Feral talents/abilities - WotLK discussion - Page 85

Nilaus · 08/25/08, 5:12 AM

It seems that druids are in a bit of a tough spot from an itemization point of view, due to the simplifications of gear for tanks.

Tanking stats:
Defense = Bad (we used to like to for the crit immunity, but no longer and it is a bad stat without block/parry)
Armor = Good (but not so common anymore it seems, so not something we can really focus on)
Agility = Good (but not quite as good due to agi -> dodge conversion)
Dodge = Good
Parry/Block = Worthless as always
Strength = Bad (this is becoming the new mitigation stat for the other classes DK: Parry, War,Pal: Block, Druid: no mitigation)

Normal tanking gear is: Sta, Str, Def for plate and probably the same for the rings/neck/cloak. The perfect tanking stats for us would be: Sta, Agi, Dodge/Armor. This is really bad gear for the other tanks and the result is again that we are pigionholed into a set of very specific gear purely designed for us.

Solution: Give us block! Helps offset the loss of armor in WotLK and allows us to use Str for survival

xpuntar · 08/25/08, 6:02 AM

Huh? What the hell!

This is druid form not a PvP one!

A have simple question. Why there are no skills / abilities in feral tree tied to specific talent? Like Nature's Grasps and Insect Swarm in Balance?

With tieing some abilities (like my proposed Feral Mastery ) to certain high feral talents, there could be quite a distinction between a feral druid and resto one. It would help feral druid tremendously without giving feral power to resto or balance druids, which in turn could pull feral out of "unwanted list"

Let's say normal ability Feral Heart is tied to Heart of the Wild rank 5 which would grant additional bonuses for feral forms and even in caster

Caster
Increases spell power equal to 70% of your Agility (replacing Nurturing Instinct)

Bear
Increase Agility by +15%
+5% parry or block

Cat
+5% dodge or parry
Increase overall damage by +15%

With abilities requiring certain talents and ranks feral talent tree could be trimmed, while still provide ferals their power without chance to boost resto druids.

An idea. Master Shapeshifter could became normal ability tied to Natural Shapeshifter rank 3 to actually buy it.

Marek · 08/25/08, 8:41 AM

Originally Posted by xpuntar

A have simple question. Why there are no skills / abilities in feral tree tied to specific talent? Like Nature's Grasps and Insect Swarm in Balance?

You mean abilities like Mangle or Feral Charge?

I think the whole feral combat system built around the use of Mangle (+30% damage on bleed/shred, aggro tool) creates a big enough difference between dpsing/tanking as a feral druid instead of a resto wearing feral gear.
Granted feral charge was picked up for Resto PvP, but this is no longer viable because it was moved two tiers down.

In my oppinion druids have by design the most diverse playstyle of all classes and the talent trees reflect that well.

As for the main problem of not scaling well (or at all) with the stats currently used for ring/neck/cloak items:
Strength: Maybe it is just meant to be a threat increase for us. IF they want to give us mitigation from this I would support Nilaus' proposal for block.
The problem is since we don't want defense and I can't see myself gemming for block rating either, block would still scale quite badly with a 5% chance. I would rather suggest strength providing a flat reduction in incoming melee damage post armor for an amount equal to (strength/2->block value)*((strength/2)/block rating) (an equal split of strength into block value and block rating).

Defense: We get Dodge/Miss which is in the best case scenario 66% of the value other tanks get out of it (only counting parry not block/anti-crit). It could give us a scaling "Defensive stance" for a general damage reduce against all damage. We still wouldn't *need* it, but at least it would have some use. Not creating leather gear with defense will also keep us from stacking it to amounts where the exponential growth of the stat becomes a problem (see BC avoidance).

Moof · 08/25/08, 8:41 AM

Mangle, Feral Charge, Feral Faerie Fire, Berserk?

Pharmacon · 08/25/08, 9:55 AM

I would hate to have block as Feral Tank. Then you end up going towards what Pallies and Warriors do currently where they have block sets, mitigation sets, stam sets. What about a simple Str -> armor? Gives us that armor that's missing from our pieces we are sharing with rogues without adding some of the implications that giving a block would. (Besides block on a bear doesn't make sense lore wise but that's another topic).

I like that Blizz doesn't want us pushing the armor cap so easy. I mean being in T4 and you're already armor capped to lvl 70s? That's too fast of tanking gear progression to me. But if you put in the Str -> armor druids will be able to use the neck, ring, trinks that other tanks do to a different means and gives us something to push the armor cap (although balanced so we're not pushing it at T7)

Promethius · 08/25/08, 2:00 PM

I suppose it's a bit early to know for sure, but if the feral gear we're used to really does become a thing of the past, it might make sense to change the 20% int bonus in heart of the wild to some sort of dreamstate like bonus based on stam, similar to the prot paladin for spellpower. Merging the old swiftshifting ability (20/40/60% mana reduction in shapeshift cost if done within 6 sec of leaving form) into natural shapeshifter would also be another decent counter to no longer having int on gear.

The main benefits I can see from these changes would be reducing the ease of ooming a feral in pvp (the swiftshift buff may need something like a 3-5 sec cd for balancing restos) and if powershifting is acknowledged by blizzard as an integral part of cat dps, mana becomes a potential limitation on dps.

On the topic of having str convert to some form of mitigation, it might make the most sense to merge the concept into thick hide. As it stands, cat specs won't find the talent that appealing and other druid specs don't gear for str, so if blizzard is really trying to force differentiation of feral specs into bear, hybrid, and cat then they have to avoid combining dps abilities into tanking talents and vice versa.

tlbj6142 · 08/25/08, 2:23 PM

Originally Posted by WHTS

Not being fortunate enough to be in beta, can anyone please elaborate a bit on the viability of balance specs?

Threads scroll off quite fast, but there is an active thread on WotLK Balance Druids found here.

Pzychotix · 08/25/08, 4:41 PM

Originally Posted by Promethius

I suppose it's a bit early to know for sure, but if the feral gear we're used to really does become a thing of the past, it might make sense to change the 20% int bonus in heart of the wild to some sort of dreamstate like bonus based on stam, similar to the prot paladin for spellpower. Merging the old swiftshifting ability (20/40/60% mana reduction in shapeshift cost if done within 6 sec of leaving form) into natural shapeshifter would also be another decent counter to no longer having int on gear.

The main benefits I can see from these changes would be reducing the ease of ooming a feral in pvp (the swiftshift buff may need something like a 3-5 sec cd for balancing restos) and if powershifting is acknowledged by blizzard as an integral part of cat dps, mana becomes a potential limitation on dps.

Note: With the new energy changes added with furor, powershifting is looking to be very dangerous. Making the mana costs very cheap would edge us close to the point of overpowered. It would essentially give us an inordinate amount of thistle teas on demand.

Valerian · 08/25/08, 4:45 PM

Originally Posted by Pzychotix

Note: With the new energy changes added with furor, powershifting is looking to be very dangerous. Making the mana costs very cheap would edge us close to the point of overpowered. It would essentially give us an inordinate amount of thistle teas on demand.

This is true in the current system. If the new system is built with powershifting in mind, then it'll presumably be balanced as such. I'll grant if the Devs do not realize what a bonus powershifting is it could be unbalanced. The new energy change (regening out of cat form) tends to imply they do realize the impact of furor and powershifting (furor seems almost pointless for cats if it isn't intended for powershifting with that change).

xpuntar · 08/25/08, 5:20 PM

Originally Posted by Moof

Mangle, Feral Charge, Feral Faerie Fire, Berserk?

Well not exactly like this. With those you enable skills, which are already written in talent tree. With my example talent tree enable normal (and buyable from druid trainer), but way different skill, which give additional bonus to normal talent.

With such method, feral tree could be quite easily trimmed and at the same time make some powerful feral abilities out of reach for both resto and balance druids.

In my suggestion Feral Heart is normal (and different) skill, which can be bought from druid trainer, but in order to buy it player must have 5 talent points spend on Heart of the Wild talent.

Tokoji · 08/25/08, 6:35 PM

So you can't use 4 talent points if you're pexing your druid? Because the spell isn't effect before having 5 talent points according to you.
In my opinion, Feral Heart is a good talent, it just needs to be a bit improved with a better scaling of int.

Windhuf · 08/25/08, 7:14 PM

Originally Posted by xpuntar

Well not exactly like this. With those you enable skills, which are already written in talent tree. With my example talent tree enable normal (and buyable from druid trainer), but way different skill, which give additional bonus to normal talent.

With such method, feral tree could be quite easily trimmed and at the same time make some powerful feral abilities out of reach for both resto and balance druids.

In my suggestion Feral Heart is normal (and different) skill, which can be bought from druid trainer, but in order to buy it player must have 5 talent points spend on Heart of the Wild talent.

Hi, im reading the threads at Elitist Jerks some months now, and just felt like joining the discussion.

I was just wondering: "Why creating a new mechanic?"
Wouldn't it be easier for the devs to modify the talents tree?

My idea on this discussion:
- Reduce Heart of the Wild to 4 Points.
- Place Feral Heart at the left side of Heart of the Wild with Heart of the Wild 4/4 as Requirement.

TheNameLessOne · 08/25/08, 7:45 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

This is true in the current system. If the new system is built with powershifting in mind, then it'll presumably be balanced as such. I'll grant if the Devs do not realize what a bonus powershifting is it could be unbalanced. The new energy change (regening out of cat form) tends to imply they do realize the impact of furor and powershifting (furor seems almost pointless for cats if it isn't intended for powershifting with that change).

Remember they are trying to actually keep kitty scaling with the rest of the DPS this time. Since kitty's white damage is poo and will still be poo, they have to up the energy generation a lot. Otherwise you will be passed by almost everyone, prot warriors included.

Promethius · 08/25/08, 7:52 PM

Originally Posted by Pzychotix

Note: With the new energy changes added with furor, powershifting is looking to be very dangerous. Making the mana costs very cheap would edge us close to the point of overpowered. It would essentially give us an inordinate amount of thistle teas on demand.

I see how that may be a concern in pvp, and an appropriate cooldown on being able to swiftshift would be the balancing factor under that scenario. In pve however, once the mana barrier is surpassed, we actually have the potential to be gcd limited in our dps cycle. There are some posts earlier in the thread that discuss a 1 roar, 5 ferocious bite, 5 rip cycle where even with powershifting on every free global cooldown, you need a relatively high crit rate to maintain combo point generation to sustain the cycle.

One of my concerns when I suggested the HotW stam to mana regen conversion and the merging of a swiftshift ability into natural shapeshifter is because of what it felt like in early TBC in gear without int, and significantly higher shapeshifting costs than we had at level 60. You could go oom in literally 4-5 consecutive shifts. Perhaps I may be misinterpretting Blizzard's intentions, but I figured feral was supposed to be more shapeshifting oriented than the other two trees. Considering all of a feral's casted abilities are more taxing on mana and lesser in scaling ability compared to the other trees, I don't feel asking for freedom of shapeshifting, to a reasonable degree, is too much.

Pzychotix · 08/25/08, 8:43 PM

I feel feral isn't about shapeshifting. It's about staying in a form and benefiting from the abilities of that form. I.e. you become a cat or a bear. Not a crazy shapeshifting bearcatman.

However, I actually wouldn't mind having our mana pool turn into an energy oriented mechanic. High mana regen, but small mana pools to limit the amount of things we can do at once. It's certainly an entertaining thought.