[Guardian] - Patch 5.4 Survival Guide

[Arielle]

Is the Guardian 4pc bonus so good that we should use 483 LFR gear over any 496 offset upgrades?

Yes. Which TBH is really annoying.

Most of the Bis lists I have seen rank everything by ilvl which is obviously important but is that the end all and be all of gearing now? Is there a particular offset item that is better than others such as the 496 crafted chest? I realize heroic items will trump any normal gear down the road.

The Elite pants are the best offset item by a mile.

[Williee]

After using all mastery reforges and gems for H Will to test it out, I definitely miss crit build. Having about 105k armor and ~32% crit during H Will, I felt squishier compare to 45% and ~90k ish armor. I felt like I was lacking rage regen outside of combos. If I did a mistake of not having 100 rage leaving devasating combo, I wouldn't be able to keep up sd 100%.
From my personal experience, crit build seems to work a lot better for me. Now I can test out what is the limit of crit before I can throw it in mastery or maybe haste in 5.1

[Deleted]

What Williee already is saying.
I'm going for hit/exp and crit at the moment. But at what amount of crit should I go for mastery?

[Deleted]

I'm also going for Hit/Exp then full crit. 320 crit gems, agility/crit meta and agility/crit shoulder & leg enchants. I'm normally on around 43% crit in raid. I'm rarely rage starved and maintain SD easilly on moments when it's needed like Voodoo Dolls and outside of Devastating Combo. Soo much so that I can dump excess rage frequently into maul to increase my dps.

As I move into 5.1 I hope to get my crit above 50%. Can only imagine that being a great thing to aim for. Since the more we crit, the more rage we gain and the more you can spam Frenzy Regen/SD. Frenzy Regen in extreme damage phases can be more powerful than anything else in our toolkit. Currently seen it heal me for 240k a pop with 60 rage.
Combine that with Incarnation or Beserk, insane healing!
I love my bear

[Williee]

Yup ima try and hit 50% crit as well, but along with some of the upgrades to 502ilvl + pieces, i lose a significant amount of crit rating due to itemization. Before I obtained my heroic pieces, I actually had more crit rating then I do now w/ more heroic raiding pieces.
As of 5.1, I hope haste becomes more valuable because of empowered maul DD

[Elunedra]

doubt haste becoems that much better, becase yes you do get more melee attack so more chanced to proc thoot and claw, however at the same time you also need more rage generation to pay for those mauls, so that laso makes crit, hit and exp go up in value.

and you also dont want you empowered maul to miss so that might also up the value of hit & exp

so i gues in the end they alll relatively stay the same

[pkm]

how are bears doing in raids atm? from what i read is that all tanks seem to be equal now.

[Elunedra]

how are bears doing in raids atm? from what i read is that all tanks seem to be equal now.

yes this, but bear have a boring rotation,
however we pwn on psysical dmg migration

[Motoma]

Bears are lower on DPS but we have extremely good survivability currently, gets better if the 5.1 changes go live also.

[Arielle]

Bears are lower on DPS but we have extremely good survivability currently, gets better if the 5.1 changes go live also.

This isn's strictly true either. In 10m normal MSV all tanks are pretty close to each other on every fight.

[daydayhyphy]

is there a macro to use natures swiftness w/ a spell without it putting me out of bear form?

[Williee]

/run SetCVar("autoUnshift",0)
/cast nature's swiftness
/cast healing touch
/run SetCVar("autoUnshift",1)

[dennisdkramer]

#showtooltip Nature's Swiftness
/console autounshift 0
/use [mod:shift]Nature's Swiftness
/use [@mouseover,exists,help][]Healing Touch
/console autounshift 1

I find myself using PS HT (and fairly often NS HT) to heal myself and/or raid members, so having it macrod as a mouseover is vital. This also allows me to use the same bind to cast HT prepull for DoC

[Elunedra]

pre combat you shoul not waste NS, just cast a rejuv

[Williee]

I think dream of cenarius only procs from hard cast heals such as healing touch and nourish. I don't play feral much since I tank most of the fights now.
Ya I think I might make a mouseover NS ht but im afraid when i need it for myself, I might accidentially mouseover someone else haha

[dennisdkramer]

I think dream of cenarius only procs from hard cast heals such as healing touch and nourish. I don't play feral much since I tank most of the fights now.
Ya I think I might make a mouseover NS ht but im afraid when i need it for myself, I might accidentially mouseover someone else haha

this isnt really an issue since as a feral or guardian you will almost exclusively be targetting the boss and not mouseing over anything since you'll be holding down right cilck to turn 99% of the fight. As long as you macro mouseover AND normal functionality you'll be fine. That is done the way I have it in my macro by adding [] after the mouseover portion

[Williee]

ah ty a lot, will help a lot
kept targeting raid members especially on h garalon to heal them when crush + pheromones stacks were high on them which lost me a global or 2 on garalon

[dennisdkramer]

You're welcome btw if wolfpack needs a decent feral for terrace - my guild hasnt cleared HoF yet so I won't be saved (inorite? @_@ )

---------- Post added 2012-11-14 at 05:23 AM ----------

Actually now that I think about it, does every raid member have to have cleared HoF or is it based on the raid leader like the normal/heroic switch mechanic?

[Elunedra]

you probely only need 1 person in your raid

[Williee]

You only need the raid leader to be the only one whose cleared the last boss to unlock heroics.

On another note, any value for the 4p? Should I drop 502 pieces from MSV for raidfinder/normal tier pieces? Which piece is our offpiece if there is even one?
Since I am favoring crit/hit/exp build, Im leaning away from tier head or shoulders since its exp/mastery and dodge/exp. Not sure if [Netherrealm Shoulderpads] or [Crown of Opportunistic Strikes] would be better, I'd think Opportunistic Strikes for the crit. Take into account, no heroic elite item yet.