It never ceases to fail, every time I come back to WoW people still complain about feral being mid to low tier and clunky. Why has nothing changed?
Please.
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Are you asking someone to explain the issues people have with feral Druid since you’ve been gone?
Or are you just trying to make a subtle point against the developers?
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Just making a point that nothing has changed in years and people have the same gripes. It’s a dev problem.
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Mmm. We’re right in the middle of the dps tier not low to mid. Most of the more advanced ferals are fighting the good fight with sheer numbers. Also having a paw in the world race should say at least something about us. I think we’re okay for a bit.
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Hasn’t blizzard fixed giving ferals access to utility that used to be boomkin only and made blood talons less mandatory?
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Feels fine to me. Obviously we aren’t pumping in keys like a DH or BM hunter but raids it feels good. Liquid is even running a feral in the world first race, like when does that ever happen?
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Fair enough from a DPS standpoint, im doing okay in numbers.
Maybe I should have clarified what I was talking about when i said low to mid tier.
Mechanically speaking, it feels clunky, some things off the top of my head:
- access to meaningful AOE because of a slow build
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You have to be prepped for it, when most classes don’t which is arguably ok, but it doesn’t feel great
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When you need to turn and burn it does becomes an issue
- BGs, a ton of my time i spend shifting back and forth trying to CC, or live through stuns (most times unsuccessfully lol… eek) whereas if I was playing my DH or Paladin I dont have two GCDs to do the same thing.
Im not sure what the fix is, maybe its time for a unique build/spend system that isn’t simplified rogue mechanics?
In theory, yes they did. In practice, no.
Feral druid is heavily point-capped in the class tree such that it’s impossible for us to take every piece of utility that balance druids can take. We have a mandatory 6 points that we have to spend to increase our DPS down the balance side of the tree whereas balance druid doesn’t gain a single point of damage from the physical side. Throw in the fact that there is only a single utility spell that requires investment deep into the physical side compared to 5 spells that require either the healing or balance side of the tree and it makes it even more difficult for feral to get the same level of utility of balance.
So with the exception of Solar Beam which is still balance only, feral can get access to any other druid utility even the things which historically have been balance or resto only. But balance druid can take all of that utility without having to give up damage, something feral does not have enough points to do.
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Primal Wrath is most certainly meaningful.
Not saying feral is amazing, but we’re pretty okay right now. No reason to buff us for a week or two, only to end up being nerfed into the ground for the rest of the xpac for being too OP like usually happens.
It’s not about numbers, its about removing clunkiness in the feral design.
I will agree with Primal wrath being very good, however you have to build for aoe which takes away from ST. I guess thats a sacrifice if you arent a DH 
This was one of the stated design goals for all DPS if memory serves.
Fortunately you can change your specs on the go, and can have a ton saved, so it’s not that hard (except in M+) to switch as needed.
To be fair you can go on any of the class forums and they’re all complaining that their class sucks. Even the ones at the top aren’t happy.
Nothing changes because everyone just wants a reason to be miserable and will complain about getting a free pizza.
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If feral doesn’t have mark of the wild, and if resto/boomie aren’t bad at those certain fights, do you think they will ever bring a feral?
When Liquid passed Tindral, I didn’t see a feral in the details meter at the top btw. there were 14 dps classes and feral didn’t show up in the top 8. Imagine if feral doesn’t have mark of the wild lollll
Liquid used 2 feral druids for much of their Tindral prog. Echo killed Tindral with 2 feral druids. I’m sorry but your take that feral is only in these fights because it’s the best of the bad druid options is verifiably wrong.
We also can’t make any real judgement about the usefulness of any spec until the guilds release their logs. The raw highest DPS isn’t the only thing that matters on fights as there can be multiple damage profiles, but that’s all you’ll get from details. Feral druid will absolutely shred on boss damage which is why they get brought to that fight (and why the druids play feral on the other ST fights), but they’ll get passed on damage meters by the specs that can quickly burst the roots.
That’s not true like at all. There are key talents that only benefit ST or AOE for sure, but a good 70% of the talents we take in PVE benefit both in some way.
I’m not sure why this is a bad thing. There are some design constraints with trying to create a balanced position for the covenant abilities in the class tree when every spec does a completely different thing. It’s the reason why each spec wanted very different covenants a lot of the time. By putting those abilities in the spec tree, it allows Blizzard to balance the position of each in the tree relative to the power of each spec.
The druid class capstones are certainly special and I wouldn’t necessarily mind if some of the covenant abilities were in those spots instead. But it’s simply not true to claim that every other class has incredible capstones in their class tree. I mean just take a look at the disaster that are the monk capstones…
That’s 100% true if you ever take a look at other dps spec’s spec talent design.
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It’s hard for me to understand why this can be a good thing. You think druid doesn’t have covenant abilities in the class tree because druid is too strong? Come on
There are other specs that also have clearly ST and AOE options. This isn’t unique to feral.
That is not even close to what I said. What I said was that each covenant ability carries a different value for each spec. There was not a single covenant ability that all 4 specs particularly wanted at any point in Shadowlands. If Blizzard throws a Covenant ability in the class tree, it would be impossible to be placed in a position of the tree where it is similar power level for all specs. This would create pathing nightmares as each spec gets something very different from the same position based on which covenant ability it is.
A rogue’s Echoing Reprimand and Flagellation both represent similar power for all rogue specs. It’s easy to find a balanced position in the tree for them as a result. There’s no way to put Adaptive Swarm in a spot on the class tree where it represents similar power across the board. Balance and guardian druids will never touch it, resto druid will take it in M+ but not raid, and feral druid will take it every time in raid but never in M+.
To be clear, this could be an indictment of the druid covenant abilities. You won’t find me arguing that it’s a good thing that druid has this massive dichotomy among the covenant abilities. But given what the abilities are, trying to make them fit in the class tree simply because most (if not) all other classes have one or more covenant abilities there would create some major problems.
Not being unique doesn’t mean it’s correct. Trash that is not unique is still trash. There’re classes that does both with few talent changes, why not mention them?
If you are a dev, then I would consider this an excuse for the laziness of designing the druid class talents. Druid is one of the classes for which all specs share the same tree, while most other classes have slightly different class talents for each spec. Even if what you said is true, convoke is still a covenant ability that all specs benefit from. So why not put convoke there?
Are you able to find another spec that needs to invest 4 completely useless points (starfire, sunfire, ironfur, and moonkin form)? And as a non-healer, has to take 2 trash pre-requisite points just to get cleanse? In this case, as a feral, one has to take 6 completely useless points out of 30 overall class talent points. Isn’t that obvious enough?
I never disputed this. You called feral out at unique in this respect when it isn’t. I never said feral wouldn’t be better if this limitation didn’t exist.
Again, this is unrelated to what I’ve said. The druid class talent tree is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the game. You aren’t seeing me say anything different.
I’ve already answered this multiple times. Convoke doesn’t mean the same to each spec. Guardian and balance don’t particularly care for it, feral has some burst situations where it’s useful, and resto makes pretty liberal use of it. The difference in the relative strength of Convoke (and Adaptive Swarm) means it can be placed in a different spot for each spec to correspond to its power level. The same thing goes for an ability like Circle of Life and Death. Being in the spec tree gives the designers higher flexibility.
Why do you think it’s so important for covenant abilities to be in the class tree, anyway? The class talents are crap for sure, but moving the covenant ability into those positions without knowing what will go in its place in the spec tree isn’t guaranteed to be better. The class tree would gain the relative strength problem I’ve been talking about despite not gaining any clear benefit.
I really don’t know why you think I’ve even remotely articulated satisfaction with the druid and especially feral trees. They are some of the most incomplete and nonsensical trees in the game. I’ve criticized them heavily.
But there are things you’ve said previously that are simply inaccurate to try to make the problems are different or seem even worse than they are. Feral having 6 forced points down the balance wing to get Astral Influence and Rising Light, Falling Night is criminal. Like I said, I’m not defending the tree. But even despite the shortcomings, feral had multiple copies from one of the best guilds in the world on one of the hardest bosses we’ve ever seen. I’m happy to discuss the actual problems that exist, but people who intentionally misrepresent something that’s already bad as being even worse by making things up do not make for good arguments.
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