Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 45

TheNameLessOne · 07/31/08, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by ionasej

Look at the rogues talent trees. Set them as a baseline for 100% Max DPS (as they dont do much anything else) and you will see that they can chose between doing it this or that way.

Feral though will, in regards to PvE and its role there, be rather nerfed:

"If you look at the feral tree for Lich King, you'll see that it does have more bear-centric and cat-centric talents. If you pick the cat-centric talents, you'll still be able to tank to some extent, but you probably aren't your guild's main tank."
WoW Forums -> [Suggestion] Talent For Death knight Tanking.

Somehow I feel that Bear will be weaker than Prot Warriors and Prot Paladins but will still not excel IN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GEAR as a dps to around 90% the damage of rogues - even not while gimping our tanking abilities and vica versa.

But yes, we have the answer, the bloat is intention.

I would say they miserably failed on that on then, there is no way shape or form enough bloat to even come close to supporting 2 separate specs. Not to mention pre 1.8 proved that sort of design philosophy fails miserable. Honestly I would question if that blue ever even actually looked at the tree.

Don't see too many cat/bear only talents Here

Snarley · 07/31/08, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by ionasej

Look at the rogues talent trees. Set them as a baseline for 100% Max DPS (as they dont do much anything else) and you will see that they can chose between doing it this or that way.

Feral though will, in regards to PvE and its role there, be rather nerfed:

"If you look at the feral tree for Lich King, you'll see that it does have more bear-centric and cat-centric talents. If you pick the cat-centric talents, you'll still be able to tank to some extent, but you probably aren't your guild's main tank."
WoW Forums -> [Suggestion] Talent For Death knight Tanking.

Somehow I feel that Bear will be weaker than Prot Warriors and Prot Paladins but will still not excel IN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GEAR as a dps to around 90% the damage of rogues - even not while gimping our tanking abilities and vica versa.

But yes, we have the answer, the bloat is intention.

Ok, considering that this is a blue post and it truly is intentional I would expect to see the following.

DPS in Cat form (All conceivable cat talents chosen) - The capability to match all other hybrid DPS if not exceed it by a small amount. The capability to tank trash mobs as well as 5 mans / 10 mans OT (10 mans is a toss up as it completely depends on how they tune these instances...). Assuming a stellar tank set, the ability to MT most 10 mans that are below that gear level.

Bear MT (All conceivable bear talents chosen) - The capability to MT 25 mans the same as the other tank classes (gimmick encounters aside)

Now, of course these are my opinions but if our tree is being split on purpose into cat / bear with fewer crossovers between the two. You are now graying the line of a true hybrid and the spec should be treated a bit differently since we are now supposed to choose what we want to be, DPS boon or an MT.

TheNameLessOne · 07/31/08, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Snarley

Ok, considering that this is a blue post and it truly is intentional I would expect to see the following.

DPS in Cat form (All conceivable cat talents chosen) - The capability to match all other hybrid DPS if not exceed it by a small amount. The capability to tank trash mobs as well as 5 mans / 10 mans OT (10 mans is a toss up as it completely depends on how they tune these instances...). Assuming a stellar tank set, the ability to MT most 10 mans that are below that gear level.

Bear MT (All conceivable bear talents chosen) - The capability to MT 25 mans the same as the other tank classes (gimmick encounters aside)

Now, of course these are my opinions but if our tree is being split on purpose into cat / bear with fewer crossovers between the two. You are now graying the line of a true hybrid and the spec should be treated a bit differently since we are now supposed to choose what we want to be, DPS boon or an MT.

Why would you waste putting a cat centric druid in a clearly DPS warrior slot? Less DPS w/ the same (or worse depending on AOE) tanking ability.

Don't take feral aggression (FB is still not that good) and don't take infect wounds (bring another warlock). There isn't a cat centric build once you ignore those talents.

Snarley · 07/31/08, 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by TheNameLessOne

Why would you waste putting a cat centric druid in a clearly DPS warrior slot? Less DPS w/ the same (or worse depending on AOE) tanking ability.

Don't take feral aggression (FB is still not that good) and don't take infect wounds (bring another warlock). There isn't a cat centric build once you ignore those talents.

Be that as it may, the blue poster wasn’t a dev himself and I would hope that the devs either see it differently or there are much more changes coming to split the tree further...

If they are truly saying that we are to spec for either cat or bear in the same tree, then I better be damn good at which ever spec I choose.

kalbear · 07/31/08, 1:29 PM

Why would you waste putting a cat centric druid in a clearly DPS warrior slot? Less DPS w/ the same (or worse depending on AOE) tanking ability.

Don't take feral aggression (FB is still not that good) and don't take infect wounds (bring another warlock). There isn't a cat centric build once you ignore those talents.

With that philosophy in mind, I tried to do a build. this build was the closest I could get. Master shapeshifter is not as good as naturalist for dps in either form, so it loses out. This has two more points to spend...but no real good place to put them for cat or bear. Alternately you could take the points out of R&T and put them into master shapeshifter, but that's suboptimal for bear threat. You can take a couple points out of savage fury, but you still don't have enough to max out master shapeshifter.

So yeah, if you want to do the best dps as a cat possible, you'll be missing out on some talents for bears. The talents appear to be threat-related, so in a bit of irony you might have a build where you can be a fine mitigation tank but be the worst threat of the 4 tanking classes, but at least be able to do good dps as a cat.

I'm also bothered that they make one of the marquee talents for cats (OoC) in the resto tree. How does it make sense that an essentially required talent for feral dps is in the restoration tree?

Lord BEEF · 07/31/08, 1:49 PM

The fact that it's called the Restoration tree doesn't really mean much in the end. Every druid places points in the beginning tiers of restoration. It's more of a secondary tree than anything, and every class has to put points in a secondary tree to get what they need. (With the exception of restoration druids oddly enough).

It's not like there are any real wasted points for feral druids there.

• sadris · 07/31/08, 1:52 PM

Furor should be reworked such that it gave a 100% chance to restore V/W/X/Y/Z rage/energy rather than a 20/40...% chance to restore Z energy so that you could not have to put 5/5 points into it.

Merple · 07/31/08, 1:53 PM

Originally Posted by sadris

Furor should be reworked such that it gave a 100% chance to restore V/W/X/Y/Z rage/energy rather than a 20/40...% chance to restore Z energy so that you could not have to put 5/5 points into it.

What point would it serve? We'd still go futher down the tree for OoC and Naturalist. Unless you really want 70% pushback interruption on heals.

• Hamlet · 07/31/08, 1:55 PM

Originally Posted by Merple

What point would it serve? We'd still go futher down the tree for OoC and Naturalist. Unless you really want 70% pushback interruption on heals.

Well, Imp. Mark and Furor together would be nice. One of my quibbles with the current WLK setup is that it still doesn't allow both.

Deliverance · 07/31/08, 2:16 PM

Originally Posted by TheNameLessOne

Why would you waste putting a cat centric druid in a clearly DPS warrior slot? Less DPS w/ the same (or worse depending on AOE) tanking ability.

Don't take feral aggression (FB is still not that good) and don't take infect wounds (bring another warlock). There isn't a cat centric build once you ignore those talents.

You appear to be thinking strictly in terms of 25 man raids here, I guess? In terms of 10 man raid progression "bring another warlock" will in most cases not be an option, neither is a DPS warrior nor tank warrior something to be assumed always present. Unless Blizzard makes a hash of the encounters or talents and abilities for WotLK, 10 man raids should work decently even if one or two classes aren't in the raid at all so long as you bring classes capable of covering the relevant basic roles- if the 10 man raids do not, if they require specific classes to be present (or are so much harder without specific classes, that it equates to much the same in the common raider mind), they are likely to be failures for the player population as a whole.

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 2:22 PM

From a Blue post...

In PvP, we are adding many tools to the Feral Druid arsenal, including the redesigned Maim, Infected Wounds, King of the Jungle, and Berserk.

What did they change to Maim? I don't recall seeing it mentioned before.

Astrylian · 07/31/08, 2:26 PM

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

tlbj6142 · 07/31/08, 2:31 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

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

Nice, I hadn't noticed the change. Thanks.

TheNameLessOne · 07/31/08, 2:40 PM

Originally Posted by Deliverance

You appear to be thinking strictly in terms of 25 man raids here, I guess? In terms of 10 man raid progression "bring another warlock" will in most cases not be an option, neither is a DPS warrior nor tank warrior something to be assumed always present. Unless Blizzard makes a hash of the encounters or talents and abilities for WotLK, 10 man raids should work decently even if one or two classes aren't in the raid at all so long as you bring classes capable of covering the relevant basic roles- if the 10 man raids do not, if they require specific classes to be present (or are so much harder without specific classes, that it equates to much the same in the common raider mind), they are likely to be failures for the player population as a whole.

In order for IW to be useful (other than trash disease buff for DKs to eat), you have to have the following condition

1) No Prot warrior available (either through positioning or just not being present) to Thunder Clap
2) No Prot Paladin available (either through positioning or just not being present) to judge
3) No DK available (either through positioning or just not being present) to Icy Touch
4) 0-1 Warlocks and a raid make up that will not forgo CoE

Thats why it is such an easy talent to toss aside, the chances of #3 and #4 happening are extremely slim. And even then if all those conditions are met, you can still have the option of just sticking a DPS warrior in perma battle stance (or stance dancing which ever doesn't hurt their DPS as much) to use Thunder Clap which will give an even bigger swing reduction anyways.

Also it should be noted that unlike the other slow mechanics, there have been several boss fights (granted they are only 5 man) where they are immune to IW anyways.

Beregon · 07/31/08, 3:09 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

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

Can someone verify this is a buff not a slight nerf? When I read it, I assumed that what they were saying is that it was changed so that if it had enough bleed damage going on it would break prematurely, not that it would hold while being hit.