Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 53

Duilliath · 08/03/08, 6:17 PM

Originally Posted by Miststorm

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.

Daboran · 08/04/08, 4:43 AM

Originally Posted by Duilliath

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.

Ulfgar · 08/04/08, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Daboran

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.

Lord BEEF · 08/04/08, 11:01 AM

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%.

MisterMerf · 08/04/08, 4:05 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

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.

Miststorm · 08/04/08, 5:12 PM

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.

Malazaar · 08/04/08, 6:32 PM

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.

coredumperror · 08/04/08, 6:36 PM

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?

seminarca · 08/05/08, 3:56 AM

Ghostcrawler just posted this in the beta forums:

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?

Shakes · 08/05/08, 3:58 AM

Edit: Blah, beaten to it, snipped the quote.

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.

Rannasha · 08/05/08, 4:15 AM

Feral Swiftness now works indoors (Source). Nice, but long overdue change.

Duilliath · 08/05/08, 6:29 AM

Originally Posted by seminarca

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.

Zaroua · 08/05/08, 6:54 AM

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.

david0925 · 08/05/08, 6:54 AM

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.

Duilliath · 08/05/08, 7:47 AM

Originally Posted by david0925

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.