First and foremost let me introduce myself, my name is Hippopotamus, I have been playing wow for seven years and feral druid for all 7 of those years, this spec is the only reason I play the game. While I do have alts, and characters I enjoy other than my feral druid, no matter what I will always enjoy feral druid more.
I have been a mythic cutting edge raider since hellfire citadel, playing feral for almost everything besides guardian flex for some bosses. I have competed in the mythic dungeon invitational as feral druid (however poorly, the point is that I was there.) and have pushed high m+ keys in legion with the spec. which leads me to believe I’m allowed to talk about feral in some light.
Battle For Azeroth has absolutely destroyed any will to play this game for me, yet I’m still playing, why? I have almost no idea besides I’d feel bad to leave my guild.
This is the first time ever in my entire 7 years playing world of Warcraft that I played another class during a raid tier, I mained a Death Knight in uldir as feral was practically garbage except for some niche uses on Fetid Devourer.
I know feral druid Isn’t the best spec, and will most likely never be the best spec as it seems blizzard really dislikes the spec doing anything meaningful besides being a cat I suppose.
Currently in patch 8.1 they introduced new feral changes that have shifted the way we do damage to some horrible cookie cutter bite build that any veteran feral player would roll in their grave knowing they’d have to play this abomination to do optimal damage.
While the patch wasn’t well received and we’ve already received aura buffs, nothing has changed! The spec is still horrible and should never be brought for any meaningful content over a much more ideal melee that does more damage and has more utility.
But this is nothing new, once more, these words have been repeated thousand-fold throughout wows history to blizzard entertainment and the feral druid spec.
I don’t have any suggestion for blizzard as most of them would require a total re-haul of the spec, and to quit catering to the casual player-base. Just know that you have once again, ruined a spec that is the only reason I still have an active subscription to wow.
really good stuff here from a former druid main!
plus side: I can actually keep up with other DPS classes now.
down side: -I- can actually keep up with other DPS classes now…
![:bear:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/bear.png?v=6" ":bear:")
I’m actually enjoying feral in WPvP atm, and if we had more control over selecting specific azerite traits then it would surely be a lot more fun. I haven’t really done PvE seriously since Kara(BC) and Naxx(WotLK); getting hooked on Arena as a feral when it was first introduced. I get where you’re coming from though, I usually choose between maining feral or BM hunter each xpac depending on which is more fun, and BM just felt so incredibly clunky and unpleasant to play now (in PvP) so I switched over to feral. I’m sure the exact same thing happens to those who PvE, and the main cause of it all is a severe lack of customization options.
You can’t build the character to suit your playstyle. You’re locked into one specific build no matter what spec you choose - because nothing else is viable - and you’re required to play that spec in a particular way(if you don’t enjoy that enforced playstyle, then sucks to be you). The game design punishes anyone who dares try to venture and explore outside of the ever shrinking cage that is each spec, and it isn’t satisfying… We can’t spend our time and energy experimenting with different builds, so we spend it venting in frustration instead. People commiserate, make youtube videos, and the company looks really bad to the general public. It’s a wonder that so many players have stuck around after all these years.
I’m kinda worried about the long-term effect of activision’s influence on this game, as I’ve always viewed Blizzard as a company that was passionate about creating great games, valuing their player base, good customer support/communication, transparent, treating employees well, etc. The two companies almost feel like polar opposites to me? I don’t know how many blizzard fans absolutely love games like Call of Duty, but I really dislike most eat bullets -> respawn -> eat bullets -> respawn types of games, and looking at the list of activision games released over the past 10 years, all of them - bar spyro - look like games that I’d utterly avoid. If Blizzard employees are leaving, and former activision employees start working at Blizzard and incorporating their past game dev. experience, then I can’t help but wonder how many blizzard fans are going to end up feeling completely alienated as everything they knew and loved drastically changes around them. They’re large companies employing hundreds of professionals, I don’t see how they could possibly not anticipate this outcome?
and to quit catering to the casual player-base.
They should cater to everyone. Focusing on one group of players while neglecting others will always hurt the game, and often adversely affect profits. It feels like they(activision) don’t know what they’re doing wrong, and so they’re doing the only thing they know which had worked for them in the past?
I don’t have any suggestion for blizzard
This kinda thread is mostly pointless without suggestions for improvement (but they’d probably just ignore it regardless, so oh well) XD
And yet, when they began this adventure called World of Warcraft, they made a game THEY would like to play. They catered to no one. And had MILLIONS of subs and sold MILLIONS of copies. And the game was MEGA popular and EVERYONE was happy. Then in WotLK they started putting in the “casual friendly” systems. The game has just headed downhill since.
They should take a lesson from the MDI. Here’s this SUPER HARD content that MOST of the player base cannot do. Yet, they make an Esport out of it and HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of people watch it. They watch and then try to do some of the crazy they saw in the MDI. Some they fail at, mongo pulls in BRH. Others they surpass, achieving WAY more than 43 deaths in Arcway (Sorry Hippo, had to. : p ) This is a classic case of folks seeing something amazing and thinking “I want to do THAT!” And even if they can’t, and let’s face it most can’t, that goal is THERE for them to chase.
So yes, the game feels bad right now. I’m not one of those terribly unhappy with how Feral feels atm (this is not a comment on dps or utility), but then again I’m not particularly attached to any playstyle. But the game itself… feels bad.
I’ll give you a pity bump. I typed a big long post but it was actually too depressing. It sucks that niche hybrids get screwed over but with the way the beta went it was honestly silly to play Feral going into BFA and even saying that makes me sad.
For all we know they could still be doing that, just a lot of the new team members have horrible taste in games? XD It is baffling how far the game has fallen since WotLK. I feel like a lot of the older players could - if granted the authority - walk right in the door and implement several changes/plans, and the game would instantly be far more enjoyable for the majority, and the subscriber count would likely increase. That’s just how far it’s fallen. Given that the game store is gated behind a subscription wall, I don’t know why they’d choose to focus on that instead of increasing the number of players; if it continues like this then the game will become free to play much sooner than later.
I’ve never cared for achievement systems, but a lot of people love them, and something like that would certainly go very well with the achievement system. Also good for gaining exposure for the current content on offer (most people probably go to youtube to check the current state of the game before resubbing, and see all the negativity and are instantly put off).
Despite how much easier PvE was in WotLK, the number of subscribers continued to increase, and the dungeons at the start of Cata were much mroe challenging than anything had been in a while, but all of a sudden everything became easy again, and then the subs just went downhill and never really recovered. It doesn’t feel like they ever tried to truly fix the gameplay design, instead opting to use art, story and literally everything else as a crutch to compensate and avoid having to deal with it.
I’m not dissatisfied with feral - but it could be much better; if only we had more options to tailor it to our own individual playstyles and make it more fun for ourselves, instead of having to rely on class changes for a single cookie cutter build - they’ll never be able to satisfy every feral player with their current approach, and should expect to receive more complaints (or unsubs).
Running around the open world at 220-240% in travel form feels nice. Having insane single target burst feels nice. Being boxed into a cookie cutter build isn’t nice. Having terrible survivability and doing cruddy damage in PvE feels horrible. Having such bad damage that it feels justifiable to frequently switch out and spot heal in mythic+ … feels horrible-but-nice in a reminiscent-of-BC kind of way (I doubt people would desire that in mythics though).
I think prot war deserves more love. Prot war, and the entire game.
The main issue I have with Feral right now, and I hope someone in development can see this, is that there is NO reason at all to ever bring a Feral Druid anywhere! Want single target? There are a ton of specs that do it better. Battle rez? I mean if we have to but we have a resto druid, DK or Lock for that. Stampeding roar? Yea raids are a dying for that right now(lol) Soothe… wooooow we have soothe. Give us something unique! Leader of the pack would be a perfect pve talent. It would at least make use desired! I remember raids pugging the worst geared Warlocks just because they brought 3 use spells to the group noone else has. Summons, cookies, and gates. Its so hard to get into a group now. Feral druid? Declined. Give us Mark of the wild! Give us Leader of the pack! Give us better energy regen! We shouldnt be the best at AoE But Ion said himself! “Feral Druids can single target like no other” Make that our niche then! End rant
the problem with feral is that everyone hates when ferals are overpowered, so in order to avoid that, the devs would rather deal with the minority of players who actually play feral as opposed to the majority who dont. take assassination rogues for example; THE MOST broken damage coming out the gate dating back even as far as the pre BFA patch in legion. and that train rolled on well into BfA despite the numerous complaints regarding its busted output. even after it was finally “addressed”, its STILL ridiculous damage. but ofcourse, 4 people get hit for a 60k ferocious bite and everyone loses their minds.
if our damage is going to be relative garbage, i at least want my survivability to be insanely compensated, and my offhealing as well.
the easiest solution would be leader of the pack aura on FERALS only… it would make us desired… but i mean its obvious blizzard doesnt care about ferals whatsoever…
First off Hippo I watched you in the MDI. You wer incredible man and reinspired me to come back to feral. I made this guy my main for BFA thinking about you. If Hippo can do it then I’m going to do it too.
Man it’s sad seeing this post from you. Not sad for you just sad for Ferals. What hope is there when the guy who brought a feral into MDI and kicked azz is feeling defeated?
The part that really hurts is that when I look at the steps taken I see a dev team with 0 sense of direction. The recent changes have been in direct contrast with changes made at the beginning of BFA. This expansion announced haste scaling with bleeds! This was supposed to be the big return of bleeds! Now my Rip does less damage than my auto attack.
And where does it go from here. We have had 4 or 5 straight overall damage buffs. Every patch at least 5% and after over 20% of flat damage buffs we are still at the bottom? Who over there cant add?
That’s the question right? ALL the Ferals I know did simple math when the 7% was announced. And we said “Oh joy, that means we’ll now be doing about 15% less than the top performing dps class. Who brings utility on top of the massive dps they can do. As do all the other classes that will be between us and the top spot. At least the bench is already warm.”
Feral got completely neutered in BFA! They need to fix feral. I hate that I can play my druid. I hate balance druid and their screeching and gameplay. You can’t level heals effectively and the bear druid is not my thing. Feral was my favorite class in wow and they completely broke them!
I’m also a long time feral main. And its absolutely trash right now. I cant find anyone to play and am forced to tank to do any type of PvE content. I mainly pvp and sometimes I spend hours in que just trying to find someone to play with and il have to settle for people who have less xp and lower cr just to get games in because no one wants to play with a feral. I’ve had several matches where healers say “I’m just guna go find a dh or dk sorry dude” where in legion I was able to get 2200+ in 2s easily in any bracket.
I’ve found myself playing more and more Moonkin. Random Bg’s Moonkin is a lot more fun. Tons of splash damage, at range to hit other players, can turn and burn with CD’s, Mass Root and Sunbeam silence can wreck teams that stack.
Just a lot of things to do on a Moonkin, When I go feral I wait for the right time to pounce, hope I own them, and get away cause one stun from anything and I’m dropped.
Unless you have pocket heals on you I feel Feral is just painful in BG’s.
I’m still very new to druids, but feel that I can hold my own as feral in BGs. I don’t always do the most damage yet, but never on the bottom. My survivability isn’t terrible either, though it can take some kiting and darting in and out. I still need a ton of practice with it though.
This is what I mean by “have to get away” if they catch you its a gameover. Stun lock and drop it…
One thing I’ve noticed is our single target has scaled into the ground compared to other classes.
And our AoE is getting super dependent on focusing iris to the point of really having to cheese it up on when to use it.
Is this still in reference to PvP or just in general? Because AoE I’ve found to be fairly decent.
With Bloodtalons and Primal Wrath and at least 1 WF trait, you can pop off 2 Primal Wrath’s, and then get away with burning mobs down with Ferocious Bite. Kudos if you’ve got Tigers Fury up or are just critting a lot with with your FBs.
It is nice to drop a memebeam though and watch your meter break the 150k-200k DPS mark for a second 
Nobody in my play group regardless of class touches me in aoe in m+. Unfortunately that’s kinda the only thing going for me, because my boss dps is abysmal around 20-25k in aoe spec