I think alot of people are (unfairly) judging a class's viability on the talent changes that are announced so far.
Theres more re-balancing to come, and more gear to show itself.
But the biggest factor of all, is how the encounters will be tuned. What if there was a boss implemented that continually ran away and put slowing affects on the raid, but druids could powershift/infected wounds their way through it? What if there was a boss that reflected all dmg (a bit like ROS p2) except only non crit dmg? Our own stellar crit rates, plus our LOTP on others would be a necessity.
I remember back in classic wow during the TBC beta when my warlock was my main we were a bit concerned about warlocks viability in a raid setting. Through most of the content they do similar dps to other casters, but encounters were actually designed to include them. Think puppies in HKM, infernos in Mag, tanking Leo, tanking Kael add, tanking Illidan.
But the biggest factor of all, is how the encounters will be tuned.
I agree with this. This is the biggest factor. We'll probably still be the kings of role-swapping. If there are fights that require 3-4 tanks sometimes and only 1 others later (Lurker, Mag), we are very useful. If there are fights that need a threat-sponge (Gruul, Supremus), we are useful (assuming we still put out more threat than other tanks without being hit). If there are trash clears that need a few tanks before the single tank fight and there is not enough time to swap people out, ferals can tank and dps.
If fights are mostly 1-tank, tank and spank + dps, we're in trouble. I doubt that will happen because it's boring.
I personally like most of the new talents we got and think they're moving in the right direction for ferals (WF, shared gear, pots and procs, etc).
My only concern is long term scaling and gear availability. I understand it's too early to judge our level 80 gear and end-game scaling. We will probably be balanced / overpowered at 70 (like KZ). And, they could fix things post-release. My only contention is that, given that bears only like 3 stats (1 which might cap) and that no other class likes all 3 of those stats, it will be difficult to itemize bears and also to have them scale well into WotLK. A change in how we get our survivability could fix. And now is the ideal time to do that via survivability mechanics or talents. If I were in beta, I would post there. I did post on the druids and suggestions forums. I mainly came her to get feedback from other ferals of how this could be accomplished. Some suggestions were already made, some good, some bad.
The main issue with Cat DPS is that it has a scaling issue. This has already been remarked upon by blizzard (don't have a link handy, sorry), and is something they are addressing in WotLK.
It's also worth noting that it isn't until late BT/Sunwell, that cat dps starts lagging notably behind. Meaning even if Blizzard was in the habit of repeating previous mistakes (which they are not), it still wouldn't become an issue until WotLK had been live for nearly a year.
The concern raised about glyphs is however much more relevant. Let's hope they pair them up with the 2 sets of talents.
It's also worth noting that it isn't until late BT/Sunwell, that cat dps starts lagging notably behind. Meaning even if Blizzard was in the habit of repeating previous mistakes (which they are not), it still wouldn't become an issue until WotLK had been live for nearly a year.
Just a pair of corrections: in Vanilla WoW ferals started lagging behind past beginning of T2. This might be classified as "repeating".
Second, the guilds where some performance parameters matter tend to be fairly advanced / progressive / hardcore. In my former guild I'd start having DPS issues since middle of MH (we had a "lucky streak" with many rogue weapons dropping in short time). Hard core guilds would be in MH since well before 1 year past TBC release.
In fact if our guild master had no unfortunate almost 3 months long hospital recovery (raiding stopped) we'd have Illidan dead by mid July 2007.
What we need to keep in mind is that our group utility is just 5% crit for the group. And that utility becomes worse the better gear gets, 125/120 = 4.16%, 155/150 = 3.33%, so cat dps will need to scale slightly better than other melee dps to hold its own.
The one part which sounds good (provided that they will stick to it through rogue howls) is that they intend itemisation to no longer provide excessive hit, just enough to get to the yellow cap, making the hit penalty from dual wielding somewhat meaningful.
I am waiting to see which glyphs will be provided to all melee dps to form a proper understanding of where cat dps scaling will stand in WotLk.
What we need to keep in mind is that our group utility is just 5% crit for the group. And that utility becomes worse the better gear gets, 125/120 = 4.16%, 155/150 = 3.33%, so cat dps will need to scale slightly better than other melee dps to hold its own.
The one part which sounds good (provided that they will stick to it through rogue howls) is that they intend itemisation to no longer provide excessive hit, just enough to get to the yellow cap, making the hit penalty from dual wielding somewhat meaningful.
I am waiting to see which glyphs will be provided to all melee dps to form a proper understanding of where cat dps scaling will stand in WotLk.
If Mutilate -does- come out ahead as main raid spec (which it might, though currently it'd be rather messy), 5% crit might be worth more to the Rogues than just a blanket 5% increase due to their Seal Fate talent. Vulajin was, by-and-large, envisioning Rogue/Rogue/Feral/Hunter/X groups, so they'd definitely be the ones to soak up the crit bonus from how things stand now.
If Mutilate -does- come out ahead as main raid spec (which it might, though currently it'd be rather messy), 5% crit might be worth more to the Rogues than just a blanket 5% increase due to their Seal Fate talent. Vulajin was, by-and-large, envisioning Rogue/Rogue/Feral/Hunter/X groups, so they'd definitely be the ones to soak up the crit bonus from how things stand now.
Envisioning Rogue/Rogue/Feral/Hunter/X groups is a pretty far from raid reality at present - there would have to be some pretty large changes to make it preferable to the current of Rogue/Rogue/DPS Warrior/Enh Shaman
Though Sunwell may be atypical, we're seeing our main tank take that 5th "melee group" spot more often than not simply for threat generation, with a Feral/3xHunter 2nd group instead.
I think the OP's point stands, 5% crit is not a compelling enough reason to put a Feral in your dps melee group if there are better alternatives, especially if the Feral is required to do any secondary tasks which require shifting out of form and dropping the aura.
Envisioning Rogue/Rogue/Feral/Hunter/X groups is a pretty far from raid reality at present - there would have to be some pretty large changes to make it preferable to the current of Rogue/Rogue/DPS Warrior/Enh Shaman
Though Sunwell may be atypical, we're seeing our main tank take that 5th "melee group" spot more often than not simply for threat generation, with a Feral/3xHunter 2nd group instead.
I think the OP's point stands, 5% crit is not a compelling enough reason to put a Feral in your dps melee group if there are better alternatives, especially if the Feral is required to do any secondary tasks which require shifting out of form and dropping the aura.
You are seeing Rogue/Rogue/Feral/Hunter/X as a suggested group because Unleashed Rage, Battle Shout, Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth are raidwide buffs (or at least intended to be, not sure what the current beta status is). The direct imperative to put the fury warrior/enhancement shaman in the 'melee group' is no longer there.
In contrast, LOTP remains a party buff at present. So optimal group construction remains a question where ferals are concerned.
There's a fun bug on beta currently. Improved mark of the wild is also improving savage roar.
It's supposed to be a 25% boost to attack power, but since I had improved mark when I learned it, it's stuck at 33%, unless I spec into improved mark and then it's 43%.
There's a fun bug on beta currently. Improved mark of the wild is also improving savage roar.
It's supposed to be a 25% boost to attack power, but since I had improved mark when I learned it, it's stuck at 33%, unless I spec into improved mark and then it's 43%.
I think I speak for all of us when I say we need to see some screenshots of monster super-rips
Somewhat on topic, I would like to remind you all that Ghostcrawler's comments have yet to accurately depict the WoW-reality that we know to be true. Don't get bent out of shape over his words until you see them being implemented in beta.
LotP is the mechanism that compensates cats for their inferior dps compared to rogues, at least in design. But currently it does not work that good, because scaling issues with +hit, +haste and the aura itself getting relatively worse with more crit are too strong.
A first step would be to change LotP to "increases critical strike chance by 4% and damage done by critical strikes by 4% for all party members within 45 yards". That would change the buff to become slightly stronger the more +crit you already have, thereby countering our worse scaling instead of exacerbating it.
I think that the lotp doesn't scale good issue is way overrated. Last i looked crit was scaling very good for fury warriors, enhancement shaman and seal fate rogues due to secondary effects of crits; Hunters and of course feral druids also scale very good with crits.
And even if this isn't the case (like for combat rogues) lotp does still scale better than many other (static) buffs like battle shout and str/agi totem.
Also, don't underestimate the bonus iLotP provides as utility.
However, i do agree that lotp could use a buff since it is one of the few group buffs that isn't modified to work for the whole raid. I'd include a "Increases the bonus of your Leader of the Pack Aura by 0.5 % per Talent Point" into improved Leader of the Pack - making a talent many of us are considering to drop a bit more worthwhile.
Has anyone discovered if the bug in Mangle, that lets you get double-Mangled Rips by applying rip just as Mangle is falling off, still exists in the beta?
The changes made to things like armor were done mostly to solve itemization problems. We didn't make them to nerf Ferals (or anyone). We did them because we started to consider bosses who needed to drop 30 different pieces of armor (or tokens to trade for them or whatever) because classes and even specs were heading off into distinct niches. You'll get something to make up for it. No, you aren't there yet.
We're not entirely happy with the way the Feral ended up in BC. The idea was that you could be a decent tank and a decent melee dps class, so Ferals were something you wanted to bring if you weren't the kind of guild that swapped different people out for every boss. But I don't think "convenience factor" is ultimately a great value to bring to a raid. The problem was we were kind of stuck because if we made Ferals end-game tanks and amazing melee, then the rogues were screwed, because they couldn't go respec to tank or heal.
But now we have a chance to add some new talents, and we'd like for some of them to be the kind that let a druid declare that she is more of a cat or more of a bear. It doesn't have to be shoehorning two whole talent trees into one, but even offering a few choices would go a long way.
I didn't mean to sound condescending. The pot example was to offer that we haven't forgotten about bears. My point was NOT: hey, you lost armor but gee you got health stones, so why all the QQing? It was cool to see those big armor numbers on bears, and we have some plans for how to replace them (and not just with pots).
The DK gets a lot of attention because it has a lot of catching up to do. There were no DKs in UBRS or MC or TK or even Arathi Basin. Nobody knows how their abilities and power system are going to work so we feel like we have to cover a lot of the ground that was explored literally years ago for some of these other classes.
We will be really disappointed if there aren't bears main tanking Naxx and later raids, and cats that if not consistently as high as rouges, are at least a lot closer than they are now.
Just want to highlight the bolded points. Firstly, it's great they recognize "convenience factor" is a lame class design paradigm. It's funny that he posted this, yet Druids are actually doing decently in Sunwell, due in part to things like a distinct scarcity of Crushing Blows, Sunwell Radiance and Stomp.
The gear changes however, are still a concern. So it's pretty clear they're going to take away our armor cap'd-ness, and replace it with something else. Fair enough too, if Warriors and Paladins are losing their crush immunity edge. But this tips the scale too far.
Strength is something they're piling on tanking gear like it's nobodies business, so I expect we'll have to contend with it in one way or another on our shared slots (jewelery, cape, trinkets). I'm deathly afraid it's ("it" as in what they're going to give us to replace our former armor dominance) going to be a completely uninspired, bland, retarded "lump" of an idea (like Sunwell Radiance was) .. maybe a deep Feral talent worded something like "for each point of Str, you get x% dodge". This would be pretty dumb though (and pretty much a direct copy of something Deathknights get).
Having said that, what other options are there to improve Feral mitigation asides from high armor and avoidance? They need to be really careful here with the balancing, we can't afford to get left behind.
From a defensive perspective, to reduce the amount of damage taken, the following mechanics exist in WoW:
o Flat percentage reduction (exists in two forms):
- via Armor
- via Defensive Stance, Imp Righteous Fury type skills
o Avoidance
o Static reduction per hit
o Resilience (reduction of crit damage)
Everyone gets armor, we used to get far more than the others but in WotLK we won't.
Everyone gets avoidance, it spiraled out of control in TBC, and needs to be reigned back in.
Warriors and Paladins also get further percentage based reduction from Defensive Stance and Imp Righteous Fury. Option A) Strength gives Feral Druids some additional flat percentage based damage mitigation scaling such that fully geared out from level 80 instance blues, you're at roughly 5% and after killing Arthas, you reach something like 10%. Tweak the numbers vis a vis our eventual armor/mitigation levels for something that's balanced vs the other classes throughout raid progression from beginning to end.
Static reduction per hit exists in the form of block value for Warriors and Paladins. I haven't kept up with DK mechanics enough to know whether they have something like this. Block is going to take an interesting turn in WotLK, block values are reportedly going up very quickly, both for threat and mitigation purposes. Shield Block is changed to be used at opportune moments, as opposed to spamming it constantly. I don't know if or how Holy Shield is changing. Another opportunity exists here though, to give Ferals "block value" from Strength, though I imagine conjuring up a flavor reason for such a skill to exist would be quite the feat.
Anyways, the only reason I bring this up is that there really aren't very many ways of reducing incoming damage, and if they're going to nerf one of the only 2 methods Ferals have, and then announce they're going to give something back to us to compensate for it .. I really can't begin to imagine what in the hell it might be =/
Thoughts?
Last edited by seminarca : 08/05/08 at 9:50 AM.
Reason: fixed some typos
So they acknowledge the design direction they took with BC for ferals with trying to be OK at two things didn't work out and they're making a push to fix that. With talents, abilities, gear and encounters still in flux, I think a statement of intention like this is worth more than theory crafting at this point. Especially since they've also said they're not ready to crunch the numbers yet, they want to get the talents in a basically workable state before tweaking numbers.
Strength is something they're piling on tanking gear like it's nobodies business, so I expect we'll have to contend with it in one way or another on our shared slots (jewellery, cape, trinkets).
I'd love a strength to parry conversion (with Parry added to bears). Would clip a few stones with one bird.
As to Feral Swiftness indoors... about friggin' time.
Bears should still have vastly superior DR% through armor than the other tanking classes, even at 80. A quick search on WoWhead shows that there are still bonus armor rings, necklaces and staves. I'd almost be safe to say that we can expect to see trinkets and cloaks with bonus armor too. With that in mind, I wouldn't expect Bears to suddenly turn into paper tanks in lvl80 raids, but I'd expect that reaching the armor cap will be much harder, if not impossible.
Keep in mind that Blizzard posters also said that they haven't finalized any tanking numbers yet and that they want to work on playability first, instead of numbers.
Theorycrafting procedures per role:
DPS = Theory -> Spreadsheet -> Practice
Healing = Theory -> Practice -> Logs
Tanking = Theory -> Theory -> Theory
Now we just need travel form to work indoors and that'll completely remove the indoor/outdoor requirement of druids, or is there something I missed?
Ignoring the fact that bear armor will be much lower due to itemization (won't address this since we don't know what their fix for this will be yet), the talent tree and skill look pretty solid in general. The agility-crit ratio may or may not need to be looked at for the sake of scaling, but basically i can see us, at least in terms of dps, gemming everything with agility soon considering how fast we cap hitwise (should be even faster now with the shared loot). As for tanking, what is the new agility to dodge ratio?
I'm looking for to more changes, considering how disappointed I am with feral DPS (I'm fine with the tanking ability for the most part) in TBC.
Now we just need travel form to work indoors and that'll completely remove the indoor/outdoor requirement of druids, or is there something I missed?
Doubt that'll happen. Shaman travel form and horsies don't work indoors either. Not all too fussed bout that one either.
A thought that just crossed my mind was - with all the item tweaking... what sort of rings/amulets will we go after ? Every other tanking class will be hunting for Defense, which is pointless for us. They want to homonogise drops, but we pretty much won't need the tanking gear. Will it just be more stuff like Garona's Signet or Band of the Eternal Champion ?
Can't wait to see what gear will be available at 80 so we can finally get an informed idea of what's in store.
Now we just need travel form to work indoors and that'll completely remove the indoor/outdoor requirement of druids, or is there something I missed?
Roots? (unless they changed that while I wasn't paying attention).
One change for strength would be to provide armour from strength at some conversion ratio while in Bear form, the value of which would depend on whether it gets a multiplier from bear form or not (either as a talent or base addition to bear form). Basically direct physical damage reduction, but in a form that is accepted as being the place Druid tanks excel (huge armour values) and would benefit from buffs such as Inspiration. I'm not sure introducing parry or block would really be RP-esque enough after 4 years of not having them (and it would just feel weird).
Alternatively in terms of armour from items, it's possible they'll review Thick Hide and increase the % gain from the talent. Increasing it to say 25% (8/16/25) with no additional armour items would help to balance out the difference. Comparing rogue leather T6 (373 armour) with feral T6 (611) shows a difference of more than 50% gain in additional armour which we may not see at all in WotLK. Increasing thick hide substantially would solve this, but it's such a high up talent that both trees and moonkins would be able to benefit from it, potentially throwing the balance of both of those specs slightly in PvP terms (unless they're planning on scrapping healing and spell damage leather entirely, which could be an option to reduce individual spec drops).
But I don't think "convenience factor" is ultimately a great value to bring to a raid.
This just makes my whole week
Now lets hope that they scale tanking enough so that when we choose to have a feral tank spec, we are as good as warrior and if we choose to get feral kitty spec, then were ALMOST as good as rogues. This means that were not subpar to anyone and that when ur in LFG saying your a feral kitty wont be replied by : go spec resto cause kitty is worthless...
One change for strength would be to provide armour from strength at some conversion ratio while in Bear form, the value of which would depend on whether it gets a multiplier from bear form or not (either as a talent or base addition to bear form). Basically direct physical damage reduction, but in a form that is accepted as being the place Druid tanks excel (huge armour values) and would benefit from buffs such as Inspiration. I'm not sure introducing parry or block would really be RP-esque enough after 4 years of not having them (and it would just feel weird).
Alternatively in terms of armour from items, it's possible they'll review Thick Hide and increase the % gain from the talent. Increasing it to say 25% (8/16/25) with no additional armour items would help to balance out the difference. Comparing rogue leather T6 (373 armour) with feral T6 (611) shows a difference of more than 50% gain in additional armour which we may not see at all in WotLK. Increasing thick hide substantially would solve this, but it's such a high up talent that both trees and moonkins would be able to benefit from it, potentially throwing the balance of both of those specs slightly in PvP terms (unless they're planning on scrapping healing and spell damage leather entirely, which could be an option to reduce individual spec drops).
Should be interesting to see what happens.
Considering level 10 bears can parry, I'm not too fussed about that being 'RP'-wrong.
They were thinking of increasing 'Thick Hide' - which they went about it the other way with a (now removed) talent that improved armour another 10% and reduced magic damage. Seeing how that's gone I'd think they'll have Bears at the intended armour levels regardless through some other means.
08/03/08, 12:46 PM
