World of Warcraft Patch 4.0.6 
- Shapeshifts: Entering or leaving a shapeshift no longer cancels root effects. It continues to cancel movement slowing effects.
- Berserk (instant Mangle proc) now has a new Spell Alert identifier. In addition, Berserk no longer breaks Fear or makes the druid immune to Fear.
of all kinds have been able to break snares and roots by the act of shapeshift since day 1 in this game. The whole class, especially the
Feral spec, has always been based around that mobility in PvP. Our other abilities, our playstyle, our very defining mechanics have all been developed with the assumption that we can shift free of snares and roots. Now Blizzard wish to take roots out of that equation.
First let me shortly explain what snare and roots are. Roots does not only refer to the
Druid spells
Entangling Roots or
Nature's Grasp, even though these are in fact root effects. A root effect is a spell affect that locks you in place physically, but doesn't affect your ability to cast spells, nor the speed of which you cast them. A snare effect doesn't lock you in place, but in one or more ways slows down your movement.
Frost Shock,
Hamstring and
Infected Wounds are some examples of snares, while
Frost Nova and
Entangling Roots are examples of roots.
Mages have an abundance of both snare and root effects, which has made
Feral Druids in particular the one melee class that currently can give them a true challenge.
And now Blizzard wishes to remove our means of shifting out of roots.
Without stating the obvious, how we'll hardly ever will be able to even hit a
Mage, there are also other side effects of this change that affects us. We have an ability to interrupt spellcasts, and silence our opponents from casting spells in that particular school of magic for 4 seconds. Talented this has a 10 second cooldown and is our version of the
Rogue Kick. Ours is slightly different though, as it is also combined with a charge effect. Again we see the focus on mobility, which truly IS what the
Feral spec has been built around. We will basically lose this spell against
Mages come 4.0.6. Why? Because the interrupt only takes place after the successfull charge effect, which we can NOT do while rooted. This means we can be standing next to our opponent, a single yard away, and still be unable to interrupt. This can clearly NOT be the intended mechanic of
Skull Bash, can it?
We will basically be rooted in place by
Mages, unable to attack them, or stop them from attacking. Our
Cyclone has a 20 yard range. Any
Mage can and will outrange this. We haven't got any spell reflect or resistance mechanics of consequence. We seriously lack tools to handle massive spell attacks like this. Our mobility WAS our tool, as it allowed us to get close and keep up the pressure of our caster enemies. They couldn't lock us in place and get free damage on us. Everything had a price, decisions had to be made. Now, the decision will only be "Kill that
Feral now, or save him for last?".
Secondly we have the positional requirement of our main damage ability,
Shred. We need to be behind our target. We also need to have
Mangle active on the target, and a bleed running, but that's how the
Feral spec works and we're all happy about it. It's part of the challenge to be able to set up our opponents for heavy DPS. Now, with this change, where we are not able to break roots anymore, getting behind our targets will be exceptionally hard, if not impossible. We are the only melee spec that still truly relies on positioning to that degree, as our
Shred is our bread and butter. And before you comment; no,
Backstab is not the same.
Shred provides a LOT more damage than Backstab.
People seem to live under the assumption that
Feral Druids are immune to slows, snares, stuns, the lot. This is not, and have never been the case. Any snare or root that forces us to re-shift, will make us lose a global cooldown, and slow us down. All your snares and roots land on us, and how fast we get out is up to our own reactions. Meaning you DO slow us down. I root and snare when I chase a
Druid myself. It is not useless or wasted, it really does slow us down.
We can be
Hibernated, or scared with
Scare Beast. These are special forms of CC that no other spec has to endure being vulnerable to in their main DPS form. Up to now, I didn't mind. I had ways to break Fear, and I was pretty strong when it came to roots and snares. So being subject to a special form of CC didn't bother me that much. It seemed balanced. Strong in one area, week in another. Now we will be just weak.
I've seen a lot of changes to
Druids over the years, most of them I have agreed with in one form or another. I've learned to live with the changes, adapted my playstyle. But what Blizzard is proposing now, is something that will change the very core of the Feral spec. By taking away our mobility, we truly will be nothing but a weak copy of
Rogues with less utility, and lower survivability. We can't pop out of combat, remove all harmful spell effects, reflect spells or anything similar. We can go Bear Form, and die more slowly.
I'm not a happy kitty right now.
