Wrath Watch: Bear Form Abilities (PartII)

I have already posted on Cat Ability suggestions, as commonly requested from fellow Druids on the Official Blizzard Druid Forums. Today, we will take a look at Bear Form.

Let me emphasize that I am not a raider (c'mon guild, I just need Black Morass and then I'm your tank for Kara!). My comments are from the perspective of a 5-man dungeon runner.

Frenzied Regeneration- This ability offers very little health return for the amount of rage consumed. Even against 4-5 non-instance PvE mobs, FrenzRegen keeps your bear alive a bit longer, but doesn't seem to give you enough health to pop a healing pot or healthstone. In a dungeon, one is more likely to see the health bar lower than where it started and rage at zero after the 10s of "Regeneration." Might we see more HP per rage consumed? Could we get a burst HP for the rage consumed? That criticism delivered, one must keep in mind that druids retain the ability to Barkskin, Healing Potion, INSERT HEALING SPELL. I would hope for a buff to this ability, but wouldn't find it disappointing if Frenzied Regeneration is overlooked.

Feral Faerie Fire It has been said that you can use this ability to pull.... If your druid forgot to train Starfire, I suppose that you could pull with FFF. FFF generates threat, decreases armor and prevents rogues from Vanishing (latter being the best function), but otherwise, FFF doesn't offer much tangible damage increase. Make this a more potent armor debuff and I'd be happy.

Predatory Strikes needs to scale better with level. The addition of 105 AP at level 70 is not worth 2 talent points.

Maul needs to do more damage! A Maul attack occurs on the subsequent bear swing. At one swing every 2.5s, that is too long to wait for Maul to land on the target. By the time I have landed one Maul, I'm looking to use my rage to renew my Lacerate stack or refresh my Mangle. Not that we need to be doing DPS, but please let us generate more threat with a rage efficient ability. After Lacerate and Mangle are up and moving bleeding away my query, I'm likely to use Maul once or never.

Demoralizing Roar this debuff follows the trend of the oft usurped druid buffs. Demoralizing Shout has (at level 70) a 300 AP reduction, while Demo Roar only has 240. Fully talented, Demo Shout has a 420 AP reduction, while Demo Roar only has a 298 AP reduction. Please get this ability at least equal to Demo Shout.

Other abilities mentioned by the Druid community:

Ability to use weapon procs and items while in animal form: I just don't think this really fits the animal form scheme too well. Bears don't chug potions. Though somehow, we can use trinkets? This won't happen (regardless) so please druids, stop asking for it.

New Skins: I really hope this happens. Who wouldn't want new skins or forms?

Bash: still worthless for the amount of points. Increase it to 1s and 2s for the respective points and this might be useful for PvP.

Nurturing Instinct: Please move it out of the Feral tree.

Omen of Clarity: Move this into the Feral tree.

Overall, I think the Feral Bear build is a well constructed build. A few changes might be nice, but I'd take more attention to a new form over any improvements to what we already have.

What are your thoughts?