Guardians viability, relative to other tanks

[revilfour]

Hey there friends! its been awhile but im finally back! and i have questions!

First off i have been reading lots of forums and guides and it seem that Guardians are in a very average place. I have played a bear since BC on and off and to be completely honest im a little pissed about the state of guardians atm. It seem like we have gone down since Cata and are at a very weak point.

This brings me to my question, I have a tank of every class at 85 (soon to be 90) and my opinion before MoP for tank standings was Dk>Guardian=pally> Warr. Now this might just be my playstyle, but pertaining to mitigation and survivability this is usally how it turned out. In MoP it seems that every class is much further than Guardians, with blood way out in front. People use the term Meatshield to describe us, furthermore i have done my research and i can find very few Guardians in Heroic comps ATM, and that makes me very sad.

That being said what are your opinions on Guardians standing right now? How do they compare and contrast to other tanks? Opinions, and suggestions are always welcome, im curious to what End game raiders have to say, but anybody is free to chime in.

Thanks!

[Williee]

I think most tanks are well balanced, certain fights some tanks pulll ahead. If you forgot, there is a 5th tank called brewmaster which is hte monk class. They are quite superior to any of the other tanks but not by much as Blizzard will tune all new classes properly as time passes. In terms of damage, Dks and monks pull ahead but survivability, as I already mentioned, each tank has its own nitch.
I play a Guardian, if you wish to see how they are, check out my channel for some of the fights I tank. Not sure what kind of group you run with but I feel Hotw + Tranq is such a huge raid cd, at least for my raid group which doesn't have many forms of raid cds for Hof.

The term meatshield doesn't exist anymore due to AM (active mitigation) which makes tanking more proactive.
I do agree not many guardian tanks exist in the heroic raiding perspective, makes me a sad bear

[Arielle]

Everyone is pretty much equal outside of gimmick fights (Druids being ridiculous on Will, DKs going splat on Heroic Gara'jal, DKs being good on Elegon, etc.).

[dennisdkramer]

The elephant in the room with guardian is that their primary 'best' active mitigation ability, savage defense, is completely luck-based while ALL other classes have a reliable way to guarantee damage reduction with their primary ability. Frenzied regen is good, but hard to manage (especially in a 25m!) without causing problems with overhealing. Bears also have almost zero utility while tanking while DKs can (though they probably dont) heal raid members with death coil, AMZ, AMS through high magic damage.. idk probably more stuff I'm no DK expert. Pallies provide a variety of cooldowns for other members of the raid as well as the obvious word of glory, as well as passive aoe healing from seal of insight. Bears just... tank. We will probably start to see more bears in progression raiding with the maul changes, but really that only changes how viable they are as an *off*tank which I think is unfortunate.

[Williee]

yo we got a raid wide speed boost! although useless on most fights, on the ones that it is viable, its huge!
Also, before AM, druids were always luck based with 45-55% passive dodge. Don't think that will ever change, but as you mention, I do hope maul change will allow us a little bit more control on our damage taken.
Hate those moments where I spike so much that it feels like I didn't even pop my Savage defense.
I tank with a blood dk and it seems like he has so much control as his damage taken is a bit more predictable and he can heal himself more consistently. Sometimes I wonder if its better to SD or FR when im at 30-40% hp with boss/adds beating on me. An example can be the adds during Empress, they hit VERY hard. Pretty much ~200k vengenance. Sd or Fr hmmm

[dennisdkramer]

yo we got a raid wide speed boost! although useless on most fights, on the ones that it is viable, its huge!
Also, before AM, druids were always luck based with 45-55% passive dodge. Don't think that will ever change, but as you mention, I do hope maul change will allow us a little bit more control on our damage taken.
Hate those moments where I spike so much that it feels like I didn't even pop my Savage defense.
I tank with a blood dk and it seems like he has so much control as his damage taken is a bit more predictable and he can heal himself more consistently. Sometimes I wonder if its better to SD or FR when im at 30-40% hp with boss/adds beating on me. An example can be the adds during Empress, they hit VERY hard. Pretty much ~200k vengenance. Sd or Fr hmmm

yeah I never liked healing druid tanks before either :P

Thing that sucks in that scenario - I havent done it so just hypothetically - is that your damage taken is so high that FR is way better in theory BUT you're spiking so much that your healers are going to have to spam on you anyway so you're basically forced to use SD even though its not ideal.

[dryankem]

I haven't tanked past 85, although I tried tanking on both my DK and druid after 5.0, but I found that druids seemed to be lacking options.

Is it just me or do they need something?

I know HotW and Nature's swiftness make them extremely flexible but in terms of tanking I feel they are just missing something. I almost wish bear hug was changed so that it allowed you to carry a mob a short distance (work much like Death Grip in terms of who it actually effects).

My DK is at 90 and I'm working on my druid now so I'll have to tank with both of them again but I'd like to see something added to the guardian (although I did find the guardian better at chain pulling because I usually wasn't waiting for my cool downs). Must admit that I do love the raid wide speed boost.

I am very curious how others are finding the guardian as I'm working on my druid now and they may become my main (resto main with guardian OS) for MOP.

[exochaft]

It's the nature of the beast (pun semi-intended) when it comes to Savage Defense, and while I've had some really good avoidance strings with SD up, I've have some miserable failures to the point of 9 consecutive boss attacks landing with 100% SD uptime. RNG is RNG, and our mastery is supposed to take the edge off of RNG not being in our favor... but the Maul change will at least help us out.

I'm still working on my warrior/paladin alts getting to 90, but I do have a blood DK atm. Comparing Blood and Guardian is really apples-to-oranges, but to get to the same end, I feel like Guardian is much more work while being the one I'm more familiar tanking with. The real problem with Guardian is that there may be too much RNG involved, especially when you're pushing your progression limit, where other tanks don't have as much involved. Nothing infuriates me more than SD failing to give me a crucial dodge for its duration near the end of a boss fight or during a soft enrage. I laugh and cry when all I have to do is Death Strike on my DK and get instant gratification.

[Kujako]

I dont have much of a basis for comparison, but for threat its whom ever gets hit first gets the vengeance and holds agro. For defense, I feel tough enough at over 82k armor, but I am annoyed and the number of buttons I now have to press to be effective.