Shred spam DPS in pvp.

Q u o t e:
Q - Players are concerned that Class X has a severe problem with ability Y.
A - We do not think that ability Y is a problem at this time. All classes will perform equally if they are played with skill.

Q - Players believe that ability X does not function as it should. Players have suggested A and B as possible solutions.
A - We agree with X has problems. We don't feel like implementing A and B at this time.

Q - Players of class A would like spec X to be more viable for pvp and are tired of being told to spec heals/role Y when they want to be X. You've said in the past that you want each class to have multiple viable specs and your recent treatment of Paladin's and DKs reflects this. Are there any plans to make X viable in pvp.
A - X is still viable in pvp. We have no plans to change it at this time. Linking representation doesn't help anyone. Players of class A should get the message and stick to what we want them to do in PvP.

Q - Players are concerned that mechanism X of their class is very underpowered/far inferior to similar abilities of other classes/completely outdated.
A - We agree that mechanism X has problems. However changing it at this time is not neccesary becuase we have big plans for it. You won't be disappointed - the next expansion (or its first content patch) will be epic. We promise.

Q - Players believe that ability X has problems Y and Z. They have suggested a few ways to fix them. What is your stance here?
A - It's a nice day outside today isn't it. I smell bacon. Aardvark.

I can play that game too.

You shouldn't be at all surprised that the answer to some things we haven't changed is "we don't want to change them" or "we want to change them, but haven't resolved exactly how yet." We knew going into this that a lot of players were going to be disappointed if they didn't see:

Q - Players are concerned that Class X has a severe problem with ability Y.
A - Okay, we'll buff Y.

Q - Players believe that ability X does not function as it should. Players have suggested A and B as possible solutions.
A - Okay, we'll buff X.

Q - Players of class A would like spec X to be more viable for pvp and are tired of being told to spec heals/role Y when they want to be X. You've said in the past that you want each class to have multiple viable specs and your recent treatment of Paladin's and DKs reflects this. Are there any plans to make X viable in pvp.
A - Okay, we'll buff X.

Q - Players are concerned that mechanism X of their class is very underpowered/far inferior to similar abilities of other classes/completely outdated.
A - Okay, we'll buff X.

Q - Players believe that ability X has problems Y and Z. They have suggested a few ways to fix them. What is your stance here?
A - Our stance is we will buff X.

Q u o t e:
it's not about whining for buffs. it's about there being legitimate (at least from our view) issues with a spec or aspect of this game, and such concerns being dismissed in such a way that shows you (and by extension the entire dev team) either A) don't understand the class mechanics, which i find hard to believe, or B) don't care and are being sarcastic in our class Q&A.

Right, but that actually agrees with what I said above. When you think you have a legit issue, you aren’t going to be happy with my saying “We disagree it’s legit” or “We agree it’s legit, but we’re not ready yet to announce our solution (either because we don’t have one yet, or we have one and aren’t ready to talk about it).” There really isn’t anything we can answer that you’re going to like except agreeing with you and promising a buff. I don’t mean to characterize it as whining, because that’s really not always the case. But it does put us in conflict because we disagree and is understandably frustrating for you because we’re the ones empowered to make changes or not. We knew all of this going into the class Q&As but we thought there might still be some benefit in your knowing whether we agreed that an issue was legit or not, or in some cases if a change was coming relatively soon or is far down the road.

I am definitely sarcastic sometimes, for which I apologize. But honestly I do it because I know people are more likely to read and remember something if they find it slightly entertaining. I taught college back in the day, and it worked pretty well for that too.

Q u o t e:
The community team nailed one of our concerns and I know GC is smart enough to fully understand what is being asked. The guy has a PhD and is leading development of one of the richest game companies worldwide. Yet, the “Q” was simplified into “why is feral dps so complex?” Then GC goes on to explain that its complexity is justified from a dps vision he has for the game. The community team said “while this is okay in itself.” Why does his answer pretend that is what was asked when the community team was quite clear it was PvP ramifications?

I’ll try again. The Feral dps rotation is complex because we like it that way. We understand it’s harder to pull off that rotation in PvP. However, this is somewhat compensated for the fact that Shred is a very high damage ability (perhaps even the highest single button melee attack) even when not propped up with Savage Roar, Rake, Mangle etc, and even when you can’t use Shred, you do have a back-up ability, Mangle, that trades damage for ease-of-use. Honestly, I don’t think any problems Feral has in PvP comes from not doing enough damage. In PvP it nearly always comes down to when you can do that damage and countering specific tactics of the other team. In fact when we compensate classes with limited utility by just piling on more damage, we get into trouble.

Q u o t e:
Did he really just say that? In an earlier post, you had said Feral had one of the most complex dps rotations; nothing has changed since then.

Those aren’t in conflict. In fact, that’s the design. If you want to do the best possible dps as Feral, you need to master a complex rotation. However, Shred and even Mangle can do decent (certainly not amazing) damage even on their own if you manage to screw up or for some reason can’t maintain the other dots and buffs.

Q u o t e:
Why do you miss Kalgan. He's still here.

Oh, you meant Tigole. Because you can't keep the blue posters name's straight and you just want to whine and complain that they don't give you the answers you want to the questions you want all the time. Hey, he still hasn't given you that pony either.

Kalgan is in the very next office. He knows exactly what is going on in WoW. We’re in very close communication and I’m pretty confident you wouldn’t be able to look at a design change and know whether it was his idea or mine (or any of the other numerous designers on the team), because we work hard to all maintain the same philosophy. Tigole still works at Blizzard and still contributes a lot to WoW. He gives us feedback and I bounce ideas off of him just about every day. If you have concerns or disagreements about the design of WoW, then that’s great and the kind of feedback we’re looking for in these forums. But the shoot-the-messenger strategy for trying to get changes you want in the game hasn’t worked well no matter whether Tigole, Kalgan or I (or any other blue) was the target. The blues posting in these forums have always had huge bull’s-eyes painted on them. Let’s try and chill it out a little, shall we?

Q u o t e:
From your answers in the Q&A it sounds like you don't think Feral has any problems in PvP at all, which is one of the things that made it frustrating to read

That wasn’t the answer I was trying to give. There are a few main design considerations here:

1) Shamans, hunters and warlocks don’t really have a single viable Arena spec. Druids have one. I know that’s not much consolation if you love Balance or Feral, but the poor shaman doesn’t even have the choice to participate at all. They have to be first priority.
2) Not all of the balance problems in Arena need to be or should be solved by buffs. Some of them are caused by other classes being too good. Others are caused by the environment. We are addressing both of those things in 3.2.
3) We don’t want to have a PvP system where only specs with multiple forms of non-DR’d CC and multiple escape mechanisms are viable. We just don’t want to homogenize classes in that way by turning all melee into rogues and all casters into Frost mages. As I have said before, we are willing to change the entire PvP experience (less emphasis on 2s and more emphasis on BGs for example) to solve this.

Q u o t e:
One of the problems with the druid Q&A is that Druids have more roles than any other class, we have melee dps, tanking, healing, a nuking. No other single class can boast all these roles.

That being said, I understand WHY the focus on Feral PvP was so short, and at times incorrect, but one would imagine that these types of Q&As aren't one-time responses to community concerns. I would expect an ongoing dialog to continue on many of the broader topics.

This is fair, and it is hard to cover all of a hybrid class in one QA, especially one that can tank and heal, and has the vestiges of two specs in one tree. We plan on keeping the QAs going once we finish the first round and maybe we can drill down into some more specific issues in the future.

Q u o t e:
Ghost: I dont understand how you want us to communicate with you guys and give you ideas/feedback when you dont want us to fish for blue responses for discussion.... or feedback.

Right way: I have this idea / concern / solution / confusion about Ferals.

Wrong way: I have this idea / concern / solution / confusion about Ferals and I am going to keep bumping it and ignore any response intelligent or otherwise unless it's blue. GC why won’t you answer us? Why? I want to know what you think of my idea. Are you reading now? How about now? I must conclude from your lack of response that you hate Ferals, and by extension kittens. Kitten hater! Kitten hater! Are you reading now? Bump for blue response.