The Enigma Order

xzar wrote:

Or Tetris (nerf those Z-shaped boxes btw)
.

O'RLY?

As i've said all way through this post, i would like to get some utility to help me in feral forms, lamme.
I can do something others cant do when we raid, i can tank an add, and then support healers/dps after that. A warrior cant heal.
But because of the ways we need to specialize, i cant be a prober support when it comes to this, because i have to spec for some resto talents to make my healing any good. and if i do that, i gimp both catform and bearform.

Unlike Xzar, i do miss the hybrid feel of the class as it was to begin with.

But my conserns are not that bad. In PvE i still feel fine at the point where we in TEO are now. IF i was to be catdps throughout an intire BT run, when we get there, with out spending time tanking anything, and i would be in the bottom of the dmg meter, then i would start reavalue my "demand" for a raid spot.
And this is where this comes to play, since i read alot of other druids, who has the best gear they can obtain, but simply fails to get the job done. I dont want to be that class you bring, but feels irritated about, since i cant live up to the standards. - here it isnt so much utility we need, but more of a look on our gear and what could be improved. I guess you have seen pillar of ferocity on some druids. Stats wise, this weapon looks sweet. Strength, stamina and a ton of AP. Problem is, that already now, i got a shitload of those stats. When we reach a sertain point, crit becomes important to keep up the high dps, and thats where feral itemization fails. Its all those small things that makes up not perform as good as we could, and where i feel we lack something. But since this topic isnt about feral itemization but catform utility, ill save that discussion for another day

Back to the kitty stuff: In PvP i've already given up on my druid more or less. I dont feel enjoyment PvPing as a feral, and this is one of the places where i dont think ill enjoy, before we get something to aid our low survivability in cat.

i havent thought this post through, since this wasnt an optimal time to write it in - doing alot of things as i write this, - but i wanted to give you an short answer when you asked for one lamme ^^ so i might repost this later, with another explanation.

Beardstorm wrote:

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=35094 is kinda how I imagine (and used to) play as feral. Theres some 2v2 around the middle of the vid and while I'm not sure how deep into feral he is in the arena vids

He is resto + feral charge. In all the other BGs he is heavy feral.

That is also the main point of the pvp complaints. Feral is fine in BGs and "normal" pvp, but in arena you need to be resto.

Lamme wrote:

Xzar, I disagree with you quite much, don't even know where to start.

I think you need some experience playing the class to fully understand the problems with combining healing/cyclone with a feral spec in arena. Without this experience it is very easy to get the impression that we can do it all without any problems.

Lamme wrote:

So you're feral thus don't want to use cyclone? Well tough luck I guess, still, you are in quite a privileged situation imo - you still have that option.

If I said I didn't want to use cyclone at all then that was a mistake. What I meant to say was that I don't want to be balanced (as a feral druid) based on an ability that has nothing to do with the spec. There are several reasons why I don't want to depend on cyclone with a feral spec (in arena).

First of all, the duration on cyclone is 6 seconds (before DR sets in). If I shift out of catform/bearform to cyclone an opponent and then switch back into a form I have 4,5 seconds left until the opponent is free again. The price I paid to get those 4,5 seconds was 769 mana, 3 seconds of casting+global cooldown and the loss of all the energy/rage I had before I decided to cyclone.

With a mixture of S1, S2, S3 gladiator gear + all the available honor PVP gear I have 7300 mana in arena, so for those 4,5 seconds of crowd control I paid over 10% of my mana pool.

Second, if I want to make full use of cyclone and cast it until the target is immune, then I have to stay in caster form and renew it. While I am doing this I am essentially crowd controlling myself as well. And while I am in caster form I am wasting 48 talent points that I placed in the feral tree.

In comparison:
Fear costs 250 (?) mana , has a 1,5 seconds cast time, lasts up to 10 seconds and the target can be damaged while under the effect.
Polymorph costs 150 mana (?), has a 1,5 seconds cast time, lasts up to 10 seconds (but heals the target ofc).

Draw your own conclusions from this - I have mine - but if you think we should be able to perform just fine if we just shift in and out and use the entire scope of our caster abilities combined with our buffed forms, well then why are there practically no successful feral druids in arena these days?

lamme wrote:

So, druids need to get those far-down-the-tree talents to be any good, making them 'forced' to choose on of the 3 potential specs? Well, no, not really. I've both fought aside and against quite badass hybrid spec ones, namely balance\resto.

You cannot compare a hybrid spec of balance/resto with feral. Balance/resto actually has a synergy between the talent trees (like other hybrids), while the feral tree has very little. If you want to combine feral with balance/resto you only have two ways to go. Either place 11 points in feral for bear charge, or place 41+ points for mangle (ruling out a flat spec). There is no in between, and placing 11 points in feral for the sole purpose of getting a specific bear ability that you use and then shift back to caster form has nothing to do with feral.

Lamme wrote:

That's still not feral utility you say? Well, it ain't. Than again - feral druids compete with prot warrios when it comes to pve tanking. Sooo, what is it exactly that would make it fair to make feral a 100% efficient, arena tailored spec? Mind, that they are already able to dps better than them prot warriors and, in my eyes, are generally more useful at arenas (though not too much indeed). Not the best argument possible though, I know.

This is what I sense is the real issue - and a very common one when feral druids ask for arena viability. We are met with "you rock in pve so you can't expect to also be able to perform in arena". Well, if that is how it is meant to be, then I guess Blizzard created an arena set for feral druids just to mock us. Notice that no arena set exists for prot warriors.

I think the reason is that many of you see us as "we want it all" individuals when we ask for this.

Last edited by xzar (2008-01-11 12:47:52)

Deep Feral 5  http://www.warcraftmovies.com/stream.ph … eam=Stage6

Playing Feral Druid can be successful in 2v2 and 3v3 brackets at least as proven by Deep. I was going to say that cyclone also has the unique benefit of BLOCKING all heals on the selected target as well as being undispellable and this video is an example of it.

Fear and Sheep also have chance to break early with the "heartbeat" resist thing which Cyclone does not have. But I stand by what I said that if you expect stay in the same form all the time then it's not a druid was of thinking.

Edit: I appreciate that his playstyle is probably not what a feral druid will think of as being "pure feral", especially a raiding druid where shapeshifting is non existant. But this is the playstyle that I was trying to describe when I said earlier that Druids do not need more utility but rather something to facilitate frequent shifting.

Last edited by Beardstorm (2008-01-11 23:52:38)

but why is the high manacost keeping you from shifting, seeing as you don't spend any mana on dps?
Where the two other hybrids (Paladin and Shaman) spend their mana on doing dps, you spend it on shifting, leaving only a fraction left for healing and utility for everyone, I really don't see the difference?