Ghostcrawler and the bears
by Eliah Hecht 
Nov 2nd 2008 at 9:00AM
The developers have been communicative to an unprecedented extent (for them) during the final phases of Wrath of the Lich King's development, but several classes and specs still have concerns. One of those is Feral Druids. We've been set up to tank as well as anyone, and DPS as well as most (not with the same spec, but dual specs should make this easy to handle). However, we still have some obvious weak points. For instance, take mana in PvP. Our class's defining feature is our ability to shift between forms, but if we have a puny mana pool (as most Ferals do), we can't do this very often.Ghostcrawler has a "Feral Q&A" thread up where he answers several questions that he's noticed people asking around the boards. Unfortunately, we're not necessarily going to like a lot of the answers, which (in this blogger's opinion) tend towards "working as intended" and "it's fine, learn to play." To be fair, he gives much more nuanced explanations, but that's the bottom line in most cases. That may be because Feral actually is fine, but I definitely think there are some valid concerns. Protector of the Pack is just goofy the way it is, as well as taking away the fun of being super-durable while out soloing. Swipe should really be 360°; every single other tank class has a 360° AoE, and we don't really have anything to compensate. And don't get me started about feral form customization (which GC says is coming eventually, but they've been saying that for years).
Edit: fine, I'm convinced about 360° Swipe. 180° is fine. But the overall point is that Bear feels a lot like Warrior with a lot of stuff taken away or nerfed, although much less so now than before.
Later in the tread, some interesting discussion on itemization pops up. As you may know, there is absolutely no leather with bonus armor in Wrath; all leather pieces just have whatever amount of armor they would have naturally. This is pretty much because they don't want as many pieces that are only useful for one spec; extra armor is next to worthless for anyone other than a bear druid. The problem of weapons and jewelry with armor on them is one that the blues are considering; at the moment, a trinket with armor is almost overpoweringly enticing for a bear, and it would be better for us to have more choices. In a similar vein, Feral Attack Power on weapons is something they're looking at (since again, FAP weapons are only useful to feral druids), with a possible eye towards basing FAP on the DPS of the weapon.
I'm glad to see they're thinking about the class moving forward, but I really wish we had something in the way of form customization on day one of Wrath.
Filed under: Druid, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Xianthos Nov 2nd 2008 9:21AM
Illuminating
Vendrill Nov 2nd 2008 9:21AM
Looks like teh bears is getting nerfed...
TO THE GROUND!!!
LOL... Just kidding.
Marluxia.Kyoshu Nov 2nd 2008 9:23AM
Form customisation?
SCOFF
SCOFF
Bloodletter Nov 2nd 2008 9:34AM
I hope Druids to get nerfed to the fucking ground.
PvP is ripping this game apart. Such a pity too, this game in terms of graphics, art design and PVE is ASTOUNDING. The Devs shouldn't let some niche and stupid aspect of the game (ARENA) damage their hard work.
Fuck Arena. Fuck Colosseum PvP in WoW.
Stick to Battlegrounds.
Erthshade Nov 2nd 2008 1:56PM
Because feral/bear druids are so overrepresented in arena, amirite?
Please bother to read the article you're replying to instead of just seeing 'druid' and going off on your own tangents.
Heilig Nov 2nd 2008 5:39PM
RTFA
The vast majority of complaints are PvE related, you twit.
Mitawa Nov 2nd 2008 9:36AM
Bear here, I'd just like to say I'm personally happy Swipe isn't 360. For one, it just wouldn't make sense for me to 'swipe' in front of me and somehow hit the things behind me too. (I'm picturing a bear trying to wriggle a few claws out between their legs, looks kinda silly.)
For two, if I have a pull of of four or five things, I usually like at least one of them to have some sort of CC on it. With swipe as a cone effect, I cant put my back to the sheep/shackle/iceblock/seduce/whatev' and swipe away to my hearts content at the remaining mobs and make sure that neither I or my healer gets raped.
I'd personally rather not have to find a second LoS corner on every big pull just so I can pull back far enough to not hit the CC.
Balius Nov 2nd 2008 9:42AM
I picture the bear kicking both back legs out in a frog kick, myself.
ButtercupSaiyan Nov 2nd 2008 9:46AM
I'm a little puzzled by the Ice Block CC in your comment. There's Frost Nova which creates a sort-of effect like that (ice encrusting the base of target) but Ice Block is a single-target personal Invincibility for the mage for several seconds.
Nehru Nov 2nd 2008 10:00AM
@ ButtercupSaiyan
I'm pretty sure the "Iceblock" is in reference to Freezing Trap, which puts the target into a giant ice block.
@ Mitawa, I agree entirely. A 360 swipe would be funny to think about and impractical conceptually. Were it another power, something like "Deafening Roar" or something I could see a 360 power, but then again, that makes us (gasp) just like the other tanking classes.
Myself, I have to say I'm pretty happy with Bear thus far. I don't have mitigation problems in live or Beta, threat is good and I can do significant damage as a bear. The biggest problem I have is what GC is trying to address, and that is that if it's a feral piece of gear, it's pretty obviously a piece of feral gear because it has stats NO other class like us would use (Usually a little int, FAP or something similarly strange). That makes for frustrating play and means that Blizz has to either a) make the feral drops really rare to that it doesn't drop all the time when there's not a feral druid in the party (which means feral druids have to run the same dungeons a billion times to see it drop) or b)make a lot of Feral gear crafted/rep, which seems to be a design choice they've made but aren't too happy with (Feral stick from Kir'in Tor, anyone?).
And at those who scoff at form customization, I have this to say: When you get a new helm or 3 pieces of your T-whatever set, it feels good because you just went from looking like a rodeo clown to looking like a goram hero. I, however, have been staring at the same fuzzy butt since level 10. And put simply, I'd like to look a little more epic than I did when I was hunting Hogger. K?
Emma Nov 2nd 2008 9:48AM
NO TO 360 DEGREE SWIPE! I have to agree with Mitawa on this one.
It sounds good until you think about it.
As feral druids we're used to having to manoeuvre to get our mobs in the right place, which also allows us to turn our back to certain CC'd mobs to stop them breaking rather than kiting all your mobs away from it whilst trying to keep aggro on them all. Think of this as a bonus :D
Swipe also has no cooldown and returns rage, and if one of the trade-offs for those abilities is a frontal cone of effect then I'm happy to make it.
Also, 360 degree threat abilities are primarily useful for encounters you outgear, or for getting snap aggro on those around you. You don't want to be in a position where you have mobs beating at your vulnerable back if you want to make things easier for your poor healer!
Finally, 360 swipe just sounds broken physically... how are we supposed to hit stuff directly behind us without turning around :P
Rob Nov 2nd 2008 9:50AM
I can only assume they tested it at 80 for raiding and they were happy that ferals were decent tanks at that stage. I'm concerned too about the lack of armor pieces, but GC has said again and again it'll be fine.
Ahoni Nov 2nd 2008 9:58AM
"As you may know, there is absolutely no leather with bonus armor in Wrath"
That was how bears worked in BC. We are now going to a whole new system in WotLK. Or haven't you been paying attention?
Heilig Nov 2nd 2008 5:43PM
That's kinda the point he was making, man.
In the new system, legacy rings and trinkets that DO have armor are more valuable than any new WotLK trinket, because armor means EVEN MORE now that it's been lowered overall.
The devs need to find a way to make armor trinkets not as worthwhile to bears, so they can use the new dodege or expertise trinkets instead of hanging onto their Badge of Tenacity when they're tanking Arthas.
Dejablue Nov 2nd 2008 10:01AM
360 Swipe is really my only complaint with feral tanking atm at 70. Iam taing a wait and see approach to the loss of armor, hoping we maintain our niche as avoidance, dodge, tanks to the point of being viable.
Mana is good with ILOTP procs but is lacking in PVP, as mentioned, would eb great to see something for it.
FAP is already based on weapon damage, or at least it was. I recall that with the Arena weapons that they would take the overall DPS of a weapon, such as bonegrinders, then make a Maul out of it giving us 54% of the raw dps of the base weapon. They then lowered the weapon speed, to accommodate Moonkin I believe, so if you add the FAP DPS and the DPS of Mauls converted to Bongrinder speeds then they are the same DPS.
SO, all in all they could simply have made one Mace and given us 54% of the weapon DPS, or 50% to make things easier and touch up some talents tom reflect the changes and bring things up to par. It is not that far away and I have wondered since BC beta why they never did this. It is glaring when you compare identical weapons like the Bongrinder and Maul and could have really paved the way for much more hybrid weapons. There is always going to have to be something on a weapon to make it for a specific task such as Int and Spirit versus Stam and Agi and Str. All I can come up with was the fear that other hybrid weapons like Paladin weapons may have been OP due to healing or spell damage etc.
i jsut dont se it. Using something Like Hammer of the Naruu with 54% formula would have given 904 FAP and even gemming all stam would avhe brought it up just under Wildfury about where it shoudl be iLevel speaking, ie just below it.
So I still dont know why, would have made BC much more fun and interesting and would have been great to not have to have Wildfury for a year before Sunwell and Badge gear came out for those of us who simply couldn't get POF to drop:/
So I hope they drop FAP and open up more options for us and reduce those DEs after the 2 feral druids and the 5 non feral druids get a weapon in raid, and give those that DONT get a weapon more options.
bla bla bla
Maybe next xpac huh?
former customer Nov 2nd 2008 10:07AM
what it basically boils down to is this: If a hybrid dares to exceed MS warrior arena ratings doing something other than healing, they take action. (i.e. 2.0.10 and the recent Ret nerfs)
But if a nonhealing spec of a hybrid is struggling in arenas, ho-hum, it's fine, L2P, working as intended.
I hate such double standards
Dejablue Nov 2nd 2008 10:23AM
Yea, it comes from an ignorant lead designer still butt-sore over past EQ changes where Paladins were better at tanking than warriors. it is well documented, and the lead designer actually organized crashing EQ servers to "protest" the unfairness of it all. The horror the HORROR of a hybrid doing anything as well or better as a core class.
You forgot to mention the complete gutting of Paladins and neutering of Shaman in a patch just before WoW released in 04, exactly when this lead dev came on board.
It is slowly getting better as they see in large scale that they/he are simply wrong and forced to concede to the customer base.
But I am rooting for the Paladins tho, I remember well being considered useless as feral in WoW Classic, and hope you guys get your moment in the sun, or at least get to come outside.
Ktok Nov 2nd 2008 11:31AM
@Dejablue:
"It is well documented"
OK, provide links to your wealth of documented proof that the only reasons pallies are getting nerfed is that Tigole is "butthurt".
As for hybrids being better than a core class? No, it should never happen. They are *hybrids*. Their strength is in diversity. A core class's strength is in specialization. In EQ1, if a Warrior wasn't the MT, he wasn't in the raid. Period. There was no such thing as Warrior DPS in EQ. *That* is why Warrior vets in EQ1 were PO'ed. It was nothing at all like the case here in WoW, so I suggest you go bone up on EQ and the mechanics during the great Warrior strike before you talk about crap you don't understand.
Dejablue Nov 2nd 2008 10:15AM
360 Swipe will be our downfall BECAUSE we are like all the other tank classes. We have been homogenized and have no niche now and the lack of 360 swipe means we are the minority, again.
Yes it doesn't make sense to swipe behind you and I understand the ramifications of aggroing things behind you and the unique ability to target your swipe and control it in a cone in front of you. Other classes and raids groups wont see it that way. it will be the thing we are lacking.
With all tanks having AOE tanking ability in wrath, I will presume there is a lot more AOE tanking that is going to take place.
It is not a big deal, I have already solved this long ago by spinning and tabbing swipe to aoe tank, now it is much simpler and more viable. But try explaining that to a raid-leader, let alone a pug. I have already experienced this perceived lack of core abilities in ZA groups post patch. People simply don't think of bears as AOE tanks, still.
Eberron Nov 3rd 2008 3:43AM
Purely anecdotal evidence. On the same (equally meaningless) level, I've had absolutely none of the same prejudices. Sure, some people are a bit surprised, but they were just as surprised to find out that Refreshment buff was coming from the Survival Hunter or that the constant chain lightning bursting out really was coming from the Enhancement shaman and not some Elemental we'd hid on the sidelines.
Things are new, people are adjusting, but if you have a raid leader who doesn't know how easy it is for bears to hold aggro on multiple mobs this long after the patch he the guild should strongly consider finding a player that follows class changes. Or, in layman's terms, he should l2raidlead.