New Cataclysm Build (12984)!
9:16 AM
NOTHING FOR FERALS!!!
Srsly, they have given many other classes their number updates by now, the PTR is up and in full swing, and the background downloader is shoveling content to everyone as we speak; when are Feral numbers going to be updated for the lack of a 30% damage bonus (SR) and 50% Attack Power in Feral Forms (Feral Attack Power was removed in favor of weapon damage going directly to form-weapon-damage; if you have a 500 dps weapon equipped, you will gain 500 dps in Cat Form). The weapon damage conversion is complete, I copied Rey over to the PTR just to test the numbers and if you hit a dummy with Shred/Mangle on Live, then do it on the PTR, you will see basically a 30% damage drop due to SR no longer applying to all damage done.
Bah... they will get to it eventually, but it irks me that when Ferals specifically asked for number tweaks, the response was one of "we're just trying to get the rotations right at the moment; we'll get to numbers later." Then the last patch goes through and every single dps class EXCEPT Feral has got numbers tweaked to make them deal better/worse/balanced dps more-or-less and Ferals are sitting around going "uh, hey... we asked for the numbers in the first place... why are we getting ignored when we have the most glaring issues with numbers at the moment!?"
Here is my hope: they ignore the SR change and write it off as the "Feral Slice and Dice." It is something you will need up 100% in PvE to maximize your damage output, but in PvP it isn't really enough of a damage boost given the utility you would lose. On Live, SR simply gives us 30% more damage... if we did 1M damage in an Arena Match without SR, we would have done 1.33M if we had it up (ignoring that we would probably lose damage from some FBs/Rips became SRs, but w/e).
Rake on Live:
Rake the target for AP/100+196 bleed damage and an additional (1197 + AP * 0.18) bleed damage over 9 sec. Awards 1 combo point.
Proposed Rake in Cata:
Rake the target for AP/35+255 bleed damage and an additional (1556 + AP * 0.51) bleed damage over 9 sec. Awards 1 combo point.
The ONLY thing I've done here (and I would do the same with Rip, but one example is probably enough) is update the coefficients by an amount equal to 1) our lost Attack Power scaling component from FAP, and 2) our lost 30% damage from SR.
Examples... we will ignore Mangle for simpler maths -
Live (10k AP) Rake: 462 instant + 3896 DoT
Beta (5k AP) Rake: 246 + 2097 (this is about half the damage... terrible)
Proposed Beta (5k AP) Rake: 398 + 4106 (there we go!)
Similar damage to Live, half the attack power and no SR. Now, Rip and Rake would be balanced around Cata's "Feral rotation" and we could get SR to make White damage a more meaningful part of the rotation in general. Everyone is happy!
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Let's transition a bit!
You may have noticed... I finally got my Arena Master achievement and title, and after many grueling months, I finally got my 277 Feral Greatstaff (and I have the points for the Boomkin MH tomorrow)!!!!
I promised an Affliction+Disc match... and so shall it be. No commentary, I was rather busy this week, but I hope you all like it:
September 21, 2010 at 11:17 AM
Grats on your achievement and your title man!
My team went 10 and 5 last night, showing definite improvement, but we've only pulled even for the season so far. We went up against a warrior/druid comp, and my opening was just like i saw from your video. I fell short on CC'ing the warrior though, and he got my team mate down.
Do you have any videos against say ele/boom comps? Would that be considered a spell cleave team? We also got blown up by a ret/enh comp pretty quickly... I went for the enh, which looks like it was a pretty big mistake. These are probably comps that don't quite make it into your bracket of play, but they're straight owning us. Any sugestions there?
September 21, 2010 at 11:21 AM
Against Ele+Boomer, I like to play the smart game against the Boomer; the ele has damage reduction all over the place, can self-heal even when under pressure, and will basically never oom. The boomkin, on the other hand, only has limited burst with Starfall and Tree Posse. If you open up REALLY hard on the boomkin, you can keep him out of range for Cyclone (remember, 20y only) and whenever you see him moving towards your priest, tell him over vent/skype and try to get ready and peel hard.
Essentially, Boomer+Ele is going to set up to kill you in a healer-is-cycloned situation... so just make sure your healer is at max-range the whole game, and if they make a move towards your healer, keep him informed and keep pressure going.
Always remember to hit a 5pt Maim against Starfall and tell your priest to spam offensive-dispel to knock down grounding... when he trinkets Maim to continue his starfall, land a full-duration Cyclone.
Ultimately, you should be able to kill the Druid eventually because he'll OOM or die. We played this comp a few times, actually... just be smart; don't really extend except when you have to. You aren't likely to land a burst-kill against a smart one, so you will eventually OOM the Druid, knock off Innervate, and sit him until his Ele ooms... then you win.
September 21, 2010 at 11:27 AM
Ret+Enh is a new FotM 2s burst comp. There is solid damage output from everyone and they will straight zerg down priests.
I sit the Pally and play as much control as possible. Once they've spent Wolves, Bloodlust, Wings, you can land a kill. However, I like to open HARD against this team, and your priest needs to KNOW that you're going to eat a 5s CC of some sort unless he dispels it (Repent or HoJ).
If you are pressuring the Pally really hard, he can't use wings without fear of going down, so open with Berserk while your priest gets to max-range. If he Hand of Freedoms your Pounce, hit him with a 5pt Maim to keep the damage low on your healer, if he saves it until Maim, hit him with Maim and as soon as you see HoF, hit him with Cyclone.
He'll have to trinket this OR sit it... either way it's good. If he trinkets it, you need to Feral Charge (Bear) to the Shammy, and start working on staying on him and keeping Tremor Totem down... land a full duration Fear on the Pally... but the shammy will probably trinket the Fear and you need to land a Cyclone IN that GCD so he can't drop Tremor again and MAYBE get the Pally out.
Okay... at this point the game is yours... the pally should be far away from your Priest, not have a trinket or HoF for a bit... whoop him to death and keep Cyclone/Roots on the Shammy; as soon as Wolves ends you can ignore him.
This (as with most Ret Pally double-dps comps) is just about staggering their damage until you put out enough pressure to keep them from doubling your priest. It can be hard and RNG can get you killed. Dispelling Repentance on you is key.
September 23, 2010 at 10:59 AM
Thanks man! that's a lot of good information right there, and it all makes so much sense!