My Feedback for Feral Shadowlands/Dragonflight

Classes Druid
264

They did listen somewhat. Take berserk as example. We complained we disliked it and they tried changing it.

I think your guild not allowing any feral is obnoxious and very short sighted. The hell things are still not finished and we got no real experience yet when it comes down to SL.

What if feral will turn out very strong with a update and your guild didnt have one from the start?

Look I’m not a feral main for 2 years but I will main it in SL. Said it before and will say it again. I think feral wont be that bad. And if you do like playing one, you should. If the negative feelings are bigger than your positives about the feral. Just let go and play something else. You should play this game because you like it. Not because you’re unsatisfied and frustrated.

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265

[https://youtu.be/5XNQMOwO4GQ]

My Feral rant video)

made a video about it aswell tired of being ignored

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266

Contrary to you, I can argue my point of view.

We’ve lacked decent AoE for several expansions. The nerfs to this whole Diablo-esque AoE slugfest we’ve had since Legion - which has been important for M+ gameplay and therefore a major concern in relation to tuning of dps specs - combined with the changes to Primal Wrath, has helped Feral a lot. I look forward to that, PW is a fun talent.

Hybrid gameplay has been re-introduced with Shadowlands. This is incredible for the game as a whole - and could be amazing for Druids in general. With the right talents, Feral can once again become viable as the spec which saves the day, when the plan goes south. I love that.

The change to Bloodtalons is in itself fantastic. Bloodtalons was introduced in MoP (called Dream of Cenarius) to promote a more hybrid game style. Then suddenly, we we’re using it solely to boost a finisher? The only reason it wasn’t changed years ago was because of some VERY vocal Ferals in our community.

Meanwhile, Assassination Rogues were changed into this amazing spec where you could choose to either (i) poison or (ii) bleed your target. Solid talents, fun gameplay. And surprisingly, better gameplay with bleed mechanics than the Feral! Oops.

It looks to me as if the changes to our dps mechanics will try to remedy this. Bloodtalons is a big part of this, but so is the nerf to Sabertooth, the buff to Rip damage and the changes to Berserk. Some of these changes look minuscule, but will have a huge impact.

And lastly, the cosmetic changes to our Legion skins. For those of us who have all of the cat and bear skins, this is a big #%&!ing deal! I can now have a real Feral weapon (that’s a 2H staff, mace or polearm), use any Feral skin AND any Guardian skin. I can change my skins for every travel form individually, without the use of glyphs. And I’ll be able to use my Balance and Restoration weapon skins from Legion as well!

So, in conclusion:
The whole stupid AoE-slugfest meta-game has been changed, and with Feral having Primal Wrath, our 4 years of sub-par AoE have come to an end.

Hybridity is now embraced again by Blizzard. Feral gameplay and available abilities/talents look strong for this.

Our dps abilities and talents have been changed and tweaked to remove the old and clunky Bloodtalons, the boring Sabertooth and the almost irrelevant Berserk.

Costumisation in general has been pushed to 11 in Shadowlands - and Druids benefit the most! The new flexibility and sheer ease-of-use will be amazing for all of us, and I predict that this change alone will lure a lot more players to the Druid class.

267

I really hope that the AoE cap has the effect of encouraging more careful pulls and using CCs other than stuns. I cannot predict if this will happen but I’d be super happy if it does. Remember in vanilla with blue mark = ice trap, yellow mark = sheep etc :slight_smile:

Only point cannot get behind is sub-par AoE. Situations with many, many targets were normally were my DPS in BfA skyrocketed…

I like the changes to BT and Berserk (with some reservations but… meh). Sabertooth is still super boring though.

I don’t have all the skins from Legion (didn’t play back then) but I am still extremely happy about this :slight_smile:

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268

I guess the qualification of sub-par AoE should be: The situations in which other classes (like DH) would burst AoE and we didn’t do that well because of DoTs and ramp-up. But yes, BfA has adressed some of that - it was way worse in first part of Legion.

My hope for our tier 1 talents is that Lunar Inspiration is competitive. This should, in my opinion, just be baseline that Moonfire could be fired in every form. That would be such a cool thing for Druids, since it’s such a cool spell!

Regarding Legion skins: There is a lot of talk about the Mage Tower skins for cat and bear - and they look good. But the Jungle Cat look is incredible as well - and so is the PvP bear. Get those, you won’t regret that!

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Hehe, I am using the time until SL to get as many as possible :slight_smile: Just completed the Balance of Power, now doing the archaeology one while farming honour in BGs on the side for the Valiant skins. The jungle cat does really look cool!

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Doesn’t look like someone heard your pain. Feral still looks weak in Shadowlands.

Guys this might be weird suggestion cause i don’t play game for entire decade but so far what do u think about buffing feral energy regen like rogues have/had instead of giving us numbers? I don’t think Feral lacks damage, Feral main problem is that after burst he’s AFK waiting for energy that drastically slows him down compared to other classes.

When i played feral the biggest problem i was fighting against was lack of energy and usually finding myself waiting for energy regen that lead to feeling like I’m lacking damage, while Rogue players and other dps classes can spam their buttons non-stop.

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That is not a problem, it is a feature of the spec. Feral is not and should not become a GCD-locked spammy spec, there are plenty of specs that are for those who prefer this kind of playstyle.

Instead, Blizz, please buff the bleed damage of Rip and Rake if Feral damage needs upward tuning - and at least from the Icy Veins and Wowmeta list, that seems to be the case.

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272

It’s quite obvious that we are now going into the balancing phase. And if we lack damage, buffing our bleeds would be in line with the spec’s signature.

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273

damage is easy fix , utility needs attention , we got notting in return when they made stampeding roar baseline for all druid specs when it was guardian/feral only utility and reason to bring to raids

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What do you mean with “utility needs attention”?

What is enough utility? 'Cause as I see it, we have bucketloads of that when SL starts.

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okay let me ask you something , what does feral bring to the raid ? notting

what do resto bring to the raid and balance : baseline → vortex–>typhoon --aoe silence>innervate

our only excuse for raid utility was stampeding roar and now its class wide so we have one big 0

what we can do every other melee class can do better , warrior rallying cry . battle shout , demon hunter → darkness . What else you want me to point → Mage → arcane intellect and immunity (with immunities you can soak and chease stuff in raid) .

dont come at me saying feral has utility cause we have notting , what we have atm is what resto and balance can bring already not just that but they bring more

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276

In my experience, roots breaks instantly on damage. So… it’s gonna break instantly

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It is not the amount of utility we have (Druids, including Feral, do have quite a bit, although a lot if it is somewhat circumstantial). The problem is that Feral utility is a strict subset of what Balance or Resto bring: hence, if you want Druid utility, you hurt yourself by inviting a Feral instead of a Balance/Resto druid. This became even more of a problem when Blizz gave Stampeding Roar to Balance/Resto without giving Feral/Guardian anything in return.

This gap should be closed.

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278

btw. here how “good” we are.
https://www.wowmeta.com/shadowlands/dps-rankings
sure there are some classes ( shamane lol ) worse then feral but to say “we are fine” is a bit wrong.

and i dont want to panic but release from Pre-Patch is in 1-2 weeks and release from SL in about a month.

i dont know if borrowed power going to fix the problem of the E/F Tier List DPS specs but currently its (again) not looking good for feral.

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But they changed it in a complete different way the community suggested and its bad. I tested it quite extensivly and at least for me, would rather have the old berserk back. Feralforum is full of begging to buff bleeds and maybe nerf bites but no, berserk gets nerfed. At least to me its a nerf or im apparently just bad at adjusting to wait 4 seconds to be able to press shred WHILE in berserk. After i pressed shred i wait another 5 Seconds to press bite. Good times 8)

Edit: Forgot to mention all the begging for Leader of the Pack as a baseline Buff. Even in a nerfe form, lets say 4% or even 3% it would be a very good Reason to bring Ferals.

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On top of the Icy-Veins and Wow-Meta ranking, some more (anecdotal) evidence that Feral’s damage needs tuning up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNEPYlo1jZI

Blizz, do it! Don’t be cat haters!

3 Likes
281

Hi,

Just some ideas:

  1. Moonfire should be castable in Cat Form baseline, doing low damage

  2. Balance Affinity should allow Sunfire to be castable in Cat Form, doing low damage. Starfall should also be added to the Balance Affinity abilities, on a 15 second cooldown, 10 second duration.

  3. In Moonkin Form, both Moonfire and Sunfire should deal more damage than in Cat form

  4. The Lunar Inspiration Talent should make both Moonfire (and if talented to Balance Affinity) Sunfire deal damage based on Attack Power and generate 1 combo point. Both should have a 20 energy cost, with Sunfire dealing 50%-66% less damage than Moonfire.

  5. Renewal needs to go and be replaced with some utility, group utility would be best. Perhaps something like Regrowth affects up to 5 party members when cast, or Innervate, or anything that warrants the loss of mobility from picking this talent.

  6. Scent of Blood needs a rework. Swipe generates a combo point for each target hit, but no longer generates an extra combo point from a critical strikes. From Stealth, Berserk and Incarnation, Swipe deals 60% more damage and has double the chance to critical strike.

  7. Brutal Slash needs a rework. Currently it replaces Swipe (and is unusable in Bear form, basically you lose Swipe in Bear form). Keep the damage the same, keep the charges, but instead of replacing Swipe, add the damage to the initial Thrash damage, and allow Thrash to stack up to 3 times. You end up with a Thrash that does high initial damage and stacks up to 3 times, and you can still use Swipe.

  8. Bloodtalons currently has problems with overcapping combo points during Berserk / Incarn. There are many suggestions on how to change this, a very simple solution is to also add the ability to store an extra combo point, but finishing moves always use a maximum of 5 combo points. So you can have a 6 combo points bar, but only use 5 at a time.

  9. Heart of the Wild is a bit extreme for a talent, long cooldown, long duration buff. I would swap it for the legendary effect. Whenever you switch into your affinity form, gain the current Heart of the Wild bonuses for 20 seconds, once every 2 minutes. Perhaps even move it in the talent slot of Renewal, have Typhoon as a talent in place of HOTW, and Innervate as a Balance Affinity cooldown since it is the only affinity with zero group utility or impact.

The legendary item can make Heart of the Wild permanent, “Always gain the Heart of the Wild bonuses to your chosen affinity for as long as you are in that form”. Might sound OP, but it isn’t, it only provides some much needed utility, and does that by sacrificing DPS since you lose a DPS legendary.

  1. Rebirth should either be castable in all forms or at least be instant cast with the Predatory Swiftness buff.

  2. Infected Wounds is very weak for Feral. Make it so that Rake slows by 20%, and an additional 15% for each other bleed on the target.

  3. Bleed Damage. Lots of players want a stronger focus on bleed damage. This can be achieved in multiple ways. First, make Sabertooth increase the damage of both Ferocious Bite and Rip by 10%, and keep the 1 second per combo point Rip extension when using Ferocious Bite. All these bonuses are doubled against targets under 25%. You end up with a talent that increases Rip damage as well as FB, is weaker against targets over 25% hp than it is on Live, but stronger against targets under 25%.

  4. Feral Frenzy is useful only in PVP, the sustained damage loss is not worth it in PVE right now for a bit of burst. Therefore, make it a PVP talent. In place of it, bring back Lacerate as a Finishing move which makes Bleeds deal their damage 100% faster to enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds per combo point. Bleed DPS will be doubled this way, with less combo points spent on Shred and Ferocious Bite, since Rake and Rip will need to be applied twice as often. If the damage ends up too low, also add a bleed damage increase component to Lacerate, and use this to balance the numbers.

  5. Rake needs to be added to Omen of Clarity.

Cheers

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282

Guys keep this discussion and thread up , this is my last hope for feral before the disaster goes live

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283

Wtf if you want so much play with moonkin spells just play moonkin.
No offense, but i really don’t think sunfire in cat form or making feral have some sort of caster gameplay is a good thing.

From what i have see from videos or lives from beta, feral need some damage up, i’d really like rip deal more damage and being able for the feral to regain its identity around bleeds.

But these are just numbers, where feral really struggle is utility, i still don’t understand why at this point the innervate isn’t back for feral (and guardian too maybe?), moonkin and resto now have roar, why we don’t have innervate back ?

5 Likes