to Balance/Resto switching to a feral weapon and going into Bear/Cat form as they’d not get extra AP. But let’s be real here, is that really a problem? Should a niche situation like that prevent an entire spec from getting proper scaling with weapons? Feral weapons seem to have a really low droprate (as only one spec can use them) so getting one is like going to the casino. Not a good feeling.
Heart of the Wild
Increases AP from gear by 10% instead of Strength in cat. Most gear outside of tier pieces have AP instead of strength due to synergy with rogues, Hunters and shamans. This change would simply make the talent scale better. Can be reduced to 5% if needed for balance (I havn’t done any math on it).
Improved Shred
Affects Ravage and maybe Pounce as well. Just a nice little QoL improvement. Small impact on gameplay or damage but “nice” to have and feels right.
Nature’s Grasp
Useable indoors and in any form. QoL improvement and opens up interesting gameplay.
Secondary Suggestions
Dire Bear Form
Remove the static +1240 health and +180 AP and replace with a scaling +20% stamina and +X% Strength? Or let it use whichever is higher, the flat value or 20%, to help newer less geared tanks.
New Rune - Licking Your Wounds
Each Combo Point spent increases the HoT component of Regrowth by 5% of your AP and reducing the cast time by 20%, stacks up to five. At five stacks it can be cast in cat or bear form.
Only benefits heals cast on yourself? Regrowth used as it is expensive and thus limiting the number of times it can be used and most of the power is in the HoT so as not make it a button you can press to go from 1% to 100% health in a second. Or bake it in an existing rune or as an replacement for something being made baseline. This could make an excellent Head/Wrist/Waist rune if you want players to chose between damage or survivability.
Entangling Roots
Useable indoors. QoL improvement and opens up interesting gameplay.
Pounce
DoT scales with AP. Low amount like 50% AP or lower but that should make it not feel like joke damage.
Dash
Reduce both the CD and duration. 5s duration and 1m CD? Not needed if we get Skull Bash / Feral Charge (Cat).
New type of rune/passive
A rune or passive ability that grants bonuses depending on talent points spent in a Tree. For example:
“Each point spent in the Feral talent tree increases your spell damage by 1% up to 30% and healing by 0,5% up to 15%.”
This would work for a lot of classes, especially hybrids. Paladins could get Sheathe of Light baseline but it depends on points spent in the Retribution and/or Protection trees. I think an implemitation like this would minimize the risk of other specs getting massive bonuses from it. Like we’ve seen with Elemental Shamans attacking in melee to increase their Spell Damage with an enhancement rune and then Blizzard having to put up weird restrictions on it or mega buffing other runes to prevent players doing “unintended” things.
Put the hybrid back in hybrid!
As I wrote under the rune Elune’s Fire I think more runes for hybrids should have multiple uses. Pure classes get several runes to pick from for doing their job but hybrids are pigeonholed into mostly a single rune per slot for their spec. While runes should be made with a specific spec in mind I’d love to see them also having effects for the other specs. Like Nourish/Lifebloom below. They would still be the most powerful as a resto but Balance/Feral would get some benefit from them. The runes could simply give Nourish to all specs (and usuable in all forms) or other effects in other forms that thematically work with the rune. As with Survival Instincts being both a survival CD and a healing CD. And Improved Frenzied Regeneration working in all forms.
So here are just a bunch of brain farts that are probably way to overpowered. But I enjoy thinking about this kind of stuff! And since I mainly play Feral this is mostly from their perspective.
Nourish
Castable in all forms (and with some AP scaling while in cat/bear but nothing crazy). A Feral would still have to give up Berserk and Balance gives up Eclipse for this. Damage or survivabilty, choices. Reduce your damage to become more support if your group is struggling with healing.
OR something like “while in cat/bear/moonkin you recieve 20% more healing.”
New Rune - Master Shapeshifter
Bonuses when shifting out of a form. When shifting out of cat your next damage spell (or heal?) is increased by 20% of your AP in cat form. You take 20% less damage for 5s after shifting out of bear (or you retain your armour value from bear form for 5s). When shifting out of tree form you automatically cast a free 6s rejuvenation on you and your party? Shifting out of moonkin? Trying to keep it thematically for what defines the former form.
Note: I’ll be reworking this suggestion later in the week. Rewriting it to be a bit more focused.
Lifebloom
Make it castable in all forms (and with some AP scaling while in cat/bear but nothing crazy). A feral would still have to give up Savage Roar to get the ability to take this. Damage or survivabilty, choices.
Lacerate
Also increases Rakes damage by 20% while in Cat Form.
Starfall
Make it usuable in any form (with some AP scaling for Feral). It would still be much more efficient as Moonkins since Resto/Feral has less spell damage and no talents that improve Moonfire (and thus improving Starfall).
Sunfire
Make it scale with AP for ferals. Why even have a Feral version if it doesn’t scale? But it should never ever become so powerful for a feral that they become a ranged spec.
Crazy Idea I got when I should head to bed
What if there in a future phase was a long quest for a celestial cat form. A new cat form with some extra bells and whisltes. Could also be purely cosmetic. In fact getting a coupld of quests for different cat and bear forms would be neat.
not gonna be broken at all. nah. can’t be.
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