The problem comes from not making Feral’s already good ST absolutely broken.
That, and making Shred still relevant (which is the issue with overbuffing swipe or thrash’s impact damage.)
They could buff Thrash’s bleed by 100% and we’d get a bit more AOE, and no appreciable ST change.
But to really give Feral AOE, they need to completely rejigger the damage profile of the spec.
FB would need nerfed by 25-40% in order for things like Rip and possibly BrS to get buffed enough to add to the AOE. Nevermind buffing shred enough to make buffing swipe more relevant, and possibly buffing rake to make our sustain low-target AOE cleave better.
Unfortunately that’s a drastic enough change that we’re looking at 10.0, or the very last patch of SL for that to seem a realistic expectation.
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Considering how far feral is behind specs like WW and balance, mages, rogues etc in the overall department, they needs a significant buff to aoe in addition to having superior single target. Rogues have crazy single target and Aoe PLUS utility.
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We already have the superior ST.
We don’t need (and don’t want) the best ST in the game. Best is begging for the bat. Otherwise, we’re doing pretty darn well in that department.
I’m not advocating for any reduction of our ST. Simply a change in damage weighting that doesn’t load so much of our DPS into a purely ST ability (bite). Because that’s the only way to allow us to get better AOE without getting a followup massive nerf bat.
That’s easily solved by making Swipe do more damage only if it hits 2 or more targets and then awarding more combo points during Berserk. Moving damage from Bite to Rip would probably just make it very tricky to balance Necro in the short term. Again, this would just be a quick band aid fix.
There’s no reason not to buff our already existing (and flawed) AoE toolkit right now and taking a deeper look into it in the future instead of sitting and waiting for the next patch like always. Sure, our ST is pretty good in the raid, but we’re simply not bringing anything else as a melee dps. Not even our raid sprint is unique anymore.
We’ve been waiting for the next patch since when? 8.0? The only changes we had in the past few years were BT and Berserk rework during pre patch. I’m not asking for the best AoE in game, i just don’t want it to be this absurdly bad.
Brutal slash should become a combo point spender and not have charges. Primal wrath should be baseline, and then have a passive talent that buffs primal wrath in place of the current one.
Slight buffs to Thrash and Rip buffs are all they need to do.
The former because it has no really effect on Ferals singlet target and it is indeed, underwhelming.
The later because Rip is extremely undertuned and unrewarding as a finisher, in its current state. For those who have been dabbling in Necrolord since 9.1.5 dropped, you’ll know that even as Necro, Rip does such poor single target damage that it so desperately needs a buff. If I’m not playing Sabertooth - make pressing Rip feel more rewarding.
I can sort of understand Rip being a weak noodle when you have perma extend from Sabertooth (god how I hate this talent), but when I’m recasting it, snapshotting it, and using brains, let me feel its pain and the glory of old Rip; I want to smirk as the blood of my victims spill over the floor through huge Rip ticks.
If they are worried about a Rip buff affecting single target, then bloody take a bit off Bite.
IMO they only have to do slight adjustments, just skew a bit of damage to AoE bleeds and it will be good. I don’t think Feral should dominate in AoE; every spec has niches, however its clear Feral is a bit too skewed and therefore its impacting the content people can play (e.g. mythic+).
Ultimately this comment is in vein because we haven’t seen anything from 9.2 yet.
With Feral’s current tuning, I don’t think we can straight up buff Swipe. I think DPE Shred still beats Swipe on single target, but not by much. If Swipe were to get buffed we’d end up using only that on single target outside of Berserk.
As I feel with a lot of specs honestly, many if not all should have their damage rebalanced a bit. It feels like in general spenders do significantly more damage than builders, so now we’re in this spot where like Ferocious Bite is doing 50% of our total damage on single target. To allow Swipe to get buffed at all for example, the ceiling (Shred) needs to also get raised and probably compensated with a nerf to Bite. This can also open up some room to buff Rip for example which also helps with AoE from PW.
Just buff the DD portion of PW. Lazy quick fix that will only affect aoe.
Boring.
Id rather see Rake get some treatment similar to rip with primal wrath.
“If target is affected by thrash, rake will to hit up to 5 additional targets.”
Same concept as a Fury warriors whirlwind
“Causes your next 2 single-target melee attacks to strike up to 4 additional targets for 45% damage”
Two birds, one stone.
You’re welcome.
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I’d like a talent of a modified torghast power of rewarding keeping rake on three targets. So perhaps when rake is on at least 3 targets, increases rake and rip damage by X%