Feral Druid Update

TLDR: We’re bringing back WoW Classic Feral Druid powershifting by moving Druid Energy regeneration to the constant 2-second slow tick loop. Cat Druids will receive 20 Energy every 2 seconds, their Energy will never get a partial tick outside of that 2-second loop, and with careful timing, they can receive their full 20 energy regeneration tick immediately after shifting.

We’ve been discussing Druid Energy regeneration a lot the last few weeks. There has been a great deal of community discussion about it on every channel and platform that we read and listen to, and that discussion started almost immediately after we implemented the Burning Crusade Classic power regeneration change first introduced in patch 2.2.0. At that point in the original Burning Crusade, the game would grant a partial tick of regeneration whenever any regeneration rates changed, and it would reset their regeneration clock, so the next tick would happen about 2 seconds later. While this improves some abilities like Evocation, it has the side effect of removing a Druid’s ability to time their shapeshift into Cat form immediately before a regeneration tick to order to quickly receive 20 Energy.

That playstyle, often called “powershifting”, was greatly missed by some players.

As we’ve worked on this, one of the people we spoke with was the original systems designer who requested the change to energy regeneration. Those conversations have made it clear that the patch 2.2.0 regeneration change in late 2007 was not intended as a nerf to Druids. It’s therefore a pretty solid case of change results not matching up with design intent. In a #somechanges world, we think it’s important to consider both the original intent and the original execution of changes, and this looks like an example where version 2.4.3 (the patch that Burning Crusade Classic 2.5.1 is based on) exhibits a behavior that was unintended at the time. We can see that both Druids and the energy regeneration system were changed again in patch 3.0.2.

Our implementation of the authentic regeneration behavior, combined with the removal of spell batching, has caused a persistent timing issue for Druids and we’d like to try a straightforward solution. With a hotfix that we’ve now deployed to our PTR environment, we’re testing moving Druid Energy regeneration back to a 2-second cycle that is unaffected by regeneration rate changes.

This should result in Cat Druids receiving Energy at a more constant rate, and additionally, Druids can once again powershift by timing their shapeshifts to optimize their Energy use. After this change, Druids should (almost) never receive less than 20 Energy in a single regen tick.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for all of your feedback on this.

33 Likes

thats really nice!
when do we hear something about bg queues?

9 Likes

Good for the kitty’s.

3 Likes

omfg. finally. thanks blizzard

2 Likes

Whenever players stop crying about it. The timer is reset with every post and thread.

5 Likes

Could you guys think about adding dual spec 1 expansion earlier, could be at a higher cost

Disaappointed. You had not a bug post few weeks ago and now suddenly caving in and calling it a bug. This might open even more requests for changes.

2 Likes

This is cool and all but what about fixing the frost nova bug?

Why are you ignoring the fact that every other forum topic is about BG queues and making these posts about esoteric bug fixes. NOT GOOD ENOUGH WE WANT MERC MODE WE WILL NEVER BE SILENCED.

6 Likes

Because you do it in such a lame and obnoxious way it is hard to justify giving any form of response to it.

5 Likes

Where is Bear improvements?

Go back to retail with your poisonous existence.

Goodbye

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Thank you!! This is a fantastic nice change, will put the fun back in playing cat again :):grinning:

Great!
One small wictory for community also

Bear improvements?
Bear tank is amazing and will only get better as you get more gear.

Anyway, great job listening to the community about this.
Good to see the #somechanges implementet the right way.

Yes, lock down transfers and creation of boosted characters on Horde and open Faction transfer to the Alliance. No Merc Mode. It belongs to 6.2.2. and WoD

1 Like

Never. Get used to it.

Awesome.

Have you had time to check forums about the insane bg que times ?. I have played since game came out. It has never ever been this bad. Will like many others sub back soon as you voice the issue. Atleast give us a response plz.

1 Like

No it does not. Evocation was changed in 2.3 and has not been affected by the regen changes in 2.2 since then. Not in “retail”, and not in TBC classic. Evocation generates mana completely independent of the normal mana ticks which continues as normal in between the evocation ticks.

2 Likes

Great news for all feral druids!

1 Like