Class Balancing

[Satrion]

Looks like they are doing some class balancing: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/109322 ... -9_23_2013

The important one for ferals: Rip's damage has been increased by 20%.

So what does everyone think? Obviously I always like buffs, but did it seem like it was needed? Discuss.

[bearpelt]

I was taken off guard by it. My damage has been low on some fights but fairly high on others (suspect the low end is because of switching mechanics and being unfamiliar with encounters) so can't say I felt underpowered?

[Cetlysm]

I'd rather have my NS back, but thats nice
Now that assassination is nerfed and demo with uvls is nerfed feral might be a top 1 single target spec.

[aggixx]

Completely unjustified imo, but you don't hear me complaining.

[Treeba]

Completely unjustified imo, but you don't hear me complaining.

This.

[Tinderhoof]

Not complaining about a buff, but man it's not anything we need. Buffs the strongest aspect of our game with out addressing the worst part of our game. Just seems like they took the old bandaid out of the closet that we didn't seen in 5.2.

[Kihrawr]

I wonder if they're planning to nerf Rune, and this is early compensation.

[ShmooDude]

I wonder if they're planning to nerf Rune, and this is early compensation.

They nerfed UVLS for warlocks already so its a possibility. Would be nice honestly.

[Satrion]

I wonder if they're planning to nerf Rune, and this is early compensation.

As someone with no heroic Rune I would love that. Actually, does this change anything for the normal Rune? My understanding is that a normal Rune is worth replacing pretty fast but would this buff to rip also buff the normal rune enough to want to keep it?

[Alpheus]

I don't understand why they're doing something like this during the heroic race, they could've at least posted their intentions and put out a patch 2-3 weeks later with some proper reasoning. To me this buff doesn't really make any sense. Were undergeared druid doing badly? Were overgeared druids doing badly? And why rip?

It might be aimed at runeless builds with mastery reforges but without nerfing rune this only makes rune better (not to mention it has little effect on multidotting and aoe). I'm getting a feeling they think they have a problem and shotgun a solution (like NS removal due to PvP).

[Alpheus]

From MMO-C:

They found the old dusty USB that contained the unreleased 5.3 rip buff for ferals.

[Whitepaw]

This was odd - but thank you, devs!

Now, about NS being baseline for druids...

[Eniel]

Weird...If this had been done in the previous patch I wouldn't be surprised,but now?
Not going to complain but I've been doing pretty well in SoO,perhaps they have some information we don't.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for this to stick.

[RareBeast]

Weird. I'm already close to top in my raid on any remotely single target fights and really crap on fights with lots of target switching. This makes no sense.

Thanks anyway

[Paloro]

Vague dialogue of our raid last night finding out about these changes:

Hunter; Warlocks getting nerfed | Warriors getting buffed | Rip does 20% more damage.....

Me; Wait, ferals are getting buffed?

Hunter; Yup, 20% buff to Rip

Me; LOL

Mages/Warriors/WW's; WTF!!! This is BS, how come feral gets buffed? It's like no one plays that class!

Our GM; Well, good thing we have 2 awesome ferals! Guess we know who isn't sitting for progression.

About 5 minutes later...Our GM; Wait, isn't Rip your #1 damaging ability??? My god what are they thinking!

[Sibylle]

Shhhh! They'll hear

[cg1351]

Don't know why people are complaining feral should of always been the number 1 single target dps due to our 'rotation' complexity. Agreed it's another step in the wrong direction as everyone's already said we do best single target and we're weak at switching. I think this is just another one of blizzards great ideas for pvp to compensate for hardly ever being able to clone now. I still don't think we'll be n1 single target on paper but i already am ingame so im happy

[Ayleena]

Is this in now or is it in a future patch?

[Sibylle]

Remember when at the beginning of Cata, our bleeds were nerfed because of PvP? Maybe this is an attempt at giving us back strong bleeds without OPing PvP, Rip being the one that requires 5 Combo Points in order to do proper damage.

Just a thought. I'm not saying it's particularly useful or needed right now (and as Tinder said, it doesn't address our weaknesses at all), I was just reminded of that time.

[baver]

All they did in cata was fix a bug where mastery gave twice the amount of bleed damage then inteneded. Not sure where they got where we needed this buff tho, would rather they gave tranq a 3min cd or somting so we can compete with rogues when it comes to cds. But a damage buff is never wrong aslong you playing the class that get it!

[Tinderhoof]

All they did in cata was fix a bug where mastery gave twice the amount of bleed damage then inteneded. Not sure where they got where we needed this buff tho, would rather they gave tranq a 3min cd or somting so we can compete with rogues when it comes to cds. But a damage buff is never wrong aslong you playing the class that get it!

They did fix a Rake bug that was double dipping. Then the next week they nerf'd bleeds into the ground. They did a little mangle/shred buff but it wasn't enough. They had to make changes again for Firelands. There was a reason we didn't run with Mastery heavy builds until DS.

[kerplunk101]

Has this hotfix gone in to effect? My rip damage is still the same. Did they forget to change the tooltip?

[mekell]

unless there was a client side patch, tooltips won't reflect this change.

[Dysheki]

Buffs the strongest aspect of our game with out addressing the worst part of our game.

I haven't played at all this tier but this is exactly what I thought of when I saw this on mmo-champ.

[teddabear]

No napkins handy but some quick air math puts this at about a 4% buff. I know most Ferals here tend to top their raids but looking at the overall picture a buff seems entirely justified. Totally agree its the wrong buff but we knew that in 5.2. They are buffing Rip for PvP reasons. If they were going to buff a single ability for PvE then Rake makes far more sense. I guess they feel Feral was more than sufficiently neutered for PvP so they can finally put PvE damage where it should have been all along. Unfortunately it's too late for me, I went Tank for SoO. While there were some initial comments that Bears were the worst tanks in the game, at this point I don't think they would let me switch back if I begged.