How would yall liked feral gameplay to be like in pve or pvp or both? (Some ideas might looks OP but numbers can be tone.)
And how do you picture it to work with stats as well?
Maybe if we say it often blizz might look into it. (Key word “might”)
I would like for feral to be all about bleeding. 90% -100% of damage skill would apply a bleed either directly (shred/swipe a 2-3 sec bleed etc…) Or by a portion of our damage done like the arms warrior mastery sorta but on all abilities(on both senarios, bleed to white damage could be applied). The bleed would overlap in all scenario.
Haste would just make it tick faster,
Crit and Versatility boost direct damage so the portion of bleed will augment with it.
And mastery would work as the same way resto harmony works but as for bleeds( many people would like the same way as seen on the forum).
An exsanguinate ability would be awsome too.
My ideal Feral would also focus on bleeds. This is all just for playstyle preference, the numbers would need to be tweaked. Here is my wishlist:
Ferocious Bite turned into a powerful execute combo finisher that you can only use below 20% health and auto refreshes Rip, with possible early free procs to spice up the rotation.
Rip to be the primary single target combo spender, and work like Unstable Affliction from Legion. Shorter duration (8-10 seconds) and can stack to account for burst windows and crit streaks.
Primal Wrath to be baseline AE finisher. Should apply a unique DoT over say 4-5 seconds to avoid scaling and balance issues with Rip. Scales so its only more effective on AE (3+ targets).
Delete Swipe and make Brutal Slash baseline. I like the ability to pool AE charges for add burst and it just feels better to use than Swipe.
With the changes above, just delete the Level 90 talent row and rebuild with Azerite effects (gushing lacerations including primal wrath ticks, iron jaws and wild fleshrending would be good options). Iron jaws would have to proc off Rip instead of Bite obviously.
Make Heart of the Wild baseline and lets you cast affinity skills from cat form. Its a super long cooldown, it should be more useful for specs other than resto. With this going baseline, make another CC talent for this line, possibly an AE snare on thrash.
Level 30 talents - Wild Charge should be baseline. Renewal is an odd choice for this line so remove it. Would like to see Displacer Beast make a return, add more utility to Tiger Dash (immune to roots / snares while dashing, or a damage reduction), and Protection of Ashamane returned but on a longer cooldown (1 or 2 mins).
Level 75 Talents - I don’t think they will let Savage Roar be mainstream again, so just replace it with Blood Mist for occasional Berserk procs. Fits the theme of this line.
Anyway just my preferences / suggestions. Given the divide amongst Feral druids I am sure all the snapshot fans will hate it, but I don’t see them making that rewarding again.
I’d like to have two viable builds.
One with powerful bleeds, good for longer fights like raids.
The other more centered on a more explosive bursty damage based on bites and shreds for shorter fights.
We kind of have the middle ground now, where the bleeds arent super strong, but neither is the upfront damage.
You can slightly talent toward either side, but I would love a more definitive shift in the playstyle.
Short, smash faces kind of fights tend to be bad for dot/bleed specs, where long fights tend to be bad for bursty specs.
Then we could be more versatile as a spec in my eyes.
Just a dream of mine is all.
Personally, I would like to see feral be primarily bleed focused.
Optimal gameplay should be bleed maintenance.
To smooth out the problems that are tied with dot heavy specs, add a third finishing move. This move can consume a portion of bleeds currently on the target. Scale it based on combo points, and make it non linear. IE: 1 point consumes 25%, 2 points consumes 35, 3 consumes 50, 4 consumes 70, ECT ECT. Add in a baby bite component, so there are decision points where using this new finisher might be the best choice, instead of biting, if the mob is about to die, or you need to burn it.
Realistically, we won’t see bleed centric feral ever again, because PvP ruins everything PvE. If ferals primary damage was bleed based, you’d have people very unhappy about a full feral bleed stack being a guaranteed death sentence in PvP. Only one class can dispel bleeds, and bleeds go through armor.
There should be a continuum of burst–>middle ground–>sustained bleed depending on what talents are chosen.
One thing that i have loved about feral this season is that there is a pretty good middle spec and the borrowed power of essences and trinkets gives us some burst for dungeons. (If you think feral has no dungeon burst, I encourage you to do some keys tonight and open with a tiger’s fury, blood of the enemy, spines of drestegath, thrash, primal, swipe combo, and then probably use your SI to not die.)
If some of the dead talents were reworked into talents that support a viable bleed build that can get to within a few percentage points of assassination, that would be stellar.