Don't you think that this change will nerf PvP even further though? It's bad enough as it is without having our damage nerfed. WTB something to compensate in PvP?

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Q u o t e:


It is true that Cat DPS may be a little too high, but it is important to also highlight that this is not merely a matter of throwing in a nerf here or there. Adjusting Cat DPS is rather complicated because of the fact that it is a demanding spec to play well.

If we are to adjust Cat DPS, we will have to avoid doing it in a way that makes it a simple matter for the more adept players to adjust, but harder for those of less experience. It is not our intent to punish the less skilled players with a massive loss of damage output.

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You've just described the exact problem here, Vanny.

We don't have a feral druid in our 10 man guild, even though I'm trying to get one for their exceptional dps and tanking. In TBC hybrid class dps was was put significantly behind pure DPS classes. Whether this is right or wrong is not the point. In WotLK all hybrid classes were brought up to a good standard, which is great for us as a 10 man casual guild since we love hybrids, lots of buffs and people can swap between their dual specs for healing, dps, and tanking.

Though the problem is where you say it is not your intent to punish less skilled players. This may have been just a poor choice of words, but GC has said before that they want hybrids to be able to do competitive DPS along side pure DPS classes, if the player is skilled and able to get the most from his class. This would leave an unskilled player a bit behind. What you are doing now, is catering for unskilled, and therefore skilled players are now beating most, if not all pure dpsers.

I'm not saying a skilled player should have to worship EJ religiously, nor should they even have to use it. I didn't bother using it for a while, and I still did very competitive DPS (albeit BM macro spamming in TBC). A player should know his class in order to compete in terms of DPS, but you're saying that you don't want to punish players for being less skilled. The thing is, you're not punishing them, they're punshing themselves for not doing proper rotations, not speccing and gearing properly with appropriate enchants and gems, etc. So effectively, Hunters should be buffed so then Steady Shot spammers can do competitive DPS, yes? And Warlocks too, you know, those who don't use the right curses and just spam Incinerate. And while you're at it, buff arcane mages for the unskilled ones whom can't do a proper priority. This would mean the skilled players would be at a level of skilled feral druids, whereas unskilled would be at the unskilled level of cats without having to 'punish' the unskilled.

I know this is about Druids but since I haven't the time to level my Druid, I'll explain it in terms of Hunters. BM Hunter dps was seen as too high at the beginning of WotLK, which it may have been, although realistically you should have waited to see how other classes scaled with gear. As a result, Steady Shot was nerfed in order to break up the Steady Shot spamming that had been dominating Hunter DPS for two years. This wasn't a hard method of dps, infact in WotLK we didn't even require a macro to stop us clipping autoshots since they're unlinked now. The DPS was too high, and it was too simple, which brings me onto my next point :

GC stated a few months ago that they wanted all dps specs to be similar, but possibly reward a more complicated spec and spell rotation / priority with better dps, or at least a more potential maximum dps. This is seen with hunters now with how Survival and Marksmanship both top BM. It was seen with Warlocks in 3.0.2 with how Affliction was quite powerful, yet was very difficult to manage. Now I'm not saying Cat DPS is easy, infact I have no idea how Cats DPS now, since the last time I was feral was when I dinged 70, and at which point I went to spec resto straight away. The point I'm trying to make is how Blizzard and GC in particular have stated that they want to reward the skilled players, whereas you have been contradictory and said that you don't want to punish unskilled players. At the moment, you are rewarding the skilled players by giving them higher dps than even rogues - and remember that rogues don't bring 5% crit or MotW or combat resses or innervate to the raid. Infact, what do they bring other than TotT?

This isn't a dig at Druids and all hybrids. Like I say, we like hybrids in our guild due to our casualness, since we can't guarantee when and who will be online. The competitive DPS of hybrids has allowed us to have success in our raids through the dual spec switching.

The reason for this post is because you have contradicted a few things that GC has said in the past. One of you must be right, no offence but I'd probably go with GC since he is a developer. I like how WoW has given a lot more flexibility to casual players. I was hardcore in TBC, but I quit the game and I would never have come back if it weren't for 10 man raids and casual stuff with old guildies. But I think you've taken it a step too far now with catering for unskilled players.

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Q u o t e:


It is true that Cat DPS may be a little too high, but it is important to also highlight that this is not merely a matter of throwing in a nerf here or there. Adjusting Cat DPS is rather complicated because of the fact that it is a demanding spec to play well.

If we are to adjust Cat DPS, we will have to avoid doing it in a way that makes it a simple matter for the more adept players to adjust, but harder for those of less experience. It is not our intent to punish the less skilled players with a massive loss of damage output.

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wow just wow... so your saying a retard should be doing the same amount of dps than a genious? its so unfair for those good players, its not only in pve is pvp too , this game is becoming rated for 5 years old.

stop feeding the ppl that dont care about checking the best dps rotation by ruining the quality of your game its not by doing that , that you will get more money ppl will start seeing that the game came to a point where there is no skill cap for classes

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Q u o t e:


It is true that Cat DPS may be a little too high, but it is important to also highlight that this is not merely a matter of throwing in a nerf here or there. Adjusting Cat DPS is rather complicated because of the fact that it is a demanding spec to play well.

If we are to adjust Cat DPS, we will have to avoid doing it in a way that makes it a simple matter for the more adept players to adjust, but harder for those of less experience. It is not our intent to punish the less skilled players with a massive loss of damage output.

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Rake duration increased by 3 seonds, overall damage stays the same. This solves 2 Problems:

Problem 1: Cat Rotation too complex
This problem comes from the different length of all our debuffs and buffs:
Rake: 9 seconds
Mangle: 12 seconds
Rip: 16-22 seconds
Savage Roar: 14-34 seconds
Managing all these durations, together with combo points, energy and omen of clarity procs requires alot of training and skill. If you want to top the meters you have to master this extremly well to throw in some Fericous Bites.
If you bring some durations closer to each other, in this case rake and mangle are both set to 12 seconds the rotatation gets a bit easier, because you can say: every 12 seconds you need to mangle & rake, so you need 75 energy for this.

Problem 2: Cat DPS slightly overtuned
If the DPS is slightly overtuned it needs a little nerf, nerfing Rake to 12 seconds with the same damge results in a loss of approximatly 300 dps and is putting us more in place with other damage classes.

But on the other Hand this is some PvP buff for cats because the longer dot duration prevents bandage healing from your enemies and prevents them from restealthing.

There may be an other source of the so-called OP of Feral DPS:
If the cat has a mangle bot on his side, he is able too push out more DPS just because he does not need to waste energy on LOW damage moves like mangle, and can go full out on the other damage moves.

This smells like another class about to be destroyed by dumbing down their rotation ( or lack there of ) to the point where it can be played by applying your face to the keyboard repeatedly.

Lay off the cats dammit, don't make me get out my stick - cause I will hit you on the head with it!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anyone who touches that nerf button will get their face eaten off by angry kittens who now only need too put their foot on the keyboard too max their dps...

Seriously, it's fun too play atm, dont ruin it. any nerf that affects the playing style would ruin this for most.

And tbh if you have no clue what you are doing YOU SHOULD DO LOW DPS. What is their crap about making every class playable by a 2 year old with a rubber mallet?
it's crap that's what it is. Blizzard should go the opposite way, and encourage players too learn the game instead of dumbing the players down.

People overrate ferals way too much.

1.
The scrub guilds overrate ferals simply because feral does outstanding dps in scrub gear. But this gets weakened later on when everyone gears up. The difference of dps boost between a plate wielder with Earthshaper is far bigger than a druid that recently got Dreamsomething.

2.
Feral dps depends very very much on situation. The perfect situation:
X-002
This fight favors single target burst that can stand still and behind the target, yes this is the feral druid specialty.
It is the only thing we have.

3.
The rest of the fights in Ulduar favor other classes and in a decent guild a feral shouldn’t top those.
Mages top Hodir (or should), well let’s make whine threads they are clearly overpowered casters…
Warriors top Yogg, let’s make another 10k whine threads till they are nerfed…

#!%! man….why can’t people let ferals have their one fight that totally favors their mechanics.

4.
TotT (30 seconds) and Hysteria (3 minutes), do you have any idea how much dps this gives you? Especially if we stack Bezerk (3 minutes) + Hysteria (3 minutes) + Wild Groth Potion = 12-20k dps burst. Why do ferals often get this?
Because they don’t stack with Bloodlust, and ferals don’t benefit from bloodlust so they click it off and receive these buffs.

If it annoys you that ferals top your meters (which shouldn’t really happen in the first place), then just stop giving them Hysteria/TotT and improve yourself. Nuff said.

STOP this please !
Why the hell are you telling them that we need nerfs and what needs to be nerfed ???
Really , why the hell ?

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Q u o t e:
STOP this please !
Why the hell are you telling them that we need nerfs and what needs to be nerfed ???
Really , why the hell ?

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Kitty are fine.

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/all/7/0/3


if our DPS is too high, where are we ?

I simply put cannot agree with that, Vaneras. Every human being has the god given ability to improve himself. Either if they read forums, if they try out different things or simply if they are getting better by doing 'their thing' they will manage to improve their dps.

It's basically the same way encounters are working. First of all, they are new. You have to learn to manage the new buffs and debuffs that are thrown on you, you have to avoid things like fires and void zones. After a few kills you get adapted to the new boss and you will probably kill him within a few tries.

Why not balance around this knowing? Kitties do not have to be better, simply because those players are less skilled. They will improve, they will learn to manage their class and they will be on par with other hybrids, not on top of the meters.

Otherwise every top notch guild will 'simply' (as long as they are able to) bring as much kitties as they can because of two other, extremely strong abilities.

Please, pretty please, if you do have to nerf it in some way...make sure that feral pvp is not affected this time. We keep getting nerfed for pve reason lately, (armor and health to ajust to other tank, interrupt on maim/bash because the interupt was only meant for pve bosses immune to stun, -30% damage on stunned target was not meant to be used by pve bear tank, etc etc). It'd be great for the message to be transmitted to the right person(s). thanks <3

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Q u o t e:


I think some clarification is needed here. When we say that it is not our intent to punish less skilled players, we don't mean that we will change Cats to cater entirely for those players by guaranteeing them equal DPS as the skilled players. Skilled players will always be better at managing rotations as well as cooldowns, and they will always have a greater sense of their surroundings that makes them better at adapting to different situations, and as such they will therefore always be rewarded with a higher damage output and survivability, and this is not something we wish to change.

We are simply saying that if we adjust Cat DPS, we will have to be careful not to adjust it in a way so that the less skilful players will see an enormous loss of DPS whereas the more adept players will only notice a slight change in their damage output.

This being said, you should know that we do not consider Cats to be very overpowered. If we do decide to lower the damage output, it will only be a minor nerf.

Soon it is time for some PTR testing and we hope to get a lot of testing done to help us monitor the performance of Cats.

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Please bear in mind when and if you lower feral dps in PvE you damage ferals in PvP as well. Some buffs are needed just to keep us where we are: barely viable...
A best thing what i heard is an ability to negate mortal strike effects on ferals when crit or something like that... And also easy way to have SR up, and direction removal on shred or bringing mangle damage to shred level...

1 question to kitty community. (As i didnt want to open a new thread i post it here). What shall be done if rip & SR got 10-12 sec left and i reach 5 CB. Shall i burn 10 sec of SR (or rip) and try to reach 5 CB before the other is up, or use a FB and get 5 CB for Rip and then try to go for SR. ? maybe the timings change but you got the point :)

THanks

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Q u o t e:


This being said, you should know that we do not consider Cats to be very overpowered. If we do decide to lower the damage output, it will only be a minor nerf.

Soon it is time for some PTR testing and we hope to get a lot of testing done to help us monitor the performance of Cats.

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What game are you playing? Feral cats are dishing out WAY too much damage. 6-7K DPS isn't too high?!
They are doing more damage than pure classes on single target bosses. Wow really?

and to guy that said Rogues even have utility like kick/tott - lets be honest: we can kick aswell, we got innervate + battle ress +5% crit + a little healing - should be a bit more than tott together.

so lets not bring utility into the discussion xD

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Q u o t e:


I think some clarification is needed here. When we say that it is not our intent to punish less skilled players, we don't mean that we will change Cats to cater entirely for those players by guaranteeing them equal DPS as the skilled players. Skilled players will always be better at managing rotations as well as cooldowns, and they will always have a greater sense of their surroundings that makes them better at adapting to different situations, and as such they will therefore always be rewarded with a higher damage output and survivability, and this is not something we wish to change.

We are simply saying that if we adjust Cat DPS, we will have to be careful not to adjust it in a way so that the less skilful players will see an enormous loss of DPS whereas the more adept players will only notice a slight change in their damage output.

This being said, you should know that we do not consider Cats to be very overpowered. If we do decide to lower the damage output, it will only be a minor nerf.

Soon it is time for some PTR testing and we hope to get a lot of testing done to help us monitor the performance of Cats.

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Do you think cats are a good benchmark for where all hybrid classes should be, both in terms of damage output and complexity of rotation?

If so, are there plans to bring other hybrid DPS specs up to this level, or up to where cats will be with some "minor nerfs"?

And what kinda rogues do you play with. I consider myself a good feral. But a good rogue outdpses me even if i do 6-8k dps...