Opinions on Feral Druids, for Cataclysm BG's (Rated and Normal)

What are people's thoughts on Finisher Moves: Ferocious Bite vs Maim vs Rip.
Searching wowhead and wowwiki, this is what I have on these finishers.



Ferocious Bite is a direct damage effect, with bonus damage based on surplus energy.
- Base damage is ??. Formula, shows maximum damage as lower than minimum, but lists 2705 + 54.5% of Attack Power, before placing the maximum damage 234 points below the minimum.
- Because the damage scales with the excess energy, the glyph to prevent this is not a dps gain.
- Feral Aggression ups the base damage by 10%.
- Rend & Tear ups the crit chance by 25%.
- This hits for greater burst than Maim or Rip, and if you kill the target that's superior to extra DPS over time or a Stun effect.
- Blood in the Water, is a 100% chance to refresh the duration on Rip, if Ferocious Bite is used on a target at or below 25% health.


Maim is a direct damage with a Stun effect.
- The damage is between 885 + (1.55 x minimum weapon damage) and 885 + (1.55 x maximum weapon damage).
- Dot/Ongoing damage will never break the Stun effect.
- Direct damage will break the Stun at the same point that a Fear or Frost Nova would break.
- The stun is 5 seconds in length, and subject to Diminishing Returns sharing reductions with Kidney Shot (Pounce/Cheap Shot are in a separate DR category).
- Maim interrupts players spells, if they're not immune to the Stun portion, but does not interrupt spells when the player is immune to the Stun portion.
- 5 seconds is not long enough to un-target the player and reacquire Stealth, but unless they hit you with an instant, you can use this to reacquire stealth once.


Rip is bleed/dot, so it ignores armor and cannot be dispelled/removed.
- Base damage, (868 + 92% of AP, over 16 seconds).
- Prime Glyph, +15% damage.
- Mangle, +30% damage.
- Affected directly by Mastery.
- Blood in the Water (Talent: When you FB a target below 25% health, there's a 100% chance to refresh the duration on Rip).

i don't think you'll do nearly enough burst with FB in pvp vs resil targets to be able to ignore rip. rip is the main reason people currently think feral druids are OP (correct me if im wrong).

Coming back to this with the possible changes to ferals and bleeds. I may have a different setup. What I get from the blue posts is bleeds are going to be toned down, and all meele abilties aside from rake and rip will do more dmg.

In the base (not Reforged) Blue PvP crafted/auction house set, I have:

105,913 HP's
332, average item level.
3331 Agility
4760 Stamina

9468 AC
1327 Resilience (13.94% reduction)
21.58% Dodge

2.96% Hit
3.26% Haste
38.61% Crit
4 Expertise Rating
13.38 Mastery

3336 Spell Healing (base)
3494 Spell Healing (in Cat)



Rejuvenation (NE)... 1824/tick
Rejuvenation (Cat)... 2189/tick
Lifebloom (NE)......... 318/tick & 3630 Final
Lifebloom (Cat)........ 382/tick & 4188 Final
Regrowth (NE)........ 4600 Initial & 478/tick
Regrowth (Cat)....... 4600 Initial & 574/tick
Healing Touch (NE) 10,500 healed.

In Cat Form, all my druids are part of the ATG that receives repeater region click heals; so no initial hit of Regrowth/Healing Touch while in Cat Form.

No talents/glyphs for healing, aside from +AGI to healing and +20% healing received while in Kitty.



Leaning towards the Regrowth in the place of Berserk, if Berserk loses Fear interrupt/immunity; the auto refreshing of Regrowth on targets at/below 50% health would be nice... Using Berserk, Mangle, Rip at the moment; Tiger's Fury is a rather small boost, and I'm not using Savage Roar in my rotation. In BG's, most things are dead at step 2 of the DPS rotation (Mangle, Rake, Mangle, Mangle, Rip); straight Mangle spam might be optimal DPS for BG's.

Also using Instant Root, Rebirth, Thorns as major glyphs; have not used the Root or Thorns at all; could see those glyphs as being useful as a solo Feral. Have used Rebirth a few times, and 100% health is nice. Leaning towards: Barkskin, Rebirth, Feral Charge as major glyphs.

I think the nerf to berserk not working against fear is too much. I think it should only work vs. fears that are nonspecific to animals. Druids are fear bomb magnets without it. Their inability to keep from being chained feared is going to make multiboxing them without shammy support extremely difficult vs. teams that know what to do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kromtor

I think the nerf to berserk not working against fear is too much. I think it should only work vs. fears that are nonspecific to animals. Druids are fear bomb magnets without it. Their inability to keep from being chained feared is going to make multiboxing them without shammy support extremely difficult vs. teams that know what to do.

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I'm not so sure. You are immune to poly and hex, and can shapeshift out of snares sometimes. Can't have 1 class immune to everything. PvP wasn't made for 1v1.

i'm not complaining about it as an unfair weakness that druids have, im just saying that as a multiboxer it is an enormous hurdle to overcome since we bear the full brunt of every fear bomb.

With the changes to CC being 8 seconds base you get basically a 4 second fear and then a 2 second fear after you break the first one with your trinket. Considering that you're immune to roots, snares, polymorph and hex that may be enough. I mean, really, only Shaman have good defense vs fear and I'm on the fence whether a 4x Enhance Shaman setup would work in BG's and arenas. Earthbind Totem only removes snares not roots and right now Mages are virtually impossible to stay on as a melee class.

As far as finishers, I'm using long castsequences so that most of my team always does Rip, and I have 2 of my druids that alternate Maim in the mix. Currently 83, and I've only done one level as feral with them. Overall, I'm impressed. BGs has been average, but only because I'm so used to them as boomkin.

I've been playing around between regrowth and healing touch for the occasional free instant cast. Healing touch heals for more without a question, however when I use 4 x Regrowth, I was able to clear BRC @ 82 by turning my main into a bear and using the other 4 as dps/healers. This is something I never imagined possible as 5xFeral.

i think using rip in PvP will be far superior to FB, because you can nt guarantee you will be in melee range hen fighting as s kitty and everyone has a way to kite you around, pretty much, so when you do get the points, a rip ensures that the target takes 100k DMG if all 5 are 5 pts and thats a LOT to heal through in 16 seconds or whatever it manages to stay on for. Also, if you rip one target and have your rake up, you can safely switch targets with your dots destroying one target, forcing their healers to go MAJOR mana innefficient and healing two targets a once.