First off, I'll be quick. I don't even know who will see this at the rate things move to the next page on these newly combined forums. No rants or QQ here. Just want you to see where we are coming from, those of us who play (or try to play) feral in the arenas.

I read *thoroughly* through your recent post on feral druids. You made some good points, but there are some things I would like for you to discuss more, particularly about feral shapeshifting and Berserk. Here's the post for those who want to see it:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/2/12065146837-ghostcrawler--any-news.html

As you know, feral is almost never sought after for an arena team of any size because of it's previous lack of utility and damage. Now, we have been given some wonderful tools but there are a few important things that are handicapping us still.

I know it's not "cool" to sapeshift a lot--that may not be how you all intended it to be, but in reality it's an absolute necessity in the arenas the way things are. The way feral is built, we have to trade survivability for damage when we go bear to cat or vice versa. We open in cat form and do as much burst as possible, but then when we start getting hit, we must go bear form and trade our best damage for more survivability. This isn't as much of a problem if we are able to get a CC off and heal back up so that we can go cat form and start doing damage again.

The feral druid community is worried about mana right now, especially at level 80 when we will have less intellect than we do at 70 and a higher shapeshifting cost, not to mention a higher healing cost. The way that we are built, it is necessary to use all of our forms very often in the arenas, thus requiring a lot of shapeshifting. While the mana return on "Improved Leader of the Pack" is nice, if we are constantly shifting from survivability to burst to quick heals, there will be virtually no time to wait on crits to restore mana.

Lastly, many of us are a bit confused as to why feral druids can shift less than balance or resto druids. Shouldn't the spec that relies on shapeshifting the most be able to do just that--shapeshift the most?

And for berserk, I won't get into it too much because this has already gone longer than I originally expected, but in an arena situation, don't you agree it's often wasted? As a 51 point talent with a 3-minute cooldown, it's very disappointing to use it and then immediately be stun-locked, cycloned, hibernated, kited, frozen, or CC'd in any other way (except fear). And sadly, that's often how it happens.

Do you think we will ever see the CC-immunity restored to Berserk? I know there are worries that it could be too powerful, but do we know that for sure? And is it safe to make a decision based upon what "might" happen? If all else fails, then it could just be reverted back to what it currently is. Feral has so much potential for the arenas, that it would be great to see it be more viable with just a few small tweaks.

GC:

Any thought to maybe giving feral some type of talent to allow them to shift with certain limitations? As a comparison, warriors can stance dance, but the rage cost of doing so encourages us to change stances carefully, and punishes us if we don't manage our rage and what stance we generate it in.

Maybe a feral talent to make shapeshifting cheap or free, but only once every X seconds? Encourage a feral player to react to changing situations and ensure they have enough mana to be a druid while still shifting forms, but preventing them from going "I'M A KITTY I'M A BEAR I'M A KITTY I'M A BEAR!" all day long?

IIRC, you were going to do something similar for hunter aspects? Low opportunity cost for switching, but a cooldown to ensure that switching is a tactical choice and not just a reaction game.

from a hunter's POV nothinig like hitting a resto druid with viper/serpent sting only to see him change into bear/cat/travel and have the sting disappear. Not to mention the Resto going bear and charging me(pre 3.0) And as we know Line of sight and Keeping range are 2 of the biggest hunter issues, druids were capable of doing both, and as they were healing themselves.

Keeping a druid to one form is essentially ruining how the class was built, if you can shift to cat and perform so well you don't need to switch, then it removes the whole flavour of the class as a really strong hybrid, I like seeing druids shift around as the situation demands, means i have to adapt as player to his new attack style.

In regards to mana issues, i agree in that running out of mana is often not very fun, but at the same time after recently fighting retribution paladins, i much prefer my enemy cast his spells with care as to not OOM himself, over just using everything constantly and essentially being incredibly powerful.

Gaining mana back should be there, but i don't think it should prevent you from going OOM completely in a PVP setting, it should be able to regen a small enough amount to keep a small amount of tools open to use, but essentially running and drinking should be a viable option.

51 point talents are often the source of being negated by CC or dispel functions. If you start making things immune then everyone wants theirs to be immune to, gets to the point of "why have dispels?"

I mean i get highly annoyed that cyclone is undispelable almost every time i see it go off. That's like playing a chess match, but you have 1 piece that is immune to death, Just flat out annoying cause you can't counter it.

Anyways that's just my opinion, Im not sure how feral druid mana is coping, but mana is meant to have the weakness of not being the forever.

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Q u o t e:
from a hunter's POV nothinig like hitting a resto druid with viper/serpent sting only to see him change into bear/cat/travel and have the sting disappear. Not to mention the Resto going bear and charging me(pre 3.0) And as we know Line of sight and Keeping range are 2 of the biggest hunter issues, druids were capable of doing both, and as they were healing themselves.

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Well, what happened pre-3.0 is fairly irrelevent now, as post-3.0, a Resto will not have most of the tools they had before to keep that distance. And honestly, I'm glad for that, because when the single best Feral ability is abused by a Resto Druid, there's a problem.

In any case, this thread isn't about Resto Druids. It's about Feral viability in Arenas. Considering that my computer blew up, and that there's just no point to reinstalling the beta with 1-2 weeks left on it, I can't test it out for certain. Giving Ferals another option for dealing damage beyond Shred via bleeds is a good start, as well as regaining mana with Imp LotP, but with the rising costs of shifting on top of our shrinking mana pool, it could prove to be insufficient.

I realize GC stated that they're still trying to nail everything down, which is totally cool. Even so, it pays to be vigilant and point out a potential problem early.

It would also help that Ferals stuck in caster form for whatever reason wouldn't be sitting ducks. Balance and Resto both have access to their damage/healing arsenal when 'locked' in Caster Form. A Feral might as well be silenced. I'm not sure how you could effectively change that, though. And to be fair, a Resto/Balance Druid are effectively silenced in Cat/Bear form, too, so I guess it's all a moot point.

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Q u o t e:
from a hunter's POV nothinig like hitting a resto druid with viper/serpent sting only to see him change into bear/cat/travel and have the sting disappear. Not to mention the Resto going bear and charging me(pre 3.0) And as we know Line of sight and Keeping range are 2 of the biggest hunter issues, druids were capable of doing both, and as they were healing themselves.

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The mana cost of your sting is less than the mana cost of the druid shifting + curing himself. You have concussion and pet abilities to close the gap.

EDIT: Anyone looking at how Bladestorm is performing relative to Berserk, in terms of balancing burst dps with cc-immunity?

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Q u o t e:
from a hunter's POV nothinig like hitting a resto druid with viper/serpent sting only to see him change into bear/cat/travel and have the sting disappear. Not to mention the Resto going bear and charging me(pre 3.0) And as we know Line of sight and Keeping range are 2 of the biggest hunter issues, druids were capable of doing both, and as they were healing themselves.

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This thread is focusing on feral not resto.

I got a feral suggestion too =]

Nurturing instinct applies to all forms! Take the +70% healing from agility away.

Or instead of that change, make the + healing based on attack power on your weapon or overall attack power and not agility.

To me, the biggest problem with feral is that it doesn't have many tricks. Our PVP viability is based almost entirely on the "burstiness" of our damage output and very little else. This is our biggest downfall. There are severe limitations on what we can do to the enemy as a feral in PVP that really hinder our ability to provide synergy with other classes, which in the end is what arena is all about. (IMO feral druids are great for BG's and world PVP on the other hand, and can fare extremely well in a 1v1 situation in the hands of a good player.)

The druid class as a whole has many tricks, but most of them are not very practical to use as a feral. Lets take a look at cyclone for example, a very powerful tool in PVP - some may even argue overpowered. Six second crowd control that doesn't allow its target to receive any heals. But look what happens when a feral tries to use it: it takes 1.5 seconds to cast, and then either another 1 or 1.5 seconds global cooldown to go back to cat or bear form. Upwards of three seconds of you not doing anything at all, for a total of six seconds of crowd control.

Not only that, but you have to figure in the cost of the spell itself, as well as the mana cost of shapeshifting back. This is extremely troubling for a spec that has very little mana to begin with.

Why should it be so impractical for a spec that is already weak in arena to begin with, to use one of the most powerful arena abilities that its class has?

This problem further comes into play when you look at the fact that we're a hybrid class to begin with, yet as a feral, these limitations don't allow us that much room to behave like a hybrid. For example, we can't heal like either a ret paladin or enhancement shaman can. These guys don't have an extra cooldown nor extra mana cost associated with their playstyle that puts this kind of a burden on them, so being able to heal or use some of their casting abilities is a lot easier for them.

IMO a possible solution to this problem would be to integrate something along the lines of (but not as powerful as) the 2 set tier 5 bonus into a deep feral talent somewhere:

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Q u o t e:
When you shift out of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Cat Form, your next Regrowth spell takes 2.0 fewer sec. to cast.

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This is a great PVP ability IMO (not sure what the designers were thinking when they put it on PVE gear though.) Now, again, maybe not something quite as powerful as this as a talent, but something along these lines.

Say for example:

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Q u o t e:
When you shift out of cat form, bear form, or dire bear form, your next nature spell takes .75 fewer sec. to cast and has its global cooldown reduced to .75 sec. In addition, if you shift back into cat form, bear form, or dire bear form within the next 6 seconds of casting a nature spell while this effect is active, the cost of shapeshifting is reduced by 50%. This effect cannot happen more than once every six seconds.

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Not only would this give ferals more tricks, but it would also make feral druids be more like...well...a druid, and not just a watered down copy of a rogue with yet more rogue tricks, but be limited in such a way that we truly remain a melee spec first and not a caster.

FWIW, if this lends to my credibility any, I play all 3 druid specs, I have geared myself for all 3 specs, and I have also played arena well enough on my druid to become duelist in my battlegroup.

I've written two long replies to this thread so far and both of them got eaten by the forums when I attempted to post (I know I'm an idiot for not saving the second one, but whatever).

Nevertheless, here I go again. I'm going to cut this one down to about one tenth the length. :(

Mana was a concern for feral PvP all throughout BC as well. At 80, my mana pool will actually shrink about 2000 from what it is in live at 70. All spell costs will increase significantly.

Feral has always been about versatility. Our great adaptability not only makes the spec incredibly fun and challenging to play, but also is the only reason we are able to put up any real fight in most PvP scenarios.

Despite lower costs and better healing combined with larger mana pools, feral has essentially not existed in arena PvP since season 1. It just hasn't. At 80, the parts of this spec that make it incredibly fun to play be severely limited by oppressive mana concerns. While we will gain a few more utility tools in forms for arena, these are just a subset of the abilities whose lack made feral nonexistent at 70, WITH much higher healing and shifting capabilities.

I play feral because it's FUN. I do not WANT it to be easy. I don't even care much about being competitive. But I NEED it to be fun. If LK goes live this way, the 'fun factor" of this spec's PvP play will be severely limited, and I fear that its already negligibly low level of arena presence will also suffer.

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GC, I will tell you exactly what is going to happen at 80. Several other ferals have already pointed this out, but I feel it needs to be emphasized:

Ferals who are serious about PvP at 80 will use several pieces of Restoration gear in order to increase their mana pools and healing capabilities to levels comparable to what we have at 70. This doesn't seem like sound game design to me. It doesn't make sense from a "this is the way things should be" perspective, at least to me, either. And believe me, it's not something that a lot of ferals WANT to do. But do it we WILL, because it will be NECESSARY.

So, you and the development team must ask yourselves whether this is what you intend. If the answer is yes, fine I guess. We'll adapt or we'll quit. If the answer is no, there are two obvious options:

1. Nerf this capability so that it is no longer practical. I would not be unrealistic in saying that I think there is a distinct possibility that such a move would ring a death gnell for the already very low level of feral PvP in the game.

2. Or, change our talents to grant us the flexibility we need in order to make such gearing unnecessary.

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Please give some serious thought to these issues; I know you aren't ignoring us, but I also know you aren't sure whether we are being serious or just asking for things that would be nice, but aren't really needed or would cause balance problems.

I assure you that it is not the latter. I play this game for fun. The fun of feral PvP stems almost entirely from versatility, healing utility, and fluidly using all abilities available in order to succeed. It DEFINES the way the spec has always been played. There is very little debate on that point.

I mentioned this in some other threads, but has you or anyone else at Blizzard taken the time to watch any feral PvP? If not, and you think it would be valuable, please ask. There are many examples to be found which I can easily link for you. It might show you why were are so adamant on these issues.

There was a reason to put intellect on feral PvP gear in BC. There was a reason we strongly asked for compensation when +healing was removed from feral PvP gear in S3 (in the form of the buff to Nurturing Instinct we received after a while). Please do not forget these things when considering this issue and why we're asking for changes.

Feral is looking very good for now, better at least. But I thought I would also attempt to address this -

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Q u o t e:
We're not trying to punish Feral with a lack of mana or anything. We're just evaluating how they perform and what they do, especially in PvP with regards to this issue. The bottom line is we're not sure yet if it's really a problem or if the Feral players are just having trouble adjusting to the change. (I understand many of them *say* it's a problem.)

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The trouble is if you were following feral in arenas during the Burning Crusade you would see most ferals were running feral / rogue or another dps class in 2v2 arenas. If you look at the playstyle we had to employ with this it involved a lot of shapeshifting, using cyclone and roots and healing both us and our dps arena partner, therefore using a lot of mana. Most feral druids used the glyph of the outcast for the extra mana and weapon swapped a healing weapon as well as getting nurturing instint to heal better. The best example of this was Deep, and he was also one of the most successful. If feral druids have to last any amount of time in arenas when there are no other healing classes in there with them they are obviously worried about running out of mana with how the situation is looking at 80.

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Q u o t e:
I got a feral suggestion too =]

Nurturing instinct applies to all forms! Take the +70% healing from agility away.

Or instead of that change, make the + healing based on attack power on your weapon or overall attack power and not agility.

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The first suggestion (NI applies to all forms) just doesn't work in any scenario. It severely unbalances feral tanking, limits feral solo versatility even more, and makes us even more reliant on healers.

All we need is mana and a little bit more healing power. That's all. An appropriate change would be for NI to read something like:

Grants you 50% of your caster form attack power as healing spellpower, 25% of your Agility as Intellect, and increases the healing you receive while in Cat Form by 20%.

That's all we need to keep the spec fun. That's all. No overhaul, no drastic changes, just that.

Edit: Oh, and Primal Tenacity actually has to WORK. Please fix that. Neither the fear duration reduction component or the stun damage reducing component do anything at all on Live that I can see.

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Q u o t e:


The first suggestion (NI applies to all forms) just doesn't work in any scenario. It severely unbalances feral tanking, limits feral solo versatility even more, and makes us even more reliant on healers.

All we need is mana and a little bit more healing power. That's all. An appropriate change would be for NI to read something like:

Grants you 50% of your caster form attack power as healing spellpower, 25% of your Agility as Intellect, and increases the healing you receive while in Cat Form by 20%.

That's all we need to keep the spec fun. That's all. No overhaul, no drastic changes, just that.

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Starting with more int is nice, but that just changes the initial delta. The slope is still terrible if you want to do more interesting things.

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Q u o t e:


Starting with more int is nice, but that just changes the initial delta. The slope is still terrible if you want to do more interesting things.

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I agree. IMO feral needs to go back to its druid roots just a tad more, being able to employ more of the caster abilities without so many limitations that ferals currently have. Not saying we should be casters at all while feral spec. However, consider a ret paladin might on occasion want to use his holy light, an enhancement shaman might want to use frost shock or earth shock, like a feral druid might want to use cyclone. The first two don't have to sacrifice as much of their melee capabilities in order to use those abilities, while the later does.

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Q u o t e:


Starting with more int is nice, but that just changes the initial delta. The slope is still terrible if you want to do more interesting things.

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I don't know what exactly you are trying to say.

There are two factors to consider: Initial mana pool and how much you can do with it, and sustainability.

With iLotP the way it is, sustainability is fine as long as our initial pool is enough to allow us to get to a target and stay on it long enough to get back some mana. A 6.6k pool isn't enough to permit that reliably when you will also be casting heals and CC. A pool that scales with agility as I suggest would start you off with mana comparable to high-end BC gear, and scale upwards from there.

Right now, the major problem at 80 is initial pool size. We just don't have enough total mana to do anything with it. We can't heal well enough and don't have enough mana anyways to make healing worthwhile at 80. We don't have enough mana to CC more than twice without being at risk of being kited oom. Both of those seem ridiculous considering the history feral has as an exceedingly versatile spec.

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Q u o t e:


I agree. IMO feral needs to go back to its druid roots a bit more, being able to employ more of the caster abilities without so many limitations that ferals currently have. Not saying we should be casters at all while feral spec. However, consider a ret paladin might want to use his holy light, an enhancement shaman might want to use frost shock or earth shock, like a feral druid might want to use cyclone.

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I use cyclone all the time on live. I use all my healing spells on live. I ALWAYS HAVE. There is nothing wrong with feral mana or healing power on live right now, especially with the new iLotP changes. It's not overpowered, it requires timing or else it can easily LOSE you encounters, but it is fine.

I just want to be able to do that in LK. Right now at 80 I simply will not be able to because I will not have the resources to do so. My healing will be utterly laughable. I will lose my flexibility, which currently on live is what makes the spec fun and playable.

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Q u o t e:



I don't know what exactly you are trying to say.

There are two factors to consider: Initial mana pool and how much you can do with it, and sustainability.

With iLotP the way it is, sustainability is fine as long as our initial pool is enough to allow us to get to a target and stay on it long enough to get back some mana. A 6.6k pool isn't enough to permit that reliably when you will also be casting heals and CC. A pool that scales with agility as I suggest would start you off with mana comparable to high-end BC gear, and scale upwards from there.

Right now, the major problem at 80 is initial pool size. We just don't have enough total mana to do anything with it. We can't heal well enough and don't have enough mana anyways to make healing worthwhile at 80. We don't have enough mana to CC more than twice without being at risk of being kited oom. Both of those seem ridiculous considering the history feral has as an exceedingly versatile spec.

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Sustainability is not fine if overall melee crit percentage has been nerfed and you do not do any melee critting while casting out of form.

If you are in melee more often, you get more mana back, but you don't use it as much--a useless surplus.
If you are casting more often, you get less mana back from meleeing, and you use even more mana than normal--a harmful deficit.

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Q u o t e:
It's not overpowered, it requires timing or else it can easily LOSE you encounters, but it is fine.

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The problem is that it requires too much timing. See the second paragraph in my longer post above.