I’m glad we get Barkskin that was asked for and a Cyclone as a base.
BT is being overhauled.
Thats pretty much it so far. Affinity talent so far don’t impress me.
We still need Leader of the Pack!
and of course…
FIX FERAL SOUNDS thx.
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So with the information given it seems feral get… Nothing unique really? Not only do ferals so far not get anything special other than one talent change and some class wide changes, but the spec looses some uniqueness. Stampeding roar is now class wide but it gets nothing in return.
They said Ursols vortex would be baseline guess that changes. What’s more confusing is I was looking forward to doing the Vortex + Typhoon combo as feral but that is impossible as typhoon is now a balance thing?
They said they wanted to know if they went to far with the unpruning but from what I can see Guardian actually got pruned (Vortex) and lost stampeding roar as unique ability.
Seems balance is the clear winner as they from what I can read into the Typhoon change is baseline for them plus can get Vortex now AND get Stampeding roar.
This is underwhelming to say they least and a meme spec just became super meme with the info so far.
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Feral is most definitely not a meme spec.
Problem is we’re stuck with exactly the same playstyle since Legion or so. I don’t think BT changes much in that case.
If they give the same utility like Stampeding Roar to all other specs there’s even less reason to invite Ferals to M+ as resto druid might bring it.
Thats why we need core feral-only abilities on board, LoTP and Cat Mangle f.e.
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As written the class wide changes seem a little confusing for sure. Think I’ll hold off to see what utility is actually changed before I pass judgement.
On the face of it, simply reworking blood talons doesn’t address the shortcomings of the spec, especially since it’s so frequently paired with Saber Tooth (why buff a Rip you’ll never recast?).
I suppose if the damage to the Rip is substantial enough to swap to predator I think all that accomplishes is less variance in builds from fight to fight but without frequent add deaths does nothing for single target damage.
I’m a little perplexed by their stated vision of the class and the general changes. How often do they expect a dps to actually jump in to fill healing and tanking roles briefly in PvE? Even more so for a tank, there is very little opportunity in dungeons and raids to pop out of bear form to heal or dps something. Class design around ultra niche scenarios isn’t very appealing to me.
Maybe they’re focusing on PvP which I guess could be expected with Holinka steering the ship?
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I’m with you for LoTP.
I don’t understand why a specialized group buff for Monk and DH is justified over a spec that has less unique utility and struggles to keep up in damage.
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Feral is fine, the problem is the 2 melee gods aka rog + dh.
Why would someone get a feral in the place of a rog or dh?
Thats the feral problem, imho.
So if the eternal blizz favorite yellow class dont come to ground, and the 2 key purple class nerfed…No real hope there
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There won’t be any reason to bring a Feral over a Rogue…
Feral will never be in the meta, well, forced to play Balance again I guess.
Can you elaborate more on this?
Feral is not fine. The spec is in complete shambles as it is now. Bleeds hit for nothing and your best st talents removes a core ability from your rotation. As long as that isnt adressed the spec is as good as dead.
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- Bloodtalons : When Feral Druids use Shred, Rake, and Ferocious Bite in quick succession, the damage of their next Rip will increase dramatically.
I am not surprised they don’t even work on this spec. In the end, wow is a business process and Blizzard doesn’t care about unrepresented specs.
As to Feral being fine or not, it is not in shambles!!! From the spec point of view, with proper gear and right rotation, Feral is competitive, not on the top of dmg but competitive. It comes to players themselves who don’t understand the spec.
The bad reputation comes from players who can’t play the spec because they barely understand it! I admit the problem with Feral is twofold. It very much depends on gear as well as one needs to maintain strict correct rotation, which is probably the most complex in the game, in order to deliver high damage. One small mistake and the chain is broken meaning one loses significant damage. One of the reasons for that is the spec needs time to restore energy in order to make corrections while at the same time others provide sustained damage. Let’s take the most trivial spec, Havoc, which just needs from a player to spam a spell while waiting for another, while waiting for something big on CD. Comparing to Feral, you can just do damage with one hand.
Mhm? It seems to be part of the Restoration Affinity Talent now.
Also part of the Affinity talents it seems, so mutually exclusive with Vortex yes.
In regards to Vortex, then they are pruning, not unpruning. Guardian has had this ability baseline same with resto but removing it from only guardian? This has to change as typhoon and vortex has been something a lot of guardians have used to avoid certain affixes in M+ and now they’re removing it, in an expansion where they wanted to give things back and gives badly needed utility to guardian but was something feral were looking forward to.
Vortex was unveiled as baseline and now isn’t which quite frankly is bs.
We’ll see what comes back when they soon deploy they alpha but this is worrisome as feral and guardian are in sore need of more, not less. Balance gets more utility, a ranged spec that already has 2 more utility abilities (innervate and treants) and now gets typhoon baseline, while feral has no unique utility that people want to bring for raid or M+ now.
Maim as a feral affinity ability is really weird as you would have to go cat form and dps to use it? Time will tell but to me these are red flags that Blizzard are not listening to the feral or guardian community. I don’t see how these changes so far will fix any of the problems that feral and guardian have.
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Very disappointed not to see Leader of the Pack making a return. Would be great in so many ways.
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My only hope- that it is affected by snapshotting and u don’t have to reapply it while using sabertooth
I think aside from some missing baseline skills like mark of the wild that feral is in a good spot gameplay-wise. I hope they wont change too much
Yeah jokes on you, in new patch notes they removed SI from feral, so survivability took a hit that barkskin cant make up for. Stampeding roar for all specs too as well as soothe. Literally no reason to bring a feral anymore.
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Where was it said that SI is removed? Haven’t seen that. It would be pretty ridiculous…
/Edit: Just found it. This is madness… 20% from Barkskin would be the only Feral defensive. I cannot see a single reason why this would be a good idea.
/Edit Not only does Feral loose access to SI, recharge timer also increases to 4min. Wtf.
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On top of that, bash is also got nerfed, 4 seconds stun instead of 5 
‘good spot gameplay-wise’ someone said, doubt it…
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From how I read the data mined stuff, it seems that Feral, in terms of abilities,
- Looses Survival Instincts (50% damage reduction, 2 charges)
- Gets access to Barkskin (20% damage reduction, 1 charge)
- Looses Typhoon, which can be accessed back via Balance affinity.
- Gets Tranquility (not sure, but this is how I read the notes)
- Cyclone comes back in PvE (???) <- thought that had been confirmed via Blue Post but I can’t seem to find it in data mined stuff.
That is more than underwhelming considering all the waffling about unpruning. Now this is all very early. So let us all hop that Feral hasn’t really been reworked yet and that substantial changes are still coming.
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The problem I’m seeing with hoping that is that they made a Class Philosophy post and feral didn’t get anything about what they want to do. Not even W.I.P. text or anything only ONE talent change. This is just super concerning for the spec as it feels like a pruning rather than unpruning as the whole hybrid stuff hasn’t really been a thing since forever.
No new utility so far which is a problem. Nothing that buffs groups or helps the group if you compare with boomkin. They got treants and innervate and I don’t see why feral would ever be choosen for any kind of content over a boomkin in any scenario.
While this is pre-Alpha data mining and information it’s still a red flag for me regarding the spec as some of the other specs got huge changes and feral got so little. My hopes for anything more now are super low. Hope I’m wrong though.
EDIT: Just to add some thoughts, it really just shows the situation of feral when the utility that feral affinity gives is maim, which requires other specs to go into cat form, build combo points to stun for up to 5 seconds. This is bad.
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