Guardian got gutted

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Was being facetious, always forget it sounds more sarcastic in my head than in writing.

With that knowledge, it was quite glorious a comment.

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The changes aren't really that big of a deal, I raided last night, Heroic NH, didn't have much issue. What concerns me is how the Artifact Challenge will go now, I was making good progress but now that we don't have MoU, which I tried to have good uptime on for the challenge, I'm not looking forward to seeing how part one goes.

Noticing them now on Mythic though. I'm using FR a lot more than I used to. I just feel helpless when my HP drops on tichondrius when soaking the swarm.

[ryklin]

tyrannical NL and maw of souls (and to lesser extents: hyrja and oakheart) well I guess hyrja, even on tyran, she doesnt get to use spear that often may just not be doable as a bear unless you have really good defensive trinkets
also means you literally have to pool SI charges on trash packs...
raiding seems fine so far though, although I did almost die while tanking skorp and adds, but I still think taking 42% more magic damage is a bit too much, I'd be fine if they kept it in even at like 10%

[Sonnillon]

raiding seems fine so far though, although I did almost die while tanking skorp and adds, but I still think taking 42% more magic damage is a bit too much, I'd be fine if they kept it in even at like 10%

Speaking only from heroic which I did last night I think Krosus, Augur and Gul'dan were bit tougher, specially Gul'dan. FR with SI/Bark nicely managed to keep me at decent health, then Gul'dan healers seemed to have really tough time with me and I personally felt that I am taking too much damage and damn FR sat on recharge CD way too many times. Ended up with SI-ring and Boots as my legos.

Other then that I think my DPS has gone higher and in majority of fights Maul can be placed nicely inbetween skills when not tanking. However maybe it's lack of skill or something but finding myself having to wait for a button to press at some fight felt annoying.

[exochaft]

Speaking only from heroic which I did last night I think Krosus, Augur and Gul'dan were bit tougher, specially Gul'dan. FR with SI/Bark nicely managed to keep me at decent health, then Gul'dan healers seemed to have really tough time with me and I personally felt that I am taking too much damage and damn FR sat on recharge CD way too many times. Ended up with SI-ring and Boots as my legos.

It's one design philosophy that I've disagreed with for quite some time, the one where Blizz balances the class around the set bonuses and/or gear they may or may not get instead of the other way around. I get that Blizz wants to make the set bonuses enticing, but if you feel worthless without it (especially since we don't have access to it yet) then that's a problem. This problem isn't exclusive to bears, as it affects other classes/specs (such as playing Fury w/o tier and raid trinkets pre-7.2.5, completely terrible). I feel the general frustration I experience with my bear recently is that whenever a new major content patch comes out, I go from feeling good to feeling undergeared.

Also, I think Blizz may have have to change their balancing philosophy slightly after reviewing this expansion with the advent of mythic+. While the majority of the balancing changes have higher-end raiding in mind, I'd venture to guess that the mythic+ community has surpassed the raiding community. As is very evident with the Guardian adjustments, I'd say mythic+ was almost forgotten completely. While PvP templates/talents solved the problem in the realm of PvP in its own way (I'd flip out if they went templates in mythic+), I feel Guardians are getting punished in mythic+ because of raid balancing. What works in raids may or may not work in mythic+, as they're completely different beasts.

Despite everything, it's still the first week of 7.2.5, and adjustments may be made w/i the next few days. Next week we'll hopefully be gearing out in normal/heroic ToS loot and tier, potentially either confirming or abating our fears concerning our ability to tank in the manner we feel fit. Regardless, I probably won't be trying to push many mythic+ keys past 15 unless I get decked out from raiding.

On a slightly related note, how is our damage output compared to other tanks currently? I don't have much comparison currently, as I'm taking a minor break from raiding before ToS goes live. From the limited amount of direct comparison I've seen, I know my damage has gone up slightly in general, but I think all the other tanks (especially Vengeance DH's) has generally outpaced us on a fight-to-fight basis. Maybe Blizz thought Maul would have more of an impact, but not every fight is Star Auger.

[Dracodraco]

It's one design philosophy that I've disagreed with for quite some time, the one where Blizz balances the class around the set bonuses and/or gear they may or may not get instead of the other way around. I get that Blizz wants to make the set bonuses enticing, but if you feel worthless without it (especially since we don't have access to it yet) then that's a problem. This problem isn't exclusive to bears, as it affects other classes/specs (such as playing Fury w/o tier and raid trinkets pre-7.2.5, completely terrible). I feel the general frustration I experience with my bear recently is that whenever a new major content patch comes out, I go from feeling good to feeling undergeared.

Also, I think Blizz may have have to change their balancing philosophy slightly after reviewing this expansion with the advent of mythic+. While the majority of the balancing changes have higher-end raiding in mind, I'd venture to guess that the mythic+ community has surpassed the raiding community. As is very evident with the Guardian adjustments, I'd say mythic+ was almost forgotten completely. While PvP templates/talents solved the problem in the realm of PvP in its own way (I'd flip out if they went templates in mythic+), I feel Guardians are getting punished in mythic+ because of raid balancing. What works in raids may or may not work in mythic+, as they're completely different beasts.

Despite everything, it's still the first week of 7.2.5, and adjustments may be made w/i the next few days. Next week we'll hopefully be gearing out in normal/heroic ToS loot and tier, potentially either confirming or abating our fears concerning our ability to tank in the manner we feel fit. Regardless, I probably won't be trying to push many mythic+ keys past 15 unless I get decked out from raiding.

On a slightly related note, how is our damage output compared to other tanks currently? I don't have much comparison currently, as I'm taking a minor break from raiding before ToS goes live. From the limited amount of direct comparison I've seen, I know my damage has gone up slightly in general, but I think all the other tanks (especially Vengeance DH's) has generally outpaced us on a fight-to-fight basis. Maybe Blizz thought Maul would have more of an impact, but not every fight is Star Auger.

FWIW, my alt seems to be stable at around ~500-550K singletarget DPS with the maul buff at 906 item level with a heavy focus on vers>mastery (so defensively built), with luffas. That's fairly par for the course, there's no way vengeance DHs aren't getting the shit kicked out of them in the next tuning pass, they're doing over 1M on slight cleave fights no problem (our tanks' 903 alt was pushing over 800K on Anomaly no sweat).

As for defensively, my alt is obviously more vulnerable to magic damage than it was before, but it's no weaker than my DK really. I have to plan around having minor cds up (barkskin, rage) for magic damage, but even so, the excessive health pool means if I mess up, I'm usually fine. Considering my bear usually runs double DPS legendaries (Luffa+Cinidarie), I'd expect it to feel a lot weaker than my DK defensively that runs double survivability legendaries (VB reduction belt + DS cost reduction bracers), but that's really not the case. I only have Skysecs and Prydaz as proper defensive legendaries on it, but even with double DPS, it still feels as sturdy if not more so than my DK. I expect if you use double defensives, you'll be more than fine.

[Hydrant]

After a chill HM NH run I can say that the community have overreacted a little. On 903 ilvl with fully dps trinkets and hybrid set of relics and legs (2 thrash, 1 ironfur and luffas+skysecs respectively) I haven't felt any trouble. Died once on 100 energy scythe on guldan but Ive messed up and havent had any cd up.

Overall I felt that my phys mitigaton is even higher than before while all magic spikes are easily countered with cds. Maybe its just my imagination. Dps is good too - did 500k on anomaly without focusing on dps and without using dps flask/pot/rune.

Overall I feel we will be good. If u are not aiming for top-10 (and 99% of people arent), then u shouldn't reroll on an undergeared alt.

[Toybox]

Class is still absolutely fine, but I'm not really enjoying the Maul changes.

[CptBlasto]

Class is still absolutely fine, but I'm not really enjoying the Maul changes.

Interesting. I'm really enjoying the maul change actually, finally having a high damage rage dump that really helps our lackluster single target dps. Seeing 1.2M+ crits on bosses is a nice change. As far as defense, yea we feel gimped but even M Krosus wasn't bad (obviously with the nerfs). M+ on the other hand, I feel like we could have some issues on certain pulls/bosses

Edit: I will say I think maul could do even more damage at its very high rage cost. Or likewise could be reduced to 35-40 rage

[Toybox]

Interesting. I'm really enjoying the maul change actually, finally having a high damage rage dump that really helps our lackluster single target dps. Seeing 1.2M+ crits on bosses is a nice change. As far as defense, yea we feel gimped but even M Krosus wasn't bad (obviously with the nerfs). M+ on the other hand, I feel like we could have some issues on certain pulls/bosses

Edit: I will say I think maul could do even more damage at its very high rage cost. Or likewise could be reduced to 35-40 rage

I'll be more specific. I actually don't mind it that much, but during Incarnation, I really, really dislike sitting at rage cap. Popped it on Spellblade's arcane adds yesterday & had absolutely nothing of value to spend that rage on. Minimum value FR? Ironfur when not actively tanking?

That's my major gripe with it.

[CptBlasto]

I'll be more specific. I actually don't mind it that much, but during Incarnation, I really, really dislike sitting at rage cap. Popped it on Spellblade's arcane adds yesterday & had absolutely nothing of value to spend that rage on. Minimum value FR? Ironfur when not actively tanking?

That's my major gripe with it.

Agreed, I do really wish it was left off the GCD for this reason

[Williee]

Out of all 10 mythic bosses, losing mou was noticable on fights such as Krosus and Augar. During Krosus, searing brand stacks was noticeably hitting harder at earlier stacks. For Augar, solo tanking, frost phase was a lot more difficult due to absolute zero hitting a lot harder. I went into mythic expecting most of these scenarios. However, for Guldan, I thought fel scythes were going to be the difficult part with the changes but it wasn't too bad. It was actually more noticeable when tanking Illidan (demon within) that he melee'd harder especially with the Azzinoth.
Overall, the changes were fine imo, we aren't gods anymore... we are mortal bears :^)

[Deleted]

Your missing the point. The point is he shouldn't be able to press 2 buttons and outheal that?

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Interesting. I'm really enjoying the maul change actually, finally having a high damage rage dump that really helps our lackluster single target dps. Seeing 1.2M+ crits on bosses is a nice change. As far as defense, yea we feel gimped but even M Krosus wasn't bad (obviously with the nerfs). M+ on the other hand, I feel like we could have some issues on certain pulls/bosses

Edit: I will say I think maul could do even more damage at its very high rage cost. Or likewise could be reduced to 35-40 rage

It's going to take some getting used to using maul instead of a swipe for dps, especially with a GG rotation. My main issue is that it's not really outdamaging thrash with full relics, only when it crits.

And my other big issue is FR healing. Now that it no longer scales with Mastery its heal is laughable at best, I think the damage calculation isn't always happening as it should. During the last phase on Botanist I was taking 2 Million DTPS and FR was healing for its minimum value. 650 ish K.

[Soulwell]

The changes aren't really that big of a deal, I raided last night, Heroic NH, didn't have much issue. What concerns me is how the Artifact Challenge will go now, I was making good progress but now that we don't have MoU, which I tried to have good uptime on for the challenge, I'm not looking forward to seeing how part one goes.

You can tank most heroic bosses in catform so saying it's not that big a deal when the content you're doing is lackluster is meh.
The only issue I actually had with the changes was even though fel scythe was nerfed it stilled hit hard as shit without mou and with the m+ changes doing 15s and getting hit with magic damage was quite a dosey.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

You can tank most heroic bosses in catform so saying it's not that big a deal when the content you're doing is lackluster is meh.
The only issue I actually had with the changes was even though fel scythe was nerfed it stilled hit hard as shit without mou and with the m+ changes doing 15s and getting hit with magic damage was quite a dosey.

Either FR needs a small buff, or mastery does, or adaptive fur. Because right now we're right up there with warriors as manasponges on magic damage. We might as well fight in cat form on Augur Mythic even...

[exochaft]

It's going to take some getting used to using maul instead of a swipe for dps, especially with a GG rotation. My main issue is that it's not really outdamaging thrash with full relics, only when it crits.

And my other big issue is FR healing. Now that it no longer scales with Mastery its heal is laughable at best, I think the damage calculation isn't always happening as it should. During the last phase on Botanist I was taking 2 Million DTPS and FR was healing for its minimum value. 650 ish K.

Your gear sounds like mine, where Pawsitive Outlook proc chance (even just assuming one proc) has Thrash impact damage averaging better than using Maul single-target. I think most people are okay with the damage and rage cost, the on-the-GCD aspect is probably more of an issue.

With respect to FR, I think the loss of mastery double-dipping along with the Ironfur nerf just make it seem wimpy. If you want to feel terrible about FR, jump into PvP. However, Botanist is a special flower (pun intended) when it comes to damage taken. Don't remember reading it in guides or whatnot, but even prior to 7.2.5 the mythic root damage in the last phase never increased our FR values. So while you're taking 2mil DTPS while rooted, FR values only scale with the melee auto-attacks of the boss. It's similar to the tree boss in DHT: when he picks us up to throw, MoU would reduce this damage but FR did not scale with the damage you took while gripped... which is now super deadly on Tyrannical unless this was fixed. I vaguely recall Blizz not wanting FR to scale with certain types of damage, although I think this applied to things like sitting in lava, not standard boss mechanics.

For me, I let these little things slide since we still had MoU and even submitted bug reports to Blizz. Without MoU, people may start noticing these things. Pretty sure the two I mentioned aren't the only ones, they're just the only ones I really noticed.

[Williee]

The fetter damage is considered environmental damage, that is why fr doesn't scale to it. Before and after patch, fetter damage on p3 botanist didn't affect fr due to it being environmental damage. If you noticed fr healing increased, it could be the plasma spheres or the bosses autos. I almost lived p3 without resetting fetters but i would probably have to readjust cooldowns and delay them a bit. For those who cannot do it completely solo, you can reset the fetters with freedom or dispel at a good timing or taunt swap which other tanks had to do during progression.

[Hotsforyou]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2sVxeDu180

Monks#1 and Druids #2 according to Sco.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2sVxeDu180

Monks#1 and Druids #2 according to Sco.

Looks valid reasoning to me.

[Cuppy]

Class is still absolutely fine, but I'm not really enjoying the Maul changes.

They do this same shit every expansion, right? When xpac launches, maul is off GCD, then after midway, It's on GCD.
WHY!? Just remove the whole fucking skill already.