It seems that Blizz is at least trying to clean up the Druid class tree, which, in my view, might fix one of Feral’s biggest issues at the moment. But there are a number of other things that I would like to see addressed.
Jump in and augment my list for the 0.001% chance that some of it might actually make it into the game!
- Matted Fur is still useless (and this is not an exaggeration).
- The ability from DotC to cast Frenzy Reg in cat form should become a talent, because it is really cool.
- Rejuvenation and Wild Growth remain useless for Feral. Which is okay(ish) if we are no longer forced to spend talent points on them.
- Bring back cosmetic Moonkin form for all Druid specs. Really, this change was and is so incredibly annoying because there is no gameplay reason to not have us use it without bonuses (don’t want to cat weave, just dance and flap).
- Tie Forestwalk to the HoT component of Regrowth. The HoT is ridiculously weak and this would give it at least a bit of usefulness.
- Please let Innervate regenerate mana again. It is largely useless in its current form and why to I have to coordinate with the healer to cast it in precisely this one moment where they need it.
- The interaction of Apex procs and Ravage is still very awkward. Just decouple both and probably make Ravage independent of combo points.
- Let us talent a second charge for Survival Instinct. Feral defensives are weak and our self-healing is really not that great anymore.
- Give us a second charge for Dash or something similar. We used to be kings of mobility but now we are just like the ex-worldclass sprinter bragging about his former exploits to his fellow mates in the retirement home…
- Heart of the Wild is not a proper capstone talent. One idea could be to significantly reduce both duration and CD (say 10sec / 1min or so) so that it can be used frequently. Or come up with something cool and new!
- Increase the radius of Stampeding Roar
- Just make Ursoc’s Spirit 10% stamina, full stop. I mean, really, what is it that you are afraid of to come up with these weird, complicated ideas like 5% here and 4% there? Unkillable Feral druids eating everybody for breakfast?
- Forget about Fluid Form and just remove shifting from GCD. So many of Druid’s issues come down to the cost incurred from switching forms. Time to tackle this problem at its root.
5 Likes
You made some interesting suggestions.
Especially the forest walk one!
Personally I wish regrowth to be buff.
Rejuv baseline and giga buff.
And replace rejuv node with swiftmend.
For the mobility part, why not having wild charge and tiger dash different node?
I kinda agree that hotw is only a good final node for resto (maybe guardian).
But for feral this and fluid form are garbage.
2 Likes
Make HOTS stay for 30+ seconds and buff them by 400%
If Rapture can sit for 50 seconds, i should be able to HOT myself for at least 30.
Make Wild Growth Instant Cast or simply remove it from being a talent.
Make Barskin give 50% dodge but increase its cooldown.
Reduce cooldown of Survival to 2 min.
Well Honed Instincts bug where shapeshifting removes it - fixed.
Fluid Form bug where overlaping Powershifter abilities and Fluid Form abilities kicks you out of form- fixed.
Rake- stun bug fixed.
Enraged Regeneration no longer requires energy/rage and can be usable in any form.
Wild Charge now has 2 charges and all functions of wild charge are just seperated spells that are usable in all forms.
Powershifter abilities reduce the cooldown of the next cooldown. This will mostly combat the fact that Feral has only 1 gap closer.
Restealth- For the love of God, give us a proper restrealth. Or a brand new mechanic so you can actually feel like you’re properly stalking a prey, ill give a creative example:
A vanish type of ability that gives you the ability that stealths you 3x times automatically for 2 seconds and makes your Shred and Bite act as a charge.
Heart Of The Wild reworked or reduced CD for the cost of lower duration. Also GCD removed from it.
Using 3 times Swipe/Brutal Slash in quick succession in Bear Form gives you a buff that allows you to cast 1 finisher in cat form without requiring combo points.
Change audio of abilities. Feral has horrible sounds.
Remove the weird DR interration between Vortex and Typhoon.
Primal Wrath- Baseline.
Bear Form abilities act like before- critical striking with them gives absorb.
Cyclone is reworked for Feral- It has a cooldown of 50 seconds but has 2 charges and can be made instant cast if you get a proc.
Roots are instant cast but have a CD of 15 secs. Dispels have a small chance of reapplying roots to nearby target and the target itself.
Thorns is baseline and can also be used while stunned.
4 Likes
- Reduce cooldown on Prowl.
- Less button bloat in rotation, especially single-target.
- Feral charge should be baseline and the talent should either reduce cooldown or add second charge.
- Cat Feral charge is a leap and it should leap similar to heroic leap.
- Berserker has too many talents for how weak it is.
- Regrowth needs to be stronger.
This is actually a good idea. The only stalker we have currently is one of the cosmetic cat forms, rest of it is pretty much rogue ripoffs ever since vanilla.
We need real catform themed abilities and playstyle.
6 Likes
This might also be an interesting way to push for a little more hybrid play in PvE (which, for some reason, Blizz seems to want). If I could do reasonable DPS in bear while getting improved defence from, say, a shield, plus the higher armor and HP of bear, this might actually start to see a bit more play.
A new person responsible for designing feral would be great because the current changes and set bonus are so incredibly stupid and show nothing bur either a complete disinterest bordering on hatred for the spec or absolute incompetence.
The spec is so bloated with abilities that don’t even fit thematically. Why are we attacking with an insect swarm as cats? Why is the bleed spec casting arcane magic in cat form? That’s like making mages hit things with a sword in melee. it relies on both snapshotting dots and the buffs for the biggest impact ones are based on absurd 30% RNG with some further pointless low % rng everywhere in the tree only to still get outdone by a similar rogue spec using half the buttons and requiring a third of the brainpower.
3 Likes
Good read, but since you mentioned Feral druid’s mobility, don’t forget that they are probably the fastest class in combat, I mean with the highest movement speed.
1 Like
In my opinion feral needs to go in one of two ways because right now the biggest problem for feral is burst aoe damage, this raid made it abundantly clear the feral cannot handle burst aoe raid bosses with nerb’ar palace being full of these types of bosses its probably worth assuming new raid will too, so either blizzard give us some form of burst aoe on a shortish cooldown or go the opposite route and just make us a funnel monster where we only focus single target and doing aoe helps us in that.
3 Likes
I wish for a developer that plays druid…and gives a sheet
2 Likes
Ok, Moonkin form made it back into the class tree. This means, as non-balance spec, at least I might be able to spec into it in my Open World talent set. Yay, I guess?
However, I still don’t get why Blizz won’t give cosmetic Moonkin form as baseline to every Druid spec and have the talent simply provide the armour and spell-damage bonus?
This would have zero (in numbers: 0.00) impact on class balance but it would make so many Druid players happy. Why, oh why, do they refuse to cache in on these easy, quick, small wins?
I mean just give it back as a complete option put the damage bonus in the talents already there for magic damage and keep the armour baked into the base form and free up a talent slot for… Something or nothing freeing up an entire talent point