Feral vs Melee in Shadowlands

Classes Druid
1

If we’re looking at Shadowlands Feral, we’re still objectively terrible in terms of raid utility - even if they are giving us HoTW. You’re still missing Innervate from the Boomkin, and you’re playing a melee in a game that’s now completely unfriendly to melee with the target capping and melee-specific mechanics.

Damage wise, Feral in SL is very strong, but you’re going to be competing with:

  • Magic Debuff + Darkness / Immunity from DH
  • Melee Debuff + MS from Windwalker
  • Windfury Totem from Enhancement + Ankh (or however you spell that)
  • Raid buff + MS / Commanding from Warrior
  • Magic Immunity + Vanish (mechanic avoidance) / Shroud from Rogue
  • Auras / Immunity / Support from Ret Paladin
  • Grip / MS(?) / AMZ from DK

Feral has heckin large meow speed boost and the ability to maybe become raid tank / raid healer / ranged DPS for 45 seconds every 5 minutes - or maybe once a during the fight, twice if you use it super early on and you’re doing a progression pull.

If you compare that to the other 2 (useful) specs; Restoration can HoTW and become ranged/melee/tank on the same CD and duration, while still bringing Innervate for another healer + the druid @ 50%. Boomkin can HoTW and become a melee/tank/healer on the same CD and duration, while still bringing innervate, and being an incredibly strong ranged DPS.

Feral brings absolutely nothing to the group, both in raid and M+ scenarios. We have no raid buffs, we have no raid support, we have no useful debuffs, we just scratch/bite and flail around on the ground until the raid leader has you go on your more viable raid alt that you prepared specifically for this scenario.

Here’s a fun solution, kitties. Tell me if I’m off the mark with this one.

Debuff (Cat specific, baseline overall)
Feral damage puts a debuff on the target, causing all damage over time effects to deal (%) increased damage.

Raid Buff (baseline)
Mark of the Wild gives all party(raid) members 3% (6%?) versatility for 1 hour.

Passive Buff (Feral Specific)
Leader of the Pack gives all party(raid) members within 30 yards 5% increased critical strike chance. (insert healing portion here, I don’t remember it, too lazy to look it up).

To give a quick breakdown on it.

Raid buff would give you a reason to want a Druid, plus a versatility buff is always welcome in all scenarios. That gives us a reason to be brough to M+ outside of RDruid just being massively OP all the time (thanks Blizz :))

Feral Debuff would almost shoe-horn your Resto Druid / Boomkin to be opening as Feral, aka they would need to take Feral affinity and lose their other utility, or you could just bring a Feral and get the debuff by default. Adopt a kitty program.

Leader of the Pack gives you yet another reason to bring a Feral, since it’s not only giving you the raw damage increase of more crit, but the healing attached will help keep the raid at least semi-healthy during these ridiculous healing checks we’re seeing in Castle.

Bring a Cat to your raid, be successful.

16 Likes
2

I love Boomkin and Resto, but it would be nice to play feral seriously throughout the whole game, not just in pvp (where resto is still preferred). Make Underplayed Specs Great Again (#MUSGA). :joy_cat:

5 Likes
3

Soooo many options…

Feline Grace - passive group dodge buff, tune as appropriate

Pursuit of Prey - passive group speed boost, tune as appropriate

Inspire Frenzy - berserk gives group crit buff, tune as appropriate, now gives us even more reason to overlap with lust/hero

Kopi Luwak - whenever you kill a target with a bite, give a random ally “caffeinated” buff, increasing their haste by some appropriate percent

Cat Scratch Fever/Infected Wounds - targetssuffering from rake takes extra periodic damage from allies

Lick Your Wounds - rejuv decreases periodic damage taken

Survival of the Fastest - Stampeding roar grants an absorb or a cheat death but increases CD

Use your darn imaginations, folks. You get paid to design games.

7 Likes
4

All solid ideas. I like the versatility buff.

I’d also opt for our roars to be unique. Playing into the fantasy of the spec, lion roars which buff those around them.

Empowering roar - small lust, 10% crit and haste for 15 seconds. 5 Min CD

Protective roar - 10% damage reduction for 15 sec 5 Min CD

Defs bring back leader of the the pack as a pve ability. It’s a must.

2 Likes
5

I think making Lotp baseline for Feral only would be huge. It provides a nice passive buff for pve content and frees up what is a mandatory pvp talent.

3 Likes
6

I like the protective roar, that could be a cool CD for bear druids or just baseline honestly.

Secondary, I have beta access, I just don’t have the ability to give feedback on the actual forums for some reason. If anyone has access to a platform where this can get a little more reach then you’re welcome to share it there, I’m kinda limited to the Druid section at the moment.

7

Did you try logging out of and back into the forums?

Usually fixes issues like that.

8

Stop designing dungeons/raids that require these things.

9

People always forget we used to have faerie fire feral which was a casted armor pen buff that ferals could put on mobs this is a buff that would be useful and not game breaking.

5 Likes
10

That’s a really darn good idea.

@Blizzard, unprune Faerie Fire for us, plox. It’s a super core aspect of druid fantasy and a staple druid D&D spell.

3 Likes
11

Well when you raid there’s 20 people in a raid (there’s not 20 classes) so if you do good DPS as Feral as you should if you’re not a bad feral druid then you bring DPS to the table. Stop being a bad feral druid. There’s a reason why people dislike ferals until they group with a good one and that good one is #1 on the DPS charts. No need for extra debuffs for everyone or a buff for everyone there’s plenty of room in a raid for that and people who just pump so PUMP.

2 Likes
12

Well said :smile: #MUSGA

1 Like
13

Good stuff.

Sadly, all stuff that has already been suggested before.

Good luck getting Blizzard to actually do these things (or even one of them).

I’m of the firm belief that either everyone should have passive buffs (like battle shout, for example) or nobody should. This creates a clear power difference that people can easily see. If I had to choose one of the buffs you mentioned it would be LotP.

1 Like
14

Do you have a hypothesis as to why Blizzard doesn’t include more utility for ferals?

15

My guess, Feral is a strong presence in PvP so in order to balance them in PvP they can’t let them have nice things in PvE.

To me, it makes no sense. You could easily nerf certain aspects of the Feral utility kit in exchange for some raid buffs or utility, and they wouldn’t become monsterous.

Warlock/DH/Rogue/Fire Mage/DK/Warrior all have a strong presence in both PvE and PvP with DH/Fire being some of the strongest DPS specs in the entire game on both levels of content.

Feral is a decent PvP class, not massively OP, but practically useless in raid/m+ content outside of their damage. Blizzard doesn’t want to make them ridiculously OP in PvP by giving them PvE buffs - as was shown in WoD when everyone played a Feral because you could just hammer rake and bite 10,000 times and perma stun an entire team without knowing what was going on.

16

I wouldn’t mind if faerie fire came back, but not as a cast like it was. I’d personally prefer if you debuffed mobs with a simple melee or cast (less globals to worry about, the better).

1 Like
18

Like Serrow said, I think they are worried about making Feral OP. They can already pseudo tank/heal/ranged dps in a pinch with the affinities, and probably even better now with HoTW talent. Feral has great offheals as well (although you do have to deselect your target to apply them on someone else making you lose a bit of damage).

Ultimately Stampeding Roar as group utility is not enough when compared with things like a Rogue’s Shroud, Lay on Hands for Paladins, and warriors have huge mobility with multiple charges and Heroic Leap, for example. I could go on but I don’t think I need to.

1 Like
19

The issue is why would you get a good Feral when you could instead get a good DH? Presumably, both being good players, they will do roughly the same damage. Except the DH also brings Darkness and Chaos Brand. The Feral brings nothing. That’s the issue.

Feral bringing damage isn’t a reason to bring Feral. Everyone brings damage. Feral damage isn’t somehow special.

4 Likes
20

Not to mention Feral has a higher skillcap than many classes.

3 Likes
21

For BFA Feral I’d say that’s debatable due to Sabertooth. XD

2 Likes