It seems that they did modify it, yes. It's no longer based on a "global" energy tick, but an individual one (which I assume they did for adren rush, innervate and evocate). It still means my post stands because it's still effectively the same system, it just means you can't instantly shred.
I'm also not surprised they left ferals as they are in 2.3. For a class that is supposed to be primarily healing oriented (as blizzard have now stated) with feral and balance as alternative routes that still keep some decent healing power, bear tanks and cat dps are very comparable to the other hybrids. Itemisation is what we need (in a PvE sense) not stronger talents/abilities, and ferals are currently well balanced for PvE that they probably don't want to upset that by making changes for PvP.
While all this might be true (It's personal opinion mainly) it still doesn't relieve me of how I think of DPS'ing as compared to before. Having 4 combo points just before a Mangle duration would run out and powershifting fast enough to pull the Shred off in time was the fun part about DPS'ing as a feral druid. Now, powershifting is just... not the same 'feel' you got before. I'm not convinced that the DPS loss is huge, it just takes a lot of the fun out of DPS'ing.
I'm also not surprised they left ferals as they are in 2.3. For a class that is supposed to be primarily healing oriented (as blizzard have now stated) with feral and balance as alternative routes that still keep some decent healing power, bear tanks and cat dps are very comparable to the other hybrids. Itemisation is what we need (in a PvE sense) not stronger talents/abilities, and ferals are currently well balanced for PvE that they probably don't want to upset that by making changes for PvP.
I gotta agree here. From the perspective of class abilities/talents, Feral is in fine shape. Our endgame DPS is lacking as has been seen here BUT if we actually had properly itemized gear (say to take advantage of HotW) this would be solved to some degree.
The other option mentioned would be to change HotW to be based on AP. This would heavily increase our scalability since Str, Agi and flat AP would result in increased overall AP instead of just Str. Looking at my current gear (including my FAP weapon) this would really only result in about a 300 AP increase which certainly isnt gamebreaking. Combined with BS, SoE, UR BoM etc it may be a bit much but I still dont think it would throw us over the top.
Using a Rogue and a Druid DPS calculator, and using the gear of a rogue in my guild as well as my own gear, using common raid buffs, I came across the following numbers.
Druid DPS without Totems, Unleashed Rage or Shout: 1195,87 DPS.
Druid DPS in Tank Group (Bshout): 1261,83 DPS.
Druid DPS in Melee Group (Shaman buffs and Bshout): 1392,02 DPS.
Difference between Melee and MT group for feral: 130.19 DPS.
A rogue gains ~54 DPS from LotP.
A Shaman gets ~47 DPS.
Let's say a warrior gets 50 DPS. I didn't actually check this, so verificating would be cool.
Assume 2 Rogues, a Feral, a Warrior and an Enhancement Shaman in the melee group.
130.19 + 108 + 47 + 50 = 335.19 DPS.
A rogue loses 249 DPS from being in a tank group (Eg no Shaman buffs).
335.19 - 249 = 86.19 DPS.
It seems that replacing a rogue with a druid in the Melee group, and putting the rogue in the MT group, increases raid DPS by 86.19.
I really don't understand how someone can call feral DPS fine when a druid can rock 5k ap and still not crack 1300 dps. Meanwhile a rogue with half of that can push what 17, 18, 19? Even the apparent "weak" and requiring buffs Enhancement Shamans are receiving buffs coming next patch to their mana efficiency, spell damage and threat management, the last often being the only thing holding them back from nearly matching or even surpassing rogue dps.
Infact our dps is so unwanted at this point in tier 6 that we rarely if ever see an enhancement shaman or even a battleshout using warrior with our underutilization of group buffs, limited gains from battleshout and complete waste of windfury to name a couple.
On a side note clearly the pvp devs are aware of the massive amount of success Feral is seeing within the 2v2, 3v3 and primarily the 5v5 brackets that, for some reason, none of us have seen.
Using a Rogue and a Druid DPS calculator, and using the gear of a rogue in my guild as well as my own gear, using common raid buffs, I came across the following numbers.
Druid DPS without Totems, Unleashed Rage or Shout: 1195,87 DPS.
Druid DPS in Tank Group (Bshout): 1261,83 DPS.
Druid DPS in Melee Group (Shaman buffs and Bshout): 1392,02 DPS.
Difference between Melee and MT group for feral: 130.19 DPS.
A rogue gains ~54 DPS from LotP.
A Shaman gets ~47 DPS.
Let's say a warrior gets 50 DPS. I didn't actually check this, so verificating would be cool.
Assume 2 Rogues, a Feral, a Warrior and an Enhancement Shaman in the melee group.
130.19 + 108 + 47 + 50 = 335.19 DPS.
A rogue loses 249 DPS from being in a tank group (Eg no Shaman buffs).
335.19 - 249 = 86.19 DPS.
It seems that replacing a rogue with a druid in the Melee group, and putting the rogue in the MT group, increases raid DPS by 86.19.
Please correct me if and where I'm wrong.
And replacing that Feral Druid with another rogue or fury warrior is what, a +200 or +300 gain?
And replacing that Feral Druid with another rogue or fury warrior is what, a +200 or +300 gain?
Thank you for your constructive post. The discussion was about placement within groups for a feral druid with a fixed number of players of each class, not about whether you should bring one instead of a rogue.
Your tank group should still have a shaman. I understand that this isn't the case for a lot of alliance guilds (good shamans are hard enough to find on horde), but you should still have one in the tank group. If you find people are threat capped on an encounter and you're putting an elemental shaman with the casters and don't have any shaman for the tank, you'll probably find an overall RDPS increase from swapping the elemental for windfury + SoE for the tank for extra threat gen.
When the RDPS gain is so slim (80 out of a potential 30k or so (when we're talking theoretical numbers) is nothing) you'll probably find that it's easier to just let it go than to try and keep arguing the point.
The last thing they should do is give us more AP via changing HotW. That's just a band-aid. The real problem is the scaling is far too low. Increase the AP-scaling on our attacks in cat form massively, and (perhaps) only give us 1AP per strength in cat form.
Scaling is clearly the problem, not our overall levels of AP which are already the highest in the game.
<Fric> I think the only kind of gay buttsex I'd enjoy on any level would be assraping a smug hipster douchebag (also possibly a roid head and/or fratboy/Jersey Shore cast member)
I really don't understand how someone can call feral DPS fine when a druid can rock 5k ap and still not crack 1300 dps. Meanwhile a rogue with half of that can push what 17, 18, 19? Even the apparent "weak" and requiring buffs Enhancement Shamans are receiving buffs coming next patch to their mana efficiency, spell damage and threat management, the last often being the only thing holding them back from nearly matching or even surpassing rogue dps.
Infact our dps is so unwanted at this point in tier 6 that we rarely if ever see an enhancement shaman or even a battleshout using warrior with our underutilization of group buffs, limited gains from battleshout and complete waste of windfury to name a couple.
I think, yet again, this calls for the "main off-tank at end game" card. Yes, it's totally lame, but if we can be the "main off-tank" for all end game content (to the point where we're actually better choices in some circumstances for main tanking than any other class) then I don't think it matters what the DPS is like.
In blizzards eyes it will always be that our utility (combat res, still able to heal, offtank, innervate, tranquility) means we don't deserve a top 5 DPS place. In my eyes, that's perfectly acceptable. It sounds harsh, but if you don't agree with it, you should probably go level/play another class, because a pure-dps feral is a bit of a waste of space in comparison to, say, another rogue (as you pointed out yourself).
I do agree about enhancement shaman though. Everything was fine until they increased the threat talent to 30%. Doing that is a bit too much imo and turns them into a pure-dps class that can still heal.
I personally do agree with you Dukes. I have a heal set with +1600 odd healing and +110 mp5 (and I'm sure many ferals have much better) that I can bust out on any fights where we need crazy healing. I'm not going to be the awesome healer that I would be with 31+ points in resto, but by chain-chugging mana pots I can be a pretty effective rejuve & LB spammer all the same. In between that, innervate, combat rez & some pretty passable (if not top 5) dps, and we are the ultimate hybrid at the moment - along with Pallys we are the only class able to fulfill 3 roles (and it's arguable whether they can dps at the moment).
Where I would say we could use some help is in arena, I tried out arena as feral, and it was absolutely depressing. If I have to arena now I respec to 8/11/42 and then respec in time for raids again. Expensive, but for the added effectiveness and enjoyment it is actually worth it.
<Fric> I think the only kind of gay buttsex I'd enjoy on any level would be assraping a smug hipster douchebag (also possibly a roid head and/or fratboy/Jersey Shore cast member)
The last thing they should do is give us more AP via changing HotW. That's just a band-aid. The real problem is the scaling is far too low. Increase the AP-scaling on our attacks in cat form massively, and (perhaps) only give us 1AP per strength in cat form.
Scaling is clearly the problem, not our overall levels of AP which are already the highest in the game.
Increasing the way our stats give us ap/crit is a form of scaling. Adding % increase to AP allows Str to scale (just like currently) but also allows AP to scale better as well as Agi.
From the thread with the cross class AP numbers (which I cant seem to find anymore), it was something like .2 DPS per AP for druids and .3-.32 DPS per AP for Rogues.
Now take 2 simple items at same ilvl:
Item 1:
100 AP
25 Agi
Item 2:
50 AP
25 Agi
37 Str
Based ONLY on AP item 1 gives rogues a 40 DPS upgrade and item 2 gives druids a 35.76 DPS upgrade (assuming HotW gave 20% AP instead of 20% Str). Including a better ratio of crit:agi for druids this scaling is pretty decent from what I can see.
Of course changing the scaling to be scaling based on AP only works if we ALSO get proper itemization which is another large problem.
Someone asked if scaling our well itemized blues to epic item level proportion helps with scaling. The short answer is: No.
The long answer is: Yes, epic [Clefthoof Hide Leggings] would rock but after you are hit capped and get more than 5 Feral Combat Skill (granted, more than 5 still adds DPS but not as much as the first 5 points) you basically run out of stats to itemize. The more stats an item spreads it's itembudget on, the better it scales because you will get more total stats from that piece of gear (i.e 30 str vs 20 str and 20 agi - these are made up numbers, but this is the system it works on). Let's see which stats work for Ferals:
- Str
- Agi
- Crit Rating
- Haste
- AP
- FCS
- Hit (limited use due to hard cap)
- Haste
Str and AP are never itemized together, so I will go will stick with Str since it's better for us.
So that leaves us with Str, Agi, Haste and Crit rating. That is 4 stats an item can spread it's budget on for Druids. A Rogue's list would contain AP, Agi, Haste, Crit rating and Hit (since you don't get hitcapped as easily as Rogue). That is 4 stats vs 5 and at the high end this difference matters alot.
Also add the fact that Crit rating and Haste are alot worse for Druids than every other melee class and you will see how we will still lose the epic scaling game even with better itemization.
On an unrelated note: Where the hell are the JC patterns for 12 Agility?
Someone asked if scaling our well itemized blues to epic item level proportion helps with scaling. The short answer is: No.
The long answer is: Yes, epic [Clefthoof Hide Leggings] would rock but after you are hit capped and get more than 5 Feral Combat Skill (granted, more than 5 still adds DPS but not as much as the first 5 points) you basically run out of stats to itemize. The more stats an item spreads it's itembudget on, the better it scales because you will get more total stats from that piece of gear (i.e 30 str vs 20 str and 20 agi - these are made up numbers, but this is the system it works on). Let's see which stats work for Ferals:
- Str
- Agi
- Crit Rating
- Haste
- AP
- FCS
- Hit (limited use due to hard cap)
- Haste
Str and AP are never itemized together, so I will go will stick with Str since it's better for us.
So that leaves us with Str, Agi, Haste and Crit rating. That is 4 stats an item can spread it's budget on for Druids. A Rogue's list would contain AP, Agi, Haste, Crit rating and Hit (since you don't get hitcapped as easily as Rogue). That is 4 stats vs 5 and at the high end this difference matters alot.
Also add the fact that Crit rating and Haste are alot worse for Druids than every other melee class and you will see how we will still lose the epic scaling game even with better itemization.
On an unrelated note: Where the hell are the JC patterns for 12 Agility?
To be fair this is also an itemization problem. When the Fel Cleansed Pauldrons had Str and AP on them they were fantastic pieces for druids (and warriors actually). Why is it that blizzard doesnt itemize things this way? No real idea, but this type of spreading things around would allow for better scaling for druids.
Increasing the way our stats give us ap/crit is a form of scaling. Adding % increase to AP allows Str to scale (just like currently) but also allows AP to scale better as well as Agi.
Whether giving us mind-boggling tooltip stats is the way to go or not, if heart of the wild gave a bonus to attack power rather than to strength, we'd suddenly become super dependant on agility.
In blizzards eyes it will always be that our utility (combat res, still able to heal, offtank, innervate, tranquility) means we don't deserve a top 5 DPS place. In my eyes, that's perfectly acceptable.
Then give us some decent DPS, or even for that matter tanking, cooldowned abilities that share timers with all of those you listed. It's not hard, they built them right into both the warrior and paladin classes. You can easily limit the druid class without actually limiting anything, shared cooldown oh shit buttons would do nothing but benefit all aspects of druids; resto, balance and feral.
Hell one of our restos burns hours every week farming magic dust to save himself from loose adds during trash and some bosses, i bet he would pay a tranq/innervate cooldown and some mana for a Balance version of soul shatter or a Feral version of last stand or evasion.
pure-dps feral is a bit of a waste of space in comparison to, say, another rogue (as you pointed out yourself).
This specifically is at fault of blizzard and their epic failure that is windfury, potting in forms and the idiocy surrounding our itemization in tier 6. We are pure DPS in about a third the bosses in tier 6 anyways, assuming you don't get subbed out for something more useful.
I personally am quite satisfied with my DPS capabilities. I don't want to top meters or be a main DPS class, I want to fill the gaps where it's needed. That's my entire philosophy, the entire purpose of a feral druid in my opinion. To compliment the raid. And DPSing as good as a rogue simply doesn't fit in that image, for balancing purposes.
Maybe it's easier for me to accept because I used to play a rogue. I almost feel guilty when am very high on the meters, because I still remember MTing a boss moments before, whithout respeccing in between or anything.
Whether giving us mind-boggling tooltip stats is the way to go or not, if heart of the wild gave a bonus to attack power rather than to strength, we'd suddenly become super dependant on agility.
We're already super dependent on agility. Its the best stat you can stack once your AP gets reasonably high (which when raid buffed is probably while you're still in Kara).
My (very basic) testing seemed to only grant up to 3 energy after a shift. Maybe I'm terrible or unlucky, but, yeah.
In summary, you still lose a white hit (while possibly gaining a melee hit) and a chance at losing a 2t4 proc, while getting only 20 energy out of the deal. Plus you lose whatever energy you had left over, plus you lose some amount of mana (enough to hurt your utility in role changing/emergency healing).
I feel as though the powershifting is really strained when you have 2t4 to the point where it's not worth what you gain in utility. And if you shift enough to use mana pots, perhaps you might be entering the realm of seeing haste pots/strength pots on a very occasional shift bringing more reward.
My (very basic) testing seemed to only grant up to 3 energy after a shift. Maybe I'm terrible or unlucky, but, yeah.
In summary, you still lose a white hit (while possibly gaining a melee hit) and a chance at losing a 2t4 proc, while getting only 20 energy out of the deal. Plus you lose whatever energy you had left over, plus you lose some amount of mana (enough to hurt your utility in role changing/emergency healing).
I feel as though the powershifting is really strained when you have 2t4 to the point where it's not worth what you gain in utility. And if you shift enough to use mana pots, perhaps you might be entering the realm of seeing haste pots/strength pots on a very occasional shift bringing more reward.
I suspect powershifting will see some better utility once the instant /cancelform macros come in, in 2.3. A single press to essentially transfer mana to energy seems like it should work well.
No. I want to be top 5 dps. I want to be able to stand toe to toe with the fury warriors, the ms warriors and the enhancement shamen. I will not subscribe to an attitude of limited coolness.
And while we're at it: No. I want to be a viable tank. I will not settle for tanking the Shadowmoon Houndmasters because I can shapeshift out of the icetrap.
I will not settle for being a pc shadowfiend.
I will not settle for being a backup healer who does dps when the raid does not need heals.
That a feral druid can do 'other stuff' should not mean that a feral druid dedicated in spec and gear for the role of melee dps is not capable of fulfilling that role fully.
No. I want to be top 5 dps. I want to be able to stand toe to toe with the fury warriors, the ms warriors and the enhancement shamen. I will not subscribe to an attitude of limited coolness.
And while we're at it: No. I want to be a viable tank. I will not settle for tanking the Shadowmoon Houndmasters because I can shapeshift out of the icetrap.
I will not settle for being a pc shadowfiend.
I will not settle for being a backup healer who does dps when the raid does not need heals.
That a feral druid can do 'other stuff' should not mean that a feral druid dedicated in spec and gear for the role of melee dps is not capable of fulfilling that role fully.
To argue otherwise seems madness.
Sorry friend, but to me that sounds unreasonable, and not in train with what Blizzard's (and incidently, mine) idea of the role of a Feral Druid is in raids.
As a feral DPS I also think blizzard should give us proper items/talents to fully use our potential, outdpsing rogues is not my goal but we should be able to be just behind them.
I played my druid as a healer before BC but since it came out I only play as a feral now, I am pretty happy with my ability to tank and do not considere myself as an offtank but just as a tank (I tank tidalves in the karathress encounter and I am the only one with our MT able to tank him and I get ~70% avoided hits). I also brought my dps to a decent level keeping me in the top 5 melee when I am only dpsing.
In conclusion the only thing I think should be fixed is our itemisation, we need far more choice and I hope the new chest from Kara is only the first step from blizzard and other items will follow in 2.3 .
I'm quite content with itemnization for the most part. Of course we need a T5/T6 DPS weapon, not just a tank weapon, and 4/5 T6 should be better than 2/4 T4, but mostly I'm satisfied.
Well... so be it. I think you're selling everyone here striving to be the best dps they can be short. So I guess we'll have to agree to thinking the other is an idiot under our breath while we continue to be civil to each other :p
That said, top 5 dps, while fun, should not be our goal. There are rogues, mages, hunters and warlocks who are all pure dps classes with varying degrees of utility to the raid that in a world of equal gear and skill and with balanced class design should occupy the top dps slots. Then you have all of the hybrids, the dps warriors, the shamen, the druids, the priests and the paladins.
Keeping up with the other hybrids is my idea of where we should be, given an equal level of gear and skill. That an extremely well played feral druid rorting every trick of gcd, powershifting and cycle timing can just keep up with an enhancement shaman who stands there and once every 6 seconds uses a Shock...
09/27/07, 9:44 AM
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