Polite Feral suggestions...yes--polite.

#0 - Oct. 31, 2008, 2:29 a.m.

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.

Ghostcrawler

#1 - Oct. 31, 2008, 7:59 a.m.

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.)

We also aren't trying to make Balance and Resto the shifting specs. However, as mana-using classes they are going to be able to do more with that mana, such as healing. We want druids to be able to shift -- that is a major part of the class. The only thing in contention is how often is too often and how much can they do in night elf or tauren form.

Ghostcrawler

#72 - Nov. 4, 2008, 4:32 a.m.

We are probably going to add an additional shapeshifting cost break somewhere in deep Feral. It would be 50% off cat and bear form (probably not travel) and would stack with Natural Shapeshifter, for 80% off total. This would allow a Feral druid, especially a PvP-focused one, to be able to reduce shifting costs down quite a bit for an appropriate talent cost.

While you still wouldn't have a ton of mana available for healing, you would be able to shift a lot more often than you're doing now, and of course your mana will still regen in cat or bear form.

I'll announce it for sure when we've thought a little bit more about where we'll put the talent, but I wouldn't tease you with this unless we were fairly positive that we're going to do it.