Druid changes Patch 3.08
 

* Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60). Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid. Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them. All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.
* Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane.
* King of the Jungle - The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot be dispelled.
* Nature's Grace - Now also effects Revive.
* Primal Tenacity: Now reduces the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its previous effects.
* Protector of the Pack: No longer changes value based on party size.
* Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only provides its benefits while in Cat Form.
* Starfall will now be cancelled by any shapeshifting.
* Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous effects.
* Swipe: Swipe (Cat) has now been added at level 71, dealing 260% weapon damage, costs 50 energy with no cooldown. All talents affecting the Bear Form version affect the Cat Form one as well.
* Wild Growth now has a 6 second cooldown.

Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.

=> mmo-champion.com

For me as a feral druid is of course the weapon change very interesting. Does anyone has an idea which 2h-maces /staffes from the paladin/dk/warrior/hunter corner will be an option for us?

Wowhead search for Druid-usable weapons with a DPS > 200 gives:

[Deadly Gladiator's Bonegrinder]
[Inevitable Defeat]
[The Jawbone]

Is the formula FAP = (DPS-55)*14, or should that "55" be something else?

"Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them."

This seems like a nerf, according to http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t36999-feral_druid_numbers/ 1 str equals roughly 2.56 atp. So if they change [Gloves of Journey's End] this way,

114 str * 2.56 = cca 292 ATP for cat in raid
114 str = 228 ATP in itemization formula

So we'd lose cca 64 ATP.

Well, i was looking for this change for a long time (and i thought i'd never see it coming live). So bring it on anyway :).

I am still completely baffled by the WG nerf being as hard as CoH, but I really don't think any of us will notice. I use it around 10-15% of my healing on any of the decent bosses. Is anyone going to feel the change really or are we all shrugging our shoulders?

I guess at the highest of spellpowers (~3k+) a non-cooldown WG could become insanely powerful, ticking for almost 1k the first time around. I am sitting at 830 on the first tick full raid buffed and it still just doesn't seem that strong.

The change will make Loatheb and Malygos very interesting. Loatheb in particular is going to require a little adjustment. I think with Malygos the strategy is just going to be throwing a Rejuv or LB on targets before everyone gets thrown into the air but with Loatheb the burden of AE healing will really shift to resto Shaman somewhat. Priests and Druids can help, but I don't think Shaman will be able to just spam Lightning Bolt anymore and let the Priests/Druids deal with healing the raid. Not that it matters. It's not like Loatheb is hard. But the first couple of attempts of each should be interesting.

I really hope this is just rank 1 and it somehow scales to not completely suck. Lets see, two Swipe (Cats) on a full energy bar, or swap to Bear form for unlimited 2 target Mangle + unlimited all target Swipe...

It also builds no combo points, so the cost of 50 energy is absolutely absurd.

One thing you've missed:

Druid: Savage Fury - Mangle (Bear) damage was being increased by a higher percentage than intended. This has been fixed, and in result Mangle (Bear) should see roughly a 16% damage reduction. Also fixed a bug with Savage Fury where the Rake bleed effect was not being increased.


I had no idea about this. Bad news for bears of course, but that means our rakes so far have been underpowered? I have already been giggling at the huge rake ticks I've been having so a straight 20% increase is going to be fantastic!

Also, I had been suspecting the change to feral staves for a while. If they want them to be appealing to hunters, they'd have to change the str to AP otherwise they'd be only still only be useful to druids (and warriors to a lesser extent). I imagine it will be only the staves without armor designed for cat dps that will be receiving the change. I still have my fingers crossed for Polearms for druids though.

I thought I read in one of the Druid change posts that they were removing the armor from all weapons, could have dreamt it?

The armour will remain, but will no longer be affected by the bear multiplier.

They're just removing the armor multiplier for bear form working on armor that's on feral staves. The actual armor itself isn't going away, it's just that, for example, [Enraged Feral Staff] will only get you 700 armor in bear form, instead of several times that amount.

Correct. Also note that in bear form, you can double-maul every ~2.3 seconds. People should bring up this point when the PTR forums go up. If it was Blizzard's intent to get us out of bear form while dpsing on trash, they failed miserably.

[I'm a moron -- getting my swipes and primal furies mixed up]

Primal fury doesn't give energy on crits, it gives extra combo points for crits that would generate points. Since swipe won't generate CPs, we won't get anything when it crits (except possibly extra OOC procs? I forget how this works).

I think the cooldown change to WG is utterly disgusting. It makes no sense to lump it together with CoH-level of efficiency. I think a 3 second cooldown for WG while leaving CoH at 6 seconds is more in line. Now we'll be forced to spend more mana hot'ing everyone prior to an aoe.

More from Ghostcrawler on converting Strength to AP, on feral weapons: