Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 33

Snarley · 07/25/08, 12:27 PM

@ Jone

This is exactly why i am so enthralled with playing a feral druid. Of all the level 70's I have (Lock, Priest, Rogue, Hunter) the feral druid to me is most affected by player skill. You can have such an impact in PvP and PvE just by playing your class well that it makes the game more enjoyable to me overall.

That said, I am definitely not opposed to seeing a more level playing field in terms of end game raid DPS while not losing the unique abilities we bring to raids.

So heres to hoping that it stays that way and we don’t become hit hungering drones of white damage.

Scurn · 07/25/08, 12:43 PM

While I have a fair amount of faith in Blizzard balancing feral tanking around the lower agi->dodge ratio, I am somewhat concerned about how this affects pvp. The only real defense cat form has is dodge and with nothing new having appeared so far it won't matter how much damage you can do in cat form if you can't survive.

Berserk and the new maim will help to some extent but are much more offensive abilities especially in group combat, where ferals are the weakest. Bear form doesn't look to have changed much so unless it's damage gets buffed significantly then I'm not too enthusiastic about the prospects. The base damage values of bear form attacks has increased but we'll have to wait and see if it's enough or too much again.

wuffles · 07/25/08, 1:11 PM

There's a list of upcoming changes for the beta up on mmo-champion now, these are the ones listed for ferals:

-Faerie Fire range has been increased from 30 to 36 yards.

-Primal Tenacity now increases your chance to resist Stun and Fear mechanics by 5/10/15% (Old version : Reduces the duration of Fear effects by 5/10/15% and reduces all damage taken while stunned by 5/10/15%)

-Improved Mangle now reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by 7% (instead of 0.5 sec) and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 2.

edit: they also nerfed hunting party

"Hunting Party now gives your critical shots a 20/30/40/50/60% chance to restore 2% mana, 10 energy, 4 rage, or 10 runic power to all member of your party. (Old version : 20/40/60/80/100% chance)"

double edit: as people have pointed out below, this may just be a mix up with whoever updated the offical blizzard talent calc, so we'll just have to wait and see what people from the actual beta are reporting.

tlbj6142 · 07/25/08, 1:16 PM

Originally Posted by wuffles

-Faerie Fire range has been increased from 30 to 36 yards.

OK. That's nice. Not sure why they needed to do that.

-Primal Tenacity now increases your chance to resist Stun and Fear mechanics by 5/10/15% (Old version : Reduces the duration of Fear effects by 5/10/15% and reduces all damage taken while stunned by 5/10/15%)

Dang it. Now I have to think about PT again. The new-old version was horrible which meant I didn't need to take it! Now it is back in the 50/50 bucket of talents.

-Improved Mangle now reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by 7% (instead of 0.5 sec) and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 2.

Wasn't this how it was in the Alpha? So, they must expect us to have some Haste to get the cooldown down to a nice round 4.5s. Hmmm.

Valerian · 07/25/08, 1:31 PM

Those changes seem kinda odd. Changing Primal Tenacity and Improved Mangle back to exactly what they had before seems strange and unlike blizzard. They usually change things because there was something wrong with them and RARELY change things RIGHT back.

TimWischmeier · 07/25/08, 1:33 PM

Originally Posted by tlbj6142

So, they must expect us to have some Haste to get the cooldown down to a nice round 4.5s. Hmmm.

Correct my if I'm wrong, but haste does not effect ability cooldowns. I don't like this change. But I do like the change to PT. You can afford dropping it in PvE builds, and this version is more effective in PvP (in my opinion).

On a side note: I do hope they do not further improve our AE tanking abilities. I deeply hate mount hyjal trash. If other tanks can handle AE mobs better, I can stick to single targets

.

tlbj6142 · 07/25/08, 1:35 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

Those changes seem kinda odd. Changing Primal Tenacity and Improved Mangle back to exactly what they had before seems strange and unlike blizzard. They usually change things because there was something wrong with them and RARELY change things RIGHT back.

Agree. If you read the MMO posting, it claims the "list" came from reading the updated beta talent trees on the wow site. I bet the web folks just screwed-up. We need to wait for someone to obtained the updated beta client before we start questioning the flip-flop.

Chojee · 07/25/08, 1:36 PM

Just a bit of napkin math(I may be missing some multipliers here, but the general gist is there).
Assuming 7000AP/30% crit:
ideal 5CP rip does (534+.05*7000)*6*1.3*1.1 = 7585 damage loss

21 white hits with SR for 21*((1750/14*1.1*(.7+2.2*.3))) = 3927 gain
5 shreds with SR for 5*(1750/14*2.25*1.2*(.7+2.2*.3))) = 2735 gain
1-2 mangle with SR for 5*(1750/14*2.25*1.2*(.7+2.2*.3))) = 389 gain each
2 4CP rips with SR for 2*(.04*1750)*1.3*1.1*6 = 1201 gain
Total gains = 8252 which is a decent boost over the rip loss. I chose somewhat pessimistic assumptions of 5cp rips for the standard tbc cycle and 4cp rips for the SR cycle. And clearly this value scales better with crit and haste than the current shred->rip->mangle rotation(which yields a 39s cycle assuming attempts at double mangle rips for 3). I didn't factor in the effect of rend and tear on shreds (2 shreds with both SR[92] and RT vs 3 shreds without[1162]). Now that I think about it, the addition of WF totem for haste will give around 3 more white hits to really throw things in favor of SR.

Here's a rough 37s rotation that doesn't account for OoC procs or the like that supports the above numbers of skills(energy remaining left over and combo points listed for skills):
Start state: 70 energy ****
0.0 Mangle1 36 *****
5.0 Savage Roar 51
6.0 Shred 29 *
8.0 Shred 7 **
9.0 Tiger's Fury 67
10.0 Shred 45 ***
11.5 Rip1 15
12.0 Mangle1 out
13.0 Mangle2 1 *
14.0 Powershift 40
16.0 Shred 18 **
17.0 Powershift 40
19.0 Shred 18 ***
20.0 Powershift 40
23.5 Rip1 out
24.5 Rip2 50
25.0 Mangle2 out
26.0 Mangle3 35 *
26.0 Savage Roar down
28.0 Shred 13 **
32.0 Shred 11 ***
33.0 Powershift 40
36.5 Rip2 out
37.0 Repeat 80
If there's none of the final mangle+2xshreds end up critting, the cycle may need to be lengthened by a few seconds or some more powershifting thrown in. I'm sure the rotation could be improved on(especially to get that second mangle to gain SR), but it generally fits the criteria of getting maximal use out of Savage Roar.

tlbj6142 · 07/25/08, 1:36 PM

Originally Posted by TimWischmeier

Correct my if I'm wrong, but haste does not effect ability cooldowns. I don't like this change. But I do like the change to PT. You can afford dropping it in PvE builds, and this version is more effective in PvP (in my opinion).

No but it does affect the GCD. Which, in bear, is a painfully long 1.5s.

kalbear · 07/25/08, 1:40 PM

Correct my if I'm wrong, but haste does not effect ability cooldowns. I don't like this change. But I do like the change to PT. You can afford dropping it in PvE builds, and this version is more effective in PvP (in my opinion).

Melee haste does not affect it, but spell haste does. And haste is now generic and affects both melee and spell unless explicitly stated otherwise, so normally haste rating will speed up special attack cooldowns.

On a side note, I have not found any indicator of what the agi->dodge ratio is any more, especially for bears. Any hard evidence on this? I've seen plenty on the agi->crit ratio.

Ovidus · 07/25/08, 1:46 PM

As far as i know, spell haste only affects global cooldowns, not the cooldowns themselves. So a cooldown of 5 minutes on soulshatter doesnt become 4.5 minutes with alot of haste.

Merple · 07/25/08, 1:58 PM

Originally Posted by kalbear

haste is now generic and affects both melee and spell unless explicitly stated otherwise, so normally haste rating will speed up special attack cooldowns.

Woah woah.

The ONLY instance of haste affecting cooldowns of any sort was Spell Haste reducing the GCD to a minimum of 1.0 seconds (from 1.5).

Haste affects spell cast times, melee swing speed and spellcasting GCDs. That's it.

Do we have any stated tests indicating that haste affects the melee GCD? Until someone posts a test showing that this is the case, don't just assume that melee will have reduced GCDs with haste, because it affects a lot more than just druids.

Snarley · 07/25/08, 2:08 PM

While I have a fair amount of faith in Blizzard balancing feral tanking around the lower agi->dodge ratio, I am somewhat concerned about how this affects pvp. The only real defense cat form has is dodge and with nothing new having appeared so far it won't matter how much damage you can do in cat form if you can't survive.

While I would love to stay in cat form and just demolish targets, it’s not plausible. Playing a feral druid in PvP takes a lot more finesse and use of every ability we have to really make it shine. All that as well as great synergy, timing and communication with your partner.

But yes, cat form really does feel like your naked when fighting full venge/brutal warriors and it does force you to shift to bear or straight up run pretty damn quick. Some form of mini evasion, either off of crits (with a decent IC of like 8+ seconds) or cower would definitely ease this and give us some more pressure to put on healers and help get those last critical few seconds of DPS on low targets. I don’t see why this isn’t an option for them to implement as we still don’t possess the holy grail of PvP (-50% to healing reduction).

Scurn · 07/25/08, 2:19 PM

Originally Posted by Snarley

While I would love to stay in cat form and just demolish targets, it’s not plausible. Playing a feral druid in PvP takes a lot more finesse and use of every ability we have to really make it shine. All that as well as great synergy, timing and communication with your partner.

But yes, cat form really does feel like your naked when fighting full venge/brutal warriors and it does force you to shift to bear or straight up run pretty damn quick. Some form of mini evasion, either off of crits (with a decent IC of like 8+ seconds) or cower would definitely ease this and give us some more pressure to put on healers and help get those last critical few seconds of DPS on low targets. I don’t see why this isn’t an option for them to implement as we still don’t possess the holy grail of PvP (-50% to healing reduction).

I'm in full agreement that feral druid pvp can and should require you to juggle your feral forms and to a smaller extent caster. Currently cat form is extremely dangerous against any physical damage dealer and I'm concerned about other classes' damage scaling up while our cat form defenses are actually declining.

I would be opposed to a proc with an internal cooldown due to both RNG and balancing difficulty. A controlled cooldown is much better from both sides. I would probably be happy just letting druids use barkskin in feral forms with a longer cooldown similar to faerie fire. Just something that lets you utilize all the skills and damage they are giving us in cat form without requiring a large amount of turtling in bear form.

kalbear · 07/25/08, 2:28 PM

Sorry for the misinformation. I could've sworn that there was some way to reduce the CD of abilities, but you're right; after checking around I was wrong. If that's the case, imp mangle is essentially useless, as it cannot speed up the cycle speed.