God I wish the entire mechanic for Massive Attack wasn’t tied to Maul.
I hate, no, ABHOR Maul.
Yes, I too, hate to do damage as well as build an absorb shield with excess Rage and procs
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Isn’t Maul the core offensive rage dump of Guardian now? I could understand this post a few expansions ago when it didn’t hit hard enough to be worth it, but Mail has received quite a lot of talent support now to the point where not using it is objectively foolish. Similar to Marksman refusing to use Aimed Shot for… reasons.
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I feel like you are arguing with someone else, assuming that it is me. I would call it a strawman argument, but that might not be understood either.
I’m sure it is a waste of time, given your previous posts, but for someone that might actually bother reading…
Catweaving was fine, I did it in TBC and WOTLK when the vast majority of players were still infants here. The spec has moved well beyond that. What you are asking for requires 1 of 2 things, neither of which any REASONABLE person expects blizzard to do:
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Add way more cat utility options that bear can pick up and use while in cat form to make the concept of shifting worthwhile. This would require adding WAY more options that an actual CAT can do in a M+ setting, because frankly, right now, there isn’t alot that a cat can offer that any other druid doesn’t. This is an issue with cat (and one that likely deserves work, but hasn’t happened). As it stands, right now, all that a bear is going to get from shifting to cat is the ability to throw on some dots… and that brings me to number 2
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The shifting and damage done by catweaving needs to be both worth the risk AND work with the entire rest of the hero tree. You even agreed to it (acting as if it was your own idea) that the entire rest of the tree is all about maxmizing bear massive attack uptime. They would have to change every one of those talents to also allow attacks in cat form to extend bleeds, proc MA, deal increased damage from bear modifiers… is that possible? SURE… is it likely? Heck no.
What we are likely to get is exactly what you see, with minor tweaks, as is absolutely blizzards MO.
All feedback in this thread is effectively talking to ourselves, so stating that telling them that the catweaving they have put in isn’t enough and they need to massively buff it to make it a thing, ISN’T BEING HEARD.
As far as me thinking the spec is busted, again, read, but whatever. The spec is fine, it is a very simple maul spec that will make maul incarn bears better without changing anything about the way they play. The SPEC is fine, I simply disagree that the spec has anything to do with shapeshifting, because I can see that without massive changes, the spec won’t be doing that.
And I’ll finish it up with, no, I actually really LOVED cat weaving. In Sunken Shrine Temple, and in Black Temple, and in Icecrown I have very fond memories of catweaving (ICC really just on Arthas, but that is a long story). The difference is that I recognize that its gone, and blizzard isn’t going to add it back as anything more than flavor for people who don’t know any better.
Though, I do find it highly amusing that all the people who want catweaving so badly… are cats, not bears.
I feel ya man, but that ship has sailed. Even the moonbear spec is going to be using maul alot since it scales well with Moonless Night.
You have access to the tree. All the utility that cat gets is from the Class tree that Guardian has access to. Play into your strengths.
But also, you’re so stuck on the idea that you HAVE to swap to cat every time you get your 6 stacks of “Feline Potential” to use it. And that you have to use it exactly at that moment regardless of the risks. Why does your brain work this way??
Also, we have no idea what they’re doing for the talent trees going into TWW. All we know is this is what they plan on for the Hero Talents (also subject to change/fine tuning). You’re doing the same thing Kaercha is and applying everything to what we have now. I guarantee that that’s now how it’s going to play out.
So stop thinking about the now, and start thinking about 6 months down the road and the potential. Discuss the potential or how to make it viable instead of applying it to the now.
It doesn’t actually. Because it’s a choice node. It’s not mandatory, nor is it forced upon us. It can be taken for specific scenarios. Just like how not all of our talents we choose in our regular talent trees are a one size fits all. You choose different set ups based on different situations. Same thing applies here.
Taking it as it is, I’m sure the 5% increase in damage from Swipe and Mangle in an M+ scenario would probably beat out the extra damage from Ferocious Bite or Rip where you’re only really going to use it on bosses.
Now in a raid, as mentioned before, where weaving was actually prevalent, you do enough tank swaps and what not that the damage from Rip/FB may actually be worth it and that’s where your risk/reward comes out ahead.
Yet this is actively what they’re trying to do. Again, it may simply be for raids. Maybe it’ll see a little flavor in PvP somewhere, but again, it doesn’t have to be a one size fits all thing. Choices aren’t a bad thing.
And all these cats have more/better bear experience than you do at the same time. Odd
In regards to Cat/Bearweaving:
- I think the detail/tuning is essential to make this feel good. Feral shouldn’t need to be constantly going into bear form to maximize dps, but it should be powerful enough that a Feral druid can go into bear form when a defensive is needed and still be able to do decent damage.
- Likewise, a guardian druid should not be actively tanking in cat form, but should be the highest dps tank when they are able to go into cat form (kiting in M+, off-tanking in Raid, coming out of stealth in RBGs, etc).
About the rest of the tree:
- I find it weird that a central mechanic of this tree is the Dreadful Wound bleed considering Wildstalker is completely based around a bleed also.
- Having any ability that has a chance to trigger on auto-attacks does not feel great to play around. To the best of my knowledge, Massive Attack could be triggered by Thrash ticks without any other changes.
- Ruthless Attacks/Killing Strikes and Strike for the Heart/Tear Down the Mighty are bad choice nodes. There is not an interesting choice to be made and it will simply boil down to selecting the one that does more damage.
- Pack’s Endurance is EXCELLENT
- it is surprising this tree doesn’t have more interaction with Swipe, Thrash, and Skull Bash since they are abilities that both specs use
I think this this tree is neither bad nor good. It is just fine. Probably not where hero talents should be, but I’m not too upset about it.
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-looks at Iron Thorns-
Bold of you to assume that I’m using any talents that boost maul, considering how much I hate maul.
-insert that mobile ad where the player character throws a tantrum because the player destroyed the treasure by dumping lava on it here-
Yeahhh…but even so, it takes 2-3 uses of IF to match a single Maul. Not to mention the lack of UF shield you’re missing out on as well.
I mean to each their own. I’m all for unique builds. But Bears cried for Maul to be worth putting on their bars and now that it is, you actively avoid it? Kudo’s to you. I’m glad it’s actually worth pressing now personally.
Catnip??? Druid of the Claw like the kitty grass…
Lets redo this tree around catnip & honey pots plz
y SoD get fun stuff?
I don’t assume that. Use whatever build you want. Makes no difference to me. But I don’t think that you’ll get much luck when your feedback of the hero tree is that it revolves around one of Guardian’s basic core abilities. If you want to hamstring yourself by ignoring it then knock yourself out, but I don’t think you’ll find many other people willing to take Maul off their bars.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what your dislike for Maul is but perhaps you could just keep it on your bar as a dedicated Massive Attack button. Or just go Chosen of Elune.
Now that the tree’s been out for a while, I just want to offer my consolidated feedback as a PvP Feral.
First, this tree goes a long way towards covering Feral’s biggest issue at the moment, which is its defensive weakness. This tree gives Bear Form some real oomph, which is a very welcome change.
However, it feels like it falls just short of doing justice to Bear Form at the same time. Specifically, I think that Wildpower Surge should give both effects regardless of spec — and perhaps that Feline Potential stacks can be granted through Brutal Slash as well to make it so that Ferals could stack it up at a similar pace to Guardians and/or have a situation where we’re playing around our Brutal Slash charges, stacking them up to pop into Bear Form and unleash. Additionally, I’m hopeful that the 100% damage to Mangle is a placeholder. I have two thoughts for a better (read: more interesting) option for both specs:
- Mangle extends Rip and Rake on the target, leading to a situation where Bears could put up their big Rip, spend a few more GCDs building Ursine Potential stacks, go back into Bear Form and extend that big Rip, and Cats who (in PvP) have to spend a significant amount of time in Bear Form, can do the same; or
- Mangle leaves a Lacerate-esque bleed, which maybe offers some Leech for Bears and would have the added benefit of even bigger Bites for Ferals through Taste for Blood.
Purely more Mangle damage is pretty unexciting for Feral. I’m not saying that every node needs to be groundbreaking and flip how we play on its head, but I think this node could do more. It’s a great idea that gets 90% of the way there, it just needs a different final effect.
On that note, the right side is pretty boring, but okay. Again, not every node needs to be a banger, but let’s make the ones that are as good as they can be.
My main thought about the tree, however, isn’t about the Hero Tree specifically, it’s about the Druid Class Tree: talents like Ursine Vigor, Tireless Pursuit, and Well-Honed Instincts are all impacted greatly by this Hero Tree, yet they remain inaccessible to me as a PvP Feral. My talent points are totally restricted by the lack of lateral mobility and the unnecessarily heavy cost of many talents (including the only remaining 3-point-node). Will we see a rework of the Class Tree such that we can unlock the synergies that exist between the Class Tree and this Hero Tree?
In a similar vein, a few of the talents in this Hero Tree fill the same space as the Strength of the Wild PvP talent — Will we see a rework of Feral’s PvP talents? (I don’t need to make this post about Wild Attunement too, I think I’ve left enough feedback on the PvP forums about how much I dislike it).
Additionally, I agree with the PvE Ferals that Fount of Strength’s increase to maximum energy is a bit strange in our current situation where energy is basically meaningless — they say mostly in single target, but I feel in aoe it is also pretty meaningless, both through Tiger’s Fury resets and Apex procs giving significant energy through Soul of the Forest. Will we see a rework of the energy-related talents in the Feral spec tree?
Finally, I just want to say that as happy as I am with this tree, I worry that it makes us more dependent on Bites. I just want to echo and boost some of the feedback here that Bite makes up a pretty ridiculous portion of our abilities used right now, and unless that comes down a little, this tree might not actually have that much decision-making involved in it. Perhaps this would be addressed by changing energy. I don’t know. I just hope that it does get addressed in some way.
All in all, pretty happy with the Hero Tree. A few tweaks to some of the talents, and depending on some much needed changes to the Druid Class Tree and potentially to the Feral Spec Tree, and I think it could be really great.
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All these hero talents looks very cool but most of them should be baseline - hear me out!
Everything in our Druid tree should be able to be cast in our spec - aka cat/bear/ boomkin. Be it clone or root, skullbash or what ever. Druid is getting punished with extra gcd for no reason.
The forms stance should be on their own gcd.
Then we need a defensive cd buff/ overhaul. Getting heals in cat/ bear is not a def cd - it’s a Recovery cd.
Other examples of bad Design: disorienting roar: bear/cat/ boomkin relies on dots and bleeds but roar breaks instant on dots. It should work more like dragonsbreath - only direct hits break it.
I know this is about the hero talent tree - again I can see some potential but it’s clearly overshadowed by the mistakes of the general tree and the squishy cat form.
It looks like we do again dmg with frontal dmg aka bite /massive attack - while most feral want bleeds back.
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Uh oh,
Talk about bear/cat weaving - now we are talking about Hero talent weaving per boss…
first iteration too!
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The hero talents do open up the possibility of healers and tanks having the same issue dps have, where swapping specs between fights can improve your performance based on fight lengths and CD usage.
Certainly a consideration unless one hero talent tree is just obviously better for a role than the other (which nobody really wants).
Added*** Read Pumps’ write up on the spec. He missed the point of the two passive Mangle increasing talents, stating that they were not that impactful because Mangle was a single target attack.
Sure, in raids, it mostly is. But, if you’re Incarning a M+, Mangle-Raze-Mangle-Raze hitting 3 targets every other GCD makes buffing Mangle pretty useful. Boring, maybe, but useful.
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I’m confused about the complaint here. I skimmed the article you linked but it’s too much for me to read the whole thing without a clearer clue as to what you’re talking about.
Are you complaining that there might be a different set of talents that are best for different bosses? Because that’s not unique to hero talents and is in fact something that happens right now. I use a different talent set for Fyrakk vs. most other bosses and there’s a couple scattered bosses that I generally move a point or two around for. That’s nothing new and I’d hardly call it something to complain about.
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Nah, they’re choice nodes meaning they’re optional. You don’t even have to double up on both of them. But in the event that you do, even in M+ with Mangle/Raze spam during incarn windows, it’s a measley 2% dps gain overall (including single target boosts)
As per:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/6W1qQjL9m4f7tkVF#fight=18&type=damage-done&source=8
This…this has been a thing for years. If you’re wanting to be optimal, you change talents around based on many different factors per encounter (or even your role in said encounter). This isn’t new.
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Hope this is true, but as history shows in Arena, M+ & RBGs we cant switch talents - ill be curious if Blizz does the Hero talents like the Legion artifacts where you have to primarily focus on 1 tree at a time.
Or whether Blizz will even let us switch Hero talents in dungeons & raids - maybe we have to visit a “trainer”
But the point is - assuming we can switch Hero talents in “raids” its going to be massively confusing to explain to your raidleader why Feral DotC can Catweave but Feral Wildstalker cant? The whole Hero weaving is just gonna be confusing.
OR will Blizz treat Hero Talents like SLs Covenants where again - you need to visiting a “Trainer” to swtich allies.
My complaint is that im curious if we have a commitment to these talents or will be it SUPER META switch switch switch every second of gameplay
Thanks
You eventually get them all as you level (1 per level I believe). Like how normal talents work. One level, one point, for all trees
And it’ll follow the regular talent rules that we’ve had. Small instanced content = no switching. Locked in for the duration. Raids = switch outside of combat.
There’s nothing confusing about it at all? As a Feral you’re not going to be Bearweaving unless your tank frequently goes down. Catweaving is coming back for tanks, not so much the other way around. Nothing to explain. Catweave when you’re off tanking.
Probably an extra tab in the talents/spec page
Edit: because you cant get locked in as a DoTC when you swap to Resto
Free to do as you please like you do with your current talents.
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Hero talents are talents, you will change them based on the fight, just like you change talents before the start of arena matches, M+ keys, or RBGs. I have no idea what game you have been playing where this isn’t the case. Would you also explain to your raid leader every time you switch talents in your spec tree or class tree? I think you’re vastly overestimating the impact of Hero talents.
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