Are we OP?

[Sibylle]

What's your item level (or just link the armory)? At around ilvl 545 I was doing perhaps 300k on a good pull and now at 566 it's increased to 385k (with DoC or/and a good execute I surely can get to 400k). Gear scaling is just too insane.

Told ya I was just about average I'm at 562 right now - ok, minus rune and stuff, but still, I'm not great. Think my very best on Blackfuse was around 290k, at maybe 5 ilevels less than I have now. With the WoL bug this week's log isn't much good but I did get quite a few upgrades the last week.

[Tremnen]

It's a shame there aint that many great ferals out there to put aside this ''there just aint many raiding ferals in 25 man hc'' nonsense.

There aren't many raiding ferals in 25man hc though. We are the least represented spec in the entire game in 25man hc. Hell on our first Thok kill this week I parsed in the top 150 of all ferals on the fight with the melee damage bug in full swing. No other melee spec in the game (besides WW monks cause they are almost as rare as we are) has a shot of parsing in the top 150 of their spec with the current WoL bug.

It wasn't even a good pull for me.

[Karlzone]

What's your item level (or just link the armory)? At around ilvl 545 I was doing perhaps 300k on a good pull and now at 566 it's increased to 385k (with DoC or/and a good execute I surely can get to 400k). Gear scaling is just too insane.

Told ya I was just about average I'm at 562 right now - ok, minus rune and stuff, but still, I'm not great. Think my very best on Blackfuse was around 290k, at maybe 5 ilevels less than I have now. With the WoL bug this week's log isn't much good but I did get quite a few upgrades the last week.

The 300k that I said is probably slightly exaggerated anyways. I can't imagine it having been a good try (trinket wise) for you.

[Paloro]

Off-topic (but it's my own thread, so there!): Paloro, is that you on top of the ranks for 25N Blackfuse? And if so, HOW in the name of all that's pawed and furry, do you do 489k dps??

Yea that's me

This was right before we started our progression on hardmode, so we kind of outgeared it (3 min kill).....As others have said, I did get to stay on the boss the whole time, but all my damage (100% of it) was on Blackfuse. It really goes to show how powerful our execute can be as at the time, I was ~563 ilvl with no heroic weapon.

My guild likes to rotate people for fights like that. One week I do belt, the next I get to stay on the boss. On Norushen we use a different class to go first every week. I haven't gone first since our 1st kill on it. /shrug

[saracu]

Sadly, unless you are person that take care of Logs, pretty much every boss have some kind of mechanic that can screw up logs for you, and you will end up with lower uptime and lower effective dps due to it. Either if its phase issue, range issue, or w/e else, Logs are not that reliable as someone might think they are. Prime example can be Norushen , when you get phased in, you will lose uptime on boss and effective dps for whole time while you are inside, no matter if your dots are ticking on boss while you are inside or dmg you do inside on adds. Dark Shamans (25hc) also , with split tactic is always problem if person(s) that are logging are on 1 boss and we as melee are on other boss far away from 1st grp. There is also fact of different strategies and dps "whoring", tricks, ss bleeds, all in favor of pushing higher dps and ranking.
Point is, Logs are not so reliable, ranks are not reliable, if you want to become better feral yourself, learn to optimize your rip/rake tick dmg, usage of trinket procs, overlap of proced bleeds, and uptime on boss. Find good addons that suits you so you can easily track your procs, and practice. Always go for the best possible Rip for execute phase. There are defenitly few things you can see from top ferals on Wol, like uptimes, dot dmg ticks, trinket procs and usage, and such things, but dont ever look at overall dmg done/dps.
ON topic: We are not op, ferals takes time to learn and play to the max, and at end, if you manage to do so, you will get rewarded with high competitive dps.

[Ayleena]

From my vantage point we are far from OP. I joined a new guild in mid-5.3 and quickly got into the progression group, and after 5.4 started, just as quickly got kicked out of it. Part of it has to do with my terrible luck with drops this tier (still have a 5.3 LFR chest, for example), but Ive generally struggled on target switching fights like General Nazgrim, to the point where I changed into HOTW for the first time this xpac. It helped a bit, but not much. It also doesn't help that my raid leader knows absolutely nothing about ferals.

[baver]

Ferals are in a realy good spot right now but not close to op tbh . My guild was using 3ferals on almost all hard progress bosses without any real problem, but i think most other guilds using so meny rogues thats it hard to put in more ferals. Also got garrosh 25hc yesterday with 3feral and we all did great on dps + op tranq for the aoe in phase3!

[Tubbilicious]

It also doesn't help that my raid leader knows absolutely nothing about ferals.

I suspect that there is a general lack of understanding about ferals. This is for a couple of reasons; firstly we're under represented, and second we're unique. The second point I think is the main factor: We're a melee, energy, combo-point, dot based class. Our dots are expensive (energy cost), and are only cost effective when a target is going to be alive for a reasonable amount of time (so that they can tick). This can makes dealing with certain mechanics problematic from a min-max dps perspective. For example, when a raid leader is on your arse about dealing with an add that has low hit points and insists you swap to dps it.

Moreover, failure to understand feral mechanics will lead some people to regard feral as OP. For instance, if you have a rune proc up your priorities for both aoe and single target dramatically change. Or alternately, knowing when a bleed is worth overwriting - I remember pointing out to a friend of mine playing his feral alt that he should be actively overwriting his current bleeds if X conditions pertained; this was something he had not known before. To him, it was simply keep X,Y,Z up and win.

As such the complexity of feral is often lost on people. I do not think there can be any doubt that feral is, right now, the hardest spec to master. Moreover, it certainly has a niche and its limitations. However once mastered, like many specs, it becomes formidable.

[Tremnen]

Logs are not that reliable as someone might think they are. Prime example can be Norushen , when you get phased in, you will lose uptime on boss and effective dps for whole time while you are inside, no matter if your dots are ticking on boss while you are inside or dmg you do inside on adds.

Yep this is definitely the case on Norushen. My damage meter put me at 425K. Logs put me at 330K. Our tank does our logs so DPS lose a ton of uptime on this fight with him going down all the time (giggity).

[Neverpullout]

Looking at MOST, not ALL, high ranking logs you will see 3 things:

1) They have a RoRo
2) High rune uptime
3) uptimes in the 95% +

I just recently got my Rune and the difference is night and day. If I average the damage gains over my previous set up over a whole night for instance, it's a modest increase. But you will get those outliers where everything lines up and you get a double trinket proc right at 25% with TF, zerker, and a pot rolling. The difference in overall dps between that scenario and getting "unlucky" the previous attempt can be damn near 100k dps depending on the fight and duration. Do I think ferals in general are OP? no. Can we get lucky and absolutely destroy the meters? YES!

I also strongly agree that in order to succeed as a feral druid in a competitive environment you really need to know how to maximize your damage output. The littlest of things such as when to use mangle over shred, for example, can chain into high dps gains. Say you strictly use shred and rune procs. You didn't pool energy and you only got 1 CP up. If you continue to shred 2 things are more likely to happen. 1. Predatory Swiftness wears off and your forced to use it prior to 4CP being up. 2. You don't even get a rip up during the proc due to lack of cp and energy building. Small mistake high dps loss.

I know I'm preaching to the choir but to get back on point it really is a high risk vs reward class. Reminds me of affliction locks in recent years. Can anyone pretty much learn to play the class good enough? yes. Can everyone play it to a level that would be considered OP? no. I've had a few people recently hint at the same thing that I'm just playing a broken OP class. Mind you these people are mages and locks. They are so used to being #1 on every fight they have to find a reason as to why that isn't the case now. Tell em to shove it =p

Good luck!
-Never

[cg1351]

For us i feel logs are just completely rng, most of my pulls on malkorok hc today put me about 450 except for one try where i was holding 500k+ for most of the fight with berserk coming up shortly and second pot execute phase in sight But ofc someone has to go and forget to soak and bye bye rank1 I'm at 469 ilvl hc halberd, 4 set aoc hc wf'd hc rune etc If you get a nice set of rune procs that aint all stacked one after the other and double trinket proc just before execute phase you can log way higher then you should be able to.

[Tremnen]

Looking at MOST, not ALL, high ranking logs you will see 3 things:

1) They have a RoRo
2) High rune uptime
3) uptimes in the 95% +

I just recently got my Rune and the difference is night and day. If I average the damage gains over my previous set up over a whole night for instance, it's a modest increase. But you will get those outliers where everything lines up and you get a double trinket proc right at 25% with TF, zerker, and a pot rolling. The difference in overall dps between that scenario and getting "unlucky" the previous attempt can be damn near 100k dps depending on the fight and duration. Do I think ferals in general are OP? no. Can we get lucky and absolutely destroy the meters? YES!

I also strongly agree that in order to succeed as a feral druid in a competitive environment you really need to know how to maximize your damage output. The littlest of things such as when to use mangle over shred, for example, can chain into high dps gains. Say you strictly use shred and rune procs. You didn't pool energy and you only got 1 CP up. If you continue to shred 2 things are more likely to happen. 1. Predatory Swiftness wears off and your forced to use it prior to 4CP being up. 2. You don't even get a rip up during the proc due to lack of cp and energy building. Small mistake high dps loss.

I know I'm preaching to the choir but to get back on point it really is a high risk vs reward class. Reminds me of affliction locks in recent years. Can anyone pretty much learn to play the class good enough? yes. Can everyone play it to a level that would be considered OP? no. I've had a few people recently hint at the same thing that I'm just playing a broken OP class. Mind you these people are mages and locks. They are so used to being #1 on every fight they have to find a reason as to why that isn't the case now. Tell em to shove it =p

Good luck!
-Never

I recently got a 737K Rip TICK

All the warlocks in my guild were jealous! Hell I beat out every ranged in my raid this week on Nazgrim except our laser chicken.

[Helistar]

But you will get those outliers where everything lines up and you get a double trinket proc right at 25% with TF, zerker, and a pot rolling. The difference in overall dps between that scenario and getting "unlucky" the previous attempt can be damn near 100k dps depending on the fight and duration. Do I think ferals in general are OP? no. Can we get lucky and absolutely destroy the meters? YES!

Agreed, and I'm not sure I like it.
I mean: in the distant past, with 12s(?) mangle debuffs and 9s rakes it was a constant nightmare of keeping everything up, but it was consistent: you managed to have excellent uptimes -> you had excellent DPS. Now there are times that I feel I'm playing a DPS lottery. Your example is really good: get lucky with procs/fight duration and get a pot+berserk+double proc at 25% and it's win mode. Don't and you'll feel like you played badly because you're so much below last week's DPS. I had fights which started with 3 chained rune procs + 2 chained renataki procs.... the initial burst may crash recount , then you get those "proc at start, wait for ages" pulls and you find yourself climbing up from the bottom.
The final result is that I stopped caring about DPS and pushing it. More often than not the limit for our guild is survival and managing mechanics, so I've started to focus on those #1 and look DPS "later". "later" usually means farm mode, when DPS is irrelevant since the boss will go down no matter what.
BTW we may lack raid-wise support CDs, but something like SI/symbiosis:dispersion is great for a DPS, and while HotW is miles behind the tank/dps hybrid which was possible in Cataclysm, it still provides us with a versatility that other classes can dream of. I don't remember which blogger posted it, but the "I cheat at WoW every time I log in, because my character is a druid" is something I agree with
So yes, we are OP and we always were (and always will be, I guess!).

[Karlzone]

What I really liked about feral during cata (didn't play it before that, and cata feral was a breeze compared to MoP) was the fact that our dps was not dependent on any RNG. If you could top the dps on one pull, you would top the dps on another. Even though I mostly top dps without insane procs, it just feels horrible to KNOW you'll be 75k low as you can't seem to get a good execute.

also what the hell:
"I recently got a 737K Rip TICK"
Whaaaa? Which black magic have you been using? RoR + HC WF TED full stacks, DoC, Pot, synapse springs, TF ? Still I can't imagine you tripling my max Rip ticks. If it's a crit.. I guess it's possible.

[Tremnen]

What I really liked about feral during cata (didn't play it before that, and cata feral was a breeze compared to MoP) was the fact that our dps was not dependent on any RNG. If you could top the dps on one pull, you would top the dps on another. Even though I mostly top dps without insane procs, it just feels horrible to KNOW you'll be 75k low as you can't seem to get a good execute.

also what the hell:
"I recently got a 737K Rip TICK"
Whaaaa? Which black magic have you been using? RoR + HC WF TED full stacks, DoC, Pot, synapse springs, TF ? Still I can't imagine you tripling my max Rip ticks. If it's a crit.. I guess it's possible.

It was a Crit and it was RoR + HcWF Haromm + Pot + Berserker's Stance (Nazgrim). HotW though and I am not an engineer so It could technically have been even bigger,

[Sibylle]

It seems the bug in WoL is fixed - my damage shows up correctly again, including melee.

In fact, I got myself a ranking on heroic Norushen tonight Yeah I know, some of ye have a permanent home among the top 50, but for me it's not so common to see myself on 56 (they let me tunnel the boss, shhh, don't tell anyone). Rather pleased with myself!

[aggixx]

I'm late to the discussion, but if you're looking purely at single target DPS, we're OP as hell, at least in the hands of a very skilled player. There's been some specs throughout the expansion at certain points that could maybe rival how we are now (Fire and Arcane for parts of T14 come to mind), but I think we're even stronger than that.

However, it's rare that you want single target DPS to the exclusion of all else. Classes like rogues and warriors that would be likely to take our place of stronger raid cooldowns and utility than us and it balances us out to a degree.

And then of course our AoE/cleave is... I don't want to say weak, but it's somewhat balanced, at least relative to our single target, and because of there being such a huge amount of that in this tier it mellows us out a bit.

Also, lol at this:

They use examples like this ranking - I just wonder what that's based on? As Tedda pointed out, we don't lead the rankings anywhere. I assume this is the dps on a patchwerk fight, and we have, what, four? of these this tier.

Not only is it a terrible idea to use simulated DPS as a representation of class balance, but that's not even the right numbers. With the advanced action list feral sims waaaaaay higher than that, pretty much crushes everything else.

[Sibylle]

Also, lol at this:

They use examples like this ranking - I just wonder what that's based on? As Tedda pointed out, we don't lead the rankings anywhere. I assume this is the dps on a patchwerk fight, and we have, what, four? of these this tier.

Not only is it a terrible idea to use simulated DPS as a representation of class balance, but that's not even the right numbers. With the advanced action list feral sims waaaaaay higher than that, pretty much crushes everything else.

Well I'm glad they didn't use that then to throw in my face!

[Sibylle]

I have a question - for aggixx, or anyone else who is in the know. I'm fairly sure that there's something I just don't see.

I just checked the current top 10 for Siege of Orgrimmar in dps rankings on WoL, with the following result:

10 normal
Immerseus: 1 feral (rank 1)
Iron Juggernaut: 1 feral (rank 10)

10 heroic
Malkorok: 4 ferals (ranks 1, 5, 8, and 9)

25 normal
Immerseus: 3 ferals (ranks 2, 4, and 5)
Norushen: 2 ferals (ranks 1 and 3)
Sha of Pride: 1 feral (rank 5)
Nazrgrim: 1 feral (rank 10)

25 heroic
Norushen: 2 ferals (ranks 4 and 9)
Sha of Pride: 2 ferals (ranks 1 and 3)
Iron Juggernaut: 1 feral (rank 10)
Nazgrim: 2 ferals (ranks 1 and 2)
Malkorok: 2 ferals (ranks 2 and 3)
Thok: 1 feral (rank 7)

Again, maybe I'm overlooking something, but to me this looks like a strong spec, but nowhere near OP. Maybe it's just semantics? But seeing as some fights have all 10 top places occupied by warlocks, I don't see ferals as too strong.

[Tremnen]

you have to remember in 25man raiding we are the least represented spec in the entire game. less than 2% of raiding players in 25m Hc content are raiding ferals. The fact that we have that much representation despite our very very small community is actually evidence of our strength not weakness. Also we scale higher on gear than most classes so expect that number to grow as ferals get more and more geared.

[Sibylle]

you have to remember in 25man raiding we are the least represented spec in the entire game. less than 2% of raiding players in 25m Hc content are raiding ferals. The fact that we have that much representation despite our very very small community is actually evidence of our strength not weakness. Also we scale higher on gear than most classes so expect that number to grow as ferals get more and more geared.

That's an excellent point. I knew I was overlooking something! Thanks, Tremnen.

Soooo, my problem is that I'm not in a 25man *ducks and runs*

[Tremnen]

you have to remember in 25man raiding we are the least represented spec in the entire game. less than 2% of raiding players in 25m Hc content are raiding ferals. The fact that we have that much representation despite our very very small community is actually evidence of our strength not weakness. Also we scale higher on gear than most classes so expect that number to grow as ferals get more and more geared.

That's an excellent point. I knew I was overlooking something! Thanks, Tremnen.

Soooo, my problem is that I'm not in a 25man *ducks and runs*

No last time I looked at the numbers Ferals were 2nd least represented in 10 man Heroic content (WindWalker monks beat you in the least played category)

[aggixx]

Again, maybe I'm overlooking something, but to me this looks like a strong spec, but nowhere near OP. Maybe it's just semantics? But seeing as some fights have all 10 top places occupied by warlocks, I don't see ferals as too strong.

Kind of, yes. We're definitely quite far above middle of the pack, I would say that means we're OP, but some others would say it doesn't.

And at the moment, feral is the least represented spec in both 10 and 25 heroics (discluding specs that have alternatives like Unholy DKs, Marksman hunters, yada yada).

[Sibylle]

D'you know, I wasn't even aware there were still so few ferals in heroic raiding. It certainly explains underrepresentation in the logs. Also, as some pointed out, there is a wide gap between good and top ferals, also between those that do or don't have a heroic Rune, etc.

I still hope I've actually gotten better and not just gone up in damage because of buffs though

[teddabear]

I have a question - for aggixx, or anyone else who is in the know. I'm fairly sure that there's something I just don't see.

I just checked the current top 10 for Siege of Orgrimmar in dps rankings on WoL, with the following result:

10 normal
Immerseus: 1 feral (rank 1)
Iron Juggernaut: 1 feral (rank 10)

10 heroic
Malkorok: 4 ferals (ranks 1, 5, 8, and 9)

25 normal
Immerseus: 3 ferals (ranks 2, 4, and 5)
Norushen: 2 ferals (ranks 1 and 3)
Sha of Pride: 1 feral (rank 5)
Nazrgrim: 1 feral (rank 10)

25 heroic
Norushen: 2 ferals (ranks 4 and 9)
Sha of Pride: 2 ferals (ranks 1 and 3)
Iron Juggernaut: 1 feral (rank 10)
Nazgrim: 2 ferals (ranks 1 and 2)
Malkorok: 2 ferals (ranks 2 and 3)
Thok: 1 feral (rank 7)

Again, maybe I'm overlooking something, but to me this looks like a strong spec, but nowhere near OP. Maybe it's just semantics? But seeing as some fights have all 10 top places occupied by warlocks, I don't see ferals as too strong.

Looking at Raidbots Top 100 Feral is 10th in 25man Heroic, 17th in 25 man Normal, 18th in 10man Heroic and 17th in 10man Normal. Almost all those rankings you listed were for Guardians not Ferals. A couple other things; imo Feral is extremely RNG, especially with Rune, so looking at the very top ranks may not be accurate. Also I would filter out Asian parses since their ilvl is higher.