Guardian got gutted

[Cazz17]

Not sure why they've nerfed our ways of getting rage but buffed Maul's cost and damage.

[Deleted]

Half of the answer is in your question. The other half is that now when the only way to spend our rage is a) physical mitigation and b) damage (I don't count FR, because the cost is minute) the gameplay will be
- find out how many stacks of IF you need to be comfortable
- keep up that many stacks
- dump excess rage on Mauls when you would otherwise use swipe.

If we had our current rage gen we would probably be using maul too much and therefore do too much damage.

[Deleted]

Always amazes that Blizzard can't foresee these kind of scaling issue beforehand and only acts so late, and then tweaks numbers by huge percentages ... can't be that difficult to predict these things.

[Deleted]

All they did was make Mastery a worthless stat, so now you stack versatility/haste instead

This will change nothing in terms of bear tanking, since with the new tier set and vers/haste stack, you will have infinite Frenzied anyways.

Blizzard has no clue nor brain, when it comes to nerfing things, because none of them actually play the game. So all they did was make
vers = mastery into vers/haste > mastery. Good job Blizzard, a job well done indeed.

The other nerfs don't really matter, we will Frenzied big magic hits, and we don't take any physical damage anyways. Galactic Guardian was worse than Incarn on many fights also, so Blizzard did nothing but kill diversity.

[Deleted]

Maybe they are just fine having an ability in the game that has to be retuned every raid.

- - - Updated - - -

All they did was make Mastery a worthless stat, so now you stack versatility/haste instead

This will change nothing in terms of bear tanking, since with the new tier set and vers/haste stack, you will have infinite Frenzied anyways.

Blizzard has no clue nor brain, when it comes to nerfing things, because none of them actually play the game. So all they did was make vers = mastery into vers/haste > mastery. Good job Blizzard, a job well done indeed.

Mastery was strictly worse than versatility from the beginning, and we still used versa/mastery because it still is the best defensively. Would I prefer a different mastery that did something slightly more interesting? Sure. But that doesn't mean it is bad. It just means you will never enchant/gem mastery over versa. Those rage nerfs might save the defensive value of haste or they might not we will see about that later.

[toddx318]

I just don't understand why they nerf the game based around Raid Item Set Bonuses.

Don't they realize there are plenty of us who don't raid top end stuff but still like to do high end Mythics?

Sure, Bears will be just fine in the next raid encounter...but they will be looked down upon in other aspects of the game.

Poor planning.

[Socialhealer]

I just don't understand why they nerf the game based around Raid Item Set Bonuses.

Don't they realize there are plenty of us who don't raid top end stuff but still like to do high end Mythics?

Sure, Bears will be just fine in the next raid encounter...but they will be looked down upon in other aspects of the game.

Poor planning.

any group doing top end mythic+ all 5 members need tier bonuses, if they don't have them you're not competitive a similar skilled group will be 10% better than yours.

[toddx318]

any group doing top end mythic+ all 5 members need tier bonuses, if they don't have them you're not competitive a similar skilled group will be 10% better than yours.

No, they don't need full tier bonuses. These kinds of statements are similar to LFG people requiring 900+ ilvl for Mythic level 6. It's absurd.

The entire point of Mythic+ was to offer an alternative to raiding - not to REQUIRE raid tier gear to complete them.

[Socialhealer]

No, they don't need full tier bonuses. These kinds of statements are similar to LFG people requiring 900+ ilvl for Mythic level 6. It's absurd.

The entire point of Mythic+ was to offer an alternative to raiding - not to REQUIRE raid tier gear to complete them.

good job on not reading.

go back and read what he said and what i said, then try replying.

[toddx318]

good job on not reading.

go back and read what he said and what i said, then try replying.

To be honest, I had a hard time reading what he (you?) said in the post before last. There was a lack of punctuation which made it hard to follow the intended thought.

The way it read to me was that any group doing top end mythics needed to have tier bonuses and if you don't have them you wont be competitive.

If that is not what you intended to say, then maybe reword it or add some punctuation to clarify what you meant.

[Socialhealer]

To be honest, I had a hard time reading what he (you?) said in the post before last. There was a lack of punctuation which made it hard to follow the intended thought.

The way it read to me was that any group doing top end mythics needed to have tier bonuses and if you don't have them you wont be competitive.

If that is not what you intended to say, then maybe reword it or add some punctuation to clarify what you meant.

nope you got it, now if you also know tier bonuses can add a lot of damage, and top end mythics isn't +15 or +18 i can pug that crap and i have just for my weekly chest. we're talking 22 and over, how are you going to compete with groups who do have tier bonuses and other BiS items like trinkets you can only get in a raid when their 10% damage going to make things a hell of a lot easier?

i bet if you go onto wowprogress and check highest clears virtually every spec is using 4 piece tier, maybe some tanks can skip it for high off-pieces i mean even if a set doesn't boost your AoE you will use 1 set of gear for trash, and equipment manager to tier bonuses for the bosses for single target, either way it's a huge plus and if you want to compete with the best you'll need a level playing field.

[Lucrece]

Frenzied Regen was double dipping with mastery
Iron Fur scales out of control with higher item levels giving you more base armor
Rage gen means very little when you aren't juggling IF and MoU, they likely wanted to reduce the frequency of 2-3 ironfur stacks

Even with all these nerfs, bear is still shaping up as a strong tank in Tomb, and that just shows you how OP they were.

They also still have the best tank artifact ability by far as well.

People whining about bear nerfs should be made to play a DH tank in raids.

[Aggrophobic]

They also still have the best tank artifact ability by far as well.

People whining about bear nerfs should be made to play a DH tank in raids.

Nerfs are never fun though.
It's usually better to just buff other classes but Blizzard has a hard time getting this.
It's even worse when they flat out remove spells and change how the class works mid expantion.

[Ravingmad]

There are quite a few bosses (raid and dungeon) that deal no physical damage. What are you planning to spend your rage on on these bosses?

Agreed, since they removed the Mark, maul will find its place. Adding more single target dps wouldnt hurt.

[Lucrece]

Nerfs are never fun though.
It's usually better to just buff other classes but Blizzard has a hard time getting this.
It's even worse when they flat out remove spells and change how the class works mid expantion.

No, blanket buffs create power creep, which shits on raid encounters.

Easier to balance one tank than having to go back to rebalancing raid encounters to account for increased tank survivability and DPS.

[Aggrophobic]

No, blanket buffs create power creep, which shits on raid encounters.

Easier to balance one tank than having to go back to rebalancing raid encounters to account for increased tank survivability and DPS.

Easier? Sure.
Better or more fun? Hardly.

[Nevcairiel]

Easier? Sure.
Better or more fun? Hardly.

The end result is quite the same though - you get weaker. It makes no difference to me if thats because enemies get buffed or I get nerfed, ultimately the balance shifts in favor of the enemy.

[Polarthief]

I miss the Cataclysm Bear....

You miss being the worst tank because of the horrible dodge mechanic? Okay.

My guild never passed Horridon on Heroic in MoP because we had double bear and it was literally impossible due to his main attack being undodgeable.

[Aggrophobic]

The end result is quite the same though - you get weaker. It makes no difference to me if thats because enemies get buffed or I get nerfed, ultimately the balance shifts in favor of the enemy.

But thats not what they are doing. They are removing spells and slowing down the spec.
They are making it less fun to play. If all they did was change some numbers it would not be such a big issue.

[Nevcairiel]

But thats not what they are doing. They are removing spells and slowing down the spec.
They are making it less fun to play. If all they did was change some numbers it would not be such a big issue.

Thats not exactly what you argued right above. Nerfs are nerfs, and sometimes nerfs are the right thing to do, instead of buffing everything else (including enemies).

Personally I don't think MoU offered that much interesting gameplay. Very little bosses really had you make on-the-fly decisions between the two, more often it was this for that fight, and vice versa - which wasn't very interesting. New Maul is likely going to be more interesting then that.