#0 - Oct. 20, 2006, 10:01 p.m.
I don't support the Mangle nerf. Having said that, I suppose it was inevitable. Blizzard didn't want an ability to be more powerful than the "backstab" type skill, shred. I guess this makes sense.
However, the problem is that the druid community came to see Mangle as the savior of feral druid dps. By speccing into the 41 point talent, druids would instantly have an ability that puts them close to the same level as other classes. Druids would have been giving up the massive survivability and flexibility buff of nature's swiftness to get this talent and were willing to do so to achieve their desired play style. When this got nerfed into shred-like levels, this utility evaporated. Druids wanted to be raid-viable, but making it basically the same as shred doesn't increase raid viability at all. Their hopes were dashed.
But the player base's reliance on a single, apparently overpowered talent speaks volumes as to the current state and disarray of the feral talent tree. How can so much optimism and pessims be wrapped up into one talent point? Blizzard must, surely, come to see how dire the situation is for feral druids. The entirety of the talents, skills, mechanics, and itemization for ferals is so lacklust and poor that the entire system needs to be buffed so that druids won't be looking for one "uber skill" to make them competitive.
I hope blizzard learns a lesson from this mess and looks hard and serious and sweeping changes for druids.
