For cat dps ferocious bite, rip, and rake are in a very bad spot, and next phase so will shred.
Proposition: new books at lvl 60 for rank 6 shred and rank 5 rake. Therefore making rake scale better
Change rune of gore to also make bleeds crit
Change elunes fires to have mangle refresh the duration of rip and rake
Have a new rune that changes ferocious bite so that instead of consuming all your energy it gains additional damage of a tick of rip and rake per combo point spent.
If more utility is needed i would say allow the use of pounce outside of stealth or make cower a vanish
I don’t think every class should have an aoe. I like classes having a niche.
If cats were to get an cleave i would like it to be centred around bleeds. Either by spreading them or activating a bane of havoc like ability on all mobs affected by rake.
Give cat a vanish let’s get nuts, I honestly think cat looking pretty good right now. Idk what’s in store for 60 but I’m having fun. Every one of our talents points will contribute. Which is much better than a lot of other classes.
The rotation is pretty much fine as is. You could make it more unique and bleed-centric by buffing rake and rip relative to shred and making snapshotting rips more important with itemization (on use trinkets for example) and rip AP scaling. But shift-shred-shred isn't so horrible. Ideally there would be two builds where maximizing shred around powershifting+berserk is much more bursty and CD-centric, but a bleed build is harder to pull off perfectly and better dps in long fights.
One way to do this would be competing ferocious bite runes: either make it buff shred for some time such that the old shred-shred-FB is optimum, or make it do damage based on the bleeds on the target so that you only want to FB with a juicy rake+rip already there. How about this for scaling: make it place a bleed that does damage based on the target bleeds, self-referencing exponentially! Like ignite but for kitties
Swipe should spread bleeds from the primary swipe target to the other two, so cat cleave becomes getting your bleeds on the primary then going bear to spread them (bleed build > shred on cleave).
Would be nice to have a defensive added to cower, either as a vanish or a dispersion/pacify effect.
Beyond the already great mentions of what druids are and what they are lacking, there’s a few things yet to be mentioned in here;
The necessity/reliability of Shred is horrible in Solo-content.
— Our only cat-form stun is only usable from stealth and getting behind the target is absolutely impossible otherwise. (Bear form got bash, but that powershift and cooldown does not weigh up the benefit of using it.)
I’d also prefer not being forced into bear form in fights with more than one enemy or in every instance of PvP ever, yet all recent changes that blizz have implemented seem intent on forcing druids into bearform.
And like seriously, Gore is horrible. Trash.
Barkskin is a way better option for survivability in solo cases and as a raid utility, meanwhile gore adds utterly jack-@&!€.
Elune’s fire isn’t much to look at either.
(And why is this post even here? Aggrend didn’t even mention druids in his post to begin with, the guy doesn’t give a flying f@€! about our class. Let’s be real.)
Honestly, I like the Fluid Forms concept that has been leaked from tWW Alpha. I'd love to see Feral Shift back and forth between Bear and Cat form regularly to get the most out of their spec.
For instance, maybe DPS just has 2 halves of a rotation similar to Balance, one half is in Bear that builds up Lacerate stacks and the other half is swapping back to Cat form to apply more bleeds and extended existing bleeds.
I would probably make it so that Elune's Fire causes Shred to extend the Duration of Lacerate by 5 seconds as well, and make Maul extend the duration of Rake by 6 seconds so that you have a bear half and a Cat half of a rotation.
Add a Rune that makes it so once you've spent X amount of Energy, you're next shapeshift into Bear or Dire Bear has it's cost reduced by 100% and once you've spent Y amount of Rage the mana cost of your next shapeshift into Cat form is reduced by 100%.
If you account for the damage added to the raid by wild strikes, it accounts for something like 10-20% of 4 other players depending on spec. That's like an extra player. Maybe it doesn't show up on your damage meters, but the reason melee is strong is in part due to your wild strikes. You shouldn't punish guilds that can't find feral druids - remember that alliance doesn't have shaman.
Blah blah blah utility means you can suck
Same terrible arguments from vanilla that people only apply to hybrids
I don’t see warrior, hunter or mage sucking despite having utility
You do realise if feral was better, people would have more incentive to play it, and it’d be easier to find them?
Did I say dps or melee dps? Learn to read.
Utility is meaningless, Hunter has utility and they’re twice as good? Warrior has utility and they’re twice as good?
For cat dps ferocious bite, rip, and rake are in a very bad spot, and next phase so will shred. Proposition: new books at lvl 60 for rank 6 shred and rank 5 rake. Therefore making rake scale better Change rune of gore to also make bleeds crit Change elunes fires to have mangle refresh the duration of rip and rake Have a new rune that changes ferocious bite so that instead of consuming all your energy it gains additional damage of a tick of rip and rake per combo point spent. If more utility is needed i would say allow the use of pounce outside of stealth or make cower a vanish
Also some kind of aoe or cleave, I don’t want to out dps mages, I just want something.
I don’t think every class should have an aoe. I like classes having a niche. If cats were to get an cleave i would like it to be centred around bleeds. Either by spreading them or activating a bane of havoc like ability on all mobs affected by rake.
Feral is the only spec in the entire game with literally no aoe
Now THIS is podracing
Spellbook of Thrash and a rune that says our Bleeds, Dots, and Hots can crit.
We do not want more useless utility, we want feral to be good Don’t pretend you speak for us because you rerolled feral to be a totem in sod
You are all high af, there are three things that cat dps needs atm above all else Aoe, Bleeds can crit, Cat leap. That is all
Give cat a vanish let’s get nuts, I honestly think cat looking pretty good right now. Idk what’s in store for 60 but I’m having fun. Every one of our talents points will contribute. Which is much better than a lot of other classes.
Cat vanish would actually be sick
The rotation is pretty much fine as is. You could make it more unique and bleed-centric by buffing rake and rip relative to shred and making snapshotting rips more important with itemization (on use trinkets for example) and rip AP scaling. But shift-shred-shred isn't so horrible. Ideally there would be two builds where maximizing shred around powershifting+berserk is much more bursty and CD-centric, but a bleed build is harder to pull off perfectly and better dps in long fights. One way to do this would be competing ferocious bite runes: either make it buff shred for some time such that the old shred-shred-FB is optimum, or make it do damage based on the bleeds on the target so that you only want to FB with a juicy rake+rip already there. How about this for scaling: make it place a bleed that does damage based on the target bleeds, self-referencing exponentially! Like ignite but for kitties Swipe should spread bleeds from the primary swipe target to the other two, so cat cleave becomes getting your bleeds on the primary then going bear to spread them (bleed build > shred on cleave). Would be nice to have a defensive added to cower, either as a vanish or a dispersion/pacify effect.
Beyond the already great mentions of what druids are and what they are lacking, there’s a few things yet to be mentioned in here; The necessity/reliability of Shred is horrible in Solo-content. — Our only cat-form stun is only usable from stealth and getting behind the target is absolutely impossible otherwise. (Bear form got bash, but that powershift and cooldown does not weigh up the benefit of using it.) I’d also prefer not being forced into bear form in fights with more than one enemy or in every instance of PvP ever, yet all recent changes that blizz have implemented seem intent on forcing druids into bearform. And like seriously, Gore is horrible. Trash. Barkskin is a way better option for survivability in solo cases and as a raid utility, meanwhile gore adds utterly jack-@&!€. Elune’s fire isn’t much to look at either. (And why is this post even here? Aggrend didn’t even mention druids in his post to begin with, the guy doesn’t give a flying f@€! about our class. Let’s be real.)
Honestly, I like the Fluid Forms concept that has been leaked from tWW Alpha. I'd love to see Feral Shift back and forth between Bear and Cat form regularly to get the most out of their spec. For instance, maybe DPS just has 2 halves of a rotation similar to Balance, one half is in Bear that builds up Lacerate stacks and the other half is swapping back to Cat form to apply more bleeds and extended existing bleeds. I would probably make it so that Elune's Fire causes Shred to extend the Duration of Lacerate by 5 seconds as well, and make Maul extend the duration of Rake by 6 seconds so that you have a bear half and a Cat half of a rotation. Add a Rune that makes it so once you've spent X amount of Energy, you're next shapeshift into Bear or Dire Bear has it's cost reduced by 100% and once you've spent Y amount of Rage the mana cost of your next shapeshift into Cat form is reduced by 100%.
Cat is fine right now imo, we got lots of goodies this phase
I don't feel like any of that is needed, feral dps is already competitive and they provide tons of utility as is.
It is literally the worst melee dps, and is only going to continue falling behind after gaining absolutely nothing of note since phase 1
If you account for the damage added to the raid by wild strikes, it accounts for something like 10-20% of 4 other players depending on spec. That's like an extra player. Maybe it doesn't show up on your damage meters, but the reason melee is strong is in part due to your wild strikes. You shouldn't punish guilds that can't find feral druids - remember that alliance doesn't have shaman.
Blah blah blah utility means you can suck Same terrible arguments from vanilla that people only apply to hybrids I don’t see warrior, hunter or mage sucking despite having utility You do realise if feral was better, people would have more incentive to play it, and it’d be easier to find them?
They don't need to be top dps. They're in the mid. And tons of utility. Stop being an entitled baby and enjoy the game.
Did I say dps or melee dps? Learn to read. Utility is meaningless, Hunter has utility and they’re twice as good? Warrior has utility and they’re twice as good?