According to a video I saw Manual Crowd Pummeler is better for feral druids than Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian. This is something which I sincerely think that they should fix. Stuff like this, which was discovered on private servers and theorycrafted to death, is not vanilla or nochanges for me. If this was discovered during vanilla I'm pretty sure it would get fixed by Blizzard.
There is something wrong if a lv29 item is better than a Legendary, don't you think?
The same can be said about Wolfshead Helm I suppose. Perhaps other stuff aswell, suggestions?
So I'm not sure I'm a fan of changing this. But, I will say that you raise an interesting point.
What's important to remember is that 1.12 was not a finished product. WoW has never been a finished product. Vanilla class designer Kevin Jordan has said several things would have been changed for vanilla if Burning Crusade wasn't around the corner. For example, he said a Patch 1.13 back in the day would have nerfed fury warrior dps and buffed Paladin & Druid tanking (those changes were added to BC). You have to remember contingency. 1.12 was not the destined, finished product destiny for the game, it was just where the game happened to be before BC came.
So I'm not sure about changing this. Kevin Jordan said in a podcast a week or two ago was talking about the Wolf'shead Helm and Crowd Pummeler, and said that the solution was probably going to be to buff cat dps and find ways to make Wolfshead/Crowd Pummeler less powerful, with either talent changes or alternative items to boost cats back to where they were using the items. Cat dps would have likely been buffed on its own anyway because, per Jordan, hybrid class non-healing roles were never intended to be as weak as they were, but again this all was held off until BC because it was just around the corner.
I'm not a #nochanges purist, but I'd worry that this change is unncessary for one chief reason: even with Crowd Pummeler and Wolfshead, it's not that cat dps is competing with rogues/warriors. I'm pretty sure they still lag behind. I think it's not great that these two items are mandatory to make cat dps remotely viable, especially when Atiesh is (allegedly) is less powerful than the Crowd Pummeler. But I'm not sure I can justify the change. Cat dps is still not super great even with the gimmicks.
Now let's not act like the items aren't problematic. These items would have been nerfed back in the day, but it's not clear that saying that they would have been nerfed had the game gone longer until BC or if players discovered the items and starting widely using them back then is enough justification to make changes to the game for Classic.
According to a video I saw Manual Crowd Pummeler is better for feral druids than Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian. This is something which I sincerely think that they should fix. Stuff like this, which was discovered on private servers and theorycrafted to death, is not vanilla or nochanges for me. If this was discovered during vanilla I'm pretty sure it would get fixed by Blizzard.
There is something wrong if a lv29 item is better than a Legendary, don't you think?
The same can be said about Wolfshead Helm I suppose. Perhaps other stuff aswell, suggestions?
You mean regarding dps or tanking?
According to a video I saw Manual Crowd Pummeler is better for feral druids than Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian. This is something which I sincerely think that they should fix. Stuff like this, which was discovered on private servers and theorycrafted to death, is not vanilla or nochanges for me. If this was discovered during vanilla I'm pretty sure it would get fixed by Blizzard.
There is something wrong if a lv29 item is better than a Legendary, don't you think?
The same can be said about Wolfshead Helm I suppose. Perhaps other stuff aswell, suggestions?
You mean regarding dps or tanking?
DPS.
Could you link the video you were talking about?
Could you link the video you were talking about?
Quaria HW wasn't saying it is bis for feral dps but rather feral druid but he should ve specified that the crowd pummeler is bis just for tanking. I don't see why would attack speed boost alone be better then attack power increase from the other weapons. Wolfshead helm however is bis for feral dps.
Crowd pummeler is good for the increase of maul hits per sec for higher threat generation it is not that impactful on dps feral.
Its speed increase is insane for druids, this is correct. But its just unfeasible to use this regularly. The 50% attack speed is for a very small amount of time and it only gets 3 charges. Its great to farm up a few to keep as an ace in your sleeve, however farming it until you have bags of pummelers is not realistics.
It is not even a guaranteed drop. You would be better off with Bone crusher or The Unstoppable Force and spending the time you would spend on farming pummeler's on farming gold or herbs for consumables.
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Wolfshead is different. You have to have the right build for it, learn how to powershift effectively and get the timing right. If you cant learn how to use the mechanics that make it BiS you may as well just use regular stat appropriate helms
@Quaria HW wasn't saying it is bis for feral dps but rather feral druid but he should ve specified that the crowd pummeler is bis just for tanking. I don't see why would attack speed boost alone be better then attack power increase from the other weapons. Wolfshead helm however is bis for feral dps.
Crowd pummeler is good for the increase of maul hits per sec for higher threat generation it is not that impactful on dps feral.
Actually he said for ”cat” but it doesn’t matter. Even if its bis for bear, not cat, my point still stands.
however farming it until you have bags of pummelers is not realistics.
I agree, do a degree, that’s what I dislike about it. Its 1: a lv29 that’s better than a Naxx leg, and 2: it demands the ferals to no-life in order to be competative. Both points being stupid and very bad itemization.
Perhaps other stuff aswell, suggestions?
Since Vanilla, the experience of the players has evolved and so has the meta.
Back then, caming across mages in full T1 was quite a common thing. Same for pals, heal shams or warlocks. At this time, we thought, because it was epic stuff, it was better than blue.
However, on private servers, mages in full T1 are a rare thing. At such point that, to stick with the T1 mage, the https://classic.wowhead.com/item=16802/arcanist-belt is near an automatic sold, https://classic.wowhead.com/item=16800/arcanist-boots are keepen and everything else is desenchanted on private servers.
Every damn dps casters has the https://classic.wowhead.com/item=12930/briarwood-reed just like every healer has https://classic.wowhead.com/item=18371/mindtap-talisman .
Another good example are the heal shams and heal pals, who want to be optimized, being full or nearly full in cloths. I don't remember seeing many shams in cloths back then.
So yeah, a lot of stuff will be far more valuable than they were in Vanilla (hello https://classic.wowhead.com/item=11684/ironfoe , if private servers haven't screwed the proc rate).
In the most recent episode of Countdown To Classic they talk about druids with one of the vanilla designers, and they talk about the https://classic.wowhead.com/item=9449/manual-crowd-pummeler and the https://classic.wowhead.com/item=8345/wolfshead-helm specifically. It's an interesting listen, I recommend checking it out.
The druid part starts at around 40 mins, and the part about items start at arond 51 mins:
https://countdowntoclassic.com/2019/03/27/episode-97-mute-speaks-kevin-jordan-on-druids-loot-trading-rp-pvp-av/
To the question: I agree that it is silly for a low level blue item to be stronger than legendaries etc, and I find it hard to believe it being anything else but an unintended flaw. However - I don't think they should, nor do I want it to be fixed. It's a reason why it wasn't discovered during vanilla (or at least not common knowledge), it's such a weird and specific case that doesn't make much of an impact.
All it really does is allow an underrepresented, underperforming class to compete with the rest. It has a really high maintenance requirement so it's only going to be used by the top few % of druid players that have the time for it.
Also, personally I adore this type of emergent gameplay. And find it fitting in neatly with all of vanilla's quirky consumables and special items.
If anyone is interested in what Blizzard ended up doing to combat the abuse of them, in TBC they just took away its charges and gave it a one hour cooldown
Of the two I'd rather see Wolfshead Helm and powershifting addressed since the way it changes your playstyle is so meta. It makes zero sense that a druid should constantly shift in and out of cat form in the middle of battle.
Of the two I'd rather see Wolfshead Helm and powershifting addressed since the way it changes your playstyle is so meta. It makes zero sense that a druid should constantly shift in and out of cat form in the middle of battle.
I agree that it makes no sense.
@Quaria HW wasn't saying it is bis for feral dps but rather feral druid but he should ve specified that the crowd pummeler is bis just for tanking. I don't see why would attack speed boost alone be better then attack power increase from the other weapons. Wolfshead helm however is bis for feral dps.
Crowd pummeler is good for the increase of maul hits per sec for higher threat generation it is not that impactful on dps feral.
Actually he said for ”cat” but it doesn’t matter. Even if its bis for bear, not cat, my point still stands.
Apparently I was wrong, it just seemed unlikely that the pummeler would ve that good, sadly it seems to be true.
MCP is insanely powerful, but something I would never use. I don't like the idea of it, and wouldn't be willing to farm gnomer over and over and over. I don't like that you need this to min/max feral DPS, it's clunky. Heck, I don't even like powershifting, but I think if I wanted to feral dps regularly, I would have to do this. Please note that powershifting wasn't feasible on my ping in vanilla ;)
In the most recent episode of Countdown To Classic they talk about druids with one of the vanilla designers, and they talk about the https://classic.wowhead.com/item=9449/manual-crowd-pummeler and the https://classic.wowhead.com/item=8345/wolfshead-helm specifically. It's an interesting listen, I recommend checking it out.
The druid part starts at around 40 mins, and the part about items start at arond 51 mins:
https://countdowntoclassic.com/2019/03/27/episode-97-mute-speaks-kevin-jordan-on-druids-loot-trading-rp-pvp-av/
To the question: I agree that it is silly for a low level blue item to be stronger than legendaries etc, and I find it hard to believe it being anything else but an unintended flaw. However - I don't think they should, nor do I want it to be fixed. It's a reason why it wasn't discovered during vanilla (or at least not common knowledge), it's such a weird and specific case that doesn't make much of an impact.
All it really does is allow an underrepresented, underperforming class to compete with the rest. It has a really high maintenance requirement so it's only going to be used by the top few % of druid players that have the time for it.
Also, personally I adore this type of emergent gameplay. And find it fitting in neatly with all of vanilla's quirky consumables and special items.
Well there's a couple issues here. #1: it doesn't really help druids catch all the way up. Even with Crowd Pummeler and the helm, it's not enough.
Second, the wow dev in this internview, that I also cite in my own earlier reply, also said that the interaction and necessity of these items would have been a problem for the original devs had they emerged at the time, and if there was a vanilla patch 1.13, they would have nerfed these items while giving compensatory buffs to cat druid dps.
MCP is insanely powerful, but something I would never use. I don't like the idea of it, and wouldn't be willing to farm gnomer over and over and over. I don't like that you need this to min/max feral DPS, it's clunky. Heck, I don't even like powershifting, but I think if I wanted to feral dps regularly, I would have to do this. Please note that powershifting wasn't feasible on my ping in vanilla ;)
Pretty much everything you said! I think its better off just going Bear Off Tank. Even with Wolfshead and the Pummeler you are only just entering the realm of respectable after way too much effort.
The fact is cats were just shit back then and Blizzard freely admitted it, going as far to say as balance was the better option if you wanted to DPS. The only thing they tried to do to fix it was make ferocious bite better, it received two buffs in vanilla and still just wasnt good enough really. The only time I have seen a cat dominating was when the druid had outgeared the dungeon and was allowed a debuff slot, and lets face it this is not going to be the common occurrence and there is no reason to do it out side of helping your guild or to make a video to say "hey look, a cat doing good DPS".
The sad reality is that cat were just put on the "to do list" and were never really helped until TBC. Even with modern day cheese tactics that greatly improved it
Well there's a couple issues here. #1: it doesn't really help druids catch all the way up. Even with Crowd Pummeler and the helm, it's not enough.
Second, the wow dev in this internview, that I also cite in my own earlier reply, also said that the interaction and necessity of these items would have been a problem for the original devs had they emerged at the time, and if there was a vanilla patch 1.13, they would have nerfed these items while giving compensatory buffs to cat druid dps.
Sorry I don't fully understand what you mean. There's a couple issues here in regards of what?
I agree that this should have been fixed way back then, for all the reasons stated. And I would have loved for druid to be in a better spot and not have to work harder than everyone else and use unintended mechanics to be competitive - but I don't think that it should be adressed at this point in time. At the very least, it's a flavorful interaction between mechanics.