[Druid] Feral talents/abilities - WotLK preview / discussion

Rannasha · 05/27/08, 8:45 AM

To remove the clutter in the Feral Druid Megathread created by the new talents and abilities, i've created this separate thread.

Talents
(calculator: War Pirate :: Talent tree Druid)

Restoration
Improved Mark of the Wild - Reduced to 2 points from 5. (Note: The new rank of MotW has a significant increase in power, 750 armor, 37 stats and 54 resists untalented)

Nature's Focus - Reduced to 3 points from 5, moved to 1st tier from second.

Subtlety - Reduced to 3 points from 5. Now only affects Restoration spells rather than all spells.

*NEW* Master Shapeshifter - (Tier 3, Natural Shapeshifter required) Increases physical damage done in Bear form by 2%/4%, increases critical strike chance in Cat form by 2%/4%.
The only change in the Resto tree interesting for ferals, this talent seems a good deal for only 2 points. However, not everyone picks up Nat. Shifter, making the cost alot higher.

Omen of Clarity - Now a passive ability rather than a 30 minute self-buff.

Feral
Faerie Fire (Feral) - Moved from tier 5 to tier 3.

*NEW* Primal Precision - (Tier 4, Sharpened Claws required) Increases expertise by 5/10. Refunds 40%/80% of the energy cost of finishers that didn't land.

Feral Charge - Moved from tier 3 to tier 5. Now also usable in Cat form.
Effectively swapped places with FFF, this change is most likely intended to block access to Feral Charge for Resto-PvP builds. For Ferals, it gives a long-wanted spell-interrupt in Cat form with the obvious minimum range limitation.

Survival of the Fittest - Crit reduction increased to 2%/4%/6%

*NEW* King of the Jungle - (Tier 8) Increases damage done in bearform while Enraged by 5%/10%/15%. Tiger's Fury now also restores 20/40/60 energy.

*NEW* Improved Mangle - (Tier 9, Mangle required) Reduces the cooldown of Mangle (Bear) by 7%/14%/20% and the energy cost of Mangle (Cat) by 2/4/6.

*NEW* Infected Wounds - (Tier 9) Shred, Maul and Mangle have a 33%/66%/100% chance to stack a disease (stacks to 5) on the target reducing movement and cast speed by 10% per stack. Lasts 12 seconds.

*NEW* Primal Aggression - (Tier 10) Increases damage done by Maul and Shred by 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% on bleeding targets. Increases the critical strike chance of Ferocious Bite by 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% on bleeding targets.

*NEW* Berserk - (Tier 11) 100% increased energy regeneration in Cat form. 20% increased total health in Bear form. Mangle (Bear) and Maul hit up to 3 targets. Can't be stopped unless killed. 20 seconds. 5 minute cooldown.
Effectively a combination of 3 popular talents from other classes, 2 of which are active at the same time depending on form. This talent seems quite powerful.

A total of 18 points worth of new talents that interest Ferals has been added. With only 10 more levels, this will force people to make some choices. Some people will be displeased and call the tree bloated. Others will see it as a means to diversify. In any case, it will allow for spec-variations that cater towards different roles, PvE Cat, PvE Bear, PvP, etc...

Abilities

New abilities
Savage Roar (Cat Form) - Finisher that increases AP by 25%. Lasts 6 seconds plus 3 seconds per combo point. 25 energy.

Changed abilities / new ranks
The non-scaling damage component on alot of the Feral abilities has increased significantly. To name two examples, the top rank of Ravage has 1771 bonus damage in WotLK, while the current top rank only has 514. The new top rank of Maul will add 578 damage to your attack versus 176 of the current top rank.

Mangle (Bear) now also increases the damage dealt by Maul by 30%, but no longer increases the damage dealt by Shred.

Tiger's Fury no longer costs energy, but has a 30 second cooldown.

Ferocious Bite: the energy-to-damage conversion now scales with AP.

The increase of the non-scaling components can be seen as a way for Blizzard to make gear-differences have less influence on a players power. At least, until level 80 gear-progression, where the higher item-levels will undoubtebly cause the scaling components of many abilities to dominate again.

Please note that none of this is final.

Please respect the forum rules regarding WotLK info, see: WotLK, Leaks, and You

seminarca · 05/27/08, 9:08 AM

Originally Posted by Rannasha

Feral Charge - Moved from tier 3 to tier 5.
Effectively swapped places with FFF, this change is most likely intended to block access to Feral Charge for Resto-PvP builds. For Ferals, nothing changes really.

Except that it will be usable in Cat Form ;G

Rannasha · 05/27/08, 9:16 AM

Good point. I had forgotten about that one. There might be more things that have been leaked but that i missed in my topic-start. Don't hesitate to point them out and i'll update the first post. Obviously, it will be updated when more information becomes available as well.

◊ Merple · 05/27/08, 9:45 AM

Imp Mangle is confusing to me, mostly for the cooldown reduction it offers on Bearform Mangle.

20% represents 1.2 seconds, which isn't even a full GCD. Currently, we work with a 4 GCD threat cycle (Mangle, 3x lacerate/swipe). Imp Mangle will either allow us to move to a 3 GCD + pause (or latency) cycle.

Personally, I don't have any problem using mangle as soon as it comes up with a 4 GCD rotation, so I don't see how this really helps. Sure, it'll probably add a bit of threat for us, but why wouldn't they make it 25% and give us the full GCD instead of this awkward pause?

• droeber · 05/27/08, 10:01 AM

For me, the Imp. Mangle change really shines when I'm tanking multiple mobs. I often like to pick up another mob with a taunt and mangle, and hate having to wait for Mangle to come off cooldown inorder to do so.

◊ Merple · 05/27/08, 10:10 AM

Doesn't change the retarded .3 second pause though. Literally, it's just dead time in your cycle.

Valerian · 05/27/08, 10:17 AM

The only thing I find a bit odd is the second to last tier talent being nearly only PvP oriented. While it has some effect in PvE, there are much better PvE talents to take in other trees.

Wander · 05/27/08, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by Rannasha

*NEW* Reinforced Hide - (Tier 8) Reduces spell damage and increases armor contribution from items taken by 4%/7%/10%.
The extra armor-scaling might indicate that Rogue and Feral leather will be more unified into one group of items.

I hadn't considered that; my first impression was that the concept was for hybridized Restoration or Balance specs to be able to spec for some additional survivability in PvP still; meanwhile, a deep Feral Druid would shift some of the top-level talent point investment into mid-level talents by skipping Thick hide, picking up the 10% Armor from a lower-tier talent, thus making each talent point more bang for your buck in a deep Feral build.

Wander · 05/27/08, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Valerian

The only thing I find a bit odd is the second to last tier talent being nearly only PvP oriented. While it has some effect in PvE, there are much better PvE talents to take in other trees.

Many bosses aren't immune to casting speed reduction effects; think RoS, for example, where during one phase having casting-speed-reduction is pretty well mandatory. Heck, think Magtheridon's adds, even! Letting your Rogues ignore Mind-Numbing Poison in favor of a DPS-increasing one in raids because your Feral OT can stack a 50% casting speed reduction is pretty handy. I wouldn't be ashamed to take it in a Bear build, although I'd skip it in a PvE Cat DPS build and be sure *not* to miss it in a PvP Feral build.

◊ Ulfgar · 05/27/08, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Merple

Doesn't change the retarded .3 second pause though. Literally, it's just dead time in your cycle.

If you have any latency at all it will probably align quite nicely.

Xelopheris · 05/27/08, 10:39 AM

Depending on the armor value of level 80 items, it could very well be possible to skip thick hide in favor of Feral Aggression for the additional -AP. It should be on par with Demo shout, which means with talents it will negate CoR. 2/5 will be enough for non-CoR mobs as well, if you want to only invest 2 points.

War Pirate :: Talent tree Druid (full feral aggression)

War Pirate :: Talent tree Druid (2/5 feral aggression, thick hide)

CD · 05/27/08, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Valerian

The only thing I find a bit odd is the second to last tier talent being nearly only PvP oriented. While it has some effect in PvE, there are much better PvE talents to take in other trees.

It will be interesting to see if the disease still gets placed on immune mobs - if it does then that might help death knights who seem to have a lot of attacks with bonus damage depending on the number of diseases on a target.

My main problem is there seems to be a lack of scaling for catform- again we'll be loaded up on crit at 80 then as itemisation gets better as ilevels go up with more stats spread across things like armour pen and haste that we just don't get much out of we seem destined to scale poorly.

Some of the new talent ranks are interesting and could have an impact on speccing- demo roar was -408 ap, demo shout was -410: if those values stay the same then we might be expected to take feral aggression.
The level 80 motw seems to be +37 stats- if we're heavily focused on 5-10 mans then imp motw might be worth picking up too- 2 talent points for +14.8 to all stats in a group might well be worthwhile.

Diameter · 05/27/08, 11:09 AM

Xelopheris, do you no longer think omen of clarity will be useful to ferals at level 80 or did you just forget to include it in your talents? I would think the threat/dps boost of clearcasting would definitely be worth the one talent point it takes out of the feral combat tree.

Valerian · 05/27/08, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by CD

It will be interesting to see if the disease still gets placed on immune mobs - if it does then that might help death knights who seem to have a lot of attacks with bonus damage depending on the number of diseases on a target.

Granted it may help DKs and Rogues not using mind numbing (as the previous poster said) but its not worth 5 talent points in PvE for that sake, especially considering the bloat of the feral tree. Druids strength was that you can OT and DPS in one spec. This is harder to do now, but still possible if you dont jam 5 talent points into this one. Thing is it doesnt feel right in its place so deep in the tree with only a marginal PvE effect especially for 5 points.

My main problem is there seems to be a lack of scaling for catform- again we'll be loaded up on crit at 80 then as itemisation gets better as ilevels go up with more stats spread across things like armour pen and haste that we just don't get much out of we seem destined to scale poorly.

Yeah no added scaling here could be an issue. Then again we haven't seen the new abilities that we're getting which could make up for this. In fact all feral mechanics could be changed for all we know (weapon damage, WF being allowed etc). Further just like Mongoose provides a significant benefit to rogues, new inscriptions may provide more interesting scaling to our abilities. Even a minor removal of energy cost from our already cheap skills provides a significant dps gain. I wouldn't be too worried yet.

Astral · 05/27/08, 5:04 PM

Originally Posted by Wander

I hadn't considered that; my first impression was that the concept was for hybridized Restoration or Balance specs to be able to spec for some additional survivability in PvP still; meanwhile, a deep Feral Druid would shift some of the top-level talent point investment into mid-level talents by skipping Thick hide, picking up the 10% Armor from a lower-tier talent, thus making each talent point more bang for your buck in a deep Feral build.

Would a non-feral hybrid really dig 43 points into Feral, though?

I think the point is to take both Thick Hide/Reinforced Hide for +20% armor (x6 as opposed to x5.5) for those serious about tanking (or just lacking the gear). Right now at 70, the armor cap vs lvl 73 (bosses) is 35,880. Against a lvl 83 (boss) it'll 49,904! You'll need over 9000 armor to reach that with the current 550% from Thick Hide. Remember that 10% is worth another 50% to a Dire Bear. This'll turn a 1000 armor chest from 5500 armor to 6000. It's even allow us to take AGI-heavy rogue gear more often once we've capped.

Wander · 05/27/08, 5:17 PM

Originally Posted by Astral

Would a non-feral hybrid really dig 43 points into Feral, though?

No, and that's exactly my point; Thick Hide for non-Ferals, Reinforced Hide for Ferals. Reread what I wrote; the Hybrids would take the weaker higher talent, and the Deep Ferals would redistribute Thick Hide points into Primal Precision and Primal Tenacity, picking up their +10% Armor contribution lower in the tree.

Originally Posted by Astral

I think the point is to take both Thick Hide/Reinforced Hide for +20% armor (x6 as opposed to x5.5) for those serious about tanking (or just lacking the gear). Right now at 70, the armor cap vs lvl 73 (bosses) is 35,880. Against a lvl 83 (boss) it'll 49,904! You'll need over 9000 armor to reach that with the current 550% from Thick Hide. Remember that 10% is worth another 50% to a Dire Bear. This'll turn a 1000 armor chest from 5500 armor to 6000. It's even allow us to take AGI-heavy rogue gear more often once we've capped.

Given how cheap bonus (Green) armor points are, I don't think that any Druid will have to worry about getting an additional 9,000 armor over ten levels, unless they change the sort of gear Druids tank in from AR-heavy itemized pieces to simple high-AGI Rogue pieces; of course, they'll probably have to figure out a way to do that *and* keep the Bear's absurdly high STA intact as well somehow - the return of the 25% Health Bonus, perhaps?

Maeltne · 05/27/08, 6:01 PM

It all depends on how well we trust blizzard to itemize our gear. TBC >>> better than LOL-vanilla - but many items are still so poorly itemized that I cry myself to sleep sometimes.

If I could assign the points on my gear, I'd be seriously OP.

Astral · 05/27/08, 6:04 PM

Except that raid gear is meant to count for higher levels...the levels stop at the cap, but with higher raids, item lvl just keeps going up...such that T3 was "good til 67", T6 will most likely last til at least 75...I think they've also stated gear will scale slower in WoTLK and not be as crazy as TBC...so don't expect to get epic-quality greens at 72

Just because someone can cap now, doesn't mean those who come later, and won't get so much access to T4-6 content (how much of it will die like the others once the expansion hits?) will have such luxury...

Besides, you don't give 2 +10% armor talents and itemize for one...that'd be stupid...

You shouldn't think in a 71-80 bubble about new talents...tier 8 is lvl 60+

Lolaan · 05/27/08, 6:08 PM

This 49k armor cap assumes that they don't inflate armor again like they did in the burning crusade transition. Remember, the formula changes post 60. It may very well change post 70 and we'll be required to have more like 70k armor to cap out. Hard to know for sure at this point.

North101 · 05/27/08, 6:38 PM

My friend has a private WotLK server and I noticed that Frenzied Regen is 0.3% of max health per rage on it (its been reported as 0.1% somewhere else) which is better than I expected it to be (0.1% was abit on the low side considering it uses all of our rage).

Berserk is also 2 abilities, one for Cat Form (5min cooldown) and one for Bear Form (2min cooldown) with the Bear Form version increasing health by 30% and not 20%. I'm sort of hoping that they will combine the 2 and add a spell cost reduction for caster form as I suspect that if you shiftout you loose the buff.

Tigers Fury costs no energy and has a 30sec cooldown which makes it pretty nice now as it adds abit of burst and I can defintly see myself using it everytime its off cooldown

Survival of the Fittest now gives you double what it does now meaning we don't need to use defence or resilience for PVE gear. I suspect they changed it because of all the stat juggling we had to do to stay crit immune. Though this does mean we can tank in Cat gear should the tank die, we may not have as much health (Berserk would help here) or armor but we'll have more dodge than in normal tanking gear and we should at least be able to survive till the tank gets combat rezzed and buffed (assuming it can be taunted).

Feral Charge (Cat)
10 Energy............8-25yd range
0.75 sec cast.....30sec cooldown
Requires Cat Form
Causes you to leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 sec.

Ferocious Bite's extra damage now scales with Attack Power (it was showing at 11 dmg per energy at 4768 Attack Power with Rank 6 with the lowest being 3.5 dmg per energy at 0 Attack Power which would give about 0.0015 - 0.0157 additional dmg per attack power per energy).

Omen of Clarity is passive.

Note: I'm pretty sure tooltip data is taken from the actual WoW client so while it may not remain this way, it should be the same as whats in the current Alpha.

Xelopheris · 05/27/08, 9:26 PM

Originally Posted by Diameter

Xelopheris, do you no longer think omen of clarity will be useful to ferals at level 80 or did you just forget to include it in your talents? I would think the threat/dps boost of clearcasting would definitely be worth the one talent point it takes out of the feral combat tree.

Erm, I completely missed it to be honest. Take a point out of feral aggression for it.

Valerian · 05/27/08, 11:32 PM

Originally Posted by North101

Berserk is also 2 abilities, one for Cat Form (5min cooldown) and one for Bear Form (2min cooldown) with the Bear Form version increasing health by 30% and not 20%. I'm sort of hoping that they will combine the 2 and add a spell cost reduction for caster form as I suspect that if you shiftout you loose the buff.

Ferocious Bite's extra damage now scales with Attack Power (it was showing at 11 dmg per energy at 4768 Attack Power with Rank 6 with the lowest being 3.5 dmg per energy at 0 Attack Power which would give about 0.0015 - 0.0157 additional dmg per attack power per energy).

5 min cooldown for Cat form makes sense (same as adrenaline rush). But 2 min cooldown on last stand? That seems somewhat unbalanced. As for FB 11 DPE is still far too low for you to want to actually use more than 35 energy for your bites.

Feorthas · 05/27/08, 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

But 2 min cooldown on last stand? That seems somewhat unbalanced.

Wasn't Warrior last stand getting it's cooldown reduced to something around 2 or 3 minutes? Even if the warrior version is at 5-minutes, pre-talents, I don't think that having the druid version be at 2 is horribly unbalancing, given that it's the 51 point talent and whatnot.