Shifting Perspectives: Revisiting Cataclysm talents, part 2
by Allison Robert 
Jun 17th 2010 at 5:00PM
(CHANGED) Brutal Impact: The cat version (increasing the stun duration of Pounce/Bash by 0.5/1 second) is unchanged, but the cooldown improvement to Bash (reducing it by 15/30 seconds) has now been dropped to a 5/10 second improvement. Huh? I suspect Bash's base cooldown has been dropped too, because otherwise the change doesn't make any sense. Spending 2 points to get Bash as a 50-second cooldown would be a pretty raw deal for the tank who's not particularly well-off trying to control casters and their damage.
(MOVED) Heart of the Wild: Moved from a 6th to 5th tier talent but otherwise unchanged.
(MOVED) Survival Instincts: Moved from a 3rd to 5th tier talent but otherwise unchanged.
(MOVED AND CHANGED) Predatory Strikes: Moved from the 4th to the 5th tier and redesigned. The new version increases the critical strike chance of Ravage by 25/50% at or above 90% health (your own or the enemy's? I'm not sure) in addition to the current instant-cast Nature spell for combo points deal. The attack power bonus is gone, and the talent's also been unyoked from Heart of the Wild.
With the current change, there's no benefit anymore to having the talent in bear form, and as much as I'd like to take it for fun -- I enjoyed having the cat's instant heals even while grinding on a bear build -- I just can't get a tanking build to work with it right now. Future talent overhauls might make that possible (it is beta, after all) but I'm not optimistic that that'll happen. The trend that started after BC with the feral tree being steadily divided into cat-only and bear-only talents seems to be increasing.
6th tier
Natural Reaction: No change.
(NEW) Endless Carnage: Increases the duration of your Rake by 3/6 seconds and your Savage Roar and Pulverize by 3/6 seconds.
This is a pretty big deal for cats, as anything that increases bleed/buff durations tends to be. Blizzard's indicated its desire to make the cat rotation a bit more forgiving in Cataclysm, and Rake's big drawback as a bleed has always been a relatively short duration. It's one of the reasons that two-piece tier 8 and two-piece tier 9 for cats is so strong. I'll admit I'm not entirely certain what they mean by the extension of the Pulverize buff (see below; it's a new 10th tier talent) -- do they mean the bonus to critical strike chance for 10 seconds?
Otherwise, I don't know what bear threat is going to look like with the addition of Vengeance, so your guess is as good as mine as to whether Endless Carnage might be worth taking for the tank contingent. I did hear that bear threat was basically gutted when the alpha went up because all of the stat changes had already been made to gear, and bears -- oops -- still weren't getting any attack power from agility. Hopefully that bug gets fixed soon.
(CHANGED) Survival of the Fittest: The portion increasing all your attributes by 2/4/6% has now gone to that big talent tree in the sky. SotF is otherwise unchanged.
7th tier
(MOVED AND CHANGED) King of the Jungle: KotJ has been moved from a 9th to 7th tier talent, and the portion reducing the cost of bear and cat form by 20/40/60% has been removed. It's otherwise unchanged. I'm a little surprised at that, but I'm wondering if Blizzard's just reluctant to give the cat a ton of new situational abilities and a new interrupt and cheap shifting. The intent seems to be keeping the player in cat form more.
Leader of the Pack: No change.
Improved Leader of the Pack: No change. Still, in my humble opinion, the best talent in the tree.
(CHANGED) Primal Tenacity: The reduction to fear effects is still there, but the protection against damage while stunned has been reduced from 10/20/30% to 5/10/15%. With health pools said to be so much bigger in the next expansion, the present talent may have been a little overkill.
8th tier
Protector of the Pack: No change.
(CHANGED) Infected Wounds: IW's been altered from a 3-point to a 2-point talent (score!) and Ravage added to the list of abilities applying the debuff. They're really pushing Ravage, aren't they? It feels like it's turning into the Nourish of Wrath. Otherwise, no change.
9th tier
(NEW) Primal Madness: Tiger's Fury and Berserk also increase your maximum energy by 6/12 for their duration, and your Enrage and Berserk abilities instantly generate 0/12 rage.
The cat portion of this temporarily mimics a talent granted to assassination rogues called Vigor that permanently increases the rogue's energy by 10. So far, response to this has been pretty mixed, and I'm equally ambivalent myself; Yawning on the druid boards wrote that the talent will wind up being either "totally worthless or totally mandatory," and I think that's probably accurate. We just don't know how much haste is going to contribute to energy regeneration, and as Alaron pointed out, you shouldn't be anywhere near the energy cap with TF or Berserk up anyway. We'll see.
Mangle: No change.
Improved Mangle: No change (more's the pity).
10th tier
(NEW) Nom Nom Nom: When you Ferocious Bite a target at or below 25% health, you have a 50/100% chance to instantly refresh the duration of Rip on your target. We talked about this on our previous look at Cataclysm talents, and nothing's changed since then. As our commenter Carrie wrote on our first look at Cataclysm talents, "If Blizzard keeps Nom Nom Nom as the talent name I will give them like, all of my moneys. Like all of it." I concur ... although we know it'll never happen.
Rend and Tear: No change. This worries me a bit for bears; Maul is almost certainly going to be a much, much smaller portion of our rotation in Cataclysm, so we'll be spending 5 points to get a damage boost to a skill that we may not be able to afford that much.
(NEW) Pulverize: Requires Dire Bear Form. Deals 100% weapon damage plus additional 786 damage for each of your Lacerate applications on the target, and increases your melee critical strike chance by 2% for each Lacerate application consumed for 10 seconds.
The wording has been changed a bit from when we first saw it. I'm still not completely clear on what it does, but I think it costs you one Lacerate on your target in return for the instant damage and the 10-second (16 seconds with Endless Carnage) critical strike boost. There's no cooldown and it's an instant attack, but it'll also run you 20 rage each time, so this really isn't a spammable deal unless you're in a high-rage scenario. With a full rage bar and a full stack of 5 Lacerates, you could theoretically spam Pulverize, obliterate your stack (and your rage bar in the process), and get a huge threat boost in return.
11th tier
Berserk: No change, although I'd still kill to see this do something to the bear/cat models a lá Bestial Wrath. What is that little green circle? That's just sad.
Every week, Shifting Perspectives treks across Azeroth in pursuit of truth, beauty and insight concerning the druid class. Sometimes it finds the latter, or something good enough for government work. Whether you're a bear, cat, moonkin, tree or stuck in caster form, we've got the skinny on druid changes in patch 3.3, a look at the disappearance of the bear tank, and thoughts on why you should be playing the class (or why not).Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
feniks9174 Jun 17th 2010 3:43PM
Nom Nom Nom reminds me of Decimation for demonology warlocks . . . . just with extra hilarious.
Rhabella Jun 17th 2010 5:31PM
I share your sentiment on improved leader, so why, if I’m not a complete moron for missing it in one of the 29 other trees, have other classes not demanded a mutually exclusive buff?
Mort Jun 18th 2010 3:07AM
Shhh! Don't give the rogues ideas!
maser_xyz Jun 17th 2010 5:42PM
Since they removed rogues's Master of Deception, I think Feral Instincts also will be reworked, or even removed altogether. I really hope that stealth levels won't be more than a memory when cataclysm comes. It's just way too vague, just like the flat attack power reduction of Demoralizing Roar.
Lissanna Jun 17th 2010 7:54PM
I think feral druids need to pick up the stealth improving talent so that resto & moonkin don't have the good version of stealth.
Artificial Jun 18th 2010 12:23AM
Yes, Ghostcrawler has already said Feral Instincts will be staying. Rogues get improved stealth for free, cats have to pay for it, this is by design.
Eyhk Jun 17th 2010 5:44PM
I do wish Blizzard would spend some more time upgrading the ability graphics for feral. They gave us 4 or 5 small movement animations mixed and matched with minor glowing graphics that almost never stand out at all. Highly visible animations and graphics like the warrior's devastate graphics would be nice.
Being able to use ravage out of stealth after a feral charge would add some nice burst, but on boss fights it would require special mechanics to make it useful at all. Changing targets always tanks our dps output until all our bleeds and buffs are in effect so ravaging when moving back to the boss will more than likely waste energy and precious bleed uptime. It might be good for quick target changes like spikes on Marrowgar but the range requirement of feral charge will make it finicky to use.
KrisseyB Jun 17th 2010 6:23PM
Have you ever seen a cat attack? They are not ninjas... they just smack things with their paws.
Mort Jun 18th 2010 3:16AM
The only real usage I can see for Imp. Charge and it's Ravage component in current raiding would be blobs on PP, and maybe adds on Valithiria (especially Blazing Skeletons). The minimum distance is, as you say, a problem. We'll have to see what encounters are like in Cataclysm, though.
Other than that, I can see it being really good for burst in PVP, although I dread all the whining that cats are OP when we proceed to insta-gib warlocks.
Mr.X Jun 18th 2010 8:08AM
I think FF Animation should be changed, its so booring atm, make it darker and give it some cooler noise perhaps.
Rest of the spells, well I hope we get something new and cool looking but we're bears afterall we attack with ours claws.
Though technically lore wise we can use magic while in bear to deal magic dmg, like Malfurion/Broll have used Fire in bear/cat form to deal nature dmg in the Stormrage Book.
Would be cool if like enrage or Tiger's fury got some animation like that.
Arrowsmith Jun 17th 2010 6:12PM
Seeing that the crit reduction for Bear form still lies in talents gives me high hopes that the other tanking trees will have a a similar talent. It would do me well to see everyone crying about how any DPS can slap on a shield and the right presence/stance/form/fury and tank eat their words.
Mohsus Jun 17th 2010 7:08PM
to be fair though, we get a fair bit of our mitigation from crit and we need to keep critting to keep our bubbles up. I don't know all that much about the other tank classes, but I cannot recall any other tank class having a crit dependent mechanic and thus needing the 40-50% crit chances.
Mohsus Jun 17th 2010 7:09PM
nnneeeevvvveeerrr miiiind. Crit REDUCTION. REDUCTION. I need to fully read before I post. Downrank that above into oblivion and accept my dearest apology : /
Debesun Jun 18th 2010 12:13PM
Blizzard has stated that they're implementing the Feral style crit immunity talents into all tanking trees during Blizzcon 09.
Debesun Jun 18th 2010 12:18PM
And I should also mention that they'll be linked to a deep'ish tanking talent (similar to the position of Ferals crit immunity talent), rather than strapped onto Defence Stance, a DK Presence, or Devo aura as baseline to all specs of that class.
That's what was discussed anyway.
saraquel Jun 18th 2010 9:45PM
They removed Master of Deception and left in Feral Instincts deliberately. Ferals will have equivalent stealth to rogues, other druids will not.
You seem to be working with a different tree than others, as the improved charge spoiled to the rest of us gives 30% melee haste independent of form, not 10% extra damage in bear...?
Also, judgment of light and wisdom are still class-unique buffs, though not spec-unique. There's a few minor ones like this still kicking around.
Boobah Jun 17th 2010 6:21PM
On Pulverize: My working assumption was that using it burned any and all stacks of Lacerate on the target; the more Lacerate stacks, the bigger the buff (and the straight up damage). If you've got the 16-second buff duration (with that earlier talent that gives Pulverize +6 seconds) then you've *almost* got enough time to generate a 5-stack of Lacerate (assuming you still Mangle and Faerie Fire on cooldown) before the Pulverize buff fades; this'll keep Swipe out of your single-target rotation, at least if Vengeance multiplies with (rather than adds to) Pulverize, which seems likely as Vengeance exists to scale tank damage.
This doesn't leave you any space for Maul, but that's okay because it should be your hardest hitting attack. It's just got a huge cost and is inefficient at turning rage into damage (but at least it does *something* with that rage).
The damage boost from Feral Charge (Bear) may be a way for a bear to do decent threat while building up their first Lacerate/Pulverize stack. Or just before Vengeance can work its way up.
Mr.X Jun 18th 2010 8:05AM
FF is becoming our Devastate with 1 sec CD(see first tiers of talents), because of the FF thing I bet most feral druids will only take 2 talents in imp mangle, so if my maths is correct with GCD(thin FFF was 1 sec GCD and mangle and lacerate was 1.5) in order to maintian pulverise buff we would need 7.5 sec to spam lacerate(though technically due to mangle we would need like 11 sec) so either we get some gylph so that pulverise doesn't remove all lacerate stacks on target(or at all) or this spell isn't ment to be used constantly.
Anyway guess we need to wait longer for beta to see if this might get some CD or maybe lacerate stacks is reduced to 3 or something.
Texicles Jun 18th 2010 3:32PM
I'm not certain whether Boobah's or Allison's interpretation is correct, but there are interesting implications either way. Let's assume the following: there are no glyphs for Pulverize (though I suspect there ultimately will be), you're talented into Endless Carnage, Shredding Attacks and Ferocity, use Mangle on CD, aren't using Maul and cast FFF as you were pulling.
If Allison's interpretation is correct, we would most likely alternate Pulverize and Lacerate after reaching 5 stacks of Lacerate, so that we continue to get the full 3930 dmg bonus to our pulverize, as opposed to giving Pulverize diminishing returns as we spam our full stack of Lacerate into oblivion.
Again, with Mangle on CD and no Mauls, we would see our full stack of the Pulverize crit buff at 27 sec, at a cost of 292 rage (117 for 9 Lacerates, 100 for 5 Pulverizes at max dmg and 75 for 5 Mangles). After the first 28.5 sec, the rotation opens up considerably. It is important to note that, due to the duration of the Pulverize buff, Lacerate's bleed and the CD of Mangle, that you must Pulverize no later than 13.5 sec after you reach a full stack of the buff the first time (in order to keep using Mangle on CD) and the rotation requires 2 Lacerates between Pulverizes (one immediately following to re-stack to 5 and another before the next Pulverize to keep Lacerate from falling off altogether).
A rotation like this would result in 4-5 free GCDs of every 10 to use for Maul, Swipe or whatever the situation and your rage income dictate.
On the other hand, Boobah's interperetation has it's own implications. If Pulverize consumes all Lacerates on the target, then we can see a full stack of the Pulverize buff after 10.5 sec at a cost of 115 rage (65 for 5 Lacerates, 30 for 2 Mangles and 20 for one Pulverize). However, we immediately incur another 95 rage cost (and 7.5 more seconds or 7 GCDs) for re-stacking Lacerate while keeping Mangle on CD, bringing the practical figures to 210 rage over 21 seconds.
While this scenario yields the full stack of the Pulverize buff much faster, and at a slightly lower rage-per-second (10/sec vs. 10.25/sec in the previous scenario), the fact that Allison's interpretation gives us 5 max-dmg Pulverizes and maintains at least 4 stacks of Lacerate is pretty significant.
The minimum use of Pulverize to maintain the buff in this case is one every 10 GCDs, and it would never interfere with using Mangle on CD, nor would we have to worry about making sure Lacerate didn't fall off because 5 of the next 9 GCDs would be spent re-stacking Lacerate. However, after we take Mangle into account, we're left with a rotation that has 1-2 free GCDs every 10, very little uptime for a full stack of Lacerate.
Obviously, glyphs have the power to change all of this. A glyph that kept Pulverize from consuming Lacerate would make Boobah's interpretation of the Pulverize mechanic more desirable. Unless such a powerful glyph is in the cards, then I hope (and have to believe) that Allison's interpretation is the correct one, as it's hard to fathom the designers' intent to be for us to spend the majority of our rotation stacking a bleed and seeing it at full power for ~3 seconds despite its 15 sec duration.
splodesondeath Jun 17th 2010 6:46PM
When you say the "Nourish of Wrath", do you mean that it will be the "Nourish of Cataclysm"?
Also, your accent on à la has migrated to the second a.
Love,
Grammar Police. :)