Manual Crowd Pummeler Tweak

[Xero]

It's sad that in Vanilla, a Feral Druid's best weapon comes from a lowly instance such as Gnomeregan. (I don't believe that Blizz would have originally planned for this to be the case?) Howerver, the Manual Crowd Pummeler https://classic.wowhead.com/item=9449/m ... d-pummeler's main limitation is it's 3 charges, after which it becomes suboptimal, so higher level Druids end up farming Pummelers on stealth runs - an unfulfilling chore.

Could we please make this item re-usable on Turtle WoW? We could remove the 3 charges restriction, and instead add an on-use cooldown. If so, what would an appropriate length cooldown be, relative to other on-use items? 10 minutes or more?? All other stats could remain the same.

For transparency's sake, I don't play a Druid on Turtle. My old main was a Druid, so I'm playing different classes now...

Happy to hear others' thoughts (particularly current Turtle Druids) on this idea?

[Pfwg]

The issue is that usually you might want to use more than one charge of the MCP over the course of a fight, adding a cooldown to it severely nerfs its potential.

The way to make this more convenient for druids would be to add more charges per MCP.

[Xero]

Well I suppose part of my concern with the MCP is that it's a blue weapon that is so... disposable. That feels wrong, aside from the issue of Druids having to farm it.

It's a fair point you raise, though, Pfwg. What if the 3 charges were renewed over a longer cooldown period? What about a daily cooldown, or even every 4 days like mooncloth - whatever would keep this tweak relatively balanced? Either way, this would retain the MCP's current potential for short duration bursting, but would prevent this nice blue weapon from being 'consumed' and made redundant.

[Yutilk]

MCP practically feels like a consumable :P

[Connelly]

If to work in raid, a class needs a weapon that:

-you want for the use effect
-the use effect is limited
-the weapon is 30-40 levels lower than the character
-needs to be farmed in a certain quantity
-it's drop is subjected to RNG

There's is something very wrong with all of this. No other class needs to go through this.

If rebalancing druid skills isn't in the table, I suggest designing and adding wherever you want (dungeon, quest, whatever, but available when reaching lv 60. I suggest talking with Dragunovi to add this to his additions) a gear piece limited to druids (you may want it to be on a neck or a trinket maybe) that can provide the same benefit without the need to farm it again and again.

[Xero]

Nice idea, Connelly, to replace the MCP with something that is custom. However, if the 50% increased attack speed (say on a trinket) could be achieved while enjoying the stats of another weapon (say a level 60 weapon), would this be a substantial buff to Druids? I don't know how one would balance it out...?

[Connelly]

It's not like kitties top meters anyway, and to be fair it would be freeing them from the ridiculousness of needing to be the only ones to not be using lv60 weapons (I've also seen cats raiding with naxx weapons and they don't suddenly become top5 dps). There are different speed buffs that you can play with while testing. If the same uptime as using several MCPs but with a lv60 weapon worries you, use one of the slower speed buffs; i think there are for 20% 30% and 40%.

[Moon]

I feel like a good way to preserve the usefulness of the MCP is to give engineers a recipe for something to refill the MCP's charges. As for what the materials would be for that, I'm not sure.

[Roxanneflowers]

Ideally speaking, you'd keep the 3 charges but rig the item to recover 1 charge per X time interval (I'm thinking like 1 charge per 1-2 minutes). That way you can use up the charges as fast as you need to, but they regenerate over time so the MCP isn't a "disposable" weapon once its charges are consumed.

[Moon]

Ideally speaking, you'd keep the 3 charges but rig the item to recover 1 charge per X time interval (I'm thinking like 1 charge per 1-2 minutes). That way you can use up the charges as fast as you need to, but they regenerate over time so the MCP isn't a "disposable" weapon once its charges are consumed.

As good as that idea sounds, I don't think implementing it in that way is either easy or doable

[Axoc]

What about adding a second drop to Crowd Pummeler 9-60 with identical stats as the MCP and setting both to have unlimited charges with a separate cooldown on each? I think 5 minutes would make sense. So you could weapon swap mid-fight and pop your second "MCP", and the items would still have some balance of maximum two uses per fight (unless the fight lasts more than 5 minutes).
The only major issue with this idea that comes to mind is that it would be extremely unbalanced in PvP, with the only balancing measure being that weapon swaps burn a GCD (which barely hinders a druid in this situation).

An alternative would be not changing the charge count or CD timer of MCPs, but making them craftable with engineering. Providing an alternate method of getting MCPs may relieve some pressure on druids.

[Pumpkinbot]

I think the easiest way to fix it would be to give cats something better than MCP. Personally, I'd also like something else that would negate the need to powershift, but eh, that's a separate issue.

For MCP replacement, maybe an item that with an effect that, when you use Tiger's Fury, you gain 50% autoattack speed for it's duration?

[Dragunovi]

I honestly think kitties could be better with better itemized items. I would do something like remove the MCP effect when shapeshifting but giving them feral specialised gear in return. A class shouldn't suffer through a dungeon 30-40 levels lower than it to do half-decent DPS.

[Roxanneflowers]

For MCP replacement, maybe an item that with an effect that, when you use Tiger's Fury, you gain 50% autoattack speed for it's duration?

Interesting notion. A lot of what Cat form can do are essentially ports of Rogue spells (for what ought to be obvious reasons).



Prowl = Stealth
Ravage = Ambush

Claw = Sinister Strike
Rake = (Warrior) Rend ... of all things ...
Shred = Backstab

Rip = Rupture (except duration remains constant, only damage increases with CP)
Ferocious Bite = Eviscerate + Energy Dump

Cower = Feint
Tiger's Fury = 6 second Sharpening Stone (huh?)



What's obviously missing here is any kind of analog to Slice and Dice for a weapon speed increase.
Kind of makes me wonder if there was ever supposed to be a finishing move (let's call it Frenzy for convenience) that would have basically been a direct port of Slice and Dice over to Cat form.

[Sebastian]

Would you consider adding MCP to a vendor in Moonglade only druids can talk to?
As a temporary fix until better solution is found.