Guardian Alpha Patchnotes

[Dreyen]

I still hate how pulverize is so aoe unfriendly, it's either keeping pulverize up or doing more aoe dps At least the adds on imperator's intermission gave me SO much rage i needed nothing else but to spam frenzied regen... I'm still calling for an aoe rage gen nerf though, it doesnt make sense to double dip in survivability in aoe situations (More resolve, more rage)

[Callsignecho]

With the removal of the physical damage reduction, nerfing our armor by half, AND the rage gen reduction, I strongly feel that atm, blizz is balancing bears AROUND Pulverize. Which isn't good.

I wouldn't be surprised if they are balancing Bears around the lvl 100 talents. They seem to be having a hard time coming up with a reasonable defensive tier for a tank that doesn't have many ways to mitigate damage.

I also have to agree with Totaltotemic. Taking Pulverize and ignoring SD may be an intended option.

Thinking about the lvl 100 tier, here are my current thoughts:

Pulverize: Reduce damage reduction to 15%.

Bristling Fur: Add a passive 10% damage reduction to the talent and allow the 50% damage reduction to be added on top of the 10%. It would not stack up to the overall Pulverize damage reduction, but would allow you to use it when you really need it, for big hits.

Guardian of Elune: Create a set recharge time (say 7 seconds) and reduce the rage cost of Savage Defense (say 10 rage).

[Totaltotemic]

To elaborate on why I think that dropping SD when using Pulverize would make sense, I'd like to draw out an example to show that flat damage reduction (and FR is essentially retroactive damage reduction) gets better with total mitigation, and worse with avoidance.


Let's assume you're being hit for 10,000 damage per hit before Pulverize and a full 60 rage FR heals you for 5,000 health (totally made-up numbers for the purpose of illustrating the point, these numbers could all easily have an extra 0). This means that if you can FR every 2 AAs, you're taking ~7,500 damage per hit (20k - 5k heal / 2 hits), meaning FR is effectively erasing 25% of your damage taken.

Now, we add Pulverize and you're suddenly taking 20% less damage. Those initial hits are now only hitting for 8,000 damage, and after two hits you heal back up for 5,000 health for a net damage taken of 11,000, or ~5500 per hit. This is actually 73.33% of the pre-Pulverize damage, not 80%, meaning we're actually talking about a 26.666% damage reduction using these numbers, proving that % damage reduction gets better as you have more flat damage reduction (of which TC is also included).

If we do this example with Savage Defense (and count it as a 45% damage reduction for consistency's sake) we get something different. Without Pulverize at 10k per hit, SD lowers it to ~5500 damage per hit. After Pulverize though, we're only reducing 8,000 by 45%, or down to 4400 damage per hit, a 20% reduction in damage taken.

So whatever the actual numbers are, Pulverize is a lot more useful when taking flat damage reduction into account than using percentage damage reduction. This means that, as Braindwen said, FR will eventually outscale SD no matter what. The question is whether the point at which FR outscales SD occurs at achievable levels of gear, and I'll leave that to people more familiar with the numbers of Guardian (which I suspect have just changed a lot with the screwing around with armor values that's been doing on).

Edit: I suspect this isn't news to most people, but I'm really just double checking to make sure I'm on the same page as everyone else. I've never done theorycrafting for a tank with flat damage mitigation and unlimited self-healing before.

[Dreyen]

More nerfing for guardians.. kinda surprised. our mastery starts at 12% instead of 16% now.

However, our cooldowns will work outside of bearform now. Yay? Guess you'll be able to dash in catform then go back bearform and keep your cooldowns going,

[Bearshield]

However, our cooldowns will work outside of bearform now. Yay? Guess you'll be able to dash in catform then go back bearform and keep your cooldowns going,

Gotta be able to get away from that mob before he smashes your face in now that you can't mitigate squat. No nerfs for Warriors yet though, gee there's a surprise. I also love how at least half of the "Druids are balanced now" posts on the beta forum are from Warriors.

[Dreyen]

Gotta be able to get away from that mob before he smashes your face in now that you can't mitigate squat. No nerfs for Warriors yet though, gee there's a surprise. I also love how at least half of the "Druids are balanced now" posts on the beta forum are from Warriors.

I actually really liked the feel bears had after the nerfs, my co-warrior tank felt blatantly overpowered compared to me though.. took like half my damage, absorbed as much damage as i healed, doenst make sense to me!

[Kitmajere]

Yea, it's kinda crazy how strong warriors are. Highest armor, highest passive damage reduction from their stance (tied w/ BrM, but yea that BrM armor) plus can get 5% more via a talent, SBarr is its OP self, SBlock and block in general is reliable for smoothing damage intake, and they bring safeguard for their co-tank. They have the lowest hp pool, but who cares when all the damage is being mitigated anyways!

[exochaft]

Gotta be able to get away from that mob before he smashes your face in now that you can't mitigate squat. No nerfs for Warriors yet though, gee there's a surprise. I also love how at least half of the "Druids are balanced now" posts on the beta forum are from Warriors.

Just another chapter in the epic saga, "As the Pendulum Swings!" Doubt warriors will come away unscathed in the end.

I imagine all the cooldowns/abilities working out of Bear Form is to fix things like Incarnation and shifting forms clearing buffs. Was hoping for a little more than making SotF RPS gains worse... personally would've loved to see an Incarnation improvement or FoN being something viable instead of bringing SotF down. Actually I have issue with rage generation in general now, as it feels the balance is being made for later gear levels versus what we're going to start with (partly why I think mastery was lowered, i.e. scaled better than intended). Not quite sure of the message trying to be sent, since it seems to convey a lot more than "your previous RPS was overboard." Could just be a simple case of purposefully cutting everything with the intent of raising certain parts later to see what fits best... also makes us feel better to take a big cut then get improvements versus constantly cutting.

Yea, it's kinda crazy how strong warriors are. Highest armor, highest passive damage reduction from their stance (tied w/ BrM, but yea that BrM armor) plus can get 5% more via a talent, SBarr is its OP self, SBlock and block in general is reliable for smoothing damage intake, and they bring safeguard for their co-tank. They have the lowest hp pool, but who cares when all the damage is being mitigated anyways!

This kind of touches on one issue I have with Guardian identity. Leaving the power comparison aside, as it is a separate issue, Guardians have typically been considered the high HP/armor tanks or even the avoidance tanks. With how the WoD beta builds have been trending, it feels as if Guardians are a mixture of many different components that don't seem to leave a concrete definition of what a Guardian is. About the only thing that would be without contest is saying Guardians are a rage tank that wears leather. Regardless if everything mathematically works out in the end, identity still matters to some degree.

I'd almost say Guardians are headed towards the old mantra back in BC about druids being the "jack of all trades, master of none" in terms of individual components that are shared/similar across all tanks in this case. All together, the abilities make a functioning tank, but there lacks a forte or even cohesion to some level to define what a Guardian is or set them apart in some way.

For example, you ask a Prot warrior how they deal with any source of incoming damage, they'll likely say you block it or absorb it. You ask a Guardian how they deal with incoming damage, you get multiple answers of a varying scope based on the individual source across layers of multiple mechanics that are pretty much independent of each other but are required to make the package work. That doesn't necessarily make us a less viable tank than a Prot warrior, but there's a real lack of succinct identity that is Guardian even when it comes to dealing with incoming damage. Perhaps we can become know as the deep, complex, multifaceted survival tank that spams Lacerate most GCD's!

[Karnudge]

I'd almost say Guardians are headed towards the old mantra back in BC about druids being the "jack of all trades, master of none" in terms of individual components that are shared/similar across all tanks in this case. All together, the abilities make a functioning tank, but there lacks a forte or even cohesion to some level to define what a Guardian is or set them apart in some way.

For example, you ask a Prot warrior how they deal with any source of incoming damage, they'll likely say you block it or absorb it. You ask a Guardian how they deal with incoming damage, you get multiple answers of a varying scope based on the individual source across layers of multiple mechanics that are pretty much independent of each other but are required to make the package work. That doesn't necessarily make us a less viable tank than a Prot warrior, but there's a real lack of succinct identity that is Guardian even when it comes to dealing with incoming damage. Perhaps we can become know as the deep, complex, multifaceted survival tank that spams Lacerate most GCD's!

This scares the crap out of me, because whilst tanking as a druid in BC was incredibly fun, it hurt when Blizz was like "btw we let you tank but we don't actually like you, so you're only good on certain things" I really would love to see tanks that are very different and yet very equal in WoD, but still incredibly fun in their own ways.

[Dreyen]

there is no way blizzard is not going to make all tanks equal in WoD...

Blizzard simply realized they went overboard with druids. You simply can't have the highest hp, physical and magical damage reduction, avoidance, strong self-healing and a badass damage reduction mastery on top of it, it just screams overpowered, so they cut the damage reduction, left in everything else. Our hp can go up to monstruous size in WoD if you go the multistrike route.. More than we ever had in any expansion. Fun story, a guildy stacked multistrike at lvl90, multidotted dummies with lacerate and used might of ursoc.. he had 2.2mil hp post-squish! lvl90!

[Bearshield]

there is no way blizzard is not going to make all tanks equal in WoD...

Blizzard simply realized they went overboard with druids. You simply can't have the highest hp, physical and magical damage reduction, avoidance, strong self-healing and a badass damage reduction mastery on top of it, it just screams overpowered, so they cut the damage reduction, left in everything else. Our hp can go up to monstruous size in WoD if you go the multistrike route.. More than we ever had in any expansion. Fun story, a guildy stacked multistrike at lvl90, multidotted dummies with lacerate and used might of ursoc.. he had 2.2mil hp post-squish! lvl90!

Left in everything else? Have you looked at the numbers lately? We have the lowest dmg reduction from armor, lowest physical dmg reduction, and the lowest avoidance of all the tanks AND now they've nerfed our rage into dust and hit our mastery too. So what exactly are we left with? Oh yeah, a massive HP pool that will make the healers cringe when they see a bear enter the room. I'm sorry but I'd gladly trade some of that health for some mitigation.

And I agree with Exochaft, identity matters and it feels like we have lost ours.

[Karnudge]

there is no way blizzard is not going to make all tanks equal in WoD...

Blizzard simply realized they went overboard with druids. You simply can't have the highest hp, physical and magical damage reduction, avoidance, strong self-healing and a badass damage reduction mastery on top of it, it just screams overpowered, so they cut the damage reduction, left in everything else. Our hp can go up to monstruous size in WoD if you go the multistrike route.. More than we ever had in any expansion. Fun story, a guildy stacked multistrike at lvl90, multidotted dummies with lacerate and used might of ursoc.. he had 2.2mil hp post-squish! lvl90!

Well by equal I don't mean the same, I mean so when I see any of those forums we all hate about "best tanks" people ACTUALLY can't answer.

[Arielle]

We have the lowest dmg reduction from armor

Monks are lower.

and the lowest avoidance of all the tanks

Lowest passive maybe. Then again that's why we have Savage Defense in the first place.

Once we're no longer forced into a completely passive playstyle (i.e. Rage and Talent issues are fixed) we'll be fine.

[Bearshield]

Monks are lower.


Lowest passive maybe. Then again that's why we have Savage Defense in the first place.

Once we're no longer forced into a completely passive playstyle (i.e. Rage and Talent issues are fixed) we'll be fine.

Monks are a completely different beast altogether. They are completely dependent on their AM for their survival, which is not a playstyle I would welcome to the Druid class. I have never been a fan of the whole "active mitigation" system, and the idea that if I miss my SD or FR button by a split second I could be dead is not an appealing one to me. Besides, it's not about being "fine" it's about being desirable and as long as one tank is clearly superior to another, the lesser tank will not be desirable. I don't want to be OP, I don't need to be the "best" tank, I just want the gap between best and worst to be smaller.

[Raugnaut]

Monks are lower.

The fact that we are now above only monks is not a good fact. Bears have been high-armor, high-health since... Classic pretty much. For bears, it was all about the armor and hp. Now, we have the HP, but don't have the armor. I would honestly have a larger mastery nerf, but have our high armor back, just to maintain that identity.

[Grubjuice]

I have never been a fan of the whole "active mitigation" system, and the idea that if I miss my SD or FR button by a split second I could be dead is not an appealing one to me.

unfortunately, Blizzard has decided to move in a different direction, and if you are unwilling to get on board with AM then you're gonna have a bad time.

[Totaltotemic]

The fact that we are now above only monks is not a good fact. Bears have been high-armor, high-health since... Classic pretty much. For bears, it was all about the armor and hp. Now, we have the HP, but don't have the armor. I would honestly have a larger mastery nerf, but have our high armor back, just to maintain that identity.

I don't think bears have to have "high" armor to keep the same identity, but having lower armor than shield tanks is kind of ridiculous. Bears don't have strong enough active mitigation to survive with substandard armor.

[Grubjuice]

The fact that we are now above only monks is not a good fact. Bears have been high-armor, high-health since... Classic pretty much. For bears, it was all about the armor and hp. Now, we have the HP, but don't have the armor. I would honestly have a larger mastery nerf, but have our high armor back, just to maintain that identity.

Tradition is not a sufficiently strong argument to reject change if change is necessary for other reasons. The Identity of bears-tanks is changing. A lot of the doom and gloom in this thread is about balancing issues which are still changing erratically...

[Bearshield]

unfortunately, Blizzard has decided to move in a different direction, and if you are unwilling to get on board with AM then you're gonna have a bad time.

Yeah I didn't stop tanking in MoP when they forced it down all of our throats but thanks for the heads up. Disliking something and not learning how to use it are two different things. The difference between a good tank and a bad tank has always been how you used your tools and I learned to be very self reliant quite some time ago. As I've mentioned before, many times I noticed that 50-60% of my healing taken was from my own tools during MoP and there have been times where if I missed a button at the wrong time due to whatever, I died before the healers even had time to react. That is not fun gameplay imo and that seems to be the direction they are pushing us further into. There has to be a balance between having just enough passive mitigation to make you want to use your AM and having so little that you are dead if you miss a single keystroke. And yeah, you could argue that some of my MoP experiences may have been a bad healer or two, but that should be a consideration they take into account when our passive mitigation is being looked at as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Tradition is not a sufficiently strong argument to reject change if change is necessary for other reasons. The Identity of bears-tanks is changing. A lot of the doom and gloom in this thread is about balancing issues which are still changing erratically...

Why is it not? Do you not think Warriors and/or Paladins would lose their minds if Blizz suddenly decided to do away with shields? Sure some would embrace it as many of you seem to be embracing our lack of armor, but the fact is that shields are part of what makes them a tank just as high armor is what has always made us a bear.

[-Doko-]

There's not that many fights in wow's history that forced you into a specific tank because of damage mitigation, sure there's some cases such as shield tank requirements for illidan or almost mandatory shield tanks for anub'arak adds etc. But most of the time its something you can work around with skill and planing, my main issue with my guardian main is the complete lack of guardian related talents that affect how you can contribute to a fight.

All druids have vortex / typhoon, having the tank do these is rarely the best option, specially in the case of typhoon since positioning is very important with it.
Our talents dont contribute to the raid in any tank related ways. IE. a warrior might decide to throw down a mocking banner by some gate where adds are about to spawn, then throw down a ravager and contribute with burst to kill such adds while giving himself a strong defensive cooldown that allows a healer to help on the raid, or a DK can grip a ton of adds for very efficient aoe.
I'm really not seeing almost anything druids can currently do to help the raid beyond taking less damage, incarnation probably comes as the biggest thing by setting taunt to 1.5s (but why the hell does it still incur a gcd?) if you are not currently tanking i guess you can heal for a while with HOTW but you are trading damage for healing, hardly a good way to go about it.

When I hop on my warrior I feel like a battlefield superstar charging, leaping, you just have so many options from the core class kit that help your spec be better, if anything I would say we moved from a hybrid tax to a utility tax when it comes to guardians.

Also, if by some miracle a dev is reading this, get rid of / revamp force of nature, I GET IT, SOME GUY IN THE OFFICE REALLY LIKES SEEING TREES WITH FEET BOXING MOBS, BUT IT DOES JACK SHIT AND NEEDS TO BE FIXED SO SOMEONE WILL TAKE IT!!! ty^^