Guardian Alpha Patchnotes

[Dreyen]

Its not a horrid concept but it completely contradicts what blizz has said in regards to current tank self healing capabilities. They claim that tanks can do too much healing right now and that is probably correct but then the changes to guardian do not reflect that line of thinking.

Blizzard pretty much meant tanks dealt with damage too well and required too little healing, doesnt mean healing can't be a decent option, not like they want deathknights, who are all about healing and absorbs, to be a bad tank..

I think they mostly refer to things like warriors blocking 30% of damage but putting up shield barriers for 1mil damage (100% of their hp), or bears self-healing for their full hp everytime.

[Gemini Soul]

Blizzard pretty much meant tanks dealt with damage too well and required too little healing, doesnt mean healing can't be a decent option, not like they want deathknights, who are all about healing and absorbs, to be a bad tank..

I think they mostly refer to things like warriors blocking 30% of damage but putting up shield barriers for 1mil damage (100% of their hp), or bears self-healing for their full hp everytime.

A lot of which can be fixed with them tuning resolve, which should be easier to tune because there is no more AP boost.

[Deleted]

If frenzied regen isn't controllable damage, i dont know what it is... is high hp and healing yourself back up that horrid of a concept?

I tried to rely on that on Nazgrim once, it was fine until I got sniped by an Arcweaver before I could heal back up after the Execute.

Don't think I've ever bothered to call for an external on my monk, my druid usually needed 3-4.

[Arielle]

I don't think I've ever used an External for Execute on Heroic. Ever.

The new Mastery is calculated on damage before any absorb. I'm 99% certain Celery has answered this on Twitter before (probably from a question I asked).

Also people I think people are severely under-estimating how much extra HP we're going to be getting from MS. Especially when you can have Lacerate rolling on more than 1 target at once.

[Dreyen]

I don't think I've ever used an External for Execute on Heroic. Ever.

Also people I think people are severely under-estimating how much extra HP we're going to be getting from MS. Especially when you can have Lacerate rolling on more than 1 target at once.

Exactly for both of those.. we also got a basic +20% stam buff on top of all the stam we currently have.. we will be able to survive anything without a DR active mitigation, but if we dont heal ourselves back, healers will pay way too much attention to you.

[Raugnaut]

Also people I think people are severely under-estimating how much extra HP we're going to be getting from MS. Especially when you can have Lacerate rolling on more than 1 target at once.

Indeed. My calcs show that, at 200% MS, we will have 180% normal health on single target after 30 seconds. Every additional target adds an extra 120% health. Pulverize would make it hard to keep up multiple Lacerates though. More for brief periods of time during Berserk, esp. on multiple targets.

So, comparing our health pools to warriors (Who will have the lowest stam pool next expansion, and thus the lowest health), we will have ~50% more stamina baseline (Due to there no longer being a base health pool, that translates into 50% more health more or less), and then that gets increased by 180% on single target (well over double the health of a warrior tank). Only DKs will have a similar amount of health as us druids.

ATM, the way it looks in terms of health, DKs will start out with the highest amount of health during a fight. (Death Coil will grant them 5% extra health per hit for 30 seconds, and a DK can easily use 8 of them per 30 seconds, for a 40% health increase. This amount will increase as the DK gets more haste, eventually capping at a certain point when they GCD lock. Bears will, of course, be second- higher stamina, multistrike off the bat, but it'll take a wee bit of multistrike before we will overcome the DKs health pool. Then monks, and, trailing way behind, Paladins and Warriors.

Our Mastery is abit more powerful then warriors/paladins blocking, as well. It also seems that we will keep our higher armor going into WoD. Finally, we have the new Survival Instincts. This may be the expansion where Druids are the best all-around tank, and even if we require more healing, we will be the BEST tank for huge spikey damage.

[Kitmajere]

The point wasn't that the current model can't work or doesn't work, it's that (imo) more control should rest in our hands than the current mastery and SD give. FR as a reactive way to heal up spikes is great, no issues there. I just wish more control over my damage mitigation would rest in my hands. Pulverize does give that, which is fantastic, but should that be a talent and not a spec mechanic (once balanced, and boo @ its design with lacerate)? Having more control in the hands of the player makes for more engaging gameplay and allows strong players to truly stand out.
/shrug, These are just my thoughts on what I see as lacking in bear design and "fun"; if people/Blizzard doesn't agree, no worries, there are plenty of other tanks to play (or maybe bear will be so op I'll just stick w/ it anyways ).

[Raugnaut]

The point wasn't that the current model can't work or doesn't work, it's that (imo) more control should rest in our hands than the current mastery and SD give. FR as a reactive way to heal up spikes is great, no issues there. I just wish more control over my damage mitigation would rest in my hands. Pulverize does give that, which is fantastic, but should that be a talent and not a spec mechanic (once balanced, and boo @ its design with lacerate)? Having more control in the hands of the player makes for more engaging gameplay and allows strong players to truly stand out.
/shrug, These are just my thoughts on what I see as lacking in bear design and "fun"; if people/Blizzard doesn't agree, no worries, there are plenty of other tanks to play (or maybe bear will be so op I'll just stick w/ it anyways ).

Pulverize doesn't give "controlled" damage reduction, as much as it gives a flat 20% buff. I forsee them nerfing it to 10% less damage taken over 20 seconds, or perhaps even 5%, because as it stands, Pulverize is signifcantly superior to the other 2 talents for rage generation, damage, and overall damage reduction. Either the other talents will need to be brought up to Pulverizes lvl, or Pulverize will be brought down.

As for controlled Active Mitigation, well, you have Monks, Paladins, and DKs for that. The RNG of druid's Active Mitigation gives it a bit of flavor.

[Arielle]

T&C is also controlled mitigation.

I understand what you're saying, but I've never found "They have it so I want it too" to be a compelling argument to anything.

[Raugnaut]

T&C is also controlled mitigation.

I understand what you're saying, but I've never found "They have it so I want it too" to be a compelling argument to anything.

I do suppose that you can control when you use it, especially with the charge system next expansion, but acquiring those charges can be a bit RNG, especially at low haste, so its uncontrolled in that you may not be able to have it at X time.

[Dreyen]

There's still some form of control in how you use T&C (esp with 2 charges) and savage defense.. but all you really need will be frenzied regen honestly, it's just a different way to tank.

As far as our multistrike bonus.. i really hope they'll add something to give us high hp on the first multistrike/early, because scaling up all the way to our max hp sounds like bad design. Don't exactly want to get gimped on a hit when you start tanking because you haven't been taking for 30seconds..

[exochaft]

Was trying to find the right thing to quote, but I couldn't quite find anything that directly matched what I wanted to talk about.

I suppose the point of concern from a design perspective would be multistrike HP gains being too good (being too weak is also a problem, but so far it looks like Blizz is erring on the good side). No matter how much HP a Guardian has, being balanced around having said HP will require whatever damage we take to be healed (and that damage would have to be potentially larger than other tanks, otherwise why have the extra HP?). So either the healers will need to do extra healing for Guardians compared to other tanks for the same window of damage, or either Guardian mitigation will passively strong or FR will fill the void. Regardless, the concern is that current alpha design may diminish the role of SD significantly in the process.

While some may accept a change towards FR being the main method of dealing with incoming damage, the role of SD in our survival toolkit then either disappears or only fits in a contrary manner to what's being said about tank self-healing. While FR can take on the role of SD, SD cannot take on the role of FR. The exception would be if SD's use would be mainly for mechanics that do an active mitigation check to see if they hit or not, as FR cannot obviously work in such a case.

*edit* - Should mention what Dreyen said about potential scaling issues and how fast that multistrike HP will increase being potentially negative would end up being another variable in the Guardian's book of "Will this damage kill me?" We're at SD, mastery bubbles, multistrike HP, potentially T&C, and whatever cooldown combination we're thinking of using... that's honestly quite a lot for a tank to digest on the fly. Oh, I suppose Resolve levels may count if the model shifts towards primarily FR recovery, if you're concerned about the second hit you may take.

*edit #2* - I realized that what I've been posting sounds awfully negative, but I honestly thing Guardians will be good tanks in WoD. Perhaps a little too good and complex compared to other tanks, though. Most of my negativity is directed at the lack of cohesive direction I see the alpha changes making with Guardians, not necessarily the final product.

[stormgust]

Our Mastery is abit more powerful then warriors/paladins blocking, as well. It also seems that we will keep our higher armor going into WoD. Finally, we have the new Survival Instincts. This may be the expansion where Druids are the best all-around tank, and even if we require more healing, we will be the BEST tank for huge spikey damage.

Currently it doesn't look like an "even if" but rather "almost certainly require more healing" [at least on magic damage]. That, when paired with their intended heal design goals (mana management), makes guardians not the best, but rather the worst tanks to heal. Unless they tune FR to account for the difference in damage taken [doubt that, as one of their intended goals for tanks overall is to tune down tank self-heal/sustainability].

[Mandibleclaw]

Currently it doesn't look like an "even if" but rather "almost certainly require more healing" [at least on magic damage]. That, when paired with their intended heal design goals (mana management), makes guardians not the best, but rather the worst tanks to heal. Unless they tune FR to account for the difference in damage taken [doubt that, as one of their intended goals for tanks overall is to tune down tank self-heal/sustainability].

I agree with you and with exochaft (with exochaft on all his posts anyway), and I find it disturbing that some people are actually accepting the changes, not forseeing a future in WoD, when the feedback of the healers is this guardian druid takes more damage than the other tanks, and he takes a lot to heal. This is too much "Flavor", and an opposite to active mitig and tank self-healing models in the game and the guardian will suck, and it sucks also that Blizz keeps changing us and trying something else every expansion, whereas the previous model was working fine and we needed is a tweak and a new mastery.

[Arielle]

Exo, you seem to be forgetting that per unit of Rage, SD is still more efficient than FR at reducing damage. With drastically reduced Rage generation in Warlords, this will become more important to remember than it is now.

[exochaft]

Exo, you seem to be forgetting that per unit of Rage, SD is still more efficient than FR at reducing damage. With drastically reduced Rage generation in Warlords, this will become more important to remember than it is now.

Rage generation in WoD, as far as I'm concerned is still up in the air. I think they'll give us more guaranteed rage upfront compared to MoP (bane of rage tanks is early progression and not having enough rage to do anything), the ceiling and scaling beyond that is up for grabs still. They've already adjust what gives rage and how much twice in alpha as far as we know.

My arguments go towards intent and perception concerning what could happen over the course of the expansion. I don't think a model where FR and SD change places would work well or would end up being desirable in practice. However, the trend of the changes towards massively increased EH would force FR to be better in order to offset the negative effects that come with it, which could be completely contrary to the blue post about reducing efficacy of self-heals/absorbs of tanks (relying on healers is one thing, making them stress over your HP is another). A big portion has to do with the size of the hits we end up taking and the resulting trickle-down effects. Without typing up a massively long post to describe what design intent and current alpha changes indicate what could happen, it's not so much that using SD won't yield benefits, it's that FR will potentially yield more tangible benefits compared to SD if our EH is way too big or if our mitigation is way too passive (even if mathematically SD could yield more).

*edit* - Sorry, had to step away before putting in my finishing thought. I still think in order for the WoD package to work with the direction of the changes in mind, Guardians are going to be too strong in the end when Blizz makes compensations/adjustments. I think we have to be in order for Guardians to work reliably under the model we've seen thus far. I know, who complains about being too strong?

[Arielle]

They haven't given details how how strong "Resolve" is going to be relative to current Vengeance. However it's pretty safe to assume that it will be weaker given their continued communication that tank survival is currently too strong on live. Combine that with a normalized resource generation gain (not the ridiculous thing we have now), and we end up with exactly what we should have: SD being the primary mitigation tool with FR to backfill for unavoidable damage.

Now that I have more time to think about it, it's probably pretty likely that SD getting nerfed is a direct result of getting a Mastery that isn't completely horrible (yes there are problems with yet that haven't been addressed yet). Which is probably fine in the grand scheme of things. Without that nerf we would just objectively be way too strong in terms of mitigation relative to other tanks. I would still prefer a guaranteed reduction from Savage Defense with a Mastery that buffed it, but it's also fine if we're the one tank that has really different mitigation tools as long as their still effective.

It's also worth noting that how the healer revamp plays out directly affects what kind of tank people will "want" to have - air quotes because in reality every tank will be functional, but people always FOTM to something - and that isn't even close to solidified yet.

If they do manage to get away from bursty tank damage in encounter design, it opens a lot of doors with regards to how tanks can handle DTPS, since averages will be more important (and are easier to balance around) than burst scenarios.

[Dreyen]

Yea, agreed with arielle... savage defense is definitely better than FR as it will reduce damage way more. What do you like more, dodging a 200k hit.. or 2-3, or healing yourself for 100-200k? Yea..

You guys are reading too much into the "nerfing tank self-healing", Blizzard simply wants to get rid of FR healing yourself for 50-100% of your hp. Going by your logic, death knights are made to completly suck because they are 100% selfheal/absorb tanks.

They can always balance everything. Savage defense and frenzied regeneration can together be just as good as shield block and shield barrier... not counting the high armor bears get.

[exochaft]

It's also worth noting that how the healer revamp plays out directly affects what kind of tank people will "want" to have - air quotes because in reality every tank will be functional, but people always FOTM to something - and that isn't even close to solidified yet.

If they do manage to get away from bursty tank damage in encounter design, it opens a lot of doors with regards to how tanks can handle DTPS, since averages will be more important (and are easier to balance around) than burst scenarios.

That honestly half the battle when it comes to encounter design and the damage tanks, and in our case Guardians take. However, I doubt Blizz will really reduce the amount of burst scenarios for tanks, or at least any reduction will not be that significant.

Whether it's burst or the steady intake of damage, the question is whether our damage intake and the healer response will be disproportionally larger compared to other tanks. FR could off-set it, but depending upon a burst vs sustained scenario we can't easily have our cake and eat it, too, even with Resolve in terms of FR usage. The problem exacerbates with the gear scaling, which really isn't something new in WoW balancing... we've seen quite a few as Guardians in MoP with patches.

I suppose it boils down to what FR is really supposed to be in WoD. Is it a maintenance heal for sustained damage or an emergency heal for burst damage? While Resolve could resolve (pun intended) the health proportions for each situation, the frequency is not so easily solved, especially if RPS increases as gear gets better. There are also other complications brought on by our passive mitigation/EH, which would further impact each situation in varying ways. I'd prefer FR to be for burst/emergencies, but we'd end up being too powerful in the sustained damage area as a result... and it would look similar (but not exactly the same) to our current tanking model.

Yea, agreed with arielle... savage defense is definitely better than FR as it will reduce damage way more. What do you like more, dodging a 200k hit.. or 2-3, or healing yourself for 100-200k? Yea..

I think my point is being missed completely... I've never said that SD was ever inferior to FR, nor would I ever want it to be. In fact, the relationship between the two is what matters in conjunction with our tanking model.

My point is that the combination of alpha changes together results in either our defense being so passive or based on chance that our decision-making with active mitigation won't matter as much or will be ineffectual... while at the same time, the changes themselves being counter-intuitive to their own stated design goals.

[Callsignecho]

Just a thought on the FR matter.

I think that FR, and other tank's form of heals/absorbs, are being put at the level of the filler heals that the healers are losing (heal, healing wave, etc.). I believe we will have the ability to be mostly self sufficient when bosses are using their basic auto attacks and low damage situations, but when special attacks or tank specific, high damaging abilities are occurring, we will be mostly dependent on healers.