SUBJECT NO.1
Main priority is BT along with rework on SBT to completely remove the refresh.
“Talents should enhance a spec" which is the complete opposite of what it does, but I’m assuming we all know what we mean by that. Making the core mechanic of a spec something you generally only need to think about once is not ideal in terms of spec design. I wholeheartedly think that it needs to be removed or heavily reworked.
The change to BT isn’t surprising considered there was talk about changing it back in start of the expansion but it didn’t get resolved there
The change itself looks like it has potential. Feels good with a big damage-buff to rip and it encourages people to properly pool. Furthermore not spending 1 second on the BT gcd, while also freeing PS procs up to use as you please without losing damage.
This does obviously require that the energy flow supports this and doesn’t get inflated within a patch or two which I hope will be kept in mente.
The downside to the new BT is it’s completely negated by sabertooth outside of aoe. Basically you’re going to use berserk, tiger’s fury, bleed target and spam bite to keep rip up for the entire fight without ever paying mind to the snapshot or the rip which makes the talent feel very pointless in itself.
This is not a new concern with sabertooth. Just yet again a time where its issues become apparent. It removes a large portion of what is defined as core gameplay for feral. Blizzard does recognize feral as a snapshotting class that deals damage with bleeds and bites. Sabertooth removes the main bleed from the equation and a large chunk of the snapshotting. New BT is just harder hit by this.
SUBJECT NO.2
Removal of SI from Feral’s toolkit.
Survival Instincts is an ability we’ve had since feral turned into its own pure dps spec. It’s considered a core ability in our toolbox and now it’s getting pruned for barkskin which we had TOGETHER with SI in the past. It’s one of our core abilities that everybody uses and enjoys. Especially the later implemented 2 charge system is really fun and gives you the option for aggressive playstyle during boss fights, m+ and pvp instead of having to go bear form and pray healers bother with you. The lack of SI makes us become a glass cannon without ammunition which really isn’t what we want. We want our defensives.
Basically our bearform is what boomies have passively from high armor in boomie form without the loss of damage from having to shift into bear form.
This will also be a problem in m+ and raid where you have to leave your dps form unlike boomies to mitigate the damage.
It feels like a really poor choice to remove SI while talking about de-pruning specs.
The biggest issue of removing SI is not just one person’s bad reaction. We are talking about the whole Feral community! As much as we understand that a new expansion brings changes and unifies every bit to have consistency across the whole system is logical! We agree with the way the blizzard devs changed some things. Removal of SI though is a stab in the wound we already have from the perception of the community about feral which is mocking the spec’s viability outside of guild runs. With the hand on the heart, the removal of SI from Feral needs to be reverted. It is our own unique defensive as a melee DPS spec.
Overall this change will make it harder for us to get into pugs as a spec that might bring the damage but have to be carried by the healer to even survive incoming damage. This also brings us to what we bring to the group utility wise.
SUBJECT NO.3
Class-wide Utility
As Ferals we feel quite happy that this change will give the other specs the fun of using Stampeding Roar, which at some point can be proven useful on any type of content.
As much as we appreciate this action that was taken by Blizzard to make those changes and implement them across the whole class, there are some points where Feral feels and looks like a lackluster.
Ursols was promised as class wide utility from start. Do that. Right now feral have no personal utility to be brought for in groups. It’s so bad that you had to put maim on the feral affinity to even have SOMETHING. No boomie, resto or bear is ever going to take the affinity for that.
One can wonder why boomie that has several unique utilities got typhoon just so they could give THAT to other specs through their affinity. Could have been treants instead and have given feral the typhoon for their affinity which would have made far more sense. Instead our “utility” is now going to be maim?
What’s the point of de-pruning us when we don’t actually feel the de-pruning here? We have lost symbiosis, leader of the pack, ursols, fairy fire, treants, nature’s vigil, tranquility and innervate over time. There’s a lot of options to give some of this back in a de-pruning.
Not to say that i personally think LoTP is a good idea here. Nor FF since it ruins the fun of stealth for the opponent. Innervate is “just” for one person in the group
Give us something we actually can say “This is what we bring to the table to make life easier for you all”.Some form of group utility. Hell. Even giving Ursols to ALL specs would satisfy me as an overall nice CC toolbox despite us not bringing anything on our own.
It feels extremely unfair to not have anything useful in return while other specs sit happily on so many unique utility options.
SUBJECT NO.4
Berserk - Offensive cooldown?! Not really.
This topic is by far the most straight forward one. Berserk is not really worth being called an Offensive 3 min Cooldown ability. Out of the ordinary lowering cost of abilities and giving us some more energy room for pooling, there is nothing more. Weave in more shreds or brutal slashes? We can do that anyway during the whole fight, because there is no actual impact when Berserk is up. No damage modification whatsoever on a 20sec duration, whereas Incarn gives us straight up Stealth Rakes and Stealth Shreds for its full duration 30 second.
Feral has always been a spec with a quite good, sustained and stable damage throughout any content. An example would be back in WoD when there was a 15% buff through artifact talents which complemented Berserk to actually feel like a real cooldown to pop on burst windows.
We want to be clear that we don’t demand to be OP. We want this ability to have an actual reason for pressing it apart from the low cost of abilities and extra energy pool. We simply want it to feel better than what it does right now.
SUBJECT NO.5
Execute Range
Sub 20% execute was something we lost not long ago and it’s sorely missed. It wasn’t a big dps gain but it felt good and empowered us slightly for the endphase.
It was removed possibly due to buff Sabertooth as a talent? Maybe, but it’s something we miss having and we may be asking for miracles but could also be reverted. That would solve one of the many issues Sabertooth brought being a monotonous destroyer of Feral’s true identity as a spec.
Closing Statement
Bear in mind that we are passionate about this spec and wholeheartedly just want it to work. We have spent so many years playing it for the most part and we would appreciate the understanding from the Dev’s behalf on these 5 topics. The first 3 subjects are the most concerning ones and by far the most important! The latter 2 are preferences we would love to experience again.
We humbly thank you in advance for your consideration,
The Dreamgrove Discord,
Feral Discord Community.