Druid's Changes

[Ulukay]

Just some ideas that I find interesting for changes.

Skills.
Hurricane: Remove the recovery time. Why does it exist at all?
Entangling Roots: Allow indoor use. I don't know why it hasn't been done yet.
Moonfire: Remove the cooldown of melee and ranged weapons. I think it would be advisable to remove the reload time for melee and ranged weapons when using spells that do not require casting time for all classes.
Thorns: Increase the duration time to 30 minutes.
Savage Bite: Allow you to learn this skill from level 40 instead of 54. To remove the additional threat created. The bear already has almost no active attacking skills other than Swipe, and the threat created by this skill does not allow for free use of this skill.
Maul: Provide an additional threat creation bonus. When playing as a tank, rage is replenished due to the damage received, so you can spend it on a skill that takes away rage for use, as well as deprives the influx of rage for a lost hit.
Pounce: Increase damage. Now, compared to [Shred], the damage is just scanty, 3.5 times less. And also, remove the need to be behind the target.
Bear Form: Set the 360% armor bonus for [Bear Form]. Set the armor bonus to 180% and increase the attack power, based on stamina(?), for [Dire Bear Form]. Leave the option to use [Bear Form] after learning [Dire Bear Form]. To make a fighting bear out of [Dire Bear Form].

Talents.
Balance:
Swap the Improved Wrath and Natural Shapeshifter. This will provide the best talent contribution for the ferals, and they will not have to spend 5 talent points on the Improved Wrath talent that is useless to them.
Sylvan Blessing: Add an extra bonus. After killing the target, give rage for the bear and energy for the cat.
*Improved Starfire: Do you really think there's any point in a 5% chance of stunning a target for 3 seconds?!
Owlkin Frenzy: Replace this talent's bonus with a bonus that increases spell casting speed for a while, instead of the 30% "avoid interrupting spell casting" bonus. After all, there is already a talent that does this.

Feral combat:
Open Wounds: Change to "Blades Claws" to give the druid in the form of a beast the opportunity to use weapon effects that are triggered by attacks, with some chance, and oils. Make sure that [Claw] can activate it. It's a big loss that Feral can't use weapon effects. There are many creatures that are completely immune to bleeding, which makes this talent completely useless. Apply bleeding, rather as an additional ability.
Primal Fury: Make the same bonus for the cat and the bear, where they gain rage/energy for critical hits received or dealt.
Berserk: Replace the bear's 20% health bonus with a Rage Regeneration bonus or power boost.
Heart of the Wild: Change talent bonuses to - agility bonus for the cat and strength bonus for the bear.
Carnage: Replace the cat's bonus with a bear-like bonus.
Leader of the pack: I don't think this talent is useful, because I can do 3% of the critical chance with equipment or consumables, and doing such a talent at the very end is just ridiculous.
● Option 1. Change this talent to "True Form", which gives Feral the ability to remain in humanoid form when he takes the form of a beast. Most of all, I would like to get rid of the poor appearance of the animal. Also, you can leave a critical chance.
● Option 2. Change this talent to "Affinity with Nature", which allows you to use natural magic that does not require time to cast a spell without getting out of shape. These include: [Insect Swarm], [Thorns], [Mark of the Wild], [Innervate], [Cure Poison] and [Abolish Poison], [Rejuvenation], [Nature's Grasp], and possibly [Tranquility] and [Hurricane]. Considering that the mana scale has already been added to the beast's form, I think it's quite possible.
● Option 3. Make both Option 1 and Option 2, and add an additional effect like translucency or haze.

In one of the updates, they tried to do some mechanics based on bleeding, it turned out to be crappy, and it needs to be redone. Bleeding can't be the main mechanics.

Restoration:
Furor: I don't really understand the reason for placing a talent exclusively for feral in the recovery branch. Perhaps it would be worth transferring this talent to the feral branch? Or provide an additional bonus to this talent for the recovery branch, as with Sylvan Blessing. For example, add a damage bonus for [Thorns], because there is no such talent right now, or reduce the cooldown for [Rebirth], or give 20% enhanced Mana Regeneration/20% spirit while you're in beast form.
Improved Healing Touch: Increase the Talent bonus to 0.25 per talent point and reduce the maximum investment of talent points to 2. I find it unnecessarily expensive to invest 5 talent points for a half-second bonus, for a spell that can't even be used in the shape of a tree.
Nature's Focus: Reduce the maximum number of points invested to 3, receiving a 23% bonus for each level.
Aessina's Bloom: It looks a bit weak. I doubt that anyone will use this, considering that [Healing Touch] cannot be used in the form of a tree at all. This talent needs to be improved somehow.
Swap the talents of Swiftmed and Genesis.


I ask you to refrain from ridicule or swearing.
If you don't have any ideas, it doesn't mean that others' ideas are bad.

[Eskay]

I personally prefer druid as it is now, open wounds makes feral a more interesting spec to play by making bleed management a part of the gameplay. Additionally, Pounce should not do more damage, druid already has crazy high burst dps, speaking as a feral dps main. Pounce is there for your opener, giving you the chance to have 3 of the Open Wounds procs on a target.

I weirdly like a bleed immunity being a thing, because it means Feral has two different rotations to master, and both of those rotations are in my opinion quite fun and play very differently. Also letting feral benefit from onhit effects would completely break the balance of the spec. You can already see how OP it can get with a spellstrike build, and for that you have to tailor most of your gear around it. Letting cat benefit from crusader or the proc effects of specific weapons without needing to tailor their build around it, would lead to their DPS skyrocketing likely even past the DPS we saw from rogues at the start of 1.18.

Feral is honestly in a really good spot right now, it's strong and feels good to play, it is easy to learn but also has a super high skill ceiling, allow for tons of optimisation.

Feral being the way it is now also means it itemises in a very unique way that is different from everyone else.

On the point of heart of the wild, because of how druid gear is statted, keeping HotW the way it is, is best. Bear needs more HP much more than it needs strength, they are squishy enough as is. And making Cat get agi would either be a massive nerf, or make it totally broken. As it is now, it actually makes it so Feral is one of the most verastile specs in the game, as it means cat can build a ton of strength and still benefit from it, and means enchanting for strength is viable, meaning that improving cat also improves bear, and any feral cat player worth their salt will also play bear. With HotW the stat weights for strength and agi are nearly identical on cat, which is a good thing, because of how feral gear is designed.

I also don't think you realise just how strong LotP is, it is not just a buff to yourself, it is a buff to everyone in your entire party, effectively you add 3 crit to your party, which is a massive boost. It isn't a talent to buff just you, it is a raid buff, and one that makes feral one of the most desired dps. I would absolutely hate for it to be swapped out with a talent that means you are no longer in form, the fantasy of druid is being shapeshifted.

Both your proposals for it are just plain bad, all you lose from using a utility spell is 2 GCDs, it is not bad at all. I would much rather have my capstone be a raid buff and not "you can use spells which are only situational out of form"

On the point of bear I do agree that Savage Bite should be given earlier, but their threat is honestly fine if you know how to manage it. What bear has issues with is their target capacity is too low, only being able to aoe 3 mobs is too little, I would say it should be upwards of 5 mobs. And a QoL change which would be increasing thorns' duration to 30 min, and making it usable in bear form. Because it is one of the most annoying parts of playing it. Honestly bear just needs some QoL changes more than it needs buffs.

You also seem to want to make bear into a dps and not a tank, removing all of their sustain, which they desperately need, bear has amazing threat and damage already, it is one of the best tanks for damage and threat, only being beat by furyprot in ST, and in AoE pala and shaman do have it beat. But bear also brings utility.

Quite frankly, your changes to druid makes it seem like you just don't like druid, I don't want to be swinging my weapon in humanoid form as a feral druid, if I wanted to swing a weapon I would play any other melee dps.

Your change to sylvan blessing would make cat completely busted btw, they already have amazing energy gain doubly with powershifting, giving them more energy would mean they can perma spam spells which would put their dps in dungeons at just disgusting levels.

Overall, I really don't think any of your proposed changes would improve feral, for either tank or dps, it would remove their class fantasy, reduce their dps(or break it completely) would make bear a dps musquerading as a tank, and would make feral a complete meme by no longer having one of the best raid buffs in the game for melee. Genuinely as a feral main, your changes would make me reroll

[Ulukay]

Druid is one of my favorite classes.
I don't know what advantage of bleeding you're talking about. Right now, the main damage is only from simple attacks, Claws and attacks from behind. The DPS from bleeding is simply negligible, and it also does not affect everyone. Currently, Pounce only makes sense as an interruption to the casting of a spell, so using Pounce instead of Ravage to inflict damage is just stupid. The only benefit I see in bleeding right now is the extra energy. If this influx of additional energy is replaced by a resource in the form of mana, which lies idle, it will give more variety and interest.
I didn't say that the HP of the bear needs to be removed, I was talking about 2 different forms of the bear. Personally, I don't think the tank needs more HP at all, armor or evasion brings more benefits.
I do not know which "strong LotP" you are talking about. No one uses it. I've been playing druid for over 5 years and I see how no one ever uses the talent of Leader of the pack.
If you like looking at the ass of a bear or a cat, that's your choice, just don't activate your new talent.
The only good thing you've advised is to increase the duration of [Thorns] to 30 minutes. Although it will stop being a problem if it is possible to activate [Thorns] in the form. I'll add this to the list. Thank you.

[Eskay]

Druid is one of my favorite classes.
I don't know what advantage of bleeding you're talking about. Right now, the main damage is only from simple attacks, Claws and attacks from behind. The DPS from bleeding is simply negligible, and it also does not affect everyone. Currently, Pounce only makes sense as an interruption to the casting of a spell, so using Pounce instead of Ravage to inflict damage is just stupid. The only benefit I see in bleeding right now is the extra energy. If this influx of additional energy is replaced by a resource in the form of mana, which lies idle, it will give more variety and interest.
I didn't say that the HP of the bear needs to be removed, I was talking about 2 different forms of the bear. Personally, I don't think the tank needs more HP at all, armor or evasion brings more benefits.
I do not know which "strong LotP" you are talking about. No one uses it. I've been playing druid for over 5 years and I see how no one ever uses the talent of Leader of the pack.
If you like looking at the ass of a bear or a cat, that's your choice, just don't activate your new talent.
The only good thing you've advised is to increase the duration of [Thorns] to 30 minutes. Although it will stop being a problem if it is possible to activate [Thorns] in the form. I'll add this to the list. Thank you.

Have you not read your talents? We have an entire talent based around bleeds buffing claw by 30% for each bleed, which gives feral a rotation that isn't just a one button spec, if gives feral something to keep track of, and bleeds have been core to the identity of feral since vanilla. Also if you look at BiS gear you will notice the current BiS idol for feral cat is the one from BM which buffs your bleeds, so they absolutely do matter. And ravage you use as your opener, because it buffs claw, making it do amazing burst, and it is much more damage over that time than ravage, ravage is only good for bosses that don't bleed.

Making a class´cap stone a flavour ability is just sad, it is like if the capstone for prot paladin got replaced with "your spell effects are now red". What it should be is a glyph maybe, like the stars glyph for boomie, much better solution that doesn't leave feral without a real capstone. And even then I don't think feral should be humanoid, because knowing whether the druid you see is a cat, bear, tree or chicken at a glance is very important in pvp, as you have to know what you are up against, and a bear and cat with your changes would look identical at first sight. On an even more minor scale, the reason rogues cannot mog daggers and swords into each other is for this exact reason, clarity, because you prepare slightly different against a dagger or sword rogue, especially with assa being the way it is.

What I want instead is more options for customisation within the form itself, different fur colours for instance, hell maybe go wild and give them other beast looks you can unlock like a Kodo skin for bear as tauren, or a wolf form for cat as nelf (a reference to the packform from the lore which is the origin of worgens). The only way I see your idea even somewhat working in terms of visual clarity, would be if it was like Legion Demon hunter Metamorphosis, where it still changes your character model a ton AND the dps and tank ones are separate.

Also every current top feral within the top 15 uses Leader of the Pack, because once again it buffs your entire party, it is crucial to the raid melee doomstack, where pack adds a total of 15% crit spread across 5 players, which is a really major amount of damage added to your raid team.

Also, bear honestly doesn't want evasion, because evaded hits are less rage, and bear scales best with armour really.

You also need to consider class fantasy, if you want to be a druid who uses spells, you play balance, that is the nature magic druid, Feral is about embodying a beast, not a person not a caster. So having them cast doesn't make sense, how would they even incant the spells, given canonically druids cannot speak while shapeshifted into animal forms.

Also the capstone for any spec, should be a good talent, not one that changes it into something different, it would be like if afflictions capstone gave you a special demon or if the ret pala capstone gave a buff to healing. Spells are for resto and balance.

Making feral use mana would also just be cumbersome because it makes itemising even more annoying, or just feral becomes oomkin 2.0, unless you go spellstrike(like I am). It would make feral rely on 3(arguably 4) of the primary stats, as well as needing both SP and AP, because otherwise moonfire is a meme to cast.

Currently, I don't think feral needs any changes tbh, it currently is one of the highest skillcap specs in the game, and those who are good do insane damage, and it has one of the most sought after raid buffs, if you aren't using pack in raid, you're straight up trolling the other melees.

I also took the liberty of simming feral, with full bis, where pack is swapped for another talent that does damage, and it lost a lot of dps. And that is just the individual feral druid, not to mention the damage lost of the presumably 4 other melees in your group.

Again feral also scales with crit, because we have talents that synergise with it, specifically making every crit add an extra combo point which is just nice rotationally, and makes upkeep of bleeds with Ferocious bite significantly easier.

To end, I agree that at the very least, thorns and mark should be usable in form, because that is quite annoying. But for decurse and poison? As feral if you need to be the one doing that(outside of a dungeon run) something is deeply wrong with how you formed your group.