While I don't disagree with Guiltyas on most points, I'd have to say that maybe too much issue is taken with Sabertooth. Is it far, far too powerful in it's current iteration compared to the other choices on that row? Absolutely. I'm not sure the answer is returning to the play style that loads nearly all our damage into dots though, as he seems to suggest, as this necessarily creates a niche feral is good at (long duration single target), but at the cost of other types of content. Participating in shorter duration fights will once again feel like a chore because of the ramp time required. I agree with the author that something needs to be done about Sabertooth causing the player to never have to re-apply rip, but I don't take enough issue with the current iteration of it that I think it warrants that much worry.A much more pressing issue, in my opinion, is the new Bloodtalons, as I'm almost entirely sure it's going to create problems with clipping rake which feels awful. It's a vastly more problematic design choice, and one that I feel should be addressed long before Sabertooth is.I just think with the direction the game has gone, there needs to be a sweet spot found between direct damage and dot damage because too much direct damage will cause it to get boring, but too much dot damage will cause a lot of ramp time that will almost certainly get old pretty quickly. Personally I'm quite a fan of feral's current play style with Bloodtalons, and if they made Sabertooth quit infinitely extending rip, but still have some kind of other interaction with it (even extension, just not infinitely) it'd be ideal just as it is.I heartily agree with the issues taken with utiliity. It's such an easy problem to solve, too, as bringing back Leader of the Pack even at 3% crit would be enough in my opinion to earn Feral a spot in most groups.
I'd like to see a change to mastery. I find "x% bonus damage" mastery boring and kinda lazy. Doing more bleed damage is kinda boring. I mean, it's better than a flat bonus as it only applies to dots, but it's still kinda boring. Wish it did something different, like caused bleed damage to increase the longer an enemy is affected by a bleed. That would at least be interesting. That specific example probably wouldn't be good with the ramp up time (like Tal1980 talked about above), but still. Maybe something like bloodtalons as the mastery stat would be cool. Or maybe it stays as it is now, but with the addition of "During Berserk, your mastery stat is doubled." That would amp up Berserk and add at least some element of intrigue to an otherwise bland stat.I also agree that the new Bloodtalons is kinda wonky. I get the idea, but it feels odd. The current version feels better to play with, but feels odd thematically. Like, why is a talent named after bloody claws requiring a DPS to cast a healing ability? The triggering event should be something different. The idea (I'm guessing here) is to require something to happen outside the rotation to trigger the extra damage. So why not add Bloodtalons as an active ability? It would read something like "Claws the target, dealing X damage (I'm thinking somewhere around Shred's damage to not be gamebreaking), and drenching your claws in the enemy's blood, increasing the damage of your next 2 abilities on the target by Y%. Bloodtalons can only be cast when Predatory Swiftness triggers." So it wouldn't add any combo points, nor would it take away the Predatory Swiftness proc so you'd still have it for utility. It would still only be usable as it is in BfA, it wouldn't break your rotation since it doesn't cost energy or generate points, and it adds a bit of damage instead of a random healing spell. I dunno. I've thought about this a lot, and it just feels too weird to be healing with a GCD when you're DPS, especially when that heal often goes wasted. This would also free you up to actually use that heal at a strategic time, or a roots or something.
I just find feral dots boring. Almost no talents interact with the dots in any impactful besides blood talon. If there is a move towards more dot centric 'spinning plates' style, I'd just prefer an overhaul a bit to make the dots more than this thing I maintain and they do nothing else. But at the very least, sabertooth will have to go before any other styles are possible.
@ cheesey3 You nailed so many issues in your post. I wanted to give it a like.
Certain important talents being tied to affinities is awful.
feral needs a complete revamp, maybe like fury a source spender..
I think I quit feral in Legion, after seeing the lows and confusion of vanilla, the highs of Cata and the dribbling end of all sense many years ago. The design worked in Cata with armour penetration and long bleed effects then was destroyed by moaning pvp'ers who had these amazing huge ticks they coudlnt dispel.Obviously the solution was to take away everything good about feral and not replace it and then give it some cool skins to make up for the disapointment.It is time to throw it all away and start again. Bleeds have to come back with mastery, getting a good buffed bleed up in a short window will make up for time off target like it used to and keep the Feral spec competitive by sticking to skill as a means to make it good, not by nerfing bleeds into oblivion and turning it into a poor combat rogue.PvP has long affected this spec and it should never have had it's core gutted. By all means screw with PvP, but destroying the PvE game was brutal.I frankly see no recovery from it's present state and I'll not go back to my once loved main of a decade gone by.Thanks for the news on the spec. Helps me avoid it.
I stoped reading when u said that the only talent that makes feral playable was a bad thing u mean that playing with a class that u dont have to solve integrals in every gcd to plan the next move is bad? Tell me more about the DH rotationsabertooth saved feral
The big question I have not seen answered, so hopefully someone here is in the alpha and can enlighten me, with no longer having an instant heal weaved into our rotation via bt, are we squishier?Everything I read seems to suggest that if you want to work in a self heal now, you have to drop form and there will be a cast time. Is this the case now?
I personally wish that they would bring back Leader of the Pack. I think that even a nerfed version of it would be all it takes to fix our desirability.
So basically you like this terrible new bloodtalons because it adds back some pooling which does not exist in the current game because the energy regen in the current game is retarded. So why not fix the energy regen in the first place? This new bloodtalons is boring because it removes planning. Being slightly better than the current rotation is not an argument. Current bloodtalon used to work very well when the meta wasn't all about spamming shred and bite as fast as possible. That's just moving in the wrong direction.
Yes, which is why I've advocated for a rework of Sabertooth into something that gives us x% passive healing from finishing moves. I would compensate for the lack of SB with Rip and Rake having more bursty damage and longer duration. I could even see FB being reworked into an execute that makes Bleeds explode when target is under 30%.
People underestimate how strong Convoke the Spirits can be. In the Niya soulbind you can get concealment on use of Convoke which you can cancelaura to use it as a shadowmeld to exit combat and reset. You also get a 10% fading mastery buff for 5 mins which you can keep up indefinitely. Factoring in all the damage modifications you can get for bite from Sabertooth, Soul of the Forest, Blood Talons, and the 10% Mastery (Bite & Bleed damage), this equates to 85% for 2 of your bites and 55% for the rest without any scaling yet. Druids don't have access to conduits or legendaries either for the moment. Popping cd's, doing opener combo to get BT proc and then convoking can net 2-4 bites (Bite counts as 5cp 50% energy during Convoke) and a bite after it's done, giving you 26-50k damage burst against mobs from just bites if they proc (they do more often than not in beta so far) in a 4 second window which you're concealed on a 2 min cd. Yes the fact it's channeled sucks but you have concealment, barksin and you can combine it with SI if you have to. Being aware of when to use it will be the biggest factor and I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be. From what I've seen on Beta so far it has the strongest potential and most consistent burst for Feral out of all the other abilities.
I swear I saw Feral was getting Leader of the Pack back baseline as part of the unpruning, please tell me I wasn't imagining this? This would greatly help feral's get into raids/mythic +'s in itself. Perhaps even Guardian could get it?