Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 28

• Astrylian · 07/31/08, 4:11 PM

Seems to be several thousand damage... Would need quite a few really strong bleeds on a full duration maim to hit that, I think.

Beregon · 07/31/08, 4:29 PM

Right...so a very small nerf. However, I have not seen anything from Blizzard to suggest that it no longer breaks when hit. Unless someone with access to the beta can confirm that it doesn't, I would believe that it still does and this is just a small additional restriction on how long it can last.

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 4:30 PM

So, does the new Maim stop your auto attacks like it does today? Does it stop a pet from attacking the mob?

Septus · 07/31/08, 4:35 PM

I assumed that the only reason they bothered to change maim, was specifically so you could attack the target directly, with mangle or shred. There was no balance issue to be had with the current version letting rake and rip tick away for five seconds.

Zure · 07/31/08, 4:35 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

Seems to be several thousand damage... Would need quite a few really strong bleeds on a full duration maim to hit that, I think.

The Blizzard post implies that it is a buff (an added tool to our arsenal). If it's a buff, that means it must not break immediately upon non-bleed damage. But in that case, isn't maim almost redundant with Lock Jaw (in a good way for ferals, as we can easily stunlock someone for 16 seconds straight out of stealth)?

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 4:40 PM

Originally Posted by Zure

But in that case, isn't maim almost redundant with Lock Jaw (in a good way for ferals, as we can easily stunlock someone for 16 seconds straight out of stealth)?

We no longer have Lock Jaw. The change to Maim seems to be Blizzard's response to the loss of Lock Jaw.

It certainly seems like a significant buff to me.

Moof · 07/31/08, 4:40 PM

Not in the beta myself, but from the reports i've read it is in fact a buff. It doesn't stop auto attack since auto-attacks do not break it. It just basically allows us to get off a shred or 2 before it breaks.

Septus · 07/31/08, 4:41 PM

Lockjaw was old data for one of our new abilities. The new finisher is Savage Roar instead.

shadowane · 07/31/08, 4:41 PM

Has lock jaw been confirmed? I've seen our new skill as the AP finisher at 75 and a healing skill at 80. Are classes getting more than 2 new skills?

edit: I'm way too slow.

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 4:47 PM

Blizzard can't add too many new skills since we are almost out of bar space. Remember you have to be able to play the game with 12 buttons per form.

In cat we have...

Attack
Mangle (or Claw)
Rip
SR
Rake
Maim
Tiger's Fury
Berserk
Dash
Cower
FFF
Shred
Feral Charge

So, it looks like we are over capacity already. Guess we can remove #1 from the list by using a few /startattack type macros on our more common yellow attacks (FFF, mangle, shred, etc.).

This is probably why they only added Berserk to Bears as we only had 1 spot left.

• Caniki · 07/31/08, 5:09 PM

Originally Posted by tlbj6142

Blizzard can't add too many new skills since we are almost out of bar space. Remember you have to be able to play the game with 12 buttons per form.

In cat we have...

Attack
Mangle (or Claw)
Rip
SR
Rake
Maim
Tiger's Fury
Berserk
Dash
Cower
FFF
Shred
Feral Charge

So, it looks like we are over capacity already. Guess we can remove #1 from the list by using a few /startattack type macros on our more common yellow attacks (FFF, mangle, shred, etc.).

This is probably why they only added Berserk to Bears as we only had 1 spot left.

You could just keybind a lot of this stuff.

◊ Lord BEEF · 07/31/08, 5:14 PM

edit: beaten

Anyway how is feral output and scaling looking with the proposed changes?

• giansm · 07/31/08, 5:16 PM

Well, FFF and Feral Charge are usable in multiple forms so they could legitimately be on a secondary bar. And even with that, why do you have to be able to fit it all on one bar anyway?

Sioned · 07/31/08, 6:03 PM

Originally Posted by Deliverance

Regarding the bloat in feral talents, remember that for TBC we got the biggest amount of bloat reduction of all classes ending up with the ability to get practically everything we wanted for both PvE cat and bear in one spec - it appears that it is an explicit desire not to have that be the case for WotLK:

From this death knight Ghostcrawler post, #36, an excerpt

Disregarding an astonishing statement like "nearly as much dps as a rogue" (which, after all, was the case in early L70 content, though definitely not later on), unless I'm reading too much into Ghostcrawler's statement, it would appear unlikely that we experience any significant bloat reduction at this stage, since even freeing up a meager 5 points would go a long way towards cat and bear unification in WotLK.

EDIT: Which, inter alia, raises the interesting question: If the design intention this time around is that the feral druid picking all the cat talents thus skipping a handful primarily useful for bear isn't likely going to be the guild's main tank, just what sort of damage is he supposed to be putting out in cat form? Enough to match the ret. paladins, enh. shaman, and warriors... or nearly as much as the rogues? I would love to see a statement of intent regarding where feral's damageoutput is really supposed to be.

See I looked at Ghostcrawler's post from a different angle.

I assume he's talking about the first 2 weeks after TBC was launched and ferals were able to do "nearly as much dps as a rogue" IN bear form (thus being able to tank and dps at the same time). If you look at it in that light, then sure the bear nerf was needed. Bears seem to be ok for now. Cat on the other hand doesn't scale well near end game. The devs know this, and steps such as the OOC are working towards fixing this. Will it? Dunno. But I'm just glad Blizz admitted to knowing of the scaling issue and at least are trying to work towards a solution. If the new OOC change fails to address the scaling issue, then I'm pretty sure they'll try something else to fix the problem.

Someone mentioned earlier that they found it ridiculous that we'll have 4 different specs not counting PvP. I think Blizz will follow the same setup they did back in TBC - we'll have a PvE Resto, PvE Boomkin, and PvE Feral spec. The PvE Feral spec will have everything needed to tank and dps from a cat and bear point of view (meaning the feral tree will be trimmed prior to launch). The "extra" talents for feral will be PvP related. So you have to pick if you want to be a pure PvE feral spec or one with PvP utility thrown in. I don't think they'll make us have to choose a "Tank spec" vs a "Cat dps" spec.

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 6:06 PM

Originally Posted by giansm

Well, FFF and Feral Charge are usable in multiple forms so they could legitimately be on a secondary bar. And even with that, why do you have to be able to fit it all on one bar anyway?

Because the game has to be playable with the stock out of the box UI.

You and I know we can make macros, fancy keybindings, addons, etc., but the game (from a software QA PoV) has to be playable with one bar per form.

• Vykromond · 07/31/08, 6:08 PM

The stock out of the box UI supports keybindings. It also supports multiple bars and macros.

Tamber · 07/31/08, 6:08 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

Doesn't break until a significant amount of damage is hit (same as fear or roots)

I guess it all depends on what that "significant amount of damage" will be. I usually shred as a followup to maim. I'm guessing a full shred (especially if it crits) will nearly always break the maim. I'd be very curious to see what people in beta have observed...

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 6:18 PM

Originally Posted by Vykromond

The stock out of the box UI supports keybindings. It also supports multiple bars and macros.

Correct, but they are advanced features. You and I are way too smart, yet there are plenty of casual idiot players in WoW. The game has work for dumb monkeys as well as mensa players.

• Astrylian · 07/31/08, 6:36 PM

Just to clarify, Maim is not nerfed. It's not just that it breaks after a certain amount of bleed damage, it just breaks after a certain amount of TOTAL damage. Direct attacks do *not* break it. You can get a bunch of bleeds up, maim, keep autoattacking, shred, and it stays maimed.

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 7:30 PM

Originally Posted by tlbj6142

Correct, but they are advanced features. You and I are way too smart, yet there are plenty of casual idiot players in WoW. The game has work for dumb monkeys as well as mensa players.

<wipes egg of his monkey face>

Ooops! I forgot pounce and ravage. Dang that's quit a few buttons for 1 form.

Quickly switching gears so you will forget about my past transgressions, how are you going to deal with the influx in new skills in the Xpac and their impact on your UI?

For bear, there is just Berserk and i have plenty of space for it, plus it will be rarely used due to the long CD, so i bury it somewhere "out-of-reach".

For cat i see Feral charge, Tiger's fury (not on my bar today), Savage Roar and Berserk. I don't see myself using cat form FC all that often as it is primarily a PvP skill and Berserk has 5m CD so I can bury it. But a new finishing move and the, now required, TF! Not sure i have that many keys within reach! ugh! WTB n52 for left-handers.

• Astrylian · 07/31/08, 8:12 PM

FC(C) is awesome. You'll use it alot. Any time you would move toward a mob in cat form, and its cooldown is up, you'll want to use it. A) It's faster. B) It's frelling cool.

EDIT: BTW... Mewbombs. Oh yes. Not just Mewbombs. Stealth Membombs.

Miststorm · 07/31/08, 8:21 PM

As for cat dps scaling, it looks like we are starting to go into the right direction, but not fast enough.

The changed scaling on OOC will improve the value of haste, but with a base 12 energy per second regen (including KotJ), the 3.5 free attacks per minute being worth around 2 energy per second, it amounts to just 1/7th of our yellow damage made scaleable by haste. The gap with rogues is larger though (They tend to get 65% to 70% white damage to our 45% to 50% in TBC), so it would be welcome if haste would reduce the cooldown on Tigers Fury as well, to effectively double the yellow damage improved by haste.

After all, with the change to WF totem to provide melee haste instead of a main hand weapon buff, Rogues will benefit from freshly hasted off-hand attacks as well, meaning they still get a 1.75 1.2 / 1.95 = 7.7% buff to their white damage compared to our 20% buff to white damage, so its contribution to closing the scaling gap is smaller than hoped, and should be addressed somewhere else.

The change in crit chance scaling for Agility is partly welcome as far it will ensure that agility is no longer the outstanding stat to stack (Agility being better for crit than crit rating was bad design), but instead of giving us 5% extra base crit to compensate for the loss, it would have been nicer to up the scaling on agility a bit to 33 1/3 agility per crit from 40 agi / crit. While keeping with the same effect with 1000 agi (live 40% crit, both versions 30%), it would not introduce another non-scaling factor.

As for our new finisher, I am afraid it will be expensive to keep up. We have no equivalent to the 45% extra duration Rogues have on SnD, we have no combo points given from finishers, so it looks to be put into a rotation alternating with Rip. Something like SR, M, S, S, S, wait energy R, M, S, S, S wait energy, which would expect you to give two 5pt finishers for a total cost of 25+30+2*34+6*42 = 375 energy. Take out the 100 energy you can wait on, you would need to regen (375-100)/21 = 13 energy per second, which can be achieved with our new OoC and TF energy return, with some part of the cycle without Savage Roar up, depending on your crit rate and luck with OoC procs.

◊ Lord BEEF · 07/31/08, 8:25 PM

The new glyphs for mangle and rip duration should help there (unless you already factored that in).

coredumperror · 07/31/08, 8:28 PM

Originally Posted by Miststorm

As for our new finisher, I am afraid it will be expensive to keep up. We have no equivalent to the 45% extra duration Rogues have on SnD, we have no combo points given from finishers, so it looks to be put into a rotation alternating with Rip. Something like SR, M, S, S, S, wait energy R, M, S, S, S wait energy, which would expect you to give two 5pt finishers for a total cost of 25+30+2*34+6*42 = 375 energy. Take out the 100 energy you can wait on, you would need to regen (375-100)/21 = 13 energy per second, which can be achieved with our new OoC and TF energy return, with some part of the cycle without Savage Roar up, depending on your crit rate and luck with OoC procs.

Don't forget about powershifting! With the change to energy regen, Powershifting will become significantly more powerful for energy management than it already is today. That should bridge the gap, I think.

TheNameLessOne · 07/31/08, 8:36 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

FC(C) is awesome. You'll use it alot. Any time you would move toward a mob in cat form, and its cooldown is up, you'll want to use it. A) It's faster. B) It's frelling cool.

EDIT: BTW... Mewbombs. Oh yes. Not just Mewbombs. Stealth Membombs.

Is it still do the funny position thing where you aren't facing your target half the time?