Hello Blizzard.
We are now a day away from the TBC Classic pre-patch, and understandably it has been quite a busy time for your classic dev team I imagine.
The feral community has been in a bit of an outcry about the power-shifting change that has been a consequence of the energy change. As I’m sure your community staff members that observed the various class discords may have noticed, the current rotation involves a very awkward “Hang out in caster forms for .4 seconds”, that quite honestly doesn’t really… feel good.
Would we be able to receive some clarification as to if this is on purpose and you intend to stand-by this unfortunate change to a core-game play mechanic of the feral player base?
Or would we possibly be able to have a revert of the energy system? Perhaps specifically for Feral druids? (Bake the energy change into mangle if you REALLY need to ensure that only feral druids have access to this talent?)
Asking because as evident by the changes to retribution paladin, we see some interest on blizzards part to maintaining gameplay for the more nicher specs when it doesnt compromise the integrity of the game. (Seal of Blood, Seal Twisting)
Thank you for your time.
64 Likes
NP Paleskined, and don’t worry, no harm in asking!
In TBC, with the patch they are deciding to go with, energy is granted to you based on how long youve been in caster form, as opposed to right now, where energy is granted based on “ticks”.
Currently right now, you wear forors helm, and the goal is to shift right as the energy tick occurs, dump your energy, and shift out!
With the new change, the goal is to Shred, Shift out, wait .4 seconds, then shift back in… Creating a very weird, awkward play style. This is also BAD for the warriors and rogues, because they will have periods where their feral friend isn’t in cat form. that means constant .4 periods of no 5% crit!!!
6 Likes
See this reference for a description of how the tick system was changed:
TLDR: Blizzard please just give us the same energy refund on an instantaneous powershift that we currently get on beta by standing awkwardly in caster form.
8 Likes
100% agree, in OG classic feral was a vastly underperforming dps, which has lead our theroy crafting community to get creative, and in that have made massive strides beyond any other spec, to the point where a lvl 40 helmet and a lvl 29 weapon that requires to be farmed heavily to even become a viable raiding spec compared to warriors mages and rogues.
Blizzard you have forced us ferals to think beyond and i would assume you are proud that we could come up with something like this that im sure is something you never expected, you try to apply changes but becausw this type of play was not apparent in OG classic, you are unaware of the damage it casuses to us, we would hope if you cant find a reasonable fix that you revert our energy changes back to the way that energy ticks do not reset on shift and that there is no partial energy, at the very least we want classic shifting back.
Not only do we lose leader of the pack uptime for our group but also suseptable to mana burns and anything that may kill us like razuvious’s shout, this is not good gameplay we need an awnser that helps us do well not one that hinders our abilities
7 Likes
just really wish we could get some clarification as to where blizzard stands on this. I know the chance of an actual blue responder is extremely unlikely, but we are stuck deaf here 
8 Likes
Leave it to blizzard to completely ruin a spec 2 weeks before launch. .
5 Likes
Thank you for calling this out. When applying a “some changes” philosophy to the game, surely Blizzard will revert these changes to ensure feral druids have a fun and engaging playstyle.
2 Likes
Would appreciate any clarification that can be offered. If this is to be the new normal, then we’ll adapt and overcome, but if this change is merely a side-effect of the evocate/innervate tick change then it would be good to know that “something” is in the works to make this right.
3 Likes
Hello Blizzard.
The change you posted to servers last night has left the feral community pretty shaken. Would we be able to expect some clarity from a blue member?
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They’ll fix it around sunwell and claim it as a victory
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Leave it to blizzard to scuff a system while trying to fix a system… Please fix this blizzard, and don’t mess anything else up in the process
3 Likes
I have to agree. Even as someone who primarily tanks as a feral druid in classic this energy tick affects us as well. I think most are against this because the change isn’t even directly aimed at feral druids. It feels more like we were caught in the cross fire of this change more than anything. Please give the feral community the same love and care you give to the more popular classes and give us a reply on this please.
1 Like
Please, we desperately need some feed back blizzard!
A power shifting issue akin to this one where you essentially lost a full 2 secs because your energy ticks reset upon shifting cropped up on the forums a few months ago.
Is this the same issue?
In either case it’s very distressing to hear that power-shifting has essentially been given a straight nerf and is not working in the same way it has all of Classic. Especially considering it appears to be a completely unintended consequence of another change.
To anybody that was going to chime in and say “good I don’t like power-shifting,” it’s almost certainly still going to be the standard. Getting 60 energy from a GCD or pausing your shift is still better than waiting 4-6 seconds. This may as well be a blanket nerf to feral dps.
2 Likes
Would definitely appreciate a comment from Blizzard on this. Seems very strange from them to cherry pick giving Paladins additional seals and twisting but then to nerf cats.
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Patch 2.2: Power Regeneration: Any effect which triggers a change in your rate of power regeneration (Mana, Rage, Energy, Focus) will now cause an immediate reward of some power at the old rate of increase, and then begin new “ticks” of power at the new rate approximately 2 seconds later. This was done to improve functionality of abilities such as Evocation and Innervate so that they did not have wasted “ticks”.
My question is, how did this ever affect cat energy ticks? How does shifting into cat “change the rate of energy gain”? In current form, it only serves TO WASTE TICKS for cats. Blizzard, please respond.
4 Likes
Hey. The community still hasnt received an update on this subject, and we’re getting restless. Please blizzard, is this a change you guys intend to stand by ?
3 Likes
Even just some thoughts on future plans, or lack thereof would be appreciated. Pre-patch is a great time to reroll for folks on the fence.
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Yes, please Blizzard just give us a small post about your thoughts on this.
2 Likes
In original 2.2, it affected ticks exactly as it does currently in the pre-patch / beta. But I agree with you, the resetting of ticks doesn’t match the intention of the 2.2 system, which is to only reset ticks when the regen rate actually changes, which it doesn’t when you powershift. So this is a perfect candidate for #somechanges to preserve the intent of the 2.2 system rather than the exact implementation.
2 Likes