ok so in case you missed it, last night Dragonflight beta came out, and with it a few Feral druid changes:
Build-a-berserk changes:
Berserk (middle node, 20% chance to refund 2 combo points) now also cause Rake and Shred to deal damage as though you were stealthed.
Berserk: Jungle stalker changed to Berserk: Heart of the Lion: “Each combo point spent reduces the cooldown of Berserk by 0.5 sec”
Incarnation now allows you to use prowl ones while in combat in addition to reduce all energy costs by 20%
Berserk: Frenzy no longer reduce the cooldown of berserk by 0.3sec when using a combo point generating ability.
Tiger’s fury and energy changes
Tiger’s fury energy regeneration talent (3pts) increase from 10 per rank to 30 per rank (Tiger’s fury with 3 points in this talent grants you 110 energy)
improved maximum energy grants you 30 energy and 2% haste per rank (up from 10 energy)
These changes might be tooltip errors, the current speculation is that they’ll become 1 point talents.
New talents that are yet to be added!
Ragin fury: Finishing moves increase Tiger’s Fury duration by 0.4 sec per combo point spent
Infected wounds increase Rake’s damage by 20%
New talent (probably under Incarnation/convoke) - Ashamane’s Guidance
Convoke: Chance to use an exceptional spell or ability is increased
Incarnation: Your melee attacks have a chance to activate Incarnation for 6 sec
So are these changes good? I dont think they’re perfect. Infected wounds should be baseline and there are still WAY too many energy related talents.
build-a-berserk is here to stay apparently but it seems like they pull a lot of power from the other berserk nodes towards the middle one, making them less necessary.
This changes nothing. There is one build viable. The are no meaningful choices. I dont think Ashmane can compete with convoke. Also predatory swiftness needs to be baseline.
Doesn’t really fix the issues at all and I don’t like random chance to get Incarn on auto-attacks, makes it seem like I will have to build the best berserk when I don’t want to make it a big part of my gameplay. I think they are completely out of touch, probably not a single person at the office who actually plays the spec, unironically. We have to have a serious redesign of the structure of the tree so we can have several things to pick from like other specs have and they definitely need to do something about the 2 and 3-point nodes of ours + put some stuff baseline
The main problem is still mandatory talent nodes like the BT/FF one being locked behind plain useless 3 point talents like sudden ambush, and situational talents like primal wrath, and the problem that the bleed vs cooldown/berserk talent ‘‘builds’’ are scattered across both sides randomly so you can’t commit to either build and you’re forced into a 70/30 split no matter what you do.
Pretty meh changes unless you do mythic+ I suppose. A lot of AoE talents and boring % increases instead of exciting stuff.
Several issues remain (from my Pov): Berserk still split into 4 different talents. No sickle choice node. Convoke still 2min. And Draught of Deep Focus also gone.
Also this:
The main problem is still mandatory talent nodes like the BT/FF one being locked behind plain useless 3 point talents like sudden ambush.
The changes are great.
The concept of bleeds is great.
AoE is solved really good. I think that M+ crew will be really super satisfied with these changes.
Riad viability is not here. Why on earth is Leader of the Pack not back. Windwalkers got their raid wide buff, why not us? There must be some logic we are missing.
Right side of the tree is gatekeeped by AoE talents. AoE should be optional for those who need. it. Why is Taste for Blood and Infected wounds behined Primal Wrath. I do not want AoE aspect in my PvP build, but I would really need a slow and a higher burst on FB. Why gatekeep that?
Also, the right side has a nice potential for a single damage build, but is gatekeeped by also Ferocious Frenzy. Why is an AoE talent again a prerequisite for continuing down the “extra bleeds” line?
I imagine theyve dove down the route because if they were entirely seperate builds would struggle to combine AoE and ST into builds.
As every ability is now a talent point, if you seperate everything, u will end up with a build wirh not ST abilities and be trapped in either all ST or all AoE.
Weather theres a better route is questionable. Maybe pushing abilities higher up the tree above passives to ensure a AoE build can still get some ST.
As todays m+ requires a build that can do both ST and AoE
So likely why. Prolly can be reordered to some extent with extra attachments between abilities to ensure u can go around the AoE ttaits for pure ST builds tho.
Tbh i have a funny feeling this is how every class will go. There will be one go to build and maybe at best some alternativrs depending on the mode ur doing.
Ferals dps in both ST and AoE are bleeds?? Unless ur talking about the fericious bite spam builds??.
The druid developer has expressed hes focused on bleeds being the source of ferals damage (as should be)
So it makes sense that we will want improved bleeds on our ST build and tbh it should have always been that way. Snapshotting is basically a identity for feral now given the fact we are the only specc to retain it