Is Guardian "Fluid"?

[Saybel]

Hello there Druid forum! This post will contain a rather lengthy explanation of my current mindset about actually wanting to level the class, so I'll leave a tl;dr at the bottom.

In my quest to obtain 11 90's and all their relevant challenge mode sets before WoD (currently going towards my 5th now! and already ready for the 6th set), I appear to have hit a brick wall.

Said "brick wall" for me is the druid class - so before I get into my question I'm going to give you a bit of background to aid in any answers to this thread.

As a player I'm suited entirely towards DPSing and tanking, while I have very good healing ability (certainly enough to heal raids when focused and enough for challenge modes - already healed as resto shaman and currently healing a set as disc) I get extremely bored whilst I can't make big numbers. I'm specifically orientated towards a role where I can always feel active and engaged, and for me, healing is not that (aside from maybe Discipline and Fistweaving, but my Monk is BrM, so hey.)

Except there's a catch, the catch being is I literally cannot stand any spec that is not almost entirely GCD capped or outright GCD capped (let's say about 10% downtime is my limit, or thereabouts). This creates a lot of problems for me, I cannot play Enhancement Shaman, Assa Rogue, Feral Druid and many other specs where I'm completely limited to what I can press and when. The other thing I cannot stand is when specs aren't fluid or clunky, clunky mechanics to me are things such are completely manual multidotting (e.g VT+SWP, Moonfire+Sunfire), high ramp-up mechanics, long casts, class priority systems fuelled by cooldowns, lack of on demand AoE, bad target switching and so forth.

So as you can see, my personal tastes for play basically completely cut me off from playing Feral, Balance and Restoration, thus almost nullifying my ability to play the class, and I don't particularly enjoy the way Guardian physically looks (and that's important for me). But I do want that set, and will probably force myself to just suck it up and play Restoration in CMs if nothing else is going to work for me eventually.

My question is, is Guardian, by my definition a "fluid" spec. Or put simply, does Guardian have little downtime between available globals and how clunky is it to play? Does it have good on demand AoE? Can you go offensive in CMs like the other 4 tanks are capable of (I play extremely offensively on the 3 tanks I've done CMs on, and will play that way on Paladin also.) I'm aware of the state of their mitigation, so I don't need briefing on that, just want to know if they can drop it to go offensive in that environment.

Thanks for any questions that can be answered, yours - Minxy .

tl;dr is Guardian GCD capped and is it clunky?

[Glurp]

Guardian is GCD capped yes, they have a lot of filler spells like Faere Fire, Swipe and Thrash so you should never have an empty GCD. I don't feel It's clunky, AoE is strong and instant in Thrash + Swipe and the Active mitigation is easy to keep up due to the insane rage income you have when well geared.

As for offensive CDs Guardian has somewhat strong ones. Incarnation (if talented) makes all your spells have no cooldown for 30 seconds so you can use it to spam Swipe or Mangle or whatever. Berserk is their base offensive CD which makes Mangle hit 3 Targets and have no cooldown for 15 seconds. I'd say the offensive CDs are really strong but since they are also linked to Rage generation they can't always be used offensively.

Tanking without Savage Defense in Cmodes is likely going to be suicide, it would be like a Monk facetanking everything without Shuffle.

[gestapo]

I love my druid more than any other class ( to the point of having 4 across 2 servers ) but for some reason I have a lot more fun tanking on my Prot Warrior than the Druid. I just can't put my finger on it.

[Deleted]

about warrior aoe - its not limited to thunderclap - you also got Revenge( 1+ 2 additional targets) which is, pretty much, avalible all the time. and from talents there are the options between a 40sec (20sec if you hit 3+ targets) AOE CD, and 2 others with 60 sec CD. not to mention cleave and heroic leap. its a fair amount if aoe

Glyphed Demoshout also gives 3 free cleave/ heroic strike , which adds to quick aoe dps, and the fact that it is off GCD allows you to use revenge at the same time, to briefly bust aoe.

BTW - its not to say Druid tanks sucks, just to clearify that warriors got more AOE than Thunderclap

[Deleted]

Currently got 7 classes with 9/9.
Guardian Druid (Main)
Blood DK
Prot Warrior
Prot Pala
Brm Monk
Desto Wlock
Frost Mage

Guardians are BAD in challenge modes. Not quite as bad as paladins but worse than warriors and a lot worse than dk's and monks.

The main problem is they completely lack stuns and movement. Savage Defense is good on melee but if you add in spellcasters it get's annoying since you won't be able to keep both savage defense and Frenzied Regeneration up. Regeneration stacks with Vengence but is in most occasions better used when glyphed, were it doesn't stack with vengence.

Of all the tanks i've done 9/9 with guardians and paladins are by far the worst, paladins because of their shitty uptime on active migation in CM's and because stuns fuck paladins over.

So guardians might be "fluid" but even as a 30 wave endless guardian i'd say they are bad for challenge modes. Resto however is decent so is Balance.

If you want to save yourself some troubles go resto. And get a monk/dk tank. (Monks are incredibly easy to tank with, if you thought dk was a walk in the park you should try out monks.)

Druid
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...yttge/advanced
DK
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rboda/advanced
Warrior
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Dttge/advanced
Pala
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rment/advanced
Monk
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rjare/advanced
Wlock
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...C3%A9/advanced
Mage
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...bauti/advanced

[foxHeart]

tl;dr is Guardian GCD capped and is it clunky?

From my limited personal experience with Guardian, I found it to be a really unenjoyable, hectic spec. There's constantly a button to press between CD's and procs. Really didn't like it. I myself have been playing resto and feral for years, but I really disliked Guardian. I have never been that fond of bear tanking, but this expansion in particular I feel is really painful.

[Arielle]

Tanking with Savage Defense in Cmodes is likely going to be suicide, it would be like a Monk facetanking everything without Shuffle.

lololololol

I'm sorry, that was just outright hilarious.

Guardians are fine for CMs. You might have some problems if you run an outright hideous comp (like Hunter, Shadowpriest, Ret Paladin), but no matter what you can still kite for days anyway.

But to answer the OP, yes it's GCD capped. No there's no multi-dotting.

[theburned]

why not just play as resto druid, constantly spamming healing spells, and then going doom mode with HotW on bosses.
also you seem like an outright bad player, just because of the lack of flexibility

[Dreyen]

I know exactly what you mean. Guardians are GCD capped and the rotation is very fluid, it involves no bullshit, you just follow a dps priority, the cooldowns are very bursty in damage and pretty much all revolve on mangle spam. As far as going offensive with a druid, you have maul which you can spend your rage into to do damage (It also provides a slight survival benefit when you get tooth&claw procs, but nowhere near as strong as savage defense and frenzied regen, it's basically heroic strike with a bonus)

As far as aoe, you can use AOE moves 3 gcds out of 4, should be plenty, thats pretty on-demand tbh.

Anyways, i did all my CMs as guardian before the myriad of buffs we got this expansion (major boost on mastery scaling, more hp, 30s cd barkskin, idk if im missing anything) and it was perfectly fine, so i dont know what people are smoking saying guardians are bad for CMs, cause in no way will you prevent your team from getting gold. Hell, i survived easily back then, with far from bis CM gear, and before buffs, and i topped dps meters on top of it.

Tanking with Savage Defense in Cmodes is likely going to be suicide, it would be like a Monk facetanking everything without Shuffle.

lol, a druid is like a monk with permanent shuffle on, without the stagger damage, druids might take 5%~ more damage, but they can keep savage defense up more than monks can keep elusive brew, and they have a shitton more hp while monks are the lowest hp tank. The only thing monks have over druids is higher DPS for CMs and fancy cooldowns, while we have more traditional ones. As for savage defense in CMs, its actually les "spiky" because youre taking so many little hits compared to random slower big hits. I say "Spiky" because a druid can take unmitigated hits better than every other tank in the game.

[Glurp]

lololololol

I'm sorry, that was just outright hilarious.

Guardians are fine for CMs. You might have some problems if you run an outright hideous comp (like Hunter, Shadowpriest, Ret Paladin), but no matter what you can still kite for days anyway.

But to answer the OP, yes it's GCD capped. No there's no multi-dotting.

Was a typo, in response to the original post which asked if bears are able to go fully offensive in Cmode and not use mitigation. A Bear without SD is going to be unhealable.

[ElfinHilon10]

Sounds like Guardian is right up your ally! Guardian, in my humble opinion, is honestly where most tanks should be. They are by far the easiest to switch targets to, and really, my ONLY complaint with Guardian is the AoE. It kinda sucks sometimes to have to wait 1 second to be able to swipe again, but it's not that bad.

Also, I wish they would go back to the Cataclysm mastery, though with the devs saying that armor is going to be much more worthwhile stat for tanks, we will see how it plays out.

[mmokri]

There is one-button macros for guardian...

[Casagrande]

Incarnation (if talented) makes all your spells have no cooldown for 30 seconds so you can use it to spam Swipe or Mangle or whatever.

Spam mangle single target or thrash aoe, never touch swipe in incarnation.

[Dreyen]

There is one-button macros for guardian...

There are one-button macros for every spec, they all suck.

[Arielle]

Was a typo, in response to the original post which asked if bears are able to go fully offensive in Cmode and not use mitigation. A Bear without SD is going to be unhealable.

True, but Bears have nothing else to spend Rage on except Maul which is total garbage anyway.

Spam mangle single target or thrash aoe, never touch swipe in incarnation.

Never touch Swipe period unless you have 4 or more targets that you need to DPS at the same time. Even in CMs you're always killing one thing before the others in big pulls.

[mmokri]

There are one-button macros for every spec, they all suck.

Guardian macros is one of the best ones.

[Grum88]

Guardians are BAD in challenge modes.
Really I did all 9 Gold mode as guardian...offspec no less.

[Dreyen]

I just did a few challenge modes with friends.. its so much easier now than it used to be lol, theres absolutely nothing bad about guardian for CMs.

- - - Updated - - -

Guardian macros is one of the best ones.

Probably due to the rotational nature of guardian, but it still sucks.

[exochaft]

I just did a few challenge modes with friends.. its so much easier now than it used to be lol, theres absolutely nothing bad about guardian for CMs.

...

Probably due to the rotational nature of guardian, but it still sucks.

I finished all my CM's prior to the HP buff, reduced CD on Barkskin, and T&C, and even without those tools it was very doable. I'd imagine with all those extra nice additions it would be even easier. The worst part isn't necessarily the damage intake normally, it's if you get CC'd yourself (a la puppy stuns in Mogu Palace)... however, that hurts most tanks anyways. That's the benefit of AoE CC, because the rest of the damage is manageable.

With respect to the one-button macro for Guardians... it doesn't suck, it really sucks! I've had a co-tank use it and wondered why his damage output was so terrible, not to mention his survival/rage generation turned out pretty horrid in comparison to what it could be. Just say no to one-button rotation macros! I should mention that I find the Guardian rotation very fluid, almost having a rhythm to it over time. I suppose if people are not rhythmically inclined this could be problematic...

[ThunderWolf]

Had absolutely no problem doing cms as a guardian...but im horde so I had an aoe stun from warstomp.