Feral Druid Feedback

Classes Druid
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Feral Druid feedback

courtesy of Zimbita, edited by yours truly

Feral Druids energy income feels clunky/punishing for a few reasons.

  1. Tiger’s Fury is more potent (but has less uptime) than before when Feral had Raging Fury extension and Predator resets. Because of this, we want to use the spell as often as possible, and holding it to make use of the energy is less of an option, and sometimes doing so can be difficult anyway due to other energy sources being random. Sometimes you can be spamming spells for 10 seconds and still be capped on energy (though other times you are just waiting around for procs.)

  2. The aforementioned reliance on procs for energy. A large portion of our energy comes from Omen of Clarity (and by extension Moment of Clarity), Frantic Momentum and Apex (via Soul of the Forest). This is particularly bad on small to medium size pulls (like 5 target for example). Due to their random nature, sometimes you’ll be overwriting procs and other times you’ll face droughts where you get none at all. And both of those scenarios feel bad. The first one due to us not being able to properly use all of the procs (especially when factoring in BT and our bleeds falling off), and the latter because the expected energy income just isn’t there. In other words, the highs are too high and the lows are too low.

  3. Sometimes by time we are ready to use Tiger’s Fury, we are forced to hold even longer due to mechanics taking us out of range, inevitably causing more cooldown wastage (either by having to hold until after the move, or going out of range while it’s still up)

Some solutions could be reverting predator/raging fury changes so that tigers fury can have less desyncing issues with berserk in keys, spreading out our procs a bit more uniformly (being buffed by haste is good though), or changing how moment of clarity works to reduce its energy wastage in scenarios where we already have plenty of energy when it procs. (Like it temporarily increasing maximum energy to give time to spend the energy).

Talents don’t interact with each other in a fluid way

Some Feral talents don’t interact with the rest of the kit in an expected way. (or even have negative-synergy). Like Bloodtalons/Lion’s Strength not buffing Primal Wrath initial/rampant ferocity damage, or Saber Jaws not buffing Apex/Convoke bites. In the case of Apex, it also muddies the water for Bloodtalons since it not only consumes Bloodtalons, but also makes it harder to proc it again due to taking up time that would be spent casting builders to proc it. This is especially obvious during berserk where we use Bloodtalons charges really fast anyway. Buffing Bloodtalons to 3 stacks instead of 2 was just a band aid and didn’t fix the actual problem at hand. I think it would be good if Apex bites did not consume Bloodtalons charges (but still buffed by Bloodtalons being up), or if it gave a Bloodtalons stack instead of spending it.

Tier 3 Talents

Adaptive Swarm: It sucks to have to spend 2 points into this to make the spell fun to play around. The two points should just be combined into one. And even with 2 points, the reward for playing them correctly isn’t big enough. In a key it can still be difficult to keep up a large colony of swarms, especially when mobs die particularly fast, causing the swarms to jump early. Its also problematic in single target, where the ally swarms are all jumping into the enemy target at the same time, causing you to lose a lot of bees (since it only stacks to 5). I feel like the spell needs some sort of bouncing protection to avoid this issue, or simply a reduced cooldown to have more control of where they go. It would be nice if swarm had better uptime as a result too, as on live it can be really swingy when you first start stacking it up. Sometimes it takes forever to get going which is annoying. This would make it better for off-healing as well, which would be fun. If you want it to be 2 points still, the 2nd talent can be to make the healing/damage amps apply for allies as well, promoting feral utility instead of just being a druid for mark of the wild.

Frantic Momentum: This talent being 2 points for a low proc chance just feels like a heavy tax to be locking our major cooldowns. I feel like this talent should just be reduced to 1 point as it doesn’t provide anything to the spec, allowing 1 minute convoke to a better option than it is currently, and being a priority damage/boss damage/more frequent burst pick compared to 2 minute convoke being better in AoE with a longer (and stronger) cd burst.

Speaking of Convoke, Skull Bash should be castable during Convoke much like Feral Wild Charge is currently. It sucks to have to interrupt convoke or just get blasted by multiple casts going off because I’m channeling my major cooldown. This isn’t something other specs have to deal with, and having the charge utility during Convoke without Wild Charge would be nice too.

Carnivorous Instinct: This should just get removed. 6/12% extra damage for no reason is just not interesting at all.

Rip and Tear: With Taste For Blood not being based on number of bleeds on the target, this is just a boring talent that doesn’t do much. In fact its basically the same as the t2 talent Dreadful Bleeding, but in the third gate. Should just delete this since it doesn’t have a purpose anymore.

17 Likes
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I’m torn on Carnivorous Instinct , I like Tiger’s Fury feeling more like a cd but with how important energy is sometimes it feels bad. We’ll have to see next patch.

The feast/famine issue with procs for apex+moc definitely feels bad sometimes, I’ll agree there.

Some things I think feral needs/would be nice:

  • A choice node with pouncing strikes that replaces the stun with some other effect, like a silence/oppressing roar effect. Allowing us to engage optimally while our tank is collecting mobs without trolling the group.
  • Melee range nerf reverted (bosses like broodtwister are a PERFECT example of why this needs to be changed back). So few target circles actually match up with hitboxes. Additionally it now feels like half the melee specs do 70% of their rotation at range (surival, outlaw(kinda), ret, enh…) why is us having stretchy arms an issue?
  • After playing Survival Hunter recently, I really like how they have their capstone node for Coordinated assault. It completely changes how that CD feels [shorter cooldown but mainly with upfront damage vs longer cooldown with more throughput for the whole duration]. IMO Ashmane’s guidance should feel something like this, currently it basically does nothing for zerk and makes convoke noncompetitive.
  • Berzerk really does not need 3 nodes to make it a real cooldown, just bake them all into one and work with something else there. Sickle of the lion of some kind perhaps (but not tied up with zerk) or some sort of AOE Feral Frenzy node?
  • The class tree, holy moly PLEASE address the class tree.
7 Likes
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There isnt a bug with feral. The cat form has the same range and hitbox as normal players. That is the only problem.

If you want to test this, take some noggenfogger or similar item that changes you into a standing form. All of the problems go away.

This has been a quirk since the class was released. Your head does not determine if you are hit, it is your front paws. If you play on a classic server, you will see the same quirk there as well. It is not new.

The increased range just made the visual issue be covered up.

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Great ideas, all around.

I would love the be able to interrupt during covoke. Being locked into your major damage cooldown (or damage + defensive, if Guardian) and unable to do anything else while it channels is not great. This is one of the problems with Tranquility, for resto, and why many players do not like taking it.

1 Like
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I was discussing that bosses like Broodtwister often times have models larger than their actual hit-box, making it so characters basically have to be inside them to hit them.

I know feral’s “long shape” makes things look weird but that’s not what I was discussing.

That said, I still think we should get the extra 3 yard melee range back. Especially when, like I said, many “melee” specs already do most of their damage from range now.

2 Likes
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if we have to use toys to fix the hit box since vanilla which was already a known thing for 20 years then how does anyone justify taking range from feral when it was a bandaid on a problem from day 1. feral should get the range back plus a extra 2 yds

4 Likes
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Feral Druid feedback cont…

courtesy of Zimbita, edited by yours truly

To add on to the original post: 3 charges of brutal slash is not enough for small packs (~2-5ish targets) since its the only real builder. Especially since apex doesn’t proc much. Thrash is bad and shred is only useful to proc bloodtalons.

Some things that would help make feral better in low target aoe:

  1. Brutal Slash baseline, deleting swipe
  2. Giving Brutal Slash more charges, or reducing its cooldown. Currently at 20% haste my brutal slash has ~6.9s cd, maybe drop that down to be ~4s cooldown. (approx 40% shorter cooldown)
  3. Alongside making brutal slash baseline, can replace it with a talent that makes Shred hit X amount of targets. Then the option is either stronger AoE (wild slashes) VS stronger prio dmg (this new talent)
  4. Buff sudden ambush proc chance to make shredding in AoE more useful, this would be paired with the above
  5. Make it so that if you have Double-Clawed Rake, either instance of rake damage critting counts towards Primal Fury combo points
  6. DCR rakes can sometimes overwrite stronger rakes with weaker ones (this is particularly problematic on say 3t, or any odd-number target count). Make it so that instead of weakening these rakes, it just refreshes its duration, like how Dreadful Wound works.
  7. Make iw baseline, also boring like ci is
  8. Buff savage fury so that it’s actually impactful
  9. Make primal wrath 14y range again, at 10y it often misses mobs making us have to recast it to rip everything, sometimes downgrading the initially applied primal wrath, which is just weirdge.

Going from dragonflight to the war within feral lost a lot of dmg on small packs since we used to have a lot more energy in that situation. Nowadays there are plenty of times where we can’t press anything at all and just have to wait around. This lack of energy makes Tigers fury weird too, because it’s not necessarily when we are blasting damage like it’s supposed to be. We deal damage when we are getting procs instead.

2 Likes
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No. BrS is a choice of a stronger AoE builder (which couples into a stronger ST builder too) at the pay off of more down time and more planning. Want more ability to spam something…keep Swipe

This is pointless when you’ve Swipe/BrS and Thrash hitting ALL targets. Be happy we’re not target capped

SA Shreds are already powerful if you don’t need to refresh a Rake or apply a new one. Plus in AoE situations you’re going to want to refresh a Rake somewhere anyway 85% of the time so this is kind of redundant to ask for.

Just get more Crit. It only counting on the primary target makes sense and works. Otherwise we’d be looking at any target from any builder that procs counting.

Takes away the entire identity of snapshotting. Just gotta assess the situation. Is it better to get 2x buffed Rakes or 2 normal rakes and 1 buffed. 2 buffed = 320% power, 2 + 1 = 360% power (assuming full duration). Or wait for buff/proc windows to set up the third so you have 2 full buffed rakes and a 3rd buffed one falling off soon. Decisions decisions decisions.

If you’re in an AoE scenario, you’re going to be wanting to spam Primal Wrath anyway. And seeing as it’s a finisher, there’s no reason it should be a “downgraded” version as it should always be buffed by Bloodtalons. Rip and Tear make up for the constant overlapping and overwriting anyway.

Damage got buffed in specific areas to help make up for this, so we really didn’t.

This doesn’t happen. There’s always something to press. If you’re blowing all your energy the second it’s available like GCD locked characters, that’s on you.

Tiger’s Fury is a proper burst window now. Prepare accordingly.

1 Like
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testing testing

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Talents don’t interact with each other in a fluid way

Some Feral talents don’t interact with the rest of the kit in an expected way. (or even have negative-synergy). Like Bloodtalons/Lion’s Strength not buffing Primal Wrath initial/rampant ferocity damage, or Saber Jaws not buffing Apex/Convoke bites. In the case of Apex, it also muddies the water for Bloodtalons since it not only consumes Bloodtalons, but also makes it harder to proc it again due to taking up time that would be spent casting builders to proc it. This is especially obvious during berserk where we use Bloodtalons charges really fast anyway. Buffing Bloodtalons to 3 stacks instead of 2 was just a band aid and didn’t fix the actual problem at hand. I think it would be good if Apex bites did not consume Bloodtalons charges (but still buffed by Bloodtalons being up), or if it gave a Bloodtalons stack instead of spending it.

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I think we are fine as far as skill/ability mechanics go. What is so wrong with Feral is the energy starvation even with the 2 focus talents outside of Berserk. Other than that, the 2nd problem (and it’s a huge problem at that) is the damage scaling. I think Blizzard developers are scared to high heaven that the WotLK Feral returns to retail. Back then, the DOTs were so powerful, you could just apply Rip and Rake on anyone that doesn’t heal in PVP and just watch them die as you run away laughing. But they fixed that after 2 months I think but DOTs were still powerful in that expansion and that is the last time Feral was on the spotlight. So many expansions has passed already without good honest love from Blizzard. They need to grow some balls and fix Ferals.

The feedback above is the very reason I quit WoW in the middle of Legion and have only returned to this expansion. Now I am experiencing the same cowardly crawl with Blizzard on Ferals, Dark Ranger MM, and Havoc DH. This begs the question, is their complacency due to a dwindling staff or they just do not care about customer opinions. Either way, it is bad.

Just to be Specific:
Improve focus regen of course
Rake and Rip needs about 15% more damage
Wildstalker: Bloodseeker Vines and Bursting Growth needs about 20% effectiveness
DotC: Less DOTs, more direct damage. The innate weakness of DOTs are if they do NOT finish, their effectiveness is always not complete, especially in AE’s no matter how you shorten the duration thus weakening its value. This is such a simple thought concept I do not know why you do not compensate. The value improves the longer a single target lives. We are over-DOTTING the same way healers are over-HEALING. I think the best way to solve this is for all DOTs to explode before the targets die. You could call it a DOT EXECUTE talent.

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Here is something ferals need to think about. Your name, in a way, approaches the feral buffs. Djin have/had a nasty way of giving you a wish, but it harmed more than it helped. In the case of the latest rounds of buffs… increase of 10% damage to rip, rake, and rampant ferocity; does nothing as they are all extremely weak to begin with. Now if that had been extended to the bleeds (which they weren’t) it may have helped us a bit. Again, it goes back to more of a dev issue of not being able to balance dots for dog-doo (haven’t figured it out in 20 years so far). The issue is, bleeds/DoTs do not scale well, as opposed to direct damage abilities. Of the 4 hybrid classes in the game (monks, pallies, druids, shamen), Druids are, overall, weakest currently and the least fun (the spreadsheets of who, plays what classes, do not lie … even if the sample size is 5000 or so players). The other thing you will note, only the Druid utilizes Dots for dps, of the hybrid classes. 2004 Druid design philosophy is calling, and they want their design ideas back. So yes, I concur to the point, ferals DO have too many Dots and need more direct damage. Let me rephrase that last part…CONSITANT direct damage that doesn’t require 7-8 talent points to make it worth a damn.

The other ability they buffed, apex pred…gosh, 10.2 patch reversion? Kinda looks like it slowly but surely.

Buffs to DotC…laughable at best. Honestly, DotC needs a complete rework with meaning and not a bunch of crap. You cannot honestly tell me they really tried to make it unique and interesting. Bears swapping into kitty is beyond stupid in raiding and M+. Kitty swapping to bear, yeah, let’s make the lowest melee dps in the game worse than it already is (even our median dps is THE lowest in the game …even after the buffs… and NOT just for top end players) and rarely will it save your butt if the tank goes down because, as a feral, you still have to drop to caster to B-rez even if you are in bear form).

The other elephant in the room issue, other than build-a-berserk, is the build a FB. FB needs to be either removed from the game entirely, or it needs to have all the RNG elements removed from its equation / calculation and ONLY calculate crit at the end and not 4-5 times throughout its calculation. I have lost count of full energy, 5 combo point, berserk, tigers fury, everything lining up only to get a 750-800k crit. Then other times having 40 energy (enough to use the ability), 1 combo point, no berserk, tigers fury on cooldown, everything else on cooldown or not proc-ing, and somehow, someway, it crits for 3.6 million. There is zero consistency on the calculations. To make matters worse, having to spec 7-8 skill points to buff the ability to make it viable…come on dev, you can do better.

What it all boils down to, we have returned to LOLCATS status. Hell, I enjoy watching videos PsyBear makes. He is/was #3 feral on the charts. Even he is getting blasted in dps output, by almost double, in some respects. It is as if he is being carried by the other dps. This is not a slight on him at all. He is using all the tools at his disposal. But as I have said time and time again, when everyone is sitting in equal gear and skill, the feral is going to be made a laughingstock by as much as a 1M+ dps. Sure, we can blast off and look good, but only if we out gear the raid or M+ by 10-15 item levels.

Also, one other point to clear for you. Ferals in WOTLK were garbage. When it was current content, ferals were shunned and told to go resto or bear. The only reason people think they are good is because the WoW Classic WotLK servers changed quite a few things for the off specs; in the way of changing the itemization on gear, changing the way certain items were enchanted, and/or creating new items to accommodate.

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Coming back to TWW I noticed and was so bothered by this! The extra range was incredibly useful to wiggle a bit through the visual chaos that is the melee range.

Why they did this? Was for PVP or something?

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at this point feral just needs a complete overhaul. 20 years of failure on blizzards end. its time for something different

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Hmmm. Talking nice. Sounds effective but it is not. Where has it gotten you in 20 years or while I was away? LOL. Insanity is knocking on the door. I think it is time for tough love.

In addition to Over-DOTing, overwriting the current DOT also becomes less effective thus weakening it, lol.

–I am counting the day this will be deleted–

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I’d like tigers fury to have 2 charges so you can always bank one for lining up with other offensives.

1 Like
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There are many factors that go into spec pick rates. While how fun a spec is will play a role in how often I pick it, other things like group need and utility also will play a role. Sure, if I find a spec outright boring or tedious, I probably won’t play it even if it checks off some of these other boxes. But if I find feral and enhancement shaman to both be fun, even though I like feral more, I may still choose to play enhancement for the season if it is tuned better and/or fills the needs of the group(s) I will play with better.

How are you defining failure, though? There have been times feral has been the number 1 raid boss spec in the game. There have been times feral had a 100% pick rate in MDI. Feral is currently one of the best, if not the best, arena specs in the game.

You’ve made it no secret that you don’t like slow feral, which is certainly your right. I on the other hand, am having more fun with feral than I have since Wrath. Without some empirical data, taking away a spec that some portion of the player base likes with no guarantees a complete overhaul would appeal to any of the people who have a stake is a mistake.

The limited tiger’s fury is crucial to the skill expression around snapshotting, the primary mechanic of the spec. If you could always keep a charge in your back pocket, how does the spec reward proper play?

Further, Tiger’s Fury already lines up with most offensive cooldowns in the kit already, save for Feral Frenzy (which should have a 30 second CD). If you are finding that your Tiger’s Fury is out of alignment with your other CDs, you’re likely using your CDs at the wrong times.

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I would argue Rake needs something more like 50% damage buff.

Uh, no? They were great dps in Wotlk (ICC tier). The thing was, they wern’t super popular because

  • Tanks are always needed. Druids can also tank.
  • Healers are needed. Druids can heal.
  • They were coming off of vanilla, where feral was a meme, and BC, where feral (dps) was mediocre. The only people playing Feral in Wotlk ICC was the diehards who had already been playing it in vanilla or BC.
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This was very true. If you were a good bear tank, that is what you were expected to do in wotlk.

Some guilds let ferals dps. If they were good at it, they would dominate on bosses.

When classic wotlk came out, people were saying feral needed a buff and would never do well in raid. I have one thing to say:

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162382.png
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All that armor pen gemming :wink:

1 Like