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Big Feral changes coming post-Wrath

Eliah Hecht
Updated ·2 min read

We've been hearing rumblings about Feral stuff from Ghostcrawler, but wow. These are some big shake-ups. I'd better get it out on the table before I start raving about it:

  • Bonus armor on items (rings, necklaces, trinkets, and cloaks) will no longer be multiplied by bear forms. So while leather leg armor with 253 armor will still give us about 1190, a ring with 100 bonus armor will only give us 100 (not about 470, as now). Feral staves will no longer have armor. However, armor modifiers will be adjusted as necessary so our net mitigation does not go down.

  • An as-yet undecided deep Feral talent (such as Primal Tenacity) will gain the added effect of reducing the cost of shifting to Cat and Bear by 50%, stacking with Natural Shapeshifter for a total cost reduction of 80%. This will help PvP druids shift cheaper if they want to.

  • Protector of the Pack's group requirement has been dropped. It now simply increases attack power by 2/4/6% and reduces damage taken by 4/8/12%, whenever you're in bear form.

These changes will not be going live with Wrath of the Lich King; instead, they will come in a patch before the 3.1 content patch that introduces Ulduar. Call it 3.0.4 for now.



Alright, now that I've gotten the facts out there: woo hoo! I couldn't be more excited about these changes. This goes leaps and bounds towards addressing the few Feral concerns I had left (which I guess says something about how minor my Feral concerns were). Armor-bearing jewelry has been bizarrely good for us for too long, and I'm glad I won't be desperately clinging to my Badge of Tenacity at 80. I don't PvP a lot, but I think Feral PvPers will be very pleased with the mana fix. And while I sort of liked the flavor of ProtP, it ultimately felt un-fun. Kudos for scrapping a very interesting idea in favor of fun.

What do you guys think of these changes? Anything left on your Feral wish list? And please don't say "bloat;" we're not supposed to be able to do great Cat and great Bear with one build, and it would be overpowered if we could. Besides, dual specs are coming.