The Shred changes on the PTR are nice (the new Aspect (SEE BELOW) and the Temper being changed to something useful), but Shred will still not compete in the end-game without further changes. It just does not scale enough compared to all the Nature Magic builds. Here are some changes which would help greatly:
Toxic Claws
Currently this Passive is about 5 times weaker than other Druid passives, and is only taken to proc poison for Envenom, Slow and Paragon nodes (using a single point). Changing this from ‘Base’ damage to Final damage, and then scaling it down if necessary, would both buff this skill and give it scaling with Critical Damage.
Grizzly Rage
This has received some buffs in the PTR, but still has some very serious downsides. Firstly, it has FOUR (!) legendary aspects, all which need offensive slots (which Druids are always starved for). By merging the two generic ones into the ability, more people will be able to use this skill, whereas currently it is impossible for Werewolves to do so. Secondly, the cooldown starting after the skill ends should be reverted. Grizzly Rage is not strong enough, nor does it apply immunity, so why was it given this treatment?
Lacerate
No one uses this, except the odd Companion druid looking to film an uber kill. The skill does no damage, is annoying to maintain (it also eats 3 seconds of its buff, doing its zero damage dance), and in no way competes with the other Ultimate skills. It needs another rework, or at least a way for Shred to lower its cooldown.
Lupine Ferocity
This needs to be completely changed so that it does not get worse the more critical strike chance you have, and so that it properly interacts with Shred.
Stormclaw Aspect
This currently adds Lightning damage to Shred, but does not benefit from Nature Damage scaling. If this added the ‘Storm’ and ‘Nature Magic’ tags to Shred, a lot of the end-game scaling issues would be fixed. This would also give Shred access to the Nature Magic Spirit Boons.
Aspect of the Blurred Beast
This aspect needs to be changed, as the negatives of the horrible ‘retreat and dash’ playstyle severely outweigh the increased damage, especially on single targets. Having it interact with the Werewolf poison abilities and passives, and add the ‘Poison’ tag to Shred, would be much better.
Waxing Gibbous
This Shred-specific unique is not currently used, even by Shred diehards, mainly because both Toxic Claws and its unique power are too weak. The Toxic Claws change above would fix one issue, and buffing the unique power to also somehow empower Shred would fix the other. Something like ‘and your Shred also deals x30% more critical strike damage during this window’, some cooldown reduction on Blood Howl, or making Shred cost nothing during the window.
Paragon
Lust for Carnage is incredibly outdated, and Shred druids actually do not even have 5 Legendary nodes which benefit them. Reworking Lust for Carnage and Constructing Tendrils, and making Heightened Malice work on single targets (bosses) would be a good start.
Shred is by far my favourite build, but it has just fallen so far behind the others. I would love to see it competitive again, but this time not through bugs and buggy interactions.
EDIT:
THE NEW ASPECT DOES NOT DASH LIKE THE OTHER THREE HITS WHEN PRIMAL SHRED IS SELECTED. PLEASE FIX THIS, OR MAKE SHRED ALWAYS DASH AND CHANGE PRIMAL SHRED!
I tested shred as well and like the new changes. The skill tree seems to run out of things that help the build though, and some damage scaling would be beneficial as you said, either with poison or nature.
I have a VERY similar list I have been working on for this:
Rampaging werebeast is bugged since its only giving additive crit damage which is a huge loss of damage
Dire Wolf aspect while an offensive aspect gives no damage just resource cost reduction and movement speed - seems more utility than anything. - either add damage to this aspect or move it to a more fitting slot
The poison scaling with Werewolves is terrible so even with the new rabies aspect for grizzly rage the damage is quickly outclassed in WT3 and 4 without some SERIOUS grinding on your glyphs
Lust for Carnage should have a clause here to add multiplicative damage of some sort - maybe based on your crit damage - 2 spirit is by far one of the worst legendary nodes in the paragon boards
Heightened Malice while good in theory for overworld items it really should get a boss clause slapped on there since there is rare 3 monsters around to be poisoned and if they are its short lived.
The aspect where werebear does extra damage to poisoned and werewolves do extra damage to crowd-controlled - another issue where its almost useless against bosses most of the time - add a boss clause or adjust
Blurred beast - useless when bossing for the most part - change to put some sort of debuff after the dash maybe so it can have an effect against bosses as will almost always be useless in higher difficulties.- also only the weakest attack of shred with the poison upgrade dashes.
Toxic claw is pretty much useless no matter how many points you add into it, especially in late game.
inner beast legendary node - when playing hybrid - at the end when this refreshes and reduces the cooldown on the ultimate it should give a small damage buff for a short duration as well.
Lupine Ferocity - make this a damage multiplier on crits and gives you a crit every 5-10 seconds. - current way it works is so inconsistent (especially with the new aspect that gives 4 shred attack) and the crit strike bonus is nullified by waxing gibbous
Just need to hope blizzard do not see a Shred druid using the bugged Heir of Perdition to do 6 times the normal damage to a demon boss, and believe it is normal…
That is the truth thats its good that stuff is tested and discovered i try to keep my realms of testing in the realm of a zero mythic build myself. But heres hoping trying to get a list of all the things that are potentially needing work with shred and druid in general so i can make a feedback video at the end of the PTR. But hoping we can be heard and get some changes in place honestly cause at the end of the day i would be less worried about nerfing other class builds as getting the rest of the builds viable as those best in slot builds.
Well, they know the helm is bugged, but they still might think kills with it count, because they have done that crap before. I think Shred double dips with it as well, which makes it even worse for balance.
you are not wrong in saying this. Well all we can do is keep sending feedback and hope something gets done really hoping to see some of it before the expansion/season 6 launch and the idea of balancing around a mythic i think is an awful way for blizzard to think cause the majority of people will only have 1 mythic unless they are mega grinders.
Shred used to feel so smooth but lately it feels like moving in mud. Its ok for clearing the Pit mobs but single target feels awful. I tried a couple setups just didnt like anything.
yes we need Grizzly Rage back to it’s glory days… Season 0 was still the most fun I have ever had in this game with Warnado Druid and they nerffed it into the ground.
Well done for your effort!
I totally agree with your post.
My thought exactly : if they consider adding new tags on Shred the skill will be perform much better.
I like Waxing Gibbous but at current state is underwhelming + it is bugged on PTR.
Also even reaching 30+ to skill the damage is not enough
Hope Blizzard make some changes.
I am a bit worried that bliz will see Shred doing average with the ~600% increased damage Perdition bug and think it is fine. They have done it before.
Really hope that is not the case. Also they really should not have the mantra of balancing around mythic uniques in the first place. A build should be achievable with a mixture of uniques and aspects to be functional. Mythics are icing on the cake…
thats its good that stuff is tested and discovered i try to keep my realms of testing in the realm of a zero mythic build myself. But heres hoping trying to get a list of all the things that are potentially needing work with shred and druid in general so i can make a feedback video at the end of the PTR. But hoping we can be heard and get some changes in place honestly cause at the end of the day i would be less worried about nerfing other class builds as getting the rest of the builds viable as those best in slot builds.