Wrath Beta Blog for a FeralFollow

Just want to give a little window into the Wrath Beta testing from a feral POV. My druid has basically always been feral (couple restro repecs, but those never lasted). I'm pretty deep into T4 content, mostly as a tank.

There are quite a few HUGE changes to the feral play style (and I've only gotten to lvl 71 on the beta realm). I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a few (or haven't found 'em yet), but I'll add to this list as I think of/come across big play style changes. Here's a few:

1. Energy and Mana no longer "tick". As soon as it is able, it just starts to go up. Add the fact that OOC is a passive ability, and in Cat form, I almost never run out of energy. And if I do, just pop Tiger's Fury (talented) to get 60 free energy (and attack power buff).

2. Ferocious Bite damage has gone way up. On trash mobs I'm used to seeing 2600-2900 crits on a 4-5 point FB (live). This has gone up in Wrath to over 3700 damage, and this is before I changed out any gear.

3. Haste is haste. Specifically there is no more spell haste or melee haste, just haste. One of the early quest rewards gave equip: +haste and use: +spellpower. I took it to replace my last green attack power trinket. Sure I'll almost never use the +spellpower, but the haste works for me as a feral. Looks like a trend towards combined itemization. Also, this is the only quest reward which was an upgrade so far...but I imagine I'll be in lvl 80 greens/blues soon enough.

4. Maim no longer breaks on any damage. So it doesn't stop your auto attack. Its kinda like roots now, where damage *may* break the effect.

If I get Recount working in the beta, I'll try to give an idea on how our dps goes. On live (and in cat form/gear) I do 500-580 dps on trash mobs (self buffed) and top out around 720-750 dps on raid bosses. I hope to see these numbers go up before I change out any gear.

Thank you for the correction. Trust the blues over me any day.

For the record, I'm taking a dps talent build for leveling from 70 to 80. So at this time I can't really answer questions about tanking. I will try out tanking builds (because face it, as a feral we tank). I will put up my current build when I can log onto the beta server.

So far for attack rotations, I've stuck to the standard Cat opener: Pounce, FFF, Mangle, Shred. OOC seems to proc less than I am used to in live (but I have almost no +haste gear). If I remember correctly the blues said haste would affect OOC procs to benefit us. So far I've just been tangling with trash mobs (lvl 68-71 or so) and they all die fairly fast (not as quickly as the Warlocks in SMV) but I've never had to pop out and heal.

More to come after I download the newest patch and log back on...

Oh, and before I forget: We can eat, loot, drink and finish quests without leaving form! I know it was posted in the patch notes, but I cannot emphasize how great it is to keep the speed bonus of Cat or Travel form while going from quest node to quest node... Not to mention not spending mana at all.

EDIT: Professions give a buff! At least I think so, got a +15 crit rating for "Master of Anatomy", which I assume is from my Skinning profession.

Edited, Sep 18th 2008 7:09pm by xschuhx

We already can mine in flight form...

You just have to be as close as possible to the ground.

Doh! Quite right, I was thinking of herbs, sorry.