4.0.6 PTR *UPDATE...soon*
8:10 AM
*Updated below*
Polymorph and many other CC abilities are being reduced to 8-second durations as well. I showed you the latest shaman changes coming in the next round of patch notes. It's important to note though that the next draft of the 4.0.6 patch notes to be posted are double the size of the notes currently on the home page of our website. There are many new notes for virtually every class yet to be posted.
Great googly-moogly... I never thought I would see the day. We will have to wait and see what Blizz ends up doing, but supposedly tonight the PTR will be updated (as well as the patch notes) and they will be "double the size" of the current notes... which are already quite long.
I will, of course, post my thoughts on all the changes to come, but one thing I have to note here is that all the CCs which are not currently longer than 8 seconds in duration will be seeing a relative buff versus those CCs which are over 8 seconds in duration (Cyclone and Psychic Scream come to mind).
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Well, that was entirely too long a break to not have posted a comment on the changes that went up on the PTR on Thursday night. Essentially, no real changes went up on the PTR except for this bombshell:
Shapeshifts: Entering or leaving a shapeshift no longer cancels root effects. It continues to cancel movement slowing effects.
Eventually, Blizzard realized that this would be a pretty harsh nerf to all specs of Druid, so they added the following two quotes:
Disentanglement (new specialization): Causes shapeshifting to remove roots in addition to snares.
...
We will share additional information with you regarding our plans for Balance as soon as we can, though it'll probably have to wait until after the holiday weekend.
So, we can read this pretty plainly: "Feral's ability to self-break root effects is overpowered." I must admit that I do see both sides of this argument: on the one hand, it is hard to balance a game where Feral can entirely counter a class reliant on roots, so there ends up being an arms race there that is unfair to the other melees; on the other hand, Feral being able to shapeshift out of root effect for the last 6 years has only been considered overpowered for about four days by the devs... why the change?
There is a thread on the PTR boards that I suggest all my readers hit and post their feedback. The post-cap has been bumped a number of times now, and as of this writing we are up to ~95 pages of responses, mainly from Druids suggesting that this change makes no sense or is unfair, partially from morons who make mouth-breather-esque comments akin to "Druids immunity to all forms of CC ends with this patch", and then there are some posts by myself and others (mainly Miirkat, though there are others) who try and make suggestions to further this change to improve balance in the game.
I would like to point out that every melee class in the game has at least 2-3 abilities on top of their trinket to break a root effect and/or stop incoming magic if they do get rooted:
Warrior - Brostorm breaks roots, Spell Reflect can stop roots or magic spells when the Warrior is rooted.
Rogue - Vanish, Cloak of Shadows, Shadowstep (talent), Improved Sprint (talent), Smoke Bomb (will keep them from casting on you while rooted).
DK - AMS, AMZ (talent), Gnaw, Strangulate, Deathgrip (as an interrupt).
Enhance - Grounding Totem, Windshear.
Ret - self-Cleanse (talent), Hand of Freedom, Hand of Protection (for physical root effects only), Bubble.
Feral - Nothing
In this vein, I have decided to be proactive and try to suggest some things that Feral would need in order to continue doing PvP if this change goes through. Let us look, first, to the problem areas.
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Problems:
1) Feral is the only melee in the game now which has no root break and/or no way to stop incoming magic spells.
2) Stampeding Roar is a useless ability for Feral PvP (again, this is an old topic, but we should bring it up again: Costs 30 energy which is too much, only increases run speed by a 40% non-stacking amount which is less than Feral's normal movement speed, has a 2min CD which is too long, only has a 10y range which is tiny in most PvP scenarios, and only lasts six seconds). To put this into perspective, I decided to perform an experiment: I have not trained Stampeding Roar or Mushrooms (and had Guntir not suggested we run instances while grinding I would not have purchased Thrash either... but here we are).
3) Feral damage is too dependent on ramp-up which is directly proportional to up-time. We need to get bleeds on a target BEFORE we can deal real damage and that takes the majority of our resources. In addition to this, once we have dealt significant damage to a target, we are almost always energy-starved or CP-starved; landing a killing blow on a target at or below 25% HP is nigh-impossible against resilience-wearing targets... particularly ones in Plate with a Shield.
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Suggestions:
1) Add a new major glyph to the Druid class: Glyph of Stampeding Roar - Reduces the cooldown on Stampeding Roar by 60 seconds and the cost by 20 energy.
2) Add the following text to the Feral-only talent "Stampede" - In addition, the range of your Stampeding Roar is increased by 10y, and causes your Stampeding Roar to grant you immunity to movement impairing effects for the duration.
3) Change Glyph of Mangle - "Increases the damage done by your Mangle by 10% and causes your Mangle (Cat) to award an additional combo point when used."
4) Change Blood in the Water - "Additionally, when your target is at or below 25% HP, your Ferocious Bite will ignore 100% of the target's armor."
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Reasoning:
1+2) This will give Ferals a 1min CD Stampeding Roar which will ONLY break and immune Roots/Snares on themselves for 6 seconds while improving the range to something more likely in a PvP scenario and reducing the cost to a reasonable price. This makes the ability more like a utility-button like Cloak of Shadows (though CloS is free and doesn't require glyphing). Now, Ferals can break Roots once a minute when their healer is pressured or use it offensively (like CloS can be) and stay in a Mage's grill.
3) Mangle needs to be the button of choice for PvP Ferals. In order for it to do this the damage either needs to be on par with Shred (which it isn't, even when glyphed), or it needs to combat the problem differently. In this case, providing more combo points to use our vast finishing moves on will be a welcomed change. We cannot hardly use Ferocious Bite or Maim in PvP scenarios because we must keep Rip up 100% to deal appropriate damage. Additionally, Shred deals more damage, but when there are multiple targets to swap between, going from a target with Mangle, Rake, and Rip up to a target with nothing up means that in order to deal the best possible damage, 3 GCDs minimum have to be used before full-damage Shreds can be used (Mangle, Rake, and FFFx3... could be worse if you don't have 2/2 Feral Aggression). Obviously, using a Mangle-centric build will allow for faster swaps (you would still hit Mangle/Rake/FFF first, but that first Mangle will have dealt your big damage, and your next attack wouldn't require you to get behind them). Further, the positioning aspect of PvP is always tricky for Ferals, even while we currently HAVE the ability to break roots; this gets much more difficult when we cannot break them... Mangle-centric builds simply mean that we will have to make range on the target and can start dealing damage.
4) Again, we have tons of trouble actually landing a killing blow against someone because the majority of our damage comes from our bleeds, which become rather healable once resilience comes into play (instead of 6-12k Rip ticks, I get something like 3-6k Rip ticks). That being said, Blood in the Water is a difficult-to-use ability in PvP simply because of the timing required, which is why I believe a lot of Ferals do not take it now. Changing this to be a button you can use on a target even if Rip isn't applied would be a welcomed change, and having SOME ability to pressure a plate+shield class when they hit the red zone is something Feral has needed forever.
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Again, these are ideas that I think should be considered IN ADDITION TO the root-breaking nerf to Shapeshifting. If you have ideas on how to keep Feral from becoming a free kill again in PvP, please feel free to post them here OR (probably the better option, though I will re-post any good ideas on the PTR and give credit to commenters) post the ideas directly in the thread on the official PTR boards. Here is the link again: Please, Blizzard, don't remove powershift!
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January 15, 2011 at 2:25 PM
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Blizzard's latest brainfart... apparently, Shapeshifting on PTR now only removes snare, but not root effects (unless you spec Resto). It almost wants to make me reroll despite having been Feral since 1.7... especially since all those scrub Magi will probably become unkillable for us if this bullshit goes live.
January 18, 2011 at 6:14 PM
as much as I acknowledge your superiority with regard to PvP - this change would remove so much flair in solo and PvE that it should not go life.
Your proposals by themself I think are also overly complicated - why not simply increase mana costs of "shapeshift cat" to 50% base. Suddenly "Master Shapeshifter" would become interesting, you would reduce uptime on target, and Druids would still keep their main ability "smart enough to run away, live to fight another day".
Rauxis, chosen of CAT
January 19, 2011 at 7:27 AM
The reason I prefer simply rolling with the change instead of upping shapeshifting costs is because of the state it had Feral PvP in during The Burning Crusade. Essentially, you had a limited number of shapeshifts (read: a LOW number) in a short duration like an arena match. You might be able to have broken 8-10 roots/snares before running nigh-oom for other utility abilities.
Don't get me wrong, Predator's Swiftness reducing the cost of the next nature spell to 0 and making it instant-cast made huge strides towards keeping Ferals from OOM'ing, but I fear that keeping things as they are (with Mages being so overpowered with control via root effects while Ferals can just spamshift through them for the most part) and upping the cost of shapeshifting rather severely would make Feral entirely too mana dependent again.
Again, I believe that with the proper tools given to Feral, this change will be a GOOD one for balance. Sure, it takes away some of the minor flair of being a Feral Druid, but I didn't roll my Feral back in early vanilla because I wanted to be able to break roots/snares (though I was impressed with that as a perk). I rolled my Druid because I LOVED the idea of being able to tank and dps... yes, originally I liked the idea of raiding, but it has sucked ever since.
January 21, 2011 at 11:08 AM
rey
im an eu player long time follower. Im amazed at your patience on the US forums particularly in the face of the consierable number of "you were immune to cc now you are the same as all melee hur hur" posts.
oh to be able to join the discussion :(
January 21, 2011 at 11:10 AM
If you have a comment you would like me to add to the discussion, simply put it here (quoted appropriately so I know) with your Realm/Toonname and I will gladly add it to the discussion on the boards.
January 21, 2011 at 11:22 AM
much appreciated- at the moment however, and with blizzard havig gone quiet on the whole matter, there isnt much to add.
Im just shocked that:
1. The first wave of "fixes" (read nerfs) were not rolled out first and tested
2. No afterthought was given to what druids (generally) may need to replace shifting
3. That this is quite clearly something that should have/ could have been dealt with in the beta with the rest of the overhalls
4. That pretty much every feral is having to campaign for an obverhaul in the pointless abilities we got 81-85 just to make the class/spec playable.
It's all be said before so I think I would only further bring out more QQ posts
When (IF??) blizzard decide to comment I will have something to say.
Cheers for the offer and keep up the excellent work!
January 21, 2011 at 11:26 AM
I agree completely. I (checks) said it in the post but these are the types of things I would have expected Blizz to iron out during the Beta phase...
Stampeding Roar is useless in PvP.
Thrash is useless for non-tanks.
Mushrooms are useless for all.
Cataclysm felt rushed. I was in Wraths Beta as well, and it felt much slower, much more tested, much more thought out. I feel like Activision pushed too hard to get their "one game a year" message across to Blizz and Blizz simply didn't fight it enough. Instead, they released Cataclysm well before it was ready without half of the balancing issues that were needed.
At this point, they are trying to fix the holes in the boat with buckets... and it simply won't work that way. At the very least, they are taking their time with this PTR (it seems) and making a LOT of broad changes... there is the hope that before the dust settles things may actually be in a better place balance-wise... but it is a HOPE, not a certainty.
January 21, 2011 at 11:39 AM
I agree entirely. Some classes got a much needed overhaul but dont seem finished (hunters for instance)
offtopic somewhat but...
Theres a ghostcrawler post which keeps getting, I believe miss quoted. Its the one where he talks about wanting us to shift more often. Too many people are reading this as "we want druids powershifting more". I read that, and I still believe correctly, that they wanted us between forms again - bear, cat and travel as the situation called.
This would have been great, but just cant happen without a major overhaul. Stuff like that will have to wait till the next expansion tbh. Cat is just too good.
sorry long day im rambling - back to your comment and our "new" moves:
Thrash - pve move - far too little damage and duration to be viable in pve. IMO omnly put in becuase swipe had a Cd . Pretty mch every druid i know just macros the two now
Stampeding roar- too little range, too little duration and too high a cost. Having done a little (albeit v little) raiding its far too situational and even then usually fails. best use so far has been corpse runs :(
mushrooms- i still link that spell in g chat to break tension in an argument. Always works
hopefully we'll here something from blizzard soon other then "oops".
I cant see me rolling resto and I was balance once (way back in season 6).
I am sure Ill read this back in a mo and it wont make sense so apologies its late here :(
all the best
January 24, 2011 at 1:26 PM
new patch note is the least funny joke i have EVER seen. Still at least they're fixing mages/locks/dks.
the worst part is that boomkins are still going to be unrepresented while feral is dead.
January 25, 2011 at 1:28 PM
i got banhammered today.
apparently saying that the postponement of the t2 weapons was bull$#%* is "obscene".
anyways, carry on the fight rey.
i'll resume next week (3 day ban).
-elle
January 25, 2011 at 1:32 PM
lmao... guys if you learn ANYTHING from me let it be this: be civil all the time on the boards; don't use curse words and don't flame people... even if they deserve it.
Banhammers hurt.