Why are people so excited about this?
Maybe I’m misinterpreting what it is supposed to do. At first I thought it was getting rid of the global cooldown when using those abilities to change into the proper form. Then I realized it’s only changing you into the form when those abilities are pressed, but the global cooldowns still remain. So if I am in bear form and press rake, one global cooldown will be used to switch to cat form, and another global cooldown will be used for the rake. So notthing really changed unless I’m reading it wrong.
Can anyone in beta give us more details about fluid form?
No, in a single global you will cast rake and swap into Cat form.
1 GCD, 2 tricks
2 Likes
You know how abilities like Incapacitating Roar will shift you to Bear and execute the ability in the same GCD? This makes Mangle, Rake, and Shred function the exact same way. I verified this in beta.
Yea, if that is the case then it should not be a talent. That should be baseline for all druids, or put it in a more convenient spot in the tree. It’s a mandatory talent for pvp if you play feral. Kind of unfair to put it way down in the tree like that.
Forgot to ask this:
If I am in cat form and snared, will I still need to switch to bear form and then back to cat form to break the snare? Or can I use my cat form to stay in cat form without costing a global cooldown to break the snare?
You need to change forms to break roots. Staying in cat form will ofc not break roots, that would just mean druids are totally root immune
Okay, but I’m guessing that means if I’m snared in cat form, I go to bear form with a global cooldown, then I can use my rake or shred and it will switch me back to cat form with only a rake gcd? Because switchign back to cat form is where the issue is because I would never get off a good attack from needing all those gcds.
At least it will save me one gcd I hope.
Indeed. It should save you 1 GCD.
You can go to any form (bear, travel, moonkin) or use a /cancelform command to break a root and shift right back to Cat by keybind or via rake when Fluid Form is live.
Okay, not bad.
That makes feral more viable in blitz brawl where there are few players to fight. But in larger group combat feral still needs a way to avoid “spread” AoE that knocks them out of stealth from a mile away.
Now if only they’d give enhancement shaman a way to deal with ranged stealthers like boomkins and hunters. Because right now the fights are so lopsided in the ranged stealthers favor. You literally can’t do anything but hope they are stupid enough to stay near the totem you have to manually target near them 40 yards away. The “radius” of pvp only totems should be at least 30 yards so enhancement has a chance to fight those classes. If they ever did that, I’d make enhancement my main in pvp the next day 
Play like a Feral druid. Which is like a rogue. Guerilla Warfare. Pick and choose your fights, back flag.
STOP BEING THE GUY WHO WANTS TO FIGHT IN THE MIDDLE!
That’s how you avoid spread AoE
Trust me, doesn’t help. There is always some random spread AoE that hits you out of nowhere. I’ve tried and it’s just absurd. It should not be like that. If you are stealthed, no spread aoe should touch you. Regular AoE should, but not spread. It makes the toon unfun in mid to large sized combat.
If you’re stealthed and waiting for a perfect opportunity to come out of stealth (aka anything beyond 2-3 seconds of being stealthed) you’re playing wrong.
Not supposed to be in that size of grouping anyway.
In short, you can play however you want, but you’re complaining about the consequences of you yourself playing wrong
This is a player issue
Doesn’t that effectively bring back powershifting? Or is there a cooldown for this?
Yea, to the 5 ferals I see in pvp each week outside arena I’ll remind them it’s obviously a player issue and not a poor design choice. And then I’ll remind them to stop the QQ and “git good”
Got it.
As for powershifting…
Power shifting allowed you to stay in cat form without switching to another form first. Right now you have 3 global cooldowns to switch and get off an attack. With fluid form that will be two global cooldowns. And it will help deal with all those snares in pvp. Right now you can’t get off an attack when switching back to cat form because both the switch to cat form and the actual attack both cost a global cooldown.
Any class with snares was impossible to fight.
I am not in beta so I haven’t tested Fluid Form but in theory it might bring back “bought on wish powershifting”. You can currently /cancelform and shift back to any form to break roots but it triggers the CGD on the shift. Fluid Form would shift you back to form but the GCD would be spent on the spell casted (rake in this example). I am not sure how resources respond to the talent.
Stop fighting in the middle in random BGs.
Gotcha, sounds like a nice QOL change, and something I’ve been asking for for a while.