Feedback for Druid Balance Changes 20th December

[Jammyzz]

DRUID

Now several weeks into our second round of class changes, we we’re able to observe how our druid changes played out in the hands of our community. We are overall happy with how Balance and Restoration play out, even if the former still has some minor things that can be ironed out regarding the reward or proper rotation. Feral Combat on the other hand is a double-edged sword at the moment. While both Bear and Cat are performing well, Bear even more than we imagined, there are still details left we wish to address. In case of Feral Cat, we wish to explore and expand their identity more beyond the 20-year-old Powershifting and add power to non-Powershifters.

Its great that you're introducing a new playstyle that doesn't involve powershifting, for the minority that don't like it, however nothing has been added to the tried and trusted / loved Powershifting Cat, Most players had to beg and doom on the discord initially just to get a slight upgrade to Improved Shred.

Open Wounds: Effect reworked to the following: "Increases the damage of Claw by 10/20/30% and Ferocious Bite by 3/4/5% for each of your active Bleed effects on the target."

Can you expand this abit please, it seems a bit vague, so does this mean that 1 Combo point of Rip on the target will now grant +30% Claw damage?, Consider adding abit of Shred damage here for the powershifting cats, maybe +4% per bleed.

Feral Aggression and Open Wounds now increase Ferocious Bite's total damage instead of its base damage.

Its okay, I Guess, from my testing in bis gear, this is around +2% extra Ferocious Bite Damage, heck its better than nothing.

Developer Comment: We’ve taken steps in establishing a new identity for Feral Cats before, enhancing their abilities through application of their Bleed effects. We’d like to go further with this design by enabling Open Wounds to all three Bleed effects available to Feral Cats and including Ferocious Bite into its functionality.

New Identity? But the majority of people who roll a Feral Druid in Vanilla, prefer the powershifting build, please dont stray too far away from this, yes there is a vocal minority that hate powershifting , so this is basically saying, You can powershift if you want, but this will not be support in the future... The current Tier sets seem to favor your new bleed build.

Ancient Brutality: Periodic ticks of your Bleed effects restore 2/3/4 Energy while in Cat Form. Dodging an attack while in Bear or Dire Bear Form regenerates 1/2/3 rage per second for 5 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 9 seconds.
Developer Comment: Taking this further, we also allow ticks of their Bleed effects to restore energy. This is one of many steps taken to deepen the synergies brought forth by Bleeds. However, the Bear side of this talent was outperforming for the bonus it gives and the amount of uptime. To combat this, we’ve increased the cooldown on the talent and removed the extra vampirism to even out its power.

I think this has been said before, that just making talents for Bear only or Cat only, is not what people want, so thanks for adding Cat to this talent aswel. That said I think this one has fallen short of the mark, the Ancient Brutality, was not overpowered in its previous form at all, and now removing the Vampirism part of it completely kills the talent for Bears, as that was the best part, regards to the energy return, It seems a little low to make an impact, perhaps 2/4/6 would be better?

Feral Adrenaline: Dodge bonus increased from 15/30/45% to 20/40/60%.
Developer Comment: We are increasing the Dodge chance to make this talent more reliable when it is triggered.

Unfortuantly this changes nothing, the dodge chance was not the issue, the long 30 second ICD, is the biggest issue with this talent, making it feel like it hardly triggers , consider reducing the cooldown to 10-15 seconds maximum, or better yet change it from dodge to damage reduction on the next phsyical attack.

Swipe: Attack Power scaling reduced from 6% to 4%.

This was 8% orignally, this just feels unwarranted, swipe was critting 280 ish in BIS gear with full raid buffs, hardly overpowered, maybe the threat should have been dialed back, as some cat DPS enjoyers loved going bear for AOE cleave with this scaling, now this wont be feasible, especially with the Savage Bite nerf below.

Frenzied Regeneration: Cooldown reduced from 6 to 5 minutes.

Developer Comment: Frenzied Regeneration feels a bit too weak right now, so we’re giving it power back by reducing its cooldown.

Unfortuantly this adds no power back to it, no one will really feel a 1 minute cooldown decrease, this spell has always been a 3 minute cooldown during is lifetime from various expansions, the healing you have nerfed it to, is now barely stronger than its vanilla version, which makes the cooldown increase unwarranted.
Suggestions: reduce cooldown back to baseline 3minutes or add 10% healing instead of current 8%.

Savage Bite: Cooldown increased from 6 to 9 seconds.

Developer Comment: While we see Feral Bears as a threat focused tank, their overall power overshot its target. We’re dialing their threat a bit back with this change.

Terrible change, Bear is stuck at a 2.5 sec swing timer, and this is their only Snap Threat ability, if just one of these misses, waiting 9 seconds for another will feel godawful.
I would not reduce the damage of this ability either, as it does less damage than a Maul, and is bears only real Instant damage deal ability for single target, which will heavily nerf their damage, which wasnt brilliant to start with.

Grizzled Hide (Feral Tier 3 8 Set): Duration increased to 15 seconds, maximum stacks down from 10 to 4, Damage reduction increased from 1% to 2%.
Developer Comment: Following Savage Bite’s increased cooldown, we’re giving Grizzled Hide a little bit more wiggle room to play with.


No one really likes this set bonus, it should just be removed and replaced for something else, Put the effect at 6% damage reduction on Thick Hide talent, which is a useless talent after Bears hit Armor cap.

[selapinkja]

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[statuspretzels]

The updates to Balance have been well-received overall. The rotation feels smoother, and the new mechanics add depth without overcomplicating gameplay. However, there are still some minor issues with rewarding optimal rotations. Fine-tuning these aspects could make the spec even more satisfying to play.

[Studbucket]

I enjoyed playing Balance before CC2, and the patch has made it better. It took some time for me to work out how to best use all the buffs and talents, and I think I need to re-spec a bit, but I love how the changes encourage me to use my entire toolkit of wrath, starfire, moonfire, and insect swarm.

[basednoob]

New Identity? But the majority of people who roll a Feral Druid in Vanilla, prefer the powershifting build, please dont stray too far away from this, yes there is a vocal minority that hate powershifting , so this is basically saying, You can powershift if you want, but this will not be support in the future... The current Tier sets seem to favor your new bleed build.

and how have you come to this conclusion? did you ask all the feral druids on turtle wow?

[Bigsmerf]

New Identity? But the majority of people who roll a Feral Druid in Vanilla, prefer the powershifting build, please dont stray too far away from this, yes there is a vocal minority that hate powershifting , so this is basically saying, You can powershift if you want, but this will not be support in the future... The current Tier sets seem to favor your new bleed build.

and how have you come to this conclusion? did you ask all the feral druids on turtle wow?

This isn't a matter of asking, simply having common sense. People aren't going to play something if they don't have fun doing it, so I highly doubt the majority of feral druids are going to be begging and pleading for this bleed build to be a thing.

[Reploidrocsa]

Let's not forget, many enemies are inmune to bleed effects, so unless bleeds outperform powershift by a large margin, there's not much reason to play it unless you want to keep bleeds up

[MegusTalano]

Can anyone send a good leveling balance tree pls? I want to try it ^^

[Studbucket]

Can anyone send a good leveling balance tree pls? I want to try it ^^

Here you go. 13 points in resto then the rest in balance.

[MegusTalano]

Ty mate!

[Templar85]

Instead 3/3 Owlkin Frenzy put 1 and have 2/2 Sylvan Blessing. 2/3 Reflection and 1 point on Swiftmend. It is a good burst heal which might needed while leveling.