Feral Druid Patch / WOTLK Thread

[Vengeance]

[blizzard]We are going to remove the target limit on Swipe.[/blizzard]

Whoa.
Inc nerf.

[Arcdelad]

I think its a bit OP'ed but still fair if you want to make druids an AOE tank...

So...now we essentially have a consecrate of our own - except its front loaded like khader said, meaning we have to face the target to hit it, while consecrate is just an AOE spell...

BUT - swipe is a great rage builder, and you can swipe TONS more then the tick on a consecrate spell....not only that, its EASY to move around to hit all the targets, plus there are new damage multipliers to swipe in the druid talents now...I would argue that if this goes in as it is now druids and warriors could be better aoe tanks then pallies...

[JohnnieRat]

Difference is... Consecrate ticks for 300, swipe hits for... i don't know how much but a lot more than 300

[Arcdelad]

my swipe right now hits for 600-700 normal and crits for about 1400-1500 PER mob...and i can spam the bejeesus out of it, while consecrate only lasts so long...

..AND they have new damage multipliers for swipe in our new talents....

[JohnnieRat]

Pallies can chain cast consecrate (8 second effect, 8 second CD... convenient eh) but tanks need a lot more threat now that Salv as we know it is gone. For those who haven't seen the pally patch notes: it is now Hand of Salvation and is cast on a single target with a 3 minute CD and greatly reduces that one person's threat. BTW, ret pally reserves his hand of salv for himself!

[khader]

Pallies can chain cast consecrate (8 second effect, 8 second CD... convenient eh) but tanks need a lot more threat now that Salv as we know it is gone. For those who haven't seen the pally patch notes: it is now Hand of Salvation and is cast on a single target with a 3 minute CD and greatly reduces that one person's threat. BTW, ret pally reserves his hand of salv for himself!

Salv wasn't so much removed as the effect was moved into all tanks abilities - where it should have been in the first place.  This is one of the biggest reasons pallies were better AoE tanks than warriors or druids. Yes they AoE tank well but combine it with Blessing of Salvation and pallies are many times better than a warrior or druid.

IMO this change levels the playing field for tanks more than any other change.  Changes to allow druids and warriors to more easily AoE tank are nice but multi-mob tanking is/was still possible maybe just a bit harder.

Target limit on Thunderclap was also removed.  Now warriors have a 360^o AoE which leaves druids without one.

[Arcdelad]

meh...its not hard to move around to hit all the mobs with no mob limit anymore LOL...to me its not a big deal hehehe...i think the fact that we can spam it so often plus the high damage it does compensates well...

I feel great about tanking come the patch...bring it on!

[JohnnieRat]

Shouldn't be tanking with mobs behind you anyways (unnavoidable sometimes but letting Illidan put you on his knee and spank you is a bad idea). Honestly, I think the change is making this more World of everyone is the same craft. Pallies excelled at AoE tanking. Druids have retarded amounts of armor, and warrs are the "all-around" folks and have the most tools/gimmicks. Now druids and Warr's can AoE, pallies use physical abilities, druids have a last stand style ability... point is, nothing is really unique anymore. Hell pally healers even have HoT's (if specced/glyphed into it)

[Air]

Even with Death Knights coming, I still think Pally's will be the better aoe tank's.  Consecration is still really good.  It scales with attack power now, so it should hit alot harder. 

The way consecration works makes it better than most aoe's.  It can be used before a group of mobs gets to a pally which lets them get an initial amount of threat.  And then the pally can consecrate again.

Then theres holy shield, retribution aura, and blessing of sanctuary.  All abilities that generate threat just by hitting the pally tank.  There's also avenger's shield which is now instant cast, but has a long cool down.  And also holy wrath if there's any undead mob's.

[JohnnieRat]

I have over 2500 AP self buffed in the PTR and consecrate ticks for 199 so the AP ration for it can't be very large at all so it won't help tanks who aren't big on AP stacking all too much.

[fiere redfern]

The other AOE(ish) ability we have is Demo Roar - yeah it doesn't do any damage, but it does help to keep initial aggro if you have a buttload of mobs on you. And like Arc said - tab-targetting/spinning and swiping ain't that hard =P

[JohnnieRat]

won't even have to tab target if it hits everyone

[Arcdelad]

My name is Arc, and I approve this message:

[blizzard]Upcoming balance and feral changes

For now, all I've got is that Starfall can't be dispelled.
We are also discussing Mangle (Cat) or Rake buffs so cats don't feel so penalized by positional requirements, particularly in PvP.

Bear tanks in Wrath of the Lich King
Druid threat is on par or greater than other tanks, and with the Swipe change, that includes group threat as well. Druid dps while tanking is very high. Druid dps while not tanking may still be the highest of the tank classes.

Druid mitigation is so high in Naxxramas that we're worried they may overshadow the other tanks, in which case we might have to change it.

So if you want to make an argument about Feral shortcomings, you'd either have to argue that they won't continue to be great in several raid tiers (which is a valid concern, but one that all the tanks have) or that you don't like their abilities. On that front, we have attempted to juice up several of the Feral's existing abilities, including changes to Frenzied Regeneration, Bash, Barkskin and Faerie Fire, as well as offering a new survival ability and a new burst threat ability, and finally letting you benefit from both consumables and weapon enchants.

You might still argue that the druid abilities are different enough from warrior abilities that it may present a problem, though we'd like to avoid pushing them any closer together if we can help it.

As it stands right now though, we have a lot of confidence that bears are going to be excellent tanks. (Source)

Feral Q&A
I have confidence too, what about Cat DPS? Are you balancing the "tank capable" classes in a category by themselves, or will they have equal DPS to everyone else as per other posts and such?
Cat dps is looking good at the moment. If you get +dps gear and focus on the +dps talents, your dps should be very competitive.

Feral and balance PvP is much more problematic than PvE at this point...
I'm not trying to duck PvP issues, but it has so many different issues and is very sensitive to the numbers on a few specific abilities and to player skill. It is much harder to do PvP tests and determine if things are okay. I will say on the Feral front, we are looking at buffing Rake and Mangle for cats to make up for the positional requirement of Shred.

It seems as though the Druid forums are the only one of the forums in which "HIGH THREAT AOE ABILITY" isn't touted as part of their multi-target ability. Is Swipe going to have the same additional threat modifier as Death and Decay, Thunder Clap and Consecrate?
Making an ability "causes high threat" is a last resort. It's wonky and tends not to scale as well as damage. Sometimes it's the only option we have to keep a tanking ability useful without turning it into the best damage ability available. In our last tests, Swipe's threat per second was very competitive with what paladins could dish out. We don't think at the moment that it needs more +threat to do its job.

Also, please consider the effect on creating Armor pieces in so many slots. Like you said, there's going to be an issue with Mitigation, but also consider that Avoidance is going to be lower because we can't benefit from Parry or split our avoidance between Parry and Dodge to stave off diminishing returns.
Yes, that is the risk. I will say that in Naxx, the bears are just taking less damage overall, which means even with lower avoidance, the huge amount of armor makes up for it, ignoring the fact that druid health also gives them a huge cushion for when they do take a lot of damage at once.

We have done tests at higher tier levels, but if things start to fall apart, we hope to be able to right them in a timely fashion. Remember, it wasn't a stated goal for druids to be able to tank Sunwell. It is now. (Source)
[/blizzard]

[Rocknlock]

Well when on my druid in ptr yesterday, I noticed my health did increase (21k with the last stand type ability), but my armor dropped from 15k to 10k. I assume they're going to be making leather gear specificly for druid tanking (high armor/hp rates) then?

[Arcdelad]

your armor shouldnt drop...they arent changing the bear form bonuses....maybe you specced funny? forgot thick hide? survival of the fittest?