The mess that is Druid

Classes Druid
21

And one other comment, feral will also suffer in blitz brawl when rating kicks in.

The “see through stealth” orbs will make your life miserable. Now, many classes with just as much or more mobility than you will see you a mile away and chase you down.

Honestly, don’t bother wtih the spec if you enjoy pvp outside arena.

I was just in a blitz brawl and a devoker used one of those orbs and started whaling on me. My only choice was to run but nowadays evokers can chase you down relatively easily. So it was a no win situation.

22

Well 4 of these 5 are addressed in tww. Bark is way stronger. You auto shift into feral form when you use an ability so you can weave way better and dont have to use a global to shift. Regrowth gives damage reduction now.

23

Funny thing is I had a much higher win rate in Blitz Brawl with feral than my fistweaver. Granted, I’ve only played the fistweaver for a day so I need to improve a bit.

The problem with playing a healer is you are at the mercy of your dps.

The majority of losses come from our team being massively outdamaged by other team even though all healers from both sides are close. That doesn’t mean I’m the perfect player. But most times there is just nothing I can do about it.

Having said that, just can’t go back to feral in its current state. Not happening. Not dealing with that for 4 to 6 months until expansion hits. Especially with how oppressive some specs are… DH anyone?

24

Fluid form addresses this in the new class tree - you’d be able to incap roar on one GCD, then rake/shred on the next and auto-shift back into cat with that GCD.

The accessibility of fluid form in the class tree for cats is likely a problem however.

Every single druid spec has the exact same convoke/incarnation choice node, followed by an enhancer node for your selected spell, in essentially the same spot in their class tree. (Resto is a little different)

Why this node (and the relevant enhancer nodes) are not in the class tree is beyond me. These are evidently druid spells, not spec spells. Lots of other class trees have major cooldown spells that all spec use in the tree - and specifically their old covenant spells - so why are incarn/convoke buried in spec trees while everyone is dealing with dead, useless points they have to spend in the druid tree?

Because the entire spec thematic is balancing arcane & nature magic. Hence you have one arcane dot and one nature dot. Stellar flare exists as the combination of both, and while I have issues with stellar flare’s implementation (since legion…) simplifying the rotation by making it the baseline dot is not the play.

“hybrid tax” hasn’t existed in class design philosophy since at least WoD, if not earlier.

The whole point of talent trees is that you have accessibility to lots of different kinds of builds, but have to pick and choose elements from each. Yes, you could voluntarily take on hybrid tax to be able to DPS and heal and tank on the same character at the same time, but you should also be able to say I’m going to specialize into one role and do that role as well as anyone else. The druid tree (both current and alpha) doesn’t exactly live up to that philosophy, but that’s the intent.

The “X roar” has precedent for being both Cat & Bear (see: stampeding) so the re-name would ultimately be unnecessary in that instance. Incap roar was originally a bear talent inaccessible to other spec hence the form-locking, but I wouldn’t mind seeing that revisited now that it’s become a mainstay of multiple druid specs.

Slowing down feral (and rogue fwiw) are stated goals of TWW design. They want less spammy energy classes and more careful consideration of energy use, which will naturally reduce the GCD burden of the classes.

Um… survival instincts? If you’re not making good use of it ship that over to boomie tree we’d love to have it.

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25

Again, that’s nearly useless in group fights when I’m stunned and snared forcing me to endlessly shapeshift with global cooldowns which results in me doing only auto attack damage because my big shreds are on same globlal cooldown. So after a snare, I need to go into bear form then back into cat form and then use shred.

Great, I broke the snare!!!

Oh wait, another snare is applied to me forcing the cycle of bear form to cat form and then shred again.

See the problem? Either remove global cooldowns from shapeshifting or make it so we don’t need to shapeshift as often. No other class in the game has to endlessly stance dance between offense and defense with global cooldowns nonetheless.

That is the definition of clunky gameplay and why few play feral outside arena pvp.

26

No?

Firstly - survival instincts applies in all forms, so the amount of power shifting you’re doing throughout it’s duration is irrelevant, the DR (a very, VERY good DR) is still functioning.

Secondly, you’re pointing to powershifting for survivability & root breaking reasons as clunky and inconvenient, without seeming to realize that powershifting is one of the great advantages of druid - the alternative to powershifting isn’t infinite root breaks & strong bear survivability without spending the GCDs on shifting, it’s not having access to those tools at all. No longer is it “I break the second root but now I’m in bear and losing GCDs and pressure”, it’s “I can’t break the second roots so now I’m stuck, losing GCDs, and have no pressure.”

Most classes have one way to break snares - most have ONLY one on a lengthy cooldown. Some have root breaks off-GCD, again, one on a length cooldown. No one has infinite root breaks like Druid does, and certainly not off-GCD. Root breaks in PvP is one of the major reasons why shifting is even on the GCD in the first place - it’s sure not for PvE purposes.

No other class gets the luxury of the powerful defensive tool that bear form is, or the infinite root breaks. If you view that as “clunky”, then go play rogue. You get extremely similar gameplay, slightly more utility tools, and lose access to bear and powershifting. Don’t take those tools away from druid just because you don’t like them - the class you want to play already exists.

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27

Yea, but that’s all it takes to stay on your target and pump out the damage when needed. Feral doesn’t have that. Just because you can break the root or snare doesn’t mean you are staying on your target doing meaningful damage.

And we already have the drawback of being squishy while doing our dps, so I’m not sure why you think if they gave power shifting back we’d suddenly have to be stuck in roots as a tradeoff. OUR TRADEOFF IS BEING SQUISHY with no other serious defense other than a 3 minute cooldown. How will that play out in a blitz brawl? You’ll have one big go with your 3 min and then back to the drawing board?

Sure, in arena it might be great for taking out one person fast, but most people will just CC you while using that survival instinict.

28

I already stopped playing feral (and enhance shaman) because of it. And from the looks of all the pvp I’ve been doing the last week, most people agree with my take because I see very few of those specs being played outside arena. I don’t do arena so can’t tell if a lot of players are choosing those specs, but outside arena? Nope… not many.

And it’s not because they are complex classes nobody has patience for. It’s because they are CLUNKY and not designed for the modern era. Ultimately it comes down to excess global cooldowns. Plain and simple.

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29

Druid of the Claw can also roll/share bear form bonuses into Cat for a while. It’s going to be surprisingly tanky with part of its damage expected from gaining the benefit of both forms.

“Jack of all, master of none” is such an out of date and sorely misguided view of Druid. Because of form locking and talent specialization, Druid has always been master of one. What hero talents provide is an “offspec-like” view into building an archetype.

30

Wild Charge/Tiger dash, feline swiftness, tireless pursuit, Infected Wounds, Predatory Swiftness, Ursols/Mass entangle, cyclone, malorne’s swiftness, stampeding roar (and it’s pvp talent), King of the jungle.

Feral has lots of tools to stick on a target. Yes, you need to be able to stay in cat form to deal meaningful damage, just like Warriors need to stay out of DStance, priests need to stay out of disperse, etc etc. Trading off damage for survivability is a common theme and extremely powerful when used correctly.

No. You have bark, SI, and bear on 1m, 3m, and no cooldowns respectively. This is a very diverse and powerful defensive toolkit, in which only the completely unrestricted bear form actually requires you to sacrifice damage to benefit from. This is far better than the defensive options available to many other classes.

I’m not gonna lie - it sound like you’re sprinting into the middle of a 20-man melee in IOC or some nonsense and getting upset that it’s not working out for you. That has never been Feral’s role, just like it’s never been Rogue’s role. Nothing to do with the class being clunky or lacking tools, and everything to do with that not being the class’ strength.

And lets move on from the notion that battleground PvP is well balanced. It’s not. There are simply too many variables (not least of which is imbalanced team sizes in a given skirmish) for it to be well balanced. PvP is balanced around arena. In arena, feral is perfectly viable (actually it’s quite good) and provides a meaningful distinction in utility and gameplay from rogue. If you don’t enjoy arena and don’t want to play it, that’s your choice - but Blizzard isn’t going to destroy the balance of arena to facilitate people winning the bad fights they pick in battlegrounds.

31

Nice list, but none of that will help you stick to an enemy player using non stop 50% to 70% snares on you one after the other. Literally all those feral speed boosts are just that, speed boosts. They don’t make you immunity to snare, not even for 3 seconds. And a lot of those are on long cooldowns. So you might be lucky to use 2 of them during an entire blitz brawl.

Infected wounds is a 40% snare if you choose the pvp talent. Most players do so it’s not an issue, but again, it’s only 40%. Most snares are 50% or higher against you.

And all those feral leaps are easily countered by mobility form other classes. Most likely you’ll get knocked back, stunned, and/or snared again after using them. Especially after using survival instincts.

As for trading defense for damage, I see paladins, rogues, and many other specs deal plenty of damage while their best defenses are up. And a lot of those defenses help them avoid crowd control unlike feral survival instincts and barkskin.

I’m beginning to think you are a pvp dev guy trying to defend this crap when all you have to do is count the number of feral druids queueing for pvp “outside arena” and see there is a problem. Outside arena also includes blitz brawl.

Anyway, I’m done arguing. Enjoy your feral. I moved on to demo lock for my dps toon. Sure, it’s not as complex, but you know what? The gameplay is less frustrating and my winning percentage actually went up. I also don’t have to deal with those stupid see through orbs in blitz brawl. And I don’t have to worry about some random AoE that is part of someone’s rotation knocking me out of stealth while they are attacking a different player.

/end discussion

32

TWW Class Tree needs a lot of work. This is just quick stuff off the top of my head.

First: More talents should be baseline. Maim (Feral), Ironfur (Bear), Wild Growth (Resto).

Im with the crowd that feels Fluid Form should be baseline as well. It is just in a weird spot. I know that Resto will be using it a lot and maybe that was the thought process of putting it where it is. However… You have Hero talents that promote shifting for Feral/Bear and they are going to have a really hard time getting that talent.

On the other side is the opposite problem. In PVE Moonkin has pretty much been top deaths in Mythic raid since BFA. That is a very long time! Now going into TWW all of the defensive talents are on the complete opposite side of the Moonkin tree. Those need to be moved up. Even if not, what kind of Capstone is Well-Honed Instincts? It has to be one of the worst in any tree. But yes, move the defensive talents so squishy Boomys can get some help!

Speaking of capstones. Heart of the Wild CD is still way too long. Make it 3m and Natures Vigil needs to be buffed.

33

I logged on my feral and had a match in that Temple BG. The enemy team had two balance druids and a DK.

It was the most miserable experience ever. I spent almost the entire fight unstealthed from all the spread DoT those classes kept pushing out.

No way in hell should spread DoT hit someone who is stealthed. That would be the easiest thing to hotfix yet it existed the entire expansion as far as I can tell. And if it’s meant to be a feature, then feral needs an ability like rogue subterfuge so it can do some of its main damage as if it were stealthed for 3 seconds.

There’s too many ways to unstealth a feral which neuters most of its damage, especially in blitz brawl.

34

??? No it doesn’t. Feral’s damage isn’t concentrated in that single stealth-Rake you get, which is the only benefit that stealth gives and you likely already have from Sudden Ambush anyway.

35

There’s a bit more to it than just the opener. Feral in cat form has low hitpoints in comparison to many other classes. Walking around unstealthed all the time with spread DoTs on you ticking away is nearly a death sentence because everyone will see the feral and make it their number one target.

And sometimes it’s better to use a big shred opener so you don’t give the enemy diminishing returns to stun. This is especially true in mostly uncoordinated blitz brawl group combat where other players are using their stuns.

Maybe feral needs a way for it to not get unstealthed when spread DoTs hit it? Let the DoTs still do damage, but don’t unstealth the feral.

36

Then say that being unstealthed affects your survivability, not your damage. Because nothing you said changes that.

I don’t understand how this is relevant. Whether you spend the stealth on Rake or Shred doesn’t matter. You still only get one stealth. Not getting it doesn’t “neuter” your damage.

Is this a problem you expect to not have on Rogue?

37

Yes and no.

Rogues stealth is on a shorter cooldown and can be recast more often between those DoTs for subterfuge.

And rogues can remove DoTs every 2 min.

38

No…Vanish can be cast between DoTs.
Stealth cannot
And Vanish is on a 2 minute CD as well

39

I’ve stealthed plenty of times between dots only for the stealth to break right away.

That’s assuming I don’t receive any regular attacks including the dots.

Anyway, point is the “spread” dots should not spread to you while stealthed.

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40

So anyone able to stealth is unaffected by AoE’s? No