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Big Feral changes coming post-Wrath
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.
Druid changes in patch 3.0.3
Patch 3.0.3 is here, and it's almost certainly the last patch before Wrath is released next Thursday. Unlike the other eight classes, we've gotten all our talent points refunded, which makes this a good opportunity to switch up your spec if you want to, maybe to whatever you'll be leveling with in Wrath. This isn't really because we got huge changes so much as it is because two of our talents were reduced in the number of ranks [edited for correctness]: Earth and Moon is now 3 ranks for 4/9/13% increased spell damage taken, and increases your spell damage by 1/2/3% (old: 5 ranks for 3/5/8/10/13% increased damage taken from Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow, and increases your spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%) Moonfury is now 3 ranks for 3/6/10% benefit (was 5 ranks for 2/4/6/8/10%) Hard to make a change like that without refunding talent points. Further Balance changes: Eclipse's buff duration was raised to 15 seconds and its bonuses doubled, but the cooldown raised from 30 to 40 seconds. Overall a buff to what I still think is an inspired talent. (Although some of this seems to have already been live in 3.0.2? Boomkin, help me out.) Apparently Moonkin were getting way too much mana back from Hurricane, so Moonkin form now only gives mana back from single-target spells.
Ghostcrawler and the bears
The developers have been communicative to an unprecedented extent (for them) during the final phases of Wrath of the Lich King's development, but several classes and specs still have concerns. One of those is Feral Druids. We've been set up to tank as well as anyone, and DPS as well as most (not with the same spec, but dual specs should make this easy to handle). However, we still have some obvious weak points. For instance, take mana in PvP. Our class's defining feature is our ability to shift between forms, but if we have a puny mana pool (as most Ferals do), we can't do this very often.Ghostcrawler has a "Feral Q&A" thread up where he answers several questions that he's noticed people asking around the boards. Unfortunately, we're not necessarily going to like a lot of the answers, which (in this blogger's opinion) tend towards "working as intended" and "it's fine, learn to play." To be fair, he gives much more nuanced explanations, but that's the bottom line in most cases. That may be because Feral actually is fine, but I definitely think there are some valid concerns. Protector of the Pack is just goofy the way it is, as well as taking away the fun of being super-durable while out soloing. Swipe should really be 360°; every single other tank class has a 360° AoE, and we don't really have anything to compensate. And don't get me started about feral form customization (which GC says is coming eventually, but they've been saying that for years).
Survey: Game systems causing cat-astrophic pet injuries
We're already well acquainted with the idea of Wiis (and their remotes) injuring humans and TV sets. Now the UK's Telegraph is reporting that game systems are also causing a veritable epidemic of injuries to pets. A survey of 3,000 British pet owners shows that a full 10% of pets were injured by a Wii , while 8.3% sustained PlayStation-related injuries and 5.8% got injured by a DS.Even accounting for some overlap between systems, those numbers would seem to suggest that British veterinarians are being overrun by little critters who chewed through component cables, swallowed portable systems, tripped on controller cords and the like. The numbers are much less worrying, though, when you consider the source for the survey: pet insurance provider PetPlan. Reminds us of that used car dealer who told us rust-proofing would increase the resale value of our car by 50% -- just not that credible. We still got the rust-proofing, though. When it comes to our Fiat, our motto is: better safe than sorry.
Maelstrom Weapon, Predatory Instincts tooltips incorrect
I was browsing through Blizzard's updated patch notes for 3.0.2 today, and noticed that apparently two talents that have been patched in don't do what they say. Under "Known Issues," the notes list that the tooltips for the Enhancement Shaman talent Maelstrom Weapon and the Feral Druid talent Predatory Instincts are incorrect. I'll talk about them one at a time. As far as Predatory Instincts goes, the patch notes say "The tooltip for Predatory Instincts is currently incorrect. This no longer works on Bear Form or Dire Bear Form and now reduces damage by 10/20/30%." I'm going to assume that it still just works on AoE, instead of reducing all damage taken by 10/20/30%, because that would be insanely OP, as much as I'd enjoy my cat form having plate-level mitigation. And I'm not actually surprised they took bear form off of it, because I'm told bear tanking was simply too good in the beta. It does mean there's no use taking it for tanking, though. More points for Infected Wounds or something, I suppose. On to Maelstrom Weapon. This is actually something that was changed in the beta a while back, and the tooltip just took some time to get updated: Lava Burst is no longer affected by Maelstrom charges (this won't affect us for now, since the first rank of Lava Burst is at level 75). So it looks like you'll be limited to Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning for your instant-cast damage spells, clearly a PvE nerf. Chase actually sees this as a buff for PvP, though - now you can Flame Shock, crit Lava Burst, and instant Lightning Bolt for some serious burst damage.
3.0.2 for Feral Druids
In a few hours, when the servers come back up, patch 3.0.2 is going to hit, and WoW will change drastically. Every tree is get revamped to a greater or lesser extent, and extended up to 51-point talents. The Feral tree changes, in my opinion, fall somewhere in the middle in terms of how radical of a shake-up they are. The big change, philosophy-wise, is that we're going to be able to be main tanks or top-tier DPS, on par with the best warriors or rogues. The catch is that we won't be able to do it with the same spec; we can spec to be DPS or tank, and do as well as anyone at those rolls. We can still try to spec somewhere in the middle, but then we'll get back to our old "master of none" status. In my opinion, this is good news, especially considering we'll be getting dual-spec capabilities in 3.1 (the first post-Wrath content patch).
Furor buffed for 3.0.2
Do you guys remember yesterday, when I wrote about how the Druid talent Furor was altered to prevent powershifting? Well, if not, that's OK. Furor has just been rewritten again, and this time it has all I asked for and then some. The new Furor reads as follows (with 5/5 talent points in it): Gives you 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to 100 of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin form by 10%. Holy sweet monkeys, Druid fans. Not only is there now no penalty whatsoever for switching in and out of cat form, we get some added Moonkin utility for this already excellent talent. This is one of those days where I just want to hug the devs, all of them. In case anyone is unclear about how this latest iteration of Furor works, here's a quick rundown (as I understand it). The game will now track your energy regeneration even when not in cat form, like it tracks your mana regen in feral forms now. When you shift back into cat, you'll have whatever amount of energy you would have had if you had just stayed in cat in the first place. Shift out to heal at 80 energy? You'll have 100 when you pop back in, 2 seconds later. Arrive at your destination and switch from flight into cat form? 100 energy to go mangle some faces. Powershifting is still out, but this is way better for the soloing Druid, not to mention the Moonkin perks. There is some concern that this may be overpowered in PvP: what's to stop you from DPSing in cat till you're at 0 energy, then shifting to bear for 10 seconds to DPS that way, then back to cat? Well, nothing, as far as I know. However, keep in mind that this is still beta, and if ferals end up hideously overpowered in arenas, I'm sure they'll make changes as necessary.
Scattered Shots: Pet talent trees in the Wrath Beta
Welcome to another edition of Scattered Shots, the other WoW Insider weekly Hunter column. Daniel Whitcomb is your guest host again this week. So, we theorized about talented pets a bit quite a few installments of Scattered Shots ago, but now we have the actual trees live and testable on the Wrath Beta, and they seem to be firming up nicely. There's a few promised changes yet to come, such as the removal or lowering of focus costs on many major abilities and talents, and it's still very possible that Blizzard may make changes here and there before live, but I think they're solid enough at this point that we can look at each tree and make some solid predictions about how people will use them and how various talent builds might look.
The DS Life: Captionz needed
Even we were surprised to learn that, after a year of running this pictorial column every week, we've yet to cheaply resort to exploiting cat photos. Dogs and babies, however, are common fodder.Never one to let a good thing last, we've packed this week's edition of The DS Life with no less than nine kittens! The images all have two things in common, felines and DSes. It's your job to find that missing component -- lulz!
Wii Warm Up: Best kitten in a game?
We like kittens. This post from yesterday just got them on our brains and their cute, furry little selves won't get down from up there. So, we figured we'd ask you all about your favorite game kittens, or just plain old felines.So, out with it! Love the cat in Chu Chu Rocket? Are you a fan of Bubsy?Just kidding, Nobody likes Bubsy.
WWI '08 Panel: Hunters
The first WoW panel has come and gone at the Worldwide Invitational. It was focused on class abilities in WoTLK, and there was some absolutely juicy stuff, especially for Hunters. As the proud player of a 70 Hunter, I'm feeling amazingly awesome about my class right now. Two of the biggest, most universal Hunter complaints have not only been answered, but answered in a way that I think a lot of Hunter players are going to be incredibly excited about. Steady Shot ClippingFirst up, it looks like Shot Rotations as we know them will soon become a thing of the past, or at least be incredibly simplified, as Steady Shots will no longer clip Auto Shots. This is actually an issue that has gained some blue post love in the past, but it's nice to see it so directly confronted and dealt with. There may still be a shot rotation of a type for fitting in Arcane Shot and various stings, but it looks like Hunter DPS will no longer be a complicated dance of weapon speed, haste rating, macros, and server latency. That in itself is amazing news. Pet Talent Trees and Uniqueness One of the other major complaints of Hunters is the lack of pet diversity. It is generally expected that if you are min-maxing, you will go for a Cat, Ravager, or Scorpid and nothing else, because they are the only pet families that have the right combination of ability and DPS to get their jobs done. Some pet classes, like Sporebats, languished due to a complete lack of useful family skills.
Resto4Life interviews Druid artist Andrige
I could have sworn that we interviewed Andrige here on WoW Insider, but I can't seem to find it in the archives, so I guess Resto4Life beat us to it. Phaelia has posted an interview with the artist (and machinimist) behind some of the best WoW fan art out there, and to the surprise of no one I'm sure, he seems like a fun, down to earth kind of guy.He talks about his fascination with both the Horde and Druids, why he loves Feral, and what he's been up to lately -- he's planning to do a piece of the Night Elf bear and Tauren cat fighting each other, which should be awesome. He's also awaiting the art change in Wrath of the Lich King -- like a lot of players, he's tired of the sci fi and can't wait to get back into the old sword and sorcery style. He wouldn't turn down a job at Blizzard (who would?), but he humbly says that he's got a lot of work to do before he steps up to that level. Good for him. Finally, he shares some good advice about how to make machinima (the script for his film was actually written by a few people on IRC), and a few good ideas about Druid forms. A "Runic Wolf" -- I love it.Nice interview, and good to hear from the guy behind the art.
Amazon unbags Catz 2 sale
Wait! Before you roll your eyes and scroll past this post in search of non Petz news, we want to make sure you know that unlike the DS and PC versions, Petz Catz 2 isn't your garden-variety shovelware pet sim.It's more of a light RPG adventure in which you, a kitten, set out to retrieve a magical top hat from a mean wolf. Of course, along the way, you'll have several different minigames and side quests which you can pounce into, instead. Also, you can put hats on cats.If that short description -- or the prospect of adorning cats with hats -- interests you at all, Amazon has the game on sale for a super cheap $7.99 until the end of the day. If you're more of a puppy person, you can also pick up the palette-swapped canine complement, Petz Dogz 2, for only $9.99. [Via CAG]Read - Petz Catz 2 for $7.99Read - Petz Dogz 2 for $9.99
Scattered Shots: Why certain pet families are so popular
Scattered Shots is for Hunters. David Bowers is caught in a Freezing Trap this week, so Daniel Whitcomb -- who did not set the trap, he swears to the Light -- is substituting for him. You hear it pretty much all the time if you've ever slightly dipped into the world of Hunters. If you want to play in the big leagues, conventional wisdom says you're pretty much stuck with a select handful of pet types (also known as pet families): Ravagers, Cats, and Raptors for PvE, Scorpids for PvP. But do you know why those pet families are so desired? What it really comes down to is Hunter roles and abilities.
What WoW should learn from certain quests in and around The Barrens
So I've been thinking a bit about questing lately as I traverse Outlands on my latest project, a level 61 Blood Elf Paladin, working on the Outlands quests. I think my favorite part of playing a lowbie hordeling is how many quests there are to "stumble upon" in the oft-maligned Barrens. Technically, they're all very basic "find and kill these dudes" quests, but the presentation is such that I always get a big rush from doing them. They really do make me feel like a mighty hunter.
2.4.2 Hunter Changes: Aspect of the Viper, Growl, and the boar's last stand
So Growl has been having some problems since 2.4 went live. Pets refuse to cast it in the right order, which is wreaking havoc with Hunter aggro, especially on boar pets, who depend on a Charge/Growl combination to gain their fabled massive aggro. I myself have noticed that I have a lot harder time keeping aggro from my beloved boar Bonnie when I solo on my Hunter. So now on the PTR, we have some new lines in the latest update of the patch notes: • Boar Charge: This ability will no longer make Growl cast immediately after it generates excessive threat. • The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power. It should also be noted that Nethaera has said that Growl will now scale with Hunter AP instead of Pet AP, so there's no fear that it's become a non-scaling flat skill. Now, this all sounds somewhat ominous, but what does it actually mean?
Breakfast Topic: Should Blizzard support Hunter pet diversity?
While looking over the new "fake" pet skills page at Petopia earlier today, one of the biggest things that struck me is that the whole Thorns skill that the temporary Crab pets get for the lowbie Hunter taming quests would be a great thing for normal Crab pets to get. Right now, They're stuck learning nothing but Claw, placing them right near the bottom of the pet pantheon - very close to Sporebats, who can't learn any special abilities at all. My two high level Hunters tamed a Carrion Bird and a Boar, respectively, so I'm lucky enough to have a good selection of skills to use, but I think there should be more options for people who love their offbeat pets like Sporebats or Hyenas or Crocs. They can even use some of the old rumored alpha skills for pets that popped up around the time of Burning Crusade's alpha. I'm hoping that Blizzard shows more types of Hunter pets some love in WoTLK with a wide selection of new skills, be it thorny shells for Crabs, a Cannibalism-type skills for Raptors, or anything else that lets us see Hunters fighting alongside fewer Cats and Ravagers (or in the case of arenas, Scorpids). What do you think? Should Blizzard focus a bit more on a wider variety of options for Hunter pets? Or should Hunters just take what they can get and be grateful for it? If the former, what types of new pet skills would you like to see?
Yume Neko DS parades the cute kitties around in latest ad
If you have severe heart problems, then we suggest you watch the video above. Why? Well, the power of cute pets is known the world over and we've never underestimated the worth of something that makes you go "awww." And with everything we've seen on Yume Neko DS so far, we're convinced that this is going to be the most purest concentration of cute found outside of searching for kittens on YouTube or a certain website called Cute Overload.[Via Go Nintendo]
Gamestop preorder bonus for Harvest Moon DS Cute is cute
Gamestop can be so cruel to our wallets. We try to resist their silly preorder bonuses that come with games, but at times it's too hard to ignore the temptation. The most recent battle of wills comes with Gamestop's bonus for Harvest Moon DS Cute. If you couldn't tell from the picture above, it's a plush cat! That may not seem like a big deal for many of you -- after all, what's another cheap stuffed animal? -- but here at DS Fanboy, we love cats (especially the "lol" kind). Maybe not as much as we love pugs, but we digress. We like the Harvest Moon series anyway, so normally preordering this game wouldn't be an issue. Yet, since two Harvest Moon games are coming out pretty close to each other, we were hoping to spend our money on Island of Happiness instead. Cute is essentially the same game as Harvest Moon DS, except that the main character is a girl rather than a boy (plus, a few other minor additions). Island of Happiness, on the other hand, is a completely new game with a Lost in Blue meets Harvest Moon concept. We probably won't waver in our decision to stick with Island of Happiness, but if you're a fan of the franchise and haven't played Harvest Moon DS yet, this preorder bonus might make the purchase a worthwhile one. [Via Siliconera]
Friday Video: Black Cat vs Master Hand
Much like the final battles in the Super Smash Bros. games, this week's video has a scrappy young kitten fighting for his life against a mysterious giant hand, its owner off-camera. How does this relate to the Nintendo DS, you ask? Well, if you watch the background closely, you'll see someone completely oblivious to the ensuing brawl, too captivated by his DS.We pride ourselves in our ability to find any excuse to post cats.See also: This is how you do a trailer with no gameplay footage[Via Nicovideo]
