Valerian

While this is a concern at first glance, there is a lot we don't know about yet. One of the biggest "problems" in our scaling compared to other melee is the fact they get a HUGE bonus from WF compared to us. Another is haste. A mechanic that translate haste into a faster energy regen (or somesuch) would alter the balance considerably. There's also the fact that the synergy between our new abilities may be superior to the synergy between abilities other classes get to "make up the slack" so to speak.

For example, the energy restore on TF at 60 energy every 30 seconds is already a 2 energy per second increase in regen. Thats roughly double the effect of our current 2T4 bonus. People asked for that as a talent and got a better version of it instead, though an indirect way.

 

North101

Rip has been buffed (or its a nerf is disguise)
So abound a 42% increase for the base damage.

 

Farstrider

Why on earth would you have a rake button?

John O'Groats to Lands End 2009 for Leukaemia Research

 

Mijae

PvP

Looks the same to me...

 

North101

According to wowhead the live values are:

 

Herb

That's a tooltip issue, the actual live values for Rip(Rank 7) are matching the updated ones, see e.g. [Rogue]: Rupture Formula.

 

Miststorm

The scaling issues with regard to WF and haste are a problem, true, especially haste not affecting our energy regen. But given that haste is now widely available, we can be rebalanced around it. But will we?

If you check out toskks generator with 0 attack power on a fairly debuffed target, you see that our non gear base line starts already at a pretty impressive 300 dps (at 70), which comes mostly from these static modifiers. So our dps is basically a function f( gear) = 300 + gear * druid-gear-factor. Rogues start out lower, let us assume that g( gear) = 150 + gear * rogue-gear-factor. If your goal is to have rogues do 2.5K dps endgame and druids 2.1K, then this formula implies that at a gear level where rogues do 1K dps, druids will do 950 dps, and not 840 if you desire to keep their relative power.

Now rogues whine, Blizzard panics, and changes the scaling that feral do only 850 dps at the entry level. But that means that at the end game level, ferals will do 1820 dps now instead of 2100 dps, and become a useless choice compared to rogues. All of this is down just to the difference in base damage classes start of with, unless the base is balanced as well, you wont be able to keep classes scaling in a balanced manner.

So the two major balancing changes that we need to see in WotlK are:
- haste improving special attacks as well to give cats a chance to keep up with dual wielders
- base damage reduced so that our base line on the gear to dps function is not causing distortions. This could happen by giving us an excellent scaling attack with no base line damage that overtakes Shred after T7, for example, if you want to keep the base for other reasons.

Both have not been addressed so far in all the stuff I have seen, and they are the core test to see if feral dps has a chance to stay viable as gear progresses.

 

Balancemoon

I think it is a safe bet that every ability is getting a substantial dps buff, when compared to the TBC dps buffs which were very modest.

What I find interesting is to note the abilities that got a much larger dps increase. These were abilities blizzard off course felt were no where near the level/degree they wanted.

Thorns is one
Tigers Fury another
and Rake

Watch the dps increase in Rake now, it imo, is now good enough to deserve a place in the ability cycle, as is Tiger's Fury. Frankly spamming Mangle in Cat form was seriously annoying me.

 

desiato

just a word on nurturing instincts: the change itself may not be a nerf, but infact a buff. consider the theory that due to huge boosts to base healing on spells, +healing as a stat is being removed or reduced dramatically, meritting NI being changed to 100% of agi into spell dmg / healing. if it was purely +healing and +healing throughout the game was reduced it would probably be too powerful

we shall see eh...

 

Balancemoon

What I'd like to know is this ability Lock Jaw...

it seems like it is listed on wikidot as a talent, but it doesn't seem to appear on the talent calculators, is it a talent or a new ability? Same with Typhoon, i'm not sure it'san ability or a talent. Anyone know?

Lock jaw is off course Kidney shot vanilla version.

 

desiato

lvl 75 skill, kitty kidney shot
1 combo = 2 second stun
5 combo = 6 second stun

so far not affected by brutal impact (unless they change the talent next patch)

20 second cooldown, probably 35 energy.

before the question is asked "why would anyone use maim??!", its on a cooldown much shorter than lock jaw, and if lock jaw shares DR with our other stuns then lockjaw > 6 second stun > restealth will have to be substituted with maim. oh and lockjaw doesnt do any damage (i think). then again beserk vs stunned target lovely skill either way

 

seminarca

I'm secretly hoping they merge the S3 glove bonus into the Maim skill itself, sure it does tons more damage than Kick or Pummel, but it also requires cp. That would make both skills distinct enough.

 

Ja7us

Only in PvE, though. In PvP Lock Jaw would still be strictly superior in its ability to lock down opponents, assuming you spent at least 2 CP on it.

 

seminarca

You'd use Maim if Lock Jaw was on cooldown, or if stun DR was in effect.

 

Meddler

Or simply if you had not intent of breaking the maim/didn't expect anyone else to either - it's extra damage there's no reason not to take if you'll be using the time to heal, CC or run.

 

Balancemoon

You know I never liked that in TBC, of the 5 new abilities given as trainable, the feral ones were only relevant to feral and for all intents and purposes useless to resto and especially balance druids. I hope they don't repeat the same thing, already lock-jaw as trainable holds little relevance to balance or restoration, and tbh, neither does nourish to feral or balance much, although healing is always useful.

That underlines a deeper concern with druids that has yet to be addressed by blizzard. Are we ever going to see the class really making use of all it's abilities? I don't mean have equal importance to all it's abilities, just have some use even occasional use for those dead non-relevant to build ones , or is balance for e.g. forever doomed to have the feral school useless because meleeing bringing some relevance to spell casting cannot be found(like claw/maim/rip/maul/ etc and 33% of the school's arsenal is useless to balance/resto).

When the Public Discussion was doing it's 4-pager on itemisation in WotLK, it got me thinking again, how merging spell damage and attack power ntos simply one power rating would oddly give a more powerful meleeing to the likes of balance and resto druids making the use of feral forms "less useless" to them. For balance it would mean nothing, because unless melee was as powerful as spell casting, it would almost seldom be used for the purposes of doing damage, so if you want to make balance use the feral school, meleeing in feral forms will have to do something that helps spell caating (like gain mana on melee) so balance druids use it for that spell casting boost rather than for damage. and it would be something they use occasionally. The idea is to make use of all your abilities not make balance good at feral combat, so it's something that should only make sense for a balance druid to do once in long while. Afterall, using feral forms and by extension a lot of the feral school abilities once in a while like once every 5 fights or every 5mins for about 15secs is better than never using it at all and if you really think of it, that is roughly how often a feral druid uses a healing spell or a balance one, the same should be fixed so it holds true for balance druids on feral school abilities (trainable abilities i'm talking here, not talents).

The only thing I can think of that could make meleeing in feral forms help spell casting was if it gave the balance druid mana on meleeing in feral forms. Restoration though doesn't have that problem, because it actaully needs to do damage. Currently with +healing gear sharing some spell damage, it pre-disposes resto to nuking via balance, so restoration now has little use for most of the feral school, but unlike balance, it's solution is simply make the same adjustment for melee attack power that spell healing did for damage on gear, which would off course if they merged attack power, spell damage and spell healing into one stat called "power" would intrinsically solve, otherwise they could put in a spell damage to attack power conversion in the feral tree, so resto healing gear's a spell damage bit gets converted to attack power once more -recreating a reason to spec resto feral without overloading the top half of feral with melee damage. Balance druids wouldn't really care about that conversion because even if every spell damage point gave 1 attack power, you would still not be meleeing in a fight to cause damage way too low, but if you had a talent in the balance tree that gave mana on melee based on attack power or melee damage when in feral forms, then you'd be tempted to boost this in the feral tree, and even synergy between balance and feral could be created by making the feral tree provide a useful in raid way of doing this..(just pondering here).

The whole point is that it would be nice for all druid abilities to continue to be relevant to all builds even at end game, even though abilities in your secondary spell schools will be only occasionally used, the fact that they'd be more used is an improvement on the present.

So I go back to the original point of the new spell abilities. Whiles as a feral druid, it's nice to have the Lock-jaws, the Maim's and the Lacerates, as a balance druid or resto do I have yet again less abilities in WotLK like TBC all over again? Or will blizzard introduce trainable abilities from each school that all spell schools can use. For e.g. if Play dead were given, as a feral ability, all school specialist could use it. If Animal Call (i.e. call a beast within sight to fight for you for x secs) were given as a feral ability, all builds could use. Lock jaw could go to the talent tree instead or alternatively, give both balance and resto and extra ability in their talent tree even though that's one point more to spend. [e.g. starfall/flourish/typhoon]

Revive is a resto talent all schools will be able to use. Typhoon though really only making sense for balance, will see some use by ferals and resto druids in solo or in pvp and even sometimes in instances unlike Lock-jaw, who like maim and lacerate will never see the light of day on a balance or restoration druid.

So until blizzard actually make an effort to make balance and resto have relevance in the feral tree, I'm afraid balance and restoration druids will always be about 2/3 of a class, and feral the only more or less complete.

 

seminarca

You're nuts. Maim is an integral part of a Resto Druid's lockdown of opposing healers in Arena (open with Pounce, Rake to get 1 or 2 more cp for the Maim later on down the track). Pretty much 100% of PvP Resto specs having 11 in Feral for Feral Charge (and 5/5 Furor instead of Imp MotW) is an indication of great cross-tree utility, which I find very appealing. Lacerate can be used to keep non Dwarf Rogues from CloS Stealthing, or for stopping people from bandaging .. if you find yourself having to turtle.

But you can't say stuff like:

.. with a straight face.

 

Meddler

Nourish has the potential to be a real boon to ferals depending on how/if the merged spell and melee crit mechanics end up working out. Since it's a direct heal it actually offers some notable benefits from crit unlike HOTs, so depending on how much of a feral's crit rating also applies to spell casting it has the potential to end up as one of the feral heals of choice.

What's unknown of course (leaving aside the fact that Blizzard may revert the merged stats entirely, this being alpha and all) is which sources of crit would count for both melee and spell. Would it be just crit rating on items? If so a benefit but not a huge one. On the other hand if crit from talents and agility also convert to spell crit (unlikely I suspect but for argument's sake) well geared ferals could expect to be critting heals 40-50% of the time if current max level trends hold true.

 

oldmandennis

He's not nuts, he just forgot to say he's only talking about PvE. It's a legitimate point of view.

 

Balancemoon

hmmm, it was largely with regards to PvE I was speaking. In pvp, I must confess I never stayed long enough in cat form to maim, but using in an opener is at least some use (abandon my resto druid a while in favour of my holy priest). Lacerate one does use in pvp if u got the Furor skill or intensity for a rogue, never really maimed, but still most of the feral abilities aren't used. We are talking about all the animal forms, dash, prowl, pounce, bash, lacerate, maim (if u are resto pvp), it still has no theme througout the class, in resto pve, balance. The point is there is no reason to use the majority of the feral school, and note I never said all of it, just most of it. Balance even looking at WotLK which finally has it's spell casting issues fixed, will still feel 2/3 of a class until it has some meaningful utilization of it's feral abilities. Give balance druids a reason to use their abilities in feral forms, it broadens the spectrum of play, if feral uses healing spells once in a while to get health, can't some sort of neat mechanism exist for balance to melee once in a while for a few seconds to get mana? That way you'd be using your rakes, claws, mauls, rips, swipes though not for damage but at least once in a while. That's what I meant.

And talking of restoration, I'm really remembering how pre-TBC the 0/20/31 builds were quite popular, it was even more common for a resto druid to spec down feral instead of balance but both were used. If you specced down balance, fine, most of your feral school became obsolete (not good that) but, at least it was viable to spec feral because for resto druids, feral and balance provide some damage as it's a healing tree, just like resto shaman can go down elemental or enhancement.

To be honest I'm just hoping that the new abilities have relevance to all the specs and that the feral ones aren't just only relevant to feral druids, or resto arena pvp, which since feral charge has moved to 20 pts, I'm guessing won't. They may have compensated balance and restoration by given them more abilities in their trees to even things out there. However I am also concerned in the long wrong, for I view the druid, particular the balance druid the only class in the game that in some builds have a situation where the majority of a school isn't used, so if you were ever looking to finally polish off the class now that WotLK seems to have done a pretty decent job for each trees roles as spell dps, melee combatant and healer, the final part will to make sure the class has it's full diversity and there is always some occasion to use most of the abilities and never in any build an occasion where up to a third (almost an entire school) is redundant, it's not good class development that you use more of your class as balance druid in the 30s-50s than you do at 70.

I hope you will forgive me over the not quite so accurate statement of the maim/lacerate but also remember there is still this issue of relevance of most Feral school abilities to balance druids and most resto druids, which can be addressed. I must say it is part of the reason I don't play my balance and resto druid and only play my feral druid, because only with my Feral druid do I get the feeling I am using most of my class. Yes I have 3 druids, actually 4. Stopped playing the balance one because spell casting was not on par with other casters, all groups I went to I made (no one really wants to take you), and when it came to leading my guild, I knew that as balance especially in 10-mans I was wasting a spot when the ele shamans/shadow priests etc were online, and in 25-man raids room could be made but still that's a different topic we all know .
That would be nice, I would like that. It would mean more effective off-role. Meaning Feral druids at least have more use of their other abilities in PvE, the ideal would have been to have nature's swiftness, so you only pop out to pop an innervate or that massive heal then back to cat. With the feral crit working on spells, it would help. Ferals don't spend time healing, using multiple roles seriously became extinct just before TBC, however that doesn't mean you can't occasionally shift out and land a heal, or help keep someone up at the tail end of the fight, or pop out and cast a hurricane +barkskin when you're about to tank an AoE group or pop a nature's grasp indoors, buff yourself with thorns or toss the odd cyclone, tranquility when the group is really down (even moonfire a fleeing mob out of charge range if i'm indoors and can't cheetah form to catch up or dash, in fact only starfire and wrath are what feral druids don't ever use).

Do you see what I mean? As feral I have occasion to use resto and balance abilities and all the better if it was more meaningful. I remember the days when people use to think feral damage attack power from gear also counting as +heal was overpowered, they could never answer how that was different from a shadow priest or elemental shaman or balance druid who's plus heal was the same as damage, answer is, it isn't. [the objection was almost purely based on envy, the "I don't want any class but mine to get buffs" syndrome. This is why even with unified power, crit and hit, it doesn't affect any balance issues, and in fact encourages a bit more use of hybrids using their rather unscaled abilities, afterall, does a fire mage use frost spells for his role despite the fact that his gear boosts frost damage as well? No, off course not, fire spells are his main damage, but he does have use for frost and arcane spells, now imagine if they got no benefit from gear, ouch, that would make only the spells with utility useful and even then not inspiring.

Yet this is what druid's suffer the most from, it's the other schools a bit dereft. Power will help a bit, especially in the case of resto druids, but as mentioned for balance it won't mean anything unless off course you gained more mana if you attacked in feral form based on damage done. Shaman suffer a bit too, although not as much, the reason is because most of their school abilities do not lie in straight off abilities but in totems, same with paladins who the majority of abilities are in seals & judgments. Most of the enhancement school, elemental school abilities are totems, which will see use regardless of your spec, so they don't suffer as much. Paladins have a different issue however, the fact that theyy have to split between two opposing stats, except for the healing spells, half the abilities used are boosted by melee, the other half by spell damage, paladins are melee orientated they rely on whacking. It is a most interesting issue.

However since on a balance druid, power for melee on gear would make no difference, they don't need to resolve that issue to address making Balance able to use much more of the feral abilities than (dash/stealth/pounce/bash/lacerate), just give it a reason to spend a few seconds meleeing once in blue moon, if it has that it can use it's rips/rakes/mauls/swipes/FBs/shreds/demo etc during those few seconds restoring full use of it's class. That's what I'm meaning.

 

Mijae

You do realize this the case for almost every class? When you choose a talent spec you are essentially changing your focus from a generalist to a specialist. Any class that specs deeply into one tree will be restricting their play to that style. Do you see good deep fire mages spamming arcane missiles, shadow priests smiting, or combat rogues backstabbing with daggers? All classes also have some cross-functionality just like we do. It's the way the game is designed. I'd say being able to utilize 2/3 of your character is actually quite good.

 

Balancemoon

No you don't, because the whole point of specialising is to use that preferred school and the playstyle it embodies, the point is as a fire mage you do use your arcane spells and frost spells, , a lot less frequently as they aren't your main nukes, but you do have use for them, they are not "redundant" .. you don't for all intents and purposes lose the ability, you just use them less frequently. No class at the highest level but the druid has such wastage or under-utilization. This is what I hope would change. All classes use 98%-100% of their class abilites, so 2/3 is well below the norm. In class design you introduce more abilities to keep the class interesting and diversified, you don't really expect to "lose" abilities. This is why I had such an issue with Tiger's Fury, Rake and Claw becoming useless in TBC. It's fun mastering your class, using your common elements in the right way and also the not so common ones in the very precise circumstance. Otherwise it becomes rather limited, and this is in all aspects of the game.

Some abilities aren't used in raiding at all for most classes, even some in the spell school they invested the most talents in, however they are used in pvE solo or PvP when that character goes around questing, grinding or BGs/Arenas. You take Shadow Priests smiting, that is about the only Holy trainable ability that you would call useless, the rest in the discipline and holy spell schools are used from time to time. COmbat dagger rogues very much back stab, and with rogues really it is just switching a weapon on one hand only that makes backstab/ambush useable, it's different when you have about 80% of one school like feral locked out if you spec balance or resto. That I hope will be the final design flaw of druids to remedy

 

kalbear

I desperately do not want Blizzard to follow BalanceMoon's idea for class use. That sort of thing gives us the incredibly useless 2pT5 bonus for feral. I don't want some random "when you cast nature's swiftness your next lacerate does 100% more damage" garbage. Please don't do this; what this will mean is that all three trees will be incredibly mediocre.

 

Valerian

All specs definitely do not use close to 100% of their classes abilities and druids certainly don't not use a full third of their abilities. As a resto druid you can easily use: dire bear form, enrage, bash, Cat form, prowl and dash. Not to mention the various attacks in said forms if the situation warrants it. Sure you're not going to use them all, and most are probably less efficient than other options you have, but its the same with other classes. A resto shaman isnt likely to throw WF on his weapon and melee things (since shootling LBs is probably more efficient. Just the way a resto druid probably wont claw something to death when he can root/nuke it. A dual wield fury warrior probably wont be using slam much at all. Similarly an MS warrior probably won't start dual wielding. There are tradeoffs between every spec.

 

Ja7us

2t5 is probably my favorite set bonus in any tier of gear for Druids. It's a great design. and far from worthless.

However, Balancemoon, I think you've got a pretty skewed perception of the frequency with which most other classes use some of their abilities. A fire mage uses Frostbolt, Blizzard, Arcane Missiles, and Ice Lance only in very, VERY specific circumstances, usually PvP ones; incidentally, this also describes the usefulness of many Feral abilities for a resto or balance druid, and likewise for balance abilities for a feral druid (obviously healing is used by all specs). It's the same for most other classes. They absolutely do not use "98-100%" of their class abilities on a regular basis. Even considering all aspects of the game, be it PvP, raiding, soloing, or grouping, I doubt the number is even close to the 66% quoted for druids. Many, many abilities are essentially worthless for those who don't spec for them.

That said, I do agree that Rake, Tiger's Fury, et al could stand to be more useful, but we're already seeing the first indications that there's work being done on those skills.