This is a post from a blue in reference to changes made during a TBC PTR. It clearly shows that a change was made that heavily nerfed powershifting by ensuring that cancelling form and re-activating cat form reset the energy ticker instead of continuing through and giving us the energy bump on time. This change was mostly made in an effort to assist other classes with spells like evocate or innervate, to ensure that they did not get ticks clipped by the game.
This thread is to discuss, with anyone (especially those with good memories of TBC), maybe even a dev on the classic team, if this was true, or something that is currently demonstrable on your internal 2.4.3 reference client (I assume this is a thing).
If this change is accurate, not only is Wolfshead useless, but it would severely hamper our efforts to DPS competently in a competitive environment.
It was never forgot. We had a feral druid DPS / OT (he used to tank from time to time as well). He would pull up decent DPS, and he would never do anything like powershifting (I played as melee, a cat shifting into a cow all the time would’ve been noticed).
Also:
That is the life of a feral druid in TBC. We would bring one (either DPS or tank).
You know just as well as I do the meta has changed significantly since then though, stuff like this affects modern day players a lot more than it does players back then.
Yeah, we would rotate bloodlust in the melee group (driving our DPS so high), nowadays a rogue might not even see the taste of bloodlust in their group.
Isn’t this why you shift right at the end of a tick, so you get 40+20+20 the exact second? I played feral (poorly) in TBC and I hated powershifting, but I do remember doing it and it seemed to work fine. Pservers also show that its still working just like it does in Classic, maybe even better due to the imitation spell batching.
I do remember in later expansion that energy gains were static and global so every class and spec (that had energy) gained it at the exact same time. It was like on a global tick or something, but powershifting was already rendered useless due to tigers’ fury giving energy.
If the post I linked reflects the reality of TBC Classic, the TBC private servers have it wrong (and it wouldn’t be the first time) by virtue of carrying over the mechanic from vanilla private servers.
Basically, in the linked version of TBC Classic that apparently was the actual case, when you shift near the end of the tick, instead of giving you the extra energy, it instead resets the tick, forcing you to wait 2 seconds before you get the bonus energy.
Meaning yes, they made the ticks specific to each person.
Not sure I follow you then, brother. I DID use powershifting in PvP to go from zero > 40 energy and that worked fine (but i guess furor isn’t effected by whatever it is you’re talking about), but I was too distracted to notice if i ever got the 60 tick or not.
However, powershifting is still our only way to do viable dps with or without this nerf you’re referencing. 60 energy or 80 energy, still more than zero. We’ll just burn through mana quicker.
You don’t know what you are talking about regardless of what you think you are reading. Powershifting was absolutely a thing and wolfshead helm lasted well into WOTLK
This I don’t recall, but I didn’t do the powershifting thing in TBC either because I mostly did Tanking.
I do recall them killing some of the more intelligent one-button rotation macros that did all kinds of script type stuff to select abilities based on various conditions that Blizzard was not happy with, and I remember messing with it for all of like one lockout before it got broken on Teron Gorefiend, but other than that I don’t know.
I’m fine with Wolfshead getting the boot to be honest, and I’m no real fan of powershifting, but if it actually does disappear entirely, Ferals are definitely in a worse position regarding pure DPS roles.
Our MT/OT roles are still just fine.
We might not get a real answer until we get Beta and can do some testing. Given some of the fixes we’ve gotten to adjust for fun but odd gameplay, like Paladin Seal Twisting, we could get some bandaid fix to the behavior to let us keep doing it.
I sincerely hope if it was not done back in the day it is implemented this way in classic. The devs have shown us they understand and can make a compelling game in the spirit of TBC rather than the literal implementation.
World buffs gone
Drums will be nerfed HEAVILY!!!
Seals across both pallies
why not extend this to breaking modern meta’s that emerge which did not exist in TBC, as they would have done if they manifest over the course of TBC?
TL;DR
Nerf Locks & hunters buff warrior thunderclap threat to WOTLK levels, remove target cap on bear swipe… GG WOTLK meta!!!
It’s not just the actual screenshot of a comment about a BC PTR, there are several videos as well that have been found of a feral that also prove the words spoken of in that screenshot.
I’m literally just the messenger here. What’s in these videos and screenshot is pretty definitive.
https ://youtu.be/HVfTsZNMTa8
Watch the energy ticks when he shifts in to form.
This doesn’t prove anything. The screenshot and video I posted is quite a bit more conclusive.
Because the wolfshead helm scales pretty much directly with the value of shifting and it’s inherently less efficient if it shows up in this form, making the conversation shift towards meta gems and “regular” TBC helms. Wolfshead will simply be much clunkier like this, and stacking that on top of the new mangle/rip rotation, there’s potential for it not to be worth the clunk.
We would have to wait and see on the beta but things are not looking good.
Check out the PTR right now, the mechanics there are different than Live Classic (not sure about druid). heck they have some TBC changes already on Classic like combat dropping after honor kill delay (5 sec) previously was instant. Those sorts of things, so maybe its the a similar client to what TBC will be?
The PTR is live right now, and there are target dummies and you can copy a character really easy.
As far as I’m aware they plan to use the same client (legion), but the change that did this was seemingly intentional with powershift gains as collateral damage that made it to live according to the videos, which doesn’t bode well if TBC Classic ends up being “to spec”.
Powershifting was rendered useless in WotLK because Blizzard maintained energy values across shifts. Powershifting literally gave you no net increase in energy. The fact that Tiger’s Fury, a 30 second cooldown, gave energy is mostly meaningless in comparison because Ferals can burn through their entire energy bar in 3 seconds.