Berserk (bear) buffed
by Eliah Hecht 
Sep 19th 2008 at 3:30PM
Yesterday, we were promised that more news was coming on Berserk (for bears), and now we have not only that, but some bonus changes for extra fun. I really appreciate how communicative the devs have been during this beta process. What's in store?
- Faerie Fire (Feral) is going to be a core ability. This doesn't make much of a difference for feral druids, since we tended to pick it up anyway and we'll probably pick up the talent that's replacing it (more on that in a moment), but it will be nice for other specs, I suppose.
- FFF is getting replaced with a talent that gives the Last Stand component of Berserk (temporarily grants 30% of your maximum health), but usable in both cat and bear form.
- Berserk for bears is getting reworked as follows: last stand component split off as detailed above; Mangle goes back to hitting three targets; Maul doesn't, but it doesn't matter, because for the duration of Berserk, Mangle has no cooldown (aside from the GCD). Fear immunity is still there as well. Cat Berserk does not change.
- Brutal Impact is trading places with Savage Fury to make it harder for non-Ferals to get to; and remember, from yesterday, it now lowers the cooldown of Bash as well as raising its duration.
Oh, and to clarify yesterday's change to Bash (adding a three-second silence): this means it will now interrupt spellcasting even against a stun-immune boss.
Unfortunately, it's not all flowers and happy time in Feral land. Ghostcrawler also had to give us the bad news that barber-shop type customization of druid form skins will not be done in time for Wrath, saying "it's a high priority after Lich King" (which I read as "content patch"). This is pretty disappointing. We still might be able to use glyphs to change the appearance of our forms, but I was really looking forward to a more developed system, and one that didn't cost me a glyph slot.
Filed under: Druid, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Elmo Sep 19th 2008 3:46PM
not that the human barber shop is all that fantastic...
copy pasta all around
smcn Sep 19th 2008 3:53PM
"for the duration of Berserk, Mangle has no cooldown"
That sounds awesome, and very Berserk-y.
Gridneo Sep 19th 2008 4:06PM
It's a good thing. They just need to fix/give us an AoE type tanking ability (hitting 3 targets with only a GCD on Mangle to deal with will be decent)...
I personally think that Berserk needs the Stun/CC/Whatever immunity that it previously had, but at least they're looking out for us.
I know it says the new Last Stand talent applies to Cat Form, but I'm still skeptical. It better work in Cat Form, but does that mean our 'O $H|T' button(s) are Barkskin AND Last Stand?
Havitech Sep 19th 2008 8:22PM
Berserk just seems like it's been lacking since they removed the CC immunity. I don't really understand what was so OP about it; after all, hunters have a similar talent and it's lower in their tree. Oh well, QQ and all that.
At least they fixed my biggest concern with the ability: persisting through forms.
Azleus Sep 19th 2008 4:22PM
Regarding Form customization: The fact that they are not going to half-ass something in time for Wrath is encouraging. Form customization is important but not more important than class balance (and Bear tanking!)
Feral4life Sep 21st 2008 11:49AM
so with fff gone does that mean the damage ability from it is now gone to? i was looking forward to that for pulls :{ oh well wondeer what the cool dwon on last stand is gonna be :P
Boats Sep 19th 2008 4:36PM
To be honest, I'm much more interested in the built in wardrobe than the new skins. Specially if that means that gear will no longer take up bag/bank space (I probably have about 6 sets of gear and no space for anything non-soulbound).
Whic, btw, won't be included in the expansion either.
Ekimus Sep 19th 2008 5:25PM
I don't think the wardrobe will save bag space, it will just mimic the Outfitter and ItemRack addons.
Freklaw Sep 19th 2008 5:02PM
It all sounds nice and it almost makes me want to play druid again.
But I have to be negative here, a last stand on a 11 talent is just going to make Restos even harder to kill.
But its definetly good for Cat, and allows berserk to be worse and thus a lower CD, on par with the feral style.
Debesun Sep 19th 2008 9:39PM
Take into account that it still grants Fear immunity on top as us being already immune to Polymorph effects while in animal forms and Sap although now working on Beasts is limited from being used on targets that aren't in combat and for the most part we're prowling.
Rimefang Sep 19th 2008 5:56PM
To the writer, on your statement:
"Oh, and to clarify yesterday's change to Bash (adding a three-second silence): this means it will now interrupt spellcasting even against a stun-immune boss."
I need to call this out because it's one of my pet peeves, people who interchangeably use "interrupt" and "silence". Interrupt and Silence are two distinct mechanics; they work differently and they are in separate boss immunity categories. Some Wow abilities are Interrupts; some are Silences; some can be talented to be both. IIRC, there's not a single player ability in the game that is both an Interrupt and a Silence when not talented-- and your wording implies that Bash is now both.
Interrupt effects, when successful, are not a 3-second silence effect (because silence means no spellcasting and interrupt only stops one school of casting). Silence effects are not Interrupts. So, I beg of you, for the sake of clarity, to reword you statement. Now, since I haven't read the patch notes, I don't know whether Bash is now a Silence effect or an Interrupt effect. If it's a Silence effect, please reword your statement to "stops spellcasting". If it's an Interrupt effect, please remove the "3 second silence" from your statement.
Eliah Hecht Sep 19th 2008 7:03PM
I know the difference. The spell is worded as "interrupts spellcasting for 3 sec," which alludes to it being both, as it seems to be. Interrupts, and silences for 3 seconds, sort of like an Improved Counterspell (but without the school lock). We were not sure whether it would also interrupt in addition to silencing (thereby enabling it to work against silence-immune mobs), and it seems that it, in fact, will.
Schadow Sep 19th 2008 7:08PM
"Stuns the target for 4 seconds and interrupts spellcasting for 3 seconds". It's in the tooltip, there to be read. Just hover your mouse over the underlined word.
J Sep 19th 2008 7:57PM
I don't care much for this "good news". They should never have changed berserk from what they had initally >
J Sep 19th 2008 8:04PM
Third time the site didn't post the 2nd half of my comment..... Last time I'm doing this.
Edit: I don't care much for this "good news". They should never have changed berserk from what they had initally. Our 51 point talent isn't as good as the BM hunters 41 point talent.. They have half the cooldown, 5 more second duration plus immunity to all CC. Without the immunity to all CC berserk becomes nothing more than a PvE talent.. Give us back CC immunity!! >
RogueJedi86 Sep 20th 2008 1:18AM
I didn't know they were planning on Barbershopping Druids forms at all, so a delay isn't a problem for me.
I do wonder about them delaying it to a post-patch release. Blizzard says they don't release expansions until they're ready, but talk of some of these in-the-works features being delayed to post-release seems like they have to cut them to meet a deadline, contradicting their "when it's ready" philosophy.
Unless they just delay some of this stuff to pad out content for post-release patches. Nothing says "Big patch" like Icecrown Citadel, or "Druid Form Barbershop Customization" or, at this rate, "Dance Sutdios".
BB Sep 20th 2008 6:59AM
At the moment Berserk and Last Stand ("Survival Instincts") just seem so boring. Would love to see a talent to make Rebirth passive if you die in bear or cat form, using the reagent and putting Rebirth on cooldown as normal, that would be a unique ohshit button instead of Last Stand facsimile, like how hunter pets can get heart of the phoenix as a talent. And the 51 pt talent really needs to be a new form for a limited amount of time like metamorphosis for demo locks. Mangle hitting multiple targets or with no cooldown should be added to Improved Mangle for the duration of Enrage, that would be good synergy with King of the Jungle on the same tier. And now that we got Barkskin, a talent to boost it's damage reduction (5/10%) and give it a bonus healing received would be nice. And to give thorns extra damage and threat while in bear form. Those would make me a happy bear tank.