[Feral] WoD Alpha Notes

[Paloro 39]

*Feral Changes Only

 

Overall Changes

• Agility no longer provides an increased chance to critically strike with melee and ranged attacks or abilities (New passive to compensate, see passives section).


• Each point of Agility or Strength now grants 1 Attack Power (down from 2). All other sources of Attack Power now grant half as much as before.


• Weapon Damage values on all weapons have been reduced by 20%.


• Attack Power now increases Weapon Damage at a rate of 1 DPS per 3.5 Attack Power (up from 1 DPS per 14 Attack Power).


• Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.


• All players now have a 100% chance to hit, 0% chance to be dodged, 3% chance to be parried, and 0% chance to glance, when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included).


• Hit and Expertise bonuses on all items and item enhancements (gems, enchants, etc.) have been converted into Critical Strike, Haste, or Mastery.


• Combo points are now stored on the player, not the target.
  

Spells

Removed Spells

• Innervate has been removed. Mana costs for Druids have been adjusted accordingly.


• Mangle (Cat Form) has been removed. Shred is now available to all Druids (Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target).


• Symbiosis has been removed.

Changed Spells

• Cyclone can now be canceled by immunity effects (i.e. Divine Shield, Ice Block, etc.), and can be dispelled by Mass Dispel.


• Disorienting Roar’s effect now shares Diminishing Returns with other Mesmerize effects.


• Faerie Fire now applies Physical Vulnerability, increasing Physical damage taken by 4% for 30 seconds. It no longer applies Weakened Armor is that raid debuff is being removed.


• Weakened Blows is removed.


• Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target.


• Ravage no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target.


• Survival Instincts is now available to all Druid specializations. Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3), and for Feral and Guardian specializations can have up to 2 charges (up from 1).


• Pounce's damage has been increased by 100%.


• Tranquility now heals every Party and Raid member within range every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. It no longer places a periodic effect on each target. The total amount of healing it generates in Raids should be approximately the same as before this change.

Talents, Glyphs, & Passives

Talents

• Tier 90


• Heart of the Wild no longer provides an increase to Hit chance or Expertise while active, and no longer increases Stamina, Agility, and Intellect.


• Dream of Cenarius: Casting Healing Touch no longer increases the damage of the Druid’s next 2 melee abilities, or increases the healing of Rejuvenation.


• Nature’s Vigil, while active, increases single-target damage and healing caused by healing spells by 16% (down from 25%), and all single-target damage spells also heal a nearby friendly target for 35% of the damage done (up from 25%).


• Tier 100


• Lunar Inspiration (Feral) - Moonfire is now usable while in Cat Form, generates 1 combo point, deals damage based on attack power, and costs 30 energy.


• Bloody Thrash (Feral) - Thrash now also applies the Rake bleed effect to all damaged enemies and awards 1 combo point if it strikes your current combo target.


• Savagery (Feral) - Savage Roar is now passive.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Savagery now grants a free 5 combo point Savage Roar when leaving Prowl, instead of allowing Savage Roar to be used with 0 combo points.


• Some glyphs are now learned automatically as you level:


• 25: Entangling Roots, Fae Silence, Ferocious Bite, Cat Form


• 50: Might of Ursoc, Nature's Grasp, Rebirth, Rejuvenation, Savagery


• 75: Dash, Faerie Fire, Healing Touch, Master Shapeshifter

Passives

• Primal Fury now also grants a combo point for area attacks that critically strike the Druid's primary target.


• There is a new passive for agility users, named Critical Strikes, which increases chance to critically strike by 10%.

Level 91-99 perks, to be granted to the character in a random order upon levelling. 

• Enhanced Berserk - Your maximum energy is increased by 50 while Berserk is active.


• Enhanced Cat Form - Your movement speed in Cat Form is increased by an additional 5%.


• Enhanced Tiger's Fury - Increases the duration of Tiger's Fury by 2 sec


• Enhanced Prowl - Removes the movement speed penalty from Prowl.


• Improved Shred - Your Shred deals 20% additional damage.


• Improved Pounce - Your Pounce deals 100% additional damage.


• Improved Ferocious Bite - Your Ferocious Bite deals 20% additional damage.


• Enhanced Rejuvenation - You can cast Rejuvenation while in Bear Form or Cat Form.


• Improved Healing Touch - Increases the healing done by your Healing Touch by 20%.

[Krazyito 521]

So shred = main CP builder?  I wonder if they are going to adjust the energy costs at all.  

 

I think that the combo points on the player is cool.  Kinda like a redirect when ever you want, but also a quality of life thing thats useful if you have spare combo points from an add or to apply full bleeds immediately to something else.

 

I am seriously in love with survival instincts for all specs and the fact that ferals and guardians get 2 charges is just godly.

 

spreading rake with thrash looks like a major improvement to AoE same with combo point generation from AoE.

 

some of the perks look awesome too,  50 more energy with beserk? seems amazing.  Then just the basic damage increase like the rest of the classes.

[Kazistrasz 216]

Combo points on the druid alleviates their biggest liability in 10-man raids, but I'm curious how they're going to make it any different from monk Chi now.

[Paloro 39]

I haven't had a ton of time to really wrap my head around these changes and how they will affect game-play in a 20m environment.  I haven't really ever seriously raided in a 10m but I do know not being able to target swap well was a disadvantage in 25m also.

[Tarazet 144]

The T100 talents sound fairly balanced for single-target DPS, but I think Bloody Thrash will pull way ahead for AoE. Rake is an extremely potent bleed.

 

• Faerie Fire now applies Physical Vulnerability, increasing Physical damage taken by 4% for 30 seconds. It no longer applies Weakened Armor is that raid debuff is being removed.

This allows Ferals to substitute for a plate DPS, since in MoP they were the only ones that could apply this effect.

 

The improvement in scaling for AP, and the overall nerf to main stats, could result in Attack Power potions and elixirs being viable again.

[Kazistrasz 216]

The T100 talents sound fairly balanced for single-target DPS, but I think Bloody Thrash will pull way ahead for AoE. Rake is an extremely potent bleed.

 

• Faerie Fire now applies Physical Vulnerability, increasing Physical damage taken by 4% for 30 seconds. It no longer applies Weakened Armor is that raid debuff is being removed.

This allows Ferals to substitute for a plate DPS, since in MoP they were the only ones that could apply this effect.

 

The improvement in scaling for AP, and the overall nerf to main stats, could result in Attack Power potions and elixirs being viable again.

 

Hunters can also apply it currently with 4 different pets.

 

 

I haven't had a ton of time to really wrap my head around these changes and how they will affect game-play in a 20m environment.  I haven't really ever seriously raided in a 10m but I do know not being able to target swap well was a disadvantage in 25m also.

 

I've done 25 and 10. In a 25-man you can let a feral or two just sit on the boss or the biggest add and not swap off. Everyone else does a little bit more work on adds. It's not a lot to ask of the other DPS, especially in a raid environment that's loosely tuned with a great deal of flexibility and room for error. That luxury does not exist in a 10-man where things generally have tighter tuning to the point that just individual RNG from trinkets not procing at the right time can cause a wipe.

[Paloro 39]

I'll try to break up the next couple of posts by grouped changes.  1) Because it is a lot of information and 2) Because it can lead discussion better.

 

Overall Changes:

• Agility no longer provides an increased chance to critically strike with melee and ranged attacks or abilities (New passive to compensate, see passives section).

At first glance, this would be a huge nerf as it will severely hurt our ability to scale further down the expansion.  Looking further though, we receive a passive ability to gives us an extra 10% crit chance.  This will help us in the beginning of an expansion, so overall it is about even and allows straight AP to be a viable option.

• Each point of Agility or Strength now grants 1 Attack Power (down from 2). All other sources of Attack Power now grant half as much as before.

Again, this seems to be put in place to simply hold back scaling.  This isn't for feral only, so it's not like we will fall behind because of it.

• Weapon Damage values on all weapons have been reduced by 20%.
• Attack Power now increases Weapon Damage at a rate of 1 DPS per 3.5 Attack Power (up from 1 DPS per 14 Attack Power).
• Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.

I have these grouped because they all seem to work together.  First thing I take from this group is that you will not see a tooltip that reads: 500% weapon damage + (some scaling factor).  Overall this is good because it simplifies theorycrafting and how simple tweaks to spells would affect overall damage output.  With the reduced scaling of Agility to AP by half, AP now influences weapon damage by 4 times and overall weapon damage is reduced by 20%.  I feel like this is even further of a push to shift DoT damage back to DD.

• All players now have a 100% chance to hit, 0% chance to be dodged, 3% chance to be parried, and 0% chance to glance, when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included).
• Hit and Expertise bonuses on all items and item enhancements (gems, enchants, etc.) have been converted into Critical Strike, Haste, or Mastery.

We've known about this change for quite some time now.  While it simplifies things with reforging gone, it makes your choice of gearing focused on your main secondary stats (crit/haste/mastery).  There has been a tweet that bleeds WILL NOT be affected by haste.  To me, this shows that we will most likely favor mastery/crit and try to get as little haste as possible.

• Combo points are now stored on the player, not the target.

This is the largest quality of life improvement a feral could ask for.  Although it does "dumb-down" a big portion of the planning aspect, it allows us to be much more versatile in target swapping. 

[Paloro 39]

Spells

Removed Spells

• Innervate has been removed. Mana costs for Druids have been adjusted accordingly.

I'll only miss it during trash pulls when I change to Gaurdian and need mana to shape-shift.  It will also keep healers from begging for it during a fight when they don't realize that they are only getting 3k mana.

• Mangle (Cat Form) has been removed. Shred is now available to all Druids (Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target).

Shred back to main CP builder!  This slows down game-play a bit with the added energy cost and since you are now allowed to use it from the front, it can help separate average/good/great players.

• Symbiosis has been removed.

I personally hated Symbiosis.  It had some nice advantages during fights, but I'm glad to see it go.

 

Changed Spells

• Cyclone can now be canceled by immunity effects (i.e. Divine Shield, Ice Block, etc.), and can be dispelled by Mass Dispel.

PvP change, I'm not terribly interested in it, but it will force more compelling game-play.

• Disorienting Roar’s effect now shares Diminishing Returns with other Mesmerize effects.

Mostly PvP, but I have abused Disorienting Roar in many fights this expansion.

• Faerie Fire now applies Physical Vulnerability, increasing Physical damage taken by 4% for 30 seconds. It no longer applies Weakened Armor as that raid debuff is being removed.

Feral will still be able to apply the debuff from range, making them the ideal applicator.

• Weakened Blows is removed.

I would rather see Mangle still be in the game which applies Physical Vulnerability which gives the option of spending energy and gaining damage over a GCD for FF.  I'm not sure what the intention was by removing this other then increasing tank damage.

• Shred no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target.

We talked about this earlier

• Ravage no longer requires the Druid to be behind the target.

There was no damage modifier here which I'm surprised about, but it should make the "Ravage Opener" a bit easier to perform.

• Survival Instincts is now available to all Druid specializations. Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3), and for Feral and Guardian specializations can have up to 2 charges (up from 1).

Talk about a game changer.  24-seconds of 70% damage reduction is just....wow.  Feral does take a bit more damage then most melee, but we were compensated by increased healing taken (i.e. Glyph of Cat Form).  Perhaps we are being moved back toward our bear/cat days with HotW.

• Pounce's damage has been increased by 100%.

I can't see this being more viable to use then Ravage as an opener (especially with 100% crit on targets >80% hp).

• Tranquility now heals every Party and Raid member within range every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. It no longer places a periodic effect on each target. The total amount of healing it generates in Raids should be approximately the same as before this change.
• Feral no longer gets tranquility.  (Can't post the source from this computer)

This devalues HotW a bit.  Tranquility's downfall has always been that it is a channeled cast.  Blanketing rejuvs from cat form seems much better in my eyes, but we won't know until it is played with in a raid setting.

 

[Kazistrasz 216]

Be fair, healers get 6k from your Innervate. That extra 3k is like one Lifebloom. Every three minutes. It's totally going to keep the tank alive, man.

[Paloro 39]

Talents

• Tier 90

I believe the overall changes to this tier are in line with the "goals" of WoD, but it pigeon-holes you into the only talent that provides a stable increase in dps.

• Heart of the Wild no longer provides an increase to Hit chance or Expertise while active, and no longer increases Stamina, Agility, and Intellect.

So they hacked the passive stat increase which means you will now only take this talent for fights that need intense healing phases or short lived AoE (since we still have hurricane).

• Dream of Cenarius: Casting Healing Touch no longer increases the damage of the Druid’s next 2 melee abilities, or increases the healing of Rejuvenation.

No damage increase now makes this talent pretty much useless for feral since you only get free HT's from PS proc's.

• Nature’s Vigil, while active, increases single-target damage and healing caused by healing spells by 16% (down from 25%), and all single-target damage spells also heal a nearby friendly target for 35% of the damage done (up from 25%).

Increased splash healing with a decrease of damage gain.  It is still the only talent in this tier that contains increased damage which will make it the go-to everyday build talent of choice.

• Tier 100
• Lunar Inspiration (Feral) - Moonfire is now usable while in Cat Form, generates 1 combo point, deals damage based on attack power, and costs 30 energy.

Adds another dot to track on top of Rip, Rake, Thrash, FF, Savage Roar.  Handy when adds are spread around and is cheaper then Rake.  The damage output is the only thing up in the air right now, but could easily be the single target talent of choice here.

• Bloody Thrash (Feral) - Thrash now also applies the Rake bleed effect to all damaged enemies and awards 1 combo point if it strikes your current combo target.

What we don't know from the wording is which Rake is actually being spread.  Is it going to be the power of 1 Rake dispersed or will it apply a completely separate Rake to all damaged targets?  This has the potential to make us AoE demons, especially now that primal fury affects AoE.  I would think they need to be very careful on how powerful the Rake is since it could pretty easily outweigh a moonfire, making the Lunar Inspiration talent a waste.

• Savagery (Feral) - Savage Roar is now passive.

I don't really see this talent being an option with how weak Ferocious Bite currently is.  As it stands, at the beginning of an expansion, our optimal uptimes are ~90% for Rip/Rake.  Since the damage output will be shifted back toward direct damage, the uptimes are even less important meaning extra combo points are easily spent on Savage Roar.  New ferals will find this talent useful as they are learning the spec however.

 

[Paloro 39]

Glyphs

• Glyph of Savagery now grants a free 5 combo point Savage Roar when leaving Prowl, instead of allowing Savage Roar to be used with 0 combo points.

This is a very interesting glyph and would further promote the "Ravage Opener".  The trick here lies in when the buff is applied.  Because you are performing a skill that causes your stealth to drop, Ravage should be buffed by Savage Roar, however the wording promotes the thought of it being applied after Ravage goes off.  If this is truly the case, we will need ~13-14 seconds before a pull in order to have that first skill buffed by Savage Roar.

• Some glyphs are now learned automatically as you level:
• 25: Entangling Roots, Fae Silence, Ferocious Bite, Cat Form
• 50: Might of Ursoc, Nature's Grasp, Rebirth, Rejuvenation, Savagery
• 75: Dash, Faerie Fire, Healing Touch, Master Shapeshifter

This is a nice perk for new leveling players.  There have been some more glyphs added recently and we can discuss those in other posts.

 

Passives

• Primal Fury now also grants a combo point for area attacks that critically strike the Druid's primary target.

A big part of this also has to do with the new mechanic on swipe.  Swipe now also hits targets all around you instead of just the frontal cone it used to hit.  This is not only a QoL improvement, but it also greatly aids in our snap AoE damage while not detracting from our single target contribution.  

• There is a new passive for agility users, named Critical Strikes, which increases chance to critically strike by 10%.

I mentioned this in a previous post however I will re-iterate that this will help us only at the beginning of the expansion.  As the expansion continues, the flat percentage will lose its' value compared to the old system of 1Agi=2AP+crit chance.

 

[Paloro 39]

Level 91-99 perks

• Enhanced Berserk - Your maximum energy is increased by 50 while Berserk is active.

This will couple very well when using SotF.  I believe Blizzard will need to make an inherent change however and allow the use of TF during Berserk now.  I'm also curious on the intended mechanic upon expiration.  Will it subtract 50 energy from what you currently have or will it just drop back to 100 total?

• Enhanced Cat Form - Your movement speed in Cat Form is increased by an additional 5%.

Increased movement speed is always nice.  Feline swiftness will feel that much faster.

• Enhanced Tiger's Fury - Increases the duration of Tiger's Fury by 2 sec

This extends the increased damage duration to 8 seconds total.  I don't see this being very significant because you will normally burn through the added energy in 2 gcd's.  If they do the proposed change of allowing it's use during Berserk, this would be a very nice perk.

• Enhanced Prowl - Removes the movement speed penalty from Prowl.

Makes it easier to pull off your opener and get away from your enemies.

• Improved Shred - Your Shred deals 20% additional damage.
• Improved Pounce - Your Pounce deals 100% additional damage.
• Improved Ferocious Bite - Your Ferocious Bite deals 20% additional damage.

Common among most specs.  Nothing to see here, just don't take these as if they are trying to balance the game around them.

• Enhanced Rejuvenation - You can cast Rejuvenation while in Bear Form or Cat Form.

This is pretty amazing.  Blanket rejuv the raid under HotW when you have a spare gcd!!! I wonder if it will end up costing energy...

• Improved Healing Touch - Increases the healing done by your Healing Touch by 20%.

I still don't ever see people taking DoC now and with the rejuv change, I don't see people using HT much now.

 

[Pwnzie 0]

Hi all,

bit of an old thread I know, but also from PTR patch notes:

 

Secondary Stat Attunements
A new concept that we’re introducing is each specialization having an attunement to a particular secondary stat. These take the form of a passive ability that grants a 5% increase to the amount of a specific secondary stat gained. This provides a good starting point for where to focus your secondary stats. Usually, it will be your highest throughput stat (not counting Spirit for Healers, and Bonus Armor for Tanks, which is an optimal secondary stat in most cases). There are exceptions, and raw throughput may not even be the biggest concern in some situations. Treat this as a guideline, not a rule, about which secondary stat to favor.

 

Druid
    Feral: Critical Strike

 

 

uh? Just a 5% buff to crit strike? Possible effects on stats priority?

 

 

 

 

 

[Paloro 39]

Pwnzie,

 

Right now, on Beta, crit will be the stat that you want to go for.  In fact, our current stat priority on Beta looks as follows:

 

crit>multistrike>versatility>>mastery>>haste

[Pwnzie 0]

OK, thanks for the answer, Paloro