Is feral really as bad as people say?

Classes Druid
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Bawk, that is the first post in this thread for days that makes any sense. What you are saying though won’t compute with all the “google experts” on here that “think” they know something because they read it on the internet. If you don’t have a YouTube channel, you aren’t a source of truth :slight_smile:

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Without even going into how you contradict yourself, you know there’s an entire discord with over a hundred thousand people, dedicated just to discussing, testing, learning, teaching, and otherwise advancing people’s understanding of druid, right? Which does, technically, include feral.

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Hey look! We have a true blue “google expert” regurgitating someone else’s comments :).

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Math and understanding sims in context isn’t exactly his thing… pretty sure the guys and gals over on the discord would just confuse him more.

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I have no idea what you’re on about. If you’re pissed off over something, you’re making up reasons to be pissed off in your head. I didn’t say anything affronting whatsoever.
Some of the other stuff in this thread sure…

I suppose that’s true. I never considered that “pooling”. If one casts a bite, I think generally worth waiting for that 25 extra energy. The extra damage to bite is the most efficient damage/energy use ratio of the (direct-damage) abilities feral has, even with 3x wild fleshrending on shreds.

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I will never claim to be an expert, just someone who actively does all the things. I play both Feral & Balance at the Mythic level. I do actually have a YouTube channel but, I haven’t put out any guides or content since prepatch. -shrug-

Its just stupid to see people bickering over stuff. Saying one is better than the other & calling people ‘sheep’ for doing one over the other. This whole thread is a cesspool of childish remarks.

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I love the warrior and rogue posts. I think you two guys live to stir the pot because you have nothing better to do. But hey, at least you didn’t quote Facebook as a source of truth. BTW - Do either of you understand sarcasm? I’m not so sure you do. Maybe, but the verdict still out.

The real truth is this, people comment on things on the Internet and speak without the experience of their words. It happens everywhere, every single day.

In my experience, It is typically the people that speak in short minded absolutes that have the biggest disconnect between their words and their ability.

There is more than one way to skin this cat. Between, traits, gear, stats, and the USER; results may vary…

A sim can say you will get .2% less DPS using a certain talent combo. However, YOU, won’t actually know until YOU try. Most people simply don’t understand the nuances of how a talent changes their rotation and timing. They try a talent because it is “according to a robot” the best. The problem is they are a real life human being and they proceed to do things the same way they’ve always done them and their results vary. The next person comes along and fully understands every nuance but simply can’t make the required decisions with the timing and precision of an algorithm. Again, results vary. Last but not least, you have the guy that comes along and all the pieces fit perfectly. He uses the preferred talent and gets the best results every single try. You have to figure out which one of these people you are and do what works best for you.

Sims are a guide. Whether or not I can follow the guide is the real question for me. Oh yes, X may be the best on paper, but with everything being so close, how many mistakes on my part does it take for me to have been better off using a less demanding rotation? That is called real life… Also, how much Is your raid awareness impacted by having a more complicated or less complicated rotation? This is a very personal question that can only be answered by the individual.

Let the mouthpieces talk and bicker on the Internet. I challenge you to go try it out for yourself and use what gets you the best results.

All the while, reading, learning, and listening. Also, challenge yourself. Just because the best x doesn’t work for you the first time around doesn’t mean you can’t learn how to do it correctly. Do the sims. Look at the details. Look at the spell counts. How many FBs and how many shreds does the Sim count over the length of the run? Do your own tests and compare the numbers to help figure out what you might be doing wrong. What are the up times of your bleeds compared to the sims? There are clues everywhere if you know how to look. In the end, you may or may not be able to crack the case. Again, what it all comes down to is what works best for YOU.

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Or, you said something that should be corrected, I corrected it, and holy mother of God you did not like that.

Mate, you do not. That has been assured previously.

Yeah, I mean look at you, walking and talking all on your own.

Like you have repeatedly done?

Almost like I have said that repeatedly. Actually, the “rogue” has too.

Yes, your quick test on a dummy will invalidate a simulation that ran that dummy test, with actually controlled variables, 10,000 times. Because reasons.

Do you know why the sim runs so many iterations?

So instead of striving to improve or do better, or learn a better method/strat to do better, you should stay as you are because there’s no point in trying?

Sure. At first you’ll do worse with something new, something different. The idea is to learn and improve, you nimrod.

No, that’s literally not how it works. You don’t not play well because “you’re just not wired that way”. Everyone has the capability to play at a competent level. Changing a talent does not reroute your entire brain function.

I challenge you to actually listen to the people better than you, instead of hiding in a forum trying to make debates based off hitting a dummy.

That’s literally not how the game works. At all.

I love how you describe how to improve and do better, how to practice and evaluate your own performance and target areas for improvement, then still turn around and say "But game mechanics and encounter design doesn’t matter! Play what FEELS the best. Feelings

You’re a hack

I also particularly enjoy you still arguing your talent choice or whatever that argument was. Again, I never said anything about that. But you using, a few 3 minute dummy tests, is not a valid comparison, for literally anything.
Get off your high horse.

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The people that say ferals are bad are people that 1. Don’t play druid 2. aren’t good at playing feral or 3. Hate druids. Ferals are good at most things as long as you have the right Azerite traits to go with it. You want a different set for PvP, Dungeons, everything pretty much.

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I particularly love the “sims are a guide” line… They’re a mathematical representation of literally what will put out the most dps. If you want to argue it’s hard to do that in real life then fine… but your argument was “here’s a target dummy test proving my talents are better…”

Drez covered it all anyway.

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i play 2 ferals currently, have played up to 3 in previous expansions, im great at feral, i love feral…

ferals bad.

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it’s a combination of “feral is bad” (read: bloodtalons exists in 2019 and bleeds do miserable damage)

and

everything else is better.

I can play outlaw and press 1 button to aoe on my standard rotation while bringing way more utility skills and group benefit. or i can play a dh, be insanely survivable in addition in absurd mongolomorph uptime and just cleavefest everything while bringing nice defensive utility. feral can… uh… feral is uh… feral’s a cat?

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I mean, people can continue to trash talk it all they want but, Feral has useful utility in Stampeding Roar & strong ST dps in raids. In fact, my guild is going to use 2 for Jaina once we get there because of those reasons alone.

So people can say all they want but, Feral/Balance are in a similar boat right now. Strong ST dps, decent/good cleave and horrible burst AoE dps. The only thing pushing Balance ahead is a few extra things like Innevate, Treants for M+ and being a ranged dps. I was able to push similar numbers to Balance on 2-3 target cleave fights as a Feral Druid. -shrug-

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the problem isn’t entirely damage. Feral has fairly decent single target damage, yes. But most of the utility is vastly inferior. Stampeding Roar has its uses on some raid encounters, Jaina probably being the most notable this tier. Other than that, there’s too many specs that bring more.

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Feral isn’t bad PvE wise, but reward doesn’t scale with effort and skill the way it should. Also mythic+ utility is very low.

PvP wise, feral is absolute garbage. Probably the worst the spec has ever been. And I’m including vanilla in that appraisal. Bleed damage is irrelevant, and when so much of your damage comes from auto attacks your burst is going to be complete crap. Never mind the squishy factor and the abysmal off healing.

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Going to have to disagree with the low utility on Feral. I used to actually agree with you but since I’ve found out about the scrolls that give fort/battle shout/intellect that puts less reliance on warrior/priest/mage. The only thing we really don’t have is the mystic touch (5% physical damage) that monk has and the 5% magical damage that demon hunter has. I think the problem is we have a few classes that have really good utility like the aforementioned DH and monk having the 5% buffs, simply for being there. We also have Rogue that can skip entire packs of mobs so groups can avoid the really hard fights in mythic + dungeons.

Heres a look at some Feral Druid utility:

  • Battle Rez

  • Off heals (kind of meh tbh but it does help alleviate some stress off of the healer

  • Typhoon - Pretty good as far as knockbacks go

  • Stealth for death skips. Not as good as Shroud but a decent alternative is to have the Druid stealth up ahead (if there are no mobs that see through it) and have the group run by everything, die, and you rez the healer.

As far as talent changes go, I wouldn’t mind an aoe stun replacing mass entanglement on the 4th tier.

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Battle Rez is brought by quite a few classes anymore, as well as a consumable(worse than the real thing, but still an alternative). If you’re having to spend time off-healing, your group is really doing something wrong overall.

Thing is, all of this can just be brought as Balance anyway. There’s even less incentive to bring feral in place of one because of that overlap, even if you wanted a druid as dps.

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Battle rez can only be brought by 3 of 12 classes. That’s still pretty unique.

Yes, Balance does bring Battle Rez. We’re not talking about Balance though, we’re talking about Feral. I think it’s pretty understood that Balance is the “safer” choice but the title of the thread is, “Is feral really as bad as people say?” And I don’t think it is. It has received a bad stigma since it actually was pretty bad at the beginning of the expansion, but numbers have been tweaked alot since then and they are a respectable dps now. Do I think they could still use some tweaks? Yea, but I don’t think that anything but numbers changes are going to happen until the next expansion.

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  • Battle Rez - utility yes, but also brought by Balance, which is ranged and doesn’t take up a melee slot.

  • Off heals - being able to off heal isn’t utility in this sense, because if you’re off healing your group screwed the pooch. Your offheals aren’t enough to cover anything meaningful.

  • Typhoon - see Battle Rez.

  • Stealth - not utility. Rogues aren’t brought for their stealth, they’re brought for shroud (and ludicrous aoe damage).

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