The numbers Erdulf just listed suggest that it scales based on the caster rather than the target. I think it's more likely in those Premonition parses that they were unaware of this change and the feral druid casted Thorns on Patchwerk and the resto druid casted it for Hodir. Brambles alone wouldn't account for that much difference in damage.

Two feral nerfs (probably warranted) in the new PTR build.

• Primal Gore doesn't affect Rake anymore.
• Glyph of Savage Roar - Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 3% bonus damage done. (Down from 6%)

Overall maybe a 10% dps nerf?

1.36> 1.33 nerf is a 2% nerf, i doubt the rake change will be as big of an impact as 8%

Just a single sample but this is what some quick napkin math got me

9 minute fight on previous build
rake Dot damage 534973
total damage 2887422
critrate 48.21

rake damage without critting dots wouldve been around 534973/1.48=361468
((534973-361468)/2887422)*100=6% nerf

Now the 2 nerfs can't just be added up ( as the SR nerf influences the rakecrit nerf%), but just to give an estimate, it's a little over 8 % nerf altogether

Rake is about 15-20% of previous PTR parses I've seen, so if it had crit at a 50% rate, the math looks like


1/(1 + 1.26*.5) = about 62% of the damage it did when it crit.
.62*15 = 9.3 = 6% nerf
.62*20 = 12.4 = 7.6% nerf

Of course, I didn't account for the initial rake application, which still crits. So in reality it's probably 1% or so less.

So, 7-8.6% nerf. Sounds about right.

Rake is about 14.75% of my damage checking one parse. Was critting about 60% with crits dealing 120% additional damage so that is 60% of attacks doing ~55% less damage or reduction of rake damage by ~33% so
4.87% damage reduction by rake no longer critting. So with savage roar nerf being 2.2% damage reduction this is overall about a 6.1% damage reduction.

Wow Web Stats

I initially thought the rake change was odd given how easily they can tweak things with Savage Roar but there may have been some PvP considerations factored into the rake change too. Overall, most folks agree with the fact that our DPS needed a little toning down if you've been doing any kind of raiding on the PTR.

Another feral nerf, from the latest updated patch notes:
This is not yet on the PTR, should show up in the PTR patch early next week.


They also added a long list of class-specific bug fixes. The druid ones are:

The FB change seems to backup the assertion that Rake was changed for PvP reasons. I remember posts concerning "burst" in PvP and toning down FB seems to jive with that without affecting PvE too much.

This is more of the same for Druids it seems. It reminds me of the animal form customization that we still don't have.

That ~8% DPS nerf; is that still an overall buff compared to live?

Does anyone have an idea of how much the AoE damage cap on Swipe will hurt us on larger pulls?

Even with the adjustment, we'll still be quite a bit better than live. Aren't all other AOE spells subject to the cap? Seems like they are just fixing an oversight, can't really consider that a "nerf".

That's actually quite comforting to hear. I remember the days pre-patch 3, when in Kara/Welfare epics it was all I could do to push 600DPS. Then overnight I was doing 900. I just don't want to go back to being that fundamentally limited.

Haha, who will miss their 30k DPS on the trash pulls in Spider Wing? That was fun but I'm not upset over this 'correction' as we are finally going to be able to break 6k on single target!

The FB change wont hurt us too much either, since it's still something close to an 80% crit chance with the bonus on FB, the likeliness of our occasional FBs critting in PvE should still be a non issue.

Just tested this on the PTR; putting Thorns on yourself in caster gear increases damage from Thorns when you switch back to feral gear. This works for HOTs as well (which surprises me; last I had checked, HOT values changed if you changed gear).

That said, unless you've picked up a lot of great caster gear and have spent the thousands of gold to enchant and gem it, you're much better off having a boomkin hit you with Thorns; in fact, you're better off having a tree hit you with Thorns.

HoT's have never changed their tick values if you change gear(either through procs or gear change).

Another nerf, more so for PVP than for PVE. (though I start to wonder how blizzard is planing to raise Druid representation in PVP with all those "no-effect on PVP" or "nerf to PVP" changes)

That actually sounds more like a change intended to be a nerf to PT in PvE - 30% less damage taken while stunned is a pretty big advantage for a tank on a fight where you expect to be stunned a lot. The current implementation of Primal Tenacity might as well read "We cannot implement any fight where stunning the tank is an important element," since such a fight would favor druids heavily.

You could have some fun with trinkets and thorns too. With a Pandora's Plea and a Living Flame you could get 1355 from trinkets temporarily. (You could go higher with a dying curse, but that would rely on two procs going off at the same time). That would be an extra ~176 thorns damage if it scales at 13%, 308 extra if that wasn't already factoring in brambles.

Thorns scales at 7% -- WoWWiki as original source, but also tested in-game today. Spire of Sunset (461 SP) increased Thorns from 73 per hit to 105 per hit.

That said, this is actually a chunk of DPS on trash--this boosts the casting druid's effective damage by 168 per hit at 2400 SP, without trinket procs/uses. Placed on a tank, that's about 420 DPS vs. a pack of five (assuming attack speed 2.0). That's 84 DPS vs. most bosses. Brambles is therefore worth about 90 DPS (30 per talent point) vs. a boss with no adds. I'd have to ask a boomkin if that increases the value of Brambles enough to take it.

So, what's better: carrying around a set of caster gear just to cast thorns on yourself every hour, or hoping the boomkin/tree remembers to do it every 10 minutes?

Finding a guild where you don't have to ask that question.

I'd settle for anything (even 50 less reflected damage per hit) just to avoid "A more powerful spell is already active".