Casual Weapons

Well, with the addition of polearms and the application of feral AP to all weapons, I thought we might have some more weapon options for casual cats and bears. And we do. See Think Tank's great post on the subject. However, to-date we aren't getting a craftable polearm or 2H mace.

As for now, no love from the crafting professions for droods.

Feral Attack Power Change

This change just gives me one more thing to look up. How annoying.  I liked the idea that I could easily find the weapons good for ferals DPS and tanks without too much effort.  I understand that the change will open up opportunities for many more tanking weapons.  If I'm not mistaken, feral DPS staves and maces may be less abundant.  I don't know of too many hammers that would fit the bill for feral DPS, though I'm sure there are some out there.

Once again, I'll say the the game is getting too complex.  I would much prefer that Blizz do this work for me.  Show me a percent improvement or loss for any weapon compared to my current weapon based on my spec.  The UI will reportedly change, but there is nothing to tell me how, where and when to uprgrade.

Without all my fellow bloggers, I'd be totally lost in this game.

Feral Leveling Build

Edit: With new from Blizz con looking very favorable for spec-switching, I altered the build below, to this build with pure cat dps and cat talents.

Time to work on a Feral build for leveling in WotLK.

As a casual player, I am disappointed that the new feral tree does not allow 100% DPS and 100% Tank spec in one build. We got away with that throughout TBC. Now, with a few talents that are bear or cat specific, we have to choose. Alas, Blizz has missed the point that many people don't like to tank and that providing a dual-spec of tank and DPS was actually creating more tanks. Well, we will have more death knight tanks, if people spec that way and perhaps a spec switching ability.

In compiling this build my goals were diffuse, like a Sarah Palin debate. I wanted to have:

• High DPS for leveling and PvP use (though I think healing is more fun in PvP)
  
• core tanking functions for 5-mans *not raids* (uncrittable, high armor)
  
• some soloing capability
  

I haven't been following Beta news too closely, but it seems that things are changing for bear tanks. More threat from damage dealt? Cats seem to have myriad of new talents to increase DPS. Nelfs may have a better Shadowmeld for soloing without having to spend talent points.

There are plenty of builds out there and no hybrid build is going to be perfect. I've included points of my build below, especially where they may deviate from a pure DPS or Tank build.

Feral Aggression - usually a crappy ability, but with Rend and Tear, may stack up some nice crits.

Feral Swiftness- a puzzler. 15% increase is great for PvP in cat form. The dodge is only good for tanking, but very nice for tanking. However, Natural Reaction gives more bang for the buck, if you are willing to sacrifice the cat ability.

Brutal Impact- may be quite nice for kitties. High potential for getting in another Shred from behind can be very effective in PvE and PvP.

Natural Reaction- a clear bear ability and not a necessity for tanking 5-mans. As above, this does give some dodge, which isn't an easy stat to get.

Primal Tenacity- clear PvP ability.

Protector of the Pack- Bears only here and a core ability for tanking in any PvE setting. Nice for PvP too.

Predatory Instincts- wow. Lots of crit damage increase here. With white crits and special crits, this seems like a core cat ability.

Infected Wounds - very cool PvP ability. I probably won't take it for the Feral build, focusing more on the PvE side. This seems like a talent worth putting all three points into or none at all.

King of the Jungle - seems almost like a core threat generating and DPSing talent.

Rend and Tear - Well, taken with Feral Aggression this makes for a very nasty Ferocious Bite.

Furor - Power-shifting isn't going to work anymore for cats. That's OK, it always seemed a little devious to me. I'd rather self-buff with improved MotW. The MotW buff is quite nice in Wrath.

Well, Toskk will have the mathematical answer to the best build over on Druid Wiki soon and we will probably all go with those numbers for PvE. As for me, I'll stick with this until I feel that I'm sand-bagging myself in some way.

Macro Changes 1/8/08

I haven't been playing WoW too much, but I would like to report some changes in macros that have come about- seemingly unannounced in the patch notes- in last Tuesday's patch.

Two Changes have been made:

1) If you are in Cat Form (applies to other forms too) and want to de-snare by shifting into the same form, your macro will need to have a "!" added to it:

/cast !Cat Form

2) We can now shift out of forms to use an item without having to use /cancelform:

/use Super Healing Potion
/cast !Bear Form

So, if you have noticed some macro problems and the "!" doesn't help, take a look on the forums to find some more detailed answers.

Please post any other macro changes you may have noted.

Wrath Watch: Cat Form Abilities (Part I)

Many druid abilities are taking a beating on the Official Blizzard Druid Forums, since Eyonix asked for feedback from each class a few days ago.

The majority of players are commenting on Feral and Restoration abilities,while the Balance tree is receiving less criticism (except for the overall functionality of ToL, which shouldn't be minimized).

A few Cat Form abilities are in the firing line of many comments, and rightfully so:

Tiger's Fury- 40 DPS, but only for 6 second, while costing 30 valuable Energy. It is marginally useful for grinding elementals or other bleed-immune targets. I agree with most posts asking to lengthen the duration of this ability and the damage output.

Ferocious Bite- FB is inferior to Rip and Shred and is largely used for bleed-immune targets and may be worth keeping for that reason. After all, we need to grind elementals and there may be a fair amount of Undead that will need re-killing in Northrend. The main complaint about FB is that this ability does not scale with gear. Adding more damage based on Strength or Agility would be great so that FB becomes more powerful with better gear. Decreasing the time it takes to acquire the 100 energy to make good use of the 5 combo points for this ability by adding an Energy generating talent for Cats would also help make FB a more powerful talent.

Feral Faerie Fire- is great against clothies and leathers and prevents stealth in PvP, but seriously, why not put Improved Faerie Fire in the Feral tree? We could trade it for Nurturing Instinct?

And most importantly: Cat Form- please give Cats a new look! Snow Leopard?

In addition to concerns about talent and abilities that don't stack with gear, there are the age-old "poor itemization of high-end leather" comments. This may be true, but I'll be lucky to get through all of Karazahn before the expansion- this is an issue for the high-end raiders.

As for my predictions:
1) Tiger's Fury will be buffed.
2) Ferocious Bite will be made to scale with gear.
3) Improved Faerie Fire will likely remain a Balance talent.
4) I am praying that we get a new form.

Next time on Wrath Watch: Bear Form Abilities.

Ritual of the Beast