Feral Druid Patch / WOTLK Thread

[Shadowwolf]

...but the fact that we can shift to cat form and gain a whole different set of abilities, or try healing, or have things like innervate, barkskin, FF, etc etc to me easily bridge the gap...we are also getting a ton of new abilities...

That little bonus is somewhat getting nerfed too tho. Since they are making you go more towards either cat or bear it wont be as easily viable for you to shift into cat form and bump out high DPS numbers anymore Im guessing. Sucks in a way but balances the playing field more since prot cant do it and Pally's definitely cant do it. Again, not sure on DKs though as that whole 2h tanking thing with them is still a bit of a mystery to me and beta is too congested for me to even want to try DK tanking right now.

Plus you cant even use that healing thing with me mr "im OOM" after 5 decurses in ZA =)

[JohnnieRat]

Itemizing for druid tanking is going to be a kindergarten level task now... it haz stamz and doge?! OKZ!

Ask Ty and Kay about itemizing for tanking

[Arcdelad]

LOL...shadow...I would love to see you tank adds, then pop out for decurses and stuff when you are wearing all rogue gear with zero INT on it hehehehe...I have, though, in a kara setting MT'ed for most of it, dpsed for a lot, then put on healing gear and healed for boss fights - all within the span of the same run....

we are definitely not going to be able to be a 25 man raid MT, then change gear and be top 3 dps anymore....but I think thats a fair change...still though, in a raid setting the build difference between a bear and a cat build means we will still be WAY higher dps than a prot warrior (even with 8k shield slams) or a prot pally, and quite likely a prot DK...honestly in the build I have for my bear form i am looking at not getting the new attack speed, movement debuff stacker onto mangle, and then not putting points into 15% extra damage on ferocious bite.....this means I use rip instead of FB /shrug....

i love bear tanking...its a lot of fun - and i think is only more fun now with swipeathon, watching my health jump up to 30k for 30 seconds, gaining rage when I dodge (meaning I COULD tank normal mode instances and such now lol), and hitting my red rocket ability for more mmmph....good times ahead!

some people like bear tanks, some people like pally's, some people like warriors , etc - if blizz is doing anything right, its that now we can pick the style we like best and not be penalized becuase that fits who we are the best...

as per itemizing...its not QUITE that simple JR LOL

you have to balance out:
AGI (for ap, dodge and crit)
armor (for bear form multiplier)
STA (for bear form multiplier)
+DODGE
+DEF / +RES (have to remain crit immune)
+EXPERTISE (have to hit things to get aggro)

..and other stats....ALL while only getting offered rogue gear and poorly designed druid gear...

[Vengeance]

I cant find the post now, but I think I saw a blue post saying druids were not intended to hit the armor cap, or some such.
And yeah arc, our itemization is pretty bad now...without intel we'll do pretty bad in pvp yet again (imp lotp will help a lot though). A quote from Toskk-

Agility - Our level 70 conversions for Agility-to-Crit and Agility-to-Dodge have both been nerfed, although we have been given ~5% more base Dodge and Crit as consolation. We currently have exact numbers for the Agility-to-Crit change.. we are even with Rogues there. We don't currently have numbers for our new Agility-to-Dodge ratio, but it may or may not be reduced to the level of the other tanking classes. For PvE dps, the change is meaning that Strength will take the front spot as our best dps stat, up until somewhere around 9000 AP (it depends on a whole lot of factors). Agility and the item-budget equivalent 2 AP are very nearly equal in relative value.

[JohnnieRat]

Thought druids were crit immune come patch time just from talents alone?

[Arcdelad]

Ah well...fair is fair...

[blizzard]Upcoming Feral nerf
However, we are probably going to have to nerf bears. If we don't, they will be the only MT choice for serious guilds. At the moment, bears in decent gear take less damage, have more health and generate more threat than the other 3 classes by a wide enough margin that we think it's a problem. This is even true on bosses that do a lot of magic damage (like Malygos).

I use the word "nerf" because players use it, and I don't want to hind behind euphamisms. But changing the numbers doesn't have to mean nerfing you into the ground. We just don't want you to dominate. I'm sure you'd feel the same way if Protection paladins were just head and shoulders above the other tanks.

We understand that some Ferals felt they were nerfed in BC either prematurely or in such a way that kept them steadily behind other tanks. (Though Sunwell Radiance was largely for bears.) We will try to make intelligent changes so that you're still out there tanking the Lich King himself. We want you to be about as good as warriors, paladins and death knights, not way above or below them. (Source)[/blizzard]

[Arcdelad]

[blizzard]Feral abilities
With regard to abilities, we have been torn between giving bears (and cats) more unique abilities versus giving them tanking abilities that many players considered "core." We could have certainly come up with something more original than Last Stand for bears, but at the time, a lot of bears were comparing laundry lists of buttons and said bears wouln't be invited to raids because they didn't have an oh snap button like Last Stand. We put that functionality in Berserk, then later backed off of that so that we could make Berserk a more fun button to push as bear. (Source)

Typhoon
I'm not aware of any changes to Typhoon's damage. If you're just talking about Rank 5, we had to just temporarily yank it to make sure it was becoming untrained -- despite the last hotfix, druids were still ending up with it when we added the rank back in. We should be able to add it back next patch.

Also understand that if it hadn't been abused so much that we wouldn't have had to yank it. It's not terribly fair or helpful to complain about not having access to the ability when it was being used to overpower bosses and other players to such extremes. While the bug was ours (mine in all likelihood), we're not going to be able to get back all of those busted battles, yanno? (Source)

Predatory Instincts reducing AoE Damage by 30% instead of 15%
Predatory Instincts is a huge nerf. You just haven't seen it yet. It only works in cat form.

I hinted that this might happen before, but as it was, a druid was going to be the only tank people took for dragons like Malygos. That would have been particularly true for any encounter that was supposed to be a resist fight, because the druid could skip a lot of the resist gear. Your health pool should still make sure you handle those fights sufficiently. (Source)

Treants
The Treant health appears to be too low. They aren't updating correctly from your Stamina or level or something. We'll get it fixed. (Source)
[/blizzard]

[Tolwen]

[blizzard]Customization options
New art for forms, customization per form, and even the possibility of showing some gear in a form is all stuff we are talking about. When we have a firm plan we're ready to unveil, I'm sure you'll hear about it. (Source)

Feral Q&A (Source)
1. Feral Mana Pools are very limited, is there a planned fix for this?
en you're in a form feels like it's enough to let you occasionally use that mana for something. We think you will probably still go dry quickly if you're healing a lot (which ultimately isn't something we want Feral to do a lot) or if you're chain shapeshifting (which is also something we don't want you ideally doing a lot, but recognize sometimes you need to -- dealing with a Frost mage perhaps.)

2. Protector of the Pack limitation mechanic - not very fun, what was the thinking behind this and can the limitation be removed?
I've avoided this debate for a long time because it seems to really, really upset people that they can't do something they really, really want to do in a very niche case. Bear isn't designed to be something you run around solo to kill things in, and even if you want to do so anyway, your damage reduction shouldn't be a big deal. It's designed as a tanking talent and "solo tanking" is sort of nonsensical. Bear itself works fine without it, and in fact you can even tank just fine without it as long as you aren't doing progression raiding. (If it affected your dps or something, I'd be a lot more convinced.)

3. Feral talent point usage in resto tree, means we have to focus too many points on a non-feral tree, also very difficult to get all the "tanking" talents offered, no room for pvp choices in a tanking build - is this intended?
We designed the new Feral tree with Omen as a trade-off. If we ever moved Omen around, we would also juggle Feral talents. We don't want you to be able to get all Feral talents and OoC. You can be a good bear, good cat, get good PvP talents or get Omen. But you can't do it all with one build.

4. Swipe / Thorns combo (360') Aoe. Is it possible to get a 360' upgrade to our bear form aoe ability?
We don't think too many druids are having trouble using Swipe in its new form. A little difference among class abilities that are otherwise very similar is probably good for the game.

5. Feral Itemization issue 1: Too much Armor on some earlier tanking weapons compared to 25 man naxx gear is this intended?
Do you mean you're going to keep using the older weapon instead of the Naxx bear staff?

6. Feral Itemization issue 2: Not enough "Armor" trinkets in game making them invaluable to druids, basically once you have these trinkets you will not grab anything else unless you reach armor cap. - Can more armor trinkets be added, with different usage stats?
My suspicion is you are still over-valuing armor compared to other defensive stats. I realize you don't want block or parry but that doesn't mean it's armor or nothing.

7. Feral Itemization issue 3: Tanking gear - PVP gear seems to be better for tanking, more stam, why is this the case?
PvP gear pays a lot more of its item budget on resilience than it did in BC so you're going to be giving up something else (like Agi) to use it. Also make sure you are comparing PvP gear to PvE gear of the same item level.

8. Kitty AOE - Kitty form basically has no aoe ability, which limits damage output in multiple mob situations - we would have to switch to bear / caster which would mean taking a chance on pulling aggro or doing minimal damage with hurricane. Are there plans to add kitty form aoe?
Hurricane and Swipe do pretty good AE, certainly better than rogues have (on which cat was modeled).

9. Cat charge being linked to Bear charge. - Why is this the intended mechanic for these two attacks?
We think this would encourage quickly shifting from one form to another, which is something we have actually taken pains to discourage (RIP powershifting).

10. Berserk - The current version of Berserk feels weak now that the immunity to all snares has been removed, and its cooldown is too long. - Is there any way the snares functionality of berserk can be restored?
We thought it was too good if it broke all snares and granted such a great dps increase.

11. Savage Roar - Is it possible to have it persist through shifting?
Same answer. We don't want to add anything else to the class that encourages you to say go cat, use an ability, then go back to bear. Changing forms is cool. Changing forms to buff yourself in one form then going to another isn't what we're going for. If you're a cat and shift to humanoid to heal or decurse or bear to survive when being attacked -- that's cool and what the Feral design is all about. It's when you start to chain several shifts together that we get uncomfortable.

I use cat in short bursts when I feel like the opportunity to survive is there, but this seems to indicate you want people staying in cat OR bear for extended periods.
No, that's not exactly it. Using cat in short bursts is awesome. Shifting out of feral to Innervate or Rebirth is cool, even if you immediately go feral again. Where it starts to cross the line is being a bear, going cat to hit a button, then going back to bear to benefit from the cat button. Doing feral charge bear, shifting and doing feral charge cat is not what we want. Anything that starts to feel like the old powershifting (changing just to generate mana) is what we're trying to avoid.

If it helps, think about it this way: shifting once in a small window is cool. Shifting several times in a small window is less cool. (Source)

Infected Wound
Infected Wounds is a disease, so it can fail, which shows up as a miss in combat logs. Stacking hit should fix the problem if it seems to happen a lot. Poisons have the same issue. (Source)
[/blizzard]

[Arcdelad]

I agree with the gist of this post...although, again, blizzard is delusional about their trees...they think they have made it so you MUST go bear or cat at the expense of the other, but i am bear specced and still putting up very competitive dps....they think ooc in the resto tree is a deterrent...they are wrong there too =) you can still get both...

i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see druid graphic customization...it is so crappy that I am sitting with 4700 AP in epixxxxxxx, yet there is zero difference graphically between me and a level 20 druid with 46 AP lol they have stated they want to do something and that the druid epic flight form is the start of how the "looks" are going to be, but also that its not the very top priority they have (ret pallies still need about 5 shades of nerf)

[JohnnieRat]

The druid crying nerf... thats just lol

[Arcdelad]

Druids are the officially blizzard sanctioned OP class.

[JohnnieRat]

Well someone had to remove that title from locks
although, Arcane mages have been giving me the most frustration as of late. They insta steal Freedom when I get out of slow and Cleansing it still gives that half second of being slowed and then just arcane barrage spam us to death. God help them if I get to melee range though.

[Tolwen]

[blizzard]ARMOR
We are changing the way bear armor works so that bonus armor on items does not receive the bear armor multiplier. Specifically this means that trinkets, rings, necks and cloaks with bonus armor will not be multiplied by the bear bonus. The normal armor on leather will still be multiplied by this bonus. We are also going to remove bonus armor from Feral staves. You’ll get your bonus armor from the leather you acquire.

Examples:
1) A ring that grants 100 bonus armor will now grant a bear 100 armor (not ~470 armor).
2) Leather legs with 253 armor will still grant a bear ~1190 armor (not 253 armor).
3) A feral staff will now grant 0 armor.

We are making this change because armor is such a good stat for bears that it makes taking pieces with bonus armor a non-decision and we don’t want acquiring these pieces, which tend to not be common, to be so much of a barrier to a druid who wants to tank a raid.

This change will NOT be in effect when Lich King ships. We are letting you know this now so that you don’t go through heroic efforts to acquire items like the Badge of Tenacity, or Defender’s Code. Defender’s Code, with 850 armor, will still be a good trinket. But it won’t be an insanely good trinket for a bear.

We will adjust the bear armor modifiers so that your net mitigation does NOT go down with these changes. Let me repeat: this is not a nerf to Feral armor. It is a change to the amount of armor you get from gear with bonus armor.

MANA
We are adding an effect to a deep Feral talent (something like Primal Tenacity) to further reduce the cost of shapeshifting into cat or bear by 50%. This talent will stack with Natural Shapeshifter for a total cost reduction of 80%. PvP-focused druids can get both talents to shift easily and often despite, no longer having Int on gear at level 80.

PROTECTOR OF THE PACK
We are removing the group requirements from this talent. The new tooltip will say: “Increases your attack power by X and reduces the damage you take in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by Y.” The values of X and Y themselves are not changing.

Again, these changes will NOT be in Nov 13 for Lich King’s launch. We will add them in a patch that will come out sometime before the major Ulduar content patch. We're letting you know now so that you can choose quest rewards and loot drops accordingly. [/blizzard]
From GC

[Tolwen]

I don't 100% understand this, didn't we always get bonus armor from leather we got? if that's the case then why isn't this a nerf?

[Shadowwolf]

Its not a nerf because of the other changes they made to feral tanking with dodge and whatnot. Its to keep you on par with other tank classes so that you dont become a preferred class with stacking +armor items once you hit your def and other stat caps. Because of how armor scaling works for tanking druids now, it makes it a slight advantage over other tank classes because you can easily hit and surpass 30k armor while other tanks cant unless they are in full Sunwell gear and even then they likely come up short. The armor bonus allows the hits you take to be less impacting and so to avoid druids becoming the preferred tank class like Pallys were when BC hit, thats likely why they changed this. You'll still get the armor bonus % off your leather gear but rings, staffs, trinkets, will all grant the finite amount the same as it does for other tanks.