[Guardian] Legion Discussion

[Selerian]

What's the concensus on our first tier talents? Is the more defensive route of bristling fur and that other rage generator (cant remember the name) better for raiding and mythic+ or brambles is better for a more offensive built?

[The Inevitable]

Adaptive Fur has a 25% chance to proc a 10% damage reduction to a school of magic for 15 seconds. So, you're right that its not 100% uptime but on a pure magic damage fight where you are getting hit by magic frequently, it'll be active for up to 100% of the time with it only dropping when you aren't taking dmg or due to really bad RNG. Still, in my example, the difference in its uptime between 100% and its actual uptime would negligibly affect the overall mitigation percentage, so I simplified by giving it 100% uptime.

As far as the different numbers you got, I think we are just using different definitions of active and passive damage reduction. I consider any damage reduction we get though doing nothing or through our normal rotation as passive damage reduction. I consider active damage reduction to be things like Barkskin and Survival Instincts where we have to choose when to use them.

As far as Warriors, Prot Paladins, and DKs: I don't really feel like going over all of their talents and abilities again right now, but its my understanding that Warriors and Paladins do not have 100% uptime on their active mitigation like we do and don't have significant amounts of passive magic damage reduction (and I'm not sure how their damage % reduction would average out over the course of a fight without doing the research). This means Warriors and Paladins will take very little damge sometimes and a lot more damage the rest. Guardian's magic damage intake will be very smooth plus there still being a number of good CDs for special abilities. DKs have usually been very strong on magic damage fights, though.


Lastly, our mastery is effectively damage mitigation. Let me show you how it works from a numbers standpoint:

Lets say you have two tanks with a base 1 million HP before buffs. One tank (Tank A) has a passive 15% damage reduction buff, while the other (Tank B) has a passive buff that gives +15% more HP and +15% more healing. If both tanks take 100,000 raw damage per second:

Tank A will live for 1,000,000 / ( 100,000 * (1 - 0.15) ) = 11.76 seconds without heals.
Tank B will live for (1,000,000 * 1.15) / 100,000 = 11.5 seconds

So, despite different mechanics, both damage reduction and +HP% methods increase time to live. But what about the tanks' burden on healers? That's also pretty easy to answer. If a healer single target heals for 150,000 healing per second:

Tank A in 5 seconds takes (100,000 * (1 - 0.15)) * 5 = 425,000 damage. The healer would take 425,000 / 150,000 = 2.833 seconds to heal up the damage.
Tank B in 5 seconds takes 100,000 * 5 = 500,000 damage. The healer's single target HPS is increased by 15% on Tank B to 172,500 HPS. The healer would take 500,000 / 172,500 = 2.833 seconds to heal up the damage.

So, to summarize:
Damage reduction increases time to live and decreases the burden on healers by a flat percentage.
Druid mastery increases time to live and decreases the burden on healers by a flat percentage.

As such, Nature's Guardian is effectively damage reduction but implemented in a different, creative way.

[Dreyen]

"The threat problem is not existent, yet there are tanks who will outaggro you" Sorry, could you explain that in a non-contradictory way? You literally just told me that there's no problem, yet some tanks are just overpowered, so there's very clearly a problem.

Also, if threat mods were removed for more damage, where the fuck are ours? Guardian is at the bottom of the tank DPS. Perhaps they could make Maul do ridiculous threat if it's gonna do ridiculously shit damage and fuckall else.

We are not bottom DPS. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...80&class=Tanks

The "threat problem" is just paladins and blood DKs doing obscene damage. I believe DKs took a huge hit with the bloodboil nerf, and from what I'm told paladins benefit from the tank ring much more than we do. This should even out next week when legion hits.

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According to Arielle's new math Vers and Mastery are still our go to survival stats.
Haste wins hard on dps though. And is slightly behind vers and mastery.

So Survival : Vers = Mastery > Haste > Crit
DPS: Haste >> everything else.

Haste is horrible for dps if you catweave... it has a nearly 0 value because it doesnt buff bleeds and the fact we shift after we reach 100 energy means we get no benefit there either. At best it's an autoattack speed increase and you spend slightly less time in bearform.

Crit is the ultimate dps stat for bears. Sadly it's also the #1 shit stat for survival.



Also, we have the highest hp, mastery acts as DR vs magic, and mark of ursol can be maintained with 100% uptime extremely easily along with an ironfur stakc at the same time... how are we bad at magic damage?

[Adramelch]

We are not bottom DPS. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...80&class=Tanks

More accurate:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...mount&sample=1

[huth]

As such, Nature's Guardian is effectively damage reduction but implemented in a different, creative way.

It actually has one advantage over damage reduction, in that it isn't circumvented by fixed damage attacks.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

yeah, thats what I mean.. the tanks on the left are healer friendly while the one on the right can survive longer without healing.

And sure, healers love Druids, they are in my 2nd place of healer friendlyness they can only be topped by warriors imo

I really like that list. I hadn't actually thought of tanks in this way before. But you're absolutely correct.

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Haste is horrible for dps if you catweave... it has a nearly 0 value because it doesnt buff bleeds and the fact we shift after we reach 100 energy means we get no benefit there either. At best it's an autoattack speed increase and you spend slightly less time in bearform.

Crit is the ultimate dps stat for bears. Sadly it's also the #1 shit stat for survival.

Completely forgot about cat form
I'm just so in love with the balance passive I forgot we had cat =D

I'm not saying we're bad at magic damage, i'm saying we are boring at magic damage. Paladins can go immune every 3 and 5 minutes while tanking. Dk's have AMS which is still really powerful against big hits. We just passively reduce the damage we take.

Also Maul being a prio rage dump after ursol because we can't use ironfur is annoying. I don't want it on my bars...

EDIT: I fondly remember the time Blizzard said they wanted to reduce the power of cooldowns. But they gave everyone more than they ever had.

[Bearygood]

Why does every class I choose to main for legion get nerfed in a week

This is my fault guys

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Why does every class I choose to main for legion get nerfed in a week

This is my fault guys

Go main warrior then, do us a favor

[Bearygood]

So I did HFC heroic today

Severe threat problems now, dps dropped a ton

This fix can't come soon enough

[Dreyen]

More accurate:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...mount&sample=1

¸

You do know that AP from mastery was halved as a bug and will get fixed too, right? That should explain the drop outside of the small sample size which is less accurate than 2 weeks. So my first link still stands, and you can see DKs took a hit to their DPS that brings us closer to them

Also Maul being a prio rage dump after ursol because we can't use ironfur is annoying. I don't want it on my bars...

To be fair, warrior's shield block is completly useless for pure magic damage fights (which are extremely rare..) just like ironfur is. Spell reflect is nowhere near as good as mark of ursol since it's got such a long cooldown, so their only realiable constant magic DR ability is ignore pain. Spell reflect is probably more comparable to frenzied regen as they are both strong short cooldowns.

[Bearygood]

¸

You do know that AP from mastery was halved as a bug and will get fixed too, right? That should explain the drop outside of the small sample size which is less accurate than 2 weeks. So my first link still stands, and you can see DKs took a hit to their DPS that brings us closer to them



To be fair, warrior's shield block is completly useless for pure magic damage fights (which are extremely rare..) just like ironfur is. Spell reflect is nowhere near as good as mark of ursol since it's got such a long cooldown, so their only realiable constant magic DR ability is ignore pain. Spell reflect is probably more comparable to frenzied regen as they are both strong short cooldowns.

It seems like Ignore pain is all a warrior does anymore

[Dreyen]

They definitely use shield block too, it's extremely strong and only 10 rage...

[Deleted]

Despite the nerf to mastery I dare say Guardians are the by far the tanks with highest pure Effective Health. They have in-built 10% dmg reduction from thick hide + highest health by far and they are on 3rd place in armor (after warrs and pallys cuz of artifact trait armor increase (not counting iron fur). And they also have Brambles providing 24% of attack power dmg reduction. (late game this will be useful as attack power will increase quite a lot with mastery)

So without counting Active mitigation and taking consideration passive mitigation guradians are on top.
When it comes to Active mitigation they can EASILY keep iron fur 100% of the time regularly having 2 stacks of it while no other tank can keep his active mitigation button 100% of the time. All in all I would say they are the most well-rounded tank and also most stable one. They are definitely not going to take the least amount of damage but damage spikes will be least frequent with guardians and this is a solid advantage. It's almost Burning Crusade style. The question is
- How much of a hp % increase will mastery give with mythic gear. I guess Nature's guardian will be providing 37%-40% hp increase with end-game gear. If its more (50% + it will definitely be overpowered). Bear form already provides 55% stamina and if you have another 50%-55% total hp increase thats simply put blatantly OP. 40% should be the maximum druids should have from mastery.

[Inukashi]

...

my iLvl is now 715 and I have a 12% bonus.. I think some better equiped tank, focused on more Mastery might be at ~20% now I think. This might be an indicator what we will have in the end of Legion, but I could be wrong.
20% is still much. Don't forget our Mastery helps against spelldmg. Only other tanks with Mastery against spelldmg are DK and partial pally.
Increasing Health and Healing is the most flexible passiv dmg mitigation (i know it doesnt mitigate, but it feels like)

[Bearygood]

I don't suppose our AP has been reverted

[Kujako]

my iLvl is now 715 and I have a 12% bonus.. I think some better equiped tank, focused on more Mastery might be at ~20% now I think.

Issue with that is (as I understand it) future gear has far less focus on mastery then current.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Issue with that is (as I understand it) future gear has far less focus on mastery then current.

4/5 items on the tier have crit . Yippie

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Despite the nerf to mastery I dare say Guardians are the by far the tanks with highest pure Effective Health. They have in-built 10% dmg reduction from thick hide + highest health by far and they are on 3rd place in armor (after warrs and pallys cuz of artifact trait armor increase (not counting iron fur). And they also have Brambles providing 24% of attack power dmg reduction. (late game this will be useful as attack power will increase quite a lot with mastery)

So without counting Active mitigation and taking consideration passive mitigation guradians are on top.
When it comes to Active mitigation they can EASILY keep iron fur 100% of the time regularly having 2 stacks of it while no other tank can keep his active mitigation button 100% of the time. All in all I would say they are the most well-rounded tank and also most stable one. They are definitely not going to take the least amount of damage but damage spikes will be least frequent with guardians and this is a solid advantage. It's almost Burning Crusade style. The question is
- How much of a hp % increase will mastery give with mythic gear. I guess Nature's guardian will be providing 37%-40% hp increase with end-game gear. If its more (50% + it will definitely be overpowered). Bear form already provides 55% stamina and if you have another 50%-55% total hp increase thats simply put blatantly OP. 40% should be the maximum druids should have from mastery.

Using one stack of our AM only gives us about 15% DR though. Where a pallies gives 50.
For me atm:
1st stack = 17% DR
2nd stack = 8% DR
3d stack = 4% DR

So yes, we have highest EH. We have more passive stuff. But I'm scared on boss fights like Cenarius where he does a 6 mill hit, and the more you mitigate the smaller the puddle on the floor is. I can easily see warriors and pallies being OP there.

[Kujako]

4/5 items on the tier have crit . Yippie

Is there still a mechanic where rage gets generated by crits? Don't really track these things...

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Is there still a mechanic where rage gets generated by crits? Don't really track these things...

Crit gives us more deepz. And gives us dodge per rating. It's fenomenally fun.
I'm thinking I just won't wear items with crit on them, on principle. Blizz fucked up our stat. I'm not gonna use it.

[Kujako]

I'm thinking I just won't wear items with crit on them, on principle.

Nekid tank!