I can agree with. It would be nice. But with 24 DPS specs…and some getting to reign on top for longer than others, it’s going to take a bit for Feral to get their turn. But we did start off TREMENDOUSLY better than where we were in the majority of BfA. We’re headed in the right direction.
And that’s the biggest issue. We’ve already got a DPS spec in a meta slot. We don’t see 2 rogues in the meta, we don’t see 2 Mages fighting for the same spot, nor 2 warriors. It’s only ever 1.
And that’s taken by Balance this go round. Although Ferals are holding their own in 2s and Raids fairly well.
And that’s the same with multiple other specs as well. And as I mentioned, we’re sitting in a better spot than them all the way around. Even though I don’t play them, I’d rather see them elevated and more desirable so they don’t become the Ferals of BfA, before taking us from an A- to an A, so to speak.
No it does not. Boomkin can disarm, and has the exact same cool downs. It is far better in sustain then feral, largely due to disarm which is a major counter to most things that are lethal to bears. On top of that, they can room beam to counter caster damage, which means not only can they stop a rogue and wings (with conditions) they can also stop caster burst (like combust), while having the potential to deal large amounts of damage (like convoke) when things like sac are up.
boomkin is by far, superior to feral in pvp, and pve.
anyone with a brain can see that expansion after expansion people taking them as the primary damage class, and rejecting feral can recognize the horrible state feral is in. Yes its better then it was before, but not by more then 5-10%.
No, there generally is not. When there was, it was when bite did 15% health reduction in the first bite, and it was only by players who knew how good it was (in pvp). That was probably when feral was at its peak.
Try to keep up. We’re discussing the melee slot. Not comparing Feral to everything out there. It’s already been beaten to death that Balance > Feral, and that’s not what this is about
Mages bring time wrap, sheep, spell steal, range interupt, and buff to int. MM hunter bring lush with their pet, tar tarp, range interrupted, Shadow priest have mass dispelled, buff to stamina, range interrupt , that spell that grab someone to where they are.
Trees and Innervate being accessible by feral wouldn’t change the meta but it would certainly fix a lot of the glaring disparity.
Personally I think at least one of those being baseline would be nice.
I’d love to see feral specific utility though. For mythic plus, Shroud (pass without trace) or a strong external (thorns). For raiding, a short duration roar that boosts crit chance.
A party wide leech buff would be kind of cool and probably feel good without being mandatory.
Engineering also brings a brez so…utility replaced by profession lol.
Feral does need something for AoE burst, while yes we can do consistent damage with bleeds it isn’t even close to the other classes mentioned. Now if they buffed bleed damage by 10-15% flat that would help and atleast sync better with circle of life and death legendary.
Like others have said it seems feral does okay in M+ but with so many classes absolutely destroying M+ - just being okay doesn’t feel great.
your right, feral could use a small burst aoe buff, your suggesting they over power the crap out of them though in aoe while remaining one of the strongest single target specs. im all for buffs but we still need some balance.
your right but balance is a pretty clear fotm right now and odds of it getting nerfed is prob higher then any other spec in the game. Balance is enjoying the best of everything right now and shouldn’t expect it to last.
Hmm… I would rather expect this change
Primal Wrath changed to skill
Moonfire can be used in cat state, but no combo points bonus
Astral Influence under Balance Affinity is replaced with Force of Nature
Smoothly removing the Acrobatic Strikes of Outlaw Rogue
That doesn’t solve the main reason Feral has problems with getting invited to M+ groups (representation at the very top end is a different thing).
Most people who play WoW are bad at it. Even people who are clearing 14, 15, etc. keys. If you’re grabbing randoms to join your group, the classes that are well represented are classes that can be played by people who are bad at the game while still providing a high level of throughput – classes that have very high floors, vs. very low floors.
Feral is, has been, and will continue to be a class with a very low skill floor. This is not the same as saying that Feral has a high skill cap, to be clear: what I’m saying is specifically that a person who is bad at Feral druid will have a much lower throughput and bring much less to the group than a player of the same caliber on a BM hunter or Balance druid, or other high skill floor classes.
The solution to this is to come up with a better way to gauge player ability and/or to stop pugging M+ keys.
If your problem is representation in the high end, then you run into the major conceptual problem with M+: there are 3 DPS spots, and every class can do DPS. If you aren’t one of those three, you have to have a huge standout to ever get invited, and if you’re talking about pugging that standout is just ‘utility’ or some other vague nonsense people invent nowadays.
TBH, I’d be ok with this if our dungeon dps, when executed perfectly, was even comparable to the half dozen or so better options. So, yeah, feral is doubly punished by being harder to play AND having lower numbers (at least for m+, as this is not a ST issue for the time being).
Interestingly, while reading about arcane mage, someone pointed out that in the past, Bliz had intentionally kept “complex” or “problematic” specs undertuned, so as to discourage players from using them. Not saying this is necessarily the case for feral, given its raid viability, but it does seem that Bliz seems content to only allow for a few viable specs in each aspect of the game rather than attempt to balance them all. This is not as much of a problem for pure DPS classes, but for hybrids who prefer a specific role, they are often screwed.
Ironically, this makes hybrid classes more restricted than pure ones, because the flexibility of being able to choose your role is frequently negated by lack of viability for specific content. For instance, if you’re a rogue you will nearly always have a competitive melee dps spec for all content, but if you’re a hybrid who prefers melee dps you will nearly always NOT have a competitive melee dps spec for all content.
Rather than taking time to balance each spec for all content, it seems Bliz opts to cut corners by creating only a handful of viable options. It’s a lazy design philosophy, and had I not been so naive, had known this over a decade ago, I would have never invested so much time into any hybrid class.
Obviously BZ is artificial and deliberate
Does not intend to make any adjustments
Every time we adjust, we will not see the direction we expect
On the contrary, they are deliberately ignored
Some seem to be very stupid and stupid talent design, they also know
But BZ just doesn’t want to change
Always make changes to those specific professions
To be honest, Feral and Guardian parted ways in version 6.0, so they should focus more on status and specialization.
Rather than this mixed and broken Affinity design, it’s silly
In all seriousness, I see a lot of people complaining about this, quickly followed by wanting a 3min CD made into a shorter one. That would only make the problem worse, with how balancing works.
Here’s how it generally works:
If you have a powerful dps ability on a 2min CD or less, your specs sustain dps (outside of CD’s) is very likely to be bad. It has to be, or it’d be totally imbalanced.
If you have a long CD ability like a 3min one, your specs sustain dps (outside of CD’s) is more likely to be good. It has to be, it’d be imbalanced to do poor sustain for the long time inbetween.
You can’t have both a very powerful short CD ability, and good sustain outside of CD’s. So pick which you prefer.
While it can be very annoying having 3min CD’s, I generally prefer specs setup that way. I don’t enjoy only being allowed to do damage during CD’s like specs like fire or ret.