[Guardian] 7.2.5 Legion Guardian Guide by Pumps

[Deleted]

Yes, tanks have differences - this doesn't change the undeniable fact that bears are the best at taking big magical hits on live - despite it supposedly not being their niche.

Well yeah, that is something were you either want a bear or a pally, I agree. I don't mind nerfing bears by the way, I am not interested in balance and numbers overly much. I care about gameplay and the consequences for that are pretty tragic in my view. On Augur there will be no difference in damage taken between a bear that plays the game and one that is autoattacking and using CD's (and I count FR as a CD).

On the other hand, I don't know whether those changes will go live as is, there might be something else and that might fix this issue, but I want to play a tank where it matters what I do. That was the reason why I rolled away from my DK for this expansion because I didn't feel like my play made a big difference anymore.

[Raiju]

Not even a paladin. A paladin can't solo every mythic fel scythe.

If you wanted to play a tank where it matters you never would've played druid - since the whole point of them since their conception is they have the most passive mitigation and least involving gameplay. If you want gameplay go play any other tank and you'll be actually focusing on your survival rather than dps maxing.

[Deleted]

Not even a paladin. A paladin can't solo every mythic fel scythe.

Neither can a guardian, we can solo the first of both arcane phases which is quite useful (and what I did when we still saw all phases), not sure but I think a pala with blessing of spellwarding and divine shield should be able to do so as well.

The fact that we have to manage our different types of AM and a self heal as a concept appealed to me, the same way that the management of runes between DS and RT appealed to me, you have to make choices based on what damage is coming in and when, that go beyond which CD do I use when. That the numbers are tuned in a way that it doesn't fucking matter in most circumstances is a shame though.

Gameplay wise, I don't see how the AM game of a warrior, DK or DH is more interesting. They have a (physical) damage reduction that they have to keep up as long as possible (permanently in the DK case) and a reactive self heal/proactive shielding. What am I missing? If I could easily afford to reroll, without investing a lot of time into farming AP, I would be leveling my monk right now.

[Raiju]

Good to see you don't know what you're talking about ^_^

The gameplay of the other tanks is interesting because they can't literally be afk and tank 9/10 mythic with little issue. We've had people swap to druids alts for mythic prog and literally kill bosses the same night as the healers no longer are concerned about tanks at all. What you need active input to do for any tank (AM) druids actually have passively, and ironfur serves just to just bring them past where the other tanks are. I'm not saying ironfur is the issue, but their toolkit has no weakness whereas every other tank does. To even suggest tanking mythic is similar for a dk/dh shows a lack of perspective as to the tier.

And to repeat, yes guardians can solo every fel scythe with externals. No other tank can even get close to taking multiple 80m magic damage hits.

[Deleted]

Oh, you are right, I misread, I thought of Fel Lash, not Fel Scythe.

Yeah, we can tank too much damage. I don't disagree, I just don't agree that taking away the choice between using rage on MoU or IF is going to impact that possitively. That is how we could react differently to different kinds of damage, if you want to tell me now, that removing MoU is going to improve the gameplay of a druid, I would like to hear your reasoning behind that.

If you wanted to nerf Guardians, some options could be: remove the passive damage reduction the spec gets (possibly keep it in for the affinity and make as take the damage more through some voodoo), half the effect of Pulv and RnT, change the mastery in some way, to something that isn't just Versa light and make it absolutely useless, remove/reduce our dodge chance, reduce SI to 30% reduction and take away 1 stack, take away one stack of FR, make adaptive fur 5% instead of 10, make MoU 20% reduction, or 10% and stackable, reduce the stam/armor multipliers of bear form.......... All of that would reduce what you seem to take issue with, which is the massive tankiness of bears.

I don't argue that we were OP, I don't disagree. The power level of guardians is to high and that actually made me want to reroll for this tier, because the game isn't fun until you hit the later mythic bosses. But removing MoU will not solve that. It will not make guardians any harder to play, it actually makes them easier, because if you just macro IF to all of your abilities, you want be doing that much wrong anymore....

The effect of removing MoU will largely depend on the type of fight we are going to see, if there is another Guarm, you will still be able to solo tank that fight as a Guardian, the same way we could there, and the tank balance will still be shit then. If you look at the entire tier, not just NH, there were not many fights were MoU was used much, it was never a problem, because the damage profile was mostly physical and I expect that future raids will be like that again. If they are not, we are looking at incredibly uninteresting fights for druids, were additionally we are pretty hard to heal and very mana spongy.

[Emancptr]

I'm in agreement with Greif9 here. Guardian druid are obviously too strong, but removing MoU and making magic damage our weakness doesn't really solve any of our issues. I also agree that removing MoU reduces the decision making gameplay for Guardian Druid (something Guardian Druid is already lacking).

Even with MoU removal we're still too strong as a baseline unit (too much HP, too much passive resistances, and too many cooldowns). After MoU removal Guardian Druid will still be arguably the strongest tank (probably slightly behind Brewmaster at that point).

Going down the list:

Physical Reduction: Bears take the least amount of physical damage of any tank (We're better than Warriors, the physical mitigation tank). In my opinion, this is because our base armor through the bear form %multiplier is too high. Make bear form give 150% armor instead of 200% armor and we're closer to the other tanks. This also forces better Ironfur usage and makes us less naturally tanky (punishes players without ironfur up for large hits).

Magic Reduction: Adaptive Fur should be the target here instead of MoU. Removing Active Mitigation and keeping passive mitigation should never make sense. Change MoU to 10-20% magic reduction so it is still a weakness, but it is something that has to be actively used. And forces a trade off with Ironfur usage.

Cooldowns: I have no idea why Guardians have the special privilege of having 2 charges of a 60% cd reduction (combined with a low CD cooldown barskin and it's even more broken). Blizzard's logic on this CD has to be that the short duration is a detriment, but the reality is that you only ever need huge CDs for that 2-3 second burst window. Other tanks have longer lasting CDs, but derive almost no benefit from the longer duration. Make it 1 charge or make the % reduction much lower.

My concern is that Blizzard will dump MoU and try to bring Maul into our defensive toolkit in some way. I think this is a very, very poor decision (see Warrior changes in 7.1 and that outcry). I would much rather see them do direct nerfs to some of our abilities and cooldowns than try and innovate on our playstyle by completely removing MoU.

[davidrm15]

Anyone have a list of trinket for dps guardian for 7.2??

[stormgust]

Physical Reduction: Bears take the least amount of physical damage of any tank (We're better than Warriors, the physical mitigation tank). In my opinion, this is because our base armor through the bear form %multiplier is too high. Make bear form give 150% armor instead of 200% armor and we're closer to the other tanks. This also forces better Ironfur usage and makes us less naturally tanky (punishes players without ironfur up for large hits).

You cannot force better usage of an ability, which you could just as well macro to any other ability though. I'd say the real culprit isn't base armor, but Ironfur and how easy it is to maintain several stacks of it (though just having lvled a fresh druid to 110, I think the largest contributing factor for that is not even Ironfur, but rather T19)

Magic Reduction: Adaptive Fur should be the target here instead of MoU. Removing Active Mitigation and keeping passive mitigation should never make sense. Change MoU to 10-20% magic reduction so it is still a weakness, but it is something that has to be actively used. And forces a trade off with Ironfur usage.

They're targetting MoU because that's the ability which allows us to cheat mechanics though alongside of providing a high magic damage reduction. As for nerfing MoU's magic reduction: The problem is, that it won't be worth the rage if the damage reduction is too low, as the other options we have will be better (esp. FR with T20, though even the buffed Maul may ba a better option when compared to a 10% reduction MoU). Sure you could reduce ragecost alongside, but wouldn't you then just end up macroing it when needed?

Cooldowns: I have no idea why Guardians have the special privilege of having 2 charges of a 60% cd reduction (combined with a low CD cooldown barskin and it's even more broken). Blizzard's logic on this CD has to be that the short duration is a detriment, but the reality is that you only ever need huge CDs for that 2-3 second burst window. Other tanks have longer lasting CDs, but derive almost no benefit from the longer duration. Make it 1 charge or make the % reduction much lower.

If Ironfur wasn't meant to have a 100% uptime, I think those cooldowns actually make more sense so smooth out the damage curve.

[Emancptr]

You cannot force better usage of an ability, which you could just as well macro to any other ability though. I'd say the real culprit isn't base armor, but Ironfur and how easy it is to maintain several stacks of it (though just having lvled a fresh druid to 110, I think the largest contributing factor for that is not even Ironfur, but rather T19)

Right now, you don't even need 1x Ironfur to be stronger than many other tanks against physical damage, which is absolutely crazy. Nerfing base armor (through the bear form % multiplier) solves this problem and it also drastically affects Ironfur. Instead of 1x Ironfur putting us ahead of most tanks for physical mitigation it would put as on par with them. Then 2x Ironfur would put us to Warrior + Shield Block levels of physical mitigation. This means maintaining Ironfur at 1x is comparable to the baseline for other tanks and 2x or 3x Ironfur is compare-able to other tanks with active mitigation. This would encourage 4 piece usage (something most bears ignore right now) and once T20 rolls around and 2x Ironfur is harder to maintain we will be closer to the other tanks.


Also, removing MoU makes Ironfur uptime and more stacks of Ironfur easier to maintain. You don't have anything else meaningful to spend rage on if they remove MoU. Spending 10 rage on Frenzied Regen isn't enough and defensively you'll never cast maul unless they tie it to something else. Therefore, removing MoU exacerbates the problem of only spending rage on Ironfur and having multiple stacks up constantly.

They're targetting MoU because that's the ability which allows us to cheat mechanics though alongside of providing a high magic damage reduction. As for nerfing MoU's magic reduction: The problem is, that it won't be worth the rage if the damage reduction is too low, as the other options we have will be better (esp. FR with T20, though even the buffed Maul may ba a better option when compared to a 10% reduction MoU). Sure you could reduce ragecost alongside, but wouldn't you then just end up macroing it when needed?

Frenzied Regeneration has limited charges, which means that MoU will always be used for heavy magical damage regardless of the %. Obviously, 10% is on the low end and if they went that direction I would encourage a stacking effect similar to Ironfur (2x = 20% mitigation). The main problem with completely removing MoU is the lack of choice for Guardian Druids to spend rage on at that point.

If Ironfur wasn't meant to have a 100% uptime, I think those cooldowns actually make more sense so smooth out the damage curve.

The only way for Ironfur to not be 100% uptime is to drastically increase it's cost (80-100 rage) or drastically reduce our rage generation (already relatively low if you're not using 4 piece and you take Brambles). Both changes promote very passive play which is something I would encourage Blizzard to avoid when making changes to the Guardian Druid class (we're already very passive).

[v1perz53]

They're targetting MoU because that's the ability which allows us to cheat mechanics though alongside of providing a high magic damage reduction. As for nerfing MoU's magic reduction: The problem is, that it won't be worth the rage if the damage reduction is too low, as the other options we have will be better (esp. FR with T20, though even the buffed Maul may ba a better option when compared to a 10% reduction MoU). Sure you could reduce ragecost alongside, but wouldn't you then just end up macroing it when needed?

FR costs next to no rage compared to it's cooldown, so it is irrelevant in terms of spending rage. And even if Ursol was nerfed down to 10% for 80 rage, it would still be used in certain scenarios, such as Dark Strike from the first boss of Maw, or Ivanyr in Arcway who never melees and only casts spells the whole fight (or the artifact challenge appearance which is 100% spell damage...). Hell, you would use even a 5% magic reduction in any situation where survivability mattered at all and there was magic damage that was deadly, or no physical damage. I would much rather see it nerfed to 10% than removed entirely, passive mitigation feels bad while active mitigation at least gives the illusion that you are affecting your own outcomes, and is much more engaging playstyle wise.

[Deleted]

You cannot force better usage of an ability, which you could just as well macro to any other ability though. I'd say the real culprit isn't base armor, but Ironfur and how easy it is to maintain several stacks of it (though just having lvled a fresh druid to 110, I think the largest contributing factor for that is not even Ironfur, but rather T19)

If you change base armor, you make Ironfur uptime count for more and you make the decision whether you try to keep up as many stacks permanently as possible or whether you pool for spike damage like Annihilate more relevant. Increasing the rage cost might work as well. The change to MoU isn't going to reduce the cheese potential of the guardian. You will just need an external for that reduction you lost. It rather targets fights with constant magic damage, which I hope will not happen too often anymore.

If you want to nerf Guardians, you should target rage gen and passive mitigation, because that will make them having to think more about what they do to reach good results rather than remove an ability and thereby removing even more from both skill floor and ceiling.

[roi]

It's funny how they constantly mention "bears can solo fel scythes" as main reason to remove MoU for the next raid tier that's supposed to have much more physical damage rather than magic damage compared to NH (that'll balance everything, for sure!).

Guess they'll buff GoE and UE instead only to then find out that we can outheal blood dks with skysecs and t20....

[Sonnillon]

Right now I have relics for Sharpened Instincs and Ursoc's Endurance. My only DPS relic is for Jagged Clawes. Got the relic from Malificus for Vicious bites. Is it worth to trade claws for bites? Bite adds 4 ilvl if I would change.

[Deleted]

Right now I have relics for Sharpened Instincs and Ursoc's Endurance. My only DPS relic is for Jagged Clawes. Got the relic from Malificus for Vicious bites. Is it worth to trade claws for bites? Bite adds 4 ilvl if I would change.

That kinda depends. If you have Luffa then thats pretty sure a no. For AoE the Jagged Claws relic will probably still come out ahead, while for single target the mangle relic can probably compete. I would recommend you to sim it for yourself because simcraft is a lot better than random strangers on the internet when it comes to taking all of your gear into account and how certain things you have or don't have interact. I would probably stick with the Claws, but I have Luffa so I tend to overvalue Thrash damage.

[Nevcairiel]

Even single target JC is still stronger, even more so with Pawsitive Outlook (which you'll have sooner or later) or if you have anything that synergizes with Thrash like Luffa or Elizes.

You can easily check your logs and check the damage contributions from Thrash and Mangle. With Elizes, Pawsitive and 6/6 JC right now, I have 27% Thrash (direct + DoT) and 22% Mangle (on Krosus Heroic), in this setup JC is just much stronger then Mangle relics, because (a) Thrash is higher then Mangle, and (b) JC adds 10%, Mangle relic only 7%.

I don't think 4 item level on a single relic make up for that difference. But if you want to be sure, you can sim, of course.

[Deleted]

Does anyone know with certainty whether avoidance works to mitigate Guldan's Fel Scythe? or other similar 'cone' abilities like annihilate, i'm not sure if they would be classed as AoE or not.

[roi]

Unlikely, they're still targeted to some degree, I doubt cone attacks count as aoe.

Unrelated: Our new follower Thisalee (despite the slightly retarded voice) is probably the strongest bodyguard, gives you 10% vers while in bear form (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=236310/shapemender) and extra movement speed in travel form (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=236248/shapemender).

[Nevcairiel]

I noticed the Versatility buff, but Travel Form is kinda shortlived at this point when we can fly (now, or at least soon).
Although the fire aoe thing from Remulos is still extremely powerful.

[Ausr]

I noticed the Versatility buff, but Travel Form is kinda shortlived at this point when we can fly (now, or at least soon).
Although the fire aoe thing from Remulos is still extremely powerful.

I'd rather have Remulos, honestly. Sure, 3 minute cooldown but I can burn 10+ million HP enemies or giant groups of mobs in no time.

[Williee]

I've been testing her out while doing wq, easy way to lvl her. 10% vers is nice, but I don't think it compares to Remulos as a bodyguard. Even when it comes to single target, Remulos does 7-10m dmg excluding the heal he does and potential aoe. After I level her up a bit more, I think i will swap her and use her as a follower mission. Remulos all the way